I’ve been enjoying the new Star Trek movie (#11?) in Mandarin today…Right now it looks like I may just have to go to Hong Kong in person to snag a Cantonese version. Anyway, here’s the famous intro/outro with audio:

『宇宙，人類的終極邊疆。這就是星艦「企業」號的旅程。
它的任務是探索全新的世界，挖掘新的物種和文明，勇敢的前往沒有人去過的地方。』
[Audio file]

Shortest AJATT post ever…

• A language is nothing but information. If you are capable of assimilating information, then you can learn a language. #
• If you can say even *one* word right in a language, then all you have to do is repeat that process until it scales up to fluency. #
• Playing with a new (and very lazy) kanji card format. I call it an "exposure" card. Front = kanji. Back = empty/optional info. Task = write. #
• ★ 【 死亡笔记 Episode 12 (2/2) 】 – YouTube連続再生 – ノンストップチューブ – NonstopTUBE http://bit.ly/bBUtfD #
• ★ 【 multilanguage mix of intros to old cartoon series 】 – YouTube連続再生 – ノンストップチューブ – NonstopTUBE http://bit.ly/aHk186 #
• Live Internet TV from Taiwan
  構築僑胞永遠的家 歡迎收看台灣宏觀網路電視 http://bit.ly/dcU6So #
• 「脱いじゃいました！」って・・・言うじゃな～い？
  YouTube – 吉川ひなの「脱いじゃいました！」　資生堂新ＣＭ発表会で http://bit.ly/d4UUn8 #
• YouTube – ドミノ倒しはいかが？ http://bit.ly/aoe2dg #
• 「理解を超えたシステムが作動している」介さん　#WeirdTweetsFromKhatzuMotosRLFriends #
• 「イメージモンスター」介さん　#WeirdTweetsFromKhatzuMotosRLFriends #
• How much input do you need to speak English fluently? | Antimoon.com http://bit.ly/dpeVkG #
• Flava.
  YouTube
  - no 1 panjabi
  http://bit.ly/d9fjWq #
• 「ウィー　マスト　プロテクト　ジス　ハウス！」って、言うじゃな～い？ #
• SRS: Err on the side of deletion. #
• “In order to achieve something you've never achieved before, you need to become someone you've never been before.” Brian Tracy #
• “In order to achieve something you've never achieved before, you have to become someone you've never been before.” Brian Tracy #
• "Native speakers don't get to opt out: they just keep going until they get it." Jang Mi #
• "There is no such thing as discipline. There is only love…You are the result of what you love most."
  http://bit.ly/bSfKrc #
• "Romaji is like replacing your legs with dildos" http://bit.ly/9DLTGW #
• YouTube – 【特報】トリック劇場版3 霊能力者バトルロイヤル http://bit.ly/bGSjhi #
• "We need a variety of input and influence and voices. You cannot get all the answers…from one person or from one source." —Jim Rohn #
• "forget the notion that "genius", "talent" or any other innate qualities create the greats we call geniuses" http://bit.ly/8F6jja #
• Graduate from "ghetto pride" — pride in things that are actually crap. Having a foreign accent in your L2 is not part of your "identity". #
• "The tree of language fluency must be watered with authentic native media." —- Thomas AJATTson #
• "Failure cannot cope with persistence." http://bit.ly/cmaX9w | Napoleon Hill #
• "even the most ordinary among us should be careful about saying we can't do great things" http://bit.ly/8F6jja #
• "most people can do something extraordinary if they're willing to put in the exercise" http://bit.ly/8F6jja #
• It's not the language. It's not you. It's your habitual behavior. #
• "Action has its own logic" | @tom_peters
  http://bit.ly/ct302T
  http://bit.ly/cwN7nH #
• Jim Rohn on #immersion "1) Do What You Can, 2) Do The Best You Can". You can't do what you can't do. But are you doing what you can do? #
• Do what you can. Do easy. Easy gets done. #
• 「咁 關我咩嘢事呀～？」
  ★ 【 Mcdull need help(cantonese cartoon) 】 – YouTube連続再生 – ノンストップチューブ – NonstopTUBE http://bit.ly/aOmtgL #
• "verbal practice associated to musical information seems to be more memorable"
  The Use of Music in Learning Languages http://bit.ly/ce8zoh #
• 衛星テレビ受信の楽しみ http://bit.ly/aGB4D7 #
• YouTube – 華視新聞100203(周杰倫導電視劇 熊貓人周五上映) http://bit.ly/aapgn6 #
• 華視全球資訊網 – 首頁 http://bit.ly/cwkBqT #Taiwan #TV #
• M's AC04 – 台詞資料/Mission 01 張子の基地 "目標上空！投下！投下！" http://bit.ly/aajEp5 #
• YouTube – 吴浩康 – 38廿四 [KTV] ktv.playinmel.com http://bit.ly/9rNKpQ #
• YouTube – 爱来过/S.H.E http://bit.ly/a4QSKa #
• "If you keep reviewing stuff you should have deleted you’ll wind up burning out so fast…" | Kendo http://bit.ly/aL44QO #
• @rikaisuru I make 'em and/or search online for them in reply to rikaisuru #
• YouTube
  - Americans Fluent in Japanese
  http://bit.ly/ctq4Ck #
• "Obstacles are like wild animals. They are cowards but they will bluff you if they can…" http://bit.ly/9ZGUus #
• Instead of wondering when your next break is, how about setting up a learning process you don't need to escape from? #Paraphrase #SethGodin #
• Just got this dictionary. Small. Fast (coverless). Light. Color screen. Backlit. Hot stuff http://bit.ly/aQYq1p [Canon Wordtank S501E] #
• Cons: The small buttons took some getting used to. No touch screen. http://bit.ly/aQYq1p [Canon Wordtank S501E] #
• YouTube
  - She-Ra – Multilanguage
  http://bit.ly/bW9h7n #
• YouTube
  - She-Ra Chinese
  http://bit.ly/9QLzEm #
• YouTube
  - She-Ra: Princess of Power (Chinese Version) 非凡的公主希瑞
  http://bit.ly/bRI1mF #
• YouTube
  - 中視版 "大英雄" (GI Joe) 卡通主題曲
  http://bit.ly/bnsg34 #
• @spanishonly I actually quit SRSing when I first came to Japan ("mission accomplished!"), but found that I lost refinement/high-level vocab. in reply to spanishonly #
• @spanishonly But that's just me…Personally, I have also found that (at least audio-less) SRS is no substitute for listening in reply to spanishonly #
• A #Japanese paper on input theory.
  「成功する英語教育改革への鍵はインプット理論」
  http://bit.ly/a5TW3o #
• "It’s seriously not that hard to become fluent in Japanese…All it takes is time, enjoyment…immersion" | アメド http://bit.ly/aL44QO #
• #Japanese discussions of the input hypothesis
  インプット仮説 – Google 検索 http://bit.ly/9IGsss #
• Cool discussion show in #Japanese YouTube
  - 丸激トークオンデマンド
  http://bit.ly/cbRpGb #
• #Japanese reality (?) show. Two kids from Turkey looking to get venture capital
  YouTube
  - マネーの虎　トルコファーストフード1
  http://bit.ly/c4wDM4 #
• "Focus on input first. You cannot make mistakes when just listening or reading." http://bit.ly/9awV0m #
• "反復訓練を長期間続ければ・・・莫大な効果が得られる筈" http://bit.ly/avqUwA #
• There are points at which tough love becomes abuse and kindness becomes condescension. Where? Dunno. You decide(?) #
• YouTube
  - Broadcast Yourself。
  "フェイス・オフ:
  its Face/Off, in japanese" http://bit.ly/dmeW96 #
• @Jaybot7 One cool feature Canon added on these is the ability to search for a kanji based on the reading of any component, not just radicals in reply to Jaybot7 #
• 「『なぜ洋画とかの吹き替えはしゃべり方が不自然ですか』
  『っていうかそもそも、日本の映画やドラマだって
  言葉遣いおかしくないか？
  ドラマのせりふそのまましゃべってるやつがいたら
  すげー気持ち悪いと思うんだけど。 』」 http://bit.ly/b9NAY9 #
• 「
  『なぜ洋画とかの吹き替えはしゃべり方が不自然ですか』
  『芝居なんですよ、あれは。だから芝居がかった台詞回しになる。 』」 http://bit.ly/b9NAY9 #
• 防風じゃねえか！ #
• （爆笑）【なぜ洋画とかの吹き替えは喋り方が不自然なのか】
  「ちょっとくらい不自然にしておいてほしい。
  不自然にしていないと洋画を観たという達成感が無い。 」（＾＾）
  http://bit.ly/9aJoHq #

Gather round, children, gather round. As the title suggests, the good folk at Amazon.cn sold me a copy of “Independence Day”, DVDed up and Mandarin-dubbed, for the sum of approximately $3 (I LOVE Amazon.cn). And you know what happens when I get a copy of the President’s speech in “Independence Day”. Anyway, enjoy. Audio here.

早上好。
再過一小時，
這裡的飛機將與世界各地的盟友並肩戰鬥。
你們將參與人類歷史上最大的空戰。

人類。這個詞今天對於我們所有人將有新的意義。
我們不能再為小小的分歧而內耗。
我們將為共同的利益團結起來。

也許是上帝的安排，今天是獨立日。
你們將再一次為自由而戰。
不是為了反抗暴政、壓迫和迫害。
而是免遭毀滅。
是為生存的權力而戰鬥。

如果我們今天能夠勝利，
七月四日將不僅只是美國人民的假日，
而且將使全世界人民發出同樣的吶喊：

“我們不會默默地走向黑暗！”
“我們不會就這樣坐以待斃！”
“我們要生活下去！”
“我們一定要生存！”

今天我們要慶祝自己的獨立日！

It’s here. And it can be yours to fall in love with right now. Today. It’s a member of the illustrious line of AJATT products, and it’s called My First Japanese Storybook. Or, as we Japanese like to call it:

マイファースト初めてのジャパニーズ絵本。

Manipulatively-Worded Promise

• “My First Japanese Storybook” might make you thin, pretty, happy, safe and popular insofar as there is a nonzero hypothetical probability that…OK, no it won’t. But…in theory, what if it did? No? No…

What the…?

OK, seriously though — here’s the deal. It’s:

• An illustrated storybook, much like the kind you so enjoyed as a child, back when everything was safe and happy and…stuff.
• 24+ pages
• Bilingual (Japanese text + English translation)
• Illustrations on every page
• In PDF format (so, an electronic book), with
• Furigana on all kanji (yeah, baby)
• A sentence flashcard pack for use with an SRS (a lot like “MFSP”, with even cooler formatting), containing phrases from and inspired by the book.
• MP3 audio recording of its content (it’s like having your virtual mommy read aloud to you!)

Who The…?

My First Japanese Storybook is intended for anyone at any level of Japanese, from egg to caterpillar to butterfly. As long as you’ve gone through Remembering the Kanji and know your kana, then you, too can read and enjoy the book — thanks in no small part to the ruggedly handsome support materials (translation, SRS deck).

I Want Mine! Gimme One!

And you can have one.

My First Japanese Storybook: $21.95

Buy It. Try It. No Likey? No Payey!

Let me be Khatzumoto with you: I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m still new at this product-making stuff. Maybe you’ll like the storybook, maybe you won’t. So, as with all its predecessor products, My First Japanese Storybook comes with a 100%, no-questions-asked refund guarantee. If you don’t like it, just email qrg at ajatt dot com. One word: “refund”, will suffice -– you don’t need to give a reason. You’ll get your money back, and you can keep the storybook for free. That’s just how we roll up in here at “the ‘JATT”.

May I See A Sample First?

Just buy it. And if you don’t like it, ask for a refund. Buy it. Try it. No likey? No  payey. That’s part of the point of the refund policy — it allows you to buy with impunity, and me to sell without guilt. No buyer wants to be saddled with a product they don’t like, right? And this seller doesn’t want to give you one, either. Hence the very simple and open refund policy.

Your happiness matters more to me than rapidly devaluing dollars,   so…use the refund policy. There are other AJATT products already out there, and there will be even more in the future — you only need pay for the ones that you do like.

Rather than try to figure out whether you’re going to like the product before the fact, you can make that decision after you buy it and use the real thing. The real thing is the sample. AJATT readers — that’s you — are a smart, good-looking and honest bunch, so…don’t worry…I trust you . Go on…

“Romanization is almost worthless, and slowed-down tapes aren’t much better. The best thing to do is to actually hear the word or phrase you want spoken naturally. Try to think less in terms of numbers or lines or whatever your preferred system uses and more in terms of what it actually SOUNDS like.”

• Anything you can do is good enough. Anything is better than nothing. Everything has to start somewhere. #
• お魚料理番組を見て「やっぱりＤＨＡだね」と突っ込みたくなる衝動を抑える、自己裁量屋の勝元 #
• ドラゴン桜 (テレビドラマ) – Wikipedia http://bit.ly/cVaM1B #
• 「人生でもっとも大切なことは利益を活用することではない。それならバカにだってできる。真に重要なことは、損失から利益を生み出すことだ。」
  レモンを手に入れたらレモネードをつくれ
  「道は開ける(D・カーネギー)」17章 #
• Many of us don't value small actions, small choices, small games. Yet we wonder how big results come about. #
• Karen Lee @ UCLA very kindly interviewed me a few weeks ago.
  Pacific Ties / Winter 2010 Issue http://bit.ly/asrh7n #
• "『心が変われば、態度が変わる。
  態度が変われば、行動が変わる。
  行動が変われば、習慣が変わる。
  習慣が変われば、人格が変わる。
  人格が変われば、運命が変わる。
  運命が変われば、人生が変わる』
  " http://bit.ly/9JivqG #
• "positive thinking and confidence improves performance. In anything. " http://bit.ly/a44hWy #
• Don't treat yourself like a bastard stepchild in your L2: you have the right to consume native materials right from day one. #
• 『「おい！貴様、名前は？」「佢想知你嘅名」「我祇不過係一個中國人」「彼は、葉問（ﾖｳﾓﾝ）です！」』 #
• So-called "immersion" is not a technique for learning languages. It is the reason. #
• Don't over-control. Release your death grip on your L2. Give it slack to flow, grow and morph organically. #
• "Work hard at the easy" http://bit.ly/bqR6D9 #
• Wholesale, cynical rejection of certain people/ideas. Wholesale, cultlike acceptance of the same. These are just two sides of the same coin. #
• Total, cultlike acceptance of certain ideas happens because total, cynical rejection neglects the middle ground of partial correctness. #
• Don't compare yourself to other people. Compare yourself to previous versions of yourself. #
• Plug: Just 1 week left to get your hands on "My First Storybook" @ the 25% off pre-order price
  http://bit.ly/ajBBVQ #
• "Chinese Post – Open letter to the Chinese language » ChinesePod" http://bit.ly/crRCme #
• People who accept something totally are basically the same as those who reject it totally. Both sides are deathly afraid of being wrong. #
• 従兄弟同士っていいね（＾＾） #
• YouTube - Bonnie Pink　「Do you Crash?」
  http://bit.ly/dmsEMl #
• When you're marching in the 軍隊 and you feel something 可笑しい、下痢！下痢！When you're 泳ぐing in the プール and you feel something クール、下痢！下痢！ #
• It's kind of annoying when you find a great quote, but the person who said it is actually Shady S. McShadson, Sr. #
• Try to keep your panties dry, lads. It's the full #Cantonese #movie #script for Chow's "God of Cookery"!
  周星馳-食神 (粵語劇本) http://bit.ly/9SBddQ #
• Other options for 食神/God of Cookery 地獄嚟嘅使者 – Google 搜尋 http://bit.ly/aYvlqm #Cantonese #movie #script #
• Graduate from "ghetto pride" — pride in things that are actually shite. Having a foreign accent in your L2 is not part of your "identity". #
• "the only way to master [Chinese pronunciation] is by getting as much quality aural input as possible." http://bit.ly/dDhDHO #
• YouTube – 前田敦子、水着はキッズ用！？ http://bit.ly/bCJroD #
• App idea: a program that recursively breaks a kanji up into its components. So, for example, 哈→（口、合）→（∅、人・一・口） #
• @humanelament氏、@nac_est氏! ちわーっすぅ！早速本題に突入。二人とも最早オイラより日本語が上手いぞ。正に「青は藍より出でて藍より青し」って奴だ。今度時間あったらサクセスストーリーってか、AJATT体験談、書いてくれない？発展途上の後輩達が超喜ぶから（＾＾） #
• YouTube
  - 周杰倫-爺爺泡的茶KTV
  http://bit.ly/cGeAEq #
• 10 beautiful Tokyo time-lapses | NihongoUp http://bit.ly/bDofY6 #
• A Japanese personal development DVD-book in 関西弁!…I dunno, *I* think that's cool. 成功するにはどないしたらええねん？」 夢を絶対に実現させる方法 原田隆史 http://bit.ly/drON76 #
• @JermaineJustice You're right. I love how 仲間由紀恵 sounds in English . Really the issue isn't the accent but the "value judgment". in reply to JermaineJustice #
• @JermaineJustice Coz, like, Japanese kids get made fun of for having English that sounds "too good" – as if being incomprehensible were cool in reply to JermaineJustice #
• As books like this go, the phrases in this book are *really* natural both ways http://bit.ly/cIh7Ty #
• 「騙されたと思って」 – Google 検索 http://bit.ly/9vapyL #
• Zhongwen.com: The website/book that helped complete my kanji legend (does that even make sense ?) http://bit.ly/c2Jqwd #
• When it comes to learning languages, pick and choose ideas. You don't have to eat everything that's on the plate of ideas. #
• YouTube
  - 【ビデオカメラ】SONY HDR-CX550V
  http://bit.ly/du5cmg #
• No one out there has The Right And Correct Method for you. But lots of people have lots of cool little pieces you can use. #
• @Birgens すればgoodのにね（＾＾） in reply to Birgens #
• It's not so much that gaijin are overreacting, they're just so lonely and emotionally fragile (心細い) that everything feels bigger than it is? #
• YouTube
  - Chandni Chowk to China Rap
  http://bit.ly/amAT6k #
• YouTube – [KTV Tube] 周杰倫-霍元甲 http://bit.ly/bYMSqy #
• ★ ノンストップチューブ 【 NonstopTUBE 】 – YouTube連続再生 – Automatic continuous playing of J-POP YouTube Video http://bit.ly/bTswYM #
• "Unfortunately, “you should” is often interpreted as “you must”…because that’s how it was…in school." http://bit.ly/99dcXP #
• [Thanks to NM for the link!] YouTube
  - 24: I am Jack Bauer (subtitled Japanese commercial)
  http://bit.ly/9TUppt #
• Say yes to your L2. Say no to boring stuff in your L2. #
• Deleting boring L2 stuff is like taking off tight shoes: you realize that it wasn't Life that you hated, it was just…those shoes #
• @Chisa718 米国版のアマゾンなら有るらしい・・・で　す・・・が http://bit.ly/9itC1V in reply to Chisa718 #
• YouTube
  - 周杰倫-四面楚歌
  http://bit.ly/bO3EYR #
• F1とIndyの違い – Google 搜尋 http://bit.ly/a1GUFt The difference between F1 and Indy #Japanese #
• AJATT comments should be up again now @claudiofreitas @FlipKi #
• @sevarg I may be 完全に wrong but it just seems like a very normal word that got hyped up back in the day by non-日本語-speaking "Japan experts" in reply to sevarg #
• @sevarg Kind of like when business authors in Japan put out books with 「クリティカルシンキング」 in the title like it's the BIGGEST DISCOVERY EVER!!! in reply to sevarg #
• @sevarg If we're going to go down that road, I might as well write a book about 坂本龍馬 while I'm at it Maybe I'm just being too cynical in reply to sevarg #
• Language skill is a plant. Water it. Feed it. It needs your attention no matter how big or small it is. #
• Forget about the Japanese you "need" to do today. Just to the Japanese you can do right now. #Immersion #Contact #
• "it’s so much easier to just have fun and learn Japanese as a byproduct." Matt-le-kat http://bit.ly/aL44QO #
• SRS Precedence Rules act as a sort of filter for all existing and would-be cards. "Bad" cards get destroyed, "good" cards remain. #
• YouTube
  - HI-D – Girlfriends feat. ZEEBRA
  http://bit.ly/9Y64PD #
• Keith's Voice on Extreme Language Learning: watching TV really helps! http://bit.ly/9NHSJU #
• "If you live in Japan, turn on the tv. Don’t turn it off. " http://bit.ly/bHCGhW #
• 「練習・・・それ自身を目的に楽しんでやれるかが重要になってくる。」
  『達人のサイエンス』／ジョージ・レナード-人は感情の生き物だ！ http://bit.ly/5HVhfg #
• RT @irishpolyglot Why learning a language is like learning a musical instrument http://bit.ly/bzxxkZ #
• Language learning: Myths and facts | Antimoon.com http://bit.ly/d9FDl3 #
• Input – getting English into your head | Antimoon.com http://bit.ly/cyOG94 #
• Chinese | Antimoon.com http://bit.ly/aCfnf3 #
• 「飲み込んで・・・ギザギザした錠剤・・・気持ちいいやろう？腹の中に・・・・煙が消えるのを待ってみろ～。」#impromptu #song #translation #
• George Orwell – Good Bad Books – Essay http://bit.ly/b0q8Kn #

In arithmetic, whenever we have an expression, we don’t just go left-to-right, and we don’t just run our calculations all willy-nilly. There is what is called the standard order of operations. These are the rules of engagement, the sine qua non, what the French call the without which not, of doing arithmetic.  One acronym for these rules is PEMDAS: parentheses, exponentiation, multiplication/division, addition/subtraction.

You’ve been doing arithmetic a long time, but you’ve probably only started SRSing relatively recently, SRS being a more recent invention than arithmetic. In SRSing we also have an order of operations AKA precedence rules AKA order of priority.

As with arithmetic, the SOOP (SRS order of priority) — yet another meaningless acronym — tells us what to do first, if there is any doubt. Unlike the arithmetic rules, the SOOP is not hard and fast. It’s just an arbitrary set of guidelines to make our lives easier and prevent the harried, type-A, OCDish behavior you sometimes see exhibited by people who are SRSing — behavior that leads them to burn out, give up, and curse this SRSing thing as “useless” or “not for me”.

So here it is, the SOOP, which can further be abbreviated as DADRA (how do I keep coming up with these?!): Don’t Add, Delete, Review, Add.

0. Don’t Add

• The zeroth rule. Not adding anything to your SRS deck is the most “important” activity, in that it takes precedence over all the others. If in doubt, don’t add anything to the SRS. Just don’t. Too hard to add? Don’t add it. Can’t be bothered? Don’t be. When something really needs to be added to the SRS, it won’t feel like a chore at all.

1. Delete

• The first rule. Delete. If in doubt, delete stuff. Delete. Delete. Deleted. Baleted. Let it go. There is perhaps nothing more threatening to your long-term SRSing prospects than bad cards. Nothing will drag down your repcount (reviewcount) more quickly and with more certainty, than the existence of large quantities of SRS cards you no longer give a care about. If in doubt, throw it out. Delete. Doesn’t matter if you would, could or should learn it. Delete it.
• What about “essential” language elements like individual kanji and/or kana and/or hangul, etc? Surely these can’t be deleted, right? Right? My original answer to that would have been a “yes, suck it up”. However, over time, my opinion has changed. I have found bad cards to be so destructive to SRSing that it is better to, yes, delete even cards containing essential, fundamental language elements. Call it “lazy processing”: you can always undelete, or re-add the cards later. If the language element is really that essential, you’ll be able to pick up the slack later.
• Important: I personally prefer to delete one card a time. I say, resist the impulse to “push the reset button” — delete entire decks and start from scratch, because this robs you of the opportunity to discover the properties of the cards you do like and are worth keeping. Also, it’s a bit of a binge-purge behavior, which is something you don’t want.

2. Review

• The second rule. Review cards. Do reps. It’s what we might call the most “normal”, “standard”, “vanilla” use of an SRS. Nothing much more to say here. Click. Show back. Set score. Next.

3. Add

• The third rule. If all else fails, add some new SRS cards. Add new cards. Why is this last? What the hockey puck is wrong with you, Khatzumoto? Surely, even you, up on your AJATT cloud, are aware that you can’t delete or review cards without having first added them? Yes, of course, that is true. Remember, the SOOP merely tells us precedence. It tells us what should precede what, what should go first, iff there is any question as to what to do. However, by definition, if there are no cards, then while “don’t add” (the zeroth rule) will work, the first and second rules will default down to this one. What matters is to know that if in doubt, adding cards is the least important thing you can do.

And we’re done. These are just random guidelines I came up with by myself. Yeah, I’m good-looking, but not omniscient. So I’d be happy to hear what you have to share, iff you’re good-looking as well.

Shallowly,

Khatzumoto

So, I read, watch and listen to a lot of what might very generally be called “advice”.

A lot of advice-givers, myself included, can seem to be telling you:

“What you’ve been doing SUCKS! You’re messing up! Do it THIS way!”

And this makes you feel like a schmuck, I mean, a jewelry, I mean…Anyway — so you get busy dutifully struggling to fit your square self into whatever new round hole your advice-giver has prepared.

OK…I’m not going to tell you what do, because the world is already full of that. I’m just going to tell you…I don’t think that that’s the point. I don’t think that it’s the intention of even the most energetic, enthusiastic advice-giver to make you feel like crap and get you frantically re-arranging your life in their image. Certainly it’s not my intention. Good advice is intended to make your life easier, not harder.

Here’s a simple two-step process you may or may not want to try.

1. Read/listen to advice. Mine. Other people’s. Whoever’s.
2. Do whatever the heck you want, whether or not it matches that advice.
   • A lot of the point of good advice is the forest, not the trees. Much of the point of good advice is simply to be exposed to it, rather than to painfully turn yourself into a carbon copy of it.
   • Now, it may well be that turning yourself into a carbon copy is the easiest, least painful, most effective path, or at least the path  that hits the sweet spot — that gives you a maximum of both ease and effectiveness — and if that is the case, then go for it. Imitation is how we learn.
   • But don’t freak out over minutiae. Minor deviations and improvements are normal and even desirable. The basic plan is: take the mold and change it to fit you, you needn’t fit yourself to it. When that Betty Crocker cookie recipe tells you to add two nanograms of rosemary and twirl around ten times while reciting the pledge of allegiance…tell Betty Crocker to get on her skates and truck the puck off: focus on the flour, sugar and Crisco.
   • (Wow, is that the taste of vomit in my mouth?)

…

…

…

OK, I’m over the Crisco now. Let me repeat myself: Of course, if it’s easier to just follow the advice, then do that. But chill.

Don’t be a harried, obedient zealot. Seriously — you’re going to die if you do that. Relax. Don’t be a whiny “if only I had the talent”/”maybe it’s possible for other people but not for me” person. Don’t be an emo-type “it’s all B.S.” person either…or do be these things…but do it quietly. Man who say it cannot be done needs to STFU, and other supposedly Chinese proverbs.

We often go to considerable lengths to protect children from this type of thing; we rarely even allow children to say these types of things. Well, adults are just children with bank accounts and large bodies. Negativity damages their fragile minds just as it does those of children. People who are going to freak out need to try to keep “the children” out of it — and that includes you freaking out at yourself.

By now, the dutiful part of you is all: “but…but…but…article 4, subsection (b), paragraph (iii) of AJATT says…”. Check this out: if you’ve read the advice then it will affect your decisions: you don’t need to worry about that. The point here is that you stop the breathless compliance and mental self-flagellation.

And I bet you’re getting frantic about this advice, too, aren’t you? You’re so earnest, the cuteness makes me giggle. The cyclical irony of giving you advice on how to take advice is not lost on me. “Lost” is lost on me…that show…I dunno, man…

Anyway, let’s review:

1. Read/listen or otherwise expose yourself to advice.
2. Do whatever the heck is most comfortable, workable, sustainable for you. “Obey”, “disobey”, remix — it doesn’t matter. Ultimately, your unique life, preferences and situation are going to call for some degree of very unique, perhaps even counter-intuitive, choice-making. You’re the DJ.

What we’re really talking about here is our making a practical, active distinction between “advice” and “orders”. Namely, that:

• With “advice”, no matter how strongly worded, no matter how handsome the giver (oh, stop!), you always have choice; you always retain the right to refuse and/or reinterpret.
• With “orders”, the presumption is that you have at some point put this right on hold. A lot of military, school and religious activity kind of falls here.

I give advice, not orders. I intend it to be taken as advice. So, do whatever you want. Refuse, accept and reinterpret at will. I would. I did.

• Often things that are individually unamazing are absolutely incredible when aggregated. And vice versa. Just make contact. #
• Lower your short-term expectations to "just above zero/slightly more than nothing", but let your long-term expectations run wild. #
• It is precisely because you suck at Japanese that you need to come into more contact with it. "Suck at" just means "unaccustomed to". #
• [Great song ]
  YouTube
  - 【芸人MAD】有 心 論【オードリー】
  http://bit.ly/9CbJNN #Japanese #
• 日が伸びたね。 #
• Major achievements are just what you naturally get when you concatenate a bunch of apparently inconsequential choices. #
• Japanese is a habit. Smoke it like a cigarette. One song, one video clip, one kanji, one sentence, one manga panel at a time. #
• YouTube
  - 有心論 RADWIMPS PV
  http://bit.ly/9jqy9M #
• Shrink your units. Don't read books. Read paragraphs. Don't watch movies. Watch clips. Don't read comics, read panels. #
• Languages are both brutally dictatorial and brutally just: they are accountable to no one, and they must be earned by contact. #
• "I'll start listening to native Japanese once I good at Japanese" = "I'll start putting wood in the fireplace once it gives me heat" #
• Often, rather than aiming for perfection, it helps to aim for improvement. #
• Wanna know how to write business emails in Japanese? Get this book. http://bit.ly/9IzenY #
• @Hasemo ゲーム 評価 – Google 検索 http://bit.ly/c838FN　ゲーム レビュー – Google 検索 http://bit.ly/aLsy1a in reply to Hasemo #
• ポジティブ心理学 – Wikipedia http://bit.ly/9YMsCL #
• 自己効力感 – Wikipedia http://bit.ly/97rzrE #
• 2009年9月 – tanminjukumin122の早起き日記 – 早起き生活 "「行動の伴わないアイデアはそれが占めている脳細胞以上には決して大きくならないだろう。」
  （アーノルド・グラスゴー)" http://bit.ly/cS351f #
• You don't need to be a taskmaster, forcing yourself to do more. You need to be a gentle grandparent, coaxing yourself to start small. #
• 正面心理學 – 維基百科，自由的百科全書 http://bit.ly/cc3RHw #
• Generally, rules, boxes and limits only become a problem when they don't belong to you (unmakeable, unbreakable, unchangeable). #
• @jdmtee That's just the point. You don't learn Japanese, you get used to it. Don't work at it. Just come into contact with it. Many times. in reply to jdmtee #
• @jdmtee What anime is that in your b/g, btw? in reply to jdmtee #
• 「やめて！お腹だけは！お腹だけは蹴らないで、ここにはあんたの子が・・・！認知してくれなくてもいい、でも、生ませて・・・！」齋藤圭子 (@mineralk) #
• 超訳って凄いね！これこそ翻訳のあるべき姿
  アカデミー出版 – フレッシュアイペディア "超訳" http://bit.ly/9zLemN #
• If shooting for hours of L2 contact gets tiresome, then don't shoot for hours. Shoot for instances of contact. Hours will handle themselves. #
• 「昔のあんたは何処に行っちまったんだよお！小さくてもいい、二人で小料理屋をやろうねって、語り合ったあの夜は嘘だったのかい！？」齋藤圭子(@mineralk) #
• 「あんたは変わっちまったよおお！」齋藤圭子(@mineralk) #
• Say It Again →　セイーラゲイン (笑）・・・巧いね・
  '怖いくらい通じるカタカナ英語の法則' http://bit.ly/cslyee #
• 「あんた、好い加減にしてよ！」「いいから酒持って来い！」齋藤圭子(@mineralk) #
• The key is not to "finish" or "succeed", but to repeat. If you repeat, you will finish. If you repeat, you will succeed. #LongTermProjects #
• RT @BretMayer // けい‐せつ【蛍雪】苦労して勉学に励むこと。苦学。蛍の光窓の雪。蛍窓(けいそう)。◆晋の車胤(しゃいん)が蛍を集めてその光で書物を読み、孫康が雪の明かりで書物を読んだという「晋書」車胤伝・孫康伝の故事から。 http://bit.ly/cPDvac #
• 「あたしのこと全～部知ってて！」齋藤圭子（@mineralk） #
• 手書きブログ – TOP – http://bit.ly/9q9H9o #
• @yuzuruyuzuru Correct, sir. in reply to yuzuruyuzuru #
• 「他の人なんて見えないくらい、束縛して・・・。」齋藤圭子（@mineralk） #
• Kind of like a Slashdot in Chinese.
  Solidot: 奇客的资讯，重要的东西 http://bit.ly/dqSQjL #
• CNET Taiwan 產品評測 http://bit.ly/dk9MHq #Chinese #Techsite #
• YouTube
  - ちょうだいをする猫２
  http://bit.ly/b8nJTp #
• TechCrunch Japan http://bit.ly/9rjKBa #tech #site #japanese #
• YouTube
  - Young black woman speaking Chinese on Li Jing's Taiwan TV show
  http://bit.ly/cJfJbO #
• Tech podcast in #Cantonese Talkonly Podcast http://bit.ly/cEVGwX #
• List of #Cantonese podcasts 中華民國萬歲:粵語Podcast：香港播客一覽 – 樂多日誌 http://bit.ly/bdWLIB #
• I think we often try to give our language study too much structure. SRS is about all the structure you need. Let the rest flow freely. #
• Make contact, SRS a bit for retention, and let the rest handle itself. It will probably turn out better than if you try to force things. #
• The thing is, you don't know everything that's out there. Boxes can be useful, but their indiscriminate use can also cause needless injury. #
• Surf your L2 like you surf the Internet. It's a simple plan: follow the links. Follow your curiosity. One fun thing to the next. #
• Quite often, you just need to relax and give your L2 a chance to "talk" to you, to tell you how it "needs"/"wants" to be learned. #
• "You'll be surprised at how much your brain can do if you feed it with enough input." http://bit.ly/crfA28 #
• Don't jam and trim yourself to fit the mold that is my ideas. Jam and trim my ideas to fit the mold that is you. #
• 新聞の紹介 ー受験・学習情報満載ー | 朝日小学生新聞　朝日中学生ウイークリー http://bit.ly/aEshqB via @blacktokyo http://bit.ly/bhk7Qs #
• Go to cram school in 日本語! Like high school, but with teachers who give a crap ブロードバンド代ゼミＴＶネット｜代々木ゼミナールの人気講師の授業をご自宅で！ http://bit.ly/dpKupJ #
• Asahi Shogakusei Shimbun: a newspaper for elementary school kids 朝日小学生新聞 http://bit.ly/cC6wai #
• 1707年聯合法案 – 維基百科，自由的百科全書 http://bit.ly/aYNDmi #
• If you were already fully proficient in your target language, what would you do? Go do it (or some simulation of it) right now. #
• Saying "but this is a tonal language" is kind of like saying "but this is a cop show". And? You still use your ears, eyes and mouth. #
• 名誉革命 – Wikipedia http://bit.ly/93QhKj #history #random #link #
• Mail Magazines (newsletters) are super popular in Japan. This site aggregates 30K of em.
  まぐまぐ！-メールマガジン (メルマガ) 30,000誌!! http://bit.ly/akjpXX #
• Supermemo Adventures http://bit.ly/7JFq0V #
• YouTube
  - 周杰倫 – 稻香 (KTV)
  http://bit.ly/aF30ZR #
• YouTube
  - Samurai Champloo Final Ending Song – Midicronica – San Francisco
  http://bit.ly/bmSE4G #
• Shorten the distance between you and Japanese. #
• "Not even Japanese people can write kanji!" And? "Not even" native users of English can freaking spell correctly. #Generalized #negative #BS #
• The word processor is to spelling as the rice cooker is to rice. The induced forgetfulness is a people issue, not a language/rice issue. #
• So an old obaasan at the dentists' office asked me if I was born and raised in Japan. That was nice #
• @mineralk いや～まだ足りんわ。俺からして見ればまだまだ蔑んだ態度が感じ取れちゃう。どうせ外人だからって感じ。誰だって諦めずに継続すれば無限大にいい結果が得られる、という揺るぎない信念の色は無い気がする。まあ、そりゃ勝ちゃん＝こういう事に限って過敏屋だからかもしれないが。 in reply to mineralk #
• "Studied X language Y years" means jack all. Counting years is like weighing money. 1 lb. of dollar bills = $454; 1lb. of benjies = $45,400. #
• Overcoming social resistance is like a qualifying test you pass in order to play the real game #
• "Low self-efficacy can lead people to believe tasks are harder than they actually are" http://bit.ly/cSxlHM #
• 「コツコツ遣ってもと思う前に、
  コツコツ遣れ。
  その先に成功がある」 島田 洋七 http://bit.ly/at1aIL #
• Apart from timeboxing, time itself as a language-study goal can be damaging — sort of like directly seeking happiness. #
• Let time rack up, but don't shoot for it directly. You're better off shooting for tasks, like: "sample 100 Japanese movies per month" etc. #
• In many ways, as Steve Kaufmann suggests, making frequent contact with a language (i.e. immersion) is an exercise in courting serendipity. #
• Languagewise, older Japanese women often tend to want to mold you into the hyperpolite, zero-slang child they wish they had #
• "Hey, guy! Are you there?"
  YouTube – Andy Lau 劉德華 – 一起嗌 http://bit.ly/cFxQss #
• Kids do not learn a language because they are good at it. They learn it because we simply do not let them slink away and give up on it. #
• @nikimurata Well, I mean their "native" language: their entire family conspires to make it so that they will acquire it somehow, someday in reply to nikimurata #
• @nikimurata It doesn't matter if it's raining or snowing or they have a fever or a war is going on: Japanese children listen to Japanese in reply to nikimurata #
• If you don't want to learn a language, then just say so. No blood, no foul. But don't insult people with excuses and appeals to fatalism. #
• "Too difficult" is emphatically not what gives people trouble with languages. "Not personally important enough to make easy", is. #
• "there are golden houses in books and there are beautiful girls in books" [a bit male-centric, but... ] http://bit.ly/ds62hX #
• Relax that death grip. Not everything is for SRSing; not everything is worth SRSing (too incovenient to cardize). #
• Yes, you don't know that word. Yes, you have lots to learn. But you can't SRS everything in the world (yet!). So just sit back and watch. #
• ★ 【 so-net香港廣告 】 – YouTube連続再生 – ノンストップチューブ – NonstopTUBE http://bit.ly/9ZzNBi #
• YouTube
  - [香港廣告](2009)麥當勞 足三兩
  http://bit.ly/cOCouS #
• ★ 【 [香港廣告](2009)維記高鈣牛奶 】 – YouTube連続再生 – ノンストップチューブ – NonstopTUBE http://bit.ly/bYOWQ3 #
• YouTube – 周杰倫 Jay Chou – 亂舞春秋 Luan Wu Chun Qiu http://bit.ly/9jbhkZ #
• In my experience, it's not always the materials that generate boredom: the methods/attitude towards them can wreak havoc. #
• "de minimis non curat lex – ｢法は些事に関せず｣" http://bit.ly/cS8BLH #
• Cigarette-smoking is an amazing metaphor for positive achievement. No matter how heavy the smoker, she only hits one at a time. #
• Relax that death grip. Not everything is for SRSing; not everything is worth SRSing (too inconvenient to cardize). #
• One thing at a time. Ever tried to eat an entire loaf of bread in one bite? And how did that particular piece of choking go? #
• "Speech impediment or no speech impediment, native speakers don't get to opt out: they just keep going until they get it." Jang Mi #
• @yuki_satoshi how can watching something you don't understand be fun? >> Turnover. // Heisig >> Tomfoolery. in reply to yuki_satoshi #
• @yuki_satoshi On Heisig, @nac_est suggests accepting the Heisig stage as a part of your life, not just trying to get it over with. in reply to yuki_satoshi #
• Massive Turnover: How To Banish Boredom and Burnout from Immersion Even If You’re Just a Sucky Beginner http://bit.ly/cEoQHe #
• Just think: one day, not so far from now, it will actually be hard for you NOT to be good at Japanese. #
• Perhaps it helps more to be grateful for where you *are* in your language and the progress you *are* making, than (cont) http://tl.gd/c080s #
• Maybe you want a mix of "yay! look how far I've come!", and "always room for more!", but heavily weighted towards the former. #
• Masochism is not virtuous…or even particularly effective. #
• ノルウェー語 – Wikipedia http://bit.ly/94ynbI #
• Grammar is a tool for refining your skill in a language. Which means that you first have to have something to refine. #
• Relax. Be a wet sock. Care less. Caring too much about the language can, ironically, impede your progress. #
• In a way, you don't learn a language. Your body does. All you do is give your body the opportunity. #

You remember the original Tortoises and Hares post, right? Well, I got this really insightful email about it from a virulently handsome man named Chris Espinoza, and I want to share it with you here; I’ve highlighted some of the uber amazing parts for your reading convenience:

I have made a breakthrough in my thinking lately in regards to this language acquisition business, and I am excited about it.

I was trying to understand what bothered me so much about the polyglots out there and also why I felt like my Chinese had stunted. The realization I came to corresponds with your difficulty with Chinese relative to Japanese, I think.

The problem was that I was obsessed with acquisition as an end. I felt like I had something to prove to myself, to my former teachers, to people I had argued with about language, and most of all to Chinese people themselves. I wanted to say, “See? Classes do suck. All you have to do is watch movies! Foreigners can learn Chinese quickly and easily!” Because of this, I tried to find the ultimate acquisition method. I looked at all those Chinese movies, TV shows and books as language acquisition tools. And that was the problem. I forgot that the end was not acquisition, but rather the enjoyment of things and people in that language.

I also started to conflate knowledge/eloquence with seeming like a native. My real ultimate desire is to seem like a Chinese person to Chinese people, to have them feel like I am a part of their social circle, someone they can relate to and have fun with. But I forgot about that. I just thought that if I could read enough books on enough subjects and know all the right words and know all the pop references, I would seem like a native. But in reality I already had enough knowledge and linguistic ability. The problem was attitude. I did not see myself as a Chinese person, but rather, and even worse, I saw myself in opposition to them. Chinese was something to conquer, not to enjoy. In the end, if you want to know Chinese, knowing a lot of stuff and being eloquent is not the key. You could ask someone in English, “Oh, how was class today?” and they could respond, “uh, you know, it was kinda boring, the teacher’s stupid, you know?” There is no linguistic virtuosity there, but I would feel like that person was American, or at least in tune with American sensibilities. Whereas, if I asked the same question to some people in China, they would perfectly recite something they had memorized from a TOEFL book and it just felt so foreign and distant from me.

I had a similar problem with myself in China. I was often with my American friend and Chinese people would always be absolutely blown away by his Chinese. People would be impressed with mine, but it was never the level of amazement that they would have for him. There wasn’t a huge gap between us in our knowledge of Chinese, so I couldn’t figure out where the difference was. I’ve figured out now that the difference was my attitude. I had some problems with Chinese culture, so I felt aversion to them in some ways, and I certainly didn’t want to be them. My friend, however, had developed a sense of Chinese identity, that he was Chinese (even though he is a blue eyed fair skinned American of European descent), and Chinese people sensed that. Some people even went so far as to ask if he was Chinese. Now that I think of it, occasionally, people had a similar reaction to me and I’ve realized those occasions occurred when I was loving some Chinese TV show and felt connected to the culture. Then I would go out and people would be amazed. Nothing had significantly changed about my linguistic knowledge, just the attitude. Unfortunately, these occasions were rare, because I spent most of my time hating Chinese people.

When babies and little kids learn their native languages, they’re not seeing linguistic acquisition as the end; they see it as a means. the end is far more interesting, far more relevant, far more about everything that matters to them. if it didn’t matter it might even be possible that acquisition wouldn’t even take place. They want other things — and acquisition occurs along the way. When I was in elementary/middle school and used to emulate certain things I heard people say, I wasn’t thinking “Now I’ll acquire this word.” I was thinking, “Now I’ll be funny, like this person.” Language, a medium, was just that: a thing I wanted because I wanted stuff that was in it. Somehow, I’ve lost track of that, to some extent, with Chinese.

So, as I move forward now, I am keeping two things in mind:

1. Acquisition is not the goal. Accessing fun stuff in the language is.
2. I want to BE Chinese, not just some weird foreign dude who can make himself understood in Chinese

So, all those arguments about the detail of the acquisition method are much less relevant than I thought before. I could talk about this forever, but I’ll wrap it up here.

Oh, just one more note about the polyglot thing. For some reason, these people claiming to speak 10 languages really bothered me. I couldn’t figure out why. Now I think I got it, it seems their goal is the acquisition of languages, rather than enjoying what’s in the language. Of course, they are enjoying the acquisition itself, but I don’t think that’s enough to be native-like. And that’s why I think they have just slightly above average results even though their methods might make sense. They still see themselves as Americans or Canadians or whatever studying something foreign. However, realizing this, I now might respect the claims of Benny the Irish polyglot more, for example. Maybe it is possible to speak Portuguese and make Brazilians think you are Brazilian in three months, because perhaps Benny believed himself to BE Brazilian for those three months.

I look forward to your feedback,

Chris

Who says “virulently handsome”? Anyway, both Chris and I are looking forward to hearing from you

• If you wait to resolve all objections before you move forward, you'll never move forward. Not really language-related, but… #
• Some people are destructively critical because that's literally all they can do right now. Pity them: they're having a hard time. #
• Most successful bloggers aren't exactly Great Writers. But they actually produce. In that sense, they are great. #
• You may or may not be able to change your position instantly, but you basically always have control over your direction. #
• Generally, it's better to do the imperfect thing you can do than to hold back waiting for the perfect thing you could do. #
• While I've been critical of attempts at multiple simultaneous language acquisition, that may all be due to large holes in my own knowledge. #
• The process of becoming fluent in a language is the process of becoming a copy of so many people and pieces that you end up unique #
• I wonder whether, in the year 2410, David E. Kelley will be dutifully studied and worshipped the way Shakespeare is now . #
• お　ま　え　それでも　にん　げ　ん　か？
  お　ま　え　の　かあ　ちゃん　何人だ？
  http://bit.ly/cWvYhw #
• 「[語学に智能や才能]は然程重要ではありません。必要なのは根気とテクニックです」と「ドラゴン桜」をパクって囀った勝元 #
• Immersion is to a language as a digital photo is to pixels: thousands of tiny points where you say "yes" to Japanese. #
• Immersion is more millions of discrete, effortless contact-points with a language than a single, continuous Triumph of the Will. #
• しない〔しなひ〕【竹‐刀】《撓(しな)い竹の意》剣道で用いる竹製の刀。4本の割り竹を合わせ、切っ先に先革、手元に柄革(つかがわ)をはめ、弦(つる)と中ゆいで結び、柄革に鍔(つば)をつけたもの。
  http://bit.ly/9kex8g #
• "kanji is like a skyscraper. Everything is connected by floors and elevators…It's a beautiful thing of logic." http://bit.ly/b1Ws6v #
• Search zhongwen.com by copy and pasting in characters! Thanks to FD!
  Easy lookup on zhongwen.com http://bit.ly/b1IGg2 #
• Given the existence of Engrish, I don't think kanji tattoos need be held to that high a standard… #
• YouTube – 蔡依林 – 大丈夫 [MV] http://bit.ly/9rIqo5 #
• YouTube – 日華 – 大丈夫 http://bit.ly/bvZWeY #
• If you believe all the Yodas of the world who tell you "too old to begin the training you are", then, for now, you are #
• YouTube – 「創意教室:活學中文」- 之一 http://bit.ly/auoQ4j #
• YouTube – J2愛搞作 x 潮語教室 http://bit.ly/dCu7ed #
• Use YouTube like a real TV with
  InfiniTube: Auto Play Youtube Videos by Tags http://bit.ly/c9bG3E #
• You can start a long-term project in hardcore mode, but you can only carry it through in mellow mode. #
• The key with hardcore mode is to use it to change your environment so that things get done even when you fall back into mellow/habit mode. #
• You don't quit practicing because you suck. You suck because you quit practicing. #
• @Jaybot7 浅草の浅草寺じゃ普通に使われてるけど。本殿（？）の入り口辺りに「靴は此の箱に入れて下さい」とかって書いてあるから。頑なに俺が然う言う字を使い続けて来たからこそ、初めて浅草寺に行った時にすらすらと読めた訳。だから、何と言われようがビビらずに堂々と使ってね！（笑） in reply to Jaybot7 #
• @Jaybot7 一々先公に「使うな」なんて言われてるからこそ使用頻度が低下して来たのも事実。結局ただの悪性自己成就予言に過ぎないだろう。だって実際に使ったら、その行為自体がまた使用頻度を上げちゃう。だったら自由にしよう。読み方も書き方も多様多彩。これぞ日本語の元々のカッコ良さ。 in reply to Jaybot7 #
• You can start a project in hardcore/willpower mode, but you can only carry it through in mellow/habit mode. #
• @cosleia Literally type in: "Japanese TV show"? in reply to cosleia #
• Schoolish but helpful daily exercise: copy out a page of L2 manga text, by hand. With a normal book, a paragraph will do. #
• YouTube – Hong Kong anti-smoking TV commercial (Cantonese) http://bit.ly/btWVHd #
• ネットは、商業化されてしまったというよりも、元々の開発兼利用者である学者達が、その「学術化」を怠って来たのではないかと最近思ってる。何せ読みたい論文がちゃんと手に入るかどうかも未だに一か八か状態なんだ。こうした中、アマゾンの類が勝つに決まってんだろ。 #
• @kak9699 Contact. Striving is stressful: you can only do a tiny bit a day. You want to make it easy. Easy actually gets done. in reply to kak9699 #
• “Oftentimes the person who quits never realizes how close to success he really was.”
  http://bit.ly/bUVX64 #
• When chosen freely, limits really are your friend. "Game" is nothing but another way of saying "a system of limits". Play on #Timeboxing #
• "世の中に越えられない壁なんて無えんだ
  だからお前ら、どんな事にも「出来ない」という先入観を持つな" ドラゴン桜 #
• ケニア大使公邸焼く、けが人なし(読売新聞) – goo ニュース http://bit.ly/clO7Bb
  って、言うじゃな～い・・・でも怪我人無しで良かったね（＾＾）安心、安心。 #
• ビデオ版って言うじゃな～い？怪我人全く居ないから、皆さんご心配無く。 FNNニュース: 東京・目黒区のケニア… http://bit.ly/aG9Jms #
• YouTube – Battle Royale Trailer http://bit.ly/amNaW2 #
• Your dreams and ideals can start long-term projects, but only your habits can finish them. #
• むり‐じい〔‐じひ〕【無理強い】
  ［名］(スル)強引に押しつけてやらせること。強制。「カラオケを―する」http://bit.ly/cwZfuu #
• Set ridiculously low quotas. The satisfaction of achieving them will encourage you to surpass them. High quotas cause fear and avoidance. #
• Thanks to CG for the link
  YouTube – Alan Watts – Work as Play (part 1) http://bit.ly/bNbszl #
• @cosleia Try "Japanese commercials" http://infinitube.net/Japanese+commercials in reply to cosleia #
• YouTube – お尻叩いて猫 – spanking the cat http://bit.ly/aLLLQJ #
• YouTube – だるまさんが転んにゃ – Stalking Cat – http://bit.ly/9sSX0I #
• Twitter / Search – #twnovel http://bit.ly/ai3LCA #
• I think this song was maybe my first exposure to "どんだけ" YouTube – DJ OASIS [社会の窓 feat. UTAMARU] http://bit.ly/aoEzEd #
• @unmodify おおおおおう。Now I get it (^^) in reply to unmodify #
• yossy　（たなかよしかず、本名：田中良和）　geekDataBase – ギークデータベース http://bit.ly/cIN5×6 #
• Focus on [in]correctness causes people a lot of self-imposed anguish when seeking new ideas. Just focus on finding stuff you like. #
• That tiny thing you could do to move your project forward, that's so tiny it doesn't seem worth it? That may just be what you need to do. #
• You always have a good reason for doing the wrong thing. Beating yourself up won't stick. Find out the reason and address it. #
• ノンストップチューブ 【 NonstopTUBE 】 – YouTube連続再生 – Automatic continuous playing of J-POP YouTube Video http://bit.ly/bTswYM
  (Big Thanks to NM!!) #
• ★ 【 Nintendo school's out commercial 任天堂廣告 香港 】 – YouTube連続再生 – ノンストップチューブ – NonstopTUBE http://bit.ly/ajYF6p #
• Don't worry about how much Japanese you do. Focus on how soon you're next going to do it. #
• ★ 【 [香港廣告](2009)維他 錫蘭檸檬茶 】 – YouTube連続再生 – ノンストップチューブ – NonstopTUBE http://bit.ly/axe3rk #
• Ironic post: Why English is all you need to travel the world | Fluent in 3 months http://bit.ly/b5qN5C #
• Why learning a language is like learning a musical instrument | Fluent in 3 months http://bit.ly/cY32Mp #
• ★ 【 [香港廣告](2010)愛護牙齒 】 – YouTube連続再生 – ノンストップチューブ – NonstopTUBE http://bit.ly/beBNB9 #
• @mineralk いや、でも・・・終わってるやろ？(^^)ﾍﾍﾍ。ってか、高級化・スペシャルティー化すると思わない？ in reply to mineralk #
• @mineralk 取り敢えず変化はするでしょう？例えば本なら、息を呑む様な綺麗で特大サイズの物とか、テレビならユーチューブ的なオンデマンド・検索型・参加型動画配信サービス（此間の坂本龍一のライブみたい）とか・・・？そうでもない？ in reply to mineralk #
• Set ridiculously low quotas. The ease of achieving them will encourage you to surpass them far more often than high quotas inspire reaching. #
• OK, newsflash: assert(India==yoga)–>FALSE; assert(Japan==Zen)–>FALSE #
• YouTube – Sexy Beijing: Lost in Translation http://bit.ly/dypNNH #
• SRS order of operations: 0) Don't add 1) Delete 2) Review 3) Add. In short: DADRA. #
• When I say "ridiculously low quotas", I mean ridiculously low. My quotas aren't quotas at all. Contact itself is my quota. #
• イブン＝スィーナー – Wikipedia http://bit.ly/ae0Djd #
• ★ 【 香港舊廣告 – 蚌的啟示 1986(關正傑、區瑞強、盧冠廷) 】 – YouTube連続再生 – ノンストップチューブ – NonstopTUBE http://bit.ly/dgLvDt #
• ★ 【 香港廣告: Shiseido Anessa 太陽系最強( 蛯原友里 ebihara yuri )2006 】 – YouTube連続再生 – ノンストップチューブ – NonstopTUBE http://bit.ly/9vUh8u #
• Learn how to brush your teeth in #Cantonese
  ★ 【 [香港廣告](2010)愛護牙齒 】 – YouTube連続再生 – ノンストップチューブ – NonstopTUBE http://bit.ly/beBNB9 #
• Don't immerse in the language because you should, or because it would help. Immerse in it because it's who you are. #
• @Akira117 （知らん顔） (^^) #
• Your life is full enough. Don't burden it with crap like duty-driven immersion. #
• Wide-ranging contact with a language (so-called immersion) is not a technique. It's the very reason you learned the language to begin with. #
• @mimizone Duty-driven immersion = Immersing because you "should" or because you "have to", out of a sense of duty. It kind of sucks a bit in reply to mimizone #
• Grown-up talk…pretty close match on subs; RTHK's good on that
  YouTube – 2010-2-09 對策第一集 (第1節) http://bit.ly/arNQ9Y #Cantonese #
• Infinitube replacement
  ★ ノンストップチューブ 【 NonstopTUBE 】 – YouTube連続再生 – Automatic continuous playing of J-POP YouTube Video http://bit.ly/bTswY #
• The most important Japanese thing you can do is the next Japanese thing you do. #
• Right now, you probably can't see how you could possibly ever get fluent. That's normal. You don't need to see. You just need to do. #
• Cigarette-smoking is a powerful metaphor for positive achievement. No matter how heavy the smoker, she only hits one at a time. #
• AJATT YouTube Playlist http://bit.ly/azEOAm #
• Seriously though…just chill. Most of AJATT is just chilling . #
• This is one of those "well, it's in Japanese" ones. Coca-Cola zero http://bit.ly/cZ31ZA #
• 「最後まで読み通すのが「読書」とは限らない」
  http://bit.ly/aEdTSV #
• You're like a child. Tell yourself to take a bath, you won't take it. But once you get in, you won't leave. So set the quota = touch water. #
• "世界に冠たる国であります！" http://bit.ly/dgQO8I #
• OK, newsflash: India is not yoga. Japan is not Zen. #
• I love commercials…watching some now on InfiniTube: http://infinitube.net/cantonese+commercial/ #
• まだ可也機能不足とは言え、やっぱりグーグルクロームって結構いいね、ブラウザーとして。起ち上がりも速いし、動作がテキパキ。 #
• 「座して死を待つな」＝中国語（ってか漢文？ってか文言文？）の「不要坐以待斃」が由来かな？ http://bit.ly/dxUjxg #
• Psst? Hey! Want some Japanese? It's legal, mang. Everyone's doing it. http://bit.ly/9IdnLm #
• Like atoms to a boulder, the individual quanta of contact you make with Japanese have zero visible benefit. Make contact anyway. #
• カルビンとホッブス – Wikipedia http://bit.ly/aoCVjj #
• Calvin & Hobbes in Japanese 'カルヴィン&ホッブス' http://bit.ly/cC96aY #
• 極端そのものが悪いというよりも、（確率論上）中間の何処かに在るであろう、自分だけにピッタリの「壺（ｽｲｰﾄｽﾎﾟｯﾄ）」が、頑なに極端な姿勢を執る事に因って見付からなくなるのだ。とは言え、基準點としての極端は大変有用かと思う。 #
• "Prison Break" in Polish! Thanks MW! empik.com – Wyniki wyszukiwania dla: Prison Break http://bit.ly/c5XaPF #
• 「Omne initium est difficile
  すべての始まりは困難である」
  ラテン語の格言（ことわざ） http://bit.ly/azVPYC #
• 祖国よ、我は汝に誓う（モルダウ） 歌詞・日本語訳と試聴 "祖国よ　我は誓う
  比類なき完全なる愛を捧げん" http://bit.ly/cj0nJw #
• Eugene Woodbury's Ooburoshiki Blog: Teach a man to Fish ""The usage is the description."" http://bit.ly/aTk0Vs #

Remember the fable of the tortoise and the hare? Well, that fable is bollocks. You see, they got the personalities backwards.

In real life, human “tortoises” are laid-back, nonchalant, happy. Meanwhile, human “hares” are destructively disciplinarian, destructively obsessive, and destructively obsessed with quick results.

What happens is that the hares self-flagellate themselves to the point of burnout. Their very obsession with the “race” and “running” it better, faster and longer causes them to come to hate anything to do with “running” and thus avoid it at all costs (here, running = action; race = project).

That’s why hares are always resting and procrastinating instead of moving — it’s not arrogance, it’s self-preservation: hares are refugees from a war being waged by, on and within themselves. They’re not shirkers; they’re not lazy; they’re just trying to get a break from their own mental violence, their constant negative self-talk, their tantalusian expectations.

Hares, under the premise of “delayed gratification” often actually practice “zero gratification“: it’s just never good enough. Ever. They never give themselves the carrot — only the stick. Like Tantalus, they get neither the cool, refreshing water nor the sweet grapes of satisfaction. Only the grapes of, what, wrath? I dunno…

So hares procrastinate and appear to shirk. It’s perhaps a subconscious(?) way for them to hijack/sabotage their own system of cruelty and give themselves at least some carrots, water and sweet grapes between the beatings, hunger and thirst. Neil Fiore talks all about this in “The Now Habit”.

The tortoises, on the other hand, just play their way through the whole thing. They run the “race” not because they have to, but because it’s there. Tortoises screw around, putting one playful, jiggy foot in front of the other. They have so much fun that their victories are practically side-effects (which is a good thing, because moments of victory are far too short to be the be-all and end-all). Yea verily, let it be known that I kid you not — I learned Japanese almost by accident.

Kanji acquisition is a good example of the tortoise-hare dichotomy. Even going at just 10 kanji a day, every day, will have you acquiring 3650 kanji over the course of a year.

Conversely, hare-like attempts to force 100 kanji a day often lead to stress, fatigue and overload. The irony of trying to force too many kanji a day is that it often leads to zero-kanji days, zero-kanji months and even zero-kanji years.

Forced high speed often also leads to poorly remembered kanji — I have seen many people feel the need to start over again from scratch. Where’s the speed in that?

I’m not saying “don’t do 100 kanji a day”. If you can do 100 a day happily, then do. If not, then don’t. Find your sweet spot — everyone’s will be different. Find a number that you can hit every day, no matter how small, and then go with that.

During my US-based Japanese project, the so-called “hardcore” phase of AJATT, I was a tortoise. Japanese has always been a toy for me, just something I screw around with. My Chinese, however, has often been hare-like; it has often become a grim duty, something I should do and have to do fast and have to prove a point to the whole world about — more status symbol than self-contained game. And we all know how well status-symbol-seeking language-learners tend to do (see “English in Japan and Korea” for details).

In my experience, only when I act like a tortoise, do I succeed in long-term projects, Sinic or otherwise. As far as I know, only the tortoise model is sustainable. And that’s the key to anything long-term: sustainability — stamina. The tortoise only seems slower. But because she has a model that she actually sustains, you could say she gets to enjoy the metaphorical “compound interest” of her efforts.

Put away the whips and sticks. Relax. Just do one. Enjoy each step. Savor each bite. Become a tortoise and start winning. Remember, it only seems slower: you’ll get there sooner then you think, and well ahead of any hares — those kids all die of heart attacks, suicide and depression* anyway. Be mellow. Be like a grandparent (think about it: maybe it’s not the advanced age that makes grandparents mellow, but the mellowness that allows them to live to an advanced age). Be like a tortoise.

_{*I don’t know if people clinically die of depression, but…how many sad centenarians have you ever seen? I guess I should say “sadness”, if I’m going to be so vague and non-clinical…oh well .}

• "concentrate on the hows first, the whys will come later" http://bit.ly/av4zZY #
• Sometimes it helps to zero in on the exact slices of content you like within a language. Like the exact scene of a movie or verse of a song. #
• [Demonstrative] pronouns and small, simple action verbs will take you far. They will be there for you when the chips are down. Learn them. #
• 最近、ビジネス本を購入する人を罵って馬鹿呼ばわりするビジネス本、多いよね。自覚欠如障害って・・・言うじゃな～い？まあ、というよりは、一種の自虐行為？皮肉？佛国映画の観過ぎ？かしら・・・#自己啓発 #
• Deleting bad #SRS cards is sort of like "creative destruction" . Maybe #
• Romaji would have you believe it can represent the sounds of Japanese, but really what it does is make you pronounce *romanized* Japanese #
• When you need African/Indian food in Japan. Hira Halal Foods http://bit.ly/a8GTuk #
• You don't mine sentences. Sentences mine you. You just put yourself in a position to be mined. #SRS #
• I'm all Yakov Smirnoff now: "In Soviet Japan, you don't mine sentences. Sentences mine you! You just put yourself in a position to be mined" #
• You must come to this bitterly anticlimactic realization: Chinese and Japanese are just normal languages used by normal people. #
• 「空気なんて吸って吐くものであって、読むもんじゃない」
  http://bit.ly/bmXdn1 #
• Don't think "immersion". Think "contact". Have contact with Japanese. Build familiarity — become family. Become intimate. #
• @nac_est お薦めというより、あの一言は名言だと思って深く考えずにアップしちゃっただけって日本語上手いよ、ナセスト君！吃驚仰天、本当に。そだそだ、ちゃんと挨拶せんとね：「力と名誉」！ in reply to nac_est #
• The phrase "hard work" lacks direction and meaning, so people assume: "I guess if I just go hurt myself…". We at least need an end-state. #
• NASAとGMが開発、人間に近いロボット『R2』(動画) | WIRED VISION http://bit.ly/aYK02b #
• Binge language study only happens when you think that a language can even be binged on. It can't (yet). It can only be lived. It's a habit. #
• Crystal Kay Official Blog – スタ☆ブロ – http://bit.ly/boMeHh #
• 頭條日報 頭條網 http://bit.ly/cAQUe0 #
• The real secret to winning at time management is not figuring out how to do it all: it's deciding to *not do* most of it. #ParetoPrinciple #
• @JapanNewbie 出た、関西弁！中国直送の関西弁、出た！ in reply to JapanNewbie #
• Why did no one tell me that 「ドラゴン桜」 [the 漫画...haven't seen the ドラマ yet...] owns?! #
• Sometimes (actually, quite often), you don't know what's best until you try something out. #
• 小飼 弾 (Dan Kogai)'s blog:
  404 Blog Not Found http://bit.ly/b6vdQ8
  (That's the name…) . #Japanese #
• Maybe it's not necessary to do amazing things to get amazing results. Maybe we merely need do small, normal things in an amazing direction. #
• @Jaybot7 あいにく御座いませんよ、お客様。 in reply to Jaybot7 #
• @Jaybot7 いや、いや、馬鹿じゃない。子供だよ。（＾＾） in reply to Jaybot7 #
• Zhongwen.com / Chinese Characters: A Genealogy and Dictionary http://bit.ly/c2Jqwd #
• 炊飯器 – Wikipedia http://bit.ly/cMKjvj #
• Food and language are alike — you eat whatever's there, in your environment. #
• Identity matters because it makes you do whatever you need to do to get the "job" done. Identity willl not allow you to give up. #
• "Effects of motivational and cognitive variables on reading comprehension " http://bit.ly/cUPXup #論文 #
• "relationship between home literacy practices and…literacy skills" http://bit.ly/dxLPpE #論文 #
• Real/perceived importance alone doesn't seem to get languages learned to meaningful fluency. Only play (goofing around) seems to really work #
• "Reading and Writing" http://bit.ly/aYLgxt #
• reddit.com 日本語版 http://bit.ly/bmyyD4 #
• 　■2ch BBS .. http://bit.ly/9iNjsW #
• It may well be that the key to language-learning success is to get LESS serious about it: just let it become part of the fabric of your life #
• @CKAY26 お疲れ様です～ぅ。 in reply to CKAY26 #
• ナタリー – Crystal Kay、連続ドラマで天才ハッカー役に挑戦 http://bit.ly/c16GXl #
• カールベッカー http://bit.ly/ct7aWb #
• Long-term projects don't die because of the days where you do crappy work; they die because of the days where you do zero work. #
• 【WEB MOVIE】ナショナルジオグラフィック日本版15周年 SPECIAL SITE　「私たちは、まだまだ、知らない。」 http://bit.ly/aTEXL6 #
• Doing a shoddy job won't kill your long term project. Doing nothing at all absolutely will. #
• Live Japanese radio. Online. Feel the magic!
  サイマルラジオ http://bit.ly/aIk5Qi
  This Internet thing may just start catching on… #
• Better late than never. Better crap than never. Better something than nothing at all. That's how long-term projects roll. #
• Reduce complex, amorphous, intimidating abstracts to simple concretes. #
• 國語小字典 http://bit.ly/cSiaIr #
• "だから「文学」という概念の捉え方が違うのだぜ" http://bit.ly/bxxtxo #
• @JoeInJapan How's your resolution with KeyHoleTV? Mine's been too grainy to really see or hear comfortably. Is there a way to improve it? in reply to JoeInJapan #
• "The best time to study something is at the moment you are about to forget it. " http://bit.ly/9tBj0M #
• Reading about English in Japanese is always fun
  2ch検索: [英語] http://bit.ly/dddKX6 #
• サイエンス・サイトーク
  http://bit.ly/aiLUSR #
• スバス・チャンドラ・ボース – Wikipedia http://bit.ly/csZUB3 #
• Japanese translation of Carol Dweck's book "Mindset": キャロル S.ドゥエック 『「やればできる!」の研究―能力を開花させるマインドセットの力』 http://bit.ly/ahOju3 #
• 極端を全否定しない事も、一種の「中庸」かも知れない。http://bit.ly/aJhiwX #
• Today on your long-term project, don't try to do it right. Just try to do it. Contact is the only "right" you need worry about. #
• Have you made contact (with Japanese) today? One hit's all you need #
• 一応ツイッといて見ようかな～と・・・
  El ligre | Verde y Gris http://bit.ly/998yqV #
• Tiny Toons in #Japanese ..yay! タグで動画検索 タイニートゥーン‐ニコニコ動画(9) http://bit.ly/aueW3e #
• コーンロウ – Wikipedia http://bit.ly/8Xgbji #
• They say "pride before fall". I say: better to fall and get up again than to spend a lifetime lying in a puddle of crap. #
• “Human intelligence is…fragile…It doesn't take much to distract it, suppress it, or even annihilate it.” http://bit.ly/bXFx53 #
• @mikedesu The 2nd link's freaking out :*( . Got a substitute? in reply to mikedesu #
• "…white athletes jumped less high when observed by an African-American coach than when observed by a white coach…" http://bit.ly/bXFx53 #
• "Under stereotype threat, athletes were more likey to avoid practice"…Can you spell self-fulfilling prophecy? http://bit.ly/bXFx53 #
• "stereotype threat imposes an extra cognitive burden…reduces working memory capacity" http://bit.ly/bXFx53 #
• All that really matters is that we walk a path of net improvement, however slight the upward slope. Mathematics takes care of the rest. #
• "when a stereotype is…activated [even unconsciously] people display a remarkable tendency to behave in line with it" http://bit.ly/bXFx53 #
• YouTube – Miss Luxury (PV) feat.MACCHO, GIPPER, KOZ, HI-D, Foxxi misQ http://bit.ly/bdTXM3 #
• YouTube – ヒノマルパワー～君の力～/ MUNEHIRO http://bit.ly/c9O4sC #
• Foreigners who are more Japanese than Japanese people | Japan Probe http://bit.ly/avoBhs #
• "I have always maintained that excepting fools, men did not differ much in intellect, only in zeal and hard work". Chuck Darwin #
• Orlando's Blog • Mathematical Expertise by Brian Butterworth @ MathLinks "Mathematical Expertise" http://bit.ly/b1aD3A #
• Tkyosam enjoys this one
  Denshi Jisho – Online Japanese dictionary
  http://bit.ly/ahM11m #
• コトバンク – 時事問題、ニュースもわかるネット百科事典 kotobank http://bit.ly/9upTXs #
• More dictionary goodness
  Weblio｜辞書＜国語辞典・国語辞書・百科事典＞ http://bit.ly/8XgxDM #
• Insofar as they show a genuine appreciation for another language/culture, I think kanji tattoos are a great thing, even when they're wrong. #
• "come correct"という英語、懐かしいなぁ。 #
• "come correct"という英語、懐かしいなぁ。何か斯う「正しく来いよ！」って感じ（笑）。そうでもないか。（＾＾） #
• Sound During Sleep Fixes Learning: Scientific American Podcast http://bit.ly/c5nQlM #
• A podcast about new books (in #Japanese )
  新刊ラジオPodcasting　─話題の本や新刊を耳で立ち読み！新刊JP─ http://bit.ly/boxFBK #
• Don't compare yourself to other people. Compare yourself to other (previous) versions of yourself. #
• Via @nyafuri uniqlo screensaver http://bit.ly/b5vAJK #
• Good work is like a good action movie. By creating tight(, artificial) limits you get traction and meaning. Sort of… #Timeboxing #
• YouTube – 林子祥 – 男兒當自強 (粤語) http://bit.ly/dyrZXO #
• YouTube – 林子祥 – 男兒當自強 1 of 2 http://bit.ly/95c7a8 #
• YouTube – 成龍 男子漢 KTV http://bit.ly/d08uMN #
• "和書読むのにだって、いちいちこの表現は～でこことつながってこんな効果を～、みたいにこまごま分析したりしないでしょ。"
  洋書を読んで英語の勉強-20 http://bit.ly/alsUI1 #

• “Maasai Tribesmen /  Japanese Magician” | Japan Probe http://bit.ly/cHesYM #
• Jaybot hits you with some pictures of food packaging #Japanese http://bit.ly/c5pCX4 #
• 乗組員解散！
  http://bit.ly/bbQZYb #
• This anime is hee Larry us. 英語で言うと「Oh Moshi Roy」
  『「侍に刀で斬られた音みたいな名前しやがって！！」
  （「セザンヌ！」）』
  YouTube – ギャグマンガ日和＋　ルノアールVSセザンヌ http://bit.ly/c7pHKm #
• TechCrunch Japan http://bit.ly/9rjKBa #
• YouTube – The Storm Warriors 風雲 (Storm Riders 2) Music Video http://bit.ly/bECowu #Cantonese #
• スネオヘア／ワルツ
  YouTube – Waltz – Suneohair http://bit.ly/9GWpvN #PV #
• Sort of like Rockapella, but in Japanese
  YouTube – Rag Fair- Hallelujah http://bit.ly/ctuY6A #
• Sort of like Rockapella, but in Japanese
  YouTube – Rag Fair- ハレルヤ http://bit.ly/ctuY6A #
• Putting the reading on the front of the card is a good a good way to get familiar with it in a passive, low-impact way #SRS #Kanji #Hanzi #
• Putting the reading on the front of the card is (1) a memory aid (2) a good way to get familiar with it passively #SRS #Kanji #Hanzi #
• YouTube – 恋におちたら　Crystal Kay http://bit.ly/aW96L8 #PV #
• Follow Crystal of Kay on Twitter: RT @MoooshMooosh @ajatt I really love this song. Shes on Twitter btw. @CKAY26 #
• YouTube – RDB & Nindy Kaur’s Aloo Chaat” Music Video http://bit.ly/crpZdC #
• YouTube – ギャグマンガ日和西遊記 http://bit.ly/a5Kijv #
• What “keeping it real” sounds like in Japanese. #TooProudToImitateNativePronunciation YouTube – ギャグマンガ日和ハリスインパクト　前編 http://bit.ly/93r9oZ #
• Don’t read books. (1) Browse them. (2) Let “reading” happen on its own when something draws you in. (3) “Draw” wears off; go back to (1) #
• Trying to do it all in one go is sort of like…trying to chug a drink in one breath — you just end up choking. Relax. Sip. #Timeboxing #
• Experimenting with rolling dice as a decision-making tool (where [making decision] > [decision itself]). Sort of like doing janken alone. #
• YouTube – にゃんこ the movie http://bit.ly/9225dx #
• Learning Japanese with romaji is a lot like learning English with katakana. フォー　ワン　シング、イット　メイクス　ユー　サウンド　ライク　アン　イージット #
• *Small*action*verbs*. Learn ‘em. Ever met a Japanese person who can say “postpone” but doesn’t know how to use “get” or “have”? Yeah…that. #
• *Small*action*verbs*. The gift that keeps giving. The power that keeps empowering. Learn them. Love them. Even at the expense of other words #
• @mankub86 Negative, Ghostrider. What is George and Keiko? YouTube link humbly requested! in reply to mankub86 #
• It’s not your hand, it’s how you play it. Bob can live, marry and procreate in Japan and know 0 Japanese, while Alice immerses to ownage. #
• I don’t like the word “immersion” that much. “Contact” is better. Contact (small, discrete actions over time) leads to familiarity, intimacy #
• Unclench. Chill. Have a smile.
  A common tragicomic behavior: trying agonizingly hard to relax and/or have fun “correctly”. #
• Seriously…if it comes down to a choice between following the exact steps I’ve laid out, and having fun…choose the fun #
• 正字正假名遣ひ文を樂しみませう。 http://bit.ly/b1NSVw #
• 「兵は拙速を尊ぶ」
  http://bit.ly/cb2Ffw #
• 日本漫画新聞 http://bit.ly/bO95HZ #
• It’s not about the speed. Speed is nice, but contact matters more. Just keep making contact with your language. Touch. Tap. Click. #
• Textbooks and other more traditional language materials are good for bootstrapping. Decent place to start. Ridiculously sucky place to stay. #
• Deleting never goes out of style. #SRS #
• クラークの三法則 – Wikipedia “充分に発達した科学技術は、魔法と見分けが付かない。” http://bit.ly/cymgp3 #
• The most important Japanese thing to do is the next Japanese thing you’re going to do. http://bit.ly/aENY55 #
• 「嫉妬感じてる完全に、ライム力に対する焼き餅、新たな次元、銀河も新しい、銀河間・惑星的！」→何の訳か分かる？（＾＾） #
• MN’s RM ジブリ別館 「千と千尋の神隠し」全台詞集 “「千と千尋の神隠し」全台詞集　” http://bit.ly/cVKq8f #
• メリー節分！！！って、言うじゃな〜い？ #
• @ebonifiyah 絶ッッッッッ対にガセネタだろ、それ？違うか？o(^-^)o in reply to ebonifiyah #
• You have to be prepared to delete anything. Because hating SRS so much that you don’t want to do it is just that: deletion by avoidance #SRS #
• テレビ不要論と視聴率の調査方法 http://bit.ly/93iYYc #
• 炊飯器不要論って・・・言うじゃな～い？
  「雑記。: 脱・炊飯器宣言。 」
  http://bit.ly/9AqKcY #
• テレビ不要論 – 他山の石書評雑記 「日本のサスペンスものは、どういうわけか最後になると、波が打ち寄せる崖の上で犯人が犯行を自供し、丁寧に経緯をしゃべってから連行されるというパターンばかりだ」（爆笑）有る有る、其れ。http://bit.ly/adLFd4 #
• @tomoakiyama （笑）確かにね。不肖このワタクシもそれに関しては前科持ちでございますﾁｸｼｮｰ（涙）。ﾊﾊ RT @tomoakiyama なーんかテレビ不要論を誇らしげに語る人々って、ステータスを気にして頑張っちゃってる人々に見えてならない。どこの国でも。 in reply to tomoakiyama #
• In geekier terms: no matter what your foreground process, always have a Japanese thread running. #Contact #Immersion #日本語 #
• だって生姜無いじゃん・・・・って、言うじゃな～い・・・？ #
• ほぼ日刊イトイ新聞 – 目次 http://bit.ly/9k5qZB #
• WOWtv http://bit.ly/cKnlrR #
• How To Tie Your Shoelaces #Japanese らばQ:これはおしゃれ、15の靴ひもの結び方 http://bit.ly/9nHpV9 #
• How To Tie Your Shoelaces…Again
  YouTube – 解きにくい靴紐の結び方 http://bit.ly/bHCSLo #Japanese #
• Take anything I say as ingredients at best: you’re the chef; you’re in charge; you make the actual meal. #
• Like horses, sometimes we need to put on a pair of blinders and shut out everything else in order to get anything done. #JustDoOne #
• 人間って競馬馬みたいなもんだよね。遮眼帯を付けて視野を絞らないと全力疾走出来ない場合があるから・・・　#Timeboxing #JustDoOne #
• YouTube – Gyagu Manga Biyori 01 http://bit.ly/c8d0uI #
• Vast quantities of content here…
  RTHK Podcast Station http://bit.ly/cLNQdf #Cantonese #
• Both literally and figuratively, turn your Japanese down to low if need be, but don’t turn it off. Save your energy by using energy… #
• It doesn’t matter what Japanese thing you do, just that you’re doing something in Japanese. #
• Food ingredient lists have always been one of my favorite things to read. Since you asked and all… #
• In truth, one doesn’t learn a language; one turns into a person who habitually comes into contact with it. #
• When one doesn’t know the language of a country, one can only experience a very coarse, warped, low-res version of the country. #
• With long-term projects, the only wrong answer is to do nothing. So, just pick the smallest, easiest “something” you can do. It counts. #
• Unnecessary, voluntary suffering is not beautiful or heroic. Make life easier for yourself. #
• I don’t much like the word “immersion”. “Contact” is better. Contact (small, discrete actions over time) leads to familiarity, intimacy. #
• “Sure, you can be a grammar lover, but please only be one when you’re already fluent at the language in question.” http://bit.ly/av4zZY #
• Both literally and figuratively, turn your Japanese down to low if need be, but don’t turn it off. It’s easier this way. #
• Both literally and figuratively, turn your Japanese down to low if need be, but don’t turn it off. Save your energy. #

• BD sends his regards: ☆ネットで学ぶ発音教室！ – トップページ http://bit.ly/59ianS #
• YouTube – 流し素麺 http://bit.ly/6SSBMP #
• Don't get worked up looking for the "right" way to do something. Just keep pinging back to it and the right way will find itself. #
• YouTube – Rihanna ft. Hins Cheung (張敬軒)-Hate that I love you cantonese "Rihanna ft. Hins Cheung " http://bit.ly/6eEEQz #
• A playful competitiveness can be good. But it's not actually the competitiveness that helps: it's the playfulness. #
• 「習以為常」
  教育部重編國語辭典修訂本 http://bit.ly/7jwTAU #
• Everyone remembers my friend Keiko, right?
  We've done a few podcasts we together.
  無論如何 here's her blog:
  http://bit.ly/5JdfIa #
• YouTube – Rhymester – B-BOYイズム "B-BOYイズム"
  http://bit.ly/7jwRaW
  歌詞情報 – goo 音楽 http://bit.ly/8ZDyqi #
• YouTube – Rhymester – ザ・グレート・アマチュアリズム http://bit.ly/4P9BkG
  歌詞情報 – goo 音楽 http://bit.ly/6pABxv #
• SRS Practices: What’s an SRS? | Spanish Only http://bit.ly/6Fywby #
• RT @irishpolyglot Is your language half full? A negative attitude is what holds people back from achieving their goals: http://su.pr/2bhYzz #
• Don't bother with method arguments. Tell people they're right: that's all they want to hear anyway. Then, go think whatever you want. #
• An SRS deck isn't for sitting in some database somewhere looking pretty and taking up space. It's for passing through your senses. #
• Got a vice? Don't go to war with it. Co-opt it. Give it money and a good timetable, and it'll sell out to you. Now you control it. #
• Techniquewise, there's some stuff I would blog about, but my opinion on it fluctuates back and forth a lot – often on the same day #
• Fallacy: if you disagree with someone, they have to know that you disagree with them and why. #
• Fallacy: you have to link your actions with your stated opinion. Decouple them. Speak diplomatically, but act pig-headedly. #
• Since you can only really act in one direction at any given time, taking action almost always entails a certain single-mindedness. #
• It's called "All" Japanese All The Time but maybe it should be "Some" Japanese All The Time" or "Anything (At All)" Japanese All The Time… #
• Until we have invested in ourselves the same time, faith and funds that we would in a child of ours, we have no excuses. #
• When pronouncing Chinese, I sometimes find that I literally have to let myself go. I can't be the usual me. I have (cont) http://tl.gd/573ft #
• 日本語で書いた方がいいのかなあ、そう云ふ地に足の付いていない「囀り」・・・（＾＾） #
• Memo To Me – Free Reminder Service http://bit.ly/4SpgYF #
• 世の中の面倒臭い事、その四：世の中の面倒臭い事をｶﾞﾀｶﾞﾀ五月蠅くリストアップする人。 #
• There are two types of language-learners: (1) Those that learn. (2) Those that have drama about learning. I've been both. #
• YouTube – Foxxi misQ　- Ultimate Girls http://bit.ly/8UOPfS #
• With large projects, the only wrong answer is to get overwhelmed, give up and do nothing. Anything counts. Every little bit helps. #
• F w wr t trn Nglsh nt n bjd, wld t lk lk ths? #
• People who forcefully tell you to be mediocre like them, never seem as forceful in taking responsibility for the consequences of mediocrity. #
• Don't believe that you're dumb or smart. Just believe that, with practice, you can. #
• Often, extraordinary sucess requires extraordinary methods. This can easily put you at odds with those who insist on being "intraordinary". #
• Sometimes, you get to a point where being good at a particular thing is far more rewarding than being liked, understood or "cool". #
• Insofar as they put you at odds with social norms, intense pursuits do (unfortunately) share traits with "emerging religions". #
• We make fun of non-standard dialects, but really, maybe we secretly envy them; they're so full of "life-force". That doesn't sound fruity… #
• A language is like the monster plant from "Little Shop of Horrors" — feed it media and it grows… #
• YouTube – BONNIE PINK – A Perfect Sky http://bit.ly/4MYQ1m #
• YouTube – DBSK – Purple Line (MV) TVXQ [HD] http://bit.ly/7Cwwx6
  Purple Line 東方神起 歌詞情報 – goo 音楽 http://bit.ly/4D7F3u #
• A language is undemocratic in that it doesn't have to give you a good reason why it works the way it works. It just does. #
• "People think all Americans are arrogant but what they don't realize is that half of their Canadian friends are American". My friend Jang Mi #
• I swear, like, every few months, like clockwork, I feel the desire to rewatch GITS. Not disagreable people — the anime. #
• Books are objects. Treat them like it. Objectify them. Read what you like of them from where you like. Screw their "wholeness" and order #
• A healthy SRS deck is a moving SRS deck. #
• I find that the more I compete, the worse I do. The more I play, the better. #
• Counting how long you've been studying language in years is kind of like counting how much cash there is in your wallet by its shape alone. #
• Call it "stochastic tinkering" if you want. Either way, the lesson is the same: screw around. #
• A healthy SRS is a moving SRS deck — one that has turnover in the form of deletions, reps and additions (in order of priority). #
• Compete less. Play more. #
• People who put you down are often feel very insecure themselves. I know because I've been on both sides of that equation. #
• 有營伙伴 – BLOG – 麥長青 – 藝人 – tvb.com "成就要靠那份努力" http://bit.ly/9vPVo4 #
• YouTube – m-flo loves BONNIE PINK / Love Song http://bit.ly/9y77Jc #
• YouTube – Dragon Ash – Let yourself go, Let myself go.flv http://bit.ly/b6UISK #
• Each day, do whatever it takes to get yourself to take the initial step — everything is usually downhill after that. #
• 「別に」っていい言葉だね #
• Looks like someone SRSed his way to great success in the DAT (Dental Admission Test?)
  http://bit.ly/b3lahF #
• Limits are your friend. Just because you could do it all, that doesn't mean you should. Even ice-cream gets old. #Timeboxing #
• Trying to do the "correct" thing can be a great strain. Just set a finishing time, and let things decide themselves. #Timeboxing #
• IME, an aggressive card deletion policy makes for higher repcounts and retention. Thus, paradoxically, more deletion = more learning. #SRS #
• Now experimenting with deleting bad kanji cards as well. I figure if my environment tells me a character matters, I can add it back in. #SRS #
• YouTube – 永邦-魔鬼的眼淚KTV http://bit.ly/ckwPer #
• When you read my advice, don't try to fit yourself into my mold — change the mold to fit you. I myself am a work in progress. #
• Observation: native speakers, early on at least, never do anything boring in order to learn their language. #
• It's funny how we tell adult learners: you're a latecomer to learning language X, therefore not only are we going (cont) http://tl.gd/5j864 #
• Channel surfing (and hence excessive TV-watching) works b/c you exercise veto power: you say no to boring stuff. No veto→no fun. #
• If more people surfed (vetoed) books and parts of books like they do TV, there might be more book-reading. http://bit.ly/ad9gXB #
• Even if you delete a "useful" card, if you make daily contact with the language, you'll pick up that slack later — and in a funner way #SRS #
• YouTube – 椎名林檎 / りんごのうた http://bit.ly/bgUAPm #
• YouTube – マボロシ MABOROSHI – THE ワルダクミ http://bit.ly/bCC07z #
• An SRS deck only has meaning insofar as it undergoes turnover (deletion, reps, additions). No turnover, and it's just inert data. #
• Things that require you to look, act, speak and think differently from whatever is considered "normal" do tend to seem cultish. #
• How I Pick What to SRS « Liz Learns Japanese http://bit.ly/afhEzy #
• Sleazy tabloid news, baby! [Cantonese]
  YouTube – appleactionews 的頻道 http://bit.ly/6wBXaH #
• Sleazy tabloid news, baby! [Cantonese]
  YouTube – appleactionews 的頻道 http://bit.ly/6wBXaH #
• Even just 10 kanji a day, every day, will have you acquiring 3650 kanji over the course of a year. Just do one. Tortoises win big. #
• Each day, do whatever it takes to get yourself to take the initial step — everything more or less takes care of itself after that #
• Birthplace of the legendary "Bonnie Pink Strut"! YouTube – ボニーピンク　So Wonderful http://bit.ly/7DDRic #
• Tortoises pwn hares. Don't worry about how fast you're going. Just make sure that you're going. #
• Tortoises pwn hares. Don't worry about how fast you're going. Just make sure that you're going. #
• 栓抜き – Wikipedia http://bit.ly/brjVta #
• Personal projects do not die of lack of organization: they die of neglect. In fact, stress from overplanning can itself cause neglect=death. #
• YouTube – ギャグマンガ日和1 12「名探偵っスか！うさみちゃん／名探偵だもの！うさみちゃん」 http://bit.ly/c7N77P #
• The delete button is to an SRS deck as a chisel is to a sculptor. #
• "when a person’s social identity is attached to a negative stereotype, that person will tend to underperform in (cont) http://tl.gd/5q9s7 #
• AJATT Blog maintenance about to start… #
• </AJATT Blog maintenance> #
• Spaced Repetition Goes Mainstream? http://bit.ly/bMnNTP #
• キタユメ。 http://bit.ly/d5ImnY #
• NHKオンライン http://bit.ly/bSoj61 #
• YouTube – Miss you (Video clip) COLOR http://bit.ly/b44o6U #
• YouTube – m-flo featuring Lisa – Love Can't Wait http://bit.ly/7Dsui3 #
• ""No man is ever whipped, until he quits — in his own mind." Napoleon Hill " http://bit.ly/6iAvsP #
• Doing something, anything, that moves you forward isn't slightly better than doing nothing. It's ∞ly better. #
• Get Your Read On! « Liz Learns Japanese http://bit.ly/cT0Y9E #
• "Next time you are faced with doing something small or nothing at all, go small. You'll always win." http://bit.ly/ckAtXs #
• YouTube – KTV 陶吉吉 小鎮姑娘 陶喆 http://bit.ly/aXw5GZ #
• Rainbowhill Language Lab: How To Begin Learning Japanese With Manga http://bit.ly/cjJGtf #
• Literally and figuratively, turn your Japanese down to low if need be, but don't turn it off. Starting up again takes a lot of energy. #
• Rainbowhill Language Lab: How reading Manga can be good for your Japanese http://bit.ly/cOQTGK #
• Better to read a book 100 times badly than once (or 0.x times) well. #URP #MultiPassReading #SwissCheesing #
• La Migra is Spanish for…The Migra! #
• 「ABC係我係我
  橫睇點睇都係我
  無錯無錯
  ABC係我係我」YouTube – Jin 歐陽靖 'ＡＢＣ' MV http://bit.ly/b2EwNr #
• [Cantonese] RTHK is interviewing MC Jin live right now http://bit.ly/cNK9sg #
• [Thanks, D-star!] Study Hacks » Blog Archive » Quick Hits: Deliberate Practice http://bit.ly/b4CbR6 #
• "Stereotypes and the fragility of human competence, motivation, and self-concept" http://bit.ly/cEvCFd #

When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson (or so I’m told — ‘coz you never quite know with these Internet quotes, do you?)

In life, oftentimes, the real choice isn’t between success and popularity, but between success and immediate popularity. It’s a toughie. Tougher, in fact, than the actual success path (“a day of worry is more exhausting than a day of work” and all that). Which is both good and bad, depending on how you look at it .

To me, that’s the real meaning of “delayed gratification” — the lonely gap between when the old social grouping rejects you and you’re again gratified by the acceptance of some new group.

I think we all have the power to establish and maintain good habits, but when threatened with the withdrawal of the camaraderie, admiration or love of our peers, that’s the real fork in the path; that’s where we make or don’t make ourselves. I imagine it’s where people who did keep on keeping on came the closest to cracking.

We can console ourselves with the knowledge that real camarederie wouldn’t have turned sour so easily. Although, that can feel quite hollow in the face of what seems to be the end of the world. And it is the end of a world, just not the world.

Maybe all the noise that adults make about teenagers and peer pressure is really adults projecting their own challenges with social resistance. Who knows? Anyway, enough psychobabble from me; I don’t really know what I’m talking about.

My point is…if you can either insulate yourself from or completely break through social resistance, then you’re well on your way to becoming unstoppable. For good or ill.

So, if in doubt? Screw ‘em. They’re replaceable. As callous as that may sound, it’s really no more callous than the open derision of people making feeble attempts to put you in what they presume to be your place. A place that’s invariably insultingly low. If anything, breaking social resistance is an act of charity, an act of love for at least one person — you — which is more love than your would-be detractors are showing anyone at the moment in question.

Social resistance is…it’s almost like a prank. I’m speaking purely in a metaphorical sense, but it does seem as though it’s all this sort of Zen-like episode of Punk’d on a massive scale, and the joke is on you. Mmm…Punk’d isn’t really the most apropos comparison; I was just feeling nostalgic about that show.

What I mean is this: it’s almost as though social resistance is difficult-seeming and difficult-looking by design, because once you can ignore, deflect or otherwise transcend social resistance, everything is, relatively speaking, a walk in the cake.

Maybe mental state alters behavior, and behavior alters mental state. And maybe the behavior of rejecting social resistance has profound effects on one’s mental state. And maybe these effects bleed into other areas and help us be more effective. And maybe that’s why we sometimes over-esteem celebrities and other people who have succeeded in one field: since experts can seem superhumanly good, we assume that they’re all-round superhumans.

I remember one time, writing out for an English friend, some of the various alternates of the sword (劍) character: 劍・劒・劔・釼・剣 … and she went “you see, I’ll never be able to do that [you must be magically talented]“…and it was kind of mini-heartbreaking because my intent had been to prove that any fool can learn kanji, not that I knew kanji. Daniel Coyle of Das Le El The Talent Code calls this the “HSE/Holy [Crap] Effect”.

Social resistance is like a matte painting of a formidable fence separating the worlds of those who do succeed (in many senses), and those who don’t. Once you realize the fence is fake, you simply walk off the set of the little Truman Show that had been going on and oh crap another pop culture reference. Thereafter, you may not become instantly unstoppable, but it will certainly take a heckuva lot more to faze you. By the way, “heckuva” sounds…Slavic if you read it a certain way.

So, it can pay to be a bit detached and solipsitic about it all. Like when your friends tells you about their drama and all you can do is laugh — you care for your friends, you’re just not taken in by the drama because you have the mental removal to watch it as farce. That kind of bemused detachment can be a great asset. And people may call you on it, and get upset at your lack of emotional abandon, but…more detachment will probably solve that as well.

The funny thing is, though, all of these ideas can be used to justify anything, good or bad. Then again, trains can be used for suicide, but we’re not outlawing them any time soon.

AJATT is often described as cultish. And it is, because I have carefully laid plans to whisk you all away to a compound in South America where we can watch anime and drink colored sugarwater. But really, what it is is that many paths, religious or secular, requiring significant investments of self, time and resources, are likely to at some point bring one into some level of conflict with common behaviors and levels of self-management that are considered “normal”.

Case in point: one or two of my Japanese friends sometimes make fun of me learning Chinese, yet these same kids — the same ones doing the mocking — also wish they knew Chinese, and even make half-hearted attempts (book purchases) in that general direction. Whenever we’re geeking out by my bookshelf, and things go quiet for a while, and the dust settles, they invariably sigh something we might loosely translate as: “dag, yo…I wonna know me some Chah-nese”.

If and when these conflicts occur, sometimes, compromise and negotation work. Other times, resolute boldness is called for. I don’t know which will be which for you. For example, I don’t object to people suggesting that my daily life be composed of a variety of activities. But I will happily walk, run and fly over, around and through people who think they have the authority to decide or even suggest the details (time, place and content) of those activities. Those are my “rules”, if you will. Yours may differ.

Let me give you a little story from the halcyon days of when AJATT was just me being me in Utah. My friends wanted us to watch Pulp Fiction together…in the living room. I like hanging out with people while not doing the same thing, so I was like…yeah, cool, whatever. I didn’t want to watch something in English, but I was willing to watch it with them, so I was going to read Japanese on my laptop while they watched. I often read and watch at the same time.

This compromise upset them. They wanted the movie to be watched in their way (laptopless) on their timetable (now). These were hardcore computer geeks; they knew about geeking out; they should have known better. In the end, after about 90 seconds of failed explanation, I simply went and did something else in Japanese. They got even more upset. About eighteen months later, one of the people who had been there apologized for the entire incident; in his own words, I had been right and he wrong; he hadn’t realized what I was trying to do; he now knew that I had needed to do what I did.

Rarely is all this drama an issue; usually, it doesn’t even come up. But sometimes you do have to choose between something you really want and like, and just being liked. Fortunately, when you choose the former, you do tend to get new likers. Either completely new people, or the same old people post-change-of-heart.

Do what you need to do. Do what makes you happy and comfortable. Getting the job done? Well, that counts as part of “comfort”. Sucking at Japanese made me uncomfortable. So, go become great at Japanese or whatever .

• You cant be good at everything right off the bat. Full, adult, native-like fluency is the sum of partial, domain-local fluencies. #
• Awwwwwwwwwwww…太可愛耶
  YouTube – 人類從小養大「黃小虎」愛撒嬌脾氣好 http://bit.ly/5vXa9J #
• Oh, AJATTeers…if only you knew how gutless I was #
• 『「アウトプット」を基準に「インプット」すれば無駄が零に近付く』 Advice for localized fluency, which of course makes a great stepping-stone http://bit.ly/7PMCoC #
• “バブリーなフィーリングで！”
  http://bit.ly/6MZp6b #
• 「制壓射撃」
  http://bit.ly/4XWczz #
• AJATT tip: Don’t wanna do it? Don’t do it. #
• Some Cantonese love for AJATT
  日文有冇得自學? – 語言討論 – 香港討論區 discuss.com.hk – 一個香港只得一個香港討論區 http://bit.ly/6LDXsP #
• Some of the best advice you can get for AJATT-style learning is actually from people aiming only for domain-specific fluency. #
• Don’t bother with method arguments. Tell people they’re right: that’s all they want to hear anyway. Then, go do whatever you want. #
• Deleting from your SRS is not “losing ground” any more than washing vegetables is “denying nature”. #
• Read It Later: Save Your One-Read Wonders — One reading list, everywhere you are. http://bit.ly/5pIzDF #
• 周星馳萬歲萬歲萬萬歳！
  http://bit.ly/7TS1pQ #
• 日本語ましょう！って・・・言うじゃな～い #
• 世の中の面倒臭い事、その一：小麦アレルギー。 #
• 世の中の面倒臭い事、その二：マフィンが食べたいのに小麦アレルギー。 #
• Limits set you free. Freedom isn’t the absence of limits, it’s the freedom to set your own limits. Or not, I dunno… #Timeboxing #
• 『よく「出る杭は打たれる」と言いますよね。
  しかし、自分の経験からは、「出過ぎた杭は放置され」ます。』http://bit.ly/4Bs8cM #
• Non-native language users are like animals in that relatively paltry amounts of time, $ and effort are invested in (cont) http://tl.gd/4crqh #
• JReK – Japanese Sentence Search http://bit.ly/59ql5h #
• Whenever you find someone struggling with something complex, it’s almost never the complex thing that’s their problem. #
• Heisig broke the so-called “rules” and got called a crazy liar. So did I. Now it’s your turn . #
• 技術的特異点 – Wikipedia http://bit.ly/4y6HJ7 #
• I like the term language “user”. (1) It leaves room for reading/writing. (2) It implies that language is a matter of habituation. #
• Antidote to hero-worship: Imagine your hero going to the toilet for “the big convenience”. That should clear your head for a while #
• ｷﾞｷﾞﾃﾞｨ　ｷﾞｷﾞﾃﾞｨ　ｷﾞｷﾞﾃﾞｨ　ｵｰｰｰﾗｰｲ！！(＾＾） #
• One of Bennie K’s best vids …YouTube – 『Sky』 / BENNIE K http://bit.ly/5QHs3M #
• 世の中の面倒臭い事、その三：ツイッターで小麦アレルギーを一々嘆いてる奴。 #
• Learning a language is very…asymptotic. Do we hit zero? Dunno…but we can always keep getting closer and closer and closer. #
• I’m like that pianist. Miss one day of Japanese, and I know. Two days, close friends know. Three days — stuttering mess. It’s that fragile. #
• Confidence and optimism are free. Why be stingy? #
• Tell yourself that it’s precisely because your project is large that it can benefit from a tiny bit of progress. #
• No project is ever too big or too small to benefit from small amounts of progress. #
• Given enough practice, a level of skill that seems impossible can become inevitable. #
• Whenever you find someone struggling with something complex, it’s almost always because something simple is missing or broken. #
• 四字熟語データバンク http://bit.ly/7uuYFt
  Thanks, Kouryuu! #
• In a self-directed project, the choice is not between doing it right and doing it wrong, but between doing it fun and not doing it at all. #
• AJATT is a cookie recipe at most. And we all know there are a ton of ways to make cookies. #
• If someone needed to practice to be in a band, you wouldn’t stop them; you’d work around/with them. Why stop a language-learner? #
• “With a bad attitude, anything can be hard to study”http://bit.ly/5NXvH5 #
• Sure, you want to do That Thing That’s Good For You That You Should Do, but do you have your consent yet? #
• Don’t blame the language; don’t blame yourself; blame your methods. Don’t accuse the steak of being uncuttable, just get a knife. #
• Think of your SRS as an SDS (spaced deletion system) as well. Be prepared to delete just as much as you repeat. #
• Learning a language is very hard. Not the language itself, but the dealing with people bent on telling you how hard it is. #
• だーら買・わ・な・いってば！（笑）
  http://bit.ly/5ai0Xu #
• No language has such a shortage of sentences/phrases that you need to pick boring ones as well. #
• Language-learningwise, I’d say the Internet still lags far behind cable/satellite TV in many ways. Not all ways, of course. #
• Monolingual Japanese online dictionaries
  辞書 – Google 検索 http://bit.ly/8yTyh7 #
• 六次の隔たり – Google 検索 http://bit.ly/5Pl4xU #
• “If anyone in the history of the world has done it, then you can certainly do it.” http://bit.ly/5NXvH5 #
• It’s not the dog in the fight and it’s not the years on the language: it’s the minutes in the years. #
• Evil technique to get people out of your way: affirm their opinion verbally while willfully negating it with your actions. #
• YouTube – 時代特急 / Flick http://bit.ly/4Q7A3A #
• Is there something you “should” do but just don’t want to? Be reasonable with yourself. Find out why. Negotiate. Cut a deal. #
• YouTube – MP4 – Chinese Rap http://bit.ly/8pWF3Q #
• The only “requirement” is to come into contact with your L2. Within that, anything goes; individual L2 media must entertain *you*. #
• Open your L2 books randomly, flip pages randomly until something grabs you. No need to force sequential access: it’s not a scroll. #

In response to this article on binging and purging, I got this really cool comment from Maya, one of AJATT’s best link-suppliers:

Just out of curiosity, does anyone have any examples of when they started to fall behind in something and they eventually caught up by making it more fun/changing their style? I’m not doubting that this is the way to go; it’s just that I’d like a concrete example.

Lately I’ve fallen behind with my sentence reps (whereas I have no problem maintaining an immersion environment)… I think the problem is that I’ve come to look at the reps as “work/studying” (whereas as anime is always “recreational”)… even after deleting a decent chunk of sentences, the problem seems to persist. I’m currently almost a week behind in reps, and still can’t motivate myself to get around to doing them. I’ve obviously been doing something wrong, but I can’t figure out what.

Here is my response:

@Maya

Just one idea here (I’m looking forward to hearing what everyone else has to say):

Delete even more.

Don’t go to your SRS to do reps any more.

Go to delete.

Go for deletions. Deletions are your new “target metric”. Delete until you hit a sentence that you give a crap about. Then delete until you hit the next one like that.

You’re probably overloaded with “should-learn” sentences — “shoulders“, like I was in Cantonese. Or maybe you have cool sentences, but they lack the punch they had when you entered them. Those are now “shoulders”, too.

Get rid of anything even remotely sucky. Delete. Delete. Delete. Don’t worry. You obviously don’t need them. You’ve been off the SRS a whole week, right? That’s a sign. A big, freaking sign.

Delete boring things from your SRS, otherwise they will “delete” you — they will “make” you never want to touch that SRS again.

Basically, Maya, you great discoverer of all things Disney and Japanese, you have two choices.

a) Delete bad sentences, however many there may be, so that you can do at least *some* SRSing.
b) Never SRS again for the rest of your life.

Right now, you’re on a collision course with (b).

Don’t get rid of the whole deck in one go. A lot of people do that. I personally think that’s ill-advised. Delete. One by one. There will be some leftover items — “keepers“. The keepers will be the seeds of a renewed deck, a deck of keepers (mostly), a deck that makes you actually want to do reps. The keepers will have a pattern to them — format, length, source, content, whatever — that will guide you in acquiring more keepers.

If you’ve got a really sucky deck, you could end up literally halving your cardcount — I once did. In the extreme, you could end up with only 10% of your original deck. No biggie. Let it go. Fuhgeddaboutit. Remember what’s at stake. Sentences are interchangeable. Motivation to learn is not.

Let me share some of my Japanese sentence deck stats for today with you, to give you a quantitative perspective on the whole thing:

• Repcount: 135
• Added: 2 cards
• Deleted: 100 cards.
• Total: ~235 cards processed, ~42% deleted.

135 reps and 100 deletions is infinitely better than 0 reps and 0 deletions. Now let’s extrapolate — assuming about the exact same daily performance over the course of one week, that comes to nearly 1000 reps and 700 deletions. 1000 to 0. That’s not 1000 times better, M-star. That’s  “even more infinitely better” than 0 reps and 0 deletions.  ∞:0 ratio.

So, go break some eggs and make that omelette .

We all have such noble intentions with our sentences. We all want to be good kids; we want to do the right thing; we want to eat everything that’s given us. But being an obedient doormat and being an effective learner are not, repeat, not the same thing.

Know your “rights”. The right to enjoyment (= the right to veto boredom) is one that school — my favorite scapegoat for everything — would tend to try to discourage you from exercising, so we often forget that we even have it; we equate exercising it with being “lazy”, unproductive, irresponsible. But now you know to say no to uninteresting sentences.

You can keep being liberal about what enters your SRS deck, just be liberal about what leaves it, as well. Garbage in, garbage out.

Written from painful and rather embarrassing-to-share experience,

Khatz

Epilogue

Through the magic of deletion, Maya has since turned SRSing from a chore, back into a game and now lives a full, happy, besentenced life . In her own words:

Thanks to everyone for their advice!

To sum things up, I’ve gone through my deck and deleted ~450 or so cards that were boring/unpleasant/so easy that they had become useless. I’m not quite done yet; I can still realistically see myself deleting another 50-200 cards, but I think I’m getting much closer now.

I’ve also decided to change the pace at which I add/learn sentences. When I started doing sentences, I wasn’t actually done with RTK; I was just impatient, and I figured that I could “pick up” the remaining kanji on the go. This never happened/isn’t likely to happen, and my incomplete knowledge of kanji is creating problems for me, so I want to go back and finish learning them properly. I’ll still add/learn sentences, but at a much slower rate (at least temporarily); I actually see this as a really good thing, because it will encourage me to only add a small quantity of really good sentences, instead of adding tons of nonsense, as I seem to have been doing the past while. Needless to say, my overall immersion environment won’t change.

Thanks to everyone for your advice/anecdotes/encouragement!

…

Today was my first day doing reps anew – I went through a hundred of ‘em in under half an hour. This definitely wouldn’t have been possible a couple weeks ago

Everything felt fresh and simple <3

Men of AJATT, on to glory! See Surusu famed in story! Waves these burning words before ye: “Britain scorns to yield!”.

Hmmm…and on that note.

Surusu now supports import of decks from Anki. Current limitations:

• Only Anki “cards“ (not “facts”) exported in the form of tab-separated text file, are supported.
• As you might expect, repetition history is not imported. However, Surusu does have facilities such as the warp button, whereby you can set very long intervals in a single click, allowing you to basically say: “I know this card very well, don’t show it to me for a long while”. This keeps well-memorized cards out of your hair so that you can spend more of your time on the cards you know less well.

In other news:

• Surusu now also supports rudimentary “undo” of repetition scores. If you accidentally give the card the wrong score, simply click on the link to its data page (shown at the top of the current page together with interval information), and “reset” it.
• Surusu decks can now be deleted and merged as well as renamed. However, delete and merge are irreversible, one-time operations, so use them with care. At present, there is no deck trashcan, i.e. no undo for deck mergers and deletions.

• YouTube – ここがヘンだよ日本人「日本の少年・少女と外国人」http://bit.ly/5RcCLH
  ケビン・クローン http://bit.ly/8ydrSS
  YouTube – “鈴木紗理奈” http://bit.ly/5DHP9O #
• YouTube – 太田光の私が総理大臣になったら秘書田中 http://bit.ly/7xkPBf #
• Biological fatalism is perhaps the core flaw in Anglo-Saxon culture. It has hurt everyone, including Anglo-Saxons. #
• YouTube – Ｍ☆Ａ☆Ｇ☆Ｉ☆Ｃ　久保田利伸 meets KREVA http://bit.ly/6PpUv5 #
• Stand up for yourself. When you stop giving up, people give up trying to stop you. #
• What is the easiest positive thing you can do? #
• AJATT Sucess Story (well, demo): wmb27, an AJATTeer(!), shares his Chinese with us.
  YouTube: 老外的書評 http://bit.ly/5LH8Xg
  多謝晒！ #
• 毎朝決まった時刻に如何してもお外に出たがる猫＝世界最強最煩の目覚まし時計(笑） #
• YouTube – m-flo loves Chara / Love to Live By http://bit.ly/4pKggq #
• Beliefs really are powerful — ‘ever been unable finding something in the fridge beause you believed it wasn’t there? #
• If you believe you can’t learn a language, you won’t be able to, even if you actually already possess the ability. #
• Learning a language requires you to simultaneously have a thirst for knowledge and tolerance for ignorance. Annoying, eh? #
• 踊るの好き好き！とても好き好き！
  YouTube: http://bit.ly/8lwQ26
  Lyrics: http://bit.ly/7TCuq7 #
• YouTube – 經典金曲 – 熱情的沙漠 1973 (歐陽菲菲) http://bit.ly/5haZVQ #
• Kanji Makes Japanese Easy – Dumb Otaku http://bit.ly/8ht1Bj #
• YouTube: Really cool arrangement of the 北方官話版 of 男兒當http://bit.ly/6Utfe7
  Correct lyrics: http://bit.ly/6nAOki #
• RT @coach_marketing “It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste.”–Henry Ford//Timebox, baby! #
• Learning a language is easy. You’ve done it before, and you can do it again. If in doubt, look back at your “native” experience. #
• Ed shares these words of Wisdom from Willard Christopher Smith.YouTube – Will’s Wisdom http://bit.ly/6Pnzls #
• Perhaps the most damaging lesson of schooling is that others’ opinions of you matter more than your opinion of yourself. #
• f(success at a task) is often inversely proportional to f(discussing the task). So, if in doubt, hush up and get tinkering! #
• 楓の樹液って、ゆーじゃな～い！メープルシロップ – Wikipedia http://bit.ly/77bWhX 実際、和風に言うと「楓汁」（かえでじる？フウジュウ？）になるかと思いますが・・・どっちにしても「楓」の訓読みも字自体も大好き（＾＾）。 #
• Two weeks into the new year and you’ve probably screwed up already. I have . Forgive yourself anyway. Reset. Move on. #
• 舞台劇では文句言わずに受け入れるような視覚的解かり易さや記号性が、映画となると中々許されないってのが多いよね。要は、映画への判断基準が厳しく、一方舞台劇だったらどんな二億番煎じでも大絶賛される気がする（笑）。
  三回もアップしてスンマセン。 #
• RT @sevarg The Hemingway Hack: http://www.secondactive.com/2009/08/boost-your-productivity-with-hemingways.html #
• If one choice were really that much better than the other, you wouldn’t be having trouble deciding. So screw it pick whichever. #
• RT @sivers LOVE this mindset: “not talent, just hard [play]“: http://railstips.org/blog/archives/2010/01/12/i-have-no-talent/ #
• RT @sivers LOVE this mindset: “not talent, just [practice]“: http://bit.ly/7aUI6g #
• Google の理念 http://bit.ly/6WzY3x #
• The basics give you the power to circumlocute. If you can circumlocute, then you will never be at a loss in any conversation. #
• 漫画の新聞 / 米ソニー、ついにSDカード参入へ http://bit.ly/4QDawq #
• You’ll never find 100% unanimity in language-learning advice. But that’s not the point. The point is to pick, test and remix. #
• Raher than try to achieve something per se, instead just try to make a positive change in your situation. #
• The secret to sentence-picking from text/phrasebooks without dying of boredom: Ignore order. Follow your curiosity. Pick randomly. #
• Basics. Basics. Basics. Basics. Basics. Developers. Developers. I mean, basics. Basics. Basics. Basics. http://bit.ly/7mmlRv #
• Simple vocab. Simple vocab. Simple vocab. Simple vocab. Simple vocab. Simple vocab. Simple vocab. http://bit.ly/7mmlRv #
• True optimization is not getting more done, it’s making things easy to do. Once things are easy to do, more naturally gets done. #
• Since making things fun makes them easy to do, fun is the ultimate optimizer, sheer joy the ultimate success metric. #
• Question: does anyone out there have an SRS (mnemosyne/anki/etc.) deck of Remembering the Hanzi? If so, let me know #
• AntiMoon. Always worth a read.
  Antimoon.com: How to learn English effectively http://bit.ly/6KjQHf #
• Thanks for the RTH deck info, everyone! #
• “その二の腕　pink! pink! pink!
  頭の中　sick! sick! sick!”
  マキシマム ザ ホルモン/[F]
  YouTube: http://bit.ly/53qpBN
  Goo Lyrics: http://bit.ly/8KYkfc #
• No one’s saying not to get the job done, we’re just saying: always retain and freely exercise your right to veto pain and boredom. #
• Deleting from your SRS is not “losing ground” any more than backing your car out of a ditch is “running away from reality”. #
• “How long should I keep doing kanji SRS reps?” asks the neophyte: “Until your card intervals exceed your lifespan”, says Khatz. #
• Swahili in the hizzouse. “Maisha iko sawa na Trust”/マイシャ　イコ　サワ　ナ　トルスト
  YouTube – A Kenyan condom commercial http://bit.ly/8wSU2P #
• RT @GoddessCarlie Skipped a day studying? Don’t try and catch up, just do your normal amount. [Do more] when you have…nothing [else] to do #
• You tried to do something complicated today, didn’t you? No, my friend. It’s the BASICS for you . Easy. Simple. Fun. #
• An expert isn’t someone who’s perfect at complex stuff — no one is. An expert is someone who’s perfect at the basics. Prolly. #
• もっと明るい読み物読まないとね（＾＾） #
• 極論ていうか過激思想に何であんなに魅力があるのかつーと、やっぱり美しいからね。過激思想って、理路整然で、簡潔で、ややこしい例外など無いよね。そりゃ魅了されるわ、人間として。 #
• The Japanese script for The Matrix « John Turningpin’s Mad Tokyo http://bit.ly/8jZCv1 #
• RT @spanishonly How to Immerse Yourself Without Losing Friends – http://su.pr/2ZmrxA #
• Don’t follow advice for the sake of following advice. No method is too good to be optimized to suit you and make it more effective #
• Sometimes you have to choose between success and being liked. Fortunately, when you choose success, you do tend to get new likers. #
• 今日も初心に帰った俺。・・・（笑）・・・どんだけ自己陶酔。 #