khatzumoto

It’s Not The Language, It’s the Infrastructure

Ultimately, Japanese is an easy language to learn because it has such a well-developed learning support infrastructure — for regular as well as remedial users. The trick is tapping into the infrastructure. That’s what SRS has always been about — for me, at least: how to exploit — leverage — the existing infrastructure, how to…

Korean-Accented Japanese is So Cute :)

Khatzumoto @ajatt: Korean-accented Japanese #cute Fernando Ramos ‏@HelloNavi: @ajatt I swear that she’s gotta be putting that on. So many Koreans I meet have such clear Japanese.. Khatzumoto @ajatt: @HelloNavi Good point. It certainly makes the product more exotic. Gaijin wedding chaplains know the score there 🙂 . You’re in Japan; you’re Japanese; you want new…

The Righteousness of Selfishness

This entry is part 7 of 10 in the series Social Resistance

This entry is part 7 of 10 in the series Social ResistanceYou don’t go around forcing people to take money from you, do you? So why go around forcing people to take your advice? Your advice is worth its weight in gold, right? Time is money, right? So why are you spending both so lavishly…

Music Is Underrated

As usual I may be completely off the mark on this, but music in general — and hiphop/pop music in particular — feels almost universally underrated (and even discounted) as a language acquisition tool. At best, in most cases, music is merely tolerated, considered a “nice supplement”, like an iron pill, not real food. A…

Language Is No Respecter Of Persons

A language is nothing but information — sounds and symbols. The sounds don’t know — and don’t care — who you are, where you’re from or who your parents were. The sounds are just vibrations of the air. The sounds don’t know — and don’t care — what people’s expectations are. The  sounds just are.…