Sorry if I seem a little low energy in this video! Due to the time zone difference, I had to wake up earlier than usually to film 😅 Olly has a lot of insight into the psychology of people learning languages, so I think you guys will find this video really helpful. Enjoy! Check out the video we did on Olly's channel as well! ua-cam.com/video/c21-nCVmieA/v-deo.html
Random Question Matt: when you watch an american show dubbed, is the japanese native sounding, or do they speak differently because of the original english?
You're energy level was fine! Nothing to worry about. I could only barely hear you snoring. 🤣 seriously thougj, if you hadn't said anything I would have noticed nothing.
Timestamps 0:00 Introducing Olly Richards 1:45 #10 - Read at your level 4:25 #9 - Focus on plot 7:55 #8 - Door closed, phone off 9:35 #7 - Learn the script/writing system 10:55 #6 - Don't look up words 13:30 #5 - Listen while reading 15:50 #4 - Read it, then read it again 22:40 #3 - Don't study grammar 28:40 #2 - Learn everyday 30:05 #1 - Trust in the process 37:20 Conclusion
Focusing on the plot is so underrated. I really struggled to find content "at my level" when I started learning Korean. But then I changed the definition of "at my level". My new definition was: can I follow the plot? If yes, even just barely, then that's good enough. My progress is much faster when I get things that are much closer to my level than that, but even then. The lowest threshold for me is "can I follow the plot?".
@@bildeglimt that's pretty impressive! About the Korean: 5 years into Japanese and I can understand 0.1% of anime, so understanding TV shows is pretty impressive! Also, sounds like your life has been quite the adventure.
my TL is korean and I was just watching a korean guy giving a lecture on language teaching/learning as immersion as I felt that it was a topic I would want to be able to talk about in korean too, and he started talking about 학습(learning) vs 습득(acquisition) and namedropped krashen and input hypothesis, i really felt like i had come full circle haha. thank you Matt for your videos; if I hadn't come across your channel a year ago, my korean would be nowhere near where it is now, if i'd even know any at all. ✊
Putting output so far back actually really makes sense to me. It's how I learnt English. As mentioned in the video, I'm one of those Europeans who "just happened" to learn English. Looking back, I was basically just reading things to begin with. Games, Forum posts, eventually even the first book of Harry Potter. During that, I did also write a little bit, but it was pretty terrible. I don't think this actually contributed much to me acquiring the language, but more something I did out of "necessity". Eventually, I got to watching English TV shows. Stargate Atlantis, in particular. There was one character who always mumbled and I couldn't understand a word he said, so I watched it with English subtitles first. On my second go (there was quite some time between these), I could understand everything even without the subtitles. It still took some effort, but it was fine. A couple years ago, I got invited to a TeamSpeak call by an English person. I was a bit hesitant, considering I never really spoke English before, but it ended up being perfectly fine. He could barely believe I had never actually spoken English before that time. (Sure, there was the occasional time in class, but a grand total of like 20 sentences doesn't really count for much) Apparently I didn't even have that much of an accent. Though, granted, I always made that, when reading, I'd always speak in my mind - and tried to pronounce things in my head as accurately as I could. Not sure that helped, but that is what I did. Said English person has been a friend for a couple years now and apparently my accent has improved even more, but I basically started out with barely an accent, which I thought was pretty amazing. Refold takes a similar path. When I first read through it the other day, I basically thought "yup, this is exactly what I would recommend, were I to try and come up with a method"
Can relate to this, I never had anyone to speak english to, and i havent ever put in any effort into learning it, but it just came by itself since i first started playing video games in english and then started watching yt videos and to read books
Olly's bit against TV at 21:48 reminded me of an aspect of my own acquisition of English that I hadn't previously thought about. I did not learn English through games or chatting with people online, the way Matt talked about earlier in the video. Instead I learned English by watching a staggaring amount of TV after school. I would watch sit-coms and MacGyver, or whatever was on the Discovery Channel, all aired in the original undubbed English (yay Norway). Importantly, there would for some shows (like The Simpsons, Friends, and others) be two episodes a day, where the first of the two would be a repeat of yesterday's second episode. Obviously, since there was nothing better to do, I would watch both. I wonder how much worse my English would have been today had the networks done things differently.
It's important to note the difference in the types of language learners they are. Olly is a polyglot who has gotten 8+ languages up to at least (im not sure to what extent he is fluent) upper intermediate level. His goal is not to speak like a native speaker. Matt is learning like a child (not an insult, lol). MASSIVE INPUT for years and then grammar study, like a child learning to read in school, though the process is a little quicker. Both of these types make for great language learners, and it is interesting to compare, contrast, and form my own methods to aid my personal journey.
@@storylearning haha, Hey Olly if someone who can watch to let's say Matt's videos, or even yours videos and understand 80% of it but when take a test, he does it very badly. Do you think that it might be because that person has never looked up grammar rules? Note: I'm the person
I think the hardest part is the begining. When I listen to podcasts and watch anime without subs. It's just meaningless giberish and i feel like I'm wasting my time sometimes lol.
It’s the same for me with podcasts, i‘ll roughly understand every 4th sentence and that makes it difficult follow the conversation. With anime you wanna be watching something simple in the beginning like slice-of-life or romcoms, because i can understand about half of what they’re actually saying, but because it’s a visual medium i understand 100% what’s going on. Also, you have to spend a *shit ton* of time actually watching it without subtitles. I understood barely anything when i started doing this about 2 months ago. But by watching at least an hour of anime almost every day, i can already understand a big portion of what’s going on. Just keep on grinding, you‘ll get there eventually, that’s what i keep telling myself, and i even have evidence for it, because it’s the exact same way i learned english
@@_rinnegan3learn words and read very easy short stories. Keep doing that until you have a handful of words ingrained into your head. When you watch movies, listen to music and podcast you will be able to pick out those words easily. Keep repeating and try having very basic conversations with native speakers.
What's been working for me is to watch easy anime once through with Japanese subs, then go back and dissect all the words and understand all the sentences, then go back and watch it with Japanese subs only. It's a lot of rewatching the same thing, but at least I feel like I'm progressing. Just make sure you pick something you really like. Also, it's a little difficult finding Japanese subtitles, but it's definitely worth it, especially at the beginning.
@@_rinnegan3 Another system i find helpfull is pimsleur its more speaking focused but their system is really good at exposing you to native speakers and aquiring words. There are thing from pimsleur i have maintained in my memory for years. But i focusing more on input especially audio occasionally i will look up words that come up alot.
I'm a simple man, I find a video by Matt, automatically press the like button, then watch, then go back to the like button wondering why its' blue since I now consciously want to give it a like so badly! Man your videos are really awesome and helpful! Wish you all the good luck
I've been experimenting with reading something several times without lookups, before I finally allow myself to look things up. It's been almost shocking how much more I understand the second and third time through, even without looking things up. I generally have to do this specifically as a "study" activity, though, because if I'm reading for pleasure I can't be bothered to read the same thing multiple times. (I also never re-watch things back to back. I only do this with pure reading or pure listening.) I have also experimented with - looking nothing up, ever, and - looking basically everything up, and - looking some things up on my first read through. In the end, all of these seem to have a different purpose/use. Though I must admit that I almost never look everything up anymore. It's just too tedious, and generally means that I'm reading too far above my level.
This is amazing. I enjoy Olly Richards Japanese courses (I have just about every course he offers. Adding refold to the mix has been nothing short of fantastic. I'm glad you both were able to make a collaboration with each other. Learning Japanese by immersion has been an amazing experience fueled by the work you guys have put out. I'm so fortunate of what we have available now for studying Japanese. I wish we had these resources years ago when I was first studying but I'm glad we have it now. Thanks for all the work you guys have put into this.
Hi! Language immersion always has been around and here in Finland it's very common thing at schools. It is also something you take it further, meaning that you actually study other languages in your seconde language. I study French by using almost material in english and then also study French language in French. Input is all you you hear or read and comprehensible input is that you understand the message and meaning. Krashen has talked about this since 70s. You do great guys!
This method reminds me of "natural method", which my Latin teacher used in our classes. It's basically a book (Lingua Latina by Hans Ørberg) with stories, and you progress from "Italia in Europa est." to more complex sentences, with little to no grammar. It was fun learning that way, but it's maybe more useful for a living language that one would actually speak in. Would be interesting to compile such texts for other languages as well.
Very interesting video. I am now a true believer in this concept and I look forward to it helping me to attain real fluency in my target languages. I have a very solid foundation in Russian and Spanish using classical methods of language learning. But...I still have difficulty with understanding speech and I am stuck on the intermediate level of both languages. Now, in my defense, when I first learned these languages back in the 70s and 80s, we didn't have the internet which makes a HUGE difference in language learning. I had books and tapes and shortwave radio and any natives I could track down and convince to talk with me (very tiring for THEM). Definitely a very different language learning playing field. On the opposite side of the spectrum is how I learned German. I was living in Germany and decided that I would just go out in town and start learning German. I went the "extreme" route and got married to a German and well, just read and spoke and listened to the language. No grammar. No exercises. No classes. Just did it. Within 9 months, I was speaking fluently. Germans were amazed at how well I spoke in such a short time. I'm not perfect by any means, but I could definitely hold my own in the vast majority of situations. And that was using the methods you discuss. Next stop? Doing the same thing in Russian and Spanish. Thanks for these techniques, Matt and Ollie. I plan on incorporating them into my study. I work with Russian and Spanish teachers on italki and have already passed some of your content to them. They are very impressed.
Wow, good timing. I'm reading his book "Short Stories in Swedish" right now! It has been very helpful. I didn't realize that's who this was until he held up his "Short Stories in Spanish" book.
@@storylearning I'll be honest and say I hadn't even looked at the author of the book yet. I just saw it, downloaded the Kindle preview, then bought it immediately. It's wonderful! Once I'm done, I'll be looking for other Swedish short stories for beginners. I'm finding these to be really useful. Thanks! EDIT: I just bought Short Stories in Korean for my daughter. She's intermediate in Korean, so that should be perfect for her.
I'm wondering why the Korean Short Stories book is graded differently from the others. I didn't find the Korean short stories particularly challenging, at least not enough to warrant the "intermediate" label when it is the same stories as the ones labeled "for beginners" in other languages. @Olly Richards any comment on that?
This video was a great motivation boost that I'm on the right track honestly. I actually found that I'm already doing a lot of the laws already either on accident or by reading about them on refold (or previously mia). Really informative video thanks Matt!
I would say: Do look up words when you planned to do so. Determine in advance whether you will read intensively or extensively and stick to it. Then, when you do look up words, go further than that: mine sentences by relying on phrases dictionaries so that you will get to understand the words you focus on in contexts.
Great video, I’m a year in on Vietnamese and some days I feel like a damn champ and talk to the locals perfectly. Some days I fuck up and can barely get a decent food order in. Feels good to know other people aren’t just leveling up like a video game. It’s a long process and it’s ok to have some gaps and talk like a child from time to time. Hard to find motivation of others who have actually succeeded in my target language so stuff like this really makes me feel like I’m not just wasting my time.
It only just dawned on me while Watchung this that I could be listening to Japanese audiobooks while reading the pdf file (or real book) at the same time. I can't wait to start that. Thank you!
29:38 Exactly. I went from cramming for hours at work with long breaks in between to just consistently doing about an hour and a half of serious, consious language learning using Anki, JP101, and a lesson of genki and about and hour or two of playing games or watching anime/films in japanese or reading a day. The difference in retention was remarkable. The words I'd struggle with in anki or my podcasts would start to be cemented in my brain after continuously encountering then in context within the entertainment I was consuming. It felt like I had made several months progress in just a number of weeks. Every time I'd hear or read something that i felt was overwhelming, it would motivate me to study again the next day so that I'd be closer to comprehension. After a while I started to use ChatGPT to help me check my output (still nowhere near where I'd like to be) and correct me when needed. I hope to upgrade to speaking with natural speakers soon to begin language generation, which has always been difficult for me in the other languages I spent time learning in school (Spanish, French, and a smidge of German) as I never struggled with comprehension like i have with generation. I'm hoping the difference this time is that it's a language I love and a culture I have been passionately curious about since I was a little boy. If you've read this far, good luck and don't give up. Keep at it with persistence and consistency, and never stop being curious!
It's exciting to start this journey with Refold. Just started today following the unofficial Japanese guide. Looking forward to following your method and seeing where it takes me! Thank you
One aspect that really help me to improve is to listen to the pronunciations of words. Many times we thought that we know the word as we used it quite often but sometimes if we listen to it very carefully we could discover that there is a slight variations in pitch, tone & duration, which could change the meaning entirely 👌
Hi Matt, thank you for your share, I study English at School, but I can not to be native level, and sometime is is hard to communicate, I found the way we learn English is not right, Now I use the new rules and comprehensible input to improve my English, thank you for your share.
24:18 Well said. I deleted my grammar deck in Anki because grammar example sentences are so bizarre and unnatural it was hurting more than helping. It made the process more of a grind rather than something enjoyable.
absolutely love this vid! I've been studying my target language for years using a more skill acquisition method and my language proficiency really wasn't improving. When I started reading webtoons in my target language (which I absolutely love doing!) and watching tv shows in that language, I significantly improved! I even surprised my native speaking tutor ha! Never thought an immersion method would work for me, but it definitely does!
Thank you guys for this very insightful and highly motivational talk about language learning approaches! I've been learning Korean at university for about a year now and just recently got into learning Japanese and Mandarin Chinese as well, often finding myself in doubt of the progress I've already made, due to me having acquired bad (language) learning habits during my school years up until my mid 20s and ending up becoming something I'd like to call a 'lazy perfectionist'. Came to realise I've been stuck in a 'spiral of doubt', eventually subconsciously sabotaging my own learning experience, despite already being aware of all/actively applying most of the learning principles/strategies you guys discussed but the one GOLDEN rule (, which therefore rightfully is mentioned as rule №1 in this video in my opinion,) to TRUST THE PROCESS... What started with questioning the efforts I put into learning my target languages, the progress I made thus far and therefore the pace I've been learning with, ended up with me almost completely putting a halt to my learning endeavours, simply because I lost faith in the process... Fortunately I'm on a good way slowly getting back on track, immersing myself in content about the cultures I love and practicing again on an almost daily basis! Therefore a little reminder to everyone out there: Take your time (, especially when learning multiple languages simultaneously), don't push yourself too hard, you CAN and WILL accomplish your goals IN TIME, if you keep learning persistently - even if you just engage in learning for half an hour (almost) each and every day! Becoming proficient in any language is just like learning any other (more tangible) craft - it takes years actually becoming good at what you do, decades to truly master the art and a lifetime of commitment being a true virtuoso some day! We are all humans, we are not meant to be perfect, neither is any form of our learning experience - we make mistakes on a daily basis, but with enough perseverance only the sky's the limit! ;)
Studying grammar, even some of the nitty gritty details, is not a bad thing in and of itself. I'm a grammar nerd and have always loved investigating grammar patterns and knowing the specific rules behind different structures. However, it becomes a problem when studying grammar is basically ALL you do in the language. While I loved listening to grammar podcasts when learning Korean, the majority of my time was still spent watching Korean TV. I didn't practice the grammar by doing a bunch of exercises -- I would learn a rule and then it would stand out to me in all the TV shows I was watching. If someone enjoy studying grammar, I wouldn't tell them to stop doing that. I would just balance that by saying that if they aren't also getting lots of input alongside that grammar study, they are using their time/effort very inefficiently, since they will progress much more slowly with a lot more effort. (Of course, if someone doesn't enjoy grammar, then Matt's method of "knowing the gist of things" is probably good enough to progress you along, and hearing natural sentences over and over again will train your brain on how to construct sentences.)
I wish my University had these rules. I failed my language class because I couldn't speak properly after one semester, even though I could read everything in the textbook, knew 1000 kanji and could understand basic speech. Formal education has such a focus on speaking (and grammar) that they're dishonest and misleading to students who really want to learn. Thankfully, I am doing Refold now and learn from both Matt and Olly all the time.
Hello I am from Germany, I always was terrible at learning languages. I started learning Japanese this year. I was always interested in learning Japanese but I could never really start to learn. I like the JLPT. It's a very useful guide to get a structure for learning. What do you think of JLPT? For me it is a goog source of learning material, exspecially vocabulary. My current working schedule is the following: - learn jlpt vocabulary (via audio files and flash cards) - watch easy content (jlpt listening practice, childrens song) for motivation/continue learning - watch anime with subtitle ( I don't link reading, so I am more focussed on listening) - I started to watch japanese news. this is really fun. It's very easy to understand single words and the content is often easy to understand visually. Therefore a lot of vocabulary from the lower jlpt lessons are used ( like "yesterday", "problem", "police", etc) - sometime watch grammer videos, but mostly for entertaiment instead for learning, because that's all not so difficult compared to German or Latin. I tried out some japanese lyrics to song texts, but that doesn't work well for me. So even if I watch anime with subtitle I learn a few words. My strategy is: diversify my Input/Sources of new vocabulary and find something that is fun/I can do daily
Rule #1, trust the process, works in a lot of facets of life. Trying to lose weight and having a day where you mysteriously gained 2 pounds? Just trust the process and keep going. Studying for an exam and just feel like you'll never get it? Just trust the process and keep working at it. Don't have a temper tantrum and throw all your hard work away.
Very interesting interview, thanks! 🙂 Talking about grammar study, I agree with both of you but I also think that for some languages it is easier to figure out the underlying logic than for others. In case of Japanese, it's probably a big advantage that the grammar is very regular and that the inflections always corresponds to a specific meaning (e.g. as markers of the past, negation, imperative, etc.) For less regular languages, this is not as clear cut, especial if they have a case system and genders. Therefore, I think it's good that Matt emphasised that additional grammar study can benefit comprehension.
someone needs to tell olly about the language learning with netflix extension. it gives you the entire script on screen and you can replay a line of dialogue with a mouse click.
I'm Japanese and I was interested in your video "Talking to Japanese in Japanese" that I happened to find, so I'm watching this video now. I haven't seen the other videos in detail, so if you've already made another similar video, I'm sorry, but could you make another video with that kind of content?
Steve Kaufmann has always said to read and then re-read many times the same story (Olly’s Rule #4). I’ve never used Steve’s LingQ but I’m pretty sure they propose this method. I like the idea and will employ it for Japanese now that I’m finally reading.
Always new knowledge from Matts channel for language. Btw.. In Islam some doubts are from setan.. So we try to seek refuge from doubts especially in doubts that blurrs ur mind.
I think the correct balance to looking up new words is look them up almost every time. Don’t you recommend preventing bad habits? What if you assume a word meaning and just are wrong?
The problem with subtitles is that the quality and accuracy will vary wildly and there aren't necessarily set standards. I used to do translations in Spain with my gf of American TV shows and movies. We were often given scripts (or even no script and we'd have to do our own transcriptions- old Westerns, for example) at the last minute and we had to turn them over in a few days. We did a pretty good job but some other translators were horrible.
Great interview! I agree with the points that were made and have found them to be true in my own journey. I just wanted to share one observation about learning the script of your target language. I'm studying Jordanian Arabic and I know the Arabic alphabet and its markings for vowels, doubling consonants, etc. I find understanding all of this to be very helpful for understanding why words are pronounced the way that they are. . . But most real-life Arabic writing does not contain any of these markings, a lot of Levantine Arabic TV content has subtitles in Modern Standard Arabic (no help), and, consequently, I find reading to be a VERY SLOW, unenjoyable process. . . I wish that there were more resources where there was the Arabic script alongside a romanized transliteration so that learners like me could focus on the goal of learning how to listen to and speak the language and acquire the language naturally, rather than on how to decipher a foreign writing system (which is a different set of skills). I really think that scripts matter a lot in terms of what learning techniques are most efficient and what resources learners have to choose from. There's no one size fits all. If I were learning French or Spanish, subtitles and story learning would take me so far!
Additionally to the first point, pedagogical academic Vygotsky poses the idea of a zone of proximal development when approaching teaching (others) or learning yourself. This zone is where you are challenged, but still able to achieve the task without too much help (in this case from a dictionary etc.) but not so easy that the task becomes mundane and redundant.
One of the frustrating things for me about rule 6 (I think that's it) is that reading as a beginner means I'm not going to understand much of anything. How does one carry on without looking things up, if they understand 5% or less of that they read?
I think that goes back to reading at your level and requiring some degree of understanding before you begin using reading as a tool for immersion. But I personally heavily disagree with assertion that if I come across a word I don’t know in English I don’t search it up. I 100% search it up. I think it’s a matter of ‘do you want to simply read a story’ or ‘do you want to learn the language’.
@@xllvr I agree. And it's both for me. I want to learn Japanese, and read a story. It would be painful to force myself to read something without enjoying some sort of plot. I found a website that lets me read material for 1st grade Japanese students, and I still hardly understand anything without looking words up 😔
@@DANGJOS that frustration is the other side of the achievement you’ll feel when you can read it. As much as it’s pissing you off now, you’ll be that proud of yourself when you over come this challenge.
I remember when I started immersing myself in English. At the time, I wasn't aware that it will help me achive fluency quickly, I was just an 11yo looking up transformers toys and videogames and choosing to watch popular english youtubers instead of ones within my country. This was when I was around 4th to 5th grade and I was struggling on a nokia touchscreen phone with a plastic stylus. You know, the ones from 2009/2010. Then when I got an s3 and entered android land, it became much easier to look stuff up and as a consequence in about a year I went from not knowing much of what was talked about in the videos to comprehending everything, but still not at a good level when it came to outputing but surprisingly school helped me with that part which was mostly about understanding grammar and writing word property. But yeah, even if it feels like you're not getting anything, your brain will subconsciously build up knowledge of the language until one day it clicks and you realise you're able to understand it.
As somebody born speaking (Hiberno) English and still arguably monolingual. I, with a knowledge base of 50k+ words, STILL look things up I come across that I do not understand. I would make the case that this is why I can "pontificate on erudite minutiae with abyssal intricacy; from the numismatic and numerate to the etymological to the entomological (even if it bugs you)". There are entire levels of knowledge even above native-level. Formal, Professional, Doctorate and even Tolkien-esque. So, the baby to not lose with the bath water is that if your goal is to be further than you are now then the climb never stops. That looking things up never stops but should never exceed a level where it detracts from learning. In my case looking up a new word in English is a (bi-tri)yearly occurrence which doesn't detract from anything. Likewise no "fourth language" is going to see you writing a Silmarillion or Lord of the Rings in it. It's probably something you're fine at plateauing in because while you like it and the ability to connect with it, it was only ever intended to reach a certain plain to begin with. Your end-goals and personal desires may vary. 😁
So I’m curious what level of fluency should I be at when I start mass immersion? Because it doesn’t seem beneficial to just immerse myself while in the beginning stages of learning when I don’t know many words and just have a basic understanding of the Japanese alphabet (hiragana, katakana).
My issue with watching with subtitles, especially with Japanese, the translations seem to be approximations rather actual translations. I hate hearing a word that I know has a direct translation but I don't see it in the subtitles. I don't know if I should just be okay with not always understanding what's happening on screen and just absorb the audio or try to find something with more literal translation.
On the theme of repetition, I got chat GPT to write texts using only the 500 most commonly used words in modern Ukrainian. It did it very well, and after each idea I had, I thought of a related theme and asked it to write another text the same way (I then imported it into LingQ, on which all features are free for Ukrainian right now, and there I generated audio for it). So this itself created a lot of repeated language, in that it was limiting to those 500 words (maybe 250 could work even), but also that the themes were similar. But then I had the idea of asking it to write about philosophy in Ukraine with the same limitations. It still created a reasonably simple text, but a more interesting one, which was also a positive, but then I asked it to expand on certain areas of what it had said. And there kept being errors and it got cut off again and again, so I asked it again and again, so I ended up with around 40 texts of around 200 words about very similar things, but organising and phrasing it differently every time. So thus I ended up with many of the same words repeated again and again but in various sentences and at least slightly different contexts. Now I know, and will probably never forget, among a bunch of others, the word "відповідальність".
Hi Matt! Would be curious to see your thoughts on using immersion to learn non-language things, I've seen more and more about immersing in things like programming or art history or any other discipline since there's so much content on the Internet nowadays
Hi Matt, this video is pretty old so I'm not sure if you'll answer any comments on it, but at what point in Japanese/in a language (I don't learn Japanese) would you recommend switching off subs? You both mentioned high intermediate/low advanced? I know Japanese doesn't use A1-C2, but at what point are subtitles too much of a crutch? Currently at the B2 level and still quite unsure about that. Thanks for any feedback.
Now you can use Chat GPT and ask it to write texts in the target language at the level you want. I've tried it. It works very well, with a bit of thinking and tweaking of the instructions you give it.
I've studied French intensively for more than 3 years and I'm only now beginning to understand basic grammar. I'm just beginning to assimilate the syntax. I grudgingly accept weird constructions, one at a time. My knowledge progresses letter by letter. The weight of the language is crushing.
I have a question for all of you! I’m halfway through RTK1, but I always look up each kanji on jisho.org to compare the meaning with Heisig’s keyword. I do this to get a better understanding of the meaning of the kanji. Do you think this is a waste of time? Should I stick with Heisig’s keywords and spend that “look-up” time to learn more kanji instead?
A majority of people use rrtk which is a simpler version but sufficient version of rtk. And it contains multiple keywords for each kanji so no need to use jisho
@@fedexman In my opinion, RRTK seems like the “cheat” way to get through the kanji and doesn’t fit my learning style. My retention rate is probably 90-95% so far, and I think RRTK would bring that down.
@@pritheebecareful7070 yes the concept is to cheat the learning of kanji. I've done full rtk, and I regret it because it took me a lot of time and there a lot of not so commun kanji that I've forgot because I didn't see them as often, and with time you discover that you don't need to learn new kanji, you learn them naturally with new vocabulary. If you like kanji and rtk, continue like this, but I warn you that you will not gain very much compare to rrtk, in the long term.
With japanese I have a constant problem of getting this nice advice of not looking things up. Maybe its ok in more roman and/or alphabetical languages (lets say korean), but not looking things up in japanese feels like just painting this word with thick black merker. It's not some hard to understand thing, like let's say (lets pretend you can read russian) "хилы хилят, дд ддшат, танки танчат" - it's not something you can "read" and be ok with not understanding it for now. With japanese the word becomes just a void and I dont understand how people solve this problem( And so I don't reaaly understand how free-flow can work with reading japanese.
If you're doing free flow then just let the word be a void. The whole point of free flow is to get as much japanese through your mind as possible. Looking up every word is contrary to that goal. Also, a lot of words don't really matter. Like for in this sentence deleted several, but you probably figure gist of it anyway. I deleted 6 words from that sentence, but you can still figure out that it's about a bunch of something getting deleted but what was deleted wasn't too important. If you googled every word I deleted you would spend probably a couple minutes on the single sentence just to find out the missing words "example, I, words, can, out, the" but the only word that actually would help you understand more is "words" because that's the thing that was deleted and the rest are mostly grammar words. So now you've only slightly increased your understanding of the message, when you could've read an entire paragraph in the meantime. Also, it's really boring looking up every word, so staying entertained is a strong motivator to not look up too many words. That's not to say never look up words, like for example if a word keeps coming up or seems critical to the message of a sentence, you should probably look it up, but at a certain point you just have to not only learn to be okay with ambiguity since you probably won't understand the sentence even if you google the words as you've never seen them before, but to do the cost benefit analysis and recognize that it's not that good of an idea to look up too many words.
Yeah I agree with you, when reading text novels and such. Other languages allow you to phonetically engage with unknown words. In most cases, to phonetically engage with an unknown word in Japanese/Chinese, you need to use a mouseover dictionary to get the reading. Sometimes it's a word you already know the pronunciation for, but not how it's written. That's a wasted opportunity if you don't mouseover it. A compromise I make sometimes is I only using a mouseover dictionary to get the reading.
@@bobboberson8297 the fun thing is in most cases the void-word is crucial. And I can understand it's crucial..ness.. whatever)) I know that void-word is the last thing that separates me from understanding the main point. Lets say it's the last chapter of a book and it's something like "So the story ends here and now. She knew what she had to do. The time had come at last. And so she оченьнепонятноеслово! The end" - how could I not look up something THIS important. Maybe its a problem of type of content that I'm interested in enough to consume, but it's always like this. And so every attempt of free-flow becomes a torture.
@@Kallysta_ Free-flow doesn't mean *never* look anything up, just be careful of looking up so often that you disrupt the flow. If it's an important word like that, I would probably look it up
Thanks for all the great info. On reading whilst listening, does one's superiority reading ability mean we're just relying on this - I'm never sure if I'm even hearing what is being spoken or just understanding what's going on because my reading is at a higher level?
On rule #4 I think main difference is that when you're focused on shows, video channel is 100% comprehensible, and repeating it will be boring. And Olly uses book, which you don't understand at a time, so it doesn't become boring because you almost didn't consume it. So if content consists from only TL channels, it's ok IMO to repeat. And if at least one channel is NL (or visual which is not language but 100% understandable) then you should avoid repetition and instead recycle it for passive or read original if it's text based (novel etc, manga probably won't work for visual reasons).
My question is, how should I start learning Japanese and what to do? What should I study? What should I pay attention to? I'll like to know which way to go, because I don't know how to move forward, I feel stuck.
I'd say learnjapanese.moe has a really nice comprehensive list of resources and the jp learning guide there is based on a mix of matts stuff and djt. Highly helpful. r/learnjapanese seems like they value traditional language learning methods, they like their genki books and things like that, unlike at refold jp. If you want to follow immersion based methods, you might want to stay away from that subreddit a bit.
Even in Japanese and Chinese you definitely can still learn native script in a weekend. Just learn hiragana/katakana in japanese or simplified for chinese. Idk about chinese but hiragana/katakana is used everyday for Japanese and any kanji you dont know youll be able to pronounce better after looking it up just because you know hiragana
Hi Matt - as an intermediate learner, can I still use your refold guide on your website and if so at what stage should I start? For example I probably wouldn’t want to bin speaking at this stage
Making a point about learning English as an European... Yeah, American youTubers, video game voice chat, film, series are better than high school English class ahaha When I was in high school I couldn't say a single sentence in English cause my teacher was one of "i don't care about teaching" teachers.. so i just assimilate English by watching UA-cam You can't learn as good as a native or someone that has studied it seriously, but hey .. i can be understood from ppl so fuck it, i had fun and learnt something at the same time, i love languages.. especially japanese, i hope with the same strategy i can somehow learn it passively such as English 😂
You say you should watch shows with subtitles. However, when I've put shows into German and also put on the German subtitles, the subtitles are often a bit different to the audio, I guess they are shortened - but it is really difficult to follow like that. Any advice?
Sometimes you can find subtitles for bad hearing, which are more precise I think. They might be called German (SDH) for example. Although they will have every sound written out which may or may not be annoying
In a lot of spanish media, the subtitles are different than what is being spoken, which for me has made it difficult to use subtitles. It’s really awkward watching something like a Disney movie on disney+ where the audio is different than the subtitles because they didn’t bother translating them together
I am not sure about rule #3. Basic grammar aside, there are lots of small changes in particles that could change the meaning of sentences. 10時間寝たのに、疲れている。vs 10時間寝たので、疲れている。I wouldn't obsess over grammar, but you should at least know the patterns (I could be biased, but I feel Japanese has too many of those compared to English and they are not always intuitive).
Looking up words is often impossible, especially with paper dictionaries. Most dictionaries simply do not have all the conjugations of a particular word.
Sorry if I seem a little low energy in this video! Due to the time zone difference, I had to wake up earlier than usually to film 😅
Olly has a lot of insight into the psychology of people learning languages, so I think you guys will find this video really helpful. Enjoy!
Check out the video we did on Olly's channel as well! ua-cam.com/video/c21-nCVmieA/v-deo.html
Thanks Matt, this was a lot of fun!
Random Question Matt: when you watch an american show dubbed, is the japanese native sounding, or do they speak differently because of the original english?
@@DD-vu7ir I have a video on this topic: ua-cam.com/video/n21NRI4j__o/v-deo.html
@@mattvsjapan By far, my favorite video so far! It is combining my favorite ways of studying!
You're energy level was fine! Nothing to worry about. I could only barely hear you snoring. 🤣 seriously thougj, if you hadn't said anything I would have noticed nothing.
Timestamps
0:00 Introducing Olly Richards
1:45 #10 - Read at your level
4:25 #9 - Focus on plot
7:55 #8 - Door closed, phone off
9:35 #7 - Learn the script/writing system
10:55 #6 - Don't look up words
13:30 #5 - Listen while reading
15:50 #4 - Read it, then read it again
22:40 #3 - Don't study grammar
28:40 #2 - Learn everyday
30:05 #1 - Trust in the process
37:20 Conclusion
Legend! Thanks man.
You are doing god’s work, my child of indeterminate gender
u dropped this 👑
The man, the myth, the stapler is missing.... lol jk. THE LEGEND
The king NukeMarine has saved our lives.
Focusing on the plot is so underrated. I really struggled to find content "at my level" when I started learning Korean. But then I changed the definition of "at my level". My new definition was: can I follow the plot? If yes, even just barely, then that's good enough.
My progress is much faster when I get things that are much closer to my level than that, but even then. The lowest threshold for me is "can I follow the plot?".
Korean seems to be really cool, I'm jealous! I had to choose between Korean and Japanese, but maybe one day I'll get around to it!
It's you! 👍
BTW, how many languages do you speak 2.5?
@@bildeglimt that's pretty impressive! About the Korean: 5 years into Japanese and I can understand 0.1% of anime, so understanding TV shows is pretty impressive!
Also, sounds like your life has been quite the adventure.
@@MrMctastics luckily Korean grammar and Japanese grammar are very similar, so you mostly just need to acquire vocabulary
my TL is korean and I was just watching a korean guy giving a lecture on language teaching/learning as immersion as I felt that it was a topic I would want to be able to talk about in korean too, and he started talking about 학습(learning) vs 습득(acquisition) and namedropped krashen and input hypothesis, i really felt like i had come full circle haha. thank you Matt for your videos; if I hadn't come across your channel a year ago, my korean would be nowhere near where it is now, if i'd even know any at all. ✊
omg!!! do you have the link to this video?
link?
@@찍찍-f9o It's in the comment above yours :)
maybe my youtube is different but its not there but its okay
that sounds neat! would you mind sharing the of the video title?
Yeahhhhhh. Almost 6 months of Refold 😎✋. Just keep doing everything until the fluency. Thank you so much for everything.
Where is ur pfp from?
@@MrTaib-kj4ib it’s from a VN called dustmania
@@pathologicpicnic AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Putting output so far back actually really makes sense to me. It's how I learnt English.
As mentioned in the video, I'm one of those Europeans who "just happened" to learn English. Looking back, I was basically just reading things to begin with. Games, Forum posts, eventually even the first book of Harry Potter. During that, I did also write a little bit, but it was pretty terrible. I don't think this actually contributed much to me acquiring the language, but more something I did out of "necessity".
Eventually, I got to watching English TV shows. Stargate Atlantis, in particular. There was one character who always mumbled and I couldn't understand a word he said, so I watched it with English subtitles first. On my second go (there was quite some time between these), I could understand everything even without the subtitles. It still took some effort, but it was fine.
A couple years ago, I got invited to a TeamSpeak call by an English person. I was a bit hesitant, considering I never really spoke English before, but it ended up being perfectly fine. He could barely believe I had never actually spoken English before that time. (Sure, there was the occasional time in class, but a grand total of like 20 sentences doesn't really count for much)
Apparently I didn't even have that much of an accent. Though, granted, I always made that, when reading, I'd always speak in my mind - and tried to pronounce things in my head as accurately as I could. Not sure that helped, but that is what I did.
Said English person has been a friend for a couple years now and apparently my accent has improved even more, but I basically started out with barely an accent, which I thought was pretty amazing.
Refold takes a similar path. When I first read through it the other day, I basically thought "yup, this is exactly what I would recommend, were I to try and come up with a method"
Can relate to this, I never had anyone to speak english to, and i havent ever put in any effort into learning it, but it just came by itself since i first started playing video games in english and then started watching yt videos and to read books
"There was one character who always mumbled" Are you just talking about beckett who had a scottish accent?
@@sotetsotetsotetsotetsotet2379 No, it was one of the military people. One who left fairly early, so either Sumner or Ford. Probably Sumner.
Loved it! Immersion is definitely key to get to a really high level in any language. Great job!
oi os br em todo lugar mano
Olly's bit against TV at 21:48 reminded me of an aspect of my own acquisition of English that I hadn't previously thought about.
I did not learn English through games or chatting with people online, the way Matt talked about earlier in the video. Instead I learned English by watching a staggaring amount of TV after school. I would watch sit-coms and MacGyver, or whatever was on the Discovery Channel, all aired in the original undubbed English (yay Norway). Importantly, there would for some shows (like The Simpsons, Friends, and others) be two episodes a day, where the first of the two would be a repeat of yesterday's second episode. Obviously, since there was nothing better to do, I would watch both.
I wonder how much worse my English would have been today had the networks done things differently.
It's important to note the difference in the types of language learners they are. Olly is a polyglot who has gotten 8+ languages up to at least (im not sure to what extent he is fluent) upper intermediate level. His goal is not to speak like a native speaker. Matt is learning like a child (not an insult, lol). MASSIVE INPUT for years and then grammar study, like a child learning to read in school, though the process is a little quicker.
Both of these types make for great language learners, and it is interesting to compare, contrast, and form my own methods to aid my personal journey.
Came from Olly’s channel, I think your attitude towards language learning is very inspired and you seem to have a no bs approach.
It's time that I admit my problem of looking up every word I don't understand. "This needs to go into Anki immediately."
That's my problem when I try anki
And then.... brain explodes!! :)
@@storylearning haha, Hey Olly if someone who can watch to let's say Matt's videos, or even yours videos and understand 80% of it but when take a test, he does it very badly. Do you think that it might be because that person has never looked up grammar rules? Note: I'm the person
@@thyagosilva1973 The english that's spoken is often very different from the english teachers/schools want in exams. 😅
@@chumpyonion I see, thank you
I think the hardest part is the begining. When I listen to podcasts and watch anime without subs. It's just meaningless giberish and i feel like I'm wasting my time sometimes lol.
It’s the same for me with podcasts, i‘ll roughly understand every 4th sentence and that makes it difficult follow the conversation.
With anime you wanna be watching something simple in the beginning like slice-of-life or romcoms, because i can understand about half of what they’re actually saying, but because it’s a visual medium i understand 100% what’s going on.
Also, you have to spend a *shit ton* of time actually watching it without subtitles. I understood barely anything when i started doing this about 2 months ago. But by watching at least an hour of anime almost every day, i can already understand a big portion of what’s going on.
Just keep on grinding, you‘ll get there eventually, that’s what i keep telling myself, and i even have evidence for it, because it’s the exact same way i learned english
@@neoneonize Where do I start when it comes to my target language. Do I learn the alphabet/ writing systems or do I just do anki and watch anime?
@@_rinnegan3learn words and read very easy short stories. Keep doing that until you have a handful of words ingrained into your head.
When you watch movies, listen to music and podcast you will be able to pick out those words easily.
Keep repeating and try having very basic conversations with native speakers.
What's been working for me is to watch easy anime once through with Japanese subs, then go back and dissect all the words and understand all the sentences, then go back and watch it with Japanese subs only.
It's a lot of rewatching the same thing, but at least I feel like I'm progressing. Just make sure you pick something you really like.
Also, it's a little difficult finding Japanese subtitles, but it's definitely worth it, especially at the beginning.
@@_rinnegan3 Another system i find helpfull is pimsleur its more speaking focused but their system is really good at exposing you to native speakers and aquiring words. There are thing from pimsleur i have maintained in my memory for years.
But i focusing more on input especially audio occasionally i will look up words that come up alot.
I'm a simple man, I find a video by Matt, automatically press the like button, then watch, then go back to the like button wondering why its' blue since I now consciously want to give it a like so badly! Man your videos are really awesome and helpful! Wish you all the good luck
Always a pleasure to listen to a deep and smart conversation about language learning. Thanks a lot, Matt! And Olly!
I've been experimenting with reading something several times without lookups, before I finally allow myself to look things up. It's been almost shocking how much more I understand the second and third time through, even without looking things up. I generally have to do this specifically as a "study" activity, though, because if I'm reading for pleasure I can't be bothered to read the same thing multiple times. (I also never re-watch things back to back. I only do this with pure reading or pure listening.)
I have also experimented with
- looking nothing up, ever, and
- looking basically everything up, and
- looking some things up on my first read through.
In the end, all of these seem to have a different purpose/use. Though I must admit that I almost never look everything up anymore. It's just too tedious, and generally means that I'm reading too far above my level.
This is amazing. I enjoy Olly Richards Japanese courses (I have just about every course he offers.
Adding refold to the mix has been nothing short of fantastic. I'm glad you both were able to make a collaboration with each other.
Learning Japanese by immersion has been an amazing experience fueled by the work you guys have put out.
I'm so fortunate of what we have available now for studying Japanese. I wish we had these resources years ago when I was first studying but I'm glad we have it now. Thanks for all the work you guys have put into this.
Hi! Language immersion always has been around and here in Finland it's very common thing at schools. It is also something you take it further, meaning that you actually study other languages in your seconde language. I study French by using almost material in english and then also study French language in French. Input is all you you hear or read and comprehensible input is that you understand the message and meaning. Krashen has talked about this since 70s. You do great guys!
Of course Finland, the country with a great school system is doing language immersion! :)
This method reminds me of "natural method", which my Latin teacher used in our classes. It's basically a book (Lingua Latina by Hans Ørberg) with stories, and you progress from "Italia in Europa est." to more complex sentences, with little to no grammar. It was fun learning that way, but it's maybe more useful for a living language that one would actually speak in. Would be interesting to compile such texts for other languages as well.
Very interesting video. I am now a true believer in this concept and I look forward to it helping me to attain real fluency in my target languages.
I have a very solid foundation in Russian and Spanish using classical methods of language learning. But...I still have difficulty with understanding speech and I am stuck on the intermediate level of both languages. Now, in my defense, when I first learned these languages back in the 70s and 80s, we didn't have the internet which makes a HUGE difference in language learning. I had books and tapes and shortwave radio and any natives I could track down and convince to talk with me (very tiring for THEM). Definitely a very different language learning playing field.
On the opposite side of the spectrum is how I learned German. I was living in Germany and decided that I would just go out in town and start learning German. I went the "extreme" route and got married to a German and well, just read and spoke and listened to the language. No grammar. No exercises. No classes. Just did it. Within 9 months, I was speaking fluently. Germans were amazed at how well I spoke in such a short time. I'm not perfect by any means, but I could definitely hold my own in the vast majority of situations. And that was using the methods you discuss.
Next stop? Doing the same thing in Russian and Spanish. Thanks for these techniques, Matt and Ollie. I plan on incorporating them into my study. I work with Russian and Spanish teachers on italki and have already passed some of your content to them. They are very impressed.
I have so much trouble finding immersion content that i actually like
Have you tried using that country's Netflix with a vpn? What about just skipping around Wikipedia in your target language?
A good place to start is to just watch the target language alternative to what you already watch in your native language.
@@4.mnj1 i do lol but most stuff has english all over it
@@TheRealSlimShady509 if its japanese and you like anime watch look for top 100 anime you should watch and pick titles you like
As you get better in your target language, the immersion content gets much more enjoyable. Trust the process ;)
Wow, good timing. I'm reading his book "Short Stories in Swedish" right now! It has been very helpful. I didn't realize that's who this was until he held up his "Short Stories in Spanish" book.
Haha, I’ve realised that people don’t always make the connection, so I’m making it a habit to hold up the books!! 😅
@@storylearning I'll be honest and say I hadn't even looked at the author of the book yet. I just saw it, downloaded the Kindle preview, then bought it immediately. It's wonderful! Once I'm done, I'll be looking for other Swedish short stories for beginners. I'm finding these to be really useful. Thanks!
EDIT: I just bought Short Stories in Korean for my daughter. She's intermediate in Korean, so that should be perfect for her.
I'm wondering why the Korean Short Stories book is graded differently from the others. I didn't find the Korean short stories particularly challenging, at least not enough to warrant the "intermediate" label when it is the same stories as the ones labeled "for beginners" in other languages. @Olly Richards any comment on that?
This video was a great motivation boost that I'm on the right track honestly. I actually found that I'm already doing a lot of the laws already either on accident or by reading about them on refold (or previously mia). Really informative video thanks Matt!
sakuta.........best anime, best dude, best comment gg, good luck on ur journey, i hope mai dresses up for u this night
I would say: Do look up words when you planned to do so. Determine in advance whether you will read intensively or extensively and stick to it. Then, when you do look up words, go further than that: mine sentences by relying on phrases dictionaries so that you will get to understand the words you focus on in contexts.
I really liked the part about rereading the script. It's the same way children will keep watching the same movies and reading the same books.
Great video, I’m a year in on Vietnamese and some days I feel like a damn champ and talk to the locals perfectly. Some days I fuck up and can barely get a decent food order in. Feels good to know other people aren’t just leveling up like a video game. It’s a long process and it’s ok to have some gaps and talk like a child from time to time. Hard to find motivation of others who have actually succeeded in my target language so stuff like this really makes me feel like I’m not just wasting my time.
I’m the same way with my vietnamese brother. Keep at it!
Muchas gracias por sus consejos, son de mucha utilidad y dan confianza para seguir avanzando, saludos desde Chile
sus
“Son de mucha utilidad” ¿es esa una frase? Lo que estoy preguntando es puedo usarlo en cualquier situación? Mil Gracias!
It only just dawned on me while Watchung this that I could be listening to Japanese audiobooks while reading the pdf file (or real book) at the same time. I can't wait to start that. Thank you!
I would love you two guys talking with Scorpio Martianus, learning latin has dispelled my prejudices against grammar study
I keep forgetting how small this channel is! Get the million subs you deserve already!
Here after watching an interview on Olly’s channel 😋 You both are huge inspiration to all of us that are learning languages (read Japanese 😛)
Cheers Goran!
29:38 Exactly. I went from cramming for hours at work with long breaks in between to just consistently doing about an hour and a half of serious, consious language learning using Anki, JP101, and a lesson of genki and about and hour or two of playing games or watching anime/films in japanese or reading a day. The difference in retention was remarkable. The words I'd struggle with in anki or my podcasts would start to be cemented in my brain after continuously encountering then in context within the entertainment I was consuming. It felt like I had made several months progress in just a number of weeks. Every time I'd hear or read something that i felt was overwhelming, it would motivate me to study again the next day so that I'd be closer to comprehension. After a while I started to use ChatGPT to help me check my output (still nowhere near where I'd like to be) and correct me when needed. I hope to upgrade to speaking with natural speakers soon to begin language generation, which has always been difficult for me in the other languages I spent time learning in school (Spanish, French, and a smidge of German) as I never struggled with comprehension like i have with generation. I'm hoping the difference this time is that it's a language I love and a culture I have been passionately curious about since I was a little boy.
If you've read this far, good luck and don't give up. Keep at it with persistence and consistency, and never stop being curious!
It's exciting to start this journey with Refold. Just started today following the unofficial Japanese guide. Looking forward to following your method and seeing where it takes me! Thank you
How's the journey been so far?
One aspect that really help me to improve is to listen to the pronunciations of words. Many times we thought that we know the word as we used it quite often but sometimes if we listen to it very carefully we could discover that there is a slight variations in pitch, tone & duration, which could change the meaning entirely 👌
Hi Matt, thank you for your share, I study English at School, but I can not to be native level, and sometime is is hard to communicate, I found the way we learn English is not right, Now I use the new rules and comprehensible input to improve my English, thank you for your share.
Awesome! I love this style of immersion. Thanks Matt and Olly for the super content
24:18 Well said. I deleted my grammar deck in Anki because grammar example sentences are so bizarre and unnatural it was hurting more than helping. It made the process more of a grind rather than something enjoyable.
Olly's pronunciation of "raison d'être" is perfect, as a native speaker I'm really impressed !
absolutely love this vid! I've been studying my target language for years using a more skill acquisition method and my language proficiency really wasn't improving. When I started reading webtoons in my target language (which I absolutely love doing!) and watching tv shows in that language, I significantly improved! I even surprised my native speaking tutor ha! Never thought an immersion method would work for me, but it definitely does!
Thank you guys for this very insightful and highly motivational talk about language learning approaches!
I've been learning Korean at university for about a year now and just recently got into learning Japanese and Mandarin Chinese as well, often finding myself in doubt of the progress I've already made, due to me having acquired bad (language) learning habits during my school years up until my mid 20s and ending up becoming something I'd like to call a 'lazy perfectionist'. Came to realise I've been stuck in a 'spiral of doubt', eventually subconsciously sabotaging my own learning experience, despite already being aware of all/actively applying most of the learning principles/strategies you guys discussed but the one GOLDEN rule (, which therefore rightfully is mentioned as rule №1 in this video in my opinion,) to TRUST THE PROCESS...
What started with questioning the efforts I put into learning my target languages, the progress I made thus far and therefore the pace I've been learning with, ended up with me almost completely putting a halt to my learning endeavours, simply because I lost faith in the process...
Fortunately I'm on a good way slowly getting back on track, immersing myself in content about the cultures I love and practicing again on an almost daily basis!
Therefore a little reminder to everyone out there:
Take your time (, especially when learning multiple languages simultaneously), don't push yourself too hard, you CAN and WILL accomplish your goals IN TIME, if you keep learning persistently - even if you just engage in learning for half an hour (almost) each and every day!
Becoming proficient in any language is just like learning any other (more tangible) craft - it takes years actually becoming good at what you do, decades to truly master the art and a lifetime of commitment being a true virtuoso some day!
We are all humans, we are not meant to be perfect, neither is any form of our learning experience - we make mistakes on a daily basis, but with enough perseverance only the sky's the limit! ;)
Studying grammar, even some of the nitty gritty details, is not a bad thing in and of itself. I'm a grammar nerd and have always loved investigating grammar patterns and knowing the specific rules behind different structures.
However, it becomes a problem when studying grammar is basically ALL you do in the language. While I loved listening to grammar podcasts when learning Korean, the majority of my time was still spent watching Korean TV. I didn't practice the grammar by doing a bunch of exercises -- I would learn a rule and then it would stand out to me in all the TV shows I was watching.
If someone enjoy studying grammar, I wouldn't tell them to stop doing that. I would just balance that by saying that if they aren't also getting lots of input alongside that grammar study, they are using their time/effort very inefficiently, since they will progress much more slowly with a lot more effort.
(Of course, if someone doesn't enjoy grammar, then Matt's method of "knowing the gist of things" is probably good enough to progress you along, and hearing natural sentences over and over again will train your brain on how to construct sentences.)
I wish my University had these rules. I failed my language class because I couldn't speak properly after one semester, even though I could read everything in the textbook, knew 1000 kanji and could understand basic speech. Formal education has such a focus on speaking (and grammar) that they're dishonest and misleading to students who really want to learn. Thankfully, I am doing Refold now and learn from both Matt and Olly all the time.
Hello I am from Germany,
I always was terrible at learning languages. I started learning Japanese this year. I was always interested in learning Japanese but I could never really start to learn.
I like the JLPT. It's a very useful guide to get a structure for learning. What do you think of JLPT?
For me it is a goog source of learning material, exspecially vocabulary.
My current working schedule is the following:
- learn jlpt vocabulary (via audio files and flash cards)
- watch easy content (jlpt listening practice, childrens song) for motivation/continue learning
- watch anime with subtitle ( I don't link reading, so I am more focussed on listening)
- I started to watch japanese news. this is really fun. It's very easy to understand single words and the content is often easy to understand visually. Therefore a lot of vocabulary from the lower jlpt lessons are used ( like "yesterday", "problem", "police", etc)
- sometime watch grammer videos, but mostly for entertaiment instead for learning, because that's all not so difficult compared to German or Latin.
I tried out some japanese lyrics to song texts, but that doesn't work well for me.
So even if I watch anime with subtitle I learn a few words.
My strategy is: diversify my Input/Sources of new vocabulary and find something that is fun/I can do daily
It was so great to hear the different prospectives of language learning.
Rule #1, trust the process, works in a lot of facets of life. Trying to lose weight and having a day where you mysteriously gained 2 pounds? Just trust the process and keep going. Studying for an exam and just feel like you'll never get it? Just trust the process and keep working at it. Don't have a temper tantrum and throw all your hard work away.
Love this interview, both approaches made simple and palatable! The work you two are doing is amazing! Thank you 😄
Olly has some great material, I own all his Italian products and is a great addition to Refold.
Excellent upload. Thanks Matt and Olly!
Very interesting interview, thanks! 🙂
Talking about grammar study, I agree with both of you but I also think that for some languages it is easier to figure out the underlying logic than for others. In case of Japanese, it's probably a big advantage that the grammar is very regular and that the inflections always corresponds to a specific meaning (e.g. as markers of the past, negation, imperative, etc.)
For less regular languages, this is not as clear cut, especial if they have a case system and genders. Therefore, I think it's good that Matt emphasised that additional grammar study can benefit comprehension.
this video is very nice, I from Brazil and I'm learning a new language, English. I'm happy because I intuitively followed what this video said. hahaha
someone needs to tell olly about the language learning with netflix extension. it gives you the entire script on screen and you can replay a line of dialogue with a mouse click.
I'm Japanese and I was interested in your video "Talking to Japanese in Japanese" that I happened to find, so I'm watching this video now. I haven't seen the other videos in detail, so if you've already made another similar video, I'm sorry, but could you make another video with that kind of content?
Steve Kaufmann has always said to read and then re-read many times the same story (Olly’s Rule #4). I’ve never used Steve’s LingQ but I’m pretty sure they propose this method.
I like the idea and will employ it for Japanese now that I’m finally reading.
Is his desk and chair like 8 foot in the air?
Pretty sure he's using a standing desk
Standing desks have came up so much since there was a debate in refold kr about it.. :sadKEK:
@@나왔다고양이 maybe his ceiling is just very, very low.
Yeah, I love standing desks because it gives you so much more energy... but I hadn’t realised it makes it look weird! 😀
That's because he has reached such high levels of immersion, he is floating in the air...
Always new knowledge from Matts channel for language. Btw.. In Islam some doubts are from setan.. So we try to seek refuge from doubts especially in doubts that blurrs ur mind.
34:25
Now realizing this is something I struggle with, and I'm glad to hear it identified. Not a main point of the video, but an important one.
Olly Richards is either extremely tall, or is floating in mid-air.
Probably a standing desk
probably floating in mid-air
definitely floating in mid-air
I think the correct balance to looking up new words is look them up almost every time. Don’t you recommend preventing bad habits? What if you assume a word meaning and just are wrong?
The problem with subtitles is that the quality and accuracy will vary wildly and there aren't necessarily set standards. I used to do translations in Spain with my gf of American TV shows and movies. We were often given scripts (or even no script and we'd have to do our own transcriptions- old Westerns, for example) at the last minute and we had to turn them over in a few days. We did a pretty good job but some other translators were horrible.
Thank you for these rules, I will keep them in mind during my future immersion.
Great video and interview! Thanks 🙏
I love this kina content. Easy to follow and gives great advices
Great interview! I agree with the points that were made and have found them to be true in my own journey. I just wanted to share one observation about learning the script of your target language. I'm studying Jordanian Arabic and I know the Arabic alphabet and its markings for vowels, doubling consonants, etc. I find understanding all of this to be very helpful for understanding why words are pronounced the way that they are. . . But most real-life Arabic writing does not contain any of these markings, a lot of Levantine Arabic TV content has subtitles in Modern Standard Arabic (no help), and, consequently, I find reading to be a VERY SLOW, unenjoyable process. . . I wish that there were more resources where there was the Arabic script alongside a romanized transliteration so that learners like me could focus on the goal of learning how to listen to and speak the language and acquire the language naturally, rather than on how to decipher a foreign writing system (which is a different set of skills). I really think that scripts matter a lot in terms of what learning techniques are most efficient and what resources learners have to choose from. There's no one size fits all. If I were learning French or Spanish, subtitles and story learning would take me so far!
l'm Japanese. l'm learning English from Matt😊 thank you.
私は日本人ですが、マットの動画で英語を勉強してます。いつもありがとうございます＼(^o^)／
Additionally to the first point, pedagogical academic Vygotsky poses the idea of a zone of proximal development when approaching teaching (others) or learning yourself. This zone is where you are challenged, but still able to achieve the task without too much help (in this case from a dictionary etc.) but not so easy that the task becomes mundane and redundant.
One of the frustrating things for me about rule 6 (I think that's it) is that reading as a beginner means I'm not going to understand much of anything. How does one carry on without looking things up, if they understand 5% or less of that they read?
I think that goes back to reading at your level and requiring some degree of understanding before you begin using reading as a tool for immersion. But I personally heavily disagree with assertion that if I come across a word I don’t know in English I don’t search it up. I 100% search it up. I think it’s a matter of ‘do you want to simply read a story’ or ‘do you want to learn the language’.
@@xllvr I agree. And it's both for me. I want to learn Japanese, and read a story. It would be painful to force myself to read something without enjoying some sort of plot. I found a website that lets me read material for 1st grade Japanese students, and I still hardly understand anything without looking words up 😔
@@DANGJOS that frustration is the other side of the achievement you’ll feel when you can read it. As much as it’s pissing you off now, you’ll be that proud of yourself when you over come this challenge.
I remember when I started immersing myself in English. At the time, I wasn't aware that it will help me achive fluency quickly, I was just an 11yo looking up transformers toys and videogames and choosing to watch popular english youtubers instead of ones within my country. This was when I was around 4th to 5th grade and I was struggling on a nokia touchscreen phone with a plastic stylus. You know, the ones from 2009/2010. Then when I got an s3 and entered android land, it became much easier to look stuff up and as a consequence in about a year I went from not knowing much of what was talked about in the videos to comprehending everything, but still not at a good level when it came to outputing but surprisingly school helped me with that part which was mostly about understanding grammar and writing word property. But yeah, even if it feels like you're not getting anything, your brain will subconsciously build up knowledge of the language until one day it clicks and you realise you're able to understand it.
@@vali69 So you're saying that looking things up actually helped you
Good vid Matt this channel is gold
I just copy the links to everything I read on LingQ and put it into Anki and let that space out my repetition for reading.
i love your vidos mat , i hope to tell me when will the specifc guides to every language will be avaliable
As somebody born speaking (Hiberno) English and still arguably monolingual. I, with a knowledge base of 50k+ words, STILL look things up I come across that I do not understand. I would make the case that this is why I can "pontificate on erudite minutiae with abyssal intricacy; from the numismatic and numerate to the etymological to the entomological (even if it bugs you)". There are entire levels of knowledge even above native-level. Formal, Professional, Doctorate and even Tolkien-esque.
So, the baby to not lose with the bath water is that if your goal is to be further than you are now then the climb never stops. That looking things up never stops but should never exceed a level where it detracts from learning. In my case looking up a new word in English is a (bi-tri)yearly occurrence which doesn't detract from anything. Likewise no "fourth language" is going to see you writing a Silmarillion or Lord of the Rings in it. It's probably something you're fine at plateauing in because while you like it and the ability to connect with it, it was only ever intended to reach a certain plain to begin with.
Your end-goals and personal desires may vary. 😁
8:04 Door closed and phone off!!
Right on! bro. Right on!
😂
So I’m curious what level of fluency should I be at when I start mass immersion? Because it doesn’t seem beneficial to just immerse myself while in the beginning stages of learning when I don’t know many words and just have a basic understanding of the Japanese alphabet (hiragana, katakana).
My issue with watching with subtitles, especially with Japanese, the translations seem to be approximations rather actual translations. I hate hearing a word that I know has a direct translation but I don't see it in the subtitles. I don't know if I should just be okay with not always understanding what's happening on screen and just absorb the audio or try to find something with more literal translation.
Ditto. It's so distracting!
On the theme of repetition, I got chat GPT to write texts using only the 500 most commonly used words in modern Ukrainian. It did it very well, and after each idea I had, I thought of a related theme and asked it to write another text the same way (I then imported it into LingQ, on which all features are free for Ukrainian right now, and there I generated audio for it). So this itself created a lot of repeated language, in that it was limiting to those 500 words (maybe 250 could work even), but also that the themes were similar. But then I had the idea of asking it to write about philosophy in Ukraine with the same limitations. It still created a reasonably simple text, but a more interesting one, which was also a positive, but then I asked it to expand on certain areas of what it had said. And there kept being errors and it got cut off again and again, so I asked it again and again, so I ended up with around 40 texts of around 200 words about very similar things, but organising and phrasing it differently every time. So thus I ended up with many of the same words repeated again and again but in various sentences and at least slightly different contexts. Now I know, and will probably never forget, among a bunch of others, the word "відповідальність".
great video to reference while on the process.
Thank you Matt
Hi Matt! Would be curious to see your thoughts on using immersion to learn non-language things, I've seen more and more about immersing in things like programming or art history or any other discipline since there's so much content on the Internet nowadays
Hi Matt, this video is pretty old so I'm not sure if you'll answer any comments on it, but at what point in Japanese/in a language (I don't learn Japanese) would you recommend switching off subs? You both mentioned high intermediate/low advanced? I know Japanese doesn't use A1-C2, but at what point are subtitles too much of a crutch? Currently at the B2 level and still quite unsure about that. Thanks for any feedback.
Now you can use Chat GPT and ask it to write texts in the target language at the level you want. I've tried it. It works very well, with a bit of thinking and tweaking of the instructions you give it.
I've studied French intensively for more than 3 years and I'm only now beginning to understand basic grammar. I'm just beginning to assimilate the syntax. I grudgingly accept weird constructions, one at a time. My knowledge progresses letter by letter. The weight of the language is crushing.
Then you are doing it wrong.
@@robertbrainerd5919 How much listening have you done per day? How much reading per day?
This video was super helpful. Might look into refold now too!
I have a question for all of you! I’m halfway through RTK1, but I always look up each kanji on jisho.org to compare the meaning with Heisig’s keyword. I do this to get a better understanding of the meaning of the kanji. Do you think this is a waste of time? Should I stick with Heisig’s keywords and spend that “look-up” time to learn more kanji instead?
A majority of people use rrtk which is a simpler version but sufficient version of rtk. And it contains multiple keywords for each kanji so no need to use jisho
@@fedexman In my opinion, RRTK seems like the “cheat” way to get through the kanji and doesn’t fit my learning style. My retention rate is probably 90-95% so far, and I think RRTK would bring that down.
@@pritheebecareful7070 yes the concept is to cheat the learning of kanji. I've done full rtk, and I regret it because it took me a lot of time and there a lot of not so commun kanji that I've forgot because I didn't see them as often, and with time you discover that you don't need to learn new kanji, you learn them naturally with new vocabulary. If you like kanji and rtk, continue like this, but I warn you that you will not gain very much compare to rrtk, in the long term.
Is it helpful to read aloud, or silently?
With japanese I have a constant problem of getting this nice advice of not looking things up. Maybe its ok in more roman and/or alphabetical languages (lets say korean), but not looking things up in japanese feels like just painting this word with thick black merker. It's not some hard to understand thing, like let's say (lets pretend you can read russian) "хилы хилят, дд ддшат, танки танчат" - it's not something you can "read" and be ok with not understanding it for now. With japanese the word becomes just a void and I dont understand how people solve this problem( And so I don't reaaly understand how free-flow can work with reading japanese.
If you're doing free flow then just let the word be a void. The whole point of free flow is to get as much japanese through your mind as possible. Looking up every word is contrary to that goal. Also, a lot of words don't really matter. Like for in this sentence deleted several, but you probably figure gist of it anyway. I deleted 6 words from that sentence, but you can still figure out that it's about a bunch of something getting deleted but what was deleted wasn't too important. If you googled every word I deleted you would spend probably a couple minutes on the single sentence just to find out the missing words "example, I, words, can, out, the" but the only word that actually would help you understand more is "words" because that's the thing that was deleted and the rest are mostly grammar words. So now you've only slightly increased your understanding of the message, when you could've read an entire paragraph in the meantime. Also, it's really boring looking up every word, so staying entertained is a strong motivator to not look up too many words.
That's not to say never look up words, like for example if a word keeps coming up or seems critical to the message of a sentence, you should probably look it up, but at a certain point you just have to not only learn to be okay with ambiguity since you probably won't understand the sentence even if you google the words as you've never seen them before, but to do the cost benefit analysis and recognize that it's not that good of an idea to look up too many words.
Yeah I agree with you, when reading text novels and such. Other languages allow you to phonetically engage with unknown words. In most cases, to phonetically engage with an unknown word in Japanese/Chinese, you need to use a mouseover dictionary to get the reading. Sometimes it's a word you already know the pronunciation for, but not how it's written. That's a wasted opportunity if you don't mouseover it. A compromise I make sometimes is I only using a mouseover dictionary to get the reading.
@@bobboberson8297 the fun thing is in most cases the void-word is crucial. And I can understand it's crucial..ness.. whatever)) I know that void-word is the last thing that separates me from understanding the main point. Lets say it's the last chapter of a book and it's something like "So the story ends here and now. She knew what she had to do. The time had come at last. And so she оченьнепонятноеслово! The end" - how could I not look up something THIS important. Maybe its a problem of type of content that I'm interested in enough to consume, but it's always like this. And so every attempt of free-flow becomes a torture.
@@Kallysta_ Free-flow doesn't mean *never* look anything up, just be careful of looking up so often that you disrupt the flow. If it's an important word like that, I would probably look it up
If you're watching a show in Japanese with Japanese subtitles you will hear how it's pronounced.
Thanks for all the great info.
On reading whilst listening, does one's superiority reading ability mean we're just relying on this -
I'm never sure if I'm even hearing what is being spoken or just understanding what's going on because my reading is at a higher level?
On rule #4 I think main difference is that when you're focused on shows, video channel is 100% comprehensible, and repeating it will be boring. And Olly uses book, which you don't understand at a time, so it doesn't become boring because you almost didn't consume it.
So if content consists from only TL channels, it's ok IMO to repeat. And if at least one channel is NL (or visual which is not language but 100% understandable) then you should avoid repetition and instead recycle it for passive or read original if it's text based (novel etc, manga probably won't work for visual reasons).
My question is, how should I start learning Japanese and what to do? What should I study? What should I pay attention to? I'll like to know which way to go, because I don't know how to move forward, I feel stuck.
If you use Reddit, r/learnjapanese has a good guide
@@lolozo214 I'm gonna search it, thanks.
I'd say learnjapanese.moe has a really nice comprehensive list of resources and the jp learning guide there is based on a mix of matts stuff and djt. Highly helpful.
r/learnjapanese seems like they value traditional language learning methods, they like their genki books and things like that, unlike at refold jp. If you want to follow immersion based methods, you might want to stay away from that subreddit a bit.
Even in Japanese and Chinese you definitely can still learn native script in a weekend. Just learn hiragana/katakana in japanese or simplified for chinese. Idk about chinese but hiragana/katakana is used everyday for Japanese and any kanji you dont know youll be able to pronounce better after looking it up just because you know hiragana
Hi Matt - as an intermediate learner, can I still use your refold guide on your website and if so at what stage should I start? For example I probably wouldn’t want to bin speaking at this stage
Making a point about learning English as an European... Yeah, American youTubers, video game voice chat, film, series are better than high school English class ahaha
When I was in high school I couldn't say a single sentence in English cause my teacher was one of "i don't care about teaching" teachers.. so i just assimilate English by watching UA-cam
You can't learn as good as a native or someone that has studied it seriously, but hey .. i can be understood from ppl so fuck it, i had fun and learnt something at the same time, i love languages.. especially japanese, i hope with the same strategy i can somehow learn it passively such as English 😂
Nah mate your English, at least in its written form is pretty good.
6:00 ok point taken, I'll go keep reading the manga I'm doing as practice without focusing on the weird 来る becoming 来とる. I guess learn it later then.
来る
来ている
来ておる (尊敬語)
来とる
You say you should watch shows with subtitles. However, when I've put shows into German and also put on the German subtitles, the subtitles are often a bit different to the audio, I guess they are shortened - but it is really difficult to follow like that. Any advice?
Sometimes you can find subtitles for bad hearing, which are more precise I think. They might be called German (SDH) for example. Although they will have every sound written out which may or may not be annoying
In a lot of spanish media, the subtitles are different than what is being spoken, which for me has made it difficult to use subtitles.
It’s really awkward watching something like a Disney movie on disney+ where the audio is different than the subtitles because they didn’t bother translating them together
is the refold roadmap similar to the ajatt table of contents?
I am not sure about rule #3. Basic grammar aside, there are lots of small changes in particles that could change the meaning of sentences. 10時間寝たのに、疲れている。vs 10時間寝たので、疲れている。I wouldn't obsess over grammar, but you should at least know the patterns (I could be biased, but I feel Japanese has too many of those compared to English and they are not always intuitive).
I agree with Matt
Love collabs
5:05 🤯🤯🤯 well that explains a lot.
unrelated question, but is Olly using a standing desk?
great video guys
Looking up words is often impossible, especially with paper dictionaries. Most dictionaries simply do not have all the conjugations of a particular word.
and if a word you're trying to look up is conjugated well you're just outta luck.