OK, so I saw a video where Matt Vs Japan (YouTuber) said that he did a ton of input and after around 2-3 years he tried to speak and realised he could speak fluently. He made this sound like it happened suddenly and that he didn’t even know he could.
So he obviously did a LOT of ‘input only’ activity for a long time, but I’m still kind of sceptical that this happened the way he describes it.
I’ve heard many people (including Steve) say that it can happen relatively quickly if you’ve spent time doing input first, but those people always clarify that you need LOTS of practice speaking to get good (meaning fluent).
I’m left wondering if Matt is either exaggerating, or whether he simply got waaaaaaay more input than those other people and so it just came easy/naturally/instantly to him?
The one thing that bugs me about his claim is that he said he realised it after he applied for a job guiding Japanese people around his area, and whilst guiding them he suddenly became aware that, “holy, s**t! I can speak Japanese.”
I’m left wondering what made him think he could do that job in the first place if he didn’t even know he was fluent in Japanese? I guess he could’ve been thinking that he’d wing it and do the best he can, but even to think you can do that would surely mean you knowing that you’re at least conversationally fluent?
Anyway, I’m not saying he definitely is exaggerating/lying about what happened, but I’m a little sceptical about it, to say the least, particularly for such a ‘hard’ language as Japanese. I guess he was in a unique situation in that he only did input for a number of years, and it was almost full time.
I know there are many videos of people who are following his methods, but I can’t find any where someone has made that same claim. In fact, most of them have either given up (not posted for months/years), or have uploaded videos saying how things are going slower than they expected (their reason usually being that they haven’t been able to put in the time required).
Have any of you tried something similar and had the same result Matt had? I only ask because I’ve kind of done the same thing (although not for even close to the number of hours Matt did) and I’m trying to figure out if output (if not fluent, in some form) will eventually come naturally with time without much deliberate practice, which I know would be frustrating/hard work to me.