Ben Bullock wrote:

OK, but it's a little more work than I wanted to do to count the posts in each of those forums every day to make sure I'm being fair to them, for a page which, until yesterday, had an average of less than one visitor a day

For what it's worth, I used to make heavy use of the FAQ when I started learning Japanese, and still have it in my bookmarks. I don't know if you're the original maintainer though. More than the answers to common basic questions, I found the more trivia-like aspects of it interesting (kokuji list, sushi kanji, etc).

lol "Part of a website devoted to James Heisig's dodgy kanji learning books. This forum is concerned with the language, not Heisig's books. As might be expected, many of the users seem to love gimmicky learning methods."

まじで？

I think you made it sound like the users in general here aren't serious language learners and aren't getting some SERIOUS results. We definitely are and it's not owing to actual gimmicks (things like subliminal learning tapes) but serious study with good systematic methods that are geared towards self-studiers. It sounds like "if you go to this forum they will try and pedal you subliminal language learning tapes and Japanese learning snake oil". This is an awesome community that are seriously packing when it comes to good ideas. Most forums I've seen haven't held my interest for more than 5 mins cos there's just nothing new there, nothing that can help me study better, faster and harder. This place is full of that.

Question: is anything that's NOT a classroom method deemed or defined as gimmicky?

I think learning kanji in Uni is a gimmick. They put it in there just because it's a part of the language and if they left it out you'd feel kinda like you we're being cheated. In reality unless you learn it all, none of it is that useful. A high intermediate level of reading is where reading becomes actually useful in Japanese but I don't believe Uni even gets you close.

Those that I know who graduated from Uni with Japanese degrees (one with a masters) still SUCKED... HARD... at kanji. Their speaking is fantastic so I have no doubts about that aspect of it but kanji? no.

Last edited by mezbup (2010 February 17, 9:10 pm)

Gimmicky learning methods...

*sigh*

What people will see when they read that review:

Dodgy... dodgy... gimmicky learning methods.

I think I like it though. When people call me a genius (because they used other methods) I get a nice and tingly feeling on the inside.

From a certain aspect, the methods we talk about here are gimmicky.
"Watch anime/drama and study what they say" can sound either like "Just watching fun things and LEARNING!" or it can seem like "Studying through context" depending on your viewpoint.

Perhaps "dodgy" isn't the correct word to define RtK, but I'm sure we can all agree that "controversial" definitely fits. I saw quite a bit of opposition from my Japanese teachers at University because I was going through RtK ("You should be focusing on what's being taught in class!" とか "Learning 2000 'stories' is going to be waaay harder than just memorizing 2000 'characters'"とか....)
Even after they saw my kanji quiz results go through the roof, they still saw it as gimmicky and useless.

Still, since I've come to Japan, people have always came to me to "define" or "figure out" what something says. They ask me how I learned it all, and I introduce them to RtK. Even so, some people still think it's useless.

I really don't think we can blame Ben for defining us the way he did. He's telling the truth. The connotations of the words he used...well, that's up for the reader to decide.

I STILL think that RTK is, well, fundamentally not a good match for me and my learning style, at the very least.

But there are interesting people here who are engaged in what they're doing. And we all have a lot of opinions and they don't necessarily agree with each other and I think that's a good thing.

I'm at a point where my Japanese is pretty solid and I trust myself to monitor my own learning. If I weren't there then I would think differently about things, and... I don't think a warning that some of these ideas are controversial is out of bounds, at all.

kazelee wrote:

When people call me a genius (because they used other methods) I get a nice and tingly feeling on the inside.

You're a genius.

While I'll agree that the methods some people come up with are questionable, the wording of the review comes across as overwhelmingly negative. You might try to give it more neutral wording, or mention some positive points as well.

Jarvik7 wrote:

While I'll agree that the methods some people come up with are questionable, the wording of the review comes across as overwhelmingly negative. You might try to give it more neutral wording, or mention some positive points as well.

In your opinion, what are the positive points of this forum compared to similar forums?

yudantaiteki wrote:

I should point out that I still do not have a very high opinion of RTK, by itself.

RTK was never intended to stand alone. It can complement -even facilitate - 'regular' learning. (btw welcome to the dark side - at least one foot )

Fillanzea wrote:

I don't think a warning that some of these ideas are controversial is out of bounds, at all.

I hope not. That's been my MO with AJATT. :-) But as suggested, words like "controversial" or "experimental" might have done the job.  Or a brief explanation. The purpose of the page is to inform, so some attempt at objectivity seems like a reasonable service to his readers.

I think there's room for improvement in RTK. And it doesn't appeal to everyone. But criticisms of it are often based on an incomplete understanding of what it actually is.

Ben Bullock wrote:

Jarvik7 wrote:

While I'll agree that the methods some people come up with are questionable, the wording of the review comes across as overwhelmingly negative. You might try to give it more neutral wording, or mention some positive points as well.

In your opinion, what are the positive points of this forum compared to similar forums?

You've got to be kidding here? I've searched a long time for Japanese learners forum and this is just in a class of its own.

Forum is defined by its users, in this case users that are not afraid to try something new, experiment with "gimmicky" methods in order to get some (hopefully) good results. I think we have here representatives of every methodology thats out there and it's much better for progress than following a set of rules defined X years ago when world was completely different and learning tools were sparse and primitive.

Last edited by thurd (2010 February 18, 1:40 am)

The review does come off as overwhelmingly negative, and I doubt many people who read it will bother to click through the link.

Which is a shame because, as many other posters have pointed out, this forum is a goldmine of information and the members are constantly trying out new ways of making their study of Japanese more efficient, more fun; stuff like subs2srs, Ask Magamo thread, KO2001 etc. To indict that as 'gimmicky' is a bit unfair in my opinion. But hey you're entitled to your opinion; although I think you're missing out if you are dismissing the ideas on this forum off hand.

I also happen to take Japanese at University, and I find this forum far more helpful than any of my professors, tutorials or lectures combined. [That is intended to be a compliment to the former, and not necessarily an indictment of the latter]

Last edited by blackmacros (2010 February 18, 2:01 am)

bodhisamaya wrote:

Haha.  No one ever visited that obscure page and the one person who read the three sentence review midway down the page posted the link here.  Eh, he doesn't like the RTK system and disagrees with many of the learning methods proposed here.  Some of the regulars here post harsher criticisms on a regular basis. No big deal.

But don't you get it? Someone is wrong on the internet.

This affront must be corrected.

Last edited by blackmacros (2010 February 18, 2:15 am)

thurd wrote:

Ben Bullock wrote:

Jarvik7 wrote:

While I'll agree that the methods some people come up with are questionable, the wording of the review comes across as overwhelmingly negative. You might try to give it more neutral wording, or mention some positive points as well.

In your opinion, what are the positive points of this forum compared to similar forums?

You've got to be kidding here?

No, I'd like to know, and it surely would make this a more productive discussion. Since so many people are suddenly so passionately interested in reviews of web forums , I'd like to know why people think I should rate forum.koohii.com above, say, the JREF forum, or JapanesePod101.com forums.

One thing I notice, as far as negative reviews go, the reviews of either the JREF forum, or the JapanesePod101 forum, or even the WordReference forum aren't 100% positive, yet nobody seems to be complaining about that. Previously I had a negative remark about Tae Kim's forum which I removed because it seemed a bit unfair - what do you think? Would you rate Tae Kim's forum above or below this one? One reason I rated it above the Koohii forum is that I don't see people posting wrong answers to questions on that forum - something which I do see on this forum. (Puts on flame-retardant suit.)

thurd wrote:

I've searched a long time for Japanese learners forum and this is just in a class of its own.

Forum is defined by its users, in this case users that are not afraid to try something new, experiment with "gimmicky" methods in order to get some (hopefully) good results. I think we have here representatives of every methodology thats out there and it's much better for progress than following a set of rules defined X years ago when world was completely different and learning tools were sparse and primitive.

OK, so it's the "new-fangled" learning methods that you like about this forum.

Last edited by Ben Bullock (2010 February 18, 3:01 am)