What Is Learning A Language By Immersion?

Immersion is one of the most important things you can do to help yourself learn a new language.

You could also argue that it is impossible to learn a language without some form of immersion, so let’s look at what it is and how it works.

What Is Language Immersion?

Immersion is the act of completely surrounding yourself with your new language. The idea is very simple. We surround ourselves with the language and our brain has no choice but to try and make sense of it.

Basically we are putting ourselves out of our comfort zone to force ourselves to grow and learn, basically immersion can be seen like jumping into the deep end of a pool.

Imagine you couldn’t swim and then someone throws you into a pool, so you are “immersed” in water. You only have one real option in this situation …learn to swim, and you better do it fast. 

Language immersion isn’t as drastic as this; there is no risk of death. However, it will force you to start learning the language fairly quickly.

Immersion Is Just Lots Of Input

When it comes to language learning there are two main methods of learning, which are the input and output method.  

Input is anything you take in, so reading and listening and output is when you produce the language yourself, which would of course mean speaking and writing.

You will need to focus on both of these areas to get good at the language but you will also find that focusing on input is more important in the early stages.

If you think about it, when you are new to the language your brain is empty, you do not know anything and you need to fill yourself up with the language and the best way to do this is to take a lot of it in.

Once you have the language inside you, you can start making sense of it and then slowly try and produce it yourself.

This is why immersion is so important, it is input and you need this. The more input/immersion you give yourself, the more you are going to be able to make sense of the language and then you will be actually able to use it yourself.  

(You can read more about – The Input vs Output Language Learning Methods)

Immersion Shows You The Language

If it wasn’t clear already, immersion will show you the language. You will come across a lot of new words and new grammar by just exposing yourself to the language.  

The more you read and listen the more you will learn, this is how input works.

This is the same in your own language. If you want to increase your vocabulary you just need to read a lot more.

Immersion Needs To Be Comprehensible Input

While it is easy to say “Do a lot of immersion to learn a language” there is one hugely important factor in this …you need to be able to comprehend what you are immersing.

This means you need to understand what you are reading or listening to, which is of course not easy as a beginner, how do you understand when you haven’t learned the language yet?

In the beginning this is not easy and will require a lot of work. You are going to have to have to get a basic grasp of the language before you can really immerse yourself. You will need to learn words and just have a general feel for the language.

This will allow you to understand some very basic things and you can then start immersing. You do not need to understand everything you hear, but you will need to be able to have a rough idea.

Why You Need Comprehension?  

Comprehension is vital as it gives your brain some guidance and helps it make sense of everything.

Without it you would be totally lost. If you just decide start watching something in Arabic for example, and this is your only exposure to the language, you will never learn anything this way.

You can immerse as much as you want, but you will never make progress. If you want to actually learn the languages then you need to understand what you are listening to and you need some sort of comprehension.

Learning some basic vocabulary or some simple grammar at the beginning is going to give you some reference for how the language works and you will be able to use this to work out what is going on in the material you are listening to or reading.

In the beginning you may only understand 10% of what you are reading and this can be difficult. You may also need to look a lot of words up to make sense of things and that is okay. Your brain is going to be able to slowly decode the unknown areas over time and eventually your comprehension will rise.  

You want to be out of your comfort zone, but you do need to be able to understand something. This little bit of context is going to give your brain a reference point and help you work out the rest.

Just keep exposing yourself to the language and you will decode what is going on. Your brain is very good at decoding languages and while you may not understand everything, your subconscious will start trying to connect everything.

The more you immerse, the more information it will have to work with and the better job it will do at decoding things.   

(You can read more about – How To Find Comprehensible Input For Language Learning)

Immersion Makes You Comfortable In The Language  

When you immerse a lot, you are going to be exposed to a lot of the same words over and over again. This may seem pointless to some people, but it is actually very beneficial.

Seeing the same words over and over again makes them stronger in our mind. Our brain will get very used to seeing them and very comfortable with them.

When you first start immersing you maybe have to actively translate things in your head to make sense of what is going on and even then you may not be too sure. As you get more experience and start seeing the same words over and over, your confidence will grow. You will get faster at recognising things and understanding them.

This will eventually reach a point where you are extremely comfortable with the words and you will not need to even think about them, you will just understand, exactly how you do in your own language.    

The repeated exposure of seeing the language is extremely beneficial for you. The more you immerse, the more comfortable you will become and the easier the language will be for you.  

Does Language Immersion Actually Work?

Yes, language immersion really works. When you are surrounding by the new language you are giving your brain no other option by to make sense of things. The more you can do this, the faster it will happen.  

You will have experienced immersion in other areas of your life already, although I am hoping it was not being taught how to swim in the way I described at the start.

You will have most likely experienced immersion at work, especially when you get a new job.

Think of any job you have had, it doesn’t matter what it is. There will always be some sort of set way to do things and you will get taught how to use a computer system, or there will be a process or set way to do things for whatever task you need to do.

Basically the company will tell you how to do your job when you start. They tell you what needs done and how they want it. How they actually train you to do it isn’t too important, but just try and think about those first few weeks at this new job.

Think about how long it took you do something. Think about how many mistakes you made. Think about how many times someone asked you a question and you had no idea what the answer was, and how many questions you where asking other people.

Also try and think about how for the first few weeks you would go home exhausted and you would ask yourself why have signed up to this. Starting a new job is stressful, right?

Now think about 6 months later. Think about how you can now do the exact same tasks with your eyes closed, really quickly and without even thinking.

So what’s the difference?  It’s simple …you did immersion.   

You have to turn up to this job everyday for 40 hours a week, for 6 months. You spend most of your waking time at work. Some days you get up, go to work only to come home and go straight to bed.

There is no life outside of work. Okay, maybe there is, but are you getting my point?

You spend so much time there and you do the same things so often that they just become second nature to you. You are forced to practice and become good at these tasks.

This is exactly how immersion works. You just get so much exposure to your job that it comes comfortable. This is also what happens with learning a language.  

Also think about how your body adapts to the shifts. In the first few weeks you would be exhausted, now you can work all day and not even be tired. The same happens with your brain, it just adapts to become better and quicker at the tasks you need to do.

So if you are learning anything new, especially a language, being surrounded by it as much as possible and being “immersed” is really going to help with your progress.

(You can read more about – What Is The Optimum Amount Of Language Immersion?)

How Can You Actually Immerse In Your New Language

It really is as simple as finding anything and everything that you can read or listen to in the new language. So long as you are able to roughly comprehend it, it will be perfect.

This does mean you will need to work your way up to harder material, so in the beginning you may need to use material designed for beginners or children, as you are going to be able to understand most of this, and it will make sure your immersion will actually be beneficial.

(You can read more about – How To Immerse Yourself In A New Language – A Practical Guide)

Conclusion

As you can see immersion is extremely important. It is going to expose you to a lot of the language and allow your skills to grow. So long as you can roughly understand what you are reading or listening to, you will make gains.

Repeatedly exposing your brain to the language is going to allow you to get comfortable with things and acquire more as you go along, which will allow your overall understanding to grow.

This is how you learn a language and once you start to understand what is happening, you can then start using the language yourself.    

(You can read more about – Where Should You Start When Learning A New Language?)