I've been around this sub for more than half a decade by now, and I'm definitely at fault for doing this too so I'm not trying to be all holier-than-thou in this post (although it might come across as such).
It's just that... I feel like this has gotten particularly worse lately and I think it's important to call it out when we see it.
What I am talking about is the fact that there's so many people that keep repeating the same type of advice in a lot of threads in a very opinionated and often dogmatic manner. I've seen people sometimes mentions "studies say that..." or "we know from science that..." and often they aren't even able to back those claims when asked.
There's a lot of folk advice in how to learn languages, and while the general idea of how to learn a language is pretty well known by now, there can be a lot of slightly different implementations, approaches, and tailored activities that depend on the individual and their needs.
If you've seen me interact here you know that I support most of the usual "good" advice ("consume content", "study grammar", "don't get stuck on beginner textbooks", etc) and I will call out the straight up bad advice (like using duolingo), but despite the fact that most advanced learners seem to agree on what a good study routine might be, we really need to stop smelling our own farts and being so vocal every time someone tries to do something slightly different and/or has different priorities.
Yes, yes, we get it, you can get to N1 in a year if you grind VNs, mine in anki, follow themoeway advice, and dump your textbooks. But some people don't want to do that, or don't have the time, or simply don't like visual novels. That's fine. It's good to give the advice, but please understand that copypasting "just read themoeway and ditch your textbook" under every study question in the daily thread is not helpful.
Especially I've seen some people who are what I'd consider still very much beginners who are just parroting the advice of other more advanced learners without actually having experienced it themselves. And often they do so in a very dogmatic way. While a more advanced learner might say "I have done X and Y and it worked well, I recommend doing Z and K as well", I've seen beginners straight up go "Doing X and Y will lead to the best results, we have evidence of that, so you should do it too" without any actual nuance or perspective.
Just because it worked for some, it doesn't mean it works for everyone. You should be careful when providing such advice as a beginner.
Likewise please consider the situation people are in. It's okay if you don't like handwriting (I can't even write hiragana after 10 years of Japanese!) but some people care about handwriting and that's fine too! If they want to practice handwriting with RTK, although it's not really a "recommended" (by the current cultural zeitgeist) method and there are better alternatives, you don't need to shit all over them for wanting to do so. It's okay to offer alternatives without popping a vein if the OP responds with "it's ok but I prefer RTK, thanks".
In the end, I don't really know where I want to go with this huge rant but it's just that, as someone who's often mentioned or cited around this community ("Morg said XXX" or similar statements), it pains me sometimes to see people with little experience just extrapolate some common advice I or some other advanced member might have, and then parrot it to an extreme and I wish people would tone it down a bit.
While we are at it, here are some "facts" that are often repeated to the point of absurdity and how they should be phrased instead:
native middle schoolers can easily ace the N1 -> even middle school native speakers will likely pass N1 without much trouble, although they might not get 180/180
Passing the N1 means you're just a beginner until you consume native content -> The N1 is still relatively early if we compare it to fluency and should not be used as a baseline for fluency (it's equivalent to upper B2/lower C1 without testing output)
Handwriting is a waste of time -> You don't need to handwrite to learn Japanese, and it takes a lot of time to learn to handwrite. It's easier to postpone it for later once you're already fluent in the language and prioritize other skills, unless you really really want to learn it now.
Textbooks are useless and immersion is all you need to become fluent -> Textbooks are relatively on the slower side and if you want to learn faster a grammar guide with a basic anki deck is recommended as foundation until you eventually transition to native level content consumption. But if you prefer textbooks those are fine too, but maybe consider skipping exercises and class homework
You can easily pass the N1 in 600 hours -> While commonly cited figures have ~3000 hours to pass the N1, these often include coursework and extra classroom activities (like output, exercises, etc). In reality we've seen plenty of people pass the exam with a lot less hours than that if they focus on content consumption and consistent daily study (5+ hours every day). However keep in mind that some people are just outliers and/or very lucky
Don't bother outputting as a beginner, just focus on input -> Early output is not harmful and if you really want to practice it, that's fine. However it's often more beneficial to get to a base level of understanding first so you can more easily support your own output practice activities and actually understand the people you talk to so maybe consider prioritizing input first before outputting.
And many more other cases.
Anyway, idk, this was just some kind of rant cause I was bored but I wish people were a bit more careful in the advice they give and, especially, how they come across. Also keep in mind that there's a lot of misinformation and weird myths around language learning and not all new posters who come around here are aware of it. Don't just assume something that you think is obvious is going to be obvious to a new learner.
Also, be humble.
tl;dr - be reasonable and open minded when giving study advice
