Comments on: What It Takes To Be Great 2: AJATT and Malcolm McDowell’s Outliers…wait…

By: aspiring

aspiring — Sat, 29 Jun 2013 18:07:49 +0000

The way you live your life affects your babies [or DNA]

“Genetics load the bullet, but environment pulls the trigger”

…random quote

By: amygdala » Blog Archive » Is 10,000 hours really an appropriate goal?

amygdala » Blog Archive » Is 10,000 hours really an appropriate goal? — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 07:10:28 +0000

[…] There’s a common theme that’s been running through self-development writing over the last few years – the idea that you need 10,000 hours to master a skill. […]

By: Tyler

Tyler — Sat, 30 May 2009 23:23:07 +0000

Just thought you’d like to know, the Japanese translation’s available! It’s called 天才! 成功する人々の法則

tinyurl.com/mazqy7

I saw it in a bookstore today and shouted “I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS!” :/

By: reineke

reineke — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 04:26:24 +0000

Hey

The 10,000 hour business. As far as Japanese, Mandarin, Arabic and Korean are concerned 10,000 hours looks about right.

The FSI students need around 4000 hours to reach level 3 (self-study hours included). Levels 4 and 5 are uncharted territory – no course will take you that far and from what I was able to read about it, these levels require exponentially more study time. It is possible to conclude and guesstimate from this information that in order to reach level 4+ (native-like) most students will indeed need around 10,000 study hours.

By: Serik

Serik — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 22:21:49 +0000

Wow, amazing article, after listening to some now habit audio, you kinda gave me wings!!! Thank you for your existnig!!!

By: All Japanese All The Time Dot Com: How to learn Japanese. On your own, having fun and to fluency. » Automated Discipline: How To Keep New Years’ Resolutions and Stay On Track All The Time

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 00:00:28 +0000

[…] In fact, the whole 10,000+ hours business indicates that these are in a sense one and the […]

By: quendidil

quendidil — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 18:33:22 +0000

Malcolm McDowell also sang Singin’ in the Rain while knocking an old man about and stripping his wife in A Clockwork Orange.

By: All Japanese All The Time Dot Com: How to learn Japanese. On your own, having fun and to fluency. » What It Takes to Be Great 4: Capablanca

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 05:01:00 +0000

[…] in response to this post, I received the following email from a very handsome reader named santayana. working hard in the […]

By: All Japanese All The Time Dot Com: How to learn Japanese. On your own, having fun and to fluency. » What It Takes to Be Great 3: Follow-Up

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 00:00:27 +0000

[…] Remember that last rambling train wreck of a post [you think you can make fun of me better than me? huh? BRING IT!]? There was a comment made on it […]

By: Brad

Brad — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 23:18:56 +0000

Rob, thanks for the link, that’s a pretty useful one.

By: Rob

Rob — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 21:03:06 +0000

Another very helpful site:

language.tiu.ac.jp/

Copy and paste any Japanese into this, click the 日->日　button, and it breaks down each word with a J-J definition on the right hand side with the English also under it.

By: beneficii

beneficii — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 20:07:24 +0000

He makes an interesting statement in the 11th footnote though:

“I have noticed from time to time that the romanization method first used tends to influence one’s accent in Chinese. It seems to me a Chinese person with a very keen ear could distinguish Americans speaking, say, Wade-Giles-accented Chinese from pinyin-accented Chinese.”

This I think is why extensive listening practice, before you even attempt to read the language, is an important part of developing a good accent.

By: HiddenSincerity

HiddenSincerity — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 11:50:59 +0000

@ Maya

Throughout the whole article I kept going “No, wait … he’s gonna say he’s joking …. now….ok,now…..omg I think he may actually be serious…” And then slaming my head onto my keyboard.

Fair enough to believe that yourself. People believe all kind of crazy things. But, for me, spreading that garbage is disgusting, and downright un-professional from someone in their positon. And damaging to; he basically tells people to not even bother with Chinese, coz they’ll never be any good.

By: khatzumoto

khatzumoto — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 05:58:33 +0000

@Maya
Wow…I thought if I closed my eyes and clicked my heels together, stupidity like this would just go away.

By: Maya

Maya — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 23:07:12 +0000

Hey Khatz 🙂

I recently stumbled across this beauty, which I found to be hilarious: www.pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 09:49:29 +0000

@scout:

You rock.

By: scout

scout — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 08:23:27 +0000

@Jonathan:

I’d say this is some pretty good evidence that it does exist:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RGx7Ecqy8g

By: Rob

Rob — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 07:31:54 +0000

Just found this very useful site. You put in any Japanese word or phrase, and it searches the web for sentences using that word phrase, extracts them and puts them into a list for you. Then it links the your keyword in each sentence to the website it pulled it from.

jrek.ta2o.net/

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 05:41:55 +0000

“Are part of their history, along with the secret of GUMMY BERRY JUICE!!!!”

Screw you man, now I have to try and find that show in Japanese and it probably doesn’t even exist.

Darned blogosphere, always resurrecting my childhood without warning… 😐

By: Harvey

Harvey — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 05:37:54 +0000

“a key part of what it means to be talented is being able to practise for hours and hours — to the point where it is really hard to know where “natural ability” stops and the simple willingness to work [long and consistently] begins. “

That’s exactly what my guitar teacher told me…

Whenever people menton that I’m “really good” at Japanese… I just point out that I’ve been at it since high school and lived there for six years. Seriously. It’s not that I’m smart. It’s just that I’ve been doing it foreeeeeever.

Argh. Now I just gotta motivate myself to do more of other stuff I need to get good at!

I gotta get that book.