Half-baked take: I think part of the reason immersion, what counts, and whether it’s worth it is a constantly-debated topic in Japanese language learning circles is because there are groups of learners who want to put themselves above people who want to learn Japanese to watch anime, and people who want to fight back against the anime-bad stereotype. This doesn’t encompass everyone obviously, but I bet it’s a part of it.
I dislike the idea that immersion is an easier path than learning through a textbook, because for many types of people, having a curated order of lessons all built on the last to structure your learning is much easier than finding material appropriate for your understanding, then finding it interesting enough to push through the hard parts, and finding trustworthy sources to look up what you don’t know, and doing that over and over and over. Finding time to work through whatever your using is hard. And accepting that you won’t understand everything can be mentally taxing.
However, making it through native material is highly rewarding, and a great way to understand all the nuances in Japanese that can be confusing when reading a textbook or some other guided material. Plus, if your goal is to consume media, consuming media will be the best way to train yourself to consume more media.
Thats just the difference in what comes first. You decide reading first and then learn the grammar vs textbook where you learn the grammar first and then read.
You do not learn by imersion, you learn by understanding. Even if you were in a native speaking environment and you had zero resources you would get the needed information from people around you who tell you what is right.
As sad as it is, there is no learning without actual learning.
That’s absolutely true and it’s a very pervasive bias in all sorts of “language learning method” reviews. “I did X for one year and got nowhere but then I switched to Y and my understanding improved massively so definitely do Y and not X” but they don’t realize that it’s Y and X together that unlocked this potential.
For immersion it’s even worse because anybody who’s reached a high proficiency level in any language will naturally end up mostly immersing and not reading grammar books and doing wanikani reviews a decade later, so it’s easy to look back on your journey and think “well, it’s really all about immersion” which is true overall but also misleading for a complete beginner who can’t meaningfully immerse in the language without extreme frustration.
It’s interesting is how often this happens in other hobby spheres as well, not just in language learning. I remember so clearly when a well-known digital artist released a “my art over time” video and attributed all of her progress to simply sketching something every day. But there was a series of massive jumps in her drawing ability during part of the progress video that was later explained to be when she took college art classes – something either repeatedly downplayed or completely left out of every “how I did it” guide she made.
Once we have the tools to succeed and the know-how to use them, it’s definitely possible to get more out of our own self-learning and make incredible progress without textbooks or explicit guides. I certainly get more out of immersing now than I did two years ago. But to downplay the frontloaded skills provided to us is disingenuous to future learners, in my eyes. “Toddlers learned through immersion,” no they didn’t, they had parents, teachers, and even strangers showing, correcting, and helping. Not to mention the following two decades where children, teens, and young adults continually learn the nuances of their own native language as part of their school and university curriculums, studying textbook after textbook for a language that they “immerse” in daily.
“Matt just immersed,” Matt took high school and college language classes for years before moving on to solo study. The amount that he learned through immersing is obviously something that he is very proud of, but it can’t be understated just how much frontloading of methods and tools was provided to him through the classes he took and the textbooks he studied for those classes.
I think as well, people forget that they learned a lot of English (or whatever their native language is) by being taught stuff, just it was not presented as being taught that language but as being taught something else. When you, as a Japanese learner, learn the word 細胞 you’re learning Japanese, but if you’re a native English speaker, when you were taught the word cell, you didn’t think of it as learning English, but as learning biology. Something that goes back all the way to the “immersing” toddlers being told by their parents what a potty is so they can toilet train them, or a plug socket is so they can tell them not to play with it.
I don’t speak for anyone else, only myself, (and output is a more touchy subject) but that seems to more or less accurately describe the difference between me and my traditional learner friends.
Yeah, the problem with words like “easy” is its subjective and will give a different impression to a lot of people. What I will say is that a lot of my study was very “simple” from my perspective. I mean, I was going through wanikani and then I started reading a VN and doing cards. For the most part, it was really just the same thing every day and not very complicated. Especially if you just look at the input side it was just input, try to understand, lookup stuff I didn’t know, occasionally make a card (or i would have the cards already made at the start thanks to floflo). But it was far from easy. Hell, I didn’t even prelearn katakana so I was reading my book and making cards of katakana words like テーブル and would just learn the katakana as they came up. Not to mention I was reading something the average n1 would probably have a hard time with and I wasn’t even n5. So I definitely wouldn’t say it was easy and without effort. But what I will say was that it was very fun. I was more than happy to put in the work to understand the content because it was just that important to me.
Yeah, I made a similar point in my video about people who say they just “read”. Because for 99% of people who are actually substantially improving, that also involves a work through stopping and thinking, looking up, and making cards to be reviewed. But none of that is conveyed through “I learned through reading”. It kinda just is what it is though. Like I’m sure there are people who say “I learned in university” who did a lot of studying outside of their major too. Like the nuance and details are only going to come out when you really get to talking about something.
I was learning English for many years, before started remembering a lot of vocabularies out of context, and I marked improved. I can’t lie about that, but it’s the opposite of just immersion. This is also what happened in Japanese.
imo, N+1000 or something isn’t useless. But it’s just near impossible to get near that level, as well as difficult to get all around good and some parts might not be noticed at all. Still, it does teach vocabularies and grammar here and there, especially as in no need to over-worry about Kanji. N+1 is easier for improving all around (reception-wise).
Right, not to mention that textbooks are typically structured by N level whereas the native content I engaged with had grammar from all different levels mixed together.
I guess for some people its blasphemy to consider the two different activities but I certainly felt it to be the case. I suppose I still do, because I often hop on discord with my ~n3 friend and help them with their textbook questions and I mean it feels very synthetic to me. Especially a lot of study based around the jlpt.
I feel like “I learned through looking up stuff while reading and doing SRS of new vocab I found” would still be brief enough, but far more comprehensive in its description of how you actually learned anything. It’s like saying “I got healthy by eating” but leaving out what healthy food your diet consisted of - yes, it’s technically true, but pretty misleading.
Lol thanks everyone for the answers, I think I’ll listen to easier things (n+1) while working through Genki II then, as that seems like what most people are recommending.
(But I didn’t mean to spawn an argument lololol)
Not saying you’re wrong, but it’s just one of those things where even if you’re right its not really going to change anything, yknow. Same with the word “immersion”. People aren’t trying to be deceptive for the most part I think. But like when you’re a part of discord server that calls it “immersion” or whenever people say “hey imma go read for an hour, peace” and everyone can understand what that means then of course they’re going to get in the habit of saying it. It’s more convenient. That’s kinda just how language works. I can understand being upset with it if it misleads some beginners. You seem like a reasonable person though so I’m sure you can see how “let beginners know what they actually mean” is more viable of a solution than “get everyone to stop using that language”. It kinda just is what it is
I think once you’re beyond (or at least are acquainted with) N5/N4 content, then the scales start tipping toward immersive activities becoming more productive, in part because the main foundation has already been laid and also because the content begins trending toward nuance and expression…
That’s good that you’ve helped folks on there. I’m at the point where I’ve used three separate textbooks periodically around the N3/N2 level, but also have plenty (too much?) immersion at home. Motivation and organizing my learning is my current struggle.
Im not that much of a saint! The person in question is an IRL friend ive had for several years haha.
I’m not sure what kinda native content you have at home, but if its like manga or something maybe getting organized is as simple as picking one series that you are most interested in and just knocking that out. I think series are great for learning, especially at the start. Might take a few months or a year though depending on the series lol
All good, I won’t continue arguing here, if we want to see things differently that is absolutely fine. If some people say that reading a textbook is just as effective as reading something different, more power to them!
What I will strongly disagree with though is the argument I can also see here on WK at times, that you need textbooks, that you need (especially grammar) SRS, to get anywhere, as I know from personal experience that you don’t. It discourages so many people, thinking they have to drill grammar exercises to get anywhere in language learning and ultimatively giving up while there are other roads, one can take. It really is no wonder that most people dread grammar with languages if you think you have to brute-force conjugations and all the other “fun” parts.
Of course you don’t need a textbook or SRS. They are just tools to make learning easier and more effective, and if they don’t do that for you, do or use something else.
I have made the same experiences, but not everyone did. So I guess its fine, no use to try arguing people out of it, especially if that is not their cup of tea.
The extreme focus on N-levels in the japanese learning “community” is understandable from a practical standpoint, but very sad and limiting in my opinion. Also the dreaded approach how to learn languages at schools (in my country anyway) is deeply ingrained in most people, which from my experience is the single most reason when I hear that people generally interested in new cultures don’t want to try to get into the language. It is perceived as just too much “hard and boring work”…
Yeah, it kinda is what it is. Even within communities based around input centric learning there can be a lot of not seeing eye to eye on how to go about things. It’s no surprise that on here, where all sorts of people gather, its even harder to understand the other persons perspective. Arguing on here definitely isn’t a good use of anyone’s time, myself included. Back to immersing
This thread is interesting to read because I’m facing the exact question now. It’s been a long time since I’ve started a language from 0, and in the languages I practice, I have enough foundation that I am basically only doing fun stuff: reading, listening to podcasts geared toward native speakers, etc. I don’t really think this is “immersion” because I will occasionally look stuff up if I have questions about something, but it also definitely is not textbook based.
But, I really want to learn some Russian, and I don’t know how to begin. I don’t want to take classes right now, which is how I started my other languages, and even basic content geared toward language learners is too hard for me to immerse in since I know literally nothing except how to say hello and goodbye. So I guess it’s back to the textbook for a while at least.
I guess what I’m saying is what others have said, immersion is only useful if you already know a bit of the language, in my experience, although you also absolutely should not put off immersing out of fear.
Yeah, I’ve done that a bit… with Yotsuba!&, Slam Dunk, and a little with Major. Probably just need to find the right price for the next volume of Yotsuba!& (the Book Off that’s convenient to me has copies just beyond my price range), and my Slam Dunk copy, and wait for my glasses to be replaced (I realized that the font sizes don’t work well with my contacts but are OK when I use/take off my glasses).
The series were somewhat interesting but I’ve yet to find something that really connects… Probably should do folk tales again. We have some other content too on my our shelves…
