September 02, 2026 — Tatsumoto Ren
I am Vietnamese, and I'm currently struggling with learning Japanese.
How can I apply the immersion method effectively?
My school uses the traditional method: vocabulary, grammar, and conversation practice.
I'm currently the weakest in the class.
I keep forgetting vocabulary,
my grammar is all mixed up, and especially my speaking (kaiwa) is poor.
I know about immersion, and I've been watching videos,
but I don't feel I'm using it effectively.
I can somewhat understand the context,
but I don't take any notes because I don't know which words are important or frequently used.
Many people at school criticize this method, but I don't care much.
What I care about is time, because two-thirds of my day is already taken by traditional learning,
and I only have the evenings to study.
But every time I sit down to study, I get tired and fall asleep.
So I don't know whether I should continue both methods at the same time,
or just focus on traditional learning first, then switch to immersion later.
Read more...
August 09, 2026 — Tatsumoto Ren
Understanding Basic Japanese Grammar by Nishiguchi Koichi is a grammar book.
- ISBN-10:
475740168X.
- ISBN-13:
978-4757401686.
- Download from Ajatt-Tools channel.
- The PDF can also be found on annas-archive and Z-library.
Links change often, so search by ISBN.
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July 05, 2026 — Tatsumoto Ren
Pitch Artist is a tool for creating SVG pitch accent graphs from a compact text notation.
The graphs can be saved as SVG files and inserted into Anki notes.
The tool can be used from the Anki dialog for preview/export,
or as an output format when generating card fields.
Pitch Artist does not tell you what accent is correct.
It only gives you a canvas and a brush.
It's up to you to draw correct pitch graphs.
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June 08, 2026 — Tatsumoto Ren
When it comes to learning a foreign language,
there are two primary approaches: acquisition and learning.
AJATT is a language learning technique
that focuses on acquiring the language rather than learning it.
The distinction between learning and acquisition
is one of the most fundamental and important concepts to understand
when it comes to applying the AJATT method.
In this article,
we'll explore the differences between acquisition and learning,
and why AJATT focuses primarily on acquisition rather than learning.
Read more...
May 23, 2026 — Tatsumoto Ren
Tatsumoto, what are your thoughts on more specific books claiming to teach kanji,
like ones that break down kanji into radicals,
or ones that teach through illustrations? Are all of them inherently bad?
Kanji books help you develop kanji fluency initially.
You learn to recognize kanji and tell them apart.
But you outgrow them quickly.
They help when you first start learning to read,
but as your brain starts to recognize characters as whole units,
you forget what those books teach.
Read more...
May 20, 2026 — Tatsumoto Ren
Have you ever tried using AI to analyze grammar in sentences
in the Foundation or Essentials decks?
If you tell it to "Do a word by word analysis of the following sentences"
with an example of what you want the format to be,
it will produce a pretty nice analysis.
My own experience is that it is about 95% right, but it is so fast.
It might be good enough to eliminate the need for learners to add in Tae Kim or something.
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December 07, 2025 — Tatsumoto Ren
I wanted to reach out regarding Ankidrone Essentials V8.
On my computer, all the audio files play without any issues.
However, in Anki Mobile on iOS, many of the audio files do not play.
I tried converting all the OGG files to MP3 to make them compatible,
but I ran into problems.
Do you know if there is a way to make this deck play all the audio files in
Anki Mobile, or does it only work on the computer? Any guidance or solution
would be greatly appreciated.
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November 17, 2025 — Tatsumoto Ren
What if a person's motivation for learning Japanese
is only to play niche proprietary games/software
that will never be localized into their native language.
How could they follow the AJATT method?
If someone's only motivation
is playing a specific set of games,
that's a recipe for quitting once they've finished those games.
Try to broaden your content choices so you always have something to do in Japanese.
If you spend too long searching for content,
your immersion is paused and you don't progress.
To succeed with Japanese
you need both active and passive immersion,
and games alone won't cover everything.
This situation where you have only proprietary
options and no free alternatives
isn't unique to language learning.
I think Richard Stallman would say that if there's no libre alternative,
he'd still refuse to run the proprietary version.
From a software-freedom perspective,
not running proprietary software preserves your freedom just as much as running free software.
The GNU Project's philosophy says we should avoid proprietary software.
That said,
Richard Stallman also allowed an exception:
using a proprietary program can be justified if it is crucial to developing
a free replacement that will help others stop using the proprietary program.
So if your goal is to help other AJATTers obtain free replacements for those Japanese games,
you might choose to run them for the purpose of reverse-engineering or creating alternatives.
Running proprietary software solely for immersion is a bad idea.
October 30, 2025 — Tatsumoto Ren
This site contains AJATT's language learning guide and related information.
Here you'll find everything you need to know about learning foreign languages.
Read more...
October 27, 2025 — Tatsumoto Ren
Hi! In the past I have heard other Japanese learners say that women speak
Japanese very differently from men and that learning Japanese purely from
copying slice of life/CGDCT material will make you sound obviously effete and
feminine if you are a male. Is it something to worry about?
Yes, there are sizable gender differences in Japanese.
Men and women speak and act differently,
use different expressions, pronouns and sentence endings.
People also change how they speak as they age.
A 75-year-old man doesn't sound the same as a 15-year-old girl.
This is true for many other languages as well.
Read more...
