K. Look. I want you to buy the QRG. I really do. I want you to buy two! No, I want you to buy ten! One for everyone in your nuclear family, and maybe one for the grandparents and a favorite uncle or aunt. And of course, the family pets. Indeed, the QRG is the only thing in the world that will make you happy, popular and thin. But you know what?

You don’t need the QRG

You don’t. You don’t need to buy this. If you would just freaking read this site — there is a table of contents — the information is there. For free. Even within the QRG itself, I have links to certain articles here on the actual AJATT site. Because, you know what? I did write this stuff for reading. Now I’m just being rude .

Also, if you’re already at the point where you’re doing monolingual sentences (implying that you’ve long been immersing, know kanji and all that good stuff), then there will be virtually nothing in the QRG from which you can benefit. No 裏技 here…there’ll be another time, place and product for those.

Anyway, since you’ve read this far, it looks like I can’t dissuade you from purchasing the QRG. So, I guess I should let you know:

What’s In The Package

In version 1.0, simply an ebook. PDF format. About 50 pages. Sparse text, strong visuals — like a slideshow. Japanese-specific. Batteries not included. It is short. Brief. Laconic. That’s the point. “Quick” Reference Guide, not “The Bible”.  Where AJATT the site is about laughs and verbosity, the QRG has taken terseness to new heights. Where the value of AJATT the site is in what is there, the value of the QRG is in what isn’t; its brevity is its strength. Do not expect AJATT in book form. This is less book and more booklet.

After much comment analysis and one-on-one consulting, it occurred to me that there are, broadly speaking, two types of questions that would-be AJATTeers have.

Question Type The First: I-Missed-A-Major-Part-Of-The-Big-Picture Questions. Questions like “but how do I translate a sentence I can’t understand?” from someone who hasn’t yet touched their kanji, and has clearly missed some major points.

Question Type The Second: I-Think-Khatzumoto-Is-Omnipotent-and-Omniscient-and-I-Want-People-To-Make-Decisions-For-Me questions. “Should I avoid science manga because it’ll make me talk like a scientist?” — that sort of thing. These are questions that, ultimately, I think do not warrant answering because either (i) I don’t know, or (ii) it doesn’t matter anyway, or (iii) common sense — and the self-confidence to act upon it — would tend to lead one to a reasonable answer.

The original idea of the QRG was to cater to this…hunger for minute detail. But I realized that most minutiae are highly personal, ephemeral, and best left to individuals to decide for themselves. I wouldn’t want those decisions made for me, and I won’t make them for you. Part of the fun of learning on your own is not being tied down to what ultimately amount to someone else’s pet rituals that they may eventually just abandon or alter anyway.

The QRG is a funnel, carrying you safely from the jug of confusion into the cup of action. It takes you by its pretty little hand and walks you down the street, keeping you focused only on what you need to focus on. It has detail — but only the detail you need at a particular point in time. With short, concise explanations, a simple, clear structure and more lucid visual aids than you can shake a stick at, it abstracts away extraneous information, protecting you from it until you need to know it, thus helping you maintain that clear and narrowly targeted vision that is essential to actually getting stuff done. By imparting an unambiguous macro-level image, and detailed, ordered action steps in their plainest, most vanilla form, it should get you working quickly, and empower you to take independent action with more confidence than before.

Is There Any Information That’s In the QRG That’s Not At All Here on the AJATT Site? Yes. A whole special section on AJATT time management, new diagrams, and cetera.

So Who Does Need the QRG? People who want to acquire Japanese, but don’t know where to start, and are intimidated by the table of contents, unsure what action to take. One of the minor weaknesses in the otherwise perfect and holy main AJATT blook (this site) is that it doesn’t tell you when to stop reading and go do something. And it doesn’t always tell you when certain information applies to you and when it doesn’t. The QRG takes care of that. Videogamewise, it is a careful walkthrough.

Can I Have It For Free? No. But Jouzu has this really cool AJATT summary that’s wonderful in its own right and priced ideally for the free stuff enthusiast .

Buy It Now !

So there you have it. All that’s left to do is click. Your copy is waiting for you. Buy it now. Do it. You need this. You want this. You deserve this. Treat yourself. You’re worth it. It will bring MJ back to life; it will make it all better, I swear. Do it.

Go on. You know you want to. The introductory price is a low, low $9.95 (good until November 5, 2009). The price is a low, low $15.95. It will go up, so get it while it’s cheap! Also, look out for a QRG video, sentence starter packs and (maybe) an audiobook, coming soon!

Satisfaction, Or Your Money Back

Finally: Your happiness matters to me more than your money. Actually, that’s not true at all, but it seems like the sort of thing one should say in these situations . Anyway, if you are less than happy with the QRG, don’t sit there feeling bad, just contact me for a full refund: qrg at alljapaneseallthetime dot com

Hey! So…yeah…I was sitting there, industriously clicking and typing away, minding my own business, when suddenly I fell sick (again!). But then I went to see the doctor (great guy!) and he gave me the merchandise (drugs!) and now I feel better (good drugs!), and so…the QRG will be with you. Just 10 days later than expected.

Anyway, thanks for waiting .

P.S. Don’t let anyone ever tell you that that “only” treating symptoms is a bad thing.

So, I’m there on the Internet, minding my own business, when BAM! The series of tubes conspires to hit me with this:

Hey Khatz, your website has really inspired me. I’m 15 years old, and I love Japanese culture. I’ve always wanted to be fluent in Japanese, but felt that it was impossible. However, one day I came across your site. At first I was like, “Whoa, this guy must be some kind of genius! Fluency in 18 months? Wow!” But then I got to thinking. I realized that you are just a normal guy who found a great (wait no, the only) way to achieve fluency, which is by the immersion process.

So I thought, “What the heck, I’ll buy Heisig’s books and try my best to live the life of a Japanese child.” I hadn’t gotten far when people began to notice what I was doing. My friends told me I was “crazy”, my teacher’s said this method had never been “scientifically tested”, and even my own parents said that what I was doing was “absolutely worthless”. I need some encouragement, Khatz. How did you overcome what other people thought about “all japanese all the time?” Can you give me any tips?

WARNING: I am about to go all New Agey on you. I will snap out of it. Actually, I’m not really going New Agey,at all, it’s just going to sound like I am.

The words people say and things people do to you…could be thought of as having a numerically quantifiable emotional content. Just to sound New Age, let’s call this quantity “energy” (said in my best Southern California accent: “ENerrrgy”).

Keep in mind that I am not saying any of this actually exists. It doesn’t. Not to my knowledge. It’s just a thought model…a way of representing an idea. It has no real physical existence (except, I guess, at the level of electrochemical action in the brain, but…anyway, whatever…)

So let’s call this “energy” (*cringe*), E for short, to give this essay the appearance of mathematical rigor. Pseudoscience for the win, baby!

• E = emotional “energy”.
• -E = Resistance
• +E = Encouragement.
• 0E = Indifference

Now, it would seem that the answer is to shut out all the -E and overwhelm it with +E. Or, even force people who are giving you -E to change sign. Unfortunately, contemporary society as a whole is unlikely to start actively giving you positive encouragement, because it’s far too cool for that. As it happens, though, it’s cheaper and easier to change yourself than to wait for the whole society to change for you. Thus, rather than go all Transformers, expending oodles of priceless time and effort on the acquisition of +E (energon cubes!), we need only realize that:

All that matters is the absolute value of E, |E|.

So let’s say “you’re crazy and you suck and it’ll never work” is -100 E, and “you were born to be Japanese; you have preternaturally large reproductive organs; Japanese is your destiny“, is +100 E. Either way, |E| = 100.

So you need to turn into a monster; a monster that only gets stronger the more it is attacked. Become an omnivore. Even if you eat a plant-based diet . Eat all forms of “energy” (say it with me: “ENerrrgy”).

Let resistance fuel you — funnel that rage and despair into the productive accumulation of more Japanese knowledge. Let encouragement fuel you — grow yourself into the positive vision people have of you.

Either way, it’s all good. It’s all usable. You’re like a plant. People give you B.S., you use it as fertilizer; people give you sunshine, you photosynthesize. All you care about is |E|, and in fact, you may even get to the point where the only thing that bothers you is |E|=0. This point is called “being an attention whore, like Khatzumoto”.

Whatever you do, don’t argue. You will not win. And even if you do win, you won’t win. “A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still” and all that. Besides, what honor is there in out-talking a retard? Yes, I said it: “women and minorities”! Every moment spent arguing with some schmuck, is a moment that would be far better spent on Japanese.

To be fair to your detractors, you are not exactly a shining example of success in your chosen language acquisition method…yet. But then again, how could you be — you’re just a “baby”. Unable to directly demonstrate the validity of what you’re saying, the typical instinct might be to go pull up some articles and shove them in everyone’s face with a triumphant “SEE?!!”. Resist the urge. You will still lose the argument. And your time. The same people who now bait with: “there’s no research to support your claims”, when shown good research, will then switch to: “So what? That research is bogus anyway! If this crap works so well, why isn’t everyone doing it?” _{[because they're too busy arguing?...痴線！]} . This arguing thing is not a winnable game.

Let your Japanese skill do all the talking, which it eventually will, thank you very much, because you’re doing some Japanese right now, right? Whatever trouble you may be facing now, it’s all just fuel. Any obstacles you face exist only to add dramatic flavor to a legend that has already been written — The Legend of How You Learned Japanese To Native-Level Fluency On Your Own.

One day your friends will be begging you to translate Japanese for them. Until that day, shut them out with your headphones and drown them out with Japanese music, if and when they get too rowdy. Besides, it’s not like you understand English anyway.

Anyway, that’s all from me.

How do you other AJATTeers deal with social resistance? Share!

Energy…now that I think about it, “intensity” would probably have been far more appropriate. Oh, well.