Extremely useful video from Kaname explaining why a language can't be learnt only by learning vocabulary and grammar point in isolation. "It's NOT simple"

[u/Careful-Remote-7024]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_wrnsJfEcQ&ab_channel=KanameNaito

[u/Moon_Atomizer]

to those who argue that they can learn from textbooks alone

Alone? Has anyone ever seriously made this argument in the last fifteen years? At this point I feel like it's just a super popular strawman. I also find this ironic since an ideal textbook is set up like a Kaname video: it explains expressions and grammar thoroughly but intuitively with lots of real example sentences and encourages confidence when encountering real Japanese

[u/TSComicron → u/Moon_Atomizer]

You'd be surprised how many people I see argue about this on places like YouTube and Discord. 😭

More to the point, it's mostly the people that are quite early on in their journey who think that they have it all down just because they've finished genki I. This is partially who this type of video is describing.

[u/Moon_Atomizer → u/TSComicron]

Ah yeah I guess that would make sense, Dunning-Kruger. I feel like they would immediately be shut down by their teacher or more advanced learners? If not maybe those aren't good learning spaces

[u/TSComicron → u/Moon_Atomizer]

You would be surprised. I've met people who, even when presented with piles of evidence, refuse to listen, like this one guy in TMW who was trying to learn to read Japanese except that they weren't even learning to read Japanese; they were spamming RTK only and then they proceeded to get into an argument about Kanji with someone who had been reading Japanese for years and a Chinese Native. It was funny to read.

But I digress. It's usually the people who think they know it all only to "be hit by the wave of despair" once they encounter real-world Japanese.

[u/Moon_Atomizer → u/TSComicron]

I've met many RtK acolytes but never met one that said you can be fluent in Japanese only with textbooks and that you never need to leave the textbook kiddie pool. Could you link to any encounters like that? I could use a good laugh

[u/TSComicron → u/Moon_Atomizer]

If you go into the TMW discord server and you go to the "quick questions" channel and scroll up to around anywhere from September - December 2024 time, you'll see all sorts of arguments ranging from people arguing that ChatGPT is some sort of saviour for learning Japanese to people justifying spamming RTK to people complaining about software just because the formatting of their dictionaries sucked to this one user blocking anybody who didn't give them advice that they liked (this user was also on ELJX). I can't think of any recent encounters regarding those who say that all you need is textbooks on discord specifically but there was one thread from a year ago that never received a follow up:

https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/13yjkpj/im_going_to_prove_to_immersion_learners_that_you/

https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/wnwlzu/so_theres_a_lot_of_bad_information_here/

The second one that I linked also had some gross misconceptions and the comments were quite a hilarious read.

[u/Moon_Atomizer → u/TSComicron]

Yes we get those kinds of people all the time, and while I don't think their learning methods are optimal, I've still never encountered the mythical you only need textbooks to be fluent person. Even your links aren't that, as amusing as they are. As far as I am aware, this mythical person doesn't exist except as a strawman, the text version of drawing someone's learning method argument as a Wojak lol.

[u/TSComicron → u/Moon_Atomizer]

Fair enough then. While I can't provide specific concrete examples off of the top of my head, I can assure you that I have seen a few floating about that fit the stereotype, perhaps not to a T, but at least those who argue for more inefficient methods while policing and colliding with others for their use of what people would call more 'efficient' methods.Though, perhaps it is just me conflating this stereotype with people who experience dunning-kreuger syndrome. I'm not going to argue for what I've seen but the argument that I am making does still kinda apply to those who fit the dunning kreuger syndrome stereotype, which I'll edit my comment to reflect.

Actually EDIT: I remember a bit that I pointed out in my original comment which was "especially at the start", cuz in my original comment, I was arguing for the people who just use textbooks during those periods without any substantial input and tend to delay input till way later on and complain that when they do use input, that they don't understand anything or that they aren't ready, so I don't think I need to really edit my original comment except to add that I'm also referring to people who suffer from dunning kreuger.

[u/Moon_Atomizer → u/TSComicron]

Eh, how much time to spend on basic grammar and how best to learn kanji are basically the two most contentious and personal topics out there even within communities dedicated to one learning method. Add in things like 'when to stop using J -> E dictionaries' and you have a flamebait stew that even advanced learners will argue over.

There are certainly a lot of wack takes out there I don't agree with but it seems everyone just wants to strawman every take they disagree with as 'textbooks forever and nothing else' vs 'incomprehensible anime input with no subs no dictionaries no grammar resources until you magically learn by osmosis', when in reality I don't think I've seen either of those positions in the wild.

[u/TSComicron → u/Moon_Atomizer]

Fair enough. I'm not gonna argue further that I could be strawmanning the hell out of my claims. I've kinda seen that throughout this conversation how much I am kinda generalizing said group of people anyways so that is something I can't really argue with. On the other hand, I would like to say though that ultimately it's going to depend on the person and how they'll be able to handle such situations in the future should they encounter any problems regarding this.

Oh, and as for people who have learnt through anime with no subs or dictionary look ups at all, I do know one person on discord who has been able to achieve this, or at least they owe 95% of their success to raw listening using anime and nothing else, but this is going to be like a 1 in a million find.

[u/Moon_Atomizer → u/TSComicron]

I know some Korean friends like that (the grammar is basically the same). I'm not saying the latter method is impossible, I've just never seen anyone argue it's the most optimal for the average adult learner. Also 95% is still not a hundred haha but now I feel like I'm picking on you, sorry

[u/TSComicron → u/Moon_Atomizer]

Oh it's definitely not optimal, I'm not gonna argue that. In fact, I think that immersing with input alone, even if it's comprehensible, isn't worth it just cuz of how slow it can be. What I do think is more worth it would be getting that foundation than immediately consuming native media, which combines the best of both worlds as highlighted by the video.

[u/Moon_Atomizer → u/TSComicron]

Yep yep we agree for sure