I have some pretty mixed feelings towards AJATT (especially listening/reading a lot will let you be able to speak/write well). However that post about what he was able to do, and not do, seems really impossible to measure. It's hard to measure language ability by looking at yourself, and for others when they first meet you.

Things like "When I spoke on the phone, Japanese people assumed I was Japanese" and "Understand TV and radio news 100%.", I really cannot believe. Of course based on his writing style, it wouldn't be surprising if he's exaggerating.

Being able to do a job interview, and freely experience Japanese media, is completely different than being mistaken for Japanese (especially when he tries to be "different" in Japanese). Meanwhile something like "understanding 100%" is impossible for even a native Japanese. There's bound to be some new things, especially in areas they're not familiar with.

I'm not saying AJATT is bad, or anything like that. I'm nitpicking here because it's what he's claiming, and I think it should be very honest for something like that.

Last edited by Grinkers (2010 January 11, 7:05 am)

Grinkers wrote:

"Understand TV and radio news 100%.", I really cannot believe.

Well, I do understand TV (except when people speak ずーずー弁 or something) and I did immersion for maybe 14 months.
Never listened to any radio though.

aphasiac wrote:

I'm interested, where does he deny the native-level statement?

Quotes from the site in italics:
"Native level fluency" is in the site description (which shows up on searches, etc.): “A comprehensive method for self-teaching Japanese (or any other language) quickly, enjoyably, and to native-level fluency -- all before ever visiting the country.”

It also appears in the “About” section: "this site is here for you, to share with you the tools and information that you can use to learn Japanese to native-level fluency."

He seems pretty careful to only describe himself as "fluent".  (Also from the intro pages:) "This site is about how I learned Japanese to fluency in 18 months, how you can, too,"  "Right, let’s give you an overview of the method I used to learn Japanese to fluency in 18 months." 

Though you can see how readers might merge it into "native level fluent in 18 months."

His descriptions in the articles, however, provide more detail. He also describes how his spoken Japanese lagged behind - which isn't surprising. (My guess is that most beginners contemplating how fluent they'll be are thinking of speech. But maybe not.)  I include the job interview here b/c we've heard a couple times in this forum that Mr AJATT's keigo was better than the Japanese who interviewed...

Sept ’05 – Job Interview:
*studied keigo online for a few months before interview
*thought all spoken sentences had to use ますform
*had never heard させていただきますform

Late 2005: Fluency
"I was fluent (perhaps not native-level, but definitely, absolutely fluent) at about 18 months. […] Because my learning was input-focused, my listening ability was even stronger (much stronger) than my speaking ability"

2006:  Year after fluency
*Summer ‘06 - moved to Japan: “I had more or less achieved” [nuking]” any language barrier between me and a native speaker of Japanese.”
*“When I spoke, for a while I was only fully comfortable in two registers - super-keigo and Gokusen/anime.
*“I couldn’t read through a newspaper or book without reference to a dictionary”
*“I couldn’t reliably infer what a new word meant just from context”
*“I couldn’t watch a TV drama and follow the plot intricacies”
*“Japanese subs were too fast for me to read”

Comments.You can draw your own conclusions from his own words of course. I noted that his listening was much stronger than speaking when he became 'fluent'', yet in the following year he still had trouble following TV drama. And he felt that, in the year after becoming 'fluent', he had "more or less" eliminated a spoken language barrier. I found it curious that he hadn't encountered させていただきます　and that it wasn't until 2006 that he started using a level of Japanese which would be considered standard in many circumstances.

If I were Mr AJATT, I think I'd be pleased if people would accept the more nuanced descriptions provided and give up the scrutinizing, speculating and arguing. It must be a drag. Perhaps it would help if he were to delete the references to "native level" and link "fluent" to the more qualified descriptions.  His ability to inspire, entertain and recommend great resources doesn't depend on his degree of fluency. I imagine Mr AJATT would also want to help beginners make realistic assessments. That's in the fine print articles too. :-)  (25 sentences/day x 1 year = native fluency? nope)

He obviously has a very odd definition for fluency and barriers between him and a native speaker if he one year after "fluency" still can't follow a TV Drama AND is comfortable only in two registers where one isn't actually real and another is used so randomly that not even adult Japanese feel comfortable in it ever.

Last edited by Tobberoth (2010 January 11, 3:25 pm)

aphasiac wrote:

I don't really get the point of this argument? Maybe he is exaggerating his claims slightly, but who cares; the point of the AJATT site is that it inspires people to take up a language they thought impossible, and gives a great method to learn it.

Giving learners "impossible expectations" is pretty much irrelevant, as 1) it's unlikely anyone has the determination to actually follow the 25 sentences a day 24/7 immersion environment that he details, and 2) Even if someone did, they're not going to be annoying if they haven't achieved fluency in 18 months, as they'll still have made insane progress, and more importantly had a lot of fun doing it.

To me this is the principle that people seem to forget. AJATT = having fun in Japanese, (and learning at the same time). If you're having fun why does it matter how long the journey takes?

The point is he's not "selling" his "product" with a realistic advertisement. That's all. If he sold it like you're talking in this post, there'd be no problem at all. It's not a bad "product" by any means, but it feels like false advertisement when he's not consistent and/or exaggerates. One could argue you shouldn't take things read on the internet word for word, but that's the general idea.

aphasiac wrote:

To me this is the principle that people seem to forget. AJATT = having fun in Japanese, (and learning at the same time). If you're having fun why does it matter how long the journey takes?

You can't honestly tell me that AJATT would be as popular as it is here if it took Khatz 10 years to reach fluency instead of (supposedly) 18 months or whatever he claims.

It's also not completely accurate to say "AJATT = having fun in Japanese".  AJATT means All Japanese All the Time.  That's why it's called AJATT and not HFIJ.  For me, doing Japanese 24/7 or even 10 hours in a day would have burned me out in a couple of weeks and I wouldn't be here right now.  I can't imagine it being fun.  Now, other people may indeed find that fun and for them the method may be great, but there's more to AJATT than "have fun".

Last edited by yudantaiteki (2010 January 11, 6:14 pm)

Interesting to read his definition of fluency being he can speak to people and isn't too worried about that but can't read well enough to not need a dictionary and reading isn't even fast enough to keep up with Japanese subtitles. Then he says he didn't understand dorama 100% of the time? That stuff's mostly basic conversation unless you're watching something with a crazy theme... and if you're exposed to all of that normal language that isn't hardcore keigo (which you don't hear that much through immersion anyway) why wouldn't you be able to speak comfortably normally?

He did make awesome progress but looking back I wouldn't call it fluency. He definitely sounds like he was functional which is great and probably didn't have to far to go to achieve actual fluency.

Interestingly i've never really worked on my output but i've noticed it's grown quite a bit since the end of last year! Last year went along to a few conversation nights and that partially helped to up my output ability but I didn't feel a dramatic increase and then last night at Kanji club I paired up with a native girl who's fun to talk to and we we're just mucking round half the time but I noticed my ability to convey ideas and use phrases correctly had come along way.

@yudantaiteki:

HFIJ is definitely what I do since i'm not immersed 24/7 cos I don't always have audio going, live with my English speaking sister and visit this site a lot. Aside from everything else is in Japanese.

Perhaps we could the (very long) silent stage where you just get input all the time "FUJI" "Fun Understanding Japanese Input" haha.

On one hand I think positive reinforcement is a good thing... but I have some friends that literally say "日本語上手ですね” to every foreigner that says as much as こんにちは.

It makes me die a little inside

Whenever I see a student of Arabic or English say a word or two I always say something like "wow" "very good". It's just out of courtesy, it doesn't really mean anything. Sure you can say

Ass*hole wrote:

"you are so shit, I can't believe you said you have studied english for 3 years yet you can barely put a sentence together, laughing out loud, quit now please and save yourself some time by studying something more worthwhile"

- But it's quite clear here you
a) Won't get any friends
or more specifically;
b) Won't ever get laid.

Ironically, the better someone is the less I praise them. Most people say Japanese have very low expectations of foreigners, this may be true, but it's still a load of bull because I still praise others in the exact same way that a Japanese person would complement me.

A year and a half a go a bunch of Japanese students were on a 2 week holiday to Australia, so my senpai got a bunch of keen 1st year students to hang out with them at the park for a day. Everyone was complementing all the first year students who could barely put together a sentence while my senpai and this other dude who was even better than her got nothing.

Social norms are hard to get used to I guess...

Last edited by liosama (2010 January 11, 9:48 pm)

liosama wrote:

Ironically, the better someone is the less I praise them.

That's what I experienced as well. The more you learn, the less praise you get. Kind of sad when you think about it.

Tobberoth wrote:

And that's how it should be. Think about it, if you met a foreigner in your country who spoke your native tongue almost perfectly, would you seriously tell him he's doing a good job? I think it would be considered rude in most cases.

Depends. He'd have to be holy-crap-I-thought-you-were-native-awesome for me not to make any comment actually. People who have been living in German speaking countries for 20 years would probably fall into this category.
On the other hand, I don't praise people who suck as well, because.. well.. they suck. Maybe it's part of my cultural upbringing or maybe it's just me, but I only praise those that show some serious effort.
This led to a few weird situations in Japan. There was this guy from Taiwan who spoke German with a really good pronunciation. But when I praised him because I was (genuinely) surprised he took it as お世辞.