AJATT (Khatzumoto)

[Video] Won't Japanese Subtitles Hurt My Japanese? Aren' They a Crutch

【Patreon限定ビデオ】UAG2020-1

[Audio] [Q&A] How Do I Get Back on the Japanese Language Horse After a Hiatus?

Jess hits us with a question:

"You know what, my language journey has kinda stalled. Not just because of COVID-19 but just sputtered out since leaving Japan. It’s sad because I was doing well enough to work in an all Japanese environment but since moving back to the UK, Japanese has taken a back seat in my life and I’m not sure how to welcome it back." 

The gist of me answer:

* An ocean wave is not the water but the energy carried in that water.

* J...

[Audio] [Q&A] Of Course Timeboxing and Radical Prioritization Matters But What About Balance and Breadth?

In response to my grand audio masterpiece, "The Real Meaning of "Get Your Priorities Straight", thus said Tyler:

"This [radical prioritization] is  a very important concept, but personally I have trouble keeping that  discipline up and going. Sometimes I get the most important thing done  and then have no energy/discipline to follow up on all the other things  that are just as important. My intuition is to timebox for 5 minutes on  each item to build moment...

[Audio] Should I Do Lazy Kanji or Old School Heisig? "葛藤"

* First some, definitions: Lazy Kanji = Writing and Recognition. Old School Heisig  = Production.

* You don't have to choose! Have that cake and eat it, too, son! DO BOTH!

* For 30 days (maybe longer but not shorter), create and do reps on both a Lazy Kanji deck and an Old School Heisig Deck

* At the end of the testing period, see which deck you're doing better on.

* Then, delete or ignore the other deck and keep the one that's working best for you.

How To Turn a YouTube Video into a Permanent Learning Tool [i.e. a Series of Awesome Multimedia SRS MCD/MXD Cards]

1. Pick a YouTube video on a topic that interests you intensely, that really grabs you (whether or not you fully or even partially understand it). What matters is your curiosity, not your comprehension.

    * Let's do this one for example: [岡田斗司夫ゼミ#279（2019.4）『攻殻機動隊』２話「SUPER SPARTAN」 徹底解説 前半 - YouTube] https://bit.ly/39AeA9B

2. Convert the YouTube ...

[Video] [Raw] [Unedited] [NoFilter] On the Subject of Intellectual Laziness:Why You're Afraid of Using Your Mind and How to Do It While Having Fun

* People like sports and simple, mindless labor

* Because those things have clarity -- clear rules, clear goals 

* Complex things are complex because they lack this clarity 

* The way to make them fun and easy is for you to (usually arbitrarily) give them this clarity 

* Use limits, timeboxes and boundaries to turn your life into a game

[Audio]The Myth of Easy and Hard Languages (Relative to Your Native Language)

* No language is easy for anyone

* No language is hard for anyone

* All human languages are equally easy and hard for everyone, just easy and hard in different ways, at different points, for different reasons

* All languages require us to learn by addition of knowledge and subtraction of counterproductive habits

* All languages require us to show up and be exposed: languages aren't learned by absence or avoidance

[SRS MCD/MXD Base Card] Manga-Inspired Natural Japanese Dialog With Audio | Brooding Basement Boy

[FRONT OF CARD]

Situation: A mother finds her son sitting alone in the dark in the basement　and expresses her concern for him.

母：あんた！こんな所で何してるの？！

Mother: Honey! What's going on? What are you doing here?

息子：うるっせー！放っとけよ！

Son: 'f##k's sakes...leamme the hell alone, Mom!

[BACK OF CARD]

あんた→あなた

放っとく→ほうっておく

放っとく＝ほっとく

�...

[SRS MCD/MXD Base Card] Manga-Inspired Natural Japanese Dialog With Audio | Doxxing Vigilantes

This is an experiment we're doing right now but we might look into expanding it further.

[FRONT OF  CARD] 

自警団員その一（先輩）：お前はどうなんだ？世間に名前を晒されても良いのか？

Senior Vigilante: So what's your deal, man? Don't you care if you get doxxed?

自警団員その二（後輩）：えぇ。元よりそのつもりです。

Junior Vigilante: No, sir. [I expected it from the get-go | I came into this game...

[Audio] The Real Meaning of "Get Your Priorities Straight"

* The real meaning of prior(ity) is not "important": it's just "first".

* So getting your priorities straight means doing "first things first" -- doing that which is first in importance first in sequence as well.

* On the surface of it, this may seem like annoying nitpicking -- or, worse, brazen tautology -- on all sides.

* But it's actually really important because controlling the sequence (rather than the content) of your action will get you them grandslam, blockbuster...

[Bonus][Audio] A Language Is a Bank Account

A language is a bank account

Input = deposits

Output = withdrawals

Guess which has to come first?

Guess how much more depositing you're gonna need to do if you wanna make big withdrawals?

[Audio] You are never too busy to learn a language

* You are always learning or reinforcing a language, even if it's just your one native language.

* The only reason to every put off starting with an L2 is because it would be an Ln, where n ≥ 3. That's just an overly mathematical way of saying, the only reason to put off playing with Japanese is because your language dance card is already full.

* Putting off an L2 because you're "busy" with "work" or "school" is false excuse. It's total BS; it is a fiction in which all ...

[Audio] SRS Pacing, Why Your Productivity Actually DROPS When You Suddenly Get A Lot of Free Time and What to Do About It

SRS is a sprint sport. Reps are supposed to be done in short bursts, 1-5 minutes at a time.

Long marathons are not desirable.

Long marathons are not necessary.

Long marathons are not sustainable.

Sprint. Be Bolt. Run hard. Then stop.

Again, SRS is a sprint sport, requiring intense concentration and mental focus for a brief, preset, limited amount of time. Short is the way. One 5-minute SRS session every waking hour adds up to 80 minutes per day. That's amazing. 2020-05-29 14:09:49 +0000 UTC View Post

[Audio] How Do I Get Started With This AJATT Noise? + Why Time on Project (Years of Study or Even Hours Per Day) Is Literally The Worst Metric For Language Study and What to Use Instead

WHERE TO START?

Immersion.

Typically in the form of for-native-by-native (FUNBUN) media exposure.

This is literally and figuratively the alpha and omega.

First thing in the morning: immersion.

Last thing at night: immersion

All during the day: immersion.

Time is the worst metric for gauging language study.

"I've been studying Japanese for seven months"

Really, ninja?

5040 hours of Japanese exposure over 210 days?

Rea...

[Audio][Q&A] When Reading, How Should I Deal With Being Able to Understand Every Word in A Sentence Yet Being Unable to Understand the Sentence as a Whole?

FanxyChildxDean asks [question edited for spelling, grammar and flow]:

"So I've been doing AJATT for 7 months now and my vocabulary keeps getting better and better. But lately I've been running into the following "problem": I can read most of the words in a sentence aloud, and know the meanings of all the individual words, yet still fail to fully comprehend the sentence as a whole. 

What should I do?

Should I start paying more attention to the sentences and read slo...

[Audio] The GoldenEye Principle: Flow, Dopamine, Spirituality and How to Make Everything As Fun as Video Games and Multiplayer Bedroom Sports

"The GoldenEye was a fictional electro-magnetic orbital weapon developed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War." [GoldenEye (weapon) | James Bond Wiki | Fandom] https://bit.ly/36rz6sF

You don't like sex or video-games quite as much as you think you do.
These activities are not that intrinsically interesting (obviously, they are a little bit).
What really makes them seem fun is the focus with which they are p...

[Audio] [Q&A] If English is Not My L1, Should I Use It To Learn Kanji Or Not?

Birgit, a young German woman with impeccable taste in language acquisition methods wonders:

"Hi Khatz, [I know you're] not my boy and not my mothers either (maybe?), 

But I have a question regarding learning the meanings of kanji.

Most sources are in English, which is not my L1 but my L2. 

Now I‘m learning Japanese as my L3 (hopefully [it'll be] better than my English) and [I wanted to ask: should I] translate everything [in]to German (which is my L1) or ju...

[Audio] [Q&A] What's the best way to find and collect a sufficient number of SRS cards, including natural for-native audio, for sentences you don't yet understand?

Khatz-「When using audio with your SRS cards, it's important that you choose natural, for-native, by-native audio that's both interesting to you and (preferably) delivered with intense, even hyperdramatic emotion. Materials made for learners reliably tend to be neither of these things.」

Brian Vaughan-「 What's the best way to find and collect a sufficient number of SRS cards, including natural for-native audio, for sentences you don't yet understand?」

[Video] [Raw] [Unedited] [NoFilter] Happiness, Gamification, Analog Thoughts and Digital Actions

Enjoy this rambling unedited video on topics of interest to the hip digital youth of today!

[Audio] [Q&A] How do I get unstuck and stay consistent and committed to studying Mandarin?

Hi, Khatzumoto. My name is Ronald.

I am living in Taiwan and studying engineering. 

I feel stuck because I don't have a language partner to talk to. 

And I feel stuck because I can't seem to stay consistent and committed to studying Mandarin. 

What should I do? Help me!

Thank you 

Ronald[o]

[Audio] [Q&A] How do I learn to read Chinese characters in Mandarin?

Kyle asks:

"Hi Khatz, 

You are so handsome and have the best thighs; they're not too thick at all; I like that you smell of cocoa butter as well, please keep that up.

Firstly, thank you so much for your content. It is substantially improving my Chinese each day. I was wondering what your thoughts are on learning the readings of characters? My situation is that I can read in Mandarin quite well, but I do not know how the majority of the words I know how to rea...

[Edited]Q&A: Trouble in Mandarin Land

The audio was choppy on the last upload so here is a new one.

-----------------------------------------------

Hi, Khatzumoto. My name is Ronald.

I am living in Taiwan and studying engineering. 

I feel stuck because I don't have a language partner to talk to. 

And I feel stuck because I can't seem to stay consistent and committed to studying Mandarin. 

What should I do? Help me!

Thank you 

Ronald[o]

Reference Materi...

The Problem With Grammar Rules: Language Isn’t Physics

One of the many problems with grammar rules — and perhaps one of the largest — is that they have exceptions.

So by the time you’ve memorized the rule, you’ve already spotted an exception out in the wild [the only place that matters, by the way: only real usage matters — your grammar book and even (much as I love them) your dictionary can go SUH-traight to heck in a showdown with real usage].

Now you have three problems:

1. the time an...
   2020-04-29 01:49:50 +0000 UTC View Post

Only Solve Small Problems

Don't overwhelm yourself physically (or, more importantly) mentally with the grandness of the task in front of you. That is to misuse mental abstraction. Only solve small problems. Everything small. Even Jesus, the main character from Season 2 of the Bible, basically hung out in Palestine talking to hookers and diseased villagers, one at a time, even though the episode guide says he was omnipotent; he coulda solved big problems on a big scale, but unless they involved fish and bread, popular ...

The Problem with Conspiracy Theories…

…isn’t that they’re not true: it’s that they’re not useful. Not actionable. Not empowering. Not falsifiable.

“Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.”
Frank Herbert

Do people conspire?
Yes.
Do governments lie?
On the daily.

So why is it even news to you that you’re small and weak, surrounded by forces you can’t contro...

Q&A: How would you apply the AJATT method to learning a programing language?

Khatzumoto Q&A: I've really been following your blog from a self-development perspective. So, I basically try to apply your posts with self-help type problems. However, there is something sort of language-related [that] I would like to know. How would you apply the AJATT method to learning a programming language? Is it possible? Have you tried it? How would you go about it? Especially the immersion part and deliberate practice? [In any case], I've been a fan of your writing for a while --...

If You Want to Fail (Badly and Permanently), Demand Certainty

Fear. Shame. A desire to cower in a corner and disappear forever. These are emotions I know all too well. :(

Success so big and bad that people think it and I am miraculous? I also have some experience with that. ;)

Many parts of the spectrum have I seen and and considered.

The thing that most people either fail to realize (or are loathe to admit) about pessimism is that it's comforting because it gives us certainty. 2020-04-17 00:31:00 +0000 UTC View Post

Why I Spend So Much Time Talking Philosophy and So Little Giving You Concrete Tasks To Do

• First let me apologize for only being able to speak in cliches. My ability to express myself is just that limited. I'm sorry. And, unlike Demi Lovato, I mean it.
• Here's the thing. I want to free your mind. I want to teach you how to fish. I want to give you the bread maker, not just a slice of bread. I want to give you the idea-generator, not just the tasks.
• I want to to give you the questions, not just the answers.
• The right questions create (or al...
  2020-04-14 04:28:03 +0000 UTC View Post

Q&A: Khatz do you consider yourself to be native-level at Japanese?

Yes and no. I have strengths and weaknesses. I can fool some people all the time, and all people some of the time but not yet all people all the time. So, yes in that I can fool you, no in that I can't yet sustain it indefinitely.

In terms of passive (input/comprehension) ability, unquestionably native-level, down to being able to successfully infer the meaning of new, unknown spoken and written words from context. Also, I often no longer even consciously "read" Japanese text: it "reads...

Language Is Messy and So Should You!

A short time ago, I was on a trip with some friends. We rented a small house together and hung out. And one morning, while all of us were in the kitchen, I re-realized [not a typo] something about myself, namely that: I don't like things half-done. So when I see someone cooking and trying to work on their laptop at the same time, I feel an intense sense of 2020-04-09 01:45:05 +0000 UTC View Post