Beware of Matt vs Japan

WaniKani
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Even if everyone here hypothetically agreed that pitch accent is extremely important, the issue here isn’t whether to learn it or not. It’s Matt and Ken’s “you are the chosen few who get to learn this super secret method that only we know to cleanse yourself of the infection that has spread through the Japanese learning communities. also we’re not gonna say how much it costs but it’s gonna be really expensive since we’re gonna coach you one on one, but if you want to be part of the chosen few you’d better hurry” tactics that are in discussion (or so I thought).

Discussing the merits of learning pitch accent seems to me to be just a counterproductive distraction in this case. Especially since everyone’s mind already seems to be made up about the topic already, and they feel strongly about it, so the discussion doesn’t seem to lead to any conclusion and can continue for months without any result (like the one on the thread about Dogen’s lessons).

But that’s just my opinion.

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Honestly, I have a feeling that people’s minds are about as made up about whether or not Matt’s tactics are deceptive, or at least sensationalist. But yes, I guess it’s not productive if what we want to determine is whether or not Matt’s new programme is a scam, albeit it does allow us to contest the idea that one’s Japanese will be ‘mediocre’ without pitch accent knowledge, which is, I think, a claim he made, and how the pitch accent discussion started.

Personally, all I’m going to say that’s directly relevant to the topic is that it is true that pitch accent materials are quite rarely available in English or any language other than Japanese, and that means that Matt and Ken’s talking about ‘the chosen few’ is not too far from reality. However, I really have no idea whatsoever as to the intended goals or content of the programme, nor do I know about its methods (I have the impression they’re not mentioned even on Reddit), so I can’t really assess whether or not the programme is going to be rubbish. The arguments in favour of its necessity are, however.

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I’m amazed 'cause I’ve never felt that way at all. What would matter more to me are cultural aspects. Even then it wouldn’t bother me too much, as long as they are cool.

Heck the less native they are, the cooler they seem to me. They seem to find it amusing whenever I try their native dishes or think certain things they always lived around are cool/new.

If it tastes good… I eat it, if it is awesome… I enjoy it, if they are cool people… I’ll hang out with them.

I never once worried about people’s accents. Mannerisms and niceties are much much much more important to me. I’d rather hang out with a nice foreigner than a mean native.

Ofc them being able to speak and understand English to a high level is very very helpful, but I never cared much about accents.

I’m sure it helps I grew up in a semi Bilingual household, with family members with accents.

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Yeah, that’s because they haven’t mentioned any, it’s all very vague and secretive which is a big red flag.

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Is is this true? : O

I didn’t know people in the english speaking world dealt with different accents daily. I’m definitely acquainted with most flavors of spanish out there (and yes, some of them are pretty damn hard to make out), but it’s not like I get to hear them every day.

Correction: I hear mexican accent every day: it’s in every movie/cartoon dub in all of Latinamerica lol

Nah, I don’t think it’s that bad. I, at least, have no trouble with the typical english-accent spanish speaker, mostly because they tend to speak rather slow.

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Honestly, I just don’t understand why it need to be a selected few or a secret society class, especially in this internet era. It sounds more like a scam than anything.

If it’s not a scam… just why???

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I certainly hear people speak different Swedish dialects at work, in the lunch room, every day, not to mention on the bus, buying groceries etc. I assume it’s the same for people in the UK, though I can also think of workplaces and communities that are less dialectally diverse.

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Their advertising for it, definitely sounds sort of scammy.

But it isn’t too uncommon for this type of thing for a test run.

Limited people if they truly are going to work with you one on one, with individualized courses.

Beta run to gauge interest, figure out how effective your ideas to teaching are, and how to manage the group as a whole. If it is a failure, well then it is a one off at least and no promises were made…

But they were definitely trying to drum up the limited time only, buy now or miss out forever factor.

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Usually that would go the other way around, right?

If I were the learners I would expect Matt to offer me a heavily discounted price or even pay me to participate in testing his idea or evaluate his products. Because if it’s not working I just waste my valueable time and resources lol.

I’m not accusing Matt for being a scammer but it’s just weird. I can’t wrap my head around this situation and why anyone would participate in this. I hope I’m wrong and Matt is really creating something great.

Who knows we might get the next WaniKani from Matt!! But I doubt it.

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This is probably off-topic but with Japanese I keep hearing all the time, pitch accent pitch accent pitch accent pitch accent pitch accent… I studied Swedish (which apparently also has pitch accent) for YEARS and nobody ever brought up pitch accent. Why is it that it’s just everywhere with Japanese and it’s this sort of thing you absolutely couldn’t pick up over years from getting better at Japanese and mimicking the accents you hear? To the point that such ‘scams’ come into existence.

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It’s absolutely true for me. Well… less so when I’m working from home for the last seven months…

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I mean, I think it’s quite common in Singapore to find other cultures interesting, especially when they’re very different from what we normally find in Singapore (I had a lot of ‘France is so romantic, German history is so cool etc’ friends in school), but I don’t think that precludes people having a positive reaction to someone foreign becoming more ‘local’. In any case, what I’m saying is that

while I agree with this^

and I’ve seen a lot of people do this^,

I think this still happens. That person doesn’t have to sound perfectly local to be accepted, but I think that some people, especially the older generation, would appreciate the effort and be impressed that he or she noticed local habits. There’s a certain closeness when you call the women behind the counter at the hawker centre ‘auntie’ or ‘makcik’, and it expresses a sort of respect that doesn’t exist in standard English. I’ve also noticed that my Malay and Indian friends are happy when I can understand their cultural references even though I’m from the Chinese community. It’s not about ‘becoming native’ so much as it is about showing that you understand local culture where you live.

Also,

my parents and extended family definitely sound very Singaporean (Chinese Singaporean if we have to be specific about accents), so perhaps I can’t appreciate it, but I spent plenty of time listening to dialects while growing up, especially at my grandparents’ place, so it’s not like I’m not used to other accents or languages. Some of best friends were Malay or Indian for quite a lot of my time in school and in the army too. It’s not a matter of not being bilingual that makes me say what I did. I’m happy you think thisˇ way,

but I’ve also met people who didn’t like me, or I’ve felt like an outsider in some places, because of the way I speak English. That’s when I feel that many people do care about accents. People call me ‘atas’ when I use too much standard English pronunciation and grammar, so I’ve learnt to vary the amount of slang and Singlish I use depending on whom I’m speaking to. I almost always have to put a cap on how I speak English when I’m in Singapore, especially on my vocabulary and use of rare grammatical structures. I know what it’s like to be on the receiving end, and I grew up in Singapore with local parents. Plus, I didn’t travel outside of Asia until I was 15. You don’t have to be foreign or different in any way other than your manner of speaking to experience this, and I have. That’s all.

To sum up, I do my best not to worry about someone else’s accent, and I learn to understand it if I can’t initially. Making everyone feel as comfortable and welcome as possible is important to me. However, even if I don’t care (which isn’t always true because there are contexts – e.g. education and communicating on the international stage – where I feel using English rather than Singlish is important), I know other people do, because I’ve seen how much people care about my accent or others’ accents.

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I can’t answer directly about the Swedish example, but Norwegian also has pitch accent but the number of words where the distinction between pitches is relevant is negligible. As a Norwegian I can only think of one example off the top of my head: bønner (high pitch) = beans, bønner (low pitch) = farmers. Which one did you say you were eating!?:rofl:

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I’m Thai and my language have 5 tones in our language. Which sound much more terrible than pitch accents lol.

All five tones in the same sound would convey different meanings and messages like มา หม่า ม่า ม้า หมา are “ma” in different five tones and have five different meanings. However, in a real life conversation, anyone would figure the right meaning from the context. It’s really rare that any serious miscommunication would occur, unless it’s in a comedy or skit.

I think it’s something that could not be mastered without proper practice and guideline. However, it’s certainly not an important aspect. Unless you want to master the language.

I have the same impression with Japanese pitch accent and I want to master Japanese. That’s why I’m studying pitch accent from Dogen. Otherwise, I wouldn’t bother with it until I’m some what an advanced Japanese user.

If anyone reading this and would correct my English grammar I’d be more than happy. Since I’m trying to improve my English’s writing skill at the moment.

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Oh for a beta program it should be at a heavily discounted price, with some sort of money back guarantee.

Idk if they are doing that or not.

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Well, Matt himself says in the leaked 2 hour talk with Doth (which Matt thought was a private 1-on-1 conversation that he was later going to take parts from and cut into a much shorter interview, but a friend of Doth got the recording and leaked it and it’s linked in the reddit post) that Khatzumoto earned millions through his Silver Spoon “courses”, with the most expensive course costing $10k - so Matt has clearly taken some inspiration from Khatzumoto, but I don’t think he only has bad intentions. The email with the video posted on Reddit was only sent to people who subscribe to both Matt’s and Ken’s email lists and is not being marketed directly on Refold AFAIK.

Quoting Matt’s own words from a section of that leaked video (starting at 1:34:05):

What I would be potentially willing to do in the future is

first of all, there will always be a free version that works and is good

second of all, I would never say something that is crap - like, Silver Spoon is actually crap

but I would be willing to sell something that is good for a grossly overpriced price for the wales

& in more detail:

Basically, what we’re talking about is Refold might have premium courses that are like $500 or something, $500 and it’s complete Refold stage 1 package that tells you exactly what to immerse with on what day so someone could make zero decisions and go through the process

we might have that one day, but it will never, it won’t be like “you need to buy the course to learn this language”, in fact it probably won’t be advertised very big on the site, because when you go to a site and they’re showing some $500 thing down your throat most people’s reaction is “oh so this is just a scam”

so it will actually probably be like, it will only be marketed to like people on a email list that like have like shown a certain amount of interest or something like that

but again that’s all just because it’s like a really good way to make money and the more money you make the more resources you have to grow the company, cause like Ethan [Refold’s co-owner]'s vision, he eventually wants to like make like contracts with the government and like get it put into schools as like programs, like instead of normal language classes at schools - that’s his vision, and making money is mostly like a tool to help you be able to make more happen

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I gotchu bro

I agree, but I mean…shouganai right. I think most people would agree matts shady as hell, myself included. I hang around the DJT so I’ve seen all this stuff awhile ago and am used to the matt hate, and quite frankly think hes looking like quite the scammer. However, naturally there are going to be people who think that his talk about the importance of pitch accent is part of the scam tactics. There will be people who disagree with those people and think he might find it more important than most, but not to a deceptive extent. And people from group A will disagree with people from group B. Seems like a perfectly natural course of the discussion if you ask me.

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I don’t blame him for making money. He can make money out of it, good for him. I would’ve done the same. Other people would aswell, they are just jelly.

It’s not hard to learn a language, just time consuming. Learn new words and immerse, easy. If he can make money out of it, good.

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Apparently Ken has a history of scamming people and some class action lawsuits raised against him when he didn’t deliver on his money back guarantees as people found out they weren’t getting any materials. At some point he even claimed to offer a course together with Koiuchi, but never delivered (surprise, it was a lie, confirmed later by Kouichi). So he probably never was a nice guy.

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Oh, cool! It’s great you can tie this in with your experience of being on the other side of learning a language.

I watched (and continue to) watch a lot of grammar videos. It doesn’t always stick, but even just looking things up has really helped.

Make sure you keep an eye out for a lot of “beginner” resources here; NHK easy is a pretty good resource, and I think that the Todai app on ios is pretty good too.

I feel that if you can at least get exposed to a lot of content, you can continue to progress! You are doing fine :smiley: Clear out the reviews each day and make sure you don’t overextend; lots of people here like to keep their apprentice level ~100 items, which I find to be a happy medium too. All depends on how much you want to power through.

edit:

I should also say, this is a pretty good thread in a way since it is talking about a lot of the nuance of the language… But I thought George from Japanese From Zero made a good point in one of his videos about learning formal Japanese. It is important to know, just as pitch accent is, but it is something to think about a little bit later. You have to build the core foundation of the language structure first, then use those principles to expand deeper into the language. If you focus hard on the highest level at the start, then that may make it more difficult for you when conversing with others since it sends a message that you are knowledgeable in the language. It would be like a highschool biology student trying to read and discuss academic genomics articles; they could read the words and regurgitate some of the sentences, but the second they start talking with someone about it then it will quickly become apparent that the expertise is lacking. How would that expert respond? Well, at least from my angle, I’d re-phrase topics and bring the conversation down to their level. That’s why I don’t know that Matt’s idea of “you have to master this immediately” is a good one; working around plenty of people where english isn’t their native language, I can understand what they are saying even when it isn’t totally correct and I can adapt to that. Why should one expect that native Japanese speakers wouldn’t do that for others?

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