man, the other day i was in a group and i met this guy who spoke japanese to us.

it was completely unintelligible and he kept writing out these kanji that had no real meaning by themselves! occasionally he'd say some goofy phrase that he probably learned from anime and manga!








なんちゃって
(･_･)ヾ(^o^ ｵｲｵｲ

blackbrich Wrote:Common sense is not that common.

Tell me something I don't know.

qwertyytrewq Wrote:

blackbrich Wrote:Common sense is not that common.

Tell me something I don't know.

Haha. True that.

I guess the reason why AJATT really resonated with me is perhaps precisely because I had once been quite optimistic, only to slowly feel more and more like I would never 'really' get good at the language, no matter how hard I tried. Reading Khatzs posts was a bit like somebody telling me that yes, Santa Claus WAS real after all, and everything was going to be A OK. It electrified me. Maybe that sounds silly. I don't know. As a bright eyed first year student of Japanese I would have scoffed if you had told me I still wouldn't be fluent after five years of study, let alone seven. Perhaps failure made me ripe for conversion? ^^

Well, that's all I have to say I guess. If this thread gets flamey too there is no point in feeding it. I will keep checking and respond to direct, polite questions though. Not trying to have the last word or anything.

qwertyytrewq Wrote:"Understand(ing) the absolute importance of huge amounts of listening and reading in your target language" AKA immersion, is something I would have thought was common sense.

I keep hearing that immersion is just common sense, but I really don't see how that is so(I would be grateful if someone could explain that to me). Common sense would dictate that study is what you should be doing to get better at a language, as most people view learning a language is an academic activity. Actually doing things in the language would be something that you do on the side for fun, something completely separate from study, not something that improves your ability.

If someone is learning a language traditionally, they will try and watch something, realise they suck, and go back to studying to try and get better so that they can understand it all. It would go against common sense to just keep watching, because watching doesn't make you any better(from their perspective).

qwertyytrewq Wrote:If people are not immersing themselves in Japanese (eg. reading a manga, watching an anime, listening to a Japanese song, etc), what the heck are they learning Japanese for then?

Those things aren't immersion if done only occasionally. Immersion is constant contact with the language.

Onelove_yo Wrote:I keep hearing that immersion is just common sense, but I really don't see how that is so(I would be grateful if someone could explain that to me). Common sense would dictate that study is what you should be doing to get better at a language, as most people view learning a language is an academic activity. Actually doing things in the language would be something that you do on the side for fun, something completely separate from study, not something that improves your ability.

The way you say it, it sounds like you are saying that learning a language as an academic activity is similar to say, learning biology or mathematics. In other words, one is learning something for the sake of gaining knowledge.

I see learning language as a tool, a means to an end. I don't care about Japanese, I care about the benefits of Japanese. For some people it's video games, for others it's anime, for others, other things. These examples of Japanese benefits I'm guessing is what you mean by "on the side for fun".

I agree that learning a language is a serious proposition and should be viewed as an academic activity and probably the bulk of it is this. However, doing things on the side for fun (immersion) is not only somewhat enjoyable, but it serves two important purposes:

1) Reinforces and confirms what you know ("improves your ability").
2) Move from the theoretical (textbooks) to the practical. I guess an analogy is reading about science experiments and actually doing it. Two completely different things.

That's my approach at least.

Onelove_yo Wrote:If someone is learning a language traditionally, they will try and watch something, realise they suck, and go back to studying to try and get better so that they can understand it all. It would go against common sense to just keep watching, because watching doesn't make you any better(from their perspective).

I don't think it's a case of sticking with one method (eg. trying to learn from tv shows instead of textbooks).

Ideally, it's a case of:

1) Learn the basics
2) See the basics in practice and reinforce what you have learnt so far
3) Build on the basics to form intermediate
4) See the intermediate levels in practice
5) etc

You should be swapping back and forth repeatedly. I think the main benefit here is context. Seeing what gets used where.

Onelove_yo Wrote:Those things aren't immersion if done only occasionally. Immersion is constant contact with the language.

I don't think it's a case of immersion or no immersion. There are different degrees of immersion.

If you wanted to be 100% immersed, you would move out of your country and live in Japan straightaway, but that's not a realistic scenario for most people.

You simply just have to make do with what you have (Japanese people in real life are in short supply) in appropriate amounts, the weighing up of theoretical/practical which depends on the individual.

*Wanders into forum*

Sometimes I think folks 'round here spend more time debating the validity of other people's methods for studying Japanese in English than they do studying Japanese.

I mean, who cares if someone else is using the AJATT method, or Silverpooning, or whatever? Who cares if someone else wants to pay for something you don't want to pay for? We've all got different needs language-learning wise.

My school's (only) Japanese teacher showed me an article a while back about the vast percentage of people who start studying Japanese and quit out of frustration. Sometimes it seems to me like half of the 20-40 year olds in this country took Japanese 101 and 102 and then dropped out.

So... if a method, any method is helping someone to stick with this shit, then I say yay for it! And also, couldn't you be off doing something productive in Japanese while you're flaming folks for their learning methods online?

(ETA- Danchan, I was in the same boat.)

I can see this discussion isn't going to get very far, so I'm just going to leave it as is. Either you're completely missing my point, or, and this is much more likely, I'm too tired to communicate effectively, because we seem to be mutually arguing about different things.

Have a great day! (:

lisbet Wrote:I mean, who cares if someone else is using the AJATT method, or Silverpooning, or whatever? Who cares if someone else wants to pay for something you don't want to pay for? We've all got different needs language-learning wise.

lisbet Wrote:So... if a method, any method is helping someone to stick with this shit, then I say yay for it! And also, couldn't you be off doing something productive in Japanese while you're flaming folks for their learning methods online?

I don't know about other threads but as far as this thread is concerned, I think "flaming" is overstating it, and even if it's not overstating it, nobody is "flaming folks for their learning methods" but flaming the methods themselves. If there's any flaming.

Finally, in a general sense regarding apatheism/nihilism, well, who cares about anything? Everything should just agree with each other and there should be definitely no criticism of any kind and then we'll go our own way. In that case, what's there to discuss in the forum called "general discussion"? Why even have a forum?

Onelove_yo Wrote:I can see this discussion isn't going to get very far, so I'm just going to leave it as is. Either you're completely missing my point, or, and this is much more likely, I'm too tired to communicate effectively, because we seem to be mutually arguing about different things.

Have a great day! (:

I'm open to the possibility of the former.

qwertyytrewq Wrote:I don't know about other threads but as far as this thread is concerned, I think "flaming" is overstating it, and even if it's not overstating it, nobody is "flaming folks for their learning methods" but flaming the methods themselves. If there's any flaming.

Finally, in a general sense regarding apatheism/nihilism, well, who cares about anything? Everything should just agree with each other and there should be definitely no criticism of any kind and then we'll go our own way. In that case, what's there to discuss in the forum called "general discussion"? Why even have a forum?

I don't think they're talking about this thread. As I said, we've seen this before, and it has a tendency to go downhill. Last time that happened, the end result was pretty ugly.

You're still free to discuss it, of course; just please try to stay civil, and know that there's a reason some people are wary of the subject.

mentat_kgs Wrote:Today I had my first oportuning of speaking japanese face to face with a group of people and HELL YEAHH. I could do it easy =D

You studied Japanese for 3+ years before ever speaking to a native speaker?!

And could you fill us in on the kind of conversation you had?

AlexandreC Wrote:

mentat_kgs Wrote:Today I had my first oportuning of speaking japanese face to face with a group of people and HELL YEAHH. I could do it easy =D

You studied Japanese for 3+ years before ever speaking to a native speaker?!

And could you fill us in on the kind of conversation you had?

<joking>
Maybe something like なめんじゃねぇよ [don't underestimate me!]
</joking>

I'm not going to write much because yeah it's pretty much a complete waste of time.

Although I think Khatz's general "just do it" message is pretty spot on and his writing can be motivating and entertaining and possibly necessary for certain people, I think his recommended methodology isn't good. Especially wasting too much time in sentence mining, SRSing and money on books/dvds etc. I think his site can be credited with creating a horde of sentence mining SRS addicted AJATTeers who honestly don't seem to make that much progress.

nadiatims Wrote:I'm not going to write much because yeah it's pretty much a complete waste of time.

Although I think Khatz's general "just do it" message is pretty spot on and his writing can be motivating and entertaining and possibly necessary for certain people, I think his recommended methodology isn't good. Especially wasting too much time in sentence mining, SRSing and money on books/dvds etc. I think his site can be credited with creating a horde of sentence mining SRS addicted AJATTeers who honestly don't seem to make that much progress.

The people who really succeed are the people who learn from experience. I learned that immersion,srs and motivation are key for language success. It's a long-term goal but it's definitely possible. One should take all the things they like about a method and edit it towards there own liking (talking about languages here). It's worked for me so far but just like anyone out there, there is still a lot of more work to be done. I'm about 2/3 way to my goal of fluency (advanced level of skill in each skill). For now, I won't count writing but it's still a priority for me.

I think AJATT is all good for those that can afford to spend hours and hours on Japanese...I'm one of those that doesn't. I do like grammar, also, which is a sin in AJATT.

I can barely devote an hour a day. I work close to full time with an erratic schedule that can often leave me at work 10-12 hours a day, five days a week, and 5 the sixth day, I go to school the maximum amount, and am doing my own independent research and working on a research grant with my professor. I don't have that much time. Like at all. Theoretically on top of all of that and Japanese, I should be eating healthy and working out.

Something's got to give. So things shrink down to one hobby, whether it's playing games or studying Japanese. I don't have the job or school or whatever that will allow me to do things in that language, though if I have the chance at work I do enjoy listening to some Japanese music. I don't really like anime, so that lowers my likeliness of Japanese audio, though I have manga I love to "read".

Onelove_yo Wrote:

qwertyytrewq Wrote:"Understand(ing) the absolute importance of huge amounts of listening and reading in your target language" AKA immersion, is something I would have thought was common sense.

I keep hearing that immersion is just common sense, but I really don't see how that is so(I would be grateful if someone could explain that to me). Common sense would dictate that study is what you should be doing to get better at a language, as most people view learning a language is an academic activity. Actually doing things in the language would be something that you do on the side for fun, something completely separate from study, not something that improves your ability.

I think we are looking at this from an insider's pov... but yikes this is exactly the kind of rosetta-stone buying, jpod-listening person that really ought to read the ajatt table of contents... the free, important part. not to follow as gospel but to open's one's mind and hopefully reorient one's worldview re how this stuff works inside the head.

The great unwashed masses out there need someone to organize this stuff and make it accessible. Katz (as well as other ppl) did that. This is a good thing. My mom bought rosetta stone for herself not long ago for $400 and I almost fell over when I found out.

If you've gotten past the N3-ish hump then you've got a system that works and his blook becomes largely irrelevant.

nohika Wrote:I think AJATT is all good for those that can afford to spend hours and hours on Japanese...I'm one of those that doesn't. I do like grammar, also, which is a sin in AJATT.

I can barely devote an hour a day. I work close to full time with an erratic schedule that can often leave me at work 10-12 hours a day, five days a week, and 5 the sixth day, I go to school the maximum amount, and am doing my own independent research and working on a research grant with my professor. I don't have that much time. Like at all. Theoretically on top of all of that and Japanese, I should be eating healthy and working out.

Something's got to give. So things shrink down to one hobby, whether it's playing games or studying Japanese. I don't have the job or school or whatever that will allow me to do things in that language, though if I have the chance at work I do enjoy listening to some Japanese music. I don't really like anime, so that lowers my likeliness of Japanese audio, though I have manga I love to "read".

I'm kind of disappointed when people say that just because they're learning through immersion, or an input based method in general, they're "doing AJATT" or "following the AJATT-method" etc. It goes to show how this common sense that qwerty was talking about is lacking everywhere when there needs to be a name and a reference to some radical blog just to describe what kind of things you do.

A similar example is that (at least where I live) you couldn't tell someone that you're trying to eat food that doesn't contain such a crazy amount of carbohydrates without them asking you what diet you're on, or what radical idea you're following. The idea that carbohydrates raising your body's amount of insulin contributes to making you gain fat isn't common sense. The so called common sense is just that in order to be healthier you should eat less and exercise more, or just eat food that doesn't contain so much fat (which doesn't have to be culprit when it comes to becoming overweight), so while simply consuming lesser amounts of carbohydrates can be a general way to be healthier, a lot of people would just think you're one some kind of diet if you tell them you do it.

The equivalent somewhat false common sense when it comes to language learning would be that in order to improve your language skills and generally be able to speak more correctly and accurately, you would need to study grammar rules. That's "obvious", that's what everyone does, right? What AJATT has done well, has been to introduce a lot of people to new ways of thinking, and useful but not widespread enough resources like RTK and SRSs.

I'm not quite sure why I was quoting your post to write this, but I reacted to your "I do like grammar which is a sin in AJATT" statement, which is missing the point. Jesus didn't teach that homosexual relationships were sins (or so I'm taught in school), but the culture that followed him did. Not to liken Khatzumoto to Jesus (calm down), but even if Khatz comes down on classes, he drivels more on about how you should do things that you enjoy doing, and things that you feel are effective, than he does opposing grammar. I think the general idea he is on about can be summarized as simply immersing yourself in exposure to the extent you can through doing things that you enjoy doing. But because people are new to these ways of thinking, they might feel like they need to follow AJATT to the letter, and do everything he says to do while perhaps missing the general idea, and thereby getting the impression that studying grammar is suddenly an atrocious sin.

It's not like you have to choose between AJATT and something grammar-ish, you can take the general message of AJATT, apply it to your preference, and do whatever the ***** you feel like doing. It's not about being an "AJATTer" or not. If you enjoy studying something particular, and you feel that it's really helping, don't stop.

astendra Wrote:I don't think they're talking about this thread. As I said, we've seen this before, and it has a tendency to go downhill. Last time that happened, the end result was pretty ugly.

You're still free to discuss it, of course; just please try to stay civil, and know that there's a reason some people are wary of the subject.

Yeah, exactly I am not tired of discussing "cool ideas that can work" but am definitely tired of "your stupid method is stupid and doesn't work" types of comments. It seems people extrapolate an awful lot from "I don't like " to "this doesn't work/this is the wrong way to do it".

Also, I hate to see people who should be boosting each other get mired in the less constructive aspects of this kind of conversation.

Quote:It goes to show how this common sense that qwerty was talking about is lacking everywhere when there needs to be a name and a reference to some radical blog just to describe what kind of things you do.

I can't agree that its a common sense issue. It's much more an "obvious after the fact" once you have a working reference point. RTK makes sense but there still people who question its usefulness because of what it doesn't do. For many people, including me, this is what Khatz has provided. While much of his info comes from anitmoon, he compiled it made it accessible for many.

Outside of that, arguing anything related to AJATT wrt what works and what doesn't is like arguing a dish that says explicitly "season to taste".

TwoMoreCharacters Wrote:I'm not quite sure why I was quoting your post to write this, but I reacted to your "I do like grammar which is a sin in AJATT" statement, which is missing the point.

It's not like you have to choose between AJATT and something grammar-ish, you can take the general message of AJATT, apply it to your preference, and do whatever the ***** you feel like doing. It's not about being an "AJATTer" or not. If you enjoy studying something particular, and you feel that it's really helping, don't stop.

I will admit I haven't touched Khatz's site in...oh...six months or so, but I'm /pretty/ sure there's a part where he declaims all grammar books as horrible pieces of work and stuff like that. Who knows, he may contradict himself somewhere later like he does with almost every piece of advice...but that's just what I remember.

I can barely study Japanese. I don't have time for immersion or anything like that. (Cue flaming about how "you're not really as busy as you think you are").

nohika Wrote:

TwoMoreCharacters Wrote:I'm not quite sure why I was quoting your post to write this, but I reacted to your "I do like grammar which is a sin in AJATT" statement, which is missing the point.

It's not like you have to choose between AJATT and something grammar-ish, you can take the general message of AJATT, apply it to your preference, and do whatever the ***** you feel like doing. It's not about being an "AJATTer" or not. If you enjoy studying something particular, and you feel that it's really helping, don't stop.

I will admit I haven't touched Khatz's site in...oh...six months or so, but I'm /pretty/ sure there's a part where he declaims all grammar books as horrible pieces of work and stuff like that. Who knows, he may contradict himself somewhere later like he does with almost every piece of advice...but that's just what I remember.

I can barely study Japanese. I don't have time for immersion or anything like that. (Cue flaming about how "you're not really as busy as you think you are").

I don't carefully read his site either, but yeah there are surely parts where he says that at least in his opinion, grammar rulers outright suck and are a waste of time. When I rambled a bit about Jesus there I didn't intend to say that Khatz hasn't said such a thing, but that he generally says that over everything else the most important is to just have fun.

For a short period of time there was another interview/talk up on youtube between the him and his friend TkyoSam (like the "All Japanese All The Time pt1. etc. or whatever the titles are) in which he sincerely said something like "I don't care how you get there, just get there" as advice. I don't think they're up anymore though.

This forum needs a way to flag all threads that have turned into an AJATT discussion.

edit:

TwoMoreCharacters Wrote:For a short period of time there was another interview/talk up on youtube between the him and his friend TkyoSam (like the "All Japanese All The Time pt1. etc. or whatever the titles are) in which he sincerely said something like "I don't care how you get there, just get there" as advice. I don't think they're up anymore though.

http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blo...in-english

http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blo...uding-mine

amillerchip Wrote:This forum needs a way to flag all threads that have turned into an AJATT discussion.

+1

amillerchip Wrote:http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blo...in-english

http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blo...uding-mine

I know about those videos, I was talking about another discussion they had once but took down shortly after uploading it. The article in that second link is very relevant though.

But yeah, so many on here get too fired up whenever AJATT is mentioned

dizmox Wrote:I don't really understand why AJATT is even famous and keeps getting mentioned. He just says immerse yourself and study a lot (+ a whole lot of waffle), essentially, right? I'm thinking "well, duh".

Are you using an SRS to study sentences? If so you're using the AJATT method.

Did you do fun immersion (anime/games/tv shows) *before* you reached an advanced stage and could understand 90% of it? If so, AJATT.

Did you do RtK before starting your studies? That's another AJATT trick.

It's easy to forget the influence AJATT.com has had on this forum; we talk about all of the above like they're normal, but go to any other language forum and find they're not. Almost all methods on here are based directly or indirectly on his.

For proof, remember this forum pre-dates Khatz's blog (opened mid 2007); try looking back at early forum posts from 2006 and see how people on here studied. SRS was for RtK and maybe cramming vocab, but everyone was still using traditional methods to study - asmill, pimsleur, beginner textbooks. The boring hard way basically. Also no immersion until you reach an advanced level (do *any* textbooks recommend immersion for a beginner? If it's that obvious then they all should?).

Anyway I wonder why people downplay his influence; guess people have short memories

aphasiac Wrote:

dizmox Wrote:I don't really understand why AJATT is even famous and keeps getting mentioned. He just says immerse yourself and study a lot (+ a whole lot of waffle), essentially, right? I'm thinking "well, duh".

Are you using an SRS to study sentences? If so you're using the AJATT method.

Did you do fun immersion (anime/games/tv shows) *before* you reached an advanced stage and could understand 90% of it? If so, AJATT.

Did you do RtK before starting your studies? That's another AJATT trick.

seriously?

you think studying sentences using an SRS and watching native media before you're advanced is AJATT?

And doesn't Heisig recommend doing rtk first?

I don't really care for AJATT either way tbh but I was doing both of those without any help from AJATT, they're just obvious things to do.