Defining Immersion

You need consistent exposure to the language to build fluency and intuition like the native approach. That exposure has to be comprehensible enough, enjoyable and somewhat challenging.
"Comprehensible enough and enjoyable": Two factors that motivate and make your time learning the language easier. They're are really important!
Immersion is the improved version of the native approach: You acquire fluency faster and you have fun while doing it.
Immersion: consuming content made by natives for natives that is comprehensible enough, enjoyable and somewhat challenging. Immersion has to be done consistently!

What immersion tries to achieve¶

Immersion is by design aiming to make you reach native level in your target language. By consistently following it you will pick up the language as well as nuances in grammar, word usage, pronunciation and readings without you having realized you learned them consciously. Most of the time while immersing you don't realize or feel like you are actually learning something, but you actually are, albeit unconsciously. You probably heard of the brain being referred to as a sponge and we are capitalizing on that with immersion, where we consistently expose ourself to the language in large comprehensible amounts for our brain to acquire the language naturally.

People who are doing immersion or have done it for a long time describe that after time a certain feeling. That words just feel more right than others in certain contexts, that this conjugation is done like this and that some word has this nuanced meaning. Using and understanding your target language becomes effortless and more of a feeling based on intuition which is the highest level of proficiency one can achieve; that is native level. The same way you can feel out what feels and sounds right in your native language is trying to be accomplished with immersion. Through doing tons of immersion you start to accept how things are and base your understanding on feelings and vibes because it's the same way people learn their native languages, it's just naturally ingrained into our brains through consistent exposure.

What we consistently expose ourselves to is hereby the most important part, it has to be comprehensible enough and enjoyable, but how would that help us?

The additional condition¶

When doing immersion it cannot be understated that what ever you're immersing with has to be comprehensible enough and enjoyable. This is because these two factors act like acceleration quirks in an engine. They accelerate language acquisition. Without these two, immersion would be just consuming content without necessarily understanding which means we would be exposed to immersion material that might be too easy or too hard for us to learn anything from, thus wasting our time and maybe even get discouraged because we are not making any substantial progress. By adding the filter of choosing material thats just at our level we can progress and acquire the language faster.

Choosing immersion material that is also enjoyable for you makes your time learning the target language easier. It shifts your mind from "I have to read this book to learn my target language" to "I want to sit down and read this book because its interesting." Without it, the learning process will feel forced and dragged which should be avoided at all cost. The moment when something is not interesting to you, you should stop bothering with it and switch to something different to immerse in. That is because enjoyment keeps you going, without you would be forcing yourself which is not the ideal mind space to be in when learning any skill. Somebody that enjoys what they are doing will outperform anyone that is doing the same but with no enjoyment. Ideally enjoyment should motivate you.

These two factors make up the bottom line when choosing what to immerse in. How you actually choose immersion material and in what proportions these two factors should inter play will be discussed in later sections . For now I want you to take away the following.

Evaluating the improved native approach - Immersion¶

Recalling our three criteria for a good method:

You actually acquire the language to your desired level: Since we are consuming content (books, shows, games, videos) made by natives for natives, we learn how the language is actually used with all it's nuances, slang and cultural context. You end up deciding what you consume yourself so immediately you acquire functional and attrition-proof because it's tied to meaningful content you enjoy.
The time it takes you to reach your goal: The power of Immersion
Enjoyment: Follows from 1. Immersion by design requires the content you consume to be enjoyable for you. This creates a positive feedback loop: You enjoy the content or learning the language, which makes you consume more, which accelerates your acquisition, which allows you to enjoy even more content.

Key takeaways¶

Immersion is engaging i.e immersing with material in your target language made by natives for natives. Basically the same things a native would consume we try to consume as well. Hereby we don't choose just any immersion material but material thats comprehensible and enjoyable for us. What this actually means for us will be discussed in the next section.
Immersion also has to be done consistently to work. Just like any skill, you need to consistently use it to not forget it.

The next section will focus on at what point you can start to immerse and what makes up immersion in general.