Hard Core OG AJATTer: @japanesegaryben

Or maybe I can set this one. Hello. Hello. Oh, yeah. I think it's backwards. — Wait. One, two, three. One two three I [ __ ] can't tell. — Hold on. Let me I got to double check. This is going to be really bad if I — Good morning and the guest. — Welcome the guest. What should people call you? — Japanese. Okay. So, just Gary for short. — It's up to you. — Where was — Okay, I'm gonna call you Gary then. — Okay, fine. — Yeah, it was backwards. — Whenever I like myself, I should put it in JG. But yeah, Gary's fine. Hello, neighbor. — Okay, so can barely hear Jerry. They're saying — sit — or — got a small — Okay. um chair that thing. — You have good posture. — No, this is a meditation bench. — You your knees go here. — Yeah, — you can practice sa. — At least I won't go numb like a sa. — Oh, yeah. — My head's a bit cut off in the camera though on the way. — Okay. Uh — can probably just uh — the camera there. making. Don't want to catch, I guess. — Oh, never mind. You're more caught off. Oh, wait, wait. Okay. No, this is the light. — Yeah, that's — okay. Technical difficulties. Yeah, you're looking shiny. Sorry. Oh, that's too much. — You see your laundry? — Clean laundry. — I mean, yeah, it would be hung. — Okay, — that's fine, actually. Pretty good. — There we go. Okay, — Ryan, let's try and keep this between us. — Yes. — Guess bit close to me. — Actually, maybe we should switch positions that because that will put you closer to the mic. — Okay. It's great. — Small Japanese apartment here. — It is pretty. This what you're seeing right now, people. That's the That's the entire apartment. — This is it pretty much. — There's a loft. Small loft. — Yeah. Damn. There's small. — What's the interview about? — It's about Gary. — It's about me. I'm very important. — Yeah. And his journey learning Japanese, living in Japan, moving to Japan. I did cut my hair. Thank you for noticing. It's um the Norwood Reaper comes for us all. — If you were saying give Gary your chair, you're right. You're the guest. You should get the chair. — Really? — Yeah. Fine. Okay. — Feels a bit awkward stealing a man's throne. But — no, you're right. You got the You're the guest of honor today, right? Why am I in the more comfortable? — I'll be doing here. — You got to learn from all the — I'm trying to practice my posture. — Yeah. Anyway, oh, this isn't too bad. I actually feel taller. This is — Yeah, I think it was propelling. That means your ass is higher. Yeah. — Oh, now I'm taller than you. You want to Oh, yeah. This is probably too short for you. — No, I'm fine, actually. — Use this. You sure? Your knees aren't going to This one right here. You can — Yeah, it's an office chair. No. — Okay, good. Now, we almost look like we're the same height. Um, maybe you should move a tiny bit more that way. Okay. And then close to that. Okay. Ah, bad. Sorry. It's not my face. Okay. Well, welcome guys. Uh, audio is still good, guys. Audio still good.

Hello. Thank you, Matt L for your donation. Very nice of you. — I mean, I should start talking because it's close to me, so they better hear and compare. — Cool. So, well, anyway, yeah, today we have Gary with us live in person. And so, I mean, as a basis, I was thinking just doing this the way I normally do my interviews. — Yeah. You never interviewed me which is kind of — very kashi. That was — you've been on the list for a long time. So — which is weird because we met like once before and we've talked intermittently um at length at certain points actually. — Yeah. No, you've been on the list for a long time but at least now it happened and it's always fun to do it in person. — It's fun to do in person. We're in Japan. It feels really special, you know, like the start of a new era. — Oh yeah. Someone says quiet so I'm turning up the game. — Okay. — Yeah. Yeah, it puts it into yellow when I just talk. So, that's pretty good. — Okay. Well, uh Okay, let's jump in. We can do questions towards the end, but uh — of course, — for now. So, yeah. So, when did you first get interested in Japan or learning Japanese or — So, this is an answer I practically give whenever I'm in interviews for Japanese jobs now. They're like, why did you start Japanese? And like I didn't learn Japanese until I was already in my 20s. Like I started at the age of 23 — and I'm 31 now. — Oh wow. — So it's been — that's a pretty late start — as far as language learning goes. — Right. Cuz I I guess as a kid I was sort of I thought Japanese was cool but I never really heard it cuz I was also always a dub listener even with anime. Like the reason I originally got Twitter was to listen to English voice actors cuz it was a very small community at that time. So following that level of celebrity was very interesting and only since learning Japanese or like a bit before that did I really get into listening to Japanese. So I didn't even have the sort of oh Japanese is cool I really need to learn it. — You liked anime? — I liked anime and um my first words as a kid were actually Power Rangers — really. — And as we all know Power Rangers is an American adaption of Super Senti which is the toll famous tokosatu show. And so I've loved tokosatu ever since I was a kid. I love watching common rider now. I haven't quite kept up with the last few years unfortunately because been doing adult stuff but yeah so I've loved Japanese stuff for ages even things I love like games a vast majority of them have been Japanese been a point influence in my life when I went to university I started developing video games and that's my degree I didn't get into anything after that and that leads into how I started learning like I felt like I just couldn't didn't have the confidence too young you know right after university didn't really have any portfolio no experience under my belt so I was like I'm just going to do any job I can take, apply for anything in my like shitty little town. — And I just wasn't getting anything. — And so I was going crazy after like a year. So that was the time when Amazon became Amazon Global — and I was like, "Oh, it's my birthday. I'm going to buy a manga from Amazon Global that isn't yet translated and try and learn enough Japanese to understand it. " — And then that just became bigger and bigger. And so that was it was mainly a career thing like you thought maybe that would bring you an opportunity. — At the time I just wanted a challenge. — Okay. — My brain was like eating itself by like it felt like I wasn't moving forward in life. I wasn't focusing on anything. — So I am the kind of person that in a vacuum really needs something to do. — So I like — you liked anime so you were like let me try. — And I fell into the same sort of thing that a lot of people I think of the time did when they were interested in Japanese and Japan. like I watched um you know people making vlogs in Japan and I really considered the Jet program for a long time. — I considered that to be my goal originally but my goal was I would learn enough Japanese that when I go to the Jet program when I come back a year later it wouldn't be like a reset. I would have built connections like a reason to be there or really change my life not just make it into a year out and then year back. And then eventually when I got into Ajat, I dropped everything else I was doing, focused super hard on that and even the goal of jet sort of fell into the background. — So how did you get into Ajat and how long was that into trying to learn Japanese? — So after I did a little bit of just doing kana enough to you know recite them from the manga I had um I actually did things like wani which I thought was really good at the time and I did that for about 6 months I think. But then I was enjoying myself. I was really I really liked it. But then I saw one of um you know the British Matt's um Ajat video like I saw his vlog randomly in my suggestions. I watched that and I went this makes sense. And then that led me of course to — this Matt and then I watched those videos like this makes sense. I literally cannot believe what I've believed up until this point. This explains so much of the problems I had. Like wani kani for example — it does teaching you vocabulary as you learn — kanji — but the order of the kanji is the difficult like the number of strokes in the kanji

— so which means like you have to spend like six months before it even shows you wati — like you don't even learn me — until like six months into it like it's not it can't solve everything right — whereas if you just expose yourself Japanese like you will know what's necessary really early on and has nothing to do with the difficulty of writing it. So, I switched that. I set a hard plan where I was like, I'm going to do this for like the 18 months that cat set out. Like, I read all of a — Yeah. — And uh I like said, I'm going to do this is a project. I need to get stuff out of my room. And I spent I just paused learning Japanese for like half a year just to set up my environment in my room — and to remove everything English from it. And then I just went in there and I just became a massive hermit. And that's part of the reason why my hair is so long and I have a big beard by the time I start. — Yeah. In your other videos. — Yeah. Cuz when I first tried to make a vlog video, I saw myself for the first time in like a year and a half. — And I was like, — what year is it? It's like that mean Cuz like, God, I don't like how I look, but I hadn't looked at myself for so long. Like I didn't have a job and I was lucky to be supported for that task. — Family. — My family. I also had some money from like grandparents that had passed and so I was mainly putting money to that. So I was studying fulltime when I did my age app thing for 18 months full time like 10 hours of active listening a day — taping my earphones to my ears when I slept. — Damn. — Having the awful You have run out of charge in your like electronic um charge earphones by the time I woke up cuz I've been sleeping for like 8 hours. — I It was the weird the craziest thing I've ever done. And it's been an utterly formative experience for the person I am right now. It makes me way more confident cuz I know I can do something. — And it's taught me that doing something crazy and out the ordinary — is perfectly fine. Like people will fight you all the way — and it's still probably the best thing you should do. — But just like — it's also the same when people come to me for advice. They say like Japanese Gary Ben, do you think this would be good? And I think I'm on the same level as you where it's not that people come up with new theories that makes me upset. — You just get disappointed when you hear like stuff that's not really outside the box and they think they're moving outside the box. — But if someone comes to me with something actually outside the box, they're like, I want to test this Japanese Gary Ben. If they ask me my opinion, I could be like, "Well, based on my experience, I don't have confidence in this, but that's unusual enough that you probably should do it. " — Like, you're going to be the most passionate person about this thing you want to try doing with language. So, you should do it. — Like, even if I don't think that it will work in the way you want, that's still data that everyone else can benefit from. and you still gave the thing you wanted to do your all. That's way better than, you know, just staring at a textbook and grinding that out. — For sure. — So, if it's actually outside the box, I think we should encourage people to do that even if like if they want an honest review, we can say, "I'm not confident in this, but — you know, you should still try that if you think it's really going to work. " Like, you don't need my permission. — Yeah, for sure. Yeah. A lot of people wanting permission. Like, I have a lots. — Yeah. A lot of people come to me being like, "Hey, Matt, I don't want to take any of your advice. I want to do this thing that you say not to do, but I want you to like give me approval to do. — Exactly. It's if you're in our position and people come to you for advice, you realize that half of all language learning advice is not language learning advice. It's therapy. People want you to like encourage them as an authority, make them feel okay about themselves. And that's usually the biggest hurdle. People don't get results not just because they don't do the right thing. It's because they don't believe in their own right to get results. They think it requires permission. Whether that be, you know, a certification board, you know, taking a class or that language guru you happen to like on the internet. They think they could do that. And they think that like if it comes to a problem, they start bargaining. — Yeah. — I just like I can't give the language to you. — I I'm not an authority. Only you can give language to you. — So if you try bargaining with me, — it doesn't do anything. You're still the wrong mindset. It's all about what you do. It's all about picking stuff up and doing it. Like I cannot make you learn the language and I can also not stop you from learning the language. That was one of the best things about learning a language. People expect it to be a social thing like you practice speaking with people early on or something. It's like no, learning language was a great like goal and challenge and skill for me to learn at that time in my life because it didn't require permission from anyone else. It didn't require resources or standardization. It only required me putting in my time. And that's why I think it's a really good growth tool if you're if you want to do it as something that's a project to tell you I can get this far by myself and people just don't expect that of language cuz it's a social tool. So I think you have to learn it socially and you can but you don't have to.

— Yeah, that's some good stuff. So I'm wondering how good were you after that 18 months of — better than I am now? Yeah, cuz I put off so much when I was when during co and I was just like — So this was what year that you started? — I started it's in my bio. Um and I think it was 20 like June 2017. So I was done 2019. Yeah. 2019 cuz after — even with speaking like so you at the end of 18 months you hadn't really spoken Japanese before, right? — Every time I said it was but hong like I had no practice. — Yeah. And when I was speaking after that to myself, the problem was because I didn't have speaking practice. It wasn't that I didn't understand what I was saying. It was that I was slipping over my tongue on simple things. — And that was more like — I needed the pitch accent like understanding that I didn't have — because — I honestly had done way too much reading. That's what I blame it on. Um because it's easier to just — take in a massive chunk of reading. Um, so even if I knew that something sounded wrong and it was causing me to slip over my tongue because it was harder to say than the correct way of saying it, I had that problem. And that also sort of presented when I first got to Japan. — Um, I'm better at it now. I still make mistakes, but I also don't — get angry at myself for making mistakes. Like I managed to make Japanese friends and they're all pretty impressed. Uh when I first uh talked to people here um at certain parties where I live uh people like do you have JPTn1 like Japanese people were telling me this like you could probably do it like yeah I believe I could that's why I didn't bother — you know that's how it was. So like I'm not the best speaker but like I've done no specific speaking practice that isn't just talking to people and by this point I've been through a lot of Japanese — interview that is — it is speaking practice but it's like I didn't sit by myself. I didn't do any shadowing. — I' I have like I should have taken your advice and recorded myself and then worked on that. Like that's like the only thing that stopped me from doing that quite honestly it's pride. — It's the embarrassment of hearing myself be so wrong and then having to fix it. That's the reason I haven't done it. That's the core up to this point. There are so many other things I could blame it on, like it being co, — like feel like I'm not going anywhere with my life. Like those are things I could blame it on. But honestly, it's the reason why I think I'm better back then is the same reason why I said my when I said to you a moment ago, my vocabulary is way down because I'm not doing the 10 hours a day full time staring at stuff. And in fact, um, my contact time went down from being in Japan. I mean, mine did too, but I think that would surprise a lot of people. So, — Right. Because you expect it to be free when you're in Japan. The thing is like you're not having conversations with everyone. When you're outside, you're not constantly listening to something. So, I didn't have just for the sake of like hopefully not being like ruined for having ripped audio on my phone when I came in the airport. Like, I just took it off. — And so, I didn't have I wasn't I'm not listening to like ripped anime when I'm here in Japan. So, my contact time is really low. When you when I first got here, I was just going out every single day to explore and get new experiences. That was like the first 6 months was that. — And you we should probably tell people you moved to Japan a year ago. — Well, yes. I say you say moved. It's a working holiday visa. I arrived at the start of August last year. Uh but I did that specifically because it's a Digimon reference to appear the first of August. — But uh yeah, so my year in Japan is almost over and once again, I cannot regret it. I'm so glad that Matt suggested it when I was leaving my last opportunity that I was at and I was like, "What the [ __ ] am I doing? " Um, so yeah, this was the way that I finally came to Japan by doing a working holiday visa, — which um, unfortunately Americans can't do it here. It's uh, so go UK, go — or Canada. Luckily, I actually I can do it cuz I have Canadian citizenship because my dad's Canadian even though he never lived in Canada. — Yeah. Okay. That's why you were doing it as well at some point. like so yeah I could I took um working holiday visa um usually there's only a thousand people a year that get into — and I was worried cuz I was like applying really late so they might have got more positions already when I applied uh quite late in the year it reset to April like the fiscal year — um they had 6,000 slots like six times normal and I was like is this to make up for co — so you know I was pretty lucky I got it it's kind of a very unceremonious process. — Oh yeah. — Because like so you can only do it up to being 30. — Yeah. — It means that be the last time I'd be able to apply. — So I apply then — and — um — you basically give in like your reason to be there and also make you like put in some sort of plan for each month for what you're going to do. Even though there's no way that they can make sure you honor it and stuff changes. My plan did radically change. I didn't do nearly

as much exploring as I did. I've only really been in KTO. — Um — I think they just want to — arbitrarily make the bar a little higher so they can show you can they can think serious about it. you make a statement of purpose and mine was like six pages long when it only needed to be like a page — cuz it was just everything including age app and I didn't realize that when you get to it like — the woman at the like what do you call it the reception like she just stands there reading it in front of you to make for your own benefit to make sure you haven't put any like weird mistakes in it — but I was like I was not expecting to just stand here in silence as you read me — as you read to yourself the thing I've poured my heart over for six pages right And then you wait a week and they make you come back and then they tell you whether or not you got it — and they just make you pay a fee which is like — I can't remember how it was. It was very specific. It's like £17 like nothing and you have to pay it in cash. — No, it's very Japanese. — I to right and I'm in the Japanese embassy in the UK. There like there wasn't that many Japanese people that the person serving me was an Indian woman, you know. It's — and then I did it perfectly so that their change they had to give me was a£5 note. I'm still holding that5 note. — Um and they just go like yeah here's your visa and they just stamp it into your passport. I was like and then I walked out sort of just — because like they didn't congratulate me. — What where do I put my feelings? What's the standard of my feelings right now? Am I supposed to feel lucky? like I just bought something? — Yeah. Like are they happy that I'm representing the country? — They're probably just doing their job. — Exactly. It feels like there's way less emotion involved in it than there should be for — doing that all day, you know? Like — you don't know any of these people. They're just stamping. — Right. I felt so like weirdly special and not at the same time. Like no one congratulated me on my way out or anything. Like just walked out and went, — "Yeah, okay. I'm going to Japan. " — Said message to my family. Yeah. Going to work. Yeah. — Come back home now on the train. Yeah. Yeah, because I know what you mean. Before you get it, you don't know. You can't really allow yourself to get excited, — right? — You know, — but — and just like no one gave me permission to afterwards. It's so weird. — Oh, glad it worked out. And you want to stay here longer term or at least come back and you know, you don't want to just have this be your one year in Japan. — It's true. Like, if anything, it's like I mean, I planned to be here longer when I first came here. — Yeah. Uh, but you know that's a bit crazy if you've never been there before, but if anything being here has just confirmed that feeling to me like things are different than what I expected. Sure, I have a real image of Japan now. — But it's just made me go, yeah, I would be fine living and working here for longer even like even if it's just in the same capacity of living in my current situation because I really like my current situation. uh because of like well co taking away like five years four or five years of my life like the last 20s and not knowing where I was going the start of my 20s like I just didn't have 20s you know I feel like it's true for a lot of people in my generation — so like this one year has felt like the first time I'm like actually living in my 20s — yeah I know what you mean I actually felt really similar when I first moved to Japan — not necessarily because of co but just because the way I happened to have lived — my 20s like I spent most of my 20s in my room making YouTube videos and that was fulfilling in its own way. You know, I built up my YouTube video. I helped a lot of people learn Japanese. Like I learned how a lot of stuff about how to run a business, but I was mostly just in my room. And as soon as I moved to Japan, I started mostly living outside my room, you know? I kind of like went offline for a while. — It's a massive difference cuz of course um this is the first time living in the city. — Yeah. — And I would have wanted to have lived in other cities. Like for me, London is just the stabby capital of my country. So like I don't want to go there. Like it's nice for a day trip sometimes. Like it was nice going to the embassy and I went, "Okay, London is actually pretty nice. " — But like I wouldn't have like tried to get a job to move there. — So I lived my entire life in like one village in Southeast England, like between London and the sea. — And — it's a village entirely of elderly people and like parents with young families. So I immediately aged out of any like home demographic of friends or community once I came back from university and I just failed to get out of that bubble like failed to start my life. So this radical change to just transplanting myself — to basically Tokyo has been so much better and um — Oh yeah. — And I don't even consider that expensive. Like Japanese people consider what I pay for my current rent to be expensive but I'm like no. — And you live in a share house right? Yeah, I right now. And by the way, that's what I'd really recommend to anyone like going to Japan for like a set amount of time. Just the fact that you can come downstairs and you just have a community of people, both half Japanese and like other foreigners that are passionate about

living and trying in Japan is so great. — Yeah, makes sense. I don't think I could live with other people just because of my personality. — I've already had that set onto me. Like I've had a few arguments. Like there's one guy that's like, "Oh, I don't know if I would want to introduce you to like my work friends because you know, you're a bit spicy or something like that. " It's like, I get it, but also the lines you draw that do that. It's like, I don't know if I could introduce you to my gay friends. Like, what do you mean? What do you mean, bro? We have people in the house. That's fine. Yeah. So, it's like that. Um, you obviously were butttheads, but I feel like the sense of community is really good. Like people always — Yeah, it totally makes sense. — People like the lounge is right next to the kitchen in my place. So people offer you food and there's people from tons of different places and like half of the people that are permanent workers there are like engineers. — So like really smart people from their countries too. — And like a lot of their communities are really like sharing and helpful. So they'll give you food and stuff. And there's — I don't know about all sharehouses, but mine at least has regular events. And as a resident, you can even schedule your own and try and get some money from the share house. — I've been to a couple like share house events for other share houses I didn't live in. Like I've been invited to them. They do like top — You can invite outside. Yeah, we have taco fight. — I've been some of those. They're fun. So, — it's really great. Even got like three more lined up before I leave at the end of this month. — Nice. Yeah. I mean, it makes sense. It can be hard to kind of bootstrap your life here from scratch. Like I was in a kind of a special circumstance because through my work I had so many conne like actually my friend group — expanded the moment I like landed here on the ground because I had made all these connections through YouTube. — Yeah. Like all these people that were online friends immediately became IRL friends second I got here. But that's probably not going to be the case for you know everyone right. — I was sort of expecting that to happen. I mean, I don't have a lot of IRL fans in Japan. But I was sort of expecting to meet more influencers, I guess, but I don't have my own umbrella cuz I just don't post anything — to meet them. — I don't know. I thought you were going to do like introduce me to some people or something, but — I could have if you said something. I mean, — I didn't — I said something a while ago, but like it's not your responsibility, but like I — like Yeah, you weren't really actively making content. Like if you're actively making content, then it's easier. It actually doesn't matter like how many subscribers you have or how many views you get. It's kind of like if you're making content, I feel like other like creators respect other creators that are actually making content because so many people say that they're going to make content or they want to make content. But then — I've been that guy for too long. — Although I have as well, you know, for the last couple years. But — I just think, yeah, I I'm a bit I guess I take advantage of other people's kindness too much. Even in the way in the past when I was doing smaller content that was not related to Japanese, just with friends and stuff, it was always on someone else's channel. But yeah, it's my responsibility to make my own content. Nobody has to me. — The other thing is though, like making content, I feel like when you watch vlogs or you watch these videos of people going out and making videos about their life in Japan, it looks like, oh, you're just living your life and you happen to turn on the camera. But in reality, it's a lot of editing. — And even there, like you're like, okay, you're thinking about the angle. You're like, oh, let's retake that one more time. Like, oh, can you film me do this? — You're not enjoying, you're not in the moment. You have to it's a full dedication. — Yeah. And so I think when you first moved here, like I'm actually glad that I spent my first couple years here not making content because it allowed me to fully be present for my experience here, right? I knew if I was thinking about the content, it would feel like I'm just using Japan as like a giant prop, like a giant background for my content, not really experiencing it. That's one of the reason why I didn't make the sort of um like daily vlog content that you see a lot of places cuz I feel like that's something I considered. But once I got here, I was — so against the idea of just recording in public like the possibility of catching random bystandards like in the background of what I was doing. It felt really unfair and rude. — In Japan, a lot of people would not appreciate that. — Exactly. So like I settle for taking pictures and as we talked a moment ago, I don't even take selfies. you know, there's not even that many pictures that proof that I'm in Japan because I'm just taking pictures of other stuff, you know. — Yeah. Yeah. Same. Actually, I even forget to take pictures of other stuff. I always I'm like trying to remind myself to take more pictures. — Yeah. — I also feel like the other thing of just like making vlogs of living in Japan has just been so overdone. — Yeah. You need a new angle. And I feel like my angle is definitely going to be — a day in the life of a person in Japan who knew Japanese before they got here. That sort of thing. — Um and I can still do that. But yeah, it's um for so long I've just been like I need a job, I need a job. And that hasn't been taken off yet. So like I just haven't been even dedicating time to the idea of making content. Even if maybe if I had fully committed to making content, you know, I make some money off that by this point. — But I just wanted to like — have a stable situation before I try anything else first. Failed at doing that cuz I've — I'm I've been a terrible person when it comes to — shoe cuts. Like it's just — it's trauma for me. Like I mentioned that period after university. It's

like — having trouble finding a job again now. Feels like reliving the worst parts of that period again. — And it's just like I'm useless. I have no value. What do I even offer? Like people will compliment me and then I apply for something and nothing happens, you know? — Yeah, that's hard. Luckily, I've never had to go through that. But — but I know I think I would be terrible at it. That's why I'm glad I don't have to. I'm not cut out for getting hired by someone else. — I feel like it it's sort of one of those close the door, open a window situations where I just haven't fully committed to the window, you know? I've just been going to the next door. — I mean, I don't think that's necessarily bad. Actually, I think it's good to when you move here to actually get a real job for a while and work at a Japanese company or something. Like, a lot of me wishes that I did that. M — not badly enough that I'm actually going to do it, but most people that I know that are like full-time creators or running their own business, they started off just being an employee of another company. And you learn so much doing that, right, about Japanese culture cuz like the you know, that work part of the culture is such a deep part of the culture. You know, you I think when you work in a Japanese company, they hold you to the same standard as everyone else. And that really forces you to learn really deeply about what you know, how Japanese culture really works and it go language goes up and stuff. So I wish I had that experience. I regret not having it. I think it's definitely worth having even if you know you don't want to do it long term because in a way a lot of ways it sucks because you're getting overworked and underpaid and you know — Yeah. Um I mean I think my pay when I do sell on a job will probably be okay but yeah there's definitely part of that for a lot of people that think that will slap them out of the gajin bubble sort of mindset and I wasn't really in that at all. I hadn't allowed myself to do that since I got here. The first time I felt like I was in a — gajjun bubble sort of situation was actually I started networking like a couple months ago and it's just people who are working in Japan who are like mostly foreigners and it's like it's such a weirdly positive environment. Like I felt reinvigorated from being around these people but at the same time I was like — what do you mean I can't find a job in Japan and you've been here for like 20 years and have a wife and children? And you go and speak Japanese — and you run your own business. What the hell? Give me your wife. — Give me your Japanese. Where's my Japanese? What the hell? You don't speak [ __ ] Your kids speak better Japanese than you. — Why am I here? You know, there's it's like all of the jealousy sort of just runs back when it's just like — surely there's some part of me that deserves this more. You know, that's how it feels. That's how koshi it is. — Well, you can figure it out. You just got to approach it the same way you learned Japanese, right? Like like you said, no one gave you Japanese for free. You worked your ass off. — Exactly. — I think the thing is that like Japanese is one piece of the puzzle, but because you have Japanese, you're not going to get all that other stuff for free. You need to work equally as hard for, you know, your relationships, your job, your business, anything. — But it really sucks when I I get here and like I'm the only person in the share house that like has like proper Japanese ability before they got here. And then when I try and find a job and Japanese people just like ah you need more skills like I believe you but also like it's like you can't like just get a job just with Japanese like you can and I'm aiming for the sort of jobs cuz I'm translator like that's sort of what I've yeah dedicated myself to at this point. Um, so it's s feel really weird when they say that to me. It's like cuz like okay, if you added something else, it' be really good. Maybe then like I tried to do jobs for the share house where I'd like be an interpreter because there were events where a Japanese person was leading it and they weren't good enough at English to help all the other people. I was like, "Okay, I've set up a agreement that um you can pay me for future events — um you know to be an interpreter for these things. " Oh, that'd be really good. Never call me back. Never. These events are still going on. And then when I talk to like my friends like the semi manager of the building and he's like yeah like you need like something more to offer them. It's like what do you mean that's literally solving their issue and it's like you need to like have another skill and that would be really strong. I know this. I tried to train in programming at one point because that would be really strong in Japan. But like — it feels really like it make like bad for me like makes kind of angry when I hear it because it's like a random Japanese person who's just an office worker with no specialized skills would be considered like to have take taken a massive step up if they just knew a decent amount of English. How am I not at least that level? You know, if there's a situation where it's no skills plus a language, then surely I'm the same level as those impressive aspiring office workers. So, why would you even say this to me, right? That's how it feels. — Yeah, that's really hard. I mean, like I said, I haven't been through that process, but I know a lot of Japanese people really — So, it's all it's all stuff in the middle and some big companies. — So, you're already basically starting with a big disadvantage there. Oh, hold on. Is it

— what? — Oh, never mind. I guess it's fine. Yeah. — So, like — someone's offering to give you their wife in the comments there. Is she Japanese, though? — Is she Japanese? Yeah. Great. Cool. Lovely. — Why would you be for that, bro? We don't have an extra chair for you to watch. — But I'm curious about your Japanese. So, you must have gotten better at speaking after living here for a year. You know, you're interacting with Japanese people a lot. Like — yeah, it's I've gotten better in the sense that it flows better and I like I even if I notice myself make pro like make mistakes like I forgive myself. Even in interviews I had a lot of mistakes but fine if you want to start speaking Japanese. I should have brought alcohol first to make me more calm. But you want to start doing Japanese that's fine by me. — I mean I was planning that we'd speak a little Japanese. We don't have to do it yet because there's still more to talk about. But you when you said you thought you were the best like to date after your initial 18-month period. — Yeah. — Do you mean so is that including speaking? Is that or is that mostly on comprehension? Like what? — I think comprehension and saying things fluently like the actual speech like the ability for it to sound correct was off. But my ability to say things off the cuff Yeah. without having to think about it. — If you were going to have a text chat, you could have done that really well. Yeah. And I can still do text chat relatively well now because it allows you a degree of stopping and thinking. — Okay. — So, I'm way more verbose in text because when I talk to someone like one-on-one or if I like in the pressure of like even a net interview or it's with a webcam and stuff like I have so much extra vocabulary or even just correct answers that I'm looking for that slip my mind in the moment — and that's because I haven't done any hard training like recently. I just take it as it comes. Like I haven't done Anki in a few years now and it's the same reason that you didn't. But I think for me it was more of like I think it ruined my patterns because it really grounded me in making sure that I was you know covering the same ground that I was before. So in the future I thought like I'm going to get probably going to get back to my Ank deck just to drill it back into me. But I think the thing that I really valued highly when I first finished Ajat, if you can call it finishing, was just the moment to moment — like zap of lightning level of production. Like even speaking sounded bad, it was still — a correct, it was still the grammatically correct sentence and it was still exactly what I wanted to say. — Basically everything but pronunciation. — Everything but pronunciation was way better. Whereas now my pronunciation is better, — but my vocabulary is way lower and I have — a little less of the immediate response. Like for — for a standard sort of conversation, I can do a little like a fill in words and have an immediate response or like cut someone off to make a joke in a lot of ways, but like there's so many parts where I'm just like when I go back and think about the conversation later, I'm like, why didn't I say that word or oh, I confuse that word and this word and stuff like that. like I feel myself making more mistakes and part of that is just because I wasn't really talking to anyone before — and part of that is because — I just don't have the super drilled in like an repetition anymore. — Yeah. — So, it's way more just winging it. And were you thinking when you came here like let me just try living my life in Japan and see what happens or were you like let me I want to focus more on enjoying my life rather than trying to improve my Japanese right now. — At the time it was mostly a career thing like I wanted to make as many connections as possible to hopefully fall into something — because I thought that would be the same mindset of giving my all to something and letting the results come. Whereas if I allow myself to become anxious over the results, they actually come harder is what I was thinking. So I was when I first got here and I had like some money from again uh family members who had passed away. — Um like I was like I didn't have a budget. — I was just going to go out try and connect with as many people as possible and then let that lead into something. So it was a career thing. Um and I just let myself you know win or lose on the moment of communicating with people. Although I think that's probably a good thing to do when you first move here. I was the same way. Like when I first came here, I wasn't thinking about improving my Japanese. I was just let me finally enjoy what I spent so many years building up. — But it been so long that I didn't even like even during co it had been so long since I learned Japanese that Japan itself had stopped sort of feeling like a goal. — Like there was a time during CO where because I had to leave my job to, you know, protect my family from CO at the time. Um I gave I like was studying some programming. I had some projects. I was like this is going to be how I get myself into Japan by doing programming

and then like getting like applying for a job through that and just fell off because I realized that I was not being true to myself in it. Like I like programming conceptually and learning the basics. — Why didn't you do what people always say to do in programming which is just have a project you want to do? — Exactly. I tried to that's what I shifted to. That's what I allowed myself to do. actually read Okamoto's um like — Oh, I've always wanted to read that book. I always flip through it when I'm at a book store. — I have only read like a few chapters of it and like I was so tense of like focused on programming, sort of denying myself in a way that I hadn't really realized. You needed the more. — Yeah. Honestly, I just like cried a bit and then stopped doing what I was doing. And then I haven't even read the rest of that book, but like it's a really good book about um life being about there's easy choice and hard choices and easy choices won't necessarily like get you where you want to be — and like just take the hard away if it's the thing you actually believe. — And I was like, yes. So, I gave myself projects and ideas and I've even got some projects now like if it takes me a long time to find a Japanese per Japanese whilst I'm back in the UK. Um, whilst I'm waiting on applications and stuff, I am going to start programming again, but it's not going to be like web dev. It's personal stuff. Like I've got into mahong really recently as I've discussed — and like I wanted to make some like app with house rules and like mang apps are really popular now but I want to make just my own one where you could put any sort of house rules and different types of hands you want — and um you know it basically just be like GitHub mahjong player. So I thought that'd be a good project. Um so yeah I have ideas for projects and I want to be true to them but like I just didn't have the timing up to this point. it stopped being a focus and right now I'm very much a translator and uh part of that is also because of Matt's help from a random talk we had one day when I was um posting on Twitter about getting slight pitch accent and he contacted me and we had a back and forth as we occasionally do like our relationship is not like oh let's go hang out and stuff. It's more like he'll see me post one thing one day and then he'll send a message to me and then we'll talk for eight hours straight with no gap and be like, "Yeah, good talk. Good talk. " And then we won't talk to each other for like months. That's what happens. — Yeah. But you were doing that translation job for a while, right? — I did it for a bit of a year. Yeah. — Yeah. Like there was uh this Japanese company that was working with Japanese influencers that were trying to kind of break into the English market. And so they needed people to help them translate some of the Japanese content into English. And I was doing it for a little bit, but like it was just taking up too much time and I wanted to focus on my own content. But I felt bad just dropping them because like when I first met them, they were like lost in the dark. Like they were hiring Japanese people that had no command of English and having them translate into English and there was — it was comedy stuff as well. Like — yeah, it was like worse than Google Translate. I was like why are like I was like you need a native English speaker that also speaks Japanese. And they're like how am I going to find one of those? And I'm like, "Okay, let me I gotta know at least somebody. " Yeah. And then Yeah. I — He messaged me and like, "Have you ever been interested in being a translator? " And I remember my like exact response at the time was like, "I originally planned to do that as an extension of getting good at Japanese and doing jet program and like what I'd do afterwards. " Like I've mentioned in my original diary that like being a translator was kind of the goal, but I also said that um like I wouldn't be willing to go back to university for it. So, it's kind of the perfect opportunity to get some experience without going like, I'm going to go learn translation theory. And what I've learned of translation theory from seeing like actual translators post on Twitter is I don't really want to learn translation theory. It just seems to be a thing where translators use it as an excuse to explain to users why um why their choice in a translation can't be considered a mistake. And it's just like you don't need that if you actually understand the language. Like — there's no interpretation issue really. And yeah, these videos that I was churning out, I churned out like the uh script for a hundred of them within a year. — Yeah. And these are like short form videos, right? — Yeah. They were short form stuff. We're talking uh Tik Tok level and um but like one and a half minutes long at the most maybe. And yeah, but it's all comedy. So even if you're a really good translator that's Japanese, really good at English, it's always it's this theory of um you should always get a native speaker for the target language because even if you're really good at the target language, like a Japanese person that's really good at English or an English Japanese, the last sort of 10% is what really matters for a good translation to make it feel natural. And especially you're going to feel that in comedy because it's all about timing. And even though it's really fast content, — you've got to consider the timing and how it gets delivered. — And of course, we know the classic problems of like this sentence comes longer or shorter in one language or another. So, it was a lot of fun, creative things to do. So, I don't regret the experience, but I did end up leaving that company cuz I was just

like, it's one of those situations where I'm carrying this translation on my back now — and I'm not making — they're making a small company, but they had a lot of big clients and um — Yeah. — And when I've met them, I came to Japan and actually had dinner with some of them — and it and like they paid for my dinner. I felt like — like emasculated cuz I came prepared to pay for dinner. I asked you out and they paid for me and it's like and they're not offering me a job. It's like so if you found like a b and like — screw you then. — Oh yeah. When I very first I had totally forgot about this. When I very first came to Japan the guy who runs the company like took me out to do and like — Oh, for me it was uh the woman directly above me. She's the one I went out with. — Yeah. I mean he paid for my whole dinner and I was psyched. I was like lucky. — Right. I was the one contacting her to be like, you know, — like you offered to see when we've been in Japan like I'm in Japan, let's go and like and no like Yeah, they set a place and it was nice and just felt like — Yeah, I'm never going to get any work out of these people again. I don't really want it, I guess, cuz I'm the one that left. I'm the one. — Oh, so this was after you left. — Yeah, it was after they still met you. That's nice. — It's nice, but it feels like sort of that like it feels like meeting your ex and your ex being like, "Look at the cool clothes I'm wearing. Look how much free money I could. " And it's just like you guys did like at the start it was just translating a certain number of videos but my responsibilities increased like for lots of challenges that were really nice but and my pay increased but also they weren't willing to go over a certain hurdle. So that's what made me ultimately leave cuz I was like you guys don't understand if you don't like permanently hire me and move me to Japan I literally cannot pay rent on the amount you pay me. — Yeah. And what did they say about that? They just like it's not in our budget. It was kind of like one thing technically part-time as a freelancer. Like there's tons of days I didn't work but I can't plan for those because it's just whether or not they ask me to do stuff. — So I started um like itemizing things — in my seu short and it's like after a certain point it's like oh it's going over our agreements. It's like and I didn't want to just like eventually it was becoming like buri from my end and I didn't want to do that. It just felt bad. And it was my first time as a freelancer trying to figure out how much I'm willing to give to each one of these things. Yeah. — And I was like, I could either go back to the old thing where I just do the amount of videos I was origally doing for this amount. And it's my responsibility for not having other clients. It's not your fault that you can't pay for my whole life with just the money you're giving me. — But you require such a emergency level response for certain tasks that you would need to be able to fund like me working for you. So when it came to like please like I like from the start I actually was like I really like this company I like doing this is there any way I could do this like permanently and you hire me and they were like they've never hired a foreigner before so it's a tax situation you know they said that I was like oh so you'd be willing to work like 12 hours a day and I'm like I know you mean that in the sense of like being available 12 hours a day but my immediate response is 12 hours a day — that's that doesn't sound legal — for a visa could be worth it — it but I feel like I didn't sell them enough on And it just became a situation where, you know, when you get hired for a certain amount, it's way harder to convince them later that they should pay you more. — Yeah. Yeah. For sure. — So, I was like, I wanted to find another client and change, but I wish I gone like all in. — Yeah. — On that one company. — Yeah. And sounds like I should have cut down the amount, made it less emergency, and found more clients. That's my responsibility as a freelance at that point. — Couldn't find other clients, didn't know how to. Cut it off. Found a bad mood. talked to Matt. Matt was like, "Yeah, go to Japan. " Like, "Oh, yeah, sure. I'll do that. I'll go find clients in Japan. " And that didn't exactly work. Got close a few times going around to find people that need help with translation. — But also, I could have gone harder. Like, I've realized I talk to people better when I'm out in the world if I'm out with a friend — cuz it feels less onetoone grilly and it's more like a party. — Oh, yeah. Yeah, for sure. I've picked up way more line ads from going out with like a friend that was visiting Japan and just going to a place and drinking and then talking to the guy next to us. — Yeah. — Than I have going out 6 months by myself. — So part of it is just I still haven't become the social butterfly I wanted to even though I've made so much progress just by being here. — I mean it's hard to go and make friends from scratch. I mean most people can't do that. Even Japanese people. — It's true. But you kind of had the uh you have the gajun punch. — You can do it actually. I mean I've been pretty success. I mean I don't like to go out alone either. It feels kind of weird. I normally also go out with friends but going out with friends I've spontaneously made tons of friends while I'm out. — It's what I meant more like is doing a cold approach I think is easier as a foreigner because if you're a Japanese person there's this expectation of like why is this random guy approaching me? As a foreigner it's like — is this guy going to ask me directions? Maybe I'll help him. Oh no I don't speak English. What do I do? And then when you speak Japanese, they're like, "Oh, okay. We can just talk normally. Good. Thank goodness. Thank goodness. " — And so it's actually I think it's a sad story, but I think it's easier to socialize in Japan as a foreigner approaching Japanese people.

— I mean, I think it's easier to get your foot in the door, — but it's harder to turn that into like a real genuine — Yeah. rather than just like I'll learn some English. there's a lot of people willing to conver you know is harder but you can definitely do it and I've done it many times and made a lot of friends like that way — but — yeah don't uh don't worry too much about the comments over there — I'm not thinking about comments I'm thinking more about the time like if you want to still cover a lot of things we can keep going I have no time limit but — what are the main top other topics you want to talk I have the JPT in my mind is another one but — that's mainly it I think JP too. — Uh, yeah. I want to talk about that and then we can talk in Japanese a little bit. I'm sure everyone wants to hear. — Great. I speak Japanese. — I really should have drunk some alcohol before I got here. Makes it easier to speak. — The monster doesn't do it. — This monster like it gives me more energy, but like I think the core bit of it is just turning my brain off actually makes it way easier to speak Japanese. Have you found that? Cuz when you're in your head, you're like, "No, [ __ ] it. " when you're in I think it's something that I think learners will more relate to than maybe Matt, but like some you know there old vlogs like if you want to talk to Japanese people get drunk and then talk and then you won't care about how bad you are. That's true and it's not the same thing but it's more like I can access the instinctual part of my brain better if I can turn off my thinking part of it. — Well, that's actually interesting. Like I was just reading Steven Crashen's book. You want to hand me that book? Like I was reading this book. It's uh The Natural Approach by Stephven Crashen translated into Japanese. I'm like I want to start making more J videos in Japanese about language learning. So I've been reading this for like input and he was talking about how when he talks about the monitor hypothesis, how there's three different types of monitor users. There's monitor under users, monitor overusers, and monitor like teosa or something like what like you know people adjusting to the monitor — people who use the monitor the perfect amount. So I am naturally that category like I just use the monitor per so basically the monitor to like make it you know if anyone's not familiar is like when you know you're going to say something pops into your head and you can just say whatever popped into your head or you can use your kind of conscious mind to — to analyze it make sure there's no mistakes you know add make sure the grammar is right or whatever you can do that and so Stephen Crashian is saying some people — they never do that and they don't it's very hard for them to do that like but naturally Unless they put in a lot of effort, that just never happens. They just blurt out whatever comes to mind. — Then there's a lot of people, there's probably more people in this category. Sounds like you're kind of in this category where by default, you want to do it too much. You don't have enough faith in just what comes you're like can't help yourself to overanalyze and overthink it. And some people like me, I use it to the exact extent that I'm able to without it like interrupting me or slowing me down. So, as soon as like I don't have enough mental bandwidth, I don't do it. When I have mental bandwidth, I do it. So basically, I only use it when it's going to help me and I it never really hurts me. And for whatever reason, that's always came natural naturally to me. It seems like it doesn't come naturally to a lot of people, but I'm sure if you practice, you can build that as a skill. — Yeah. See, to me, the ideal state of the language is the first one. It's the one where you just you blur it out, right? That's what you're aiming for. And I find that when I have like the monitor on and I'm thinking about it, I actually worse. Not just because I'm thinking too hard, but because what I'm naturally feeling is actually more correct than the second guessing that comes. And the second guessing usually comes from things like — like some remaining of some consciousness of some grammar rule. And it's like that's not actually important to the phrase I'm saying. — Yeah. So that's also like a sign of old like you know Kokasho poison you know having the book and having the rule thing where you go like oh but it's supposed to work from this rule and like that's actually hold you back in some ways cuz if you let that like scratch the back of your brain then you like don't allow yourself the freedom of the thing you've actually learned and got used to. So I think it helps me speak from one the confidence and the relaxation of alcohol which you will do a lot here in Japan. I wasn't a drinker before I came to me too and now it's drink whenever you go outside and stuff like that. — Um so it makes it easier just to turn stuff off and not be able to access something better because you are just sort of in the zone. It works both on an anxiety level when you think about um being present is probably the best way to explain it. Like if you understand like sort of not to say therapy talk, but there are a lot of um channels now that are more focused on I don't know self-improvement in a way for like an anxious people. I've watched some English content on this lately actually and it's more like are you actually enjoying the moment or are you analyzing yourself enjoying the moment and it's kind of the same thing like of

that for the language. So if you are actually in the moment, you stop caring. You hit run as high and it doesn't matter. — But every time I have to like code switch from one language to another, like I even in interviews, uh sometimes when it's a bilingual person, like a foreigner doing the interview process for me and they're like, "Okay, let's try speaking some Japanese. " I'm like, "Could you start? " Cuz if I start by myself, it feels like I'm voice acting, you know? trying too hard. M — but if we hit the flow and we're talking and it's been a few minutes like — it's not a problem at all right it's just — cuz I know I have something to respond — but it's like a moment ago when you like you're showing me your keyboard and like your new typing system be like give me a phrase to say I'm like — uh I could like I could react to you talking to me. — Yeah. — But like just inventing something myself and just going on it in Japanese is — I feel like that used to happen to me more like over time you know it hasn't really been an issue. I still feel like if I'm going to have a social interaction with somebody, I might perform the best all in all if I've had like one or two drinks — because it helps with the social anxiety. Yeah. For the actual linguistic performance, I think it just hurts me — because, you know, it just makes you less sharp. But and so, you know, if I was going to film a video to the camera and it's just me, then I don't, you know, there's no reason I'm gonna do the best when I'm sober. But — because you can also edit it and like there's less embarrassment for it. — Yeah. Whereas if I'm going to go talk to somebody, then I might have like, you know, some nerves, right? Whereas if I have one or two drinks, I'm just like super confident. It helps with that overall. And one or two drinks doesn't help, you know, it doesn't hurt the language that much. I mean what I find is when I — I mean, it's not even one or two. It's literally like two sips of the first can. Like that's Yeah. — Well, then it's probably just a placebo. — It's maybe maybe. — Yeah. I mean, for me, like Yeah. I find that when I'm really drunk, I feel like I'm speaking like completely like like Hiroyuki like or I'm just like — I'm a god language. — I don't think I objectively am. — Right. If you record yourself back, you'd be like, "Oh, what? That's how I sound like? " — Yeah. — Oh, I'm Cuz I've had people tell me that like my technical accuracy, like my pitch accent accuracy like goes down when I'm really drunk. — That's understandable. — I don't notice it, you Is it isn't part of that just because like you do put some level of thought still in pitch accent when you speak and you're just not going to do that when you're drunk. Yeah, — I mean I do it I try to but I don't have the capacity to as much. — Although I will say that one thing like overall I don't think my Japanese has really gotten better but things have shifted and one of the things that has gotten better specifically is my intuition for pitch accent has gotten a lot better. Like I now I'm still kind of watching out for pitch when I speak, but it's less like I'm remembering the rule and more like I just know it's supposed to sound and when I make a mistake, I can hear that it sounded wrong less than I have the rule, so I know it must be wrong. — The thing that I've been really shifting to lately has been more like — mimicking what it sounds like to me to get the more accurate sound rather than trying to convince myself that I understand where the drops are, etc. M — because that way you can technically do it accurately but is harder to remember as an experience because once you sort of move away from that moment of hearing it like you can sort of recycle it in your head a little bit but again it's for me it still feels like a thing where you turn on the switch and you open up your capacity to hear it more. Yeah. Yeah, — like the day you contacted me a while ago when I was doing pitch accent was cuz I was watching a thing on Discord with a friend like streaming something and he's very cooperative for me. So he'll like find the Japanese dub just as a fun thing. So watching like Japanese dub of Ninja Turtles or something and like I was just stopping like — there's the drop, there's the drop again. I was like I didn't know cuz maybe it was cuz it was voice acting that it was so easy. But I also found that like sometimes when I'm tired and I'm about to go to bed like when you know if I'm a bit more irritable — that has helped me hear like pitch accent better in those hours just before I'm going to go to bed cuz I feel like I respond to the information more viscerally. — Well, I mean I feel like sometimes when your conscious mind becomes fatigued, you get a similar effect to the alcohol. sometimes you can get out of your way — and let your the more intuitive part of your brain do more of the work. — That that's also true. — Actually, I I've like read some uh research on this that there's it's been a couple weeks since I read it, so I won't I probably won't be able to like remember it accurately, but basically when they there's certain types of statistical learning, which is like basically unconscious pattern recognition, which actually goes up when they purposely fatigue the conscious mind. Oh, like when they show that um people are less likely to make mistakes reading if you make the font a hard font to read. — Oh, really? — Yeah. Like if you turn it into a cursive font, people make less mistakes reading because they convince themselves they need to pay more attention. — Well, that's almost the opposite. — I mean, it's almost the opposite, I guess. But I mean, it makes sense. I mean, there cuz there are different mechanisms, right? Like — because it is, but I mean like it's fatiguing you. It's like it's causing you to feel more fatigued because it's taking more energy. So, in that sense

it's also helping you not make mistakes. — Yeah. Well, I mean, I think the there's like, you know, different modes of attention, right? There's the kind of laser focused spotlight type of attention, which requires a lot of effort. — Yeah. — And then there's the broad kind of like your brain's just taking everything in and processing like a lot of it unconsciously. So, I feel like when you pay more attention, that helps that focus. Kind of when you're like, "Read this and don't make any mistakes. " It's probably that focus type. Whereas, when you're literally so fatigued that you're just like, "Okay, I can't think about anything. My brain's fried. " Sometimes actually more pattern recognition happens unconsciously cuz you're cuz when you're in that laser focus mode, your brain actually actively suppresses — your blinders. — Like, yeah, you in order to do better at whatever's in the spotlight, it actively suppresses the background. Like, what's that phrase basuma or something? — Uh, yeah. Uh, I know what you're talking about. Isn't that not Basha? Because that's Basha or something. You are literally the horse, but like it's — there's one of like having the horse blinders on. — Yeah, it's the horse blinders. Exactly. It's um so it's implying that you're rushing forward so hard that you're not picking up the details. You're missing — everything else. And it's often used for like well people who are literally working. — Um I think that reminds me — that phrases, but — you could probably look it up on your dictionary. I know, but — does it have colloquial phrases in them? — I mean, I'm sure it's in the dictionary, but you have to know what it start with, right? — I'm pretty sure it starts with B for Basha. — Uh, well, I mean, it'd probably be easier to look it up, — but anyway, like how's the You want to tell us about how the JPT went? So, you just took — you took N1? Yes, I took N1 after I wrote that rant on Twitter that no one read because it was in Japanese um about how I'm never going to take the N1 unless I'm forced basically at gunpoint by a company. No company has forced me, but like even you said to me ages ago where it was like you should probably take it just to get out the way cuz it would probably really help. And it kind of does opportunities for job opportunities because — if you've seen the job opportunities here, uh sometimes it's written in English, sometimes it's in Japanese, but they'll be like — um the required Japanese level must be native brackets JPTn1. And like every time I'm just like, lol, JPTn1 is treated as the native level line. Um, so I was just against it as I'm against a lot of tests as uh as you are as well. But I don't actually know if your reasons are the same as mine. But one of mine is of course there's as people will probably say to me, one of a pride issue, but the other parts are like um it's just like I don't want to focus on the test. legitimize feel like I need a test to prove something to myself because if you're good at the language, you wouldn't need the test to tell you. — Yeah. — Right. If you're someone that's like, "Oh, I hope I'm good at Japanese. I hope I've become need the test to tell me. " Then the test isn't for you. I don't think — like even though that's the biggest market of people trying to use it because it's such a standardized test, which is very unfortunate. — I can't find what the phrase is, but anyway. Uh, no. I I agree with you. Like the most people the reason why I have a big problem with it is because most people learning Japanese try to use the JBT as their curriculum. — Yeah. — They're the path they're going to follow from start to fluency or whatever. And it's a terrible curriculum. Like absolutely terrible. Like it's designed for, you know, if you want to be able to function in like a Japanese office and even then it doesn't do a good job of doing that. So there's people who their goal is to be able to speak conversational Japanese and they're like, "Okay, I finished the N5 words. It's time to learn the N4 words. It's like and yeah, and then just the idea of like I need a curriculum made by some god of Japanese that somehow has knowledge that can't be obtained elsewhere to like tell me what to learn. — Now you have permission to say you're good. — Yeah. — It's like if you can read and watch TV, fine. Like you don't need permission from I think it's just a basically a giant case of Stockholm syndrome from the school system. It's like everyone hated going to school, didn't learn anything, had a terrible time and was like finally I'm out of school. time to learn something on my own. Let me do it exactly what like exactly what I did in school. I need a curriculum. I need tests. I need — I need to view language as a subject in school and nothing else. — Yeah. It's like I mean it makes sense. It's all we've done. That's all we know. So it's our default goto. — I know so many people who even learning Japanese like in college like some people will ask me for help who my like acquaintances and I give them helpful tests and it was like a bit painful like for both of us because like it's like what's the answer to this one? be like, "It's this one. " Like, why? Cuz the right one. That's the only perspective I could give. That was how I was expecting to take the JPT. Like, it's a multiplechoice test. — Yeah. — I don't have to write anything. You don't have to speak. Just compreh you tick a box to say, is it A, B, C, or D. And like a lot of their homework was like that. And it was

that's how I was expected to do it because when I ages ago like tried a fan-made like JPT study app, I stopped like a few questions in because I like this like they've programmed this wrong. This question this answer is wrong. — And I realized that to me the ability to get the answer right because my learning is based on immersion isn't based on like memorizing rules where you have to in class prove your understanding by describing and demonstrating rules. It was just I know this one's right because it's the only one that's grammatically correct and the and they would ask you if this was a class environment. Well, why are the other ones wrong? It's like because those don't exist. — That's the only answer I could give. But that wouldn't be good enough for a class environment, but that's actually good enough for pretty much anyone, including a native. They go, "This one looks wrong. That's all the answer you really need. " So, there was a lot of that when it came to seeing people who just quit. just quit because unfortunately they saw even learning this new cool Japanese thing as a matter of Yeah. Turn up the air con please sweating into the back of your chair. Um they saw — I was going to say that is what it was. You basically had — Yeah, basically I remember there being something. It's probably that's probably the diction cuz I was like wait isn't it something specifically about the like blinders? But that must be in the It's just the yo part. It's just like someone like — Yeah. The thing is like the horse it says it in the dictionary when you look it up then it says like here it has it like — right but doesn't have the phrase in it. Oh, it says there right there. The example phrase is the right thing. — Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was it, guys. That was it. — That was it. And Yeah. So, I know tons of people that like, I want to get in Japanese, even as an adult. And they just go, I only want to get a passing grade on this Japanese class, so I can never look at it again because I hate it now. Because I've hated how I've interacted with Japanese. I associate it with all these awful tests where I feel like I don't understand the right answer, where I look at it and go, "We studied this months ago and yet I don't remember it. I don't know it. Why shouldn't I know it? " But like to me, I wrote like posts about that like about that mindset. It's like say you added someone online like because you met them like a couple months ago and you just didn't follow that up after any months and it's like why are they not still my friend? Why have they erased me from line? It's that for language. You can't go I've learned a thing once now I have it now it's mine. you know, you have to be like consistently like giving to it and like they just didn't sort of get that. You know, you go to a class, you study it and like they never went back to it and like how have I forgot this? How could I forget the understanding of this? — Yeah. I mean, luckily, I've been away from those people for a really long time because like, you know, I have my YouTube channel. I talk about — Yeah. — You know, how to do real language learning. So, I only deal with the people that come to me. Although when I first moved to Japan for the first year, I was going to a college where in Osaka where I had to take Japanese classes with other foreign exchange students. And so yeah, I was with those people. But — I mean the way I think about it is they don't really want to learn Japanese. That's just how I think about it. So like as soon as I like I used to think of them as they want to learn Japanese and they're doing it wrong and they're not going to reach their goal. That was really painful for me. So I was like I know how to — you can meet your goal. you need you need, but you're not — you get so invested in them so passively, — but then I switched the way I thought about it to like, oh, they don't really want to learn Japanese. They're just kind of — they want to learn a different thing that they've put in their head. — Yeah. I mean, I think like they want to feel good about the fact that they're telling themselves they're in the process of learning Japanese for the most part. — Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there are a lot of people I feel like especially that describes a lot of the community on say Twitter, right? You know, people constantly switch to a new language like the start is always more rewarding. There's always some sparkly other language to learn like the idea of being — polyg staring directly into the task. And that's also one of the reasons why I was super glad — that I didn't try to join a community until after I did a cuz I would have just gotten distracted like that. — Yeah. I feel like for a lot of those people like there's so like to be clear there are actual polygots. Yes. like you know Luca Lampereello and like amazing people that actually reach really high levels of fluency every single day to retain it. — Yeah. They're super strategic, super disciplined, super hardworking and there's other and then but then there's this whole like kind of larger like yeah like language learning community on Twitter where they basically are trying to learn like three languages at once, four languages at once. switch language every couple weeks and they most they do more talking about langu about their cute language learning to each other and

how cute their notebook is than like actually doing language learning and to be fair — that's totally fine like — like the way I think about that is like some people's hobbies playing a video game that's not very productive either like ultimately but they enjoy it brings them joy so that's great I feel like it's the same thing it's like if you know telling yourself that like learning some basic phrases in like four languages and then talking to other people doing the same thing and make writing like a really cute notebook that like has many different colors and like highlights on like how to say these phrases like the power it's — but it's not actually like I don't really consider that true language learning — it's like the cognitive dissonance of like well this when they say like this is just a hobby for me — but also they say that whilst having sort of like passively the entitlement of but I will get good — because everyone deserves the access of getting good and it's like but it's the same thing of like I can't give someone permission to get good. They actually have to do that. — Yeah. Well, I mean I have worked with some students before. I have like one particular person in mind who like was one of these people who like a serial language hopper as soon as they get, you know, the initial shiny new — as soon as they get to the air of like grinding plateau like start hopping to a new language and like they wanted to really be able to do something in the language, right? Like I mean they were one of these people that has just passion for language in general rather than one particular language. But you know I could tell like they wanted to be able to really go and connect with native speakers, read books in the language, like have a more meaningful connection, but they never got that far because of basically this not being able to stick with it long enough addiction of Twitter. — Yeah. And for those people it is kind of like unfortunate because they have more they wish that they could actually get farther in the languages than they really get. Those are the people that sort of worth helping. — Yeah. And I think that overall culture of being like no, it's okay to start a new language every other week. Like it's okay, you can come back to it later. Like you don't need to. Everyone has different goals. — It's kind of toxic positivity, isn't it? It's kind of the self-help toxic positivity is like you want someone to keep going rather than stop. But in that case, we've made it sort of a taboo to tell someone that they're doing anything wrong. And of course, we're like to them just a random other person in the universe. like we can't control them. But I feel like especially there's a point that I kept criticizing on say uh Twitter for language learners or maybe even Reddit where it's just like people don't realize it but they've passively without making a proper commitment to it made making friends and being in a community the goal of their language learning rather than the language learning. They haven't realized they've actually committed more to wanting to fit into the other people they see on social media rather than the language itself which also stops them from doing you know radical more niche ways of learning and it falls into you know reduction to the mean common lowest common denominator sort of situation. — Although yeah like to be fair for a lot of people their — like emotional need for connection and community is probably much greater than their need to learn the language. Yeah, — for those people honestly that might be like all in all a win for their life. — So again all the like again it can be hard to make friends. A lot of there's like a loneliness epidemic right and it's hard to just connect with somebody randomly over nothing when you have nothing in common. So sometimes — yeah connection is valuable just by itself. — So I think for a lot of these people language learning might be like a placeholder for just something they can connect. — It's like a book club you know it's the shared hobby which is fine. — Yeah. And that can be really — that has become the face of like any sort of language learning which isn't technically bad but it does get bad in a bigger sense when it creates the culture of like the — toxic positivity. — Yeah. If you really want to get good at a language, — then you need to make sure that you're not letting that style of thinking, which is actually prioritizing connection more, which again is great if that's what you're going for. But if you're serious about getting good at a language, then like a lot of the zeitgeist in that community is not going to be helpful to you, — right? — But anyway, was the JPT easier or what? — It was more challenging than I thought it would be. Like I had passed, right? — I think I' I've passed. Like I know I haven't got full marks. I think it's the kind of test where um since it was my first time doing it, I spent like half of my brain during the whole test just learning like the way that they are testing you — because it's specific enough. Like I feel like it's specific enough that you almost have to take it more than once if you want to expect a full mark, which isn't important. I just wanted it to get it out the way and never think about it again. — I mean, you never have to say what your score was, so it doesn't really matter, — right? But I'll post on Twitter when it comes up u because they'll get the result at like the end of um August uh online and there'll probably be like some sort of certificate thing in September I think is what they said. So I went into it like really prideful like I didn't do any specific studying for it. I didn't even go back on my to try and freshen up my wider vocabulary or anything. Um I didn't like go hard on

Japanese again just to try and do it. Um, my thoughts like I thought like it would be fun if we like recorded a fun video like a bit more of a vlog type video of like taking the piss before I did it and then have it like a before and after. But, you know, that couldn't happen. Um, so we just have this after bit. So, it's a bit less funny that I I'll be more humble about the jail beauty right now because it was harder than I thought it was going to be. But before it, I was like, if I don't get full marks, I'm gonna kick myself. And if I like don't pass it, I'm gonna cut open my stomach. You know, it was — We definitely passed it, right? — I can't imagine not passing it. — Yeah. — Like I could feel myself Japanese. — Yeah. I feel myself dropping points at each section. Uh but I feel like I have more respect for like how it divides learning. And um one thing that I thought was like actually a test of competence is since it's divided, let's get to cliff people that haven't taken the JLPT. It's a multiple choice quiz, multiple choice exam where you just scratch into like a tick in a box out of like four choices for every single question. So you don't have to do any writing. prove that you can write, which if there was, I'd be really bad at it. I hear the AEN uh does typing, which I would do fine. Um, and I think that has some speaking in it. But like this involves no speaking, no outputting whatsoever. It's just can you understand the input and it's divided into two sections. One which is reading comprehension and one which is um listening comprehension. And so there's a gap between these points because it's essentially different tests with different mark sheets. In the reading comprehension part, it's divided into vocab, grammar, and then actual hard like actual reading comprehension. And the vocab is the bit that's easiest to criticize as bonkers because I think because it's the highest level, they just try and cast the biggest net as possible to try and demonstrate like your ability cuz they don't expect you to get it all of the words right. But if they have a really wide net of like unrealistic words, it's more likely to actually test, okay, this guy's gone hard, I think is the point of it. But before I took this test, I went to like um a bookshop in Akihabara that happened to have a bunch of like promotions for JPT study books specifically for foreigners and they were in Japanese. Like they're actually like devoted to that and they're like English stuff, but like the ones I showed on Twitter like you can look back on it very recently in my history. Um, and it's stuff like flipped around the page for the vocab and you're like a bunch of like congo that start with like stuff like that and it's like okay these ones are useful. Half of them not useful. It's like is there okay I get that. I've watched enough anime for to show up in my life. — But then it's just stuff like — yeah I hear that. — I haven't I've never heard that. Like if I saw it in a sentence I'd be like I guess it means this. But like it that's what it felt like if like okay half of these are like I've seen these bit formal but half of I've seen them and the other one's just like I don't even know if I've seen this once or twice in my life sort of thing. — I feel like I'm going to know all of them if I would. — You might you might. But that's the thing. That's the first thing I criticized about it is like one they expect you to have this weirdly specific view of vocabulary that's oddly big — and two most people studying for this honestly don't have the real life like input experience of those words. — Yeah. So the only thing they're going off is the brief description in those books. So the idea of them memorizing from these books alone is insane. It's just too much. It's not helpful enough by itself. It's not — It like reminds me of the other day I saw a video on like just a real about it was like an American person showing some of the English that the Japanese middle schoolers learn. Yeah. — And like — a lot of the words I mean I had heard of them, but the guy it's like very rare, right? like there's no way a middle schooler a Japanese middle schooler needs to know the — I've actually been on a line recently I mean line of the thing I mean like on Twitter lately you might have seen me like criticizing Japanese learners of English actually because the way they use the TOIC is one they encourage really unhealthy study habits to kind of be like — yeah right like lacking sleep and stuff and it's just really yeah it's really unhealthy and two hustle culture of studying in Japan — and then like and then they show the vocabulary like that they're forced to learn the TOC and like no one's like used the word dampened in their [ __ ] like — I mean if you have to pass the TOIC for a job — then it makes sense like for example like I had a Japanese friend there for motivation to do that Japanese was like I don't really want to learn English but I know my shukatu is going to be a lot better if I know — but these people are like true believers like Kool-Aid drinkers Yeah, that's the TOIC vocab is just stuff you've just never used in your life as an English speaker — because it has cuz after a certain point

it's not useful stuff anymore. It has to be a massive wide net and that's exponential. — No, like I Yeah. I had a I have a Japanese friend who's like very good at English and he's went really hardcore and he's like memor he's like bought those books of rare words and he memorized them and he speaks super unnaturally because of it. Yeah. like there I wish I could remember more of what he said. But remember one time when I first sold my course he's like so is your course selling like hot cakes and I was like — forced like it works but it's a bit forced. — Yeah. There was worse ones too of like I we went to dinner and he was like so shall we go Dutch? — Wait. — I know. And I was like what does that even mean? He was like oh it means wadon. I was like — like no. — I was like that's not what I expect. — Yeah. I was like I like looked it up. I was like okay yeah technically that exists but it reminds me never heard that before. I watched I saw a random YouTube clip once of like someone analyzing the lyrics for like Yonzu's Lemon. You know that song Lemon? And it was just like and it was like this like rare like quite like flaming gay Japanese guy doing it and it was like oh I've looked up what lemon means in English like it means like dicky so like that sort of thing sticky tonight like said that sort of comment. I was like, and that's from a specifically like Britishism use of lemon — like but that's not from like oh like a thing used in casual conversation. That's when you look at someone after they've done something wrong and say you [ __ ] lemon, — right? That's not a romanticism. That's about being imperfect. That's — it's kind of like rad wimps. Like you know like rad wimps they if you look up like why what does that mean? Why do they why are they called that? They like think they like thought that there it was basically meaning like a cool loser or something. — I mean I guess — so. Yeah. But we wouldn't we don't really say rad. Oh that's rad, bro. We don't say oh what a wimp. We don't really say any of those, right? But they just probably looked up the Japanese and in like a you know random Japanese English dictionary and then that's what came up and they don't know if it's used or not. They just like okay this is what we're going with. — If it turns to JPT the actual vocab section is really small. It's like it was maybe like eight questions where it was just like what's the reading of this word and then there was sort of like half of it what's the correct word to insert into this thing and that was a bit better because it's more about unfortunately for test takers your ability to understand how natural a sentence sounds and what really goes in the middle there. So again that wasn't too much of a problem for me except unless it was like a awkwardly specific word. And then right after that you have the grammar section which is far more about well grammar points more like conjunctions was a big bit of it like where you put this in there and um and that if you just understand Japanese like the flow and how whether it sounds awkward or not that's really easy. Of course some of it is logic like you just can't — put a conjunctions like this from one half of a statement into the other half. And then the bit I really liked actually like it was a game like I was solving a cross word is there's a one where there's — four gaps missing in a sentence right after each other. — Yeah. — And the A B C D. — You put them in order and then you your answer is whatever one is this specific one with a star sign on it. — So you have to take all four of the phrases, put them in the right order in the sentence and then pick out where that means the one that's important has landed. and then enter that one as your answer. And I can imagine there were people were doing that like just scratching their heads. But — yeah, that's a bit of an IQ test in addition to like I bet there's some fun there are some like, you know, not super bright native speakers that would maybe get tripped up on that. Not because of a language thing, just — No, it's just a test sort of issue, right? There's always the classic example of like a native speaker is work worse than someone who specifically studied for the test in some ways. Yeah. And then after that the bulk of reading comprehension is literally you're given like paragraph like an article a few paragraphs long and certain parts of it you have to from a choice um say what this is arguing like what it's saying and this is actual IQ level IQ test level stuff you know um what does this thing actually suggest not just what you might assume from any other life details what does this actual passage message suggest and I think I did really well on that. But that was sort of the last bit of the reading comprehension thing. And the thing that most made me go, okay, JPT might be serious for a comp a competence test. I mean, other than the fact that like you are just unlikely to get these things right unless you're already good at Japanese. And unfortunately, the people most studying for this test will probably not be good at Japanese in the way that allows you to easily pass this test. You know, the thing that most shocked me was the time limit. — In the reading comprehension, it's not like the listening where you listen to the CD with everyone, so it has to go everyone at the same time and it's just one hour. In the reading comprehension, you're just sitting in silence solving your thing. And for some answers, I wasn't confident at the start, so I didn't enter anything. So, I was like

I'll come back to it later. So, I came back to it afterwards and went, okay, I'll do this for this reading. Not quite confident on that. those last part of those vocab things and I like vigorously checked all my answers cuz I'm really bad at accidentally ticking the wrong thing. — Checked all my answers then put it down and like I swear like a minute pass with and that's time up and I was like I feel I could sense the aura of sour faces around me from people that just would have not have finished the test. — Yeah, — that is possibly the biggest filter in that test. I don't know about other like levels of JPT, but if you cannot read Japanese as a day-to-day thing — where it's no hassle, — you probably just won't even finish the test in time. — And these paragraphs, they weren't complicated things. Like, even if they had one or two words you might not know, from context, you'd probably get through it. — Um, and it was like — like it's not complicated stuff. It's like the same thing as reading like a self-help book. like the speaker is talking directly to the reader, that sort of stuff and saying their beliefs about certain things and like — um what what's communication for? We all suffer at communication that that sort of talk and then you just put in the right answers. But honestly, the biggest controlling factor I think for that part of the JLP to test is just can you read at a normal level? Whereas I think conceptually what would be hardest for um a lot of learners in their own heads is a similar but different thing because actual reading comprehension part where you have to try and understand those paragraphs. — That is probably from a learner's perspective the hardest thing to do but I think for me it was the easiest thing to do because once you are that level — Yeah. that's just like data you pass mentally and you get through it. Whereas it's for me it's the vocab that becomes the random shot in the dark cuz there's any amount of extra words that statistically you're not going to use that they could just randomly insert there. So, it's much harder to get a full score on vocab than it is on the reading comprehension because the reading comprehension is everything is there. Like you just need to be able to read properly, understand people's intentions, that is far higher level for a learner, but for someone who can actually pass the JTN1 to a decent level, vocab is just the wild card. — I see. — So, it's not probably the opposite of what people sort of expect, I think, for difficulty. So yeah, I can imagine that JLPTN1 is very hard for a lot of like classroom learners especially because you don't have the level of experience required to make it look easy and that puts you into this doom cycle where you're like I need to study harder. — I need to go back and study harder and you're not going to get out of it. But I have more respect for JPT now because I could feel like okay this does require competence. The tragic part is that the competence needed for this part is likely not going to be earned by the kind of people that like really rely on this test to themselves. — And the listening part you like I've heard people say listening part's hard but I think that's you know as always people just not doing a lot of listening practice. — Yeah. — Some of it like for way easier like voice actor speaking clear voices. — Yeah. — Everything. The hardest part about it is honestly that there's just a time limit of you have to go to the next question immediately. You share the CD with everyone. There's no pausing or anything. But some of it was just like the A B C D was four different — answers you could already see on the page. — Like you don't have to like remember them at the end or anything even though it's listening. — And it was just a case of like which one of these statements is correct. Yeah. And so while you're listening, you can draw notes and say like it's a process of elimination for some of them. Other ones were some like something like someone says a phrase like wow it's really hot in here and then there's four voices that play and you just have to pick the one that's like makes sense. — Yeah. — And it's just like — it's like Yeah, it's like the Antarctic in here. It's like well that's obviously not the correct one cuz that's cold, you know? It's it was just like that. And then there are ones that are like a guy talks for like four paragraphs one-sidedly to you about one thing. It's like was he talking about the price of cars, the design of car? And it's just that I could understand how if you're not familiar with listening how it feels like you need to understand the conversation as a conversation, which is something that I probably take for granted at this point, but it's probably harder for listeners uh learners. — Yeah. because to them they might still be trying to just transfer the vocab and get through the vocab whereas you need to like step back from that like you need to understand it at such a natural level that you step back from it go like well the conversation was about this you know — and that's easier for me — because of my experience and also it's just like I don't even have to take in all the details at that point cuz I know cuz it's just what rough you're literally what is the gist of this conversation

— the most hardest part of the listening was the points where they do a long bit of talking between two people where they change their minds halfway through and they try and get you caught off at the end. And I really think that because of the end and like immediately stopping at the last question — cuz it's pencils down as soon as the time's up and you're doing with everyone else. That's what probably caused me to lose the most marks. Just the time the times where they're deliberately trying to trick you — cuz it's less about understanding and more about like staying on your feet. and they want you to write notes to try and help yourself remember. — And I can write notes while listening to Japanese. Like mostly fine. There's got to be people in there though that probably killing themselves doing that. — Which is probably where the like really difficult impression of the listening part comes from, I think. Cuz if they tell you to write notes while you're listening, god, people who aren't used to listening are going to struggle with that. — Yeah. I mean, overall, it sounds like if you want to pass the N1, the best strategy is to get good at Japanese rather than Yeah. take the test. — Who would have thought? Get good at Japanese. Yeah, — I think I could do a better score if I took it again, but I don't know if I want to go do that. — Why would you? Like, — right. As long as I pass, I'm fine. — You're literally becoming what you hate if you do that. Just to be like, I'm a perfect test. See, I got a perfect test. — If I let the pride get to me, like I just want to write it off. Like, I wanted to just like put it on my CV that says, "Yeah, full marks gel PCN1. Never ask me about this again cuz you doubt me. " Then you have to doubt the test. But like I think it tests competence, but again it's tragically in the way that like one no test could be perfect — but you also need to have done way more than the kind of like study that you would expect for this kind of test to actually pass it which is the massive black hole gap. — Although again like if you like there's people that have studied Japanese for less than a year like Korean and passed N1 and they don't speak almost any Japanese but again they're not getting full marks. They're probably barely passing. But the thing — like because you can miss a lot and still pass, right? — Technically, — ultimately it's not like TOIC where you get your exact score. It's like did you pass yes or no? It's a binary ultimately. So — do you not get your exact score? I think they tell you in — No, they tell you, but when you apply for a job or something, you don't say your score. You just say I — All right. Yeah, cuz it's — I passed. I mean, yeah, I think it yeah, it is pass fail, but yeah, you don't need to care about your score because yeah, if you have a high enough point, it is going to be a pass either way. So, it's fine. — Um, that is that yeah, that's true. But I I really did want to just like trounce it and I you know, like that's why it would have been funny to perform like record the before after cuz before would be me so cocky and me like should I drink before taking this test? Haha. And then the after is me going oh well you know it was like solving a fun crossword for two hours. — Yeah. You know, — speaking of which, have you uh have you ever done crosswords in Japanese? — I'm doing one right now, actually. — Here, hand me that orange book right there. — This one? — Yeah, I' I've been doing some — Oh, I just get the big ones um from the comini where you do the do it for like the prizes. — Oh, yeah. I've never seen Never seen. — It's just jug. — It's just to jugle. And so, it's been using it to repractice like drawing kanji cuz I — Oh, really? This one's all in katakana. I had ones that have some in Kagana but like because there's a certain rules that you like they have to you know make the rules. So the way it works is like anything that would be small like small two small yuyo is considered like big or small distinction. — Yeah those there was some of those in that and it's like it's kind of funny cuz I was writing them in hiragana like a — shak and that was yeah I've been doing a lot of those. I've been doing them. Actually, I did it at a party recently and there was some new people at the party. So, me it's kind of the awkward flex, but like they immediately go, "Oh, okay. You can you're good at Japanese. " Like even I know some people who just swear that they're bad at kanju, Japanese people that swear they're bad at kanju. And so sometimes I just know more [ __ ] than them because I focus so hard on it for so long. — And that's that was the time when people were saying to me like I was more Japanese than Japanese people. Like it's sort of I think it's supposed to be like sort of a sarcastic compliment like — Yeah. Obviously, they don't really mean that cuz I get that all the time, but — but it's like, yeah, you do well this kanji, right? Um — well, there are specific things that like — as a learner, you pick them up cuz like native speakers don't look things up in dictionaries very much. — True. — So, there's a lot of things where like — there's just no reinforcement there. — Yeah. Where like you there's a there are that exist. They're in the dictionary when you like when you look up a word, you'll see the word written in kanji, but in real life, you almost never see it — like or something, you know, like start — Yeah. I don't know how to add to the stuff. There's no — uh — but like no thing is I also have that problem like if I see it — I can read it but I can't like write it from memory. — Yeah me too. I'm not that good at that. — But it's for this it was like a person just like yeah I just don't like reading — like I don't read anything in Japanese as a Japanese person cuz I don't like kanju that sort of level. And there was there's a surprising number of those people. I also reminds me because in JPT actually one of the things that was bogus about the vocab was there was a

few words like in the passages they gave you they put like furig on and it was like sh I was like what the [ __ ] I'm expecting way harder words than this. Why did you randomly put furigo on like — Yeah, that's funny. But anyway, yeah, you want to speak some Japanese? — Yeah. Okay. Can you start me off then? — Yes. I don't want to like my username. I would trip over my username Japanese because I haven't decided where I even want the drop to be like on Gary. — I mean, if you're going to say Japanese Gary or just Gary? — I'm Ben. — Japanese Gaddy Bang probably. Wait, — Gaddy Bang? — Japanese. Well, I mean, you say it's from Gotti Bang, right? Right. — Yeah. So, should I should it be flat or — In that case, it would if it So, are you gonna have it be like gatti bang or gatty bang? — Yeah, I was going to drop it at the G actually — cuz then if it's gotty bang then it would be Japanese gatty bang, — right? — Yeah, that's what I was expecting. — Okay, I guess that — was going to be like gatti like bang — like No, it's I was going to say more like the You're right actually. Will I extend the resound or not? Screw it. There's no cannon answer, I guess. — Well, I'll just Now you're just GISan to me. No. — Whatever. Either way. Better than Getty sound. — Oh, yeah. That's — AB. Hold Soch. foreign. Yeah. Oh, ch. So, So water

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Fore machine. Japanese. Okay. Byebye. — Sweet. — Went bit better than I thought it would. — Oh, yeah.