There's a special place reserved in the bowels of Hell for those who create sequels to Ocean's Eleven.

I don't think getting the fancy JLPT 1 certificate is worth eternal suffering. Hmm...

sheetz wrote:

One of the subjects that has been discussed at length at the How to Learn Any Language forum is the "Listening Reading" method, which involves the reading of a target language text along with a translation in parallel text format while at the same time listening to an audio recording of that target language text. Some people swear by this method and claim to have reached intermediate level in their target languages after only several weeks of very intense study. I had always wanted to try this for Japanese but it was just too time consuming to create the parallel texts.

What do you mean by parallel text exactly? It sounds interesting and I'd like to give it a shot.

For example, I have the English and Japanese versions of Harry Potter as well as the audiobook. What sort of format is the 'parallel text' in? Have the English above each line of japanese or something? And is the parallel text necessary if, for example, I already know the text extremely well? I assume the use of the parallel text is so that you can refer to it when you don't understand? I've read Harry Potter so many times I've never had to refer back to the English book to tell whats going on, even though the language used in the Japanese version is way above my skill level.

Anyway would you be able to find a link, or explain what exactly is entailed by the 'parallel text format'?

Aijin wrote:

There's a special place reserved in the bowels of Hell for those who create sequels to Ocean's Eleven.

I don't think getting the fancy JLPT 1 certificate is worth eternal suffering. Hmm...

I once watched Steel Magnolias to appear sensitive for this hot ex-girlfriend I had.  That felt like the 9th level of Dante's Inferno.

I`m currently reading Donald Keene`s autobiography "Chronicles of my life". After Pearl Harbor they recruited talented students to train them as Japanese interpreters/translators. Back then, there were like only 2 or 3 American translators. All the other translators/interpreters were Japanese American and therefore not trusted enough to work for the Army or Navy. Donald Keene belonged to the first generation that was taught by these American Japanese. That was kind of a 11 month Japanese bootcamp. They did nothing but studying Japanese. Few of the teachers had previous experience of teaching Japanese.

After 11 months they were ready to go to the front. Donald Keene mentioned (in another book) that they had reached a level where they could read a Japanese newspaper without a dictionary. He himself spent the next few years with the Navy translating documents they found or interrogating prisoners (he was in Okinawa).

So, I don`t know if it`s possible to reach JLPT1 after 3 months (I`d like to believe so ), but it certainly seems possible to reach that level in one year with enough motivation, even if the teachers and learning material is sub-par.

"Perhaps there was an element of patriotism in performing one`s best in wartime when other young men were dying for their country, but I believe that a more important reason for diligence was the desire of each student to prove that his own university was the best."

AJATT all the way.

I think it would be possible given the arbitrary limit of 3 months to pass a random JLPT1 if the time limits were lifted, and multiple playbacks were allowed on the audio portion. It is after all a multiple choice test.

Oddly enough, the debate boils down to hours invested in actual study, plus hours in "fuzzy" portion that immersive media can bring. 12 hours of study a day for 90 days is 1080 hours. That leaves 4 to 6 hours of non-study immersion (360 to 540 hours) on top of 6 to 8 hours of sleep. Before anyone balks at that, those are supposedly the hours for the Defense Language Institute.

Now, just to muddy the waters, let's say someone starts this 3 month cycle with only "Remembering the Hanzi" as prior knowledge. Seeing that that's not Japanese (hell, according to many on other forum, RTK is not Japanese so that should be allowed too), would that then sound reasonable?

Jeromin wrote:

Didn't the KGB teach a foreign language fluently, from scratch, in six month? I hear Putin's German in amazing.  Waking up at 4 am everyday  with a cold sweat at the prospect of  a Siberian work camp must really focus minds.

Doable or not, some  people like to push themselves. Not everyone is into "enjoying the process". Six months, on the other hand...

Haha, Putin worked in Germany for several years, that's why his German is amazing. Believe me, there's no anything special about teaching foreign languages here, in Russia) All the same.
"Siberian work camp".... made me laugh:)))))

rarta wrote:

Haha, Putin worked in Germany for several years, that's why his German is amazing. Believe me, there's no anything special about teaching foreign languages here, in Russia) All the same.
"Siberian work camp".... made me laugh:)))))

Pity. Some years ago there was a course being sold in Spain by a professor allegedly behind the wondrous 6 month to fluency Soviet system. Oh well, I guess we all want a shortcut.
Still, if Americans could read Japanese newspapers after eleven months (  neglecting, I would assume, most spoken Japanese) it means that super intensive learning does yield results.

Maybe this whole debate is a consequence of watching the Matrix: "I know Japanese!"

BTW, who would rather master Japanese overnight by download, given a choice, as opposed to Kung Fu?

Last edited by Jeromin (2009 June 02, 5:39 am)

Jarvik7 wrote:

In Soviet Russia, language is taught you!

LOL

mentat_kgs wrote:

I'm not American. I'm Brazilian.
I could read Japanese newspapers just fine after 11 months. 

It is actually 13 months and 10 days for me now and reading Japanese news papers is part of my daily life.

And I'm not even one of these genius kids that do RTK in a month. I did in 3 months and it was really painful (3h/day).

Surely 6 months is BS, but 18 months fluency is feasible.

I agree with this. Again, fluency is a very broad term so I don't want to use it. But 18 months of dedicated study using good sources and good techniques will get you extremely far. Reading newspapers and watching news no doubt. Probably reading fairly high level novels too.

Speaking proper business Japanese (so as to work in a Japanese company full time) though... maybe. I think it would take longer though (simply to internalize everything one knows so well that it comes naturally in such an environment).

I don't know the requirements of JLPT1, but I assume it's like any other language proficiency test. From my personal experience, it is possible to get an A in such a test after 3,5 years of study without overdoing it. I studied German at a Russian uni, it wasn't my major, so I went about it in a very relaxed way. Now, come to think of it, I could have compressed those 3,5 years into, say, 8 months of intensive studying (10-12 hours a day, 6 days a week) with the same result.

But that is German, mind you. For Japanese you still have to learn at least the 2000 kanji, and learning them doesn't mean just finishing RTK1, but also learning kanji compounds and how to read them. Make it 3 more months.

So: I could have managed it in about 11 months. If you are really dedicated (24/7), make it 10 months. If you dont't aim for an A, but just want to pass, make it 9 months. But personally, I think you should just take it easy and have fun learning Japanese, because otherwise you may just end up hating the language, and you don't want that, do you?

As for language instruction in Russia, well, I am Russian, and I took English and German courses in Russia and French, Italian and Japanese courses here in Germany. I find language instruction at my German uni much better, because languages are taught either by native speakers or by a pair of teachers (like, the German teacher is for Grammar and stuff, the Japanese is for conversation).

Concerning Putin: I heard him speak German, and it's really ok, but far from "amazing".

Jeromin wrote:

300 Japanese words a day? How? I'd love to know, because I'm progressing much more slowly than that.

Using Iversen Method + Mnemonics:

http://learnanylanguage.wikia.com/wiki/Word_lists

It seems simple, but it is very effective. You don't need mnemonics for every word. Don't forget to add them to your SRS.

harthol wrote:

Yes, technically you could learn 200 words a day if you spent 20 hours at your desk concentrating fully and working to maximum efficiency. But be realistic: it ain't gonna happen. Especially not for 90 consecutive days.

For 200 words you don't need more than 2-4 hours!

60 seconds is more than enough for one word.

Aijin wrote:

Most students can pass the JLPT4 after two semesters of college courses, which is usually around 140 hours of instruction. Maybe 200 hours of studying total for the average learner? I'm sure there are people who could do it very quickly if they did intensive studying, but my estimate is 7-10 months for someone just studying in their spare time and taking it at a slow and steady rate. I think that's the average for most Americans, but someone please correct me if I am wrong.

What?!! JLPT 4 needs 200 hours of study?!!!

For 100 kanji and 700 words only you need that amount of time?!!!!

With [Iversen Method + Mnemonics] + L-R Method (or Ilya Frank Mehtod), you can pass JLPT 4 in 2 weeks to 1 month.

JLPT 3 in 6 weeks.

Nukemarine wrote:

The JLPT is not fluency, it's still just a test.

I'm not talking about fluency. Some people need to pass the test in a short time.

kyotokanji wrote:

You can understand most European langauges with 2-3,000 words, that would therefore take only a couple of days!!! I would love to learn German in five days....

Yes, it's possible.

Michel Thomas taught a group of teenagers, who deemed incapable of learning languages, to speak French in 5 days only:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njKaALof2vg

In one week, he taught them the amount of French it normally takes five years to acquire. He astounded the staff at the school.

It's not because he is Michel Thomas. Everyone can do this, not only Daniel Tammet and the like.


Two Indian girls learned German in 6 days:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgNDv7xDs6M

From my point of view, it's not amazing. But they have proved that one can achieve some level of fluency (enough for everyday situations) in a language not related to his language within few days or weeks.

6 days = 30 hours (if it's 5 hours a day)

or = 60 hours (if it's 10 hours a day)

6 days is enough to learn the 1000 most common words + the basic grammar.


If you want to learn SPOKEN German in 6 days, I suggest you this program:

Day 1: Spend the whole day (at least 10 hours) listenting to your target language, consciously and unconsciously, but don't try to memorize anything. If you are not familiar with the phonology and the sounds of your target language, you can look for it in Wikipedia and try to recogize and produce all sounds in that language.

Day 2: Shadowing. (5 hours at least) + listening or watching TV (as much as you can)

Day 3: Memorizing the 300-500 most common words + some basic grammar. (5-10 hours)

Day 4: Shadowing + reviewing vocabulary and grammar. (5-10 hours)

Day 5: Memorizing additional hundreds of most common words + essential phrases. (5-10 hours)

Day 6: Shadowing + memorizing + reviewing. (4-7 hours)

In the 7th day, take a rest!

Aijin wrote:

blackmacros wrote:

watashimo, that's really interesting. I may try and pick up a copy of "Chronicles of my life"- it sounds fun.

Regarding the schedule I proposed in my post (2nd post in this thread)

20 days RtK 1
1 day Kana
30 days KO2001 Book 1+2
~40 days JLPT Grammar textbook
Total=~90 days

The problem with schedules like this, is that the human brain simply does not instantly learn information and then have a permanent imprint of it. Research has proven that memory consolidation can take decades before information is stored more permanently in the neural networks. It may be possible to memorize many characters and their meanings, but to keep it at a level beyond working memory you can't simply spend 20 days learning them and then hold that information firmly for the next 70 days. There would have to be constant daily practice of all the information, and there simply isn't enough time.

All of these ideas about learning hundreds/thousands of words in a single day, etc, might sound fine in theory, but these ideas don't work that well in actual application. Anyone can mindlessly memorize a single word in a minute, but keeping this up for every single minute hours straight...not to mention that it'd be pointless, as the words wouldn't be consolidated enough nor practiced enough to wield in conversation/thought.
I've visited most of the Japanese departments of the world's finest universities, and none of these feats are done by students, nor are these methods used by professors, who have devoted their entire lives to the pedagogy of the language. I don't know of any Japanese scholars who could keep up such a high level of memorization even though it's their native language. In a single day perhaps you could cram that much information, but over consecutive days? If such a miracle technique or shortcut existed and worked, it'd be employed. But it isn't. As is, there's no substitute for hard work over many years.

I think blackmacros meant a learner uses SRS so 90% of information is supposed to be retrievable at any given moment. And he or she is not that serious about these numbers, I guess.

Tobberoth wrote:

magamo wrote:

I think blackmacros meant a learner uses SRS so 90% of information is supposed to be retrievable at any given moment. And he or she is not that serious about these numbers, I guess.

Probably, because doing that in an SRS would be torture.

Doing RtK1 in 20 days require about 100 new kanji each day. That means that on that 20th day, you're probably averaging 300 kanji reviews each day. Add in the kanji that you fail and you'll have a lot more.

That's still bearable though. So let's add BOTH KO books in 30 days... the reviews would be insane, probably over 700 reviews each day, maybe 1000 or more. No one could learn in such a situation, certainly not enjoy it.

1000 reviews! I definitely don't want to do it!

By the way, if we assume that an SRS algorithm is optimized so that you review information as less frequent as possible, learning the same amount of information in another way is bound to be less or equally efficient. Otherwise, the premise that the algorithm is more efficient than usual rote learning is wrong. In other words, if it seems to be unfeasible with SRS, then you'll fail harder without SRS. The 3 months limitation may make a difference, though, because SRS isn't good for short term memory.