Studying Japanese for 12 Hours A Day With James Scholz

you do not have to study 12 hours a day to be cracked or anything I think the reason I wanted to do it was to prove my to myself that that I could do it um and because I could I guess I wanted to hey what's up KoreKara Squad welcome back to the podcast before we get started make sure to disintegrate the like button make sure nothing is left absolutely nothing smash it destroy it pummel it yes so in this episode we talked to James Scholz who you might have seen before he does a 12-hour

live streams where he studies almost every day and in this episode we talked about his passion for studying Japanese including his entire trip to Japan and his introduction to AJATT as well as how he was able to keep up his 12-hour day study as always if you want to support the podcast we have bonus clips on Patreon so we hope you guys enjoy the conversation so all right James so can you give us a quick background of who we are and where you're at today yeah so I'm mainly known for doing uh study with me

live streams here on YouTube I've been uh studying a lot for the past year or so I've mainly this work to help other students feel less lonely and stay motivated during the pandemic my YouTube channel and I just have a small community where we just kind of hang out and study and take breaks and do other stuff so I'm just kind of interested in studying and self productivity I'm really interested in Japanese it was my first love in academia stuff like that so yeah Japanese was like one of the first things you dedicated to studying

yeah it was definitely the first thing I started first um like in high school I wasn't that interested in computer science I'm a computer engineering student um and yeah I wasn't that interested in cs or like math the only thing I really liked was Chinese and Japanese so so what were your inspirations like to the language um well of course like I grew up pretty socially awkward um not too many like friends and not too much family so I spent a lot of time watching anime with my cousins as a kid um so that's definitely

what introduced me to Japanese culture um since then I've really grown to love Japanese it's just like a really pretty language um and I find it really fascinating like how beautiful it can be sometimes even though it's not very efficient yeah and um I just really yeah this is really beautiful to me so you've been studying Japanese since high school or was there a point where you decided yeah so I like uh played with it in high school I was in Chinese at the time so it's kind of weird to be studying both languages um

but independently yeah I was studying Japanese i learned hiragana maybe like in 2017 so a little bit ago um I didn't take it very seriously for like maybe a year and a half before I would study like an hour to an hour and a half after school every day and I would do a Japanese from zero with George Trombley and yeah I did that for about a year and finished like the first four textbooks I think they're on like five or six now and then I did some Genki and mina no nihongo and then um

yeah after that I started doing my ajadi stuff so when did you discover asia was around the time did he just start yeah I was trying to remember the timeline of this um I'm pretty sure well I found out about Matt versus Japan uh because I've been watching george cromley's videos and he actually made like a bunch of videos bashing Matt and like the entire immersion method in general and I think that both of them had videos like that yeah they both had beef yeah and I kind of wanted the whole picture so I like

looked in the map more and he's kind of like less you know professional looking than uh George Trombley's whole like series and books and stuff so it was kind of like interesting to see the dichotomy of like just this dude in his bedroom versus like you know this whole production studio I think he's in vegas and like all that and uh yeah I just kind of like believe in the immersion method blindly and it's kind of this yeah now just switch the age up after I found out about math I see what was it kind

of instant or did it take some videos to kind of join immersion was there a specific video you know yeah I was a at the time I was working at a call center and we had a lot of down time but we couldn't like watch YouTube videos or anything they're all blocked all we could do was like google stuff and read the google results I was like hella bored so uh I was looking how to improve my Japanese method and then it was like oh this map versus Japan guy keeps like coming up on like

these language forms and yeah that's when I kind of learned more about it I will say I think Matt needs to organize the information a little bit better because um it's definitely hard to get into at least age adding as a beginner there's like a lot of terminology and stuff that you need to learn and it'd be kind it can kind of be overwhelming um but yeah I have a lot of respect for Matt and everything for sure I guess Matt's content as of late has been going a lot more towards having organization but yeah

I mean I totally agree with you back then it's it was very difficult to get into but I guess given that right how are you able to kind of organize that information and kind of develop something for yourself yeah I like listening to threefold um not that it's very developed yet but I can see that he's definitely giving an effort to make it more mainstream and I also like migaku as well I guess like how I started learning about information was just through like subreddit information like ajay our assassin and Japanese were both really useful

and they have like actual wikis and stuff there's also like a few other language learning forms and like I've read a lot of stuff bashing things like duolingo and like traditional college learning styles Genki um mina no nihongo you know like typical Japanese school stuff um yeah it's uh it's like I think back then it's kind of like finding little nuggets in a forest because a lot of information I guess it's not like a actual like it's not like a really developed field immersion learning so a lot of the science is kind of conflicting at

times and uh yeah you just kind of have to figure out what works for you outside right yeah Eric actually started with the Genki back in the beginning of his Japanese journey yeah well my friend started with Genki you know it's a that's like I think it's so like there's definitely emerging learning versus traditional learning I could definitely see why you do both um I mean yeah that definitely think he's also great too yeah I mean I think in the in the beginning it's you definitely have to study like a textbook like the basic grammar

and words and then after that transition to immersion learning a lot easier yeah because if you just go right into emerging learning it's you have nothing to grasp onto it's like way too confusing yeah definitely I could see that my uh I did french in middle school like is required for one year and we just like skipped her to the immersion learning bro and it's like what is happening oh you did immersion learning in your middle school class for french yes like on the first day you played uh that one thing with the bread the

kid steals the bread at the start like at the start of the movie some kid steals like a big-ass loaf of bread and then and then at the end of the movie like some guy gets imprisoned wrongly or something I don't know that was in middle school but I guess like earlier you're saying how like the Japanese language and media inspired you was there one piece of content like maybe when you started doing immersion learning was there one piece of content that you really felt like damn I really want to understand this in Japanese uh

I was like at the time like in high school uh my friend group they were kind of like isolated from the rest of our cohort um like so my cohort like the advanced kids I guess we're doing this program called IB and uh yeah it's just like it's kind of like pretentious AP where it's like all the kids like become their own little group and they all take classes together and my friend group was already pretty isolated from uh the rest of those kids because like I grew up in a really really white neighborhood full

of mormons Utah and it's a lot more like conservative and stuff and I feel like nowadays like anime is a lot more accepted but even just like if like five years ago you know like I think there's a lot more stigma to it and my friends and I were pretty proud about liking anime um so I kind of wanted to like I guess cover up the social rejection with that and I really wanted to learn more about it because I just wanted to immerse myself into something that wasn't school and it made me I felt

like I really wanted an identity in high school um because like I didn't want to conform to all these super I guess normies like and uh yeah I just kind of took pride in learning Japanese like I would visibly study it during other classes I see did you ever come through with the classic one earphone in listening to javanese yeah in a class yeah let's see I would just like grab a big ass book from the Japanese only read it in class and not understand anything like a novel yeah that would look pretty cool though

I'm sure people would notice yeah that's probably that don't do that that was dumb and a waste of time but yeah um there's definitely a social thing as far as like a single piece of Japanese media um I don't think so man I was um I just really loved Japanese culture in general you know ever since I was a kid I was really um excited by their work I like um they work a lot sometimes way too much but I kind of like the um a lot of aspects about their society not all of it

but a lot of like all of the aspects kind of drew me into Japanese culture I really like mindfulness and things like that which is part of Japanese life I like order and structure which is also very part of their life and yeah I guess I just valued all the same things that they had valued and um you know I wanted to someday maybe raise my kids there because um like I think the way of life there is better for raising kids like here I feel like all kids do is to sit on tick tock

all day and don't don't really do too much else um and I kind of I kind of like how they're so mindful about their existences there and you know I wasn't like consciously thinking that in high school but I think it was unconsciously like very drawn to it then I see I see and those values have kind of come up with you until now as well yeah for sure I went to Japan in 2017 I think 2018. I got a video about it on my channel it's called Japan movie I remember seeing that yeah that's

embarrassing uh yeah that was like when I went there I was like I'm in love how much Japanese do you know when you were over there um I probably finished the first to uh Japan from zero Japanese from zero books and uh that was hot [ __ ] when I got there oh yeah you could really just ask for directions and stuff right yeah I could I could order food I could count to uh probably for you gotta read some hiragana I knew some Chinese kanji and they kind of looked similar to Japanese um yeah

I was a let's see I was a a senior it was like my junior summer coming into a senior so I was like I was doing a high school program so it's kind of like yeah Japan you know yeah yeah he finished that second Japanese from zero and it was like it's time I'm on my way I guess you talked a lot about having about getting values from Japanese culture would you say that time you went to Japan you experienced maybe a culture shock though um I'm half Vietnamese and I had been to Vietnam a

few times and I've been to hong kong and stuff like that so I'm like pretty well-versed in asian culture even before going to Japan so it wasn't that big of a culture shock to me as it was for like the other kids in my program that I was doing um it was still kind of interesting it was kind of it was really fun to see a lot of like the different ways they do things like the showers are all different the I was living in like a nice neighborhood like my host family is pretty well

well-off and uh it was so cool to see all these like businessmen walking around and stuff like here I live in like salt lake city which is mostly just like a big old suburb so it's like nice seeing public transit and like so many restaurants and maybe this is me just being in Tokyo for the first time but uh just like everyone there is so stylish stuff yeah in every district in Tokyo they have their own unique style there's like a if you you google it there's like this is the Roppongi style the Shibuya style

yeah I definitely went to Harajuku and it was like whoa what is that that was pretty cool are you trying to deck out any of these outfits James I did go through a lot I lived in the Setagaya and there are no collector thrift stores and stuff so I definitely hit up the thrift shops a lot and uh yeah it was kind of interesting also being like a foreigner in Japan and like having people I'm pretty tall I'm six months I was like looking over the whole vast field of this like shorter Japanese people especially

like on the subway right yeah on the subways like I could I could pick all my friends he's eating like the crowds where all my friends are I'm sure they knew where you were too i see I mean you you also mentioned having a host family there what was that entire experience like uh yeah my host family is fantastic man I couldn't have asked for a better one the hungai family they are super cool it is a husband and wife and uh two kids and like they still send me christmas cards and gifts and stuff

like I just barely got a bunch of uh I asked her for some iquino nakamuri cassettes and vhs's and uh yeah she sent it to me for christmas and we still talk online and stuff and she'll send me photos but yeah they're like super hard working and stuff and they're really nice to me and very grateful for sure that I got matched with them because the how it works is the program like they send the the picture of the students to the uh the host families all right and then the host family picks which student

they want and man my picture that I sent was so I'm surprised they picked me but they did like it was my uh it was my passport photo and I was like i don't know how else to describe it is like head to one side like chest out and I was like passport baby just like screaming don't pick me yes yeah I can't believe I can't believe that was like a photo of me it was pretty it was like that bad yeah and maybe it was the best photo among the bun but yeah they were

super cool um one of the kids really loves soccer he wants to be a professional soccer player um so they'll like the mom like the whole family would get up at uh like 5 a.m and go running first thing in the morning oh wow yeah seriously and it was like this little less kid in like the housewife and then the other other kid you know and uh it was a super cool thing and like doing stuff like they were in school uh when I was there so it was like really interesting to see all that

and then the little school uniforms no yeah and then the mom she made some really banger food too yeah yeah I'm sure you missed that food now I mean I sure have you did you have a host family yeah both Eric and I had the opportunity to have one as well oh awesome I mean my experience was the neck I had a decent experience but yeah I didn't stay in contact with my host family uh what uh what did she cook for you guys usually or what did you guys usually eat a lot of like

traditional Japanese food like curry yeah there would always be like these sides and I would never know what they are I learned the words for some of them like I mean I can't remember right now but um they're all these like weird uh vegetables all the time you know you know one thing I always found funny so one time they gave me this one side it's like the pickled plum you know what I'm talking about the um oh yeah yeah yeah and they gave it to me as kind of like a test they they were

like oh I wonder if you'll he's gonna like this oh no he he's not he's not from Japan there's no way he'll like it and then I have it I'm like oh it's pretty good they're like what they're like going crazy like a hype video like they're having a like a real life montage like oh my god like it's just it's just a pickled plum like [ __ ] but I mean the entire food lineup they had with I guess the traditional with Japanese food it was it was good too hard to pass especially now

during the pandemic when you can't really go to Japan or have access to such like authentic right from the source kind of food you know but it's yeah yeah how was the how was your experience with natto oh I I actually didn't have that bad of an experience with it I guess the texture is really weird but I don't dislike it overall I didn't really like it but the first time I tried it but I think after like a week to do it for a week I got like pretty good and actually kind of like

it yeah yeah you know how like in Japanese I always ask like so it's like are you able to eat it it's like almost like a challenge you like it it's like can you physically eat this don't disrespect me like that yeah yeah yeah we did that in our program with natto with all the other kids and uh yeah I was like okay so there wasn't like that many asian people and I was kind of proud that I could like eat anything it i was trying to act like I loved it and uh we just

ate the whole thing without he lose it up it was a natto roll so this is my tone seaweed actually yeah by the by the time I left though it was like you know what is actually pretty good have you ever had have you ever like had it ever since uh no I don't think you can buy it here like yeah I got like Japanese markets and stuff but like ain't no amEricans buying natto yeah can you get it in California yeah you can it's like in the frozen section that they ship it oh yeah

okay you have to send me some give you a little care package yeah for real oh man please so did you like talk to your host family all in Japanese during that time um it was like mostly english unfortunately it was because they were they wanted to learn english and they're like these little kids so I was like all right I'm gonna teach these kids english instead of I'm gonna learn Japanese you know right but yeah it was like they wanted me to do that like my host family but I was already um like into

that AJATT philosophy I'm like I'm not gonna teach you how many how many siblings did you have I just had one one sibling yeah Eric's experience is so funny in terms of what they tried making him do and the the rules they put down on it we had this one episode called Japanese host family from hell where we pretty much document Eric's like kind of troll experience that he had to deal with I mean to be fair mine was just like a troll experience it wasn't actually like a like a hellish experience because I had

like some people who actually had like miserable experiences yeah I think did Matt have like would he classify as hellish I know he didn't like his first like first time in Japan or something right I remember I think he said like his uh host's mom would just give him konbini pan just like that so that they wouldn't have to spend money on him yeah hit or miss I guess hit or miss out on the countryside they they really played Matt there's so much more that could have happened but yeah you hate to see it but

I guess during that trip would you say you maybe improved in any way in terms of did you think were you actively trying to learn any language but I guess at the time you're speaking a lot of english right so just more of the Japan experience yeah it's like let's see i'll just hang out with my when I wasn't with the host family or in like the Japanese school during the day i'd always hang out with my boy lambert and uh yeah we'd always just kind of mess around we would uh I don't know we'd

go to like headphone shops and test out like fancy headphones and stuff and be like you know these like sound really good all right like I got like we got like a big camera and then we get to like another like like more specific uh headphone shops like headphones only and then we do stuff like that and like test electronic keyboards mechanical keyboards we would uh get some really good food and then uh yeah so mostly mostly english and just kind of like vibing with Japan we went to Kyoto in a later trip actually together

came and I went together after sounds really cool I've been twice yeah so it's my second time yeah I was like man I really missed Japan and then I just kind of messaged him and I was like you want to go to Kyoto and he's like yeah I guess one thing you mentioned just now too was that you're at a Japanese school so you get to kind of experience like the the Japanese school life uh it was like uh we were in a high rise in shinjuku in the back room of an office and then

we'd go in and like I don't know probably I don't remember most of like the actual work but it would be like here's a worksheet and then you do the work and then you decide in front of class and stuff so it was like pretty I would say like I haven't taken like an actual Japanese course like at a actual like university but I wouldn't imagine be fairly typical like the that experience just from Chinese and french classes you know right so it was just mainly like general classes a quick in and out that you

can go experience the hustle and bustle of Tokyo actually they're like six hour classes oh man they're in there for a while oh that's a rob how could they keep you hostage in there like that I actually I was playing with it I really love Japanese so it was like all right six hours let's go but some of my classmates man they're like get me out of here bro I'm gonna go see Japan they're like fading away in the class those noise canceling headphones yeah it was actually it was actually just like 12 people so

there's no like there's no uh sitting at your desk with your head down you know okay oh oh so it's like a pretty small group then yeah it was like there was a a beginner class in an advanced class so like yeah most of the kids were in the beginner class and our class was like pretty small you know I see I see wow really the difference though between the two classes was like whether or not you knew hiragana that was basically it's like not advanced you know it's like oh you can actually read all

right here in this class I'm sure a lot of people listening to the podcast you gotta be like I'm advanced now that's right go maybe the best Japanese learner nah you don't know nothing like day one learn the hiragana there we go I peaked shut up to Japan I was like all right advanced class baby I'm gonna I'm an ace of this and I was like what is this oh that's the two text books right there yeah that's the two textbooks I actually did it I also did a third hiragana one it's like a hiragana

for beginners that was like that's a good textbook yeah there's a hiragana for like events like none it was like a it was like a 50-page book with like double like a canon 2 with like a goo with the mouth and like draw the goo and it's like art yeah baby kind of goo kind of cool you know that's what that is now you know baby yeah so actually the three textbooks but the the third one is like 50 pages though I see the the advanced hiragana guy that's that's what it is it's actually really

a textbook though if anyone wants to know if if you still need to learn here ghana yeah he's a textbook when my friend took Japanese classes I was like because I know in Japanese classes like the first two days is just them learning hiragana and it's like hellish so I was like man take this I'm just like thank you and I was like yeah he's actually said it yeah he said it's useful so hey yo like thank me later walk into the distance maybe you should have had that in your Japan movie it would have

been a really cinematic scene that maybe is like from the master to master the pupil I guess I ain't no master bro I could really talk that like a fifth grade level then maybe not even probably like second grade I was an advanced kindergartner that was that was my Japanese hey skills kindergartner you're you're better than the beginner kindergartner that's all that Matters so so yeah I guess then in from this Japanese from this Japan trip you after coming back you decided to keep on going with the language by yourself oh yeah for sure that's

when I started doing like looking more into like AJATT and stuff because I was like man this ain't gonna get me anywhere it's like get back from Japan it's in a call center bro I got like I got better things to do with my life so I was like I really want to learn Japanese so it was kind of like usually there's like better things like better ways to learn stuff than like the conventional method I would say and uh yeah it was kind of like hey let's go so do you just switch your your

computers and phones to the Japanese uh let's see what's I do at the start I didn't I knew I couldn't do it fully because uh I was in the my program was really intense like I was spending most my time on school work I was kind of focused with like stuff in my hair all day like voices in my ear all day um so the okay so uh have you guys interviewed brit or like other Matt english Matt yeah yeah okay yeah I read his uh his long-ass guide about learning kanji that was like my

main entrance to like actually doing a jet like that uh he's got like an hour and a half read about Anking RTK and stuff uh remembering the kanji yeah and um it was like all right this will take three months and then afterwards you gotta grind sentences and then do like mostly immersion learning or immersion so basically my thought was all right um at the time I was in Australia for an internship so basically it was over the summer and I would just get out of work and then go to like the university nearby in

the city and then uh do RTK stuff just on honky for like an hour and a half or two hours um yeah and that was like end of freshman year I think coming into sophomore year I did uh i knew that I could I didn't have like any time at all to actually like emerge immerse and like actual like direct immersion content um so I started like doing core 10k which I know is kind of taboo but yeah I was like all right here's the best I can do for now and just do as much

core 10k as I can in a day for like um until I graduate and then when I graduate that's when the age app really begins you finished RTK in three months yeah so yeah well I think it was more like four to five actually because um I was in like Australia and I wanted to like explore and stuff so it was I did um i'll do 66 or 33 cards a day which is like the three month period but I wasn't that great about sticking onto it so yeah that's pretty intense because a lot of

people they they definitely like drop out before even finishing and some people even quit Japanese just because that initial hurdle seems really difficult yeah it used to be like kanji was like this like crazy thing you know I was like wow 3 000 things that I can't recognize but it was like it was like at least to me like I'm an engineer so well engineering student so it's like really it's really interesting to see how people are approaching these problems and it was like really cool to me to see like how they're breaking down these

little characters into like little stories and that was like whoa this is black art because I'm learning way too much so I was like really excited to be because like I had tried to learn kanji right like through like this big like big ass books of this like they'll be like a kanji on a page in like 10 squares and you write it 10 times and I was like man this ain't working but it's like Anki plus RTK bro it was like oh like I still really loved Japanese and it was like super charging the

learning and it was like I just had never been so excited to learn Japanese to be honest with you so yeah and when I got back I was like man I could read so many kanji now well I can't read them but I can understand them at least you know who would have thought it would have been the trip to Australia that would have gotten you further in Japanese yeah it was like it was like that was like the first uh that was the first time I had really been on my own like my own

without my mom and my cat that was me in Australia so I was like I'm gonna take this I like I kind of went to survival mode I was like all right bro let's go it's like yeah sorry that's my grandma she's on the phone I live with my grandma now just moved in uh like three weeks ago no worries sorry about that guys no worries no worries you gotta have the cameos out here you gotta have the cameos have your grandma part of the next Japan movie yeah that'd be pretty cool that sounds like

a good video idea yeah she doesn't even speak english I don't even know if I could how do I just say Japan and Vietnamese okay I do want to say that but that's about it man yes that's where you start though so you start right yeah I guess the the 12 hour streams are gonna be a lot more different soon oh man I guess with uh you were talking about using the core 10k which is like a pre-made deck how what was your experience um using that like how far did you get um let's see

so I did uh I recently man this is depressing I lost my 611 day Anki Streak because I slept through my alarm that was like oh man but yeah 611 days for 16 cards a day I think I'm like 80 of the way through the deck 10k sentences like 8k sentences approximately um I haven't really checked actually I don't really like looking at my stats until I'm done because it's like it's cool seeing it when you're when you're all done you know so I never press the main deck that you're ripping yeah yeah so uh

i'll do like speedrun some of my like RTK stuff it's like and then it's like the core 10k stuff is like all right what's this say what does the sentence mean next and then man I used to uh I used to write down every sentence on a piece of paper so I also got this like big-ass sack of paper like this big before this Japanese sentences but that was a waste of time don't do that but yeah I was like imma really like look at these sentences and like when I'm writing and like look at

all the characters and stuff and like really dissect it in my head but yeah so I do like core 10k for one or two sessions like one or two hours a day probably for like since sophomore year so the second smith so spring since spring of sophomore year till now I'm uh I'm gonna be a senior in the fall so a while okay it's 10k 10k 10k wow have you had experiences with sentence mining yeah I am so I actually haven't done any sentence mining myself mainly because like that was just my plan at the

start I should probably revise this but yeah I just like definitely knew I didn't have enough time to like well okay this is like pretty I guess it's like this is my naive approach to age outing I just I just didn't have enough time to uh do any direct immersion learning like I knew I had the schoolwork and I had to be on stream and it's like I'm not gonna watch anime on a study with me stream and call it direct immersion you know this is going to look like I'm studying something but I don't

got time to like I gotta like study for 12 hours and go work out and sleep you know I don't got like right I can't like be watching two hours of anime after the stream so yeah it was like all right I need something that I it's like pre-done for me and it's like I can I can fit in with my coursework and it can look like it's studying because that's like something that's important to me now it's got like I like don't watch videos on my for to learn anymore basically because I look like

I'm studying you know um unless I have to yeah it'd be hilarious you like set up a phone and then the camera angle can't pick it up and you're just watching this entire time you're like you're like moving your mouse around have you ever seen death note yes I was thinking about it it's like watching tv now people are too smart man they're they're sniffing out instantly bro if I heard it's like a screen right here behind my crt nah people would knows but yeah it's like I ain't bullshitting this I'm just gonna do what

I can and it's gonna it's gonna I can call it Japanese like it's still Japanese and it's still somewhat agi it's definitely not hijab um but yeah I'm gonna i'll fully transition to AJATT once I uh I graduate like I have no idea how english Matt did it while starting cs bro because it's like I can't focus up at all and you need that like super focus for at least I do to solve like these problems you know that's that's pretty crazy though that you're able to uh like go through RTK and pretty much like

core 10k because a lot of people like roswell talked about his experience using pre-made decks and I mean pretty soon you dropped it right yeah it's not as engaging yeah because for me sentence mining was a lot more engaging and that really kept me in it when I started going and grinding the pre-made decks it like really took me out of it and I guess I probably did a little bit too many cards per day which definitely didn't help really how much were you how much were you studying it got to the point where I

added a little too many decks I was going like 100 200 cards per day and I was like oh I feel so efficient until like I was like a month into that I'm like oh my god I hate everything yeah for [ __ ] yeah like in the summer sometimes like it's like I need something to do someone said Japanese but then it's like gets out of hand pretty easy I think like right before I went to Japan I decided to go like turn up the dial and I went like a hundred cards a day

I was like and it would be like two hours of like donkey per day and because I wasn't going to Japan and I was like still really motivated yeah yeah that's crazy it's like this is my first time speaking with other age outers or like Japanese learners in general besides like my one friend he took like a college like one college course so you know this is like really cool oh nice nice finally time to just let it off yeah I haven't talked to anyone about this like ever so this is cool so I guess

like it in this time that you've been studying Japanese was it it's just mostly contained in Anki have you watched any series yeah I'm ashamed to say this most of my my starting is an Anki when it should be mostly like immersion but um yeah I've watched uh alice in borderland all in Japanese with like Japanese subs and uh I understood like most of it well maybe like almost let me be like 65 which is like I would say that's it was like pretty amazing to me because that was the first time i'd watched something

in Japanese like that and uh I think that's it man I would read a uh like some manga but like uh yeah not not that many it's like there's only like 20 chapters of some random manga I forgot what yeah yeah I feel like when you transition to immersion learning I feel like it would be really easy almost just because you already have all those words in your subconscious like thousand words and stuff yeah the core tank is I would say it's definitely good at building vocabulary and stuff for sure and like you can like

understand variations of like two different words like you'll see like the first part of one word and like the second part of another and it's like oh yeah that makes sense so but I think that that deck is built from like the like a newspaper frequency list have you ever tried reading reading the newspaper no that might be like the the easiest like the most directly connected thing reading the newspaper is hard as well I haven't even tried you've been like basically grinding the newspaper i love some weird-ass words they're not they're not in like

they're not frequency I think it's like some random words like it'd be like oh shoot though that's like the four seasons like all right now I'm gonna say the four seasons I guess all in one word but it's like when am I gonna use that I feel you you have to try it maybe one time on stream just pull out the Japanese newspaper you're going to be a lot more cracked at it than you think you just have like the actual like physical Japanese museum that's the retro vibes right there though just a physical newspaper

oh man yeah and I don't like I don't like talking about how I learned Japanese on stream because people will be like oh yeah say something I don't know what to say I want to study like I don't even practice studying at all my pronunciation is like garbage you know I only like I always basically I only say vocab that's it I mean technically you're just reading right technically I'm reading so I like I don't have like any conversational skills like at all right basically like I was like in New York recently and like there's

like some Japanese dudes that need help but like yeah I haven't talked to like any Japanese people in Japanese for like a hot minute since like way before the pandemic you know also you so you saved this Japanese person in need then yeah I think he just needed directions and I was like I don't know man I'm not from here basically conversationally like non-existent you know I can read stuff like signs and stuff so that's cool and like I went to uh what is it the yeah yeah and it was like cool sing on the

Japanese books and I was like hey friend do you know what this means it's like you walk in there how did you feel for it was it like the first time it's like oh there's so many Japanese books why is this guy looking at me like that stop looking at me like this it was like yeah it was like cool it was like oh that's goku food it's like the way of the household husband you know goku shoot caused like away and it's like oh yeah goku that's and then like you understand it and then

you like actually memorize it it's like yeah that's cool yeah I really can't wait until you actually get on the AJATT train I feel like you're going to be really cracked and uh I don't think so yeah I think I think the approach you have like nobody else has has done yeah yeah but I tell people on the stream they'd be like how are you saying Japanese it's experimental man I don't want to say it experimental practices potential danger don't do what I'm doing that's what I've always said but maybe it'll work experimental it's definitely

something unique we've never really heard anything like that on the podcast before but I definitely think that once you start going and sentence mining it'll be so much easier for you and like gathering the input I actually can't wait for it to happen you got to start bringing out the I think if you like read some Japanese novels while you're just like on your computer yeah for like reading practice I feel like you might just like you're just gonna instantly go all the way up like zero to one hundred the comprehension 100 no I don't

think so yeah cause like my grammar man is like pretty pretty yikes have you tried doing any conversation practice no no I and you know I used to uh I used to talk to a guy in high school on a pre-play it's like a online tutoring and i'd pay him two bucks an hour that was those were his rates with him two bucks an hour and we would talk for like 30 minutes but that was like a long long time ago you know like I don't remember anything and I haven't talked to him like since

entering university so we only talked for like a month or two but it was kind of like I think I'm more learning Japanese because I want to understand like haikus and like read books and stuff and yeah so I wasn't as focused on the conversational stuff then as I am now like that's my last my last thing to hit I see and I guess going towards goals then would you say those were your goals then for initially it was more so reading whereas now you're kind of going towards conversation um yeah I haven't taken any

of the jlpt exams which is I guess surprising but I think you don't have to it's not as focused on on the conversational and I want to I want to pass on one so yeah I'm kind of focusing towards that afterwards conversational for sure yeah I guess like how do you think your your channel or live streams would transition because eventually if you did a chat then it would have to do with study live stream trade I don't know I don't feel like a YouTuber or like an influencer like I don't like calling myself influencer

um yeah like my friends will make fun of me it's like oh influence no um I guess this is kind of like this whole YouTube thing has really been more like a hobby for me during the pandemic and stuff so you know I'm not taking it too too seriously um and my priorities in life probably not number one um YouTube is probably not number one um I'm all about learning so if I can learn Japanese and use that experience to help other people learn Japanese that'd be awesome you know um yeah so I'm sure I

can fit in somehow um but I wouldn't say that like I'm very I'm not a slave to anything you know I don't like being a slave to my phone to social media to my work I like being free and doing what I want um so yeah have you ever felt sort of um like felt like you had to do these 12-hour streams no always no yeah yeah though I think like the I don't think I ever explained this well enough in my like my videos but man you do not have to study 12 hours a

day to be cracked or anything like cracked at school cracked anything you want to learn I think the reason I wanted to do it was to prove my to myself that that I could do it um and it was like a challenge right like sometimes it'd be like all right what do I even study now because like I finished Japanese and school work and like others crap like my lab research for computer science work you know um so the live streams um I never want to feel like I'm a slave to to that too right

um so like I'm willing to like follow what I love and if I really love Japanese um you know i'd totally move to Japan if the opportunity ever came up um so yeah i'd be willing to leave a lot just to learn what I love you know Japanese um would you say that is more than like your passion for say like computer science um Japanese was my first love like I said at the start um that was like what really got me into studying um yeah so like I'm not for me it was kind of

like I was going to become either an engineer or a mechanic or that's it I just wanted to be one of those two things and started Japanese yeah um so like I wouldn't say like sometimes like a lot of people it's like okay I'm learning math now so I'm just happy that I'm doing math in any sort of math related field but for me it's just more like I love computers so like I wanna like know how they work and stuff and I really love Japanese and I really wanna understand it and comprehend it and

uh it's not like oh this is Matthew so I like math and i'll do this it's kind of more like uh more specific love I guess so do you think that you think your like 12 hour streams helped you like dramatically in in like the like productivity and output on your school side um how my streams helped me was they gave me a new level of self-confidence you know like at the start of it I was kind of like no one's ever done this before you know like the whole study with me genre at the

start of the pandemic was a lot different um like it took me like six months bro to hit like a thousand subs you know studying 12 hours a day it's kind of like you gotta you gotta have a certain level of discipline to see this like garbage results for that long even though you're putting in so much work and uh yeah that was like a learning experience learning about myself and definitely like the times you learn most in life is when it's the hardest you know when you're not comfortable so um putting myself in that

situation you know I was like studying for a long time and then afterwards I was like trying for a marathon which I recently ran by the way um so that was cool but yeah it helped my productivity I guess but it also mainly helps like my other like less more more internal characteristics you know stuff like drive and like understanding what really pushes you forward stuff like that which normally like I guess study YouTubers don't really talk about um yeah it's it was like a different level for me opening a new gate not just like

about studying but like about life in general you know it's like just being so focused on very few things um yeah I learned now that I really love like a simple life where it's just like doing simple things that you enjoy and um I found a meaning of that you know so yeah you don't have to study for 12 hours a day to be good at school but you can and because I could I guess I wanted to i see and I I would say habit building plays a big part in being able to do

this for so long right after six months you said was kind of how you started before reaching a thousand subscribers and then you kept on going so how would you say that played a part and not only your growth but kind of your personal development um well I mean we were in the midst of a global pandemic and we were stuck at home all day and I guess it's all about how you react right um yeah like I was thinking about like like uh I guess it was like I was kind of in a challenge

with myself like at the start of the stream I would start at like 8 a.m but like i'd move up like I want to push myself more so be like all right we start at 7 00 am now it's gonna go longer too five am four am that's when I that's what I did for the long like a long time was I would wake up at 3 30 you know the I guess there's like a lot of sacrifices also like i'll go to bed at 7 30 p.m which is kind of sad for like a

21 year old I was 20 actually um yeah 20 and 21 but you know it was a pandemic and there was very few structure in our lives except for staying at home all day and as far as habits are concerned I was pretty um I really indulged in a lot of my my desires you know not to do stuff at the start um like not to do like productive stuff you know like um at the start of the pandemic man it was like uber not uber depression but it's like what am I gonna do for

uh who knows how long you know and um the habits really show me like a new way of life is like yeah before it all was just given to my impulses and you know like open up my email and open up YouTube and see oh hey new videos watch it real quick and stuff like that um so yeah habits how are we able to how are you able to like fit in your dude because you said you you ran a marathon so did you do training yeah yeah so basically let's see my day-to-day was I

would wake up 3 30 and then get ready start streaming right at four well i'd like to sit right at four but it's like four or five four or six you know um and like not actually 3 30 being more like three I set my alarm for 3 33 am because this is my favorite number but I wake up at like 3 45 you know and uh started streaming um 12 hours later finished streaming and then you know online school uh do all my school work then and get all my courses homework Japanese lab research

I was a researcher at the time um and then let's see I would Monday Wednesday Friday I would drive up to my mom's house shout out to mom she would uh cook me some dinner and I just like heat it up in the fridge or in the microwave and then um digest for like 30 minutes and then I would run around uh that area for about seven or eight you know six or seven miles um Monday Wednesday Friday yeah Tuesday Thursday was a kind show I would just uh hang out with my friends after the

stream and kind of read books and just kind of vibe you know yeah that's super inspiring I mean I guess also you mentioned before as well that you didn't you didn't let anything really influence you or become a slave to anything including social media and you kind of talked about how you weren't on social media for the past two months to us earlier as well how has that maybe helped you in terms of your time and developing habits as well well I guess like to give context let's see I had never experienced such massive channel

growth at the end of uh the school semester so like late april um it was like the 22nd and I was at 80k subs um and I was like all right man here's my goal I'm gonna hit 100k subs by my birthday april 27th so I'm gonna do as much as I can to hit that goal before um my birthday and so I released that one video that really made my channel get a lot of exposure the how I study video um and yeah that like skyrocketed me to like you can look at the views

it's like 80k dk 70k 60k 50k 80k video 300k 400k 500k 600k 800k you know it's like it was pretty crazy and like I'm uh i'm not I'm not used to being popular like I've never had so many eyes on me before like anything even in school and stuff like that so I'm not used to like so many people talking to me I'm like a I was like before the stream I was like really introverted right and I would like only talk to like five people like including my family my friends you know like maybe

five or six and um yeah so like it was just kind of like whoa there's like 9 000 people watching me right now and it was like that's pretty crazy I can't even imagine that many people it's like three of my high schools you know and it's like I was I think I was happy at the start of doing that but there's always this like really high pressure for me to be entertaining and be happy and stuff like that which um you know what I'm not I'm not always like super happy and outgoing and stuff

like sometimes I'm just in my head like in the zone and I really want to focus on my work and um yeah I don't want to be asleep to my stream so I was like all right I'm gonna and you know this is like the end of the school semester I already wanted to take a break because I've just been going for so long and my channel I hit 100k subs I hit my goal and I also you know went on to my channel like it grew more than that I hit 400k like two weeks

ago or something and uh without uploading like anything you know and I just wasn't like I was it was the end of the school semester I hit my goal I hit one year the sub goal and like I was like all right I'm gonna I'm gonna leave you know this pandemic feels like it's over to me because like the states are like they're opening up I'm vaccinated I wanna understand the like I wanna see the world again um so yeah I just kind of left um YouTube and instagram um yeah it's kind of dipped without

saying anything peace out guys sorry I got like my dad oh man minute enjoying you know like I hang out with my friends and stuff and uh I read books and I sleep and I got an internship I'm working as a software engineering internship so yeah I'm just kind of hanging out and like I spend most of my time just sitting on the floor in my room like with a bunch of books and just like a little lamp like cat and we just kind of chop and uh yeah i'd say like I spent like half

I spent half of my 20s on camera bro how crazy is that I started streaming when I was 19 finished when I was 21 so I spent you know however long in a year half of that on camera studying so i kind of uh I wouldn't say I was like I think I could still do it and you know what if like this delta thing gets out of hand I might have to again i wanted to I wanted to understand other passions in life like I started kung fu and I've been really enjoying it and

I've started doing a lot more body stuff like I'm lifting weights with my friends instead of running and I also want to start running again because I had like finished the marathon and I was like I'm gonna take a small break from running and uh yeah um I'm gonna I'm gonna start streaming again by the way but it's not not nearly as long because I got classes on campus now but my school semester starts next week so yeah we're on the we're on a comeback pretty soon actually yeah oh wow that's going to be really

different for you isn't it after having everything at home for the entire day yeah this is going to be pretty crazy because like now I got like people who know who I am you know like i'll be like at the gym and like some dude like oh you're James right like oh that's yeah he's like oh you went to xxx high school I was like yeah how do you know that and i'll be like like like i'll do like i'll be like an online class and i'll be like i'll get private dms it's like oh

your jam sounds like well yeah i don't know what to say wow how have you like dealt with that because I guess this is something very right out of the pandemic right because in a way like people just know who you are now yeah it was like I was wearing my face mask and I like usually like whenever I go outside I was wearing a hoodie I was being introverted I was wearing a hoodie with a face mask I was like no one ever knew who I was but it was like man it's too hot

for a hoodie and like I got vaccinated I'm wearing a face mask right so it was like I was like eating fried chicken with my friends I was like oh you're James I was like yeah so we'll see how uh in person goes for sure I'm not used to all this I'm not used to being like having people say hi to me you know it's weird just in general so yeah wait would you say you're gonna go back to the hoodie face mask sunglasses i like I like saying pretty low key and just kind of

like getting my own stuff done and like you know routine stuff um so maybe but like it's a you know it's kind of like I also want to embrace this opportunity it's uh some like an area to grow right how often does that happen to someone um and yeah you know I might have like a real like I actually might be able to help someone if they know who I am so right right so would you say that might be a small goal you have now kind of a side quest for say helping someone on

the side who just comes up to you ask for advice yeah it's like yeah that'd be pretty cool you know I wanted to I don't want to get out of hand where it's like you walk into a class and everyone knows who you are and stuff it's going to be like oh hey you're so-and-so yeah what's up bro yeah right right don't want to get to the level where you're just handing out autographs everywhere you go I don't think yeah I don't know if I have it in in me to like do that yeah I

don't wanna I don't wanna get like full of myself that's something that's important I'm already pretty like arrogant and stuff like as I am and then this whole like YouTuber thing it's like a massive like boosts your ego you know you hear about how cocky and stuff all these YouTubers are but I want to say like chill you know grounded so so I guess kind of closing now what is maybe some advice you can impart on someone maybe trying to go and start studying maybe just beginning not like like you mentioned not a 12-hour grind

but just developing the study habit instead for someone listening to the podcast right now yeah I would say like in today's world man it's way too easy to be on it like on a screen doing pointless things all day you know like it's to the point where uh basically you could just like wake up and like scroll with your thumb all day and then go to sleep and that would be like your whole existence like with this whole like tick tock thing and um you know just social media algorithms feeding you brainless content all day

um I ask that you just like step back and really look at how you're spending your time because man like um I get kind of sad sometimes like I was I was telling you how about about how I was in New York recently it was like there are people who are getting there and then like crossing the Brooklyn bridge looking at manhattan who were like on their phone the whole time it's like aren't you in New York to see the city and like live here and breathe New York air and stuff you know I wish

we had more mindfulness um so yeah I just you don't have to drop it all completely but do you really love sitting on your phone like that all day you know I know it just doesn't bring value to my life personally and I don't think it brings value to a lot of people's lives who use those things all day you know um so I you have to yeah you gotta recognize what you're doing like what you're spending your time on because I'm sure you could trim it down you know it's really easy to get over

consumed and it's easy to become a slave to your phone and you can still use your phone just be mindful with it you know um so yeah that was something that you had a record or I had at least had to recognize uh early on was you know I was I'm so like I still do struggle with like super hard YouTube addiction like sometimes like before streaming and stuff I would like sit on YouTube for like eight hours you know just like what am I even watching um so yeah um and then also um you

also I would say you'd have to really understand why you're doing like why you're pushing yourself whether that's studying whether that's you know running whether that's you know trying to get into a school or something it's why are you doing this is it because you want to make your parents happy is it because you want to be rich you know is it because you want to become a better person the best person of yourself um so those two things um I would say were really important for me like figuring out why I really want to

push myself was like really important or else I don't think I would have been able to like make it through some of the tough parts you know you have you have to have something to cling on to like hope while you're like going through the trenches um for sure yeah all right guys thanks for making it to the end of the podcast um so make sure to subscribe to catch our next week's episode so I want to quickly thank our patrons