What guidance do you have for when to start "immersion?"

Want to chime in to say I very much appreciate the variety of viewpoints and opinions. I hope I don’t offend anyone by saying this, but I do hope we can refrain from judging others’ processes too harshly. I think any strategy has benefits and limitations and Im eager to hear everyone’s very informed viewpoints, and I’d love it if we can keep it supportive :heart:

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In this thread: A bunch of people (myself included) with different ideas about what “immersion” means.

I was sufficiently confused by some of the opinions here that I did some PhD-level research (I Googled and read the first few paragraphs of the Wikipedia article). Since I’m not an educator and apparently didn’t pay enough attention to my kids bilingual education (in both the US and Japan) I hadn’t realized that “immersion” had become such a buzzword.

It turns out that at least some educators consider “language immersion” to be a method of BIlingual language instruction (L1 being the student’s native or instruction language, L2 being the language being learned). Emphasis on the “bi” (most uni-lingual language instruction occurs before starting school).

“Immersion” seems to exist in many degrees.

At one end of the spectrum is full “submersion” (all instruction in L2 from day 1). Advocates point out that this is how everyone learns their native language when they were ~2-7 years old. For most adults, though, I’d equate this to holding someone’s head underwater until they are able to breathe the liquid. Not recommended.

My non-technical understanding of the concept was simply surrounding yourself with L2 in as many forms as possible (conversation, pre-recorded audio/video with and without written narration in either language, and L2 reading). I think most would agree that it’s easier to learn L2 if you are in a country that speaks that language: it’s literally in the air (you can’t help but be exposed to it).

If I understand correctly (always a doubtful proposition) some here consider “immersion” to be solely reading L2 material (ignoring conversation and pre-recorded audio/video).

Attempting to read before you’ve built up a reasonable L2 vocabulary seems kinda silly to me, but listening to L2 conversation, especially with visual queues is unquestionably useful, even from “day one”. Our brains excel at pattern matching. We can learn much just from observing two people converse (including basic grammatical structure, cadence/pronunciation, and even vocabulary). I think many of us have experienced our subconscious explain something we witnessed earlier (in bed at night realizing, “Oh! That’s what they meant!”).

What primary school educators call “early-exit” or “late-exit” immersion makes intuitive sense to me: instruct in L1 and L2 (including teaching L2 in L1) for the first few years, then transition to native-only (L2) instruction at around age 7-11.

As usual, absolutism is bad. What worked for one of us might not be universally applicable. Regardless, I’m of the strong opinion that even “lazy immersion” of L2 is absolutely worthwhile. How worthwhile it is depends on the individual. Just letting it wash over you with absolutely no attempt at understanding is pointless. Similarly, driving yourself mad trying to understand every word (and not proceeding until you do) is also pointless.

There is a middle ground that works well, though. Regarding reading specifically, it was literally eye-opening to me visiting Japan again for the first time after nearly three years of WK.

I hadn’t thought about it before my trip, but while in the US I had to make a conscious effort to immerse myself in written Japanese (in practice: a few emails here and there, and a page or two of a Japanese book far less frequently than I’d have liked). During my visit to Japan, though, practicing my reading was effortless. It was everywhere. I literally couldn’t escape it. Best of all, I could actually read most of it (though some was much harder than others).

Tl;dr

Immersion can be valuable, but decide for yourself what sort of immersion makes sense.

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The distinction between speaking/listening immersion from reading/writing immersion seems important. In fairness i think my original ask muddied these already-muddy waters by referencing both reading and listening, so apologies for adding to the confusion!

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Ok had to pause to say THIS IS AMAZING AND INSANE :exploding_head::exploding_head::exploding_head: ilu

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Thank you for prompting clarification the point about WK level for audio immersion - I was referencing WK level for reading native content immersion purposes, not the audio portion, which, obviously there kanji knowledge is…not so helpful :sweat_smile:

You bring up a LOT of points, and it would be a very very long response to address them individually, so I’ll give a condensed reply.

The tone of your reply is skeptical and perhaps a bit adversarial, but I understand that you are attacking the ideas and not the person. There are things I perhaps didn’t state clearly enough, but nothing I said contradicts anything else I said, with the caveat that my “English subtitles won’t teach you Japanese” was only meant in the context of full immersion.

On your point about alternating episodes: The Charlie Brown effect would possibly be in effect for the first episode of a show, for a person that is used to watching anime subtitled, but after the second episode and thereafter, being forced to watch alternating episodes without subs, the brain would stop filtering the audio, which is exactly the phenomenon I described.

The 5 decades example would be with no study, no grammar, no SRS or word lookup. It wasn’t Japanese study. It was just pure exposure to the language, but with subtitles. My point was that voluminous exposure to a language with it being entirely subtitled is going to have a dramatically decreased effect. English subtitles can still be used as a tool for learning, but that would fall outside of my definition of immersion, which I suspect is where things are going awry.

As you call it, there exists a “subtitles-only mindset”. In order to break out of that mindset in order to use subtitles as a tool, it sounds like some approach to immersion that isn’t full-on uninterrupted immersion, and which requires being very attentive to the content (a more active than passive listening process) is required. I would say that’s valid and doesn’t contradict what I’ve said. I just didn’t consider that to be immersion, and I could (probably should) have put a disclaimer about my arbitrary definition of immersion.

To my mind, what you are describing is semi-immersive study. I didn’t address that in my post, but you may have made a mistaken assumption that my intention was to say that full immersion is the only proper way to study. I definitely didn’t say that.

If my definition of immersion isn’t a popular one, I can walk it back, and I’ll make sure that if I talk about immersion in future posts, I’ll specify exactly what I mean. I’m not attempting to refute anyone. My only point with the post was to demonstrate that English subtitles can be detrimental. But as usual with my posts, I perhaps take a roundabout way to get there and don’t make my points concise enough.

I’ll take my lumps here, and with them the takeaway that I should consider my audience when speaking.

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I think I’ve mentioned in another thread that all my taught-class instruction starting from zero was in Japanese. I do actually recommend it especially if you’re not in Japan, because it maximises your exposure to Japanese while you’re in the classroom. Of course I did a fair amount of self-study backup to the classes with L1 materials. Plus, I will never forget my first abstract noun (種類) :slight_smile:

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Serious disciples would have done it armed only with a hardcopy J-J dictionary.

:grin:

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I should also give a thank you for this post. In preparing my above reply to you, I unlocked better ways to describe what I’m trying to convey.

I will say though, the lack of clarification in my definition of immersion could perhaps be excused, because:

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I meant that that’s an option, in fact. I don’t stop for all anime I watch; sometimes I just want to enjoy myself. However, even then, I do at least try to pay attention to what I hear.

Still, I agree that ‘active’ and ‘passive’ are clearer here, and what I suggest is essentially a mildly active approach that is, in my opinion, the bare minimum for benefiting from watching something subtitled (or even unsubtitled).

I would say my interpretation was that the ‘only correct way’ to immerse yourself is full immersion. Perhaps I did indeed misunderstand you. I’m guessing that your definition of immersion would therefore be ‘full immersion’, and it’s not necessarily a process during which one is 100% attentive all the time?

Fair enough, but is it the alternation that produces that effect then, or simply the immersion? My impression is that you feel it’s the immersion and gradual habituation to the language that helps. What I’m saying here is this: would the initial subtitled episode have served a purpose, in your opinion?

OK, yes, I would agree with this: you’re not going to get very far if this is the only way you engage with Japanese, especially if, like you said, we’re not considering a situation in which one pays attention. (I personally don’t feel it requires much effort, so I wouldn’t say one would have to be ‘very attentive’, but I guess that varies from person to person. I personally found that I needed to make a bigger effort when I got to the point where I was attempting to understand full sentences. That’s when I need to pull my eyes away from the subtitles and really try to catch what’s being said.)

My overall feeling (even in the case where subtitled shows are the only way the learner is exposed to the language) is that this is still only partly true: in the beginning, subtitles might still teach the learner what certain words mean from context. It’s only later on that continuing to rely on subtitles would render the exposure less effective, because they would prevent the learner from delving deeper and getting used to deducing meaning within the language. But OK, perhaps this is how I feel simply because my favourite language courses teach me through literal and natural translation, and make little remarks. Still, in essence, I tend to feel getting rid of subtitles only really has a great effect at intermediate/advanced levels.

Again, fair enough, but the conditions of exposure aren’t always the same depending on whom you ask. It is true that when discussed as a teaching method/paradigm, that little ‘especially’ note on Merriam-Webster tends to apply. As a tool for language learning though, there are a lot of definitions and sub-categories, depending on where you get your information.

I guess we don’t disagree on that many things overall? This was fundamentally a matter of disagreeing about what ‘immersion’ means given the multiple interpretations that exist.

This isn’t relevant, but I recently watched an anime that involved some students being completely submerged in water in a fantasy world. They eventually developed improved magical abilities that allowed them to get out. :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

(Is there a moral here? Probably not. :rofl:)

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It does sound like we are more in agreement now.

Let me pose this hypothetical scenario to you:

Person A, having no interest in learning Japanese and merely enjoys being immersed in the content, watches anime for 2 decades entirely with their native language subtitles.

Person B, having no interest in learning Japanese and merely enjoys being immersed in the content, watches anime for 2 decades entirely without subtitles.

In this scenario, Person B is a perfect clone of Person A. They have the same biology, disposition, memories, lived experiences, IQ, attentiveness and tastes. They are watching the same exact shows, in the same exact amounts. All things being equal, save for the subtitles.

Without any other factors and or any active study on either person’s part, would one person have a higher level of Japanese comprehension or fluency based solely on their exposure to anime entirely with or entirely without subs?

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I can’t remember where I found out about this, but this site is designed for immediate immersion, using emoji to illustrate mini stories. In theory as soon as you can read hiragana and katakana, you can use it.

https://drdru.github.io/stories.html

So it introduces nouns with an emoji. Eg. サンタ :santa: , チーズ :cheese:
and then puts them together into super simple sentences

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As far as attentiveness, all things are certainly not created equal. As a person with ADHD, I can attest to this. The distinction between active and passive attentiveness for someone like me is as vast as the ocean.

The subtitles on the first episode keep the person abreast of the story such that they can follow along with less effort when subtitles aren’t present. They probably will tune out much of the audio, but assuming there isn’t a large interval between episodes, there’s something to be said for short-term subconscious memory. This method is probably more effective for persons like me that do have an attention disorder.

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Someone above linked that (the person who made it I think)
I’ve been reading through it

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I think a lot of people have given a lot of interesting and differing view points in this thread. And I think that is so valuable because I’ve learnt for myself that everyone doesn’t learn the same way, or enjoy the same things, or have the time/attention/focus/energy available for all the things. So it is helpful to mix and match.

I wanted to comment on the instruction on the graded reader and call bs on it. xD I know I read that on all graded readers I read and I never followed that advice.

To me, graded readers was a way to get more reading practice, but the only way I could have read them without any lookups… would have been to be too far along to actually need that level???

Like they are simplistic for a reason, but if I understand all important vocabulary without looking it up, and then what exactly am I supposed to learn from them? And hoping I can guess the important ones from context… well, that doesn’t work for me (unless it is super obvious). I’m not an intuitive language learner who can start picking up languages naturally.

Especially the low level graded readers aren’t interesting enough to read just to practice seeing already known words and grammar in an order that is correct Japanese. In fact if you understand them too easily, I can almost bet you’ll also find them too boring. I personally found them the most worth it at the deciphering stage, and maybe up to level 2. Level 3 and 4 can instead be done with easy native content, especially with the help of WK book clubs.

I found graded readers a good place to learn a lot of common vocabulary, once I wasn’t looking up every word I saw. I probably had N5 at least partially done before I tried level 0 (more seriously, I might have peeked at them earlier and noped out). And with that some vocabulary. And because I got a big set of them, and they perhaps weren’t the most entertaining thing, it usually took enough time to finish reading all of one level, that when I moved up to the next, I was ready for it. xD


I think I started trying to read manga with Absolute Beginner Book Club here on WK, when I had most of N4 done. I also had vocabulary to match, more or less. (Like all the vocabulary from the textbooks we used for N5 and N4.) I perhaps didn’t pick the best ones to start with. First trying Chi’s Sweet home where there was too much baby speech and almost no text, and then trying 結婚しても愛してる as my second manga, that one instead had basically 100% casual language* so it gave me an education in that, but only because I enjoyed it was it worth it to “read” all the way to the end. Of my early reads, ニャンニャン探偵団 was excellent. Both a lot of fun. More actual text, being like a picture book but for elementary/middle school kids. So every page had pictures and half the page (typically) was text. Mostly easy Japanese, and with a book club here on WK with a lot of grammar discussion it really helps. And it was interesting mysteries. Perhaps not adult level interesting, but entertaining nonetheless. And with no/little casual language, it was much easier to read as a beginner.

*just a point about casual language, what textbooks call casual language, like 食べる instead of 食べます is not even the tip of the iceberg. :sweat_smile:


Lastly I wanted to mention, that as I’ve gotten more experienced with reading (I’m currently somewhere late N3 I guess with a fairly good everyday slice of life vocabulary, but only for the most common words; and all of WK (some lessons left and forgot some things as the way of things)). I’ve started to adopt two ways of immersing/consuming native content (mostly reading for me):

  • I look up basically everything. Like words I don’t know I mean. But I only do this with books/manga where I know enough of the words that the amount of lookups doesn’t drive me crazy. (Also I tend to know 98+% of the grammar.) This is the things I’m reading that I’m interested in, that might be close to the vaunted +1 or more like +2-3 with dips into +7 (+7 tends to mean I have to look up everything except grammar). If there is too much of +7, I would stop reading and come back to it later. If mostly falls between 0 and +2-3 I’m usually good.
  • Occasionally I find something where I know so many of the words that the few I don’t are typically not critical to understand the story and then I will skip looking up unless I get lost because I’m missing an important word. It becomes a good feel read, a reward for all the effort I’ve put in so far. Although if it isthat easy to read, I might pick to actually do grammar look ups for any grammar I feel ambiguousness with so I can solidify my understanding of that, but only if I have time in my focused study time.
  • I know I said two. The “third” thing is that I’m very careful in choosing my material. Looking to both interest and difficulty. The more difficult, the more helpful things I want (like vocabulary sheet from WK book club and a place to ask grammar questions) and the more interest I need. And when it gets too difficult, it put it aside to come back to later.
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People may have different opinions, but I am much on the side of looking up more. even if I might know the words.

I see that watching anime, whether with non-JP, JP, or no sub, all works; but JP sub might work best, especially for lower intermediate learners; because it becomes much easier to learn vocabularies and collocations. (Perhaps I won’t say EN for non-JP.)

But with non-JP sub, I would still recommend getting N5 grammar, or at least conjugations down.

I can’t deny the potential value of listening with no text, or less cues, but I still see as a thing with both pros and cons.

For me, the point of using JJ dictionaries or not isn’t about more L2-only immersion, but getting the best explanation possible for the words. On the other side, it’s might be better to read dictionaries not too deeply, but rather let the context guide you. Similarly, learning lots of vocabularies from a list, then looking up on a JJ dictionary, isn’t going to be better than learning lots of materials and picking out vocabularies. (Say, Wanikani with external monolingual definitions.) But I can’t say, no value.

About the word, immersion, not trying to attack anyone, but it might, in detail, mean different things to different people; considering probably many people here aren’t EN natives, and some just aren’t US citizens.

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When I started trying to immerse myself I would try and find podcasts that had a mix of English and Japanese speaking going on. That way, when I inevitably became lost I could still pull myself up and understand the conversation based off the english and the scarce amount of Japanese that I recognized. “Let’s learn Japanese from small talk,” “News in Slow Japanese,” and “3 Meeters; conversations in English and Japanese” were my go-to ones.

Also, listening to audio books while skimming/reading along with the actual text is also helpful. I did this with the first Harry Potter book because I’ve read it in english so many times, that even if I don’t understand every word, I can still tell what’s going on in the story since it’s so familiar.

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Honestly, it’s really hard for me to know because I think it’s really hard to imagine what it’s like trying to learn a language like that. My guess would be without subs working better overall, but by how much? I’m not sure. If there’s some unsponsored review of Rosetta Stone out there, that might give us a clue, because it essentially works on that ‘no L1 at all’ principle.

OK, fair enough, if we assume that the sort of retention we mentioned earlier only referred to conscious retention, then I guess this would explain it.

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I’m here with you :lotus: I’ve been learning Japanese with Wanikani for nearly a year now, and as I am alone with two kids and a full-time job I’m finding it hard to get around to actually listen to podcasts etc. It’s not really a time problem; the problem is, it sounds completely gibberish to me everytime I listen to someone speaking Japanese even at a moderate pace - and I certainly don’t have the calm to listen to gibberish… :see_no_evil: :hear_no_evil: :speak_no_evil:

However, I did find one that seems to work for me: I found this podcast called ‘Japanese with Shun’, which starts at a level that I as an absolute beginner could almost understand… :joy: The podcast can be found on Spotify, YouTube etc. - wherever, really. The great thing about the first few episodes (at least - that’s how far I’ve come) is, that Shun speeks S-L-O-W-L-Y! :raised_hands: Every other attempt I’ve made to immerse has resulted in my head spinning after roughly 2 seconds… Eventually I will get better, I guess, just have to keep my spirits up, and I will. I hope you feel the same way :hugs:

Keep up the good work. We all root for you.
I hope you’ll find Shun’s podcast - or some other kind of immersion - to work for you.
Please share either way :slightly_smiling_face:

All the best.

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One sentence version:

Start soonish with little bits of easy reading - understand a sentence! - looking stuff up as you go, and then slowly add more as your brain allows.

Longer version:

I’m reading books (slowly), listening to podcasts, and watching TV in Japanese, along with some directed grammar learning. After Christmas, I’ll be starting with a tutor for speaking lessons / practice. This is as close to fully immersing as I can get without moving to Japan, and it’s taken 2.5 years to get here.

When I started reading, I was level 10 on WK, I had read through Tai Kim (so I knew what I was in for), watched the first 15 Cure Dolly lesson episodes, and made a 1-side A4 cheat sheet of verb conjugation, about a dozen particles, and a bunch of common kana only words (ここ、これ、この、etc). I installed Yomichan on Chrome, and started reading one article a day on NHK Easy, looking up everything. I think the first one took about an hour.

[As an aside, I think the learning resources for Japanese are mostly missing the actual beginner stuff, Spot the Dog in kana, with spaces, with audio, introducing kanji as it goes]

After about 3 months of 新しいコロナウイルス, (so 5 months of learning) I started watching anime with english subtitles, and reading the manga of the same story. The biggest problem for me with learning Japanese is that the initial learning curve is very steep, and it’s almost impossible to read or listen to anything and get very much out of it. Knowing what was meant to be happening in a story made understanding the Japanese easier, and skipping the bits I couldn’t understand less of a problem.

After a year / level 31, I dropped WaniKani, bought some light novels (again of the anime I’d watched), and I started re-watching anime, first with subtitles, and then without, and listening to NcT, etc. Then about 9 months ago I started using anki with the 8547 words from 日本語文法辞典 along with the books themselves to learn grammar more directly. 10 new sentences a day, 50 old ones - if I do no other Japanese in a day, I will do this.

Each stage was very hard. Learning to read even basic stuff took months of effort actually trying to read, re-reading the same things repeatedly. Learning to listen took months of listening to the same podcasts over and over again, looking stuff up.

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