@@Makiaveliiste Steve isn't a dabbler. Sure, there are a lot of languages that he's only dabbled in, but he does actually speak 6-7 languages really well
I was one of those skeptical guys who used to ask "proof" of Matt level. Not because I had something personal against Matt or I was one of those internet haters, but because before applying such a time-consuming method I wanted to be sure of his effectiveness. Well, this is the definitive proof. I'm far from fluent in Japanese but I read novels and listen to the news, variety, youtubers and so on without any difficulty. And it's obvious to me that Matt's level is very high. I want to say another thing. Once you begin to understant most of what you read and hear, it's not more "studying", it's just reading and listening to stuff you enjoy. So, even if it's true that in the beginning it's hard to do more than 1 to 2 hours of active input, when you begin understanding a lot, it stops being tiresome and you can do hours a day without even noticing, or better actively enjoying it.
@@Sophia-tk2qp Hey, I realise this is 6 months later, but I am currently learning Modern Hebrew. I would be grateful to hear how it has been implementing this method :)
Wow, I’ve followed Steve for a while & generally I find him pretty inspiring, but he did not come across well here. I take his point that people don’t need a native level to benefit from a language, but if reaching that level is your goal I see no reason to dismiss it. Matt’s example about athletes was very apt. If you want to be in the Olympics you have to dedicate a huge amount of time to get that good. I assume Steve’s pushback must be because he doesn’t want people to get the idea that anything less than native level fluency isn’t good enough. But of course, nobody is suggesting that.
agreed my goal of fluency isnt my goal either. i should say perfect fluency. is not it, culture is what I aimed for a along time as a kid. i think culture and language go hand in hand. anyway, when Steve kept saying anata aka you? that pronoun is barely used.in actual spoken Japanese. and pitch accent extremely important. that is like saying Spanish with any of it's accent marks is still Spanish. which natives still don't know why we using them..
@@greganzi8874 as a native Spanish speaker If I heard a person speaking Spanish without the right accent It'll sound weird, that doesn't mean that Is incomprehensible in fact it's understandable but it'll sound unnatural, is like If you say bycyCLE and the stress is in the CLE instead of in the BY, It won't be incomprehensible but it'll sound awkard. The best thing you can do Is to get a lot of exposure to the language and be constant
@Kenura Medagedara Sorry, I've never subscribed to the "they act that way, but are actually not" form of justification. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck,...
This really made me appreciate Matt VS Japan that much more because no matter how dismissive someone is about the method in the end his Japanese level is proof. Thanks Matt!
Not sure what Steve's defensiveness was all about. Matt was nothing but polite and agreeable here. They are both amazing in their own unique way, so why make a fuss about the fact that they have different goals and target audiences?
@@vodkatonyqI call it obsesion to say the least. Broken psichology for an overrated language. With his level he could be an interpreter and yet his ultimate goal was to watch anime without subs. You might think I'm being harsh on Matt but I'm sure a few years ago he twitted people with thick accents are idiots.
@@zahleerWell what are you gonna do with Japanese besides watching anime? 😅😅😅 If he had doubled down with Chinese and Korean, he could have studied International Relations and joined the CIA but well I guess he wanted to watch anime.
@@Big-guy1981 Too much of a simplistic reason to learn a language. He based his ENTIRE personality arround the fact he learns Japanese and is never perfect in it. Too obsesed with having a perfect accent in Japanese when he clearly looks nothing like a Japanese speaker, it just makes me laugh.
I like this conversation. It’s adds a lot of diversity of ideas. I will say in my opinion, both of your demographic audience and goals are different. Like the example Matt uses for an athlete. Steve focuses on just being able to play the game and understand the rules. Matt focuses on not just playing but being a professional. Which is the vast difference in the style and what they push. I believe this because Steve is a polyglot so he isn’t to committed to just one language, where as Matt is committed to one and it shows. I feel you wouldn’t argue practicality with a professional athlete who has spent thousands of hours dribbling and shooting a ball that is now living their dream job with millions of dollars. That’s just my take on it.
I agree a hundred percent. I was telling my family about this video and they all play music so i said "would you rather play mary had a little lamb on ten instruments or vivaldi on one?"
Mixolydian - Exactly! And that is what you would call a Hobbyist vs a Professional. Don’t get me wrong, it’s perfectly ok to just dibble into something with the intention of only being ok in it, but I think it’s kind of small minded to think it’s not practical for people who want to go farther. With everything you do, there has be to be some type of sacrifice. Steve even stated that he could only do about an hour of learning a day because of other things he has. One being golf. I’m pretty sure he could go without golf. But that’s just my opinion
I thought Steve came off as a bit rude. It's like he's forgotten that he learned Mandarin when he was younger, and said he did it 6 hours a day for 9 months. And if he had access to an iPod at that time, he likely would have spent several more hours a day passively listening to content. He is just at a different point in his life now. He's in his seventies and of course he doesn't want to devote that much time to language when he has kids, grandkids, businesses, etc. But in an earlier point in his life he was basically doing AMATT - all Mandarin all the time.
Yeah I know right, he really came off as an old fogey. And Matt was 100% correct - if you're not prepared to study the language for hours every single day, then what hope can you have to become skilled in that language?
While I appreciate deep immersion over the classical learning models, and push people to maximize language contact, I can't agree with you. In my opinion, you've skipped over the main point of his - the realistic need for language learning and what can be done to achieve it, pragmatically. An hour a day is a lot of time already, so I follow his point as: what's language learning for the masses. Now Matt does clearly state that his market is a niche of people going for the extremes, so that's where the juice of this discussion is. I don't believe there's much doubt about effectiveness of either method - deep or shallow, as much as the desire to see their features and applications. I believe Steve was necessarily rude and I'm glad he managed to address the pain points, and unshift the focus from a nice chat about immersion techniques. Personally, I prefer the focused approach, inspired in me by Tim Ferris. It's also because even in my native language, if I'm not careful, I make an incomprehensible mess. Furthermore, because of education and surroundings, I've always lived with being terrible at French, German, and Russian languages. Now I'm a non-native English speaker and also terrible at Japanese. Thus all in one, I see Steve as forcing the question: but to what end, and by which people should languages be learned? Since most cannot afford anything close to the extremes, and the intermediates are cozy.
That's because that WAS his job. He was working for the Canadian government as a diplomat, and they sent him to Hong Kong to learn Mandarin. However, that's not how he learned French or Japanese both of which he speaks really well.
Brilliant talk, thoroughly enjoyed it! It's fun to see two people with fairly different language goals clash together like this. It did seem like Steve had some predisposed feelings about AJATT before starting the interview though. At some points it seemed like Steve was trying to argue against some of the methods you presented, even though you said that the approach you're representing (MIA) is for a specific niche of language learners. But god damn he seemed blown away when you actually begun speaking haha
I dont think so. When you have a conversation is normal to have oposing ideas. And i wouln't even say Steve had them, he said he had a life that wouldn't allow him to AJATT, and even then he rather not have a specific system.
I wonder if Steve was just getting lost in the end. I dont think that one goal is better than the other and its amazing when people dabble in a large number of languages however i do wonder what kind of interactions and communication people can have when polyglots only know a tiny fraction of a language. Surely they end up having the same conversations over and over?
@@Acolytemedia it's actually pretty interesting you can actually do a lot with a little and Steve dabbles in a lot of languages, but he speaks 6-7 really well like English, French, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish and a few more. He learned Chinese to be a Canadian diplomat and he lived in Japan for many years and did lumber business with Japanese for years after he moved back to Canada.
@@Acolytemedia haha no there’s no way he was getting lost. Steve’s Japanese is at a very high level, he lived in Japan doing business for nine years. Also what Matt is saying isn’t difficult at all, anyone with an upper intermediate level would understand him no problem.
I think Steve was totally justified. When questioned on how Matt's product that he was selling was different than AJATT, he basically just started talking about "pitch", different animal names, etc. which is bullshit. Steve was rightfully calling out a bullshit product, which is what you should do. Pitch accent doesn't exist. You can say the exact same thing in Japanese pitch accent in English and the same vice versa, and both natives will know wtf you are saying. Pitch accent is just a pretentious way of saying "accent" but when you put "pitch" in front of the word "accent" you are revealing that you put that language on a pedestal. Japan doesn't have any sort of unique pitch, it's just their accent, the same as any other region. You can speak Japanese with an American/European/Asian accent. Matt is very weird with trying to be Japanese when he isn't. There is no reason to try to be native Japanese unless you are native Japanese, you can still be Japanese, which is why it's important to reinforce to Matt to stop with this non-sense.
I have followed Steve for a while but he seemed quite.... dismissive of Matt throughout the whole interview...(?) not sure what it was about but it was quite disappointing and annoying. Really took the joy out of watching this. However, I loved your overall thoughts on, again, learning Japanese! I am personally learning Korean but I find your videos immensely helpful! Thank you for putting so much content out 💜💪
@@theryanerjapan3292 He forgets that because he has learned so many languages he can take a relax role in language learning as he knows all the short cuts. Matt's Japanese is his 2nd language so he isn't going to learn as fast.
That moment when people see Steve roll his eyes for the first time, then that moment when Steve realizes Matt's pretty damn good. Definitely the highlights of this discussion.
Steve rolls his eyes because of how TOXIC this dude is and that he's doing against the community. The reasons behind why Matt does what he does are the reason why Steve's not with none of that sh!t. Clown vs Japan should have been censored a long time ago.
It’s quite funny to see Kaufmann trying to argue when both methods are just 2 different levels of the same core idea input before output! It was a great discussion and it really cemented my idea of a snowball approach to MIA meaning doing as Kaufmann said in the beginning focus on getting in maybe an hour or 2 of active immersion and from there at your own pace altering your life to include more of the language until you reach the MIA standard. This approach is the same approach that psychology talks about when it comes to building habits meaning if you jump right into the deep end of the pool your gonna drown and end up quitting your activity but if you introduce your activity in steps then it’s easier for it to become a habit and thus it becomes a part of your reality.
This is the second interview with Steve that I’ve viewed where he is patronizing, dismissive, and rude. I know people irl with his personality type, and they are not fun to be around. They often talk down to you as if you are a child , and act as if their way is the only right way to do something. There is no single ‘right’ way to learn a language, especially since people learn languages with different goals in mind. There is nothing wrong with having a goal of achieving a near-native level for both language fluency and cultural knowledge. If anything, I think it should be highly commended.
Even with their different goals, a lot of Matt's ideas would benefit Steve but he doesn't seem very interested. For instance, he said that would rather learn most of his vocabulary through immersion. This would be less efficient than first learning to recognize through SRS, assuming you're immersing for very little each day (~1 hour, where most of it is passive immersion).
As a native Japanese speaker who wants to achive a semi-native level of English, I definitely agree with Matt's method MIA/Ajatt devoting tons of time to learning a target language through immersion. As Matt mentioned earlier in the video, the method is for very particular people hence it's quite hardcore. In contrast Steven seeks for a way that works for most people, so that's where the two go in different ways; one for those who aspire to learn not only the language but also the cultural stuff, and the other reach to a mediocore level in the least stressful way. I belive it's obvious which method you should take if you want to achive a feat in language learning. Btw since I got to know your youtube channel last month I basically watched every single video of yours except a few, and I'm really looking forward to the next video, be it an interview or language tips or something else!!
In contrast, Steven seeks a way that will work for most people, so that's where the two part ways; ..., and the other to reach a mediocre level in the least stressful way. Only sentence that jumped out at me as a little off. I assume you like this kind of feedback, since as the above poster said, I never would have guessed you weren't native...even your mistakes were the kind natives make.
@Allan Duarte I didn't learn English well by transcribing anything. I learned it by reading a lot of challenging books and taking English classes (not English grammar, I never payed any attention to that--always seemed like a waste of time--but English writing classes, with feedback on my writing from better writers (my teachers/professors) and giving lots of feedback to less-skilled writers (I always ended up having many of my classmates asking me to edit their papers) which I believe was helpful because it forced me to think deeply on their intended meaning and the best way to phrase that to maintain their "voice". I imagine this "editor's mind" is what you are cultivating, which I agree is very beneficial. I disagree that it is the only beneficial practice. I'm sure there are even more I haven't noticed I benefitted from or missed the opportunity to benefit from due to a lack of exposure/attention...
I really admire Steve but you definitely tell that he speaks only from the perspective of loose polyglots like him. I wish he would be a bit more open minded and accepting other people’s goals. Steve is conversational in many languages but its also clear that he has no intention of wanting to be anything more than a considerate tourist. Those of us who are frequent visitors of one country because we love what’s there or became enamored with a language specifically because of its pop culture are going to have different goals than someone who simply enjoys traveling. It made me happy to see how, after hearing you speak, he realized that all of the time and effort you spent has payed off in a significant way and that has to have _meaning_ to you. Hopefully he keeps that with him and remembers that sometimes you can get the bug for a language and it just sticks with you
It seems like Kaufman (who I love) came into this expecting Matt to be somewhat of the otaku archetype, someone doing it for snobby and naive "I'm Japanese on the inside guys" reasons and only towards the end started to realize his pre conceived notions werent fitting into Matt's mold. Definitly need a redo sometime in the future where things are less skeptical and more shop talk. Great talk between two legends of the language learning comminity, though. Thanks for the upload.
This honestly. He was super dismissive and rude, and in the end I think you could see in his eyes that his mind was blown, that he had totally underestimated Matt
29:01 the moment where I got goosebumps, what a ride those 30 minutes were. And Steve's ending speech left me feeling motivated to keep on pursuing Japanese.
Matt, you were beautifully composed. I really enjoyed hearing about your Japanese learning experience. Needless to say, your Japanese language skills are top-notch. Bravo^^
Interrupted him while he was completing a task Steve asked for ("we should speak some Japanese"),, then complemented him, then immediately ended the interview:P
I really liked how well you expressed yourself. If somebody asked me what AJATT or MIA was about, I wouldn't know where to start. You did it very well.
I was kind of surprised by Kaufmann's "what is the point" kind of attitude. Half-assing Japanese for a few years seems like a terrible investment of time because you'll be stuck in the zone of understanding some of what's being said, but not enough to actually enjoy it or meaningfully participate. I think Matt was right on the money when he said that enjoyment increases with mastery. IMO languages are hardly worth learning if you aren't going to follow through because the costs are heavily front-loaded, with the rewards only coming at near-fluency and higher.
it seems like Kaufmann is thinking about more practical uses of the language and I get where he is coming from, most people learn another language isbecause of better socio economical status pursuits and I can tell you as a person who speaks 4 languages that for most jobs you only need a small set of fluency. I know people in the UK with hard accents and small vocabulary living just fine with their communities and knowing just enough English to do the job and have a small conversation with many grammar mistakes and translations. They will never integrate fully whereas if you go for what Matt achieved people take you as one of their own. I speak Romanian and Hungarian and a lot more doors were open to me in the UK because I was more fluent, I had a better time socially since I could hang out with brits and understood almost everything they would say, whereas other Romanians chose to stay mainly with Romanians around.
Matt was acting like a mature adult while Kaufmann was like a cranky old man. Kaufmann sounded high-handed from the start. He was almost acting like a defense lawyer interrogating a witness. I didn't think he was very pleasant. Maybe, it's just me. I don't know. But his attitude changed as soon as they started speaking in Japanese. I guess that's when Kaufmann realized that the small cat was up against a lion.
@Mr. NoName You are right. Rude is the word to describe Steve here. I don't know what his problem is but he certainly is being grumpy and rude. I even get an impression that he hates Matt.
In my own experience, at first, Anki provided me seperated bricks. When having enough bricks, I need to listen and read alot to "cement" them together as a whole. Build a house with bricks is faster, but with cement is much more solid.
Nguyên Khánh Đỗ I think the “bricks” thing is when you use shared decks instead of self made ones. I eventually integrated it to where the “bricks” I put into Anki are solely from the things I listen to and read (thus, they’re all self made). This probably slows me down a a lot though, because it takes a long time to put them into Anki, but it does provide a very solid feedback loop. For example, I read a book while putting sentences that have words that I didn’t know into Anki. It was a struggle reading through the book the first time, and my reading pace wasn’t smooth. I paused on certain parts, had to reread some sentences, and couldn’t even comprehend a few. After mastering those Anki cards, I went back to the beginning of the book and surprised myself. “Holy shit! I can read this fluently!” As in: no pauses, good speed, rhythm, and flow, and perfect reading comprehension.
Nguyên Khánh Đỗ You're basically describing the purpose of SRS in immersion - you don't acquire language directly by memorizing vocabulary in SRS, but it makes your input more comprehensible, which gives you the ability to acquire it in your immersion
Haha I think Steve assumed going in that that Matt is an AJATT disciple. He really seems put off with the 24/7 idea and it's a hurdle to the discussion: M "So you basically listen to Japanese 24/7 even when asleep" S "But that's crazy and no-one would do that" M "I know, right!?" S ....errrr...... I know Matt does walk that idea back a bit but Steve has him down as a hardcore freak by then. It's sad because the core AJATT idea is the feedback loop of immersion time into i+1 sentences/SRS which supercharges the next immersion time. It doesn't really matter if you get that input in a condensed 18 month period or spread over several years. It also works if you only want a passing grasp of the language. For his part Steve seems to underestimate the amount of time you can realistically listen to a new language. Bluetooth headphones + a smartphone and you can easily do quite a few hours a day.
It's really not realistic for many people with families, full time , other interests. Those other activities would definitely need to be cut back. I'm sure that's fine for some. Note also that I think Steve has said in the past that when he learned Chinese he was spending 6 hours a day. I believe it was out of necessity.
I think Steve's method is good for those that have families, are older, and don't have hardly any free time. I'm 23, single with no kids. Even if I have a full time job I can still put many hours into learning japanese and tons of hours on the weekend. Matt's method seems more interesting to me, but someone that doesn't have the free time I have on my hands would probably lean towards Steve's.
@@AwesomeMan2696 I totally agree as a young person with free time the MIA method it's probably the best, at least it worked for me to learn English, I learned almost 90% of my English (It's not a Native English speaker but I have an advanced level and fluency) by consuming hundreds or thousands of hours to English content (RUclips, series, books...) and the best is that I learned unintentionally, by having a huge immersion in the language and a great grammar level I became fluent in a language without even wanting, I'm learning Japanese and after reading all the MIA's Website I have no doubt that with having a good input approach and being consistent you'll be able to acquire the language you want.
True but I think steve is talking about active learning not passive learing. Listening while having to open a dictionary for every word you dont know and trying to actually comprehend for more than an hr a day is a lot for a beginner that has a busy schedule.
Hey Matt, I "learnt" English through immersion (I'm not perfect tho), so I found your channel very very late. Anyway, I really enjoy your content (and as I wanna get a high level in French, I'm using your method) and I'm glad to see that you could talk with one person you respect a lot. Although, he seemed, as a lot of comments claim, too dismissive (a new word for my dictionary, lol) and impolite through all the video. You really maintained polite, talked with a lot of respect and your face in general demonstrated that you enjoyed this interview. You not only proofed your method is really effective, but also that you're kind with others, even in situations like this. I'd love to be able to talk with you some day. You're an amazing person and an amazing teacher.
This is the fundamental language debate I see everywhere: language as art v. craft. Viewing language learning as an art to be pursued forever but fully achieved, versus viewing language learning as a craft to be acquired for a purpose (being able to converse at work and in social life, for instance) within a realistic timeframe. I think it's more about personality difference than "right" language philosophy. Both types really seem to annoy each other though.
There's a lot of weird argument in the comments but I think this video highlights something extremely enlightening for me. Learning a language is a route to several different conclusions. Steve wants to communicate with as many people as possible. Matt wants to understand and enjoy Japanese culture as much as possible. To do this, they have both learned Japanese. However, their goals are MASSIVELY different. Learning the language was just a path they both happened to take and that's why they don't agree on everything. That's fine, though, because people with entirely different goals are going to disagree on the middle steps, by definition.
I am going to be honest, I was never a huge fan of Matt vs. Japan until I got to above intemediate level in Japanese. I just watched his early videos about meditation and stuff and thought 'what a waste of time that I could be replacing with real studying'. However, the way he composes himself in this video made me change my mind. He has obviously worked very hard to get where he is and Steve tried to push his narrative super hard while Matt just accepted it for the most part. Then when they started speaking Japanese I could tell that Steve actually couldnt understand half of what Matt was saying..... Then he has the nerve to say 'I will stop you there, lots of the viewers don't understand'... No Steve, you bit off more than you could chew and you weren't humble enough to just accept it and admit you couldn't understand.
@Asher Kidd, Steve's Japanese level in this video was telling. It was even less than three minutes. I noticed RUclips polyglots like to direct conversations specifically for what they have repeated countless times. Once similar to this video, Matt seemed to have gone deeper, it made Steve uncomfortable and he was out of his depth. I saw the same reaction you did, that Steve made the excuse many people don't understand Japanese to avoid making himself look like a tool, especially if he was to attempt to reply in Japanese.
What are you guys talking about? Steve understood him perfectly, this video just wasnt supposed to be in Japanese that's why he cut it off short. They have another video on Steve's channel in which they speak for at least 20 minutes in Japanese about a range of topics, having no problem understanding each other. Btw Steve has lived in Japan for 9 years.
@@alanguages Why wouldn't he understand his japanese when Matt speaks so clearly with a regular native speed, considering that for most people their comprehension on a foreign language is far better than their speaking skills?
Matt has taken down, or at least annotated a lot of his older videos recently because he has changed his mind on things like the meditation aspect. He has more discarded the excess at this point and the sole focus is immersion now.
I adore both of these guys, look up to them immensely and they’ve equally been a big part of my language acquisition journey. Whilst I get the vibe on a surface level of what many of the comments reflect here, I truly can’t imagine it really was that way. I believe what we are seeing here are two naturally assertive and strong willed brilliant thinkers who are no pushovers and like to articulate and fully express their ideas… I think they’re on the same page about nearly everything- they’ve just got a few diff goals in the long run. I do wish Steve would have smiled a bit more as it was cute how Matt looked at the opening - as though he were meeting one of his favorite bands, charming! But I think we are just seeing a healthy and focused discussion between two great minds who walk their talk. 💪🏻👏🏻
I had not seen mr Kaufman prior to this interview, although I’ve been subscribed to Matt for quite some time. I felt the during the entire video, until Kaufman was completely shown up by Matt’s skill, Kaufman was extremely rude, arrogant, condescending and dismissive.
This is a cool video. I really liked what he said about understanding the culture and it surprises me how this is brushed off. It's perhaps one of the biggest hurdles in being really good at speaking the language and REALLY being fluent.
This is an interview I never thought would happen but I’m glad it did. In my language learning I have to employ both philosophies. Matt’s Ajatt/MI approach is what I use to enhance my Filipino since I am on an endless journey to discover culture, identity, and language. Steve’s method on the other hand is perfect for my Spanish because I want it as a tool for communication with a sampling of culture in which I can someday say “I’m done time to move on” Thanks again! Awesome video
exactly my thoughts, if your plan is to keep learning about the culture and language throughout your life MIA is definately the best choice because your goal doesnt have a finish line, only checkpoints.
A lot of people have said that Steve comes across dismissive, and I can kinda see that. However, I think the main issue with the discussion is that it's two people with drastically different goals. Yes, both agree on the core part of the method (massive amounts of input), but for Matt Japanese is a huge part of his life, maybe even the main part of it, while for Steve language learning is a part of his day that he enjoys (and is very passionate about! no question!), but he won't push to the absolute max. Great discussion!
What issue was caused by the difference in goals? Matt was saying that the amount of input you'll do each day depends on what level you want to reach, but that's about it. Even with a less ambitious goal like Steve's, Matt's ideas would be of benefit
Honestly a mad conversation. He's very much stuck in his own ways and against conventions that simplify the process through technology. Though the last part was like a final episode of a anime but sadly we got a cliffhanger. So I'm sure we're all waiting for season 2, part 2 of this hopefully with more Japanese. As he was very quick to stop the conversation at the end..
Plenty of people are saying that Steve was being dismissive or rude, and I couldn’t disagree more. He was simply explaining his point of view towards learning language, in which he has a completely different goal, which is to communicate, rather than to consistently chase more understanding of all the nuances and cultural references. When he pushed back against the idea of full immersion, I don’t believe that he was dismissing it as useless, but rather simply stating that it was unrealistic for most people, which I also agree with. A lot of people have obligations and large portions of their day in which they can’t dedicate time to immersing themselves in their language of choice. All in all, this was a great conversation from two different schools of thought, and I learned a lot from it!
I think Steve just came across as rude due to his tone and how he interrupted Matt multiple times The way I see it, it was a discussion between two opinionated preachers of their own methods and goals, and this was the natural "clash" but despite that both sides seemed really respectful to each other and recognised the differences in their goals
This is very interesting as both of you have different wishes and goals and I find myself wishing like Matt for some languages and like Steve for others so it was a great listen for me!
Came here from Steve’s link, great interview! I think Steve’s approach is more practical for most people to get into a language, but yours is obviously the method for anyone to reach maximum potential... kinda like fitness programs, all depends on your goals. Your proficiency in speaking is proof that ur methods work.
I'm conflicted. On one hand, I think you were way too easy on him. On the other hand, though, I think being nice and agreeable probably helped you get some of his followers interested in checking out your content.
I have recently just found these two from days n french and Swedish. That speech at end by Kaufmann was touching and Matts face of gratification from the compliment prior is very wholesome.
Incredible crossover. Unfortunate that much of it was argumentative but it made for good sharing of ideas and for him to see your perspective better. Been a Steve Kaufmann fan for 5 years and a fan of yours for 2 so this was great to watch.
That kind of content is a great source of knowledge for those who are acquiring new languages. I very liked when you talked about what to do when we reach the Plato and start to pay attention in the subtles of the language in order to overcome it. Way to go. Congratulations! And thanks a lot!!!
I started AJATT/MIA last year, but I’ve been really lazy, and I’m just halfway through RTK. Seeing you speak has inspired me to pick up speed again. Thanks Matt; I couldn’t do this without you.
I think he thought Matt's methods were extreme until he started talking to him in Japanese. Then it clicked for him. While he focuses on breadth in his language learning, Matt is all about depth. They're both extremely passionate about language learning, just in different ways which is why their approaches to learning language are so different to each other. Their methods are tailored to their goals with the language.
For a native English speaker it makes little sense to learn ANY foreign language unless they plan to live in that country. What Steve does with his free time hoarding foreign languages at a beginner level makes ZERO sense for an average American / Canadian. People who really want and NEED to learn a second language to an advanced level are mostly non English speakers learning English.
It's almost as if different abilities, different needs and above all different ambitions impacts how you should learn a foreign language. Moses method was perfect, because he was all about getting that kick from talking to random strangers in as many languages as possible. Matt's method is perfect because he's all about deep diving into one culture and understanding as many nuances as possible. Steve's method is perfect, because he's all about communicating with people and getting things done. Then some people need to use a language in a professional aspect and needs a different method, some people needs to learn for academic reasons. I think we should learn languages the way we want to, find our own way. Learn from methods but don't subscribe to any. You gotta make your own method for you own needs, for your own abilities, and for your own ambitions. If you can't figure out your own way and just try to subscribe to someone else, my expectation is you'll get bored and frustrated and unmotivated. Because it's not tailored for you, only you know yourself best. Some people might love to watch 6 hours of tv a day, others might love to get hooked on the gratification rewards that apps like anki gives. While for others those things could be impossible. Do what you do best and make sure you love it.
I heard, that Steve won't do full on interviews in Japanese or other languages. Only English. When Steve starts to talk in other languages, he will be the one who directs the conversation and where it goes. That is actually telling, as he even did it with this video. Maybe less than three minutes of Japanese, where he was controlling the conversation and Matt did majority of the Japanese speech when explaining. Steve then ends the Japanese conversation.
Well Steve talks 12 languages fluently and 8 more (not amazingly but he does). How many can Matt speak? So it’s a matter of perspective. Either u are good at many things or perfect in one. I would rather do as Steve. Learn a specific language to read about the history of the country, culture, etc. I speak 5 languages and now im acquiring sixth, and all because i wanna be able to speak with natives all around the globe. But that’s just me, everyone else has their own WHY. 😊
@@alanguages then you noticed wrong. Steve knows a lot of japanese and like people mentioned already, can keep up conversation about varied topics even in languages he knows the leat, not only some fixed topics. Get your fats straight before talking shit
Cleary totally different philosophies about learning and goals. As a non native english speaker I really like the Steve approach. What he said was what I did when I was studying english. But now learning Japanese I fell more compel to study more and get a higher level than I have with my english. Really liked the interview btw.
Well it's because if doesn't care about getting really good at other languages. If Matt's abilities was like having a near perfect knife and a really good power drill with the screwdriver attachment. Steven would be like also having a near perfect knife, a hand screwdriver, and an assortment of multiple other tools.
@@cedimus4016 Its more like steve just has a bunch of nice attachments. He hasnt reached a level in any language that Matt has in Japanese. Not that it matters if thats not his goal..
I don't mean to be disrespectful, but sometimes I feel Steve is a bit arrogant towards anything that's not similar to his perspective on language learning. His philosophy of ''My goal is communicating and that's it'' is fine, but I don't get why he seems to be condescending when talking about other methods focused on achieving a high level of fluency. In the end, his results when speaking a foreign language are equivalent to the approach he uses. I've heard him speaking Portuguese, Spanish, Italian... Can people who fluently speak those languages understand when he speaks in those languages? Sure. However, he makes tons of mistakes, and mix a lot of words from other languages, that probably people without experience in those languages he's mixing won't understand. Many times we just have to infer what's the message he's trying to convey, and most of the time people feel uncomfortable holding a conversation like that. Is that terrible? No. That's fine, as he said, it's about choices. But if he speaks most of the languages he speaks, the same way he speaks Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese (the ones I can have a say in), then he shouldn't be so arrogant when having an opinion on the approaches from people trying to reach a high level of fluency, especially when those people's results are remarkable.
Totally agree, both about his level in Italian and Spanish (and Russian!) and his arrogance. He is dismissive of the experience and approach of those who have achieved far higher levels of fluency than he has, while not having achieved very much himself in ANY language (even his French is lacking). I would not have a problem with him if he didn't position himself as an authority on the subject. Follow his advice if you want to speak languages at a mediocre level and have natives struggle to decipher what you are saying between the false cognates and poor grammar. They are too polite to tell him it's tiring and frustrating to have a conversation of that kind. If his goal is communication, he should work on being understood better by natives.
totally agree with you guys. Steve, as most polyglots i've seen around on youtube, only speaks 2 or max 3 languages (including their native) in a high level, and the other languages they can comunicate but with lots of mistakes. I want to learn Japanese, but im still stuck trying to better my english to a level where i'll feel satisfied with. perhaps next year ill be able to start learning japanese for real.
@Kenura Medagedara Yep like you said. It seems weird to me that people assume he speaks badly in every language he learns just because of his other languages he doesn't speak well. I'm pretty sure Steve has 4-5 languages that he can speak at a very high level and the rest not so much. That is still a big achievement in my book.
Lmao just shut. The guy speaks more languages than you probably can name. There is no way he would be fluent to the level of a native speaker in each one of them. Come on
That is because Steve's Japanese is notably lower than Matt's. If Steve does has interviews in Japanese, the people with higher levels can point out Steve's mistakes and his lack of fluency. Steve does not actually do full blown 30 min. interviews, as he would run out of gas.
What a piece lf crap you wrote there lmao. Steve is fluent in lots of languages, knows a fair good amount (like he does japanese) of others and knows a bit less of some other ones. If you want quality, check out the ones he have chosen to be fluent on Matt knows japanese and that's it.
@@VSMF woah chill. I didn't say one was better, depends what your goals are. I pay for lingq and subscribe to steve too. Steve also gets bonus points for learning so much pre internet. my comment is very accurate and that's ok.
Matt. I love your videos. Your Japanese is incredibly good. You make me believe that someday I will be able to speak English at a native speakers' level. You are really encouraging for me. I think that those who are able to speak a foreign language like a native speaker are good at speaking in their native language. I cannot organize my thoughts and speak like you even in Japanese
It would be great to see Matt talking with Luca Lampariello. He studied Japanese for a while but I think he gave up because he finds Japanese particularly hard compared to the other languages he speaks. They could talk about what makes Japanese so hard, and accent (Luca is one of those who think that accent counts a lot).
You probably know this, but this has now happened. Luca pretty much admits that he doesn't really "speak" Japanese, he has just studied it and didn't succeed (yet).
A very interesting conversation - I'd have to say I am more in Matt's corner here when it comes to language learning approach and philosophy. I still have a lot of respect for what Steve Kaufmann does regardless, but I must say after delving into a few different languages, I've come to the conclusion that really studying 1 or 2 languages in depth is a more enjoyable and rewarding process than becoming reasonably proficient in a handful of languages. I've even begun to get more pleasure in reading in my native English from this realisation (before I started learning Chinese, I never really appreciated what a great joy it is just to be able to read a book without having to stop to look up words every few minutes or not getting cultural references).
I’m just here to say I’m excited cause I understood most of Matt was saying in Japanese 🤩 woohoo for progress!! Just discovering this channel/method too and excited to make more progress 😄
Wow, Steve is such an awful listener. Constant interruptions, not paying attention, and trying to start a debate. Matt said from the beginning that his method is for small, specific demographic, and then Steve basically just spent the rest of the interview saying over and over again that he isn't in that demographic and no one has time for that. Just shut up and listen, dude. He isn't saying you should do anything. You'd think as the "host" and interviewer, Steve would be more interested in sharing Matt's perspective to his audience, for the purpose of helping people instead of trying to beef himself up. The end was really satisfying though. I can't help but feel like he stopped Matt because he himself wasn't understanding. "Let's speak Japanese" "Stop, the audience doesn't speak Japanese" Impressed with Matt staying cool, I would have been pretty annoyed.
I can see where you´re coming from but just a few comments^^ "You'd think as the "host" and interviewer, Steve would be more interested in sharing Matt's perspective to his audience, for the purpose of helping people instead of trying to beef himself up" The video was posted on Matt´s channel and I doubt that he invites people on his channel to get interviewed by them. Steve wasn´t there to interview him but yeah, he could´ve been more patient. I don´t think he was beefing himself up either, they just have different perspectives. "The end was really satisfying though. I can't help but feel like he stopped Matt because he himself wasn't understanding." I understood almost everything and my Japanese sucks^^ I´m sure Steve understood and his reply in English related to what Matt said in Japanese. He just got annoyed for some reason.
They have very different approaches to learning languages. Steve just learns until he hits the "good enough" stage and Matt feels like he's never good enough.
This was enjoyable to watch and fun to get two different perspectives on language learning. I know very little about Steve. When I first was getting started in learning Japanese I came across his videos and dipped in and out of them for a short period of time. It was cool hearing him speaking Japanese, but, Matts level of Japanese is the goal and he has made a path for people to achieve that. It really does come down to what level you prefer to reach. Steve is happy to learn enough to get him by but Matt wanted to go above and beyond and it shows. Two very good mentors of language. Thanks for the work you do and put out.
Haha Matt you went god mode at the end. It put a smile on my face. I think that made everything clear without even needing words who is the master and who is the apprentice. I think I know now which method someone should take who's serious.
The "I didn't need it and I get by fine with my Japanese" argument is an interesting one because it's true, being foreigners, Japanese people don't really expect us and in many cases don't want us to know Japanese (even though they want people who move to Japan to speak Japanese so it's more convenient for them communicate lol) BUT By that logic, we also don't need to know Japanese. Japan simply doesn't force us to like other countries would. So... it's complicated haha. Pitch isn't really discussed but I'm sure Steve would have learned some pitch accent if it were part of normal Japanese learning routines. I'm sure the whole Japanese learning realm would be a completely ball game if things like pitch and kanji were stressed. Because we're only required to be able to recognize a max of 1500 (sometimes 2200, depending on the program)-ish characters at the highest levels of Japanese formal learning (and not be able to write any of them). And, pitch is barely a thing at all. Oh... I just heard him speak as I was writing all this...I guess I'm super comfortable speaking Japanese as well. I should give myself more credit haha (totally not hating though). Videos like these are awesome because I get to see the perspective of people who perceive themselves as above average in Japanese and then compare myself to them. It's good to know that I'm getting somewhere in my endeavors. Great video as always.
It depends what you want to do in Japan and where you want to live in Japan. Unless you want to teach English forever or work in a special international type company you need to speak Japanese. Also big cities like.. basically just Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka are quite accommodating for people who don't speak Japanese but if you step outside main tourist areas there are basically only Japanese people and most places won't have any English support. That said, modern technology certainly helps a lot, carrying around your smart phone.
You know, you both have different uses for the language and goals you are trying to reach. Steve is interested in many languages and Matt is focused on one. Being a dabbler, I can relate to Steve a lot, but Japanese is the only language I currently want to be fluent in (I used a handful of languages at school just to make the international students feel welcome). Awesome interview and great to see two language learners in this format. I would recommend that you get in contact with Kris Broholm of the Actual Fluency Podcast. I think that would be a great, long-format medium with plenty of linguist listeners to explain MIA and to tout learning one language as well as possible in a world where everyone wants to speak 10 languages. I also think you could gain some more listeners: people are interested in your kind of fluency. マットさん、おつカレーライス！
To each their own but i think it is much more valuable to really focus on grasping a language like matt does. Knowing english already allows you to comunicate in most places where you would ussualy find yourself (and if one goes to a place where that isn't the case, then you are probably interested in more than just comunicating). Besides, technology will cover the problem of comunication with real time translations soon. What is valuable about learning a language is discovering a whole new culture with its literature, popular culture, people, traditions, etc. I think Matt's approach is much more conducive to that.
Honestly, I am a huge fan of both Matt and Steve, but I have to agree that Steve just does not have a good vibe here. He sounds like a dismissive parent or something unwilling to try to understand their kids, and it's painful to watch. Even if his goals are different than Matt's, they should still have common ground in their goals of intercultural understanding. It was cringe-inducing to watch Steve roll his eyes and dismiss Matt without really addressing his points. The Japanese part was extremely painful since it was not a conversation but was really Matt flying and looking amazing while Steve sat and did nothhing.
I liked the way Steve Kaufmann summed up what Matt said. Okay . First thing is a massive exposure to the language even asleep. Secondly, Input with an emphasis on senses. And point three is lots of Spaced Repetition.
Great video, although I could sense Steve was perhaps feling a little bit assertive when it came to some specific points, but in the end it was as good a video as expected. For a long time I've been dedicating myself solely to English and I've gotten pretty good at it as far as comprehension goes, but I've also always wanted to learn Japanese for a long time. Although I don't fancy the idea of dabbling in as many languages as you can just for the experience of it, this video somehow (?) made me feel good about slowing down my crazy English mining cart so my Japanese can grow a little. Thanks Matt, your videos always motivate me.
sim, mas tecnicamente eu parei de "estudar" na 6ª série, porque depois disso, apesar de aprender bastante coisa, foi através de imersão(por isso acredito no método do matt, imersão realmente pode dar grandes resultados),mas acredito que só funciona depois de já dominar pelo menos o básico de gramática e vocabulário, mas não considero meu inglês bom o bastante pra escrever exatamente o que vc escreveu com confiança de não ter feito nada errado, apesar de conseguir entender 100%. Acho que esse é o principal problema do método, tem muito input, o que significa que vc vai entender muito bem antes de externar muito bem, pra externar fica um pouco mais difícil de fazer(mas talvez seja mais uma questão de confiança por ter menos prática em conversação do que de input, estou tentando consertar isso).
what kind of methods do you use to improve your writing in english? I'm trying to read and hear a lot in english. For the past months I've been trying to immerse myself into as many english content as possible, so that I could know exactly what to write, it feels more natural since I don't have to think in what words to use, they just come to my mind naturally, just like my native language(Brazilian portuguese) the problem is with this method I realized my portuguese started to lack( it sounds weird but it's true though) probably because I wasn't using it as much as I was using english. I know it sounds like I'm just saying things at random, but I'm just very excited to know a fellow brazilian learning languages with similar methods. That's hard to find in Brazil XD.
I like learning languages and has put a shit ton of time and efforts learning English and Japanese to achieve true mastery (which, by my own standards, I haven't). And I will do the same thing for languages I haven't mastered or have only started recently (Deutsch and français). Now I understand what they mean by "never meet your heroes."
This is such an interesting video, and I am watching it in chunks. To me the key exchange is around 22 minutes in when Kaufman points out that his goal was to become fluent in multiple languages, which he is content will include mistakes, whereas Matt is aiming for pretty much native perfection in a single language. Kaufman is right that these two goals need different methods. However, I think that perhaps Kaufman reached fluency in so many because he is unusually gifted in language, unusually intelligent in a way that most people are not. As an aside, Kaufman did in fact study Japanese 24/7 at one point in his life because he lived and worked in Japan. So his observation about what is necessary to acquire a Japanese specifically may not apply, as a new student of Japanese (at 52) I think I would probably need to do two hours solid per day in order to acquire reasonable fluency in about 18 months. I will happily settle for for an intermediate level of Japanese, so an hour a day is aspirational and half an hour a goal. Most people watching these videos I think are interested in learning Japanese, but are unlikely to go and live in Japan, or work in a job that requires Japanese fluency. It would be fantastic if some of these foreigners who speak perfect Japanese would consider giving advice to those of us who are just starting out. For example, at what point does a beginner need to learn to read Japanese before continuing in study?
really interesting discussion! Thank you for getting me out of the grammar sphere after I got insecure. I learned english through immersion and at first I felt like I had to get good at japanese so you really helped In that regard. For now I think steve's method is more appriopriate for me because I have a lot of other things to grow in while language acquiring. It's kind of a beauty to watch you speak japanese though. I also spent a lot of time with english simply because the amount of content I got out of it during my teen years was immense. I think for someone like steve the motivation to focus on a specific culture for really long is less and involves liking a specific culture more than any other.
Mr. Kaufman is thinking about a practical approach that is palatable to the general public, people who may want to be conversational in a new language. Matt's approach is for someone serious about becoming proficient in a new language. That's the clear difference I see in their respective philosophies.
For a native English speaker it makes little sense to learn ANY foreign language unless they plan to live in that country. And in that case people want to learn a second language to an advanced level. What Steve does with his free time is hoarding foreign languages at a beginner level and it makes ZERO sense for an average American / Canadian. Majority of People who really want and NEED to learn a second language to an advanced level are non English speakers learning English.
I think it's two different philosophys Matt wants closest possible to perfection and Steve just needs to have a sense of the language. I like how Matt works wich is give the maximum you can to perfect something wich I am doing right now with japanese, and I think Matt is an awesome guy who helps other thanks a lot.
![FNAF vs TF2 - Episode 2 [SFM]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/z5b3V2-VLb0/mqdefault.jpg)
This is one of the most ambitious anime crossovers in a long time.
Top 10 Best Anime CrossOvers
The BEST would be Luca Lampariello X Matt vs Japan. Luca lampariello is a KILLER. He's the best polyglot on youtube. He 's not just another dabbler.
@@Makiaveliiste Steve isn't a dabbler. Sure, there are a lot of languages that he's only dabbled in, but he does actually speak 6-7 languages really well
agreee !!
@@Makiaveliiste Well... it happened :D haha
Grandfather and grandson discuss watching anime for 30 minutes straight.
Plot twist: It's the same person. But, one is from the future.
These comments crack me up man
@@MattB-fl1wx Reverse trap?
This comment really made me laugh
totally! hahaha
I was one of those skeptical guys who used to ask "proof" of Matt level. Not because I had something personal against Matt or I was one of those internet haters, but because before applying such a time-consuming method I wanted to be sure of his effectiveness.
Well, this is the definitive proof.
I'm far from fluent in Japanese but I read novels and listen to the news, variety, youtubers and so on without any difficulty. And it's obvious to me that Matt's level is very high.
I want to say another thing. Once you begin to understant most of what you read and hear, it's not more "studying", it's just reading and listening to stuff you enjoy. So, even if it's true that in the beginning it's hard to do more than 1 to 2 hours of active input, when you begin understanding a lot, it stops being tiresome and you can do hours a day without even noticing, or better actively enjoying it.
@@Sophia-tk2qp Hey, I realise this is 6 months later, but I am currently learning Modern Hebrew. I would be grateful to hear how it has been implementing this method :)
@@strokethecow I've personally found it very effective for my Japanese studies
Very well said!
Same. Did this with English. Movies and subtitles. Can now read Harold Bloom and comprehend 80%. Lol
He literally said that we shouldn't follow his method blindly. You made the correct decision
Wow, I’ve followed Steve for a while & generally I find him pretty inspiring, but he did not come across well here. I take his point that people don’t need a native level to benefit from a language, but if reaching that level is your goal I see no reason to dismiss it.
Matt’s example about athletes was very apt. If you want to be in the Olympics you have to dedicate a huge amount of time to get that good. I assume Steve’s pushback must be because he doesn’t want people to get the idea that anything less than native level fluency isn’t good enough. But of course, nobody is suggesting that.
agreed my goal of fluency isnt my goal either. i should say perfect fluency. is not it, culture is what I aimed for a along time as a kid. i think culture and language go hand in hand. anyway, when Steve kept saying anata aka you? that pronoun is barely used.in actual spoken Japanese. and pitch accent extremely important. that is like saying Spanish with any of it's accent marks is still Spanish. which natives still don't know why we using them..
@@greganzi8874 as a native Spanish speaker If I heard a person speaking Spanish without the right accent It'll sound weird, that doesn't mean that Is incomprehensible in fact it's understandable but it'll sound unnatural, is like If you say bycyCLE and the stress is in the CLE instead of in the BY, It won't be incomprehensible but it'll sound awkard. The best thing you can do Is to get a lot of exposure to the language and be constant
@Hilbert França I don't think that he still is arrogant and if he still is then (maybe) not as much as he used to be.
He does come across as judgmental, or maybe defensive, at least to me.
@Kenura Medagedara Sorry, I've never subscribed to the "they act that way, but are actually not" form of justification. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck,...
Steve is making the "Are ya mastering Japanese, son?" look in the thumbnail.
“He’s a student of Yap-anese” Steve think he’s slick. 😂
Foreal 🤣🤣🤣🤣
This really made me appreciate Matt VS Japan that much more because no matter how dismissive someone is about the method in the end his Japanese level is proof. Thanks Matt!
26:50 Kaufmann: ‘We should probably speak some Japanese’. Matt: ‘...Hold my beer’. Well done Matt!
I get the impression Matt's Japanese is waay better than Steve's
@@byronwilliams7977 it sounds significantly more natural than steve's, for sure
@@byronwilliams7977 Yeah. Steve speaks more different languages but it seems like Matt speaks this one better. That's the impression I get anyway.
I think Matt’s is better because his goals are a lot more ambitious than Steve’s.
@@justakathings And Matt's definitely put a lot more time into Japanese.
Not sure what Steve's defensiveness was all about. Matt was nothing but polite and agreeable here. They are both amazing in their own unique way, so why make a fuss about the fact that they have different goals and target audiences?
The difference is that Steve Kaufman's life routine is aching to one of an actual human being and Matt's...well, let's just say he made some choices.
@@vodkatonyqtrue
Matt is a loser
@@vodkatonyqI call it obsesion to say the least. Broken psichology for an overrated language. With his level he could be an interpreter and yet his ultimate goal was to watch anime without subs.
You might think I'm being harsh on Matt but I'm sure a few years ago he twitted people with thick accents are idiots.
@@zahleerWell what are you gonna do with Japanese besides watching anime? 😅😅😅
If he had doubled down with Chinese and Korean, he could have studied International Relations and joined the CIA but well I guess he wanted to watch anime.
@@Big-guy1981 Too much of a simplistic reason to learn a language. He based his ENTIRE personality arround the fact he learns Japanese and is never perfect in it. Too obsesed with having a perfect accent in Japanese when he clearly looks nothing like a Japanese speaker, it just makes me laugh.
I like this conversation. It’s adds a lot of diversity of ideas. I will say in my opinion, both of your demographic audience and goals are different. Like the example Matt uses for an athlete. Steve focuses on just being able to play the game and understand the rules. Matt focuses on not just playing but being a professional. Which is the vast difference in the style and what they push. I believe this because Steve is a polyglot so he isn’t to committed to just one language, where as Matt is committed to one and it shows. I feel you wouldn’t argue practicality with a professional athlete who has spent thousands of hours dribbling and shooting a ball that is now living their dream job with millions of dollars. That’s just my take on it.
great take man!
I agree a hundred percent. I was telling my family about this video and they all play music so i said "would you rather play mary had a little lamb on ten instruments or vivaldi on one?"
Mixolydian - Exactly! And that is what you would call a Hobbyist vs a Professional. Don’t get me wrong, it’s perfectly ok to just dibble into something with the intention of only being ok in it, but I think it’s kind of small minded to think it’s not practical for people who want to go farther. With everything you do, there has be to be some type of sacrifice. Steve even stated that he could only do about an hour of learning a day because of other things he has. One being golf. I’m pretty sure he could go without golf. But that’s just my opinion
Breadth vs depth
That's it bro, become a master
I thought Steve came off as a bit rude. It's like he's forgotten that he learned Mandarin when he was younger, and said he did it 6 hours a day for 9 months. And if he had access to an iPod at that time, he likely would have spent several more hours a day passively listening to content. He is just at a different point in his life now. He's in his seventies and of course he doesn't want to devote that much time to language when he has kids, grandkids, businesses, etc. But in an earlier point in his life he was basically doing AMATT - all Mandarin all the time.
True lol xD
Yeah I know right, he really came off as an old fogey. And Matt was 100% correct - if you're not prepared to study the language for hours every single day, then what hope can you have to become skilled in that language?
100%. He probably has developed a bit of an ego
While I appreciate deep immersion over the classical learning models, and push people to maximize language contact, I can't agree with you.
In my opinion, you've skipped over the main point of his - the realistic need for language learning and what can be done to achieve it, pragmatically. An hour a day is a lot of time already, so I follow his point as: what's language learning for the masses. Now Matt does clearly state that his market is a niche of people going for the extremes, so that's where the juice of this discussion is. I don't believe there's much doubt about effectiveness of either method - deep or shallow, as much as the desire to see their features and applications.
I believe Steve was necessarily rude and I'm glad he managed to address the pain points, and unshift the focus from a nice chat about immersion techniques.
Personally, I prefer the focused approach, inspired in me by Tim Ferris. It's also because even in my native language, if I'm not careful, I make an incomprehensible mess. Furthermore, because of education and surroundings, I've always lived with being terrible at French, German, and Russian languages. Now I'm a non-native English speaker and also terrible at Japanese.
Thus all in one, I see Steve as forcing the question: but to what end, and by which people should languages be learned? Since most cannot afford anything close to the extremes, and the intermediates are cozy.
That's because that WAS his job. He was working for the Canadian government as a diplomat, and they sent him to Hong Kong to learn Mandarin. However, that's not how he learned French or Japanese both of which he speaks really well.
Brilliant talk, thoroughly enjoyed it! It's fun to see two people with fairly different language goals clash together like this. It did seem like Steve had some predisposed feelings about AJATT before starting the interview though. At some points it seemed like Steve was trying to argue against some of the methods you presented, even though you said that the approach you're representing (MIA) is for a specific niche of language learners. But god damn he seemed blown away when you actually begun speaking haha
I dont think so. When you have a conversation is normal to have oposing ideas. And i wouln't even say Steve had them, he said he had a life that wouldn't allow him to AJATT, and even then he rather not have a specific system.
I wonder if Steve was just getting lost in the end. I dont think that one goal is better than the other and its amazing when people dabble in a large number of languages however i do wonder what kind of interactions and communication people can have when polyglots only know a tiny fraction of a language. Surely they end up having the same conversations over and over?
@@Acolytemedia it's actually pretty interesting you can actually do a lot with a little and Steve dabbles in a lot of languages, but he speaks 6-7 really well like English, French, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish and a few more. He learned Chinese to be a Canadian diplomat and he lived in Japan for many years and did lumber business with Japanese for years after he moved back to Canada.
@@Acolytemedia haha no there’s no way he was getting lost. Steve’s Japanese is at a very high level, he lived in Japan doing business for nine years. Also what Matt is saying isn’t difficult at all, anyone with an upper intermediate level would understand him no problem.
I think Steve was totally justified. When questioned on how Matt's product that he was selling was different than AJATT, he basically just started talking about "pitch", different animal names, etc. which is bullshit. Steve was rightfully calling out a bullshit product, which is what you should do. Pitch accent doesn't exist. You can say the exact same thing in Japanese pitch accent in English and the same vice versa, and both natives will know wtf you are saying. Pitch accent is just a pretentious way of saying "accent" but when you put "pitch" in front of the word "accent" you are revealing that you put that language on a pedestal. Japan doesn't have any sort of unique pitch, it's just their accent, the same as any other region. You can speak Japanese with an American/European/Asian accent. Matt is very weird with trying to be Japanese when he isn't. There is no reason to try to be native Japanese unless you are native Japanese, you can still be Japanese, which is why it's important to reinforce to Matt to stop with this non-sense.
I have followed Steve for a while but he seemed quite.... dismissive of Matt throughout the whole interview...(?) not sure what it was about but it was quite disappointing and annoying. Really took the joy out of watching this. However, I loved your overall thoughts on, again, learning Japanese! I am personally learning Korean but I find your videos immensely helpful! Thank you for putting so much content out 💜💪
You nailed it. Very smug, dismissive attitude from Steve.
@@theryanerjapan3292 He forgets that because he has learned so many languages he can take a relax role in language learning as he knows all the short cuts.
Matt's Japanese is his 2nd language so he isn't going to learn as fast.
@@narsplace 8
Agreed
Quite strange. at one time he seemed to be actually grilling Matt.
That moment when people see Steve roll his eyes for the first time, then that moment when Steve realizes Matt's pretty damn good. Definitely the highlights of this discussion.
Is this a negative comment towards Steve?
@@Eruptor1000 I read this civil question as "YOU FUCKING WITH STEVE?!? NAWWWWWW DAWG"
@@Eruptor1000 Yes
Steve rolls his eyes because of how TOXIC this dude is and that he's doing against the community. The reasons behind why Matt does what he does are the reason why Steve's not with none of that sh!t. Clown vs Japan should have been censored a long time ago.
It’s quite funny to see Kaufmann trying to argue when both methods are just 2 different levels of the same core idea input before output!
It was a great discussion and it really cemented my idea of a snowball approach to MIA meaning doing as Kaufmann said in the beginning focus on getting in maybe an hour or 2 of active immersion and from there at your own pace altering your life to include more of the language until you reach the MIA standard.
This approach is the same approach that psychology talks about when it comes to building habits meaning if you jump right into the deep end of the pool your gonna drown and end up quitting your activity but if you introduce your activity in steps then it’s easier for it to become a habit and thus it becomes a part of your reality.
This is the second interview with Steve that I’ve viewed where he is patronizing, dismissive, and rude. I know people irl with his personality type, and they are not fun to be around. They often talk down to you as if you are a child , and act as if their way is the only right way to do something. There is no single ‘right’ way to learn a language, especially since people learn languages with different goals in mind. There is nothing wrong with having a goal of achieving a near-native level for both language fluency and cultural knowledge. If anything, I think it should be highly commended.
Especially if you want to work as an interpreter or something like that. What's the other interview of steve?
Even with their different goals, a lot of Matt's ideas would benefit Steve but he doesn't seem very interested. For instance, he said that would rather learn most of his vocabulary through immersion. This would be less efficient than first learning to recognize through SRS, assuming you're immersing for very little each day (~1 hour, where most of it is passive immersion).
Well, in this case, the age difference is there… 😅 I think that might be why
When Matt started speaking Japanese I went in to immersion mode. My brain was like: “Oh we’re watching anime now. Ok, time to focus.”
How's your japanese now
@@JapanWalkerJJ How's your Japanese now?
@@User_Unknown_Try_Again It's comprehensible I just can't speak it
Haha I did the exact same thing
@@JapanWalkerJJwhat the progress at now?
As a native Japanese speaker who wants to achive a semi-native level of English, I definitely agree with Matt's method MIA/Ajatt devoting tons of time to learning a target language through immersion. As Matt mentioned earlier in the video, the method is for very particular people hence it's quite hardcore. In contrast Steven seeks for a way that works for most people, so that's where the two go in different ways; one for those who aspire to learn not only the language but also the cultural stuff, and the other reach to a mediocore level in the least stressful way. I belive it's obvious which method you should take if you want to achive a feat in language learning.
Btw since I got to know your youtube channel last month I basically watched every single video of yours except a few, and I'm really looking forward to the next video, be it an interview or language tips or something else!!
In contrast, Steven seeks a way that will work for most people, so that's where the two part ways; ..., and the other to reach a mediocre level in the least stressful way.
Only sentence that jumped out at me as a little off. I assume you like this kind of feedback, since as the above poster said, I never would have guessed you weren't native...even your mistakes were the kind natives make.
@@skadojan Thanks a lot! I'll keep it up!
頑張ってください(*ﾟ▽ﾟ)ﾉ
@Allan Duarte I didn't learn English well by transcribing anything. I learned it by reading a lot of challenging books and taking English classes (not English grammar, I never payed any attention to that--always seemed like a waste of time--but English writing classes, with feedback on my writing from better writers (my teachers/professors) and giving lots of feedback to less-skilled writers (I always ended up having many of my classmates asking me to edit their papers) which I believe was helpful because it forced me to think deeply on their intended meaning and the best way to phrase that to maintain their "voice". I imagine this "editor's mind" is what you are cultivating, which I agree is very beneficial. I disagree that it is the only beneficial practice. I'm sure there are even more I haven't noticed I benefitted from or missed the opportunity to benefit from due to a lack of exposure/attention...
Gotta say, your English is literally better than 99% of the US, and probably the English-speaking West itself.
Oh my god!! Two of my favourite youtubers in one place!
ikr
I really admire Steve but you definitely tell that he speaks only from the perspective of loose polyglots like him. I wish he would be a bit more open minded and accepting other people’s goals. Steve is conversational in many languages but its also clear that he has no intention of wanting to be anything more than a considerate tourist. Those of us who are frequent visitors of one country because we love what’s there or became enamored with a language specifically because of its pop culture are going to have different goals than someone who simply enjoys traveling. It made me happy to see how, after hearing you speak, he realized that all of the time and effort you spent has payed off in a significant way and that has to have _meaning_ to you. Hopefully he keeps that with him and remembers that sometimes you can get the bug for a language and it just sticks with you
It seems like Kaufman (who I love) came into this expecting Matt to be somewhat of the otaku archetype, someone doing it for snobby and naive "I'm Japanese on the inside guys" reasons and only towards the end started to realize his pre conceived notions werent fitting into Matt's mold. Definitly need a redo sometime in the future where things are less skeptical and more shop talk. Great talk between two legends of the language learning comminity, though. Thanks for the upload.
This honestly. He was super dismissive and rude, and in the end I think you could see in his eyes that his mind was blown, that he had totally underestimated Matt
@Hilbert França Yes, and he isn't anymore, and Kauffman shouldn't have assumed that he would be. If you're making a point, I don't get what it is
29:01 the moment where I got goosebumps, what a ride those 30 minutes were. And Steve's ending speech left me feeling motivated to keep on pursuing Japanese.
This conversation was a bit awkward tbh - like many of the comments imply here, I thought Steve was somewhat dismissive and defensive
yeah, and he kept interrupting as well...
@@spoppyboi6427 He interrupted a lot in Tetsu’s interview too. Might just be his style.
Matt, you were beautifully composed. I really enjoyed hearing about your Japanese learning experience. Needless to say, your Japanese language skills are top-notch. Bravo^^
Steve:ok I'm gonna show you son
Matt:starts speaking
Steve:maybe I should use his method
Edit:I'm glad that Steve complimented him
Interrupted him while he was completing a task Steve asked for ("we should speak some Japanese"),, then complemented him, then immediately ended the interview:P
I really liked how well you expressed yourself. If somebody asked me what AJATT or MIA was about, I wouldn't know where to start. You did it very well.
I love listening to your Japanese! plus it motivates me to keep going.
me too, better to speak a few languages very very well, than to butcher several with poor comprehension, oral production and cultural awareness.
I don't speak a word of Japanese, but my God it's unbelievably satisfying watching modest Matt wipe the floor with supercilious Steve.
I was kind of surprised by Kaufmann's "what is the point" kind of attitude. Half-assing Japanese for a few years seems like a terrible investment of time because you'll be stuck in the zone of understanding some of what's being said, but not enough to actually enjoy it or meaningfully participate. I think Matt was right on the money when he said that enjoyment increases with mastery. IMO languages are hardly worth learning if you aren't going to follow through because the costs are heavily front-loaded, with the rewards only coming at near-fluency and higher.
it seems like Kaufmann is thinking about more practical uses of the language and I get where he is coming from, most people learn another language isbecause of better socio economical status pursuits and I can tell you as a person who speaks 4 languages that for most jobs you only need a small set of fluency. I know people in the UK with hard accents and small vocabulary living just fine with their communities and knowing just enough English to do the job and have a small conversation with many grammar mistakes and translations.
They will never integrate fully whereas if you go for what Matt achieved people take you as one of their own. I speak Romanian and Hungarian and a lot more doors were open to me in the UK because I was more fluent, I had a better time socially since I could hang out with brits and understood almost everything they would say, whereas other Romanians chose to stay mainly with Romanians around.
@@rolandcucicea6006Thanks for sharing your insights and for resurfacing my comment to me 2 years later!
@@shugyosha7924 yeah idk what’s up with RUclips, keeps recommending me old stuff lately
Matt was acting like a mature adult while Kaufmann was like a cranky old man. Kaufmann sounded high-handed from the start. He was almost acting like a defense lawyer interrogating a witness. I didn't think he was very pleasant. Maybe, it's just me. I don't know. But his attitude changed as soon as they started speaking in Japanese. I guess that's when Kaufmann realized that the small cat was up against a lion.
@Mr. NoName You are right. Rude is the word to describe Steve here. I don't know what his problem is but he certainly is being grumpy and rude. I even get an impression that he hates Matt.
Note from the future: pretty darn accurate and this hasn't changed.
@@ericbwertz wait what happened? what did I miss?
@@人形niño Kaufmann hasn't changed
Agreed
In my own experience, at first, Anki provided me seperated bricks. When having enough bricks, I need to listen and read alot to "cement" them together as a whole. Build a house with bricks is faster, but with cement is much more solid.
Nguyên Khánh Đỗ I think the “bricks” thing is when you use shared decks instead of self made ones. I eventually integrated it to where the “bricks” I put into Anki are solely from the things I listen to and read (thus, they’re all self made). This probably slows me down a a lot though, because it takes a long time to put them into Anki, but it does provide a very solid feedback loop. For example, I read a book while putting sentences that have words that I didn’t know into Anki. It was a struggle reading through the book the first time, and my reading pace wasn’t smooth. I paused on certain parts, had to reread some sentences, and couldn’t even comprehend a few. After mastering those Anki cards, I went back to the beginning of the book and surprised myself. “Holy shit! I can read this fluently!” As in: no pauses, good speed, rhythm, and flow, and perfect reading comprehension.
Nguyên Khánh Đỗ You're basically describing the purpose of SRS in immersion - you don't acquire language directly by memorizing vocabulary in SRS, but it makes your input more comprehensible, which gives you the ability to acquire it in your immersion
Haha I think Steve assumed going in that that Matt is an AJATT disciple. He really seems put off with the 24/7 idea and it's a hurdle to the discussion:
M "So you basically listen to Japanese 24/7 even when asleep"
S "But that's crazy and no-one would do that"
M "I know, right!?"
S ....errrr......
I know Matt does walk that idea back a bit but Steve has him down as a hardcore freak by then. It's sad because the core AJATT idea is the feedback loop of immersion time into i+1 sentences/SRS which supercharges the next immersion time. It doesn't really matter if you get that input in a condensed 18 month period or spread over several years. It also works if you only want a passing grasp of the language.
For his part Steve seems to underestimate the amount of time you can realistically listen to a new language. Bluetooth headphones + a smartphone and you can easily do quite a few hours a day.
It's really not realistic for many people with families, full time , other interests. Those other activities would definitely need to be cut back. I'm sure that's fine for some. Note also that I think Steve has said in the past that when he learned Chinese he was spending 6 hours a day. I believe it was out of necessity.
I think Steve's method is good for those that have families, are older, and don't have hardly any free time. I'm 23, single with no kids. Even if I have a full time job I can still put many hours into learning japanese and tons of hours on the weekend. Matt's method seems more interesting to me, but someone that doesn't have the free time I have on my hands would probably lean towards Steve's.
@@AwesomeMan2696 I totally agree as a young person with free time the MIA method it's probably the best, at least it worked for me to learn English, I learned almost 90% of my English (It's not a Native English speaker but I have an advanced level and fluency) by consuming hundreds or thousands of hours to English content (RUclips, series, books...) and the best is that I learned unintentionally, by having a huge immersion in the language and a great grammar level I became fluent in a language without even wanting, I'm learning Japanese and after reading all the MIA's Website I have no doubt that with having a good input approach and being consistent you'll be able to acquire the language you want.
True but I think steve is talking about active learning not passive learing.
Listening while having to open a dictionary for every word you dont know and trying to actually comprehend for more than an hr a day is a lot for a beginner that has a busy schedule.
OK, I'm officially jelly now.
This should be shown to salespeople during their training to contrast good versus bad sales tactics when conversing with a customer.
Hey Matt, I "learnt" English through immersion (I'm not perfect tho), so I found your channel very very late. Anyway, I really enjoy your content (and as I wanna get a high level in French, I'm using your method) and I'm glad to see that you could talk with one person you respect a lot. Although, he seemed, as a lot of comments claim, too dismissive (a new word for my dictionary, lol) and impolite through all the video. You really maintained polite, talked with a lot of respect and your face in general demonstrated that you enjoyed this interview.
You not only proofed your method is really effective, but also that you're kind with others, even in situations like this.
I'd love to be able to talk with you some day. You're an amazing person and an amazing teacher.
Lol when you started popping off in japanese XD.
This is the fundamental language debate I see everywhere: language as art v. craft. Viewing language learning as an art to be pursued forever but fully achieved, versus viewing language learning as a craft to be acquired for a purpose (being able to converse at work and in social life, for instance) within a realistic timeframe. I think it's more about personality difference than "right" language philosophy. Both types really seem to annoy each other though.
There's a lot of weird argument in the comments but I think this video highlights something extremely enlightening for me.
Learning a language is a route to several different conclusions.
Steve wants to communicate with as many people as possible.
Matt wants to understand and enjoy Japanese culture as much as possible.
To do this, they have both learned Japanese.
However, their goals are MASSIVELY different. Learning the language was just a path they both happened to take and that's why they don't agree on everything.
That's fine, though, because people with entirely different goals are going to disagree on the middle steps, by definition.
I am going to be honest, I was never a huge fan of Matt vs. Japan until I got to above intemediate level in Japanese. I just watched his early videos about meditation and stuff and thought 'what a waste of time that I could be replacing with real studying'. However, the way he composes himself in this video made me change my mind. He has obviously worked very hard to get where he is and Steve tried to push his narrative super hard while Matt just accepted it for the most part. Then when they started speaking Japanese I could tell that Steve actually couldnt understand half of what Matt was saying..... Then he has the nerve to say 'I will stop you there, lots of the viewers don't understand'... No Steve, you bit off more than you could chew and you weren't humble enough to just accept it and admit you couldn't understand.
@Asher Kidd,
Steve's Japanese level in this video was telling. It was even less than three minutes. I noticed RUclips polyglots like to direct conversations specifically for what they have repeated countless times. Once similar to this video, Matt seemed to have gone deeper, it made Steve uncomfortable and he was out of his depth. I saw the same reaction you did, that Steve made the excuse many people don't understand Japanese to avoid making himself look like a tool, especially if he was to attempt to reply in Japanese.
What are you guys talking about? Steve understood him perfectly, this video just wasnt supposed to be in Japanese that's why he cut it off short. They have another video on Steve's channel in which they speak for at least 20 minutes in Japanese about a range of topics, having no problem understanding each other.
Btw Steve has lived in Japan for 9 years.
@@alanguages Why wouldn't he understand his japanese when Matt speaks so clearly with a regular native speed, considering that for most people their comprehension on a foreign language is far better than their speaking skills?
Matt has taken down, or at least annotated a lot of his older videos recently because he has changed his mind on things like the meditation aspect. He has more discarded the excess at this point and the sole focus is immersion now.
@@ryanasher6390 What do you mean? That he doesn't meditate anymore?
I adore both of these guys, look up to them immensely and they’ve equally been a big part of my language acquisition journey. Whilst I get the vibe on a surface level of what many of the comments reflect here, I truly can’t imagine it really was that way. I believe what we are seeing here are two naturally assertive and strong willed brilliant thinkers who are no pushovers and like to articulate and fully express their ideas… I think they’re on the same page about nearly everything- they’ve just got a few diff goals in the long run. I do wish Steve would have smiled a bit more as it was cute how Matt looked at the opening - as though he were meeting one of his favorite bands, charming! But I think we are just seeing a healthy and focused discussion between two great minds who walk their talk. 💪🏻👏🏻
I agree. I think most of the commentators misanalyzed/misunderstood the ambiance of this discussion.
I had not seen mr Kaufman prior to this interview, although I’ve been subscribed to Matt for quite some time. I felt the during the entire video, until Kaufman was completely shown up by Matt’s skill, Kaufman was extremely rude, arrogant, condescending and dismissive.
This is a cool video. I really liked what he said about understanding the culture and it surprises me how this is brushed off. It's perhaps one of the biggest hurdles in being really good at speaking the language and REALLY being fluent.
This is an interview I never thought would happen but I’m glad it did. In my language learning I have to employ both philosophies. Matt’s Ajatt/MI approach is what I use to enhance my Filipino since I am on an endless journey to discover culture, identity, and language. Steve’s method on the other hand is perfect for my Spanish because I want it as a tool for communication with a sampling of culture in which I can someday say “I’m done time to move on”
Thanks again! Awesome video
exactly my thoughts, if your plan is to keep learning about the culture and language throughout your life MIA is definately the best choice because your goal doesnt have a finish line, only checkpoints.
This brilliant young man is an inspiration to all of us! At least to me.
A lot of people have said that Steve comes across dismissive, and I can kinda see that. However, I think the main issue with the discussion is that it's two people with drastically different goals. Yes, both agree on the core part of the method (massive amounts of input), but for Matt Japanese is a huge part of his life, maybe even the main part of it, while for Steve language learning is a part of his day that he enjoys (and is very passionate about! no question!), but he won't push to the absolute max.
Great discussion!
What issue was caused by the difference in goals? Matt was saying that the amount of input you'll do each day depends on what level you want to reach, but that's about it. Even with a less ambitious goal like Steve's, Matt's ideas would be of benefit
Greatest crossover of 2019
Honestly a mad conversation. He's very much stuck in his own ways and against conventions that simplify the process through technology. Though the last part was like a final episode of a anime but sadly we got a cliffhanger. So I'm sure we're all waiting for season 2, part 2 of this hopefully with more Japanese. As he was very quick to stop the conversation at the end..
Plenty of people are saying that Steve was being dismissive or rude, and I couldn’t disagree more. He was simply explaining his point of view towards learning language, in which he has a completely different goal, which is to communicate, rather than to consistently chase more understanding of all the nuances and cultural references. When he pushed back against the idea of full immersion, I don’t believe that he was dismissing it as useless, but rather simply stating that it was unrealistic for most people, which I also agree with. A lot of people have obligations and large portions of their day in which they can’t dedicate time to immersing themselves in their language of choice.
All in all, this was a great conversation from two different schools of thought, and I learned a lot from it!
I think Steve just came across as rude due to his tone and how he interrupted Matt multiple times
The way I see it, it was a discussion between two opinionated preachers of their own methods and goals, and this was the natural "clash" but despite that both sides seemed really respectful to each other and recognised the differences in their goals
This is very interesting as both of you have different wishes and goals and I find myself wishing like Matt for some languages and like Steve for others so it was a great listen for me!
Matt's Japanese has improved a lot since his 自己紹介 video for sure. Accent is a lot better now
Came here from Steve’s link, great interview! I think Steve’s approach is more practical for most people to get into a language, but yours is obviously the method for anyone to reach maximum potential... kinda like fitness programs, all depends on your goals. Your proficiency in speaking is proof that ur methods work.
Does Steve's approach include being incredibly condescending and dismissive when people answer questions that he asks?
@@deProfundisAdAstraweakling
I'm conflicted. On one hand, I think you were way too easy on him. On the other hand, though, I think being nice and agreeable probably helped you get some of his followers interested in checking out your content.
Eric Wulff
Wait was he supposed to convert his methods or something? I thought they were just having a discussion?
Eric Wulff
Everyone’s also talking about how he supposedly was aggressive, can you explain this to me please?
It's not a fight. It's a conversation.
@@fgv3357 Bruh it's Matt vs. Japan. He's going to fight Japan
@@archdukefranzferdinand567 underrated comment
I have recently just found these two from days n french and Swedish. That speech at end by Kaufmann was touching and Matts face of gratification from the compliment prior is very wholesome.
Incredible crossover. Unfortunate that much of it was argumentative but it made for good sharing of ideas and for him to see your perspective better. Been a Steve Kaufmann fan for 5 years and a fan of yours for 2 so this was great to watch.
This is my first exposure to Steve and… I can't say I'm ever interested in hearing what he has to say about anything ever again.
Thanks Matt.... came back a couple of years later, and can understand fine now. Hope you're doing alright in Japan my friend. Thanks again... 🙏
I admire your work and passion towards language acquisition. Great content from both of you as usual. Thank you!
This makes me so happy to see this discussion with these two!!
That kind of content is a great source of knowledge for those who are acquiring new languages. I very liked when you talked about what to do when we reach the Plato and start to pay attention in the subtles of the language in order to overcome it. Way to go. Congratulations! And thanks a lot!!!
I started AJATT/MIA last year, but I’ve been really lazy, and I’m just halfway through RTK. Seeing you speak has inspired me to pick up speed again. Thanks Matt; I couldn’t do this without you.
I think he thought Matt's methods were extreme until he started talking to him in Japanese. Then it clicked for him. While he focuses on breadth in his language learning, Matt is all about depth. They're both extremely passionate about language learning, just in different ways which is why their approaches to learning language are so different to each other. Their methods are tailored to their goals with the language.
For a native English speaker it makes little sense to learn ANY foreign language unless they plan to live in that country.
What Steve does with his free time hoarding foreign languages at a beginner level makes ZERO sense for an average American / Canadian.
People who really want and NEED to learn a second language to an advanced level are mostly non English speakers learning English.
It's almost as if different abilities, different needs and above all different ambitions impacts how you should learn a foreign language.
Moses method was perfect, because he was all about getting that kick from talking to random strangers in as many languages as possible. Matt's method is perfect because he's all about deep diving into one culture and understanding as many nuances as possible. Steve's method is perfect, because he's all about communicating with people and getting things done. Then some people need to use a language in a professional aspect and needs a different method, some people needs to learn for academic reasons.
I think we should learn languages the way we want to, find our own way. Learn from methods but don't subscribe to any. You gotta make your own method for you own needs, for your own abilities, and for your own ambitions. If you can't figure out your own way and just try to subscribe to someone else, my expectation is you'll get bored and frustrated and unmotivated. Because it's not tailored for you, only you know yourself best. Some people might love to watch 6 hours of tv a day, others might love to get hooked on the gratification rewards that apps like anki gives. While for others those things could be impossible.
Do what you do best and make sure you love it.
27:32 Steve: I'm in danger
>uploaded on my birthday
Thanks for the present lads
Pretty obvious that Steve hadn’t realized he had stepped into the ring with a heavy weight.
I heard, that Steve won't do full on interviews in Japanese or other languages. Only English. When Steve starts to talk in other languages, he will be the one who directs the conversation and where it goes. That is actually telling, as he even did it with this video. Maybe less than three minutes of Japanese, where he was controlling the conversation and Matt did majority of the Japanese speech when explaining. Steve then ends the Japanese conversation.
@@alanguages What are you talking about? He takes interviews for more than 30 minutes in languages that he's less fluent than his japanese.
Well Steve talks 12 languages fluently and 8 more (not amazingly but he does). How many can Matt speak? So it’s a matter of perspective. Either u are good at many things or perfect in one. I would rather do as Steve. Learn a specific language to read about the history of the country, culture, etc. I speak 5 languages and now im acquiring sixth, and all because i wanna be able to speak with natives all around the globe. But that’s just me, everyone else has their own WHY. 😊
@@alanguages then you noticed wrong. Steve knows a lot of japanese and like people mentioned already, can keep up conversation about varied topics even in languages he knows the leat, not only some fixed topics. Get your fats straight before talking shit
@@VSMF You know this how?
Watching RUclips videos of Steve or do you have videos of Steve doing full blown lectures in Japanese in Japan.
It's pretty cool to see Matt so excited
Cleary totally different philosophies about learning and goals. As a non native english speaker I really like the Steve approach. What he said was what I did when I was studying english. But now learning Japanese I fell more compel to study more and get a higher level than I have with my english. Really liked the interview btw.
Definitely kind of a bummer how dismissive he seemed of you throughout most of the interview, but at least you won him over in Japanese by the end.
typical of Steve
Well it's because if doesn't care about getting really good at other languages.
If Matt's abilities was like having a near perfect knife and a really good power drill with the screwdriver attachment. Steven would be like also having a near perfect knife, a hand screwdriver, and an assortment of multiple other tools.
@@cedimus4016 "near perfect knife" would be an overstatement lol
@Maximillius the near perfect knife for both of them being English. Perhaps you're disparaging his skill at English, though...
@@cedimus4016 Its more like steve just has a bunch of nice attachments. He hasnt reached a level in any language that Matt has in Japanese. Not that it matters if thats not his goal..
I don't mean to be disrespectful, but sometimes I feel Steve is a bit arrogant towards anything that's not similar to his perspective on language learning. His philosophy of ''My goal is communicating and that's it'' is fine, but I don't get why he seems to be condescending when talking about other methods focused on achieving a high level of fluency. In the end, his results when speaking a foreign language are equivalent to the approach he uses. I've heard him speaking Portuguese, Spanish, Italian... Can people who fluently speak those languages understand when he speaks in those languages? Sure. However, he makes tons of mistakes, and mix a lot of words from other languages, that probably people without experience in those languages he's mixing won't understand. Many times we just have to infer what's the message he's trying to convey, and most of the time people feel uncomfortable holding a conversation like that.
Is that terrible? No. That's fine, as he said, it's about choices. But if he speaks most of the languages he speaks, the same way he speaks Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese (the ones I can have a say in), then he shouldn't be so arrogant when having an opinion on the approaches from people trying to reach a high level of fluency, especially when those people's results are remarkable.
Totally agree, both about his level in Italian and Spanish (and Russian!) and his arrogance. He is dismissive of the experience and approach of those who have achieved far higher levels of fluency than he has, while not having achieved very much himself in ANY language (even his French is lacking). I would not have a problem with him if he didn't position himself as an authority on the subject. Follow his advice if you want to speak languages at a mediocre level and have natives struggle to decipher what you are saying between the false cognates and poor grammar. They are too polite to tell him it's tiring and frustrating to have a conversation of that kind. If his goal is communication, he should work on being understood better by natives.
totally agree with you guys. Steve, as most polyglots i've seen around on youtube, only speaks 2 or max 3 languages (including their native) in a high level, and the other languages they can comunicate but with lots of mistakes.
I want to learn Japanese, but im still stuck trying to better my english to a level where i'll feel satisfied with. perhaps next year ill be able to start learning japanese for real.
Welp you just put down input hypothesis based on one person.
@Kenura Medagedara Yep like you said. It seems weird to me that people assume he speaks badly in every language he learns just because of his other languages he doesn't speak well. I'm pretty sure Steve has 4-5 languages that he can speak at a very high level and the rest not so much. That is still a big achievement in my book.
Lmao just shut. The guy speaks more languages than you probably can name. There is no way he would be fluent to the level of a native speaker in each one of them. Come on
Amazing, it kinda give chills when you speak japanese and sorta convince Steve of your convictions...Beautiful, you are very inspiring Matt.
Hahahaa I couldnt help but crack up at the end when u 2 speak Japanese and steve responds with the occasional "mhm" in lmfao
That is because Steve's Japanese is notably lower than Matt's. If Steve does has interviews in Japanese, the people with higher levels can point out Steve's mistakes and his lack of fluency. Steve does not actually do full blown 30 min. interviews, as he would run out of gas.
Quality vs. Quantity
What a piece lf crap you wrote there lmao. Steve is fluent in lots of languages, knows a fair good amount (like he does japanese) of others and knows a bit less of some other ones. If you want quality, check out the ones he have chosen to be fluent on
Matt knows japanese and that's it.
@@VSMF woah chill. I didn't say one was better, depends what your goals are. I pay for lingq and subscribe to steve too. Steve also gets bonus points for learning so much pre internet. my comment is very accurate and that's ok.
Steve is a little bit grumpy.
itsumo yappari
彼はくそったれです
Sounded a lot to me like an examination. Professor examining a cocky student who's also good marks hahahaa
@Mr. NoName Ah here's the usual Matt stan.
@@regisps4989 Why is this a problem? Here's a Yoga stan. shut the fuck up lol
Holy shit, your Japanese is amazing! When somebody asks me what I want to achieve in Japanese, I'm linking them to your videos.
Matt. I love your videos. Your Japanese is incredibly good. You make me believe that someday I will be able to speak English at a native speakers' level. You are really encouraging for me. I think that those who are able to speak a foreign language like a native speaker are good at speaking in their native language. I cannot organize my thoughts and speak like you even in Japanese
I could understand you thoroughly :D keep it up man, you can do it!
Thanks for a wonderful & informative video. I enjoyed it very much.
It would be great to see Matt talking with Luca Lampariello. He studied Japanese for a while but I think he gave up because he finds Japanese particularly hard compared to the other languages he speaks. They could talk about what makes Japanese so hard, and accent (Luca is one of those who think that accent counts a lot).
You probably know this, but this has now happened. Luca pretty much admits that he doesn't really "speak" Japanese, he has just studied it and didn't succeed (yet).
A very interesting conversation - I'd have to say I am more in Matt's corner here when it comes to language learning approach and philosophy. I still have a lot of respect for what Steve Kaufmann does regardless, but I must say after delving into a few different languages, I've come to the conclusion that really studying 1 or 2 languages in depth is a more enjoyable and rewarding process than becoming reasonably proficient in a handful of languages. I've even begun to get more pleasure in reading in my native English from this realisation (before I started learning Chinese, I never really appreciated what a great joy it is just to be able to read a book without having to stop to look up words every few minutes or not getting cultural references).
I’m just here to say I’m excited cause I understood most of Matt was saying in Japanese 🤩 woohoo for progress!! Just discovering this channel/method too and excited to make more progress 😄
Wow, Steve is such an awful listener. Constant interruptions, not paying attention, and trying to start a debate.
Matt said from the beginning that his method is for small, specific demographic, and then Steve basically just spent the rest of the interview saying over and over again that he isn't in that demographic and no one has time for that. Just shut up and listen, dude. He isn't saying you should do anything. You'd think as the "host" and interviewer, Steve would be more interested in sharing Matt's perspective to his audience, for the purpose of helping people instead of trying to beef himself up.
The end was really satisfying though. I can't help but feel like he stopped Matt because he himself wasn't understanding. "Let's speak Japanese" "Stop, the audience doesn't speak Japanese"
Impressed with Matt staying cool, I would have been pretty annoyed.
21:26 .....no, I’m listening.....
I can see where you´re coming from but just a few comments^^
"You'd think as the "host" and interviewer, Steve would be more interested in sharing Matt's perspective to his audience, for the purpose of helping people instead of trying to beef himself up"
The video was posted on Matt´s channel and I doubt that he invites people on his channel to get interviewed by them. Steve wasn´t there to interview him but yeah, he could´ve been more patient. I don´t think he was beefing himself up either, they just have different perspectives.
"The end was really satisfying though. I can't help but feel like he stopped Matt because he himself wasn't understanding."
I understood almost everything and my Japanese sucks^^ I´m sure Steve understood and his reply in English related to what Matt said in Japanese. He just got annoyed for some reason.
Steve showed up to discuss language learning, Matt showed up to discuss AJATT/MIA.
Agreed 👍
This is how me and my dad always communicate, he questions what I’m doing and I defensively respond lmao
😂
They have very different approaches to learning languages. Steve just learns until he hits the "good enough" stage and Matt feels like he's never good enough.
Very interesting conversation, many thanks!
After your Japanese demonstration, I will give your method a try! And I also subscribed!
Would be reeeeally nice some subtitles on the Japanese part hahaha
This was enjoyable to watch and fun to get two different perspectives on language learning.
I know very little about Steve. When I first was getting started in learning Japanese I came across his videos and dipped in and out of them for a short period of time. It was cool hearing him speaking Japanese, but, Matts level of Japanese is the goal and he has made a path for people to achieve that.
It really does come down to what level you prefer to reach. Steve is happy to learn enough to get him by but Matt wanted to go above and beyond and it shows.
Two very good mentors of language. Thanks for the work you do and put out.
Haha Matt you went god mode at the end. It put a smile on my face. I think that made everything clear without even needing words who is the master and who is the apprentice. I think I know now which method someone should take who's serious.
This was juicy after Steve starting challenging matt’s ideas
Steve is surprisingly close-minded for someone being fluent in at least a dozen languages.
@Mr. NoName says you 2 nobodies, who can barely speak their native language xDD
True
The "I didn't need it and I get by fine with my Japanese" argument is an interesting one because it's true, being foreigners, Japanese people don't really expect us and in many cases don't want us to know Japanese (even though they want people who move to Japan to speak Japanese so it's more convenient for them communicate lol) BUT
By that logic, we also don't need to know Japanese. Japan simply doesn't force us to like other countries would. So... it's complicated haha.
Pitch isn't really discussed but I'm sure Steve would have learned some pitch accent if it were part of normal Japanese learning routines. I'm sure the whole Japanese learning realm would be a completely ball game if things like pitch and kanji were stressed. Because we're only required to be able to recognize a max of 1500 (sometimes 2200, depending on the program)-ish characters at the highest levels of Japanese formal learning (and not be able to write any of them). And, pitch is barely a thing at all.
Oh... I just heard him speak as I was writing all this...I guess I'm super comfortable speaking Japanese as well. I should give myself more credit haha (totally not hating though). Videos like these are awesome because I get to see the perspective of people who perceive themselves as above average in Japanese and then compare myself to them. It's good to know that I'm getting somewhere in my endeavors.
Great video as always.
It depends what you want to do in Japan and where you want to live in Japan. Unless you want to teach English forever or work in a special international type company you need to speak Japanese. Also big cities like.. basically just Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka are quite accommodating for people who don't speak Japanese but if you step outside main tourist areas there are basically only Japanese people and most places won't have any English support. That said, modern technology certainly helps a lot, carrying around your smart phone.
Two different views on studying Japanese. Great stuff.
You know, you both have different uses for the language and goals you are trying to reach. Steve is interested in many languages and Matt is focused on one. Being a dabbler, I can relate to Steve a lot, but Japanese is the only language I currently want to be fluent in (I used a handful of languages at school just to make the international students feel welcome). Awesome interview and great to see two language learners in this format.
I would recommend that you get in contact with Kris Broholm of the Actual Fluency Podcast. I think that would be a great, long-format medium with plenty of linguist listeners to explain MIA and to tout learning one language as well as possible in a world where everyone wants to speak 10 languages. I also think you could gain some more listeners: people are interested in your kind of fluency.
マットさん、おつカレーライス！
To each their own but i think it is much more valuable to really focus on grasping a language like matt does. Knowing english already allows you to comunicate in most places where you would ussualy find yourself (and if one goes to a place where that isn't the case, then you are probably interested in more than just comunicating). Besides, technology will cover the problem of comunication with real time translations soon. What is valuable about learning a language is discovering a whole new culture with its literature, popular culture, people, traditions, etc. I think Matt's approach is much more conducive to that.
I wasn't expecting that, awesome!
My two favorite language youtubers!!! Man I wish this was a livestream
Honestly, I am a huge fan of both Matt and Steve, but I have to agree that Steve just does not have a good vibe here. He sounds like a dismissive parent or something unwilling to try to understand their kids, and it's painful to watch. Even if his goals are different than Matt's, they should still have common ground in their goals of intercultural understanding.
It was cringe-inducing to watch Steve roll his eyes and dismiss Matt without really addressing his points. The Japanese part was extremely painful since it was not a conversation but was really Matt flying and looking amazing while Steve sat and did nothhing.
That Japanese part was 🔥🔥🔥
I liked the way Steve Kaufmann summed up what Matt said. Okay . First thing is a massive exposure to the language even asleep. Secondly, Input with an emphasis on senses. And point three is lots of Spaced Repetition.
Great video, although I could sense Steve was perhaps feling a little bit assertive when it came to some specific points, but in the end it was as good a video as expected. For a long time I've been dedicating myself solely to English and I've gotten pretty good at it as far as comprehension goes, but I've also always wanted to learn Japanese for a long time. Although I don't fancy the idea of dabbling in as many languages as you can just for the experience of it, this video somehow (?) made me feel good about slowing down my crazy English mining cart so my Japanese can grow a little.
Thanks Matt, your videos always motivate me.
seu ingles parece muito bom.
Marlon Parece não... é
@@MGM-fp8gs obrigado. Você também estuda Inglês?
sim, mas tecnicamente eu parei de "estudar" na 6ª série, porque depois disso, apesar de aprender bastante coisa, foi através de imersão(por isso acredito no método do matt, imersão realmente pode dar grandes resultados),mas acredito que só funciona depois de já dominar pelo menos o básico de gramática e vocabulário, mas não considero meu inglês bom o bastante pra escrever exatamente o que vc escreveu com confiança de não ter feito nada errado, apesar de conseguir entender 100%. Acho que esse é o principal problema do método, tem muito input, o que significa que vc vai entender muito bem antes de externar muito bem, pra externar fica um pouco mais difícil de fazer(mas talvez seja mais uma questão de confiança por ter menos prática em conversação do que de input, estou tentando consertar isso).
what kind of methods do you use to improve your writing in english? I'm trying to read and hear a lot in english. For the past months I've been trying to immerse myself into as many english content as possible, so that I could know exactly what to write, it feels more natural since I don't have to think in what words to use, they just come to my mind naturally, just like my native language(Brazilian portuguese) the problem is with this method I realized my portuguese started to lack( it sounds weird but it's true though) probably because I wasn't using it as much as I was using english. I know it sounds like I'm just saying things at random, but I'm just very excited to know a fellow brazilian learning languages with similar methods. That's hard to find in Brazil XD.
I like learning languages and has put a shit ton of time and efforts learning English and Japanese to achieve true mastery (which, by my own standards, I haven't). And I will do the same thing for languages I haven't mastered or have only started recently (Deutsch and français). Now I understand what they mean by "never meet your heroes."
This is such an interesting video, and I am watching it in chunks. To me the key exchange is around 22 minutes in when Kaufman points out that his goal was to become fluent in multiple languages, which he is content will include mistakes, whereas Matt is aiming for pretty much native perfection in a single language. Kaufman is right that these two goals need different methods. However, I think that perhaps Kaufman reached fluency in so many because he is unusually gifted in language, unusually intelligent in a way that most people are not. As an aside, Kaufman did in fact study Japanese 24/7 at one point in his life because he lived and worked in Japan. So his observation about what is necessary to acquire a Japanese specifically may not apply, as a new student of Japanese (at 52) I think I would probably need to do two hours solid per day in order to acquire reasonable fluency in about 18 months. I will happily settle for for an intermediate level of Japanese, so an hour a day is aspirational and half an hour a goal. Most people watching these videos I think are interested in learning Japanese, but are unlikely to go and live in Japan, or work in a job that requires Japanese fluency. It would be fantastic if some of these foreigners who speak perfect Japanese would consider giving advice to those of us who are just starting out. For example, at what point does a beginner need to learn to read Japanese before continuing in study?
really interesting discussion! Thank you for getting me out of the grammar sphere after I got insecure. I learned english through immersion and at first I felt like I had to get good at japanese so you really helped In that regard. For now I think steve's method is more appriopriate for me because I have a lot of other things to grow in while language acquiring.
It's kind of a beauty to watch you speak japanese though. I also spent a lot of time with english simply because the amount of content I got out of it during my teen years was immense. I think for someone like steve the motivation to focus on a specific culture for really long is less and involves liking a specific culture more than any other.
Mr. Kaufman is thinking about a practical approach that is palatable to the general public, people who may want to be conversational in a new language. Matt's approach is for someone serious about becoming proficient in a new language. That's the clear difference I see in their respective philosophies.
For a native English speaker it makes little sense to learn ANY foreign language unless they plan to live in that country.
And in that case people want to learn a second language to an advanced level.
What Steve does with his free time is hoarding foreign languages at a beginner level and it makes ZERO sense for an average American / Canadian.
Majority of People who really want and NEED to learn a second language to an advanced level are non English speakers learning English.
I think it's two different philosophys Matt wants closest possible to perfection and Steve just needs to have a sense of the language. I like how Matt works wich is give the maximum you can to perfect something wich I am doing right now with japanese, and I think Matt is an awesome guy who helps other thanks a lot.