Some Information About Me
Introduction
My name is Patrick, but the online alias I tend to go by is Shirobon.
The name Shirobon comes from the name of the main character of a show
I really liked as a kid, and I've been using it online ever since.
Life
I currently live and work in Japan as an Electrical Engineer for [redacted].
Language Learning
I taught myself Japanese starting at age 13 using a method called AJATT
standing for All Japanese All The Time, created by a guy called Khatzumoto.
AJATT itself is based on a method called Antimoon which was devised by
a couple of Polish guys who taught themselves native level English in only a few years.
Both AJATT and Antimoon promote the idea of immersion based learning, which simply put, is getting as much
exposure to content by natives for natives of the language, paired with a Spaced Repetition System (SRS) such as
Anki or SuperMemo.
The above methods are the philosophies I subscribe to when it comes to language learning.
Using AJATT, I was able to obtain functional fluency[1] in Japanese in only 2 years.
Of course, I have been constantly immersing and sharpening my Japanese ever since.
November 2023 marked my 13th anniversary of learning Japanese.
I received a perfect 180/180 on the JLPT N1 test for all the people who care about that kind of stuff (I don't particularly, just took it for fun!)
Using the same method, I am currently working on learning Polish. Why Polish?
Because I am a "heritage speaker" born in the US to parents who are Polish.
Unfortunately I never properly acquired Polish, so now I am working on fixing that!
Hobbies
Besides language learning, my hobbies consist of, in no particular order:
- Programming (usually in C and assembly, making homebrew for retro game consoles)
- Going for drives through remote areas surrounded by nature.
- Hiking in nature and other outdoor hobbies (touch grass!)
- Occasional video gaming (usually games from childhood, not so much modern stuff)
Footnotes
[1] I define "functional fluency" the ability to understand >90% of any and all non-domain-specific native content. This basically means news, TV shows, movies, books, novels, newspapers, etc. This also includes being able to speak and write about complex topics without much difficulty. I would probably say this is a very strong B2 if not C1 on the CEFR scale.