2020年1月17日金曜日 - 
John H -How to study English on your own
There is a popular method of
Japanese study known as AJATT (All Japanese All The Time) that I think is applicable
to English study as well. The goal is to immerse yourself as much as possible
into the language through mostly passive means. While there are no hard and
fast rules, a general guideline is to divide your study into 90% passive and
10% active. Passive study would include things like listening to music,
watching a movie, playing a video game, basically doing anything that involves
your target language, but isn't too stressful or mentally taxing. Active study
is more what we think of as traditional study: studying grammar, vocabulary,
using a textbook, etc. It could also include less traditional methods of study
that still require a lot of energy: watching a movie while focusing 100% on the
dialogue, for example.
The
benefits of doing mostly passive study are that you won't get burned out, and
it's just more fun. It may seem like you won't see any realistic improvement
just by listening to English media, but you'd be surprised how effective this
approach can be. I know of someone who was able to become fluent in Japanese in
two years using this system (before he even came to Japan). Granted, he was
probably following a very intense study routine, but the principle remains the
same.
For
myself, I used the AJATT method for three months before coming to Japan and it
helped a lot. My daily routine was to, as much as I realistically could, always
have some form of Japanese media (news, podcasts, music, TV, YouTube, etc.)
playing, either through earphones or speakers in the background. It should be
noted, though, that not all media is equally useful for listening practice.
Music with clear vocals is better than fast-rap or unintelligible heavy-metal;
the news or a TV show is better than a philosophical debate with extremely
difficult vocabulary, and so on.
In
addition to the passive listening, twice a day I would do active study. In the
afternoon I would do about thirty minutes of grammar/vocabulary study with a
flashcard application on my smartphone. I think this the single best way to
ingrain new vocabulary. The application I used was called Anki. There are
others out there, but most people agree Anki is the best. Then, in the evening
I would watch a Japanese movie or a few episodes of an anime with total focus.
Using subtitles is fine, but it is tempting to stop listening to the words and
just read the subtitles instead, so you have to be careful. The goal should be
to eventually drop the subtitles. Following this routine, passive listening
throughout the day with grammar and vocabulary in the morning and then a movie
at night, I never felt tired or overly stressed. Moreover, I noticed a marked
improvement in my language ability. If you try to follow a similar format with
English, I'm sure you will improve too.applicable: 適用できる
immerse: 没頭する
passive: 受動的
divide into: 分ける
taxing: やっかい
require: 必要とする
burned out: 燃え尽きる
realistic: 現実的
principle: 原則/原理
unintelligible: わかりにくい
philosophical: 冷静な
ingrain: 深くしみこませる
subtitles: 字幕
tempting to: ～したくなる