[upbeat electronic music plays]

[00:00:00] Jeremiah: Hello and welcome everybody to How to Language, a podcast about language learning for language learners. I'm your host Jeremiah, and with me is my cohost Marina. In this episode, we interrogate one of the most common claims you'll hear about language learning, that to learn a language, you have to immerse yourself in it.

Many people believe this is the best way to learn a language, and some people believe this is the only way to learn a language. As with most things, we find that the reality is a little bit more complicated than that, as you’ll see. I'm also excited about this episode because it's our first one to drop after the initial launch at the beginning of this month, and we've picked up a few listeners since then.

So I'm really happy to share this episode with you all. With all that said, please enjoy.

[00:00:49] Marina: So like how, how would you define immersion?

[00:00:57] Jeremiah: I think that immersion is when you are fully surrounded by, in this case, a language. And so, all or most, or just the majority of the language that you hear in your life, from the time you wake up to the time you go to bed, is your target language. If you are immersed in your target language. As opposed to, you know, for us, we are immersed in English because that is the language that we hear almost all the time.

But I guess immersion can…you can apply that word to smaller contexts. So you can have an immersion class where the entire class is conducted in another language, as opposed to your first language. And, you know, it's not immersion in the kind of universal sense of your whole life is immersed in that language, but it's immersion in that context.

So basically, only one language.

[00:01:57] Marina: Right.

[00:01:57] Jeremiah: For language immersion. 

[00:01:59] Marina: Yeah. I think, some people might sort of differentiate two types of immersion. One is like actual immersion, which is typically where you are living in a different place that speaks that language. So like you move to Japan or you move to Mexico. You are living in a community that speaks your target language, like you said, from the time you wake up to the time you go to bed.

But then there's also, like you said, sort of—this is kind of a negative connotation—but artificial immersion, where you (these aren't official terms by the way, this is just something that I'm saying [chuckles]), where it mimics the same effects of living in a different place, living in a different community, like in a class, if you're part of a language program that does like quote unquote immersion classes, or if you're a younger child and you go to a dual language immersion school where your classes are conducted in the target language, that's another type of immersion.

Some people will sort of set up an immersive environment in their own home by only watching and consuming media in their target language as much as possible, talking to themselves in the target language, putting up little sticky notes with vocab of, you know, of objects in their target language. You know, things like that.

Those are all sort of part of this immersion technique. Or this immersion method.

[00:03:36] Jeremiah: Yeah, I think I, I once had a Spanish instructor who, his entire phone and his entire computer were in Spanish. And he was, you know, he was, he himself was a second language user of Spanish. So a learner as well as a teacher. But that was kind of how he immersed himself and kept himself immersed as much as he could was by having his browser and his computer and everything be in Spanish all the time. 

Um, another fun one that I like to do sometimes is, uh, if I'm playing video games, to put that in Spanish. If it's Spanish or whatever language. Because with video games, for one thing, the pace is a lot more, like you set the pace a lot more.

And you are also encountering just all kinds of vocabulary and things, often multiple times, because a lot of video game activity is, you know, doing similar tasks more than once. You know, pressing the same buttons, using the same items, yada yada. But it can be really good if you play a variety of video games because a different setting, a different genre. All different kinds of games are gonna have totally different sorts of vocab, systems, yeah, it’s a great way to immerse yourself, you know, artificially, as you said.

[00:04:49] Marina: I agree. Playing animal crossing was really fun in Spanish because it's low stakes, the, the vocabulary in that game is all very like, everyday things, you know, like furniture and clothing

Jeremiah: Rock.

Marina: What?

Jeremiah: Rock. Pick up rock.

Marina: Yeah [laughs] you know, things like that.

Um, and you know, it's very conversational. When you're talking to, like, your neighbors and stuff, it's very similar to what you might encounter in real life, in terms of just, like, daily interaction. 

[00:05:21] Jeremiah: I can’t tell you how many scuffles I've gotten into with raccoons over How closely they how close or how far they built their house to my house really infuriating

[00:05:30] Marina: You have really strong conflict resolution skills in Spanish now [both laugh]

[00:05:33] Jeremiah: Yeah, totally like, “ugh, you’re catching all my butterflies, I can’t believe this.”

[00:05:39] Marina: Highly recommend Animal Crossing. Have you haver been fully immersed in another language?

[00:05:45] Jeremiah: Have I ever – No? No, because well, first of all, I've never been, you might say fully immersed in the sense that I've never lived in a place where I was surrounded by another language at all times. Um, the closest I've come to that would be travel. Uh, but never to a country or a place where my target language was spoken.

So, no, and I've certainly never done it on purpose. I've tried, I've experimented with sort of, like you said, artificial immersion with video games, watching shows and movies in Spanish or Norwegian or whatever, as the case may be. Setting my phone or my computer to another language, which, can be a lot of fun. Uh, it can also be kind of exhausting. But, you know, we'll get to that. Uh, what about you? Have you ever been immersed in, in another language, in your target language?

[00:06:36] Marina: I have! Um, when I was in undergrad, I studied abroad in Japan for two months. And, as part of that, I took an intensive Japanese course while I was in Japan which met for like four hours a day, four days a week, or maybe five, I forget.

And, of course, then also we were living in Japan and so we were immersed in Japanese both inside and outside the classroom. 

[00:07:06] Jeremiah: And that connects to your senior thesis, right? That you did.

[00:07:10] Marina: Yes! I, did my undergrad thesis on sort of the topic of immersion, and I conducted my research and did my data collection while I was in Japan, because my research question was looking at the outcomes of Japanese learners, you know, students who were learning Japanese as an additional language, looking at the outcomes of study abroad participants versus students who stayed in the United States and were studying solely in the United States. I was looking at how they used honorifics, um, in particular, to see the differences in the outcomes there. 

And turns out that there was no difference. There was no statistically significant difference between how domestic students and study abroad participants used honorifics. 

Uh, which kind of hints at what we're going to be talking about today with immersion, as a method of language acquisition. Because immersion is often touted as the best way to learn a language.

[00:08:17] Jeremiah: If not the only way to learn a language. I think some people would even go so far as to say that you can’t “really” learn a language, air-quotes, unless you are immersed in the language. And often that kinda ties in with what we talked about in a previous episode about the native speaker fallacy or native speaker bias, where if you're learning a language, it's often an implicit goal to become a native speaker, even though, as we talked about before, that's not really possible. But that ties in with this because the belief that a lot of people hold is that the only way to become a native speaker, quote-unquote again, is to go to a place where native speakers all are and talk to them.

But we'll get into, we'll Interrogate that a little bit, because as you might imagine by now, it's a little more complicated than that. Just a teeny bit.

Marina: Isn’t everything? [pause] So…

Jeremiah: [at the same time] YES. [both laugh]

[00:09:13] Marina: So let’s start with talking about some of the advantages of immersion like what is so great about immersion because there are some benefits to it There are some upsides to it for sure.

[00:09:31] Jeremiah: Yeah, so when I think about immersion…there's a quote. It's actually one of my favorite quotes by Mark Twain. And I think about it all the time because, you know, first of all, the imagery alone is just, it tickles me, but also it's weirdly applicable to a lot of situations, including this one especially, I think. And the quote is this, “A man who grabs a cat by the tail learns something which he can learn in no other way.” And just like, sit and envision that for a second. Well, what does that mean to you, do you think?

[00:10:03] Marina: I mean, I imagine...grabbing our cat's tail, or any cat's tail, and, experiencing the cat's reaction. Thatis something that you really can't get any other way than taking that leap.

[00:10:19] Jeremiah: Yeah, and you learn not to do that. 

[00:10:27] Marina: Right, yeah. 

[00:10:29] Jeremiah: And it’s a lesson you learn a lot better than if somebody just says, “don’t do that.”

Same goes for carelessly plugging in a plug into an outlet, you know, when you're a tiny baby and you're playing with a plug

[00:10:36] Marina: [chuckles] Right…?

[00:10:37] Jeremiah: And your mom or your guardian is like you know, “If, if you plug that into the wall, you know, make sure you're not touching the metal part,” and you're like, “yeah, whatever mom.” But once you do it, you never do it again because you learn, you know, the hard way. 

This is a little different than that, but it's a similar principle, which is that I think that to a certain extent, when it comes to language learning, it is true that you learn something about your target language, or you acquire skills with your target language that you would have a very hard time acquiring, if you could at all, in any other way besides being an, being immersed in the target language. Does that mean you become a native speaker? No, as you probably know already. Um, but we'll get into that. 

I think this quote is great for understanding immersion specifically because, you know, it is true you can get stuff from immersion that you can't really get in any other way. But shortly we'll talk about whether what you get from immersion is necessarily good or is it worth the time, effort, and money that it takes to achieve immersion. We'll get there.

[00:11:46] Marina: We don't want to uncritically accept this narrative that immersion is the best, the best soul method. Um, because it sort of reinforces that native speaker bias and is just in general oversimplified.

[00:12:03] Jeremiah: Definitely. I think also, another thing that’s kind of problematic about it is that when people talk about immersion, usually what they say, or at least what they are envisioning, I think, is you go to the country where this language is spoken, and you live there for a little while. And I think, right off the bat, there are a few problems with this. 

First of all, obviously not everyone can do that. So it kinda gives a class character to language learning that I think is kind of unnecessary. But also it implies, first of all it plays into the native speaker fallacy because you're not saying, like, “Go to a place where there are a lot of second language speakers of this language.”

You're saying, “go to the country where they are,” and it's almost like, “go to where the native speakers are, because that's where you'll learn what you really need to know.” And it's like, the same exact problem that we talked about last time.

[00:13:01] Marina: Mhm.

[00:13:02] Jeremiah: And finally, finally, it, uh, it's always the country where the language is spoken, which ties language to basically like country borders and implies that, first of all, every country has a language, which is more of a language policy and a political question than a linguistic one because it's nowhere near as simple as that. But you know, that can have all kinds of icky implications for languages that don't have a country or countries that have many languages, which many of them do, including the U.S. Many, many languages are spoken here. Um, and we don't officially have an official language, but people treat English like it's the official language. Sorry. Going off on a rant, you were gonna say something.

[00:13:51] Marina: No, absolutely. I think for one thing, just to add a little bit more nuance to what you said, um, it is true that going to another place, often another country, is going to give you access to more speakers. I think especially in the case of certain languages like Japanese. It is less common to find Japanese speakers outside of Japan. Obviously not impossible, but that is where you would go to get, you know, daily exposure to Japanese. 

But also, you are absolutely 100% correct as far as the sort of, political underpinnings that go into immersion and learning languages abroad. And that is why we are going to refer to “immersing yourself” not as going to the country where the language is spoken, but going to the community where it’s spoken.

[00:14:49] Jeremiah: I think that's a really good way to problematize it. Especially like, that can include second language users. Wherever there's a huge community of second language Japanese speakers, probably on a Chan board somewhere or something.

[00:15:01] Marina: Exactly. That is a – [laughs in realization of what Jeremiah just said]

[00:15:04] Jeremiah: I'm sorry, I'm sorry Japanese learners. [both laugh]

[00:15:06] Marina: No, but online communities can be immersive, you know, and often they're made up of learners. That is a legitimate way to immerse yourself in the, in your target language. 

So, moving on to some of the actual benefits of immersion, [both laugh] got on a little bit of a tangent. So, for one thing, the most obvious sort of benefit to immersion is that you get a lot more input in your target language and thereby also getting more opportunities for generating output.

You're taking in more of the target language through listening and reading, and then those give you opportunities to then speak, maybe not write as much, but definitely speak, because you're going to be in conversation with others more often than you would, say, at home. 

[00:15:58] Jeremiah: Definitely. And of course there's an important caveat to this, which is that I think a lot of people, when they move to another country where another language is dominant and they're going to be exposed to it a lot and they know it, like Japan.

A lot of people just kind of think, you know, “I'll move there and I'll just pick it up. I'll just pick it up from being around the Japanese.” Like if you put a Japanese textbook under your pillow, it'll filter up into your brain. It's kind of like that level of magical thinking, I guess. And people are always kind of shocked and surprised when, after a year of living abroad, they find that they don't know any of the language.

And it's like, well, yeah, you have to, um, you can't just be immersed.

[00:16:37] Marina: Exactly, and that's what we'll talk about a little bit later, too. Um, there's a lot more that goes into it. yeah, it's not something magical that happens. There are people who can live in another speech community for absolutely years and years and years and can barely say anything.

[00:16:54] Jeremiah: And there are a lot of reasons for that.

[00:16:55] Marina: Exactly. So it's not some magical method that will work automatically for everybody. But it is true that you get a lot more input, you get a lot more opportunities to generate output, and those are both very good things when it comes to language acquisition. 

I think another reason why the immersion method is thought to be so effective on its own is because it's how children learn languages. It's how we acquire our first languages, it's just being born into a speech community, where one or more languages are being spoken, and all it takes is just being in that environment for a certain amount of time, and you just kind of pick it up, right? And while that's true, we want to make it clear that the way that children acquire language is extremely different from how adolescents and adults acquire languages. The two are not comparable. Just like how a baby can't study grammar books and take language classes, adults cannot learn a language like a baby does.

That's just how our brains work in infancy. It's a very complicated issue. Babies are not as great at language learners as we think they are. But suffice to say, that is not a reason to pursue the immersion method, because that is just not how our brains work later in life.

[00:18:22] Jeremiah: Yeah, and even if it did, would you really want that? Would you really want to go to another country and have to spend a few years talking like a baby?

[00:18:28] Marina: Spend the first year not talking at all.

[00:18:31] Jeremiah: Literally. Just screaming. Just going, going to the, going to the grocery store and just howl at the teller while they try to calm you down. They're like, “are you hungry? Are you sleepy? Do you need a nap?” And you're like, "Raaah." 

[00:18:47] Marina: Yeah, it just does not work. So, that is not, that's not it.

Another interesting benefit of immersion is that you get a lot more practice with sort of the pragmatic and the cultural side of the target language.

Uh, because you're not only... Typically, you're not only immersed in the target language linguistically, but you're also immersed in it culturally, very often, especially if you are in a different place or if the community that you're immersing yourself in are L1 speakers. 

[00:19:25] Jeremiah: Definitely, so for example, if you are abroad in a place where your target language is spoken, you find out what people say when they want you to hold the elevator. You find out what people sing to each other on their birthdays, or if they even sing to each other on their birthdays. You learn what, uh, what expletives people use when they cut each other off in traffic. Things, again, things that you kind of would have a hard time learning in any other way. And language classes try to approximate this sometimes with a little culture corner in the bottom of the page of the textbook, where it's like, “Oh, in, you know, French Guiana, they, they do this on St. Patrick's Day,” or whatever. And it's like, that's cool, that's good to know, but you, you just get a lot more of that cultural context for the language and how the language is actually used by people to accomplish things, to accomplish goals, to do stuff when you're surrounded by it all the time.

And when you have to learn how to use the language to actually do things, because it's one thing to know all the words, and it's one thing to know all the grammar, it's a very different thing to know how to use the language as a tool. It's kind of like, you know, you could know the chemical, composition of the steel in the head of a hammer, and you can know what tree the wood that makes up the handle came from, but, if you're holding it backwards, then…

[00:20:50] Marina: [chuckles]

[00:20:51] Jeremiah: …it's not going to be very useful to you. Like, you can really only learn how to use a hammer or a miter or whatever other tools by actually using it.

[00:20:59] Marina: It almost turns language learning into a problem solving activity, because in your daily life you're going to be encountering new problems that you have to learn how to, how to solve, you know, and it's often pretty high-stakes. Let's say you move somewhere else and you have to learn how to talk to your landlord in your target language, that's pretty high stakes and you're probably going to learn a lot from that conversation because of that. 

And of course, uh, we can't talk about immersion without talking about the attested benefit that it helps you use the language more like a native speaker. Which, of course, as you're probably aware by now, we like to problematize, but it is, you know, attested that, immersion is a way to improve your pronunciation or your quote unquote “accent.” It helps you learn how to use the language more naturally. But of course, those are, little fuzzy on what that actually means.

[00:22:06] Jeremiah: Yeah, I think it’s just the aggregate effects of all the benefits that we've talked about so far, especially the cultural and pragmatic aspects, because those really are things that, it's very hard to learn comprehensively if you're not in a context to learn those things.

But yeah, pronunciation, like you mentioned, you're just exposed to a lot more often, uh, first language users of the language, people who have been speaking it all their lives. So, it is not surprising that you might pick up the way that they say words and say them yourself. It's like, if you move to Argentina and you live there for 20 years and you learn Spanish, and you sound kind of like an Argentinian or uh, English speaker who learned Spanish in Argentina, which is what you are. It's not that you sound more like a native speaker, it's that you sound more like a first language user of Spanish from Argentina.

[00:23:02] Marina: Yeah.

[00:23:02] Jeremiah: I mean. Getting back to what we talked about in the previous episode about how, what a native speaker is doesn't really take into account the fact that there are native speakers in different parts of the world who speak that same language in different ways. So…

[00:23:15] Marina: Right.

[00:23:16] Jeremiah: Again, getting off on a tangent, but...

[00:23:18] Marina: We're not saying that it's bad to sound like a L1 user. but we do want to reiterate that like, you should not feel like you have to do that or to feel that you have failed as a language learner if that's not what happens.

[00:23:33] Jeremiah: Exactly, because, kind of going back a little bit to this idea that by immersing yourself in the language in that context, you learn how to do certain things. It's important to understand that you're learning how to do certain things that you need to do in that context. Whatever context you're in, whether it's quote unquote “immersive” or not, you're gonna learn how to do the things that are required of you in that language for that context.

So, in a classroom, where you are required to pass tests, and write little compositions of eight sentences or more, that's what you're going to learn how to do in the language. And if you are in, if you live in a neighborhood with a majority Spanish speaking population and you speak Spanish with them, you're going to learn how to do the things that you need to do in that context.Talk to your neighbors, whatever. 

And so, it's not that the things that you learn how to do by immersing yourself are better or more important. It's just a different context with different demands, different problems to solve. So that all kind of comes back to, what do you want to get out of the language is this Are you expecting to need to solve these problems? Are you expecting to be in this context where you're completely immersed or are you interacting with a lot of L2 speakers? Are you interacting with a lot of people…you know.

[00:24:52] Marina: Right. Absolutely. I, that's a really good point. It depends on your goals, right? We've talked about this in previous episodes. Your goals can kind of inform the approaches that you take in your language learning. And so, definitely thinking about, is immersion, is living in a different community, going to get you closer to your language goals.

[00:25:13] Jeremiah: I think we've gotten a pretty good overview of what the realistic benefits are of immersion, and by realistic I mean benefits but contextualized and with the necessary caveats.

Now we're gonna expand on those caveats by talking about what are the limitations of immersion? Why is our answer to the question of this episode, which is, is immersion the best method, why is our answer, “no, question mark?” Because that's our answer. Why?

[00:25:42] Marina: So, I think the first sort of drawback of the immersion method is that depending on your level in the target language, immersion may not be wise at all. It might actually inhibit your language learning. And that's because it might be too much all at once in order to actually be effective and for you to actually take anything in.

It's sort of like the idea of diving into the deep end of the pool to learn how to swim. It's like, that's maybe not the best idea, right? You start in the shallow end and then you learn the techniques and you work your way up to the deep end of the pool. It's the same thing with language learning. If you're a beginner and you drop yourself into an immersive environment, it might feel like you're drowning a little bit because there's all this input and you're expected to produce all this output at a frequency and to a degree of complexity that you might not be able to do yet. And that can be very scary, especially if it's a high-stakes situation. 

And it can just be kind of demoralizing because it's just not fun to be in a situation like that, you know? Where... I'm sure, you know, we're all in, we've all been in language situations like that, especially when you're a beginner. And just imagine having to do that all the time. 

[00:27:16] Jeremiah: Yeah, every day, you know, you walk outside, you just want to get some breakfast, for goodness sakes. And to do that, you have to pass a speech check.

[00:27:23] Marina: Yeah, literally. And so that kind of thing raises your affective filter. I think we've talked about the affective filter before. Maybe we haven't. A high affective filter means that you have high levels of anxiety, or high levels of fear, or high levels of embarrassment. And when those feelings and those emotions are so high, they act like a filter, a filter that filters out any input or language acquisition that might be coming through, so that it doesn't... it doesn't absorb as well, right? When you have a low affective filter, you're more likely to learn and take in that information easily. But being in that immersive environment, when you're not at the right level for that, can raise your affective filter, which means you won't learn as much as you could be. whereas if you are at a higher level, and you are able to survive those situations and keep your head above water, then that is where immersion can be a really good technique. And that's why it's often recommended once you're at the more intermediate and advanced levels.

[00:28:35] Jeremiah: A hundred percent. Another limitation of immersion is the fact that not all of the input that you get when you're in an immersive setting is going to be comprehensible to you. Comprehensible input is...exactly what it sounds like. It's language that you hear or read that you're exposed to, that you're capable of understanding and capable of internalizing and knowing what it means.

As you might imagine, as you get better at the language, as you get more competent, what is comprehensible for you is going to expand. You're going to be able to understand more than you could before. That's the goal, right? And that is why in a structured learning course for a language, whether it's a class or an app with advancing levels of difficulty, it is exposing you to more difficult input over time as you get better. That's the point. 

But people in the real world don't do that. They mumble. They use really unnecessarily big words. They talk at you in the wrong direction. There are all kinds of reasons that people, that we don't understand each other, Even if we share a first language. Like for example, I'm constantly mumbling, and it really gets on Marina's nerves, because she's like, “what?!”

Um, I think it's a combination of auditory processing and me just not being a very good, uh…yeah, I mumble a lot. So, even then, you know, that's bad. And imagine somebody's mumbling at you in your target language. You know, good luck! And so, even though you’re surrounded by input in an immersive setting, how much of that is going to be comprehensible? Not all of it, certainly.

[00:30:18] Marina: Yeah, absolutely. And that is related to our last limitation that we wanted to talk about, which was that, any chance of getting help, feedback, or explicit instruction in the target language may be pretty limited. Depending on your situation, you might not have speakers... Well, you might have speakers available to you, but that doesn't mean that they are necessarily going to be...you know, gung-ho to, like, give you language tips and correct your, um, correct your grammar or give you general feedback on your language use. 

[00:30:58] Jeremiah: Or even slow down.

[00:31:00] Marina: Exactly! Oh my gosh, I have asked people in the past to slow down and they're like, “Oh, yeah, for sure.” And then they don't.

You know, because unless they're a language teacher, that's not what they're used to doing. If you're taking a language class in your immersive environment, then that's different. Your teacher is going to be available to you to give you that help and feedback and instruction. 

But if you're just out in the world, like in the workplace, for example, or as a tourist, or just in a social group or anything like that, depending on the people—now, some people might be supportive and be willing to do that. But also, when you're in situations like that, that's not the purpose of your interaction. The purpose of your interaction is not necessarily to explicitly help you enhance your proficiency. The goal is something else. It might be to, like, work together on this work project that you're doing.

[00:31:56] Jeremiah: Complete, uh, economic exchange at the grocery store. 

[00:31:59] Marina: Right, they’re not there to help you. Not everybody is your teacher, and you can't expect that of everybody. And so, when you are in a situation where you're not getting comprehensible input, you don't understand what they're saying, you're curious about what this idiom means or something like that that you've never heard, the availability of help and feedback might not be as readily available as we would hope in an ideal world.

[00:32:28] Jeremiah: For sure. For sure. So, yeah, these are, I think, some of the biggest limitations of immersion. Why it isn't necessarily, quote unquote, “the best method.” Obviously, as you can see now, it's more complicated than that. Is it the best method for certain purposes? Or certain goals? It's up there, it's certainly important, and maybe even indispensable, but hopefully it's clear now that you can't just move to another country and expect to absorb the language.

And so, if you are going to immerse yourself in your target language, I think we should talk about how you can do that in the most effective way. How you can make the most of your immersion. So, you know, if you are immersed in a situation, one way or the other, how do you make the most of being in that language context?

[00:33:20] Marina: Yeah, so I think first of all, like we talked about before, start the immersion process once you already have some degree of comfort in the target language, right? Don't dive into the deep end of the pool if you don't know how to conjugate the preterite tense. Like—[chuckles]—you don't have to necessarily be, like, super advanced, but you also don't want to be, like, a fresh beginner. You should have some degree of confidence, however you want to measure your proficiency. If it helps to do CEFR, if it helps to just take, language tests, language assessments, like the JLPT, or…what's the Spanish one, DELE?

[00:34:03] Jeremiah: I have no idea. [both laugh]

[00:34:04] Marina: Anything like that, if that helps give you a baseline of where you're at, or if you just want to do a self-assessment. Feel pretty decent about your proficiency in the target language, or you're probably not going to have a great time, honestly.

[00:34:22] Jeremiah: So, on top of that, once you are in an immersive situation, it's not enough to just let the language happen to you. You need to be putting in effort on your own to make use of all that input and to kind of be structuring that for yourself.

And what this means is you should be integrating other methods simultaneously. So not just going out and buying pickles at the store, but when you come home, you know, if this is something you're able to do, keep taking classes or seeing a tutor or whatever you have access to. Study independently, read books, keep a language journal, consume media in your target language, media that you can pause and put the subtitles on, um, or if it's YouTube, even slow it down, you know, uh, these are all things that you should be doing in addition to buying pickles in order to kind of get that well-rounded experience because not only is that going to give you a well-rounded experience, but it's actually going to make your input that you get from talking to people more rich, because you’re going to be supplementing it with other types of input. That’s really important.

[00:35:25] Marina: In other words, your normal language learning routine should not stop when you find yourself in an immersive environment. You should think of immersion as an addition to your existing language learning routine. 

[00:35:38] Jeremiah: Another thing is to seek out opportunities to use the language in your immersive context instead of just assuming that those opportunities will come to you, because they won't. People are just as awkward as you are, and being the language learner in this situation, you're the one who has to touch grass, okay?

You're the one who has to go and talk. To people you do have to go outside or, you know, do something like make opportunities to have conversations with people.

First of all, that's how you're gonna get the most input because people, generally, I think, try to avoid talking to each other whenever they can, and so you have to be the one to start those conversations a lot of the time. So do yourself that favor.

[00:36:19] Marina: Yeah. And kind of segueing off of that, try and diversify the kinds of people that you talk to in your target language. So as part of seeking out opportunities, you might find social groups that you want to be a part of.

Like you'd find like a hiking group or…

Jeremiah: A knitting circle!

Marina: A knitting circle(!) that you're a part of, or maybe you hang out with your colleagues at work, or your peers at school. But also, it might help to find other learners, whether they're other learners who just happen to be living near you, or you might find expats. You know, other expats, if you're living abroad, um, who are also learning the language, you might find language exchange partners, like we said, you might find tutors, or just people who are willing to accommodate your learning and your learning style, right? We were talking about how access to feedback and help might be limited depending on who you're talking to.

So those are definitely valuable experiences, but it's also helpful to find people who are willing and who are able to help you and give you explicit feedback on your language use. Not only is that an opportunity for you to gain more access to input, enter more social circles, but it's also a place for you to actively work on your target language abilities in a supportive environment.

So Jeremiah, would you use the immersion method? Now that we've talked about all this? Would you, would you give it a shot?

[00:37:53] Jeremiah: Yeah, I think it’s always been a goal of mine to live abroad in a country where I’m trying to learn the language for all the reasons that we’ve said, for all the benefits it can bring. And I think having an understanding of the limitations and having realistic expectations for what I'm actually going to get out of that experience, I think, honestly, is just going to enrich that experience. It doesn't take anything away from immersion.

It puts you in a better position to make the most of that time. Because you won't be expecting people to accommodate your language learning. Uh, you won't be expecting people to...initiate all these conversations with you to give you a chance to learn. You won't be expecting to just absorb it ambiently from the air, like a frog. [Marina laughs] You know, you'll be more proactive in your learning, uh, which you should be anyway. And so, yeah, I think I definitely would. How about you?

[00:38:46] Marina: I think I would too. Um, I thought that my time in Japan was absolutely worthwhile, not just for the experience, but also in terms of my language acquisition. Um, but I think going back to my thesis that I wrote about immersion, or at least just language learning in a study abroad environment, again, there was no significant difference found between the study abroad and the domestic students.

And I think that had a lot to do with, like you said, being proactive. It doesn't just happen. Study abroad does not automatically, uh, improve your language skills. You have to go out there, you have to create these experiences for yourself. It is an active process. Language learning is rarely a passive process. And immersion is no exception. 

So, don't be a frog. Get out there. We believe in you. 

[outro music plays]

[00:39:42] Jeremiah: Thanks for listening to Episode 4 of How to Language, on the topic of immersion, and whether it's really the best method for language learning. We hope this episode has given you some clarity on the benefits as well as the limits of this method, and above all, that you come away understanding that language learning is an active process, not a passive one, and that even in an immersive context, you'll need to put in the work to grow your competency.

If you like what we do, go ahead and rate us, or review us on whatever platform you're listening on, and follow us on Instagram or Twitter for language content and updates on the show @HowToLang. See you next time!