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Patreon Q&A - May 22nd, 2021 (Patreon)

Published:
2021-05-22 17:11:27
Imported:
2021-07

Content

TIMESTAMPS:

0:00 - Intro

0:45 - What's the worst thing you've ever done?

3:32 - Which is more valuable: one 8 hour session or two 4 hour sessions?

6:18 - Is 1 hour of easy content more beneficial than 1 hour of more difficult content?

11:09 - Is it OK to postpone consuming top-tier content until after fluency?

15:17 - Is it OK to create a stockpile of new cards and learn them gradually rather than creating new cards each day?

16:46 - I'm a beginner and immersion sucks; what should I do?

23:47 - I did RRTK but my kanji ability still feels shaky; should I do the JP1K?

26:14 - Is it really worth incorporating TL filler words into speech? Isn't it better to simply speak with no filler words instead?

31:39 - Should I plays video games in my TL?

35:32 - What are your immersion tips for people who's TL only has spoken content with no subtitles?

38:21 - Besides pitch accent, what aspects of Japanese did you have to study consciously?

47:38 - If you woke up one day and forgot all of your Japanese (but still had your language learning knowledge), would you relearn Japanese?

49:36 - Is it OK to mine sentences that you get the gist of but don't understand 100%?

52:36 - How should I review Anki cards for grammatical concepts I don't quite understand?

Files

Patreon Q&A - May 22nd, 2021

TIMESTAMPS: 0:00 - Intro 0:45 - What's the worst thing you've ever done? 3:32 - Which is more valuable: one 8 hour session or two 4 hour sessions? 6:18 - Is 1 hour of easy content more beneficial than 1 hour of more difficult content? 11:09 - Is it OK to postpone consuming top-tier content until after fluency? 15:17 - Is it OK to create a stockpile of new cards and learn them gradually rather than creating new cards each day? 16:46 - I'm a beginner and immersion sucks; what should I do? 23:47 - I did RRTK but my kanji ability still feels shaky; should I do the JP1K? 26:14 - Is it really worth incorporating TL filler words into speech? Isn't it better to simply speak with no filler words instead? 31:39 - Should I plays video games in my TL? 35:32 - What are your immersion tips for people who's TL only has spoken content with no subtitles? 38:21 - Besides pitch accent, what aspects of Japanese did you have to study consciously? 47:38 - If you woke up one day and forgot all of your Japanese (but still had your language learning knowledge), would you relearn Japanese? 49:36 - Is it OK to mine sentences that you get the gist of but don't understand 100%? 52:36 - How should I review Anki cards for grammatical concepts I don't quite understand?

Comments

Anonymous

Something I have found disappointing is the lack of nuanced, scientific research about second-language acquisition. I, and surely many others, am curious to understand the nitty-gritty mechanics of how acquisition works. I remember you had asked Krashen during the interview if he knew anything about the "black box" responsible for us acquiring language, but he replied he did not. Do you think there is a possibility we may eventually see more research in this field? It would be helpful for an overwhelming percentage of the global population if we had empirical, scientific data that helped us "decode" the acquisition process and understand how we can better optimize our learning to acquire languages as efficiently as possible.

David Graves

Matt's response to "I'm a beginner and immersion sucks; what should I do?" gives a lot of helpful advice. If I may tack on some additional advice for coping with the ambiguity I'd recommend initially sticking with shows that you have already watched in English. I think this principle is covered on the refold website or in one of Matt's videos where there's this idea of taking steps to disambiguate and make content more comprehensible. Do what you have to do to make that happen. Something I used to do in my first few months of learning was to pick a show I knew well from my childhood (e.g. DBZ), read the manga (mostly skipping past the parts I didn't understand), and then watch the show in Japanese again. If you want a concrete recommendation, pick up Card Captor Sakura. It has a manga, anime (in both Japanese and English), has simple vocabulary, a cute and enjoyable story, and even exposes you a little to Kansai dialect (Kero-chan speaks in Osaka dialect). The sentiment that this feeling is common to immersion learners is something I can second. I remember having that exact feeling. Stick with it and celebrate the small wins. P.S. If you aren't learning Japanese and instead are learning another language, ask that specific learner community if there's something comparable. (^^)v

Calvin Leads

Hey Matt, so I’ve been going through the jp1k deck and I’ve been really proud of my commitment, but I made a mistake. When I started the deck I only memorized the meanings of each card and disregarded the reading. For now I’ve stopped new cards everyday to try to catch up, but it’s hard. I have about 150 reviews a day, but it’s hard to go through them all. Since I am now trying to memorize the readings it feels like I have 100 new cards a day. The only thing I can think to do is start over, but I really don’t want to. All this extra review is making it hard for me to focus on getting my reviews done. Should I stop focusing on learning those readings for the old cards and just do it for any new cards I get, or is that a bad idea? Any input you have would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

Anonymous

My question is about how to use frequency lists to pick words to make cards for. For context I’m a Japanese learner at stage 2B with 2500 sentence cards. When immersing and doing lookups I don’t mine anything over 10000 but I feel like i’m being too neurotic about it and also it feels like this biases me away from important but specific terminology for my domains. For example in school life/SOL type shows the word for the track and field club can be important but is not very common overall so how should I decide how much to take frequency into account?

Wil てびど

For what it’s worth Matt, they cannot redistribute food given back anyway. They would have thrown it away or let you keep it anyway. Still watching the video so nothing else to add just yet.

Anonymous

Hey Matt. I experimented a bit, but couldn't find an appropriate answer, thus wanted to hear what you'd advise to do: Although I raised up bilingual, I was always struggling with the language of my heritage. The language of the country which I grew up is my native language, of course. Unfortunately, do to the circumstance that my mom wasn't speaking the other language in the majority of time, I indeed got enough input through other family members and friends here and there that I could understand most of the spoken language with ease, but ended up not being able to use it. Long story short, I use my second native tongue almost every day, but had so little exposure to it (never actually engaged in media), that I barely can build whole sentences. Recently I did ~ 4 h of active Immersion a day (mostly Netflix with Discriptive Audio) for 4 months and improved a bit, but I feel like, but couldn't improve as much as I'd like. In terms of comprehension, I guess, I'm on lvl 5, mainly because of the lack of words I don't know. Even though I never have any issue with grammar, fast spoken language itself or missing out details of the plot. It's so weird to understand so much and so little at the same time. I could easily find 30 unknown words in a episode. But they never break the chain. It's more like "I was verb~ing with the plain to Japan yesterday" if that make sense. My question: As I'm currently learning Japanese for a few months, how should I approach it, if I want to just speak fluently (even if it's just basic), but want to keep making progress in Japanese? Maybe an other fact: My accent is native like. But I'm speaking so slow and have to think so much that it's sound really strange. Basically, when I say a sentence I heard 10,000 times, I sound like a native. Other than that, like a alien, I guess ;) Another fact: Listening as mentioned above is pretty easy, but reading is a nightmare, soooo many words which I never heard of.

Anonymous

When you mentioned in your interview with Olly that you would focus more on listening immersion if you could start over with Japanese, it got me curious on what sort of reading-listening ratio you think would sort of give the best of both worlds. I really like to read so I end up doing a lot of it. But I wonder if I should try balancing out my ratio a little more for the sake of those things that can only be acquired through listening

Anonymous

Hi Matt. I've got a question about listening comprehension. When I'm listening to my TL, I'm almost always able to clearly hear all of the words that I know. However when I hear words that I don't know I can never seem to hear them properly. Why is this?

Anonymous

Just a fun quick question for you! How many years into your language learning experience did you get to a point where the words being consumed moved you? E.g. cried in a movie or died of laughter at a joke. And do you feel like you're getting there with your Mandarin?

Anonymous

I feel 52:22-52:34 perfectly answered Its respective question.

Anonymous

What are some of your general thoughts on the area between "free-flow" Immersion, and a very high concentration with very frequent lookups? I know StevieJS 3 mentions that he did only non TL-subs, free flow immersion (for listening) and would add more lookups if he could run it back.

Anonymous

Hey Matt, what are your thoughts on improving listening comprehension where rather than letting the show continue in a free flow like state you pause after a line of dialogue you weren't able to parse and repeat that line over and over again trying to really scrutinize the sounds, and only THEN looking at the subtitle to see what you may have missed. Do you think there is any benefit to this sort of highly focused listening practice or would it be more beneficial to just put in the hours and let your ear slowly get used to the sounds?

Anonymous

Edit: I've changed this question completely because I sort of had the first one answered for me. Hey Matt - to what extent do you think one becomes kind of an expert in a language AFTER reaching solid fluency, just by osmosis? I know you said you reached your current level of Japanese after about 5 years, but it strikes me that there's very little that you don't know ABOUT Japanese, including different dialects and where cities are etc. Compared with learning a language, this knowledge seems easy to pick up but I think we underestimate how much it adds up and makes its way into someone's speech so that they're even more competent, like yourself for example (now after 11 years rather than 5). To give a very different example - I spoke to a Polish woman who's been "learning" Swedish for 18 years, but teaching it for 14 years. Unlike you, she never had a very deliberate approach to it, she just did a college course and has basically immersed in Swedish culture since then. Despite this, her Swedish is nearly flawless and I wonder how much of that is just the tiny little filling in of the cracks over the last 14 years. I doubt she was this good 14 years ago when she started teaching, but it would be hard for most to say in what WAY they'd improved in that time - could you please give us your thoughts on that? Thank you.

Anonymous

Where in the Refold stage spectrum would you recommend for learners of Japanese to start studying and perceiving pitch accent. Which stage would be late enough that it would become very hard to learn pitch accent? Thank you!

Anonymous

Hey Matt, so I was raised bilingually speaking and surrounded by both Chinese and English. My question is if I still speak and hear Chinese everyday, when studying Japanese will I be able to pick up pitch accent more through immersion or would I still need to consciously like any other westerner or native English speaker? Thanks!

Hayden
>>60582006

Hey I am also a heritage speaker (raised bilingual) of Chinese, specifically Cantonese, and English. Personally, I still needed to study pitch accent consciously. Once I did study a bit and started hearing consciously, how Japanese sounded, I started to notice how much mistakes I made. So I’m not exactly sure whether knowing Chinese helps or not, but knowing Cantonese, which is a pitch dependent language, did not contribute much to mastering pitch accent in Japanese for me. In hindsight, even without any conscious pitch accent training, I did sound better than my western peers but that’s probably just because my Japanese was better than theirs since most people don’t do the Refold method. In point I think Matt is right when he says that 1 hour of learning and memorizing Pitch accent and it’s rules is definitely worth the investment. Unless you were born with something like Perfect Pitch then maybe you don’t have to consciously learn it? There are studies out there that claim that native Chinese speakers are more likely to have perfect pitch, but for me I didn’t feel any notable advantages when learning Japanese pitch accent.

refold

Hayden's question: For Matt Hey Matt I love the Japanese language I think it’s very expressive, simple , and very creative. There are some things that irk me though especially when it comes to reading kanji which I find it very inconsistent at times. For example there is a place in Final Fantasy 14 called 黒衣森　(こくいもり) but the voice actors will read this as (こくいのもり) even if there is no の written. Another example is a word like 日時　(にちじ) when I first came across this word I knew what it meant but couldn’t make out the reading. Another one is 雑兵　(ぞうひょう) to which I’ve been reading as (ざっぺい). Then there is 船着場　(ふなつきば), to which I’ve been reading as (せんちゃくじょう) which is the onyomi. There is also words like 西部 , do I read this as せいぶ　or にしぶ. Then there is 酒場 (さかば) why isn’t this read as (さけば)? Then there’s stuff like 手に入る　(てにはいる) vs (てにいる). Lastly, there is a place in Final Fantasy 14 that uses this 上甲板層　(じょうかんばんそう) when I first saw this I read it as (じょうこうばんそう) I have a lot more examples of this but I think you get my point. It’s stuff like this that get me a bit confused and frustrated when reading. I was wondering if you feel the same way or have similar experiences that have gotten you frustrated? I guess I should just stop being lazy and just use the dictionary instead of trying to read things I’m not a hundred percent sure. Or maybe it’s just Final Fantasy 14 lol. PS Just thought of another one 潜る how do I read this もぐる or くぐる? Not really expecting you to answer these examples that’s my job but would like to hear your thoughts on the inconsistency of the kanji readings?

Hayden

Hey Matt just watched your debate with George, I noticed that he kept interrupting you, which got on my nerves, and I don’t know if he was aware of that but at times he did seem a bit defensive. The only time that he didn’t interrupt was when he gave you 5 minutes to speak, which was a kind gesture from him, but If I remember correctly you really had to ask for it. There was also an interesting moment when he brought his wife into the conversation. Specifically, at around 2:09:40 in the stream, he said to his wife “そうだね　内容がないですもんね.” but he missed the pitch accent for 内容(ないよう) which made his wife go “hmm??”, then he said the same sentence again, but this time he used the right pitch accent for 内容( I think) and instantly she understood what he was trying to say. For me, I think this minor example just shows that pitch accent does play a significant role in communication. To be fair to George though, it was just one incident and I’m pretty sure George rarely has this problem on a daily basis. Putting my personal opinions aside, I wanted to ask, how did you feel about the whole experience and were there specific points that you felt like you weren’t able to properly address due to the constant interruptions? George also asked you “How do you think I can teach Japanese better?” and in the midst of you answering, he interrupted you and the whole conversation derailed into something else and you never really got the chance to fully answer. So I was wondering what your answer was for that specific question. Anyways I like George, he seems like a cool dude and obviously I don’t expect you to bad mouth him since he is your 大先輩, but was wondering if you could just reflect on this debate and provide some constructive feedback on what you could have done and what George could have done better. Thanks as always! P.S. The part where George was testing your pitch accent abilities was really fun to watch and personally I think George “challenging you” was something most other YouTubers would not have done, so kudos to him because it made things very interesting. I also stopped watching when you guys started talking about anime and light novels so maybe, unbeknownst to me, the debate went better and hopefully you got to say more towards the end of the debate. Anyways it was good content and keep up the good work!

Anonymous

Hi Matt. I would say on average watching an episode of anime takes me about 30 minutes instead of 20 because I like to rewind sometimes or look words up. So taking that into account, if I were to watch 6 episodes of anime, would this be considered 2 hours of active immersion or 3? And also, how did you personally track your active immersion time when you watched anime because I know you said in the past you watched about 6 episodes per day.

Anonymous

Hi Matt! So I’ve been doing this thing for 3+ years now, and I’ve come to finally except some basic truths about myself. For one, I just don’t like to read. I can have bursts of motivation where I read consistently for a month maybe, but I always burn out. I even got through school basically not even reading any books in English. And after using wanikani for a year before finding you and then using Anki a bunch since then, I have a really hard time staying consistent with flash cards. I guess my question is, what do you recommend for someone like me? It’s not like I haven’t gotten way better at Japanese after 3+ years, but building vocabulary without reading or flash cards seems pretty daunting. Can one become fluent in listening through immersion and look ups and worry about repping flash cards for reading kanji after you know most of the words? Seems like that scenario would yield the lowest bar for making and repping flash cards. For reference, I would say I’m around level 3 compression in both listening and reading, depending on the domain. I understood virtually the whole Japanese conversation you and George had on that long ass live stream lol

Anonymous

To put it into simpler terms: What are your current thoughts on learning to listen first and then learning to read. I’m sure your answer would change slightly when responding to a beginner, and please feel free to express those thoughts, but how would you answer that question coming from a more intermediate learner who already has “kanji fluency” and “the basics” down?

Anonymous

Hi Matt, I was just wondering if you have seen Dasha's video "JLPT N1 in 3 years?! How I learned Japanese | Language learning tips" I noticed in the comments section that a lot of Japanese people were saying that her Japanese sounded very natural and I wanted to get your opinion?

Anonymous

Hey Matt, what is something you wish the English language had that the Japanese language already has and vice versa?

Anonymous

Hi Matt, when you started getting more advanced in Japanese, was there a defining moment where it just clicked and everything made sense? Or was it more of a slow process that pieced itself together? Did you one day just reach a critical mass and everything made sense?

Anonymous

Matt, can you do the tongue twister from Bakemonogatari?

arec

Have you ever considered being a monk?

Anonymous

Everyone here is saying “Hi Matt” so I’ll go with that too 😅 It’s hard to tell if I’m making progress. I’m not a complete beginner, but I’m not far enough along to be able to “look back” With Anki, I can be almost positive there is some improvement due to stats, but I can’t find any other markers. I know language learning is a rocky process, but it would be nice to definitively say “I’m improving” How can I tell I am making progress?

Anonymous

In the March Q&amp;A, you talked about how you prefer reading and listening to be separate activities, and that you found it inefficient to listen to audiobooks and read them at the same time in comparison to doing one or the other. Does this also apply to watching shows in your TL with TL subtitles? I am asking because I've heard you say multiple times in the past that watching with TL subtitles can be a good way to improve your reading ability, and I'm wondering if you've changed your mind on this, or if there is something fundamentally different between audiobooks and shows in which you are listening and reading at the same time.

Anonymous

Okey but the real question is what were the 5-6 shows that you saved for fluency and do you count monogatari series as one or multiple?

Anonymous

i've seen japanese people write ナイス as ないす, how come? are there other 外来語 they use hiragana for?

Anonymous

What are your thoughts on reviewing cards that are related by context in rapid succession? It feels too easy if I review several cards mined from the same scene of a TV show in short order. It feels like I can remember the answer easier, and therefore I don’t have to work as hard to understand the question. Do you think being contextually primed for a card reduces the effectiveness of its review?

Daniel

Hey Matt! At the height of your Japanese ability, were you ever able to listen to Japanese songs and understand all the nuance (things like double entendres, pop-culture references, etc.)? If so, was that a specific skill you had to train or did it just come naturally over time with more immersion? Also, what are your top 5 favorite Japanese music albums? Need some music recommendations haha thanks!

Anonymous

Hey Matt, how has learning Chinese now (after Refold) changed how you view language learning / the refold method? Do you find that it’s caused you to rethink some things?

pori

About 3 months ago, I got a job and that combined with high school has really killed my motivation for learning japanese because i dont have as much time as i used to and havent seriously been studying ever since then. Now that i've graduated high school and am moving onto college, do you think it would be ok to sign up for a Japanese class? I know that you're opposed to them but i think that signing up for one would help get into a routine. If not, what do you think I could do to jumpstart my motivation again?

Anonymous

Have you ever experienced a flow state while immersing (or doing any other form of language study)? While we're at it, I'd like to know how often you meditate and what method you use.

Anonymous

Matt, For reference, I currently reside in China and am at Stage 4 in learning Mandarin. I can output with accuracy on a range of topics (philosophy, education, history, literature, etc.). Currently, my main goals with Mandarin are twofold: To improve my ability to write in these key domains with nuance and eloquence, while at the same time increasing the overall number of domains that I can comprehend and express basic ideas about. As to the second of these goals (increasing the overall number of domains), I believe that you and I are in full accord with how to proceed: listen and read a lot in these domains, focus and drill any new vocabulary or grammar that you believe you haven’t or won’t acquire from immersion. After some time following this routine, begin to carefully output in these domains through writing, finding points of grammar and vocabulary that you have not yet acquired. My set of questions relates to the first of my goals, namely moving from outputting correctly to outputting eloquently. To define briefly what I mean by eloquent: language that is clear, precise, concise and fresh/original is eloquent. If I can elaborate further on this definition, please let me know. What I have found in the last half-year of writing and being corrected is that, very often, the corrections I receive are more about stylistics - about which phrasing of a sentence from a variety of idiomatically correct choices sounds best in a given context - rather than grammatical or lexical. Now, at the level of vocabulary and grammar, any three or four random native speakers should be in agreement as to when they hear something that sounds “off”. However once you have reached the level of worrying about stylistics, different native speakers can have widely different views on what sounds “right” (a.k.a. eloquent) and what sounds “wrong” (a.k.a. not eloquent). Furthermore, at this level most natives often do not signal whether the specific correction they are making is a stylistic choice rather than a grammatical or lexical mistake, which makes identifying true mistakes a pain. Some examples of sentences where I have differing corrections from natives are attached below. At this level of language use, how can I go about getting clear feedback which both points out my true mistakes, and at the same time pushes me to express my ideas more eloquently -that is more clearly, precisely, and freshly - by showing me alternate ways of expressing the same idea? My own partial solution has been to get the same piece of writing checked by two or three different native speakers - without telling any of them that I am having the writing corrected by others, and then compare the corrections side by side. Places where all two or three native speakers changed a given sentence I marked as incorrect, and places where only one native made changes I marked as a stylistic choice on the part of the specific native. This system is not perfect at all, and I would love to hear your input on how to improve it. At this point, would I be better served to forgo corrections by random natives and instead try to find and adopt one or two natives who are also truly eloquent writers in their native language? I have tried to search for such a person in the past, but gave up after contacting 10 to 15 tutors, none of whom could meet my requirements - namely that they write regularly and could send me samples of said writing so that I could read it myself and judge whether I thought there writing up to standard. Warmest, 孙 Examples 1 Original: 意见的价格多贵呢？ Correction 1: 意见有多少价值？ Correction 2: None 2 Original: 譬如，法国大革命到底是怎么影响十八世纪的欧洲君主？ Correction 1: 譬如，法国大革命到底是怎么影响十八世纪的欧洲君主的？ Correction 2: None 3 Original: 证明事实后，还不能松懈，而要进一步提及——历史大事与伟大的人物究竟有什么意义、有什么关系？ Correction 1: 证明事实后，还不能松懈，而要进一步证明——历史大事与伟大的人物究竟有什么意义、有什么关系？ Correction 2: None

egoplant

Could you give personal examples of different domains and your current levels in them in Chinese and Japanese? Would you say you are below level 5 in any domains in Japanese?

Anonymous
>>60890328

Update: I started sentence mining from TL subs today. I’ve used everything I know about anki and my will power from the last 3 years, and I’ve created a setup with the least amount of opportunities for o.c.d. to ruin everything as I possibly could. Anki can be fun, and I have the highest hopes for my new setup, however, I still can’t ever see myself reading on a regular basis (outside of anki, monolingual dictionaries, and TL subs).

Tyrone Miller

Hi Matt, TL;DR: I have been studying Japanese for over 15 years (stuck in a beginner's loop), live in Japan, married to a Japanese lady. My confidence is shot from method hopping and too many false starts. Now I can't stop beating myself up while studying. How do I get my mojo back? Long version: I feel like I am stuck in a perpetual beginner cycle and I don't know how to get out of it. I have been studying Japanese off and on sporadically for nearly all of my adult life. I am married to a beautiful Japanese lady. I have been living in Japan cumulatively for about 15 years (7 years when I first lived here and now it has been about 8 years since I moved back). Long story short I should be able to hold my own in the language, but I can't. My point is I feel that my self-confidence and my belief that I will ever be able to speak Japanese have been shattered by so many false starts. Now I study I beat myself up for forgetting or mixing up words or kanji. I constantly chastise myself for not being able to communicate with my in-laws and that was compounded recently by the recent passing of my father-in-law and the realization that I have never had a deep conversation with him. And my wife doesn't seem to understand, she speaks near-perfect English. Also, she doesn't really try speaking Japanese with me for this reason. My lack of fluency has also cost me several job opportunities, which means I am stuck teaching English with an MBA and nearly 20 years of technical experience from my time as an avionics technician in the military. Sorry for the rant, I guess my question is how can pull myself out of this mental sinkhole of language learning despair, and boost up my self-confidence again? And undo the harm I probably caused to my Japanese with these false starts, method hopping (I've tried them all), and forced output? Thank you for reading my long message. I will add a TL;DR at the top. Best, Ty

Licia Li

I'm curious about your thought on a combined version of Continuous Shadowing and Perfect Sentence Shadowing. You play a sentence and pause, and then you repeat that sentence without looking at the scripts. What are the pros and cons compared with continuous shadowing？Thank you!

Tyrone Miller
>>62069927

Jay, Thank you for the reply. Yeah I have been setting on the Refold method and most of my input has been from anime, short novels, and eavesdropping in on conversations around me, as well as the usual language that my wife use. My issue is a loss of confidence, which was a result of all of my previous bad habit of method hopping and inconsistency in study. I guess I was just looking for some a confidence boost, which I did get from your story about your friend. I think I just need to focus on the method and have faith in it and celebrate the times I when I can understand the language and forgive myself during the times I am not able to understand