Occasionally I take a break from the mom and hooker jokes and do something even worse: I go way out my decidedly shallow intellectual depth. I think the last time was when we talked about the nature of knowledge — the whole zero-certainty idea (not uncertainty, because that’s a form of reverse-certainty, but zero-certainty, a complete absence of expectation), particularly as it relates to self-confidence and stuff.

This time, it’s back to a more explicitly to a language-related thing. I guess if you were gonna give this a topic name, it might be called a mix of applied linguistics  epistemology and semiotics…But, I don’t even really know what all those words actually mean and I’m just using them to seem intelligent, so…suffice it say that today I’d like to share some ideas with you about speaking, as in speaking Japanese, your adopted language.

Specifically, what I’d like to talk about is how, when it comes to speaking, a lot of times, you hear learners of an L2 lament that they have, or are having, trouble expressing themselves, especially compared to their ability to express themselves in their L1. This is often accompanied by some assertion to the effect that they’ll never be able to express themselves in their L2 as freely and lucidly as they can in their L1 ¹.

But lately I’ve begun to wonder — is that really true? Are you really having a problem expressing yourself in Japanese/whatever your L2 is, or is there something else — something deeper — happening? It’s a simple enough question, but the answer isn’t as straightforward, because, as it turns out, there are actually three or four separate things going on here:

1. Actual linguistic (in)ability issues
   • This is where you’re simply not used to the language, the L2. You’re a relative beginner. So, yeah, your powers of expression are going to be weaker and you fully expect them to be so. Most beginners are accepting of this fact and don’t have too much angst about it ²
2. Unfair comparison to L2
   • This is more of an “intermediate blues” thing. You’re not a beginner, but you’re not good. Yet. So you start to get frustrated. You start to compare multi-decade experience in an L1 to what typically amounts to a few hundred hours’ L2 exposure, an activity that is not only unfair and self-defeating, but also mathematically stupid. This state of affairs can be easily resolved by pointing out the arithmetic of skill, an arithmetic that not even toddlers, with their magical language midi-chlorians</sarcasm>, can escape.
3. Unduly optimistic evaluation of powers of expression in L1
   • This is a more insidious isotope of #2 up there, and it’s not something that’s always as easily resolved by argumentum ad mathematicum ³ because even relatively “advanced” ⁴ learners have this problem, and it’s what I’d actually like to talk about today.

Bottom line: you’re not nearly as good at your native language as you think you are. No, really. Yes, you, girl who always got perfect grades in English class. I can see you over there, guy who both knows what “skeuomorph” means and can spell it correctly without checking. And this is perhaps especially true of people like you, because people have been telling you all your life how awesome you are at “language arts” ⁵, and so now your entire identity, your entire self-concept is wrapped up, coiled all nice and tight in and around the counterfeit totem pole that is your vaunted verbal acuity.

I’m not saying you’re not good at your L1. I’m sure you are. I’m saying that a lot of your precious “expressive power” isn’t expressive power at all. It’s just…a combination of habit, triangulation and resignation.

• Habit: You are in the habit of using your L1. You’re used to it. You’re comfortable in it. You’ve worn a nice groove into it kind of like Homer Simpson’s couch has molded to his buttocks.
• Triangulation: AKA circumlocution. Whenever you can’t express an idea accurately (which is surprisingly often), as in really really hit that nail on the head, like a nothing-but-net swoosh of a three-pointer, you instead express it in terms of what it’s not, what it’s like and what it’s a combination of. In basketball terms, you rebound and use the backboard and pass the ball around and sometimes just throw something up there to beat the shot clock. Sorry, I was playing NBA2k13 the other day on my friend’s iPhone, so…
• Resignation: Without even realizing it, you are resigned to being unable to completely and perfectly express yourself in your L1, your native language. You’ve just accepted it. And you’re so used to accepting it, so habitualized to triangulation and resignation and making do with expressing 80% of what you mean, that you don’t even notice any more. You’re like a cat lady who can no longer smell the cat on herself.

If you ever stopped to think about it, I mean really think about it, you would realize that there are and always have been significant gaps between your thoughts, the ideas and feelings in your head, and the words that come out of your mouth ⁶. But you don’t think. About it. You ignore it and you take your 78~80% L1 powers and treat them as if they were 100~150% and compare them to your L2 and find your L2 self wanting. Well, of course you do! Of course your airbrushed Cameron Diaz linguistic abilities have no acne. You’re not looking at them accurately.

Why the numbers 78% and 80%? No real reason. They just sounded cool and vaguely right. I got the 78% figure from Saito Hitori (on-and-off Japan’s #1 individual taxpayer and therefore one of her richest citizens) who likes to say something to the effect of: “There is no such thing as perfection for humans. There is no 100%. Humans are perfect at 78%. 78% is human perfection” — I’m paraphrasing, but not too wildly. The 80% figure is from the Pareto principle as expressed by Richard Koch in his so-good-it-turns-me-on 80/20 book series.

So the takeaway point here is: make do. When it comes to speaking, make do with the words and phrases you already know — the simpler the better. And you know what’ll happen? You’ll feel better and do better and people will think you are better at Japanese. Weird, huh? How could working less and using less make you seem more awesome? I’m waiting for Alanis Morissette to call me so she can include this situation in the acoustic hip-hop remix of Ironic. If you want to be understood, speak less “accurately”: it’s like rain on your wedding day.

Speaking from personal experience (as if I ever spoke any other way ), as far as your interlocutors are concerned, your worst (i.e. most confusing) conversations in Japanese will be the ones where you tried to express yourself 100% instead of 80%. Why? Well, because your speech will not only be more halting and jarring than is comfortable (even in real, unscripted dialog), but also ridiculously convoluted in its phrasing, because it’s trying to stay 100% loyal to some “original” (usually English-language) thought in your head — in a way that just doesn’t work in Japanese. Better to use the simpler, more natural phrasing that communicates 80% of what you want to say, than aim for some 100% that won’t be reached and isn’t worth reaching for.

You don’t have a language problem, you have a humanity problem. To be human is to be misunderstood ⁷ most of the time and in most places, even by the people who like you, even by yourself. And that’s perhaps part of why we spend so much time and effort communicating: not to eradicate the problem but to mitigate it.

So if you’re a relatively game boy advanced learner, next time you’re frustrated with your speech, don’t fret and try to raise your vocabulary level ⁸: raise your acceptance level instead. Be more accepting of what you’ve got to work with right now. This is similar to though not quite exactly the same as lowering your standards. In any case, fundamentally, your L1 standards are already low; you just didn’t realize that they were low. Until now. Go forth, then. Do yourself a favor. Give yourself the gift of resignation.

Am I saying to speak badly and make mistakes because it’s all good in the ‘hood? No. Not at all. I still hew closely to the AntiMoon advice of only saying things you’re sure are correct ⁹ What I am saying is: say L2 things you are sure are correct ¹⁰ and that you know how to say even if they don’t 100% match what was in your head. Because that’s how you talk in your L1 anyhow.

You don’t have a biological problem, you have a sociological problem. Specifically, a logistics problem. And logistics is a function of infrastructure.

So any issues an able-bodied, sound-minded adult is going to have with learning (getting used to) a language will be entirely due to infrastructure, not linguistics, not biology.

Why?
Well, because even minor inconveniences add up.

For example, a minor SRS annoyance is going to cause major issues, because virtually everything you do on your SRS, you do hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of times. Reps alone are going to be a 5~6-figure proposition. Each rep takes multiple clicks…you can see how things add up.

Similarly, being unable (or under-able) to operate a PC is going to put someone at a disadvantage in that they’ll be unable to leverage information technology to overcome borders and create habitual exposure to the language oh my gosh that was a belabored sentence

Next time you want to blame your biology, your schedule or even your character…
don’t.

You find time to text people you don’t even like, to show off your socioeconomic status to old schoolmates on Facebook, to check your email every 3 seconds instead of doing that one important thing that would actually change your life for the better.

So it’s not time, it’s not DNA and it’s not your supposed lack of discipline.

It could just be that it takes too many clicks to get to something Japanese.
How many clicks away is the nearest Japanese website? Book? Movie?

You’re far less likely to change the channel if the remote is far away.
Even once you have the remote, you’re likely to cluster around a bunch of nearby (adjacent) channels — you’re far more likely to go up and down than to jump out 100 channels; not because you like the nearby channels better, but because they’re the easiest to get to. Because they’re closeby. Because they’re there.
If the metaphorical Japanese remote is too far away and too complex to use, you’re not gonna use it.

File this one under “saying the same thing over and over again”

AJATTeer Jake C shares this little story of how he learned how to use certain Japanese words and phrases before he knew what they actually  (literally) meant, because he was aware of their emotional content. I have had similar experiences myself in both Cantonese and Japanese, but didn’t have a  name for the phenomenon. Now, thanks to Jake, I do (“emotional context learning”, he calls it). It’s definitely one of the benefits of an immersion environment (one primarily based on FUNBUN ¹ media) as opposed to a classroom one — you learn stuff without even trying, at an almost physical, muscular level. Anyway, here’s Jake’s little story:

I feel as though I’ve hit on something no one else has considered before. It’s something I noticed in my own learning. I realized that humans aren’t actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with its surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply, and multiply until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague, and we… are the cure. When filled with a certain kind of emotion, attitude or mindset, I noticed that entire phrases of Japanese would jump into my head that I had never previously studied or reviewed. They must have stuck due to me comprehending their emotional context.

「一体誰の仕業なのか?」 ² came into my head in response to me actually holding that kind of emotion towards someone (a coworker). My mind had latched onto it through comprehending its emotional context, though I had never formally studied it before.

I’ve been repeating aloud the things I hear in the news or in anime while acting out the emotion or mindset the idea was conveyed with, and it seems to be super effective. Even conveying dry information still holds a degree of emotional context that can be acted out.

I personally think this is a fairly unique and cool way to engage in language learning: acting out (and thereby comprehending) the emotional content of the sentence, even if you don’t fully understand the words. I found out later what 「仕業」 meant, but I actually used the phrase before I even knew what it meant, which I find very weird and cool. I knew the emotional content before I knew its specific, literal meaning.

Here at the ‘JATT, I’m often bombarded by questions that are as deep in their cute, noobish sincerity as they are shallow in significance. I often brush these questions aside with a grandfatherly chuckle, but I realize that there’s a good reason why they get asked. AJATT does a lot of myth-busting and idea-replacement, or at least I’d like to think so….even if it’s just by quoting and remixing other people’s ideas. When your old paradigum [sic] gets broken, it’s hard to tell what matters any more. That, and school teaches you to not think for yourself to begin with, so, yeah, double whammy, as it were.

“Don’t sweat the small stuff…and it’s all small stuff”. So advised the ever-smiling and effervescent Richard Carlson before his rather shocking and untimely death almost exactly six years ago. It’s great meta-game advice. Great life advice. And Richard was right, about meta-game and life.

But he was dead wrong about in-game. In-game, it’s not all small stuff. In-game, some of it is worth sweating, worth a modicum of concern. And if he hadn’t left us six years ago, I’m sure he’d be here to tell you that instead of me. Or not, but it’s a cute and convenient thing for me to think. I just wish he hadn’t gone and died.

Don’t sweat the small stuff, except if that small stuff is a hinge. That’s what Richard was going to tell you about the process, the game that is getting used to a language. I’m certain of it . Now I’m telling you for him.

What is a hinge?

Big doors swing on little hinges. Small hinges swing big doors. Tiny hinges swing big doors. So goes the folk wisdom in its various alternate formulations. And the hinges I’m talking about do just that. In Pareto principle terms, they are the vital few things that make a big difference. Not just disproportionately big (but of course that, too), not just relatively big, but big big. Objectively big. They are the minority of causes responsible for the majority of consequences. They are the Illuminati, the Bilderbergs, the Trilateral Commission and the Freemasons of your life all rolled into one, assuming your life runs like an Internet conspiracy theory. They are the 2% that determines 50%, the 1% that determines 90%. They are the them; they are they. Ironically, they are the big stuff, because if you take care of these small things, the bigger and big generally things take care of themselves — they fall into place automatically.

Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.
Archimedes

But how do you find these hinges? Well, one thing you definitely don’t do is start sweating all the small stuff. That’s not what you want, it’s not what Richard would have wanted, and it’s a great way to get yourself sad, grumpy, burned out, angry, depressed and…yeah…frowny in the face. You do want to GLOAF it up here. Carlson was and is right: don’t sweat the small stuff because it is virtually all small stuff: this remains a domain-independent assertion of profound correctness; it is a powerful book title and a worthy legacy. The majority of things simply do not and will not ever matter.

So that’s what not to do. That’s the negative advice. But that won’t prevent nocturnal hypothermia for you and Shania Twain now, will it? Time to give  you a bit more to take home. So, here’s the positive advice. Here are a handful of ways that immediately occur to me that will help you find them hinges — since we can’t typically see them and they don’t sit there labeled “hinge” — in a relaxed and expeditious fashion:

• Listen to me. I’ve hinted at what the hinges are throughout the voluminous and turgid writing that fills this handsome website ¹. I just…never called them that before. But it’s there.
• Chill. I cannot stress this enough. Don’t sweat the small stuff because it’s all small stuff. Most things are not hinges. Most things aren’t even door. They’re like cellphone bling, optional, a matter of personal taste, and really neither here nor there. At best they give a little grip and sparkle distractingly. At worst they get in the way a little. But that’s about all they do. The majority of things simply do not and will not ever matter.
• Ask questions. Continual questioning. This is easily the best and fastest way. Here are some hinge-divining questions for you:
  • How many clicks does it take me to get to Japanese?
    • What can I do to reduce this clickcount?
  • In what language are my web-connected devices’ home pages?
  • How much Japanese is in my field of vision right now?
    • How can I increase this ratio?
  • How can I get and keep Japanese playing in a one-touch, fire-and-forget way?
  • Do I have Japanese TV? Do I leave it on 24/7?
  • What do I google when I’m procrastinating in English? Is there any way to look this up in Japanese?
    • What are my public and secret hobbies? Any way to get at these in Japanese?

Observe that nowhere among them questions up there do we have things like “what SRS should I use?” and “what size and color font should I make my kanji?” and “should I use index cards or regular paper for writing practice?”. To be fair, OCD apple-polisher questions like these don’t come up so much any more, but they did used to, and this was because people didn’t know the difference between small stuff (which almost everything is, even the big stuff) and a hinge (the small stuff that moves everything, big or small).

Well, now you know. Small stuff and hinges are the only two types of things there are, as far as you and I are concerned, in this game. As Richard Carlson would no doubt have put it were he alive: Find those hinges and grease them till they shine like a female bodybuilder on ‘roids ;) . Coz, androgens make you shine more? And, he was toadly into that. And, it’s all small stuff. It’s all a game.

We are often enjoined to “remember our roots”. Like Simba, we are to “remember who you [we] are!”. ¹

People who “forget their roots” are considered shallow and evil. I remember once reading some UK forum post (yeah, don’t ask) about how Catherine Zeta-Jones was “too good” to speak in an English/Welsh accent and had “forgotten where she came from”. ²

Jennifer Lopez assures us she’s a good person, because she’s “still Jenny from the block”, adding that “no matter what, I know where I came from”.

Really?

Who are these people constantly opposing change?
Remember my roots? What are you, a botanist? What am I, a far king tree? What, I live in an arboretum now? All this time I thought I had legs for going places, but no…it was roots…and they need me to remember them?

Because, what, otherwise?

‘Coz, here’s where it get interesting.
These same schmuckwads angrily reminding us to remember our roots are also the first to sharply tell those demonstrating symptoms of radical amnesia (root forgetfulness,  for the Saxonly inclined), of deracination, to
(i) “remember who you are!” and that
(ii) “you’ll never be X, no matter what you do!”.

Well, if (ii) is true, then…problem solved right?
If you can never transcend your roots, then it’s OK to forget them, because they’ll always be there.

Einstein once said (I think) that “ ”education is what is left after you’ve forgotten everything you’ve learned [in school]“. Well, perhaps your roots are what’s left after everything has been done to forget or suppress them. Or not, I dunno. I’m just saying I’m living in Japan but eating chapattis on a near-daily basis, something rooty is up .

Am I anti-roots? No. Absolutely not.
Tanzania prioritizing Swahili? Awesome.
Ireland promoting Gaelic? Hibernially awesome.
Welsh in Wales? Wicked.

Because forcing people to abandon their roots — which is, of course, what happened in those countries and many others — is just as wrong as forcing people to stick to them exclusively and unwaveringly. Wronger, actually. Sick and wrong. It was and is an evil thing done by evil people.

So does that mean we shouldn’t freely choose to go balls to the interior wall in learning Japanese and other dialects of Humanese? I mean, was Patrick Stewart supposed to “remember his roots” and persist in speaking in a Yorkshire accent for the rest of his life, come heck or Star Trek? Is that keepin’ it real? Is that representin‘? Is he a “sell-out”? Just what did he sell and to whom? Was it so valuable that it was worth a life of, frankly, rather difficult and unremunerative manual labor?

Like a famous English teacher from China once said ³, if you have beef with a certain group of people, if you hate them, then all the more reason to learn their language so you can…I dunno, watch their TV shows. ⁴

In any case, your roots will always be there. That’s what roots do. You don’t need to remember them. They’re there. Inside you. Always.

But don’t think you have to let your roots be the same as your stem and branches and  leaves ⁵. You can grow. You can change. You can expand. If you wanna be a nice, big, thick, long, tall, woody tree, or even a strawberry spread all over the place, then you’re probably destined to put some distance between your roots and every other part of the plant that is supposedly you. Not to mention your seed ⁶. That’s what progress is about.

Plus, you’re not actually a plant, so…yeah. Eyes. Legs. Brain. Hands. You’ve got those for real. Use ‘em.

While we’re on the subject of nature metaphors, perhaps think of it this way: you just aren’t that important. You simply don’t matter so much to your country and your people and your native language that your personally learning a foreign language will affect it either way. Even if you had never been born, your native language would not substantially differ from its current state.

You came from nothing, from nowhere, a single cell, and you’re headed right back there. You live in and will die into obscurity. Even if you’re famous now, assuming you’re not forgotten, everything people remember about you will be wrong or a lie; they won’t even get your name right! It’s said that more than 90% of the people who’ve ever lived are dead. Presumably, tens of thousands — millions? — of these people are your direct ancestors. How many of their names do you know? ⁷ Yeah. And you’re worried about what language the cartoons you watch are in?

Come now…

Speaking a language is like an open-book test. In fact it’s better. Because not only do all the answers exist out there already, but you’re also allowed to see the test before you take it. And you can carry notes.

So don’t be clever. Cheat.

Boldly going somewhere you’ve never gone before — a new place or situation? The post office? The bank? A brothel ¹? Take a cheat sheet! ² Look up some domain specific terms or phrases (not too many — your cheat sheet needs to be big enough to be legible but small enough to be portable and therefore useful, like a 3″x5″ index card).

Have you ever watched an interview with an actor you otherwise respected and been struck by how dumb they sound? ³ How uneloquent? That’s because they’re not using a script. At all.

Stick to the script. Cheat if you can get away with it (which is almost all the time). And then, if the worst comes to the worst, just B.S. your way out of it.

Which SilverSpoon do you qualify for?

SilverSpoon 7.0 is the new SilverSpoon and is codenamed “Neutrino”. It includes access to the Old SilverSpoon (1.0) for free.

Japanese:

• Vanilla: If you’re a (serial) beginner, then this would likely be the best fit for you, if you can get in, that is.
• BigBoi: Alternatively, if you already know kana and 2000+ kanji, then you might qualify for entry into

Mandarin:

• SinoSpoon

Want to be the first to know (and get a chance to get in) when, say, new rounds and new language versions (e.g. Cantonese, Korean, Finnish) and sub-versions ¹ of SilverSpoon come out? Get on the waiting list.

What Is Neutrino?

↑ Go here if you’ve forgotten or don’t know what all SilverSpoon-Neutrino is

Do you know kana (hiragana + kana) and the meaning ~2000+ kanji already? You might qualify for Neutrino BigBoi.

Sign Up Now

You totally could learn Japanese without Neutrino. But you haven’t so far, have you? Maybe it’s time you gave it a try . Come. Chillax. Be spoonfed. You deserve it.

They All Sound Good, Which One Should I Get?

I would say the “Full” plan, since:

1. It’s the lowest price per day
2. It has the most freebies and bennies ¹
3. No matter which subscription plan you pick,
   1. you need to go through all 595 days of SilverSpoon anyway to get to fluency, and
   2. you get a full refund guarantee, so
   3. you might as well get it at the best value.
4. Since the price of SilverSpoon goes up with time, switching later would cost more than now

But if the lump sum on the “Full” plan doesn’t suit you too well, then “Split” would be the next best option

That’s A Bit Pricey, Dontcha Think?

Compared to what? Compared to spending the next 10 years wishing you knew Japanese and buying stuff that you never use and starting and stopping and failing and hating yourself?

Compared to what? Compared to buying a return air ticket to Japan, renting an apartment in downtown Tokyo and then shelling out $15,000~$30,000+ minimum in tuition alone to attend a “Japanese Language School“, where you get the privilege of being in a class with 15 Chinese kids, 5 Koreans and a hot Russian chick who perennially looks like she’s on the brink of suicide…all of whom proceed to destroy you at kanji and make you feel like a total noob?

Not to mention being led by an uptight, condescending teacher who can barely conceal the fact that she thinks that you’re a stupid gaijin who’ll never really get it, and has a rigid schoolmarm mentality whereby she refuses to let you talk like a real Japanese person of your age and personality (deep breath). Compared to that?

Compared to what? Compared to trying stuff that doesn’t deliver results, that will happily leave you illiterate, that doesn’t have a date for completion, and that doesn’t have the guts to offer you a full, total, fo-shizzle refund if you’re not transformed into a person of language skills so awesome that your ethnic origin is occasionally called into question?

Compared to what?

Let’s learn Japanese for real this time, man. No more bait and switch by schools. Get the accountability you deserve. Get the results you deserve.

Let’s do it.

The Fo’ Shizzle Fluency Guarantee

Guaranteed fluency: if you’re not fluent in Japanese at the end of 595 days of faithfully executing the simple, easy, quick, straightforward sprint missions fed to you daily by Neutrino, you can have a full refund. No questions asked.

In fact, if you just decide partway through that you just don’t like it, you can have your money back. That’s how sure I am this works. That’s how freakin’ cool I am. Just an empty email to < refund at ajatt dot com > , with the following subject: “I want a refund, but I still love you. I care about you. I promise I’ll be back again.” will suffice.

Succeed or get your money back. Fluency or your money back. The days of messing around are over. The people who take your money to help you learn should take responsibility for the results. I mean, I’m almost perfect. But even I’m not all the way there. Things happen. If and when they do, you don’t have to pay for that imperfection.

However. While a freakin’ cool person, I am also a practicing jerk, so there is one condition: the hypothetical refund will only be processed after Day 595 of the process, regardless of the cancellation/request date. There are three major reasons for this:

1. To give me time to skip the country with your money and head to my secret villa in Panama with my concubine ², Esmeralda. What, I never told you about her? Two words: h ot.
2. To discourage casual visitors and passers-by from clogging the system with their…casualness and endless billing processing requests. We’re not here to fool around; we’re here to fool around with Japanese.
3. To encourage people to be mentally prepared to play this game right through to the fourth quarter. In it to win it, remember? We’re breaking the pots and sinking the ships; we’re taking the option of quitting off the table until the end of the game. You can quit when you’re fluent. No more three-day-monking. Or, if we are three-day-monking, we’re doing it 199 times straight  ;) .

So, while we’re at it, what does “fluency” even mean? Well, here’s a working definition of fluency:

• Reading: Can read a randomly selected general interest (e.g. newspaper) article aloud.
• Listening/Speaking: Can listen to a randomly selected 60~90-second audio clip from prime-time television and repeat the dialogue.
  • Express ideas directly or via circumlocution
• Writing: Can accurately transcribe a randomly selected audio 60~90-second spoken exchange from prime-time television or radio.

To this working definition, we can also add some items based on Japanese Level Up‘s definition (65/80), because I think it’s a really good one:

• Can understand Japanese TV (95%), Japanese News (95+%), Contemporary Novels (95%)
• Can read and understand Japanese only grammar/usage explanations and dictionary definitions — you use Japanese to learn itself: your Japanese is “self-hosting”
• Don’t yet have a full background of Japanese culture, history, geography and social life in general
• Can read, write and understand whatever an average Japanese high schooler can
• Can read, write and understand whatever an average person in your field of expertise (e.g. college major/profession) can
• On the phone and text chat, people occasionally (though not always) think you’re Japanese
• Some Japanese people think you were raised in Japan, or have lived here for 10+ years, or are part Japanese

Hmm…I’m Still Not Sure, Yo

That’s fine. No problem. Get your name on the waiting list and we’ll keep in touch. Future rounds of SilverSpoon will cost more (the price is always rising) and will have even stricter entry criteria (qualifications, prerequisites, time and headcount limits) than you’re looking at now. But the peace of mind may be worth it. I, for one, would rather you join when you’re more certain.

Can I upgrade subscription plans after signing up?

Mmm…not really, but kinda . You’ll need to cancel your old subscription and then sign up again. Since the price of SilverSpoon rises with time (it’s always cheaper to sign up earlier), this may well end up costing you more. So, pricewise, I’d recommend you pick a subscription plan you can stick with through the whole game, or at least for a long time.

If that’s a dealbreaker for you, I totally understand. SilverSpoon is not for everyone. You could always hold off on joining SilverSpoon until it’s easier to switch between subscription plans, but, again, it’ll almost always be more cost effective to join earlier and stick with what you joined with, even taking into account the relative differences between plans. In AJATTland, it’s always cheaper to buy earlier .

What Is Neutrino?

↑ Go here if you’ve forgotten or don’t know what all SilverSpoon-Neutrino is

Sign Up Now

You totally could learn Japanese without Neutrino. But why bother? Come. Chillax. Be spoonfed. You deserve it.

They All Sound Good, Which One Should I Get?

I would say the “Full” plan, since:

1. It’s the lowest price per day
2. It has the most freebies and bennies ¹
3. No matter which subscription plan you pick,
   1. you need to go through all 495 days of SilverSpoon BigBoi anyway to get to fluency, and
   2. you get a full refund guarantee, so
   3. you might as well get it at the best value.
4. Since the price of SilverSpoon goes up with time, switching later would cost more than now

But if the lump sum on the “Full” plan doesn’t suit you too well, then “Split” would be the next best option

That’s A Bit Pricey, Dontcha Think?

Compared to what? Compared to spending the next 10 years wishing you knew Japanese and buying stuff that you never use and starting and stopping and failing and hating yourself?

Compared to what? Compared to:

1. buying a return air ticket to Japan ($1500~3000+), followed by
2. renting an apartment in downtown Tokyo ($13,000~$41,000+ over 495 days), and then
3. shelling out another $10,000~$30,000+ minimum in tuition alone to attend a “Japanese Language School“, where
4. you get the privilege of being in a class with 15 thickly accented Chinese kids, 5 perfect-sounding Koreans and a hot Russian chick who perennially looks like she’s on the brink of suicide…all of whom proceed to destroy you at kanji and make you feel like a total noob? Not to mention –
5. being led by an uptight, condescending teacher who can barely conceal the fact that she thinks that you’re a stupid gaijin who’ll never really get it, and has a rigid schoolmarm mentality whereby she refuses to let you talk like a real Japanese person of your age and personality (deep breath).

So, $25,000~$75,000+ of boredom and no guarantee. Compared to that?

Compared to what? Compared to trying stuff that doesn’t deliver results, that will happily leave you illiterate, that doesn’t have a date for completion, and that doesn’t have the guts to offer you a full, total, fo-shizzle refund if you’re not transformed into a person of language skills so awesome that your ethnic origin is occasionally called into question? Compared to that?

Compared to what?

Do colleges give you a refund after you spend 4 years majoring in Japanese and do a “study abroad” only to come out hating kanji and unable to read a newspaper?
Do law schools give you a refund when you drop six figures and bust a gut memorizing Supreme Court decisions, only to return home to flipping burgers?
No, they don’t ². They bait you with “obey us; pay us; follow our instructions; don’t get too creative or rock the boat; we’ll take care of you”, and then switch to “we didn’t say everything would work out; it’s all a matter of personal responsibility” as soon as the music stops…

…Until you do something amazing in RL that is, then they’re all tripping over themselves to give you honorary doctorates and go: “i’ woz us wot ejuca’ed ‘im, innit!” ³.

Let’s learn Japanese for real this time, man. No more bait and switch by schools. Stop getting screwed and start screwing around. Screw them and their couch ⁴. Get the accountability you deserve. Get the results you deserve. Let’s do it.

Fo’ Shizzle Fluency Guarantee

Guaranteed fluency: if you’re not fluent in Japanese at the end of 495 days of faithfully executing the simple, easy, quick, straightforward sprint missions fed to you daily by Neutrino, you can have a full refund. No questions asked. In fact, if you just decide partway through that you just don’t like it, you can have your money back. That’s how sure I am this works. That’s how freakin’ cool I am.

Just an email to < refund at ajatt dot com > with the following subject: “I want a refund, but I still love you. I care about you. I promise I’ll be back again.”  and your billing info will suffice.

Succeed or get your money back. Fluency or your money back. The days of messing around are over. The people who take your money to help you learn should take responsibility for the results. I mean, I’m almost perfect. But even I’m not all the way there. Things happen. If and when they do, you don’t have to pay for that imperfection.

However. While a freakin’ cool person, I am also a practicing jerk, so there is one condition: the hypothetical refund will only be processed after Day 495 of the process, regardless of the cancellation/request date. There are three major reasons for this:

1. To give me time to skip the country with your money and head to my secret villa in Panama with my concubine ⁵, Esmeralda. What, I never told you about her? Two words: h ot.
2. To discourage casual visitors and passers-by from clogging the system with their…casualness and endless billing processing requests. We’re not here to fool around; we’re here to fool around with Japanese.
3. To encourage people to be mentally prepared to play this game right through to the fourth quarter. In it to win it, remember? We’re breaking the pots and sinking the ships; we’re taking the option of quitting off the table until the end of the game. You can quit when you’re fluent. No more three-day-monking. Or, if we are three-day-monking, we’re doing it 199 times straight  ;) .

• Reading: Can read a randomly selected general interest (e.g. newspaper) article aloud.
• Listening/Speaking: Can listen to a randomly selected 60~90-second audio clip from prime-time television and repeat the dialogue.
  • Can express ideas directly or via circumlocution (can explain over, around and through any words you momentarily forget or didn’t yet know)
• Writing: Can accurately transcribe a randomly selected audio 60~90-second spoken exchange from prime-time television or radio.

What Is Neutrino?

↑ Go here if you’ve forgotten (or don’t yet know) what all SilverSpoon-Neutrino is

Sign Up Now

You totally could learn Chinese without SilverSpoon. But you haven’t so far, have you? Maybe it’s time you gave it a try . Come. Chillax. Be spoonfed. You deserve it.

They All Sound Good, Which One Should I Get?

I would say the “Full” plan, since:

1. It’s the lowest price per day
2. It has the most freebies and bennies ¹
3. No matter which subscription plan you pick,
   1. you need to go through all 695 days of SinoSpoon (SilverSpoon Mandarin) anyway to get to fluency, and
   2. you get a full refund guarantee, so
   3. you might as well get it at the best value.
4. Since the price of SilverSpoon goes up with time, switching later would cost more than now

But if the lump sum on the “Full” plan doesn’t suit you too well, then “Split” would be the next best option

That’s A Bit Pricey, Dontcha Think?

Compared to what? Compared to spending the next 10 years wishing you knew Chinese and buying stuff that you never use and starting and stopping and failing and hating yourself?

Compared to what? Compared to paying college tuition to be led by an uptight, condescending teacher who hates all the fun parts of Chinese openly announces the fact that he thinks no foreigner will ever really be able to read let alone write Chinese? Who thinks Jay Chou and kung-fu movies are the devil?

Compared to what? Compared to trying stuff that doesn’t deliver results, that will happily leave you illiterate, that doesn’t have a date for completion, and that doesn’t have the guts to offer you a full, total, fo-shizzle refund if you’re not transformed into a person of language skills so awesome that your ethnic origin is occasionally called into question?

Compared to what?

Let’s learn Chinese for real this time, man. No more bait and switch by schools. Get the accountability you deserve. Get the results you deserve. Let’s do it.

The Fo’ Shizzle Fluency Guarantee

Guaranteed fluency: if you’re not fluent in Mandarin at the end of 695 days of faithfully executing the simple, easy, quick, straightforward sprint missions fed to you daily by SinoSpoon: SilverSpoon Mandarin, you can have a full refund. No questions asked. In fact, if you just decide partway through that you just don’t like it, you can have your money back. That’s how sure I am this works. That’s how freakin’ cool I am.

Just an email to < refund at ajatt dot com > , with the following subject: “I want a refund, but I still love you. I care about you. I promise I’ll be back again.”  and your billing info will suffice.

Succeed or get your money back. Fluency or your money back. The days of messing around are over. The people who take your money to help you learn should take responsibility for the results. I mean, I’m almost perfect. But even I’m not all the way there. Things happen. If and when they do, you don’t have to pay for that imperfection.

However. While a freakin’ cool person, I am also a practicing jerk, so there is one condition: the hypothetical refund will only be processed after Day 695 of the process, regardless of the cancellation/request date. There are three major reasons for this:

1. To give me time to skip the country with your money and head to my secret villa in Panama with my concubine ², Esmeralda. What, I never told you about her? Two words: h ot.
2. To discourage casual visitors and passers-by from joining without being sure about whether or not they wanted to stay and then clogging the system with their…casualness and endless billing processing requests. We’re not here to fool around; we’re here to fool around with Mandarin.
3. To encourage people to be mentally prepared to play this game right through to the fourth quarter. In it to win it, remember? Just like that famous Chinese general, we’re breaking the pots and sinking the ships ³; we’re taking the option of quitting off the table until the end of the game. You can quit when you’re fluent. No more three-day-monking. Or, if we are three-day-monking, we’re doing it 230 times straight .

So, while we’re at it, what does “fluency” even mean? Well, here’s a working definition of fluency:

• Reading: Can read a randomly selected general interest (e.g. newspaper) article aloud.
• Listening/Speaking: Can listen to a randomly selected 60~90-second audio clip from prime-time television and repeat the dialogue.
  • Can express ideas directly or via circumlocution (can explain over, around and through any words you momentarily forget or didn’t yet know)
• Writing: Can accurately transcribe a randomly selected audio 60~90-second spoken exchange from prime-time television or radio.

• 【無宿】むしゅく ①住む家がないこと。また，その人。やどなし。 ②江戸時代，人別帳から名前を除かれること。また，その人。貧農や下層町人から無宿となるものが多く，江戸中期以降，大都市およびその周辺で多数出現した。帳外（ちようはず）れ。 #daijirin #
• New at AJATT Plus: QRG Mandarin: SRS — The Delete Button Is Your Friend t.co/BFAoGHED #
• 【一見】いちげん ①旅館や料亭などで，なじみでなく初めてであること。また，その人。「━の客」「━さん」 ②遊里で，遊女がその客に初めて会うこと。初会（しよかい）。「━ながら武士の役，見殺しには成りがたし／浄瑠璃・心中天網島 上」 #daijirin #
• 【はにかみ 】はにかむこと。恥ずかしがること。 #daijirin #
• 【はにかむ 】（動 マ五） ①恥ずかしいという表情やしぐさをする。恥ずかしがる。「—・みながら挨拶する」 ②歯をむき出す。「その犬の子…—・み吠ゆ／日本霊異記 上訓注」 #daijirin #
• 【御来光】ごらいこう 高山などで，尊いものとして迎える日の出。仏の御光。［季］夏。「富士山頂で━を拝む」 #daijirin #
• 【ずべ公】ずべこう 〔「ずべ」は「ずべら」の略〕 素行の悪い少女をののしっていう語。 #daijirin #
• 【ずべら 】（名・形動） なげやりでしまりのないさま。ずぼら。「━な男」 #daijirin #
• 【ずべら坊】ずべらぼう （名・形動） ①ずぼらなさま。また，その人。 ②のっぺらぼう。ずんべらぼう。 #daijirin #

• New at AJATT Plus: QRG Mandarin: SRS — Phrase/Passage MCDs, μMCDs t.co/1RK6s7RG #
• 【嚆矢】こうし ①〔「嚆」は叫ぶ意〕かぶら矢。 ②〔「荘子 在宥」より。昔，中国で合戦の初めに，かぶら矢を敵陣に向けて射かけたことから〕物事のはじめ。最初。「その説を唱えたのは彼をもって━とする」 #daijirin #
• ギルガメシュ叙事詩 – Wikipedia #
• CH-47 契努克雙螺旋槳運輸直升機 – 陸戰王的部落格 – Yahoo!奇摩部落格 – t.co/QSlYyi7n #chinook #helicopter #article #chinese #
• IBM元開発者「チェス王者にスパコンが勝てたのは、バグのおかげ」 « WIRED.jp – t.co/dD7PMyki via Shareaholic #
• Photoshopを本気で使い倒せば画像はここまでイジくれるという10個の例 – GIGAZINE – (null) #
• 【小刀】しょうとう 小さな刀。また，脇差（わきざし）。⇔大刀。 #daijirin #
• 【小刀】こがたな ①ものを削ったり，細工をしたりするときに用いる小さな刃物の総称。ナイフ。 ②小さい刀。 ③刀の鞘（さや）にさし添える小さな刃物。小柄（こづか）。 #daijirin #
• 【鉏】さい 身に添えて持つ小刀。さえ。「蘇我の子らは，馬ならば日向の駒，太刀ならば呉の真（ま）━／日本書紀 推古」 #daijirin #
• 【賽は投げられた 】ポンペイウスと争ったカエサルが軍隊を率いてルビコン川を渡る時に言った言葉。行動を開始した今は，ただ断行あるのみである。 #daijirin #
• 【采を採る 】指揮をする。采配を採る。 #daijirin #
• New at AJATT Plus: Typical American Movie Lines as Seen, Heard and Chosen by Japanese People, Vol. 1 t.co/aJId56rr #
• 【酒蔵】さかぐら 酒を醸造したり貯蔵したりする蔵。 #daijirin #
• 【酒造】しゅぞう 酒をつくること。 #daijirin #
• 【冥加金】みょうがきん ①社寺へ奉納する金銭。神仏の加護の祈願，またはそれへの謝礼の意味で納める。冥加銭。 ②近世の雑税の一。商工業者・旅宿・質屋などが，営業免許・特権付与の代償として領主（大名）に献上する金穀をいう。原則として銭納であったが，物納もしくは労… #daijirin #
• 【酒造冥加】しゅぞうみょうが 江戸時代，酒造業者に課せられた冥加金。 #daijirin #
• 【守】しゅ 律令制で，官が高く位の低い者が公文書に署名するとき，位と官との間に書く語。⇔行（ぎよう）。「従三位━大納言兼行／宇津保物語 初秋」→位署（いしよ） #daijirin #
• 一將功成萬骨枯 « Learn Chinese in Shatin CU t.co/d3OuxzOs #
• 一將功成萬骨枯(圖) t.co/uxuHAICX #
• 【先人】せんじん ①昔の人。前人。⇔後人。「━の教え」 ②亡父。また，祖先。 #daijirin #
• 【仙人】せんにん ①中国の神仙思想や道教の理想とする人間像。人間界を離れて山の中に住み，不老不死の術を修め，神通力を得た者。やまびと。 ②世俗的な常識にとらわれない，無欲な人。「若いのに━のようなことをいう人だ」 #daijirin #

Never say I never did nothing for the peoples!

To commemorate the beginning October…

…Coz I’m all about commemorating October…

…Myeah, not really…

But just for the heck of it anyway, here are a dozen free, real-life (i.e. from or inspired by actual cards in my actual decks) examples of MCDs. There are three basic types. Bilingual, tranny I mean transitional, and monolingual.

Some people give you roses; some people sacrifice virgins; I give you SRS card examples that make your learning fun, easy and effective. I think it’s quite clear who’s really looking out for your best interests . The virgin-sacrificing people. They’re really going all out. But I imagine I’m a close second.

Remember, the basic MCD principle is this: instead of having 1 card with 9 unknowns, you have 9 cards with 1 unknown each. But you keep the same massive context as when you had a single big, bad, intimidating, f-off card. 9 is a fake number.

Talk longa. Action brevis. Begin!

First things first, here is the format for these examples:

1. FRONT
   BACK

The front contains the cloze (the blank represented by ＃＃＃＃＃＃＃＃ or some other equally awesome marker).
The back contains the clozetext (the correct answer to the blank; the filler to the donut hole, if you will) as well as additional materials like definitions, readings, sound files and any other relevant reference material.

Bilingual

Bilingual MCDs are good for when you lack the knowledge — or the context — to happily handle monolingual cards. Beginners, noobs nervous nellies should focus just on bilingual cards. Just as with old skool sentence cards, don’t go writing your own translations. If you’re noob enough to need a translation, ya shouldn’t be rolling your own.

1. 一＃＃＃＃＃＃＃＃に行きます。
   I shall come with you.
   緒
    一緒に行きます。
   I shall come with you.
   いっしょ【一緒】 1 〔共に同じ事をすること〕 毎朝學校へ一緒に行ったものです We used to go to school together every morning. 一緒に行ってくださいませんか Won’t you come with me? 一緒に遊びませんか Won’t you join us in the game? クラスが一緒でした We were in the same class. 途中までご一緒しましょう I’ll 「go with [((文))accompany] you part of the way. 
2. 一緒＃＃＃＃＃＃＃＃行きます。
   I shall come with you.
   に
   一緒に行きます。
   I shall come with you.
3. ＃＃＃＃＃＃＃＃覚を研ぎ澄ますことじゃ。そうすればわかる。
   Use your feelings, Obi-Wan, and find him you will.
   感
   感覚を研ぎ澄ますことじゃ。そうすればわかる。
   Use your feelings, Obi-Wan, and find him you will.
   かんかく【感覚】 1 〔知覚〕a sense; (a) sensation
   スターウォーズセリフbot (StarWarsbot)さんはTwitterを使っています is.gd/1C7oZr 
4. 感＃＃＃＃＃＃＃＃を研ぎ澄ますことじゃ。そうすればわかる。
   Use your feelings, Obi-Wan, and find him you will.
   覚
   感覚を研ぎ澄ますことじゃ。そうすればわかる。
   Use your feelings, Obi-Wan, and find him you will.
   かんかく【感覚】 1 〔知覚〕a sense; (a) sensation
   スターウォーズセリフbot (StarWarsbot)さんはTwitterを使っています is.gd/1C7oZr 
5. 感覚を＃＃＃＃＃＃＃＃すことじゃ。そうすればわかる。
   Use your feelings, Obi-Wan, and find him you will.
   研ぎ澄ま
   感覚を研ぎ澄ますことじゃ。そうすればわかる。
   Use your feelings, Obi-Wan, and find him you will.
   とぎすます【研ぎ澄ます】  II 〔精神を鋭くする〕 研ぎ澄まされた芸術的感覚 a keen artistic sense
   スターウォーズセリフbot (StarWarsbot)さんはTwitterを使っています is.gd/1C7oZr 
6. 感覚を研ぎ澄ますことじゃ。そう＃＃＃＃＃＃＃＃わかる。
   Use your feelings, Obi-Wan, and find him you will.
   すれば
   感覚を研ぎ澄ますことじゃ。そうすればわかる。
   Use your feelings, Obi-Wan, and find him you will.
   とぎすます【研ぎ澄ます】  II 〔精神を鋭くする〕 研ぎ澄まされた芸術的感覚 a keen artistic sense
   スターウォーズセリフbot (StarWarsbot)さんはTwitterを使っています is.gd/1C7oZr 

Transitional

Tranny ¹ I mean transitional cards are useful for when you’re trying to crack the same risqué joke twice in a single blogpost, or just actively making the (get this) transition ² to using monolingual dictionaries. Basically, they’re MCDs of dictionary definitions of simple words you already know. The front of the card is monolingual, the back of the card is bilingual (so we have an English definition of the definition we’re clozing). Contrast with bilingual cards, which are bilingual on both sides, and monolingual cards, which are monolingual on both sides.

1. 【＃＃＃＃＃＃＃＃る】１ 食物を噛んで、呑み込む。「生で＃＃＃＃＃＃＃＃る」「ひと口＃＃＃＃＃＃＃＃てみる」
   食べ
   た・べる【食べる】 ［動バ下一］［文］た・ぶ［バ下二］《尊敬語「たぶ」（四段）に対応する謙譲語》 １ 食物をかんで、のみこむ。「生(なま)で─・べる」「ひと口─・べてみる」
   たべる【食べる】 I 〔食う〕eat
2. 【食物】 ＃＃＃＃＃＃＃＃物。生物が＃＃＃＃＃＃＃＃て身体の栄養とするもの。
   食べ
   しょく‐もつ【食物】 食べ物。生物が食べてからだの栄養とするもの。
   しょくもつ【食物】 food 食物をとる eat (food) 腐りやすい食物 perishables 食物繊維 dietary fiber 食物連鎖 a food chain
3. 【＃＃＃＃＃＃＃＃く】 １ 向こうへ移動する。「はやく＃＃＃＃＃＃＃＃け」
   行
   い・く【行く／逝く／▽往く】 ［動カ五（四）］ １ 向こうへ移動する。「はやく─・け」
   ゆく【行く】 ⇒いく(行く) 1 〔目的地に向かう〕go
4. 【＃＃＃＃＃＃＃＃】１ 命がなくなる。息が絶える。また、自ら命を斷つ。「交通事故で＃＃＃＃＃＃＃＃」「世をはかなんで＃＃＃＃＃＃＃＃」「＃＃＃＃＃＃＃＃か生きるかの大問題」「＃＃＃＃＃＃＃＃ほどの苦しみ」「死んでも言えない」⇔生きる。
   死ぬ
   し・ぬ【死ぬ】 ［動ナ五］［文］［ナ四・ナ変］《古くはナ行変格活用。室町時代ころからナ行四段活用が見られるようになり、江戸時代には二つの活用が並存。明治以降はナ行四段（五段）活用が一般的になったが、なお「死ぬる」「死ぬれ（ば）」などナ行変格活用が用いられることもある》 １ 命がなくなる。息が絶える。また、自ら命を斷つ。「交通事故で─・ぬ」「世をはかなんで─・ぬ」「─・ぬか生きるかの大問題」「─・ぬほどの苦しみ」「─・んでも言えない」⇔生きる。
   しぬ【死ぬ】 1 die

Monolingual

Monolingual cards are especially well-suited to long, context-rich passages of L2 text. Having said that, they will of course work on short passages as well: they don’t know how long your passage is .

If you don’t get how these are working, don’t worry: you’re not supposed to get it…yet. Focus first on bilingual and transitional cards. Get a few thousand of those under your belt. Your time will come.

1. 【彼氏（アメリカ人）との喧嘩について】
   今付き合って三ヶ月になるアメリカ人の彼氏＃＃＃＃＃＃＃＃。
   喧嘩はいつものことですが、今日彼氏と大喧嘩をしました。
   がいます
   【彼氏（アメリカ人）との喧嘩について】
   今付き合って三ヶ月になるアメリカ人の彼氏がいます。
   喧嘩はいつものことですが、今日彼氏と大喧嘩をしました。
   彼氏（アメリカ人）との喧嘩について – Yahoo!知恵袋 is.gd/J3ur32 
2. 【「真犯人は＃＃＃＃＃＃＃＃」…ＰＣ遠隔操作「犯罪予告」】
   他人にパソコンを乗っ取られ、気づかないまま犯人にされてしまう──。
   殺人予告メールを送ったなどとして逮捕された男性２人のパソコンから「遠隔操作型ウイルス」が見つかった事件は、無実の男性が誤って逮捕された冤罪の可能性が高まった。
   サイバー犯罪は、パソコン、インターネットの普及とともに巧妙化しており、男性を犯人と斷定してしまった搜査関係者の間には動揺が広がった。
   卑劣
   ひ‐れつ【卑劣／×鄙劣】 ［名・形動］品性や言動がいやしいこと。人格的に低級であること。また、そのさま。「─な行為」 [派生]ひれつさ［名］
   【「真犯人は卑劣」…ＰＣ遠隔操作「犯罪予告」】
   他人にパソコンを乗っ取られ、気づかないまま犯人にされてしまう──。
   殺人予告メールを送ったなどとして逮捕された男性２人のパソコンから「遠隔操作型ウイルス」が見つかった事件は、無実の男性が誤って逮捕された冤罪の可能性が高まった。
   サイバー犯罪は、パソコン、インターネットの普及とともに巧妙化しており、男性を犯人と斷定してしまった搜査関係者の間には動揺が広がった。
   「真犯人は卑劣」…ＰＣ遠隔操作「犯罪予告」 : ニュース : ネット＆デジタル : YOMIURI ONLINE（読売新聞） is.gd/97O97H 
3. 【「真犯人は卑＃＃＃＃＃＃＃＃」…ＰＣ遠隔操作「犯罪予告」】
   他人にパソコンを乗っ取られ、気づかないまま犯人にされてしまう──。
   殺人予告メールを送ったなどとして逮捕された男性２人のパソコンから「遠隔操作型ウイルス」が見つかった事件は、無実の男性が誤って逮捕された冤罪の可能性が高まった。
   サイバー犯罪は、パソコン、インターネットの普及とともに巧妙化しており、男性を犯人と斷定してしまった搜査関係者の間には動揺が広がった。
   劣
   ひ‐れつ【卑劣／×鄙劣】 ［名・形動］品性や言動がいやしいこと。人格的に低級であること。また、そのさま。「─な行為」 [派生]ひれつさ［名］
    【「真犯人は卑劣」…ＰＣ遠隔操作「犯罪予告」】
   他人にパソコンを乗っ取られ、気づかないまま犯人にされてしまう──。
   殺人予告メールを送ったなどとして逮捕された男性２人のパソコンから「遠隔操作型ウイルス」が見つかった事件は、無実の男性が誤って逮捕された冤罪の可能性が高まった。
   サイバー犯罪は、パソコン、インターネットの普及とともに巧妙化しており、男性を犯人と斷定してしまった搜査関係者の間には動揺が広がった。
   「真犯人は卑劣」…ＰＣ遠隔操作「犯罪予告」 : ニュース : ネット＆デジタル : YOMIURI ONLINE（読売新聞） is.gd/97O97H

And so it came to pass that twelve free MCD examples were given. And there was much rejoicing throughout the land ³. And it was good.

Questions? Comments? Confusion? Let me know.

Also, you might want to talk to the MCD Revolution Kit…it’ll almost certainly have your answers .

Yesterday, I was walking around Yoyogi Park in Tokyo with a friend, feeling butthurt at all the hipsters who were cooler and better-looking than me. We got to the other side of the park and stopped by the dog run to look at dogs.

…and bitches…

…

Awkwaaard. Anyway, I wish you could have seen what we saw, but I find it annoying to take pictures so I never take any. I tried to prod my friend, Naoko, into taking pictures for us because that’s what girls and people from Japan do, right? But no, she hates taking pictures, too. So we have no pictures of these dogs and bitches but, suffice it to say that it was glorious.

By way of approximation, here’s someone else’s video of other dogs at the same dog run on another day. It’s not necessarily as cool as what we saw, but it’s more than good enough for government work and close enough for practical purposes:

Anyway, so them dogs was running like crazy. Roughhousing, roundhousing, milhousing, jumping over objects and other dogs, playing tag. This is urban Japan, so these were tiny dogs, but they were going at maximum warp for their ship class. It was a joy to watch. Watching them run made me want to run.

And it made me realize how we’ve forgotten the one and only real reason to run, and we’ve replaced it with a bunch of good but ultimately stupid reasons. We run to win. We run because it’s healthy. We run for money. We run to save time. All of these are good reasons to run. And that’s why they’re terrible reasons to run. Good reasons are the worst reasons to do anything. Why? Because good reasons are unsustainable.

Fun gets done. Good reasons don’t. Good reasons are great for making yourself feel guilty, feel like a schlemiel; they’ll get you started but they’ll never help you stay the course. Don’t believe me? Dude, there are people with HIV who die because they don’t take their medication in the right way (apparently, the exact timing and dosage of the drug cocktails is essential ¹). And why? Because it’s boring. Don’t you think they had a good reason? Who better than they? They had the chance to prevent suffering and death from a chronic illness, but taking the medication was so boring that they essentially chose death instead. They were literally bored to death by their good reasons.

The real reason to run is because it’s fun. The real reason to learn Japanese is because it’s fun. No other reason matters. No other reason is sustainable. Globalization? Who the fark cares — my nuts are globe-shaped, why not come over here and globalize these nuts ²! Friendships? I can make English-speaking friends! Chicks? Why would I need to hear a woman’s opinion I mean women and minorities are great and I care about them and hearing about how their day was. Money? Start a business; you don’t need to learn a whole freaking language just so some pedophile in the HR department can consider throwing you a few extra crumbs each month. Prevent dementia? Yaaaaaaawn. What a demented reason. ³

Screw other people. Screw what they think of you. Screw what their mothers think of you. Screw the supposed rewards. Screw the praise. Screw the professionals who do it better (but, often enough, end up hating it). None of them matter. None of it matters. None of it is worth fighting for. None of it is worth playing for. Screw. Them. All.

Why climb the Japanese mountain?
Because it’s there.
Don’t clutter your mind and path with the pebbles of good reasons. Leave the good intentions to the hellbound. You just keep playing Persona.

1. Thou shalt not be a foreigner. Be Japanese.
   • Be a pretender. Pretend to be Japanese. Pretend the language belongs to you. Pretend you are merely taking back what is yours. Pretend you have a birthright to this language. Way, way back in the day, an African theater buff ( ) named Terence wrote: “Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto”, or “I am a man, I consider nothing that is human alien to me”. Japanese is not a foreign language. It is your language. It’s as much — no, more — your language than it is anyone else’s. Others were in a Japanese woman’s womb in a Japanese house on Japanese soil. You chose Japanese.
2. Thou shalt not learn Japanese: get used to it.
   • Thou shalt not get serious. You have to play. You have to have fun. Who do you ask for massive financial favors? Strangers? Or family and friends? Japanese is a person. But you can’t become friends until you hang out and have a childhood together. And once you’re tight, then you can ask her for money.
3. Thou shalt not hold back on media.
   • Media is the air you breathe and the blood that flows through your veins. Buy, borrow, acquire FUNBUN (for-native-by-native) media — books, movies, video games, magazines, food, etc. — like your life depends on it. That means regularly, massively, plowing through it. You are a media buyer. You are the programming director of your own Japanese media conglomerate. Entertain yourself.
4. Thou shalt not do what you should, do what you can. Thou shalt not do nothing. Thou shalt not discount non-nothing. Small counts.
   • Small multiplied becomes large. Nothing multiplied begets nothing. Thou shalt not do nothing. Do something Japanese. Anything Japanese. Touch Japanese. Somehow.
5. Thou shalt not control your time, don’t control your choices: control your environment.
   • Thou shalt not do the “right” thing. Make it so that only the “right” thing can be done. Make it convenient to come into contact with Japanese and inconvenient to come into contact with anything else, especially English. Break the pots and burn the ships. Regularly.
   • Example: designate certain devices and/or physical locations as Japanese-only.
6. Thou shalt not have high standards, have wide standards.
   • You need to be able to sustain your progress. Don’t make big plans and promises. Just do what you can right now. Thou shalt not  do what you can’t: don’t be a hero. Thou shalt not do it later: don’t be Nostradamus. Do it now. But only do what you can.
7. Thou shalt not work hard. Be a couch potato. Passive time should far outstrip active time.
   • “Active” study tops out very quickly. Only do a little of it. Thou shalt not run a marathon. Sprint. Work briefly, little and often, in short bursts. The rest of your time — most of your time — should be spent being lazy. Video games, cartoons, tabloids, smut, hanging out, music are your staple diet. Intellectual junk food is broccoli-and-spinach-level good for you, if it’s in Japanese. Everything bad is good for you, if it’s in Japanese.
8. Thou shalt not forget stuff. Use spaced repetition memory software.
9. Thou shalt not overthink it. Go through the motions. Look at books you can’t read yet. Play songs you can’t sing yet. Play movies you can’t understand yet.
   • You don’t practice because you’re good. You’re good because you practice.
10. Thou shalt not bother to read about/learn formal grammar until you can read about it in Japanese.
    • Grammar refines, grammar does not define. Grammar sharpens, but it needs something to sharpen. Have something first — a physical, procedural, muscular knowledge and used-to-ness of Japanese. Then slap on a bit of formal grammatical polish. Make your shoes first, then polish them.

You’ll notice that most of these suggestions are behavioral rather than technical. I think people’s behavior patterns are far more crucial than technique specifics. In fact, I’ve seen people with bad behavior patterns and perfectionistic, “type A” attitudes literally run themselves into the ground with my technical advice. AJATT happens to have better technical advice for getting used to Japanese than one is (or, at least, was) likely to get anywhere else. However, that advice is predicated on a foundation of…just chilling out and enjoying oneself.

P.S.: Hey, remember back when I said AJATT wasn’t a religion? Ah, youth. Good times, huh? Yeah…so, are you thirsty? Coz I have some Kool-Aid…

LordSilent is an AJATTeer who participated in the original “International L2 Reading Contest” and was surprised by the positive boost that reading had on his Japanese in all areas, not just reading. Inspired by this, he kept reading and decided to create what is now known as ReadMOD (Read More or Die) or the 多読 Contest to share the wonders of reading in your target language with other learners. Here he is in his own words with information on this year’s contest:

What if I told you that there was a language study method that wasn’t studying at all, and in fact barely even a method?

And then what if I told you that this method has been demonstrated over and over again to be more effective than just about anything else?

Do you remember the hours you spent as a child (if you were anything like I was, and, I’d guess, like most people reading this site, you were) devouring story after story, book after book? There’s very little the human mind hungers after more than knowing how a story ends. And there’s only one way to find out: keep reading. So you did.

But the stories were not all you learned. While you spent those hours and days reading, your mind was processing what it saw, spotting patterns, storing vocabulary, organizing small patterns into larger ones, learning which words could be expected to be seen with which others and in what order, strengthening and deepening over and over all those millions of connections that make up what we call language. And as time went on this unconscious learning grew and grew, and you graduated from children’s picture books to teen novels to Robert Frost and Shakespeare and Hemingway and Tolkien and the Brontës and Thoreau and, in short, became a master of the English language.

And then one day you decided to learn a foreign language, so you went out and bought a textbook and started memorizing grammar and vocabulary … or was I the only one that did something that silly?

I invite you to go back to that time of exploration and wonder, to start the process over, to find new stories in a new language, to see new things that you couldn’t see any other way. And don’t worry, the mind will take care of sorting out the patterns, as long as you let it see enough of them.

---

The 多読 (たどく, extensive reading) contest has been going on for a while, but has had a brief hiatus recently. Now we’re back on track and ready for another month of all-you-can-read, beginning January 1st. Registration is simple, and explained here. Many languages are supported, and if you like, you can read more than one. You can view scores on the web app, and can report your reading either there or using Twitter. Most pages at the end of the month wins! (No prizes. You already got a massive boost in fluency, what more do you want?)

It’s true that the most advanced learners have a nearly insurmountable advantage for the top position, but that certainly isn’t the only competition there is. You can pick someone close to you and compete with them (I always do this. I think most people do), you can compete with someone you know, and most importantly you can compete with your past self. If seeing that your score is two or five or ten times what it was in a past contest isn’t encouraging, I don’t know what is.

I look forward to reading together with all of you!

---

If the above words from Lan’dorien have inspired you to join us in reading domination this month, you can use the following steps to sign up:

1. Get a Twitter account (remember to set your timezone information)
2. Go to ReadMOD.com and sign in with your twitter
3. Click on the 「Register for next round」 button
4. Read Read Read!

Additional instructions and information can be found at readmod.wordpress.com. If you have any questions you can comment on the blog, send a message to @lordsilent, or contact me on the irc.rizon #ajatt.

Crack?

It’s New Year’s again. And once again, I am here, my Utah-bred sense of moral superiority on full throttle (hookers and blow notwithstanding) to pour gallons of icy cold, sobering water on all the excitement.

New Year’s resolutions are great and all — they really are good; they come from “the right place”, people make them for good reasons. But as any AJATTeer knows, good reasons are bad. If what we needed were good reasons, there’d be no smokers and we’d all be nice to our mothers .

Perhaps I’m just an inveterate iconoclast. I haven’t always hated holidays, but I definitely started hating them young. And why? Well, because I got and get the sneaky feeling that other people are trying to tell uz when and how to be happy, when to feel good. Well, screw being happy 1 day a year, or even 2 days a week. Give me the other 5. Give me all 365. Monday morning is my cartoon and pyjamas time, beaches .

You don’t need New Year’s. You needn’t be bound by it. You’re bigger and better than some date system that some NAMBLA guys made a thousand years ago or whenever. Every day — or, at the very least, every month — can be your New Year’s.

As Dragon Ash taught us many New Years’ ago, life goes on. Your life included. Again, your life is even bigger and better than a year change. I want you to know that intuitively, to understand it in your bones, so that you can continue to have lots of good feelings and continue to make lots of good choices that don’t depend on it being early January, that continue long after the socially mandated 1/1 excitement has worn off.

But enough from me. Sometimes (OK, all the time, shaddup, I know), other people word things way better than me. Such is the case with “Making Yourself Happy: The Value of Setting Short-Term Goals“, an essay by Dr. Ted Sielaff, Emeritus Professor of Business at San Jose State University, of which the following is an excerpt:

Your expectations are too high.

New Year’s Resolutions are behaviorally unsound. In order to keep doing something, we need periodic reinforcement, like recognition or reward. That is lacking with New Year’s Resolutions. Usually New Year’s Resolutions are too grandiose, like: I’m going to get myself fit this year. Or, I’m going to finish my MBA this year. Too much for most of us.

In setting goals, you can be happy if the goal is doable — something, that is within your power to accomplish in a relatively short period of time. 

Make short term goals that are in harmony with some long term strategy you might have. Don’t make a resolution for a year. For example, suppose your long term strategy is to write a book. It does no good to say: “This year I intend to finish writing a book”.

I have found it better to set goals for just a month, like this: “I want to finish the first draft of the chapter of my book on “The People Living in Yosemite Park”. That would be a doable goal if I worked at it every day and had my research done. And, at the end of the month, I could check to see if I reached it.

In stating the short term goal, you should make it specific and measurable. Don’t say something like: “I intend to write every day”. That is too vague.

I have found that if I set short term goals for myself that are in harmony with a bigger strategy that I have I can be very happy. And, the interesting thing is that these short term goals often fit together in building a bigger picture.

Too many goals can frustrate you. So, keep the list short. Make it something where you will easily do everything and be victorious – be the winner.

So, my advice is get busy on goals. Forget the New Year’s Resolutions stuff. It’s not helpful. But, small goals that are in harmony with a bigger plan can make you a winner and will be fun.

And as if Dr. Ted’s sagacity weren’t enough for you, here’s a small piece of a medium-length piece by a big man, Juan Rivera of Samurai Mind Online, on the joys of crack…time:

I have discovered crack, and it is good.

I do crack whenever I have a moment. Well, a crack is actually a moment because the crack that I am using is cracks in time–little moments when I can do a little part of a dream.

Little chunks of time turn can turn everything you are trying to attempt into a little game.

And it works best when it feels like a game. If it starts feeling like work, play a new game or just space out.

I know there are going to be a lot of articles and promotions for how to achieve goals for the New Year. But just sit back, relax, and do crack.

↑Juan’s happens not only to be good advice but also one of the best translations and puns on a Japanese word (隙間) ever executed.

So…yeah…New Year’s…don’t make a big deal out of it: make a small deal out of it. Small, atomic actions. Take one tiny crack rock at a time, put it in your crack pipe, and smoke it like an enemy in an FPS game.

And if in doubt…just make more of the good choices you’re already making.

Occasionally I get asked by someone:

“Hey Khatz, you’re the most handsome guy in the world. I love your thighs. Do you need money for hookers and blow? Sure, here you go. Hey, so, I was just wondering — I find my attention wandering when playing L2 media. I just can’t focus on the show! What should I do?!”

Hearing these earnest questions, I look off into the distance (up and to the right), stroke my scraggly transman beard, squint my eyes pensively and then say this:

Screw Attention

Screw paying attention. You’re paying time. You paid money for the media (or at least for the hardware that plays it har har har). And now you’re supposed to pay attention, too? No. It’s the media’s job to get and hold your interest. You did everything: you selected; you paid; you set up; you even initiated (i.e. pushed “play” or opened the book). It can’t just lie there while you do all the work. It has to earn its keep. You’ve done your part. Now it’s the media’s turn. If you’re having trouble watching that show, it’s not because you’re a bad person, it’s because that show isn’t interesting enough.

You have the right to be entertained. Flip “channels” until it happens.

And, yes, it may well be that you need more background knowledge, more skill in the language, but the solution is not to suffer — the solution is to change the show (or you approach and attitude toward it). You don’t berate a seven-year-old for not understanding the political humor in Murphy Brown or the adult social humor in Curb Your Enthusiasm or the rather brazen sexuality of the character Flash in Blackadder ¹ or the thinly veiled penis jokes in Shrek, do you? No, you either:

• Change the channel (and trust that he’ll appreciate these things later), or:
• Let the child enjoy it at his level, in his way (and trust that he’ll appreciate these things later)

So, with those two things in mind, I want you to remember that:

• It’s not your fault that that show isn’t interesting. That’s fine. Switch it up. And,
• It’s OK that you enjoy the show for childish, superficial, visual, visceral reasons like the pretty colors or the explosions or the chicks or the way certain guys sound when they talk.

In principle, assume that your attention to a show should be drawn in, not given. The story’s slightly different with books, but even here, the same basic idea applies. There are some specific AJATT techniques for making reading fun (even when you still suck at it) that right now only people SilverSpoon/Neutrino know about; I might share some of these later.

So, yeah, anyway, that’s all I’ve got to say for now. I don’t want this to go on too long because only lame people do long blog posts oh wait. So remember the media rules:

1. You pick
2. You pay
3. You play
4. Media entertains ²
5. SRS in the darkness binds them

First three steps are you acting on the media. The fourth is the media acting on you ³. The last is the SRS acting as glue, making all the pieces stick together — to you, to your memory. If you wanna pay attention, then pay attention during your SRS reps. The rest of the time, let the media pamper you. You are the king and your DVDs are your court jesters. We don’t work to improve ourselves for our jesters: we get a better jester.

What Is Neutrino?

↑ Go here if you’ve forgotten or don’t know what all SilverSpoon-Neutrino is

Do you know kana (hiragana + kana) and the meaning ~2000+ kanji already? You might qualify for Neutrino BigBoi.

Sign Up Now

You totally could learn Japanese without Neutrino. But you haven’t so far, have you? Maybe it’s time you gave it a try . Come. Chillax. Be spoonfed. You deserve it.

They All Sound Good, Which One Should I Get?

I would say the “Full” plan, since:

1. It’s the lowest price per day
2. It has the most freebies and bennies ¹
3. No matter which subscription plan you pick,
   1. you need to go through all 595 days of SilverSpoon anyway to get to fluency, and
   2. you get a full refund guarantee, so
   3. you might as well get it at the best value.
4. Since the price of SilverSpoon goes up with time, switching later would cost more than now

But if the lump sum on the “Full” plan doesn’t suit you too well, then “Split” would be the next best option

That’s A Bit Pricey, Dontcha Think?

Compared to what? Compared to spending the next 10 years wishing you knew Japanese and buying stuff that you never use and starting and stopping and failing and hating yourself?

Compared to what? Compared to buying a return air ticket to Japan, renting an apartment in downtown Tokyo and then shelling out $15,000~$30,000+ minimum in tuition alone to attend a “Japanese Language School“, where you get the privilege of being in a class with 15 Chinese kids, 5 Koreans and a hot Russian chick who perennially looks like she’s on the brink of suicide…all of whom proceed to destroy you at kanji and make you feel like a total noob?

Not to mention being led by an uptight, condescending teacher who can barely conceal the fact that she thinks that you’re a stupid gaijin who’ll never really get it, and has a rigid schoolmarm mentality whereby she refuses to let you talk like a real Japanese person of your age and personality (deep breath). Compared to that?

Compared to what? Compared to trying stuff that doesn’t deliver results, that will happily leave you illiterate, that doesn’t have a date for completion, and that doesn’t have the guts to offer you a full, total, fo-shizzle refund if you’re not transformed into a person of language skills so awesome that your ethnic origin is occasionally called into question?

Compared to what?

Let’s learn Japanese for real this time, man. No more bait and switch by schools. Get the accountability you deserve. Get the results you deserve.

Let’s do it.

The Fo’ Shizzle Fluency Guarantee

Guaranteed fluency: if you’re not fluent in Japanese at the end of 595 days of faithfully executing the simple, easy, quick, straightforward sprint missions fed to you daily by Neutrino, you can have a full refund. No questions asked.

In fact, if you just decide partway through that you just don’t like it, you can have your money back. That’s how sure I am this works. That’s how freakin’ cool I am. Just an empty email to < refund at ajatt dot com > , with the following subject: “I want a refund, but I still love you. I care about you. I promise I’ll be back again.” will suffice.

Succeed or get your money back. Fluency or your money back. The days of messing around are over. The people who take your money to help you learn should take responsibility for the results. I mean, I’m almost perfect. But even I’m not all the way there. Things happen. If and when they do, you don’t have to pay for that imperfection.

However. While a freakin’ cool person, I am also a practicing jerk, so there is one condition: the hypothetical refund will only be processed after Day 595 of the process, regardless of the cancellation/request date. There are three major reasons for this:

1. To give me time to skip the country with your money and head to my secret villa in Panama with my concubine ², Esmeralda. What, I never told you about her? Two words: h ot.
2. To discourage casual visitors and passers-by from clogging the system with their…casualness and endless billing processing requests. We’re not here to fool around; we’re here to fool around with Japanese.
3. To encourage people to be mentally prepared to play this game right through to the fourth quarter. In it to win it, remember? We’re breaking the pots and sinking the ships; we’re taking the option of quitting off the table until the end of the game. You can quit when you’re fluent. No more three-day-monking. Or, if we are three-day-monking, we’re doing it 199 times straight  ;) .

So, while we’re at it, what does “fluency” even mean? Well, here’s a working definition of fluency:

• Reading: Can read a randomly selected general interest (e.g. newspaper) article aloud.
• Listening/Speaking: Can listen to a randomly selected 60~90-second audio clip from prime-time television and repeat the dialogue.
  • Express ideas directly or via circumlocution
• Writing: Can accurately transcribe a randomly selected audio 60~90-second spoken exchange from prime-time television or radio.

To this working definition, we can also add some items based on Japanese Level Up‘s definition (65/80), because I think it’s a really good one:

• Can understand Japanese TV (95%), Japanese News (95+%), Contemporary Novels (95%)
• Can read and understand Japanese only grammar/usage explanations and dictionary definitions — you use Japanese to learn itself: your Japanese is “self-hosting”
• Don’t yet have a full background of Japanese culture, history, geography and social life in general
• Can read, write and understand whatever an average Japanese high schooler can
• Can read, write and understand whatever an average person in your field of expertise (e.g. college major/profession) can
• On the phone and text chat, people occasionally (though not always) think you’re Japanese
• Some Japanese people think you were raised in Japan, or have lived here for 10+ years, or are part Japanese

Hmm…I’m Still Not Sure, Yo

That’s fine. No problem. Get your name on the waiting list and we’ll keep in touch. Future rounds of SilverSpoon will cost more (the price is always rising) and will have even stricter entry criteria (qualifications, prerequisites, time and headcount limits) than you’re looking at now. But the peace of mind may be worth it. I, for one, would rather you join when you’re more certain.

Can I upgrade subscription plans after signing up?

Mmm…not really, but kinda . You’ll need to cancel your old subscription and then sign up again. Since the price of SilverSpoon rises with time (it’s always cheaper to sign up earlier), this may well end up costing you more. So, pricewise, I’d recommend you pick a subscription plan you can stick with through the whole game, or at least for a long time.

If that’s a dealbreaker for you, I totally understand. SilverSpoon is not for everyone. You could always hold off on joining SilverSpoon until it’s easier to switch between subscription plans, but, again, it’ll almost always be more cost effective to join earlier and stick with what you joined with, even taking into account the relative differences between plans. In AJATTland, it’s always cheaper to buy earlier .

What Is Neutrino?

↑ Go here if you’ve forgotten or don’t know what all SilverSpoon-Neutrino is

Sign Up Now

You totally could learn Japanese without Neutrino. But why bother? Come. Chillax. Be spoonfed. You deserve it.

They All Sound Good, Which One Should I Get?

I would say the “Full” plan, since:

1. It’s the lowest price per day
2. It has the most freebies and bennies ¹
3. No matter which subscription plan you pick,
   1. you need to go through all 495 days of SilverSpoon BigBoi anyway to get to fluency, and
   2. you get a full refund guarantee, so
   3. you might as well get it at the best value.
4. Since the price of SilverSpoon goes up with time, switching later would cost more than now

But if the lump sum on the “Full” plan doesn’t suit you too well, then “Split” would be the next best option

That’s A Bit Pricey, Dontcha Think?

Compared to what? Compared to spending the next 10 years wishing you knew Japanese and buying stuff that you never use and starting and stopping and failing and hating yourself?

Compared to what? Compared to:

1. buying a return air ticket to Japan ($1500~3000+), followed by
2. renting an apartment in downtown Tokyo ($13,000~$41,000+ over 495 days), and then
3. shelling out another $10,000~$30,000+ minimum in tuition alone to attend a “Japanese Language School“, where
4. you get the privilege of being in a class with 15 thickly accented Chinese kids, 5 perfect-sounding Koreans and a hot Russian chick who perennially looks like she’s on the brink of suicide…all of whom proceed to destroy you at kanji and make you feel like a total noob? Not to mention –
5. being led by an uptight, condescending teacher who can barely conceal the fact that she thinks that you’re a stupid gaijin who’ll never really get it, and has a rigid schoolmarm mentality whereby she refuses to let you talk like a real Japanese person of your age and personality (deep breath).

So, $25,000~$75,000+ of boredom and no guarantee. Compared to that?

Compared to what? Compared to trying stuff that doesn’t deliver results, that will happily leave you illiterate, that doesn’t have a date for completion, and that doesn’t have the guts to offer you a full, total, fo-shizzle refund if you’re not transformed into a person of language skills so awesome that your ethnic origin is occasionally called into question? Compared to that?

Compared to what?

Do colleges give you a refund after you spend 4 years majoring in Japanese and do a “study abroad” only to come out hating kanji and unable to read a newspaper?
Do law schools give you a refund when you drop six figures and bust a gut memorizing Supreme Court decisions, only to return home to flipping burgers?
No, they don’t ². They bait you with “obey us; pay us; follow our instructions; don’t get too creative or rock the boat; we’ll take care of you”, and then switch to “we didn’t say everything would work out; it’s all a matter of personal responsibility” as soon as the music stops…

…Until you do something amazing in RL that is, then they’re all tripping over themselves to give you honorary doctorates and go: “i’ woz us wot ejuca’ed ‘im, innit!” ³.

Let’s learn Japanese for real this time, man. No more bait and switch by schools. Stop getting screwed and start screwing around. Screw them and their couch ⁴. Get the accountability you deserve. Get the results you deserve. Let’s do it.

Fo’ Shizzle Fluency Guarantee

Guaranteed fluency: if you’re not fluent in Japanese at the end of 495 days of faithfully executing the simple, easy, quick, straightforward sprint missions fed to you daily by Neutrino, you can have a full refund. No questions asked. In fact, if you just decide partway through that you just don’t like it, you can have your money back. That’s how sure I am this works. That’s how freakin’ cool I am.

Just an email to < refund at ajatt dot com > with the following subject: “I want a refund, but I still love you. I care about you. I promise I’ll be back again.”  and your billing info will suffice.

Succeed or get your money back. Fluency or your money back. The days of messing around are over. The people who take your money to help you learn should take responsibility for the results. I mean, I’m almost perfect. But even I’m not all the way there. Things happen. If and when they do, you don’t have to pay for that imperfection.

However. While a freakin’ cool person, I am also a practicing jerk, so there is one condition: the hypothetical refund will only be processed after Day 495 of the process, regardless of the cancellation/request date. There are three major reasons for this:

1. To give me time to skip the country with your money and head to my secret villa in Panama with my concubine ⁵, Esmeralda. What, I never told you about her? Two words: h ot.
2. To discourage casual visitors and passers-by from clogging the system with their…casualness and endless billing processing requests. We’re not here to fool around; we’re here to fool around with Japanese.
3. To encourage people to be mentally prepared to play this game right through to the fourth quarter. In it to win it, remember? We’re breaking the pots and sinking the ships; we’re taking the option of quitting off the table until the end of the game. You can quit when you’re fluent. No more three-day-monking. Or, if we are three-day-monking, we’re doing it 199 times straight  ;) .

• Reading: Can read a randomly selected general interest (e.g. newspaper) article aloud.
• Listening/Speaking: Can listen to a randomly selected 60~90-second audio clip from prime-time television and repeat the dialogue.
  • Can express ideas directly or via circumlocution (can explain over, around and through any words you momentarily forget or didn’t yet know)
• Writing: Can accurately transcribe a randomly selected audio 60~90-second spoken exchange from prime-time television or radio.