Mistakes You Might Be Making When Learning A Language Through Immersion

When it comes to language learning techniques, immersion is one of the easiest techniques you can find …but you can still mess it up and it is easy to make mistakes.

You might think Immersion is just watching TV shows until you understand the language, which it sort of is, but there are a few things you need to do to make this actually work efficiently, which is usually what people mess up.

I will go through some of the most common mistakes you can make while immersing so that you can hopefully avoid them, or stop making them if you currently are.   

Not Making Your Immersion Material Comprehensible

Learning a language through immersion really only works if you understand what is going on. This sounds kind of silly as how are you supposed to know what anything means if you are starting from zero.

The reality is that you will need to look up words and be doing as much as you can to make sense of things and increasing your understanding wherever you can.

Too many people ignore this and just blindly watch videos and understand nothing. The problem is that their brain will struggle to ever work out what is going on as it can’t understand anything.

Once you realise this mistake you can actually start trying to make things more understandable and you will then start to see the progress happen.   

Not Doing Other Things On Top Of Your Immersion

If you really want to make things comprehensible, then you need to be doing other things on top of immersion. One of the biggest mistakes I see is people not putting this effort in.

You really need to learning vocabulary and even going over the basic language rules, outside of your immersion. This is all going to help you understand things and will make it easier for you when you are actually immersing.

If you avoid doing this extra work then you are only going to slow yourself down, which no one wants. 

(You can read more about – How Do You Maximise Your Language Learning Immersion Experience?)

Using Native Subtitles While Immersing Is A Mistake

A very common problem I see time and time again is people using subtitles in their native language.

While I have said that you need to understand things, and it is a mistake to not do this …using subtitles is going too far in the wrong direction and is actually a mistake.

If you watch a movie and the audio is in the language you are learning, but you have English subtitles on …this is not immersion.

Your brain is always going to take the easy option and just use the subtitles. It is going to put zero effort into trying to process the audio, so you are just wasting your time.

The only time you can really do this is in the very first few weeks when you literally know zero words. However, you should ideally then re-watch the same thing again, without the subtitles.

The first time you watch it you will be finding out what the story is, then when you watch it the second time you will have some sort of context. Basically the second time you watch it you will have some level of comprehension, so in this instance, it is useful. 

Not Immersing Enough Is A Mistake

An easy mistake to make is just not doing enough. Studying can be tiring and we often try and do as little as possible, but this doesn’t work for immersion, you really need to do a lot.

I would say you need to at least an hour a day, but really even this isn’t enough. You should be aiming for about 4 or 5 hours a day, every day.

It’s a huge commitment, but the more you give your brain, the faster it will make sense of things.

If you are only doing an hour a day, that’s a whole 23 hours before you are exposed to the language again. Of course it’s better than nothing, but honestly, look at those who have really fast and amazing success, they are averaging 8 hours a day, maybe even more. 

Not Being Consistent With Your Immersion

An even bigger mistake I see is a lack of consistency.

Not only do you need to do a lot of immersion, but you need to be doing it daily, even multiple times a day.

Again, the more time you have in between your sessions, the more your brain struggles. This is exactly why those people who spend all day, every day immersing see success. There brain is just constantly dealing with the language and has no alternative but to start processing it.

If you are going to do a big chunk today …but then wait 3 weeks until you do it again, this is pointless. Any momentum you get will be long lost.

Immersion isn’t difficult, so there no reason why you cannot be doing this every day.

Not Paying Attention While Immersing  

When you are immersing it can seem like you are able to just zone out …but if you are doing this then you are no longer immersing.

You need to pay attention, but it is a strange state of mind as you also do not need to overly think about things.

You certainly should not be trying to translate everything you are listening to and you don’t need to prove to yourself that you understand it; you just have to pay attention enough to follow along.

Just think about how you watch TV in your native language, you just kind of pay attention and follow along, you don’t really need to think about it, but you are also not exactly zoned out and thinking about what is for dinner (okay, sometimes that happens, but then you are not actually paying attention).

If you can get into this state when you are immersing, then you are doing it right, You just have to follow along as best as you can and enjoy whatever you are watching, don’t think too much about it, but also don’t ignore it, so long as you are somewhere in the middle then you are fine.

Not Moving To Output Activities Once You Are Comfortable With The Language 

The main downside to the immersion method is that it does not really force you to output, so you do not really get good at speaking or writing.

At some point you need to move your focus from immersion, into output, which some people don’t really do. It can be hard to know exactly when to do this, there are no real rules, which is why people probably delay it.

However, you need to start recognising that you are making progress and that you can understand most of the material you are immersing in. Once you get to this point, you need to start introducing some output. This will be scary and little more work, but it will push your language levels even higher and it is necessary, you can’t just listen forever.  

Rejecting Grammar Study Is A Mistake

When you hear about immersion you will usually hear “you do not need to study grammar”, which is of course very appealing and kind of true.

You can get to a high level in the language without actually studying the grammar, but you should still dip your toe in it once you are making some progress and can understand the basics.

Actively studying grammar can actually help clear up some things up. You may have noticed some patterns in the language and while they sort of make sense, studying the grammar can make them a lot clearer.

You are basically consciously helping the unconscious understand what is going on. Too many people totally refuse to look at the grammar and I think this is only going to slow them down.

They will get there eventually, but why not help yourself out and study it for a while.  

(You can read more about – Is It Necessary To Learn The Grammar Of A New Language When Using The Immersion Method?)

Seeking Perfection Is A Mistake

Immersion is a very hazy way to learn a language and an easy mistake to make is not accepting that this is the case.

You are going to have that “I’m not sure” feeling for a long time and you need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable, the sooner you can do this, the easier things will go.

Too many people want to understand things perfectly, and while that is a valid thing to want, you are going to struggle when you are constantly feeling lost in the language.

You really just have to accept that you will feel very lost for a while and slowly that will fade away and you will feel more comfortable …It’s only then at this point you might start perfecting some small things.   

Giving Up On Immersion Before You See Results Is A Mistake

Probably the biggest mistake I see from people is that they give up too soon.

Immersion will work, but you need to firstly get enough exposure and you need to do this for long enough.

If you can commit to these two things, you will see results.

As I’ve mentioned, it will take a long time and you will just feel lost for a long, long time, so I get why people give up. It’s not normal to spend 100s of hours watching something and have no idea what is going on …but give it time and your brain will start to realise it has no option but to start making sense of things.

It can be hard to believe, but put the effort in and trust the system, it will work.

Conclusion

As you can now see, there are a lot of mistakes you can make when you are trying to learn a language though immersion. It is not as simple as just watch a few TV shows and the language magically appears.

However, the mistakes are actually quite small and easily avoided, so if you have been making them, you can easily change things and actually start to see some progress.

If you do things right it will work, immersion can be very effective and hopefully now you are in a better position for success.  

(You can read more about – What Immersion Techniques Can You Use To Learn A Language?)