What Happened to Matt Vs Japan?
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- čas přidán 24. 09. 2023
- Japanese (日本語, Nihongo, [ɲihoŋɡo] ⓘ) is the principal language of the Japonic language family spoken by the Japanese people. It has around 128 million speakers, primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language, and within the Japanese diaspora worldwide.
The Japonic family also includes the Ryukyuan languages and the variously classified Hachijō language. There have been many attempts to group the Japonic languages with other families such as the Ainu, Austroasiatic, Koreanic, and the now-discredited Altaic, but none of these proposals has gained widespread acceptance.
Little is known of the language's prehistory, or when it first appeared in Japan. Chinese documents from the 3rd century AD recorded a few Japanese words, but substantial Old Japanese texts did not appear until the 8th century. From the Heian period (794-1185), extensive waves of Sino-Japanese vocabulary entered the language, affecting the phonology of Early Middle Japanese. Late Middle Japanese (1185-1600) saw extensive grammatical changes and the first appearance of European loanwords. The basis of the standard dialect moved from the Kansai region to the Edo region (modern Tokyo) in the Early Modern Japanese period (early 17th century-mid 19th century). Following the end of Japan's self-imposed isolation in 1853, the flow of loanwords from European languages increased significantly, and words from English roots have proliferated.
Japanese is an agglutinative, mora-timed language with relatively simple phonotactics, a pure vowel system, phonemic vowel and consonant length, and a lexically significant pitch-accent. Word order is normally subject-object-verb with particles marking the grammatical function of words, and sentence structure is topic-comment. Sentence-final particles are used to add emotional or emphatic impact, or form questions. Nouns have no grammatical number or gender, and there are no articles. Verbs are conjugated, primarily for tense and voice, but not person. Japanese adjectives are also conjugated. Japanese has a complex system of honorifics, with verb forms and vocabulary to indicate the relative status of the speaker, the listener, and persons mentioned.
The Japanese writing system combines Chinese characters, known as kanji (漢字, 'Han characters'), with two unique syllabaries (or moraic scripts) derived by the Japanese from the more complex Chinese characters: hiragana (ひらがな or 平仮名, 'simple characters') and katakana (カタカナ or 片仮名, 'partial characters'). Latin script (rōmaji ローマ字) is also used in a limited fashion (such as for imported acronyms) in Japanese writing. The numeral system uses mostly Arabic numerals, but also traditional Chinese numerals.
#japan #japanese #talk
There's no way that video naturally stopped getting comments, it has way too few comments for 100K views and any channel that hasn't posted in a year would have the comment section of their latest video filled with "where are you" "what happened to you" type of stuff. It's probably set up so any comment has to be approved before it shows up publicly, in fact that is the case, I just tested it and my comment didn't show up when looking from a different account.
Matt has been deleting comments. He made that video to push his scam course with Ken.
Many of my comments and other people who called him out had comments deleted.
You formed a logical hypothesis, and carried out a well thought-out experiment to prove it! I know it's small, but it's science!
@@lastninjaitachiwhat about the course makes it a scam?
@@Day-vg1bhYeah I'd like to know as well. That's a bold claim
I Also would like to know@@Day-vg1bh
I liked Matt vs Japan and I was even signed up for his emails... Then when I heard Anacreon's story about how his criticism against Matt vs Japan resulted in copyright claims, unsubstantiated ones, and the deletion of Anacreon's channel as a whole. Granted, I didn't see the old video but Anacreon does a good job talking about this situation on a new channel. I was actually very surprised as Matt seemed like a genuinely good guy.
My bad
Agreed. When you really look into Matt it was 100% a scam. He even admitted himself he was just targeting rich people to make a quick buck.
Matt even said his methods werent as good as people thought but he knew people would pay because his name os brand.
I mean i never liked the guy when i he showed up on dogen's channel, because he showed up as this mr. Perfect and that wasn't very appealing... I feel like people give him too much cred speaking japanese as a white person, and the "white guy speaks perfect Japanese" is just a very stale concept of clickbait
I've been watching him for a long while and would say that I understand him pretty well. He is the reason why I got started with my own language studies after learning about immersion and comprehensible input years ago.
He's currently living in Japan now and has appeared in other people's videos since he stopped posting his own videos. I believe he's still involved with the Refold platform, plus he's still posting on Twitter very often so he's definitely still alive.
This could be wrong, but I imagine he just doesn't have much more to share right now that he hasn't already shared many times over the many years of being a content creator. He's talked about his position many times and has a whole website now to explain it, so making videos probably isn't a high priority for him currently.
If there's a "bad side" to Matt, I'd just say that he just lacks some social skills due to spending all his free time watching anime for years instead of interacting with people. While he's very knowledgeable about cartain things, he can get a bit defensive when his theories are questioned as he's very particular about what he sees as "optimal".
I have a friend who has a very similar personality, and these kinds of people don't think about situations from other people's perspectives well. They usually on what is optimal for themselves at the moment, even if that's inconvenient for others.
He genuinely does seem to care about helping people learn languages better than the traditional methods and has expressed his excitement at their success. He just has a personality that can be a bit self-important and defensive sometimes. He's definitely not out here telling people about these methods to scam them as I can attest that they definitely worked for me, and were completely for free. I never had to pay him for anything I learned and have gotten much better at language learning from his content.
I think you are right about his personality. He seems a classic introvert and as a fellow introvert I can understand that sometimes we can lack the skills to smooth over some interactions. It didn’t help that some of his followers are a little cultish, which is something he may have found difficult dealing with. I also understood that at some stage he has to turn his Japanese into a real business and career, and that inevitably means stepping on some toes and getting accused of selling out. I really disliked the way he marketed Project Uproot, it left a bad taste in many peoples mouths - but I do think the course is worth it and the real deal, i just wish he’d run it as a regular course (like Nativshark or cijapanese), instead of doing the whole ‘I have a secret to impart to a chosen few’ type approach.
I don't think he's involved with refold anymore, from what I've heard. Basically the reason he got accused of "scamming" was he came up with some program he planned to sell to rich people as some "secret to learning Japanese" or something, and he was advertising it in ways that seemed really scammy.
I have the same personality as Matt and people usually don't like me much so I know what you mean and I don't think he's a bad person, just misunderstood
Another long time viewer and old school AJATTer here. I've had somewhat of an acquaintance relationship with matt. I've been on a few streams with him, talked in private, met up with him in real life once, etc. We are not good friends and don't talk much anymore, but we are friendly and have a pretty long history.
There's something people forget when speaking about his "arrogance". When Matt first started making videos, immersion learning was NOT the meta in the Japanese learning community. If you came from AJATT and tried to tell people about it, you would immediately get written off as a snake oil salesman, or someone who just thinks they're so good because they've got it all figured out. At the time, AJATT had a horrible image because of the SilverSpoon program where the creator (Khatzumoto) asked people for $3000 for personal lessons, then didn't follow through with promised refunds. It destroyed the image because the core of AJATT was that you can learn all this stuff in your bedroom for free, and the creator just flipped the script, scammed his own community, then ran off with the money.
It's easy to forget because immersion learning in the meta now, but back then the community at large thought AJATT was crap. Matt came to prominence in that environment because he was a figure that could distill the wisdom from the method without having all the baggage of being a scammer, but he had to fight to convince people. So, people can say he was arrogant, but it was a product of the times and it's pretty obvious his attitude has improved with age.
I'd also argue he's easily taken advantage of because he's actually a very nice person who gives people the benefit of the doubt, and also just a little naive. I remember before all the project uproot stuff started he was telling me about how he was going to work with Ken Cannon, and I tried to tell him that Ken has a bad reputation. He thought very highly of Ken, and I think this clouded his vision. In my opinion, Ken is a very slippery person and sold him on sales talk.
@@meijiishin5650Yeah I don’t sense any arrogance from him at all, and never have. I don’t think I understand where people are coming from with that. Steve Kaufmann talked down to him throughout their entire interview, and yet he stayed calm and answered every question directly (despite Steve interrupting him in the process of doing so).
I could definitely see “he gets taken advantage of”, but only because the Japanese language learning community seems to be a breeding ground for scammers; I don’t think he’s any more susceptible than the rest of us, this industry is just rough.
That said, I could be heavily biased in his direction because I really like Matt and credit him with what success I’ve found in learning the language. I like to think I could still judge him fairly, but there’s no guarantee.
I've gotten a lot from Matt over the years. I hope he's doing well in Japan. Maybe he should do a new channel, Matt & Japan
Are you being sarcastic ? Man sounds like a scammy bag of trash
I'm glad I'm not the only one who wondered what happened to him. He was on a Takashii video and he's apparently in university in Osaka, so I guess he decided to focus on school and living in Japan
The accountability to your viewers point that you raised really made me happy. Many people just ghost their viewers and you kinda become worried about what happened to them and such it just sucks You know. I know at times it's not possible when something really bad happens but otherwise atleast we can know that everything is going alright you're getting what I am saying. Great video as always ❤
To be fair to Xiaoma, he uses his clickbait revenue to fund his trips to Kenya, Yucatan and the Amazon to make videos on all kinds of cultures.
They aren't really in depth, but they are very humanising.
His channel isn't a language learning channel as much as a "use language to open people up" channel, at least when it's at its best.
This. Us who’re deep in the language community are too judgemental of people like Xiaoma. Sure, we find it cringe because they stretch the truth in various aspects, but normies don’t care nor is that something that is even relevant to them. Spreading cultural and linguistic knowledge is a net win imo
Xiaoma didn't stretch the truth, he downright lied in some of his videos. It wasn't just clickbait either. Example: His fluent in Spanish in 21 days. In the heavily edited video he literally stated he became fluent in Spanish in 20 days. Apparently one day less, than even the title. He had so many clickbait titles of outrageousness, that eventually he made a video like over a year after all his clickbait stuff, and said his videos about reaching fluency in X language in X hours, days, etc... were all B.S. He now has pulled back on doing stuff like that. Emphasizing more on interaction, than clickbait.@@jeremias-serus
@@alanguages He lied in every one of his videos, he's not "white," only when it's convenient. Would "Jewish guy speaks perfect Japanese" get as many clicks?
I know Xiaoma is Jewish, but I also think he is not a 100% full blooded Jew and he is European descent. I do agree he is using titles for convenience. That stuff many people don't really care about. His videos were more for his BS claims about reaching fluency in 24hrs., 1 week, 1 month, etc...
Which he has stopped doing. It is only when he kept getting called out on it and he already reached a high amount of viewers and subscribers.@@tienglongmy
Xiaoma and Olly Richard have founded a great AI program to practice language conversation practice though. Early stages, but will keep on improving.@@tienglongmy
Matt's my guiding light, I try and follow in his footsteps, but always take his explanations with a grain of salt, as he can be a bit too "Matt" sometimes. Dogen, on the other hand, is my encyclopedia, and when I have very specific questions, his explanations always clear it out for me. Dogen's pitch accent course is by far the best money I have ever spent on language learning, you have to understand all the information he gives you there is often buried deep in Japanese texts, and he lays it all out for you in the English language. Legend. Both Matt and him tbh.
I really appreciate your perspective which I've mostly come to on my own. Matt has some great ideas (far better than grammar formulas), so I feel really fortunate to have stumbled on his channel. I'm sure he has morally dubious aspects to his life, but I like that he does make practical, useful advice the forefront even if there are some snakeoil bits to any products he's involved in.
He has made appearances on the Refold yt channel as well as in interviews with other youtubers. I believe at some point he mentioned that he is out of videos to make for his main channel, since he has laid out pretty much all of the theory on which he bases his learning.
I'd like to object to the idea that Matt has a very strong focus on pitch accent. He does strongly push back against the idea that pitch accent is too difficult/useless, which is why he has made several videos about it. His recommendations for learning pitch accent in practice are actually pretty mild though: learn/practice how to hear it, then try to listen for it while immersing. Doing this should take less than 10 hours of extra time in total, while giving a great boost to your potential to sound natural.
Dogen's pitch accent lessons are more structured because they're based on breaking down every possible pattern and learning them separately. If Dogen's method is supervised machine learning then Matt's method is more like unsupervsied or semi-unsupervised. It's based on learning just a few basic patterns and then through massive input let your unconscious mind figure it out. I personally have used this method to greater effect. There are many different pitch accent patterns and exceptions that would be a chore to learn consciously and hence I believe Matt's method is actually easier and more targeted to learners who don't want to spend too much time thinking about it.
Whatever his reasons, I hope he comes back! I really appreciate his perspective and it’s only because of him that I’ve made what progress I have. I wish him the best ❤
No word about the Ken Cannon controversy? Also have you watched the recent Kevin Abroad interview with Matt?
I just started the video but he tried doing his own version of AJATT but things went south and it didn't work out. I'm not sure why he's not posting on CZcams but he's still on Twitter (or X) and tweets occasionally, I think he recently appeared in a Japanese TV commercial that he tweeted about a few months ago.
EDIT: He just tweeted two days ago. Looks like he's still in Japan.
My comment has been there for more than 2hours old
Matt literally just forget about his CZcams legacy
That thumbnail with the ear diagram showed up in my recommendation feed a couple of weeks ago.
I agree with everything you said here, 100%, start to finish. I've also followed Matt, Yoga, Refold, Dogen, all of it, for several years, and I would also love to know what happened to Matt. What I can add is that I found many of his videos very useful and insightful. I doubt I could get on with him as a person (and btw his English grammar could benefit from the same level of attention as he has given to his Japanese), but if you can cut through all the haze, he definitely brings value to the language learning community. I also understand creators' need to monetize their abilities and content, which can't be easy.
Wait his English grammar?? I’ve seen several videos of his his English is fine 😂
There is little link between language fluency and ability as a teacher. Natives are usually terrible teachers for example, so the part about "are they good teachers" used a strange angle
on his instagram he responded to a comment about 13 weeks ago stating something along the lines of "im just on a break/hiatus right now. ill post a video in a few months". from what it seems he is probably going to post something relatively soon granted his own word is anything to go by.
I really want him to come back but at this point I feel like he's only saying that to make people feel ok, he's been saying he's going to come back for over a year now 💀
I have watched a lot of Matt's and Refold's videos as an English learner. Maybe its kind of a side effect that now i start to learn Japanese too.
why u watching a scammer?
@@ultimateblaze23 I don't watch scammers. I have watched someone who has experience with the learning language.
Thank you for making the point about perfection. I'm one of the co-founders of Mandarin Blueprint and lived in China for over a decade. I can speak fluently, crack jokes, read & write, and connect emotionally with Chinese friends who don't speak English, but I'm not perfect & never will be. That's why (so far anyway) we've never made that type of "white guy speaks perfect Chinese" video on our CZcams channel, as it frames the language acquisition game incorrectly. Still, I greatly like Xiaoma since his videos help humanize many different cultures.
I thought he was mainly focusing on Refold. The last video I saw of his was an interview about 2 months ago with a relatively smaller creator "Kevin Abroad" and they were actually in Japan - So he's still alive. The team at refold put out videos quite regularly, so maybe he's just sitting in the background and focusing on that rather than actively creating content.
No he helped them get started but I think he’s out of the picture regarding refold now. Refold did a question and answer video where they explained it. He’s moving on to other things whatever they are.
First video I ever watched, subscribed and will be sticking around, great video. Regarding when you compared Matt and Steve at the start as a polyglot and a specialist, would you advise for aspiring polyglots to specialise in one language first before tackling other languages? I have been learning Spanish for a while and it is NOWHERE NEAR fluent. However I like the thought of trying another language also. Is this a bad idea? Should I improve my Spanish prior to trying other languages?
My take is to focus on your Spanish until you're really, really comfortable. Perhaps find an actor you like and mimic that person's delivery, memorizing lines in their movies. Then after about three or four movies that you like, think about all the vocab you picked up, your abilities to fly between indicative and subjunctive, false passive (using "se"+ third person) and true passive (using he\has\hemos\han + past participle), and other quirks in Spanish, then think about Japanese, which is a conceptually much different language. You'll be so grateful to know Spanish well before jumping ship. I got JLPT N1 back in 2012 and fell in love with Spanish a few years back. Very glad I pinned down one before moving on to another!
Your English is honestly insanely good. Idk if I would have guessed you’re not an actual brit
Really? His rhythm is very Italian. Everything else is really good, though, and often at a native level. It's just that rhythm... he speaks with syllable timing instead of stress timing.
Hes definitely in the C levels, but I would never mistake him for a brit, and I'm not a brit
I think that "white guy speaks perfect X" might be an American cultural phenomenon, where everything has to be huge and shiny and perfect. Will probably work better in that context than with Europeans or Asians.
Exactly, non Americans are already more cultured so it’s not as surprising
What’s wrong with wanting to speak a language like a native?
Lots of uncultured Europeans out there. I would know. I’ve lived in Russia, Germany, and Ukraine.
The "white" thing was a bit off-putting. What on earth has that to do with anything? American (or insert-nationality-here) I can understand. But not "white". What's the next? "Red-haired guy cooks perfect pasta".
Except for that, his videos could sometimes be very interesting.
@@Mortabluntand how long did you live in the US ?
I can't remember if you've made a video where you recommended specific content creators to follow in order to better learn Japanese or not, it sounds like you'd recommend Dogen, but are there others?
I think he said in one of his korekara interviews, that he doesn't have any more interest growing his CZcams channel.
He was spotted in a Refold video some months ago, and he had a (chance?) cameo on Takashii from Japan's channel. edit: In the recommendation bar I also see he is in another video from Kevin Abroad (I'm not familiar with that channel)
Obviously false copyright claims are really scummy but I don’t think I would be learning Japanese or any language if it weren’t for Matt’s videos. I agree that he’s not great at teaching but what he does do is provide a ‘map’ to fluency that he himself has followed so you know that it works.
Great video! I like your balanced, intelligent approach. I have lived in Japan for 32 years now and I have to say that Matts Japanese is indeed perfect in the sense that if you hide his face and merely listen to him speaking… you would not know that he was not Japanese. So in that sense … his Japanese speaking ability is indeed perfect.
No idea, hope you find out
This is number one. This is the most mind-blowing anime crossover. I've found it.
Metatron I think the most significant recent video from him was an interview in the "Kevin Abroad" channel from 2 months ago? You probably have seen this since it's one of the first ones that come up when you look up "matt vs japan" on youtube. I watched this video (I'm talking about this very one that I'm commenting on), and I was the whole time thinking "wait, did something new happened to matt?". I was waiting for you to explain it, but in the end was just that he hasn't posted for a while in his main channel. He has other videos where he shows up that are a bit more recent in the Refold channel. Basically what I think happened is he created/co-created this company/channel called Refold, and this company doesn't necessarily depend on him to operate, and he decided to move to Japan and just enjoy life there for a while. I think that's all
A VERY based down-to-earth take, I like it. Don't judge a book by its cover. People tend to just pull up drama out of thin air
After he scammed people with “projectuproot” he pretty much disappeared.
Scammed?
The only Matt that is a good Japanese teacher on CZcams is Matt from Game Gengo( ゲーム言語).
I think it' nonsense to analyze Matt as a "teacher" in any sense of the term. Because he isn't and never, in m view, presented himself as such. He is a LEARNER. I started Japanese (and Italian, at the same time) because of him. And he just show you the WAY. You must follow it. He teaches TCHNIQUES, specially to use ANKI, sentence mining, etc. That's what I learned from him. He doesn't TEACH YOU JAPANESE. Because his method states exactly that you CANNOT teach it. It must come from self study. And I agree with that. I 've tried. It freaking works! In my opinion a teacher will in fact SLOW YOU DOWN, more than help. But occasionally it may be useful. And if he is trying to sell something ONLY with the purpose of selling something he failed SPECTACULARLY. Because what I've learned from him (and I already did that before with English but I DIDN'T know how the heck I have learned English before learning about Krashen's theory and FIALED for 10 years in Spanish- and I am a Brazilian!) is EXACLTY that you can learn any language to the highest level with an internet connection and the right method. I never paid a dime to learn any language (after Japanese and Italian I'm in Vietnamese for almost 3 years and just started Mandarin on the side). And to me MATT was exactly the perfect example of this. You just need internet, time, and mad determination (and efficient methods).
Teachers are all but useless when it comes to language learning. AND I AM ONE.
@@JohnnyLynnLee Matt of Game Gengo uses the best method of immersion and that is video game that combine both text and audio. Just like the other Matt as spent many years studying Japanese. Directed immersion is a far better tool and if teachers were useless how did you learn language in the first place.
@@southcoastinventors6583 He is still not a teacher in my view. He does a GREAT job producing immersion material, as you've said. The biggest problem in "comprehensible Input" as a complete beginner is exactly the COMPREHENSIBLE part of it. It's hard to find COMRPEHENSIBLE input for one starting from ZERO. You mostly rely on AKI, period. I wish he was around when I did Japanese. Really a great job. But again he is not exactly "teaching" you anything, but offering comprehensible material. And, if anything, I think the only problem with his material is that he explains TOO MUCH. Too long because of too much explanation. Maybe he should put more words, grammar points and MORE EXAMPLES (lots of it, with repetition) for each instead of so much explanation in English. A GREAT TEACHER you may refer to in Japanese is GEORGE TROMBLEY form JAPANESE FORM ZERO. To me the best starter books ever (way better than GENKI) and the videos he has to follow the books are very good.
@@southcoastinventors6583 And to begging with I'm saying and I confirm: "Teachers are mostly useless." And I AM a teacher. And I say that to my students. I can teach then HOW they can learn for themselves. And , because I'm being paid, if they want to, I'm there to explain THE LANAGAGE as well. But I alert them that's not the best way. I teach English as well, for example (I'm Brazilian). I had to STUDY to get my certificate. I didn't know S** about English grammar and grammar explanations. I already had my proficiency test. I had a paper saying that I could speak English more than enough to teach it. But I also needed a certificate saying I could TEACH it. I had to learn basically EVERYTHING. I didn't need to know about grammar explanations in English to SPEAK proper English at all. But I needed it to TEACH English. Okay, that's how the industry is, I'm not even complaining. Certificates make things easier for companies to hire you. BUT, that goes to show you I didn't need ANYTHING I had to learn AFTER to teach English to learn it myself. ZERO! I couldn't even NAME the tenses in English before becoming a teacher. But I sure could use them.
@@JohnnyLynnLeeIn the US you only need a teaching cert if you are teaching at public schools. Other than that you can teach anyone anything and it up to person to decide if it is worth it but since most people who learn Japanese do it for the content might as well start from there. Also sometimes instruction itself is the motivating factor for people that do not do well using the self taught method but there again Matt teaches by breaking down the game sentence while George uses material he or his wife comes up with to teach similar vocab or grammar.
1:13 I’ve only known about him for a couple weeks maybe 3?? And now I’m getting videos of “what happened” and his most recent upload was to Refold like a year ago so yeah I’m curious
No he actually scammed people with uproot and stuff. It cost tons of money, no or almost no value and yeah that's basically it.
Never thought about letting my subscribers know if I “disappear”.
I have a brand channel for a small niche, and when I hadn't posted for a year, I had some comments wondering.
I run the channel as a project, so it will only run for 5-10 years anyway, but I'm not sure how to tell people I won't just keep posting forever. I went over a 1000 subscribers which I never expected. 🤔
I always thought he was just busy with his business.
he sends out refold videos in emails and stuff. most recent one he said how he thinks you shouldn't wait to start speaking lol and he's currently adjusting to his new life in Japan. Matt was also clearly laying low due to the controversies back to back.. also he had a brief appearance on Ice Poseidon's stream and had a mild altercation with Slightly Homeless who called him out for not being as good at Japanese as he claims and they proceeded to have an egotistic Japanese-off. But Matt was mostly dismissive of him and didn't want any beef.. homeless was just being his typical angry drunk self
It's not true that he does not have any recent comments on the last video because CZcams has not showned anyone the video. He has made it so comments will not be automatically posted. He needs to vet them
The thing which annoyed me the most was how he edited the description of his video on heisigs rtk to read "I COMPLETELY DISAGREE WITH THIS VIDEO NOW. Here are my current ideas on learning kanji:" with a link to a refold anki deck, which he presumably gets paid for. After that I didn't watch his videos as I felt like I couldn't "trust" him anymore.
he destroyed himself, clearly he tried to scam people. everything was going okay until his partnership with yoga finished because yoga was creating tootls for the easiness of language learning and matt had just to sell these tools as why this is good (i must say that they were original for learning, tools you cant find anywhere) but after that, everything plummeted. he didnt know where to get his money anymore and he decided to sell a course. extremely expensive btw. he could have done things right
i have heard him say many times that its better to know what to do with your japanese instead of just bragging about it in my eyes i see that he regrets spending all of his time on japanese
at the end it backfired on him because if he had focused on learning another skill and not just japanese, he could have been like yoga which he just got back to making another tool to learn asian languages and just kept making money whereas matt had nothing to get by. i guess he realized that but it was too late and the only choice left was scamming people
i think he could have kept making videos about tools that no one had discovered. in this day and age there are many programs. apps to get language learning easy. maybe he could have kept making videos in slow releases, created his own course in a no scammy way and not gone the other route
Good point about knowing the reason for learning another language, especially one that you invest time in. Many people get caught up with learning another language and then don't know what to do with that skill.
The reason he's not posting isn't because of the controversy, it's because he moved to Japan. He has talked about this in interviews and I believe on his twitter too. He wanted to enjoy Japan and since his company Refold is ran without needing his youtube channel he can still live off of it.
Refold isn't his company it is the other guy Ethan's (I think that's his name I don't follow it much). When the controversy happened, he said that Matt is really a consultant. I don't know how much has changed since then, but a few months ago he was on another Refold video answering questions about studying. Forgive me if I am incorrect and that he is really a co-owner now or something, but as I understood at the time, its not Matt's company.
@@cwash08 Yeah he's not the CEO but I'm pretty sure he's still involved in it in some way. He said in a video he likes working with languages but not the actual managing of a company part of it so he handed that over to ethan
@@BusterBossJR I see. Haven’t been following closely and I don’t dispute his involvement too much
I think Matt is the best CZcams “teacher” of foreign languages in the sense that he inspires more than anyone else period. I watched him do an interview about a month ago with a CZcamsr Kevin and it was so nice to hear Matt’s thoughts on language learning again. I’m really a fan. I don’t know details about the controversy either but that video by yoga really rubbed me the wrong way. But I don’t what happened so I wish the best to both of them, regardless. I’m hoping Matt comes back to CZcams. I subscribed to his Twitter and used to read random posts from him there which he kept updating pretty regularly but I haven’t used Twitter in about 6 months. It seems he is a graduate student in Japan at the moment and maybe not focused on working. He did an interview with some English teaching CZcamsrs who target the Japanese audience and he said he was thinking of doing that too. But it seemed really vague like something he would decide in a year maybe. I’ve seen some people in the community who really hate him and I don’t get why. I know he started a pitch accent course which cost decent money but so does taking classes from many teachers with experience and credentials. I think it was cheaper than what Japanese people pay for 英会話 courses in Japan. I had no intentions of ever signing up. Maybe if I were living in Japan I would be more interested in improving my accent. I tried living there for a couple of years and I think if I had good pitch accent it would help me fit in. But at the same time only so much. When you really don’t look Japanese then we’ll there’s nothing you can do about that. You often hear about half Japanese people growing up in Japan and being excluded from Japanese society in many ways so what chance would j possibly have. My Japanese will never sound like Matt vs Japan either. I was middle aged technically when I started learning Japanese from こんにちは.
Lol, come on dude he's not the 'best teacher,' he's just a guy who's good at marketing or whatever. He's way too stuck in thinking that his way is the best way when in reality different people have different best ways depending on what they like doing.
@@takanara7 I think he’s more flexible than you give him credit for.
I think it' nonsense to analyze Matt as a "teacher" in any sense of the term. Because he isn't and never, in m view, presented himself as such. He is a LEARNER. I started Japanese (and Italian, at the same time) because of him. And he just show you the WAY. You must follow it. He teaches TCHNIQUES, specially to use ANKI, sentence mining, etc. That's what I learned from him. He doesn't TEACH YOU JAPANESE. Because his method states exactly that you CANNOT teach it. It must come from self study. And I agree with that. I 've tried. It freaking works! In my opinion a teacher will in fact SLOW YOU DOWN, more than help. But occasionally it may be useful. And if he is trying to sell something ONLY with the purpose of selling something he failed SPECTACULARLY. Because what I've learned from him (and I already did that before with English but I DIDN'T know how the heck I have learned English before learning about Krashen's theory and FIALED for 10 years in Spanish- and I am a Brazilian!) is EXACLTY that you can learn any language to the highest level with an internet connection and the right method. I never paid a dime to learn any language (after Japanese and Italian I'm in Vietnamese for almost 3 years and just started Mandarin on the side). And to me MATT was exactly the perfect example of this. You just need internet, time, and mad determination (and efficient methods).
@@takanara7 something next to his way, Comprehensible Input IS the best way. And I am the proof of that.
Hmm I get recommended that "why you can't hear pitch accent" but also not that many people care about or know about pitch accent.
Well, Matt recently moved to Japan and is studying in Osaka. I'm sure he's a bit busy. I'm sure he's going to come out with more and better content, which will probably be very different since he's actually living in Japan now. He does update his socials and his email newsletters if you want to stay up-to-date with him.
I've been following Matt for quite a while now, and honestly, people don't give him enough credit for how much he's evolved with his opinions about language learning. After all, his opinions are based off of mostly proven linguistic theories, so it's not like he tries to tell people to follow his methods strictly. He just tells people what would logically be most efficient based on what seems to provide language learners the best results. And he's honestly more modest than most of these language CZcamsrs you see online.
Did he move just because? For how long? Havent heard about it.
Peel back all of the recent drama and alleged scam, Matt vs. Japan's method, which derived from two polish guys learning English, was and still is the absolute best way to learn Japanese at a reasonable speed.
Bro. I've been watching you for years and wasn't even aware of this channel 🤣
Hope he didn't end up like Johnny Somali.
I doubt that. He's in Japan to learn about the country and its history, not to be a nuisance.
Great video.
I might add more to this comment, but Matt has been working with Ken cannon, in Japan in a online course called Project Uproot, for use of pitch accent, sad thing is i purchased it thinking from what they said in video speech that I could get a refund any time. find out they snuck in a bit of wording to say only 1 year, but thats not how it sounded to me. They are now opening up classes for incubator something like that, where for a pricey amount 100+ a month you get, from what they claim, one on one guiding their learning japanese. All these two people want, matt and ken. is money. they want to drip feed you content. I am sure dogen has better content. the major issue with a program from ken and matt, is you enroll and they drip feed the program and are bad at organizing time. So you sign up, and 2 videos show up 2 weeks later some more and so on. so the fact they said i had 1 year of refund. the actual program isn't finished, so you don't know if you want it, because something might come up you need to improve your japanese. if i knew the small detail, i would of refunded. but scammer is in japan now.
I was in the "exclusive" webinar (I think I had to subscribe to a marketing newsletter or something like that). They used some sales dark patterns which made me not want to buy it under no circumstances.
I don't know whether I might have still considered it if I were further in my studies.
Another thing that felt off is that Matt used to tell us not to worry about pitch accent. Now he has a product and suddenly pitch accent is essential.
from what i understand pitch accent is like, is a asian person speaks english, you hear an accent, but you clearly understand the person, there maybe times its unclear, but you just ask to repeat and its then understood. I mean how can a Japanese person understand pitch from other regions? its simple they just speak standard japanese words and everyone knows what they are saying@@Ph34rNoB33r
Massive influence, basically did what he said and I got "okay" at JP
Was still funny listening to his convo with where he laughed about scamming gullible idiots with the 6 trillion dollar silverspoon stuff
Cool guy to be chat with, wouldn't let him sell me a sock though
He banned me from Discord because I lived in Japan and speak Japanese. He felt threatened. He's a little turd that will always be that little nerd shoved in the locker.
Matt did make a video about Yoga but deleted it later
I last saw him in a group of stream snipers in a CdawgVA stream.
I think it' nonsense to analyze Matt as a "teacher" in any sense of the term. Because he isn't and never, in m view, presented himself as such. He is a LEARNER. I started Japanese (and Italian, at the same time) because of him. And he just show you the WAY. You must follow it. He teaches TCHNIQUES, specially to use ANKI, sentence mining, etc. That's what I learned from him. He doesn't TEACH YOU JAPANESE. Because his method states exactly that you CANNOT teach it. It must come from self study. And I agree with that. I 've tried. It freaking works! In my opinion a teacher will in fact SLOW YOU DOWN, more than help. But occasionally it may be useful. And if he is trying to sell something ONLY with the purpose of selling something he failed SPECTACULARLY. Because what I've learned from him (and I already did that before with English but I DIDN'T know how the heck I have learned English before learning about Krashen's theory and FIALED for 10 years in Spanish- and I am a Brazilian!) is EXACLTY that you can learn any language to the highest level with an internet connection and the right method. I never paid a dime to learn any language (after Japanese and Italian I'm in Vietnamese for almost 3 years and just started Mandarin on the side). And to me MATT was exactly the perfect example of this. You just need internet, time, and mad determination (and efficient methods).
Pretty much what I though. He doesn't teach japanese. He makes videos on how to learn it by yourself.
I learned japanese and English using same method as Matt . But I just knew about Matt after I had been speaking both languages, kind of coincidence.
i dont think i know him but i think japan won
IMO i think matt just got fluent and so teaching basic japanese just got boring, so the only thing left for him to keep him interested and only thing for him to improve on is pitch accent, thats why i think he switched his focus to pitch accent. because he conquered the language and the only thing left was pitch accent.
He is of the sort that I've aversion to on HelloTalk: people who turn language learning into a competition and set time limits - 'if you don't know this after so many weeks then something is wrong' - all the fun is taken out of everything.
This is the first time I heard of Matt versus Japan
I have to admit, I have next to no interest in learning Japanese although I have a background other Asian languages just so much I can put my attention to
Interesting though I watch your channel
Wow very comment
What are the other Asian languages you have a background in?
In my opinion, he got famous for learning japanese, got some views, then tried to transition to teaching. However his "teaching methods" werent that great, in my opinion. Then came the clickbait titles, 'learn japanese through only watching japanese' type titles. Great speaker, but i don't think he promoted very healthy ways to learn japanese. Again, just my opinion, i dont know the dude. I just think it turned into a youtube channel, rather than a learn Japanese channel.
I don’t know why Matt dropped YT, but I know he’s been very busy on his Project Uplift teaching series. It’s been a bit controversial because of the very hard sell, which I was very uncomfortable about - . He is (according to the emails) starting up a new Japanese course focusing on one on one interactions with small groups. I’ve been a Patreon of Dogan and I am using Project Uplift. I’ve used Anki’s from both Dogan and Matt (Project Uplift). While I really love Dogan, for me Matt is an exceptional teacher. His Project Uplift videos are incredibly clear and the associated chorusing Anki’s are far more useful than Dogan’s more traditional teaching approach. I can understand why someone from a traditional teaching background prefers Dogan, but as a self learning introvert I find Matt’s approach much better. But Matt’s is significantly more expensive. For what its worth, I think Matt’s theory - that getting pitch pattern correct from the beginning with Japanese is correct - using his chorusing tapes has opened up Japanese to me when listening to podcasts, etc.
Just to add - while I’d consider myself a ‘fan’ of Matt, as he really opened my eyes to different approaches to learning languages, he does seem to be quite awkward in his interactions and his various business interests, he seems to have left a few people angry with him. The way he is marketing Project Uplift and his new Japanese course makes him sound very shady, I’ve had emails from him about his new language course, but I won’t be doing it, although based on Project Uplift I’m pretty sure it will be very good. its just too expensive for me, and I’m in the wrong time zone for his live classes (the Project Uplift ones were generally 2am European time). I’d also add that it seems he and his partner had some sort of health issues in moving to Japan, this delayed Project Uplift, which left a lot of people angry, although it didn’t bother me as the material still came through, and was excellent - for me, vastly more useful than Dogans (not a criticism of Dogan, I like him a lot, his approach is just too ‘explain and follow’ for me).
To add even more. Thinking about this question for a couple of hours, my conclusion on Matt as a teacher is that he is an outstandingly good one, just not a conventional one. I think it was the YTer ‘Japanese Man Yuta’ who made the point that Matt has an unusual gift of being able to explain and describe very complex topics (such as learning neuroscience) in a very direct and simple way - and his ability to do so when talking straight to camera without edits indicates a very high degree of comfort with his subject. You may agree or disagree with his conclusions, but his best videos are masterclasses in direct and uncluttered communication.
I’ve seen and used his descriptions of pitch accent on his Project Uproot channel and they are very clear, using simple language and, most importantly, are supported by integrated voice tracks designed for chorusing. IMO this is far better than Dogans straightforward classroom approach which is fine for Japanese speakers seeking to refine their understanding, but is of minimal use for the casual self learner who is still at beginner or lower intermediate stage.
I think Matt’s big mistake is in making his courses a sort of in-group secret, rather than opening them out as a simple pay as you go access course. I honestly don’t know why he hasn’t done that, it would be much more useful and I don’t think he’d have lost money doing it. I think if some of his Project Uproot videos were available on YT, everyone would see just how good he is at communication and teaching.
Of course, it will be a neverending argument over whether his ideas are correct or not, mostly because it depends on the student and circumstances, but I do believe his basic point - that focusing early on prosody and listening skills makes learning easier and better - is correct. I base this not on my personal experience in learning (which is not impressive so far) but in talking to lots of English L2 speakers over the years.
He dropped youtube because he was caught scamming his fans with another known scammer. He isn't a nice person. Do not support that man. Research about the scam he has done.
Video title: *"White Guy Speaks Perfect Italian"*
😂😂
8:39 on something like that I think it really depends tbh
7:01 isn’t Dogen a certified teacher?
From what I remember, his teaching method probably works, but only if you're a giant nerd who has the time and money to surround himself in that Japanese environment and is okay with noticing improvements after months and months. Like sure, it works, but it's not for everyone and it will take time.
Yeah. I learned English by input (read a ton of mangas, then light novel, etc...) but it was like 15 years ago when it wasn't as available as now nor in my language. And I was young and had time, and English is pretty much used everywhere.
The problem with learning by input in Japanese is : you got to learn kanas and kanjis and have a basic understanding of grammar concepts because Japanese is a very contextual language. Input alone does not suffise. You have to study and get input, all the while working (or studying) in another language the rest of the day.
I disagree completely. Input alone does suffice, and it's way better, you don't need to think about rules you just know if something sounds natural or unnatural. After reading 20 novels (not graphic) ones I know all the grammar and I know it intuitively, I don't need to think about it.
@@Edinburgh1000 and how long did it take? Would a native speaker really say that you have good grammar or is that something that you just believe?
@@flaviospadavecchia5126To a native speaker at best we will always be half decent, or if we are maybe at our pinnacle maybe we will become decent. But logic shows if you spend so much time reading so much novels, why wouldn’t your grammar be good? Is Japanese supposed to be beyond the reach of anyone?
@@coolexplorer1015 I never said that. Of course reading and exposing yourself to the language is great. It just takes a long time and effort to actually get results. Learning from textbooks is faster if your goal is starting to use the language ASAP. Of course you can't *just* use textbooks...
in my opinion matt's level is merely relatively good in asia. in hong kong for example, even n1 full score is considered as intermediate level
From experience I know that the stuff that Matt teaches is way more effective than the more traditional approach that Dogen uses. It's not even close.
dogen doesnt teach you to get fluent in japanese, he teaches pitch accent. it's a completely different system. you cannot use the same method to learn pitch accent well.
I'm learning Italian just for you lol
I mean if you care about matt you will find him in Ice Poseidon Channel he made lives in Japan and some of them where with matt so yeah he is still alive 6 months ago at least
surprised you didn't bring up him selling a crazy expensive product that he didn't end up delivering?
i think the other person involved was ken something. but with a title like yours im surprised you didn't bring it up.
For sure, it bothered Matt that the project with Ken Cannon (Project Uproot), blew up in his face and countless people were calling him a scammer because of the way he did some corny marketing methods that came across a little questionable. I think the backlash bugged him to a point to where it caused him shame and maybe depression.
Personally, I do NOT think he scammed, just did corny marketing. Countless people sell courses and for some reason people went ballistic that Matt decided to sell a pitch accent course with Ken Cannon.
In the end, it seems what he offered in the course was a fair monetary exchange, but folks won't give him a fair chance since they got used to him just doing stuff for free for many years. There is only like one or 2 paid customers of Uproot trying to say it was scammy, the rest of the customers seemed reasonably satisfied otherwise there would be over a dozen videos exposing "the scam", but there are not, so it wasn't a scam, just a business move some didn't agree with, nothing more.
I was a Project Uproot subscriber and I was shocked to find there was any negativity associated with it. I very much enjoyed the program.
@@TeBiDoWil Thanks very much for confirming what I intuitively suspected, that it was a fair program for the price.
I think the core issue with the Uproot drama was that Matt's following is largely early 20's guys that followed Matt because they felt he was cool because he taught them self immersion for free via his videos. Matt used to even bash people making money from language learning stuff, so when he eventually decided to create a pitch accent course, that wasn't super duper cheap, his followers flipped out because they got used to "free, free, free"....
The fact is, these people are unbelievably immature. People sell stuff left and right on YT, but when Matt does it, they act like he did an unforgivable sin...lol....Very ungrateful and immature guys that can't grasp that Matt also deserves to enjoy some financial prosperity for his contributions.
I don't wanna attack Kauffman, but he does spread some misinformation when it comes to learning. He doesn't like to study deliberately so his languages often have huge gaps in vocab and grammar. He said he's never heard of pitch accent and that it is not important, so I wouldn't be surprised if he had a foreign accent while talking Japanese (btw I don't speak JP so can't comment).
He's my guru
Steve's level of Japanese is high because he lived in Japan for 8 years. He was a businessman there, iirc. That tells you more about how good Matt is, though.
3:03 teaching is a completely different skill set from doing lol
One thing is to be good at something, and another thing is to be a great teacher. The best football managers are not necessarily the best players. Same goes for any other thing. So, no, he is not a good teacher, he has 0 experience with real life teaching and on top of that, to say that his Japanese is native like, it’s just plain stupid.
Most people don't even speak perfectly in their native language.
Nobody does it always a questions how well you can convey your thoughts to others. That why people should not strive for something attenable instead it should be why learn Japanese in the first place(watch anime without subs).
@southcoastinventors6583 "people should not strive for something attainable"?
@@lisapop5219 Thought it fit the the comment perfectly by being imperfect.
@@southcoastinventors6583 touche`
@@lisapop5219 I would personally interpret "perfect" as "indistinguishable from a native speaker".
Viva la pasta! 🤣
Chola dynasty history please make video
The dude has great advice and it works on the practice. However, he's just so obsesed with getting a perfect accent and perfect grammar. I do think getting a good accent means better connections with natives and eagerness from them to talk to you yet he goes to extremes. I agree with you on "hating Xiaoma's videos" ... "speaks perfect x" that to me means they just wanna get praised for their solid level. Why such arrogance to name a video like that? You can name your video something different and still be clickbait. Xioma is a rip off
I think the hard time he gets over the ‘perfect accent’ thing is because so many conventional courses think of it as something you only focus on when you’ve actually learned the basic language, rather than something you focus on from day one. A lot to his critics seem to me to miss his basic point, which is not that you should aim to speak like a native, but that putting the effort into getting the pattern and sound of a language correctly into your brain early actually helps your learning, even as a beginner. This isn’t a new thing - the ALG approach also focuses on this, and as a result gets a lot of criticism from lots of conventional teachers/polyglots even though it seems to be very successful from the research I’ve seen.
@@philipdavis7521 Don't get me wrong. I aim at getting the most out of me and I think I achieved it in a language phonetically similar to my native language. I just don't get why he would spend hours into getting perfect in each and every aspect of Japanese. Does he want to be the best Japanese learner? He's free to do what he wants of course he is! However what is he trying to achieve by telling people he never stops using Anki and improving his Japanese?. Keep it for yourself, otherwise he's just bragging or increasing his ego. I've also heard him talk about feeling lonely, not up-to-date with his own culture and trying techniques to boost human capacities. Why would you take 20min naps to allegedly need less hours of sleep per day? That's a broken psichology or a mental illness. Again, not to discredit the man/attack him personaly. I certainly relate to some of those behaviours and I admit/suspect to have some sort of autism/other condition.
Ive searched "matt vs" on youtube and the second autocompletion was "matt vs trans woman" 😂
My hell man, focus. More than half of this video involved completely aimless meandering off topic blather unrelated to “what happened to…”.
This whole video could have been 3 seconds long: “What happened to Matt vs Japan? I don’t know”. The end.
ありがとうメタトロン。 😀
My Japanese is close to zero, but I wanted to comment on the "White guy speaks perfect (?) Japanese". What has skin colour to do with speaking a language? I assume that Japanese is studied by people of all colours all over the world.
As far as I know, the only people who have an advantage in learning Japanese are possibly the Koreans, so I assume that the sentence "Korean guy speaks perfect/very good/fluent Japanese" would probably not be unusual.
What happened❓
Japan won‼️
There is a video of him being drunked fighting with other person in Japan, I felt ashamed when I saw him...he knows how japanese culture is and he acted that way... it made foreigners look bad. Dissapointing
what
Biggest issue with me is saying he learns through immersion. He doesn't he learns with translation's mined from authentic material. Immersion/direct method etc for me is when you learn without using your native language as a translation tool.
He is a good guy. He has some narcissism and issues with making money in today's capitalistic world but that's all. A bit like most younger people. 😄
He has a lot more narcissism than 99% of people regardless of age
@matteokunimitsu I do understand where it is coming from, the entire internet is full of people who speak foreign languages likes retards 😄
Well, Xiaoma is much more entertaining than you. I think that's a gift and not much can be done about it. You might just want to live with it. Still love watching your content though, but leave this stuff out.
im a japanese native speaker and they both sound just like japanese lol i dont even know what this guys talkin abt
俺は日本人だけど、確かにこの人の言うようにMattの日本語も完璧じゃない
Matt is definitely on the spectrum. He's a bit of a weirdo too. This is a guy who said that he lived with a Japanese host family, at some point, but he never communicated with them, he essentially locked himself in his room, the whole time. Who does that?
Wtf.
It's very simple, he took the jab... he's a GMO now..
sure, buddy
When can I expect my free portable 5G connection? I got three jabs in 2021 and so far nothing has changed yet
It will activate your UBI card when you receive it by mail.
Not how it works lmao
Sure, And aliens took over the White House.
MattvJapan is a known scammer, he only cares about money. And congrats if you take 12 years doing nothing but study one language u should be fluent its not impressive, it's not talent or skill it's pattern recognition anyone can do that. There's people who are't blatant scammers who you should be listening to over Matt, watch leaked convo where he talks about his customers as if they are nothing but tools to help him make money. Also at the end of the day he's still a gaijin if u want to learn, just listen to native teachers who Matt will never be close to in his dreams.
The problem with that is that you can't get to that level of fluency without putting in those years. It might seem less than impressive, but the alternative is a _much_ weaker level of language. It takes as long as it takes, no matter how you go about it, so there's no alternative which is more 'impressive.' The impressive thing is how he explains how acquisition works, or at least how he _thinks_ it works based on his experience, which I've also experienced somewhat in my own language learning. It's also quite impressive to spend all day everyday in another language, especially one as hard as Japanese, and especially during the first few years when it's nighmareish to do so. Only those who've done it can testify to that.
Well I failed for 10 yeas in Spanish and I'm Brazilian and Spanish is the closest language to mine. Because of Matt I've fond out about comprehensible input, and following mainly HIS advice now I speak Italian. Japanese (English I already knew but didn't know HOW I have learned and only learned how after Matt directing me to Stephen Krashen) I'm doing Vietnamese for almost 3 years and even started Mandarin. So for a scammer I can say he is the best in the whole language learning community on CZcams with Steve Kaufman. BY FAR! Pretty good for a scammer.
I wouldn't call him a scammer. He has done some shady business decisions, he is not the most moral person when it comes to his consideration for his viewers and customers, but I think that's far from putting him in the "scammer" category. I think despite all his flaws, his opinions on language learning are very solid. I don't trust him necessarily, but I do trust his competency.
@@Linck192 He was in fact a scammer. Research project uproot, he confided with another guy who has been known for scamming for many years. Calls were leaked where he was insulting the intelligence of his fanbase.
His technique isn't a scam, but the took part in a protect with intentions of scamming people, which his leaked calls implied.
@@JohnnyLynnLee Researched project uproot. He isn't saying that the guy's technique of language learning is a scam but this guy took part in a project with the intention of scamming his fanbase. He confided with another known scammer and leaked calls said he had intentions of scamming people.
This guys technique isnt unique as well, he is just relaying information from the internet.
おすすめに出てきたので見てみました。 道元の方が マットより 日本語上手ですね 。道元はよく考えて話してると思います。 マットは 脊髄反射的に暗記したセリフを言ってるだけに感じます。私も多言語のチャンネルをやっているのでイタリアに行く機会があればぜひお話したいと思っております。😀