There’s a Dogen video where he talks about how he studied phonetics and linguistics before seriously trying to learn Japanese and said similar things about “fooling” natives, but it’s really only during the phase of a conversation where the back and forth is almost pre-determined by customs.
Once it leaves that territory, it became apparent he wasn’t native. He still says that he wouldn’t last more than a couple minutes before it was apparent that he’s not native.
I can understand how Dogen got to that point, because he wasn’t actually studying the language much at first, mostly just the phonetics… but you’d think someone doing immersion would be picking up those non-beginner words after years.
Not speaking for years makes perfect sense for people like me who do not live in Japan and have no intention of ever going there.
But yeah for people who live there it wouldn’t be a feasible option.
The discussion one of the MIA guys had with George Trombley from Japanese from Zero highlighted the different approach he had from the guys at MIA.
George is an extrovert, he needs to speak the language and interact with people. His whole goal in learning a language is to communicate with people.
MIA is better suited for people like me who are introverts and would rather just stay indoors and listen and read to stuff rather than speak to other people.
edit: Staying indoors on your computer also involves me grinding 200+(I reckon it will hit 300+ before it goes down) reviews on Wanikani as well… lol. In that way I’d say even WK it geared towards introverts.
That’s true, it would most likely come down to what you’re listening to in order to be more familiar with the advanced words. Also, it was apparent that he didn’t spend as much time in immersion compared to what other people do.
Also, I think with not speaking at all until you are “fluent” can make sense, because you need to speak the language to understand it. Plus, about what @damlurker said, if you don’t live in Japan and don’t need to converse with anyone there isn’t much of a point except to improve your speaking ability. But, when you learn a language you begin to develop a head voice, especially after a ton of immersion and beginning to understand words. Once you begin learning how to speak you don’t have to fix bad habits you built. That’s just my opinion on it at least. I’m really impartial to either waiting to speak or starting at the beginning.
Soome of the things people in this claim MIA recommends are literally the polar opposite of what is actually recommends you to do.
(for example someone said MIA tells you to watch 10hours of content a day, when in fact it says QUITE CLEARLY on the website to start with 30mins a day.)
I could go post by post and point out all the false claims but I don’t think people want someone to do it.
People by large, simply want their owns thoughts said back to them.
With a lot of the people here arguing against MIA it is because it is a different approach compared to how they are learning Japanese. Imagine reaching a native level in Japanese through one method. You would want people to use that method right? It worked for you, so it’s clearly the right way to learn Japanese. That’s why people don’t agree with MIA because it either: 1. didn’t work for them, 2. doesn’t fit with their personality, 3. they had already started doing a different method and that method is working for them. So yeah, pretty much people want to hear other people agreeing with how they are learning the language because it reinforces the idea that their method is going to help them learn Japanese since it’s working for other people too.
So I mean MIA works for some people, but a lot of people don’t agree with it because of how many people burn out and their method of learning is pretty unrealistic (not to mention they sometimes backtrack and are super biased in their own method).
Hmm… I’m an introvert who forces himself to practice speaking Personally I guess having a conversation is what feels the most like “knowing the language” to me. Or maybe I’m just a sucker for punishment!
Also, introvert or not, speaking with people in the language I’ve been learning is a greater kick than anything else to me (but it does take getting out of the comfort zone).
You should check this out, it may help you. You can start at the top if you want, but I started reading from “The most effective way to improve your listening skills”.
Pretty much, but it’s more the idea of “high-stakes listening”. If there is something that is to be taken away from the conversation that you need to know, like for example (the one he gives in this article) was that he needed to know how long the parking lot would be open to make sure he wouldn’t be charged for an extra day. This created a high-stress situation and forced his brain to hone in on what the person was saying. It took him several repeats, but he was able to figure out eventually that the parking lot was 24 hours parking and would charge for a second day after 12am. So not just any conversation, but more of a high-stakes one that forces you to actually listen to get something out of it that benefits you, etc. Keep in mind I skimmed through this article because it isn’t possible for me to do this right now, but I got the general idea of it.
I see… well trying to understand the other part is probably the most stressful to me during my conversation practice I’m kind of a chatterbox, so my own speaking skill is ahead of my listening…
Random anecdote, but I had a pretty high stakes situation during my last visit to Japan where the staff was trying to explain to me the connection between getting the all-you-can-eat buffet and my having ordered water… but I don’t think I learned anything
Pretty much two members of the staff tried individually and frantically to explain until another customer could use simpler Japanese and get the point across that you must pay for at least one drink to get the buffet and my water was free.
I think the italki conversation practice tend to be more the good kind of stakes (I don’t want to sit there mouth agape, so I really feel a huge incentive to get it right, but they’re usually pretty patient and good at explaining themselves)
EDIT: but yeah, I totally get how listening when there are no stakes is a lot less effective than that frantic parking attendant conversation!
Yeah, he talks about there being a medium. If there is too much stress you won’t learn anything, but if there is too little stress it’s pretty pointless as well (but I mean this is just immersion so it still helps). The most effective is that middle ground, so like the italki thing.
Yeah, I notice I tend to space out a lot when watching those Let’s Play videos I was on about earlier because it’s not that important. Which is fine, because I do it to relax as well, so I don’t need the pressure.
Yeah no matter what your brain is still subconsciously getting information, just isn’t as effective. The article just suggests that is one of the most effective ways to actively listen and increase listening ability.
Not personally so sure about passive listening (the article you linked to was bashing it pretty hard as I recall).
But yeah I guess I’m listening on some level, because sometimes when they say something very easy to understand it kinda takes me out of my daydreams for a while… That’s words I already know well though.
Yeah I don’t remember the article too much, but for passive listening its like… if you can do it all it can do is benefit you, maybe if you hear one word out of 4000 said, that’s better than nothing at all. Especially if you can do it and it doesn’t intrude on your daily life.
Basically, the argument is that any time you say something that’s pronounced or worded in an unnatural way, you reinforce that way of saying it in your brain, and it makes you more likely to retain that habit even as you learn more about the language. They think that’s why people speaking foreign languages, even when they get fluent, tend to end up with heavy accents and lots of unnatural phrasing, and they want to avoid that.
The theory is that once you’ve memorized tens of thousands of Anki sentences verbatim, you’ll eventually have enough subconscious grasp of the patterns that you can generate new sentences safely… I guess? I haven’t really seen an explanation from MIA of how you recognize that threshold of when you’re ready to start generating independent thoughts, so I don’t know.
But it seems pretty dubious to me, given that children learning their first languages make all sorts of mistakes, and they still usually end up talking like natives. I think the variable they’re not accounting for is the value of corrective feedback. It’s probably true that if you do nothing but speak bad Japanese to other learners, or sit in your room pronouncing Japanese to yourself, you’ll probably end up with all sorts of bad habits that will be pretty hard to break. But I don’t think the solution is to never speak; the solution is to speak with people who correct you, or who at least give you a frame of reference for self-correction.
You’re unlikely to ever get anything useful out of an n+38 sentence, though. I expect there are diminishing returns, the less of the sentence you understand overall.
Definitely. But I can see how either 30% or 90% will work and like with the rest of these things I think it mostly comes down to what you enjoy, since it’ll make you put in the hours.
Personally I’ve tried watching TV shows I’d already seen in another language, with pretty low comprehension rate and it wasn’t for me since it got frustrating pretty fast.
I get more mileage out of watching gaming videos, I can binge those easier even with minimal knowledge, but still I don’t want to make that my primary way of studying.
SRS training with +1 content will likely be more time efficient, but I can also easily see how a not-me person can enjoy binging netflix in their target language even with minimal understanding for hours on end and not stomach SRS training for more than 5 minutes or perhaps not at all.
Not sure I’m arguing against you or anything. I just kinda think you need to find what works for you Personally, having figured that out with Japanese has made me more efficient in other languages (OK, in the one other language I’ve actually stuck with…)
Also, another thing that goes against this is that people who live abroad for extended periods of time tend to develop really great pronunciation, even though they’re probably forced into speaking very quickly. (Well, I guess they could have been studying completely in silence for years beforehand, but I don’t know how likely that seems)
I’ve always assumed that them listening to and speaking the language all day was what made them this good anyway.
I can’t tell if this concept is being misinterpreted or not but the argument sounds thin. Anyone could get feedback on their pronunciation on day 1 of their language journey if they want, there are so many resources available today. In fact, if you are not getting a feedback loop early on, couldn’t this whole isolationist concept entirely backfire and create bad habits ? We can shadow and record practice alone (which is great) but I can’t dissect it like a native could.
Coincidentally, I caught Kaz’s video recently that picked apart Dogen’s pronunciation. Even at his level, he found a few unnatural moments but of course scored highly.
? We can shadow and record practice alone (which is great) but I can’t dissect it like a native could.