Not a fair comparison, though
Breathing is not really optional haha
But joke aside, yeah you need to absorb a lot of content, actively and passively. But you will not learn anything by just staring at and listening to things you have no idea of.
I mean, we did need the rosetta stone to understand hieroglyphs. It’s not like some researchers stared at the wall and suddenly came up with “bird symbol means the god of the sun came to your house, ate your food and pooped on your head”
Excellent point.
I think 5 or so sentences with each grammar point in a few different contexts with translations is a nice middle ground. Maybe that is how they do it and they’re just exaggerating when they say don’t study grammar.
I’m considering starting an AJATT approach after taking the JLPT. I wouldn’t put a name on it and just call it immersion, though. All I’ve been doing lately is trying to just consume as much Japanese media as I can, from music to literature, and spend at least 15 minutes every day writing something journal-like, plus doing sentence reviews every day along with WaniKani. I do feel an improvement in my hearing/reading (passive) skills, but might be as well due to things coming together naturally after learning the language for three years. Learning with sentences
A reduced subset of AJATT would be more doable in my opinion if you don’t have loads of free time to spend learning Japanese outside of Japan.
The more important things in my opinion are:
If you are into that immersion method, Matt Vs Japan’s Youtube channel has interesting content (if you can go past his sometimes bratty attitude).
Edit: Also, there seems to be an evolution in their system using cloze cards instead of regular sentences: http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/12-free-mcd-examples/ Has anyone tried something like that?
I have read alot of the AJATT materials and vidoes etc.
I do most of the stuff that they talk about (but WK instead of RTK obviously).
Just a couple of points:
The attitude is a little much, is my biggest gripe.
AJATT doesn’t recommend not doing any grammar, in fact they recommend that the first sentences you mine are all the examples from tae kim. what they don’t recommend is doing “advanced” grammar. I think there is a fair point here. If you look at the N2 grammar points for example. They are things like (this is a real one) 末に. This grammar point is then described as a formal usage only construction that means (drumroll…) in the end. So knowing that this has a formal tone is useful I guess but it really is just what the words say. I don’t know how useful this would be to study as a stand alone grammar point.
AJATT’s focus on “+1 content” and learning to be ok with ambiguity in your understanding are, I think, wise points. And this is basically, when you go through a text, you should be focused on understanding things that are just above you “current level”; things you have to think about but not too much. I have had this experience alot in my Japanese learning. It kinda feels like there is a time when you are “ready” to understand something you didn’t before. (this is also borne out by linguistics research… the order that you acquire grammar constructions is fixed to a certain extent, it doen’t matter what order they are presented to you). They argue that trying to “make” yourself understand something that is way above your level is not an efficient use of time and you would be better off consuming more +1 stuff and just wait till you are “ready” for the harder stuff.
I think that AJATT does correctly put a lot of emphasis on listening comprehension. We see it on the forums here alot. People (and I am one of these people) enjoy the gamification of learning the Kanji and leveling up etc. But this is decontextualized information. I hear alot of people here who are level 30, 40, higher say things like “I have a really hard time understanding speech at speed”, etc. Reading is way easier than listening. So I think that if you are a person who is really serious about becoming a fluent Japanese speaker you have to really work a ton on listening comprehension. Learning more words will help with that but it is only a small part of the puzzle.
If there is anything that I would take away from AJATT is that really “knowing” something in Japanese means that you can hear it spoken by a native in normal conversation at speed and effortlessly comprehend the meaning.
So yeah, overall I think that AJATT is a response to the unfortunately common situation in which people spend years learning Japanese but cant really speak or listen to real japanese. But as other posters have said, you can take the good parts of it (focus on listening, large amounts of native input, focus on developing effortless understanding, +1 materials) and take a pass on the preachy annoying presentation.
Which of these is a grammatical way to connect すえに?
考えるすえに
考えてすえに
考えた末に
考えたらすえに
今月にすえに
今月であるすえに
今月すえに
今月のすえに
あついすえに
あつかったすえに
あつくすえに
あつければすえに
How is it different from other “in the end” grammar points like おわり, あげく, しまつだ, etc.?
It would take an insane amount of content consumption to get a “feel” for which usages of すえに are incorrect, the way a native speaker can tell. I’m not sure it would ever happen without you thinking “maybe there are other, rare grammatical structures I just haven’t encountered yet”.
And I mean, if the AJATT people would say “well, I wasn’t gonna use it, I was just saying I could understand it in context” then… maybe they’re not actually reaching the levels they say they are reaching.
Point taken, and I for one like studying grammar, but to play devils advocate for a sec:
first, if you are the receiver of this speech, you don’t have to know (which options are grammatically permissable) and not knowing will not impede your understanding.
secondly, the number of sentences I have constructed in my native language by knowing a grammar rule, it’s usage, and then constructing the sentence is exactly 0 (with the exception of school assignments).
and last, even if you do know the differences between the various “in the end” statements, that is not enough information to determine weather or not a particular usage or collocation would be a “normal” usage or would sound off. I think even in our native language we model what we say of what we have heard other speakers say. So I do think you need the insane amount of input.
But I do actually agree with you in practice, I like learning grammar and even if it just alerts me to a difference to be aware of, ie “the in the end constructions have different requirements of the verb in the dependent clause or whatever”, I think that is useful information to help me pay attention to the right things while studying.
I added a point at the end about the “receiving vs. production” aspect. But you do need to have studied it to know the nuances between the different “in the end” grammar points. They aren’t all equal. Some are inherently negative in meaning, etc. And you don’t necessarily get that from just seeing it, that it’s adding negativity to the “end” meaning.
You hear people like the youtuber guy claiming his vocab is better than a native’s, but if it doesn’t include this kind of stuff, then what, he can just name a lot of words in Japanese but can’t use them accurately or describe the nuances being employed by the Japanese speaker?
Yeah, the thing that irks me about the AJATT mentality is this weird focus on some kind of purity, like your japanese learning will be corrupted if you read a grammar book, and that is ridiculous. I want to use all the tools at my disposal to understand Japanese, especially what people who have mastered the language or are linguists have to say about how it is used.
What’s the rationale behind actively not looking up an explanation of grammar even if it’s in Japanese? Don’t native speakers of any language generally learn about grammar and the usage/nuances of more advanced grammar in school?
I remember it being talked about a little in grade school, but in my personal experience I have always (even in school), just said and written what “sounded right”. Nuances of usage was never taught except in the context of discussing literature in highschool. (I wouldn’t take american public schools as the best model tho…)
It wasn’t until college that I studied another language and learned grammar terms.
But I agree with you, as a second language learner it doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Excuse me but what even…? I’ve never been that interested in AJATT but stuff like this makes me want to not touch it ever again. 
Their attitude is just unbelievable sometimes.
I think I could have worded that better than I did but basically I just meant that people generally learn something about their native language in school so where’s the harm in doing the same in a non-native language.
This is obviously just assuming there’s a restriction on purity of learning that AJATT seems to have. Personally, I don’t buy into any of that and will gladly look up explanations of grammar in English or Japanese if I feel like I don’t understand something well enough.
It depends a lot on the country. Here in the UK people don’t really study (English) grammar at school, in Italy I studied extensively (Italian) grammar at school. To be honest I prefer the Italian approach to languages. there are things even natives get wrong all the time.
I mean my English housemate didn’t even know the difference between noun, adjective and verb before meeting me (he probably forgot by now) so I think it’s fairly different depending on the country. A frightening world it is.
Do they not have Mad Libs in England?
They have jaegerbombs and that’s pretty much it from my experience when visiting.
I just stumbled upon AJATT and curious if there’s a discussion on WK.
I know this is an old thread.
I was curious because I did (and still do) immerse myself in English medias, but I already had basic English grammar knowledge before. And even doing so for many years (more than 15 years) I still don’t feel I’m anywhere near native level. I still don’t know how to write formal English business letters, understanding English agreement with confusing legal terms without Googling, or write an article that would sound natural for English native speakers.
I thought maybe that AJATT method of not having a prior grammar knowledge might work if you’re immersing yourself at a very very young age. They said a child’s brain is like a sponge!
Reading the posts here I conclude people have various standard on what considered as fluent is. Some people would settle with “just enough to get by” level and some aim even higher. Personally, I want to be able to enjoy Japanese classic literatures as I’m interested in their calligraphy and traditional art.
I don’t know what my point is… I’m just wasting my time waiting for next review.
I guess, after reading the discussions, I think I’m sticking with my current method.
Seems like AJATT is mostly youtube clickbait and if you want to learn Japanese you’re probably better off with WK and a few good textbooks.
just my 20 cents.
I’m sort of doing AJAAT.
I’m following the listening practice advice by listening to Japanese audio all day. I have my mp3 player going 16hours a day.
I only watch Japanese series and anime now. (without subtitles)
I try to read as much as possible in Japanese.
I do sentence reps.
Contrary to AJATT I study grammar on bunpro and instead of doing RTK I do WK.
AJATT isn’t completely against grammar study. It just warns against learning complex grammar points and then trying to create original sentences while speaking which will likely sound odd to a native speaker and could become bad habits that are hard to correct later on.
The whole premise of AJATT is that you can learn a language in a very similar manner that you did with your native language. I’ve been doing it for about 2 months now, there aren’t any startling results yet but I know it will work because I used the same method to learn Spanish. Anyone here who knows a lot of kanji and grammar should consider it. The trick is to always use content that’s entertaining so it never really feels like “studying”.
I don’t know that anyone argues that you can’t, but that method takes years for newborns to be able to say anything coherent, and they are getting much more, much better quality input than any learner can (unless they literally drop their life and job to live in the house of a family that speaks that language for years).