Comments

You Don’t Need To Listen To Anything I Say Here — 13 Comments

  1. This… this is what makes Jalup such a pleasant place to frequent. You never come across as someone who thinks he knows better than everybody else. You continuously seek new knowledge and perspective on things and that also makes you come through with more authority than most people. Keep it up :)

    • Thanks! I think the idea that there is always more to learn/discover is the best stance to have. And sometimes I learn more from you guys than you do from me!

  2. I love the humbleness of the article and how you believe you can still succeed without Jalup. Wouldn’t it be a bit boring following the exact jalup method? It’s like following the exact game play guide to a game.

    • Thanks! And I couldn’t have asked for a better group of people to adventure together with me through this site.

  3. It’s funny, I was initially pretty skeptical of almost all of the methods you outline here on Jalup. I didn’t “get” RTK. I didn’t see the value of passive immersion. J-J seemed crazy to me. The idea of buying Jalup pre-made decks seemed silly. And so on.

    Now, almost two years after first finding this site (?!), my own study methods have almost entirely converged with the Jalup methods. Not necessarily because “that’s what Adam said to do,” but more because they really are the most effective (for me). If I were to give advice to a new learner, I would absolutely point them here and tell them to follow your guide(s). I would also tell them that if I could go back and do it over again, I would follow Jalup to the letter and probably have gotten twice as far in this same amount of time :D

    That said, it’s amazing that you encourage folks to find their own paths as well. I agree with everyone else here that that kind of attitude is one of the unique and wonderful things about this site (and its community).

    Anyway, thank you!

    • A lot of people start off skeptical (especially when it’s different from what many other places say), but I’m happy that people give it a chance. Of course not everything here will work for everyone, but even if you can just take take one thing that will give you new power, that makes it all worthwhile.

      I hope Jalup will continue to grow with the help of everyone who supports and contributes to it.

      After all, how else am I going to raise an army of fluent Japanese speakers to take on the world? :P

  4. I think this is the most appropriate place to post this question, so here goes:

    I’ve recently upped my immersion a LOT. I’ve done…some…but it was a little discouraging listening to things I barely understood. Now I’m always with a drama CD or something in my ears because I understand about half of the words and can get the gist of what’s happening/some of the jokes.

    I’m also finding it really mentally tiring? I’m not sure how else to explain. Sometimes if I’m tired I *can’t* put on Japanese in the background because my tired brain trying to parse it will give me a slight tension headache. Is this usual? I know of course it will likely get better so I’m not giving up, I’ve just never heard of anyone else with this problem.

    I am learning a *lot* right now, so I wonder if it’s just information overload for my poor brain.

    Thank you for this article, too. I cheerfully try lots of methods and throw out the ones I don’t like, but lots of the ones that have stuck have been from this website. Largely, I think, because the method contains lots of flexibility. It’s a better method for it.

    • Yes, this is normal. Immersion starts off very mentally tiring. I’ll try to write a future post on this topic, as I used to get a lot of headaches early immersion (they went away).

    • I used to get those headaches as well. It’s a combination of being overwhelmed mentally and physically by immersion that will cause fatigue and headaches. With time those should go away.

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