This Guy Learned Fluent Japanese By Watching Anime - Matt vs Japan | The Hastings Harvest Ep. 33

@mattvsjapan is a YouTuber and Cofounder of the Refold website, a language learning roadmap that teaches people how to make language fluency straightforward, fast and fun. His YouTube channel consists of interviews and tutorials on how to master learning any language, but specifically as his name might suggest, the japanese language. He has now achieved near native level fluency in Japanese using his teaching methods, one of which includes simply just watching anime.

In this podcast, we talk about:

- Matt’s rough experience living in Japan for the first time (and how it changed him)
- How language shapes your perception of the world
- The “refold” strategy to learning any language effectively
- How he stays disciplined and what keeps him motivated to learn more

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Timestamps:
Intro: 0:00
Two Important Questions: 0:30
Matt Thought My Video Would Be Awful: 3:30
Matt's Experience Living Abroad In Japan: 6:27
Matt''s Top 3 Anime: 11:47
How Learning Japanese Helped Him Grow: 12:18
Does Language Change Our Perception?: 16:43
Do Japanese Hate Foreigners?: 19:45
The Coolest Thing About Japan: 23:10
What Keeps You Motivated To Learn?: 24:40
Why Is It So Easy To Learn A Language As A Baby?: 33:35
Matt's Guide To Learning Any Language: 37:44
Is Watching Anime Bad For Speaking Japanese?: 49:47
Why Can I Comprehend But Not Speak?: 52:12
Resources For Learning A Language: 55:12
How Do You Stay Disciplined?: 59:39
What Does "Success" Mean To You?: 1:05:30
Where To Find Matt: 1:08:35
#colehastings #learnjapanese #mattvsjapan

[AngloSaks]

What Matt says at 54:11 (and the little bit before too), reminds me of being in Novosibirsk in Russia in the early 90s. I asked a woman in a restaurant, "Do you know where the Hotel Sibir is?", she answered "Yes, I know", and walked off. She came back, so I reworded it, and said "Do you know how to get to the Hotel Sibir?", she said, "Yes, I know", and walked off again. The last time I realised that I just needed to say "Tell me please, how to get to the Hotel Sibir". We also got a little lost on they way, and asked a guy, slipping into our English habit of "Do you know...?" and he paused and looked at us for a second or two and then said "You want me to tell you how to get there, don't you?" (or its Russian equivalent).

[schinism]

I think Matt should really do a TED Talk one day. Spread his knowledge to the world.

[MarcosPereyra.]

this is the push a needed it to keep going with the journey of learn to speak english fluent, thank you so much bro

[Mastaz]

I'm fluent in Swedish, English (and arabic to some degree). I unknowingly learned all these languages through immersion before reaching the age of 10 and I've currently spent around 217 days learning Japanese with the same methods. Immersion works extremely well but there is a lot of faith involved in the process. Just like a lot of other people I had to go through about 6 years of language learning through the school system, and in my case it was with German. Even though someone like me learned 3 languages to fluency with immersion, it almost never popped into my head that I should have used it as my main method for acquiring Japanese. Until I found Matt's channel and suddenly everything clicked. I'm truly grateful for all the people who've helped improve the language learning space and turned it into a more realistic and fun experience. Really happy to see you get Matt on the podcast and I'm excited for your upcoming episodes. Stay awesome Cole.

[ComprehensibleMandarin]

Very interesting, first time I've heard Matt talk about ALG & Marvin Brown. For a real-world example of someone who learned native-like Thai with this method, see David Long - he's a former student & current head of the program, and has a few videos & interviews on YouTube. Also Pablo of Dreaming Spanish learned Thai with the ALG method, & teaches Spanish with it.

[justalameusername]

Imagine if youtube one day implemented a language learning feature that blocks content in other langs so you can focus on your target lang only.

[AConnorDN]

20:00 my experience in Japan definitely mirrors this. Lots of times I would interact with a Japanese person and they would initially be very apprehensive about talking to me, but then as soon as I demonstrated that I could speak Japanese (although my Japanese sucked back then) they acted so relieved that they didn’t have to try to speak English with me. As I’ve gotten more fluent in Japanese I have definitely noticed that Japanese people tend to act a lot more comfortable and natural too.

[JesusOfPaign]

Wait, I had no idea about that English rule of categories of adjective, like “size” and “quality” words coming in a specific order. That’s so interesting. I feel like I have a good sense of being able to identify systems and grammar when analyzing english, but that “rule” is something i’ve literally never though about. I think I just chalked it up to “it sounds better” in that order, but never really stopped to think “if it sounds better to everyone, so much so that the other way around seems wrong, then it must be some sort of grammar rule”

[AngloSaks]

I hadn't thought of it, but now I know, I'm in no way surprised that Matt was a skater. Me too. As someone twice his age, I advise him to get his board out again, or he'll regret it. Just enjoy it, like the language, and let it grow as a part of your life. And for me that skater thing kind of grew into punk and alternative culture, not banal 'stonerism', so maybe that's a positive for me, but also why I didn't seek some study or more practical interest as an outlet.

[declan]

Matt would be the perfect person to do the kanji kentei and nihongo kentei. Matt if you read this, I would love to follow that process!

[abhinavmohanart]

Just what i am doing right now with this awesome podcast as this guy did with anime shows

[AngloSaks]

Watching this made me think over my language learning motives, and also to reflect on how that's affected my 'journey'. It basically comes down to being able to learn about people, and from people, and to also share our experiences and ideas to move ourselves forward (and that's kind of in a global sense too). I don't care so much about the language for its own sake, nor do I care much that I'm likely to stay at that 80% to native level, or wherever it is, as long as I can understand when people talk about important ideas, and if I can at least learn from that, though also hopefully join in those conversations. That's meant that I can't get on with materials that are just 'content for the sake of learning', but need real stuff that actually interests me, which is very tricky at lower levels, but I'd go with Matt there on choosing what interest you over choosing what's easy enough for you, and using that interest to 'struggle through'. Also, moving to the country I had those opportunities for important and interesting ideas, learning about the people, and from them, and about life, and trying to find solutions, as it was a country in massive and deep processes of change, but that faded over the years as its 'getting back in control' went too far into extreme conservatism and narrowness. There are other things I could say too, but it's tricky. Maybe something like there's a large culture of 'intellectualism', but it's kind of mechanical and shallow, often for show and mere conformity, than actually authentic, dynamic, genuinely interesting, and actually relevant to the real world. But still I found areas of real thought and creativity, but, as I say, that has been pushed underground and to the fringes, so either dull conservatism and showy intellectualism at best is mostly what remains outside of personal realtionships. There was also an issue of work and life getting in the way of being with and speaking to people a lot, but I realised that all the same I did quite a lot when real tasks were there, and real conversations. My main thing is the deeper meaning that language can make possible, and important learning and searching for solutions in communication. It's kind of why I chose the languages I did, why I sought out the things I did, and, I realise now, why I became disengaged as things changed, and was always demotivated when what really mattered to me was lacking (I like meeting new people and chatting, but would prefer to get the real conversations, so both can't just do lots of 'language for language's sake', nor could I ever do the thing of making friends, or avoiding making friends, due to whether they would speak the language I wanted to practise or not; I can't help but just make friends with whoever's nearby and who I like). That's the key for me; having that meaning. Material can't be banal, conversations can't be banal, relationships need to be meaningful in themselves, so the language learning has to happen in tandem with that. I can't do the one to get to the next, it's too boring. It needs to be materials that move me: so really good movies, documentaries, and stuff that's of serious quality (I don't exclude Animé), or good reading, about whatever, and it needs to be real relationships with serious reasons to talk, so when I had work where that was necessary, with meaningful problems to solve, and people's lives affected, and friends where that was happening too, or understanding things that were important to understand, or conveying what was important for others to understand from me. I, for example, couldn't get much satisfaction from wandering the streets of whatever city just chatting with people in whatever language or languages I was learning (though all respect to those that do, and I often enjoy what they do). Of course, it's a simple fact, that language is a tool of conveyance of meaning, and that meaning varies in quality. It's a means to an end, not an end in itself. This kind of refers back to the 'comprehensible input' issue too; i.e. how you acquire language via the derivation of meaning, where the language happens almost unconsciously, but the meaning is being focused on instead, and that this is how you actually acquire language, by looking 'through' it to the meaning, not at it. And this ties in with my motivation, in that that meaning is the key thing that drew me to language learning. And thus why I learned very quickly when I did, and then stagnated massively when I did. To focus on that meaningful use of language in my life is the key to breaking the stagnation (which is kind of happening lately, though sadly due to troubles in the world that I'm having to engage with via the languages I know, and one new one I'm learning).

[padnoob]

That instantaneous reply is foreign to me, but i feel like that vocabulary will generally be a physical response (in my experiences) in American, like: clutching one's own chest like they received a dagger to the heart, or a gasp that indicates one's been hurt. It's still funny, but not with any one word.

At least that's my take on that concept, if I'm understanding close to what the term is trying to get at.

[michalviktorin]

Im watching most of the movies and stuff in original languages out of curiosity and for self-learning, but I did not learned Japanese yet after all those movies and anime I have seen, but I learned English from PC games and movies as kid. When I was later learning Spanish and Italian, I switched PC games to that languages to have fun while being involved with the language. RPG games are the best I think, since there are many things and their names in your backpack with pictures, so there is mnemotechnics everywhere and there are conversations with NPCs as well. It is way better than just watching movies, but with Japanese there is barrier called kanji, which does not allow me to use this way.

[pohlpiano]

The sugar and whip method is coming from Japanese? We use this expression all the time in our language /in Czech it is "metoda cukru a biče"/, always thought it comes from Napoleon, because I first learned it in the history class from that time.

[Rokknis]

based podcast, definitely a fun listen digging deep into the meta of language learning

this is perhaps a bit "pop psych", but i believe you guys both share the same enneagram tritype archetype of 145 ("the researcher"), as i get similar vibes from both channel's vids. that contemplative, analytical synthesis of ideas to arrive at the best ways to go about tasks like learning japanese or taking charge of one's life, that may not follow the grain of mainstream middlebrow discourse on said topics, laden with allegories and analogies (plus a dash of modern meme humor!) to facilitate understanding

[abhinavmohanart]

Big fan of your content 👏 love from india

[arccosinusopinion]

Has anyone been able to find this J Martin Brown book?

[moyga]

WIth regard to the more input leads to output idea, the thing is, when you're sitting there reading light novels, or watching anime, how often do you actually see things like 'I need to go to the bathroom", "have you seen my phone?" or 'can you pass me the salt'? There are a lot of things you would hear regularly if you were living your life in a Japanese environment, that you wont necessarily encounter regularly in immersion. Random sentences like 'how do I refill the coffee machine?' or whatever it may be. So just inputting more wont necessarily help. Matt probably made those observations when he was doing his homestay or talking to the Japanese students at his university, not watching anime. So I think just telling people to input more then they will be able to output is a bit misleading. Recongition memory is also not the same as output memory, thats why people can read kanji without being able to write them. It's not clear to me, that only by reading a lot of well written essays you would be able to write a good essay yourself without also practising writing essays yourself, it doesn't seem clear to me that only input is enough. I think there are also studies that show that having language directly directed at you e.g. by parents or friends in a real sitaution, is much better for learning than passively viewing other people communicating like watching TV.

[humanbean]

just do your anki reviews each day, studying after that can be the actual study that you should be doing. the anki is a no questions asked must do every day. if you're lazy you can rep out 200 reviews in 20 minutes. most people wont really accumulate more than 100 reviews. it will keep you from forgetting words you already know, and up to you if you throw 5-20 new words each day into the review pile.
it also gets much easier the more you do it. the words get easier to remember, you soak up the grammar used in the sentences as well. just do those reviews at the very least.