I wonder what the man actually did to achieve what he did in 18 months.

ta12121 wrote:

Yea, i wonder what he did during those 18 months. I've been doing the AJATT method for close to 5 months. and 3 months for kanji. He said he only did around 50 new sentences daily but he immeresed himself in japanese almost 24/7(this really isn't possible lol, i mean being in university would require alot of time to study and the use of english, but i can understand the use of SRS for school, it can be really effective.) I must say so far in 5 months i've learned quite alot, and my understanding is pretty good for my level. Being able to understand anime is easy now, read general things is easy. Writing kanji and sentences aren't hard anymore. The only thing i would say my speaking hasn't improve. Only the reading hiragana+katakana speed and the general flow of japanese has improved(lol what am i saying i have improved but not to the level i want it to be). I do think what he did could of achieve fluency, but i think he did more than that to achieve it.

Speaking from personal experience here, but if I were you, I'd probably not worry about the speaking part yet. A year ago I could write in English in maybe native level, but if you tried to speak with me, you would have heard my weird accent slipping through. Now that I speak more and hearing more English from people in college, it improves my English to the point where no one is even sure whether I'm an international student anymore.

Just my two cents. I'd probably do the same with Japanese myself: get the reading/writing/listening part down, and then move on to speaking. Unfortunately I'm not even close to the level where I would consider strengthening my speaking skills.

Nii87 wrote:

...If the guy is so unfamiliar with everything, how did he get your email in the first place Alyks?

知り合いでしょう？

@OP:
There was never really debate about if AJATT can actually work or not. There was a lot of discussion about khatz and the ajatt site though. Here is a summary of the majority of AJATT debate threads:
1) He brings nothing new to the table other than himself as a role model
2) His Japanese isn't as good as he (and others) thinks it is now, let alone when he finished his 18month regimen years ago
3) (related to 2) He has a, shall we say, unfortunate personality and (English) writing style. His Japanese writing is bad too but that's because he's constantly trying to show off the kanji/grammar/phrases/dialect he knows even if it's not natural to use them.
4) He makes up stuff constantly to argue a point, when the point could easily be argued while staying within reality (ex: everything he ever says about grammar)
5) Reaching a level where you are functional (which seems to be his definition of fluent) isn't even difficult within 18 months as long as you study daily and review/apply (you don't even need to go 24/7). I took about 10 months to go from barely knowing kana to being functional, without AJATT or Anki/SRS.
6) He has a cultish following which is somewhat scary
7) As an extension to #6, he himself seems to think that he is god
8) His knowledge of Japanese is very superficial (nothing wrong with that if using Japanese is all you care about) but he attempts to argue about deep topics without knowing what he's talking about (etymology, linguistics, grammar, etc)

Last edited by Jarvik7 (2010 January 08, 3:20 am)

OP almost makes it sound like everyone on this site lives by the AJATT code.  Though he doesn't say it in so many words, the post makes it sound like everyone has settled their disagreements and unanimously agreed that AJATT is the True Way.

alyks wrote:

If only you could have come around about two years ago, that was when everything started up.

Actually, this forum has been a thriving community for nearly four years by now.  Don't discount a whole two years of discussion just because you hadn't found the place yet.

alyks wrote:

When Fabrice still had the highest post count...

Hey!

I'm no AJATT purist, but I think the OP's list is putting sentences as the heart of the method, when the heart of the method is supposed to be the immersion... the AJATT.

I think people forget that while a lot of what Khatz writes isn't exactly ground breakingly new, it's also not widely known by many language learners. Most beginner language learners use methods that don't work effectively, have little or no understanding of how language aquisition works and have no first hand experience in it. So while basic concepts like focusing of native reading/listening material, immersion etc become incredibly obvious after a while, it's not exactly obvious to the complete noob. The word noob excludes anyone who has effectively taught themselves a foreign language, majored in a foreign language, or was lucky enough to grow up in a country where languages are taught half decently at elementary/highschool. Your average monolingual English speaking American, Aussie or Brit definitely fits the noob category.

Last edited by nadiatims (2010 January 08, 3:47 am)

I enjoyed his style of writing even if others didn't. It at least had some flavour to it even if that did leave a bad taste in some peoples mouths.

I definitely agree that he was hugely inspiring and made it seem learning something so huge with so much perceived difficulty as an almost no-brainer. As far as what he has to say isn't groundbreaking, well, that's exactly right. But yes, it was definitely new to me when I read it and it opened my eyes to a system of learning that actually made a whole lot of sense.

It took me quite a while to wake up from the AJATT dream and ground my goals in my personal reality and I think that's quite an important thing not getting sucked into the whole 勝元　（かつもと）　＝　神様 mindset.

My view on SRSing sentences has done a bit of an S-bend and the final conclusion i've come to is that SRSing sentences is mega useful in the beginning up until about your first 2000 - 3000 vocab plus doing up to about mid level grammar. After that SRSing sentences for vocab/recognition isn't necessary if you're immersion is high but SRSing sentences for output (English - Japanese) at this point is actually quite useful in upping your output.

Guess we all have our different styles but for a lot of us our roots go back to AJATT (or stem from there).

@aphasiac: That is an impossible to answer question. Everyone's definition of fluency is different and some people set the bar quite low. (I've heard JLPT3/4 described as fluent before!)

I would say that the answer is 0 though. It seems that once people do AJATT for a few weeks or months they make extensive modifications to the method.

Also, I don't know if you were being serious or not, but RTK dates back to the late 70s/early 80s iirc.

Last edited by Jarvik7 (2010 January 08, 4:53 am)

alyks wrote:

[...]As I wrote and wrote, I looked back on the way everything used to be around here. When everything was new, and the older members here were newer members. [...]If only you could have come around about two years ago, that was when everything started up. [..] But things aren't like they used to be, and the novelty is gone.

What a hoot! Alyks, you sound like some old geezer who has returned to his former local pub to reminisce dreamily about the good ol' days. He's so caught up in delusions of pioneering he's not able to see how things were or are now.  He can't see the progress and the newcomers with their exciting ideas and generous spirit. So he just keeps telling the same old stories...while the young guys nod politely.

I notice you didn't mention Fabrice's forum in your response. You should. The person might find other people's progress inspiring. There's such a range of levels now (including native speakers) that there's always someone a bit more advanced who can help. Generous wizards continue to contribute their magic code here and have come up with great new stuff. Resources have multiplied. The breadth and depth of topics continues to expand. Arguments tend to involve more than a couple beginners arguing about stuff they know little about. People seem to have moved well beyond AJATT rhetoric.

To the new member: if you have found this forum and are reading this, welcome! Jarvik7's post above represents the kind of balance of opinions you'll find here.  You might want to check out the Movie Method thread as well for more balanced opinions.  Look around, I think you'll find all kinds of helpful new ideas and people.

Alyks, you say this New Method (?!) worked. How did it work for you?  You were often keen to report your progress. You were also indignant and fiercely adamant that you would achieve native fluency by March (RTK +18 mos). (I normally wouldn't put someone on the spot like this, but you had a bit of a tantrum when well-meaning folks tried to manage your expectations back then.)  [edit-fixed garbled stuff]

Last edited by Thora (2010 January 08, 7:00 am)

...

I could use a burrito right now.. Damn Japan and it's lack of cheap mexican/texmex restaurants/fastfood. Why do we get crap like Subway but not tacobell/tacotime?