Patreon Q&A Backlog (Patreon)
Content
7/21/18 Q&A Live Stream
Patreon Q&A - November 3rd, 2018
Patreon Q&A - November 17th, 2018
Patreon Q&A - December 1st, 2018
Patreon Q&A - December 15th, 2018
Patreon Q&A - December 29th, 2018
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 - Intro
00:30 - How advanced are you in terms of meditation?
08:01 - Does learning new skills while immersing increase immersion quality?
12:22 - Should I do targeted study of Japanese numbers?
16:10 - What resources are good for learning pitch accent?
24:32 - What should I do to increase motivation for immersing instead of watching/reading in my L1?
31:44 - How strict do you recommend being about i+1/1T?
34:44 - What is the best way to develop musical Japanese ability?
39:33 - When and how did you start meditation?
40:38 - Should I watch with Japanese subtitles while learning basic kanji?
42:11 - What do you think about suspending cards with a certain interval?
43:36 - Is listening to text-to-speech as immersion bad?
Patreon Q&A - January 12th, 2019
TIMESTAMPS:
00:29 - Have you talked to Khatzumoto?
17:21 - What should I be "doing" while actively immersing
21:29 - What is the minimum to maintain fluency?
27:17- I only do passive immersion and things aren't working, what's wrong?
30:39 - When do I make a card and when do I just keep going?
34:36 - Give me some intellectually stimulating Japanese content
46:18 - I'm not motivated and don't enjoy learning Japanese, is it still worth my time?
Things I mentioned in the video:
岡田斗司夫 - https://www.youtube.com/user/toshiookada0701
KAZUYA - https://www.youtube.com/user/kazuyahkd
池上彰 - 会社のことよくわからないまま社会人になった人へ
村上春樹 - 職業としての小説家
西田幾太郎
本多勝一
Patreon Q&A - January 27th, 2019
TIMESTAMPS:
00:23 - What are your plans regarding moving to Japan?
02:30 - When and how to go about dropping the SRS?
07:25 - Tae Kim: is "essential grammar" enough? (Theory vs Practice applied to grammar)
14:27 - Pitch accent of names and places?
18:50 - Should I up my active immersion?
21:31 - Current thoughts on reading before listening? (New thoughts on the order of learning)
35:17 - How to approach words with multiple meanings?
37:14 - What do you think of MCDs? What about normal production cards?
42:03 - How to grade monolingual sentence cards
45:08 - Lazy Kanji clarification
46:28 - Immersion while high? Weed and language acquisition
48:55 - How to develop a personality in your L2
56:35 - Bonus: a recent story from school. Incompetence of professors and how to master classical Japanese.
Things I mentioned in the video:
Grammar Resources:
https://djtarchive.neocities.org/bunpou/full_night.html
https://www.imabi.net/tableofcontents.htm
https://www.wasabi-jpn.com/japanese-grammar/wasabis-online-japanese-grammar-reference/
Pitch accent of names: http://accent.u-biq.org/namae.html
Lazy Kanji: https://massimmersionapproach.com/table-of-contents/stage-1/practice/lazy-kanji/
森鴎外
選ばれし物
学問のすすめ - 福沢諭吉
坂道のアポロン (Kids on the Slope)
Patreon Q&A - February 9th, 2019
TIMESTAMPS:
00:24 - Could you interview someone around 1 year into the process?
02:24 - Do you still watch anime?
09:34 - How much listening should I do before I start reading?
14:01 - How has psychedelics changed your perspective?
39:45 - How/when should I get started with pitch accent? How to color code for pitch?
51:36 - Thoughts on Khatz's "multiplexed input"?
55:30 - How to start reading as a beginner?
56:28 - What do you think about this study about watching with subtitles?
1:01:16 - Japanese immersion sources that aren't obnoxious?
1:06:17 - Are Chinese subtitles for English shows ok to make sentence cards out of?
1:07:10 - How does attention affect the subconscious when doing active immersion?
1:19:30 - Should I put English translations on BSCs?
Classic Anime:
-ドラえもん
-サザエさん
-クレヨンしんちゃん
-天才バカボン
-アンパンマン
Drama I like:
-獣になれない私達
-大恋愛 (don't really like but might be interesting)
-おっさんずラブ
-結婚できない男
-逃げるは恥だが役に立つ
-モテキ
Study: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0158409
Patreon Q&A - February 23th, 2019
TIMESTAMPS:
00:15 - How comprehensible should input be when you're intermediate
07:35 - Have you ever had any plateaus? What to do when you're stuck
15:11 - Passive immersion playlist structure?
18:20 - What do you think of fantasy/sci-fi anime? Do you like fantasy/sci-fi in general?
24:47 - Good sources for train katakana reading? Is your katakana reading ability native level?
29:17 - How do I learn to speak naturally (and not like an anime character)
39:23 - Do you play video games? Are video games good for immersion?
45:43 - How to deconstruct false assumptions about language and culture
53:05 - Is SuperMemo better than Anki?
58:57 - How many years of AJATT does it take to get confused for a native on the phone?
1:02:40 - Is it ok to make cards for sentences I don't fully understand?
1:09:08 - MorphMan for the monolingual transition?
Patreon Q&A - March 9th, 2019
TIMESTAMPS:
0:13 – Is it good to re-watch shows in active immersion?
4:48 – How do I know which MIA Stage I am at?
10:23 – Is “speak Japanese with ‘flat’ intonation” good advice?
18:03 – How would you go about learning programming?
22:18 – How you ever seen non-conformist Japanese people?
32:18 – Should I use pictures instead of English definitions?
38:11 – How much progress can I expect in a year?
40:22 – In the Perfectionist Path, when should I make the monolingual transition?
41:15 – What do you think about using Yomichan as a stand-alone dictionary?
43:21 – How has your meditation practice been going?
56:25 – Is learning to understand Kansai-ben difficult?
1:01:57 – Can you walk us through some monolingual definitions?
Links:
Balanced Path Overview: https://massimmersionapproach.com/table-of-contents/stage-0/balanced-path-overview/
Perfectionist Path Overview: https://massimmersionapproach.com/table-of-contents/stage-0/perfectionist-path-overview/
The 6-Point Model of Language Ability: https://massimmersionapproach.com/table-of-contents/stage-1/theory/6-point-model/
Rubric: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1r44DF3b0TNTBCo2_hnjTV60Jl0LHLENxIXrBqUwAIuw/edit?usp=sharing
Dogen, "Japanese is flat": https://twitter.com/Dogen/status/1099985573266083841
-意識が高い・意識高い系 (Check out the movie "何者" for an example of how Japanese people view "意識高い系")
-芸能界
-マツコ・デラックス
-有吉弘行
-ダウンタウン and ガクト: https://youtu.be/S957r3h0nsY https://youtu.be/WFefQgLuweE
Patreon Q&A - March 23th, 2019
TIMESTAMPS:
00:32 - How strict were you about ALL Japanese ALL the time?
09:30 - Do linguists know about the input hypothesis?
21:17 - Are you going to make more videos of you speaking Japanese?
25:32 - How to learn Japanese cursive?
34:22 - What makes you most grateful that you know Japanese?
41:18 - Can I get fluent with 1 hour a day?
48:50 - Tell me every single insight you've ever had
50:18 - How should I spend my time in Japan?
56:56 - Have you/will you take the 漢字検定?
58:19 - How would learning Mandarin be different from learning Japanese?
1:03:22 - Should I SRS names?
1:07:47 - Are you going to take the JLPT? Advice for the JLPT?
1:11:29 - How many kanji can you read?
1:12:41 - How do you stay motivated to keep meditating?
I think I might have used the term "applied linguist" wrong. I meant to say "Linguist who studies Language Acquisition"
Fonts: 明朝・ゴシック→楷書体(教科書体)→草書体. There's a way of writing that's between 楷書体 and 草書体 called "行書体", that's effectively pretty similar to how Japanese people actually write, but Japanese people don't formally learn 行書体. Realistically they learn 楷書体 and then simplify it on their own, in their own unique way.
Ichiro's press conference: https://youtu.be/MoschCm4-XE
Patreon Q&A - April 6th, 2019
TIMESTAMPS:
00:32 - Have you considered becoming a translator?
10:52 - Should I limit how many sentences I mine from a single source?
12:49 - Matt's current take on each of Krashen's 5 hypotheses
42:23 - How many water bottles do you go through in a day?
42:38 - How do I stay in the moment while listening?
46:24 - Overall Anki setup?
48:03 - How much reading is required to counteract not SRSing?
1:02:18 - Why is Japanese pitch accent harder than Mandarin tones?
1:21:08 - Matt's experience with pitch accent
1:31:25 - Did you film your April Fools video in one take?
Krashen's 5 hypotheses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Input_hypothesis
April Fools video: https://youtu.be/zPwIhjBwkRg
Patreon Q&A - April 20th, 2019
TIMESTAMPS:
0:23 - What is the anime you mined the most?
1:17 - What do you do for fun, related and unrelated to Japanese?
8:35 - Where do you want to live in Japan?
10:14 - Which non-ajatters in the field would you want to have a conversation with?
13:31 - How good were you at 18 months? Are some people truly fluent after 18 months?
23:46 - How many reps did you do a day per average? What do you think about JALUP's 250k reps + immersion = fluency
27:21 - How to utilize audiobooks/ebook pairs?
31:48 - What do you think about people mixing dialects in both English and Japanese?
44:43 - Is it bad to only sentence mine from books?
47:25 - Should I attempt to use visual novels to train listening ability?
49:50 - What other languages do you want to learn?
59:04 - Should I pause sentence mining to focus on pitch accent?
1:11:24 - How to do to monolingual RTK?
1:15:37 - Is there a way to make subs2srs decks out of audiobooks?
1:15:54 - What is that orange thing in your room?
-ひろゆき: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0yQ2h4gQXmVUFWZSqlMVOA
-M-1グランプリ (on Japanese netflix)
-HITOSHI MATSUMOTO presents ドキュメンタル (you can find it on nyaa)
-どうでもいい日常のニュース: https://youtu.be/umtm9UKZHw0
-WILYWNKA, 唾奇: https://youtu.be/dFAvZtrJhZk, https://youtu.be/3hPI3xjsNKE
-韻マン: https://youtu.be/hVXVx-2QF48
-R指定: https://youtu.be/Zp952mh8fXI
-SUSHIBOYS - https://youtu.be/gqnjxq-KA9o
-Dashan: https://youtu.be/6rXGg8VkVKg
-Levy Hideo: https://youtu.be/DnNkwnx082w
-With Each And Every Breath - Thanissaro Bhikkhu
-Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha - Daniel Ingram
-The Science of Enlightenment - Shinzen Young
-Deconstructing Yourself Podcast with Michael Taft
-Buddhist Geeks Podcast
-和魂洋才・和魂漢才
Patreon Q&A - May 4th, 2019
TIMESTAMPS:
1:00 - When is a good time to start an L3?
12:16 - Top 5 anime of all time? (Sorry, I was a dick in this one. Anime is fine; I'm just a little sick of people asking me about it)
13:19 - Is your listening ability native level?
15:00 - Favorite J-Drama?
16:43 - If you could trade the time you spent on Japanese into some other skill, what would it be?
19:00 - Is it a good idea to make twin audio-reading cards? Does a audio-reading pair count as one or two cards?
22:58 - Do heritage speakers have an advantage when doing MIA?
26:38 - What could and couldn't you do in Japanese after 18 months?
31:24 - Should I read through Tae Kim while going through the Tango decks?
33:11 - How do you plan to promote MIA to the public
34:04 - Is there a Japanese syntax parser similar to Jisho.org but with no English?
34:50 - How to deal with homophones when listening?
38:54 - Should I make mnemonics to learn new words?
40:22 - How to rep audio-based bilingual sentence cards?
43:29 - If you figure out a new word's meaning from context, should you still make a card?
44:34 - Do your Tango decks have audio or text on the front? Which way is better? Both?
46:24 - How strict should I be when grading text-based audio cards?
-新世紀エヴァンゲリオン
-カウボーイビバップ
-四畳半神話大系
-げんしけん
-化物語
-ヒカルの碁
-HUNTER×HUNTER
-MONSTER
-Fate/Zero
-PSYCHO-PASS
-Crazy fast Beat Takeshi manzai: https://youtu.be/07p5UXacYo4
-逃げるは恥だが役に立つ
-獣になれない私たち
-モテキ
-アオイホノオ
-Utada Hikaru speaking Japanese: https://youtu.be/B5d_AaHwxzw
-I also forgot to mention that the two common "ししょう"s, 支障 and 師匠, each have different pitch accents. Pitch accents can help you differentiate words as well
Patreon Q&A - May 18th, 2019
TIMESTAMPS:
00:25 - Current take on cultural differences between Japan and the US
12:04 - What was it like speaking to Steve Kaufmann in Japanese?
13:47 - How to transition from reading manga to reading novels?
17:13 - Once you are able to understand, how do you transition to outputting?
23:40 - I am able to understand well; why am I not able to output?
26:22 - When and when not to use furigana?
31:42 - How to deal with words like "開(あ)ける" and "開(ひら)ける" when reading?
36:11 - How much time do you spend on Chinese each day?
38:23 - Do you regret deleting your anki deck? What is your current stance on SRSing as an advanced learner
52:50 - I want to know a difficult language (Japanese) and an easy language (Spanish); should I learn them at the same time?
58:54 - Do you like Japanese food? Is Japanese food in the States authentic?
1:07:00 - My reading ability is way better than my listening ability, what should I do?
1:14:56 - How to make monolingual SRS cards for vocab and grammar?
1:17:43 - How to learn readings after RTK?
-入(い)る is almost never used in modern Japanese. Only in specific set phrases like "悦に入る" or "堂に入る".
Patreon Q&A - June 1st, 2019
TIMESTAMPS:
00:42 - Do you know any older people who have become fluent? Does age matter in language learning?
08:10 - What are some English phrases/concepts that don't exist in Japanese?
13:43 - What Japanese documentaries do you recommend?
15:12 - What are the benefits of being able to write out kanji from memory?
17:52 - Sentence cards only test recognition; should I make production cards as well?
24:33 - Are there any language learning YouTubers that you like? What YouTubers do you like in general?
31:31 - How has Nick been?
32:15 - Did you ever turn someone into an AJATTer IRL?
36:07 - I never used RTK; how to do monolingual traditional RTK?
38:01 - Will the MIA Japanese Support addon interfere with other addons? Does it work with MorphMan?
39:21 - How much immersion do you need to forgo anki?
40:50 - How often should I look things up while reading without furigana?
42:35 - How important is going monolingual when learning a language close to your L1?
46:04 - I am a beginner going to Japan in a month. How should I prepare to use the language in the country?
-Katsura Sunshine: https://youtu.be/2SamHpK6dew | https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1099&v=QxIah03xAJw
-NHK Documentaries: https://www6.nhk.or.jp/special/backnumber/index.html
YouTubers:
-Digibro: https://www.youtube.com/user/DigibronyMLP
-DouchebagChocolat: https://www.youtube.com/user/DouchebagChocolat
-TVFilthyFrank: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkitABalXafr-NqceQdDXtg
-Destiny: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC554eY5jNUfDq3yDOJYirOQ
-岡田斗司夫: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0FFHRF1mytLDhs6nxqGIQg
-スーツ 背広チャンネル: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2otzOMMLeJHZVwwyAQaA_w
-ブライアンチャンネル: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpZnHxjKCAOm-FKPrYYi-LA
-井上ジョーJAPAN: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSHzI-t58X8STwqjfSzp47w
-PROWRESTLING SHIBATAR ZZ: https://www.youtube.com/user/PROWRESTLINGSHIBATAR
-kimono: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKawY865D3NLS2Xsc7K_TwQ
-Nick's Channel (二木良守): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTP7QMElSMsSizO_rijWYbw
-How to do to monolingual RTK? | Patreon Q&A - April 20th, 2019, 1:11:24: https://www.patreon.com/posts/26229642
-MorphMan mod for MIA Japanese Support: https://github.com/InfiniteRain/MorphMan21
-How much reading is required to counteract not SRSing? | Patreon Q&A - April 6th, 2019, 48:03: https://www.patreon.com/posts/25925953
-Do you regret deleting your anki deck? What is your current stance on SRSing as an advanced learner | Patreon Q&A -May 18th, 2019, 38:23: https://www.patreon.com/posts/26945634
-How Often Should You Look Things Up?: https://youtu.be/3mAdzPcxBio
-Benny the Polyglot: https://youtu.be/HZqUeWshwMs
Patreon Q&A - June 15th, 2019
TIMESTAMPS:
01:20 - What research do you have to back up your claim that premature output and excessive early reading negatively affect pronunciation in the long term?
17:30 - My immersion quality suffers from being burned out after work; is this normal? What should I do?
20:08 - Do Japanese people still say your Japanese is "cute"? Why do you think this happens?
23:29 - What are your thoughts on timeboxing?
28:59 - I find myself doubting the process; how do I deal with this?
40:44 - Who would win in a fight between you and Yoga?
41:22 - Are Japanese people racist towards Chinese people?
51:23 - How does JLPT N1 level translate to the 6-Point Model of Language Ability?
55:55 - Is English as hard for Japanese people as Japanese is for English speakers?
1:01:28 - I am struggling to switch from English to Japanese media; should I go cold turkey?
1:07:58 - How do you plan on moving away from piracy for the future of MIA?
1:14:07 - Is this a good way to train pitch accent perception?
1:19:54 - How many years where you into AJATT when you didn't have to listen to Japanese 24/7 anymore?
1:21:46 - Why do you think there aren't any girls doing MIA?
1:25:32 - When should I stop repping RTK (lazy kanji) cards?
1:29:53 - What are your current thoughts on removing cards once they pass a certain interval?
Patreon Q&A - June 30th, 2019
TIMESTAMPS:
00:35 - How did you arrive at the conclusion that 10 cards a day is optimal?
05:43 - Does constant background immersion conflict with pursuing mindfulness in daily life?
12:15 - Are you actively trying to improve your Japanese output? How to reach a native level of output ability outside Japan?
28:54 - Help with transitioning to grammar and sentence mining after RTK
37:31 - What has your experience been with meditation retreats? Do you recommend going on one?
1:03:16 - If you had started meditating when you first started AJATT, would you be native level by now?
1:08:10 - Should I go out of my way to seek dialog-heavy immersion material, or just immerse with what I enjoy?
1:11:12 - How important is it to passively immerse with material you have actively consumed at least once?
1:17:23 - I only want to understand, and don't care about output. How should I apply MIA for this goal?
1:25:08 - How to get good at writing in a foreign language?
1:29:08 - How to learn words without SRSing them?
1:34:06 - How to go from Recognition RTK to reading kanji in sentences? Should I use furigana?
1:36:30 - How to speed up the process of dropping mental translation and understanding directly though mentalese
1:39:18 - Is recalling the meaning of characters necessary for Recognition RTK?
Patreon Q&A - July 13th, 2019
TIMESTAMPS:
00:18 - Why don’t you move to Japan right now? Wouldn’t that be better for MIA and your language goals?
11:49 - If your significant other was a native speaker of your L2 and wanted to assist your language learning, how would you instruct them to help you?
21:09 - Do you think it’s easier to reach a near-native level in Korean than in Japanese?
23:17 - So, what happened to MIA v1??
30:38 - If I don’t care about output, will it be more efficient to learn to read before developing listening ability?
39:56 - When tackling a new domain of language, is it a good idea to memorize the domain-specific vocabulary ahead of time (out of context)?
51:28 - How do I deal with loneliness when doing MIA?
1:00:33 - Japanese fonts seem very small. Should I purposely set font sizes small in order to adjust to smaller fonts?
1:05:31 - When it comes to learning kanji, is going from 0 to 2000 easier than going from 2000 to 5500?
1:06:42 - What do you think of Laoshu’s language learning method?
1:09:49 - You have said that knowing a word is nakadaka is USUALLY enough to infer exactly where the drop will be. But what are the cases where it will still be ambiguous?
1:19:02 - Where did you get all your physical Japanese books over the years?
1:21:20 - If you started an English language school in Japan, what would your classes look like?
What I mention at 1:03:36 : https://www.sciencealert.com/images/2018-03/processed/mixed-up-letters2_web_600.jpg
Laoshu's channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/laoshu505000
Thinking About Word-Level Pitch Accent: https://youtu.be/hWHvLvLs2KQ
Patreon Q&A - July 27th, 2019
TIMESTAMPS:
00:14 - What is your opinion on Japanese girls?
04:49 - Do you think that the Japanese classes you took helped you in any way?
14:37 - Would you rather date an American girl or a Japanese girl?
15:48 - I only have 2 hours a day to spend on Japanese; how should I use my time?
22:55 - How often do you encounter i+1 and i+2 sentences?
29:50 - How often do you know every word in a sentence but still not understand it?
31:21 - How do I improve at pitch accent PASSIVELY using color coding with the MIA JS Support addon?
33:40 - My listening ability is lacking in specific areas (katakana words, etc.); will this improve automatically with more immersion, or do I need to actively pay attention to those areas?
41:32 - Will not studying pitch accent affect your ability to understand spoken Japanese?
44:19 - It is possible for humans to acquire animal languages?
48:33 - What are the pros and cons of audio-based sentences cards and text-based sentence cards? Which should I use?
53:08 - How much does studying classical Japanese benefit your modern Japanese abilities?
1:04:56 - If you wanted to reach "native level", how would you go about it and how long would it take?
1:12:29 - How should I select what sentences to mine? Is being "i+1" the only criteria?
-専門用語(せんもんようご) = technical/specialty term
-Can any animals talk and use languages like humans?: http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150216-can-any-animals-talk-like-humans
-Intro to Classical Japanese: https://youtu.be/v2OcqIfg-m8
-Japanese authors mentioned: 森鴎外、福沢諭吉、夏目漱石、芥川龍之介、太宰治.
-I pronounced the following kotowaza wrong in the video: 義を見てせざるは勇なきなり
Patreon Q&A - August 10th, 2019
TIMESTAMPS:
00:19 - Do you have plans to collab with Dogen?
01:44 - Is there anything that you don't like about the Japanese language?
10:46 - What's your favorite Japanese insult?
12:41 - How would you design a scientific study to gather evidence for your ideas on language learning?
19:31 - Do you recommend learning an L3? If so, when should you start?
31:49 - Do you think it's a good idea to quantify how many immersion hours are required for each stage of the MIA timeline?
36:20 - Does the number of necessarily hours per day to make progress change depending on the difficulty of your target language?
38:24 - If you had literally all day to study your target language, how would you structure your day?
46:18 - How do I become a more articulate speaker in my native language?
59:06 - Is excessive diversification of immersion sources unproductive?
1:01:17 - Did you ever explicitly practice writing out Japanese by hand? What is the best way to train this skill?
1:06:08 - What's up with the YogaMatt podcast?
1:09:47 - How many of your cards became leeches? What to do about leeches?
1:12:25 - What do you think about creating an "output deck"?
Patreon Q&A - August 24th, 2019
Sorry for the weird orangey tint; I’m struggling to learn how to use a real camera. Also, by default, the camera can only film for 30 minutes at a time. Apparently, if you reach the 30-minute limit without manually stopping it, it doesn’t save and video and it gets erased… There is probably a way to stop that from happening, but I’m still learning how to use the camera. That’s why there is no video after the 14-minute mark. After losing the video once, I actually re-filmed the second half of the Q&A. But, because I didn’t understand why I lost the video the first time, I made the same mistake and lost it again 😭. I couldn’t get myself to film it a third time, sorry guys. I still had the audio, as I was recording it separately with Audacity.
TIMESTAMPS:
00:49 - Are longer immersion sessions better than shorter immersion session?
02:43 - What does the learning process look like after basic fluency?
08:34 - Will MIA work without the meditation process?
09:31 - I hate Anki, and am thinking of not using it. Is this a bad decision?
13:15 - Will you interview people who learned languages other than Japanese?
14:19 - How can I embrace ambiguity and overcome my OCD?
17:23 - If you had all the time in the world, would you actively learn Chinese?
18:31 - How long did it take you to able to enjoy Japanese media the same way you enjoy English media?
23:42 - What are your views on willpower?
29:26 - Is it possible to reach native level without Anki?
31:03 - There are 10 i+1 sentences on each page; how do I choose which sentences to mine?
808 cuck's video: https://youtu.be/NJFGVg0sQok
Patreon Q&A - September 7th, 2019
I’M SO SORRY GUYS! I messed up with the new camera again. I found out last time that if you film for more than 30 minutes straight, the camera automatically stops filming, and the footage isn’t saved. So, this time, I made sure to film in segments and manually stop them around 27 minutes in. But, it turns out that the real problem is that if you try to record for more than around 20 minutes, the cameras glitches and fails to save the footage. So, the first two 27 minute segments didn’t get saved. I didn’t realize this until I finished recording the Q&A. Enjoy the last 13 minutes of video though! I’m going to get a video capture card so that I can record with the camera through my computer, and avoid all of these problems. Really sorry guys.
Around 29:50, I feel like I made it sound like I’m doing more immersion that I really am. Some days I will read for an hour or two, but not listen at all. Some days I will listen for an hour or two, but not read at all. Some days I will get zero Japanese input. My total average input time is probably around 1~2 hours.
What I say at 56:30 is not necessarily true. It's possible to reach a point of understanding everything in a language without being able to perceive all the sounds (by over-relying on your ability to infer and predict what is being said). This is why you may need to study phonetics and do target practice with specific sounds in order to reach perfection. But, you should be able to achieve a very good accent without doing this. The one exception I forget to mention is pitch accent. Pitch accent is a large component of your accent in Japanese, and if you don’t study it directly, it’s extremely unlikely that shadowing alone will lead to you acquiring it.
-SuperMemo: https://supermemo.guru/wiki/SuperMemo_Guru
-Incremental reading: https://www.supermemo.com/en/archives1990-2015/help/read
TIMESTAMPS:
00:22 - Is speeding up immersion a good idea?
06:50 - How do you acquire grammar that isn't necessary for comprehension?
19:31 - What would happen if you skipped the monolingual transition?
24:07 - When should I put my phone/computer into my target language?
28:34 - What has your experience been maintaining your Japanese with lower amounts of immersion and learning an L3?
37:42 - Is it worth it to meditate 10~15 minutes a day?
39:11 - Is passive immersion beneficial even when you're not paying attention?
42:04 - What is the ideal sentence length for sentence cards? Is it fine to make cards with fragments of a sentence?
46:00 - How long did it take after starting pitch accent study before it became useful in comprehending real Japanese?
47:21 - Why is SuperMemo better/more efficient than Anki? Can't we just make addons to improve those aspects of Anki?
55:47 - I'm already fluent but have a bad accent. How can I improve my accent?
1:00:04 - Have you thought about going to a Polyglot Gathering?
1:00:47 - I have reached basic fluency in Japanese but still feel guilty about doing things in English. What to do about this?
Patreon Q&A - September 21st, 2019
TIMESTAMPS:
02:10 - What do you actually DO while actively immersing? Should you try to memorize words you look up? What if you didn’t look anything up?
14:19 - What has your experience been with using Anki for other fields of study?
28:45 - Have you ever been skeptical about meditation?
30:35 - What exactly should I be doing with my attention while shadowing?
33:08 - I learned Japanese but don’t want to go to Japan. Should I go to Japan anyway?
39:57 - How much conscious effort do you put into your accent when speaking Japanese?
42:49 - Are programs like Pimsleur or Assimil a good idea for beginners?
46:23 - What is the point of immersion during the RRTK phase? Shouldn’t I just spend more time on kanji?
53:14 - I feel like I over-rely on context when recalling the meaning of words while repping. What should I do about this?
57:06 - Do you have any recommendations for Japanese history books/resources?
1:02:52 - Are fully Japanese textbooks like “Minna no Nihongo” useful?
1:06:27 - Why don’t you recommend trying to understand pitch accent at early as possible?
1:13:37 - Sometimes there are multiple ways to read a word, all with the same meaning. How do you find out what the most common reading is in these sorts of cases?
1:16:23 - Explain the concept of an “accent phrase” in Japanese pitch accent.
1:24:25 - What’s your recommendation regarding ergonomic chairs?
-MIA Japanese Quickstart Guide: https://massimmersionapproach.com/table-of-contents/stage-1/jp-quickstart-guide/
-The Role of the SRS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrBFhsnBQ2k
-Low-Key Anki: https://massimmersionapproach.com/table-of-contents/anki/low-key-anki/intro/
-井沢元彦 (Japanese history)
-ぼけつ・はかあな: https://i.imgur.com/AY7vQDA.png
-My go-to frequency list: https://pj.ninjal.ac.jp/corpus_center/bccwj/freq-list.html
Patreon Q&A - October 5th, 2019
TIMESTAMPS:
00:25 - What is your elevator pitch for explaining MIA?
05:10 - I'm having trouble finding 1T sentences while immersing; what am I doing wrong?
09:58 - have you read "Moonwalking with Einstein" and what do you think about using hard-core mnemonics for language learning?
21:57 - How can I use MIA to learn code?
26:17 - What are your thoughts on the recent events regarding Culadasa?
27:41 - When are you going to upload the interview with the guy who learned German?
29:05 - How much of an advantage do Chinese people have over Westerners when learning Japanese?
32:30 - Does absolute pitch/relative pitch give you an advantage in language learning?
37:25 - The Tango N5 deck is 50% vocab cards. Is that bad?
40:45 - What are your favorite 四字熟語 (4-character compounds)?
46:23 - Are older anime bad for immersion?
49:11 - How can I do MIA without Anki? How much will not SRSing hurt my progress?
59:18 - What do you think the relationship is between the consciousness and unconscious minds?
1:04:12 - How much easier is learning a European language than learning an Asian language?
1:08:37 - When shadowing, should I continue to shadow the same short section until I get it perfect?
1:09:39 - How do you think that mental health affects work capacity and motivation?
-The audio gets a bit out of sync towards the end; sorry about that.
-I just wanted to note that although around 50 minutes in I say that using the SRS will greatly speed up the language acquisition process, this is only when combined with ample amounts of immersion. Without immersing at least twice as much as you SRS, the SRS will not speed up your total progress.
-Polyglot talking about the difficulty of Chinese: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvcLuTTn9p8
四字熟語:
-唯我独尊
-一喜一憂
-鎧袖一触
-和洋折衷
-反面教師
-無我夢中
-明鏡止水
-和魂洋才
-温故知新
-一石二鳥
-慇懃無礼
-一心不乱
-一攫千金
-文武両道
-傍若無人
-驚天動地
-臥薪嘗胆
Patreon Q&A - October 17th, 2019
TIMESTAMPS:
00:40 - What are your thoughts on the newest season of Terrace House?
10:00 - What's your reaction to Steve Kaufmann saying that learning 3 languages at once is more efficient?
27:03 - What MIA tools do you guys have planned for the future?
33:57 - What can I do to improve my output abilities around 18 months into the process?
45:07 - What do you think of the approach of only immersing with subtitles for the first 2 years?
52:07 - What has your experience learning Mandarin been so far?
1:13:56 - How much better do you think your Japanese will be 5 years from now?
1:16:29 - What do you think about never learning to write out kanji?
1:19:04 - What are your thoughts on setting "New Interval" after lapse to 100% on Anki.
-On the last question, I got mixed up and misspoke. I said, "Let's say you haven't seen a card in 3 months, the card comes up, and you fail it. If the New Interval was set to 100%, you would see it again in 1 month". I should have said, "You would see it again in 3 months"!
Patreon Q&A - November 9th, 2019
TIMESTAMPS:
1:30 - What do you mean by "acquisition critical mass"?
6:42 - Are you still planning a vlog trip to Japan?
11:42 - Have you ever met anyone better than you at Japanese?
18:51 - At what point in your AJATT career did the JLPT N1 become a joke?
19:32 - How do you deal with doubt during the early stages of the acquisition process?
27:43 - Set of 3 questions related to executing MIA (card creation, time allocation, pitch accent)
37:59 - What's the most difficult piece of Japanese media you've consumed?
45:12 - Do you have plans to create Japanese content for Japanese people learning English?
46:59 - How should I go about learning to understand math in Japanese?
49:24 - What are your thoughts on microdosing LSD or psilocybin?
56:10 - Do you have any plans to do follow up interviews with people you've interviewed in the past?
57:18 - How long will it take me to reach fluency with my current routine? Will the fact that I'm 14 years old help me?
59:27 - What do you think about turning sentence cards into vocab cards after a few reps?
1:04:21 - What is the best way to specifically train phoneme-parsing ability?
1:09:05 - It makes me a long time to make cards. Am I doing something wrong?
-The 6-Point Model of Language Ability: https://massimmersionapproach.com/table-of-contents/stage-1/theory/6-point-model/
-The other foreigner better than me at Japanese that I couldn't remember was Kent Gilbert (ケント・ギルバート)
-Pitch Accent Starter Pack: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LKqyAit461Pej5ikV2hLYWrjKqi8Y3cVC4d0_ngJGf8/edit
Patreon Q&A - November 23rd, 2019
TIMESTAMPS:
00:29 - What is the minimum about of daily active immersion for an intermediate learner to make progress towards fluency?
01:25 - How detrimental is taking periodical breaks from immersion?
09:58 - How can one improve at their native language?
17:00 - How do you go about continually finding interesting immersion content?
24:15 - How can I improve my fossilized English?
30:20 - Are meditation and ambition compatible?
44:17 - Should I invest in pitch accent dictionaries?
45:48 - How should I find non-anime Japanese immersion content?
47:11 - What will the "complete" version of MIA look like?
50:13 - How should I choose between audio-based and text-based sentence cards?
50:47 - What is your take on extensive vs intensive reading?
56:26 - How many words would you say you know in Japanese?
56:38 - I want to sound like ____ in Japanese; can you pick a language parent for me?
59:19 - What is your favorite part of learning Mandarin? After Mandarin are you going to learn another language?
-MIA Japanese Quickstart Guide: https://massimmersionapproach.com/table-of-contents/stage-1/jp-quickstart-guide/
-"Love & Pop" Pitch Accent Lesson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhZ-NXNCfgg
Recommended Japanese Movies:
-Bakuman
-Boys on the Run
-Initiation Love
-桐島、部活やめるってよ
-Linda Linda Linda
-モテキ
-何者
-紙の月
-恋の渦
-さよなら歌舞伎町
-ジョゼと虎と魚たち
-タンポポ
-花とアリス
-君の膵臓をたべたい
-タイヨウのうた
Patreon Q&A - December 7th, 2019
TIMESTAMPS:
01:01 - You learned Japanese as a teenager but started Mandarin in your 20's. Do you feel your ability to acquire language has declined due to loss of brain plasticity?
08:53 - What do you think about "corrective listening"?
12:44 - When should I start reading?
14:30 - How do I learn to say things that don't come up in my immersion?
18:02 - If someone got fluent in reading without doing any listening, how long would it take them to catch their listening ability up?
19:13 - Have you ever seen Kabuki, Noh, or other traditional Japanese theater?
19:37 - How much easier was the second book you ever read compared to the first book? How long did it take you to reach native-level comprehension ability?
21:39 - How would you study specifically for the 漢字検定?
22:32 - I immerse with English and Japanese subs on at the same time. Is this a bad idea?
28:50 - How should I balance avoiding premature output while living in Japan? Is memorizing set phrases a good idea?
32:32 - How long did it take you to become able to make sentence cards entirely from listening?
34:49 - Monolingual Transition technique question
39:48 - What do you think about sentence mining solely from Twitter?
41:40 - Is there a Japanese translation of "The Mind Illuminated"? If not, can you recommend a Japanese meditation manual?
43:09 - How much of a gap is there between your Japanese reading comprehension and a native's?
47:39 - When in the process did you start having bilingual conversations with Japanese friends?
-How Often Should You Look Things Up?: https://youtu.be/3mAdzPcxBio
-Is Early Output a Sin?: https://youtu.be/-OuMfLtK3tU
-How to Make the Monolingual Transition: https://youtu.be/2AH2JmxglzU
Patreon Q&A - December 21st, 2019
TIMESTAMPS:
00:25 - Do you plan on making Chinese update videos?
03:37 - What's your opinion of Antimoon's "pause and think" technique? Do you disagree with Antimoon on anything?
15:59 - Should I limit how much dubbed content I immerse with? What are the downsides of dubbed content?
23:56 - When you say you made "a ton" of cards for a given book/show, how many cards is "a ton"?
28:42 - Is it a good idea to make cards out of the example sentences from monolingual definitions?
34:56 - Why do you recommend putting entire monolingual definitions on cards, instead of simply the portion of the definition necessary to understand the target sentence?
51:02 - What are the dots I occasionally see next to certain words or phrases in written Japanese? Why do some Japanese authors put seemingly unrelated furigana on top of certain words?
58:32 - How much will immersing with condensed audio files reduce the time it takes to reach fluency?
1:02:17 - How much better is getting 1000 hours of immersion over the course of 1 year compared to getting 1000 hours of immersion over the course of 2 years?
1:04:28 - If I come across a word in kana but the dictionary says the word also has kanji, when I kanjify the word when I make a sentence card for it?
1:08:20 - Is it better to do your Anki reps when they're due half-assedly, or save them for another day when you'll be able to do them with your full attention?
1:10:01 - Have you studied the Ainu language? How much has Japanese been influenced by the Ainu language?
1:13:29 - I'm not ready to start learning pitch accent yet. Should I still color code my cards for pitch with the MIA Japanese Add-on?
-My second channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSb5WbGe2UQ-vJqU3Vt9UNw
-Pause and think: http://www.antimoon.com/how/readhow.htm
NOTES:
-I should clarify that 安んずる never actually refers to physical relaxation. The original meaning is "to psychologically relax or feel relief in the moment", and the more abstract meaning is “to feel satisfied with an ongoing abstract circumstance". I just used the word "physical" when talking about it because I couldn't think of another good word to refer to the less-abstract, original meaning.
-About putting fully fleshed-out definitions on cards: If you are before Stage 3 in the process, don't worry about trying to grasp all the different meanings of words. I recommend only focusing on the meaning relevant to the target sentence of the card. However, I still think it's beneficial to put the entire definition on the cards, even if you ignore most of the information. Perhaps highlight or bold the portion of the definition that is most relevant. You will still passively take in the fact that the word has other meanings, which is beneficial. Additionally, when the same card comes up in your reviews later on down the line, you may benefit from having the other parts of the definition there to read.
Definitions I mentioned:
ピン [1]
〔ポルトガル語 pinta(点の意)の約か〕
(1)カルタ・さいの目などの一の数。「―が出る」
(2)第一番。最上等のもの。⇔キリ
(3)〔一割をはねる意から〕上前(ウワマエ)。
し-べん [0] 【思弁】(名)スル
(1)よく考えてものの道理をわきまえること。
(2)〔哲〕〔(ギリシヤ) theōria; (ラテン) speculatio〕実践や経験を介さないで、純粋な思惟・理性のみによって事物の真相に到達しようとすること。理論。観想。実践や経験を重んじる立場からは、抽象的理論・空論の意となる。
やすん・ずる [4] 【安んずる】(動サ変)〔形容詞「やすし」の語幹に「み」と動詞「す」の付いた「やすみす」の転〕
(1)やすらかになる。安心する。「難問が解決し―・じて寝ることができる」
(2)その状態のままで満足する。あまんじる。「現状に―・ずる」「小成に―・ずる」
Patreon Q&A - January 9th, 2020
TIMESTAMPS:
03:53 - What is the current status of the MIA website? When will it be updated?
09:05 - As an intermediate learner, I constantly come across unknown words, and it feels like at the rate of 10 cards a day I will never reach fluency. Would it be a good idea to make 25-40 cards a day instead?
16:34 - What aspect of the Japanese language tripped you up for the longest amount of time? What was the “aha” moment when it finally clicked?
30:17 - What is your stance on vocab cards? When is it better to make a vocab card instead of a sentence card?
31:54 - How do I avoid learning the wrong meaning when a word has 30+ different entries in the dictionary?
37:36 - How do I improve my output abilities in a language I’m already highly fluent in?
50:59 - Are you going to add a “meditation” section to MIA in the future?
1:09:06 - When should I stop using Anki altogether?
1:13:02 - Do you think it’s possible to fully acquire a language’s phonetic system from immersion and shadowing alone?
1:18:22 - Are there any situations in which it makes sense to use Anki’s “set maximum interval” feature?
Goodbye Manga Wall: https://youtu.be/Nt5g8WPhFEE
Sayadaw U Tejaniya: https://ashintejaniya.org/teachings
Patreon Q&A - January 19th, 2020
TIMESTAMPS:
00:28 - What are your thoughts on the return of Khatzumoto?
08:42 - What are your thoughts on Luca Lampariello’s video "My Failure with Japanese"?
17:01 - Have you looked into doing your own academic research on language acquisition?
22:29 - Can you go into detail on your experience of initially beginning to output?
36:35 - What were some of the moments you realized your vocab had surpassed that of the average native?
40:46 - I can’t tolerate ambiguity and constantly rely on English subtitle while immersing. What should I do?
45:17 - Is reading through AJATT and Antimoon beneficial for those doing MIA?
47:44 - Why do you think Japan’s population is declining? Is this something that’s commonly talked about in Japan?
55:59 - What is the difference between the MIA Vacation add-on “catch-up” feature and Anki’s built-in “Maximum Reviews per Day” feature?
1:05:22 - What’s the story behind your most viewed video? (the Pokemon clip)
1:13:13 - After looking a word up, how do I know when to make a card vs when to simply move on?
1:15:45 - What is your opinion on LingQ?
-The YogaMatt Podcast #3 | Hating on AJATT for an Hour: https://youtu.be/1eC669Wub68
-可愛さ余って憎さ百倍 (Kotowaza: "The greatest hate proceeds from the greatest love")
Luca Lampariello - "My Failure with Japanese": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LN5PM7nOS8
-Pop Science: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ2aSCH3zjY
-Chris Speaking Japanese: https://youtu.be/Svs8Pu_zdAs
-Phantom MadmanSpeaking Japanese: https://youtu.be/4HLOmG_K9cE
-Antimoon: http://www.antimoon.com/
-AJATT Table of Contents: http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/all-japanese-all-the-time-ajatt-how-to-learn-japanese-on-your-own-having-fun-and-to-fluency/
-少子化 ("sub-replacement fertility"): https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B0%91%E5%AD%90%E5%8C%96
-宮台真司: https://youtu.be/mR1_R8H_5FQ
-"カスミの問題発言" (Most viewed video on my channel): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=305Y38IZA98
Patreon Q&A - February 4th, 2020
TIMESTAMPS:
00:51 - How are you?
03:26 - Do you still plan on doing the “Immersion Capsule”?
06:00 - Does it matter what sources you immerse with? (anime/drama/YouTube, etc.)
18:14 - In the context of Japanese immersion: how can I fill the void I feel after cutting out YouTube?
25:01 - How should I spend my time if I only have 30 mins – 1 hour each day to spend on language learning?
30:20 - I find myself feeling overly tense when immersing with challenging material; how can I remedy this?
36:56 - What are your thoughts on “rest days” in the context of language learning?
42:49 - Is it a bad idea to sentence mine from content I consumed a long time ago?
46:27 - What are the pros and cons of starting pitch accent study early vs late?
54:11 - Why do I struggle with reading philosophical texts in my L2 despite being at a near-native level?
57:24 - Japanese is my passion but Chinese seems more useful; which should I learn?
Patreon Q&A - February 16th, 2020
TIMESTAMPS:
00:29 - How do you know when you should quit learning a language?
13:09 - What are the limits of your Japanese ability?
19:28 - How did you personally go about sentence mining from shows?
25:58 - What is the right amount of mental effort to use when immersing?
29:09 - Do you think you’ll ever become a digital nomad?
32:01 - What do you do when you feel like you’re not progressing?
42:12 - How to overcome struggles regarding interacting with groups of Japanese people?
49:51 - How did you and Yoga meet?
52:47 - How can you utilize a native language teacher in Stage 1 of MIA?
56:51 - How do Japanese people pronounce “?” and “!”?
1:00:05 - You said you learned Japanese for the wrong reason; why are you learning Mandarin?
Skype Channel: https://skypech.com/
Japanese Discord Channels: https://discha.net/
? = はてなマーク、疑問符
! = ビックリマーク、感嘆符
Patreon Q&A - February 29th, 2020
TIMESTAMPS:
00:21 - What would you recommend doing differently when learning Mandarin vs Japanese?
18:38 - My experience with different meditation retreats and a long explanation of the current vipassana landscape.
58:26 - How can one effectively leverage native speaker friends in the early stages of MIA?
1:00:09 - Do you think being raised bilingually gives you an advantage when it comes to acquiring new phonetic systems as an adult?
1:02:24 - Where precisely is the line between active and passive immersion?
1:07:44 - Do you know the YouTube channel “Xiaomanyc”? Have you considered making videos in that style?
1:11:44 - What are your thoughts on using the MIA Vacation addon to only rep on certain days in order to make more time for immersion?
1:14:26 - I fell off the wagon and didn’t rep or immerse for a week; how should I jump back into things?
1:15:15 - If a word can be written in multiple different ways, should you make a separate card for each one?
1:16:52 - How can I learn to build Anki decks from scratch?
Patreon Q&A - March 14th, 2020
TIMESTAMPS:
2:34 - As a beginner, should I avoid immersion sources that contain mumbling/slurred speech such as podcasts and YouTube videos?
11:17 - If my goal is to speak my target language with my kids, should I focus on immersing with media that contains family interactions?
14:52 - How come some Japanese sounds seem to be inconsistent?
27:08 - My goal is to interact with French people, content that reflects authentic interactions between French people is not very comprehensible. Should I immerse in that type of content anyway, or use something more comprehensible like anime/dramas/movies?
31:43 - What do you think about graded readers?
39:05 - Have you ever tried meditating in a float tank?
39:14 - How should I review cards for Tango N5 & N4; audio cards, text cards, or both?
45:41 - I’m struggling with kanji while working through Tango N4; should I go through Production (Traditional) RTK?
48:55 - I have a good retention rate in Anki, but I have trouble remember words in my immersion. How should I fix this?
55:08 - How natural is the Japanese in the ひいきびいき (Hiikibiiki) podcast?
59:51 - Do you think it would be possible to become fluent in a language ONLY through reading (without any prior knowledge or ever using a dictionary)?
L-Theanine: https://examine.com/supplements/theanine/
Why You Still Can't Understand Your Target Language: https://youtu.be/_LIz-Wbt4us
Consciousness and Language Acquisition: https://youtu.be/2i8AzjxwhSU
The Role of the SRS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrBFhsnBQ2k
ひいきびいき (Hiikibiiki) Podcast: http://hkbk.fm/
Norsk Experiment (learning Norwegian just through reading): https://www.apronus.com/norsk/
Dogen & Matt - Patreon Q&A
TIMESTAMPS:
1:44 - Does Matt regret not paying attention to pitch accent from the start of his Japanese studies?
4:33 - How did Dogen come to find out about Matt?
6:53 - What does Matt think of the phenomenon of some MIA/AJATT adherents exhibiting cult-like behavior?
16:50 - How much does Dogen know about Khatzumoto and what does he think of AJATT and MIA?
22:20 - I’m 27 years old; would it be more beneficial for me to study Japanese at home in American or inside Japan?
24:54 - When it comes to language learning philosophy, is there anything that Dogen and Matt disagree on?
33:24 - What are your top Japanese media recommendations?
Matt’s Japanese Media Recommendations
------------------------------------------------------------------------
MUSIC:
-KOHH
-Soul Scream
-唾奇 (Tsubaki)
-YMO (Yellow Magic Orchestra)
-細野晴臣 (Haruomi Hosono)
-スピッツ (Spitz)
-X Japan
-ブルーハーツ (The Blue Hearts)
-中田ヤスタカ (Yasutaka Nakata): Perfume, Capsule, Kyary Pamyu Pamyu
-ゲスの極み乙女 (Gesu no Kiwami Otome)
-KANA-BOON
-米津玄師 (Kenshi Yonezu)
-オフィシャル髭男dism (Official Hige Dandism)
MOVIES:
-桐島、部活やめるってよ (The Kirishima Thing)
-イニシエーション・ラブ (Initiation Love)
-リンダリンダリンダ (Linda Linda Linda)
-モテキ (Moteki)
-何者 (Somebody)
-タイヨウのうた (A Song to the Sun)
-ラブ&ポップ (Love & Pop)
-ボーイズ・オン・ザ・ラン (Boys on the Run)
ANIME:
-新世紀エヴァンゲリオン (Neon Genesis Evangelion)
-カイジ (Kaiji)
-NHKにようこそ (Welcome to the N.H.K.)
-黒子のバスケ (Kuroko's Basketball)
-ピンポン THE ANIMATION (Ping Pong the Animation)
-フリクリ (FLCL)
-サムライチャンプルー (Samurai Champloo)
-さよなら絶望先生 (Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei)
TV SHOWS:
-水曜日のダウンタウン (Wednesday's Downtown)
-月曜から夜ふかし (Monday Late Show)
-テラスハウス (Terrace House)
DRAMA:
-アオイホノオ (Blue Blazes)
-GTO (1998 version)
-モテキ (Moteki)
-逃げるは恥だが役に立つ (Nigeru wa Haji da ga Yaku ni Tatsu)
Dogen’s Japanese Media Recommendations
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TEENAGE YEARS:
-Dragon Ball Z
-Mobile Suit Gundam Wing
-Hey! Hey! Hey! Music Champ
-PUFFY (Puffy AmiYumi)
-浜崎あゆみ (Ayumi Hamasaki)
-宇多田ヒカル (Hikaru Utada)
AUTHORS:
-金原ひとみ (Hitomi Kanehara)
-三島由紀夫 (Yukio Mishima)
-村上龍 (Ryū Murakami)
ANIME:
-MONSTER
-新世紀エヴァンゲリオン (Neon Genesis Evangelion)
-ナルト (Naruto)
-進撃の巨人 (Attack on Titan)
MOVIES:
-12人の優しい日本人
-十三人の刺客 (13 Assassins)
-おくりびと (Departures)
Patreon Q&A - March 28th, 2020
TIMESTAMPS
2:00 - When will MIA Stages 3 through 5 be done? In the meantime, can you make an overview of each stage?
4:45 - What are your thoughts on visual novels? Have you played them, and do you think they're good immersion?
11:27 - Even though I have plenty of free time, I'm having trouble immersing more than 3 to 4 hours a day; how can I improve this?
16:47 - What role do you think IQ plays in language acquisition?
34:53 - After reaching an advanced level, how should I choose which sentences to make cards for?
40:17 - You've previously mentioned that while intensively learning Japanese, you could "feel" yourself making progress each day. Is it normal to not feel like this?
46:41 - Why do I find books easier to read than YouTube comments?
49:34 - For those interested in become a translator: at what point do you think one should start practicing translation?
55:57 - What is your take on the idea that outputting leads to fast progress, as getting your mistakes corrected creates especially strong mental connections?
1:05:04 - How did you go about learning Japanese counters?
1:08:00 - Should I make a separate card for each conjugated form of a word? What about irregular verbs?
Patreon Q&A - April 11th, 2020
TIMESTAMPS:
0:20 - Would you ever join Terrace House if given the opportunity?
3:15 - If my goal is to achieve “all around fluency”, which language domains should I prioritize?
10:46 - What are your current recommendations related to how to sentence mine?
20:11 - Can you explain what is funny about the Japanese skit “Homeroom” by Kamaitachi
29:22 - How should I go about getting used to having my phone/computer set to my target language?
39:21 - Have you ever experienced gaining a deeper understanding of a topic due to reading about it in multiple languages?
42:05 - How should I treat pitch accent in the context of reviewing sentence cards?
50:50 - What are the drawbacks of learning entirely through audio, without doing any reading/watching with subs?
54:06 - Can pitch accent study interfere with reading ability? What as your experience been in this area?
1:00:40 - Do you think that in the future it will be possible to “download and instantly install” languages onto our brains?
1:00:58 - What are some common “usage mistakes” that native Japanese speakers make?
1:11:14 - Are you ever going to translate MIA into Japanese?
-Kamaitachi's "Homeroom": https://youtu.be/-R1O2ojBu7k
-Common Japanese misusages: https://dic.nicovideo.jp/a/%E8%AA%A4%E7%94%A8%E3%81%AE%E5%A4%9A%E3%81%84%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E8%AA%9E%E3%81%AE%E4%B8%80%E8%A6%A7
-Brett's MIA Japanese 6 Month Update: https://youtu.be/XcZzKLWs9Xw
Patreon Q&A - April 25th, 2020
TIMESTAMPS:
00:52 - Talking about new RRTK deck
07:02 - Are you/MIA ever going to collaborate with Khatzumoto?
12:14 - If you never created MIA, what would you be doing with Japanese? Or would you have dropped Japanese and taken an entirely different career path?
24:06 - How you developed a set strategy for defending/promoting MIA in a debate?
40:04 - In order to increase my reading speed, should I force myself to start skimming?
47:25 - Would you consider it a downside of audio cards that they don’t formally test you on your ability to read the target word? Should you make text cards in addition to audio cards?
54:35 - What changes to the MIA protocol would recommend for someone who doesn’t care about output?
57:25 - Do you think it’s reasonable to learn multiple languages at once with MIA? How should one go about maintaining a fluent L2 in while learning an L3?
Patreon Q&A - May 9th, 2020
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 - Intro
00:35 - How has your view of Japan and Japanese culture changed over the last 3 years?
11:14 - Did you track your daily immersion hours during your hardcore phase?
16:14 - Text cards have been working well for me; should I switch all my cards to audio cards?
24:36 - Can you describe the process of becoming able to intuitively understand grammar through listening?
26:43 - How would you go about acquiring grammatical gender?
28:15 - What percentage should I be understanding before I begin to output?
40:44 - That are thoughts on shadowing vs listening and repeating an isolated sentence?
48:24 - How would you go about acquiring a diglossic language?
53:34 - What is the ideal time-range to spend on each SRS card?
54:48 - I find that my mind wanders while active immersion. Do I need to change something?
59:46 - Why does the RRTK deck only cover the most common 1k kanji?
1:07:31 - Is it possible to succeed in acquiring a language even if you don’t enjoy the process?
LINKS:
India Hth's Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbBu_MXGaR6FlSEEM2hApRg
Patreon Q&A - May 23rd, 2020
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 - Intro
00:46 - What evidence is there for the idea that early output is harmful?
18:26 - I often can’t understand the meaning of sentences despite knowing all the words. Why is this and how do I fix it?
28:30 - What did you do to actively stay motivated and avoid burnout while learning Japanese?
36:38 - Although I haven’t mastered my initial domain of focus yet, I’m tempted to branch out into other domains to keep things interesting. What’s the best course of action in this situation?
48:55 - Would you ever create a separate channel or platform to talk about non-MIA related topics like meditation?
59:08 - Could simply learning kanji radicals in isolation function as a replacement for RRTK?
1:02:57 - What is your opinion on making bilingual vocab cards for words that are 1:1 between languages?
1:05:09 - My Mandarin reading skills are great, but my listening skills are still very poor. What can I do to remedy this?
1:09:31 - How broad or narrow is a “domain” of language?
1:16:12 - When shadowing, although I can hear where my pronunciation is off, I don’t know how to correct it. Should I study phonetics?
Patreon Q&A - June 6th, 2020
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 - Intro
00:18 - What did your family think when you started AJATTing? What do they think about you being fluent in Japanese?
17:03 - How many years of learning 10 new words a day was it before you started encountering less than 10 new words a day?
28:39 - If you can never “finish” a language, what’s the point of working hard to go from a B2 level to a C1 or C2 level?
39:40 - Can you explain what criteria I should use when grading audio sentence cards?
50:52 - What does MIA plan on doing about MorphMan going forward?
58:49 - Are you dissatisfied with your current uses of Japanese? If you could go back in time, would you learn a different language instead?
At 15:10, I meant to say that my mom has always been MONOlingual.
Patreon Q&A - June 20th, 2020
TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Intro
1:41 - What do you think of “animecards” (high-quality vocab cards)?
22:25 - Are there ways of using your mind that are counterproductive to the language learning process?
27:50 - I have trouble sentence mining through audio; is it OK to only sentence mine while reading?
31:56 - Can “saying words in your head” potentially harm your pronunciation?
35:23 - Please elaborate on the process of moving from “input for the sake of comprehension” to “input for the sake of output”.
41:59 - How can I improve at reading Japanese names?
48:37 - Can I stop myself from lecturing people on immersion learning in real life?
57:25 - How did you meet Shawn Head?
58:10 - How developed are your pen spinning skills?
Q&A Archive: https://massimmersionapproach.com/table-of-contents/extra/patreon-qa-archive/
Vocab cards: https://www.animecards.site/
Patreon Q&A - July 4th, 2020
TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Intro
1:01 - Rundown of the new MIA Roadmap
23:04 - If you start MIA midway through the learning process, how do you know what stage you're at?
26:15 - When can we see a radical skateboarding video?
26:49 - I'm having trouble finding a parent, do you have any advice?
31:42 - When kanjifying a word with multiple possible kanji, how do I know which version to choose?
33:25 - Are there any habits from your AJATT days that you still have?
34:25 - Could you show us videos of you speaking Japanese from when you were 1, 2, 3, etc., years into the process?
36:21 - When is the best time to move to a country where your target language is spoken?
38:33 - Have you ever taken a Myers–Briggs personality test?
40:48 - How do I balance Japanese with other interests I have?
43:44 - How do you immerse with audiobooks? Whenever I try, I just zone out.
45:26 - How do you lookup unknown grammar structures that come up in immersion?
50:46 - What was your pitch accent like before you starting specifically studying it?
LINKS:
Song from the skateboarding bit: KOHH-どうでもいい
Video of me speaking from before I studied pitch accent: https://youtu.be/vrAyDf7jzdw
Patreon Q&A - July 18th, 2020
TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - Intro
0:20 - Where is the monolingual transition placed on the new roadmap?
4:38 - When learning a compound word, should I learn the component words individually or memorize the compound as a single unit?
11:14 - When living in your target country for a limited period of time, how do you balance enjoying yourself in the moment and maximizing language gains?
15:16 - An in-depth look at the structure of Stage 2 in the new roadmap, particularly regarding listening vs. reading.
32:11 - What is the best way to mine sentences while doing raw listening?
36:09 - Is reading the dictionary an efficient way to acquire vocabulary?
43:46 - What is the ideal amount of content to have at your passive immersion playlist at any given time?
50:29 - What is a good time to take on an L3?
56:55 - Is there a situation where it would make sense to choose a “difficult” Home Domain?
Links:
-The new MIA roadmap explained: https://www.patreon.com/posts/38969647
-Grabbing audio in real-time with ShareX: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IS7WzYICAsk
-The Role of the SRS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrBFhsnBQ2k
-Language Learning with Netflix: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/language-learning-with-ne/hoombieeljmmljlkjmnheibnpciblicm?hl=en
Patreon Q&A - August 1st, 2020
TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Intro
0:20 - Going over the new “Levels of Comprehension” model
9:17 - How long did it take you to go from full comprehension to being able to output?
13:37 - What level of comprehension should I be at while reading to progress optimally?
24:45 - What do you think of the strategy of using a single TV show for your entire Home Domain?
37:48 - Update about the new version of the MIA site
44:48 - Is it ok to use subs2srs+morphman exclusively for card creation, or should I make cards manually as well?
Levels of Comprehension:
1. No idea what's being expressed
2. Can pick up some bits and pieces of what's being expressed.
3. Able to follow some main ideas that are being expressed, but others are lost.
4. Can follow the majority of the main ideas being expressed, but many smaller details are lost.
5. With effort, can follow virtually all of the main ideas being expressed; hardly any details get lost.
6. Can effortlessly follow the entirety of what's being expressed; virtually no details are lost.
-The new MIA roadmap explained: https://www.patreon.com/posts/38969647
-The 6-Point Model of Language Ability: https://massimmersionapproach.com/table-of-contents/stage-1/theory/6-point-model/
-Register (sociolinguistics): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Register_(sociolinguistics)
-Search for videos with captions: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/3029103?hl=en
-BTS speaks English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOuFE-6Awos
-Woman learned several languages with Desperate Housewives: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5d9JS_fE6E
-Stephen Krashen case studies: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/513b/a2ea81ba48b8cbcd48265269897e4bc3ed7b.pdf
-Search for videos with captions: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/3029103?hl=en
Patreon Q&A - August 15th, 2020
TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Intro
2:55 - Do you think there are diminishing returns when it comes to active immersion time per day?
7:00 - I understand monolingual definitions just fine, but I can’t stop checking the bilingual dictionary anyway. How should I remedy this?
14:57 - I can read novels comfortably, but there are still around 10 unknown words per page. Should I try to motivate myself to use Anki?
22:30 - Is it possible to become fluent in a language without consuming any visual media?
31:39 - At what level of depth should I study pitch accent? Is learning the basics enough?
38:41 - Is it beneficial to have both word audio and sentence audio on the back of cards?
45:38 - Would you be sad if Elon Musk’s Neuralink made human language irrelevant?
51:31 - Did you run into problems with passive immersion in the later stages of the process?
55:42 - Isn’t recommending people to immersion with English subs during Stage 1 going to reduce efficiency?
LINKS:
Days of French 'n' Swedish (Lamont's channel): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3_iSRqqZ7DTVlBNd9lv8jA/videos
Elon Musk Reveals New Details About Neuralink, His Brain Implant Technology: https://youtu.be/Gqdo57uky4o
Patreon Q&A - August 31th, 2020
TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Intro
0:21 - Should the number of new cards you learn a day be correlated to the number of active immersion hours you do?
15:03 - Does subconscious acquisition work the same way when reading vs when listening?
19:07 - What's your recommended study plan for someone who just wants to pass JLPT N1 (and doesn't care about actual ability)?
26:23 - Do you think there is value in making cards just for the pitch accent/tones of words (assuming you already know the meaning, etc.)?
34:53 - I can understand a decent amount, but still can't output AT ALL. Is this normal?
43:29 - What size should your Home Domain be in the new MIA roadmap?
49:07 - After learning Standard Japanese, was learning other dialects such as Kansai-ben difficult?
59:42 - Why do you recommend waiting until after RRTK to start basic vocab and grammar?
1:06:13 - Is Japanese news hard to understand?
1:09:08 - Outro
LINKS:
-Stevijs 3's Channel (MIA Superstar): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChvJmlufoN1ObTY6-399HCA
-Korean guy goes from nothing to JLPT N1 in 75 DAYS! (lol, even shorter than I remembered): https://youtu.be/Z-PnedxpiTM
-Crazy Kagoshima-ben clip that went viral on Twitter: https://twitter.com/kanta5013/status/1032664495288508417
Patreon Q&A - September 12th, 2020
TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Chatting about various topics
4:49 - How long did it take you to become able to understand Japanese audiobooks?
6:12 - I find that by the time I reach the end of a long sentence, I've already forgotten the beginning. How can I fix this?
11:19 - What should I do if my target language is minor and has extremely limited immersion material?
18:09 - Why are actors so good at picking up new accents?
28:44 - Are letsplay gaming livestreams as good of an immersion source as regular shows or movies?
33:02 - What advice do you have for people applying MIA to a language other than Japanese?
35:39 - Will NOT outputting indefinitely hinder my ability to continue deepening my comprehension?
44:52 - People say you should purposely speak Japanese with a higher pitched voice. Do you agree with this?
49:21 - Should I consciously subvocalize pitch accent while reading Japanese?
52:26 - What is the most effective immersion regimen?
SHOW NOTES:
-The Perks of Being a Wallflower (movie where Emma Watson speaks American English)
-Movie Accent Expert Breaks Down 32 Actors' Accents: https://youtu.be/NvDvESEXcgE
Levels of Comprehension
1. No idea what's being expressed
2. Can pick up some bits and pieces of what's being expressed.
3. Able to follow some main ideas that are being expressed, but others are lost.
4. Can follow the majority of the main ideas being expressed, but many smaller details are lost.
5. With effort, can follow virtually all of the main ideas being expressed; hardly any details get lost.
6. Can effortlessly follow the entirety of what's being expressed; virtually no details are lost.
Patreon Q&A - September 27th, 2020
TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Intro
2:36 - All your interviews seem to be with hyper-successful people; why haven't you interviewed someone who struggled more before reaching fluency?
8:55 - Are you still planning on learning German?
14:28 - How are you?
19:59 - Are you planning on creating proprietary tools/software?
23:43 - How do you think people learned languages before the internet?
32:13 - Are you still going to do the "immersion capsule"?
33:42 - Do you think some people have more natural talent than others when it comes to language learning?
39:46 - Do you think it's best to track "time spent immersing" or "amount of material consumed"?
43:18 - When I zone out during passive immersion, am I still benefitting?
46:42 - Is watching with subs 100% equivalent to normal reading?
50:35 - Can I replace the monolingual dictionary with a thesaurus?
52:31 - If I only have 30 minutes to spend on the language per day, how should I spend it?
Patreon Q&A - October 10th, 2020
TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Intro
0:19 - As a beginner/intermediate learner, is it better to read fast or slow?
6:42 - Did you ever struggle to balance learning Japanese with other hobbies?
24:43 - How can I convert my passive vocabulary into active vocabulary?
28:29 - What are some of the benefits that can only be gained by reaching a very high level in a language?
36:14 - What are some things that you’re interested outside of language learning and meditation?
1:03:14 - Until now, I’ve been focused on listening. How should I adapt my study routine to the new roadmap?
1:06:03 - How did you approach the initial anxieties of outputting with people in person?
LINKS:
Roam Research: https://roamresearch.com/
What's So Great About Roam Research?: https://youtu.be/syKAar8ZD-U
Patreon Q&A - October 24th, 2020
TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Intro
0:20 - How do you usually explain immersion learning to "normies"?
12:31 - How good is the DeepL translation service? Could it be useful to language learners?
19:10 - Are there any downsides to immersing with mainly translated content?
27:12 - How do I apply immersion learning to a dead language like Latin?
30:44 - While intensively studying Japanese, did you ever "lose your sense of being a white male in America"?
LINKS:
-DeepL: https://www.deepl.com/translator
EXAMPLE SENTENCES:
Japanese Sentence 1: 「日本語の成り立ちと現在についての考察を中心にして、広く日本文化に拘ったサイトです」
Matt's Translation: "This site is about Japanese culture in general, with a particular focus on analyzing the Japanese language's origins as well as its current state"
DeepL's Translation: "This is a site that focuses on the origins of the Japanese language and the present day, and is broadly concerned with Japanese culture."
Japanese Sentence 2: 「だからこれは日本人全体が自分のこととして受け止めるべき問題なのだ、そう女史はいう」
DeepL's Translation: "So, she says, this is a problem that the Japanese people as a whole must accept as their own."
Patreon Q&A - November 7th, 2020
TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - Intro
0:20 - Do you think it's a problem that your ability to tolerate ambiguity will decrease once you reach a high level of comprehension in your target language?
8:32 - How has your thinking on acquiring pitch accent evolved in the past two years since you made the video "The Pitch Accent Problem".
33:36 - Could you recommend some resources for learning how to meditate?
35:02 - What do you think about the idea that being better at your native language makes you better at acquiring foreign languages?
39:52 - What do you think about the idea of never using the "again" button during your Anki reviews?
44:52 - At what point in the language learning process will going "all target language all the time" be most beneficial?
49:40 - How can I learn to understand my target language in noisy environments?
LINKS:
-Westerner who acquired pitch accent: https://youtu.be/kR3gawtUpf8
-The Pitch Accent Problem: https://www.patreon.com/posts/16307878