I don't read manuals.

More seriously, read the website. Start on page 14 (the first page, I think).
He'll tell you to
a) learn  10,000 sentences,
b) listen to 10,000 hours of Japanese
and c) read 1,000,000 words.

a) is not enough
b) is too much IMO, 3,000 hours is enough for 95% comprehension
c) ... 1,000,000 words is NOTHING.

I learned about 5,000 words in English, listened to ~1,100 hours of audio--I recorded my progress, but I probably listened to 2,500-3,000 hours total because I only recorded my listening hours over a few months--and I read at least 10 million words given the time I spend surfing the internet in English.

Last edited by mel685 (2013 February 13, 4:42 pm)

Question "What is the reason why lhong1987 can't get himself/herself to use AJATT?"
Answer: Because lhong1987 is too lazy to RTFM.

My other answer might be "I can't tell what AJATT is. You have to experience it for yourself".

Seriously, if you're too lazy to read the AJATT articles, don't even bother.

yup... learning Japanese is a huge time-sink... if you aren't ready to commit, don't bother. Too many of my classmates thought they could learn Japanese to fluency with VERY minimal effort. Sure they got their degrees, but they can't speak a word..

subkulture wrote:

chamcham wrote:

RTFM

Ajatt is a terrible guide and Japanese level up explains it far better my guess is he ensures the ajatt website explains it badly so people pay for his products.

Most of those AJATT articles in the "How to Use This Website" section were written well before he started charging any money for anything. Just read the other AJATT threads on this website. They go way back.

Last edited by chamcham (2013 February 13, 6:56 pm)

Rsun1 wrote:

So, reading AJJAT you will find out that you should:
1)Study Heisig's book 1 and 3
2)Listen to 10,000 hours of japanese
3)And pick up 10,000 sentences and add them into ANKI.

Considering these three points, all his other posts are around them.

This isn't true. But of course OP probably already knows this. Unless he's still reading this thread of course, in which case I really don't care about what OP thinks.

I would love to read AJATT but the dude is an absolutely terrible writer.

(Yay first post)

Last edited by David_jp_23 (2013 February 14, 4:23 pm)

There's some useful information in AJATT.
I don't think it's worth the time to read through all the articles, though. I unfortunately enjoy reading his articles. It is a fun read, but overly complex.

1)Immerse yourself. Have fun.
2)Own a lot of Japanese media.
3)Make Japanese a part of your life/identity.
4)Make "studying" or "immersing" in Japanese a habit.
5)Use an SRS to supplement your Japanese study
6)RTK
7)Mine using [massive] cloze deletion


Copied from AJATT+
"MCD basics"
1.)If you’re a beginner, start with basic bilingual clozed cards— with Japanese cloze texts and an English translation on the front.
2.)Then proceed to having the English translations on the back (using more context)…
3.)Then proceed to DDCs (dictionary definition cards) — MCDs of monolingual dictionary entries, with Japanese and English on the back…

Although it's not shown in the table of contents, Khatzumoto now emphasizes cloze deletion over mining sentences.

My only goal is comprehension, so for me cloze deletion is unnecessary. However, clozed deletion is the easiest way to simulate production without error.

Know what your goal is, do what it takes to reach that goal, and make it a habit.

Last edited by Aspiring (2013 February 13, 10:24 pm)

You forgot part of the quote:

You don’t look at the manual, do you?

No. You don’t. Sane people don’t look at the manual.

Anyway, there was a bit more if you read any further.

1) Bookmark this site
2) Click around. Read an article or two
***Table of Contents
***Chronological Archive
***The Best of AJATT
***Who The Heck Is This Khatzumoto Guy And Why The Fox Should I Care?
***Latest@Blog
3) Find something useful — 1 thing will do
4) Go away and act on it (the useful tool or idea you found in step # 3)
5) Come back
6) Return to step (2)

Anyway, I think part of AJATT is exploration and finding out what works for you in your own language learning path. As there is no one size fits all solution.

You also posted not too long ago about wanting to giving up using RTK. Don't spend too much time debating on how best to learn a language. All this time spending figuring out the best method can be put into actually doing something about it.

If you don't like how AJATT is written, you can go elsewhere for the language learning information and philosophy: Antimoon, JLevelUp, Fluent in 3 months, the list goes on.

quark wrote:

Maybe you'd like Japanese Level Up better. It's similar to AJATT, but (in my opinion) the writing is much better (ie; not obnoxious), it's more concise, and his advice is generally better.  He also doesn't make huge promises like, "you will be fluent in 18 months".
There's no harm in taking some time to browse around and find a method that works for you. If AJATT doesn't work for you, it doesn't work for you.  Nothing wrong with that.

Don't forget that Khatz (author of AJATT) went from no Japanese to fluent in 18 months. Fluent enough to be hired as a software engineer at a large Japanese company in Tokyo. And during that period, he had a girlfriend and was in college working towards his computer science degree.

Here is Khatz's life story:
http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/about

AJATT FAQ:
http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/bl … questions/

Here was his daily schedule during his "hardcore phase" in 2004-2006 where he learned everything that eventually became AJATT:
http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/bl … o-for-real

Last edited by chamcham (2013 February 13, 11:22 pm)

chamcham wrote:

quark wrote:

Maybe you'd like Japanese Level Up better. It's similar to AJATT, but (in my opinion) the writing is much better (ie; not obnoxious), it's more concise, and his advice is generally better.  He also doesn't make huge promises like, "you will be fluent in 18 months".
There's no harm in taking some time to browse around and find a method that works for you. If AJATT doesn't work for you, it doesn't work for you.  Nothing wrong with that.

Don't forget that Khatz (author of AJATT) went from no Japanese to fluent in 18 months. Fluent enough to be hired as a software engineer at a large Japanese company in Tokyo. And during that period, he had a girlfriend and was in college working towards his computer science degree.

Here is Khatz's life story:
http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/about

AJATT FAQ:
http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/bl … questions/

Here was his daily schedule during his "hardcore phase" in 2004-2006 where he learned everything that eventually became AJATT:
http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/bl … o-for-real

I'm well aware of all this, and I'm not disputing that Khatz managed to progress to a very high level in a very short amount of time. However, for most new language learners, becoming fluent in 18 months isn't very realistic.  They're going to end up burning out or getting discouraged because they're learning at a slower pace, and that's kind of crappy.  The promise of fluency in 18 months just feels...dishonest.
New learners should be encouraged instead to focus on working at a steady pace and setting small, achievable goals.

Maybe search for some recommended articles, otherwise I've tried once to read it and didn't bother to continue because there's huge walls of texts that can be written in a much condense way (see what you've just quoted?).
I recommend reading some of this forum's threads instead, for example:
http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?id=5152
http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?id=480
http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?id=1133
And some discussion topics (like the older ones on studying grammar or acquiring vocabulary).

Last edited by undead_saif (2013 February 14, 12:03 am)

chamcham wrote:

Don't forget that Khatz (author of AJATT) went from no Japanese to fluent in 18 months. Fluent enough to be hired as a software engineer at a large Japanese company in Tokyo. And during that period, he had a girlfriend and was in college working towards his computer science degree.

Here is Khatz's life story:
http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/about

AJATT FAQ:
http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/bl … questions/

Here was his daily schedule during his "hardcore phase" in 2004-2006 where he learned everything that eventually became AJATT:
http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/bl … o-for-real

This is just from personal observations from working at a large Japanese Internet company... But getting hired as a software engineer in Japan is not the best indicator of Japanese fluency.