Matt VS Japan & Steve Kaufmann Discuss AJATT

Matt and Steve recently talked about learning Japanese and the AJATT method, which is all Japanese, all the time. Enjoy!

Part 1 Steve Kaufmann & Matt vs Japan Discuss Hardcore Language Learning - YouTube

Part 2 英語や日本語は何のために勉強するのか? (w/ Matt VS Japan) - YouTube

Part 3ish On the importance of disagreeing. - YouTube

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i saw it yesterday and I didn’t enjoy much. it seems to me that both matt and steve are too emotionally invested in their products that they miss the forest for the trees. I thought matt didn’t sell AJAAT correctly to Steve and at the same time Steve just felt it was a method by and for recluses. Too bad because i really had high expectations and I was really disappointed.

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Curious, what would you like to see?

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@amop567 - I accidentally deleted the whole thing! :crazy_face::crazy_face::crazy_face: Lets just say I didn’t enjoy that so-called pitch training one bit. I’d rather read a dictionary… So long as Japanese understand what I’m saying, and continue to say how really good and pleasant I sound, that’s good enough for me! :rofl:

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ha no worries it happens ^^

Definitely don’t think everyone needs to study it, though it feels good to be able to clearly navigate between the many homonyms (雨・飴、神・紙、柿・カキ、帰る・変える the list goes on…)
I’ve actually run into trouble a few times because I didn’t know the correct accent (mistaking 支障 for 師匠 immediately comes to mind).
I think a lot of people who don’t understand pitch accent make the same mistakes but don’t know what’s going on.

A lot of Japanese people will tell you you’re fluent once you get beyond コンニチワ :sweat_smile:

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I was second top in a State speech contest back in 1979 - does that count? :rofl::rofl: The first prize winner had Japanese parents. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Hi eric i was just expecting a more detailed conversation in terms of immersion because from my point of view I think that both matt and steve have very similar ideas. I was thinking about graded language perhaps which is something i would like to hear two experts talk about. because ajaat say that content must be for natives by natives and and would presume that steve has a more graded approach. who knows …

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Better than most of us! ^^

I actually winced at some of the negative comments posted under this video a week ago. On You-Tube. It seems to me they’d probably treat Alexander Arguelles, Richard Simcott and Luca Lampariello in the same ignorant fashion.

It’s not a contest to see who can blow whom out of the water and dazzle people with their performance. I’d rather hear someone with a pleasant accent speak slower than a 100 yard dash - I mean, is speaking at break-neck speed a badge of ‘mastery’? And I’d rather hear someone speak with substance and maturity drawn from real life experience. Whatever happened to “excellence” as a goal in language learning, as opposed to unhealthy perfectionism?

Matt and his followers seemed to have overlooked when Steve was Matt’s age, he’d already earned a university degree in France entirely in French (as opposed to majoring in French), learned Mandarin from scratch in 9 months and passed his diplomat exam, then lived and worked in Japan. He didn’t have the luxury of secluding himself away as a bachelor with no responsibilities to study Japanese. Instead, he had a wife and babies, and even ran his own export business there later.

I’m even beginning to wonder if subconsciously Matt just wanted to show off. He is so young after all, we can forgive him on account of his youth :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: I hope he doesn’t go down the same path as Kazumoto whom seems to think swearing in Japanese on You-Tube is somehow language ‘mastery’. I’m disappointed that Matt has since hearted some of the derogatory comments against Steve…

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I’m actually in the MIA discord and many of the people in there are currently talking about how disappointed they are that people are leaving Steve negative comments and how that is not the reputation that they want as a community. So it’s not everyone at least. And Matt himself has said very favorable things about Steve in the server as well. He looks up to Steve and says that their methods are very similar, that they just disagree as far as end-goals are concerned.

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Good point, Steve made 2 follow up videos too!

On the importance of disagreeing. - YouTube

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updated

Yeah i noticed that in the MIA community, sometimes i would post some comments completely agreeing with matt and some person out of nowhere would attack me and would defend the prophet even though i was completely agreeing. It felt like a very defensive community that is too emotionally involved into something that has a lot of positives because Ajjat and MIA have made the process of learning Japanese so much more organized but at the same time they tend to push people away and I think they like that way

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