What Are The BigBois Saying?

Unholyburger:

“BigBoi has kept me in the game. Constantly reminding me of what I should be doing. The pace is good…”

ダルー:

“I’ve noticed benefits from the massive exposure to new material (which I def[initely] wasn’t providing myself before). I can read kana faster…I can more effectively pick out sounds from audio clips due to forcing myself to shadow. But more importantly, the new sentences I’ve learned are sticking in my head easily.”

麻雀:

“I feel as though my listening comprehension skills are skyrocketing. I suspect that other areas of Japanese focus may be trailing behind more slowly.”

curryisyummy:

“Part of the reason I signed up for AJATT SilverSpoon is because I could never set a real pace for myself…This doesn’t even cost nearly as much as my school book fees, so in my opinion, it’s more than totally worth it for a Japanese linguistics major like myself. Plus, I get to look forward to, you know, really speaking and living Japanese like a native in just a few hundred days.”

Matt ¹:

“What’s particularly amazing about SilverSpoon is that it’s all bottled up and packaged for you. You just buy it, un-wrap it, and eat! You don’t have to worry about if you are doing the [right] or wrong thing or if you decrypted Khatz’s cryptic blog posts correctly.”
Day 33-41 of SilverSpoon – what I think of SilverSpoon so far « j.mp/lvCIrr

‘TF? What Is SilverSpoon BigBoi?

OK. First things first.

SilverSpoon BigBoi is a special variant of AJATT SilverSpoon designed specifically for people who have already been through all the kanji in RTK1 (Remembering the Kanji, Volume 1). If you don’t know what all SilverSpoon even is, check this out, then come back here.

…

Welcome back. I missed you terribly 😛 .

So, it’s come to my attention that you’re, well, how can I put this politely…a big, unisex boy.

You’re a big boy ². You don’t need to spend like a hundred plus days going through RTK again.
You’re a big boy ³. You want to go to the next level.
You’re a big boy ⁴. You want all the convenience of SilverSpoon, just started at your level.
You’re a big boy ⁵. You don’t want to wait. Don’t need to wait. Don’t know how to wait.

And that’s why you deserve SilverSpoon BigBoi ⁶. SilverSpoon BigBoi is, well, SilverSpoon, the greatest Japanese learning product of all time, the only product with the power and the courage to take you to fluency ⁷, adjusted to fit post-RTKers.

I was initially ambivalent about splitting off a SilverSpoon variant — opinion is pretty unanimous on the fact that AJATT.com is already confusing enough as it is! But the more I thought about it and mapped it out, the more I realized how sweet it would be. At a purely personal level, it’s great to have a chance to work with people who are so smart and demonstrably self-motivated, and I’m really flattered that there are those of you out there who would choose to use SilverSpoon. Thank you for your interest.

As we established ad taedium not two paragraphs ago, you’re a big boy. But as big as you are, it is a big, big world out there, an ocean of confusion and conflicting information, an ocean filled with phenomena like:

• the (in)famous post-RTK sophomore slump — the one where people run through RTK like a champ and then proceed to totally fall off the wagon — and
• the (in)famous intermediate slump — the one where people fall off the wagon because they can’t feel themselves moving forward even though they actually are — Leonard’s Mastery plateaux spring to mind)
• the (in)famous never-ending monolingual transition — the one where people never quite get themselves to really turn Japanese and start using Japanese to learn itself

And it’s precisely these treacherous interim(?) waters — waters where many a Japanese dreamboat has sunk unnecessarily ⁸ — that SilverSpoon will safely navigate you through and onward to fluency.

Combining techniques from fields and diverse as behavioral psychology, software engineering, athletics and linguistics into a unique concept I rather presumptuously and pseudo-intellectually like to call “psyschoergonomics”, SilverSpoon offers you that most elusive of things: structure without stricture — all the benefits of having someone else plan, organize and deliver information to and for you, with none of the drawbacks.

On a very serious note, I am proud and excited to finally be having RTK graduates officially join SilverSpoon. You guys are the cream of the Japanese crop: you know kanji; you know how to SRS and perhaps most important of all, you know how to settle down, stop whining and start taking action.

As an RTK graduate, you have already done something which many people in the world still think is impossible. You have learned the meaning andwiting of over two thousand Chinese characters in your native language. You are literally a kanji native of Western ⁹ extraction. Kanji are now your native language.

Many RTK graduates, unfortunately, lose their direction and fall off the wagon. But that is now history. Because SilverSpoon is here to complete the circle. The rock-solid foundation that Dr. Heisig built is about to get a Japanese fluency house built atop it.

SilverSpoon BigBoi Is Not For Everyone

Hey. I would love for everyone in the world to have a SilverSpoon account.

Actually, scratch that — no, I wouldn’t.

Wanna know why? Well, I was gonna tell you either way, so here goes. Because SilverSpoon is not for everyone. Not everyone is a good fit for it. There is a specific kind of person at a specific stage of their Japanese game, with a specific set of minimum criteria.

So Who Is SilverSpoon BigBoi For?

At the minimum, you must meet the following criteria in order to be allowed to hold a SilverSpoon BigBoi membership.

1. You have been through (=seen and written by hand) all ~2046 odd kanji in RTK1 (Remembering the Kanji, Volume 1) at least once
2. You know hiragana
3. You know katakana
4. You have one of the following:
   • EITHER:
     A smartphone (e.g. iPhone) or some other such magical mobile handheld general purpose computing/communication device that allows you to listen to audio, connect to the Internet, and use software applications, when moving and waiting — basically, to pick up dead time. I’m serious, these things are awesome and they’ll make a difference. If someone had invented them just for language study, they’d…well, they’d would be a big deal!
   • OR:
     Enough control over your regular time that you don’t need to pick up dead time as assiduously (so, for example, people who work from home, or can take regular short breaks to do reps at work, etc. would fit in here)
5. You have one of the following:
   • EITHER: a Japanese media budget of $150~$250+ per month (the more the merrier)
   • OR: unfettered access to Japanese media in large quantity and variety — if you have Japanese cable TV, live in Japan, or live outside Japan but near a Book Off, this means you

Special Notes

• SilverSpoon — BigBoi or otherwise — is not for everyone. While it is infinitely cheaper and more effective than any comparable option (so-called Japanese school, Rosetta Stone, Pimsleur), SilverSpoon is not free. This is a rigorous, detailed, premium, comprehensive system delivering guaranteed results at a price. People for whom this price is not a good fit are themselves not a good fit for SilverSpoon. For these people, alternatives such as:
  • Making everything up on your own
  • Reading through AJATT.com and making everything up on your own
  • Figuring things out for yourself using smaller-scale tools such as those available in the AJATT Quick Reference Guide.
  • Remember, I myself learned Japanese before SilverSpoon. But that was BS (Before SilverSpoon). Times have changed. This is the age of ASS (Anno SilverSpoon) ¹⁰.
• SilverSpoon is not for everyone. Please do not attempt to join SilverSpoon BigBoi if you don’t meet all them numbered criteria up there ↑. People who don’t meet the criteria might get in, but they won’t be allowed to stay in.
  • Total beginners and people who are only partway through RTK1 or have lost their RTK knowledge entirely, would be better off with regular, vanilla SilverSpoon.
• SilverSpoon BigBoi will be 495 days (= 70 weeks) in length, an audacious 15 weeks shorter than the 595-day (= 85-week) regular, vanilla SilverSpoon, which is for total beginners.
• While you are presumed to know kana, you don’t need to know any actual kanji readings to profitably parttake of SilverSpoon BigBoi. Indeed, the assumption is that you know none whatsoever.
• Within BigBoi, you will still need to go through the days as they come, one day at a time (i.e. no jumping ahead from day 1 to day 250). Suck it up. This is for your own good. It’s to prevent you from hurting yourself. That’s what SilverSpoon is about: protecting you from yourself and your ability to overwhelm yourself into paralysis. You know I care 😀 . You know stern, loving Father Khatzumoto cares 😛 ¹¹ . If you’re so independent that you need and feel confident enough to skip days, then SilverSpoon probably isn’t a good fit for you. Go it alone. SilverSpoon is not for everyone.
• SilverSpoon is not for everyone. People who are in any doubt about whether SilverSpoon is right for them would be best advised to hold off on joining for now. Try something else. Get on the waiting list and join in another round. While it will cost more to join later, the clarity and certainty will no doubt be worth the wait.

So, Are You Ready?

You are an RTK graduate. You are a kanji native. You are intelligent. You are driven. You just need a nudge, you just need a plan, you just need some direction, you just need some structure without stricture. That and more is exactly what SilverSpoon BigBoi will give you: structure without stricture. More than enough of a plan to free you of worry, but never so much as to free you of freedom and the happiness that freedom brings.

I have every confidence that you will be fluent in Japanese by the time you’ve eaten your last spoonful of SilverSpoon. Every confidence.

You are an RTK graduate. You are the crème de la crème ¹². Now let us finish making the cake to go with that crème. Because that’s exactly what everything after RTK is: cake.

Welcome aboard 🙂 .

Fo’ Shizzle Fluency Guarantee

Guaranteed fluency: if you’re not fluent in Japanese at the end of 495 days of faithfully executing the simple, easy, quick, straightforward sprint missions fed to you daily by AJATT SilverSpoon, you can have a full refund. No questions asked.

In fact, if you just decide partway through that you just don’t like it, you can have your money back. That’s how sure I am this works. That’s how freakin’ cool I am. Just an empty email to < refund at ajatt dot com > , with the following subject: “I want a refund, but I still love you. I care about you. I promise I’ll be back again.” will suffice.

Succeed or get your money back. Fluency or your money back. The days of messing around are over. The people who take your money to help you learn should take responsibility for the results. I mean, I’m almost perfect. But even I’m not all the way there. Things happen. If and when they do, you don’t have to pay for that imperfection.

However. While a freakin’ cool person, I am also a practicing jerk, so there is one condition: the hypothetical refund will only be processed after Day 495 of the process, regardless of the cancellation/request date. There are three major reasons for this:

1. To give me time to skip the country with your money and head to my secret villa in Panama with my concubine ¹³, Esmeralda. What, I never told you about her? Two words: h ot.
2. To discourage casual visitors and passers-by from clogging the system with their…casualness and endless billing processing requests. We’re not here to fool around; we’re here to fool around with Japanese.
3. To encourage people to be mentally prepared to play this game right through to the fourth quarter. In it to win it, remember? We’re breaking the pots and sinking the ships; we’re taking the option of quitting off the table until the end of the game. You can quit when you’re fluent. No more three-day-monking. Or, if we are three-day-monking, we’re doing it 199 times straight  😉 .

Working definition of fluency:

• Reading: Can read a randomly selected general interest (e.g. newspaper) article aloud.
• Listening/Speaking: Can listen to a randomly selected 60~90-second audio clip from prime-time television and repeat the dialogue.
  • Can express ideas directly or via circumlocution (can explain over, around and through any words you momentarily forget or didn’t yet know)
• Writing: Can accurately transcribe a randomly selected audio 60~90-second spoken exchange from prime-time television or radio.

To this working definition, we can also add some items based on Japanese Level Up‘s definition (65/80), because I think it’s a really good one:

• Can understand Japanese TV (95%), Japanese News (95+%), Contemporary Novels (95%)
• Can read and understand Japanese only grammar/usage explanations and dictionary definitions — you use Japanese to learn itself: your Japanese is “self-hosting”
• Don’t yet have a full background of Japanese culture, history, geography and social life in general
• Can read, write and understand whatever an average Japanese high schooler can
• Can read, write and understand whatever an average person in your field of expertise (e.g. college major/profession) can
• On the phone and text chat, people occasionally (though not always) think you’re Japanese
• Some Japanese people think you were raised in Japan, or have lived here for 10+ years, or are part Japanese