Many of us have difficulty figuring out the age-old mystery of language learning. I know I did – for the first two years of my journey, I stumbled aimlessly into textbooks and YouTube guides about how to get fluent, and barely made it intermediate. But that all changed when I stumbled onto immersion learning. A method of language acquisition built upon the work of Stephen Krashen and his ‘Input Hypothesis’. This methodology completely uprooted my understanding of language acquisition and, over the next three years, I took myself from almost nothing to fluency. Read on to find out how.
The Natural Method
“Just Immerse Bro” – some random dude on Youtube, probably
The above quote might strike a chord with you – maybe you’ve seen this as a meme, or maybe it’s been directed at you. It can be frustrating – people seem to think that by simply being subject to our target language, we will easily achieve fluency. Well, they might be right. We’re just missing some essential context. If the ‘Immersion’ in question is comprehensible, be it through knowledge of the words, context, tone of voice, anything, then acquisition will occur.
If someone with their mouth stuffed full said, “This is delicious”, you might not catch what they were saying through their munching and chewing. But you’d probably know what they said, after all they’re smiling and shovelling the food down like its their last night. So in the same sense, if a Japanese person who you had held the door open for smiled, said “ありがとうございます” (Arigatougozaimasu) and gave you a short bow, you’d likely clock on that they were saying “Thank you”. Now do that over and over and over again, with each new word learned and each new experience gained adding onto our ever-growing mental language model, it would be hard not to become fluent.
And I’ve got even better news for you. Back in the day, it might’ve been tough to really become good at a language through comprehensible input. But today, most of us have access to a whole world of content in any language we please. I enjoyed thousands of hours sat on my butt listening to podcasts, watching Anime and reading novels in Japanese and it made me fluent – and it can do this for quite literally anybody.
Wrapping Up
The bottom line is that, if I had to learn a whole new language from scratch, and I could only pick one method to learn it, I would pick Immersion without a doubt. As human beings, we thrive in communication; in understanding and transmitting messages through language. Our greatest asset is not our grammar books and our tutors – its our brains and our boundless desire for connection and communication. So get immersing!!
This was only a quick intro to immersion-based learning! If it sounds like something you’d like to get into, check out my YouTube channel @gengovault or my other social media at the same username!
Further Reading
The input hypothesis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Input_hypothesis
My YouTube (Weekly Videos): https://www.youtube.com/@gengovault
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