Measuring language “study” time in years is like trying to count mixed cash by weighing it. Hello? Denominations…

Counting language acquisition in years makes us think that we’ve been playing way harder than we actually have.

It’s not the years, it’s the minutes. It’s the seconds.

You can’t compare a stack of dollar bills to a stack of Benjamins and call them the same, playa.

Don’t tell me how many “years” you’ve been at the language.
Tell me how many seconds.
That’s seconds on task. Seconds on the bike, whether pedaling or coasting.

And, no, the time you spent being emo but not doing anything does not count.

“The key to strategy… is not to choose a path to victory, but to choose so that all paths lead to a victory.”
— Cavilo, The Vor Game

If you change your environment then, you won’t have to “choose” anything. You can just live. Your environment will essentially make your choices for you.

I never needed to “manage time” and I never needed to “discipline” myself. People who have dealt with me know how I am; I am intensely undisciplined: I sit around unwashed; emails and phone calls to me go unanswered.

I knew all I needed to do was change my environment. And that’s all I really “tried” to do, that’s the only place I made an effort. I am encouraging you to try the same. Not because you “should”, but because it’s the easy way out.

Real men don’t take the easy way out. But I’m not a real man. I’m a pathetic wusspot who thinks sweats can count as formal wear if they’re new ¹.

Take the easy way out. Don’t change yourself. Change your environment. Don’t choose Japanese. Choose a Japanese environment. Don’t do Japanese. Only have Japanese to do ². Don’t try to “win” at Japanese, just make it so that winning at Japanese is the only possible conclusion.

• Don’t try to read Japanese books. Just only have Japanese books in your house/room/car/bag.
• Don’t try to watch Japanese TV and movies. Just only have Japanese TV and movies. And then leave them playing.
• Don’t watch movies. Just leave movies playing with the sound on.
• Don’t surf more Japanese websites. Just have them always loading and loaded. Make Yahoo Kids your homepage. Use the Surusu URL Shuffler.

Easy, right? Like a speck of dust, it’s nothing, really. It is nothing. It is 無為. But pile up enough dust and you’ll have a mountain.

You don’t learn the language you could, should or want to learn. You learn the language of your bedroom, your kitchen, your living room, your web browser history, and your iPod.

Time by itself will do nothing. It’s engagement or the lack thereof multiplied by time that makes the difference.

So, if time “is” anything at all, it is at best a force multiplier. By itself, it’s powerless. Time multiplied by 0 gives you, well, 0. To mean anything, time needs to be crossed with choice.

Choice is where the real power is.

I think I’ve waxed pop philosophical enough for one day. Let me wrap it up and bring it home.

Don’t “do” Japanese. Don’t “set aside time” for Japanese. Choose Japanese. Show up to Japanese. Then, just to be safe, lay down some suppression fire — make other choices difficult, inconvenient, or impossible.

What we call time (in the sense of “you’ll get better with time”) is not time, it’s really the sum of our choices. It’s the sum of things we showed up to. The sum of our showings up?  They don’t have to be big choices. Not at all. They’re just choices. The simplest choice, the atomic choice, if you will, is a choice of direction. The sum of your directions determines your destination…your “destiny”.

So, again, time will not make you better or worse. It’s not time, it’s times: the number of times you choose to show up to Japanese — you will get as good at Japanese as this number is high.

Choose fun. Choose kanji .

What deserves your closest attention is neither your ultimate goal, nor your track record, nor your overall plan, but your next choice.

What are you going to do next?

Ultimate goals are heavy; they weigh on the soul. They’re useful and everything, but you can’t have them in your head all the time because the difference between that ultimate goal and your current state can be quite heart-crushingly large.

Track records can be depressing. You’re just going to be seeing all you haven’t been doing. I wouldn’t say never look at these, but if you don’t keep your exposure down, it will make you sick.

Overall plans are similarly crushing. The thought, the sight of all that’s still left to do — that long, empty, open road — is not exciting.

Which leaves your next choice. Your immediate next action.
It’s just one thing.
It’s simple.
It’s practically instant gratification.

Let’s say your ultimate goal is Japanese fluency.
Your track record is spotty or non-existent.
Your overall plan is to follow something along the lines of AJATT/AntiMoon.

What is your next choice?
Simple: Do something. Anything. In Japanese. Anything counts.
ANYthing.
Any. Thing.

One simple choice. Through this one simple choice. you’re bringing yourself closer to the ultimate goal; you’re building a new, better track record and you’re following the overall plan.

That’s all there is to it.

When I say I am not smart, have no talent, and have no willpower, a lot of people think I’m being modest. Trust me. I am neither smart nor talented nor “disciplined”.

With Japanese, I just made simple, local choices. At every fork in the road, I chose Japanese. That is sum total of “the plan”. If there is truly no choice, then it’s obviously not a fork. But you would be surprised how many opportunities there are to fit Japanese in some crack somewhere somehow (because concurrency counts).

This is an incredibly dumb algorithm. It is so dumb that a computer could do it. Even a lazy, good-for-nothing boy from Kenya who forgets to shower all the time — such a boy could execute this algorithm.

Observe, a pseudocode implementation of the basic AJATT algorithm.

while ( breathing )
if ( anyOpportunityExists )
doJapanese(anything)
else takeNextOpportunity(asap)

It’s that simple. Make the big plans if you want. Keep the logs if you want. But know that the forks in the road are where things actually get decided.