Comments on: Sanity: Bad For You, Bad For The World

By: There Is A Magic Silver Bullet | AJATT | All Japanese All The Time

There Is A Magic Silver Bullet | AJATT | All Japanese All The Time — Wed, 28 Aug 2013 22:07:12 +0000

[…] Sanity: Bad For You, Bad For The World […]

By: What Dave Chappelle and Stalkers Can Teach You About Learning Languages | AJATT | All Japanese All The Time

Wed, 31 Jul 2013 16:37:18 +0000

[…] Stalkers, like Dave Chappelle, are shocking, in large part, not because of what they say, but for the fact that they said it. Not because of what they think, but for the fact that they actually went out and said it. Not for having considered the action, but for having taken it. Like a James Bond villain once said (and I paraphrase): “the difference between genius and insanity is success“. […]

By: Start Dirty: Why A Clean Slate Is Bad For You and What To Do About It | AJATT | All Japanese All The Time

Tue, 16 Jul 2013 00:37:24 +0000

[…] the foundational base of toxicology knowledge owes itself to (occasionally fatal) human error 12. The same goes for flight and even space travel. And, again, that’s fine 13. We […]

By: ひまわり

ひまわり — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 17:24:28 +0000

I feel compelled to point out that the Wright Brothers weren’t from North Carolina, they were from Ohio. North Carolina just happened to be a remote work site for their flying experiments. I grew up in their hometown, so I’ve heard about them ad nauseum since I was knee high to a grasshopper.

Speaking of the Wright Bros, however, you might be interested to know that they considered their first “successful” flight in North Carolina to be a failure. They returned home completely dejected, but ready to start over. When they decided to set up shop and do most of their experiments locally, the townspeople thought they were crazy. All of the “sane” people told them they couldn’t do it, that “if man were meant to fly, he’d have been born with wings.” But those “crazy Wright boys” didn’t give up, working in all kinds of weathers, having to dodge cows in their flying field, and constantly having to rebuild and recover from crashes.

And do you know what I find awesome about the whole story (tying this whole thing back into AJATT and methods)? The Wright Brothers didn’t go to college, and I think one of them didn’t even finish high school, but not having “credentials” didn’t stop them from being successful. Their methods weren’t entirely their own, but they learned from others’ mistakes and improved on them to make something that worked. Their major turning point came when they figured out that a fundamental principle (might have been physics or math or something, I can’t remember exactly what it was) that everyone else in the world had been using as a basis for their calculations was WRONG. Suddenly they were operating on a different playing field, and this paradigm shift led them along the path to greatness. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Methods change. Ideas change. S### happens. Don’t sweat it. The most important part is just not to give up because something isn’t working the way you thought it would. I’ve been following AJATT for just over two years now, and I’ve loved (almost) every minute of it. Thanks Khatz. I’m flying 🙂

By: Four Languages at Once? | Narrative Disorder

Four Languages at Once? | Narrative Disorder — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 09:21:05 +0000

[…] My experience when learning basic Japanese, and living in Japan (2008-2010), made me suspect that studying more than one language could actually make language learning more efficient, but I had no real evidence for that. Like the good, institutionalised learning girl that I am, I started researching what language professionals said about studying multiple languages at once. I trialled various language software in one or other of the languages, to see what they were like and what happened when I did – my suspicions appeared to be playing out. Still, though, I thought it was insane, so I went looking for polyglot sites and I opened my Japanese folder in Google Reader and started catching up on Khatzumoto’s AJATT (All Japanese All The Time) blog. Two weeks ago, he posted this: “Sanity: Bad for You, Bad for the World”. […]

By: Reason

Reason — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 04:51:32 +0000

Classic AJATT.
I do have to say that PB’s perspective is a worthy counterpoint though.

By: Kyle

Kyle — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 18:42:17 +0000

^I’d actually say he’s more fluent in Mandarin than cantonese. I mean, he has silverspoon mandarin and not silverspoon cantonese. But thanks for the article :). Never read it and it was quite useful. Time to go back to watching telenovas.

By: Kyle

Kyle — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 18:41:53 +0000

^I’d actually say he’s more fluent in Mandarin than cantonese. I mean, he has silverspoon mandarin and not silverspoon cantonese. But thanks for the article. Never read it and it was quite useful. Time to go back to watching telenovas.

By: Strawberry Vibe

Strawberry Vibe — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 16:12:09 +0000

I’m not sure, but I think this whole comment rating system is getting a little out of hand. Like, this person (PB) just stated his/her interpretation of things, yet this comment is hidden due to poor ratings. I’m not sure why opinions that are unpopular should be hidden or marked as bad. Wasn’t Darwin’s opinion on nature unpopular? In fact, wasn’t the idea of AJATT originally unpopular?

I don’t know, I’m not about to lose any sleep on this, but still, it may be nice if the idea of changing the rating system was at least thought about.

By: Pingfa

Pingfa — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 03:12:31 +0000

^ I’m pretty sure he’s relatively fluent in Cantonese by now. I seem to recall he posted something in late 2009 where he said he could understand virtually anything on Hong Kong TV.

*searches*
Aha, here ya’ go: /motivation-for-cynical-people

I really want to know about his Mandarin progress, though. As I once read one dude describe it, ‘Mandarin is more a super group of dialects than one language’ There’s not really a clear standard for Mandarin like most other languages, so I feel it will inevitably take him longer to reach a proficient level in.

Anyhew, a good post, Khatz. To remind us not to take ourselves too seriously. We’re just copying what countless number of others have done before us, not trying to blow up the Death Star.

By: kyle

kyle — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 16:51:44 +0000

Question that is unrelated to this post but i want to know nonetheless. For those people who have Ajatt Plus, does Khatz talk about his progress in cantonese? Like the if he’s making tweaks to his learning styles and things of that nature?

By: ジェイソン

ジェイソン — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 14:40:32 +0000

Khatz,

Sometimes you show true flashes of brilliance. They may be just flashes, but if you string enough of them together you’ll end up with one helluva firework display!

By: PB

PB — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 08:27:21 +0000

The poor German guy who tried to fly with wings however ended up in a coffin.
The moral of the story is: most of the ‘insane’ people end up dead, maimed or scarred. Only one ends up the winner. Each of those dead people thought he or she was going to be that winner. But they didn’t.
Don’t knock sanity.

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 07:14:55 +0000

Seconded.

Forget flapping. Anki is my airplane.

By: Jake

Jake — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 22:39:34 +0000

This is the kind of “kick sanity to the curb” goodness I love. My sanity especially get’s stabbed and left on the curbside to die after reading “Also Sprach Zarathustra”. Insane self-confidence for psychopaths.

By: Strawberry Vibe

Strawberry Vibe — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 20:28:02 +0000

I know I’m missing the point when I say this, but isn’t saying, “We fly” in this context sort of like being in a boat and saying, “We swim”? I know I’m knit picking here, but what seems more interesting to me is the fact that instead of trying to fly themselves (like that guy who made himself a pair of wings to flap), some smart people decided to make a machine that did the flying for them.

Let’s stop trying to fly, and just build a machine to do the flying for us. I think that sort of outside the box – and perhaps even lazy – type of thinking may be a beneficial way to look at learning Japanese as well.

[Note: when I say “some smart people”, I’m not referring specifically to the Wright brothers. As far as I know, mechanical flight was a concept created before their plane, they just happened to be the first to make it all work.]

By: ライトニング

ライトニング — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 15:31:56 +0000

Almost died of laughter from the part about the book of “Desert Legends” xD
But yes, I find this post very helpful. I’ve always changed my ways of doing sentences and stuff, and then I’m like, “Why didn’t I just do this from the start!?” and get a little frustrated with myself, but in the end, we always find better ways to do stuff. Even when I reach my dream of Japanese pwnage and moving to Japan, I’ll still probably find a better way to learn than I did.
Same thing with planes, We mastered flying quite a while ago, but we always build on top of it on how to make it even better.