All Japanese All The Time
Had a fascinating talk with a fellow university student on Saturday night. He has been learning Japanese for a while, but a year ago he started full Japanese immersion based on All Japanese All The Time.
The author of the site managed complete native-level fluency within 18 months, all while living in the US. And I think it’s possible.
The site has a lot of useful information, but is kind of spread around so here’s a quick distillation based on what the guy told me, and what I’ve read on the site.
- Becoming fluent at a language requires raw hours, nothing else.
- Immerse yourself 100% in the language.
- Change everything you consume to the language you’re learning - news, books, music, films, TV, friends, social networking.
- Listen/watch to things even if you don’t understand, you need raw exposure to the language.
- Only do stuff that is fun. If it’s not fun, drop it and move onto something else. Volume of input material is the key.
That’s about it. It’s obvious when you think about it, but the way the guy explained it to me and how it’s presented on the site makes a very strong point. The passion and conviction of the explanation is extremely infectious.
I’ve got 6 months in which to get my Japanese up to a sufficient level to be able to take part in laboratory discussions in technical Japanese, so fluency is really my short-term priority. I still need to be reading about research but if I follow the rules I can just read about it in Japanese and kill 2 birds with one stone.
For more information check out All Japanese All The Time.
