JLPT N1 & Fluent in 18 Months | Matt vs Japan Interviews #10 - Stevi

Stevi is what you might call an immersion learning prodigy. He achieved basic fluency in Japanese AND passed the JLPT N1 in just over 18 months! Now, 3 years into his Japanese journey, he continues to push forward.

***MY LINKS***

Intro music: potsu - letting go

[TheBenoonjamingo]

The one dislike is probably from someone who doesn't understand you can still have an accent while being fluent.

[regisphilbin]

I'm on that JLPT N1 & Fluent in 18 Years pace.

[Verabadthings]

Stevi has the key: "Ignore that you're trying to learn a language and consume and just try to enjoy what you're consuming."

[ConnorChambers-xu]

My Japanese learning is going alright but this guy wants me to take it into Maximum overdrive as Plankton would say

[darkmattergamesofficial]

What he said about quitting gaming was the same for me. When I started immersing after RRTK my gaming time plummeted. Mostly because it was all in English and I needed to replace that time with J immersion. I still struggle with Youtube though, English videos draw me in like a moth to a flame. I made a Japanese only account for this, but as you can see I switch back and forth :) Good luck to everyone immersing out there. I am about 6 months in and the results are great, you just have to stick with it.

[themasked_senshi]

Everytime I see these interviews, I am motivated once again.

[timothyreal]

“My name is Giovanni Giorgio, but everybody calls me Giorgio.”

[Shibbyify]

I like how in this paradigm, one begins to speak well without having to learn to speak directly. Many other input oriented teachers and youtubers seem to teach that you have to put at much effort to speak as with input. Matt and Stevi seem to show otherwise.
My Spanish is beginning to just explode out of me. I'm not even trying to speak. Of course I know I have to talk to native speakers to really speak well, but I'm not about to spend $$$ and years on italki to speak when I don't have to

[Chonchyyy]

He is built different
Anyway thanks for the video, so fucking motivating

[sanl]

My take on accent: I feel like you can have perfect pronunciation and still have a foreigner accent. Actually pronunciation isn't that hard. I think what makes you sound like a native has to do with placement (look it up on youtube or google if you don`t know what that is), resonance and how you release air and use your throat while talking. For example, Kaz sound pretty much native most of the time, and what he seems to do is change where his voice resonances (japanese people seem to resonate from the front of the mouth, while americans from their chest, throat or back of the mouth), and how he releases the air while talking.

Another example is Jerry Dai. He sound native more than 98% of the time, but sometimes his chinese resonance / placement slips in, and even though his pronunciation is perfect, he still sounds chinese because the resonance is different. That's why people that speak more than one language natively sound different when they switch between their languages (their voice change), and adults that speak other languages sounds the same in all of them. It's like they're still speaking their native language, but with different words and word order, if you know what i mean. Everything else, in terms of sound, is the same, even though they're speaking a different language. Even if they make different sounds with their mouth, they don't change their resonance, placement and the way they use their thorat and release air while talking, making they sound foreigner / have a thick accent.

One more example is Hadar (she has a youtube channel), she also sounds native 98% of the time and she uses her voice in a different way when speaking her native language and english.

That's why I feel like there are too few adults that sound native. First of all, most of them don't even try or care. Second of all, for the majority of them, their listening aren't even fully developed. Even if they're fluent, they don't hear the "real sounds" of the language (their brain replaces the sounds with other similar ones in their native language, and of couse you can reach the point where this stops happening, but anyway), and when watching movies or youtube videos or whatever, there are times where their brain mishear or totally fails to pick some sounds apart, making them miss what was said (of course if you're fluent this doesn't happen all the time, but if you really want to have a native-like accent your listening must be native-like aswell). But now, if your listening ability is the same or similar to your native language's, and you do want to sound native, i don't see why it wouldn't be possible. First, nail the the vowel and consonant sounds, this is the easiest part. Then, just figure out where to resonate your voice, how to relax (or tighten depending on the language) your thoat, and all that other stuff i said. If you can do that, then you should sound native, no reason why you shouldn't. Your mouth and tongue are the same as everyone else's. You're just using them in the "wrong" way.

And of course, i could be totally wrong, so take this with a grain of salt.

[meny]

This interview is what motivated me to start learning Japanese. It's my fourth language that I aim to be fluent in. I've been learning Japanese for a couple of months now. I must say, I thought that speaking 3 other languages fluently would make it harder for me to pick up one more but I've noticed that I've had much less trouble grasping grammar concepts of Japanese than I did with my third language (German). It's very interesting how that works. I definitely understand now how polyglots can speak so many languages and not get confused.

[peters]

I find it hilarious that he remains intimidated by mandarin tones. Shows how humble he is.

Honestly, the tones are frustrating in direct proportion to your study methods. Aka, if you do the “textbook method” where they force you to output on Day 1, without an instinct for how it should sound, then yeah...it’s DAMN frustrating.

But, if you take a year or two of hardcore listening, you find that — tadah — you no longer even consciously pay attention to tones and find they happen naturally in output. So, frankly I don’t think he has a reason to be worried 🤷🏻‍♂️

[milarkdoesthings]

This is cool as hell. But it’s also frustrating knowing that he started later than me lol. I took way too many breaks and I still suck now.
~Milark

[whatevs]

I’M NOT THE ONLY RANDOM GERMAN LEARNING JAPANESE BECAUSE OF JAPANESE MUSIC!!! LET’S FRICKIN GO!!!

Also great taste bro, Band Maid rocks!!!

[troydj]

I watched this when it was first posted, and just re-watched again. Such a great video content-wise for language learning enthusiasts, and Matt does such a great job interviewing Stevi. Kudos, Matt!

[jordan]

What you guys were saying about how you should focus on the content you're consuming and forget you're trying to learn a language, that's totally how it worked for me with fitness. I wanted to get in shape but I realized that would take at least a few months and decided to stop getting hung up over the time and the goal. I started to work out just because I enjoyed getting exercise each day. After a few months I had that moment where I realized, "Hey, look how far I've come!" I almost didn't realize it. Pretty cool how that works.

[puccarts]

I enjoyed this interview and also how Stevi spliced up his time balancing school and work, and what he had to give up to reach his goal. I wonder if he's dipping back into gaming again with Japanese games now, hehe..
I would've also liked to know what his life situation is more like; did he have any other commitments? Were friends mad at him for not gaming with him anymore? Did/ does he live at home or need to interact with family/ flatmates? Did any of this interfere with his consistency?
Would love a follow up video with him in 6 months time :)

[buraikusu]

Interesting how immersion isn't just the method, but also the goal/purpose

[canadianman]

one day I will be on here!! I've been studying Korean for about a year now!

[HypotheticalTiger]

Glad to see another interview, especially one with Stevi!