I have set off the “oh no, foreigner at checkout X” alert on the screen that the staff overseeing all the self-checkouts must be getting to cause them to come running to my aid a couple of times.
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Buying concert tickets at famimart, also a challenge
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Immersion sounds like a deep sophisticated concept but it’s literally just do something in Japanese. That’s it.
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I know that. My question was more along the line of: Where do I go to do that? What websites to use? What to do specifically and where? Like, what is possible to do and where would one do these things?
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I watch netflix shows in Japanese with Japanese subtitles. I know next to nothing about Japanese BUT I pick up a few words here and there. I get to see the words. I listen for the accents and I can hear verb/adjective endings. I’m always x-referencing words and kanji with google translate and I use language reactor and iago so I can slow things down. I’ve been at this about 4 months now. I have manga and a few novels but they are way over my head. Almost all my Netflix viewing is exclusively in Japanese. You can’t get total immersion and it may not make sense but babies have no idea what they are listening to either but it slowly starts to make sense.
The world is your oyster. There is no secret Japan internet. The reality is outside of 5ch and niconico, Japanese people use most of the same sites that westerners do. Just in Japanese.
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You’ll mostly find for ‘proper’ immersion there’s no real concept of ‘training wheels’ really (with some exceptions, eg NHK Easy, other things aimed at 小学生 etc). Your best bet with sites and such is some combination of limiting your scope (i.e. not aiming to translate an entire website, but at least to understand this is the menu, this means on sale, this means pre-order etc) or looking at things you’ll see more often (eg road signs, common paperwork if you work in a JPN work environment, etc). Else stuff like Natively or other ‘difficulty ranking’ places are useful for going for N+1 difficulty rather than diving directly into the deep end (which works for some people, but not everyone)
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There are beginner comprehensible podcasts geared up just for this. I recommend Nihongo Con Teppei, Japanese with Shun, and Let’s Talk in Japanese with Tomo.
Early on, you may need to sit and focus with them, but after a while you’ll be able to listen while walking, cooking, and doing other human activities.
edit:
Also for general immersion; I recommend following some accounts on instagram. I follow a band I like, my chef friend in Japan, and a few different photographers. You can learn both from reading their descriptions and from the comments left by others. Instagram has a translate option for posts, and while I wouldn’t trust it 100%, it can be useful for roughly checking your understanding.
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Before i heard of this current use of the word to me immersion meant something like going to Japan, living with people who can’t speak your language and working or studying with people who can’t speak your language
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That’s the hardcore version. Some people outside of Japan do practice a technique they call “all Japanese all the time” (AJATT), but I think it only really works if you’re semi reclusive, because otherwise you can’t really engage with people or media in your native language. If you’re working a job in English for 8 hours a day, and then going home to your English speaking family; it doesn’t really work.
Another acronym you might see about is MIA which stands for Mass Immersion Approach. Basic overview here.
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In the japanese learning community, it does not.
Also funnily enough it’s relatively easy to exist in Japan, surrounded completely by Japanese speakers and opportunities, and learn very little (or at least learn very little relative to your expectations)
Ask me how I know
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I can understand that having lived in Japan for seven months, speaking english with my Japanese wife, teaching English, watching English movies on video, reading English novels. Stupid of me i know but at that time i was a frightened creature
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Indeed it is. I know a few people here personally that have been living here 20 years or more whose Japanese extends to just a few basic phrases and cannot read any kana, let alone kanji. They live life entirely within the ex-pat bubble. To live here and do so they do all have three things in common. One is, married to a Japanese partner that takes care of all government stuff, banks, contracts, and paperwork, goes with them to the doctor or dentist, etc and any communication with anyone outside the bubble. Second is they work in an environment that is all English all the time (at least their department - any interactions outside that department their position is such that they have an assistant that translates/interprets). Third is that all their friends here are other expats and a few “international” Japanese (Japanese but studied or worked abroad and are fully fluent in English).
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I have no idea where you are located, so what I am about to share may apply to varying degrees, or perhaps not all. When it comes to the “immersion thing”, I believe and have found that real-life, actual interaction in Japanese with Japanese people is the most effective.
If you live in, or near, a moderately sized to large city you likely can find Japanese folks that are open to language exchange opportunities.
There are 3 likely places to find such folks.
One is any schools (public or private) or organizations providing ESL. You can contact any of these, let them know you are studying Japanese and are looking for language exchange partners. Most will not (and should not IMO) provide you with any information about their students but what most will do is take your information and share it with any Japanese students they have and any that are interested can then contact you. The first time I did this I got more than a dozen eager participants within a couple of days.
Second place I would look is at any universities or colleges in the city/area. Larger schools with post grad programs are more likely to have international students. I have found language exchange partners via that route as well. I met one person doing the final year of their post grad at a local university and in need of some help with his English. I ended up do proof reading of his thesis papers in exchange for some very good Japanese language exchange and lessons. He even made weekly written homework assignments for me to do and tests for me to take. I also learned tons of details of one particular surgery technique (rotator cuff surgery) than I ever imagined could exist.
The third place would be any sort of local Japanese societies, if one exists where you are or close by. Same deal, let them know what you are looking for and they likely have people that they can share that info with.
Some of the language exchange I did was formal stuff. i.e. meeting at the ESL school or university and working through textbooks or other prepared material. The other was of the more natural “immersing” sort. We would pick out something to do and then make each event an English only (for them to immerse) or Japanese only (for me to immerse) activity. Or if it was a long activity, split the time half and half. When it was Japanese only, we both could speak Japanese only. The only English allowed was if it was in the context of “日本語でXXXは何と言う”. Some examples are we would visit a museum, go on a hike, take a road trip to somewhere, attend an event (festival, fair, farmers market), arrange a picnic or BBQ at a park, go fishing, go to a sporting event, go shopping, you get the idea.
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Oh hell yeah. Some months ago I decided I wanted a whole bunch of paper copies of a document (too many for my cheapo consumer-grade printer). Did you know you can send the print job to the copier at 7-11? Did you also know that “how to” converstion is not something any textbook prepares you for? 
but now I have a nanaco card as a souvenir
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The copier/scanner/printer at every Family Mart/Lawson/7-11 is pretty impressive. I am sometimes there multiple times per day when I am working from home.
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If you are into games and streams, why don’t you try to watch a japanese playthrough of a game? A livestream might be a lot because there won’t be subtitles to lean on, but you could watch uploads on youtube. Japanese youtubers tend to put flashy subtitles all over their videos, so that and the context of a game you already know about could be just the scaffolding you need to be able to get something out of it. Just search for the games you are interested in on youtube in Japanese. If you aren’t sure of the Japanese title, you can just google it and copy paste. 
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I think the most important thing is: do things that you enjoy doing. If it’s a chore, you will stop doing it eventually. Immersion is not necessarily about understanding everything, or doing everything perfectly. It’s about surrounding yourself with the stuff.
I’m Spanish. I remember when I was a kid almost all video games were in English. For instance, the Zelda games were not translated to Spanish. It didn’t matter. I read them even though I didn’t understand shit, and I got familiar with the words. I think that familiarity is what immersion is all about.
Also, learning a language takes time… A lot of time. In the case of Japanese, even longer probably. Many of us want to do things fast, but it’s very important to bear in mind that it’s a long distance race.
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I remember having a conversation about these kinds of people with a few other working holiday folks when I was doing my year out in Japan. The others had just come of ski season, where they had lived in a foreigner bubble and not learned any Japanese, whereas I had arrived at the start of spring. I remember being horrified thinking about these people (“he prefers to eat at restaurants with photos on the menu so he can just point”), and vowing to not be like that even if I only stayed a year.
I got the impression that it’s much easier to have that kind of life if you are the man in the relationship (if it’s a traditional type). Maybe because women, if they go on to have kids, will typically be involved more with society from the ground up, have more medical appointments, deal with the folks at kindergarten and school and mommy groups, do the shopping and other domestic duties. Whereas the men go to work, come home, and that’s it. The only Japanese they need is buying their season ticket for the train.
I should keep refocusing on how I don’t want to be like that. It’ll keep me on track with studying 
You can also plug a USB stick in directly (or you used to be able to). That was always my method.
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