Creator Resources: The Event Horizon

Olly Richards did a short video on the hyperpolyglot Vaughn Smith, who described how "every language makes people think differently. You realize there's a soul to the language, and you become another version of yourself." Another commenter (user "Cameron in China") noted that "In general, where Japan is minimalist, I find China can be quite maximalist." If nothing else, this observation does hold in regard to the language. Japanese has only about 100-107 basic sounds, which is very low compared to most other languages, and comparable to Polynesian languages like Hawaiian. Practically speaking, what this does is it increases homophony and the need for context-dependent communication. Recall that the point of learning a language isn't just communication. (If that was the case then simple AI translation would be enough.) The point, I maintain, is to inhabit the imaginative world of another cultural psychology, and at a still deeper level, explore the cross culturally evolving metaphysical narrative that is more fully revealed by means of immersion in another language and culture. One may say that Japanese is unique in that it is both phonetically simple, and pictographically complex. But culturally, China and Japan do share a lot in common. I mean, if we go back far enough, "fossil and geological evidence suggests that Japan was connected to the Eurasian continent via the Korean land bridge around 80, 65, 43, and 20ka." Okay, yes that is a cultural eternity, but it's also the geological blink of an eye. Now, speaking of forming bridges... YouTube creator (handle: "kinda capable") gave his impression of using AI as a language tool. There's a lot of different takes on this, and I think he fairly represented a consensus opinion: 

"For a long time I was very skeptical of the answers ChatGPT gave me. AI tends to just fabricate things when it doesn't know the answer. And I was struggling to verify these answers. Although there's a lot of resources for Japanese online, it can be very challenging to find hyper specifics about the language. It's just so hard to search things in Japanese unless you already know Japanese. So, I started off using it sparingly out of fear of learning nonsense. But as time went on, I realized that its answers are, from what I can tell, very accurate on average. For some people, ChatGPT may be a reason not to try as hard. You know, it can just do a lot of the translating for you. But for me, ChatGPT seemed to be the best tool for learning the language myself, especially for free."

As the YouTube algorithm has guided me deeper down the rabbit hole of Japanese language learning videos, I watched a few more takes from less well known content creators. And some are rather good. Bunsuke, who just got a PhD in Japanese literature, took a low-tech, very systematic approach that relies on a lot of reading. Another creator (handle "BijuuMike") suggested using the app LingQ to support that method. He talked with Steve Kaufmann, who had this advice: 

"The fallacy of traditional language instruction is that you can deliberately learn something, that there's a direct relationship with your deliberate effort and what you end up being able to remember and use or recall. It's not that way. It all happens naturally if you expose myself enough to the language, either reading or listening and eventually using it. Deliberately trying to remember it leads to frustration. And I think that gets back to my sort of Zen, effortless, approach. You know, the best craftsman is the one who effortlessly (whatever he does, if he's a carpenter or if he's a butcher) just naturally does it.

There's a pattern in everything. There's even a pattern to English spelling. Everything has a pattern, and after a while you get used to these. And so it becomes easier and easier to remember new characters that you meet because there are familiar components. (One big advantage of learning Japanese and Chinese is that to me, although other people disagree, they are not grammar intensive languages like Russian, the Romance languages, or Arabic.) So you have to get used to thinking in terms of the patterns of the language rather than grammar rules. This is the way I approach Chinese and Japanese, "they say it this way." I wanted to get used to the patterns of the language, and I think that I carried that forward. So the first thing is, as difficult as it is, get the words in, get the patterns in, get some familiarity with the language, and then you can always go back later on."

Kaufmann leaves one with the very distinct impression that language learning is a combination of two methods, a combination of both effort and effortlessness, a coincidence of these opposites, a coincidence being host and guest, of taking new information into our mind and also allowing our mind to be immersed within a new information environment. Returning to Bunsuke, he had some good book recommendations and a Substack. He shared a video with Joshua, the grandchild of a missionary to Japan (his grandfather was also interviewed separately). Since Joshua grew up in Japan, and Japanese is his native language, the effortlessness of his speech is apparent (Takashii and Unpacking Japan also interviewed him). Niko, the creator of "NihongoShark" describes language learning as a journey along which we try to reach a runaway chain reaction or self-accelerating state at which point progress becomes almost effortless. He used the metaphor of an "event horizon." If Steve Kaufmann had this metaphor, I think he would also use it to describe that point along a language learning journey we can all eventually reach. Here's Niko:

"Once you get that that good at Japanese, you're not going to forget it because life becomes intricately tied to Japanese. Many of your hobbies are in Japanese. Maybe a loved one speaks Japanese with you. Maybe it's part of your work. All these things happened to me so I'm not going to forget Japanese. To cross that line, to get past the event horizon you have to get a pretty high level of comprehension so that you can actually consume enough Japanese to make that enjoyable and doable. I'm not sure if people realize the way that this compounds over time."

Another content creator (handle: BJORN channel) said: 

“Stop trying to study Japanese efficiently. You can learn Japanese with whatever content you love. There's no need to have the perfect routine because if you're learning Japanese, you're going to be in it for the long game. We're talking years. And the method that's going to be the most efficient and effective is actually the one that keeps you showing up, learning every day. And that means getting lost in another world and forgetting about efficiency. Whatever world you want to be immersed in is the world that you can learn Japanese from.”

Maybe he was pushed to be more explicit, because he later recommended a number of free online tools, which he linked to in the descriptions of his videos. Definitely an involved process:

“Get this deck called "Core 2K" with sentences. It will teach the most common 2,000 Japanese words in the fastest time possible. The tool that's going to allow you to find comprehensible content is a website called jiten.moe ASB Player: This will let you turn any website into an interactive video player that saves audio, pictures, and sentences from anime, YouTube, or any other website instantly into a flash card. As a beginner, this is the primary software you'll be using. GameSentenceMiner: This will enable you to make cards from visual novels or games by scanning your screen. Ttsu: This will allow you to read Japanese novels and create cards. Jidoujisho: This is a full Japanese immersion suite that pretty much lets you mine from anything; it's for mobile. And last of all, the most essential application on the entire face of the earth for mining Japanese content is Yomitan: This lets you look up any word and get instant dictionary definitions to add to any of your cards. To put it simply, I just gave you every free immersion tool you can use to immerse in any media you could ever want. (And I made an entire separate video released simultaneously with this one that teaches you how to set up every software I mentioned in this video. I'll be giving you all of the presets I use, like making your Anki cards look nice, ASV player settings, literally everything.) I also convert everything I actively watch into audio files I can listen to throughout the day using this Audio Condenser Tool.”

Another creator (user handle: "danwashere") did the complete RTK method, then later reflected “In retrospect, I probably wouldn’t do RTK again. I'd have maybe tried to persevere with a vocabulary deck at the start.” However he noted how it was easy to use, and he could simply adapt the stories created by others. I thought back to the pop culture manga that Matt Alt mentioned, like “Space Battleship Yamato” or any other of the many different anime or manga, and imagined how that could make fun material to use as well. Anyway, his reflections: 

"Remembering the Kanji (RTK) by James Heisig was originally published in 1977, and the most up-to-date sixth edition was released in 2011 to include the additional kanji that was added to the Joyo Kangji list in 2010, because 2,000 kanji just wasn't enough. When I went on to YouTube and searched up how to learn kanji, there were many videos in which people pointed towards this book, but the one that caught my interest was by “Brit versus Japan.” He has a video in which he explained how he had learned over 3,000 kanji in 90 days through using RTK. He also has a guide on his website that he titled How to Learn Kangji Fast, the ultimate guide to remembering the Kanji. It is a very long guide, but I read through it all and just did what he recommends, which was to use a spaced repetition system such as Anki alongside RTK." This gentleman was also kind enough to have created a simple RTK flashcard deck. And so I imported that into Anki.

For the first few hundred kanji, Heisig writes out the mnemonic stories for you, but you don't have to use them. In fact, many people suggest making your own up from the start, but I found these to be helpful. He does this to teach you the technique of imaginative memory. But then he eventually stops giving full stories and only provides you with the keyword and primitives that are used. And from that point you have to make up your own stories, which if done with the necessary thought and effort does take more time. I would spend a lot of time trying to think of a story that includes the keywords and primitives. And sometimes this is difficult because of how random some of these words are. There are many people out there who are going through or have gone through this process. And there's a website called Kanji Koohii which was created to support learners who are doing RTK. There are plenty of community shared stories for each of the Kanji and and other users can even rate them based on how good they are. Now, I never actually used Kanji Koohii. Instead, I found a a handy little website that featured an RTK search engine which still included all of the community stories from Kanji Koohii along with a simple animation showing the stroke order. I can't remember how I came across this site, but after I did, you know, it soon became my RTK companion. I made an effort to not just rely on other people's stories, but used it as a a source of inspiration, seeing how other people had managed to form a story out of the key words. For over a month, I kept up with this routine.”

And what did I learn from all of this? I think it reinforces that Anki is a good approach, and there are a lot of way to make it more effective when combined with AI and comprehensible input. There are many entry points into this process, if I can manage to leverage them together to help make the journey both effective and enjoyable. 

Building the Cathedral of Cosmoxenia: Getting into a flow state

To be completely frank, when it comes to learning Japanese, my track record has been pretty dismal. Following a trip to Japan around September of 2009, I noted that "reading some manga like Yotsuba-to! by Kiyohiko Azuma, or maybe Doraemon, Chibi Mariko-chan, Sazae-san, Otoko Oidon, or Omusubi Kororin might be useful." Good advice, though I didn't follow through with that at the time. And more recently, about twelve years ago on 1/20/14, I set myself a goal to "learn about 2000 kanji, gain a working vocabulary of about 10000 words." I noted the differences between On-yomi (written in katakana) and Kun-yomi (written in hiragana) and even then noted that:

James Heisig recommends using the power of imaginative memory when learning. Create an imaginative alphabet (or "systemic mnemonic devices"), each element restricted to one basic value. He uses "keyword" definitions, associative stories (the more original the better), and writing kanji out. Use flashcards for random review. Though simple, this requires stamina, concentration, and imagination. Learn in groups of kanji/ vocab/ sentences. Use 原稿用紙 paper with squares of regular size so you avoid the bad habit of writing high stroke kanji larger than low stroke count kanji. It is probably true as a general rule when studying "volume trumps method and extensive reading and writing and sentence memorization for a few hours daily is the best practice."

The multiple different, context dependent readings of kanji have been noted as a source of frustration for some people. Can you imagine translating Chinese into Japanese? It was this process that produced "kanbun" (漢文), the early system for writing Japanese literature using Chinese characters. But because Chinese grammatical order is subject–verb–object (SVO), while Japanese uses subject-object-verb (SOV), it was not a straightforward process. Now consider an English speaker trying to understand and translate this. In America, "one of the only people who possessed the extraordinary ability to translate equally well from both Chinese and Japanese" was Burton Watson (1925-2017). His many translations are highly regarded to this day, and I have enjoyed reading his work as well. A copy of Hsun Tzu: Basic Writings has been a necessary part of my personal library of Eastern philosophy books. Clearly, I am no Burton Watson. But perhaps there is still room for improvement.

The criteria for diagnosis with ADHD requires meeting a higher bar than most people who self-diagnose are actually able to meet, but that being said, I do have a restless brain that sits in a Goldilocks' zone on the "edge of chaos." All of which is to say that I function best when my mind is in a high speed flow state, that is, when it plays host to plenty of rewarding content to work with. If I can provide it with high quality information to play around with and integrate into a broader gestalt, then everything tends to go well; problems become manageable and insights flow freely. But the key is ensuring 1) that it has such information and 2) that this really is high quality content and not the empty calories of social media, pointless busy work, or simply stuff that was previously encountered. Now, I've had earlier successes with this method, which has uncovered some solid foundational work in philosophy and resulted in understanding other fields of inquiry, skills, etc, but those gains were not always easily reached. Taking this into new territory (that is widely perceived as difficult) will require reinvesting these earlier gains and employing some new methods to maintain progress. If the information I seek is either difficult for me to access or of low quality, I will not make progress. So I will do what is needed to maintain momentum with easily accessible, high quality, moderately challenging content. Toward that end, I will try to follow advice (use Anki flashcards and upload my own personalized spreadsheets) to propel myself into deeper engagement with the material. 

Cosmoxenial Classification: Frameworks

There are three primary needs for successful language acquisition: resources to engage with, time to process them, and a relational framework. That last element, the framework, can be otherwise described as the metanarrative, relational structure, the ontology, or the metaphysics through which the fragmented resources we engage with can eventually be united and clarified into a lens for revealing the underlying sociocultural meaning we are after. Religious conviction can supply that relational framework. But here I've suggested that the underlying metanarrative for this classification is that of cosmoxenia, a framework I derived from McGilchrist's neurophilosophy. (Though to be fair, this actually serves to integrate the mythic intuitions of many religious traditions.) Everett Bleiler was on the right path. While a language doesn't provide us with these metanarratives, whose origins are better understood to lie in our embodied pre-linguistic experience, it does shape how they unfold or are enacted, and subsequently communicated to others. 

After reviewing several different approaches to language learning, from people who claim to have successfully implemented them, at least in their own personal experience, the idiosyncratic nature of this process is becoming more clear. What, if anything, unites these diverse methods? I've noted the importance of having quality input, utilizing mnemonic devices for storage, and producing regular output. Importantly, the arts of memorization can be helpful, but they can also be become too explicit. Nonetheless, I do still suspect that I will need to build an elaborate "memory palace." But this will be a very organic process. I harbor no preconceptions concerning what it may look like. As I look back, I think I've done this several times before without realizing it. Those instances involved various other skills or areas that I've demonstrated some level of competence within. For example, I have memorized, unintentionally, considerable knowledge concerning biology, taxonomy, and other natural sciences. I didn't plan any of that. How much different is studying the taxonomic structures within a language, classified according to, or with specific attention paid to, its xenic, or rather, xenial features? Such an approach might build a "house with many rooms." But in keeping with more organic metaphors, we could also say it would develop a "stream with many braids" finding its course toward the sea, or grow a "tree with many branches" straining ever upward for all that "heavenly glory," even as its roots stay firmly planted in the loamy soil of embodiment. 

When I built those memory palaces for the natural sciences, I did it because I really enjoyed the process of wonder, discovery, and appreciative reflection. The unfolding of a cosmoxenial gestalt is likewise an inquisitive process of re-cognizing meaning: How does this "thing" under analysis fit into a puzzle-like "framework" to re-veal a gestalt, now only dimly seen? The more salient the associations, the better the integration, the better the retention and the more clearly the gestalt comes into view. This process is notoriously difficult to describe, but it is those processes of inquiry into the unfolding narrative of xenia, a sort of rhythmic "call and response" that advances understanding. Heisig recommended taking an incremental, emergent approach. One that leverages useful associations that help to bring that gestalt into view, but avoids superfluous associations that only serve to fragment or distract our view of the whole.

Mnemotechnics of Xenia: Literacy

Let's consider Vaughn Gene's approach to "Basic Fluency in Japanese." Like John (see this post), Vaughn also uses extensive mnemonics, however instead of applying it to the kanji, he recommends aiming for conversational fluency first. This is after all a very natural starting place:

"The Prelude: Learn only the very basics of grammar, because you really want to learn that in context when you learn sentences. And learn the hiragana and katakana syllabaries. However, I would not touch kanji until you can speak and understand the language with confidence. All kanji can be read with hiragana and katakana. I read a lot of Japanese now, but this is a result of sheer exposure and just years of being around the kanji that I needed. For now, focus on learning to understand and speak the language.

Step one: Learn 2,000 to 4,000 of the most common vocabulary words. Do this up front to save years of study time and everything will become somewhat comprehensible. Deliberate practice is key here. This is probably the hardest part of learning a language, but vocabulary in isolation can take you very far [cf. Guy Deutscher]. And it really opens up any kind of content you want to enjoy. How do you remember all of these words? I use mnemonic associations. You can find full spreadsheets of vocabulary lists online, and then maybe you'll just have to add a column at the end to enter a mnemonic association, and write whatever helps you remember the word. Try to do it on your own. This is going to be a deliberate effort, but it's going to save you months if not years of practice, so take your time with it. 

Step two: Practice listening and repeating the words. You can find text to speech websites these days to help you hear it as you study it. That way you can kind of get the input and the output at the same time. Anki decks have maybe 5000 words already laid out. And it has the sounds, it has sentences, has everything pretty much there. So you can just download that and get to using it right away. [Added: Do a lot of retrieval practice. Try to describe pictures, translate sentences, and respond to prompts, all in your target language.]

Step three: Make or find several hundred sentences in every category around your life, and drill those. This means basic things around work, hobbies, interests, anything that involves the same things that you would talk about in your native language. Sentences are frameworks. And the more frameworks you learn, the better. All you have to do is change out the subjects and the vocabulary words to suit any context. So get all the vocab words you need, make a whole lot of sentences, and once you kind of have it down, just move on to the next thing.

A note about translators and LLMs: You can prompt an LLM with "Give me 30 sentences about this subject of interest in Japanese." "Create a conversation that I can practice out loud." "Explain to me the rules and grammar and the ways that it's used." "Give me several sentences with this word." Just get really creative. It can just spit all that out right away. You can leverage AI in such a way that you can get a week's worth of work done in just a few minutes of typing, and now you have practice for the next couple of days right there. So really leverage that to get a lot of the upfront work out of the way. Some people see language learning as impossible. But deliberate practice leads to subconscious mastery."

Vaughn’s follow up video “2.0” elaborated on a few of the above points:

“Where do you find sentences? Shadowing native content is a great way to start. Find a video like “100 Japanese phrases.” Learn to shadow the entire video. And whenever you find a sentence that you like, or just think of one you want to say, put it somewhere in your notes. Make ten different variations. And just drill them over and over again until you can say them without thinking. Start small. “My name is this. What's your name? How old are you?” All that. Learn to say those just effortlessly. Then try more advanced sentences, and so on. But don't skip over subject related things. Whatever you like to do, learn to talk about that and use that confidence to go into the next thing.

I know in the first video I said about 2,000 to 4,000 words. If you want an end goal, 10,000 is good, but 6,000 to 7,000 is like the magic number for vocabulary. I find that after 7,000 most of it's like cherrypicked vocabulary words that I may rarely use, but anything before that is common. And if you really want to flex in Japanese, getting up to 15,000 or 20,000 is great, but you're going to need to watch a lot of TED talks and scientific things and all that.”

Recall that John had applied mnemonic associations to learning kanji (the Heisig method), but Vaughn in his approach applies it to vocabulary memorization, which is the most basic area of language learning. He describes mnemonics as a sort of  "temporary scaffolding" that is to be phased out and no longer used as familiarity increases and the associations are no longer needed. In other words, the goal is understanding the language, not mnemonics for their own sake. Only use these as necessary, then feel free to discard them. Indeed, we may think of language in a similar way. If the goal is xenia, then by all means use language, but once the words are no longer necessary they can be disposed of. As Zhuangzi famously said: 

"Nets are for catching fish; after one gets the fish, one forgets the net. Traps are for catching rabbits; after one gets the rabbit, one forgets the trap. Words are for getting meaning; after one gets the meaning, one forgets the words. Where can I find people who have forgotten words, and have a word with them?" — Zhuangzi, Ch. 26 

And yet, viewed another way, Zhuangi is not wholly right in what he says here, because the transcendent can only be glimpsed through the immanent. The embodied kotodama of language (semiosis, more generally) is needed to allow us to see the transcendent meaning and metaphysical associations behind it. And so the kotodama never entirely disappear, but they do transform as needed. And Zhuangzi would affirm this, since transformation is one of three core themes he explores, per Brook Ziporyn, along with perspective and dependence. Using that sort of approach, which is consistent with xenia, we can go almost anywhere. See also the balanced perspective of Olle Linge on the uses of mnemonics, a very useful tool that functions best when used within a broad educational context. 

Another Japanese language learner, "Matt vs Japan" (Matt) advocates the "All Japanese All The Time" (AJATT) full immersion method rather than traditional classroom study. He cites Stephen Krashen and J. Marvin Brown to justify his approach. Krashen, as you may recall, highlights the importance of comprehensible input for learners, but unlike Matt, he also recommends extensive reading (Matt focuses on verbal skills). Basically, “comprehensible input” means consistently exposing yourself to language content that’s just above your current level – close enough to what you already know that your brain can work to fill in the gaps and raise your language level. Matt makes some good points:

"People who are really new to language learning have this idea that language learning is a lot like math. Memorize the words, memorize the grammar formulas, and then you'll just understand and be able to use it yourself. But in reality there's many small nuances, and for most words in Japanese there's not a direct one to one equivalent in English. So you have to grasp the nuance if you want to be speaking fluently, you can't be translating in your head. Japanese people don't speak by placing Japanese words into English sentences, right? So the starting point is listening, active listening, not just passive. Stephen Krashen's philosophy, or conclusion, was basically throw classroom study out the window and focus on getting comprehensible input.

If you are a language learner, LLMs are an amazing tool. They are the best possible dictionary. I have a prompt that I use to generate the definitions for an Anki add-on. It will use the openAI API. Like I said before, a lot of Japanese words don't mean the same thing as any one English word. They have a unique nuance that isn’t equivalent to one specific English word. So a lot of times dictionaries function more like a thesaurus. Believing that every Japanese word has a perfect English equivalent would be actively harmful, because then you project that onto the input that you get. You can also use LLMs to generate comprehensible input. There's this feature where you can upload a PDF and it will make a podcast of two people talking about the content of the PDF you uploaded in everyday Japanese. For language learners, this is amazing."

Notice how Matt's concerns are almost opposite those of Vaughn. But this should bring everyone back down to reality. If languages are replete with nuance, and fluency is a nearly impossible goal, then second language learners must ask themselves: What is a realistic goal? For me, I think reading and writing would be my first goal. And I say this for several reasons. Literacy remains the easiest method for asynchronous communication and vocabulary expansion. To this day, most information is stored as raw text. This is the doorway into the enormous "adjacent possible" that, for a second language learner such as myself, lies latent within foreign cultures, just waiting to be explored. And character recognition is a prerequisite if you are going to use reading to expand your vocabulary. Listening is probably the second skill I would like. But there's a caveat. I may just be leveraging literacy in order to gain listening skills - I suspect that the "inner voice" produced while reading is able to indirectly strengthen listening skills, just as "subvocalization" while reading can assist with speaking skills. And listening is also personally important to me: I want to finally be able to understand my wife in her native tongue. That's something I've always wanted. But speaking is my least important skill, for several reasons. First of all, I do not feel a need to draw attention to myself, at any particular moment. I am here to learn from others. Anything I have to say is better said after some reflection anyway. That being said, conversational ability is nice to have, but since the nuances of fluent speech will be the most difficult to spontaneously reproduce, my expectations (and goals) are correspondingly lowest in this area. 

Metaphysical Mnemonics: Memorization

Let's consider John's language learning journey, "From Beginner to JLPT N1 in 2 Years":

“I highly recommend the Genki series. That's what I used for a semester before coming to Japan. The only issue with the books is that they don't present a good way of learning the kanji. James Heisig has an amazing book called Remembering the Kanji. It’s a legendary book in Japanese language learning circles. I used Heisig's book for six months to learn the first thousand or so common use kanji, and then I learned the next thousand in about two weeks. Basically in this book you learn radicals, and then you invent stories that describe how those radicals work together to form more complex characters. And the stories that you invent encapsulate the meaning of that character. You're basically making up these mnemonics that help you to recall how to write the kanji, and they help you recall the meaning of the kanji, so it's a very useful way of learning the kanji quickly. It’s tons of fun. The more effort you put in, the more time you put in, the better you're going to learn these very quickly. The only downside to Heisig's book is that you don't learn the readings. That's where, for me, manga played a very important role.

There are 2,136 common use kanji characters. The nice thing about manga is that it usually has furigana for each kanji character that appears. I learned the kanji from Heisig's book and so I knew the meanings of the kanji that I was encountering, and then there were pictures, I knew basic grammar from the Genki book, so really all I had to pick up from these words was how to read the kanji. Manga is nice because it's fun, you're probably going to read something that you're interested in, and so it just naturally seeps into your brain.

Learning the readings of the Japanese kanji improves listening as well. Other things that I use to improve my listening: I watched tons of anime, I listened to a bunch of music in Japanese, and I watched a bunch of instructional YouTube videos about Japanese. I mean that's really it: saturate yourself in the language, listen as much as you can just find something that you enjoy and partake in it.

There still was one problem at this point I wasn't able to express my thoughts and ideas clearly, and that's why I actively started practicing output. What I ended up doing was talking to myself in my room. I would also journaled a lot by hand and also on my computer or phone or whatever. And then one day I was just able to speak fluently. I'm not even kidding or exaggerating. There was one day, I distinctly remember the day, when I realized "Wow, I can speak fluently. I can use Japanese in a way that's comfortable. And I could say what I want to say the way I want to say it."

My love of the language and my interest in the language was what enabled me to pass the N1 test in two years. I was just enjoying the learning process. I was enjoying reading manga, watching anime, making friends, having new experiences, discovering things about the country and the culture that motivated me day after day after day after day to improve myself."

Heisig's method (mnemonics) isn't new to me at all. Other sites (like Tofugu) have incorporated it as well. Heretofore I have avoided writing about mnemonics because it always seemed to me to be more like an idiosyncratic, entirely arbitrary parlor trick, a sort of "hack" that is exploited for the stage by mnemonists and contemporary savants such as Daniel Tammet, but otherwise lacking in any rigorous principles. I have a natural aversion to that sort of stuff. But now that I think about it, after recently considering the importance of kotodama, the soul of words, which is basically how words embody metaphysics, Heisig's method no longer has to be arbitrary at all. I had previously imagined that the etymology of words was the only nonarbitrary associative method for learning. The problem here is that current forms and original meaning have become increasingly disconnected through the long path of language evolution. Etymology is an inherently fraught, not to mention, difficult approach for one to take. (Chinese roots can come later.) The more direct narrative association is likely not only far easier, but a better reflection of the embodied kotodama. Andrew Scott Conning wrote "The mind is far better at remembering ideas that are accompanied by sensory and emotional impressions than those arrived at through logical abstraction". He consistently favors concrete visual imagery. It's worth noting that the author of the above video transcript, John, has several videos on translating the Bible, so metaphysics is clearly important to him as well (Christian metaphysics in his case). In short, I think I could use the Heisig method of mnemonic associations, but my associations would correspond with the dual aspect monism of hospitality. Recall that in Basic Japanese Grammar, Everett Bleiler wrote: 

"Japanese grammar is very different from English grammar. This difference is not just a question of different forms and endings, as is often the case between English and German or French or Spanish or Russian; it is frequently a question of a different classification of human experience. ...Do not limit yourself to memorizing the construction of forms and idea-equations between English and Japanese. Try also to understand the psychology of language that lies behind this often very different way of talking about experience... In some ways Japanese is simpler than English, and in other ways it is more complex. It can be extremely simple in its expression of basic ideas, yet very elaborate in expressing the speaker's feeling about the ideas. The conversational situation affects expression more than it does in English, and forms of courtesy enter much more than they do in European languages. Japanese is extremely regular in its grammatical forms; the exceptions to the grammatical rules of formation can be counted on your fingers. On the other hand, syntax and sentence structure can become very complex, and idioms are numerous."

My narrative mnemonics of hospitality will likely draw upon supernaturalism, as do all of the earliest explanations for hospitality. I am familiar with Greek myths, Christian parables, and Kabbalistic origin stories. Japan has magical realism, Onmyōdō, Kanzen Choaku (勧善懲悪), and folktales, that have influenced many contemporary writers, and popular films as well. These stories are used to teach about values and how to live a good life, the importance of kindness to others and responsibility for oneself. (And how to live with ethical integrity is good to know, after all one cannot effectively learn Japanese without getting enough sleep and exercise.) The bottom line is that host-guest mnemonics for pictograms are just the beginning, the importance of the metaphysics of xenia extends far deeper into helping us understand the weltanshauung of any language and culture, and to see new Gestalten. John's advice provides a good entry point into that world. But if that is still intimidating at first, remember it is important to “get out of your comfort zone” in order to broaden cultural understanding and enjoy the benefits of multilingualism. Perhaps these methods could be applied to assist in the retention of endangered languages as well, and keep them alive as living traditions and expressions of cosmoxenia. 

Japan trip

It has now been a week since I came back from Japan. I've more or less settled back into the weekly routine (though still experience some jet lag). And I'd like to put down some reflections, poorly organized though these may be. In short, the trip turned out to be amazing. I finished reading Haruki Murakami’s Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki on the flight over the Pacific, which was an earlier gift from my wife. I found the line within the book: “And really, does anybody know who they are? So why not be a completely beautiful vessel? …The kind people want to entrust with precious belongings” to be very poignant, in the sense that it reminded me of Henri Nouwen’s description of hospitality in Reaching Out. Actually, throughout the trip, I thought about a lot of different books, and recalled how my wife mentioned her favorite childhood book was Shirokuma-chan no Hottokeiki. It seems like such a sweet thing to like. Toward the end of the trip, I thought about how my experience of time was like Blake’s “infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour.” Every moment was a timeless infinity, an unforgettable memory, and I had an uncountable number of these. 

In life we erect so many filters between ourselves and our experience of the world. For example, we say that AI filters the signal from all the noise, or that humans do the same, though perhaps we can comparatively see more signal than noise. But within the environment itself, it is all signal and everything has meaning. The journey toward meaning in all things is the journey of a human life, and one reason why I learn the kotodama of Japanese, so that there are fewer filters between myself and my experience of the world. More on that later. 

I began my trip just observing expressions of hospitality, and in many instances this appears to me as images of the shape of thought. Two maru (the Japanese word for circle) combine to form the Inyo symbol. Like the yolk floating in the albumen of an egg, or the shadow passing over a crescent moon or eclipsing sun. Oh, there were many more images of the duality of host and guest joined by a relationship of hospitality in a recursively fractal relationship, like soap bubbles blown inside of another bubble, Indra’s net, the bird nest in front of our family's apartment building, and the ever present frog sculptures in parent/child pairs, in stone or ceramic, capturing the cultural meaning of prosperity and homecoming, as the Japanese word for frog, kaeru, also means "to return."

While sitting in a hair salon while my children got the latest style I browsed a photo album containing pictures taken by the owner during his walk along the Shikoku 88 temple pilgrimage. My eyes fell upon an image of the Emon Saburo stone at Ishite-ji temple, it was another circle within a circle. Being very good at free association, I then recalled the similar images such as lingam and yoni, the Kanayama kofun (金山古墳), and even while browsing the stores it appeared the dualistic pairings were nearly omnipresent. I regrettably didn’t buy a shirt with the Suica penguins (a mom and baby) on the front. But I did buy many other souvenirs. 

Throughout my trip, I was perhaps most interested in the natural beauty, the ancient religious traditions, and the language of Japan. While in Hakodate, although it was the middle of winter, I saw many vine encrusted buildings. The sturdy walls play host to the vines’ climbing and branching structure. What a beautiful way of expressing a hospitable relationship! And on either side of the gateway for every Buddhist temple stand a pair of guardians, either Naraen Kongō and Misshaku Kongō, or Fujin (wind god) and Raijin (thunder god), as at the Kaminarimon Gate. With so many temples and shrines, it was a joy to see these figures, ever so slightly different from place to place, again and again. Shinto shrines were of course different, with figures of foxes being very common, often in pairs, or at Otoyo-jinja I would learn, with guardian mice (a more recent and whimsical touch). And small figures of Ojizo-san (お地蔵さん) stood at a few temples. Animals are everywhere. A shirt with the image of the comic “Nights with a Cat” (Japanese: 夜は猫といっしょ) was popular. 

Again and again, my attention was drawn to these visual images. But rather than such explicit representations, hospitality is about something much deeper, the living relationships between us. In many ways, experiencing Japan is like traveling “through the looking glass.” Social trust is much higher. For a mundane example, in the dining areas of a busy mall in Sendai the restaurants serve the food on fine plates that customers dutifully return, though they could quite easily walk away with, or so it appeared to me. 

I found my conversations with my father in-law both challenging, due to the language barrier, but always deeply rewarding, due to his appreciation for art, culture, and philosophy, which despite any barrier was always readily apparent. By the second or third night of our stay with him, as it grew darker outside and my wife had slipped off to bed, our discussion veered into more esoteric territory and I pulled out an image of a recursively fractal inyo symbol and attempted to explain this process-relational view of cosmic hospitality. I am not sure how much of that was actually conveyed, but the basic idea, I believe, was received. Each night we spent together our evening dinner conversations followed the same ritualistic pattern of attempting to recapture something both intimate and numinous, sometimes succeeding. I reflected that brutal honesty, at least regarding virtues (hospitality) and narratives (stories of hospitality as an organizing theme) is best. Our time together, not just with others, but in a deeper sense our time on Earth, is limited.

Why is America so very different from Japan? There are many ways to answer that question. And what would happen when a more hospitable civilization meets one that is less? I recall that Ulrich Beck famously wrote a book titled in German Risikogesellschaft, or in English, The Risk Society. Perhaps I could write about Gastfreundliche Gesellschaft, or The Hospitable Society. My former philosophy professor Walter Benesch, toward the end of his life, was engaged with the study of comparative civilizations, it would certainly be interesting to see a work on hospitable cultures or civilizations within that genre, as it would avoid the haughty associations carried by the discipline of philosophy. 

I played with other combinations of ideas:「御持て成しの話」 “Stories of hospitality” (hospitality narratives) omotenashi no hanashi …that we are still writing,「主客の話と言語習得」 “Stories of hosts and guests, and language acquisition” This would be an interesting combination for a single book, where language is the guest and meaning is the host. Perhaps「御持て成しと言語習得」 “Hospitality and language acquisition.” A bit of theory and application; Japanese -> English, & English -> Japanese; alterity and dialogism. But do I even understand hospitality in English, let alone Japanese? 

An edgy sounding title might be “The Hospitality/ Xenia Codex/ Protocol,” which reminds me of Barbieri’s controversial Code Biology book. I could also return to ideas like「もてなしの儀式」 rituals of hospitality, or hospitality’s rituals, motenashi no gishiki. Other candidate organizing concepts, like humor or pleasure, just don’t have the same metaphysical cachet. Then late at night, toward the end of the trip, I decided to browse a list of Japanese sociocultural values listed in Wikipedia and came across the idea kotodama. How about “Omotenashi no kotodama?” No, better might be 主客の言霊 (Shukyaku no kotodama) “The sacred language of host and guest.” This might allow me to combine my metaphysical interest in hospitality with my desire to, in a way, live another life. As Goethe said “As many languages you know, as many times you are a human being.” 

There were times during the trip when I questioned my assessment concerning all these metaphysics. And so, though I wished to be fully present and immersed in the here and now at all times, and for which reason I avoided all but the most necessary of online activity (occasionally checking on the condition of the waterline to the house, as it was at times about 50 degrees below zero back home), I did occasionally feel compelled to reassure myself. I quickly read through “The Two Hands of God: The Myths of Polarity” by Alan Watts at one point. And my eyes fell upon the line “holiness is hermaphroditic.” Each of us, regardless of our biology, can see the world in more than one way, and empathize with a male and female perspective. We can understand both ourself and the other, and be both a host and a guest. (Coincidentally, one evening during dinner, a few of the younger women present noted that it’s not easy being a woman. Would but more men really empathize, and thus respond to that reality!) 

Watts also made reference to a few lines from the Tao Te Ching: “He who knows the male and keeps to the female becomes the ravine of the world. Being the ravine of the world, he will never depart from eternal virtue.” And similarly again: “He who has found the mother and thereby understands her offspring, And having understood the offspring, Still keeps to their mother, Will be free from danger throughout his lifetime.” What does this mean? The true mother is neither parent nor offspring, but the relationship of xenia between them, and the children are the words. However only the mother can understand this. …All these reflections from Watts I found reassured me that I was not on the wrong path. And I was no longer as troubled. But I was still eager to see and learn more. 

I was perhaps most deeply moved by the “guardian tree” at each Shinto shrine, and sometimes at other buildings as well. A very old Zelkova serrata guards Takekoma jinja. A healthy and very big プラタナス (plane tree) guards the elementary school my wife attended as a child. Ichii (一位) is the Japanese name for the Japanese yew tree (Taxus cuspidata), a 370 year old tree of this species guards Yukura shrine in Hakodate, which I visited late at night under the January supermoon. And in the bustling center of Tokyo, you can see a sacred Ginko tree at Sensoji temple. In 2009 I had visited Shiogama Jinja (鹽竈神社) in the fall, an incredibly beautiful shrine with no less amazing trees. Why do I find these so moving? These trees form the animistic heart of traditional religion, not just the guardian, but the hosts of places where we are the humble guests. They are the silent witness of an earlier time, and perhaps a more deeply felt truth. And they are still there. 

I mentioned that during my time in Japan I paid attention most closely to three things, and one of these was the language. There are words and sentences one finds very useful, like hisashiburidesu, genkidesu, sumimasen, omiyage, bikkurishita, subarashii, yasashi, gomasuri. There were also a few not-so-common words that I was taught, less polite language like しょんべんくさい. This was used to describe the Japanese idol music groups playing during the New Year’s Eve special, meaning that the girls jumping around on stage were so young that they smelled like pee. (Yeah, that’s not something one would just say anywhere, but to be sure they did dress and act in an exaggeratedly immature way, which is no doubt what appeals to a large fraction of the viewing audience.)


Of more general interest, culturally speaking, is whether and how one can explain the Japanese economic miracle following the devastation of WWII. Could it be that おもてなしの心 (The spirit of hospitality) omotenashinokokoro had anything to do with this? No obvious connection, but as I have identified it as an “ontological primitive” I couldn’t rule out the possibility. While traveling we met individuals who had originally lived in Karafuto (樺太) the historical Japanese name for the southern part of Sakhalin Island. The history there is fascinating. I learned that the Shoshinsha mark identifies novices, whether that means they recently learned to drive, or they are still training on the job in a company. 

I can’t say enough about all the visually imagery I saw. I mentioned earlier the inyo symbol. Well, there are innumerable family crests in Japan and a fair number of these feature crane imagery that resembles the inyo symbol. I would learn that crane symbolism includes the meaning of conjugal happiness: “It is said that once a pair of cranes mates, they do not change partners for life. This is why cranes have come to be used at weddings and other occasions to express the hope that husband and wife will remain in harmony forever.” I quickly noted the mutual hospitality that would be required for a successful and enduring relationship. 
In 2025 there was a popular TV series, The Ghost Writer's Wife, about the wife of Patrick Lafcadio Hearn, and so I saw books about this enigmatic translator of Japanese mythology in every bookstore I visited.

While in Tokyo we went to see the Hokusai museum. This is perhaps the most influential artist in Japan, indeed, in the world, as he was admired by figures like van Gogh and many others. Among his many works was a drawing instruction for the basic hiragana syllabary, and an elegant title page. Much of his work wouldn’t even look out of place in a collection of contemporary art. It is timeless. And while in Hakodate one of the first things I saw, outside the train station, was a sculpture of two human figures, an adult and child, perhaps playing pretend. I also noted an image of a star composed of five perfect squares, conveying the simple elegance seen in much of the art and symbolism, the work of Soetsu Ueki's kappa paintings, and the whimsical Chōjū-giga picture scrolls of frolicking animals.

The day I left Japan I reflected on some of the small things I would miss. Such as the “shower toilets” that are everywhere. No place takes better care of your rear end in the bathroom than Japan does. The fact that they provide these in every public restroom stall also speaks to the high social trust of Japan. Not a single one was vandalized. In the airport I stopped at a bookstore and read a copy of The Japanese Mind by Davies and Ikeno. One of the chapters describes the concept of uchi-soto (inside and outside), which is similar to hone and tatemae. There again, is another dichotomy and parallel to the notion of host and guest. And on the plane ride over the Pacific back to North America I drank kabosu, which is like lemonade, but seemed even better. Oh Japan. You offer so much to a guest such as me. 

There was, of course, much much more. I didn’t describe the statues at Asakusa that are older than the founding of America, or the koi swimming in a pool that glide over and stare you in the eye. Cuddling with the マイクロ豚 (micro pigs) at the Mipig Cafe, seeing the common tree shrew at Ueno zoo, or sharing the surreal experience of visiting the shrine at midnight on New Year’s Eve with my family and eating food from the street vendors afterwards. I can't adequately describe what it is like to soak in the hot water of an onsen outside in winter and feel the cool ocean breeze on my skin, or marvel at the technical wonder of slipping under the Tsugaru Strait on a bullet train. 

Nor have I described here, in any nearly adequate way, the joy of seeing family whom I hadn’t in a very long time. In part this is because that is more difficult to express, and in part because the purpose of this account is intentionally to provide a different, very short, and very general description. I can say that, everything I had hoped for came true during my trip, and I feel that I now have a way to apply the hospitality hypothesis in a very practical sort of context, that is, to the process of language acquisition. I can show how words, at their best, may embody such beauty as I experienced, 主客の言霊, the sacred language of host and guest. 

Kotodama: The spirit of words

Brain lateralization has surprising consequences for the way in which we perceive words and language, as described in The Matter with Things (McGilchrist, 2021):

“Language is a highly complex system, a constantly emerging, and evolving, organism, an embodied aspect of experience, caught up in the fluidity of the reality it reflects. And from the commerce between symbols and what they symbolise two things inevitably follow. In the left hemisphere’s world words are seen as arbitrary signs: in the right hemisphere’s world they are seen as to some extent fused with the aspect of reality they represent.

In other words, tokens or symbols cannot escape being part of the real world in the right hemisphere, and the real world cannot escape becoming tokens or symbols in the left hemisphere. Thus subjects with their left hemisphere experimentally suppressed reported that the sun was so named ‘because it shines’, bread because it is ‘so tasty and fresh’, spaghetti because it’s ‘what you eat with cheese’. They couldn’t accept that objects might be renamed; the name was part of what they were. By contrast, with the right hemisphere suppressed, subjects took the view that names are entirely arbitrary. (Although de Saussure taught that the sign is arbitrary, it is not.)” [1]

The embodied nature of language, seen in the strong cross-cultural associations between word sounds and objects, has also been called sound symbolism. Certain sounds naturally evoke qualities like size, shape, or texture. The bouba-kiki effect is one example of this phenomenon, and has been documented across unrelated languages, suggesting a universal human tendency to link sounds to meanings beyond arbitrary convention. [2]

Elsewhere in The Matter With Things McGilchrist noted evidence for the cross-cultural recognition of value, whether that be moral or aesthetic (as in the example he provided of Bellini’s ‘Casta diva’). If we take all these observations together, I suspect that, were one to combine embodied language with valueception and the ability to presence to the sacred, we would get something akin to Tolkien’s notion of phonaesthetics or perhaps, more tantalizing still, the ancient Japanese belief called kotodama, that words have a sacred or magical power. Koto (言) means language/word, and tama (魂) means soul/spirit. This concept, no doubt, has analogues in many other cultures as well. [3]

This raises the following question: If language is indeed embodied, and if we are able to presence to the sacred through our embodiment, then would it not stand to reason that when we learn a language, we learn that it embodies not only the various sensory aspects of material reality that it represents, but also the more numinous or sacred aspects of reality as well, that is, those aspects which cannot be so easily grasped and manipulated? As with the bouba-kiki effect, this might also hold across languages and cultures. And if such an insight were incorporated into language learning programs, it might set us upon a firmer philosophical and phenomenological foundation from which to embark on our journey. [4]

But the potential for any of the aforementioned to make even remote sense is almost certainly foreclosed to those who are unable to first entertain the possibility that one might be able to presence to the sacred, or otherwise numinous aspects of the world, in at least some form. But provided one can, then such implications as these may be a live possibility. This touches upon another theme running through all of McGilchrist’s work: presentation and representation must operate in tandem. [5] 

What say you? Are there other concepts you may be aware of that are similar to kotodama?

Notes: 

[1] McGilchrist later reiterated this point: "If you suppress the left hemisphere, the right hemisphere sees that words have ‘something of the quality’ of what they denote. And so you couldn't possibly arbitrarily change the name of things. So when subjects [whose LH had been suppressed] were asked “Could bread be called something else?” They replied “No, of course not. Bread's called ‘bread’ because it's crusty and delicious and you can eat it with pasta."
[2] One can cite many fascinating examples: Japanese sound symbolism includes extensive onomatopoeias, the "face-name matching effect" describes how people can match unfamiliar faces to their correct names better than chance, and, though "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet," one may rightly be skeptical of that claim!
[3] This belief has been reinvented over time, as has its pronunciation. "Kotodama" is the common modern form, while "kototama" is sometimes preferred by traditionalists. In China, Xunxi claimed the ancient sage kings chose names (Chinese: 名; pinyin: míng) that directly corresponded with actualities (Chinese: 實; pinyin: shí), but later generations confused terminology, coined new nomenclature, and thus could no longer distinguish right from wrong. Famously, when Confucius was asked what he would do if he was a governor, he said he would "rectify the names" to make words correspond to reality (cf. Orwell's concern regarding doublespeak).
[4] A possibly similar approach to language learning has been used by missionaries in the past, and still today. Notably the "language boot camp" of the Mormon church's Missionary Training Center is widely recognized to be highly effective. Perhaps this is not a coincidence. A "Kotodama Method" may utilize the below methods:

1) Extensive reading (and writing).
2) Chunking into a hierarchical (fractal) method of loci, "memory palace/ cathedral of cosmoxenia."
3) Focus on common phrases and sentences.
4) Spaced Repetition System (SRS) retrieval practice.
5) listening comprehension (ie, news in "slow Japanese").
6) Mimic Method (MM) attending to accent.
7) Unconscious retention and retrieval (search over 50,000 pictures in memory).

[5] Presencing to the sacred is a large topic. But to make a long story very short, I believe the concept of philoxenia provides a window into that world. I have an unwritten paper, perhaps book, that is naively titled 主客の言霊 (Shukaku no kotodama) “The sacred language of host and guest.” The tea master Randy Channell Soei is familiar with hinshugokan. He wrote the bilingual The Book of Chanoyu. I hope to write similarly, but more broadly philosophical. There is also a Japanese pop song from 1996 called 愛の言霊 (Ai no kotodama) whose first two lines of lyrics are presented below (in kanji, hiragana, and romaji) along with an approximate English translation:

生まれく叙情詩とは 蒼き星の挿話
夏の旋律とは 愛の言霊

うまれく じょじょうし と は あおき ほし の そうわ
なつ の せんりつ と は あい の ことだま 

umare ku jojōshi to wa aoki hoshi no sōwa 
natsu no senritsu to wa ai no kotodama

What is the lyrical poem that is born? A side story of the blue planet.
What is the melody of summer? The spiritual words of love.

(The music vaguely reminds me of Streisand's song "I am a woman in love and I'd do anything To get you into my world and hold you within.")

See also: ideasthesia, ideophone, crossmodal, synaesthesia, neurosemiotics, sound symbolism, true name, magic word
Related topics: ritual, ornament, poetry

This article also appears here.