All Japanese, All the Time - any good for learning Chinese?

[yersi]

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Edited August 10, 2013 at 09:59 AM by yersi

[roddy]

Edited for relevance . . .

[anon6969]

I started putting the TV on (I live in China) whilst I'm at home - even though I can't understand it. Also I started listing to PodCasts of high-level (I mean normal conversation) That I can't understand.

After a few weeks my listening on the Chinese level that I can comprehend seems to have "sharpened".

My plan along these lines it to watch ever Chinese movie I can find. (several times).

I think the guy from AJATT has a natural ability for this kind of passive-learning. He says he can watch TV and read a book at the same time which is something I can't do in English. I think ACATT (All Chinese All The Time) will improve your Chinese but it's not the only answer.

Especially when you are starting out - lessons are still the best way to go in my opinion.

Everyone seems to forget that the guy from AJATT took 2 years of Japanese classes /before/ embarking on his All Japanese All The Time scheme....

[gato]

It says here that he studied Japanese for thousands of hours in those two years. If you put a similar amount of effort into learning Chinese, I'm sure it would work as well.

http://thejapanesepage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=8755&sid=973f42beb295435ba5c57fca69b4bdc3&start=45#p145629

Now look, that 300 hours he spent learning to recognize and write 4000 kanji was nothing compared to the 10,000 hours of passive listening to Japanese, thousand plus hours of studying Japanese via the sentence method, thousands of hours actively watching Japanese shows and reading dozens of mangas and novels. So yeah, he reached fluency (though not native level yet according to him) at the 18 month to 2 year mark. He could read newspapers, websites, comprehend news broadcasts, tv shows and talk shows. He's been constantly reading novels and mangas and books.

[atitarev]

About two years ago I thought I could never bring my Chinese to the same level as Japanese, now I am playing catch-up for my Japanese. My Japanese is behind. I mostly teach myself both but joined a Japanese class, while continuing to work with Chinese.

My modest achievement in Chinese so far: completed certificate IV with high distinction, got HSK Basic test results today - total score - 209 (listening - 66/ grammar - 87/ reading - 56).

You can learn more than one language at a time for a long period but it's tough, and ... slow.

[HerrPetersen]

I am kinda following what he does (i.e. find lots of example-sentences and learn them via anki, listen to Chinese shows, etc.) it works pretty good I guess. But I also started out with some text-books, and I am looking forward to get a good grammar book, to catch up on this part.

So my take on it is: It's a good method, but try to objectivly consider what works best for you and don't just copy everything he is saying. One big part in self-learning is figuering out exactly that.

On a side note: I read some of his blog entries and sometimes I agree with yersi, his success might have gone a little to his head.

[renzhe]

There are several people on this board trying this method for learning Chinese, but they haven't been doing it for too long. I don't know anyone who learned Chinese that way, but this doesn't mean that it can't be effective.

To be honest, I think that exposure is crucial for learning Chinese. So, whichever way you learn, you will need lots of reading, lots of TV, lots of conversation. So this method has got this right.

Whether ignoring grammar and memorising sentences is the best way to go about it -- I don't know, I didn't do it that way. I did use lots of native-speaker material, though, and I found it extremely important.

[roddy]

I just had a quick look at the site, perhaps someone can clarify - this guy reckons that if you spend 10,000 hours - y'know, the equivalent of a full time job for several years - studying Japanese TV shows, books, sentences, flashcards, etc, you will actually develop pretty good Japanese skills?

[realmayo]

Haha, good point Roddy. I'd seen the site before but never realised he wanted 10,000 hours!

[renzhe]

Yeah, by his own admission, he spent 18-24 hours a day for 18 months before he considered himself fluent enough for a job interview.

I think that this insane amount of exposure is the main factor, not SRS-ing sentences.

I personally also advocate using lots of books, movies, series, comics, and other native material, as it makes studying much more fun and enjoyable. So, if you're not buying into the hype (I'm not), at least consider what parts of his approach are useful. E.g. SRS-ing with mnemonics, lots of reading and watching TV, spending time on Chinese every day (and not only on weekends), etc.

I do most of these and they really help.

[yersi]

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[OneEye]

I wouldn't say he wants 10,000 hours of studying. It's 10,000 hours of listening, and most of that can be passive. For example, having the TV on while you're doing other things, listening to music or podcasts while you're driving, etc. It's basically creating an immersion environment for yourself in the target language. Whatever you find fun in English, do in the target language instead.

In addition there is the 10,000 sentences component. The goal is not to memorize the sentences, but to be able to understand them and be able to write them and read them aloud when they come up in your SRS program. Khatzumoto has said that he only did about 7500 sentences in the 18 months he studied before moving to Japan.

BTW anon6969, I've never seen anywhere that he said he took Japanese classes for two years. He does say, on his "About" page, that:

I didn’t take classes (except for a high-level “newspaper reading” class…which merely confirmed that classes, um, suck); I didn’t read textbooks and I had never lived in Japan.

Have a link to where he said he took two years of classes?

[HerrPetersen]

He does not say you should memorize sentences but rather learn to recognize them - all in the spirit input>>output. I am doing this i.e. I do not "produce" sentences when reviewing, but I only recognize sentences in my reviews. (reading+dictation mode).

I have one failed attempt of learing Chinese behind me, where I just tried to learn vocab and even tried to learn pronounciation from a textbook (yeah stupid idea). In this second attempt I feel fine, and I won't change my learning/reviewing routine anytime soon.

[student]

This guy,

http://relearnchinese.wordpress.com/

has been following a similar project. Rather than "All Chinese All the Time" his approach is, for learners who have already achieved "a certain level of proficiency", is

FNBN (For Native speakers, By Native speakers) - that is, both produced by and intended for native speakers

[c_redman]

I know other people have had success with passive listening of incomprehensible input, but it does nothing for me. In fact it's detrimental--after a while I just get used to the sounds as background noise without even attempting to understand.

I was wondering recently about the level of study involved in learning Japanese characters vs. Chinese. Supposedly the 1,945 Joyou characters are enough to read a Japanese newspaper. But I know over 2000-2500 Chinese characters, maybe 5000 compounds, and still struggle with Chinese newspapers.

What I'm interested in is the part where you're supposed to memorize 10,000 sentences with an SRS system and grammar doesn't exist.

That and other parts of his method are admittedly from Antimoon (http://www.antimoon.com/how/input.htm). If it works for English and Japanese, the practices can probably be applied to any language. In my interpretation, you shouldn't be memorizing the sentences, just understanding them.

[renzhe]

Chinese newspapers are extremely tricky. I find it easier to read modern literature than newspapers, and this must be one of very few languages where this is the case.

These are my observations regarding how many of the most common characters you need to read what (yes, I actually counted)

1000 - basic stuff like signs, short messages

2000 - blogs, basic conversation, children's comics, internet chat

3000 - modern literature, newspapers

4000 - literature drawing from classical language and specialised technical publications

5000+ - ancient poems, ancient literature...

Of course, you need the corresponding vocabulary, this only says how many different characters show up.

With Japanese, the way I understand, the standard 2000 are enough to read almost anything, as kana are encouraged in place of rarer characters. Really educated people know far more than 2000, but there is little actual need to learn them, compared to Chinese.

[m_k_e]

I second yersi's comment. It is all about how much time and effort you put into learning the language. I don't see what's special about this system. I don't even see where the systematic part comes in, except for spend as much time studying as possible. Anyone that has reached expert-level status in any field could tell you that. It seems to me this guy is just good at marketing.

[imron]

I think with learning Chinese (and other languages too I guess), many people are looking for a silver bullet, or magic method that will help them learn the language with a minimum amount of effort. Although there are definitely some methods that can make learning more efficient, in the end it still comes down to putting in the time and the hard work over a sustained period of time.

But I know over 2000-2500 Chinese characters, maybe 5000 compounds, and still struggle with Chinese newspapers.

The top 2,000 characters should cover 97% of most modern texts, and the top 2,500 will cover 98% (source). If you're still struggling with newspapers after learning that many characters, then you've probably reached a point where you know the most of the characters but just don't know what they mean when they're put together. If that's the case, it's probably a good idea to be focusing your efforts on learning words. Personally, I found the best way to improve my newspaper reading ability was to read more newspapers and then make note of the stuff I didn't understand. This one is good, especially the letters page (thanks Heifeng).

[HerrPetersen]

I don't even see where the systematic part comes in, except for spend as much time studying as possible.

The systematic part of it is, that he says "do Heisig first". While learning 4000 charachters without being able to pronounce them is too extreme (even for Heisig advocats like myself) doing 1500 or so before diving into actually studying Chinese should work pretty well.

He really is good at marketing - he reminds me somewhat of a dude from highschool, who was in 10th grade and had always a group of 8th graders standing by his side. He was talking they were listening. Then again it does take something to achieve the internet-celebrity-status he certainly has achieved. So cheers to him, and most of all congratulations to him for learning Japanese (and Chinese).

[anon6969]

I know other people have had success with passive listening of incomprehensible input, but it does nothing for me. In fact it's detrimental--after a while I just get used to the sounds as background noise without even attempting to understand.

This is what my worry is. Is the Chinese I am listening to just background noise, or is actually helping at all by imprinting "sentence patterns" in my brain.

I could never work whilst listing to English radio or English TV on - however I can with Chinese stuff - I think that's because I don't understand it so it doesn't disturb me....