White Guy Speaks Perfect Japanese from watching Anime. Here's how he did it.
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- Опубліковано 2 тра 2024
- My interview with @mattvsjapan
Check out Matt's formula for mastering a language at Refold.la
The clips early on of Matt speaking Japanese to people are from @xiaomanyc 's video: • White Guy Stuns Entire...
▲THE WIL NEWSLETTER: josepheverettwil.substack.com/
NAVIGATION:
00:00 - Who is Matt vs Japan?
1:24 - How did Matt learn Japanese?
4:03 - Context teaches more than textbooks
5:35 - Why you need to forget English
6:16 - Should we learn like babies?
10:04 - The only way to learn a language
10:57 - The real reason for flash cards
11:56 - The most effective input
15:18 - Why your brain enjoys this method
16:57 - What did you do specific for Japanese?
20:34 - Identity and language
23:48 - Matt speaking Japanese
25:58 - Why you can't hear pitch accent
28:53 - Why most people don't learn pitch accent
31:16 - How Matt learned pitch accent
33:25 - Improving Japanese pronunciation
36:50 - Staying focused on your goal
40:58 - Diminishing returns from input
42:41 - Converting input into output
46:17 - The barrier to effective output
56:08 - The refold formula for language
59:09 - Outro
For business inquiries: joseph.everett.wil@gmail.com
UA-cam bizarrely won't show Matt's comments. Message from Matt: " Thanks for having me on! If you want to hear more about how I became fluent in Japanese with Anime (and movies & TV shows), check out my channel! ua-cam.com/users/mattvsjapan "
Thanks so much!!
@@mattvsjapan ...but it's letting him reply to comments? What is going on 😂
It's because youtube detects links as spam :P
As an ESOL teacher, I am stoked to watch this video and share these tips!
It doesn’t even show them in the “held for review” section tho
Other comments with links end up there
If you feel bad because you have the language skills of a 6 year old in your target language, just remember that it took them 6 years to get to that point and it probably took you a lot less.
Lmao
Wisdom
That was very inspiring
wow, you are wise
but that's not really relevant because you're presumably far older and more capable than a 6 year old
Watching my 5 year old become conversant in Mandarin by just arguing with his grandma has been incredible.
Can't win arguments if you don't have the right words
Kind of wondering what they argue about now lol
@@WanderTheNomad this is so true. I cant speak perfect spanish so I always fail to banter with my mom
im 18 and i still cant speak mandarin my native language bc bitches whitewashed me and now that im an adult its no longer socially acceptable to not be fluent so i dont practise with anyone reee
@@OVXX666 don't blame others take responsibility also it is never too late to learn
When I get tired of learning a language, i just watch a ton of videos about how to learn a language.
Lmao
same
same
Yup
Like what I'm doing right now lol
When I was in college, I went through a phase for a while where I tried to learn Japanese. There was this Japanese pub near my school that all the students from Japan went to and worked at and so I decided one day I was gonna go there and order and try to have conversations with people in Japanese. So I spent a bit of time memorizing how to order, practiced it a bit, and after sitting in my car nervous for a while, I finally got the courage to go in. So I sat down at the bar, and asked for a beer in Japanese. The bartender looked at me blankly for a second and then in perfect English with no accent said “I’m Korean, I don’t speak Japanese. What do you wanna order?”
That was pretty much the end of my effort to learn Japanese 😂
Konnichiwa! Fighting!
That's it. That all I remember.
It's okay. You'll be fine. I bet he won't even remember.
Lol reminds of Karate Kid scene when Jayden Smith tries to speak Mandarin to the Chinese looking guy on the plane and he's like "dude.. I'm from Detroit".
Lol, this was such a fun short story.😄 I want to hear you tell more of your funny life stories now.
Super hilarious story. Had to comment on it... even though it's been months...
Hahaha
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahhahahahaa
You will find this absurd and love to mock if you never learn second langauge. But for us non native English speakers, this is how we learn. Through cartoon, action movies and lots of internet exposure.
Don't forget videogames. A lot of people learned English because of games.
It’s all input-one language youtuber
I got most of my English from cartoons especially at the start until they dubbed everything in my native language(s). I was mighty miffed at that...
The whole internet
That's literally my childhood
This guy was watching so much anime he's got anime eyes.
His eyes are so pretty
noticed that!
i was literally thinking of the same thing, i couldnt stop staring at his eyes because theyre so pretty
Damn, those pupils are straight out from shojo manga.
can't unsee
I worked with a guy (car design) he was from South Korea, he always used to say "now over to you for the latest update"
I asked him where he learnt English he said it was from watching the news channels 😁 and soap operas 👍
Haha, back to you "My Turkish Life"!
I once read "The Secret Garden" to learn some new English words and expressions, and ended up remembering only one expression "you have my permission to go". I have never used it as I have never had a servant.
@@norikosato7823 call a friend and say that to them when you're done talking to them🤣🤣
Lol. This is why context and usage matters.
😂
As someone who learned English by this method (unconsciously, without knowing that it was a method), all he says makes complete sense. From getting lots of input (TV shows, movies, books) to looking up words, to memorizing patterns of usage and pronunciation, this is exactly how I did it.
Well your English is perfect.
Pretty much what I've been doing for the past two years
Learning English is not hard for me because most medium I consume is in English.
Bro, I do that without realising it too... I just consumed a lot of Minecraft content at the beginning and just started to understand what they're saying... Now I started to consume linguistic content too
Literally,so true,i ve been doing this for 7-8yrs and am sure that i can speak and understand it like a native.
So I'm Vietnamese living in Germany leaning how learn English from a guy in the U.S. explaining how to learn Japanesse. Amazing how connected the world has become.
Chào em! Im a Polish Guy living in Vietnam, talking with my sister living in Germany about my Japanese learning 😂😂😂 . Btw. The context part remind me that moments when learned the first sentences and words like "Trời ơi!!!" "đi đâu đấy?" "uống bia với anh!" :D. I Love Vietnam, Vietnamese people and Vietnamese language
Now the trick is to do nice things with these connections :)
Vietnam’s is very hard to learn. I said one sentence in Vietnamese to my daughter’s Vietnamese in-laws. They claimed to not understand anything I said . It turn out I had spoken the final word of the sentence with the incorrect pitch. I said “I have a headache”, in Vietnamese. I guess nothing was understandable because of one part of one word that I had said incorrectly. I will not continue to learn the language because I cannot perfect the intonations.
@@patriciajohnsonson8639
Has the same vibe as:
"I will not continue football (⚽) because my kicks aren't perfect"
Solltest lieber deutsch lernen ;)
"Japanese man speaks perfect English after watching American soap opera, Friends" The primary way non native English speakers learn English is from watching and listening to Shows, movies and music from America. Lol
The only reason i can speak fluent english right now is because i got bored when i was twelve and just started watching pewdiepie and smosh without understanding anything.
So true! I'm Belgian and I learned English early on by all the American shows on our television channels! Simpsons, Fresh Prince, Power Rangers, Family Matters, Full House, Friends...
I never liked anki tho.
I learned English by watching South Park lol. I started first with subs in my native language, then with subs in English, and finally I started cursing left and right in fluent English.
@@Biomeducated I'm from belgium as well and learned english in the same way.
This dude is so smart and explained it so well. He’s inspiring me to continue my journey and Gain fluency in Spanish.
You can do it!
Tu puedes, sigue adelante!!!
Ahh Español, el gran enemigo de todos jaja
Animo! Tu puedes lograrlo 🙏✨
Han pasado nueve meses desde tu comentario, necesitamos actualizaciones, ¡¿como te ha ido?!
51:20 As a teacher in public Japanese schools who quit because I felt so sad for my students' suffering and hatred of English after their years of the idiotic way that it is taught, this is the best description of why it is so hard. I have described it as trying to explain what a dog is by taking it piece by piece and then adding in a description of how it might act once it is pieced together as a dog. His description of trying to teach swimming by teaching the physics of it is very apt.
I like your metaphor for it. I’m so sad the children are still being taught language in this counter productive way that makes them hate it. I hope schools in Japan can make changes and reform the education style for teaching English so that it can be practical and enjoyable. I taught English in Japan at 2 different language schools and both had different approaches but I tried to bring my own style into both where I tried to make it as practical as possible. I have a Japanese friend who did her doctor thesis in this field and is also trying to change how English is taught in Japan. I believe change is happening and will come, I really hope it does.
Did you master japanese?
-Yes.
What did it cost?
-My native language: 40:28
Oof, yeah. I barely use anything else besides English and it shows.
clicked the timestamp and a Dove ad suddenly appeared 💀
This made me laugh out loud, so true 😂
😭
I get it's a joke and all, but I actually like when people mess up in their native language like this. I find it motivates me when I forget something in my target language to remember that, ya know, people sometimes get brain farts, or tongue tied, or just straight up forget the word that they want to use, and that that's ok, and happens to people all the time even in their native tongue.
“I will keep moving forward…until I can speak fluent Japanese from watching anime.” - Eren Jaeger
"What's waiting for us on the other side of the ocean is the Overseas Bros."
Hey hey hey
Eren Jaepanese
TATAKAE
Queue the hiroyuki sawano…
As a guy who has already learned 3 languages, and is working on Japanese as his fourth right now:
This is all exactly what I've found out - the hard way - through my own experiences. Lots of comprehensible input = learning the language
That's the secret. All you need to know.
I also have learned 3 languages and am working on Japanese as my fourth right now.
So I need to watch content of my level right?
@@garyahreedjr3125 I’m a big fan of podcasts and UA-cam videos about my interests. For a while, you may need to stick to basic reading or beginner UA-cam videos designed to help, but once you get over the hump you can watch what you normally would except while learning a different language.
@@darianmorat yes, that is the best way. It’s fine - in my opinion - if you wanted to watch anime in Japanese while still learning the basics, for example, however I don’t think that will end up being the fastest or most enjoyable way after a while.
Do what you enjoy.
bravo you just discourage us to go in japan
I love how Matt almost "changes personality" when he speaks in Japanese. He kind of sounds like he lost his confidence, but that's completely normal. In Japanese, humbleness and selflessness is valued more than self confidence, so a lot of people end up speaking like that, including myself to stay out of trouble.
As Matt said, I too believe that language learning is as much of a culture learning as learning the technical skills. In my case, it really opened my eyes because I realized that ways of thinking and communication can be drastically different depending on culture groups.
He literally speak like real Japanese. So smooth and also his attitude as well. And you are right, Japanese don’t talk with confidence.
This is very true. I heard of a study where bilingual people were asked certain questions. They discovered that their answers changed according to the language in which the question was asked. Very interesting.
Basically- language is more than just words. It’s a mindset.
I myself am bilingual and I hear the difference in my voice when I speak. The language is a mindset because I don’t think at all in English in the middle of a conversation of my native language, so there are definitely some differences.
Because that's what happens when you learn a language and reach a point of proficency as this guy did. You need to think in that language to speak it so fluently and he actually does manage to think in Japanese and literally set himself into "japanese mode". I'm a native spanish speaker but when I switch to english I also adopt like a new personality, I become more friendly and kind, while in spanish I tend to be more serious and not that conversational.
@@jambofett It's not just a mindset. It's a shared thinking space, or a shared-meaning space.
He sounds like he's a data scientist building an AI model.
Yeah! Feed it data and let it recognise patterns.
Matt: The bitrate of the concious mind is underperformant for real-time application. We should upgrade to the unconscious model.
So it's ironic for people to view it this way, because AI neural networks were thought out & constructed _based on_ how our brain/networks process data & learn. _Hence comes the name,_ actually.
But if by familiarity with the concept of "neural networks" people are able to learn better by mimicking them instead of forcing themselves to do how their brains were mistreated at school, then it's all for the best I think. We went full circle.
In a way he is
@@Michael-jn1rq was about to say this, yeah. Data science and neural networks are directly inspired by human brains, computer science as a field was born from Alan Turing's philosophical question on if you can replicate the human brain through science to create AI. So yeah it's entirely true actually. This relates also to how every field of academia is actually part of the same big field of knowledge. Just here I've mentioned a connection between language, computer science, and philosophy.
hey, im japanese and poor at english, so im probably making some mistakes. but i wanna say aloud that his japanese is really really perfect, not almost, PERFECT.
It’s not fair.
"Wanna"の使い方が正直に完璧です
Your English is top notch mate 👌
@@SelcraigClimbs thank you!:) i love english!
your english is great in this comment :)
@@user-gm5tt4rj5t hey do you want to be friend? I am learning Japanese now, you can teach me Japanese and I can teach you English. 私教えるお前英語、お前教える私日本語
This guy is incredibly modest. What he's doing is 10x harder than he made it sound.
Yeah I think talent is under stated in most things
Not really if you actually listened to what the message is (which is based on the studies by Stephen Krashen).
Literally just watch so much anime you can without subtitles (to your own language), and make anki cards for sentences containing only one word you didn't understand.
It's literally that, and it works, anyone else who says "you can't learn from anime" have definitely not tried this as there is a whole community (the "AJATT" community) who has learned it by this way, and they are always known as much more fluent than these supposed "polyglots".
@@gogl0l386 There are thousands of people who have watched anime since childhood who cannot speak Japanese
@@Ribcut They've watched with subtitles.
I can guarantee that anyone who has watched anime without subtitles for 10 000 hours knows Japanese (and probably better than most N1 people).
This is backed up by studies.
Also, this is precisely how I learned English before even having it as a subject in school (I'm Swedish).
@@gogl0l386 Without subtitles, how would you learn the language or even know what they are saying?
I'm a native Japanese who studies English. Matt was talking about his Japanese learning experience and tips, but I thought it also applied to English learners! I've been in Australia for almost 6 years but I still sound like a fobby... I had lost motivation studying English but you inspired me again! Thank you for this interview and your video!
A Japanese accent in English sounds better than an Aussie accent in English.
Don't sweat it.
@@MichaelFitzpatrickk Ohhh, thank you🥹
This was a terrific video. The whole time I wanted to pause it and just go study Japanese. This is very informative and motivational.
AJATT is also an element resource
Ganbatte!
@@themelancholyofgay3543 If you dont USE them, as in reading words, your brain wont find a use for keeping the associations between sound and glyph.
That’s how all of Matt’s videos are.
@@themelancholyofgay3543 "it was just characters" ..... I mean... every language (barring a few exceptions) have a character-based fundamental component
I learned english that way. Just repeating after songs, audiobooks, movies just gives you understanding of the language.
It did make for a funny situation when during my english lessons I often went with gut feeling of what feels right in the context instead of trying to remember the principle.
You're doing it right!
yeah, totally. I started by reading the lyrics of songs I liked, and filling my gaps in understanding. From there, it's just a matter of time til you understand the entire song perfectly. Same with shows, etc.
Same, exactly, i relate to what you said about what "feels" right
You've misunderstood the entire video. He didn't say he acquired Japanese by _repeating_ stuff. That's what 80% of standard language-learning does.
He spent an enormous amount of time _listening_ and _watching videos_ and _reading_ ; and using Anki cards to cement vocabulary down solid. It was long after this that he started initiating speech.
Sameeee
He's a great communicator in English. I appreciate the way he puts his thoughts together to speak them out. I am sure that is part of the reason (apart from massive amounts of time and a whole lot of work) he was able to understand how to eventually embody the Japanese mindset in his use of that language.
Yes, I noticed that too. He’s a great communicator in his own language first. I’ve been studying French for a while and considered fluent. One day I complained to my former teacher that I still sound too hesitant. Her reply: it sounds exactly the same as when I listen to you speaking in your language… 😵💫😂
@@simonebaker4915 Interesting that you have an experience to validate the assumption and take it further.
Immersion is exactly how I learned english. I literally didn't speak a lick out loud outside of the occasional sentence or two in class until I was 18 years old and joined a teamspeak server, and once I got over my apprehension and shyness to actually speak out loud, nobody would believe I wasn't a native speaker or that I was even from the country I was born and raised in because I just didn't have any clear signs of accent despite very little experience of actually talking.
Same thing happened to my german SO. He actually never spoke english out loud until a few months before we met, and I was kinda shocked when he told me that.
He wrote english, consumed english media, and did all of this but it's only very recently he started speaking and he sounds pretty much fluent with almost no accent. Really goes to show how your brain internalizes information
I still have a very Shitty german accent and it wont go away
Lucky you, I learned English in middle school and I use it almost daily but I still have a Mexican accent 😭. It doesn't really affect me in my day to day, but it is still depressing to see how some people have the facility to get rid of their foreigners accent while some people never do.
@@elkazekage3471 same :c for me irs german accent but i wish i had british accent
English really has to be the easiest language to learn.
It is used literally everywhere. I could go to your country and find people, media and copy written in English.
People who Don't speak English know English words.
The same cannot be said for any other language.
This man is so articulate. The way in which he can so easily and clearly explain his learning process and all the mechanisms at play really goes to show how his learning decisions were always conscious and backed by some form of science found in literature.
that's what like 10 years of understanding it and doing videos about it does
Matt is also clearly just extremely intelligent
He has created a lot of his own articles and anki add-ons, as well as videos explaining his methods. It's pretty second nature to him now.
r/increasinglyverbose
Are you trying to r/whoosh ppl?
I learned English almost exclusively through years of comprehensible input. It's amazing how abundant American pop-culture is all over the western world nowadays, especially for the people of my generation and those after because of the Internet. You really just learn English by accident.
This is so true
Nowadays if you don't learn English, it'd because you've segregated yourself deliberately.
@@planetary-rendez-vous True.
At least anyone can easily learn intermediate level English.
And then most fools were I live can not speak even basic English xD
@@stefdiazdiaz7067 I mean it's not anyone's fault that they can't learn a language.
They might not have much interest in learning it or they simply didn't like to invest their time and engage in learning the language.
I always theorized that the reason kids learn language so easily isn't because we're wired to better learn it at a young age, but because we're completely immersed and are given material to consume that uses a very simple, comprehensible model. Even the way children are spoken to is simplified to try and meet them where they are. This way after only a few simple concepts are finally learned through exposure (for instance repeating a word + showing a picture in kids TV), they can communicate and understand that communication, and then they're slowly dragged further and further from that small set of concepts through much more until they can have conversations and understand much more. As adults, we jump right into grammar, word memorization, and then once we can "understand" basic speech we'll immerse, which is backwards. You don't understand the speech or language, you can take a sentence, spend a BUNCH of time processing the words and grammar in your head relative to native understanding, and then convert that into your native language, but this is far too slow for immersion to be understood, so then you struggle to grasp at words and phrases you've mapped to a meaning without the translation step, then you're basically starting at 0 again with all that memorization being worthless.
To simplify: children learn a language and then need to be taught how to read and write it. Adults learn how to read and write, then try learning the language.
For me the funny thing is, I learned German when I was younger in exactly this way. My life at that time revolved around just sitting all day at the TV and listening to what they were saying on SuperRTL or in dubbed shows like Spongebob Squarepants and noone actually knew I could understand anything, but to everyone's surprise, I understood everything and could actually communicate in German with a native speaker at almost a native speaker level without actually ever been to Germany at that time.
The sad thing about the education system is, that they don't teach us to actually learn a new language, I think the education system (at least here in Poland) tries to brute force a memory-based language from just learning to remember words or focusing on comunicative skills in a contextual lesson. The thing is, I actually understood at a pretty young age, that humans are actually born with the easiest way of learning a language - it's everything this video is talking about -> I N P U T and additionally I M M E R S I O N.
A child learns the language of it's parents without actually brute-force memorising words, they start by the input after that then comes the meaning, the fun fact is, that you can do exactly that as an adult. I also find immersion a monstrously improving factor for this way of learning a language. If you immerse yourself with symbols, signs, words from another language, it's a way better memorizing method than brute-forcing a dozen of words at once.
I'm a linguistics major who took a class on second language acquisition. This video pretty much covered all the theories and models I learned, but applied directly. Great stuff.
@@mtw5034 "Cringe"
@@mtw5034 what?
@@mtw5034 how is that cringe? all it does is give the video more credibility. which is what we want, right?
@@mtw5034 lol you do you
Matt is SO well-spoken, I actually can't believe
Yeah it doesn’t seem fair that he speaks Japanese AND English better than me. Surely AJATT should have held back his English a little bit?
Man I wish I was articulate. I can't even explain things really well in English so I'd 100% struggle in Japanese trying to present facts lol.
Yess. When I watch his videos that's something I like. I admire his speech. He's well spoken, I need to imitate him or something. He should give us tips😂😂.
Like bruh, I tend to mumble and leave my sentences hanging when I speak.
It makes me wonder how I would express myself coherently in any other second language I decide to pick up.
It's one thing not speaking coherently in your 1st language vs a second language you're not yet comfortable in.
His ability to articulate complex ideas is one of his innate language gifts he was born with. He could learn any language and speak at almost native levels, only thing missing would be his acculturation, he would not have the same cultural knowledge and social behavior growing up in that culture that would help him blend in better. His curiosity and natural affability helps a lot as well as developing his ear to achieve better intonation.
well spoken in english
I’ve been watching Korean dramas for almost 10 years and now I can speak simple conversational Korean without having studied it. I don’t know the grammar but I know how to form sentences naturally just from having heard it so many times.
One of the best Matt vs Japan interviews on UA-cam. Bravo! This is so valuable. Thank you!
Sections in the video:
- (1:24) How did Matt learn Japanese?
- (4:03) Context teaches more than textbooks
- (5:35) Why you need to forget English
- (6:16) Should we learn like babies?
- (10:04) The only way to learn a language
- (10:57) The real reason for flash cards
- (11:56) The most effective input
- (15:18) Why your brain enjoys this method
- (16:57) What did you do specific for Japanese?
- (20:34) Identity and language
- (23:48) Matt speaking Japanese
- (25:58) Why you can't hear pitch accent
- (28:53) Why most people don't learn pitch accent
- (31:16) How Matt learned pitch accent
- (33:25) Improving Japanese pronunciation
- (36:50) Staying focused on your goal
- (40:58) Diminishing returns from input
- (42:41) Converting input into output
- (46:17) The barrier to effective output
- (56:08) The refold formula for language
- (59:09) Outro
Thank you!
Thanks
Hero
thank you
Youre doing the Lord’s work!
7:23 Okay. This explains a LOT. Why most of the time if you (carefully and KINDLY) correct someone's language, they won't get it. I had an in-law who was terrible about pronouncing TONS of words. For example, she pronounced "idea" as "ideal." And she refused to change it. She was sure she was right because that's how she'd always known it. Nobody had bothered to correct her until me and so she legit didn't believe me. Things went south when her child started school. He had learned from his mother and his words were so mixed up that the only human being who could understand him was her. The school sat her down and explained the problem. After months of therapy and no progress for the kid it turned out that she was undoing all of the therapy he was getting at school at home. The kid was actually becoming sort of bilingual. He's speak English at school and her f'ed up toddler language at home. SHE had to go to speech therapy to help HIM.
And she was baffled. She had no idea that she was so wrong about so many things. When she spoke to her mother about it, her mother said that she thought her (adult) daughter's mispronunciations were so adorable that she reinforced them and just never stopped. Other people didn't want to be rude or hurt her feelings, so they kept their mouths shut. I'm the only person who cared enough to try to stop her sounding like an idiot. I tried to show her words spelled out and tried to help her sound them out. She legit thought that the words were just words that sounded differently than they were spelled. She thought that *I* was the moron.
But why wouldn't she? People in her life either reinforced her 2 year old pronunciations or ignored them. I was just one data point in 24 years of life experience. It wasn't until a ton of experts were about to fail her son for kindergarten because he couldn't speak basic pre-school English that she was upset enough to hear them out, admit she had a problem, and bend.
This makes sense, my father is fluent in dutch exept for some nuanced grammar that he's unable to differenciate. I took over some of his mistakes exept that I can get it correct if I'd take more time to think.
Damn, this is hands down one of the most unbelievable, thought provoking comments I've read on UA-cam. I wish the best for this lady in question, but what a shame for her and the kid!
How do you listen to everyone else pronounce the same word differently and still think to yourself you're pronouncing it the right way?
@@lebimas Ya know how Japanese people often can't hear the difference R and L? It's the same the thing. As you're growing up and learning your first language, your brain is assimilating all the sounds and patterns and such as "correct" language, building the machine he talks about in this video. Once your machine is built, it will take unexpected sounds and lump them in with the closest sound it was expecting. So basically because her mom reinforced those pronunciations so much, her brain would take "idea" and go "yeah, they said ideal" cuz that's what it expected
Very interesting. Hope she and the child can work it out. I also never corrected my wife's mispronunciations in English (like the grandmother here, I found them kind of adorable). But now our eight-year-old son does correct her. She then sort of looks to me for confirmation that he's right, and of course he's always right. Thankfully she accepts it more easily than the woman referred to in this comment. And she also hasn't (yet) asked my why I never corrected her...
Incredible interview, This Matt talk is more deep and personal than usual.
A big hug for both.
This was a great interview! You had great questions and he answered them in such a easy to understand way. I watched all the way from beginning to end with my eyes glued to the screen and ears listening intently!
Be obsessed. That is the single most important take away from this; be obsessed, do nothing else and provided you have some talent, you will be able to more or less get similar results.
@KvAT i.e. the fool is the precursor to the master.
Not obsessed. Motivated.
Talent is only an excuse used by lazy unmotivated people.
@@INFIDEL96 So talent does not exist?
@@thinking-ape6483 I don't think so. I would say Matt has perfect Japanese because he spent thousands of hours learning the language.
I have never seen someone learn a language with "talent"
They are always ordinary people who have been extremely dedicated, studying and consuming content over a long period of time.
@@INFIDEL96 So again, talent does not exist.
I've been using Matt's model for language learning for about 14 months to learn Korean. Immersion learning is the only reason I could have stuck with it. It makes it a lifestyle where you just enjoy content, show up every day and try to learn a little more each day.
Looking forward to reading more Korean books the send half of this year
@@dj0- yeah, or maybe a couple of days like 3-4 at most.
Keep up the grindset
@@513regichan Thank you. I didn't mean any harm. I was just saying that learning kana is so essential and what helps speed up the process.
@Lucas_540 On Fiverr No. You are now purposely trying to take what I said in a malicious way. You said earlier in this SAME comment section saying that you did not have time to study. So I recommend that you try your best to FIND time to learn it because it helps for various reasons to get it done as soon as possible.
What you said - "I can't study 24 seven like you..."
It does not take a month to learn each. I have taught foundation level Japanese for year and did evening sessions with students to help them get used to using kana.
You even saw me say "I do not mean any harm" and that I only wanted to help you speed up the process. But if you decide to ignore that and completely interpret what I said in a negative manner. I cant help you with that.
I also said within a week. Not even a day.
@Lucas_540 On Fiverr Honestly man, he's kind of right. It should only take a couple days at most. You can do what I did and brute force it into your memory in two days if you wanted to. The way I learned them was to write each one out front and back on a piece of paper and say it to myself as I wrote. I haven't used Japanese in a while but I can still recognize kana at a glance.
This was a great interview! I am definitely re-evaluating the way I learn Japanese now. I bought a couple textbooks and while I don't regret it, I definitely feel like something was missing and everything Matt said about learning through input might be the help I need.
Man, so much gold is sprinkled throughout this interview. Thank you to you both for this.
I agree 100% with Matt. I learned English because I was into computers and every programming book translated to Danish was from the stone age (give or take a decade). The way I went about it was to ask my parents for English novels for Christmas (Dragon Lance: The Elven Nation Trilogy and three Star Wars novels). In the beginning I would use a dictionary for the individual words, but lo and behold, by the third novel I was done using the dictionary. After that I tried my best not to look at the subtitles (on analogue TV you couldn't turn them off)... and the whole thing kinda took care of itself after that.
I feel you on the subs. I got a couple of Spanish series gardsubbed in English and it's very difficult to get your eyes not to look down.
This is the way
Continuing to use the dictionary is the best way to continue learning new words. The other day, I picked up 以心伝心 and 感慨深い because I heard them in a sentence and had to look them up. Just switch to J-J dictionaries like weblio, goo, or kotobank once you know enough words.
@@stevenfallinge7149 yeah I think 99 % of words I learned by context and reading not really the dictionary
@@breadman5048 It's probably different between common words and the rarer words you find in a book. For example, you probably wouldn't pick up words like "quotidian" or "inchoate" unless you read a lot of books, and even then you might not know what those words mean unless you look them up because they don't show up often. For Japanese, visual novels and some other games turn out to use a lot of rare words, like 馥郁たる, 絨毯, or 石膏.
His method is strikingly similar to mine when I was teaching myself Arabic. Obviously, Matt was more regimented and diligent than I was, but I just kept consuming and consuming Arabic content until my Pronunciation was absolutely perfected. When I visited Saudi Arabia 5yrs ago, after being there for a week I was able to hold short conversations and communicate with people. I wasn't fluent but I was able to understand most of it. This is after NEVER sitting in an Arabic classroom learning it the traditional way. You also have to have a love and enthusiasm whilst learning too.
That's so cool!
"His method" is just renamed AJATT though, isn't it?
I did that with Arabic as well and now I’m fluent. I’m American so studying Arabic as a second language was extremely hard but it paid off in the end. Like, really paid off. It’s amazing how much input actually works, even as an adult. Now I’m studying German and it’s very easy compared to Arabic.
@@allergictohumansnotanimals5671 Mabrook habibi
If I may ask since I'm trying to learn Arabic too what content were you consuming? Don't really know where to start lol
Probably not something most people can do, but for me the biggest boost to my Japanese learning was going to a Japanese manga school. Not a language school. An actual school in Japan primarily attended by Japanese students. Going to classes, going out to eat, hanging out in dorm rooms, etc. with 95% Japanese people, really opened my eyes (or perhaps my ears) to how Japanese was really spoken. I think it also made a difference that most of the students I met were young adults who had never met a foreigner before so whereas Japanese people who attend international parties or people who work with foreigners, would often come to you with certain assumptions and adjust their language to accommodate you, the people I met at school would come not knowing what to expect and usually just end up treating me the same as anyone else.
This is a solid interview man and well conducted really allowing Matt to get his ideas across. I appreciate it.
he is living the Weeb dream
He unlocked the bonus level
@@IvorMektin1701
Level 99 Weeb master samurai
Needs a Japanese kawaii girlfriend too. Then it's fully unlocked
Epic
@@Sx-xy2zi he has one lol
That sounds exactly the way i learned english... i just watched about 1000 hours of tv series with english subtitles...
fun fact is that english has a bunch of concepts and phrases my language doestn have... and because i use english more than my native language, these concepts became an integral part of the way i think... and that is when you realise you think in concepts, not words... one effect this has, is that if im speaking in my native language a lot of the time i build the sentence with the assumption that i can just say that sentence by just taking the concepts and using the words that represent them... but if my language doesnt have that concept my brain just throws an exception and i use english word/phrase/word for word translation of that phrase - which means that it makes it really difficult for me to speak with people who do not speak english
Also the thing with the vowels, totally true, in czech we have slightly different sounds to all the letters, and we never get taught not to use the czech alphabet... so what you get is this horrible accent that is so unmistakable that when i play dota, if a czech person says anything (most of the time 1 word is enough) i can immediately tell they are czech. feels like every language i came across is made up of different set of sounds
Very interesting perspective that i can wholeheartedly relate to. For me its not speicifically a struggle to parse concepts into correct sentences, but more of a general decline as i tend to not spend as much time with my native language as i am doing with english. Although, the thing with concepts happened to me once at about halfway where i am right now where english was superimposing a fair bit on my native lang's sentence structures that i was trying to use and so there was a period that i imagine i did sound really strange.
So same for russian. I can really just tell if a person russian or not just by listening to the way they say interchangable vowels (like in the word "probably" where the vowel o is written but the correct way is to say it using -ah sound) or in the way they pronounce b, ph, p, r sounds. Also russians tend to lisp and so do I. I find it the most difficult aspect to get rid off.
There's only one way to...-
Cause what happens happens and not if not. So, in pronouncing right, you ever once sit and, as if, think about it; So slowly setting the habit, and now making the right phonetic sounds.
So interesting, that thing of what y'all saying above. Mm it got me this idea of, the very unique sounds of a language. Language is a personality... And those sounds are related... Like using certain consonants or vowels; and that shaping your mouth and vocal cords patterned.
Like how English is veeery round, even more so british. Like spanish and so less so. Round is harder to listen if not flowing. And, actually most other languages which then are more direct and less vowely, are easier to just get it. Also English is not phonetic at all! Feels like.
I can see the whole pattern in, even the culture!, If not such delusionally me now, I could say that in English in general is also more free.
22 years ago I was driving a taxi in the southeast U.S., where I grew up, and I was learning Russian because I had a very attractive young female Russian regular customer. I was following the written pronunciation guides in the book plus listening to her accent. Now I knew I had no idea how to pronounce the vowels so I guessed like German vowels. So she is riding in the back giving directions since she chose a different route every day to prevent being followed. I said something in Russian in response, and the blood drained out of her face and she asked in a terrified whisper if I was KGB. I laughed so hard I almost lost control of the car. I told her that was the greatest compliment I had ever received in my life, and it still is.
@@jeffreysmith236 please tell me yall married now XD
Thank you so much for this video. I've always thought Matt's approach would be better for me, but I've also felt kind of pressured to think more popular approaches are "tried and true" so I should default to them. This video gives me more confidence to dive right in!
Such a helpful video. Has helped me redirect my Japanese lessons, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed before listening to what Matt had to share.
I appreciate how introspective the I interviewee is, I think a lot of people fall into that trap of allowing one thing to be like the crux of their whole identity and growing out of that makes you a much healthier happier person.
@SnugglerWuggler smart lady ✨👩🏾🦱😀
What’s your icon pic?
@@ataraxia7439 a character called Hazel from a comic called Seconds by Bryan Lee O’Malley
I think I've seen nearly 10 interviews of Matt vs Japan. I feel like this interview did the best job of letting him express ideas completely. Part of this may be because he has now had a lot of experience explaining these things, but still, nice interview.
We have the same name
@@Purpial Thats cool. Collin with 2 l's is uncommon. Do you also mean first & last? Cause I've been working on the assumption that I am the only one, would be interested in knowing otherwise.
@@alfred0231 I have a friend named Collin spelled exactly 2 l’s
Absolutely love your channel. Glad you started to do language related videos.
Just the fact that you're a non-native English speaker with parents who are not naturally English-speakers and you're watching this video without subtitles is a blessing/miracle. ☺
Clickbait title: White Guy Speaks Perfect Japanese from watching Anime
Reality: A guy practices Japanese 6 to 8 hours daily for 3 years obsessively before even trying to speak it, and then goes to a school with native Japanese people to practice for 2 more years.
Not very click-bait. He did explain how and why he used native content for the bulk of his (at least early years) learning. Obviously you won't achieve a high level by just watching the titles you already like. You have to broaden your consumption and make it something you go out of your way to do.
His "practice" is just watching anime and reading books with an app he used 30 minutes a day to learn vocabulary, and him going to school wasn't really an important part of learning the language, you can make the speech practice for free going on discord and talking or something similar.
didn't he said he was in Japan for only 6 months?
And that he was able to speak fluently in 2 weeks!
He was in Japan for only 6 months in his first year of learning Japanese. And he actively avoided speaking Japanese and stayed in his room, studying Japanese. Though the rest of what you said is true.
@@delfost OMG did you even see the video?
When you're such a weeb that it becomes cool.
Matt has really helped me and made me more confident in what I'm doing, I'm part Korean and i really want to learn Korean and live there someday however I didn't really know how to do it because i was getting lots of different opinions, matt has simplified it and made it comprehensible, i love you man.
* Forget English *
Me using English as my second language to learn Japanese:🤡
Same😭🙂
HAHAHA I FEEL THAT
ほんとにお上手ですね！ I will practice hard to be able to speak English fluently like you speak Japanese.
I will practice hard to be able to speak Japanese fluently like you speak English!
@@Gaganpreet708 same lol
めっちゃ練習できられます、今病気にかかっちゃいますけど
I will practice hard to be able to speak japanese and english fluently like i speak arabic
like me * i need to back to work😅😂
This is interesting. I’ve used these methods to learn English. This was intuitive and natural to me. Now I use these methods to learn Korean language. Works out pretty well for me.
I've been doing this for like 10 months in Korean and im probably concidered an advanced learner atleast in reading
so, you just watched and immersed yourself in english?
@@christinaeconomos4726 that's what I did, yeah
Can you go a little bit into detail about how you're learning Korean?
Especially when you were a complete beginner, starting from scratch.
What apps/resources you used.? As you understand very little at the beginning
Yes, I'd love to know your recommendations for media/content for beginners too.
Such an awesome interview, really enjoyed that.
The learning to swim analogy comparing learning rules and physics versus empirical learning is really interesting, because that is precisely how computer translations made a massive leap forward. Previously there was a lot of the precise analytical modelling of the rules of a language versus the current methodology which is roughly a massive amount of data input into a relatively unoptimized learning algorithm
I went from speaking no English to sounding like a local Londoner in 5 years, and I totally agree with this guy. Observer observe and observe more, understanding is not important in the beginning, your brain is going to pick up words and without you knowing it, and will naturally use it in speaking. Another one is avoiding speaking or limiting exposure to your first language, I mostly didn’t talk, read or listen to anything in my first language for 3 years.
Any content you recommend to build a london type of english?
What % of people have the option to avoid their native language AT ALL, let alone for 3 years? It's cool that it worked for you, but that's not a story pretty much anyone can replicate.
@@WaitingForTheHook You don't need to completely avoid your native language, it's just the more you do avoid it the better you'll become in your target language, is my take away atleast.
@@chilael6892 Harry Potter? lol
@@EresirThe1st Well I was thinking more about youtube channels since that's the bulky of the content I consume but, gimme one of these series and I'll try to dig out the rest. Thank you.
"Haha what you can't learn Japanese from anime, lol all you know is kowai desune"
Matt: *observe*
More like マット: 見て
ガヴリール様カンペキ天使だよね！！！
@@themelancholyofgay3543
I agree. You also learn Japanese from Tokusatsu shows.
Without further ado, HENSHIN.
Lol I see what you did there. Very... cute.
Probably the reason that he was able to learn Japanese from anime while most people who try aren't able to is because usually they still keep the subtitles in their own language. Iirc some study said that language acquisition from watching a foreign tv show if you keep native language subtitles is virtually zero.
Your editing is amazing, it must have taken days to collect that B-roll. Respect.
I want to thank you both. This is the most useful language learning video I've ever watched. I've always wanted to learn languages, but never had any success. I'm currently in school again (at 52) and decided to take Japanese as my required language class (one of the languages from my list of ones I want to learn). I'm currently halfway through the course and doing well per my number grade (not as well as that grade says in reality) I still seem to be doing more translation instead of reading/understanding. My main issue is memorization of vocabulary and the hiragana/katakana (these I have pretty well memorized, just get the similar ones mixed up still) and not to mention kanji which we are really just starting on. Regardless, thank you both for putting this video up and I look forward to consuming more content from both of your channels.
I'm learning English. Just in time, lol. I'm gonna get fluent fore sure!
Just watch Hollywood or listen to music
You're doing great!
"for" sure. But keep it up!
@@scottapache5041 yablockos
Best video to introduce people to immersion-based language learning.
I'm currently learning english language right now and these ideas are very helpful to me. I would also like to learn japanese in the future. Thank you very much!
I've been following matt and this channel for many years, really cool seeing the two collide :)
This has to be one of the most interesting talks I've come across with respect to language learning.
To be honest I was a bit reluctant initially noticing the length of the video, but each minute was super on point.
I've noticed that spaced variable rewards also work in language learning such as: getting to understand a show you didn't get before, talking to a native speaker and them thinking you're a native etc.
Identifying those rewards has been crucial a role in keeping myself motivated, and keeping these rewards spaced enough to feel driven.
Thank you for your content. 😊
This is such a great video, thank you for the insights. This is going to be key in moving to my next level of learning, some really important things to know in this video. Worth watching the whole thing.
Sooooo...clickbait title? He mastered Japanese with anime....and dramas....and books....and flashcards....and apps....and studying...and practice...and real life application...super great video, I learned a lot and it definitely gave me some great ideas to further my Japanese study. I just don't like the misleading title.
@@icecold__ what’s the original method ?
When people ask me about my linguistic proficiency, I point out the incredible basis of input vs classic learning. You need to forget the skeleton of the first language and try to put a skin on, rather, feel the shape and ingrain it.
Timestamps or these segments in the watch bar would be nice. Especially with this many points
Just added them thanks to @sweatytryhard
@@WhatIveLearned nice
The vowels! I started taking classical singing lessons at 16 and only really took an interest in Japanese later, so the clipped vowels was something I noticed immediately. It's almost a hard onset followed by a glottal stop.
Will definitely be saving this as a resource for how to learn any language.
Fascinating specific example of massive comprehensible input being the greatest way to learn a target language, loved the intonation as pitch accent insight. thank you.
his personality kind of changes a lot too when he's speaking japanese, he's just a perfect mimic
Matt finally hitting the mega spotlight he deserves!!! Nice thanks for bringing more awareness to his super helpful channel :)
It's crazy how much of Matt's experience and even internal thought process with Japanese almost perfectly describes my experience learning as well. I can definitely see how lots of input and written output to form my own connections with the language and my thoughts helped in the beginning. It also makes sense that speaking at the beginning is not entirely necessary since even babies don't speak until they've already had hours and hours of input. I'm definitely gonna test this method with Spanish now that I'm more aware of Matt's example and my own previous experience learning Japanese.
Omg thank you SO much for this video. Because of Matt I got to know about pitch accents. I'm learning japanese and as a beginner I had no idea that the lexical meaning could also change with the pitch; I only thought it changed the emotion and way of saying the same thing. Wow. This was so great and motivated me so much more to keep learning this beautiful and unique language.
The perfect language input sources I've found are visual novels. I really recommend you reading visual novels when you are learning foreign language
Where can you find them? Sorry for the question, not really familiar with visual novels :) thanks
Do you have any recommendations?
Visual novels? What are those?
@@k.5425 It's a genre of game that's basically an electronic choose-your-own-adventure book.
@@Amanda-C. Thanks.
Is it like those games shown in ads that pop up.
One of the most informational videos i've seen! I put Linguist as what i wanted to be in my 5th grade year book, so this technique of learning like a child sounds very intersting, and is definitely something i want to try! Thank you!
This is an absolutely amazing video. Such great information and very interesting, even though I’m currently learning Spanish. Still most of the concepts apply.
I learned English by immersion, and I had some very funny misunderstandings with it, and probably still do.
I was hearing the word "permanently" being used in a context that talks about time, so I guessed that it was related to a period of time, like temporarily. (hint: it was the opposite)
One time when I was playing monopoly with my host family, my host brother was going bankrupt, so I said to him "I can permanently borrow your estate card, and in exchange I can lend you some money". What I meant to say was temporarily. They laughed so hard and corrected me in the end. What a nice moment!
Lol at least you didn’t say something inappropriate
I apologize, but what does "host family" mean?
@@adamwigley9738hi, "Host family" is an English term that refers to a family that welcomes and accommodates a foreign person in their home. This typically occurs when the foreign person is visiting a country for an extended period of time, such as for studying, working, or participating in a cultural exchange.
@@One-Unical ohhh, thanks, didn't know that
This is one of the most, if not the most, interesting discussions on language and learning I've watched. I did not get bored at any moment. Excellent questions, and great articulation of what was necessary. Thank you both!
Now you can tell your parents that watching anime can get you a job as a translator.
Sadly not ,I've learning English by immersion for a long time and I struggle to translate because I do not find the words in my native language.
dude, the celery man clip was such a joy to see haha. would never have expected it to be used like that
Saying he learned by watching anime is deceiving clickbait. He lived in Japan for a year and he studied using intensive methods not only there but at home for ten years. This is addressed in the video itself so it’s hard to read that title as anything other than sensational clickbait targeted at weebs who want to learn Japanese without the required legwork lol
Brilliant! I did the EXACT same thing to learn and master various dialects, accents and idioms in Latin American Spanish. Spanish music, books and especially novelas(soap operas). The only difference, I did it in the early 90's - sans Internet.
Which shows did you watch in Spanish?
@@ronlugbill1400 oh Gosh so many! But my favourites were "La Usurpadora" and "Esmeralda" I also moved into a Latino community and strictly watched Univision! So everything from "Sabado Gigante" to Walter Mercado - mucho paz y amor 😉 to "Lente Loco" to "Cantinflas" 😂. I was already fluent in French when I switched to Spanish, so listening to Gloria Estefan's music on constant repeat helped with intonation as well as interpretation. It's like he was saying; it's not about word for word translation, but an understanding of contextual inference. Because I'm old enough to look back and remember a time when could barely speak a few words, and I pronounced them with French accent. I see clearly the ability we all have to learn anything! I'm currently working on Haitian Creole and Brazilian Portuguese. I hope the video inspires people to dive in completely; immerse yourself in language.
Muy bien
The cross over I've been waiting for
58:30 that's a great point actually. It took me about a decade to reach a stable level of C2 fluency in English from both primary and high school education and then casually engaging in it daily whilst picking up new words here and there in the years since. 4 years ago I took a course A1 Russian language and by the end of it I did understand basic structuring and had a small vocabulary, but since then I've barely practiced it due to a lack of exposure and follow-up learning. This really confirms to me that you need to have a certain amount of stress over a certain period of time, kind of like progressive overload theory in Fitness, to really make lasting improvements. Eventually there will be a certain balance considering the Pareto Principle I'd argue, but all in all he's totally right about realistic expectations in terms of duration and intensity. Nice interview, got me stoked to pick up Russian again!
И как, в связи с событиями последних четырех месяцев, желание учить русский не пропало? :)
it makes sense, seeing how most non-english speakers learn english by watching a lot of english tv shows, cartoons, movies, etc. when i was growing up i learned most of my grammar, knowledge of slang, general definitions and so on by the mediums i've stated before. the passion to learn something helps you to find patterns to absorb and digest all that knowledge you are trying to gather.
As a Russian boy I learned fluent English just by watching PewDiePie and dank memes from the start not knowing most of the stuff they were saying and moving to more advanced American with all of its dialects. And here I am 4 years later able to understand 99 percent of words
Holy картошкины, братан. You understand English better than a lot of Native speakers. Those wankers can't even understand the point of '
@@danielantony1882 lol, same. I suck speaking at russian
@@fsholokh why do you suck at speaking Russian?
As Russian, learning English from Russian is actually very common lol.
Russian is my target language. I can't wait to speak fluent Russian.
Awesome!!! I’m glad to see Matt here 😊
spamming comment to draw attention to your channel, please kindly f.o
Hello fellow carnivore! (From Australia)🖖🏼 Love your content too BTW.
It’s genuinely quite incredible what Matt has done, the depth he’s gone to and the time he’s put in has brought its rewards, even if, as he admits, his initial motivation was troubling and he suffered losses throughout the process.
i love your videos, ive been trying to learn german and your video on language acquisition and how humans acquire langaure was very helpful compared to many other videos ive seen!
I personally learned English watching youtube... mainly AVGN who speaks quite slowly and clearly
I usedto watch him a lot! His theme song comes to mind from time to time.
My kid's English became amazing from just watching gamers on UA-cam.
Hell yeah AVGN rules!!!
Wow. It’s like one of the best crossovers in UA-cam for me
Next up is Dogen and Trash Taste
This is really a fantastic interview and well made video. Thanks for your efforts :)
man your videography is next level👏🏼 you never miss a beat. been a subscriiber for 2 years now and no i dont know anything about videography lol.