Matt's business structure hasn't changed, it's always been based on 2 things: 1. A customer who learns Japanese isn't a customer who is paying to learn Japanese. 2. Focusing on pitch accent(something no one else focuses on) and selling it as a magic tool to boost learning, makes it seem like he offers something no one else does. Pitch accent is useful but tertiary, it varies between regions anyway and it's not a necessity when learning. It's refinement, not advancement. One issue within the Japanese teaching community is that many learners convince themselves that simply paying for courses equates to actively putting in effort to learn, which contributes to the success of individuals like him. It's unfortunate.
It’s not true nobody else focuses on pitch accent. Dogen also does in his pronunciation Patreon course for a mere $10/month. And you can watch the whole thing in one month. Personally, I think pitch accent is a good thing to have and can be easier to learn early on and get your brain tuned into learning automatically than people think. So I agree with Matt that pitch accent is important. I’m not sure about a 60 day course though. That seems excessive.
@@HyperLuigi37 Dogen presents pitch accent as a supplementary skill, not a foundational skill required to learn Japanese-so it’s not a focus. As I mentioned, it’s useful but tertiary. Pitch accent is more about polishing your language skills rather than forming a foundational base. The way Matt markets it as essential for beginners doesn’t align with this reality. In fact, focusing on refinement too early often significantly slows down or even hinders beginner progression.
@ I disagree. If you actually look at Dogen’s course he teaches pitch accent FIRST, before even normal hiragana pronunciation. The thing about pitch accent is that you can skip it or delay it but the longer you go without learning it, the harder it becomes to implement later on because you have to re-learn how to say words and it feels like rote memorization of thousands of arbitrary things. The earlier you make it your foundation, the easier it comes naturally later on. It’s one of those things that the fact that you can get by without it is what makes people make the decision to make it harder, which means they don’t want to learn it later. That Japanese Man Yuta is also a big supporter of learning pitch accent. He frames it as a thing people skimp too much on using excuses that don’t really hold water. Not in a mean way, but in a “just do it, you can and it’s useful” kind of way.
@@HyperLuigi37 He doesn’t position it as the core foundation of learning Japanese-it’s still a refinement skill integrated alongside pronunciation. He presents it as a tool to enhance your phonetic awareness, not as a core focus for beginner language acquisition. It's just conceptual awareness, that's all. If he was to present it as this, he'd be going against practised learning standards because you can communicate effectively with zero pitch accent training, you can't communicate effectively if you miss any core components. That's essentially the only difference that matters. I think both Dogen and That Japanese Man Yuta make decent points about how pitch accent can improve pronunciation and sound more natural. But that's an entirely different goal and framing it as a ‘foundation’ or 'main focus'(which Matt does) overlooks the practical priorities of learners. This is why pitch accent isn’t prioritised in tried-and-tested courses like From Zero or Genki, both of which boast decades of results. Not even Pimsleur focuses on it and that is an audio-learning course. Assimil Japanese, Minna No Nihongo, Japanese for Busy People... there's a lot, all with years of returns. Similarly, no accredited course or language organisation inside or outside of Japan positions pitch accent as a core focus. While conceptual awareness may be introduced, it’s clear that pitch accent is not necessary for speaking Japanese effectively. But I disagree that it becomes harder to learn the longer you leave it because accents can develop naturally on their own without the need to relearn, which is also why so many places don't pay much attention to it.
This is a fantastic comment! “It’s a refinement, not an advancement!”. This this this! I will try to give you credit @AlwaysStreams but this is something I can see me saying without thought. It’s how teaching should be done until a point-classifying advancements and refinements.
I've taken jp classes at my community college and they were more than 500 USD but at least there was structure than this. It used genki tho. The structure and the college credit is why I took jp classes in a traditional setting.
The thing is though, I agree what they've done is bad and I completely understand why you'd be hurt by it - both personally and professionally. But you have sung his praises for years, even met up with him and spoke about how nice he is. Even when everyone was saying how bad he was, how he was a scammer, how he scammed them and everything else, you spoke highly of him. But his crappiness only became a problem for you when it impacted you personally, but when it was only impacting everyone else, all of us, you didn't have an issue with it - he was still a nice guy you liked. And this isn't attacking you or anything like that, I very much still like FZ and you. But he's not a kid. He knows exactly what he's doing, he doesn't care because he's getting paid. There is no rebound until his reputation is so bad his money stops and then he does a "I didnt know, but I can be better" spin. Matt is bad news.
Fair assessment. Like I said I’m an optimist and an extrovert who wants friends in the same field. It blinded me to Ken Cannon at first and now it seems like I was blinded by MattVSJapan. The fact that Matt only blamed Ken and defended his position by playing the victim after I called him out on it, is quite a huge red flag for me. Now I see it.
@@japanesefromzero I understand that. I think it's difficult to see friends as the bad guys when they get so many opportunities to defend their actions. This mixed with the fact you want to believe them because they're your friend. But he's just a conman, and conmen blame their mistakes on everyone else for a living. It's how the keep up the con for so long.
@@japanesefromzero I actually think being optimistic about people and not holding grudges is a great character trait that lets you lead a happier life overall. As long as you don't trust blindly, obviously
@@CarlSagan-ew8tw The crazy part here is BOTH Matt and Ken have a history of scamming people, now BOTH are at it again. What here is George not able to get? It is BOTH Matt and Ken. Not one or the other, but BOTH.
Matt blaming Ken is further evidence of what a dishonest person he is. And George's refusal to write him off completely is concerning (although i can appreciate George's forgiving nature) 37:15 the way you describe Ken also applies to Matt: this is not his first "mistake" - it is a consistent pattern of bad behavior.
@@TheVoiceOfHimYeah, that's one thing I've noticed too: people think that just because Matt is fluent then that dissolves him of any wrong he might do. It's like weebs think japanese fluency is some kind of superpower so that person needs to be worshipped. (Not saying George is like this, but some people in the comments)
@@properpolymath2097 I remember once Matt was talking to George and George said that himself and Matt are “doers” and others just want to listen to people talk about learning Japanese. This may also be why George is soft on Matt, they think similar.
On a recent video I mentioned that I had purchased the latest versions of your JFZ 1-5. I thought I had, but it was only JFZ5. So, I purchased JFZ1 just now from Amazon JP. I’ll update my remaining 2-4 soon.
Anyone that promises instant language learning is lying. It takes years to learn a language. Decades. Taught English in Japan. Some of my students were doctors, researchers, CEO's etc. They were still learning English after decades of practice. I have seen people attend the full-time Japanese schools in Japan. 1600 to 2000 hours over two years. Amazing progress, but only a starting point. Love the they work with you to make you fluent. My Japanese teacher has been working with me for three years. Might hit JLPT4 at the end of this year.
I was in Ken's original course (before the infamous 2nd one he got sued for). Same thing there. Basically promised live sessions, turned out to be recordings. Also promised no questions asked money back, but got no reply.
George, I’m sorry but, after listening to the full 8 minute audio of Matt talking about the “whales”, he’s as bad of a scammer as Ken Cannon. If I were you, I would steer FAR AWAY from both of them. They are trouble, and I’m pretty sure you don’t want any of that. Personally, I don’t care how good Matt’s Japanese is. He’s a scammer. He knows what he’s doing. Don’t stain your reputation over him. It’s not worth it man. You’re being too kind to him by giving him the benefit of the doubt.
The “no reading stuff” is from ALG (Automatic Language Growth) method which isn’t academically proven, but they claim any speaking, reading, looking up definitions, or thinking in your TL causes permanent “damage” to your native-like potential. Most popular example of it is Dreaming Spanish videos, but they’re don’t push the “damage” aspect so heavily and a lot of people just use their videos without being strict ALG. I’m pretty sure Matt does believe it having heard him play with the ideas for years. Most people doing ALG content actually make content for beginners to learn from in context, whereas Matt and Ken seem to be just giving advice to try to bootstrap the method together yourself without much support or success stories (presumably just Ken).
I was wondering where they got this original idea. It’s weird because both of them can read Japanese very well. Why wouldn’t they think that’s a component of their linguistic success?
@@japanesefromzeroMatt has mentioned that he thought he had more difficulty learning pronunciation because he did so much reading early and he wished he focused on listening more earlier. He used to suggest an optional “perfectionist path” focusing on listening but said it wasn’t for everyone and he might not’ve stuck with Japanese if he didn’t read early. Since he’s started selling courses and using fear marketing he’s lost a lot of nuance in how he discusses it.
"Hair of the dog that bit me" is an idiom that is saying that the way to get over a hangover is to have a little bit of the alcohol that got you drunk the night before. It comes from an old wives' tale that if you use the hair of the dog that bit you in a remedy, it can cure rabies or whatever other disease you got from a dog bite (obviously does not have scientific validity). The Japanese translation of this is 迎え酒.
I suggested on his server, a while back, that putting off kanji might be a good idea because learning Japanese through audio THEN learning kanji was faster than doing both at the same time, and reading early on was bad for your accent long term. I always put a diclaimer saying that this was my own opinion and went against his official advice, and suggested that people put off reading for a year and make Anki cards with only audio on the front, then the written sentence on the back. That way you would gradually get used to seeing the written sentence in association with the sound, without having to "read" the sentence in your head with improper accent. I don't know if that theory is correct (nor do I care anymore) but a few people tried it and reported it worked for them. Shortly after Matt started talking about a very similar idea which is what you are describing in his current course. The frustrating thing was it goes against what he had been saying until then ("start with RTK") but there was never any explanation for the sudden change making me think he simply didn't want to admit he had been wrong until then. Let's be real: Matt's advice, right at it may be, isn't very monetizable. All the advice you would ever need from him he has already put on RUclips for free, anything besides that he is selling is purely to get your money.
My trips to Japan have cost less than their two year "courses." You can't even call them that though since all they basically do is tell you to go watch anime.
I still haven't studied (unless dabbling counts) a super hard language like Japanese or Korean, but it's clear what you have to do with such languages. You'll have to spend at least 1 hour a day on your own with the language for many years and still take lessons at some point. Even a person uses the best methods for Japanese and spends 3 hours a day on Japanese, I guess it will still take at least 3 years to get to a "I-feel- good-with-the-amount-of-Japanese-I -now level". That's over 3 thousand hours.
What you call „narcissistic tendencies“ about yourself isn’t narcissistic. A narcissist wouldn’t be able to admit he is one. I think you mean the tendency to need approval and to be liked to build your own ego up. That in itself isn’t pathological, we all have that to a certain degree, some more than others. As long as you are aware about it it doesn’t have to effect you negatively. It can even help you to identify integrity in yourself and others.
"A narcissist wpuld not be able to admit he is wrong". Not entirely true. Yes a majority will never see themselves as narcissists but some actually do realize it and go to therapy. There's even an official diagnosis and treatment options for it, but it's rare for a narcissist to actually follow through
I forgot the time stamp, but somewhere in the livestream George mentioned that someone in the hear Matt & Ken say that they are using the profits from the program to finance their Japanese visas. Can't they just teach English to get a visa like every other gaijin? Or just use their superb Japanese language skills to get a job?
I bought the project uproot course, I think it was $500. I didn’t buy all the upselling they were doing which was crazy btw. i think Nick is a good teacher but his inconsistency and poor structure (plus dropping parts of the course because it is too much work) is inexcusable. I reached out to the support guy about the course and they completely ignored me.
It's mind boggling that some people actually paid such money for a miraculous method that'll make you fluent in one of the hardest languages in the world. That's just screaming scam and yet people are still falling for it.
@ it’s not a method, it’s a course with live and pre recorded lessons on pitch accent. The protocol 80 was a course that was sold as having you learn 80% of the language, but actually was just around 600 of the most common words. The incubator thing for a lot of money that was supposed to personally guide you from start to fluency with help from people that already did the journey. Obviously it’s worth something, just not the price they are charging and with the false promises, disappearing for months whilst the course is still happening, lack of support and shady marketing practices it makes it a scam. The actual idea of the course is just whatever that person thinks it’s worth or not. Don’t get me wrong, this course is not worth it and both guys are horrible but if you want people’s guidance, experience and time then paying for it is not a problem.
@@aHazyWorld I see. When it comes to pronunciation, pitch-accent and overall Japanese phonetics then there is no better guy than Dogen. Check him out if you're interested. Cheers.
Yeah, from what I've seen of protocol 80/90, the delays and radio silence and ditching is basically the cycle of being in Ken's courses. It also seems to be a strategy to say he'll be treating his customers as his babies that he'll parent into fluency. I did enjoy the course (I only got the videos as the original class was supposed to already be over at the time of purchase), and like some apps are doing the lessons are in a different "order" from the traditional classes. As for the incubator, it's based on a theory by J. Marvin Brown that you'll do better if you pay attention to listening alone + outside input the first year. It's pretty interesting but hard to buy 😅. Anyways it's interesting but not really worth the $$ unless you a multimillionaire or something 😂. Even then you can probably just hire a live-in tutor at that point XD.
Seems I just missed this ;-; oof. Lemme know if you need a second perspective! (albeit less detailed because I used to be terrible at following programs)
I can't believe that someone would have the audacity to tell you not to learn how to read? What kind of teaching is that? You can't even properly engage with native learning content if you can't read the language! How do you use dictionaries? Not to mention that adults and babies learn languages very differently, and learning how a language is written can help an adult learner "spot the patterns" in the language, since orthography is often a reflection of an adults understanding of the mechanics of a language. Not to mention that on top of all of this, Japanese reading / writing is notoriously difficult and takes many years to learn, even for natives. You should start as early as possible.
George, please, don't compare yourself to Coffeezilla. He has the $10 million studio. It's just not a fair comparison! ;P e: I could be wrong, but I don't think Coffeezilla is using a TV because he explained how the void came to be in one video. It's been awhile, but he explained that the whole situation was an accident (and I don't think the accident was that the tv wasn't on). I thought it had to do with the green screen and a computer issue he had. But now I'm curious. I had no idea you could film in front of a screen and not get weird effects when moving in front of the screen.
Firstly, I assume you know the points I make below, I dont want it to come across as a lecture. Think of it as a commentary on some of the points you've made. I think you're being way too lenient on Matt, I think he's as much of a scammer as Ken is, but you're probably more fair and forgiving than I am. Matt's excuses are hard to believe. They've been working together for at least 3 years (that's how old some of the complaints about them are on reddit). If Matt truly had reservations, why has he worked with Ken for that long, and is still working with him today? Matt knows Ken's name is mud, and indeed has known that since he started collabing with him! Frequency analysis, pitch accent, dont read (or whatever their latest 'method' is) - these are distractions. Obviously they can be valid parts of a language, but they are made out to be the 'secret sauce' of language learning. Scams rely on distractions, time poor clients, and sometimes, a high price. They price it high to attract only high income clients (target the rich), and in their minds it must seem like a victimless crime. Anyway, these recent videos have been very enlightening, and have attracted heaps of views. Hopefully that will put paid to their scams, but sadly I doubt it. PS: Hair of the dog is when you're hungover and you consume alcohol (like first thing the next morning) to get rid of the hangover. There is science behind it, and it can work. Sort of. 🤭
Yea i got screwed from those guys , thats why i bought your 1st book waiting till i have the extra money to get the other 4. By the way your the best and i love the comedy you pepper in to make things engaging
I normally watch internet drama not Japanese learning videos. RUclips has pushed your videos to the internet drama cohort, that's why its the most popular of your videos since you have your regular audience, regular target audience, plus this new internet drama audience. Good luck with life, your peers really seem like scumbags.
Well there is something good, that has been produced by all the shit from Matt and Ken. Metatron made a video about it and so I discovered you, George. I started watching your videos and it absolutely helps me improve. I am so glad. I might buy a book, although I already have some from German authors. So thank you Matt for annoying you and Metatron.
About supporting, I liked the video series and was thinking about it (though not a lot of money), and my thought is I'd rather not do youtube membership because some of that money leaks to youtube, and books have a cost associated with them, so you get less than 100% there too, for something that honestly I wouldn't use (it's hard for me to sit down and just focus on reading). With Patreon I worry about how much cut they'd take (especially since they've been not great themselves on some things). But I do like the idea of just being able to support without money leaking to 3rd parties too much. It seems maybe the best way would be the site, as I think the additionally incurred costs would be small if just not using it much. However, if somebody wanted to do a larger amount, that might not be as easy. Sometimes people do the red (~$100) superchats, and I think that can be an "in the moment" kind of thing, it might be inconvenient to do multiple months of site membership or something if they just wanted to throw down a certain amount (more clicks and paying attention). (I think this kind of 'culture' has been on the rise for a while now, even previously with "pay what you want" but nowadays, streams, particularly with vtubers, are making it more common)
Matt is just arrogant & really has nothing to offer as he has no idea how to teach properly (despite speaking it very well himself). That's why he pretends things like pitch accent are more important than they are in reality.
Haha so Matt basically null and voided his own previous method and Stephan Krashen’s research for the last 40 years. For people who don’t learn languages or know how the process works I can see how they could scam people like this. Much like the early RosettaStone program.
@@chihangip I‘m German. I’d be useless as a German teacher though because I don’t really understand the grammar in-depth, I just use it and just „know/feel“ if something is said wrong. You can’t teach that.
Conversation for beginner's should be with native speakers. Language teacher should be from a person who actually knows how to teach the language. We had a native Spanish speaker try to teach Spanish and she was utterly awful, as she just had no idea why students would be struggling. It was later on we found out she had no training in being a teacher to begin with. She was an engineer, with no experience ever teaching.
A native speaker will always be great when you ask "How do I say this in German?" And "What about this?" They are walking dictionaries. But if they don't know grammar, many times they may make you feel even more confused. The best would be to try both native and non native teachers.
Matt's business structure hasn't changed, it's always been based on 2 things:
1. A customer who learns Japanese isn't a customer who is paying to learn Japanese.
2. Focusing on pitch accent(something no one else focuses on) and selling it as a magic tool to boost learning, makes it seem like he offers something no one else does.
Pitch accent is useful but tertiary, it varies between regions anyway and it's not a necessity when learning. It's refinement, not advancement.
One issue within the Japanese teaching community is that many learners convince themselves that simply paying for courses equates to actively putting in effort to learn, which contributes to the success of individuals like him. It's unfortunate.
It’s not true nobody else focuses on pitch accent. Dogen also does in his pronunciation Patreon course for a mere $10/month. And you can watch the whole thing in one month.
Personally, I think pitch accent is a good thing to have and can be easier to learn early on and get your brain tuned into learning automatically than people think. So I agree with Matt that pitch accent is important. I’m not sure about a 60 day course though. That seems excessive.
@@HyperLuigi37 Dogen presents pitch accent as a supplementary skill, not a foundational skill required to learn Japanese-so it’s not a focus. As I mentioned, it’s useful but tertiary. Pitch accent is more about polishing your language skills rather than forming a foundational base. The way Matt markets it as essential for beginners doesn’t align with this reality. In fact, focusing on refinement too early often significantly slows down or even hinders beginner progression.
@ I disagree. If you actually look at Dogen’s course he teaches pitch accent FIRST, before even normal hiragana pronunciation.
The thing about pitch accent is that you can skip it or delay it but the longer you go without learning it, the harder it becomes to implement later on because you have to re-learn how to say words and it feels like rote memorization of thousands of arbitrary things. The earlier you make it your foundation, the easier it comes naturally later on. It’s one of those things that the fact that you can get by without it is what makes people make the decision to make it harder, which means they don’t want to learn it later.
That Japanese Man Yuta is also a big supporter of learning pitch accent. He frames it as a thing people skimp too much on using excuses that don’t really hold water. Not in a mean way, but in a “just do it, you can and it’s useful” kind of way.
@@HyperLuigi37 He doesn’t position it as the core foundation of learning Japanese-it’s still a refinement skill integrated alongside pronunciation. He presents it as a tool to enhance your phonetic awareness, not as a core focus for beginner language acquisition. It's just conceptual awareness, that's all. If he was to present it as this, he'd be going against practised learning standards because you can communicate effectively with zero pitch accent training, you can't communicate effectively if you miss any core components. That's essentially the only difference that matters.
I think both Dogen and That Japanese Man Yuta make decent points about how pitch accent can improve pronunciation and sound more natural. But that's an entirely different goal and framing it as a ‘foundation’ or 'main focus'(which Matt does) overlooks the practical priorities of learners. This is why pitch accent isn’t prioritised in tried-and-tested courses like From Zero or Genki, both of which boast decades of results. Not even Pimsleur focuses on it and that is an audio-learning course. Assimil Japanese, Minna No Nihongo, Japanese for Busy People... there's a lot, all with years of returns. Similarly, no accredited course or language organisation inside or outside of Japan positions pitch accent as a core focus. While conceptual awareness may be introduced, it’s clear that pitch accent is not necessary for speaking Japanese effectively. But I disagree that it becomes harder to learn the longer you leave it because accents can develop naturally on their own without the need to relearn, which is also why so many places don't pay much attention to it.
This is a fantastic comment! “It’s a refinement, not an advancement!”. This this this! I will try to give you credit @AlwaysStreams but this is something I can see me saying without thought. It’s how teaching should be done until a point-classifying advancements and refinements.
I have taken both live Korean and Japanese classes at a college and it was cheaper than what Matt and Ken are charging.
College? So you mean university? That costs at minimum £9000 a year
I've taken jp classes at my community college and they were more than 500 USD but at least there was structure than this. It used genki tho. The structure and the college credit is why I took jp classes in a traditional setting.
@@RetogNo it doesn't. College doesn't mean university. There are community colleges that are just a few hundred dollars a semester.
@@Retogdon't forget you get 20 hours per week with a teacher. So yes it is cheaper.
@@Retoga class is about 50 bucks per unit...
The thing is though, I agree what they've done is bad and I completely understand why you'd be hurt by it - both personally and professionally. But you have sung his praises for years, even met up with him and spoke about how nice he is. Even when everyone was saying how bad he was, how he was a scammer, how he scammed them and everything else, you spoke highly of him. But his crappiness only became a problem for you when it impacted you personally, but when it was only impacting everyone else, all of us, you didn't have an issue with it - he was still a nice guy you liked. And this isn't attacking you or anything like that, I very much still like FZ and you.
But he's not a kid. He knows exactly what he's doing, he doesn't care because he's getting paid. There is no rebound until his reputation is so bad his money stops and then he does a "I didnt know, but I can be better" spin. Matt is bad news.
Fair assessment. Like I said I’m an optimist and an extrovert who wants friends in the same field. It blinded me to Ken Cannon at first and now it seems like I was blinded by MattVSJapan. The fact that Matt only blamed Ken and defended his position by playing the victim after I called him out on it, is quite a huge red flag for me. Now I see it.
@@japanesefromzero I understand that. I think it's difficult to see friends as the bad guys when they get so many opportunities to defend their actions. This mixed with the fact you want to believe them because they're your friend. But he's just a conman, and conmen blame their mistakes on everyone else for a living. It's how the keep up the con for so long.
@@japanesefromzero I actually think being optimistic about people and not holding grudges is a great character trait that lets you lead a happier life overall. As long as you don't trust blindly, obviously
@@CarlSagan-ew8tw The crazy part here is BOTH Matt and Ken have a history of scamming people, now BOTH are at it again. What here is George not able to get?
It is BOTH Matt and Ken. Not one or the other, but BOTH.
Matt blaming Ken is further evidence of what a dishonest person he is. And George's refusal to write him off completely is concerning (although i can appreciate George's forgiving nature)
37:15 the way you describe Ken also applies to Matt: this is not his first "mistake" - it is a consistent pattern of bad behavior.
Perhaps. I think it’s time I accept the possibility. I think perhaps I’m naive.
He is blinded by Matt’s Japanese ability.
@@TheVoiceOfHimYeah, that's one thing I've noticed too: people think that just because Matt is fluent then that dissolves him of any wrong he might do. It's like weebs think japanese fluency is some kind of superpower so that person needs to be worshipped. (Not saying George is like this, but some people in the comments)
@@properpolymath2097 I remember once Matt was talking to George and George said that himself and Matt are “doers” and others just want to listen to people talk about learning Japanese. This may also be why George is soft on Matt, they think similar.
that person still trusts Matt which is insane, he is literally half the problem
She
@@korumuShe who? Ken's wife?
@@JesusChrist2000BC The British woman who bought the course and wrote the message that George is reading the entire beginning of the video.
Bro this sounds like class action lawsuit material
On a recent video I mentioned that I had purchased the latest versions of your JFZ 1-5. I thought I had, but it was only JFZ5. So, I purchased JFZ1 just now from Amazon JP. I’ll update my remaining 2-4 soon.
Anyone that promises instant language learning is lying. It takes years to learn a language. Decades. Taught English in Japan. Some of my students were doctors, researchers, CEO's etc. They were still learning English after decades of practice. I have seen people attend the full-time Japanese schools in Japan. 1600 to 2000 hours over two years. Amazing progress, but only a starting point. Love the they work with you to make you fluent. My Japanese teacher has been working with me for three years. Might hit JLPT4 at the end of this year.
A big reason why some of the RUclips polyglots can fool so many, because lies are sweeter, than the bitter truth.
Thanks for a fun livestream. I needed something fun.
I was in Ken's original course (before the infamous 2nd one he got sued for).
Same thing there. Basically promised live sessions, turned out to be recordings.
Also promised no questions asked money back, but got no reply.
Having listened to another 50 minutes ...this sounds EXACTLY the same as it was in 2007 or whenever it was
George,
I’m sorry but, after listening to the full 8 minute audio of Matt talking about the “whales”, he’s as bad of a scammer as Ken Cannon. If I were you, I would steer FAR AWAY from both of them. They are trouble, and I’m pretty sure you don’t want any of that.
Personally, I don’t care how good Matt’s Japanese is. He’s a scammer. He knows what he’s doing. Don’t stain your reputation over him. It’s not worth it man. You’re being too kind to him by giving him the benefit of the doubt.
He said if you listened to the full audio of that, it wasn’t so bad. Is he wrong?
My first VN was CLANNAD. Cried like a baby! Great story that you’ll love
The “no reading stuff” is from ALG (Automatic Language Growth) method which isn’t academically proven, but they claim any speaking, reading, looking up definitions, or thinking in your TL causes permanent “damage” to your native-like potential. Most popular example of it is Dreaming Spanish videos, but they’re don’t push the “damage” aspect so heavily and a lot of people just use their videos without being strict ALG.
I’m pretty sure Matt does believe it having heard him play with the ideas for years. Most people doing ALG content actually make content for beginners to learn from in context, whereas Matt and Ken seem to be just giving advice to try to bootstrap the method together yourself without much support or success stories (presumably just Ken).
I was wondering where they got this original idea. It’s weird because both of them can read Japanese very well. Why wouldn’t they think that’s a component of their linguistic success?
@@japanesefromzeroMatt has mentioned that he thought he had more difficulty learning pronunciation because he did so much reading early and he wished he focused on listening more earlier. He used to suggest an optional “perfectionist path” focusing on listening but said it wasn’t for everyone and he might not’ve stuck with Japanese if he didn’t read early. Since he’s started selling courses and using fear marketing he’s lost a lot of nuance in how he discusses it.
これを見てあなたの誠実さが伝わってきました。マットたちは本当に何やってるんだろうね。
You should interview Marty Friedman one day and ask him about Japanese learning.
His Japanese is really good.
I would love to see that interview!
"Hair of the dog that bit me" is an idiom that is saying that the way to get over a hangover is to have a little bit of the alcohol that got you drunk the night before. It comes from an old wives' tale that if you use the hair of the dog that bit you in a remedy, it can cure rabies or whatever other disease you got from a dog bite (obviously does not have scientific validity).
The Japanese translation of this is 迎え酒.
I suggested on his server, a while back, that putting off kanji might be a good idea because learning Japanese through audio THEN learning kanji was faster than doing both at the same time, and reading early on was bad for your accent long term. I always put a diclaimer saying that this was my own opinion and went against his official advice, and suggested that people put off reading for a year and make Anki cards with only audio on the front, then the written sentence on the back. That way you would gradually get used to seeing the written sentence in association with the sound, without having to "read" the sentence in your head with improper accent. I don't know if that theory is correct (nor do I care anymore) but a few people tried it and reported it worked for them. Shortly after Matt started talking about a very similar idea which is what you are describing in his current course. The frustrating thing was it goes against what he had been saying until then ("start with RTK") but there was never any explanation for the sudden change making me think he simply didn't want to admit he had been wrong until then.
Let's be real: Matt's advice, right at it may be, isn't very monetizable. All the advice you would ever need from him he has already put on RUclips for free, anything besides that he is selling is purely to get your money.
I got another email for the live again today. Matt is a scammer, even more so than Ken
Are you alone in a random bar in Las Vegas?
That’s a great question. I reveal the answer in the livestream.
It's a brand new technology called "green screen"
@@properpolymath2097 It is NOT green screen at all. Nothing like it in anyway actually.
@@japanesefromzero Green screen is industry standard right? Trying to get a TV to look good while filming it seems unnecessarily challenging lol
51:29 - "Nick's my BFF right now" lol the irony
25% in 3 days, absolute fluency in less than 2 weeks..........dayummm
With Toki Pona, maybe...
Set looks cool!
My trips to Japan have cost less than their two year "courses." You can't even call them that though since all they basically do is tell you to go watch anime.
I still haven't studied (unless dabbling counts) a super hard language like Japanese or Korean, but it's clear what you have to do with such languages. You'll have to spend at least 1 hour a day on your own with the language for many years and still take lessons at some point. Even a person uses the best methods for Japanese and spends 3 hours a day on Japanese, I guess it will still take at least 3 years to get to a "I-feel- good-with-the-amount-of-Japanese-I -now level". That's over 3 thousand hours.
What you call „narcissistic tendencies“ about yourself isn’t narcissistic. A narcissist wouldn’t be able to admit he is one. I think you mean the tendency to need approval and to be liked to build your own ego up. That in itself isn’t pathological, we all have that to a certain degree, some more than others. As long as you are aware about it it doesn’t have to effect you negatively. It can even help you to identify integrity in yourself and others.
"A narcissist wpuld not be able to admit he is wrong". Not entirely true. Yes a majority will never see themselves as narcissists but some actually do realize it and go to therapy. There's even an official diagnosis and treatment options for it, but it's rare for a narcissist to actually follow through
01:12:30 would your novel(s) also be available on Kindle, I wonder.
Julio and I support you, George!
4:08 What is coursing (? not sure about spelling), could someone tell me? 😅How is it different from shadowing?
12:32 ‐ For $2,800, you can finance a study abroad trip to Japan and attend a language school.
What kinds of investment properties are you planning to buy?
I forgot the time stamp, but somewhere in the livestream George mentioned that someone in the hear Matt & Ken say that they are using the profits from the program to finance their Japanese visas. Can't they just teach English to get a visa like every other gaijin? Or just use their superb Japanese language skills to get a job?
Set looks fire
1:14:01 The Shining reference incoming!
Bro pls put up vote to remove the background piano, sensory overload
WTH why would you pay that much? Like someone said, could have just gone to Japan instead. Learning and an amazing experience.
Grifters gonna grift, stop giving your time and energy to them already, 3 videos covering this is way overkill..
It's easy content bro, let George have some streams xd
Haha fair.
George needs to warn the gullible weebs
I bought the project uproot course, I think it was $500. I didn’t buy all the upselling they were doing which was crazy btw. i think Nick is a good teacher but his inconsistency and poor structure (plus dropping parts of the course because it is too much work) is inexcusable. I reached out to the support guy about the course and they completely ignored me.
It's mind boggling that some people actually paid such money for a miraculous method that'll make you fluent in one of the hardest languages in the world. That's just screaming scam and yet people are still falling for it.
@ it’s not a method, it’s a course with live and pre recorded lessons on pitch accent. The protocol 80 was a course that was sold as having you learn 80% of the language, but actually was just around 600 of the most common words. The incubator thing for a lot of money that was supposed to personally guide you from start to fluency with help from people that already did the journey.
Obviously it’s worth something, just not the price they are charging and with the false promises, disappearing for months whilst the course is still happening, lack of support and shady marketing practices it makes it a scam. The actual idea of the course is just whatever that person thinks it’s worth or not. Don’t get me wrong, this course is not worth it and both guys are horrible but if you want people’s guidance, experience and time then paying for it is not a problem.
@@aHazyWorld I see. When it comes to pronunciation, pitch-accent and overall Japanese phonetics then there is no better guy than Dogen. Check him out if you're interested. Cheers.
@@Mati1242 yeah that would of been better for sure
tbh sensei you should have called all of them out once there was a scam going on to save these people even before them using your name in marketing
I wasn’t aware they were scamming.
Yeah, from what I've seen of protocol 80/90, the delays and radio silence and ditching is basically the cycle of being in Ken's courses.
It also seems to be a strategy to say he'll be treating his customers as his babies that he'll parent into fluency.
I did enjoy the course (I only got the videos as the original class was supposed to already be over at the time of purchase), and like some apps are doing the lessons are in a different "order" from the traditional classes.
As for the incubator, it's based on a theory by J. Marvin Brown that you'll do better if you pay attention to listening alone + outside input the first year. It's pretty interesting but hard to buy 😅.
Anyways it's interesting but not really worth the $$ unless you a multimillionaire or something 😂. Even then you can probably just hire a live-in tutor at that point XD.
Seems I just missed this ;-; oof.
Lemme know if you need a second perspective! (albeit less detailed because I used to be terrible at following programs)
Am i wrong for thinking this feels a bit like micheals and ryans relationship in the office?
Hiiii Mat I know you're here.
I can't believe that someone would have the audacity to tell you not to learn how to read? What kind of teaching is that? You can't even properly engage with native learning content if you can't read the language! How do you use dictionaries? Not to mention that adults and babies learn languages very differently, and learning how a language is written can help an adult learner "spot the patterns" in the language, since orthography is often a reflection of an adults understanding of the mechanics of a language. Not to mention that on top of all of this, Japanese reading / writing is notoriously difficult and takes many years to learn, even for natives. You should start as early as possible.
George, please, don't compare yourself to Coffeezilla. He has the $10 million studio. It's just not a fair comparison! ;P
e: I could be wrong, but I don't think Coffeezilla is using a TV because he explained how the void came to be in one video. It's been awhile, but he explained that the whole situation was an accident (and I don't think the accident was that the tv wasn't on). I thought it had to do with the green screen and a computer issue he had. But now I'm curious. I had no idea you could film in front of a screen and not get weird effects when moving in front of the screen.
Firstly, I assume you know the points I make below, I dont want it to come across as a lecture. Think of it as a commentary on some of the points you've made.
I think you're being way too lenient on Matt, I think he's as much of a scammer as Ken is, but you're probably more fair and forgiving than I am. Matt's excuses are hard to believe. They've been working together for at least 3 years (that's how old some of the complaints about them are on reddit). If Matt truly had reservations, why has he worked with Ken for that long, and is still working with him today? Matt knows Ken's name is mud, and indeed has known that since he started collabing with him! Frequency analysis, pitch accent, dont read (or whatever their latest 'method' is) - these are distractions. Obviously they can be valid parts of a language, but they are made out to be the 'secret sauce' of language learning. Scams rely on distractions, time poor clients, and sometimes, a high price. They price it high to attract only high income clients (target the rich), and in their minds it must seem like a victimless crime. Anyway, these recent videos have been very enlightening, and have attracted heaps of views. Hopefully that will put paid to their scams, but sadly I doubt it.
PS: Hair of the dog is when you're hungover and you consume alcohol (like first thing the next morning) to get rid of the hangover. There is science behind it, and it can work. Sort of. 🤭
Dude, you're killing me. We have smart speakers on our side, too. lol
Can you remind me about the context for this comment?
@@japanesefromzeroI think he means you might be triggering people's Alexas.
Yea i got screwed from those guys , thats why i bought your 1st book waiting till i have the extra money to get the other 4. By the way your the best and i love the comedy you pepper in to make things engaging
52:34 - Sounds like my ADHD
matt sounds like ken's puppet
I normally watch internet drama not Japanese learning videos. RUclips has pushed your videos to the internet drama cohort, that's why its the most popular of your videos since you have your regular audience, regular target audience, plus this new internet drama audience. Good luck with life, your peers really seem like scumbags.
There‘s an audience for internet drama? That’s curious. 😀
All those fancy terms Matt and KC use lol. You are really laying into these guys, but justly so I think.
Well there is something good, that has been produced by all the shit from Matt and Ken. Metatron made a video about it and so I discovered you, George. I started watching your videos and it absolutely helps me improve. I am so glad. I might buy a book, although I already have some from German authors. So thank you Matt for annoying you and Metatron.
You need to watch the Shining. Be nice to get some book 5 videos 1st though.
😮
About supporting, I liked the video series and was thinking about it (though not a lot of money), and my thought is I'd rather not do youtube membership because some of that money leaks to youtube, and books have a cost associated with them, so you get less than 100% there too, for something that honestly I wouldn't use (it's hard for me to sit down and just focus on reading). With Patreon I worry about how much cut they'd take (especially since they've been not great themselves on some things). But I do like the idea of just being able to support without money leaking to 3rd parties too much. It seems maybe the best way would be the site, as I think the additionally incurred costs would be small if just not using it much. However, if somebody wanted to do a larger amount, that might not be as easy.
Sometimes people do the red (~$100) superchats, and I think that can be an "in the moment" kind of thing, it might be inconvenient to do multiple months of site membership or something if they just wanted to throw down a certain amount (more clicks and paying attention). (I think this kind of 'culture' has been on the rise for a while now, even previously with "pay what you want" but nowadays, streams, particularly with vtubers, are making it more common)
Matt is just arrogant & really has nothing to offer as he has no idea how to teach properly (despite speaking it very well himself). That's why he pretends things like pitch accent are more important than they are in reality.
lmao
Haha so Matt basically null and voided his own previous method and Stephan Krashen’s research for the last 40 years. For people who don’t learn languages or know how the process works I can see how they could scam people like this. Much like the early RosettaStone program.
I get that Matt is really good at Japanese but if you PAY someone to teach you the language I'd rather have a native speaker, just my opinion....
Also being good at learning Japanese doesn’t make you a good teacher.
Tbh, it's actually the opposite. Native speakers are mostly awful teachers unless they are very curious themselves about language..
@@chihangip I‘m German. I’d be useless as a German teacher though because I don’t really understand the grammar in-depth, I just use it and just „know/feel“ if something is said wrong. You can’t teach that.
Conversation for beginner's should be with native speakers. Language teacher should be from a person who actually knows how to teach the language. We had a native Spanish speaker try to teach Spanish and she was utterly awful, as she just had no idea why students would be struggling. It was later on we found out she had no training in being a teacher to begin with. She was an engineer, with no experience ever teaching.
A native speaker will always be great when you ask "How do I say this in German?" And "What about this?" They are walking dictionaries. But if they don't know grammar, many times they may make you feel even more confused. The best would be to try both native and non native teachers.
They sound like a language learning scheme in wild 90's in the post -Soviet Russia.
I would very much like to know more about this.
Ummmmm……….those dudes……….😑😑😑😑😑😑😑.
All publicity is good publicity
I wish you'd make a video explaining the LITERAL meanings of expressions like とんでもない or どういたしまして. I think that would be interesting.
What’s Discord?
Like IRC but bad
@ Thanks, but LOL, no idea what IRC is either.
@@jcowboy53 Don't worry about it, I just couldn't resist the urge to talk bad about Discord. It's an app for text and voice communication.
Use chat gpt for math