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Japan · THINK BEFORE YOU SLEEP

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: One of the biggest lies that we have been telling
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: in Western media is that Japan does not have feminism.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: I think it's really funny when people say that feminism
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: doesn't exist in Japan because you are seeing it. I
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: am obviously a feminist myself. So I support Japanese feminists.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Nobody cares. I swear these activists are the most annoying
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: people on the planet. They constantly throw out the dumbest
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: takes while pretending to be intelligent.
• 0:20
  Speaker 3: But you also kind of advocate a lot for feminism
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: in Japan.
• 0:25
  Speaker 4: I think a lot of feminists in Japan are trying
• 0:27
  Speaker 4: to advocate for people to feel free to do what
• 0:30
  Speaker 4: they want. And not only that, but to also not
• 0:32
  Speaker 4: feel the pressure to become like a housewife or something
• 0:35
  Speaker 4: like that, which you can do if you want to.
• 0:38
  Speaker 4: But I think that you should have that choice and
• 0:39
  Speaker 4: be able to say, okay, Do I want to do
• 0:41
  Speaker 4: this or do I want to have my career.
• 0:43
  Speaker 5: Or do both?
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: Yes, that is the same person from the first video.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: She was using a face filter, which is never mind. Anyway,
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: her great solution to helping a country that's already in
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: an extreme birthing crisis is to take a population that's
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: known for working so many hours that they can't develop
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: a social life and encourage more of them to enter
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: the workforce. Well, then how do you fix the population crisis? Oh, right.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: We'll just fix that problem by destroying Japan's culture with
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: mass third world immigration.
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: You stress the importance of feminism having been around in
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: Japan for much longer than we have. Is this something
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: you regularly face in your comments as well? That, oh,
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: you're a foreigner coming to Japan. You bring Western ideals here.
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: It's not your place to speak about this. Definitely.
• 1:22
  Speaker 4: And I think people love to say like, oh, you're
• 1:25
  Speaker 4: a white woman. I'm like, yeah, but I'm talking about stuff.
• 1:27
  Speaker 4: I've researched this and it's all Japanese literature that I've
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: looked at whenever I talk about these things.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: No, you haven't. Which books? You certainly didn't read them
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: in Japanese because I've looked at your content and there
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: is no way that you know enough Japanese to read
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: college level material. She says in the podcast that she
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: only really studied Japanese for a year, which is nowhere
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: near enough time to get literate enough to read difficult books.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: She doesn't speak Japanese in any of her videos, which
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: is a red flag. And the subtitles that she writes
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: in videos like this on her YouTube channel are so
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: awkward that they were almost certainly written by AI. So
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: it looks like she uses AI for more than just
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: face filters.
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: But I'm hoping that the more I talk about these things,
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: the more that people will start to bring awareness. And
• 2:06
  Speaker 4: I'm really hoping that We'll start to see more Japanese
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: people and foreigners alike come together and think, OK, well,
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: clearly this is not the exact image of Japan I had.
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: And that's a good thing because it means that we
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: can see what we have to change.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: This is what I find to be most annoying. This
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: girl is from England. She has been living in Japan
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: for like five minutes. She doesn't speak the language. And
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: she's like, yeah, we have to change everything about this country.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: The story of America is shut up. This is the
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: most annoying type of person, and as for me, as
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: someone who has studied Japanese for years, if there are
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: any political thoughts in my mind about Japan, it's not
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: about how I can change all the things about their
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: society that I don't like, but it is instead about
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: how I can export the good things about Japan, like
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: their very low crime rates. Which brings us to modern
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: day Twitter, where Elon Musk just made it so that
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: posts by Japanese people auto-translate into English, and posts by
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: English people auto-translate into Japanese, and after about 20 minutes
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: of this, it started a cultural revolution that resulted in
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: this flag here. Japanese people found out how much Americans
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: liked them, and Americans found out how much cultural appreciation
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: of America that there is in Japan. So basically the
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: sentiment of this moment in history was both countries saying, wait,
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: you guys love steak, hate mass immigration? and have annoying
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: violent leftists in your country too? It's a little depressing
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: learning that Japan has these screaming idiots too, but also
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: seeing on Twitter that we both have the same trauma,
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: has been like cultural group therapy between the Japanese and Americans.
• 3:40
  Speaker 6: Japanese Twitter and American Twitter and English Twitter were kind
• 3:44
  Speaker 6: of all bonding over being incredibly racist and hating illegal
• 3:49
  Speaker 6: immigrants and migrants in general.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: So there was a very positive shaking of hands between
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: the Japanese and Americans. But the part that I think
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: is more relevant to this video is that this change
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: to how Twitter works revealed that a lot of political
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: tactics that are being used to degrade America are also
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: being used to degrade Japan. And ever since Nick Shirley
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: exposed that Somalian immigrants in Minnesota were scamming taxpayers out of,
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: what was it, hundreds of millions of dollars, we've also
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: started asking where else these scams are being run, because
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: if you think it's only happening in Minnesota, you're an idiot. Now,
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: we've been told that we need these people in America
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: due to labor shortages, but considering, you know, all of
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: the theft, and considering research like this that indicates that
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: people from these cultures marked in yellow, orange, and red
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: are a net negative on society, or at best, provide
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: little to no economic value, I think that excuse is bullshit.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: But look where else the labour shortage excuse is being used.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: The number of foreigners working in Japan hits an all-time high.
• 4:46
  Speaker 7: It's quite a cool thing to see. Much needed, given
• 4:50
  Speaker 7: the decline of population. The LDP, the ruling government over
• 4:53
  Speaker 7: the last decade, has been kind of sneakily Okay, so
• 4:59
  Speaker 7: you have a few less 7-11s in Japan until the
• 5:00
  Speaker 7: birth rates go back up.
• 5:02
  Speaker 8: It's not a major.
• 5:02
  Speaker 7: Sacrifice, just watch to the next corner and you'll find
• 5:05
  Speaker 7: another one. Supposedly these work visas are for stuff like
• 5:07
  Speaker 7: taking care of the elderly.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: But if you just walk around Tokyo for like 20 minutes,
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: you can see that many of the newcomers are not
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: working those types of jobs. Now, one especially nosy American
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: foreigner might say, hey, why not do some investigation to
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: see if you can create an effective plan of action
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: to get Japanese people to have more kids instead of
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: importing tons of people from China on work visas who
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: very often report that they hate Japanese people. If the
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: ruling party in Japan has to sneak immigrants into the country,
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: then that's probably because it's a policy that Japanese citizens
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: don't like. But doesn't this sound so similar to America,
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: where you have numerous different groups of third-worlders who reside
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: in our country, who wave the flags of their country
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: of origin as they say America is a horrible place?
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: Which brings us to this incredibly interesting video here from
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: Japan of some sort of protest or demonstration with signs
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: in English about racism, and if you slow it down,
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: you can see that it's full of liberal women who
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: clearly aren't Japanese.
• 6:17
  Speaker 9: According to their fashion and no-shame dancing middle of the street,
• 6:22
  Speaker 9: they're probably the Westerners. And then they're holding this. So
• 6:27
  Speaker 9: it's the I stand against racism. This is basically communist,
• 6:30
  Speaker 9: Japanese communist propaganda. I need to explain this. This is
• 6:33
  Speaker 9: just a kind of group of people who call racist everyone.
• 6:37
  Speaker 9: Everyone who against immigrations, everyone who against mass immigrations, everyone
• 6:41
  Speaker 9: talk about foreigners. They call you a racist. So they're
• 6:45
  Speaker 9: kind of super toxic in Japanese society, in my opinion.
• 6:49
  Speaker 9: And I really think it's rude. They move to Japan
• 6:52
  Speaker 9: because I think they don't love where they're from, and
• 6:55
  Speaker 9: they love Japan, and they move to Japan, right? Why
• 6:58
  Speaker 9: do they think Japan should change for them?
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: Again, as an American, I feel seen, I feel heard,
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: because we have annoying white liberal communists in our country too,
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: and we hate them.
• 7:09
  Speaker 10: I just think it's hilarious because... Who the fuck are
• 7:13
  Speaker 10: you to tell somebody else that they can't live here?
• 7:16
  Speaker 10: Because you were born here, obviously you never learned how
• 7:20
  Speaker 10: to check your privilege, and other people just want to
• 7:23
  Speaker 10: come here and live a prosperous life. Who the fuck
• 7:27
  Speaker 10: are you to tell somebody else, I'm better than you,
• 7:32
  Speaker 10: I deserve a nice life, you don't. Who the fuck
• 7:35
  Speaker 10: are you to say that?
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: Well, since you asked, I'm an American citizen, and as
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: an American citizen... I will say that it's not the
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: moral obligation of Americans to allow newcomers to live here.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: If they want nice lives, then they can fight to
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: fix their own countries. In fact, we don't have to
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: let any immigrants live here. As for Japan, they don't
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: have to let any of these communist immigrants live in
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: their country either. They can just kick them out. Why
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: would they take any of this shit from people who
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: aren't even Japanese?
• 8:00
  Speaker 9: Japan is not a communist country. We don't want communism
• 8:03
  Speaker 9: in Japan, okay? This Red Rose Group, anyone who is
• 8:07
  Speaker 9: against them, you are racist. And just remember, They were
• 8:10
  Speaker 9: professional of making racism out of nowhere.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: Anyone who knows anything about communism doesn't want it in
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: their country. So, much like in America, a lot of
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: Japanese people have been pretty vocal about how they don't
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: want tons of newcomers to flood into their country, and
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: the newcomers aren't exactly peaceful about that. Which brings us
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: to Yusuke Kawai, who's sort of a famous right-wing troll
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: in Japan. If you want to have an American equivalent,
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: maybe Alex Stein going to council meetings and doing stuff
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: like this would be a good comparison.
• 8:39
  Speaker 8: AOC, my favorite big booty Latina. I love you, AOC.
• 8:42
  Speaker 11: You're my favorite.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: Look at that booty on AOC. That's my favorite big
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: booty Latina.
• 8:48
  Speaker 6: I love it.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: My favorite, AOC.
• 8:50
  Speaker 8: Nice to meet you, AOC.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: Again, Yusuke is sort of a Japanese version of that.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: And so recently, he was just north of Tokyo in Saitama.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: protesting a Kurdish festival because there's been a lot of
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: friction between Japanese people and Muslims in recent years. And gee,
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: I can't imagine why. Could it be because Muslims routinely
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: try to force their values and Sharia law on the
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: people of the countries they immigrate to? Or could it
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: be the culture of violence that Muslim immigrants are known for? Oh,
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: so I see the Japanese have known about this stuff
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: for a while. Anyway, so at this Kurdish festival, someone
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: punched Yusuke. Obviously, I can't show the actual hit because
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: of YouTube, but it's pretty easy to find on Twitter. Now,
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: I'll be honest, Yusuke reacted to the hit a little dramatically,
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: kind of like he was auditioning to play professional basketball.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: But the overall point here is that there shouldn't have
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: been a person to strike him in the first place.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: And when it comes to America, we really should be
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: pushing for extreme penalties for political violence instead of the usual.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: catch-and-release policy that we have now. If we stop tolerating it,
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: it won't happen. Notice how people only block roads in
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: California and New York instead of places like Texas or
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: Florida where you're allowed to run them over. But because
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: these radicals know they can get away with being forceful
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: and being violent, they will keep getting in your face
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: and keep doing it.
• 10:17
  Speaker 12: Yes, you heard that correctly. I'm sure this has nothing
• 10:22
  Speaker 12: to do with woke Western liberals, but the term hate
• 10:28
  Speaker 12: speech is.
• 10:29
  Speaker 9: A part of the Japanese vocabulary.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: And this guy appears to want someone to be criminally
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: punished for saying Japanese people first, which is what is
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: written on his sash. This is another incident with Yusuke Kawai,
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: and I don't get why this guy is screaming in
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: his face. I don't even see what the problem is
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: with saying Japanese people first. Favoring your native population should
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: really be the policy of every government. It's not a
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: country's obligation to act as a charity for other countries.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: It's the job of immigrants to show that they are
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: of value to the people who are already there, or
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: they don't get to come. Otherwise, you just get a
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: bunch of flunkies shopping around for whatever country gives them
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: the most benefits.
• 11:14
  Speaker 9: Do babies born in Japan get citizenship? The simple answer
• 11:17
  Speaker 9: is no. It depends on the parent's nationality.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: But honestly, I've seen people ask, then what's the point
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: of giving birth in Japan?
• 11:25
  Speaker 9: It's more about the environment.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: Japan is safe, well-structured, clean.
• 11:29
  Speaker 13: And that's the.
• 11:30
  Speaker 9: Kind of environment that shapes a child's mindset.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: Another cultural export that America should take from Japan, birthright
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: citizenship to children born to non-citizens should be abolished. Outside
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: of that, I don't see how watching a video like
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: this wouldn't make someone who is a native of that
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: country extremely mad. Countries are a team, and the last
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: thing a country needs is a horde of societal leeches
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: who instead of talking about what value they're going to
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: bring to the group, They talk about how it's a
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: much better place to socialize their child than their home country,
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: or about all the benefits they get. This person is
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: not loyal to Japan, just like the people who do
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: that in America aren't loyal to America. They're just here
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: for the free shit.
• 12:17
  Speaker 7: I think that if this is part of the conservative
• 12:18
  Speaker 7: rebrand to attract the young, it's deeply, deeply embarrassing.
• 12:23
  Speaker 5: People don't want.
• 12:24
  Speaker 8: Why is it embarrassing to sing the national anthem?
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: And I think inviting people who are coming to your country,
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: not because they think it's a great place, but instead
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: because they want to receive welfare, is an extremely dangerous thing.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: As I said, based on this Netherlands study, people from
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: these countries are generally net negative contributors to society. They
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: either cost the country money or provide little to no
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: economic benefit, and in exchange, you get a bunch of
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: people who don't speak your language and are loyal to
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: other nations. Technically, this is assault. This is political violence.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: If it happened in America and it was my decision,
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: this chick would be on a plane back to China.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: Zero tolerance for political violence. I am so tired of
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: this shit, and it will only stop when these people
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: are brutally punished for it. If you don't think it's
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: that bad, then imagine if a man did this to
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: a woman. Now, there is some missing context here. I'm
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: not sure what the lady said that was so offensive
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: that she deserved to be grabbed, but everything she said
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: afterward was incredibly base. Basically, she's saying that it's not
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: a smart idea to flood Chinese people into Japan and
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: and allow them to naturalize because if you do that,
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: they will start outvoting Japanese people and destroy the culture. Gee,
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: isn't that yet again an incredibly similar problem to what
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: we see going on in America, as we have like
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: 10 different racial groups who are not assimilating and creating
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: their own insular communities and outvoting the native population in
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: certain areas? Right now, Texas is basically being invaded by India.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: This state is unrecognizable from the state that I moved
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: into several years ago, as it is very easy to
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: walk outside and be in an environment where 80-90% of
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: the people aren't speaking English. I feel like a foreigner
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: in my own country. And by the way, tons of
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: them have committed fraud to move here. Now, outside of
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: birthright citizenship, I'm not sure what the laws are around
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: this stuff in Japan, but as for America, the fact
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: that we let foreigners do stuff like hold political office
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: is insane. You should not be able to hold any
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: office if you were foreign-born, because that's what's been allowing
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: them to one by one create insular and non-assimilated communities
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: and take over entire cities and counties. This has been
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: destroying American values and culture. Only people who are born
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: in America to American citizens should be able to hold office. Now,
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: I'm all for exploring other cultures. I love seeing the
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: ideas of other people and how other countries operate. But
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: when it comes to political influence from foreigners, we should
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: be far more protective of American values. I believe that's
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: the same woman from before who was attacked by the
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: Chinese lady saying that it only takes five years to
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: become a Japanese citizen, just like in America, and you
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: don't even have to be able to speak Japanese that well.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: Though I think Japan is changing this law to 10 years,
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: and America should follow in their footsteps. so that it's
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: much harder for political cheaters to just import voters. But
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: this lady brings up interesting points that I want to
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: talk about here, which is why we need to be
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: careful about who we allow into the country, and we
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: should probably make it harder for foreigners to influence our politics.
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: I don't think becoming a citizen should be impossible for newcomers,
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: but it should be harder, because in addition to all
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: the other stuff I've said, unless they have immigrated from
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: a country that speaks the same language, an extremely uncomfortable
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: number of immigrants have a very low proficiency in in
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: the national language of the countries that they immigrate to,
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: which makes them super easy to manipulate. And what I've
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: found is that this is not just because of certain
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: cultures immigrating. It's actually a function of any unchecked immigration. Now,
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: I'm not saying that the culture doesn't matter. The culture
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: of the immigrant absolutely matters. However, immigrants in general tend
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: to engage in offending behavior unless standards are set.
• 16:04
  Speaker 11: According to a survey to foreign workers, about 70% can't
• 16:07
  Speaker 11: speak Japanese well. Among them, 30% hardly speak it, and
• 16:11
  Speaker 11: about 50% only manage a basic conversation.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: So I would love to think that these stats exclude
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: people who are in groups that I belong to. However,
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: it is quite common for Americans and other Westerners to
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: immigrate to Japan, reside there for many years, and speak
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: either very little or no Japanese. And to talk more
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: about that, allow me to direct your attention to a
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: YouTuber podcast that's filmed in Japan called Trash Taste.
• 16:34
  Speaker 8: Welcome to another episode of Trash Taste.
• 16:37
  Speaker 12: I'm joined once again by the boys, and we have
• 16:40
  Speaker 12: a returning guest.
• 16:43
  Speaker 8: Because you're back in Japan now.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I did show that clip for a specific reason.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: I was a fan of this podcast until I spent
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: multiple episodes glazing a famous pro-communist terrorist animal abuser named
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: Hasan Piker. That's a lot of qualifications. Anyway, as I said,
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: Trash Taste is a podcast in Japan featuring three hosts
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: named Joey, Connor, and Gart who talk about anime, food,
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: Japanese culture, and tell cute little personal stories about what
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: it's like to live in Japan.
• 17:08
  Speaker 5: I went to a public onsen in Nisiko. Nisiko is
• 17:11
  Speaker 5: a very famous ski resort in Hokkaido. It's also famous
• 17:16
  Speaker 5: for being a Japanese ski resort with zero Japanese people
• 17:19
  Speaker 5: in it. It is so goddamn expensive that no Japanese
• 17:23
  Speaker 5: people are there.
• 17:23
  Speaker 8: It's basically Australia.
• 17:25
  Speaker 5: I was at a bar in Niseki after skiing, and
• 17:27
  Speaker 5: I was lining up, and there was this Japanese guy,
• 17:29
  Speaker 5: and he was super talkative and genki.
• 17:31
  Speaker 8: I was joking.
• 17:31
  Speaker 5: I was like, hey, you're like the only Japanese guy
• 17:33
  Speaker 5: I've seen here. And he's like, oh, yes. I think
• 17:41
  Speaker 5: he realized in real time that his friends had all
• 17:44
  Speaker 5: been priced out or something. I don't know.
• 17:46
  Speaker 8: The first time he realized he's a minority in his
• 17:48
  Speaker 8: own country.
• 17:49
  Speaker 5: It was crazy. There's not a single Japanese person.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Huh.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: Japanese people are getting priced out of their own local
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: spots because of overtourism. Gee, I wonder whose fault that is.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: And for the people who are going to um actually
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: me because the tourists aren't all Westerners, note that these
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: guys also have their tourism content translated into other languages. Now,
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: as it relates to this video's topic, the reason that
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: I want to talk about this podcast is because two-thirds
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: of it, Connor and Gart, have been living in Japan, well,
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: we're getting closer and closer to seven years every day,
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: and they speak almost no Japanese, which really makes them
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: some of the biggest tourists in Japan. Not only that,
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: but this podcast relates to a bigger foreigner in Japan
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: YouTuber group filled with numerous people who also speak little
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: to no Japanese, like Abroad in Japan and Premiere 2,
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: who have both lived in Japan for over a decade
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: and are not fluent. And they aren't even close to
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: fluency either. By fluency, I mean that you can have
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: a non-routine, spontaneous conversation with an adult native speaker without
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: having the native speaker significantly dumb down their language so
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: that you can understand them. None of the people in
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: question in this video are anywhere near that good at Japanese.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: The only exception to the rule here is Joey, who
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: is a native speaker, so if you're wondering why I'm
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: not talking about him in the video, that's why. That
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: being said, I've been studying Japanese for a number of
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: years now, and I've really started improving a lot since
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: I began taking it seriously about a year and a
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: half ago. So at this point, I would like to
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: be as transparent as possible with how good I am
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: at the language, because recently, as I've gotten much better,
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: I've come to find out that a lot of people
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: on YouTube lie about their foreign language abilities.
• 19:21
  Speaker 7: Having spent, well, I don't know, 13 years in Japan,
• 19:24
  Speaker 7: it's important, I think, to protect Japan's cultural identity to
• 19:28
  Speaker 7: some degree, and people have to, if they're going to permanently.
• 19:32
  Speaker 8: live and build a.
• 19:33
  Speaker 7: Life in japan it makes sense that they should be
• 19:36
  Speaker 7: able to communicate in the language not necessarily to a
• 19:39
  Speaker 7: native degree i wouldn't be able to say i could
• 19:42
  Speaker 7: speak or communicate in japanese to a native level but
• 19:45
  Speaker 7: I'd say I'm fluent conversationally.
• 19:48
  Speaker 8: I can read and write and whatnot.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: Bro, I've seen numerous examples of your very limited Japanese.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: I've had native speakers review it, and there is no
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: way in hell that you are anywhere near conversationally fluent
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: in the way that most people envision. He's not literate either,
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: and he's spoken numerous times about not studying, this being
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: one of the examples.
• 20:07
  Speaker 8: It is the most Incredible thing, learning Japanese.
• 20:10
  Speaker 7: Probably my favorite thing about living in Japan full stop
• 20:14
  Speaker 7: is studying the language.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: Him saying that studying Japanese is one of his favorite
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: things is probably the most egregious lie that he's told
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: his fanbase about his language proficiency. Anyway, that was friend
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: of Trash Taste, Chris Broad, who owns the biggest foreigner
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: in Japan YouTube channel called Abroad in Japan. You might
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: recognize him as the guy from earlier who was promoting
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: third world immigration. I think his skill at Japanese is
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: B1 on the European scale based on the clips that
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: I've seen. He's probably around two years of study away
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: from the kind of fluency that he pretends to have.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: For those of you who don't know, the European language
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: scale is one of the most commonly accepted ways of
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: mapping people's language proficiency. If you look at the scale
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: on screen, I would say that my language ability in
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: Japanese is B2, which is what I would consider to
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: be basic fluency. This means I can talk about any
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: topic I desire, but I might lack specific words that
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: would make my life easier. So if I wanted to
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: talk about politics, I might say person on the left
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: or person on the right, instead of liberal or conservative.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: Politics is difficult because there are like seven different ways
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: to describe the left and the right. Now, based on
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: the prior definition that I gave, I do not consider
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: myself to be genuinely fluent in Japanese. I think most
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: regular people would say that when they think of someone
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: being fluent in a language, the description for C1 is
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: what they have in mind, with an emphasis on being
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: able to express yourself easily or fluently in spontaneous conversation.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: A spontaneous conversation is like a general conversation about a
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: random topic like video games or politics. or some school subject.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: A routine conversation would be like ordering food, casual greetings,
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: or a self-introduction. And for language learners, I caution you
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: because a lot of people on the internet will trick
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: viewers into thinking that they are fluent by showing routine
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: conversations that are very easy to learn within a couple
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: of weeks. That's how polyglot scams work.
• 21:57
  Speaker 13: My name is Language Simp, and I am a hyper
• 22:00
  Speaker 13: polyglot alpha male gigachad. Today, I'm going to be reading
• 22:03
  Speaker 13: from a script in a bunch of languages that I
• 22:06
  Speaker 13: don't know anything about in order to try to make
• 22:09
  Speaker 13: a lot of money off of YouTube ad revenue. I
• 22:11
  Speaker 13: just memorized these phrases from Google Translate this morning, but
• 22:15
  Speaker 13: I'm sure that dumb Americans are going to eat this
• 22:17
  Speaker 13: shit up like Big Macs from McDonald's.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: Outside of that, Japanese is a very standardized and popular language,
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: so I've mapped out what I need to go from
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: B2 to real fluency, which is C1, and I can
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: get there in maybe six months or so. I'm not
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: saying that to gloat, I'm saying that to point out
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: that any of the complicated translations for Japanese in this
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: video were checked over or done by a native speaker
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: or someone who has achieved mastery in the language. It
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: would be nice if some of the people that I'm
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: talking about in this video who film interviews and ask
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: questions that are way above their skill level in Japanese
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: were more transparent about that. But now that we've gotten
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: all the expository information out of the way, allow me
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: to just re-emphasize that it's not only illegal immigration that's
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: the problem. We should also be paying attention to the
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: behavior of legal immigrants, who are long-term residents as well,
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: especially when they don't offer the most fundamental courtesy as
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: a person who is an outsider, which is learning the
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: primary language of the country that they move to. We'll
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: start with the most embarrassing example, which comes from Garnt,
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: who also goes by Gigguk on YouTube. Now, to preface
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: this part, I was wasting time on Twitter debating Trash
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: Taste fans, saying that none of them speak Japanese except
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: for Joey, And this was a video recommendation given by
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: one of their fans, who assured me that Gart speaks Japanese.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: You've got to be kidding me. Why am I studying
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: so much if all I have to do is be
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: able to say, and everyone will think I'm fluent? That's
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: lesson one of Japanese, I could have just stopped there.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: If you don't know what means, it's kind of difficult
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: to translate without paragraphs of information, but basically it's something
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: that you say to be polite. Hajimemashite means nice to
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: meet you. That one's easy. So this is a video
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: about Garnt producing an anime, and he has a translator
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: carrying the weight for him the entire time. Note that
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: there are multiple moments in this documentary where Garnt speaks Thai,
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: so if he actually spoke Japanese, then he would almost
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: certainly be showing that off. Now, initially, this part was
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: going to be much longer to fully prove my point,
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: But after I saw this video, I cut all of
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: it because the video makes it apparent that Gart has
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: barely studied Japanese. I would have trouble saying that he's
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: achieved A1 on the European scale, which is beginner level.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: I mean, is it even anime if the creator doesn't
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: speak Japanese? Though as a former fan of Trash Taste,
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: this really shocked me. I was actually also pretty shocked
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: about how low Chris Broad's Japanese level was as a
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: former fan. I was a fan of a Broad in
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: Japan until he altered a video of a friend of
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: mine to make it look like she was laughing at
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: homeless people, which is defamation. But the reason the whole
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: language thing shocked me is because I've watched them talk
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: about learning Japanese and studying numerous times on the podcast,
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: so I thought they were staying current and trying their
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: best to become really good at the language, but it
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: turns out they hadn't really studied at all.
• 25:05
  Speaker 8: Are you going to Japanese school?
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: I am going to study.
• 25:08
  Speaker 5: I go once a week for like one hour. I'm
• 25:12
  Speaker 5: doing two hours, two hours.
• 25:13
  Speaker 12: It's my speaking skills. I don't have as much experience
• 25:17
  Speaker 12: actually outputting.
• 25:18
  Speaker 14: That's the big challenge for me.
• 25:19
  Speaker 12: Here's the problem, guys. I am an introvert when I
• 25:22
  Speaker 12: speak English.
• 25:23
  Speaker 6: Now.
• 25:24
  Speaker 12: Imagine being an introvert and not really speaking so much,
• 25:28
  Speaker 12: except you have to practice a language you're not so
• 25:30
  Speaker 12: familiar in. Bro, that's... That's... Trying to learn a new
• 25:34
  Speaker 12: language and trying output is so hard naturally.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: How do you have bad speaking skills when you live
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: in Japan? Go outside. I mean, you're rich. Just pay
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: for italki. He's totally lying here. He's not antisocial. He
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: doesn't talk to Japanese people because he's a beginner and
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: he can't speak the language. Based on this documentary, Garnt
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: literally only knows words that you hear in anime.
• 25:57
  Speaker 15: For those of you who don't know what a weeaboo is,
• 25:59
  Speaker 15: they try to learn Japanese through the anime they watch
• 26:01
  Speaker 15: and usually end up pronouncing it wrong and looking like
• 26:03
  Speaker 15: a complete idiot.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: I'm glad to see that after, uh, holy shit, 11 years,
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: that nothing has changed. But these guys don't have kids,
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: how are they so busy? I also work ridiculous hours
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: and I still find time to study. I mean, shit,
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: this guy learned Japanese, Garnt. You can hear him speaking
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: it in your documentary. Going back to the stats from
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: Nobisa's video, this is not only common, it's actually the
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: norm for Western foreigners to immigrate to Japan long-term and
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: either speak no Japanese or very little Japanese. Just for reference,
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: Connor and Garnt moved to Japan in November of 2019,
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: so they've been living there for six and a half years.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: Both of them are beginners and can barely speak an
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: entire sentence. For clarity, six and a half years is
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: more than enough time to get fluent without even that
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: strict of a study plan. Premiere 2 has been living
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: in Japan for like 14 years, I think, which is
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: more than enough time to be almost as good as
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: a native speaker. He's still a beginner who knows maybe
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: 10 words. Chris Broad, or a broad in Japan, has
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: been living there for 13 years. His Japanese is maybe
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: lower intermediate level. A real key piece of evidence that
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: they aren't even close to fluency is that you can't
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: find videos of them speaking Japanese for extended periods of time.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: you can't find them doing something like a 20-minute interview
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: where they only speak Japanese. Whereas when people are actually fluent,
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: it's super easy to find them speaking.
• 27:15
  Speaker 15: That's a Japanese pop singer from America named Nicholas Edwards,
• 27:17
  Speaker 15: who moved to Japan around the same time that Chris
• 27:20
  Speaker 15: Broad did, maybe a year or so before.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: And if you can't tell, Nick's Japanese is phenomenal. This
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: is probably the best I've ever heard from a non-native speaker.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: And unlike our experts in all things about Japan, like
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: Chris Broad or the two non-Japanese members of Trash Taste,
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: you can easily find Nick speaking for extended periods of time.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: You can find him saying complicated things, and unlike Chris
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: Broad and the Trash Taste flunkies, you can find him
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: pronouncing things correctly without an incredibly thick accent. The reason
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: that you can't find these other guys except Joey speaking
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: Japanese for a long period of time is because none
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: of them are anywhere near fluent, and the reason for
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: that is because they all live in foreigner bubbles. Now,
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: I've already showed this clip in a different video, but
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: I think it bears repeating to show the difference in
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: lifestyles between someone who cares to learn the language and
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: someone who is pretending to care to get viewership from
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: people who can't tell how bad his Japanese is. So
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: here's the only video in existence where you can find
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: Chris speaking Japanese for more than like two seconds, and
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: basically he just tells on himself the entire time. I
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: don't know why he said any of this shit if
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: he wants people thinking he's good.
• 28:33
  Speaker 15: Cosmo86 suggested speak only in Japanese.
• 28:38
  Speaker 14: So for the entire day. Can you do it, Chris?
• 28:40
  Speaker 8: No problem. I can do it.
• 28:43
  Speaker 7: But I do need a few coffees. I find in
• 28:46
  Speaker 7: the morning, which is now I'm crap at Japanese. It
• 28:48
  Speaker 7: just doesn't come out my head. So I haven't actually
• 28:51
  Speaker 7: spoken Japanese a long time.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: Good practice.
• 28:53
  Speaker 7: I really don't speak it as much as I should,
• 28:55
  Speaker 7: because a lot of my friends speak English rather well.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: That's the thing.
• 28:58
  Speaker 14: And they always want to practice English, so you feel
• 29:00
  Speaker 14: bad speaking Japanese with them.
• 29:02
  Speaker 7: It's going to be pretty tough, I think.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: You haven't spoken in a while? You live in Japan.
• 29:05
  Speaker 8: Go outside.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: If you're conversationally fluent, I'm not saying that you have
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: to speak every day, but how do you live in
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: Japan and go like a week without speaking Japanese? Also,
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: Chris surrounding himself with only people who speak English is
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: a key indicator that he doesn't give a shit about
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: learning the language. It says that Chris has no interest
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: in Japanese people at all. as someone who has chosen
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: to live in their country. And if you don't understand
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: how bad this is, then listen to the lifestyle of
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: someone who is actually good at the language.
• 29:31
  Speaker 15: I speak English, I mean, not even 1% of the time.
• 29:34
  Speaker 15: I don't work with anybody who speaks English natively. Japanese
• 29:40
  Speaker 15: people don't want to speak English with me because I
• 29:42
  Speaker 15: speak Japanese.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: Right, you're in Japan and you've been there for a while,
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: so why would you almost exclusively be speaking English? No
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: one found it weird when Chris said that? How does
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: your Japanese get rusty when you live in Japan? As
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: for Nick, who is actually good, note that he said
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: that Japanese people don't want to speak English to him. Personally,
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: I've noticed that if Japanese people are trying to speak
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: English to you, it's because they think you're bad at Japanese.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: It's their country and they want to speak their language.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: And if you don't see how offensive everything these long-term
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: tourists are saying is, then listen to this.
• 30:13
  Speaker 15: If you're spending 10 years in Japan and you're working
• 30:15
  Speaker 15: in Japan and your friends are Japanese, you don't want
• 30:19
  Speaker 15: to spend your whole life knowing that people are holding
• 30:21
  Speaker 15: back because they're worried that you might not understand or
• 30:27
  Speaker 15: you might not get a joke. or you might not
• 30:29
  Speaker 15: get this, or you might not get this reference or
• 30:30
  Speaker 15: that reference. That's not the best feeling. I live in
• 30:34
  Speaker 15: Japan and I know that my life is here, so
• 30:36
  Speaker 15: I want to make sure that I'm not having to
• 30:38
  Speaker 15: miss out on anything, I guess, just because I started
• 30:43
  Speaker 15: at a completely different place than everybody around me.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: I think that listening to Nick speak about his experience
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: in Japan, and then comparing that to the Trash Taste
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: friend group, just makes him look like complete assholes. Nothing
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: has pushed me more to learn Japanese than going to
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: the country and wanting to speak with the people who
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: are there. So when you go 6 to 14 years
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: and you can barely speak, it says to me that
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: you don't care about the native population of the country
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: that you're a resident in. Oh right, we haven't even
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: gone over Connor from Trash Taste. Connor is the master
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: of overstating how good he is at Japanese, and I
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: want to get into this for one because it gives
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: everyone an idea of the mindset of the people who
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: immigrate to a country and refuse to learn the language. Now,
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: if you're a tourist or a short-term resident, I don't
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: care if you don't speak the language, just respect the
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: natives and don't break the law. But when it comes
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: to long-term residents, especially when it comes to America, because
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: that's where I live, I really want to use this
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: to display how eager tons of immigrants are to take
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: the benefits of a country as they stay in their
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: own insular foreigner communities and make little to no effort
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: to assimilate into the culture they're benefiting from. I'm doing
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: this in the hopes that Americans will start getting a
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: little bit more upset when people reside in our country
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: for over a decade with zero language proficiency in English,
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: because things like that are bad for the US. Second,
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: I'm kind of tired of so many influencers lying about
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: their language abilities, and Chris Broad and Trash Taste lie
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: to their fans so frequently about their skill level at Japanese,
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: either directly or by omission, that basically all of their
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: fans think they're pros. And don't gaslight me on this,
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: I have wasted an embarrassing amount of time arguing with
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: their fans on Twitter. Let's just say it was research
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: so I can cope. But during one of these conversations,
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: a fan of Trash Taste who said I was a clown,
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: kindly provided me numerous links and assured me that Connor
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: definitely speaks Japanese. I gotta say, I've never seen a
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: more incriminating set of videos that makes Connor look bad. Now,
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: I'm going to note that the upcoming clips are from
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: different time periods, but I really don't see much of
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: a difference in Connor's Japanese between the older clips from
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: right when he moved, and the ones that are more recent.
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: So I'm showing this moment first to say that this
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: is the best clip of him that I watched. Let's
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: see how good Connor has gotten during his time in Japan.
• 32:43
  Speaker 5: Hi, I'm not complaining at all.
• 32:45
  Speaker 15: I can talk to them.
• 32:46
  Speaker 7: He's not showing his ass.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: Wow, Nihongo Jozu, so he can order food and say
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: how long he's been living in Japan. This is literally
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: one of the first few lessons in Japanese. You can
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: teach someone how to have this entire dialogue in one week.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: These are all extremely routine conversation points that he goes
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: through every day. Notice how the cashier immediately switches to
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: English when something out of the customer-cashier routine is asked.
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: And also notice as the conversation switches back to Japanese
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: and she asks him what he's streaming, instead of elaborating
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: on the question, he says yes and then moves the
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: conversation back to a routine dialogue tree that he can
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: easily understand by saying that he's been living in Japan
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: for four years. This is how I can tell he's
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: a beginner because when you start speaking, you can't say
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: what you want to say, so he has to continue
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: the conversation by saying what he can say. What I
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: mean by that is that it sounds unnatural if the
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: cashier says, Are you streaming stuff about Japan? And Connor says, Yeah,
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: I've been living in Japan for four years. That sounds weird.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: A more natural thing to say would be something like, Yeah,
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: I'm showing my friend around Tokyo. But his Japanese isn't
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: good enough to move away from the standard self-introduction dialogue tree,
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: which indicates that his language ability is not very good.
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: Nothing about this conversation is really spontaneous. Go to Japan
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: for like a week and you'll have this type of
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: conversation like 50 times. Anyway, now that I've shown his
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: best clip, let's travel back in time three years to
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: Connor after he'd been in Japan for a year so
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: we can hear him talk out of his ass about
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: how good he is.
• 34:23
  Speaker 5: How good is Connor's Japanese on a scale of 1
• 34:25
  Speaker 5: to 10? That depends what you consider 10. Is 10 fluent?
• 34:29
  Speaker 5: And 1 is 0? And I guess 5 is conversational?
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: I guess I would put myself at a 3, maybe? Like,
• 34:35
  Speaker 5: not quite good enough to hold conversations, but good enough
• 34:38
  Speaker 5: to get my point across.
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: Connor, you are nowhere near that good. I'm guessing he's
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: overconfident because he's done well with a couple of memorized
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: dialogue trees, but try having a conversation that's more than
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: two minutes, and I'm sure he would fail. I would
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: love to see if he could even complete a 30-minute
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: italki trial lesson without switching to English. Again, keep in
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: mind that this video was done multiple years before the
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: cookie livestream with the cashier, and if we're judging his
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: skill based on that video and conversational as a 5
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: out of 10, then he's a one, because all he
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: can do is routines.
• 35:08
  Speaker 5: Let's do it.
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: Let's do doodling.
• 35:10
  Speaker 8: Here we go.
• 35:10
  Speaker 5: Write this in Japanese. It's a good start. I like that. Oh,
• 35:15
  Speaker 5: it's wrong.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: Imagine you go on this big diatribe about how good
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: you are at speaking Japanese, and not only do you
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: misspell the word for good morning, which is one of
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: the first words that you learn, but also it's spelled
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: in Japanese for you right below the answer box.
• 35:28
  Speaker 11: A map?
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: What is map?
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: Another beginner word that Connor messes up, despite him telling
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: his audience that he essentially is more than halfway to
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: conversational fluency. The characters from MAP are something that you
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: learn when you study second grade kanji, so it's definitely
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: a very standard word that you would learn very early on.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: That being said, let's return to this clip. This is
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: basically no effort. You might as well just not study
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: at all. That's why he sucks in all these clips.
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: You'll never get fluent in Japanese with one lesson a week.
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: This is what I'm talking about when I say that
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: so many of these people want the benefits of living
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: in a foreign country without doing any of the work.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: You need at least one hour of study per day
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: to get fluent in Japanese because it's a hard language
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: for English speakers. For something easier, like a Spanish speaker
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: learning English, you probably can get away with 30 minutes
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: a day of active study, and the rest is going
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: outside and interacting with the natives. Anyway, let's fast forward
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: a few years.
• 36:25
  Speaker 5: But the worst part about speaking somewhat Japanese, I'll say,
• 36:30
  Speaker 5: the first parts of the conversation, I sound like I
• 36:32
  Speaker 5: know my shit. I sound like I know everything.
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: Connor, they can instantly tell that you're not that good
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: because you mispronounce words constantly, just like Chris does.
• 36:41
  Speaker 5: You'll go to a restaurant in Japan, right? You'll sit
• 36:43
  Speaker 5: down and there's like, there's always the questions they ask you.
• 36:46
  Speaker 5: You sit down in the restaurant and then she starts
• 36:49
  Speaker 5: talking like super fast. The waiter or he starts talking
• 36:51
  Speaker 5: super fast in your ear, right? I'm taking off guard,
• 36:53
  Speaker 5: so I'm not listening. So now I'm like losing, right?
• 36:56
  Speaker 5: And then she'll just be like, and then she'll just
• 36:59
  Speaker 5: say a word like, and then cut, right? So it's like,
• 37:04
  Speaker 5: I don't even know what you said. You could have
• 37:06
  Speaker 5: been talking for 30 seconds and all I heard is
• 37:08
  Speaker 5: the word allergy, and then you ended it.
• 37:11
  Speaker 8: In a question.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: It sounds dumb, but allergy in Japanese is pronounced arerugi.
• 37:15
  Speaker 5: Arerugi.
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: Arerugi. Connor is definitely nowhere near being able to watch
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: anime without subtitles. And note that when I bring this
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: stuff up, I'm not expecting them to have a perfect
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: Japanese accent. That's very difficult to do. What I am saying, though...
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: is that after years of living in Japan, they don't
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: even have a good understanding of the basic phonetics of
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: the language. And I mean, also, they make beginner mistakes
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: all the time that are very noticeable if you speak
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: the language at just an intermediate level. So imagine what Chris, Connor,
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: and Gart sound like to natives.
• 37:43
  Speaker 5: You know, when I did the IRL stream at Maylene's house,
• 37:45
  Speaker 5: on the way over there, the taxi driver spoke to
• 37:47
  Speaker 5: me the entire time. And the first 10 minutes of
• 37:51
  Speaker 5: the conversation were pretty chill. I understood like everything he
• 37:53
  Speaker 5: was asking me. He was just asking me about what
• 37:55
  Speaker 5: I do for work, what kind of foods I like,
• 37:57
  Speaker 5: you know, why am I in Japan? You know, he's
• 38:00
  Speaker 5: telling me about his life and stuff. And then he
• 38:02
  Speaker 5: started asking me stuff about my hobbies. And I started
• 38:07
  Speaker 5: trying to explain some things to him that was really
• 38:08
  Speaker 5: hard for me to explain. because my talking isn't as
• 38:11
  Speaker 5: good as my listening. And then he started telling me
• 38:13
  Speaker 5: about his life. And I've just started like finding it
• 38:16
  Speaker 5: so hard to keep track of what he was saying
• 38:18
  Speaker 5: because he was talking for so long. I was trying
• 38:20
  Speaker 5: to change the conversation to get to easier stuff so
• 38:23
  Speaker 5: that I didn't have a harder time following.
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: Connor, if you're listening, there is no way that you
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: were that good at Japanese at the time of this video.
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: When I first watched it, I nearly lost my shit
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: laughing when he started off with, yeah, so I don't
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: understand like 90% of what's being said to me at restaurants.
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: and then moved on to, yeah, so I had a
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: pretty good conversation in Japanese with my taxi driver. You've
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: got to be fucking kidding me. Anyone who has actually
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: taken Japanese seriously can tell that these guys are terrible
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: at it. Really how fluent someone is can be measured
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: by what degree they're able to have spontaneous conversations. And
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: Connor starts the video off by admitting that he can't
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: even understand the restaurant script that he has likely heard
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: 200 times by that point. Just to be clear, there
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: are two parts of this conversation. The part where Connor
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: says that things were easy, and that's because he was
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: answering basic self-introduction questions, this is the part that he
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: says that he handles well, and then the instant non-routine
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: questions are asked, he admits that his Japanese level is terrible.
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: So it looks like he's being honest here, he's not
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: trying to mislead people, and he's giving a genuine assessment
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: of his speaking ability. And what I'm saying is that
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: I don't even believe that he made it through the
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: easy 10 minutes of self-introduction without vast misunderstandings, speaking broken Japanese,
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: or switching to English. I have yet to see Connor
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: make it more than a few sentences without speaking English,
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: so there's no way that he made it 10 minutes.
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: And Chris Broad does this sort of thing as well
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: to look like he's being honest, where he'll say, well,
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't say I could communicate in Japanese on the
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: level of a native, but I'm pretty good. So it
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: looks like he's being humble here and saying that he's
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: bad at Japanese, but remember that Chris understands stuff like
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: media literacy, and he knows his audience will think he's
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: fluent in Japanese if he just says like one sentence,
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: which is why he never says more than that, because
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: then people who actually know Japanese would be able to
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: assess his ability and tell everyone that he's bad. So
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: he's trying to look humble in this moment, but what
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: his audience actually hears is, Meanwhile, he can't even read
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: children's books. Both Connor and Garnt do this same misrepresentation
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: as well. Respect to Premiere 2, though. At least he
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: doesn't pretend he's good. Speaking of Connor, at the time
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: of this video, he had been living in Japan for
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: three years. If he had studied just one hour a day,
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: he would likely be close to fluency if he combined
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: that with talking to natives in his local environment. This
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: is not that hard. You can study on the train
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: or draw kanji on your phone for a few minutes
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: while you're at the bar. Stream one less hour a day.
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: It's not like you need the money, just like Gart,
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: you're rich. I mean, you guys host a podcast about
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: Japanese culture while you live in Japan. Is it that
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: much to ask that you spend a little time studying?
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: I know that some of these clips are old, but
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: like I said, Connor isn't any better in the new ones.
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: He's been living in Japan for over six years, and
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: his Japanese ability is maybe A2, which is pretty easily
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: achievable in about six months of studying. Let me be clear, though.
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: I know that Connor talks down about his ability in
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: Japanese a lot, but even in his down-talking, he is
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: still saying he is vastly better than he actually is.
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: I genuinely think he would struggle to hold like a
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: five-minute conversation in full Japanese. Literally every clip I've seen
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: of him, Japanese people are constantly trying to switch to English,
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: or he is switching to English.
• 41:25
  Speaker 5: Like, that was actually the most frustrating, is that I
• 41:27
  Speaker 5: had to knock out.
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: I have a mitotech.
• 41:31
  Speaker 5: Me today?
• 41:33
  Speaker 8: I'm okay. That's an American joke.
• 41:35
  Speaker 5: Oh, Andy Warhol?
• 41:37
  Speaker 11: I know.
• 41:38
  Speaker 13: You know Andy Warhol?
• 41:39
  Speaker 7: Yes.
• 41:40
  Speaker 8: This is a Uniqlo.
• 41:41
  Speaker 7: Doraemon?
• 41:42
  Speaker 8: Do you like him? I like him.
• 41:44
  Speaker 5: Everyone in Japan likes Doraemon. Who's this guy?
• 41:47
  Speaker 11: Giant.
• 41:48
  Speaker 8: Oh, his name's Giant? His name's like Giant?
• 41:50
  Speaker 5: He's actually Giant.
• 41:51
  Speaker 11: Okay.
• 41:51
  Speaker 5: Actually Giant.
• 41:52
  Speaker 6: I see.
• 41:53
  Speaker 9: Does every Japanese person know Doraemon?
• 41:56
  Speaker 14: Yes.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: Everybody.
• 41:57
  Speaker 5: Everyone knows Doraemon.
• 41:58
  Speaker 8: Everyone knows Doraemon. 100%.
• 42:00
  Speaker 5: Your English is good. Yeah, you're very good.
• 42:02
  Speaker 14: Your English is good.
• 42:03
  Speaker 13: You tricked us.
• 42:05
  Speaker 5: You're very good.
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: Can I make an order?
• 42:08
  Speaker 11: Yes.
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: I think he wants to try the coffee beer.
• 42:15
  Speaker 16: I'm still working on my yuzu beer.
• 42:17
  Speaker 13: No, no, no, I'm still.
• 42:18
  Speaker 8: Sorry, sorry.
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: It's okay.
• 42:19
  Speaker 5: It's culture. Connor yet again makes a very basic mistake
• 42:23
  Speaker 5: at the end.
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: In Japanese, he said, we will stream now, instead of,
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: we are streaming now. You can actually tell his grammar
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: level based on this conversation, because the more Japanese way
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: of saying this is, which means, we're in the middle
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: of a stream right now. The to part is on
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: the JLPT N3 list, and the JLPT N3 list is
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: the intermediate grammar. So I don't think he's gotten there,
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: because that's one of the easiest and most commonly used
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: grammar on that list. But the real key detail that
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: Connor is still a complete beginner at Japanese, five years
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: into his stay there, is that the easy way of
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: saying this is to use the present progressive tense, which
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: in English is the ING form. So stream is the
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: present tense, streaming is the present progressive tense, which in
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: Japanese would sound like, ima haishin shiteimasu, or we are
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: streaming now. This is beginner grammar, and yet again, one
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: of the first things that you learn. Trust me, even
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: though it sounds like I'm getting really into the weeds here,
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: I'm not doing justice at all when it comes to
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: how many mistakes Connor makes that indicate that he is
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: a beginner who has not really put any serious work
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: into studying. We're only going over the basics here. I
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: don't want to bore you guys with eight hours of
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: explanations going over every example I have, but it's suffice
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: to say that I wouldn't be calling out multiple channels
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: with millions of followers each if I wasn't very sure
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: that their Japanese proficiency is not only super low for
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: the amount of time that they have been living in Japan,
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: but also they are all blatantly misrepresenting how good they are.
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: To put it simply, Connor's skill at Japanese reminds me
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: of that family guy scene with the Mexican guy.
• 43:54
  Speaker 8: Me amo es Brian.
• 43:55
  Speaker 5: That was pretty good. But actually, when you said me
• 43:57
  Speaker 5: amo es Brian, you don't need the ace. Just me
• 44:00
  Speaker 5: amo Brian. Oh, you speak English.
• 44:02
  Speaker 14: No, just that first speech and this one explaining it.
• 44:05
  Speaker 5: You're kidding, right?
• 44:07
  Speaker 13: Que?
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: This is what I mean. The second you go out
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: of some routine that he's memorized, he can't speak. If
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: that's happening to you five or six years into your stay,
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: it's because you aren't studying. Actually, I'll give one more
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: example so that people who don't understand Japanese can see
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: how laughable it is when you hear stuff like this.
• 44:23
  Speaker 8: I'd say I'm, like, fluent conversationally.
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: So when you hear them talk about how good they are,
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: understand that to Japanese people, all of them sound a
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: lot like this.
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: Now, I am living in my father's company residence with
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: my family.
• 44:41
  Speaker 8: But we have.
• 44:42
  Speaker 14: To leave it soon for his business reasons.
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: It's actually more pathetic than that because there are far
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: fewer basic sounds for English speakers to memorize when they're
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: trying to learn Japanese versus the other way around. And remember,
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: quite a number of these examples that I used were
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: given to me by Trash Taste fans trying to prove
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: that people such as Connor are definitely good at Japanese. Meanwhile,
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: in that clip with Connor and Premiere 2, neither of
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: them can speak more than a few words without switching
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: to English, and the waitress also is constantly switching to
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: English whenever she can. She's probably doing that because she
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: thinks they're tourists. Like I said earlier, Japanese people don't
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: do that when you're good.
• 45:19
  Speaker 15: I love speaking English now because I never get an
• 45:22
  Speaker 15: opportunity to. And I think that in the position that
• 45:25
  Speaker 15: I'm in right now, if the other person doesn't speak
• 45:30
  Speaker 15: English natively, then Japanese people don't want to speak English
• 45:32
  Speaker 15: with me because I speak Japanese.
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: By the way, just for comparison, this guy Nicholas Edwards
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: became conversationally fluent in Japanese enough to work with a
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: Japanese talent agency. With just a little bit of time
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: of living in Japan and four years of study outside
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: of the country, it's not out of the question to
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: expect these guys to be vastly better at Japanese than
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: they are. They shouldn't be beginners after six years, especially
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: considering that their brand is, hey, we're the guys who
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: know about Japan. And like I said, this is not
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: a special case scenario. It's probably the norm for immigrants.
• 46:02
  Speaker 14: I would say like 50% really don't speak Japanese like
• 46:05
  Speaker 14: at all. Like, I mean, obviously everybody speaks, you know,
• 46:08
  Speaker 14: a couple sentences or whatever, like maybe very basic daily conversation,
• 46:12
  Speaker 14: but in terms of like, oh yeah, you can speak Japanese.
• 46:15
  Speaker 14: I don't know, man, less than 50%. When I first
• 46:17
  Speaker 14: got here, I was like, oh my gosh, like this
• 46:20
  Speaker 14: is just the norm. Like everybody comes here and they
• 46:22
  Speaker 14: just completely assimilate and they learn the language so well
• 46:24
  Speaker 14: and they become fluent in the language.
• 46:25
  Speaker 5: Wow.
• 46:26
  Speaker 14: I remember having this incredible respect for all the foreigners
• 46:30
  Speaker 14: who live here. Cause I just assumed like I'd Assume
• 46:32
  Speaker 14: that's what you do. You move here and you integrate
• 46:34
  Speaker 14: into the culture and you become fluent in the language
• 46:36
  Speaker 14: and that's that. I didn't realize how much of a
• 46:40
  Speaker 14: bubble these people were living in and also how much
• 46:43
  Speaker 14: these people want to suck their own and not just
• 46:45
  Speaker 14: tell me, yeah, dude, I'm not fluent in Japanese at all.
• 46:48
  Speaker 8: I'm not even close.
• 46:50
  Speaker 14: It just sounds like I'm good because you don't know anything.
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. James released this as I was finishing recording Connor's
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: section of this video. What a crazy YouTube refresh pool,
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: considering that James is actually good at Japanese, so his
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: opinion matters. I wonder if we're talking about some of
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: the same people. For clarity, I don't know James outside
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: of watching some of his videos, and because of that
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: viral event with the engineer. So we haven't talked about
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: this personally, which is why I'm so glad that he
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: is saying this same shit I am, because now I
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: know I'm not crazy for pointing this stuff out on Twitter.
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: And it also suggests that what I'm saying is obvious
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: to people who actually try.
• 47:23
  Speaker 14: Every single time I get on the train, I get
• 47:24
  Speaker 14: on transportation, I pull out my Anki cards, and I study.
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: Right? This is how you can tell he knows what
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: he's talking about because during every bit of downtime, he's
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: pulling out his phone and studying.
• 47:33
  Speaker 14: It's about respect and it's about your duty to the
• 47:36
  Speaker 14: country that's allowing you to live here. So, you know,
• 47:39
  Speaker 14: forget if it's hard or whatever. It doesn't really matter.
• 47:42
  Speaker 8: You have to learn Japanese if you're living in Japan.
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: I think you guys get the point. As for the
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: Trash Taste crew, I'll link all the video examples I
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: have of everyone speaking in the description so that people
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: who speak Japanese can make their own judgments. And just
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: for more clarity, this whole conversation would be very different
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: if you could see these guys actually improving at Japanese
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: over time. For example, if someone comes to America and
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: their English isn't that great, but you can see their
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: English consistently improving, I'm not going to criticize or make
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: fun of that. But if I can look at a
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: video of you from three years ago and then look
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: at something more recent, and I'm wondering if you actually
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: got worse at the language, That's where I have a problem. Now,
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: getting back to the immigration part, I'm bringing all this
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: up because people really misunderstand the importance of language proficiency
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: when it comes to political and cultural issues. How can
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: you say you understand someone's culture when you don't speak
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: the language? And how do people like this have the
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: audacity to start telling Japanese natives what to do when
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: they have to say it in English? Going back to
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: abroad in Japan, I've already showed this clip in a
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: prior video, but it was so fucking ridiculous for Chris
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: to say it when he's not fluent in Japanese that
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: I'm going to show it again.
• 48:46
  Speaker 7: People write off my opinions because I'm not born in Japan.
• 48:49
  Speaker 11: I'm not Japanese.
• 48:51
  Speaker 7: And at what point do I become a local? At
• 48:53
  Speaker 7: what point does my opinion matter something? I saw people
• 48:56
  Speaker 7: react being like, I think it's important we've got the
• 48:58
  Speaker 7: locals' opinions on this. I am inherently a local. And
• 49:02
  Speaker 7: I lived in Meguro for three years or so. But
• 49:06
  Speaker 7: at what point do you become a local?
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: Really, the answer is never.
• 49:10
  Speaker 5: You can never move beyond being a foreigner.
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: Chris you don't really speak Japanese you don't have a
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: Japanese spouse you don't have Japanese kids you aren't a
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: citizen you don't have anywhere near the investment in the
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: country of an actual Japanese native. So why should people
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: give you the respect and the status of someone who
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: has all those things? If Chris called himself a local
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: in America and didn't learn English after 13 years, I
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: would just laugh and tell him to get the hell
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: out of my country. I don't care if Chris says
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: he's lived in Japan for a while. He hasn't paid
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: his dues, not even on a basic level. And what
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: I mean by that is that if you can't speak Japanese,
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: then let me say it this way. Garn can barely
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: speak at all, Connor's conversational ability in Japanese is maybe
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: at the level of a four-year-old, and Chris is at
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: the level of maybe a seven-year-old. If you start having
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: adult-level conversations with these people, they won't understand shit, and
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: I'm not just making this up. Chris confirms that he
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: can't have conversations with adult native speakers in this video here.
• 50:02
  Speaker 7: He's like, Chris-san, how many years have you lived in Japan?
• 50:06
  Speaker 8: And I was like, shit.
• 50:08
  Speaker 7: I can't lie to Ken Watanabe. Oh, but then if
• 50:10
  Speaker 7: I say 10 years, maybe he'll assume I'm very good
• 50:14
  Speaker 7: and all of our interview will be in Japanese.
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: Oh no, how terrible would it be to speak to
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: a Japanese person in Japanese while you're in Japan? You
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: can't have that going on in like any of your videos.
• 50:24
  Speaker 7: Fast forward to the next evening and we've just wrapped
• 50:27
  Speaker 7: our first day of shooting. It's gone pretty well. And
• 50:29
  Speaker 7: for the most part, Ken and I speak in English.
• 50:31
  Speaker 7: But when he's answering heavy hitting interview questions, he does
• 50:34
  Speaker 7: gravitate towards Japanese so he can express himself fully. But
• 50:38
  Speaker 7: we're sitting at a restaurant and having a dinner with
• 50:40
  Speaker 7: all the movers and shakers of Kesa-Numa town. And one
• 50:43
  Speaker 7: of the main people I got speaking to was the
• 50:45
  Speaker 7: owner of the local sake brewery, a really nice guy
• 50:47
  Speaker 7: called Sugawara-san. But Sugawara-san spoke good English and he came over.
• 50:52
  Speaker 7: And after a minute or so, he was inevitably like, oh,
• 50:54
  Speaker 7: so Chris-san, how many years have you been living here
• 50:58
  Speaker 7: in Japan? But before I could deliver my answer, from
• 51:01
  Speaker 7: the other side of the room, I heard the deep, booming,
• 51:04
  Speaker 7: terrifying voice of Ken Watanabe.
• 51:07
  Speaker 8: Say, 10.
• 51:11
  Speaker 11: Years.
• 51:12
  Speaker 8: He's lived here 10 years. It's okay.
• 51:14
  Speaker 7: You can speak Japanese. And I look over and he
• 51:17
  Speaker 7: gives me a knowing look. A look that I'd seen
• 51:20
  Speaker 7: in The Last Samurai when he chopped off that guy's head.
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: This guy's like, but when am I a local? Come on, bro.
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: I'm inherently a local. Meanwhile, three years ago, he tells
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: a story about how local Japanese people were pissed off
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: that he had been living there for 10 years. and
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: could not carry a conversation with other adults without speaking English. Also,
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: if you think his Japanese is any better than it
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: was three years ago, just because he said he was
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: going to start studying again that one time, then allow
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: me to point out that he's made numerous videos saying
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: that he's going to lose weight, and he hasn't lost
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: the weight.
• 51:50
  Speaker 7: I think the moral is, don't give up learning Japanese
• 51:52
  Speaker 7: like I did. Honestly, that might be one of the
• 51:54
  Speaker 7: few regrets I've had in all my time living here.
• 51:57
  Speaker 7: I should have carried on, even if it was in
• 51:59
  Speaker 7: some small way. I should have carried on my studies.
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: Now, it's hard to know what the actual story is,
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: but if I were to guess, Mr. I Love Studying.
• 52:06
  Speaker 7: Probably my favorite thing about living in Japan full stop
• 52:10
  Speaker 7: is studying the language.
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: Based on this video, we know that Mr. I Love
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: Studying hasn't studied in like 9 or 10 years, which
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: is basically since he first moved and really is something
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: that people who are good don't do.
• 52:21
  Speaker 15: Always wanting to improve is probably the most important factor
• 52:27
  Speaker 15: in improving.
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: Right, if your intent is to live in a foreign
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: country long-term or permanently, then you should be continuously improving
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: your skills. At the very least, if you're a foreigner
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: and you aren't C1, you should be studying almost daily.
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: Keep in mind that none of the foreign-born Japanese residents
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: that I'm criticizing are literate in Japanese, so they can't read. Now,
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: to again put things in perspective, remember all those people
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: who are making fun of Kai Sinat and saying that
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: he can't read?
• 52:53
  Speaker 14: Spontane- how do I pronounce that?
• 52:56
  Speaker 15: Spontaneity.
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: It's funny because watching this is exactly what it looks
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: like to learn how to read in Japanese. But the
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: point is that Kai simply having the opportunity to struggle
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: with words like spontaneity and false dichotomy means that his
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: reading ability in English is years ahead of the Japanese
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: reading ability of every person that I've criticized in this video.
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: Kai is only looking up difficult words. Connor probably has
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: to look up every word when he reads. So when
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: I say this is all a metaphor, understand that when
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: people come to America and refuse to learn English, this
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: is what it's like. And no one is calling Ken
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: Watanabe a racist for being upset about Chris' Japanese level. Anyway,
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: the reason all this matters is because you heard them
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: say it, Chris and Connor both think they're locals. They've
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: lived in Japan for a significant portion of their adult lives,
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: so they believe that their opinion should be taken seriously.
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: Do you not see the similarities with some of the
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: foreigners who are leeching off America? So actually, I don't
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: think this is just a feature of third world immigration.
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: This is a feature of all immigration. All immigration that
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: comes without conditions. First, they import the liberal white women
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: to start calling everyone racist, and then eventually Japanese natives
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: start calling other Japanese natives racist for saying that Japanese
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: people should be first. And then the third world hordes come,
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: which is why those of us in the West need
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: to up our standards, one of them being fluency in
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: the language to get long-term residency. And just to finish
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: off this section about language proficiency, here's why that's important
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: when it comes to things like politics and society. Do
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: you think the average foreigner can understand that the Patriot
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: Act had nothing to do with patriotism? It's a law
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: that allows illegal spying, and they trick people with that name.
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: Politicians do shit like this all the time. The fact
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: that you can get voting rights in America after five
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: years of residency is a real travesty. Five years of
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: English study is not enough time to understand all the
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: language tricks that politicians regularly use. It should be ten years. Really,
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: we should be making it as difficult as possible to
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: survive in this country if you don't speak our language.
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: America is not a charity. Let me be clear. I
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: do not care about your sob story. I don't care
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: about your hopes and dreams. Either provide value, learn English,
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: and respect American culture, or get out. When it comes
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: to people who aren't getting with the program, I really
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: have very little sympathy, because ultimately, if people want to
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: do things, they will.
• 55:17
  Speaker 15: If you want to speak a language, you will. If
• 55:21
  Speaker 15: you just wish you spoke a language, then you're not
• 55:24
  Speaker 15: going to speak a language.
• 55:26
  Speaker 8: Right.
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: If you want to do it, you'll put in the
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: effort and you'll figure it out. And what I'm getting
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: at here is that if someone has been living in
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: your country for 10 plus years and they barely know
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: the language, they basically haven't studied at all. Unlike the
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: Trash Taste social group, the people who have actually been
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: integrating into Japanese society for over a decade don't have
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: a problem speaking Japanese. They have a problem speaking English.
• 55:49
  Speaker 9: The English part is actually the hardest one for me.
• 55:55
  Speaker 9: Not spoken this long in English in a long time.
• 55:58
  Speaker 9: It is, I'm struggling to find the right words and
• 56:00
  Speaker 9: not like shout out something in Japanese that makes sense
• 56:02
  Speaker 9: to me.
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: That was Chris Hart. Coincidentally, he's another American-born Japanese pop
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: singer who's also incredibly good at the language. 12 ways
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: Japan changed us? Well, clearly it didn't change you into
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: someone who can speak good Japanese.
• 56:14
  Speaker 7: Well, I think we need to challenge ourselves. I'll do
• 56:16
  Speaker 7: a video with Natsuki soon called, like, I tried speaking
• 56:19
  Speaker 7: Japanese for a whole day.
• 56:20
  Speaker 8: We should do something like that.
• 56:21
  Speaker 7: Wacky weekend entirely in Japanese.
• 56:23
  Speaker 5: Let's do it. And then we can laugh at each other.
• 56:26
  Speaker 8: Just sitting in silence.
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: Sure, sure.
• 56:28
  Speaker 5: Occasionally just going, I'm down.
• 56:30
  Speaker 8: Difficult.
• 56:31
  Speaker 5: I'm down to do a full day in Japanese.
• 56:32
  Speaker 8: That would be quite interesting.
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: Right, so now someone suddenly wants to prove he can
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: speak Japanese. Looks like he's been reading my tweets. I
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: like how Chris's challenge is to live in Japan outside
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: of a foreigner bubble for a single day. I mean,
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: you don't do that normally? Why would this be difficult?
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: But yeah, that'll be great. I'm sure it'll be heavily edited,
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: and their conversations primarily will be ordering food and other
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: topics that don't require high language proficiency. Now, just to
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: address this, because I'm constantly asked questions about learning Japanese
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: in the comments, so for those of you who want
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: to learn something that takes a decent amount of time,
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: understand that there are a few things that are required
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: for you to succeed. Also, I'll try to say this
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: in a way that applies to skills in general, so
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: people who aren't learning Japanese can take this information outside
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: of language learning. First, you need to be the type
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: of person who is willing to jump in and just
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: tackle the workload. It's going to be a lot, just
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: deal with it. Once you've jumped in, the next thing
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: to do is develop a plan and upgrade your plan
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: as you go along your journey and get better information.
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: One of the ways I can tell that Connor and
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: Garnt are beginners is because they don't really have a
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: strong game plan for how they're going to improve. They
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: just say, I'm going to study, I'll go to a
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: class or something, without really understanding what that means. Speaking
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: of honorable mentions and another example of what I'm talking about,
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: here's another YouTuber expat in Japan who is friendly with
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: the Trash Taste social circle, named Emi Richu, who is
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: certainly a beginner at Japanese.
• 57:51
  Speaker 5: Because you've been in Japan now for, if I've been
• 57:52
  Speaker 5: here for like five years now. I've been here for
• 57:55
  Speaker 5: three years.
• 57:56
  Speaker 8: Three years. How has it been?
• 57:58
  Speaker 16: It's been good!
• 57:59
  Speaker 5: Are you missing the U.S.? No.
• 58:00
  Speaker 11: Emily?
• 58:01
  Speaker 13: No?
• 58:02
  Speaker 14: Especially not now.
• 58:03
  Speaker 8: Are you still studying?
• 58:04
  Speaker 16: I've plateaued. But I want to get back into it.
• 58:07
  Speaker 16: One of my New Year's resolutions was to up my Nihongo.
• 58:11
  Speaker 13: Because you had a weekly lesson thing, right?
• 58:14
  Speaker 16: We had private lessons.
• 58:15
  Speaker 8: So what was it like getting private lessons? I'm kind
• 58:18
  Speaker 8: of curious.
• 58:18
  Speaker 16: It helped the most at the beginning. But then it
• 58:21
  Speaker 16: kind of slowly turned into you're just reviewing the same
• 58:24
  Speaker 16: kanji each week.
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: Maybe if you actually studied, you wouldn't have to keep
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: reviewing the same kanji every week. If you're plateauing, it's
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: because you aren't doing the homework. Emi Ritsu had been
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: living in Japan for very close to four years at
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: the time of that podcast, which is enough time to
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: get pretty good without an egregious amount of studying. But
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: I love how all these people just tell on themselves
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: because they aren't good enough at Japanese to know that
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: they're telling on themselves. Lessons once a week will never
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: make you fluent in a language, especially if you have
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: no practice of self-study. Language is mostly self-studying, so if
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: you suck at that, you're definitely a beginner. Someone who
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: doesn't have that practice locked in at four years is
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: someone who is not really trying. Anyway, so the first
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: thing that you need to do is just get started.
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: Second is to develop a game plan and develop a
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: stronger game plan as time goes on. And don't worry
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: because I've done a lot of that for you. On
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: screen is a list of materials that you can use
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: to get pretty good. Part 3 is important for every skill,
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: and if you understand this, it will significantly increase how
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: fast you can learn things. There are two types of
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: learning that are important for our language. Well, technically three,
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: but you can't really do the third one until you've
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: been studying for a while. These two types are active
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: learning and comprehensible input. Active learning is like studying flashcards,
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: drawing kanji, or learning grammar. Honestly, it's the crappy, boring
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: part of learning. It's where you call upon the wisdom
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: of your ancestors and blatantly memorize everything about the skill
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: that was already discovered by other people. Comprehensible input is
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: when you take that wisdom and apply it to things
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: that you see or hear in your environment. The better
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: you are at the language, the more fun this part is. Now,
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: this idea of comprehensible input doesn't plug perfectly into every skill,
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: but what it means in terms of languages is that
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: you try to listen to and read things that are
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: at your skill level. So if you're a beginner, then
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: you're going to be reading children's books and watching comprehensible
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: input YouTube videos that are made for beginners, which is
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: basically like watching Blue's Clues until you get better at
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: Japanese and can do things that are more fun. So
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: it might not directly translate to other skills, however, the
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: concept itself does translate overall, And what it means is
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: that if you want to progress at something quickly, then ideally,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: you try to keep the challenges that you impose upon
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: yourself at or around your skill level. Outside of that,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: keep your active learning under an hour per day, and
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: comprehensible input can be as short as 15 minutes or
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: it can be as long as like 8 hours. The
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: third type of learning is going to be your output,
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: which for languages, that can be speaking practice or it
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: can be shitposting on Twitter in Japanese, which is a
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: personal favorite of mine. Speaking of output, I will add
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: one final criticism of this friend group by saying that
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: unless your language level is at least C2 and you're
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: going to live in Japan for maybe 5 or 10
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: years or permanently, do not waste your time learning pitch accent.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: Just do the karaoke singing thing that I suggested earlier
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: and listen to the language a lot. That will make
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: you better at pronunciation than like 99% of Japanese learners.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: Outside of that, Dogen is lying to you when he
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: suggests you can learn pitch accent at home just by
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: taking his course. What it actually takes is an insane
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: amount of rote memorization and constant correction from native speakers.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: Maybe it's worth it to spend some time learning how
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: to hear some of the patterns because that doesn't take
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: like 10,000 hours, but any more than that is not
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: worth it unless you're going to be on TV or something.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: Quite honestly, fuck Dogen. I wanted to say that in
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: a video from a few months ago when I talked
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: about Chris's Japanese ability, but I cut it for time.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: Dogen has helped perpetuate the lie that Chris has a
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: high level of fluency in Japanese, by reviewing Chris doing, oh,
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: what a shock, it's a self-introduction around a bunch of
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: non-native speakers and a teacher who is doing lessons for beginners,
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: so it's nothing that will actually test his Japanese level.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: Why I hate Japanese TV? Well, that's easy, it's because
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: your language ability isn't good enough to understand it. And
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: let me be clear, this is malevolent. In this language
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: review video, Dogen throws Joey up on screen first, who
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: is a native speaker, shows a non-routine conversation that would
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: genuinely be difficult for a Japanese learner to do. Most
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: people don't get to this level. Dogen then says that
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: Joey is really good, and moves on to Chris, and
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: says Chris is also good. So for anyone who knows
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: nothing about languages, which is almost Chris's entire audience, they're
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: going to think that Chris is around the level that
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: Joey is. You know, he's not a native speaker, but
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: he's probably pretty close, right? He's almost as good as Joey.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: I mean, Joey said he passed the JLPT M1 test,
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: and Chris said that he was planning to take that
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: same test, so basically they're around the same level. Meanwhile,
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: Chris can't even read children's books or speak more than
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: like a minute of Japanese without switching to English. Chris
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: and Joey are nowhere near the same level. I'm tired
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: of all the misrepresentations. Anyway, fuck Dogen, I just wanted
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: to add him in as another honorable mention, and say
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: that I've talked to multiple native speakers about his pitch
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: accent ability, and they can all still tell that he's
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: not a native speaker. So what's the point of putting
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: all that time in? Ultimately, learning a language takes a while,
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: nobody becomes an expert in six months, so it's best
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: to focus on little victories in your improvement than to
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: constantly ask, when am I going to be fluent? Anyway,
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: thanks for watching, follow me on Twitter, and I'll see
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: you in the next video.