Matt's Japanese Journey (2017 Edition)
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- Опубліковано 21 бер 2017
- PLEASE WATCH THIS AFTER: • THE 3 HOUR VIDEO: One ...
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My thoughts on this video one year later (please watch!!): ua-cam.com/video/Z6AWM9ueYHM/v-deo.html
PS, I know I pronounce pronunciation wrong
Should i watch this too? 😆
As you were saying you came back from Japan and changed ur computer language I was doing the exact same thing on my phone xD much love great vids
Dude its okay to have a 160 IQ and have what I call sometimes, mental farts of the mouth, I get em all the time, and I also love Japan and am from Portland, I want to meet you someday. I pretended I'm a college graduate from Japan by the way, I get the drift(9:00) or something like that.
Amigo no sabes de una página que te diga lo básico de la gramática japonesa a un nivel ya difícil
@Santana Turner who what when where and why
“Previously I made fun of weaboos” sitting in his anime filled room full of anime knowledge and Japanese ability. People really do change.
You were the Chosen One! It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them. bring balance to the force, not leave it in darkness.
101 505 lmao
im the same exact way actually
i was like this too😭now all i watch is anime i can’t watch normal shows anymore they’re boring
I will copy and paste this because I really need an answer. What is a RTK equivalent to Chinese? Or if there is a better method, what?
2:07:20
“Grow some balls and listen to anime all day”
This is so amazing out of context
😂
yeah
its actually a bit comfort to listen this sentece. because thats all i wanted to hear when i was younger lool
that phrase echoes in my head from time to time
Matt's AJATT Journey:
0:00:00 -1:28:28
Complete AJATT Guide:
1:28:29-3:01:48
Dragon377
According to Matt, just RTK 1 and 3.
Why bother? After reading some Hideo Levy's novels (like 'Room Where the Star-Spangled Banner Cannot Be Heard" or 千々にくだけて) or Shusaku Endo's work (like 'Silence', 'Deep river' or 'Samurai') I came to the conclusion that fluency is a bit useless in the context of Japan. It's ok for your own satisfaction I guess, but there's no point for a Westerner in becoming a part of their unbelievably petty, close-minded society! There are 2 reasons for that:
number 1: they'll never accept you as their own anyway! (Levy's work talks at length about that)
number 2: their culture is too cruel, distrustful of intellectual questioning and lacking in transcendence for us (Endo's novels do a great job at describing how spiritually and intellectually bankrupt Japanese culture is)
Ma/ Prz/
🌚 Tradition is not merely conservative... it is over-protective to a fault. You say there is a lack of transcendence in their culture, and if I am to infer your meaning, you must know that it’s by design. Those that are “transcended” are hidden among not only Japanese society but also other societies.
If you actually got the culturally protected and hidden benefits of the Japanese people, and some of their old ways, or some of their most sacred practices, you would understand from a top-down and a bottom-up perspective why it’s so well-protected in the first place.
The fault is cynicism. Not even most of the Japanese people have “access” to these hidden practices, ways, and tools.
It’s the same for China.
I’m a proponent for healthy change and blind optimism, while navigating the conflict of honoring tradition (not wholly subverting the culture at its roots).
It is a very long and arduous road... the worst thing we can do is take shortcuts. The not-so-bad route to take is to give up entirely... rendering all prior efforts null.
123 abc do you have some follow up material on this?? I’m just curious to see where this perspective comes from
I didn't know a single english word when I started watching this video. 3 hours later I'm now fluent. Thanks Matt!
I really appreciate you leaving this video up, Matt, and allowing us to see you at your darkest hour. You were incredibly insightful/thoughtful despite feeling so low. When you mentioned feeling neither Japanese nor American (being half Korean, I've felt this for over 30 years) and trying to find what distinguishes you while also finding where you belong really resonated with me. It occurred to me while listening to this video that you're playing a pivotal role in transitioning people over to actual systems that work for language acquisition (which is where you mentioned the human race will be one day). I'm confident you will continue to refine MIA and guide people all along the way through your videos, and I want to thank you for sharing them with the world.
Whats mia?
@@meldeoo the company he had before Refold
@@Retog is mia still a thing?
@@meldeoono
1:43:05 Matt; “so that was my super long intro”. Me: WTF. 😂
Same 😂😂😂😂
Compared to the more "professional" way that Matt presents himself nowadays, it's kind of refreshing to listen to such an unfiltered version of Matt describing his language learning process.
There were times during the video where i started dying laughing. Like when he just randomly calls the japanese that were at his uni retarded. It was so unexpected.
Coming from his newer videos, this is pretty cool to see.
@@shiningshores4808 exactly 😂
As the time pass on it's easier for people to get offended for literally nothing. He's smart.
I respect Matt for keeping this video up.
29:43
>I didn't act arrogant
press x to doubt
I still respect Matt, but a lot of his story was pretty arrogant. He said it was just a phase he grew out of, but the later part of his story he keeps talking about how great he is and how bad everyone else is (Americans and Japanese). Like yea, I'll give him pushing his study methods, but his past self sounds like a total asshole even if its just thoughts he had in his head. He sounds kinda proud of it too...
@@korinoriz
It isn't arrogance if he actually is as good as he claims.
@@SpencerLemay It didn't matter if he was the best Japanese speaker in the block. What mattered was his personality. Japanese people are very humble in everything they do and they shame people for acting differently, and in this case, showing arrogance.
Spencer Lemay you can be good at something, confident, and still be humble about it. So yeah it is arrogance. 🤷🏼♀️
Buuuht yeeeh... still gotta respect the man for the dedication. Don’t have to like the attitude but gotta respect the method 😂
@@Naiuhz In case you haven't, you should watch his other video.
This is the longest video I've ever watched on UA-cam. I enjoyed it very much. This is so raw and speaks from the heart. This got me think a lot about my own language learning journey and my life as a whole.
I've MASSIVE respect and admiration for you. Your dedication and commitment are crazy. Attempting to learn Mandarin for the sake of Japanese is unbelievably dedicated.
You gotta realize that your L1 is English and L2 is Japanese. Your L2 will never be L1. I don’t mean that your L2 can’t be as good as your L1 but you were too harsh on yourself and this perfectionism almost killed your enthusiasm for the Japanese language.
The longest I watched was a Mauler video about Star wars I think
Dark God how long?
Man, you need to hit rock bottom to understand this video.
so true 😟
no way lmao, im at a decent point in my life and if you disregard his "biases" or the parts where he's just ranting there is a gold mine of information in this video, especially towards the middle to end point
@@user-du1vj3ro1j Yea I take it back. I was in a similar place to Matt when I wrote that comment but I'm in a way better place now and I cringe tbh.
@@zachsilva6201 im glad youre doing better bro. at some points i could understand needing to be in a place place to relate, especially from the beginning to around halfway through but i havent brought myself to watch that part yet
Yeah this video is a bit of a wake up call. It makes you think about why you want to learn japanese (presumably your target language). But if you can get over the existential plea in the beginning to contemplate your life choices, or better yet skip to the middle, then it still seems like he has some pretty good advise.
my god.....i've been binging your videos for the past 2 days (oops) and my mind is just entirely blown...I can't express my gratitude afflskj i'm not even joking!!! i can't believe I've been studying the wrong way for three entire years!!!!! the things i could've achieved in that time if Ihad done AJATT!!???? i'm so glad i found your channel, i owned RTK (the first book) since my first year but I thought it wasn't a good book bc it didn't give the readings of the kanji etc so I never used it...now i realise how ignorant i was. I taught myself english purely by listening to it..not even speaking it. i've never realised that that's how I became fluent in this language. I'm just so shocked at all of this knowkedge i'm suddenly receiving about methods of language learning and i'm truly just utterly fucking goddamn speechless. Thank you so so much for actually giving me a goal in life jkdflk i just....wow. Thank you. I know what I'm going to do from now on :)
Hey you, you're finally awake you should watch stranger things it’s a great show but it is only on Netflix but it is very interesting I’m a native English speaker so I don’t know if it’s good for Learning English but I enjoy the show
@@insevered2730 Long as it's by natives, for natives then its good learning material
@@heyyouyourefinallyawake471 immerse yourself in youtube with English, thats what im doing with hebrew rn
Hey, gotta question for u. Are u chilean? XD It is the first time i read somebody laughing like taldos hahaha
How's your japanese these days?
i watched this a second time lol and i kinda understand your trap now. you wanted to be perfect in every aspect, and every time you encountered something that little thing that didnt make you perfect or set you apart that would bother you to death. i really respect your striving to perfection work ethic but by embracing perfection as a goal you kinda shoot yourself in the foot. i think having peace with the level you had once you realized you were insanely fluent and just stopped then wouldve done you better.
I totally agree with you. "Being good at Japanese" was such a big part of my identity that it caused me to suffer each time my lack of perfection was revealed. Now that I don't identity with my Japanese ability at all, there is no pain in those moments where I don't understand something or find something that I don't know, like there used to be. In fact, this "not giving a fuck"ness actually makes me a more effective learner: I spend much less time feeling bad and getting caught up in little unimportant aspects. Also all the things I hate about Japan used to really piss me off since, "I chose Japan" and "I put so much time and effort into Japanese", so when I didn't like what I paid for, I felt ripped off. Basically I was identifying with Japan as well, which I have also stopped completely. Now I can interact with Japanese suffer free, which is really quite nice, since after all I do have quite a rare ability (although my contact is no where close to "all the time" anymore). That said, I doubt I would have ever have been able to get as good as I am without all of that identification and suffering.
AKA loser AKA phantom madman
Not sure if you're gonna read this but, if you wanna have Japanese friends that are chill to hang out with, you're gonna need to hang out with the "Yankees" or more Western oriented Japanese guys. They're more open to cultural differences and don't suffer from the "archetypal" social structure rules you mentioned. I have very cool Japanese friends that are like you and me. Very deep and interesting video, btw, you're very honest and objectively analytical about your own feelings and shortcomings.
This video made me realise how i learned English by using ajatt stuff unconsciously. I sucked at english during middle school, awful grades and shit, and around that time I got my first computer and internet access. I started playing an online game that was only in English, so I had to start reading and interacting with other players mostly in English with my very very awful English i had at the time. Gradually I started to get better at it, just because I spent most of my free time playing and interacting in English. At some point I got an acceptable level of written English, but my listening was awful because all my input was written, barely any listening. So, again without knowing about ajatt or anything, I started to follow and see videos from popular English UA-camrs at the time like Smosh or PewDiePie because at the time the UA-cam content on my main language wasn't that interesting. I had a lot of trouble at the beginning understanding most things but without being conscious I started to get better and better, to the point now that I'm able to watch this video at x2 speed and have no issues understanding at all. In fact i wasn't able to practice my speaking skills until I moved to Ireland, 5 years after I started consuming most of my content in English, and I was able to understand and speak right away. Of course my accent was terrible and there where tons of words that I didn't know how to pronounce properly because I've only seen them in written form. I'm still getting better at that part tho.
Now I'm preparing to consciously repeat the process for Japanese, because I've experienced by myself that it actually works. Just wanted to share my experience to confirm that this method works, and is valid for any language that you want to learn
I was writing a separate comment but decided to reply to you because I'm exactly in the same boat...
My opinion is that you know you've become truly good at a language when understanding it doesn't feel like a big achievement. This is what happened to me with English and it's so fucking weird. Knowing English in today's world is like being able to walk, it's the greatest toolbox worth having, it's the main language of the internet. I learned English between the ages 15 and 18 and my process was pretty much the same.
I remember sucking so bad at English during all my school life, it was painful. At age 14 I had an internet connection for the first time and everything I consumed was pretty much in Spanish. Around that time I started to watch a lot of American TV shows and movies, but always with Spanish subs. So what happened was, many shows I was watching (that were being aired at the time) didn't have subs available, and I just said "fuck it, I'll watch 'em raw then". Little did I know, I was AJATT-ing myself without knowing. Combine that with hours upon hours of online gaming, reddit, 9gag, 4chan, and let's not forget all the UA-cam content ranging from Vsauce, Veritasium, Filthy Frank, Key and Peele, Boyinaband, H3H3, Jackfilms, Jordan Peterson talks, TedX talks, I mean there are so fucking many I can't list them all here...
At some point around age 16 (almost 17) something just clicked. I had never actually practiced speaking English with anyone on a daily basis and I found myself being able to understand so many things, it really shocked me. It felt as if someone had injected me with the English serum. From that point I still had a lot to learn, but the main structure of the English language, its inner workings, were already cemented in my head. Fast forward 6 more years into the future and I may occasionally learn a new phrase or word... like recently I learned that: ''not playing with a full deck" is a slang for being "mentally ill". And the funny thing is, I understood that phrase without even looking it up, but just did it anyway to double check it.
Regarding Japanese, I also started it around 14, because of anime ofc. But it never occurred to me to just say ''fuck it'' and immerse myself. Instead I watched lesson upon lesson, treated it as something unrelated to my life, as ''study'', and now I can clearly see that that was the main problem. I got to learn many grammar points, and what good did that do? Absolutely nothing.
I'm now going into my second month of AJATT. It has been really hard to find material that I'm actually interested in watching/reading but I'm getting there. I can already see how many words and phrases just keep popping up and I can't help but notice them over and over. I can notice words I already know even if the person is talking quite fast which is really nice.
And just to finish up... immersing in Japanese has showed me that my brain really feels "safe" thinking in English (WHICH ISN'T EVEN MY FIRST LANGUAGE WTF). I've wasted about an hour writing this instead of AJATT-ing... AAAHHH くそ！！！！今から日本人だ！！外人やない、日本人だ！！！！！
@@5bitcube I already understand what you said at the end and I have only started AJATTing for 5 days, nice!
+1
Same with me!
What is your native language?
This video is pure gold in so many ways - thanks for sharing!
Its funny that you said as a AJATT-er we should feel guilty for listening to you speak english for 3 hours cause a little under 2 hours in i was thinking "damn, i really should be listening to japanese right now" but im glad i didnt just cut you off cause ive definitely learned a few xtra tips from you and your experience that'll really kickstart my own AJATT experience! Thanks for sharing man
This video is the ultimate struggle for people beginning AJATT, imo. On one hand, I know enough about AJATT to know that I should be watching something in Japanese instead, while on the other hand, I don't know enough about AJATT to know what I should actually be doing.😂
@@chopperman2122 lmaoo for sure! Definitely a good step if youre feeling lost lol get a push in the right direction. In a perfect world, this video would be the last 3 hours of english you listen to lmao
@@YokaiTheGameGuy its been 7 months, how has your AJATT/MIA progress coming along?
@@jon9428 i admittedly dont actively listen as much as i should, but i do read quite often (basically everyday) and i find myself recognizing more and more words in my passive listening. Its slow but its definitely coming along nicely and im okay with the slow pace lol
@@YokaiTheGameGuy i see, thank you for replying
Thanks for sharing this! Was really interesting to hear your story and more advice.
Good luck with whatever you end up working on next!
I just wanna say that I appreciate the rawness of this content! A lot of people wouldn't talk about the truth of the overall experience acquiring a language as an outsider
I don't know how I got here...but when I heard you say that your personality changes when you switch languages it reminded me: there are studies that show that *anyone who speaks multiple languages* has a different personality associated with each language. Something about the acquisition of language & cultural connections doing neural rewiring.
This is my second time watching this, and I can’t express how much I appreciate and respect you for leaving it up.
This video is the most helpful ressource I've found in over 2 years of language learning. I've watched all 3 hours twice now. Japanese isn't even my target language. Thank you Matt
i left my chromebook playing last night and woke up to this video playing! I ended up listening to it all the way through! actually excellent! I'll watch the next one now
I’m about 1.5 hours in right now and this was really nice and refreshing. Like sitting with a friend who’s walking you through their experience & articulating things for you. Thank you for the honesty
This is such an unfiltered version of Matt. I absolutely love it!
Thank you man for taking the time to make this, the intermediate blues are hard, but this just gave me a better perspective/mindset to keep on fighting.
-Intermediate life crisis?-
@@computerman789 No. There is a AJATT blog post with the title I was referring to.
I just love how you are really honest :D
Watched the whole bloody thing and enjoyed every second of it. Matt, you are such a wholesome human being, I can't help but love you and your amazing life story.
P.S.: Added 'equanimity' to my AEATT Anki deck.
Insightful, candid, fascinating video. Thank you for posting this.
1 hour into this and I've got to say that I relate with so much of what you're saying and your motivations and observations.
Hey Matt, I know I'm 3 years late to the party, but I wanted to thank you for making this video and leaving it up. I've been learning Mandarin for over a year now, and while I have made significant progress, I'm still struggling. Obsession, perfectionism, and other issues get in the way. Your story was surprisingly relatable and gave me a better understanding of things. I can't tell you how much I appreciate you sharing this with us. Thanks.
What an incredible journey. Thanks for sharing Man huge respect ✊
I actually knew about AJATT already, not because of the blog though.
English is not my first language. Here it is being taught at a pretty high level. When I had to go to secondary school I was sceptical myself about language learning át school. But we have these bilingual schools here, where about 80% of the subjects are taught in English. The other 20% were actually subjects like German, French and Dutch (my mother language) since it wouldn't make sense to learn them from English.
Even subjects like physical education and art were taught in English. The teachers all were required to have a certain English degree (though that doesn't say much) or they have to have lived in the country. But there was the mistake, because my geography teacher didn't have a certain English degree but she did live for 10 years in America. So her English sucked pretty bad. But she was the only one.
My English teacher was amazing. She was like the AJATT goddess. She told us to read a book everyday, don't use subtitles on movies and TV shows. Don't translate words to your mother's language, but try to explain them in the language itself. That was also what her tests were like, ONLY in English. And she said, if you want to get good, at a native's level, immerse, talk English in the corridors talk English at home, keep an English diary. Most of her lessons also didn't contain boring grammar subjects but she just talked, told stories and tried to make us engage in the conversation. She was really amazing. The only thing that most schools do that she did was hammering the irregular verbs, because that's just something you should know. After 3 weeks, I would even THINK in English and now I know certain words only in English.
But yeah, I knew all of that but still, I didn't know that that would work for Japanese. For some reason I thought it wouldn't. And it's so stupid because I already learned a language this way, so why wouldn't it?
After two years I had to move to another city, there was no bilingual school there and it sucked. There is something about a bilingual school that makes you feel a connection with other kids, because there's one thing you all have in common. At a regular school you all have something different. But this bilingual stuff really bonded you. And the children were like ten times more motivated.
I've seen other Dutch people in my class, who SUCK at English. And why? The English lessons are in DUTCH (like wtf), the tests are in Dutch, they have to literally translate stuff. It's awful. My marks for English dropped enormously, just because I didn't know most meanings in Dutch. Like, we won't become interpreters, we just want to become a speaker, we want to become English. But most kids also just don't have the motivation to get good at the language. They just say, I don't understand, I will never understand. And how fast do they even talk? And I'm like bruh, if you just paid a little bit more attention, you would understand them. But they won't because they're lazy.
But now I fully understand the power of AJATT. I'm not fluent in English yet. But I know it's possible. Probably if I had put more effort in AEATT (that just doesn't look right) then I would've been.
Well, that was way too long of a comment. But that's just what I wanted to tell. Some schools and teachers don't suck, but most do 😑
Marloes Oosterhoff i learned english and french the same way. Jammer genoeg doet mijn school wel gewone Engels lessen (dus het gemiddelde niveau is pittig laag). Maar ik heb geleerd door zonder het te weten AETT te doen. Door gewoon Minecraft UA-cam filmpjes te kijken sinds ik 8 was. En mijn Frans lessen op school zijn 100% Frans al sinds de eerste les. Dus ook gewoon AFATT. Dus ik geloof er wel in. Maar dat wel allemaal talen die dicht bij elkaar liggen dus we zullen wel zien hoe het zal gaan voor mijn Japans.
me too. other than enjoying philosophy i only really got a sense of identity in highschool out of being impressive at english. the past last year i've been going at japanese. i only really listen to music, watch asmr and watch interviews. unfortunately japan seems to lack things like analysis channels mostly. I'm not into anime anymore either pretty much.
edit: oh cool I see you also watch some korean stuff. my discord is: BlackJoe23
#4518 if you wanna talk about language passion things.
Seems like bilingual school would've been cool. I'd have joined cambridge at school if not for heavier translation tests that i didnt bother studying for.
also this song is currently stuck in my head: ua-cam.com/video/1zHqS789tYE/v-deo.html
Same here. I'm not a native speaker either and I view my English as being pretty much just as good as my native language. I'm 17 right now and I started to watch youtube in English when I was 9. I was essentially AJATT:ing without even knowing it and 8 years later, it really does work. It's unfortunate that more people haven't caught on yet and are wasting their time studying grammatical rules and vocabulary, when all it would take for them to become proficient is to sit down and watch a movie.
@@waifuconnoisseur4872 seems a lot of people just watched minecraft letsplays and got really good at english
Ik heb nooit echt een probleem met engels gehad, kon het rond mijn 13e al redelijk vloeiend, Duits was het probleem.. ik haat de taal en wil het ook niet leren
Just wanted to thank you for this video! I watched large parts of it - I'm actually currently studying at Meiji University and am an absolute beginner and have been trying to make videos to practice and get better at speaking (terribly), and I've just known that I've not been doing the right thing to learn. What you said about there only being "one true way" to say things really blew my mind, really helped me understand what I was feeling regarding the barrier of being able to practice speaking. Also, I've had similar feelings about realizing I'll never fully fit in here. I want to learn Japanese, and know that it only is useful if I know it well, but I also know that it won't be my entire life and I don't plan on living here. Somehow that realisation has allowed me to relax and just have fun with it more. Now, on to RTK... :)
watched the whole thing in 1.7-2.0 playback speed. 10/10 great video
I watched the whole thing in 1 sitting.. very insightful & I totally get disenchantment.. familiarity breeds contempt.. thanks Matt
Thanks for posting such an in-depth experience and overview of AJATT! Your own additions and cautions from experience make perfect sense, even though I am still at the very beginning of my own AJATT journey.
I feel your pain with respect to getting to where you had once thought would be your destination and realizing that it isn’t. I hope you have since really found where you want to be - it’s an ongoing process.
Thank you again for providing what feels like a really good trail-guide for this multi-year hike. You’ve got me looking forward to the changes in the scenery - even the boring ones. :P
Awesome video man! I am a beginner, dabling in every method there is trying to find the best use of my time, I always come back to the ajatt basics. I'm learning the kanji now and ya it's tough but it's the key to being able to put in the work of translating what i see, say on the news or something. Thanks again for your uploads!
Matt this video is such a treasure for the language learners like us! Please make more videos like this where you just talking from your heart! I learned Mandarin to a very good level and still learning! A lot of things you talked about I could relate! I watched the whole video and really enjoyed it!
Man, coming to this video after discovering the immersion method of language learning and watching all of your latest videos and interviews on other channels. Its really night and day, you seem so much happier now and I hope you're truly feeling that way too these days. Although I love how raw this is.
This video is super interesting, I feel like this could've been me when I was a lot younger had I not come across some very unfortunate facts about Japan and the culture. Early on I saw Japan through the lens of anime and cute j-fashion, and totally believed it was some magical cute wacky wonderland. Though, eventually getting deeper into the roots of Tokyo street fashion and hearing anecdotes about societal issues and the history of the country really made it clear that Japan was just another developed country. Like, I've probably watched every "10 things about Japanese culture that suck!!!" video on yt. For example their treatment of Australian prisoners of war during WW2 that most Aussies should have learned about in school - it wasn't very kawaii desu. Although, the one that still gets is the story of my boyfriend's cousin's wife who's Japanese. She grew up in a small rural town, and was sort of like a star child and would go to a great university and become a doctor etc. or something like that (idk I got this part of the story second hand). Feeling trapped and wanting to leave to go do something else, she came here (to Australia) and for that she became a total disgrace to her family, her parents completely exiled her and they haven't spoken in well over 10 years and act like she doesn't exist. They apparently won't even mention they have a daughter. I've met her a couple times and she really hates a lot about Japanese culture and doesn't even like talking about the place, let alone her past. So yeah, hearing that was extremely eye opening - that a native Japanese person could hate their home country just like many weebs hate theirs too.
Anyway, really appreciate all your content, it's been very inspiring! Despite some of my clarity about Japan, there are still a lot of things I love about the country and language, and have loved travelling there. It would be nice to be able to learn to a higher level for when I go again, even just so I understand all the rides and shows at Tokyo Disney lmao.
I like relistening to this every once in a while to get some motiviation for learning Japanese.
great video man, already written everything important that i want to do regarding to my AJATT, ty so much
I've spent many years inefficiently studying Japanese, and I've spent just over a year total living in Japan struggling with slow progress but only recently realized the input method, somewhat on accident, really made a shift in my learning. I put myself in situations purposely where people didn't know English, like in the countryside, and forced myself to just accept that I didn't know what was going on at all times. Then I tried to switch to only Japanese on my phone, tv shows, etc. I was getting kind of discouraged because it was indeed boring sitting through hours and hours (and hours) of native media listening to and reading Japanese subtitles, and I was questioning if it was actually doing anything because at my university I'm still not acing every Japanese test. That being said I had a feeling that it was important and I was looking for a reason to keep doing it. I didn't want to just study the textbook for the sake of acing tests but not feeling the improvement in Japanese comprehension. Maybe you won't see this comment but this video just gave me that wake up call and helped me more than I can ever explain. I'm going to keep trying to avoid the gaijin bubble and focus on native input. I'm really happy that I found an explanation and a method that I can look to for direction instead of feeling like I'm just a weirdo watching Japanese stuff I don't understand yet. Thank you for your personal story too, I can really relate to the feeling of escapism and how hard it is to go to high school here. I wasn't depressed on my high school exchange but it was definitely one of the hardest things I've ever done.
how's going right now?
@@sanglish18 Oh wow I can't believe how much this takes me back! I forgot I had commented on this. I'm happy to say that the AJATT method worked and I am conversationally/business level fluent and just took n2 for the second time, I failed by just a few points in December but this time in July I felt good about it. I'm reading light Japanese novels and my ability to write kanji has improved dramatically from RTK anki decks. Listening and speaking is easy and I have several monolingual Japanese speaking friends that I see regularly. Pretty much all I watch for entertainment or read is in Japanese for the past year. Feels great! My next mountain to climb is n1~
@@Mizuki_ Oh I'm so happy for you! Most people don't seem to reply again so I was a bit supreised!
I've started doing intense immersion recently mostly because that's how I magically learn English lol (I always did since I started Japanese but not so focused), so I'm glad that it worked out for you, when I'm watching content I'm always worried if I'm not progressing since there are lots of words I don't understand, but I hope that it works out, your comment will certainly serve as an incentive!.
I admire you!
dont watch this all at once
me: XDDD
pretty sure all of us watched it all at once 😂
35 minutes in.....guess i'll look up what the hell an AJATT is.
No need, you can just watch it
Thanks, Matt. This guide will help me a lot :D. This video is like a motivation for me to study as well. Thank you.
I can't believe I watched an hour of this in one sitting. It's an interesting story.
Same. His level of autism was so off the charts he basically started dissociating; it's fascinating.
great video, I'm still a begginer but I really GET what you are saying from my time learning english.
Damn that's a massive one, amazing! Will definitely watch this although not all at once haha
You are an incredible person. Respect
I watched the entire video and it actually helped inspire me to start learning Japanese :D
Good video, thanks for sharing your experience and tips.
The eyebrow wiggling at the end = best ending ever.
matt is a real one for leaving this video up. genuinely one of the most informative videos on his language learning story and process
YOU ARE CRAZY. I just started learning Japanese and I'm glad I found your channel. You help me a lot to keep going and be motivated. You got another subscriber.
How's it going? Are you doing AJATT or similar?
I am also curious to your ability now, how are you?
@@bokki94 Im in the website but I have no clue how to use it. I try to click on anything and it says I dont have permission. can u help?
@@QuickerLearnHub which website?
@@bokki94 when he talks about AJATT, is he talking about the website?
31:40 ish when you're talking about perfecting the formula, it's crazy how much I can relate to that. Looking forward to finishing the rest of the video xD
Your story is very relatable to me. Me too I got to a "near native" level but at some point it started to down on me that I didn't particularly like their culture or their mentality. These days I can rarely enjoy a J drama or truly get anything special from reading a Japanese novel. I've had Japanese friends over the years, but none of them was a true friend. I'd simply regurgitate some learned patters in order to fit in with their way of communicating. But I never sincerely shared their outlook on life nor felt truly concerned by what mattered to them.
so how are your views on this topic 2 years after the comment?
@@electricwizard5747 yeah I'm curious too
hello?
hello
Hello
This should have 130 MILLION clicks.
Inspiration.
Congratulations on all you have achieved.
I admire you more than any words could ever express.
This is a great vid! Watched all of it ! Learned about ajatt and thought about many ways you can apply it and not just learning language. You Rock Matt, thanks for sharing your knowledge.
I watched the whole video in two days. Fascinating story! :)
When I think about it, you’ve probably saved people like myself a lot of money. A lot of people were familiar with immersion and know from experience with other languages that it’s the best way to reach native-like fluency in other languages. BUT most of us would’ve gone to whatever country to immerse in the language and culture. Instead, we can just take your advice, use the internet to immerse, and maybe throw you some patreon money for the valuable content and all the money you’ve saved us.
I love this video it's very informative and I feel like I can connect to u. Thanks a lot for making this video
It took me four days to watch this and it was SO worth it and I will be watching again 🤣
This video encouraged me to learn Japanese :D thank youuuuu I hope I speak it as well as you do one day
You should write a book on your journey through Japanese! It sounds so interesting and I think people could learn a lot from it.
Your honest (yet nuanced) view is really exhilerating in this time and age.
So true!
dude this video is fucking awesome i love your honesty
I had a really weird feeling while watching this video. You are a really particular character and you both excite me and scare me at the same time. I was always drawn to Japanese culture since I was a kid, not so much because of anime (never used to watch them that much) but mostly because of their nature and weird culture.
I took a trip to Japan 2 years ago and I had learned hiragana, katakana and a few phrases about a month before my trip and it really helped me a lot even though I couldn't really communicate that well. I've wanted to learn the language from a really young age but after realising how difficult it is I kinda gave up. At the end of the day I was never planning to fully learn the language or move there I just thought it was cool to be able and have basic conversation and understanding (and I still do).
I admire this full immersion approach but you really need to be extremely motivated and basically have zero social life which is something I could never do at this stage of my life. However, I am really stubborn and if I had put my mind into it while I was younger I could (probably) do it. Now it's probably impossible simply because my native language is Greek, I've lived in UK for 5 years and I speak to my wife in English, live in Italy for the last 5 years and I speak Italian (and I have a kid, which takes most of your time (not finding excuses, it's just a fact).
I am reading now and then remembering the kanji simply to try and memorise a few characters but I am not planning to ever learn it in that level. However, as I said it's really interesting seeing people choosing this approach and seeing how far they can go. I am interested in learning the basic 2000 kanji at my own pace and possibly get some easy novels to try and practice in the near future. So if by any chance you could suggest any beginner's level novel I would appreciate it.
I wish I could focuse myself on things I like the same way you invested yourself into learning japanese.
This comment hits REAL close to home...
In English you don't "focusE YOURSELF".
I did watch it all, man. Thanks for bringing the videos back. Had your channel open in a tab for a month wondering what happened. Hope you don't mind that I even downloaded some of them now for quick reference.
I finished the table of contents a while ago, and have a decent number of my daily things set to Japanese, but I'm not starting immersion or RTK until my house is sorted out. Hopefully won't take long.
I'm kinda worried about how I'd balance it if I get a job, since that means it'd just take longer. And that just means longer before I have really achieve something important to me. But my savings can probably hold me for a while.
Thanks for that bit on grammar by the way. I felt guilty with my current knowledge since I've attempt a little of other things. Basic particles, most tenses, about 200 kanji and multiple words for each one. Weird day number jukugos, etc. And it wasn't that they were bad, or that I didn't enjoy them, but I when I discovered AJATT I realised it'd have to be this, despite difficulty.
I wanted to use a certain particle book even Khatz recommends one I started sentences, but I felt guilty because that didn't seem like really learning from "understanding before memorizing" or "learning grammar from context". But now I don't feel so bad, since you probably needed Tae Kim to really understand the basics. (Although I do wonder about how far things like BritvsJapan "knowing TE form without knowing it" can really get you)
I actually really like the particle structure of Japanese, and the conjugations. Kinda makes me want to become a linguist. Although I won't be learning the language through literature describing it. Things like agglutinates have become really interesting lately.
Sometimes I've experimenting with kind of "rewinding" and wondering how AJATT would've tackled certain tasks. Like there's certain forms that are like verbs made combined with another verb in a general sort of way (like how you can add IKU to verbs to mean a certain thing) that Jisho can straight up not recognise, or only takes note of one of the more common forms present (like masu or ta). And I just get concerned that if I didn't already know that's wrong then I'd just falsely take the base verb in whatever form Jisho said it was as the meaning.
Experimented with the Japanese dictionaries too, and I don't think it keeps many entries for specific forms of a word because they don't matter if you know the dictionary form. Was mainly surprised I couldn't search 「よかった」on the Japanese to Japanese dictionaries because that seems like such an evolved ritualistic set phrase as to have gone beyond it's simple conjugation in meaning.
I know enough that like with mnemonics, your understanding of even grammar structures or words in a language falls away slightly to how you see it used in the world. Which feels good.
(Although you saying 「すごいだよ」isn't grammatical, it had me worried, since I'd probably make that mistake, and actually couldn't say why it's wrong...)
Just from being able to listen in on things I currently watch with subs I get the real feeling of "A word means the word, not the translation", with a lot of "Ah, I get why they translated it like that". Like with the wide use of 「だめ」etc.
You made the point of not noticing things until you know them, which is a bit of a blow to immersion, but of course it's noticeable in things like kanji and pitch accent.
I'm a bit worried about rushing too hard to understand things. In some cases it's relieving to learn i+1 sentences are rare at first, because otherwise I might ask myself things like "Do I really understand this word? Am I doing myself a disservice from adding it to my deck after just recognising it once?".
It's hard for me to judge what the beginning of AJATT does for you since I already have enough of a foothold in the language to catch words I know and hear when the verb is for instance, so I guess my kind of questions are a bit weird.
I guess the grammar stuff handles a big one I was going to ask. And that was merely "What were your first sentences like?"
i+1 usually means like one extra word, but I assume since your first sentences would've come from grammar guides themselves then at least those were something like memorizing a lot at first so you could i+1 later, since any first sentence will probably need multiple words and at least one particle. But I could see cheating that with a kana load word, like 「ぺん」
Similarly, since people speak in different ways to different people, and different people speak different ways as you said (some of which I know of course, although really only from formal explanations), was there noticeable gaps between the type of people you could understand? Or was it just rarer character archetypes that caused that?
Thanks for the drop about pitch accent. Seen other people mention it. Will get on that hopefully around the time of the monolingual transition. I've got the same dictionaries you use. Do entries include the pitch number or will I need to do more research?
You also did bring up a decent thing I wondered myself. I always got the impression that music wasn't really work. I mean I hear more and more of the words each time, but I could just be watching a series, so that guilt may get to me. I think the positives out of taking the lyrics as sentences is basically as good or worse than plain reading, with the disadvantage that you're not getting some normal hearing in.
Knowing enough about "normal grammatical sentences" as I do, what with "verb ALWAYS comes at the end" that songs certainly get a bit more interpretive in Japanese. I dunno. I know that sometimes in natural speech they'll break it up to move things before the verb after it.
Naturally, I am a worrier. And a bit of a quitter. So this matters to me. I'm going to use this experience to as you said, prove that I can accomplish something like this.
I failed at things before because I never really had a plan, and couldn't enjoy the step by step. I certainly enjoy all the little victories so far, but I think if I had actually started with AJATT before realising the things I would end up liking about Japanese as a language I would've quit, so I'm quite mixed on regretting it.
It's relieving that shows can be interesting for their educational value in this sense. I am concerned that with so many hours I will quickly run out of content I find engaging...
But for better or worse I think I'm the type of person for this. I don't have any present commitments, and really want to prove to myself that I can have a skill. Since I left university I haven't actually hung out with friends, and now I wish that time could've been spent on this, or that I'd done in it university to make it the easiest to work around.
But I was a different person then, so it's probably for the best.
Days before AJATT have actually been hard because I can't find something to do. Emptying things out I don't need has been very helpful. I worry about finding something good in the mean time, but ultimately I think I'll be able to let it go. Lots of the things I like can be enjoyed in Japanese.
dude you are going to worry yourself to death. chill out. i read your essay but couldn't keep track of the specific questions. ask me what you want directly in a reply to this comment lol
Sorry. I don't blame you if this is too dense too. If it's too much of a hassle it's fine. I mean almost everyone else just did AJATT from literally nothing.
Were your first sentences examples sentences from Tae Kim?
Did you consciously learn particle usage from those sentences (either from the context of them or the explanations accompanying them)?
Jisho can be quite dense in explaining particles so I was wondering whether you gave yourself a foundation in them.
How much of that after the first sentences months of listening you'd done during the kanji phase was like "Duh", or "Oh that's what Desu means. I had a feeling"?
Do you feel like you could refer to a dictionary too much, and end up "learning" something before giving your brain a chance to understand it, so you could unconsciously know it rather than refer to translations?
AJATT gets really simple to me when I just reduce to always listening and then looking stuff up, but I wonder if my eagerness to look things up might miss out on the more subtle positives that only immersion will give.
Do you think you actually learn much meaning from the kanji phase where you only listen, or just for listening comprehension and structure?
Khatz mentions things like not knowing what the verb forms are, and the only grammar concept he uses consciously is transitive and intransitive, and that's only because it was so easy to understand when he looked it up. So it actually holds him back because he then knows to think about it.
So I wouldn't want conscious studying to hold back what could be made more natural if I just avoided it until I understood, so it could become innate instead of a repeated explanation in my mind.
If you couldn't understand a new grammar structure but knew all the words involved, did you just leave it and wait for immersion to make it more obvious, or did you use a grammar explanation right away if one could be easily found and used?
Were there ever points where a verb showed up made of two verbs (but you didn't know it was obviously), where Jisho seems to not recognise that form as different from the base verb, and you made the mistake of blindly following it? Maybe assuming it was just a weird way to say the same thing?
Did you have enough of an instinct to say "I don't think that's the same thing" and just drop it until you really knew what it was later?
Did it take until you knew all the verbs separately to understand this?
I'm also curious as how you managed to discern the meaning of potential forms like 読める for 読む, when Jisho can't recognise them.
Or more complex ones.
Did you learn tenses of verbs from context, or from some of the basic grammar you studied?
As you should know from the video lol, I took Japanese classes before I knew about AJATT so already knew about the basics of particles. When I went through Tae Kim when I first started sentences and read all of the explanations, and understood all of the grammatical concepts consciously. Like I say in the video, grammar knowledge is an excellent tool in making input comprehensible (although useless when outputting). Again, I already knew basic Japanese from classes when I first started kanji, so I had no moments like you describe. I wouldn’t worry about that though, just start listening so your brain will get better at parsing the language, and focus on kanji. After kanji, read Tae Kims guide and understand as much of the grammar as you want.
You have to understand that all real acquisition happens unconsciously, separate from conscious knowledge. In many cases, like when making sentence cards, you first consciously “learn” the meaning of a word. Then the next time it comes up in your input, the “learning” you have done actually makes the input comprehensible, so that the actual acquisition can take place. This is why immersion is so important and flashcards alone get you nowhere; you will have acquired nothing. Other times you will get lucky and acquire things spontaneously without first learning. When you are doing look-ups, you are not focusing on actual immersion, so yea, spending too much time looking shit up is not good (also boring and neurotic). The listening you do in the kanji phase is mostly to gain parsing and processing abilities. This is crucial, because before you have these, acquisition is impossible. How could you be picking up the meaning of words when you can’t even tell them apart from each other?
Consciously studying isn’t going to hold you back, I used to worry about that stuff too but I can tell you that it won’t be a problem. Of course too much is a waste of time and might encourage discursive thinking about language and bog you down, but Tae Kim’s guide should be the perfect amount. Think about it, would learning about English grammar get in the way of your ability to read and write? For me, I actually slowly forgot the grammar rules over time once I didn’t need them anymore. You forget whatever you don’t review. Once you stop needing the grammar, it naturally falls away. When I knew all of the words but couldn’t understand the grammar, I would try to look it up quickly, but if I didn’t find anything I would drop it right away. Spending too much time on things that are not i+1 is a trap. Many things I just waited until context made the meaning clear.
Not sure what you mean about potential forms, they all mean the same thing, just add “can” in front. 読む= read, 読める= can read. 食べる=eat, 食べられる= can eat. I learned the basics of verb conjugation from Tae Kim.
“Like there's certain forms that are like verbs made combined with another verb in a general sort of way (like how you can add IKU to verbs to mean a certain thing) that Jisho can straight up not recognize”
There is nothing to “recognize”; that “add on verb” does the same exact thing every time. IKU makes the verb into a “going towards”. 走っていく= go run towards. You pick up on the patterns pretty early on, it’s not a problem. Any misunderstandings will sort themselves out naturally over time.
“Similarly, since people speak in different ways to different people, and different people speak different ways as you said (some of which I know of course, although really only from formal explanations), was there noticeable gaps between the type of people you could understand? Or was it just rarer character archetypes that caused that?
It was harder to understand old people who mumble and people who speak weird regional dialects. I’m fine with popular ones like kansai ben but weirds and rare ones are hard. For the most part everyone in real life talks the same way, plus or minus desu’s and masu’s. If you can understand anime than real life is easy.
The 三省堂 スーパー大辞林 shows the pitch accent numbers. You will have to do your own research to find out how the numbers actually work though.
Verbs don’t always come at the end… it quite common for them to be at the beginning and the middle, even in daily speech, and it’s perfectly grammatical. 走る犬がいる=there is a dog running. But yes, song lyrics are more like poems which are slightly less grammatical.
Thanks for the reassurance. I wonder how people without lessons got them. But surely it sorts itself out.
The point about sentences is appreciated. They shouldn't be the end of understanding, just the beginning, allowing you to use them on later sentences from being reminded of them.
You know what I actually knew about sentences like that with a dog, but I didn't really think of them as the verb being a different place because when it comes before a noun to describe it I always think of it as using it as an adjective.
I was more thinking things like where people say things with verbs, then say the subject immediately after, after like a comma. Like saying somethings and then 君 or お前ら afterwards, to make it clear who or what they meant. Which is more common in songs etc. because you want to move around the location of objects for the sake of presentation.
Fantastic video.
Man, I relate to so much of what you're talking about in this video.
"I didn't like the most archetypal Japanese person".
I have also realized over time that what I love is the Japanese language itself and improving my ability to speak it, not so much the Japanese people, let alone (work)life in Japan.
@@bygaming3518 I know what you mean. I began studying in 2011, and I am already in this deep, there is no way I'm letting all of that go to waste, after all I do love the language. Even though I'm not in Japan anymore right now, I maintain close contact with (the few) true Japanese friends I have and I study actively every day, but I now feel much more detached from the whole Japan experience and am looking for other ways to make good use of my knowledge.
I do translation and interpreting jobs, I enjoy all sorts of media in Japanese, and I have multiple ideas for future youtube content revolving around Japanese and my experience in Japan.
Matt's been a great influence and inspiration.
I watched the whole thing, twice! Assisti tudo!
Thank God, I'm not that obsessed with learning languages. speaking in matt's words I actually suck at english but I'm contented with my level and skills I have got.
and it seems to me I've been ajatting without even knowing that
Great video Matt. It's really good to hear about your experiences with AJATT, I think it will empower many current AJATTers to work harder and power through. Btw, if you every make any more videos after this recent batch in the future, would you consider making a video about how to think in a different language? Because in my opinion, it is one of the most difficult aspects of learning any foreign language when you're starting out.
When you are starting out, you shouldn't be trying to think in the language. That would be no different than forcing output, which you should know leads to no good. Once you are immersing enough and understanding that immersion, you will start to find yourself thinking in the language naturally. It shouldn't require any effort, and therefore shouldn't be difficult at all.
Probably the best most realist video on this channel
Im American and not learning Japanese i just love your content haha im learning italian great content matt i watched the whole thing 👌
I only watched this after watching some of your other content. But had I watched this as my first video on your channel, I would have thought some of your views as extreme. But I now understand more of your philosophy on languages.
this is still your best video, I always talk about it to any people I meet who are studying japanese and a lot of them know about it already lol.
Thank you
Interesting to see how Matt's views on certain aspects of the methodology have evolved over time: Lazy Kanji, Pre-made decks in the beginning, etc.
One of my fav videos ever. 😮
Thank you for making this available. The honesty is much appreciated. The obvious answer is that It is wise to have your identity resolved before immersing in another culture. Even if you are impressed by their ways, you are still you and they are them.
This was a very interesting and insightful video, thanks for taking the time to do it!!
Personally my main problem has always been that I have way too many interests and it's hard for me to keep to one thing for long... like with Japanese for example, I'd want to play games that are not in japanese or watch shows or youtube videos that arent in japanese or I'd wanna spend more time with friends, and because of that my immersion was always pretty half-assed... yeah sure id have periods of 1-15 days where immersion was as high as possible (any time except during work since I'm not allowed headphones), but then I would often also do just a couple minutes and then move on to doing other things with my day... and I know that if I wanna restart learning japanese, I'd have to drop all these other things and I'm not sure if that's a commitment that I am willing to take, sadly
life is all about priorities.... "I have way too many interests and it's hard for me to keep to one thing for long"... In my personal opinion that honestly doesn't sound like a good recipe for a meaningful and fulfilling life. No one was born a rock star; don't let stories you tell yourself about your own personality inhibit your potential.
@@mattvsjapan i relate to you.. i have a Lot of interest in japanese, drawing and philosophy, and i think this is an issue too, tho i agree with Matt
Matt, your stuff is amazing and I'm a huge fan! It did make me laugh when you said your English pronunciation is perfect, but your pronunciation of the word pronunciation is... well, nonstandard. 😄 anyway, keep up the great work and thanks for all your content!!
I definitely think speaking does help you get better at speaking, but ofc becoming fluent first involves understanding. If you don’t understand, anything then speaking doesn’t matter
The first time I watched this I skipped the first hour and a half and thought it sounded pessimistic and negative but then I watched the whole thing a second time and now it sounds enlightening lmao. Thank you! Not being deterred by this video has made me realize I actually do want to learn Japanese and not for a shallow reason.
Incase I come back- 1:43:00, 1:47:00, 1:49:55, 1:52:25, 1:53:38, 1:56:30 -1:57:55, 2:02:02 - 2:05:06, 2:07:25 - 2:08:28, 2:11:00, 2:13:27, 2:15:55, 2:17:07, 2:17:34, 2:19:05, 2:20:00, 2:21:15, 2:21:54, 2:24:00, 2:30:05 (MONOLINGUAL), 2:32:02, 2:33:07, 2:36:10, 2:37:35, 2:41:36, 2:43:00, 2:44:30, 2:51:00, 2:54:38, 2:55:30, 2:57:58, 2:59:20, 3:00:13, 3:00:50
I would assume that the best books about meditation, in Japanese, would be the actual treatise by people like Dogen. However, then you'd have to wade through a lot of philosophical and religious language to get what you wanted. My former Professor of Buddhist Studies had a similar issue. He had to force himself to learn archaic Japanese to read the Pure Land commentaries and treaties. Personally, I'm working my way up to that.
For English books, check out anything from Shambhala or Brad Warner. I like Brad's description of Zen meditation, and, despite my being from a different school, quite enjoy his outlook.
Good Luck Matt! You've helped a lot of people over the years!
This video was instrumental for my Japanese journey. This is the video that convinced me to take immersion seriously. Best decision I made for my Japanese!
I started in 2020, and it's been 3 years, so did it work?
もちろんです！私の日本語はまだまだですけど、3年前からずいぶんと上達しましたよ！！
I am not very good at speaking or writing yet, so my output probably sounds bad. However, I can fake my way through a conversation, I can sometimes understand 90% of what I hear in anime and I now read light novels and manga.
It's made the difference between being crippled with broken limbs, and being able to go to the gym and work out to become stronger. I now know it works, and I can continue to increase the gains any time.
I have tangible ability and a study routine that far, far, far exceeds most of the poor souls who exited school with nothing. I don't use textbooks much, I just study media/immerse.
I have a flashcard deck I made myself, I programmed every card to make a sentence and word card, and I study for the meaning from one sentence, pitch accent and kanji all at once. I can recall so much information by assigning custom characters to the primitives, and texturing the words with stories that suggest the pitch and meaning.
So, 別れる is nakadaka, and I have an image of someone having his head swiped off in a circular pattern, separating it from the torso. わ➚かれ➘る
額縁 is heiban, and I have one anime character throwing a paper airplaine from her house to her school, hitting the top of a picture frame, getting stuck, on the wall of her club room. 学 がく school, 部 ぶ club, and I just remember the last sound intuitively. が➚くぶち
気分 I have a piece of someone's feelings on the ground き➘ぶん。
And for odaka I imagine something falling. So I have someone falling in a deceptive hole for 村, む➚ら➘〇 to symbolize the sudden drop at the end.
And for similar words like 平気 I can imagine someone standing up へ➚いき, because they're well, vs. 兵器 へ➘いき, a weapon on the ground.
This information does not become cumbersome in reviewing Anki, and allows me to rebuild words if I don't immediately remember them. I fail maybe 2-3 cards a day, and mostly intuitively remember most of them. If I fail it multiple times, I make an mnemonic like these I listed. It's like compressing the information, it's really easy.
And yeah, I have a lot to be grateful for with this video. The one day where I'll be fluent is not really on my mind because I've fallen in love with this routine. I also love having a practical reason to rewatch my favorite anime/reread my favorite literature over and over again. One day I'll have an absurd sense for these shows/books, and I already shock people with how accurately I remember Lucky Star.
Anyway, I'm headed back to finish my Anki for today and read some 日溜まりの街、so thank you, Matt. Really important video. I hope to one day teach my process for remembering pitch, because I personally think I have an above-average memory for it with the method I described. Thanks again!
PS: If I could give anyone one piece of advice for listening immersion it's this: Turn off your brain, stop translating in your head, just follow the story and let the words flow. They're not going anywhere.
I'm halfway through the video but going out for food and wanted to comment. I'll keep going. I am 43. I studied German a lot by reading book after book after book and listening to this really good German radio channel for learning German and for Germans living abroad. Excellent content. This was my hobby in my early and mid 20's. I would guestimate my level was B2 with a killer vocabulary. No rote memorization (no anki back then) just immersion, a couple paper dictionaries (Big, medium, small), and a cheap but good Grammar for when I wanted to read or check on the grammar. I stopped German around age 30 and didn't do languages until age 34 when I was thinking about Japanese and decided to go for it before I got too old to learn a 2nd language (if that happens?). Anyway, while I previously might once in a while look at German a little, I did nothing with it. It's basically been 13 years of NO GERMAN for me. And to be clear I never lived in Germany ever and barely had any conversations in German it was all input. I was watching UA-cam today and I did not need subtitles to understand. I don't believe that I totally stayed the same but I do not need subtitles to understand casual German. At all. It doesn't seem like they're speaking fast or anything. So you could totally ignore Japanese for 13 years like I did German and it would still be there if you needed it. Crazy right.
It sounds like your host mom was actually rather nice. The family was "poor" and yet she still offered to take you to see places on the weekends. Sure, she may have given you leftovers for your bento, but to me it sounds like she was doing her best. I know you have likely reflected on that, but I just wanted to leave a comment about it.
Have a nice day. :)
420th like one day late. Great job man. You're an inspiration.
Only 12 mins in. and this is great!
Hi Matt,
I'm also fluent in Japanese. I started learning in 2013 and while I didn't specifically use AJATT, a lot of what I did was very similar and I based most of my study methods on Stephen Krashen's lectures.
I think one of the reasons I had so much success with Japanese was because of all the material / media there is (specifically anime).
I've been wanting to take up a third language for a couple years now but the wall I'm running into is that I can't find the same sort of resources I had when I learned Japanese. Do you have any recommendations for other languages?
When you were talking about thinking too hard to speak japanese, I can clarify. I know you might have figured this out 4 years later but just in case you haven't here goes. I think I am very qualified to say this since my native language is french (spoken at home) and my surroundings are mostly english outside of home. I could technically consider myself native at 2 languages. Nowadays, I think in english and not in french and have done so for a few years. What I noticed is that if I go long periods of time without speaking one or the other, I get cluncky and overthink and it comes out entirely unnatural. By now, I consider my english a lot better than my french. What I notice is, I have 0 issue speaking in french at school because I have always gone to a french school thus, the context of everything I learned is french, meaning I could actually convey what I'm thinking related to those subjects better. When speaking to friends, we talk about our hobbies, which I have always learned in english, meaning that when I try to speak in french about it (for any reason), it sounds terrible (as if I'm not even a native speaker). Since I consume most content in english, and probably always will, it will most likely always be my dominent language. If I were to spend a summer entirely consumed by french, and re learn all my hobbies in french, I could easily revert this and become as natural as I used to be when I was younger. You clearly recognized that you could become near native level if you actually spent a lot more time speaking, but the reason I'm posting this comment is that I want to help you clear your doubt (or anyone else reading who is going through something similar). I may be wrong since I was not an adult learning these two languages, but I do know what it's like to still have to improve despite being native. Even native people struggle on their own language, it's just that they don't worry about being perfect (that's why they are not uncomfortable like you are when tackling new subjects). I am honestly sometimes embarassed to speak in french just like you are afraid to mess up in japanese, explaining why you spend 20% of your brain power on not messing up. I do the same in my NATIVE LANGUAGE, I overthink and it comes out less natural. I have that same aching feeling of why the fuck is it so hard when I know so much of the language. All this is just to say that if you really did go live in Japan, it would go away, I could almost guarantee it, if it does not, it's most likely your mind playing games on itself because subconsciously you may not accept any small mistakes (when native speakers make just as many dumb mistakes). Sorry for not revising this paragraph and not correcting the grammar, I just really wanted to ramble and share my experience. If anyone actually read this, I can't believe u just read this entire block of rambling, good for you.
also small side note/edit: i make most mistakes when i just randomly switch between my two languages, because then I make the mistake of thinking in one language, and outputting in the other, which as we all know, not everything is 1-1 translation. This especially happens with expressions. Some thoughts are best expressed (and only ever expressed) in one language, which may explain part of why you never really felt connected with those japanese people, as you could never truly express yourself as some things could only be expressed in english, making you lonely. (im sure u realized that already tho). Also thank you for being dead honest in this video, a lot of the things u said were embarrassing but honestly had to be said as a big wake up call to everyone. It really opened my eyes to the reality of learning japanese and how I may never truly connect with some people as I was hoping to. I won't give up on japanese though, I'll push through.
Thank you for sharing your experience and thoughts. Found them very valuable as someone thinking of learning japanese.
"They think they're a different brand of human" is a great way of putting it.
Really, those were good advises.
Woah, the views on this video shot up! I remember watching this back in 2017 a few months after it uploaded. It was my introduction to AJATT
honest and good video
You are a crazy person and I absolutely love you
I don't know about anyone else but I'm on the younger side, and I've always heard pitch accent anyway. Like if I think of a phrase in my head (ie それ訳ないじゃん）I hear a character I've heard before saying it, with correct pitch. Very interesting.