I came across this video in my recommendations, and after doing 2-mins of Googling I found out that this Yuta fellow seems to be just another snake-oil salesman when it comes to Japanese resources.
That being said, I couldn't help but to watch the video, out of curiosity, where he quotes a bunch of authors and studies that conclude that the best way to acquire a language is simply by massive understandable input (implicit knowledge) and that textbooks and drills in excess can sometimes be detrimental to language acquisition (explicit knowledge). This made me recall something Cure Dolly said, where people who focus only on JLPT testing often can't hold a normal conversation, despite passing JLPT N1-N2.
The way I see it, explicit knowledge is definitely needed as a stepping stone into the language in order to give us structure, but if the goal is to hold normal everyday conversations, then we need massive input in order to turn that explicit knowledge into implicit knowledge.
What do you guys think? When I think about it now, it's kind of a "no shit Sherlock moment", but up until recently I had been stuck in a study-only-loop in which I would do nothing but study grammar and do drills, but did little in the way of active input.
As Cure Dolly put it, I was "learning about Japanese, rather than learning Japanese", and since my goal is to hold regular conversations, moving forward I'm thinking about focusing my time more on active input, and only refer back to textbooks when needed.
by Trevor_Rolling
15 comments
Learning through a textbook is absolutely essential to get to around N4 level, without the baseline understanding of basic grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation you would be extremely lost. But I think around N3 and above, learning more through immersion and practice with native speakers will get you further. Textbooks are still really useful for learning new grammar points, and studying new vocabulary is necessary as well, but once you’ve finished up Genki 2 or an equivalent other textbook, you really need to break out of only studying through textbooks to truly take the next step, that I agree with.
Input is absolutely crucial for language learning. No one has ever gotten fluent at a language without it. So you’re definitely right that you should focus on getting more input.
The value of explicit practice is less clear. It’s possible to acquire the grammar of a language without being explicitly taught, but that isn’t necessarily the most effective approach. Like, you could figure out how something like the te-form works through exposure, but someone teaching you will save you lot a time. So yeah, your idea about explicit instruction being a “stepping stone” is pretty much on the money.
In my experience, how much of a language is picked up through input alone also tends to vary from person to person. I know many people who have been studying Japanese for years and are pretty conversational, but do still do shit like linking verbs and nouns with の. That is to say, they tend to say things like 私が話すの日本語 or whatever. In those cases, explicit instruction could be helpful to get them to break that bad habit.
I learned English mainly through implicit knowledge. I have no idea about most of the grammar rules, I just copy the way I’ve seen others speak or write, and when I see a sentence that’s wrong I’m able to tell even though I don’t know why that is
However, explicit knowledge can matter a lot, especially for a language like Japanese where there are many barriers to comprehension. Acquiring explicit knowledge and later on refining it with implicit knowledge seems like the best way to learn the language to me
In my opinion the best way to learn a language is to immerse in it 100%. That’s how all of us learned our native language and for me, I also learned English that way. Never opened a single textbook.
With Japanese, the only small exception/recommendation would be to get the absolute basics down via books or other guides first. Go through Tae Kim or whatever is the fuzz nowadays (Cure Dolly?) and after that just start using the language. Eventually you will pick it up, and it will be much more fun to do things you like in Japanese rather than forcibly studying ”Kore wa pen desu” stuff from textbooks over and over again. Also you will sound much more natural than the going-by-the-book people.
Test it for yourself: write down all the explicit knowledge you have about your first language. That will give you the answer.
So, I watched [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHubnrYCNas) the other day which is an explanation of what the whole “comprehensible input” theory actually says. It was pretty illuminating after hearing so many people claiming it to support their ideas that are just based on their own personal experience.
I don’t feel qualified to give an answer on this stuff, tbh. I can only say what has worked for me, but it’s not like my Japanese is top-tier or anything either. I think it’s obvious that you need lots of native input at some point if you want to have a broad vocabulary and speak like a normal person, but what the perfect mix of explicit vs implicit acquisition is – I have no idea.
Basically whenever someone tries to tell about “how humans learn languages” it’s pretty much going to be bullshit and you can ignore it. They are basing it off of their own experience (a sample size of 1), their experience teaching in a classroom, and context free bits from studies.
Explicit knowledge is useful for making input more comprehensible, and comprehensible input is the keystone of language acquisition.
In my personal opinion, which seems to generally coincide with other high-level language learners I’ve met/read opinions of, explicit knowledge is pretty much a framework. It gives you the understanding of what technically works/doesn’t work in a language. Then to fill that framework, you need a large amount of real experience to figure out not what’s technically allowed in a language, but what’s actually natural. That’s where massive input comes in. The less solid your framework is, the more input you will have to consume. Basically, explicit learning is a great tool not to learn a language, but to learn how to learn a language. This is why I would always recommend beginners to focus on first getting a solid technical understanding of a language, as once that’s in place, building the implicit knowledge is much more efficient.
Anyone that asserts “immersion” or “comprehensible input” as methods doesn’t know what either of those things mean. Most people from the age of 4 get explicit instruction on their first language for **13 years straight**. You need a framework or interface to initiate content in to your understanding, this is usually called “learning”, but you then need authentic context, active use, repetition, and time to “acquire” it such that you can use whatever item it is without active effort.
You really can’t trust YouTubers and individuals that claim fluency by following fad methods or practices that have been out of date for 30+ years. They don’t even know what was actually the most effective for them, or they will flat out lie or omit information (Mattvsjapan for example).
If you’re research literate, you can assess these practices and concepts yourself, but if not, a good guideline is anyone pushing a singular method is almost always going to be wrong.
My philosophy is I just switch gears when one is too hard or it isn’t clicking well.
With that said it took a lot of explicit knowledge to get there, and a lot of it I can thank you my linguistics major helping some of the more japanese sentences make sense.
I learned loads of explicit language in Japanese and put it to good use as well. 床上手 and 日本語上手 is a good combination.
If I didn’t know how to bake a cake, I wouldn’t be able to work out how to bake a cake just by eating one. If I buy something from IKEA, things would probably go quite wrong if I just looked at the finished product and tried to go from that.
If you spend any time looking at other language learning subreddits or any other platform that are involved in language learning, you can see what an odd bunch the Japanese learners seem to be with this min/maxing, gamification etc. of the process. The JLPT and other assessments are also odd, as they don’t assess conversation skills, unlike TOEFL and others, so people with their min/maxing might skip it. Although in practicality, not many people who start learning it will necessarily travel to Japan or do so for an extended time, so if you don’t use it, you lose it (or never gain it).
I think people should complete the core textbooks at least (Genki/MNN), because the language is difficult enough as it is, and they really do cover the basics. And struggling/spending time working on the conjugations and other basics by yourself instead of reading a simple summary seems a bit silly to me – far more productive use of time just reading about it.
Also, I don’t know why people fixate on thinking what a baby/child etc. does. Mostly people are adults, your cognitive capabilities – pattern recognition, memory, life experience far exceed a child – why not employ that and make the process more expedient?
I believe textbooks/studying lay down the framework, and practice/input fills that framework with concrete. Study by itself is meaningless, but it helps to speed up practice tremendously. In the very beginning, study should be 80% or your time spent on the language. However after some time, maybe a year or two, practice/immersion should be taking up 80% of your time.
I can’t pass N2 to save my life yet I can hold hours long conversations, make jokes, flirt or have formal work talks all in Japanese.
They are correlated but ultimately different skills.