Can you progress with 1 HOUR per day? - Patreon Q&A Archive - May 28th, 2022

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  • Опубліковано 22 січ 2025

КОМЕНТАРІ • 146

  • @dethswurl117
    @dethswurl117 Рік тому +44

    I often have trouble finishing Matt vs Japan videos
    I get really motivated from what he's saying, then I realize that I'm listening to English, so I stop the video and go immerse lol

    • @vladislavgrin7122
      @vladislavgrin7122 9 місяців тому +3

      I'm glad that English happens to be my TL 😊. If it weren't for the abundance of interesting content in it, I would never study it

  • @poleag
    @poleag Рік тому +141

    UA-camrs: "This is how I became fluent in Japanese in 200 hours!/18 months!"
    Matt: "If you study Japanese for an hour every day, it'll take 10+ years to be fluent, if ever."

    • @vanessasmith9646
      @vanessasmith9646 Рік тому

      😂😂😂

    • @Blank-kg9vf
      @Blank-kg9vf Рік тому

      Those 10+ years are bullshit.

    • @letsthink8245
      @letsthink8245 Рік тому +12

      He's being honest 1 hour is puny. You will never get anything out of that.

    • @Blank-kg9vf
      @Blank-kg9vf Рік тому

      @@letsthink8245 Based on my Anki stats I am good to go with one hour of focus on 10-20 new words a day... :/

    • @myokokoaung9857
      @myokokoaung9857 Рік тому +15

      those fluent in Japanese in 18 months videos are fake tho. It only demotivates the actual learner and want to quit when they realize they can't achieve that within that time.

  • @kleyyer
    @kleyyer Рік тому +134

    One thing I noticed is that the more you understand, the more time you spend with your TL. So for the person who can only do 1 hour a day, it might take longer, but I don't think you would take 10 years because at some point, maybe 1 or 2 years down the line you would probably understand 20 or 30% to get you sufficiently more engaged in the TL which will make you want to spend more time with it. At least that's what I noticed myself until eventually it got to a point where most of my time I spend in my TL.

    • @williamadiputra2850
      @williamadiputra2850 Рік тому +30

      true. english is my second language, yet i spend a ton of time immersing in it. not because i have to, but because it's now has become a normal thing for me. It became a tool instead of a study subject. And i have a lot of motivation to refine that tool in order to better engage with the internet/real world.

    • @LeonidasIV
      @LeonidasIV Рік тому +1

      It's basically necessary to spend more time later because if takes longer to find new words / learning opportunities. Input becomes mostly things you already know. Therefore it takes more time to progress through each level and if you don't want it to take an eternity to get to C1 you have to spend more time per day in intermediate.

    • @sasasaiha8185
      @sasasaiha8185 Рік тому

      This was my experience as well

    • @97kewj
      @97kewj 7 місяців тому

      @@netizenz7182 Target Language

    • @Alec72HD
      @Alec72HD 7 місяців тому

      Target Language.
      You need to speak that to shop at Target.

  • @urinstein1864
    @urinstein1864 Рік тому +37

    My favourite example of motivation in language acquisition was when that one guy only spoke to his sin in Klingon for a couple years, but when the child realised that his dad could speak English perfectly well, he stopped speaking Klingon.

  • @unownnnn
    @unownnnn 2 роки тому +60

    I completely agree there's so much whispering in modern English movies that it does make it hard to hear

    • @jaredwilliams6853
      @jaredwilliams6853 2 роки тому +8

      That’s how I feel w French they are alsways whispering and mumbling in their shows/movies

    • @NessunDormaIA
      @NessunDormaIA Рік тому +14

      The reason is because microphones can pick it up better so they are able to mumble or talk more loosely in shows/movies. Whereas microphones used to be bad and actors had to talk clearly and loudly to the microphone. Most English speakers now watch a lot of shows with subtitles. It's crazy

    • @keegster7167
      @keegster7167 Рік тому +4

      @@NessunDormaIA yea as a native English speaker I often need subtitles for movies now but I also don’t watch many movies in general

    • @maxbernabe2803
      @maxbernabe2803 Рік тому +1

      Omg have you ever seen an episode of the walking dead?!

  • @tiddlypom2097
    @tiddlypom2097 2 роки тому +17

    Great explanation of the acquisition process & how conscious effort learning interferes

  • @paulwalther5237
    @paulwalther5237 Рік тому +30

    Motivation is king when it comes to learning. The trick is how to motivate yourself. (edit) I had hit a plateau with Korean and even though I had consistent study habits stuff just wasn't sticking - my SRS reps, my listening/reading comprehension, everything just seemed to not be progressing although I was putting in over an hour a day studying. I decided to take a trip to Korea to jump start my motivation (and have fun). I totally overthink my foreign language studying and my thoughts on motivation really mirror this video. But try to explain that to your friends and family. Even my dad who has learned German to C1 level really didn't (and doesn't) get me when I talk about how important motivation is and that was the focus of my trip. Anyway, for me it really helped. Almost as soon as the plane landed I could feel my unconscious mind changing its filter a bit to retain more Korean. I could feel my Korean moving forward again for the first time in years even. I know going to the country isn't going to make everyone learn the language but if you have a language learner lurking inside of you I think it will - you'll study way more and effortlessly retain more. But my trip was only 3 weeks. I still think it's helping me now months later but the question becomes WHAT ELSE can I do to motivate my unconscious mind to retain more Korean? I wish I could just move to Korea but that's not going to happen.

    • @場デモン
      @場デモン Рік тому

      Why can’t you move to korea?

    • @paulwalther5237
      @paulwalther5237 Рік тому

      I would need a job in Korea 😂😂@@場デモン

    • @gezza18
      @gezza18 Рік тому

      You don’t need to move to the country to learn the language you just need to acquire it through immersion with native speakers.

    • @BigHeavyLove
      @BigHeavyLove 3 місяці тому

      I actually believe discipline is far more important than motivation as motivation is too fleeting to be relied upon. I lost motivation for french about a year ago but I'm quite close to fluency in listening now.
      I mean, each to their own but if I followed my motivation I'd study like once a week at most.

  • @AndrisGameDev
    @AndrisGameDev Рік тому +4

    I come back to this video time after time, it is one of the best language-learning videos out there imho for those who have already heard the answers to the basic questions coming up again and again. Smart questions and smart answers here! Lots of useful insights!

  • @zombiedeutsch
    @zombiedeutsch Рік тому +9

    I started learning German 1 year ago. Did assimilband afterwards only reading. Now i can read b2 easy readers and understand a lot without dictionary. I also noticed i could understand A2 audiobooks quite very easily witt barely few hours in total of listening.

  • @Geo_Babe
    @Geo_Babe 2 роки тому +7

    LOVE these Matt q and a vid drops!!

  • @MidosujiSen
    @MidosujiSen Рік тому +20

    That "honestly you may never get there" is totally delusional. It obviously will take a lot longer than someone who is doing several hours a day, but to imply that you may never get fluent doing one hour a day is ridiculous. If the person simply maintained consistency, they'd get there eventually, regardless of it taking 5, 10, 15 years.

    • @osoperezoso2608
      @osoperezoso2608 Рік тому +9

      Ya.... That was a weird statement.

    • @gezzapk
      @gezzapk Рік тому +11

      The only way you will never get there is if you give up or stop using the language. Otherwise anything you do is slowly making you more fluent in the language

    • @coolbrotherf127
      @coolbrotherf127 Рік тому +6

      I agree with Matt on this point and I'll explain why he believes this. With a language as different from English as Japanese is, it takes a lot more work in both conscious and unconscious learning modes to make progress in the language. If you're only studying for 1 hour a day, that's barely enough time to study 5 new Anki cards review and a few more and watch 1 anime episode.
      At that kind of pace for 10 years, not losing motivation is going to be extremely difficult because your progress would be incredibly slow and unrewarding. It'll signal to your unconscious that it's not particularly important information as you're not putting any deadline or pressure to learn it on yourself.
      Also, the slower your pace is, the more you are likely to forget information as you'll be forgetting faster than you can acquire. This will leave you on a constant treadmill of learning and forgetting the same basic information over and over again. Doing intensive study at the start will help your brain truly acquire foundational language knowledge as it signals to your unconscious that it's important information that you need to remember.
      At the end of the day, if you really want to learn a language, you'll find a way to put in the time to do so. No one ever became great at something without sacrifice. To get where Matt is today, he had to give up spending a lot of time with friends and family in order to study as much as he did.
      But, if your life is so busy and there are other things so important that there's no way you can commit to studying more than an hour, then perhaps you have more important things to be doing in that hour than language learning. Things like graduating college, improving your skills in your career, or starting or caring for your family are much more important than being able to watch some news in another language.

    • @it5775
      @it5775 Рік тому +5

      ​@@coolbrotherf127 I watched videos of Livakivi, who studied for about an hour a day for a long time and learned quite a bit in the first ~three years. The claim that by studying an hour a day, one will NEVER achieve language proficiency is utter nonsense.

  • @outlethorizon248
    @outlethorizon248 11 місяців тому +1

    great video

  • @reggietkatter
    @reggietkatter 2 роки тому +8

    Hey Matt! I think it’s easy to assume I’m biased in that I used it to very good effect to learn Spanish and created a Facebook group dedicated to it, but I’d like to know what you think of the language acquisition activity called crosstalk. Do you have or know of people who have experience with it? Would you ever try to use it to learn a language? What do you think would be its benefits and/or limitations?

    • @artugert
      @artugert 10 місяців тому

      What is crosstalk?

    • @kmradosevich
      @kmradosevich 9 місяців тому +1

      @@artugertit’s where you talk to someone in your native language but they respond in your target language

  • @andrzej1978gda
    @andrzej1978gda 6 місяців тому

    The "Translating in your head" effect happens when you use translation as your learning method. For example flash cards, duolingo and similar, looking up every unknown word

  • @Vanguard521
    @Vanguard521 5 місяців тому +2

    I find it hard to watch with subtitles while eating. Especially something like soup or ramen. You can’t pay attention to the action, the script, then also something potentially messy. My wife watches English movies with Japanese subtitles still after 20 years in the US. It could be that audio mixing thing Matt mentioned at the end.

  • @InappropriateShorts
    @InappropriateShorts Рік тому +2

    refold? isnt this Matt From Japan?

  • @naturallanguageacquisition
    @naturallanguageacquisition 2 роки тому +19

    Very interesting points about free-flow immersion. It's tempting to feel like that type of activity is not as valuable as the active immersion.

    • @flareAMVs
      @flareAMVs 2 роки тому +1

      Free flow is a form of active immersion

    • @rektninja4289
      @rektninja4289 Рік тому +2

      I think he was talking about intensive immersion

    • @mikael9325
      @mikael9325 Рік тому

      Passive immersion is just passive immersion. Free flow immersion is not passive. Passive immersion is not a category.

  • @christopheradrien4643
    @christopheradrien4643 Рік тому +3

    Only after a couple hundred hours can you actually begin to immerse

  • @love2flash
    @love2flash 2 роки тому +2

    I like the explanation on High comprehension/low output skills, It seems like working with a native speaker and describing more flash cards with simple action scenes would help bring the output level up, with the Flash cards representing mentalese. What do you think?

  • @JackMyersPhotography
    @JackMyersPhotography 5 місяців тому

    Is there a recommended list and or source for immersion? I suppose my concern is that some immersion is superior to others.

  • @koyuki6113
    @koyuki6113 Рік тому +14

    I spend about 1 hour a day in japanese immersion and I’m I already at about 1200 vocab in just 1-2 months, but probably more cuz thats the words I can recall. I do use a different method from refold though, using my knowledge from cognitive science. (I watched 3 animes almost of all 12-14 episodes now)

    • @Blank-kg9vf
      @Blank-kg9vf Рік тому +2

      Me too, that's why I think those 10+ years at 1 hour a day are bullshit. Maybe with refold it is like that, I am not using it. But the way I am learning with 1 hour a day, I expect 3 years for fluency.

    • @koyuki6113
      @koyuki6113 Рік тому +5

      @@Blank-kg9vf am at 6th month passed now and got about 6500 voc now, it really just depends on the method that you use I guess. I did up my time now somewhat cuz I started enjoying more materials tho but that was only from a week ago or so.

    • @itsokaytoenvy
      @itsokaytoenvy Рік тому +3

      whats the method?

    • @tau2647
      @tau2647 Рік тому

      ​@@koyuki6113 that's crazy what method are you using? that's like what 30 new cards a day? this is making me regret 200 days of nothing but duolingo (I didn't know any better)

    • @euclides9777
      @euclides9777 Рік тому

      Up

  • @chicagoneurolife
    @chicagoneurolife 2 роки тому +1

    I think, I’m regards to the question about language learning an hour a day. We should ask the question, what does the person mean by 1 hour a day? Do they mean, 1 hour of intensive study, and then spend the rest of the day doing more passive listening and do active immersion but in a fun way that won’t feel like information overload, for example, learning a song in the TL that you like can be fun and relaxing. But if one does all of things in just an hour, one could reach fluency, however, I agree, it’ll be slow.

  • @edgardealba
    @edgardealba Рік тому

    If i have b1 level, does it bad to translate the words that i dont understand?

    • @throwtheproject
      @throwtheproject 7 місяців тому

      Try to use a Japanese to Japanese dictionary.

  • @pauex8256
    @pauex8256 Рік тому

    Hello! I have questions about inmersion. The first one is how many time do you thing that I have to spend in listening to step forward in japanese and how much of that time i have to do hybrid inmersion and efortless inmersion? I fell like efortless inmersion is going nowhere, I only thing that kind of inmersion is usefull to learn how to listen but not how to understand, maybe thats the point, and when youre able to listeng then you can understand.

  • @SebastianSeanCrow
    @SebastianSeanCrow 10 місяців тому

    0:18 looking at time stamps 22:55 I will say is SOOOO normal lol like legit this is how I am with my NATIVE LANGUAGE (English) so I wouldn’t worry about that

  • @optimizing_fitness
    @optimizing_fitness 2 роки тому +1

    Do you have any thoughts on recognizing words when listening but not being able to understand the message?

    • @larrybardwell8461
      @larrybardwell8461 2 роки тому

      You mean pure listening with no subs. There's a sentence that's too fast and a blur. Then you turn subs back on and check to see?

  • @chumblewumble2422
    @chumblewumble2422 Рік тому +13

    Source? I made it the fuck up!

  • @tiddlypom2097
    @tiddlypom2097 2 роки тому +4

    It would be hard to do, but it would be great to have some A1/A2 immersion resources that keep the actual vocab comprehensible at that level. It'd be a lot of work to make engaging content for adults: it'd have to use non-verbal means to tell everything that the vocab doesn't cover.

    • @monkeytoung
      @monkeytoung 2 роки тому +1

      There is already tone out there it's just whay your interest in largely. Outside them giving you the guidelines you need to take the time to just engage what your interested in as that's largely what you will remember most. If it'd not relevant to you some people if not alot might not remember much.

  • @artugert
    @artugert 10 місяців тому

    If it really takes ten years at an hour a day to get proficient at Japanese, then that settles the debate for me about whether or not it’s more difficult than Mandarin. It took me WAY fewer hours than that to become proficient at Mandarin.

    • @Day-vg1bh
      @Day-vg1bh 8 місяців тому

      Proficient and fluency aren’t the same

    • @artugert
      @artugert 8 місяців тому +1

      @@Day-vg1bh Right, I didn’t say they were.

  • @sanman975
    @sanman975 Рік тому

    should i ignore language and just focus on story

  • @haydenspilman5355
    @haydenspilman5355 2 роки тому +1

    Languages are very heuristic.

  • @wamu5204
    @wamu5204 2 роки тому +5

    Matt your the man!

  • @DLusby
    @DLusby 2 роки тому +5

    Thanks for the video!
    I wonder if It's just a 'me thing'.
    'Passive listening' is a common expression used by many people, I usually know what someone means when they say it, and I can infer 'passive' meaning things like 'not opening your mouth and speaking' or 'not looking every single thing up' and things like that. Still, I find myself sometimes wishing that the expression were different and I find that peculiar.
    As best I can guess, maybe I have a personal negative association with the term 'passive listening'. Maybe associations with memories of conversations with people who didn't seem to value listening activities... Which is funny, because even if I were sitting still and had my eyes closed... If I'm engaged, interested, and paying attention to something at real speed, for me and much like you have described, that's a very 'active' thing for me even if in one moment all I'm aware of is following a story.
    Anyhow, it doesn't matter. 😄 But maybe I had an impulse to share this bit of self-musing as you've sometimes expressed some interesting and nuanced perspectives and I thought I'd throw it out there. Thanks!

    • @cookiedoodle5582
      @cookiedoodle5582 2 роки тому +6

      Passive listening is immersion that's kept in the background that you're not actively paying attention to / trying to parse. Think music or a podcast left as background noise.
      Active listening is sitting in front of your immersion and paying attention. You're trying to understand what's happening, you're trying to understand and internalize the grammar/vocabulary.
      Hope that explanation helps! ~

    • @DLusby
      @DLusby 2 роки тому +1

      @@cookiedoodle5582 Yes, but depending on who you are talking to, some people I've met (ie: the negative job interview that I mentioned) look down on listening activities in general and seem to refer to any listening activities as 'just passive listening'. Obviously I don't see it the same as those people.
      It sounds like we have a similar view on it, unless I'm mistaken.
      I've heard some UA-cam polyglots refer to listening activities as 'passive'[, but in those cases... even when they are actually talking about engaged, attentive listening activities... I know they usually value listening activities and comprehensible input highly because of other things they have said.
      Even listening activities that I tend to do that I might think are more 'passive' aren't really (ie: multitasking, listening while running on a treadmill, listening while washing the dishes, etc.). Those tasks don't require much attention and most of my attention is on the listening. I'll stop the recording if someone speaks to me because I want to pay attention to what I'm hearing.

  • @Shibby27ify
    @Shibby27ify 2 роки тому +2

    I use text to speech in LingQ for either one word at at time or a small phrase of more than three words. It sounds fine to me if it's a small word or phrase and terrible if it's a whole sentence. Is this an issue that I'm still using it?

  • @Alec72HD
    @Alec72HD 7 місяців тому

    Matt is brilliant.
    Why doesn't he move to Japan to teach English?
    Certainly don't use Japanese to teach English, but at least his near native Japanese would be an inspiration for students.

    • @kiki-qp7jx
      @kiki-qp7jx 4 місяці тому

      He’s a big proponent of not learning from someone who’s never actually learned the language they’re teaching, so it would be a bit hypocritical 😅

    • @Alec72HD
      @Alec72HD 4 місяці тому

      @@kiki-qp7jx
      You must be joking.
      First of all Matt definitely learned English as a child.
      Second, he was saying that someone who never acquired any second language may not have a clue how to teach their native language.
      He certainly NEVER said that only non native speakers should teach English.
      Most Japanese, Chinese teachers of English don't even reach advanced levels of English themselves.
      According to recent statistics English education in Japan is only deteriorating.

    • @kiki-qp7jx
      @kiki-qp7jx 4 місяці тому

      @@Alec72HDoo ee oo ah ah ting tang walla walla bing bang

  • @FeralMina
    @FeralMina Рік тому +1

    it might help increase clarity if Refold were to be careful about differentiating between the terms subtitles (written in a language that is different than the audio) and captions (written in the same language as the audio), because listening with subtitles and listening with captions are a world apart.

    • @brandonbaker572
      @brandonbaker572 Рік тому +1

      That's not quite right. Subtitles are for people who can hear but want textual context in some language on the dialogue being spoken. Closed captions are for people who can't hear so the text need to convey sound going on in the scene as well.

    • @nickmoore5105
      @nickmoore5105 Рік тому +1

      @@brandonbaker572I'm not sure there is really any discinction. Certainly, in the UK "Subtitles" is used to mean captions for hard of hearing. Captions and subtitles are two words for the same thing. I can see why people would want to make them mean different things but there is no accepted distinction.

  • @ruthsali1717
    @ruthsali1717 2 роки тому

    Can you please recommend on easy -good books in japanese? But not books for kids! Only for adults...

    • @Tedisdeaad
      @Tedisdeaad 2 роки тому

      You need to be more specific. Even if you've been studying for 18 months what you could be reading is still "easy". 熊 クマ べエア is a book I've read 2 volumes of. I've been recommended 夏へのトンネル、さよならの出口 as an easy book but have yet to read it. Neither are really adult books but they're also not completely dry kid stuff.

  • @dacracking5768
    @dacracking5768 Рік тому +9

    Ngl, it feels like I’m in a cult lol

    • @Refold
      @Refold  Рік тому +6

      We don't serve Kool-aid dw.
      ~Brizz

  • @bunnyteeth365
    @bunnyteeth365 Рік тому +1

    I don't really translate in my head, but I guess I have to get out of the habit of flexing my brain when I listen to my target language. I'll practice by listening to some easy podcasts. Maybe then TV shows and university lectures will be lower effort for me.

    • @Refold
      @Refold  Рік тому +2

      You're right. Language learning takes a LOT of time, and all roads lead to immersion.
      Our current minimum recommendation is ~2 hours a day.
      ~Brizz

  • @atit820
    @atit820 Рік тому

    It´s not realistic 1 hr study/day, to become fluent in foreign language

    • @Refold
      @Refold  Рік тому

      It really depends on your goals and approach! Here's a video I made about the topic: ua-cam.com/video/6_9okAHKjJk/v-deo.html
      - Ben

  • @TerryOCarroll
    @TerryOCarroll Рік тому +1

    Infants don't have a motivation advantage. Infants have a neurological advantage: they have a huge number of neuronal interconnections in their brains and these connections get pared down as language is acquired. Adults don't have this advantage, but they do have the advantage of already having acquired a language.

  • @beny9997
    @beny9997 2 роки тому +16

    1h every day is already a lot of time, i guess language learning is just not for everyone.

    • @pathologicpicnic
      @pathologicpicnic 2 роки тому +16

      It’s a lot of time when you have a full-time job and a family, yet it’s still possible to do 2 to 3 hours. If you don’t have either of those things, you have more than enough time.

    • @xXJ4FARGAMERXx
      @xXJ4FARGAMERXx 2 роки тому +6

      I think that's 1 hour total, so not 1 hour of immersion and 1 hour of anki and study and look-up, no, 1 hour of everything.

    • @seriousmax
      @seriousmax 2 роки тому +5

      Pick a simpler language and do only intensive immersion during that hour. I think that should work.

    • @pathologicpicnic
      @pathologicpicnic 2 роки тому

      @@seriousmax no, you can’t learn a language without free flow lol

    • @seriousmax
      @seriousmax 2 роки тому +9

      ​@@pathologicpicnic intensive immersion starts to turn into free flow after a while.

  • @Tabascosause
    @Tabascosause Рік тому +2

    "If you've ever meditated than you'd know we don't have control over our thoughts." Depends on how long you've meditated, so it's subjective. Control and Alter is different.

    • @adamsamuel6706
      @adamsamuel6706 Рік тому +1

      No, he's right. Regardless of how long you meditate, you can't completely control your thoughts. As Sam Harris says you are a conscious observer of your thoughts.

    • @Tabascosause
      @Tabascosause Рік тому +3

      @@adamsamuel6706 That's Sam Harris's belief and subjective opinion. I'll keep it simple. Newtons Flaming Laser Sword. "That which states what cannot be settled by experiment is not worth debating." I apologize, but it's your belief. I'd recommend doing your own research. Listening to others perspectives and understanding of the conscious and subconscious mind is nice. However, doing your own research and practice is probably better. That's also just my subjective opinion. Not right or wrong. Stating something as a fact, that isn't is wrong. Opinions are nice, truth is nicer. I wouldn't believe everything you hear. Don't trust me, experiment or be left with a belief that doesn't align with knowledge.

    • @nickmoore5105
      @nickmoore5105 Рік тому

      @@TabascosauseWas thata copypasta or did you generate all that yourself?

    • @Tabascosause
      @Tabascosause Рік тому +1

      @@nickmoore5105 myself, not sure why you assume it's copied from something

    • @artugert
      @artugert 10 місяців тому +1

      I meditate daily, and yes, it absolutely is possible.

  • @xxvinralfakynxx2815
    @xxvinralfakynxx2815 2 роки тому

    ありがとう

  • @muribnightmare7591
    @muribnightmare7591 Рік тому

    5 42

  • @Tyler-Alvarez1234
    @Tyler-Alvarez1234 Рік тому

    14m

  • @putinisakiller8093
    @putinisakiller8093 Рік тому +2

    25 hours are not enough. :)