Branching off of what Aijin was talking about...(in response to?)

Yes, adding words into Anki is definitely not "learning" the words. I've experienced it more times than I would like, where I see a word that I know I've studied, but I can't recall. Or I look it up later, and then realize it's something that I've "learned" before.

Adding cards into Anki is nothing but becoming "exposed," if you will, to the word. Simply keeping the card in Anki, and not trying to become "exposed" to it in any other contexts will not help you "learn" any word.

That being said, although 20,000 words is a quite ridiculous number, although quite arguably achievable to add that many cards into Anki, the odds of "learning" all of these words are slim to none.
Still, given the correct environment and study+review habits, "learning" 10% of these should be a breeze. That's still 2,000 words without putting in "extra" effort.

I guess what it really comes down to is...Shoot for the moon, because even if you miss, you'll end up among the stars.

bodhisamaya wrote:

mezbup wrote:

bodhisamaya wrote:

I am kind of disappointed with the weak numbers Tiger Woods put up.  You are Tiger freaken Woods man!   Your daddy gave you that name for a reason. Jeez, have some pride!

I'm kinda disappointed that Tiger would rather be fooling around than studying Kanji.

The small of a woman's back is the ideal place to practice writing kanji with your finger.

On a more serious note; I find that the more words I add to Anki, the more I'm able to understand and so in a way i'd call that learning. By learning I guess I just mean making progress. It's something akin to "having an awareness of" but for 90% of the stuff that goes into Anki If I see it again I can recall it. There's always the 10% that gets away but that's ok.

The benefits of learning vocab are incredible so it'll only serve you well in the long run. The tricky part is getting the word mastered so you can output it perfectly without thinking about it. Call me crazy but I think that's the part that just takes time, exposure, practice and the right opportunities in speech.

I think the goal for the getting so much vocab is boosting comprehension. As a learner it's frustrating brushing up against so many unknowns after a time that you just have a desire for it all to be known so you can enjoy the language like you do your own.

What I meant to say was... SRSing vocab is a total gimmick *red flag* lolololol

So for vocab deck, i guess i should aim for 20,000-50,000 in a year? (These are huge numbers, so will take time lol)

50000? I don't think I don't know that many words in my native language, to be honest!

I think i was just a bit too ambitious when i  said 50,000 in a year. 20,000 is doable. But yea i agree that just having them and doing them into anki doesn't mean you've "learned it". But the purpose is to hear the words you've put into anki in real Japanese stuff. I think one can consider they learned it when they can recognize it via listening+reading. As writing and speaking take wayyyyy more time to reach a high level. For writing i just keep writing, trying to write letters etc in japanese,journal writing,etc. But what i love about writing is that i do kana to kanji production and it helps visualize the kanji so well, that i can remeber the readings so fast without much effort.

P.S. has anyone pulled a khatz? I do like his posts about Japanese. but still 18months. I remeber him saying he reached fluency, but not "native-level". Alot of people said you can reach semi-fluent in around a year. But total fluency might take up to two years.

Last edited by ta12121 (2010 February 21, 11:13 am)

I came across a diagram of a theory of learning that touches on what you guys are saying. (How can I link an image?)

New Information
           |
           |
           v
Connected/Comprehension    ---------->    Elaboration
(working memory)                                       
           ^                                                      |
           |                                                       |
           |                                                       v
   Prior Knowledge network     <----------      Learning
    |                 |
    |                 |
    v                 v
Retrieval of        Construction of knowledge inferred
knowledge         from Knowledge (but not specifically
specifically         learned)
learned

Elaboration: requires elaboration of connections bw new info and prior knowledge.

Learning: occurs when new info becomes part of the knowledge network. If elaborated and well-integrated, the new knowledge becomes meaningful and useful. New knowledge may fit into the knowledge network or modify it.

Inferred knowledge derives from prior knowledge, but not merely comprehension.  (Intuitive/exposure learning needs some foundation.)

Regarding listening, there are also studies that point to listening vocab as new information that needs to be linked to reading vocab prior knowledge. This helps explain why we don't always immediately comprehend words audibly that we have previously learned how to read only. These findings are further supported by research showing that kanji reading is processed differently (and using different parts of the brain) than both listening (and kana, interestingly).

[fixed wrong label]

Last edited by Thora (2010 February 21, 3:35 pm)

Aijin wrote:

I would love to talk to one of these "semi-fluent in a year" or "totally fluent in two years" people to test that theory :\ I've never met anyone that has come close to that. I've seen people that can follow basic casual dialogue in a year or two, but as soon as you begin to speak fast using complex vocabulary they get completely lost.

I've been debating with myself starting a thread for 'a serious discussion on fluency and literacy' since all so far that go to that area eventually devolve into arguments and minutia. 'Fluent' is a loaded term on language forums, so most just get caught up in trying to denigrate each other's opinion on what fluency actually means.

The problem with Khatzumoto is he posts that he was fluent, but doesn't give anything but secondary evidence to back it up. On top of that, the earliest writings from him are three years after the fact, of which 18 months are after he's been living in Japan working in a continual Japanese environment. On top of that, the earliest recordings from him are four years after the fact.

Now, I assume from Magamo that the fellow sounds and writes good (I'm still not able to judge him).  But it's not just about Khatzumoto now. Like the guy above is posting, what about those that followed his advice? What have we to say?

I think I'm a candidate as a guy that did AJATT. I know I didn't come close to fluency after 18 months. Hell, 4 to 6 months of that time was still getting RTK under control. At the 18 month mark, I was barely getting 1500 words from Core 2k into mature status in Anki. At the 30 month mark, following basic dialogue and reading is not a problem. Like Aijin posts, get someone talking fast and I get lost or at least can barely keep up unless Aijin speaks with subtitles then I might do better

I'm not even offering excuses with my unique situation, since I think I learned more the year I was in Africa with limited bandwidth. Granted, that's more a testament to the benefits of this forum than with AJATT. Still, if anyone claims to be fluent in 18 months, I'm gonna ask them to take the Aijin and Magamo test. I'd hold their opinion higher than self evaluation.

Aijin wrote:

as you begin to speak fast using complex vocabulary they get completely lost.

When I begin to speak fast using complex vocabulary I confuse many English natives as well. I then have to break it down and use simpler vocabulary and examples. Also, it took me almost a year before I could understand nest0r's posts... at all. (think that means he/she/it has made me smarter in some way)

This is part of the reason I think the focus on fluency is nonsensical. It's arbitrary at best, and can be divided into a ridiculous number of subcategories. (Would a person who could have a conversation on medicine but failed at conversations on sports be more or less fluent, for example)

A person either understands an idea, or he/she doesn't.

nukemarine wrote:

Still, if anyone claims to be fluent in 18 months, I'm gonna ask them to take the Aijin and Magamo test. I'd hold their opinion higher than self evaluation.

I was fluent after 1 year . I'd like to take this test. What's it involve?

I understand what you're saying completely. Well in English i don't even use literature books,etc. Although i am in school and listen to science lectures almost everyday and i can function fine in those situations. But if someone was talking to me about political-terms and such, i wouldn't know much. But that doesn't mean im not fluent in the language. So i think it just comes down first to knowing the basics of the language then going to intermediate then advance. I don't know all the idioms and such in english, but i could learn them if i wanted to. I think once people have reached the ability to be able to learn stuff that, they don't know in japanese and explain it to others completely in japanese, then they are at high level. But the thing about languages you don't need to know all those things to be considered fluent. I can read manga fine and blaze through it. I don't even consider myself no where near to be fluent, but alot of people have told me, even japanese people, you don't suck at Japanese, you can understand sooo much things. But personally i still think i suck in japanese. What i'm getting at is that. Fluency is a tricky word. I assume people can become fluent in 1 year of study, but that doesn;'t mean they would know all different topics. I mean politics i don't even know about in english, but i know about science (chemistry).

Basically languages are a never ending journey. Once you've reached a certain level, would you want to learn about theoretical physics? organic chemistry? in the language of you're choice? These things aren';t required for "fluency".

Last edited by ta12121 (2010 February 21, 3:44 pm)

@kazelee

Finally, my plan to make someone go insane over the internet has come to fruition.

As for the test for fluency, it involves that guy from Lie To Me to determine whether you began learning Japanese as claimed (questioning enhanced with some truth serum), followed by a live video chat wherein you're required to improvise multiple discourses based on randomly selected objects such as a plum floating in a hat filled with perfume.

Last edited by nest0r (2010 February 21, 5:15 pm)

If it helps, I was being serious.

What I meant was: If a native like Aijin and Magamo offered an honest opinion on a person's written and spoken ability, I'd hold that to a higher standard over someone like Yudan or Jarvik and definitely over one's self-evaluation.

Magamo said Khatzumoto had exceptional ability at Japanese even to the point he thought someone else had written the Japanese entries. He then had a back and forth with Aijin about Khatzumoto's speaking ability.  That offered someone like me viable a reference that surpassed all the other evaluations from Jarvik or Tobberoth which seemed were negative but not critical.

But I'm not even having to concentrate on Khatzumoto as an example. This forum has IceCream. She is continually posting evidence of her progress in both speaking and writing. Based on Magamo's critique of her abilities, her methods may well be worth looking into if not copying. Yeah, some is going to look like AJATT, but she also learned from a word list (Core 6k).

So yeah, we have Lang-8, YouTube and Snapvine for any student of Japanese to archive their progress over time that any native Japanese speaker can access. Want to claim fluency? Post yourself and let the real deal decide.

ta12121 wrote:

勝本

It'd be roughly something like "the true winner" haha. I went for 勝元 which I guess would be more like "the original winner". Haha. All fitting for him though given he has somewhat of an urban legend status.

I think he just went bloody hardcore.

"Fluency"
We need to come up with some sort of actual definition of this word. Perhaps something like Nukemarine was saying, a "Turing machine" of sorts, where the native speaker has to judge whether or not it's a native person they're speaking with.

Although with speaking, it can be tough -- having an accent: does that really mean you're not fluent? I would say that it doesn't matter /too/ much.

I'm at a level where I consider myself..."passable." I can interact with friends, reading ability is slowly but surely increasing, and I can enjoy life here in Japan. I'm not "fluent" as I would like to be, but if you ask an average Joe on the streets (who doesn't know a word of Japanese) I would sound pretty damn fluent.