I want to state clearly that I don’t have anything against Laoshu. I think his methods are in line with his goals, and his goals are perfectly fine. I literally just used him in the thumbnail for clickbait and entertainment sake.

Sorry my camera sucks... I'm going to buy a nice camera once we reach 750 patrons!

Silent period is what I'm doing, and the FEW times I do speak to friends, it seems to be working so far. My friends have been commenting on how much more natural I sound recently.

I’d always gotten the AJATT elitist vibe from Matt, which I never enjoyed. But he was really humble here and I appreciated the honesty about himself and the community. Plus the AKIRA poster I can’t argue with. I related to him a lot here (especially with cementing bad habits way back in the beginning which provided little other than frustration thereafter). I will recommend this video when I suggest embracing the silent period to others. Good stuff, man. I’m becoming less resentful of your age and ability lol. After starting MIA you seem like a way cooler dude. I think you will gather greater support as a result and I can say you’re deserving of it. Keep it up.

From personal experience I can confirm this is absolutely on the money. Developing an awareness for what is right and assuming everything else is wrong is the key to ultimately speaking with almost no mistakes.

Most important don't condemn other people said from the man himself.

A funny thing that happens is that some phrases start to really stick and you'll end up spitting them out kind of unconsciously. For example I've been listening to a podcast called 日本の歴史 and since they say the title at the beginning of every episode, I've noticed I randomly whisper those words when working or something. I guess it's my brain processing the language subconsciously so I don't mind.

I think outputting too early is what frustrated me and made me ultimately quit Japanese for EIGHT years. I'm 25 now and restarting and I wish I had your method back then, I would have been super fluent by now...😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢

I feel like synthesizing sentences is so important to learning though. . . . like if we think of mass immersion as mimicking how we learn our L1s as kids, even kids don't have the set-phrases we have yet so they say things funny but they learn eventually. I think my favourite story was about a kid who didn't know how to express the idea of death so he said described it as "his ghost fell out". I'm okay with sounding like a 2-year old for a bit =3 I just ask my language partners ahead of time to pls rephrase things for me if I say them wrong/awkwardly.

So it is a sin, but someone already died for it so you’re good.

Seeing the difference in your video style / personality from the beginning to now is amazing - thanks to you I have started meditation (before I thought it was just a silly spiritual thing) and found about about anki and the merits of immersion - Great stuff!

Thanks for another great video. I'm in the second year of immersion learning and living in Japan so your advice on this subject is always very helpful and logical.

Honestly, I think a lot of people overthink all of this. People "do it wrong" in so many ways all the time and still do just fine.

I can relate to this I am came in Germany six years ago and started learning german in my second year and was forced to output since I was in high school. I can speak alright but I always have a lot of simple gramatical mistakes which make me sound very bad. Same thing with writing, I can write but I always write with incorrect spelling, other gramatical mistakes just for the fact that I never tried to read or watch content in german and thought that my langauge course in school will make it better somehow. I am not a native english speaker and accidentially ajatted for years from the age of 6 until today 18 in english. I watched english movies, read books, articles, comments and etc. At that time I never spoke english until 12 when I migrated to germany since that was the only langauge I was able to use to communicate with germans. Ever since I started speaking I noticed that I have a mixture of british, american accent in my english and there is no sign of my original accent in my english, when I write I always think of what sounds more natural and not what's correct in a gramatical sense. I am gonna start japanese which is my fourth langauge with the immersion method and hope for the best.

I'm happy to see that with every new video your room gets a little bit cleaner :)

Building intuition is super important, but my favorite reason for focusing on listening and reading is definitely building a repertoire of words and phrases that you know are correct because you've seen/heard them used repeatedly and in context. Developing poor pronunciation or sentence structure by trying to hard to rush into speaking or writing can develop habits that are going to be harder to break in the future, very true!

This video saved me a ton of anxiety because I was thinking “oh, I used to text a little Japanese whenever it would just come out even though I know it’s probably wrong, and sometimes I would speak a little too.” At least I know that it was a good thing that I took all my attempts with a grain of salt. Now I’m in the phase where I’m just silent and not sure if anything I say is correct both in how natural the sentence is and in pronunciation/pitch.

7 months ago I decided to meet up with a native speaker for language exchange. I had a base of hiragana, katakana and basic vocab and sentence structure. Luckily, she was nice enough to fix my mistakes in my speaking and messages. I learned so much from that. Although I've probably picked up some bad habits as well. So, there's positives and negatives to it I suppose.

This was how I started learning Japanese way back in 2002. My first few years was mainly input. I watched movies and anime, I studied from a textbook, and I took university classes. I didn't speak more than a few words per day, and that was mainly to myself in private (to hear myself say the words). I didn't feel comfortable with output yet. I kept up with my studies, classes, and authentic resources. Though nothing had really changed in my routine for almost two years, by 2004 I was suddenly ready to start having lag free (no delay in reaction time) short conversations about a variety of simple topics.

I cracked tf up when I saw the thumbnail lol. I love laoshu's Chinese videos because he seems to be good at speaking it, but not so much the other languages

thanks for this video and for the style ispiration, I Bought that shirt from etsy i cant wait until i get it

thank god hahaha, I'm in japan for a month and only saw your videos one week in, already went from unable to speak at all to having broken conversations at bars with strangers though. Thank you so much man!!!

This makes a lot of sense. I am bad at my fiancé’s language so we almost always communicate in English which forces her to output a ton and create poor habits. Even things I’ve corrected many times she will still mess up more than not. I feel bad for making her carry all the language burden while I get to carefully practice and develop my language ability. Thanks dear!

highly specific in unpredictable ways = a given set phrase in a context build good habits in the first place -- only say things that you know are correct early output = have to be creative - make sth up --> assume you are probably wrong--> look up the correct way to say + pretty safe from making habit out of sth you're not sure on be aware that phrase is unnatural * silent period

I would say - there is an alternative, but, it's not something which you can definitely get. I speak Thai, fluently, to the level that I often fool people into thinking that I'm a native Thai speaker. How did I get there? I picked up a pretty basic textbook, it went over how to say what, where, when, how, why, how many etc. And I started outputting immediately. Now, Thai is a tonal language, so of course, at first I was pretty bad at it (ugh... The amount of people who think their Thai is good - but their tones are WAY off...) Anyway, I got a girlfriend (who became my ex wife) who corrected me on every small mistake I made. People always say "that must have been super annoying" but, given that I wanted to master the language, it never bothered me, not even once. Through all of her corrections, grammar and pronunciation, plus all of the time I spent immersed where no one spoke English... Fuck me this comment has gotten long... Maybe I should delete this and simply say "find someone who you spend almost all of your time with, who will correct every mistake you make - and you'll reach near native level. All of the nuances of grammar was purely through acquisition and being corrected.

Thanks Matt! I'll apply all advice. Good luck:)

Man you are truly the best 🙏 thank u for this content

Very good video. Love it!

Thank you for this video.

hey i am a beginner in japanese. i’ve read about the AJATT method. is it really worth it? i want your input on how i can start and sustain a constant japanese learning style. i just started learning japanese a day or two ago and only know some stuff. ive heard you say in one of your videos that JapanesePod101 isn’t a good source to learn, but that’s what i’ve been using? is there anything that you recommend for beginners to learn? any apps, ebooks, podcasts, anything? i’ve been learning hanagana and katakana but i have a hard time understanding kanji. i’m learning radicals but it’s through JP101. should i switch to something better?

What I do with a language exchange partner is to give each other 3 random words every day. Then we have to make simple sentences using those words. The deal is to correct each other's sentences aiming for natural language. After corrections, we have T1 sentences that we can add into the SRS.

Its similar to fighting, as an MMA coach, ironically in Japan, you can see the habits each style of fighter brings with them shows, boxers turn their lead legs and dip, wrestlers dip and drop their hands, jujitsu guys sit on their backs, judo guys give their backs etc etc...no matter how hard I try to correct them, its ingrained from their years of practicing that one sport...while it is possible, you have to take their bad habits out little by little...which i what I am doing with my Japanese since I worked as host when I learned Japanese where talking is kinda important haha

So, since writing and speaking are output, when going through RTK, am I not suppose to write the kanji, or say the kanji outloud (I'm not actually sure if RTK gives any readings at all, it's still not here yet ;-;)? Writing stuff down helps me remember, but even if it's harder, I'd rather not mess myself up later... Also, why do you think learning Vocab is frowned up? Going from Kanji to sentences seems like a hard jump. And learning sentences without translating them (especially with no vocab knowledge) seems like a daunting task. Because you don't learn vocab, does this mean you wont understand any of the input you listen to until you get to the sentence phase? Thank you for your time.

Even though I'm using the Genki series as my main learning method, should I still do input before output of should I just do what Genki is telling me?

Hey Matt, I'm kinda new to the MIA thing and I really love all of this. I have started the journey (Doing kanjis right now) but I was wondering, should I go reading the AJATT website or should I wait to read the stage 1 and 2 on your MIA website. I mean I kinda know what to do after the kanjis about my input immersion but I guess there are other things... Thanks anyway for all the amazing work you did to enlight us all :D

I like that Sakamoto Ryouma poster in the back. I recently finished Ryu Ga Go-to ku Ishin on PS4. He was the main character. Check it out when time permits.

This explains my issues with losing my Spanish speaking skills. Omg I entered a silent period with Spanish and I really regret it because I LOST my near native fluency. Now I have to build those skills back up with reading, tv, and watching the news 😭

Thanks for this video, Matt, I just started MIA and even when I knew this, I started to see output as the worse thing I could do.

Man, there's GOT to be phrase and sentence frequency lists to go with just word frequency lists. Seems like it shouldn't be difficult to create an algorithm that mines for groups of words that are always seen together in a particular language. And as with words, probably best to mine from scores of film subtitles.

So, what if I repeat phrases from f.e. Duolingo out loud? Like that, I start to learn how to shape the mouth to make f.e. the "r" sound in Japanese. What do you think? - Is this bad or time waste?

0:00 so imma say this: If you take a formal class, you **will** be doing output asap or you will fail I think early output is good for confidence. In high school, I was much more confident in speaking Japanese than I am now. I had far more output in HS too

Just wondering, could reading native materials out loud improve on speaking intuition faster? Or should I just read in my head and stay silent? Also is it ok for me to practice writing kanji?

The longer the silent period the better the speaking, which includes pronunciation, intonation, naturalness of expressions, correct grammar etc. People who become fluent fast (start speaking L2 at normal speed) often get praised as good speakers ... however in the long run, the learners who put off speaking practice until they are truly ready (taken in enough input) end up better speakers than the ones who output early. The ones who output later gain "fluency" (automatic speaking) just like the early outputters, but the important thing is that the overall quality of their speaking is much better than the early outputters. Early outputters have many more bad habits, and since language = habits, their speaking will never be as good as the later outputters, even if they want to improve their speaking later on and try and fix their bad habits. For the same effort, late outputters have better results. It's a case of the tortoise winning the race. It's worth delaying output until you're really ready because you have a lifetime of outputting as much as you want ahead of you. For learners who find it hard to speak naturally and at good speed, do not feel inferior if there are early outputters in your environment getting praised while you do not receive any. Do not feel intimidated by these other learners who output freely and easily and do so early on. The long run is what matters. Not speaking for an extra 6 months is worth it to speak as well as you possibly can. You will surpass the (too) early outputter eventually. Early output means you have to do some translation in your head (grammar translation method). The language you produce will be unnatural. But if you practice this imperfect language enough, you will become "fluent" (speak automatically at normal speed). But you will be fluent in YOUR version of L2. It won't be authentic L2. And once you become fluent in some language, it means that language is more or less fixed in your head. This is why some people never improve their skills no matter how many times they are told they make mistakes in pronunciation, grammar etc. They CANNOT improve. To get better they have to forget everything they practiced and start all over again, and that is really too difficult to achieve. So, do not practice faulty language. Do not feel pressure to speak early by seeing others speak early and "fluently". If you investigate the ones who have spoken L2 for many years and have bad grammar, pronunciation etc, you will find they outputted early. If their L2 is your L1, and you are their teacher or language exchange partner, it will be a pain to teach them. They never seem to improve and keep repeating their mistakes even after lots of corrections of the same mistakes. Their language habits have been set and in a bad way. They may feel confident because they output at normal speed, but their output is of low quality in general. What's more, these people have the fixed notion that early outputting is good, and speaking ability is all about practicing output, such as in front of the mirror, and they will push you, as your language exchange partner, to do the same as them and practice output before you are ready. For these reasons, I advise to not do language exchange.

I very much agree with you, Matt, and I think you explained it very well. How could one go about a silent period when they're living in the country of their target language? I can't just stop speaking at school or neglect my friendships. I was thinking of writing down all the bad habits I notice like a list and then listing the correct versions, perhaps putting the correct versions around my room so I read them often and then making a conscious effort to use them in daily life.

Would you count singing as output? With singing you are actually shadowing to learn how to sing, paying a lot of attentions to the vowels and all that stuff. Just for curiosity, because I think it's a pretty nice tool, I know two Japanese people who can speak Portuguese at a native level and both used singing as a language learning tool.

what about output when you're learning with anki (audio cards)?? I'm beginning Japanese and making my cards from japanese shows, news and animes, then, I take the audio and put into my card. When I'm studying these cards I try to speak the sentences after listening to it. Does this count like output or were you only referring to output in a real world situation when you dont know if you're correct?

Has anyone else finished AJATT and started chinese with laddering from japanese? I am starting but confused for Hanzi, that means key words and stories must be in japanese?

How much intuition of the language do you think is necessary in order to be at a C1 level?

I don't fully agree with you on this one. I am a French native speaker and became fluent in English within a year of daily practice with people online (maybe 6 to 8h a day). Indeed, my grammar was flawed and I made a lot of bad habits. However, I do believe it is possible to get rid of these bad habits, as long as you ask people to correct you whenever you say something that may sound off. I have spent 12 years of my life studying Dutch at school with no progress but once I started talking to people online, my level skyrocket. I have spent so many hours watching animes, yet I am still unable to watch animes without subtitles. Now I have been studying Korean for a few months and the only way for me to learn grammar patterns is by trials and errors. I think people who like output just have to be open-minded to the idea that they may sound strange and accept to be corrected when needed.

I am studying mandarin but also another language ( a completely new language) and I. want to go on a silent period because my mandarin is already at a really high level. I want to get rid of the bad ha it’s bc I always make sentences that sound unnatural. Will studying this second language interfere with my silent period ?

Is it ok to practice handwriting in your TL?

Every time I ask a native a question in HelloTalk i speak a bit of Japanese. It’s so motivating. I get corrected on the spot regardless. And it’s an awesome feeling to communicate in Japanese. I’ll be going to japan for 3 weeks in August. And I’ll be speaking a lot. Even though I do MIA. It’s called an Approach for a reason.

So... Anyone in the community. When I am studying Anki cards (J-Recognition sub2srs), should I try to read over the sentence out loud or should I continue to stay silent and simply make mental notes? I know it may sound silly but I've been constantly switching between the two styles and it bothers me a little. Thanks in advance!

While all of this is good. The most important thing you mentioned is having that awareness that most of what you're saying is likely wrong unless you're confident you've heard it multiple times in context. This seems obvious to me and hence why output early isn't a problem if all you're doing is throwing some basic things out there to help build that motivation, (That's highly enjoyable). Early output should only ever be for fun moments or scenarios where you have no choice. Never be used as the tool to solidify actual speech. Why the hell this isn't obvious to anyone is beyond me.

Matt, does it count as outputting if I'm just reading the new word/sentence rule out loud to get a feel for it a little bit? I feel like i do it too much in the middle of a lesson

At the moment, I'm studying N3/N2 Japanese material, but I'm also working as an ALT in Japan, so I have to work with all these homeroom teachers who can't speak English well and can't understand me when I speak English, which is forcing me to do more output than I would like to. I know I'm saying so many things to them unnaturally. On top of that, the teachers don't really give me corrections either. I've been addicted to using HiNative to help me formulate the correct things to say, but even so, I'm getting carried away with outputting on that app sometimes.

Hey. Obsessed with your work. But one question: When starting with the RTK? Am I supposed to do both 1 and 3 at the same time or am I supposed do RTK 1 first and then 3?

Hi Matt, not sure whether you still watch comments on this video. But what about speaking lessons with Italki teacher that you tell to correct you every sentence? To still get in speaking practice (pronounciation) but also to not get bad grammar/vocab habbits.

Why the ''silent period'' though? You can still say the phrases in your target language. For example, repeating phrases from songs, affirmations, etc.

Damn I had no idea this concept exists, especially when so many ppl advertise speaking since day 1 Gonna utilize it for my korean

Thats a quality thumbnail considering I just learned who Laoshu was yesterday

I have Japanese Class where i am forced to talk and write every other day. What should I do?

I feel like you might have missed a few aspects of speaking, you mostly talk about saying the right things but not anything about how you are speaking, as in what sounds you're producing. Wouldn't outputting early while being mindful that you probably say things wrong still ingrain bad pronunciation habits? Like saying words with the wrong pitch/intonation/stress? Or are these habits easier to fix in your opinion?

I resonate with your point of view and what you say is very interesting and enlightening to me. However I guess, for people who are not doing the complete MIA approach, like me, and depending on your personality and your study schedule it is OK to output. Let me explain: It is true that the more you talk the more prompt is someone to create habits, and within those there are bad habits that come from bad output and not enough correction. But, I find motivating and encouraging doing a language exchange with native people and getting corrected from , even although I have not been learning Chinese for more than a year. Combining about 2 hours of speaking practice along 6 hours of studying per week is OK (you practice what you learn during the week and focus on pronunciation and new words to introduce to the grammar structures you use). Therefore there is no room for bad habits to be created, as you are putting boundaries to your speaking (current knowledge of the person) and getting constant correction from native people. (Unless you get creative and ignore the correction of your teacher). Example: A child keeps talking to the mother and the mother is constantly correcting his mistakes. Although I like my approach, it is true that I am introducing loads of Input during the week(Chinese podcast and interviews with both Hanzi and Pinyin), that adds about 4/5 hours of listening and active comprehension most of the time. This is where it comes my interpretation of MIA (Input is one of the major points of MIA). I guess it all sum up with: 1.Be aware that bad habits can develop (this should be enough to prevent someone to develop those habits and to become more active in the learning process) 2. Limit your speaking output by trying to talk only with people that will correct you (i.e: online teachers) 3. Immerse yourself with loads of weekly inputs. I am not against the MIA, but I am just adding a different opinion to the debate. Keep it up Matt, I think you are doing an awesome work.

is the video like half a second off from the audio or am I just tripping? Anyway great content as always!

I'm a beginner in learning Japanese, but I talk in Japanese with my neighbors more or less every day. My neighbors are native japanese and willing to correct my output..... Is it still alright to continue conversing in Japanese with them daily?

Damn thats a cool shirt.

I think it depends. I knew a girl who inputted from day 1 with natives, and passed n1 in 2 yrs, and can now also trick natives like matt. Ofc she was lucky enough to be dating a native who correct every. Single. Thing. She did wrong xD. Also never touched anki and only used textbooks. Any method can work but if your shy like moi and find it hard to find/talk to natives who will do that for ya, then doing what matt said is a.ok!

lol, that thumbnail

4:13 list spread lines?

But is it okay to mimic? I use a spectrograph

i got curious about MIA a few days ago, by the idea i heard of how babies have a pre-existing pattern-matching parts of their brain that learn language through lots of input. but babies also do a whole lot of early output, too ... so what makes lots of early input good but early output bad? is the idea "it's good to learn languages the way babies learn languages" flawed?

damn really liked the video + thumbnail! thanks !!

nice shirt bro!

I agree more input than output does help the language process alot but I also disagree with the inherent motive- avoiding as mistakes. Mistakes are inevitable and its this mentality that inhibited me from speaking and still makes me nervous and stumble time to time around natives despite being fairly fluent (B2 speaking- C1 comprehension) in my second language. Truth is we will continue making mistakes and I find boldly making those mistakes out in the open makes it quicker for them to be corrected rather than avoiding output until I am certain. I dont believe you fossilize mistakes- kids say the wrong thing for years and eventually through both exposure and direct correction they improve. True input is key to acquisition, but I think early output has its place in active learning.

When ever playing an online game Russians never want to talk to me lol

I just started the MIA like a month ago with Japanese and man... I am so happy every time I understand something in an anime :D. At first I hadn't much time to immerse so I just did "Lazy Kanji". Now I turned up my exposure to at least 2 hours a day. My question ist: How to start on getting reading input? As I usually don't read mangas or japanese books. What is a good source for beginner friendly reading content (which is also used by natives)? Keep this concept and the MIA website going Matt. I think you have potentially discovered a language concept that will be the standard in 50 years. I do also believe true native like level can be reached allmoast just through exposure (how else would babys do it?)

If I'm honest, I feel about everything I say in Chinese is unnatural, but I'm in an immersion program and speak all day every day. Meanwhile, they're teaching us formal language when I don't even know how to converse naturally in everyday language. Weird situation, but I pay extra attention to how the teachers say things.

Zen matt too op!

Moving to japan in a month, so I’ve got no choice. Got a few months of MIA listening in before that at least. I’ve decided it’s really silly to not output or try to reduce output out of some dream of perfect fluency in the future. Why the hell move to japan if not to speak and interact and connect as much as possible.

Isn't reading some kind of "internal outputting"? I mean, you couldn't get bad grammar habits from it, but what about pronunciation? Since you read it silently to yourself, is it possible to get used to a wrong pronunciation of some words even if you are just imagining how they should be pronounced?

Refreshing as so many language learners these days say that you must speak as early as possible and as much as possible to get fluent...I'm sure it works for some people but not me....doesn't make sense to me.

安心した

3:34

This is an interesting perspective on this. Hmm, I sometimes have written KZfaq comments in Japanese to practice, but maybe I should give that a rest for a bit, or simply just remind myself "even if they understand, I'm still probably messing up." I do lot's of listening as well, I need to catch up on reading though.

Rest in peace laoshu

(yes, love the beard - thirsty subscriber )

Thanks Matt, but ultimately I'm in this to have fun and don't mind coming off as a funny foreigner. So I don't care.

Yo Matt, I've been using the Antimoon/AJATT/MIA method with Arabic and have for almost three months after using other methods and I must say, it's by far the superior approach for the serious learner in it for the long haul. However, I adjust the approach as needed to suit my strengths and motivation. My only hesitancy in using the approach was jeez, it seem to attract a bunch of Eminem - like Stan characters, who spend most of the time spewing hate against other approaches, and riding you hard (pun intended). To be clear, MIA is a serious, tedious, consistent commitment of the daily grind of putting in major work in expectation of a very delayed reward. Not everyone has the personality, temperament, or stamina to see it thru, to that end, it seems destined to be a underground type, fringe method. I mean yeah, even some of your most extreme fans, the geeky, extra introverted, weeaboos ones, immersing in their mom's basement, sliding Cheetos under their output gag order covering their mouth, spending more time with Anki, then a female, whacking off to anime in between anki reps, can't even see it thru at times and vicariously live through you. Geeky and Hardcore are not synonymous terms. Again Matt, I love the approach, your insights are amazing but due to the hardcore nature of the method, you won't be as popular as the instant gratification methods types, flooding the market compounded with your obsessive stalkers alienating, potentially interested people. I would recommend you think about and develop a two- tiered approach, which caters to the hardcore type but also a more moderate approach as well, for those with less testicular fortitude. I know this maybe difficult to develop without compromising the quality result. However, it will grow your channel and in turn your income. Do you think something like this is possible? God bless

Aren't the problems you see with early output easily solved through feedback? Isn't that the whole point of having a teacher who can provide quality feedback? i.e. to prevent the growing pains from cementing into bad habits?

list, spread, lines. Lol, amazing example.

いいね 坂本龍馬😙

You look like MIA Jesus with your pose in this video, and that beautiful beard. You're preaching to the masses haha Thanks for the video as always my dude

T-shirt

Don't you the word collocation?

i mean, do you don't like pismleur ? cause they teach how to speak ,and start speaking the language from the start.

Do a "how fast can you learn Spanish" video challenge.

I want you an Lydia Machova to hav a debate because she says almost the opposite

RIP LAOSHU50500!!!!!!!

Douuu