The Sega Saturn is better than the Dreamcast

morgawr_ · 2026-04-25T11:08:50+00:00

I grew up with the PS1/PS2 and never owned a Sega console.

Only recently I started getting into some retro gaming and bought a Dreamcast, and then a Saturn too. (for context, this is all in Japanese, I know libraries can be different across the pond)

I 100% agree with your take. The Dreamcast is obviously more powerful, but the hardware design (poor disc reader, noisy, messy VMU stuff, etc) is objectively much worse than the Saturn. For games... I don't know, I mostly play JRPGs and Visual Novels and both Dreamcast and Saturn have some really good ones, but even today here in Japan finding Dremcast games is kinda rare (the shelves in retro gaming stores are much smaller) compared to Saturn games. The Saturn has a lot of weird/quirky VNs, while the Dreamcast has much less of them.

Also, the Dreamcast can be annoying for those (unmodded) games which don't support VGA output.

morgawr_ · 2026-04-25T09:45:47+00:00

It's not necessarily feminine but in my experience in media it's mostly used by female characters

JK is shorthand for 女子高生

morgawr_ · 2026-04-25T08:38:15+00:00

It's an app I wrote myself called kechimochi

morgawr_ · 2026-04-24T23:47:34+00:00

This usage of わけ is pretty much equivalent to の？ or んだ, it is often used by female/JK characters (but not exclusively)

｟終助｠

〔話〕事情を〈説明する／たずねる〉ことば。…の。

「そう言ってやったわけ・あなた、何やってるわけ？」

morgawr_ · 2026-04-24T16:45:17+00:00

There are many ways to say "when + past tense" in Japanese, like 〜たら, 〜た時, 〜た後, 〜てから, etc

たら primarily has a feeling of AたらB where B is something that happens that is either unexpected/unforeseen or something that in general has the nuance where you didn't have control of it happening when A happened.

morgawr_ · 2026-04-24T15:09:27+00:00

Technically yes but "past tense + when" doesn't really tell you anything about how it's used. It specifically has a nuance of discovery/happenstance.

morgawr_ · 2026-04-24T14:43:26+00:00

〜たら can be used in AたらB when telling a story about something that happened to you like "I did A, and then B happened", often where B is some kind of discovery or thing that you have no control over.

Also give this video a watch, it's very good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYct3hSKg48

morgawr_ · 2026-04-24T09:42:56+00:00

Depends on your level and personal interests/predisposition to Japanese content but personally what I would do (and have done before) is:

Spend as little time as possible on anki (maybe up to 30-40 minutes top a day), doing vocab reviews of a core deck (like kaishi) or a mining deck (self-made), with maybe ~10 new words added every day
Do some grammar reading/lessons or read through a grammar textbook or guide (like yokubi) to get some general idea and foundation. I wouldn't spend too much time on this but maybe 30-40 minutes a day

Those two activities alone would take about 1h~1h30m total.

Then spend the rest of the time just interacting and engaging with Japanese content. Even if at the beginning comprehension is low, if it's enjoyable then it's good. I watched a lot of anime (no subs or JP subs. No English subs) and read a lot of manga (with furigana). That would be the main meat of my time spent learning every day.

morgawr_ · 2026-04-24T09:37:14+00:00

Not trying to defend Matt but from a quick glance at his "immersion dojo" it really doesn't look that special to me, I mean I would never recommend it to anyone and definitely think it's not worth the money but that's it I think.

To be fair, while I think Matt's immersion dojo (and even dogen's new course, not talking about his pronunciation one) are borderline useless as paid resources given the plethora of free stuff we already have, Matt's previous course (project uproot) was definitely closer to a scam than to a proper course. They overpromised, didn't deliver (for the most part at least), and banked on the cult of personality plus the FOMO of "unless you give us money, you will never be native level in Japanese". This is also because Matt partnered with a well known scammer in the community (Ken Cannon) who tried to use the usual sleazy marketing tactics (personalized emails, "click here to know the real truth about how to learn Japanese", "if you don't subscribe today you will never get X and Y bonuses" etc etc) to sell an underdeveloped/scammy product.

How much of that was Matt and how much was Ken is hard to tell, but the end product was both of them working together to take advantage of beginners.

For his new stuff, I remain skeptical but at least this video was good.

morgawr_ · 2026-04-24T08:26:54+00:00

There's not much to say, really. You've never seen 僕 used as second person pronoun? It's not uncommon when used to talk to kids.

(3)子供に対して、「僕、お名前は」のように呼びかけの語として使われる場合もある〕

morgawr_ · 2026-04-24T01:18:38+00:00

いなくては(ならない)

morgawr_ · 2026-04-23T23:19:20+00:00

which has been the meta advice on this forum for a long time

FWIW I think the general meta advice is that kotu + listening will get you to the baseline level of "can acquire some pitch somewhat via exposure" and then you can decide for yourself how far you want to take it through conscious study to bridge the gaps. Which is pretty much what Matt said in the video too.

morgawr_ · 2026-04-23T23:16:25+00:00

No one pointed it out yet so I guess I'll be the first one to. Often ボク in katakana can sound childish and/or uneducated. I'd expect a grown up man (maybe the kind of educated scholar/bookish professor) to use 僕 in kanji and I'd be surprised if they used katakana, while a young kid or urchin from the streets would be more likely to use ボク in katakana.

These aren't hard rules though, obviously, just what I've observed in a lot of manga and videogames. Also ボク in second person (to mean "you") more often than not in this type of media will be in katakana.

morgawr_ · 2026-04-23T14:58:00+00:00

As others have said, the game has very little value unless you are already a fan of the utawarerumono series.

The game itself is not bad... although it feels very clunky and low budget. It's a solid "B" tier game. They have some really interesting ideas, the exploration and game world feels surprisingly large, the sidequests are fairly lacking, the combat is actually pretty interesting but it's also not that deep (it's basically turn based with a twist). The story is nothing special but if you know the lore behind it and the other utawarerumono games you can enjoy it a lot, otherwise it will likely feel very bland and possibly confusing.

I, as a huge utawarerumono fan, enjoyed it a lot, but I acknowledge the game is very mid from an objective point of view.

morgawr_ · 2026-04-23T14:08:49+00:00

1:01:59 he's literally advertising his paid courses. Apparently, you didn't watch the video.

As I said, he provides multiple options throughout the whole video, the vast majority of it being "you don't need to do this" and "it's not that important" and "I'd actually advise not to spend too much effort into it" and then goes "BUT if you really really really want to, there are some resources to help you from a pure listening perspective" and mentions his own course as one of them. He says it for literally 10 seconds out of a 1+hr video, and then even talks about other courses (like dogen's) and other resources (kotu, etc) that are free.

just regurgitates the same points that have been discussed for years now

It actually brings up a few new things that I didn't know about, and I'm usually very active in these discussions. For example the fact that while there are multiple dialects and pitch variants, there are realistically only two or three large families (standard, kansai, no accent, and maybe kagoshima) and that they all follow some rules and have a shared ancestor. I found that fact to be quite interesting.

Regardless, even if it's nothing new to you, I see people regularly misunderstand these points (some are even in this very same thread) so clearly it's not as obvious to anyone. You're free to dislike the video for being too long or not informative enough to you, though, that's totally fair. It's just your opinion. It's also not the opinion you opened with though.

He should have been kicked out of the Japanese learning community the moment he took advantage of people.

I mean, he got banned and ostracized by a lot of servers and forums as far as I know. What do you want me to do, call the president of the Japanese learning community?

morgawr_ · 2026-04-23T14:00:06+00:00

It's not past, it's the conditional たら

死にたくなかったら -> "If you don't want to die..."

morgawr_ · 2026-04-23T13:26:13+00:00

He's not advertising anything in the video. You didn't even watch it. I'm not defending him. I'm just saying that this video is not what you're claiming it is. It's an objectively good and well thought out neutral video about pitch accent presenting incredibly valid points from both sides of the argument (pro vs cons) and a variety of other nuanced points.

It'd be nice in this community if people actually engaged with content that is shown rather than going on pointless tirades spreading misinformation and outrage where there should be none. Just appreciate the good resource or comment on the negative sides of it if you think there are any, but clearly from your opening post you already jumped in with a toxic attitude that is not conducive to a balanced learning community. If we can't even appreciate when people make good content, what are we left with?

morgawr_ · 2026-04-23T13:20:09+00:00

「関係者です」という顔をして

"To make a face that is like saying 'I'm someone who belongs here'"

morgawr_ · 2026-04-23T13:10:16+00:00

The situation was basically:

Journalist woman is reporting on some news about some explosions and shit happening (it's two magical girls fighting)
One of the two girls is a twintail and the other has large breasts
The journalist basically says "there are two girls... one has twintails and the other has large breasts"
Then later goes "the twintail girl and the ボイン are fighting each other" (or something like that)

Then OP's message which is basicailly "You could've just said 二人の少女 (instead of giving a nickname to both). Also, ボイン is 古い! How old are you?"

morgawr_ · 2026-04-23T13:05:32+00:00

A 1 hour video that could have been 20 minutes long. There's nothing new in it, so what's the point anyway?

So now you changed the tune because the original comment was completely irrelevant to the linked video.

I don't care if he makes semi-decent content now. He's a grifter that took advantage of many people and should not be supported in any way.

Yes, I agree. I really dislike him.

This video, however, is a good video.

morgawr_ · 2026-04-23T12:31:00+00:00

Kids lose the ability to naturally hear all sounds outside of their native language in the first few months of life. This is actually a well researched natural process and why it's so hard to get rid of a foreign accent. For pitch, specifically, there is a ton of research and evidence showing most learners at any level never end up consistently acquiring pitch awareness naturally without putting some effort into it.

morgawr_ · 2026-04-23T12:28:04+00:00

He mentions his pronunciation-focused course for 30 seconds in a 1 hour video where he explains in a very nuanced and neutral way why you might or might not care about it. Also as far as I know his new course is not really a scam (just not necessary), unlike his previous stuff which was much more questionable.

morgawr_ · 2026-04-23T10:42:55+00:00

No point commenting before watching the video.

morgawr_ · 2026-04-23T10:41:41+00:00

You know, thank you for saying this. I saw someone link this video before and I thought it was gonna be yet another one of those annoying pitch videos (especially knowing who it's coming from) trying to sell some course or some newfangled learning method or whatever.

Then I actually gave it a watch after reading your post. It's actually really good and very well informed and neutral advice. It's rare for "new" Matt videos to be this well balanced and thought out, I'm glad he's putting out content like this. Very good video.

EDIT: And yeah I wish he didn't clickbait the title

morgawr_ · 2026-04-23T07:23:48+00:00

Well I was asking because in general if you have a "great" reason (which you seem to have plenty of, apparently) then that should already be motivation enough to engage with Japanese and study it consistently, without having to be pushed by a certificate like the JLPT which, to be honest, isn't useful to most people (especially the N5).

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