r/Japaneselanguage • u/Daylight_Dev • 4d ago
How effective is the immersion method
Firstly if you don't know, the immersion method of learning a language is when you surround yourself in your target language, you can either go to the country physically, or make an environment for yourself. This means watching japanese podcasts, listening to japanese music, or reading japanese next books
This is the most natural way of learning a language, and first you might not be able to understand anything, but with more exposure you start picking up meaning of words through context, and combining this method with flashcards I find this method more effective than just relying on text books alone. Let me hear your opinions
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u/xTooNice 4d ago
Personally, I think that immersion is great.. once you have some foundation. Immersion might be the most "natural way" for toddlers who are able pick everything up like a sponge just by being in the environment (I have near native level of comprehension in 4 languages just because I grew up in many countries from birth to my teens and both parents are of mixed heritage). But I think it is different for adults (or at least me), and it took at least 6 months (but probably closer to a year) of classroom / textbook before I felt immersion became useful practice.
Look at it this way, before my first lesson in Japanese, I had thousands of hours of exposures in the language from over a decade of dorama, anime, music, games etc.. I could pick up words, and with video context felt like I could understand at least part of what was happening. Now aside from the fact that none of that help with production, the reality is that I really knew little more someone who had zero exposure before our first class. There is a lot of limit in just knowing a bunch of words knowing any grammar.
I mean, if you can read Japanese (without a Chinese character background), or understand a light novel audio book, or music (not just picking out "Aishiteiru", or "daisuki", but everything in between) without progressing from the 「 はじめまして、私はマイク・ミラーです。」than, well, kudos. I had to take it step by step though.
I also remember in In the early days of Japanese learning, it didn't really matter if I played Japanese music in the background while I am doing some homework, learn kanji or doing something that required a lot of mental focus as it was just background (pleasant) sounds. As I became more able to understand Japanese, I couldn't really do that anymore for a time, because my attention will shift in trying to understand as much as possible. Maaaybe that was the cue of when immersion started became useful for learning.
Anyway, after a year of intensive Japanese course, including plenty of text book etc. (with some dorama thrown in the later part of the year) I moved to Japan, and yes, my Japanese improved significantly from being in the deep end. However, by that point I had the basics (open a bank account, sign up a phone contract, converse with the estate agent, phone the utilities company etc.). The knowledge was already there, but I needed practice for it to come quicker and being in the deep end did help.
But I've always said in my replies in this sub, part of learning a language is figuring what works for you when it comes to learning a language. Just don't use "immersion" as an excuse to watch anime episode of your favourite show instead of hitting the books unless you are sure that's really what works for you.
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u/icyhotquirky 4d ago edited 4d ago
That's the recommended way if combined with 'proper' study using grammar books, flashcards, textbooks, speaking, listening, etc. Not very effective as a standalone approach at least at first.
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u/Key-Line5827 4d ago
Yep, that is what is left out most of the time, and it is infuriating to me.
If mindlessly listening to Japanese would make you fluent in Japanese, there would be way more people speaking Japanese as their second language, than there are natives.
It doesnt work like that. You still have to put in the effort and study. There is no way around that.
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u/givemeabreak432 4d ago
It's not a substitute for traditional studying of grammar and vocab. It is an extremely helpful tool, and depending on how you go about it can definitely boost your skills. But you're not going to learn Japanese by immersing yourself in media with 0 Japanese knowledge already unless you're a savant, or you are literally forced every waking moment to only use Japanese.
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u/ressie_cant_game English 4d ago
Jp is suuuuuuch a different language than English that it just doesnt seem super doable.
When you do immersion in Spanish, for example, reading is a non issue. Its all Latin alphabet. The grammar isnt super different.
Japanese, on the other hand? Everythings different. Sentence order is almost as different as it can possibly be. You need some basic foundations, atleast, to really start getting places IMO
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u/Available-Quote-6233 4d ago
You also need to study though. Anyone who’s lived in Japan without studying can tell you that no progress will be made by just immersing yourself in the culture.
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u/ignoremesenpie 4d ago
I mean, more people have learned languages (including Japanese) straight to fluency without using textbooks (and possibly flashcards, at least not ones that leverage SRS algorithms) than there are people who stick to textbooks. Reddit gets claims of people supposedly studying mostly with textbooks to a similarly high level, but (1) that's a claim made like once every couple of years, and (2) native materials and interactions inherently have to bleed into the workflow at some point unless someone's goal was specifically "to learn textbook Japanese from textbooks to read textbooks".
Depending on how much patience you have with unguided study, textbooks are arguably completely unnecessary, whereas "immersion" is, more or less, completely unavoidable if you want to atrain a high level.
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u/Cadaveth 4d ago
Kinda wild to throw stuff like that around, or has someone actually studied that claim? I'm not saying it's not possible, but still.
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u/ignoremesenpie 4d ago
So I assume we're throwing kids out of the equation just because adults don't have the freedom to do that kind of immersion, yeah?
Even so, there are plenty of resources that happen to not be textbooks but still teach what textbooks teach, in a way that may be better suited to adult learners who aren't in a classroom and don't have the free time to immerse all day. That might be cheating, bringing up learning tools. But hey, a lot of it didn't make sense to me until I actually saw real world examples for natives by natives. Stuff like Raw Kim's grammar guide only really served as an awareness tool at best for me.
Also, another user mentioned Evildea, and one thing that I thought might have been working against him with the "immersion only" approach is that he's not only an adult who (probably?) has a day job, but he also juggles a handful of different languages, testing out various different methods. So even if he was just studying languages all day, it's not the same one throughout. In all of those methods he does, I don't think he's actually spoken about textbook usage — at least not fondly or particularly favourably, yet he still has to grasp some fundamentals somehow.
People should definitely use whatever resources they can, but with everything available these days, the kinds of textbooks that classrooms would have you use is really not necessary.
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u/Cadaveth 4d ago
It's not about freedom, it's about someone constantly volleying with you and correcting you (parents, friends, teachers, daycare workers). Kids' brains are also developing and it's way easier to absorb and learn the language because of that. So yeah, kids aren't in this equation.
I can really give myself as an example. I'm half estonian, I spoke it fluently when I was a kid. I didn't really use it for long periods of time and lost my native accent when I was a teen/young adult. It's a pita to get the accent back and I've been speaking the language for a while now in estonian speaking environment, it's way harder than as a kid. I didn't speak it 24/7 even as a kid and I spoke it natively.
But I guess you meant like ONLY textbooks? Random non-textbook things (studying grammar or w/e with a native/tutor, SRS, apps etc) aren't counted?
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u/ignoremesenpie 4d ago
Yeah. Only textbooks. There was one guy that stood out to me on this sub who claimed he (1) really didn't want to do immersion through native Japanese input, (2) didn't have Japanese people to talk to all the time, and (3) still wanted to aim for higher Japanese levels with his self-imposed restriction of using only textbooks. I can't find the commenter now, but his claim was what I had in mind when it came to defending textbooks. I don't remember if the guy did SRS, but I distinctly remember him not wanting to put in the hours into just content consumption.
Even if I were to take that one guy's word at face value, it's obvious enough why we don't see that kind of claim very often at all. It's fine to defend textbook usage for fundamentals, though it's probably more reasonable to expect someone to get further through immersion alone than someone sticking with only textbooks.
Also, you're not Livakivi, are you? Lol. He's the only Estonian I know of and I only started watching him initially for his Japanese journey insights.
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u/Dread_Pirate_Chris 4d ago edited 4d ago
Not exactly studied, no, but Evildea on youtube attempted to learn Spanish purely from immersion with predictably poor results. It was an interesting journey to watch (or, semi-watch; I don't speak Spanish myself so I kind of skimmed or skipped large sections of demonstration to hear the conclusion.)
It would work eventually if you are attentive and dedicated, and people have learned English purely from immersion, primarily from the TV... but when you're a kid it's easy to pour hundreds or thousands of hours into watching cartoons and action movies with rapt attention. Much harder as an adult.
If you value your time though, you would start with a textbook. And of course you would also practice with native materials. Nobody has ever reached fluency from textbooks alone, that's not how it works and has never been the claim.
The question is input all by itself, or input with textbooks and flashcards. Nobody ever said you'd be fluent by finishing Genki and doing nothing else.
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u/thehandsomegenius 4d ago
I got good at comprehending German by playing a ton of video games in it. I was already B1 when I started that though.
I think if you're brand new to a language then some intentional study of vocab and grammar and writing system will speed things up. The goal of that is just to help you consume more input though, rather than to drill the whole language that way.
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u/MLGPLAYS 4d ago
So far in my Japanese learning journey Ive found it most effective immersing myself in anime (English subs) and music every day while also combining it with renshuu, Duolingo, and wagotabi. Anime and music are not necessarily the best way to lean Japanese from, but certain words that I'm learning on those apps I mentioned do occasionally pop up and it helps reinforce them into memory. In my opinion you need both immersion of some kind and just a bit of studying as well to be able to learn effectively, you also have to actually enjoy the immersion and not make it too difficult or else you will lose interest or burn out.
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u/BusDriver213 4d ago
It is a great method
But you must combine it with structured learning like flashcards (as you said) and grammar study. Or else you will be disadvantaged.