The Guy Who Learned 27,000 Words in Mandarin is Back!

What's up, grinders? Welcome back to the channel. Today, we're going to be reacting to this video from Blue Desert. It has 40 views. Why am I reacting to it? Well, apparently, this is the guy who I did the reaction to in Reddit who learned 27,000 Chinese words in 1 year. And this is the title of the video. He is wrong. I learned 27,000 words in Mandarin 1 year, my reply to Evil Deer. Did I say he didn't learn 27,000 words in a year? I was just like talking about how freaking insane it was based on, you know, everything that was said. Um but anyway, let's let's find out if if I'm wrong. >> And I just watched the Evil Deer video about my post in Reddit, the 27,000 Chinese word. >> Um I might speed this up just a little itty-bitty bit. >> First of all, I it took me a long time to see the video because I I'm a Spanish and they say they learned and I thought it was other person who learned it. Like it wasn't me. It I thought >> [laughter] >> The pronoun got you. This is funny because like there's obviously always debates over pronouns in English as of recently, especially coming out of the American and European sphere of the world. The those types of debates don't really exist in Australia, but uh >> [laughter] >> it's just funny, you know, like thinking about a group. >> god, so many people learning 27,000. So it took me a while to to notice it and also I was like resting because of the headaches. So now let's let's talk about the video a bit and let's explain what I did exactly and why you can't actually do it in 27,000. Just you don't have you have to modify a couple of things and don't use like the system like intrinsic system of Anki. If you use that one, you you cannot do it, of course. All the video, he's >> Okay, so apparently, you can't do this with Anki if you're learning 27,000 words. That is an interesting statement. Um I'm kind of curious why. Maybe he designed his own software or something. >> Absolutely right, Evil Deer. I say everything like perfectly. I have no no problem with anything. He's nice. I I I love his videos. Like he's incredible. Well, anyways, let's let's start with I made a PowerPoint. Okay, guys, so prepare for that. >> Wow, we've got a full-on presentation, guys. Okay, back to school. Here we go. >> What do you want? >> Okay, well, I would love to be able to eat constantly without getting fat. That would be That would be a great one. Cuz I just [ __ ] love eating, bro. It's just so hard. But I don't think that's what the point of this presentation is. >> Good question, isn't it? >> [laughter] >> The thing is, if you want to learn a language, it's not the same to learn a bunch of words, right? We all agree on that. I think a language is somewhat like like an app. It's an app and a skill. It's an app that we install in your brain and you use. And it's also a skill. You could see in both both cases, I will use like an analogy. So, that's why I'm saying it. You have to install the program. >> Man, he so should have started this with a demonstration of his abilities in Mandarin Chinese because the biggest comments I got under that video, like half the people are like, "Okay, the amount of hours he was putting in, the way he's describing it, like literally this was just his life for an entire year. I can see that happening." While the other half were like, "This sounds like complete [ __ ] or just straight up is bullshit." So, it would have been just great to come out just with a demo of abilities. Now, obviously, that doesn't prove that you did it in a year, but at least it shows your capabilities. Like that That's how I would have started. >> So, you need a bunch of words and you need a bunch of grammar and you need like a lot of a lot of things. And you need the XP to level up the program level up the the skill. So, the more doing study in your brain, more insight you >> The mora you install in your brain. You're telling me Chinese got moras? Oh my god, no wonder I'm not so good. Now, I'm just joking. >> Like more instinct, more understanding you have of the language. That's why natives, they can learn new words and new things really easy. It's because it's their own language and they have like max level in Photoshop. So, they're crazy. They're really good. So, we want a lot of XP to level up. How do you get XP? Do you get XP learning new words? More words, more >> I love how he's approaching this from like almost a gaming perspective. >> XP, good. Why? The words actually do not have like magical things, okay? What they have is the effort and the the things you do to learn them is what actually gives you XP. So, you need to understand and decipher the meaning of things. Sentence, videos, words. That's actually what levels up more. What gives you more XP at the beginning. So, retention. Retention is not linear and it's not always the same. The more you know, it it easier it is to remember things. That's why in your mother tongue, in English, in Spanish, or whatever, it is easier to remember things of of new words or sentence or quotes. It is because you have high familiarity and you know basically everything. You are max level on Photoshop. So, you need actually a good level because it's actually what it counts. More level, it it it is everything gets, okay? Easier everything gets. Anki makes sure that you remember everything. That's true. No one argue. But, you have a problem. It takes you a lot of time to do so many reviews. You cannot add like 100 cards every day without like taking 6 hours like of review 200 taking you 6 hours. >> Yeah, that's what I was talking about in my video because I've done offline tests that I haven't really published here with Anki. And when you try adding 100 words a day, the just the amount of reviews you get is just absolutely insane. So, in my original react to his post, I was like, "You must be just spending like 4-5 hours, you know, just a day on just reviews to be able to keep this up." Cuz he was talking about 200 words a day like right at the end there. >> So, you have to think about outside the box figure out how to do all of these and actually getting the results that you want. Like I said, retention is not the same. I'm going to explain a couple of things, so bear with me for a moment. When I was around 10,000, actually it was like 8,000, I changed how I was studying because it was too difficult. At the beginning, before 5,000, I did like a manual thing because the ones that I knew I knew it really well and the rest I didn't know it because of the 2 of learning prior. So, I didn't like that 5,000, I grab it and I get it in a word. I still have the word and I just review them again and again and try to know what is the meaning of this HSK content and I eventually I finish it. And in that word I also did the explanations of them. The I did from 0 to 2,000 in 2 years and 2,000 to 5,000 in like 3 months. I did 70 a day with a lot of sentence. I will explain all of that. We What we have to take into account is when I started to do this I any around 8,000 to 10,000. Okay? And my retention, I studied like 500 and I just leave it there for a month and then I come back a month later and I say, "Okay, let's see how many of them I remember and I can just get right with the night." >> So, after 1 month you had only 50% retention of words. That's That's pretty bad. Then I guess he's trying to go for so many words being added that even if he loses 50% it doesn't matter. >> Not perfectly, but like know them. Like I know what is the meaning of this and what it is from. And I >> So, he's going for just recognition of the word. >> Just realizing it was like 50% of them. And I maybe seeing it two times. Okay? So, in that moment I realized, "Okay, maybe I shouldn't be doing so many reviews in Anki because I'm I'm wasting my time." What I consider an easy and why it here says in two times total because you see it in the video once or two times or many times as many as the video has. Maybe the video say the word like five times or 10 times depending on the video, right? And later you when you review you see it again. So, it's technically second time or maybe it's more if if it's in the video more times, but around two times. >> Okay, so there's currently someone literally just randomly mowing their lawn outside my house [laughter] right now. I hope that doesn't get into the audio, but if it does, whatever. >> You can just not seeing it again for a month and just not perfectly meaning. If that happens to you, there is no point of doing all their possible reviews in Anki. That's just not right and I think everyone would agree on that. Okay, in my experiment I added >> So, okay. So, I'm just doing a quick little read over. So, you've got Huashan and then you got bīng shān, so that's like Okay, so this would be very easy to explain to someone. So, huǒ means fire, and then shān means mountain. If you know both of those, you can pretty much guess what it means. But, that's not the majority of Chinese words. Like, I would say 50% of Chinese words are kind of that way, but then 50% is just like the two components together don't really mean too much. >> Every word I encounter, I didn't know. Every one. Every one of them. What's wrong with that? You don't need to uh things like this are so easy. Like, you don't need to. But, I wanted to measure my rate of progression. Okay? Because if you measure things, you can improve. If you don't, it's going to be difficult. You don't know if you're sustaining your ratios, your progression is still the same now that 2 months later. So, I was just adding all of them. Later, I will show my Anki and everything, and I have evidence of basically everything. So, this is like an example of that. And yes, there is a still like other 50% that are more difficult, and there is like 10% that are just demons. I just extremely difficult to understand. You don't know what they are, and it takes like 20, 30 times, and you still don't know what is the meaning of the demons. Demon cards are just cards that are too difficult. Too difficult for your level at 10 to 20%, and I added anyways, and I recorded a video of the of I will show you later of this encounter. I will record it, and I will ask the GPT or any AI or any dictionary you want. Just get information you need to understand it. Now, and this is quite important. The number of characters you know, it affects a lot with the familiarity on your ability to remember what the meaning of things are. So, at the beginning, like before 5,000, you are better just praying that you remember things cuz it's just really difficult. Before 10,000, you have like most of the characters, but it's still you don't get the meaning of things, but it's getting easier and easier on the depending of the context. It could be like easier. Then you have like this is the percentage of easy words that you get at each moment. This is from my data. So, I think should be fine. It could vary depend It could change a bit depending of of the video I was watching in the moment on. >> So, basically, in summary, the more words you acquire, the easier it becomes to acquire more words because they're built up of components that you've already learned before. Nothing wrong with that. >> many factors. That should be right like 35% of 2,000 should be ones that are Obviously, if you know the characters or if you know synonyms, right? If you do have context of of things, then they will be easier and you don't need to say like five times. You don't need to encounter this 20 times to know the meaning. Like this is quite obvious. This example is an extreme example, but it's to explain the point. And later later on there are only demons. Only demons all around. And I really hate them, but they they exist they exist. Yeah, this is taking how many times you have to review things. I will explain how I review things because since I stopped using the >> Yeah, I'm kind of more interested in just seeing his system at play right now as opposed to going, "Well, it looks like we're almost through the entire presentation." Um I would have just went, "Hey, this is what I did. This is like an example." Yeah, like >> Anki system, I should explain that too. But basically, difficult is really difficult, demons are forever, and easy are quite easy, are fine. Of course, inside easy, there is like degree of difficulty too, but let's say that that one is easy. What if you forget? You forget, good luck. I mean, you have to add again the video of the card, check again the definitions and information you got from the card, and whatever you ask to the AI again, or do whatever, and then you add the card again to review. Yeah, I will explain perfectly later how I do review and why I say that you have to again add it to review. And every day on I will do reviews, and 40% of them will be things I already learned that I forgot or I just didn't understand it quite well, or I thought like, "Ah, I should know this. How I am done failing?" And then I add it again. Like I said, Anki is great if for for the demon cards. So, just I I love Anki and I use it a lot. I'm not going to say that not. But just remember, natives, they don't know all the words. They're fine. They forget all the time everything. And but because their understanding of the language is so high, they can just If you forgot how to use a function of Photoshop, you can check it out. Oh, this is how you see that. You You know, if you are professional on that, you >> I'm guessing he's an artist, okay? Cuz like he keeps referring back to Photoshop. It's a little bit funny. >> You know how to do it, and then it's basically instant. Well, this is the first part explaining and why I did the things. Let's go in and hold in mind our overview. My name is Quasim. First of all, I want to show the post because they deleted me from my post. They would erase it from the memory of everyone like Peter Parker. So, sorry. So, they deleted the explanation and they deleted the the this post that they had like uh They deleted this post, too, that they had like 150,000 views. Like basically everyone in the community, they and they deleted it. I don't know why. I tried to contact them, and they didn't Like I asked, "Hey, did I break a rule?" And they didn't reply to me. So, I I don't know. I don't know why he they did this, the moderators. >> Okay. So, guys, let me know down in the comment section r/ChineseLanguage. What do you guys think about that subreddit? Looks like it's a probably moderated by some people who have a a little bit of a a power-hungry attitude to them. >> Otherwise, hold in mind Let's show you first my Anki deck. Okay, this is my Anki deck. >> Okay, 18,540 words in there. Okay. >> This is Listen, let me get to to here. Okay. This is my Anki deck. Here I got like everything I every day I have I studied in my life. And this is every card I every day that I added a card. It's here per week and per day. So, I have also registered so at what time I added which card. And I do have video Sorry. I have video. This is incentive image. There is no image. It is a video. So, I have video of every card I added. And in in some of them, I I am in the background trying to speak the this word, you know, so it's not like I wasn't there and this is my voice. So, you could even check it. Just a video. That's a shitty video, but it was a good for learning. So, I got videos of everything and I got uh this is my own understanding of the meaning of of the word. Sometimes I write it and all my things are in Spanish. Sometimes I write in Spanish like what I think it is. This is the context from the AI that is made from the subtitles of the video and I also have like this thing. Sometimes I fail. I don't remember them. So, I added again and again and again and I have like seven videos from different videos about this word. So, for example, this one. tan tan You got this one. Sometimes it's from the same video. Sometimes it's from another video. Sorry, guys. Well, you get the point. And also I got like AI explanation for the meaning. If they are expressions or if it is just difficult, I I I usually add it. And you go to the AI, you ask, you copy it back. It's tedious, but and I also I was able to automate automate that later on, but for most of the time I wasn't able to do it. So, So, most of the cards they are like this and they have like a this case I it has stopped having video because it's from a novel when I was reading. This is a a novel like a Chinese web novel. >> One thing I've noticed is that his cards are filled with like information. Like I'm assuming he doesn't look at most of this unless he fails at the word and it's kind of like a a reminder. Cuz there's a lot in here. >> I have videos. And if you see here, this is like a definition in Spanish and this is basically the thing. how to mine You know, there's many videos there there are many videos in There are a lot of content on how to mine. And basically you go to Yomichan, you add it and you you can use ShareX to get the video or OBS with a good configuration and then you can use for example an extension that >> The one spot we need to see. Didn't be hiding him. >> [laughter] >> I read the subtitles and tells you the meaning and with a bit of context and copy instantly to your deck. Um you can do many things like whatever you want. Let's talk about my review system. My review system is quite simple, actually. But it is uh confusing because how I name things. Like I'm not really good getting names in in the programs. So, yeah. Basically, you learn when you add 100 words, okay? And the day the following day or a couple of days later, depending on how lazy you are that day, you review all of them. You see again all of them and the context and the meaning and everything. You decide if it is easy or you need to see it again. You need to see it again. Even if it's only one time. If the word do not pass this test, it goes to first review, which is this one. And then a couple of days later, you have to do the same process again, this thing I'm telling you with the new ones, and checking the first the first review. And the ones that do not pass, send them to the second review. And the ones that do not pass from the second review, send them to the third review. And the ones that do not pass from the third review, you send them to review like second third third review. Okay. >> Okay, so it's kind of manual process in here where he tags basically the cards. And he's working external to how Anki works with the SRS. I'm not so sure about what the benefit is here because like if you run through your own manual review process, wouldn't that just add extra manual reviews? Unless he's modified the Anki algorithm to very rarely give him new like reviews like that's possible. But still don't quite understand it. >> It's confusing. I'm confusing myself. But it's basically a ladder. It's a ladder and you go down go if you know it or not. Quite easy. And once in a while you have to check like the balance of the last 1,000 you learn. You check it, you do a test or you just see them again. And you see how is your level actually of if there is someone that actually you didn't learn. Actually, if you do the ladder, most of the time the ones that you do not remember in the long time are the ones that they have the difficult they have like the difficult this. This is difficult. They have the difficult label. The difficult label is basically the ones that I was studying and I thought this is difficult. And this is outside my other system of review because with the time I was changing things and testing and I also later did like easy and hard in label and later I did another system like outside because I didn't like >> But one thing I did do at one point um and it is kind of good is like when you add a whole heap of new cards, I would tag them as today and that way I'd review them all. That means you're going to do two reviews for each card, okay? And then that's it. They they disappear in Anki. Then what I would do is I'd pull up and do a custom review of just all those that were labeled as today and I'd do that several times within that one day. And then that basically helps cement those cards in. I hadn't done that for a while, but when you're kind of early on, that can help quite a bit because like waiting until the next day, your brain just it's just not used to this language. >> And the first and later on I I did like with with 2D really fast uh uh these two to reviews and I was doing the reviews here instead of in Anki because I was tired of doing reviews in Anki. And after all the process and doing all the things, I end up learning basically most of them like 90% and I'm quite happy with it. Um my pronunciation is fine. >> So, I'm basically trying to speak and doing it really bad for those who don't know. Okay, so it looks like he can just recognize and read, but obviously hasn't got the pronunciation down. Which goes to show even if you learn 27,000 words in a year and all you're doing is this for hours on end every day, that doesn't mean in every category of the language are you going to be amazing. So, maybe he's both reading and listening cuz obviously we got clips in here where he's listening to it. I'm assuming those are the two categories that he's focused on reading and listening. But as a result, his speaking abilities are way behind. Now, obviously you could probably bring those up to par pretty quickly because you can understand the language and you don't have to go through that process, but something always gives in the end. Okay, let me go back. He actually sounds pretty good. I don't know what he's on about. Let me just uh put this down to normal speed now and we'll listen. >> And I'm quite happy with it. Um my pronunciation is fine. >> Yeah, yeah, okay. So, his Chinese like his spoken abilities right there are somewhere I would say around a HSK 4 level. Uh which is spoken-wise probably one level behind myself, but if he knows 27,000 words, that means he knows the language a little deeper than me. But that was actually I was actually quite happy with that. That was pretty good. Like I was expecting it to be way worse. >> I have to still to practice a lot and I barely did any practice. I never spoke with no one in Mandarin in my life. So, of course I'm not going to be good at talking because I don't >> Well, considering you haven't spoken with anyone in real life, you actually did [laughter] pretty good. Cuz like I know people who speak regularly with real people and they sound [ __ ] atrocious. No, you actually sounded good. >> about this. I'm working on that. And I I'm doing around 2 hours of speaking practice every day and 4 to 5 of listening. >> Okay, yeah. So, you you definitely been doing a lot of speaking practice. It makes sense why you're sounding pretty good. >> I'm to improve my listening because I have some problem. >> Cuz like he's doing 2 hours of just speaking practice. I do just 2 hours of Mandarin Chinese a day and that's all I get time for. So like he's got what I do every day just for speaking practice. >> because I have dependency on characters. Because of the reading, I'm still able to to understand most videos like podcast or content like this, but my listening is is behind. So I'm trying to record that and I'm trying to learn more. >> That is interesting. Your listening's behind. Okay, so primarily was just focused on reading and your listening lags your reading. Very interesting. Like my listening is ahead of my reading. My reading is around the same level as probably my production, like my speaking. It's very interesting how people approach these things in different ways and what their focus is. >> with myself. Since I only been like 1 year of studying really hard, even though this is pronunciation, but actually like focusing on learning, is I think it's normal that I cannot speak like like people want People think if you just learn everything, you can speak it, but actually >> No, that's not true. You still got to practice the hell out of it. >> It takes time and practice. Even he has a great video on that. If you guys want to check it. The last thing is about the 10,000 hours. Basically, I said in the here. Well, this is too long. No need to read this. It's too long. >> Already read it, my man. Already read it. What are you on about? >> I changed it because I I had a typo and I said like like in in instead of total, it said like uh like in a year and actually it's not in a year. It's in total. >> Ah, yes. That was one thing I picked up in my video. I was like, no, that mathematically doesn't make sense. >> Uh because of these reasons, but I I will explain it right now. Basically, I did I'm not sure if I This is the fourth time I record this video. I'm not sure what I explain or not do not explain. Okay, but basically here I did 152 days in a row for pronunciation and learning some vocabulary and a lot of listening. Uh around 8 hours a day to 12:00 too. And here this is like 1 or 2 hours a day, but I didn't like I wasn't investing energy, you know, I was doing it but not because I wanted but I was listening 3 to 4 hours. Maybe I did maybe 2 to 3 hours basically all of these days on most of them because of personal things. And here is the last year. So, in total it is around 10,000. Could be a little >> That is an insane amount when you really think about it cuz like I am at 1,600 plus hours of Mandarin Chinese and he's calculated that he's done 10,000. And his speaking ability is behind my own, but obviously his reading ability is way above mine. And I'm guessing listening is probably better than mine. I don't know like cuz we haven't got any demos right now. Like he sped run it in one way by dedicating an entire year to it. And he has a lifetime, not 1 year, but a lifetime learning of this language of 10,000 hours. So, even when you cram more hours into a day, you basically in a lot of ways lose a lot because obviously your brain can only deal with so much at one time. So, like 10,000 hours, you would assume like if that was spread out let's say over like 10 years or something, you probably mastered the language at this point. Like well, maybe not mastered but you would be very very high level in like all categories. So, basically even if you could sit down for an entire year, smash this for 12 hours a day, efficiency goes in the opposite direction because now your brain is just overloaded every day. And yes, you would learn faster than say someone who's doing it at a slower pace, but also you're losing a lot more hours just due to the fact that your your brain just can't cope with that much. There is basically a limit. >> Needless could be another question. I did the math like a couple of weeks when I did the post. I post I I did the the math when I did the post. So, I'm not quite sure exactly right now, but it should be right. Um I think that that's everything. Um really if you want to do this, go on. Like >> What's it what it do? In theory, what you've achieved is impressive, but when reading through your post it is very clear to me that the way you talk about the language reads like someone who doesn't speak the language. I wonder how much of what you're saying is true. Well, clearly he speaks the language. >> This was awful. Uh but like if you we want to who I am to tell you anything. I really love your videos and I'm really grateful very grateful that you made like a like the the video and I've been watching it and you've been really respectful. Thank you for your video. Um if you have any doubts or curiosity about more deep being on the process I have >> I would actually just be curious to see you do a study session. Just a session where you sit down and just record yourself I don't know 10 15 minutes going through so I can just see like what you do. I always like learning from other people and their experiences. And also when it comes to like you know posts and stuff like this I always assume that someone's not lying unless the information that they're providing stacks up against them. So, like I try to be you know as kind as I can cuz I know there's individuals on the other end. But obviously I do deal with a lot of frauds in this space. So, like I can I can seem like a pretty violent guy sometimes you know against people. But like in this case I was just like okay the only real issue I saw here was that 10,000 number and as you explained you probably just uh accidentally stated that wrong. That's a lifetime worth not one year's worth. And maybe your math is off there, but like if anything, this kind of shows me that just doing a massive amount of hours per day, uh it does help you progress fast, but also it probably consumes more time than it would if you were doing it over a longer time span. Cuz like people always do assume that just do more hours per day, you make better progress. But obviously there's a cap to this. And that was an interesting thing to just kind of explore overall. >> data of what I did in every moment, and I do have register the number of words that I encounter that I didn't know at each time. So, I have like even more data of of on everything. If anyone wants the deck, it's like 14 GB, and sometimes I speak in the background in the videos. But if you guys want it, uh it's in Spanish, too. But if anyone wanted >> So, this is for a very, very specific person. You must speak Spanish and be learning Mandarin Chinese. Let us know down in the comment section if that is you. I know it's me. I was going to say Chocolate Chinese Gaming, but he is Chinese, so that's not of any use to him. So, who [laughter] else needs this deck? Uh realistically, I wouldn't use your deck, and that's just due to the fact that I'm not a I don't like the idea really of just downloading and using other people's decks cuz I find a lot of the learning happens via the creation of the deck. >> I will I I can share it. I don't have any problem. Someone want to do like an investigation and check uh noodles, you know, like uh shǔ luò. If you want to check it, I can send you the It's absolutely fine. I have no no problem with that. And I don't know uh if you guys want a >> Okay, looks like we're pretty much at the end of the video. If you guys got any questions for the man, just drop them down in the comment section. I'm sure he will respond down there. I'm not going to delete his entire thread just because that's the type of person I am and whether you actually did it or not realistically it doesn't matter to me. I think you did this. It looks pretty legit. You've you know you touched on the language on and off for a few years and then you did a massive intense period of one year and you know the whole 10,000 hours thing maybe it's 10,000 maybe it's 8,000 realistically it doesn't matter at that point. The fact is you were speaking the language and that that's the main thing and you can use it and you're not selling any like [ __ ] like I don't see you selling a course so I really don't care. But I do enjoy like looking into other people's journeys so that's why I do do these reacts. Anyway, if you guys have enjoyed this video let me know down in the comment section. I'll see you all in the next video and if you're not there well you better be grinding that 27,000 Anki words because in that deck is the word which is your safety word the one that keeps you alive.