How to Immerse: Listening

Active vs. Passive Immersion: What's the Ideal Ratio?: • Active vs. Passive Imm...
How to extract audio with Subs2srs: • How to Extract Audio f...
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• Mac Demarco - No Other...
• Mac Demarco - For The ...
• Mac DeMarco // On The ...
• Mac DeMarco // This Ol...

[@mattvsjapan]

*I thought of better names for the different types of immersion!* Active immersion → Active immersion (no change) Partially active immersion → passive immersion Passive immersion → Background immersion Sorry for the confusion! In the future, I am going to be using these new names.

[@Shoudori]

Mhm. It's gonna take a while to get used to, but definitely.

[@drsolomon6038]

@Dário III I think it will count as passive immersion. But when you move your focus to the game(it's inevitable) it will be background immersion

[@Chrisosaurusrex]

The new names introduce ambiguity, now when someone says “passive immersion” (e.g. in the comments) are they referring to partially active or background? There is also the problem of terminology alignment, the term “passive immersion” is already widely used by others in the language learning community. Changing names is a hard problem.

[@chicxulub2947]

subconscious

[@Jacob488.4]

this guy is why i am here i am here for the passive immersion

[@heathhillier8660]

Notes: › make immersion easy › don't compromise sleep for passive immersion › use content by natives for natives › natural speech over songs etc.

[@gc1599]

Don’t compromise sleep for background immersion*

[@Chironexe]

what's sleep

[@Anna1fofinha1]

@@Chironexe lol

[@boiboi7717]

don't forget the most important step: > watch anime

[@gamalielbontilao3679]

@@boiboi7717 anime isn't really effective but I agree

[@VoxStoica]

For a time I tried sleeping to Pimsleur Mandarin lessons. Once I left a single Italian lesson in the playlist by mistake. When the Italian lesson started I immediately woke up.

[@user-ti2zo5fl3k]

Yeah, I’d be scared of Mario too.

[@JasonTubeOffical]

Yeah man Italians wake me up as well

[@ethanirish841]

I’m trying to listen to this video but I can help but jamming to the Mac Demarco in the background

[@tlenbit]

Yeah, or maybe it’s because Italians basically scream when they talk

[@crunchymushy]

LOL

[@sonicesoap9318]

song lyrics get stuck in your head, when you learn words later on those catchy lyrics come back and make sense, cant get it out your head. Music is a great way to learn tbh

[@doc9448]

I made this exact comment and then scrolled down and saw this. Music is great. The vocab is becomes so sticky.

[@MarsellaFyngold]

Yesss, I 100% agree. I get why he says you should prioritize natural speech over songs though, the pronunciation is for sure different, but I think that's also why he doesn't disregard/discourage using music all together is because it can be so effective in its own way.

[@MaximusDomina]

I absolutely agree with you. I'm experiencing it with German now. The words I learn through the songs I can't forget anymore even if I try 😂

[@gabrielcosta1159]

@@MaximusDomina Hey I'm also learning German.. do u have any songs recommendations?

[@katya_fhs]

Something that I find with music is that many languages are deceptively easier to pronounce when singing than when trying to speak. So yeah, it's a good way to remember things, but I wouldn't make it my main source of immersion. For Mandarin, which is the language I'm learning now, another disadvantage is that the singing doesn't allow for correct tones to be sounded out. So music is a nice mnemonic tool, but yeah, it has its fallbacks.

[@ramblingrobot4599]

I wouldn't listen while sleeping. I've always heard that sound decreases the quality of your sleep even if you can sleep through it. And getting enough sleep is absolutely crucial for learning to take place.

[@KabooM1067]

If you keep it on the whole time, probably yea. I use my phone to stop the music exactly 2 hours later and I wake up well rested most of the time. And when I sleep while watching anime, I dream in Japanese. I've only tried it three times so far because it's hard to fall asleep to enthusiastic anime dialogue unless I'm very tired I can't open my eyes. I even dream of people I know speaking Japanese inside the dream and I understand a lot of what they're saying (but not everything) and I actually learned some words by remembering them in my dreams and then looking them up lol. I later come back to the episode and find out the people in my dream were just parroting the anime dialogues.

[@scotmcpherson]

A good way to fall asleep is to use an MP3 player like the nano so you don’t have the urge to crack open your eyes to see what’s happening on the TV.

[@adeliaforsteri3683]

Maybe asmr...?

[@bostonrules222]

Crucial for life man

[@zoes7986]

@@adeliaforsteri3683 yess I listen to Chinese asmr every night

[@ashaman8567]

I started just having Russian playing in the background all the time, and I’m surprised at how much it’s helping. I’m barely paying attention and yet I’m noticing many new patterns and reinforcing known patterns in the language. Don’t underestimate passive listening!

[@russianperson7587]

Haha.. Lucky..

[@user-cg7cv9iu7x]

Привет. Почему решил учить русский? Просто любопытно...

[@_capu]

I watched tons of anime and never catched up anything. Depends on the person I guess

[@MrOnion-js1ls]

@@_capu it won't help if you don't know the language at all. You need to have some basic knowledge at least. Immersion works the best when you are at the intermediate level.

[@EvoGoody]

Liar.

[@Phantom_madman]

i aprove of the mac demarco songs in the background

[@ghostg6107]

Totally. I thought it was some old school anime music and always looked forward to that part in each video.

[@OVXX666]

ikr i was surprised

[@juliustheillustrious7727]

How do you don't get DMCA'd? That's interesting....

[@sumperdeph]

thought I recognized it, I knew the song but couldn't remember which band it was. Thanks man

[@blackdeth-uo9mx]

I will copy and paste this because I really need an answer. What is a RTK equivalent to Chinese? Or if there is a better method, what?

[@dal_luna]

This KZbinr is really a treasure trove wow it’s so ??? Interesting and helpful

[@kaidoloveboat1591]

I am the globglogabgalab, and I love books, and this basement is a true treasure trove.

[@Retog]

Kaido Love Boat no

[@felipecarrer8057]

One thing that I feel helped me a lot when trying to achieve a more advanced listening level was to actively listen to rap songs, learn their meaning and memorize the lyrics. Even if the words are not spoken as a day to day conversation, often times it will be actually harder, and you can get more used to recognizing when words tend to blend during rapid speech.

[@thaihm]

I watch Chinese historical drama...I’ve heard the word to rise so many times when the Emperor tells his subjects to get up. Now I understand it, hear it and sometimes say it. So I agree with the passive listening. Great points! 🙏🏼👍🏽

[@user-mi2hs5or5r]

臣理也

[@josephine2202]

What you said about the mind still paying attention to sounds while you’re asleep reminded me of one time when I was sleeping on a hotel trip with my family, and halfway through a normal dream the characters in the dream started cooking something. After a while I woke up, and found out that my family had turned on the TV while I was still asleep and were watching a cooking show. The recipe I was cooking in my dream was the exact same one that the people on TV were making. Like down to the exact same ingredients. So I don’t think it’s so far fetched of an idea that your brain could use information you gain while sleeping. It’s definitely possible.

[@ani-so1uk]

The same thing sorta happened to me. I was sleeping & dreaming about a snail. All of a sudden, the snail started screaming. Ofc, I tried to shut the snail up but it wouldn't be quiet. Eventually, I woke up to find it was my little brother screaming like a madman.

[@SebXAM]

bro the problem is you are going to be tired after doing that, it's better sleep correctly.

[@sheep4483]

I actually always do this, I'm a very heavy sleeper and never wake up to noise, but any noise I hear is always in my dreams, like daily

[@HitchcockBrunette]

Wow, this is incredible!

[@FreedomVengeance]

I think its best to listen a Japanese song that you like and willing to take the time to read the lyrics. Even in English songs, I can't understand what they're saying until I read the lyrics. A good example of this is some of Devotchka's song

[@SpencerLemay]

Leave Renai Circulation on loop

[@Ryosuke1208]

I suggest reading the lyrics just a few times for context and then after that try to connect the sounds you hear to what you read.

[@kaemincha]

My Korean listening, writing, and comprehension skills improved quite a bit from writing down and translating song lyrics!

[@themasked_senshi4521]

ありがとうございます

[@sleystad872]

どいたしまして

[@mickmcjapanese2901]

@@sleystad872fyi it's *どう

[@BritVsJapan]

Good stuff Matt. You explained it all really well. The cracks are great opportunities. The amount of times I've had where I've switched to paying attention to Japanese, just because it's there, and then having learnt a new word or phrase was quite common.

[@languagepepe2855]

come back senpai

[@maniravandi5983]

This guy is the best option to learn from.he's a real role model for language learners.i learned english olny with series.so this method makes sense.as he said it before language learning is not like learning math.

[@markeugenelopez1407]

I agree. Great job Matt

[@maniravandi5983]

@Daxt Mori exactly. Sometimes I don't translate that much cuz I'm already learning words with anki. Just learn words with anki and then through immersion you'll be fine. The key is to choose content that u really enjoy. In the beginning you can also use subtitle in the target language.

[@guywhoasked903]

@@maniravandi5983 hey man im doing almost the same thing as u did . May I ask how is your progess?

[@tsunderesama9967]

I recently spent all my cash on an Mp3 player, I'm using it all the time for immersion so I definitely don't regret blowing all my money on it. Thanks Matt.

[@chraosta]

Bruh😩

[@marunomi]

Did you regret blowing all your money into it?

[@kamikoto1558]

@@marunomi he literally said he didn't...

[@marunomi]

@@kamikoto1558 That was 2 years ago. I'm asking about now.

[@autentyk5735]

ALL your cash? On an mp3 player?

[@kadenhariri6645]

Passive listening is an interesting thing. Sometimes I will passively fall asleep to slower/more chill Japanese music and sometimes an English song or two will slip in there by mistake and I instantly wake up the second they play! It’s like my brain’s gears are turning to understand Japanese and when the English comes along, it alerts my brain that something is different and I wake up. Very interesting. Passive listening is just as crucial as the other two, I believe. After my Anki studies, sometimes there’s words I don’t understand the complete context of, and then I’ll be passively listening to something where that word is used and it just clicks.

[@ariah5093]

I’ve been following ajatt for a year and I’m completely blown away by my progress. Thanks Matt

[@YogaBlissDance]

Babies and children (and thus our brains) are primed to hear language in the background too! It's like swimming in the sea of the language, so I do think it's important too- as you say.

[@SuperFlamethrower]

You really needed to cover: "Should I Look Things Up?" and "What Should I Actually Be Doing While Actively Listening?" because the title of the video is how to. You covered well how to do the non-active listening.

[@badgermanization]

I would normally be sceptical about passive listening and I still am when it comes to going to sleep but this video made me realise that I do passive listening all the time. I often have German radio in the background when doing other work and even though I'm not paying much attention to it, it has definitely helped me get used to the flow of the language and pick up bits of vocabulary here and there.

[@stardust-reverie]

silly possibly relevant anecdote about the sleeping thing: once i fell asleep while listening to wonderwall on repeat for some reason. the song then appeared over and over again in my dreams that night

[@_capu]

Well yea when you are dreaming things you hear in the real life comes up sort of, like if you're slacking off and sleeping at 10 oclock there's good chances you will get parts of your family whose near by doing things or talking in your current dream

[@GlitchPredator]

I think for me what is helpful about songs is that you remember lines in the song that have a certain meaning and that helps with grammar and understanding. Btw: Thanks for the video. It's helpful as always

[@BrettVano]

You’re a smart guy! Thank you for the info and inspiration. I can see myself applying this to my music teaching as well.

[@gabriel_af]

I've watched 5 of your videos in a row since I watched your interview on Dogen's channel, I was already liking your channel then I listen Mac Demarco music on the background. You've got my respect, man.

[@mskyba]

Damn this is such a good video, the things you talk about are really helpful and you explain them so well without repeating yourself a million times or stretching it out like a lot of other channels do

[@ulisesalexis1176]

In my case, i have been studying japanese and in my free time I listen to japanese stuff (ASMR, Vtubers, news) and it helps me to identify words and figure out phrases, it is really helpful

[@redshots5275]

Immersing consistently in your target language is like listening to a radio station with a garbled signal. At first, only a few words stick out, but as you listen more and more, the signal becomes clearer and clearer.

[@yogakudaigaku]

A lot of digital radios let you listen to radio from Japan, quite literally. That can be a bit garbled too ;)

[@ileana2901]

this was so useful and full of information, i didnt expect this

[@doc9448]

I've found listening to music to be really helpful, especially starting out. It can teach you a lot of great vocabulary that ends up being really sticky because the song is catchy.

[@PatChatGC]

I like the idea of the 3 folders things... once I watch something I always delete it so I haven't gotten much new passive immersion, only older things... maybe I should start doing that!

[@AdityaVerma-314]

This is definitely one of your most important videos!

[@avaorpilla]

one thing that helped me is if you know anyone who speaks the language you’re learning, to be around them. my family speaks spanish but i don’t, so in learning, i tell them to speak it around me and i pick up certain things here and there

[@cathconnelly]

I know this video is older now, but I want to add that, I recently started studying Japanese in earnest. I have passively tried learning it for years, but just this year have really dedicated myself to learning. And I agree 1000% with what Matt is saying about listening to music. I have been listening to Japanese music since 2000, collecting albums of my favorite artists, and constantly looking for new indie releases. And I don't think I have ever learned anything truly useful in conversational Japanese from listening to hundreds if not thousands of hours of music. The best use I found for music was when learning my kana. I would write down the lyrics of my favorite songs in hiragana (and later katakana). Since I knew the lyrics phonetically all I had to do was remember the kana I was teaching myself!

[@szilagyimiklos4757]

I am listening to 25 audiobooks and podcasts simultaneously

[@trapsenpai]

lmao what

[@Deckbark]

Name all the books your listening

[@babbonatale6342]

In my experience, passive listening is good to review. For example, I listen it at work( I am alone, my job is very simple and repetitive) I do not understand most of it, but recognize and try to shadow what words or phrases I already understand, as well as recognizing that the speaker said something I understood.

[@jaerodriguez7990]

Great video Matt! I find that I kind of apply this technique when learning musical pieces -- I sing in the choir. I do spend time deliberately studying notes in the music sheet, but I also spend a great deal of time just playing the midi file of the tenor line in the background while doing something else. Sometimes I get too busy in my job that I cannot find time to deliberately study. But I am often surprised that during weekly choir rehearsals, I still can sing parts of the songs which I only learned passively or "subconsciously". It's almost like my auditory-vocal apparatus has its own memory!

[@TonyMichaelHead]

Love the separate mp3 player advice. Buying one today! Also just want to say, I just discovered your channel and can relate to so much of your experience with learning Japanese. I too had discovered and used the AJATT method religiously (anki, rtk, the sentence mining, the non stop listening) for 5 years, starting back in 2008. I really like your perspective on the immersion method and I think you do a fantastic job avoiding some of the common traps (especially psychological) that can be experienced using the AJATT method. After taking a 3 year sabbatical in the language, I'm super excited to pick up where I left off and start immersing again. Your channel is becoming a big motivation and refreshing perspective on how to continue learning, and taking the best parts of the AJATT philosophy while leaving some of the cruft behind. Thanks again brother!

[@eduardoktg8683]

How is your journey going?

[@oshiage_]

Thank you so much for making these videos! I was super inspired by the way you present AJATT, and your 3 hour video spoke right to me regarding seeing learning Japanese and eventually living there as a way to solve all my problems. I just bought a small mp3 player and loaded lots of news audio on it, and am really determined to improve my Japanese, as a way to prove to myself that I can do it. Also I just started reading The Mind Illuminated and although not seeing huge benefits yet it certainly is relaxing, thank you so much for bringing all these positive influences to our lives :)

[@mattvsjapan]

Thank you so much!!! Keep meditating, the true benefits take a while to come ;D

[@yepyepyep3]

Well explained! I spent some time on immersion, but definitely not enough. Too much Anki and focus on numbers, like new cards. Just got a used iPod Nano 6 for $33 :)

[@MituButChi]

I really hope every video of MIA has CC, so that non-native English speakers like myself could fully understand what's in the video.

[@gabylopez6990]

Very useful Mattt, thanks

[@Rooonga]

I’ve just started learning Turkish and have set my VPN to Turkey. Now all my add on KZbin are in Turkish. After just a few days I’m already noticing words I know. I also listen to lessons in my sleep. Well, I’m listening as I drop off and when I wake. No idea if it’s working, but it certainly can’t hurt.

[@budekins542]

Hugely useful advice!

[@scotmcpherson]

I bought a 7th gen nano, pink because I knew that color was at least made as recently as 2015. I am glad I did. Since I am still in the early phases of immersion, I am listening to audio rips of sazae, a really common and loved by families children’s cartoon. It’s the longest single running cartoon in the world.

[@josephmetzinger159]

Hey I think this is all good advice. I am kind of like Matt in that when I listen to a song, I tend not to pay attention at all to the words, but just engage with the melody. So I can hum to whistle 100s of songs, but really know the lyrics to only a few. However, I think singing a song with the lyrics can help you get some feel for the sound of the language and it's structure. I think this is more important at the beginning stages of learning a new language. So my take on it, is to learn some songs your really like and sing them often so you memorize them. I think this might be a useful technique, though I would spend a lot more time on other learning tools

[@williambudd2630]

The thing that makes immersion work is the fact that there is always a small amount of comprehensibility to learn from. It may seem neglible but it is still there.

[@alissongameplays9989]

Ja conssigo ler hiragana, estou aprendendo ler katakana, escrever so depois de muito tempo. Estou focando em aprender o maximo de frases e estruturas possiveis e depois que souber ja bastante coisa vou começar testar minha compreençao ouvindo japoneses falando, até pq do que adianta eu ouvir e nao entender nada? Vc que ta estudando um idioma, vc pode! Eu posso! Nos podemos ser fluentes! Nunca desista daquilo que te faz bem❤

[@grupocelebremos1]

In love of ur background music

[@godaininja]

Audio, specifically talking helps me sleep for whatever reason, I tend to just play audio on my iPad and put it upside down on the floor next to my bed so the light doesn’t keep me awake, I struggle to sleep normally but audio helps, I’ve recently started listening to Japanese rather than English, only done a couple of days so far, so can’t really comment on my experience yet.

[@sweatybabypowderhands843]

How's the Japanese sleep immersion going? I've wanted to try it but I'm afraid it will mess up my sleep.

[@danieljones3327]

I’ve been passively listening to my target language for a few months now. And quite a few of those hours have been with music. It’s weird but when I first started the language sounded funny to me but after having done this for weeks with songs I really like while I do not understand what is being said the words being spoken are familiar to me. And I’vw actually learned a few words through albeit some of them we’re slang. What I have noticed is that whether it be a podcast or music im listening to, you don’t just automatically become fluent through it. You have to understand the meaning of each word or phrase. This kind of technique is mostly just to help you get the accent right or hear more words or reinforce words you already understand.

[@MarsellaFyngold]

=o for listening while I sleep I try to pick something relaxing. I like guided meditations in my target language for sleep-listening but there's also a few podcasts out there who're super chill and mild when they talk, no sudden changes in volume or cadence of speech.

[@mgktts]

I feel that i get more out of pasive listening since i can do it for more hours, active listening is absolutely good but an only be done a certain amount of time verry usefull but draining, and if not carefull it can be hurtfull. i take breaks from both to not burn out and yes i have burned out it took months to come back to Japane. I love Japanese, and to not force it (Didnt realize that i did) and go for fun and variety has helped imensly. Allso class does help and i do think it is fun.

[@zahleer]

Partially active inmersion is simply great. I learned Italian just by listening to podcasts (My dude @Podcast Italiano is just the best) and I can tell you that it helps a lot. Also Compelling listening and Stories have helped me a lot in English, where I feel like at a C1.

[@noornoor7441]

Thanks a lot Matt Your personal experience will help other language learners like me In my case its english

[@pawliq88pawlica71]

Actually I am using your videos to immerse myself in English language! I'd say mostly do active listening but every so often partially active as well. Quite frankly I dont find passive listening useful, but that is just me.

[@pinkavyek]

Learning Mandarin and this was still a good watch, thanks

[@user-oi4ed2fw8n]

Learning English through your videos is a good thing bro)

[@whitenoise0303]

you are a Gem info on your channel is gold

[@emdouble]

ur so pretty ♥️

[@josuedavidlapazfeliz124]

Thanks ivan for the spanish subtitles my native language is spanish ♥️

[@jimmlygoodness]

This is great stuff. Thank you!

[@tsunderesama9967]

Because of another one of your videos I stopped using Wanikani and switched to Heisig for learning kanji. I am also going to start with AJATT. I have about 6 years before going to Japan so hopefully I'll be fluent or near fluent by that time. Luckily I was just level 3 on Wanikani, so I haven't wasted that much time on it before switching to Heisig. Thanks.

[@scoshi6592]

Hi lol any updates? How’s AJATT doing

[@NintendoProMain]

Why six

[@futurez12]

Just rewatching some of your videos Matt. 6:14 I think this is even _more_ true than we suspect it might be. I've noticed a few things when I simply try to understand content (for 3+ hours/day over a period of weeks/months): 1. I dream in the language, or at least I babble like a baby in my sleep. 2. I get more frequent/significant breakthroughs further down the line. 3. Words in my target language sometimes beat my native language, and I have to stop myself from saying them whilst having a conversation. I truly believe there's a lot to be said of taxing your brain by working hard on a specific task for a period of time. Like you, I'm convinced that the brain continues working on the problem at a subconsious level, particularly during sleep. I also think that it doesn't shut off for a good while after the period of work. I think this is why we experience an unexpected leap forward after taking a break for x week/months - we would have improved more had we continued to work, but it would've been imperceptable to us because the improvements are tiny (on a daily basis) and thus go unoticed (for the most part), whereas we notice them after a month+ away from it. This should tell us that our brains continued to work on figuring things out during the time of inactivity. It's almost like magic, and it does feel that way sometimes. I'm sure a lot of language learners would agree.

[@hesikichan3505]

Just discovered this talented man!｡◕‿◕｡

[@Squilfinator]

I tend to lucid dream from time to time, and often times i have a low level awareness that im sleeping/dreaming even if im not fully lucid. Since studying Japanese, I've been aware of my mind repeating japanese words and phrases while i sleep. It was like my subconscious mind practicing my japanese. Even when the things going on in my dreams were unrelated. I wasn't even listening to anything while i sleep, but it was my mind working on the things i learned that day.

[@EvaRadio]

Great set of videos. New sub

[@baronvonbeandip]

12:08 Ohoho, you think I'm gonna get bored of Monogatari? Fool! How dare you underestimate me! EDIT1: I'm on my 22nd listen through and, combined with the subs2srs deck I made of the whole series; I am convinced I will have the entire script memorized in a couple years

[@asahel980]

my foothold in learning english is watching hollywood movies with subtitles since basic reading of my native language is same with the english languages with little adjustments as you go on and reading books it took me at least 4 years to be fluent and I didnt really seriously study because my surroundings are bilingual

[@HibaHima-ji4nb]

I just discovered that I am practicing passive listening by listening to a KZbin video while reading comments like now lol thanks a lot

[@evagenesiz7802]

Hope this work and i noticed that by watching youtube videos it help my english too. Vise versa ~

[@MultiNilsNils]

Love the MacDemarco in the background :)

[@charondolls]

I'm partially & actively listening to your videos whilst working on my art. :D

[@silentbranch]

ON THE LEVEL

[@NotSoMelancholy]

I can agree with the idea of passive listening actually being beneficial. You can compare it to decision making. They say we’re asleep when we’re awake, because you’re conscious thinking only makes up like 1% of your brain’s activity. It’s your subconscious that’s really controlling what you’re doing and basically taking in events, storing and organizing them and deciding what to do based on them.

[@thanh684]

Hi Matt, thanks for uploading videos like these. I was just wondering, do you have any advice or specific tips for active listening? For example, how much time should be devoted to it, and during these sessions what the focus should be?

[@mattvsjapan]

Check out my video called "on input"

[@Lodororada]

It's nice to see a new great video. Given that in the video you show that you watch videos as active listening, do you also actively listen to podcast? Do you suggest to shadow some phrases?

[@mattvsjapan]

Thanks! "The only rule is by natives for native's, but it's best so listen to things you can understand". Yes, that would include podcasts, radio shows, and much more. In my video "Hating on "Fluent Japanese From Anime" Pt.2", I explain why I think that shadowing is not an effective technique!

[@kevinjackson746]

Thanks again, Matt. Are still on KZbin?

[@fmaylinch]

Interesting tips. I must say that music is useful for me, and fun. :)

[@_capu]

For your immersion timing, you said to do a 1 week interval, by putting new stuff in your active immersion loop, the next week putting it in the passive imersion loop. And for the week after that, do you delete the content from 2 weeks ago and replace it with the new one, or do you keep it for several weeks in your passive immersion loop ? I guess that anyway it's better to think on it depending on our own consumed content quantity, like if there's not much each week, deleting it 2 weeks after wouldn't make much sense because each week would be pretty empty in content. But I though asking the question could be interesting to have your insights on this. Cheers

[@user-jt8eg6bx2x]

Thanks to the author of the video! The most important thing in life is knowledge of foreign languages! Thanks to foreign languages you can realize all your dreams and realize your grandiose ambitions! I would like to recommend all the practices of Yuriy Ivantsiv ''Polyglot Notes. Practical tips for learning foreign language". This book will be an indispensable helper, a handbook for every person who studies a foreign language! This book contains invaluable tips, questions and answers, and solutions to problems faced by anyone who studies a foreign language! Knowledge is power! And knowledge of foreign languages is your power multiplied by many times! Success to all in self-development!

[@cloudybrains]

The advantage of music is its replayability. I can only watch a KZbin video or an episode from a show 2-3 times before being really bored with it. Whereas over the course of a few weeks I can listen to the same song more than 30x. And because a song has memorable melodies, when you happen to recognize a word in a song it becomes recognizable almost immediately.

[@d0xter742]

depends on the genre. even the most comprehensible music in my TL is still hardly understandable. not only is grammar thrown by the wayside most of the time, so is articulation.

[@Palademon]

I have managed the 24/7 even whilst sleeping listening. Probably because I used to listen to things to fall asleep a lot previously. I would warn people to however find a better way of keeping earphones on your head whilst you sleep and not surgical tape like me. I totally think passive listening is invaluable, especially early on because common words will just build up to the point where you can't not hear them clearly even though you didn't know you were doing it You certainly deserve a small patreon fund from me at the least. I stopped all others to focus on AJATT, and the discord would be nice in the post-nyaa situation of a million old things gone forever. I'll just stop looking at it if I get too distracted by conversation.

[@Kim_E]

Did you stick with ajatt? If so how is ur japanese now after over 2 years?

[@Palademon]

@@Kim_E I understand Japanese now. Pretty much anything that isn't using very specific vocab I can easily consume. I was basically done at 8k sentences. I could probably get more but I don't read many novels. I can output okay but I'm still learning to correctly pick up Pitch Accent.

[@jon9428]

@@Palademon Its very encouraging to see your comment two years later. I'm on that grind now.

[@almi3391]

@@Palademon hey man, how you been since that comment? Anyways, how is it going with japanese now?

[@TorkoalFx]

Hey Matt, amazing video, congrats man. Just found your channel these days and I'm pretty much liking it! This is the first time I am having serious contact with the AJATT method (as you sad in other video, Khatzumoto made the website pretty weird just for trying to sell his stuff, so when i first acessed it, I was like "what the heck of website is this?" and didn't find myself interested on it), and I am finding it very useful and in some ways very similar to what I alredy do. But the thing is that I'm a brazillian and I am actually to trying to learn both English and Japanase at the same time. I have alredy studied English for like, 4 years (yeah, the traditional method), so I am pretty much used to the language and I consider myself almost fluent, if not. Although, I still have to keep practicing it and polish some stuff. What I mean, is that I can't actually do 100% percent japanese immersion. Dispite of this, I've been studying japanese for about 7 months alredy and using a "light AJATT" method without even knowing it. I think it's been working really well for me, as i often find myself impressed with how much japanese I know. Anyway, what I want to know is your opinion about studying two languages at the same time as an AJATT'er. Thank you for for the video!

[@sakuraikeizo]

I believe active recall is the most effective learning method even for listening. The best way to recall sounds is to imitate after you listened to native speech sounds.

[@Rocksteady72a]

What would you recommend as the most reliable way to download these shows?

[@tooturnt8824]

should you listen while doing SRS? or would that be bad because its passive listening? Should I do short spans of watching a movie? Sometimes I get a little bit bored but I can actually see every day that I'm hearing more and more words also half of phrases after about a week of watch tv show/movies. (i've been listening to music before watching tv shows mindlessly).

[@Money_Man55]

as someone who has listened to japanese while sleeping. i can say 100% your brain is still lsitening when your sleeping. i remeber having dreams completely in japanese, of everyone speaking in japanese while i was playing 7h of ann news

[@alonsor.n2279]

Im glad i can understand english so i can learn japanese lol Besides your pronunciation is very clear, thanks for that and the info!

[@k.l.p.c]

Nice! I wanna try this out with the separate device for just listening to Japanese all day. But how can I get japanese stuff on the ipod etc? I think of connecting it to spotify, but this I already use on my phone for the normal music.

[@hamzakarabag6786]

Should i listen podcasts in first stages? They are handy since they are free in jp itunes but i only can understand their reactions ( really, i dont think so and stuff) and not the stuff they are talking. Is that OK or should i wait a lil bit more and go with anime audio?

[@mattvsjapan]

Podcasts are fine. Whatever you like, really

[@devsmith5025]

Hi Matt. I recently found your videos and definitely wanted to give the AJATT method a shot - However, even with your tips I'm not quite sure how to best get started. The problem here is that I don't have much free time at all since learning Japanese is a goal of mine, but not a priority when compared to my other studies and work (Even if I wanted to make it the top priority, I couldn't career-wise). I therefore try to spend about 1-2h daily (basically all the free time I have) of active "learning", although I often spend a lot of time just looking for resources to learn from, which wastes quite a bit of time. Now, since my comment is about the AJATT method, I just wanted to know if you knew of any websites or databases or anything where I could download heaps of material kind of tailored towards certain levels? I do not watch anime and will not have the time to do so, and if I have to prep all audio by myself I'm guessing that that will eat up my "active learning" time quite a bit. This is mainly in terms of listening. For reading, I try go through NHK Easy News articles every now and then, although my Japanese level is still so low that even that is very hard. Any advice on where I could get my audio, or even text, supply from without having to spend too much time looking for it? That'd be great. (ps: Also, what do you think of trying to translate sentences? Everyday I just try to translate 4-5 sentences of my native language (gotten either out of curiosity or a random sentence generator) into Japanese, and while I don't really have any way to see if they're correct, I do know when they are definitely wrong) Thanks a lot!

[@kamikoto1558]

I was about to start rewatching nisekoi without subs but halfway through, despite understanding a lot of it albeit roughly, I wanted to rewatch it in subs. Would you say watching an episode with eng subs and then watching it raw is beneficial? Or maybe watching a few eps and then the respective eps in raw. Or maybe have a day inbetween rewatching the episode in raw? I was thinking this could also help me understand more as the last time I watched it was like 5 years ago.

[@sumperdeph]

having Japanese in the back ground while sleeping is mostly useful in the beginning of learning, as it has shown that your brain mostly just gets more used to the sounds so that it will be easier for you to listen and distinguish the sounds, although there might be a few exceptions. Although it's true that some parts of the brain is listening, it's another kind of listening since sleep changes the "mode" of the brain and a lot of the signals are dampened from your senses, the explanation of waking up to certain things is similar to hearing your name in a noisy environment, the brain filters out things by suppressing signals, but strong connections in your brain will adapt to respond and the signal will be more likely to go through, like your name in a loud environment, as an example most of the things you notice or wake you up to is things that also surprises you because it could be an emergency situation, so those kind of connections are strong so the connection won't be as easily suppressed. getting back to sleep learning, as you sleep your brain re configures your experiences you had in the day, in other words the connections are re configuring that means that the way the signals (that includes the ones from your senses) are more suppressed, if you take your hearing as an example you still process some of it but it wont be as connected to language center as when you are awake, but of course the more familiar the connections are they will be stronger and might be more likely for the signals to enter the language center and your dream (very unusual sounds can still go through though), but as you are sleeping it won't be processing the information the same way (might also be true to background listening to some degree), that said there might be some parts of your brain more connected to process them while you sleep. You also have to consider that there is a spectrum of lucid dreaming in the sense that you become more conscious to specific things, so that different parts of your brain might process things, more similar to when you are awake, but that also means that you are also disturbing the process of learning since you are engaging those parts of your brain instead of allowing them to re configure more smoothly. You could argue though that it's hard to say which parts are processing and re configuring because of the vast amount of connections in your brain, for example that you still dream with words, but that doesn't exactly mean that you learn the same way by listening to something in you sleep although there might be some amount of learning. It's still unknown though how it's actually works. One thing is certain and that the active learning process will be lessened a lot and that most of the active processing will mostly be in the centers of the senses, like hearing for example will be in the sound processing center, hence the benefit of becoming better at hearing the language because of the connections of the sounds being formed and that means diminishing returns, since the connections will already formed at some point. As a conclusion there might be some advantages in the early stages but will more likely disturb your learning in the later stages, a solution could be to set a timer to stop the audio so you can still have some passive listening time while falling asleep without disturbing your sleep too much. Disclaimer I am not educated on the matter other than self education, I am only a scientist by spirit and hobby. Although I have some information from actual studies I'm also filling holes by my own hypotheses, I might have some holes in my knowledge that an actual neurological psychologist would have so take my words with a grain of salt. I'm sorry if the structure isn't optimal I just started writing my ideas down recently.

[@yogakudaigaku]

Would be great to see some studies on the efficacy of learning in sleep. It's the educational shangri-la!

[@YT-Observer]

on music. ... it helps memory connection think about kids learning to sing the alphabet or the periodic table -

[@Harkren]

At 12:23 when you mention 'completing' an episode, I take it that the definition of complete here is relative to the media used, and depth of acquisition of the target language? For example if it is a visual bit of media with plenty of context like an anime episode, you don't necessarily need to 'understand' the majority of it, so long as you have the imagery saved in your mind and you can recall it when listening back to the audio? Would you say the threshold for comprehension has a higher requirement if the media is not visual (for example, a podcast)? If I listened to some audio and understood 50-60% of it, would I have 'completed' it, or should I re-listen with 'active immersion' until my comprehension goes higher up to more comfortable levels like ~80%+ before adding it to my 'passive immersion' stockpile?

[@krsnadasafernandez7105]

How did you improve your pronunciation and also, what age did you start learning japanese? Thanks!

[@ollolool]

Matt should i just start listening or do i have to do some stuff before that?

[@CalebWhitekeyblade]

Hey Matt I’m not quite sure what immersion I should be looking for or if I’m ready for immersion.I’ve only been study words and have racked up thousands but I still feel as the content I’m listening to is too difficult.should I look into grammar? Or focus more hours into immersion,because vocabulary is 3/4 of my Japanese study

[@pedromontano6263]

Hi Matt, I'm an AJATT-MIA beginner and I've no level. What kind of audio should I use to do my listening immersion? All I have is NHK ラヂオ; ダラゴンボオル podcast y and some songs that BritVsJapan recommends...

[@chukfolchart7130]

Hey, I've been studying Japanese for a while but can't break out of beginner level, so I'm prepping to switch to AJATT. My biggest question- where do you download your anime? Is it free or does it cost?