General

Don’t Do Your Best

by khatzumoto

Don’t do your best. Do what you can right now with what you have right now. Do the best that you can do right now, not the best possible thing, not the best thing you have ever done, not the right thing, not the thing that will get you the least made fun of, not…

by khatzumoto

In the past, I have made statements to the effect that languages are intellectual toys and that learning them is nothing but a game to be played for fun and never out of a sense of duty. I stand by these statements. They are still true. But today, I want to hit you with something…

by khatzumoto

“Nothing has inflicted more suffering on humanity than its dogmas. It is true that every dogma crumbles sooner or later, because reality will eventually disclose its falseness; however, unless the basic delusion of it is seen for what it is, it will be replaced by others.” Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks Don’t believe in AJATT. Don’t…

by khatzumoto

Kelsey Exeter (←not his real name), an AJATTeer, anime fan and professional musician from Murika, shares his success story: Hello, I first found your site 5 years ago when I became interested in Japan, and it was my first introduction to the idea that you could learn a language without taking a class. I didn’t…

by khatzumoto

Learning (=getting used to) a language doesn’t take intelligence, only persistence. It’s not magic; it’s just maths. Certain quantities of certain inputs will inevitably produce certain outputs. It’s as straightforward as drinking and peeing. People who know a language aren’t “talented”, just tenacious. Eat those persistence flakes for breakfast so you can enjoy victory for…

by khatzumoto

F### school (lol). School doesn’t work. But it also kinda does work and it’s why people keep paying and going there even though it sucks Asperger’s. Here’s why. Recently (at the time of this writing), I broke a personal rule I made many years ago and attended not one but two seminars (a couple of…