Can listening only BACKFIRE? - Patreon Q&A Archive - January 1st, 2022

TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Intro
0:33 - How would the way Matt studies Japanese changed if he lived in Japan?
3:35 - When learning a language entirely through listening, how would one approach learning vocab?
6:37 - Is it a good idea to take monolingual definitions, translate them into your NL with DeepL, and use that in place or regular bilingual definitions?
13:15 - Could NL subtitles actually be a useful way to provide your brain with additional context while immersing?
18:53 - Is it possible to develop bad habits while taking a listening-only approach?
21:51 - What is Matt's current opinion of RTK?
27:49 - Should I worry about not subconsciously translating things into English in the early stages of learning?
29:29 - Does kanji fluency in Japanese carry over to Chinese?
30:25 - How should I approach learning Japanese grammar IN Japanese?
40:02 - Is it a good idea to pause and rewind when you don't understand something while immersing?
41:26 - I'm going to study abroad in Japan for a year; how can I avoid making bad habits while I'm there?
43:22 - Is the technique of "laddering" actually helpful when learning a 3rd language?
49:21 - When should you start focusing on watching content instead of reading?
50:16 - Do you think music has the potential to be a super effective language learning tool?
53:14 - If you natively speak a tonal/pitch accent language, how much of an advantage will you have when learning Japanese?

[pohlpiano]

Well, as a parent of a half Chinese kid growing up in Chinese environment (with a Czech bilingual ability induced by me), I can attest my kid had been mixing up homophones a lot, creating a lot of wrong ideas about them (for example believing her teachers surname was a Pig, as she said that to me in Czech), and now she is rather slowly fixing them while learning to read in the first grade of the elementary school (still being wrong about many of them). Interestingly, singing baby songs and doing a lot of nursery rhymes, traditional folksongs, etc. since birth is considered a must while starting to make our children speak as parents in Czechia. Yes, a cultural benefit, culture being also a part of a language.

[tomdoesstuff]

With regards to eggcorns, for my whole life my mother has said "it door depends" instead of "it all depends". I too had picked this up in speech (not writing) due to acquiring the phrase as a child. It was only a few years ago that I noticed that what she was saying didn't make any sense. Now when she says it, I ask her in response: "Which door does it depend on?" She still says it to this day.

[gullinvarg]

A thought about music, that admittedly may not apply to popular music. There are children's songs that are used for learning, the alphabet song being the first one that comes to mind for English. It feels like music is a reasonably big piece of how kids learn, at least in the U.S. I understand what you're saying about the liberties artists take with their language in songs, but the memorabilty might help someone remember some words and phrases that aren't clicking. I'm learning Spanish and "lugare" wasn't sticking until I associated it with "Tus lugares favoritos" from Despacito. 😁

[NationX]

I moved to Japan a month ago and am trying to make the most of it to immerse and learn the language. From what other foreigners have told me here just walking into as a bar foreigner is one of the easiest ways 😂

Also dating apps are another great way. They told me apps like Bumble and Tinder are more like meetup apps than dating ones. They also told me some parks are great places to meet others.

I’d say how easy depends on where you are in Japan. I’m in Tokyo and it’s colder here (socially wise) than say Osaka and similar.

[SzczeryPoliglota]

I'm signing up for a go match with you, Matt ;)

[adamFluency]

The way you talk about how Japanese people refer to grammar items is pretty similar to how we might say "a thing" rather than "a noun" or even "tense" when the person actually means an "aspect" - us language people have to grade our vocabulary... much like any professional, doctor, architect etc must do I guess!

[YuraJayRJay]

What is your rating of the best Japanese monolingual dictionaries supported in Yomichan?

[vitorpereira]

9:59 what is the J-J dictionary that Matt mentioned here?

[someperson]

Why not join a Toastmasters club when you move to Japan? Toastmasters is an organization that helps people to develop their leadership and communication skills. There are local Toastmasters clubs all over the world. A typical meeting involves people giving prepared speeches, other people giving speeches without any preparation, and others giving their evaluation of the prepared speeches.

[pathologicpicnic]

When will you make the video on your main channel about deepL?

[seriousmax]

29:29 my dumb ass didn't know Kanji and Hanzi are pretty much the same at the time 😅.

[Aaronx]

Does anyone know who the Chinese YouTuber he mentioned at the end is? I searched muyi muyi and all sorts of variations of that but didn't find anything.

[wamu]

Matt's brain is on a different wave link then us regular betas 🧎‍♂️