OK, now I’m just abusing the word “trilogy”.

Series starts here. Previous post is here.

I can’t find the original comment, but back in one of the preceding timeboxing posts, a kid asked a very pertinent question. It went something along the lines of:

“How can a 60-second timebox have any meaning or motivational value if you know you’re just going to have another one?”

Great question. Excellent question. Let me answer it very simply.

1. First, you’ve got go get out of the mindset that a 60-second timebox has no intrinsic value. Or, more accurately, you’ve got to get into the mindset where you can see the intrinsic value of 60 seconds. And what mindset is that? It’s this one. It’s the probabilistic algorithm mindset: it’s the mindset that says: “I’m not going to a lot of work; I’m not going to do perfect work; I’m just going to do something that helps [for 60 seconds]“. So a short timebox is saying to your numerically: what you do doesn’t have to be big, it just has to help.
2. Once you understand that 60 seconds can have value, you are then in a position to begin to appreciate nested timeboxing. Because the whole point of nested timeboxing is to bring form to the formless. 60-second timeboxes are great, but an endless succession of them can seem, well, endless. That’s where nested timeboxing comes in. It puts these useful microtimeboxes (which I’ll arbitrarily define as any timebox of size < 300 seconds) into a larger framework of meaning. Nested timeboxing gives bigger meaning and structure to the small-but-useful microtimeboxes.
3. Finally, there’s no rule that says you have to use 60 seconds as your timebox length. That just happens to be a length that appeals to me personally. That’s just how I play the game; it’s how I roll. Remember, though, this is all a game, i.e. it is something you play at. For fun. The rules only exist to make things fun. Change, interchange and ignore at will.

So that’s the basic idea there. Keep your questions coming, they’re top stuff .

So, the other day, I’m eating spinach, and I get this email from a kid we’ll call Amphy, because that’s her online name:

Hi Khatz,

Your recent posts, adapted from a IM conversation with you friend Maddie, really struck a chord, especially how she said she always gets sidetracked and fails. That’s I guess the position I’m in at the moment: I wanted to and indeed was learning Japanese (would never even have dared start if not for your blog, so thank you for that), but health problems got in the way — I’ve been pretty much useless for anything for the last few months, but would now like to get back into it, just don’t know where to start (again).

I’d done RTK (thanks for recommending that, btw, all those squiggles suddenly looked like writing), and was assembling a SRS deck based mainly on sentences from Tae Kim’s guide, as well as odd ones I found and liked (桜の樹の下には屍体（したい）が埋まっている！ :D).

I was still a sucky beginner, couldn’t even read children’s stories, but I was at least learning consistently. Now I’m left with a deck, much of which I no longer understand, and kanji I no longer recognise. So, I guess what I’m wondering is, where would you start from? If anything, it feels more overwhelming than when I first started.

Any pointers would be much appreciated, and thank you again for AJATT,

Amphy (in England)

To which I wrote the following reply:

Wow, so you finished RTK? Nice.

Start there. Start at the beginning. Start with the basics.
That’s where we always start and it’s where we always return.
No one’s ever too good or too smart or too dumb or too inexperienced or too advanced or too young or too old for the basics. Except dead people. Dead people suck. They can’t do jack.

You live in England, Amphy. There are foreigners there. Some of them have shaky English. Why? What is it that’s shaky about their English? Is it their lack of knowledge of Chaucer? Is it their inability to handle Cockney rhyming slang?

No…they make basic errors; they get basic things wrong. They wake up “on” the morning; they get “upon” the bus; they “haved the lunch” today. They are messing up the basics, things that a “native” speaker toddler has had drummed into his ears for 40k+ hours. Native speakers make plenty of mistakes, too — they “tow the line” and do things “irregardless of the consequences” and get fooled by “slight of hand”, but they don’t really make those habitual basic errors.

In fundamental ways, B-star, the world is very simple. We make it complex. But think about health. What does it come down to, really? Eat fruits and vegetables. Get enough sleep. Take brisk walks. Easy on the crisps and pies. These are things that your mother and her mother and her foremothers could have told you without a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study. They are things that mothers have most toddlers do. The basics. The Jansport backpacks and the Nike shoes and the Garmin GPS pedometers are all great fun, useful even. But they cannot replace the basics.

So what do adults do? They never sleep because there’s “no time”. They eat junk food because they’re “busy” and “on the go”. They consume the maximum amount of legal and illegal drugs — ciggies, alchohol, weed, whatever — that their economic activity will allow. They’ll watch bad TV before they’ll read a useful book. And they actively seek to exchange vital fluids with total strangers. And that’s just weekdays. Then they wonder why their bodies are falling apart.

We all forget about the basics all the time: we need to have them repeated to us our entire lives. I sound like a crusty old man. But I’m 27…I drink a lot of mango juice; I shower infrequently and irregularly and I wear dark clothes to mask this fact — so I’m not really one to talk.

We all lose track of the basics — of so-called “common sense” — a lot. By the time we’re in our late teens, so much BS has piled up that it’s easy to lose track. But the basics are always there and they will always help you. Revisit them now and every day and you’ll enjoy yourself a lot.

So what about learning Japanese? What are the basics there? Listen to music. Watch cartoons and dramas. Do your SRS. Go one kanji at a time, one primitive at a time. That’s all there is to it. Forget? Relearn. Fall? Stand up. Stop? Start.

So pick up the SRS and take one step. Then another. When you’re tired, rest (cartoons, music, movies, comics). When you’re bored, change the channel (do something else in Japanese). When you’re hungry, eat (go for more of that other Japanese thing). When you’re full…stop (change Japanese activities again).

The more time you spend with Japanese, the more used to Japanese you get. And being used to something is being good at it.

It’s so easy it’s almost anticlimactic.

The basics. The fundamentals. These things that are, to paraphrase the late Jim Rohn, so easy to do that they’re easy not to do — easy to overlook.

Easy. Do whatever you can and want to in Japanese that is easy and fun for you right now. Do easy things that move you forward with your Japanese. The more you do them, the further and faster forward you move. But it’s never hard. Always easy.

Begin again. You’re not a total beginner so I imagine this will all actually go faster than before. Either way, there’s no shame in being a beginner (or even a serial beginner). Begin as many times as you need to. It wasn’t until my 4th or 5th attempt at kanji that I even got through, so…I speak from experience.

Begin again. There’s no level you’re “supposed” to be at right now; if you were supposed to be there, you’d be there. It’s simple cause and effect. There is no “would” or “could” or “should” — those things don’t exist: what exists is “are” “is” and “am”. You are here now. Begin here. Begin now. Don’t worry about where you are (position), just focus on where you’re headed (direction). Begin again. Begin as many times as you need to.

Everyone knows how to get back on the horse. You just do the same things you did the last time you were on her — foot in one stirrup, hands on mane, hop up and bring the other leg over. The thing is, we wonder: “is it worth it any more?”. Well…Japanese is here, you’re here, and the time is going to pass anyway. Might as well go for it.

Finally…don’t try to learn Japanese. It won’t work. Instead, let yourself get used to it. Get used to Japanese. Come into frequent contact with Japanese. Frequent. Every couple of minutes, something Japanese is happening.

But, now that I think about it, my reply kind of sucked. Too abstract. Having said that, there are a couple of good reasons why I like to give vague, high-level advice:

1. It makes me sound deep and smart
2. Whenever I give concrete advice, people on either side of the middle ground die. People who are against the advice freak out about how “hardcore” it is, and people who are in favor of the advice kill themselves trying to follow it to the letter, even if it has parts they don’t need or like. It is this latter group — the people who will hurt themselves before they’ll break some “rule” because it’s supposedly “canon” — for whom I fear most. A lot of smart, serious, perfectionistic people are in this group, and I have to protect them from themselves (!)

So, anyway…do you guys have any more concrete advice for Amphy? Anyone out there with experience making a comeback? Please share your stories and pointers down there in the comments section!

You like how I say “down there”? Very…上から目線.

Maddie and Khatz go way back to university days when they studied together in the computer science department. Now, as a video game programmer in a major company, it would seem Maddie has it all. There’s one dream, however, that has remained elusively beyond the reach of this avid anime fan, gamer, and cosplay seamstress — the dream of learning Japanese.

In Part 1, Maddie explained the problem: she keeps getting distracted (especially by English TV shows), discouraged, and giving up. In Part 2, Dr. Khatz encouraged her to view language as a habit instead of a skill or intellectual pursuit and give herself credit for learning things in context. In this last installment, Dr Khatz reveals “the secret” of how he managed to learn Japanese on his own while still functioning as a busy college student in the U.S.

(continued from Part 2)

Maddie: Ok, so at the end of the day, I do want to do this, but I still live in America. I still have to go to work and do my bills and talk to my family, and this all has to be done in English, so it’s not like I can go and live in an all-Japanese place. I still want to learn more about code and read stuff and actually understand it, etc. etc., but I would like to learn Japanese.

I can easily, or at least relatively easily, switch my background “I live alone, and I don’t like a quiet apartment” stuff to Japanese, and I can even dedicate half an hour or so to learning to read everyday. But is this enough? I know that I won’t learn as fast as some, but I want to learn. I can’t sacrifice my life to this, but it is important to me.

Khatz: Good question. Obviously, the more you give it, the more and faster you get. As you recall, Maddie, yes, I gave everything to Japanese, but I was still a functioning college student. I mean, we talked, we hung out.

Here is what I did… Here is “the secret”, if you will…

The Secret (The Secret, The Secret…)

K: I removed any and all English that was not necessary — not necessary to my livelihood, safety or a basic minimum maintenance level for key relationships. For example: when I would talk to Momoko’s dad, I often didn’t take off both earphones (just one side).

To some that’s going a bit far, but I wanted Japanese, and I wasn’t going to make excuses. I was going to give myself, as far as possible, everything that a native speaker gets — a so-called native speaker, that is (this term is very flawed).

So, yes. My college classes were in English…but my home/bedroom needn’t be. My college assignments were in English…but why does my iPod have to have English on it? The university webpage was in English…but does my Gmail have to be?

And people say: “But what if I don’t understand?”
I’m like, “I’m a [simulated] native… If I don’t understand, then I LEARN TO UNDERSTAND, and I don’t get to do this stuff until I do.”

Sounds strict, but, like I said, I had a very playful, experimental attitude. It only comes out [sounding] strict to make me seem “good” and “disciplined”, but you know me, Maddie…

You know me… YOU’ve been to my house here… We went to school together… We took classes together… We TA-ed together in the Computer Science Building… You saw my desk area… You know I’m just a…scruffy little kid who thinks the world is his bedroom…

M: Hehe.

K: Oh yeah, I changed my OS to Japanese Windows XP well before I was “ready” because I felt (and the action proved it):
We don’t learn the language in order to be exposed to it.
We learn the language BECAUSE we are exposed to it.

M: Ok.

Touch the language

K: Now, if all that seems hard to do, one simple hack is this: increase the FREQUENCY with which you are exposed to Japanese. Focus on just touching Japanese — coming into contact with it — even if it’s, like, have a batch file that plays a Japanese song or opens a Japanese YouTube video once an hour, every hour. Something, anything — touch the language.

Seems silly, sure, but think of all the years of starting and stopping and classes and giving up and teachers leaving and books bought but unopened and hating yourself and blaming yourself and doing hulu [watching anime but only with English subtitles] instead. How intelligent was that? How efficient was that? At least you’re having fun, with YouTube…those Japanese commercials and game shows are hilarious.

M: Ok, it’s good to know that just trying a little is still trying and worth it.

K: Everything is worth it, everything counts. None of this “it was in context” nonsense.

M: And I can at the very least choose 5 shows that I like on hulu, watch those, and then the rest of the time, just watch, or listen to anime. That in itself could be huge — you don’t want to know the number of hours I’ve listened to shows I don’t even like…

K: Exactly. AND you could, if you want, watch those shows IN JAPANESE. What now, woman? I mean, it’s not essential, and you get to watch them anyway, right? So why not.

Get a solid grounding in PLAY!

K: Some people say, “What about the serious stuff?”
…What, like the Japanese tax code? Gimme a break!
(1) Play IS serious stuff.
(2) Play is serious stuff.
(3) Native kids always play, play, play, play first.
(4) Serious stuff will handle itself once you have a solid foundation in PLAY!

The playing around part is fundamental.

Think of how you can game and even use a computer. It’s all because you played around with these things. Same thing with speaking English — it’s ALL play.

Think of the people you know who can’t game or speak English or use a computer. It’s because they never tried to PLAY at it, always trying to be serious…

M: Ok, I feel more heartened.

K: Stepping off soapbox…

Kay, I’m back to normal now, I think. So yeah…no pressure…no techniques, Madz. Japanese isn’t something you “go do”. It’s just part of who you are.

Get a solid grounding in play. Play first. Fun first.

Whatever I can do for you or get for you here, let me know.

M: Thanks muchly!

*The End!*

Maddie and Khatz go way back to university days when they studied together in the computer science department. Now, as a video game programmer in a major company, it would seem Maddie has it all. There’s one dream, however, that has remained elusively beyond the reach of this avid anime fan, gamer, and cosplay seamstress — the dream of learning Japanese.

In Part 1, Maddie explained how she keeps getting distracted (especially by English TV shows), discouraged, and giving up. Dr. Khatz challenged her assumptions and proposed that learning Japanese just might be a whole lot easier and simpler than she had been led to believe. Their conversation, edited from an IM chat, continues below.

(continued from Part 1)

Khatz: Okay…next order of business. So you want results, but when you can’t get them quickly (in the past, with Japanese, at least) you decided to…throw Japanese out altogether? i.e. to do nothing whatsoever that might bring you closer to the result?

Worded like that…does that make any sense to you? Is it fast or nothing?

Maddie: No, but sometimes, I feel like it’s this giant endeavor.

K: Ok… Is going at 0 speed better than going at 1~3 speed even though you wish you were going at 10 speed? Is 0 better than 1~3?

Cutting people off is underrated

M: I’ve also been struggling a lot these days with what I should be spending my time on. I spend hundreds of hours on my cosplay and similar projects, and most people think it’s retarded.

K: Do you like these people? Are they the ones paying for your cosplay? Are they going to pay you money to do things they DO think are worthwhile? Do they live with you?

M: No, they don’t. But I’ve felt very misunderstood recently…

K: I know exactly what you mean

M: One of the things I get super-frustrated about is that no one would tell me I was “wasting my time” if I was making costumes for the local theater troupe, or if I was making quilts, or any number of things like that… What makes my interests any less valuable than yours?

K: Exactly. Those people are full of crap and unless they pay you money or are VERY good kissers, you don’t have to listen to them.

If they don’t like it, they’d better get used it. I’ve had some of those acquaintances… deleted them faster than spam. “Stop cosplay. Be BIG FOR HER”…ok…bye.

It is not ac-freaking-cceptable Mads. You’re, what, 25? 26 now?

M: 27.

K: 27, ok. (Me too!) You’re 27 years old and people are pulling that high school crap on you?

Personally, I find it inspiring… You’re living the dream in so many ways…you get paid money to make VIDEO GAMES.

Dude, Maddie, I won’t lie. I would hate you for NOT doing those things. Your anime passion infected me…

M: Hehe.

K: So…what it comes down to is your casual acquaintances…suck…and you need better ones who understand what you’re about.

There comes a point where they either shut up and accept you, or they have to go. I don’t know if you’ve reached that point with those peepz, but just know…that is an option maybe, you know, waiting in the wings…

Dude, cutting people off…it helps THEM, too. Now they don’t have to be annoyed by you. You’re doing them a favor…

M: lolz

K: Cutting people off…very underrated.

Don’t intellectualize language-learning

K: Third thing… You’re intellectualizing language-learning. You’ve learned it as a “school subject”… You’ve taken “classes”…

So…most or all of the English you know now, you know from English class, right? And before you went to English class you knew no English, right?

M: Yeah… I see your point.

K: And you keep your English up with textbooks and English class… You review the material, right? So you don’t forget.

Because, how are you going to know English otherwise, Maddie? And you need it for work and stuff…need that English…

A language is not something we compartmentalize. It is practically life itself. It’s like the air, literally like the air. I venture, Maddie, that you have spent as much time away from English as you have away from air.

M: Well, I have traveled, but I never stopped thinking in English.

K: Even when you’ve watched Japanese, there’s been English text down there. And when you came to Japan, you were, yeah, thinking in English…talking in English to Chad and the crew. Your guidebooks were in English. The hotel people spoke English.

I mean THINKING in English, Mads, were you born that way?

M: Probably not.

K: You have made this English thing such a habit, it literally stays in your head even when you get in a plane, go up into the stratosphere, cross an ocean, get away from America…and still…in your head…there can be English.

But that’s besides the point… A language is more like a sport, Mads. One of my neighbors here, Eisuke, he says it’s like a conditioned reflex. When you really know a language, you don’t intellectualize it. You intellectualize THROUGH it, but when you speak, you speak that way because that is the way.

When you turn on Hulu, you’re not like “it’s time for me English practice”. You’re just watching TV with so-called “first” and “native” languages. You don’t even TALK about the language. It’s like it’s not there because it’s everywhere.

Yet every phone call you make, every TV show you watch, thought you think, every person who makes fun of your cosplay, every person who is nice about your cosplay,every  sign you see, every song you listen to — all these things are language/English practice: every single one of them.

Everything is in context

K: Now, you said you could read polyester “but only in context” — oh, so you’re supposed to know it OUT OF CONTEXT? When the heck are you going to read about polyester out of context? I’ll tell you when — on a school test.

Quick, Madison, tell me every English word you know. List them right now, every last one.

M: lolz

K: Tell me every single English word you understand…and if you can’t tell me, you must not know/understand them. In real life, EVERYTHING is in context. Everything is in a sub-menu. And that’s how the heck it should be.

Context-flattening is not real. It’s easy to make/grade, but it’s not real.

M: So true.

K: So you’re good at Japanese. You know some Japanese, but you won’t even give yourself the credit because it was IN CONTEXT? Is that fair?

M: Ok, I guess not.

K: Would you tell your (hypothetical) miraculous virgin baby that she was a loser because “you only know how to say that word because you saw it context”? Would you say this to a child? a small child? your child? a lot? And if you did, do you think they would grow up happy and wanting to learn?

So why is it okay to be abusive to you? Because it’s you? Is it okay to slit your wrists and do drugs then? I mean, it’s YOU…it’s your body… And let’s say you made the drugs by yourself at home using legal stuff from Wal-mart. You’re not financing the drug trade so it’s okay, right? I mean, it’s paint thinner…and alcohol…alcohol is legal…so it’s okay, right?

But literally every time you don’t let yourself feel good for small successes like that, you create drugs in your brain and give them to yourself. You might as well slap the baby each time she makes a mistake: “STOP BABBLING!!!” “That was in context, you prissy little know-it-all!”

It’s just mean. And we get away with this because most of it happens in our head and nobody else is watching the little child inside suffering.

I learned Japanese by accident

K: You’re a lot like me, I think, Mads. You are so driven. You want this Japanese so badly that everything smells like failure — too slow… “in context”… (*eye roll* ) I know because this is how I have often felt about Chinese. You beat and beat and beat yourself, and we pretend it’s “discipline”… But it creates so much pain that you just go watch Hulu (i.e. practice English) instead.

I learnt Japanese by accident, Maddie, while trying (i.e. being mean to myself and creating a struggle) to learn Chinese. I was just fooling around with Japanese. It was just a game. There was no point — it was just an experiment. As the hippies like to say, the journey was the point.

M: I thought you wanted to so you could work for Large Japanese Corporation?

K: No… I wanted to work at Large Japanese Corporation so I could get paid to keep playing with Japanese. I knew if I went to, say, an American company, I’d have to do English all the time. (I also loved Large Japanese Corporation products, having grown up with them.) But Large Japanese Corporation was literally a ploy to get paid to keep messing around with/in Japanese.

And it worked. They did all my paperwork. Flew me over, twice. Paid to ship my stuff from the US — boxes and boxes and boxes. Did my insurance paperwork. Helped secure my Japanese name. Let me talk, read, write and listen to Japanese ALL DAY LONG.

M: Hehe.

K: And then put money in my bank account every month for my troubles. So yeah, it was the other way around…

A language is NOT a skill, Madz. It is not. You don’t “know” it. You don’t “know” English. You LIVE English. A language is a habit.

So you don’t get good at it. Don’t ask yourself if you’re getting “good” at it. You get USED to it, and you get so used to it that you could literally…fly to the moon, Maddie. You could leave the planet Earth to-day — TO DAY — and there would STILL be English rolling around in your head, you’re so used it.

You don’t speak it right because of those stupid exercises you can’t even remember any more you did in some English class at some high school. You speak it right because you don’t freaking know any other way to speak it. You actually have to THINK about how to suck at English. You would actually have to TRY to suck at English. You would have to make an intellectual effort and heat up your processor…

You dream in English. I mean, can’t you even be unconscious and be rid of this thing? What the heck? (Funny thing is, though, if you were to truly stop all English for long enough, you would forget it, but it would take decades… | Mr Uwano comes back from the dead to say ‘Good Day’ – Times Online)

You are already a success story

K: So you are still practicing. And you have one marvelously successful language experience: English, the language everyone and their dog wants to learn. You speak perfect General American English. You are a success story — you have a success history — and you are repeating this success even now. Look at us practicing English right here.

M: Ok, so at the end of the day, I do want to do this, but I still live in America. I still have to go to work and do my bills and talk to my family, and this all has to be done in English, so it’s not like I can go and live in an all-Japanese place. I still want to learn more about code and read stuff and actually understand it, etc. etc., but I would like to learn Japanese.

I can easily, or at least relatively easily, switch my background “I live alone, and I don’t like a quiet apartment” stuff to Japanese, and I can even dedicate half an hour or so to learning to read everyday. But is this enough? I know that I won’t learn as fast as some, but I want to learn. I can’t sacrifice my life to this, but it is important to me.

K: Good question. Obviously, the more you give it, the more and faster you get. As you recall, Maddie, yes, I gave everything to Japanese, but I was still a functioning college student. I mean, we talked, we hung out.

Here is what I did… Here is “the secret”, if you will…

(to be continued…)

What is “the secret” (the secret, the secret…) of which Dr. Khatz speaks? Find out next week in the third and final installment!

Maddie and Khatz go way back to carefree university days when they would put in long chocolate-milk-fueled hours in the underground computer laboratory hacking away at never-ending oceans of code. Now, having landed the most awesome and lucrative job of video game programmer, it would seem Maddie has it all…

There’s one dream, however, that has remained elusively beyond the reach of this avid anime fan, gamer, and cosplay seamstress–the dream of learning Japanese. In this extensive conversation adapted from an IM chat, Khatz plays language therapist to the distressed would-be AJATTeer.

I always get sidetracked and fail

Maddie: Khatz…

Khatz: Yes, Maddiekins?

M: Can I really teach myself Japanese? I’ve attempted a couple times, but I always get sidetracked and fail…and then I gotta start over when I try again. It’s something I want to do, but I feel like if I really wanted it, I’d try harder…

K: Go on… I’m hearing you… Multiple failed attempts, leading to evidence for low confidence in this field… What were your previous attempts like? What did you do? How did it feel?

M: Well, I’ve never gotten super far… The first time, I took a “class” that my friend had at my old job. We learned the hiragana and katanana, and then she started teaching us basic phrases and things. But few were very into it, and she got busy and fed up, and so that stopped.

Then I decided about a year ago that I really, really was gonna do this. So I started learning the hiragana and katana again, and I bought that learning kanji book that you said to get, but never really cracked it. Before I’d even gotten a handle on the basic symbols [kana] again, I got sidetracked and stopped…not sure why…I think other things just got in the way.

I think it often feels daunting and overwhelming… I’ve never properly learned another language. When I took German in high school, I had 5 teachers in 3 years. I didn’t come away with much at all. We were all terrible my 3rd year, and my teacher was very frustrated with us…

K: OK…daunting…no previous success experience…getting sidetracked…teachers giving up on you…apparent long-term efforts with zero gain in German…

Tell me more about your mother I mean the daunting feelings with Japanese…

M: Well, I gotta learn a whole new writing system. At least I have things I actually want to read/listen to in Japanese, but I don’t want to just learn to speak, or just learn to listen, or something like that. I really need to learn to do it all — read, write, speak and understand.

K: Writing system…ok… At the same time, you do want to do it all…so the desire is all there…

M: Yeah, it is. I would have loved to go to the Trigun Premier and have even an inkling of what was going on…oh, and be able to watch anime without having my eyes glued to the screen so I can read the subtitles (yes, I know there are dubs, but a) they aren’t on Hulu, and b) the Japanese voice actors are better and you know it).

K: lol… Japanese voice actors are the stuff.

I’m an easy-out kinda person

K: How did you feel when you were practicing? or in class? Were you happy? Was it fun?

M: I think it was fun. But I’m unfortunately an easy-out kinda person. That’s why I watch TV and play video games so much — it’s easy to just turn it on, or plug it in and go with it; it’s just right there.

K: Hehe. Me too

M: I love doing my cosplay, but even that is sometimes hard to get motivated on. In general, I have a hard time getting motivated on things where I want a result, but it will be weeks or months before I actually see any real results.

K: Definitely.

M: I mean, I’ll work on it for a while, even be really good for a few weeks, but then work will get crazy, or I’ll go out of town, and it throws me off, and then I forget, and it’s not part of my routine, and then 3 weeks later, I’ll be like “oh yeah, I was gonna do that”, but by that time, it feels like I’m starting from scratch, so I’ll be like “oh, well, I’ll start that when I’ve got time”…

K: How often do you watch anime by the way, Mads? Every day…?

M: I really only watch it when my friends get together. I’d watch it more if I could watch and do something else, but even though there’s hundreds of hours for free on Hulu, I haven’t gotten into anything ‘cause it’s such a huge commitment… And I can’t watch anime while playing a video game like I can with my stupid US shows.

K: How come?

M: They are subbed, not dubbed, and so I have to watch all the time to read and know what’s going on. I listen to TV more than I watch it, in general. There are about 4 or 5 shows that I will actually sit and watch, and the rest are mostly empty-apartment filler. I watch a lot of shows, but very few do I really care about.

Language-learning was harder than anything else in school

K: Anything else from your language-learning experience that sticks in your mind?

M: I know I had a much harder time with it than just about anything else in school. I’d forget words a lot — blunt memorization isn’t any fun, and in some ways it almost felt like cheating? I dunno how to exactly explain that, but yeah, for German, I certainly never drilled or memorized as much as I should have.

K: Almost felt like cheating? Why did it feel like cheating?

M: Well, cheating is not the right word for it… It was probably more along the lines of I rarely just had to memorize stuff before, so it didn’t feel right? It was many years ago, so I’m extrapolating a bit, but I do remember it being harder than anything else, and then after we lost our teacher half way through, and the next two were so terrible (one of them didn’t even speak German), then after that first year, we were all pretty crushed.

K: Yeah, you guys were abandoned. What good experiences have you had with language-learning?

M: None?

No, I’m trying to think… I’ve never talked to anyone in a foreign language. I’ve been able to read, like, the tags on some of the clothes I bought in Japan, but that was very context-specific.

K: Oh yeah? What did they say?

M: Polyester.

K: ポリエステル

M: Yeah, that. I can recognize enough of the characters to, in context, know that that says “polyester”.

By learning about Japanese, I was able to mispronounce my own language in a way that was easier for them to understand? I doubt that counts…

K: lol… In Khatz’s world, that TOTALLY counts btw

M: On my first round through Japanese “class” I was able to put together my first complete, original sentence. I think I can still remember it… maybe.

You’ve been abused

K: Have you read any of AJATT.com, and if so, what have you read of it? (Just so we can save you hearing things you already know )

M: I’ve read some of it. It’s been a year, though. I know your view of “you can do anything, just not everything”, and your confidence that anyone can do this.

K: ‘k…I’m about to go into soapbox mode…but stop me if you have any questions or objections or…just get bored. Especially if you get bored…

M: Ok.

K: You’ve been abused.

1) You’ve been living in America. This is a very pushily monolingual country. Many people in America are afraid of foreign languages and assume that they are only good for spying, missionary work and insulting people. All non-English speakers have had trouble passing on heritage languages — Italians, Germans, Chinese, Japanese, even Hispanics.

2) And then there was the German class thing. You kids were screwed over quite royally there…irresponsible adults…

M: Well, if you know other languages, or several languages, it can be seen as a mark of intelligence, but that isn’t always good in America, either, like it’s a waste…

K: lol Exactly. Richard Hofstadter talks about a lot of the issues behind that in Anti-Intellectualism In American Life.

3) And then there’s all the negative brainwashing about language-learning in general and Asian languages in particular: “hard” … “different” … “need to be smart” … “age” this … “age” that.

But all that’s in the past now. We can de-allocate that from memory, which leaves us with you here and now…

Just leave Japanese on

K: Earlier you talked about wanting results in Japanese…feeling frustrated…feeling daunted. So you watch some Hulu…or listen to American TV or whatever… Basically, you go practice English. Why not just leave Japanese on while you game?

M: ‘Cause I don’t understand it?

K: Because you don’t understand it…ok…

Say you were to…somehow…have a kid today…by miraculous conception. Would you refuse to speak to the kid in English because she does not understand?

M: lolz, yeah, no.

K: Why do you refuse to allow the Japanese child called マッディー to listen to her native language — because she doesn’t understand? Why does American Maddie get special treatment? Is it because マッディー is Asian?

M: Can I really pick up that much just by listening? I’ve been able to hear phrases that I’ve learned in my “classes”, but I don’t feel like I’ve really picked up on much that I didn’t know before-hand, even though I’ve watched anime in Japanese, with the English subs. I know people have just watched enough in a foreign language to pick it up, but that hasn’t seemed to work for me all that much. Maybe I just haven’t given it a real chance, though.

K: Bingo. (Cute Girls, Mathematics, Language)

Let’s say you had this baby today, this miraculous baby, and you let her listen to English once a week with friends and took her to English class a couple hours a week…but then nothing happened. Would you give up and say “she just can’t pick up the language”? (rhetorical question)

And that whole watching-Japanese-with-English-subs thing… This is why I recommend people turn off the subs, really — or at least keep them off most of the time. Because I found something interesting… When I would watch anime with subs, back before I could understand it, I found that I would RECALL the anime all in English. Even though I watched it subbed…with Japanese voices…the voices would play in my mind completely in English. But maybe that was just me…

M: Yeah, I do the same.

K: Oh, you too?!

M: But I often “hear” text.

K: Okay…next order of business. So you want results…

(to be continued…)

Don’t miss the next installment, in which Dr. Khatz warns of the dangers of intellectualizing language-learning, extols the virtues of learning in context, and explains why it is important to cut off people that don’t accept your cosplay infatuation.

Pen-name Jason sent me this cool email yesterday:

Hey Khazumoto,

Huge fan of the site,  I’ve read almost all of it.  I come to you with a question because I respect your opinion more than anyone on the subject of learning languages.

I live in Seoul and I’ve been learning Korean for a little over 2 months.  I enrolled in a course, which ended up with me as the only one in the class, so its basically 1 on 1 tutoring for a cheaper price.  It breaks down to a little more than 10 bucks an hour so I think it’s really worth it.  I do 6 hours a week, 3 hours twice a week in the morning.

My teacher is very cute and nice, but when I told her to stop teaching from the book because I thought it was bad (IT IS!), she got a little lost in how to teach the course, because thats the only way she’s ever done it.

It’s kinda turning into me dictating what I want to learn but I’m afraid I’m not really sure the best way to maximize my 2 three hour sessions a week and when I have nothing to suggest, she just goes back to what the book would teach.

I kinda came up with [a] scheme [whereby]:

• First 30 mins is review of last class and homework.
• Next hour is speaking only, no book.
• Next hour in learning new grammar.
• Final 30 minutes is using everything I learned and review the lesson.

I do many SRS reps outside of class and have designated that as the time to learn new vocab, so learning new vocab doesn’t take up time in the class.

2 months into learning, with a 1-on-1 tutor for 2 three-hour sessions a week, what would suggest I do in class?  How can I get the best value from these 1-on-1 classes? [Emphasis added]

I understand that you are very busy, any advice would be appreciated.  Learning Korean is my priority and I know you are the man who can help me on my quest!!

Thanks a ton,
[Jason]

Let’s answer this one.

I respect your opinion more than anyone on the subject of learning languages.

GOOD MAN! I like this kid already.

Learning Korean is my priority and I know you are the man who can help me on my quest!!

In the name of the Khatzumoto, the AJATT and the Internet…

OK…no…I’m done…

Seriously, though — good question; great question!
I don’t know how workable this is for you, but my choices would be:

1. Every Day Is A Field Trip

Think of your tutor as a surrogate mother more than anything else.

Go to town with her. No, literally.

Hang out with her and her friends…go out on errands with her — shopping, bank, post office, subway station, telephone calls — then you can see and hear how she REALLY uses Korean.

Not how she CLAIMS to use Korean.
Not how she BELIEVES Korean SHOULD be used,
but how she REALLY uses it.

Her word choice, her enunciation, how she mumbles, how she bounces back from forgetting a word. The shape of her mouth. Her word choice. Her actual decisions about formal versus casual register.

Wherever possible, record your conversations to playback and perhaps even discuss/question later.

Eat with her. Cook with her…have her tell you the names of foods and how to eat them, as you eat them.

Copy her music. Watch what she watches — especially comedy. Read the comics she reads. Watch her favorite movies with her.

Walk around town, have her answer your questions:

• “Mommy, what’s that?”
• “Mommy, what does that ad say?”
• “Mommy, why are those two men kissing?”

This is highly unconventional, but ultimately, IMHO much more fun and more effective. I’m sure she’d rather be hanging out at the mall or something, than sitting around playing schoolmarm with you.

You live in Seoul, man! The real Korea is right in front of you. It is right outside the door. Use it. Enter it. Live it. Don’t shut it out because of some stupid book or “rule” or convention.

Basically, she gets PAID to just live her life — be Korean in Korea — and you get to reconstruct a realistic Korean childhood.

It’s practical and fun; it’s win-win. She gets her errands done AND gets paid. You can get help with your errands as you learn to stand on your own two feet as an adult:

• How do you talk to a bank teller? — Go to the bank with “Mom” and see!
• How do you do the bowing and clapping thing at a Buddhist temple? — Have “Mom” take you!
• What’s that green, stalky stuff you get with the kimchee at like every restaurant? — Ask “Mom”!
• How do you get your Internet and other utilities set up on the phone? — Get “Mom” to do it, and tape the conversation for further observation and imitation.

2. Unforgiving Essay Correction / Reading Her Email and Handwriting / Reading Aloud

Write essays about things like “my weekend” and have her check your writing with all the nitpickiness of an anxious parent. Although, I should note that the real way to get good at writing is to read more. You can get good at writing with or without a checker, but you can’t get good at writing (or write, period) without reading.

A more interesting exercise with text (and something I actually charmed my Japanese friends into doing) would be to have her forward you copies of her personal and professional emails, so you can see how real Koreans write to real Koreans in real Korean. Real emails are one of those things that are as common and useful as they are private and ephemeral — we all write email, but it’s all kept in such a closed circuit. Plug in.

Read those emails and SRS them. If she uses Korean words that are not yet defined in dictionaries, as native users are likely to do, your in-person time together will be a perfect opportunity to ask what stuff means. And, yeah, tell her she can remove any incriminating information.

Also, you are probably exposed to machine-printed Korean to the exclusion of handwritten Korean. Have your surrogate mother give you some real, handwritten Korean text. With all the electronic writing done today, handwritten language can come as a rude shock to print readers unless they proactively expose themselves to it.

One more thing on reading. Remember the bedtime story? Bring it back. Have your Korean mother read text aloud to you unprepared (no practice run), so you can see and hear her rhythm, cadence and best of all — how she bounces back from misreadings and other mistakes. Definitely record this, to listen to later. She can read you anything you want — newspaper articles, children’s books, comics…whatever.

Conclusion

Basically, get out of the foreigner-versus-native-Korean paradigm, and become her Korean kid/babysitee who just happens to have a strange condition that makes him look like, I dunno, a grown man of German(?) descent.

Due to her influence, your speech and writing may become slightly feminine (or at least “on the gentle side, for a man”) for a while. But this is not a problem; you can always fine-tune it and “man it up” later. The most important thing is to shed your foreignness and assume a Korean persona.

Linguistically, the difference between a foreigner and a Korean is far larger than that between a Korean man and a Korean woman. So, “fine-tuning” already native-like speech is one area where “Pimsleur time” actually applies — two weeks will be all you need to go from foppy metrosexual to brooding machosexual.

It sounds like your tutor is somewhat at a loss for what to do. Some of that is probably because she’s been trained, like most of us, to (falsely) dissociate fun and learning. She’s probably relieved to be off the textbook, but doesn’t feel permission to really “cut loose” as it were.

Now is your time to “lead”. But here, leadership does not mean giving orders. Leadership just means encouraging her to be herself, giving her permission to let go and chill, for the benefit of you both. Leadership here is about making sure everyone is (1) happy and (2) gets what they want. It is not about commanding; it is about almost invisibly shaping situations and outcomes — you can lead without anyone ever knowing you were leading; you can lead without being “in charge”.

So, the keyword is: “mother”. Surrogate mother.
The relationship is casual, but (in your case, since you’re paying) she has above-average responsibility to (1) answer questions and (2) slam you for any minor Korean mistake, where normal friends would let it slide or be like “dude, I’m not your tutor-slash-surrogate mother”.

The key actions are:

1. Observe:
   Observation is huge. There can be no accurate imitation without extensive observation. Think: fly on the wall.
2. Imitate: act Korean, and
3. (sometimes) Query
   In language, I find that “what?” and “how?” matter more than “why?” — most of the “whys” are either unknown, ignored, or fiercely contested. But the “whats” and “hows” are an immediate reality.
   First figure out how and what to speak correctly — Koreanly — that is your first priority. Find out why later — when you’re fluent, you can go read books about the Korean language written in Korean by Koreans for Koreans, to your heart’s content.
4. Based on all the above, surrogate mother gives: Feedback.

So don’t be her student. Be her family, her sidekick; become a part of her life, and by extension, the real lives of the real Korean people in her social network. Many Korean girls get adopted by foreign families, now it’s your turn to be adopted by a Korean girl (six hours a week)!

…

Or something like that!

So far, I’ve only gotten to know a handful of Korean or Japanese-Korean girls in my life, but half of them have been, how do you say…unflinchingly frank people. Coming from a somewhat indirect culture myself, such behavior just seemed…cruelly tactless at first. But when you use this cultural trait to your advantage, it actually turns out to be a priceless gift. EVERYONE should have at least four female friends from Korea.

Anyway, enough culturally insensitive comments. The point is: extreme behavior is useful. Extreme praise and kindness can fuel confidence; extreme meanness can fuel reflection and drive; “extreme” apathy can fuel self-reliance.

Now, I don’t actually know what your tutor is like, but I’m sure you’ll figure something out and I’m sure it’ll be really cool and fun — I mean,  “get paid to play”: it’s a totally sweet deal.

Remember, all of this is just one unreasonably handsome man’s idea. It’s just what he — I — would do if I were in your situation; it’s where I would start, tweaking as necessary along the way. Ultimately, it’s your life. Make your own choices; make your own decisions.

Keep it fun, keep it Korean, and the rest is details.

Let me know what you end up actually doing and how it works for you! And maybe some AJATTeers will have succesful models of their own to share with you here .