Why Mindset Matters

You don't have to be smart or have a degree to be able to learn a language. This whole thing is not that complicated. Anyone can do it.
The method "immersion" is a powerful method allowing you to acquire a language quickly and efficiently like no other method.
This guide exists to fill the gap left by most immersion guides by explaining why immersion works and how to go about it so you can learn the language with as little unnecessary mental strain as possible. It aims to equip you with the right mindset.
Motivation is the most important aspect. To learn a language you need to put in hours in the thousands to be proficient and being motivated gets you there.
Immersion is a hike you embark on being guided by your own interests. It's your journey that has no time limit nor is supposed to meet arbitrary standards you should full fill. Everybody's lifestyle, circumstances, goals and motivations are different thus shaping how each person learns a language. There is noting wrong or to feel bad about in that.

The power of immersion¶

The language learning method immersion is one of or even the most powerful language learning method there is. It allows you to acquire a language on a intuitive and effortless level almost like a native in great speeds no other method allows you. To illustrate the speed aspect of the method, let's look at the Japanese Language Proficiency Test.

According to Google it takes around 3000-4500+ hours to pass the highest level from zero. From experience people who studied Japanese doing immersion spent on average 1530 hours. They didn't go to language school, or lived in Japan, or had prior knowledge of the language. Their first languages were mainly English or other european languages for which Japanese is one of the hardest language to learn along with Russian, Arabic, Korean and Chinese. They weren't geniuses and lived normal lives, going to school, uni or work. You could probably even pass the highest level of the exam doing immersion in 1100 hours as well. The point is immersion is a powerful tool to acquire a language.

Problematic of the current immersion method landscape¶

Currently out of all the immersion language learning communities, only the Japanese one has so far established itself as a sizeable and growing community dedicated to immersion learning by actively creating new tools targeted towards immersion learning and writing guides, yet even they don't have a full definition of how one should do immersion. Most guides just tell you what exactly you have to do without explaining why immersion works in the first place. How to deal with problems that could arise while doing immersion and what kind of mindset you should take on are mostly neglected or completely missing. If you go around asking long time learners for advice on immersion and how to "make it" you will realize the following:

"Everybody kinda did their own thing with immersion to varying success and seem to contradict each other or themselves."

Language immersion guides focus mainly on what to do as in what resources and tools to use and which immersion material to start out with while glossing over the how to approach immersion and most critically the why it works.

This creates a big problem for new comers to start learning not only Japanese but really any language they want. Newcomers are mostly told to "just immerse" without really knowing why immersion works and how it's supposed to help them acquire a language. They are just thrown into the deep end without being taught how to swim properly. Being left with no choice but having to piece together the how and why from sunset guides, old forum snippets and the single daunting mantra: "trust the process".

The mental toil of "just trust the process"¶

kuyamigoto

"Trust the process" is necessary but not enough. Without understanding how and why the process works how are you supposed to trust it in the first place. This missing piece sets up learners for a specific kind of enemy; your mind:

Confusion: Should I understand everything I'm reading or listening? How much should I learn each day? How much time should I spend per sentence? How do I know if I understood something correct?
Self-doubt: Is what am I doing right? Is this effective? Will this work for me? Maybe I should try something else because this doesn't feel right. Is this too hard for me? Am I too dumb? Everybody seems to read for so long while I can "only" manage one hour.
Comparison: Arbitrary benchmarks like hours spent immersing, words learned or reading speed. All sources of dread not motivation. You can even feel judged by some kind invincible standard and the joy of learning gets replaced by pressure and anxiety.
Burnout and Lethargy: The combination of these points are a perfect recipe for burnout. Learners don't just quit the method, they write off language learning as a whole, convinced they "can't just do it." This isn't unique to beginners, even long time learners hit a intermediate plateau not knowing how to overcome it.

The irony is: Immersion works. But the very communities that champion it often fail to provide the right psychological and methodological framework needed to survive it. Only a small amount of stubborn and relentless people pushed through this fog of confusion, self doubt and comparison to reach high proficiency.

What guides miss¶

The current language immersion guides fail in two ways:

They neglect theory. They don't explain why immersion works, where does it come from, what it is about at the end of the day, how it helps them acquire a language. Without this immersion just feels like a black box you are investing time in and expect to get something out of it. It's blind faith at best.
They ignore the mindset. Immersion is treated as how optimal you can learn a language, ignoring the emotional roller coster of confusion, doubt and comparison it can bring forward. No guide or community is equipping its learners with the right defense against themselves.

This guide exists to fill these gaps. It's not a list of resources and tools. It's a guidebook on the immersion mindset. Drawing from my experiences as a member and leadership roles in these communities this guide aims to deconstruct confusion, provide the missing theory and equip you with the physiological tools to navigate through teaching yourself a language with immersion.

Judge your own motivation - Look inward¶

mirror

I strongly advice you to reflect upon your motivation to study a language. If you do not go through a similar exercise do not waste a minute of your time studying a language or anything for that matter.

The exercise

Take a clean sheet of paper and write down goals and today's date and then write down 10 goals you would like to accomplish in the next 12 months. Don't worry about 2 years or 10 years or 5 years. Just 10 goals, you would like to accomplish in the next 12 months and write them in the present tense. Almost like you're submitting an order. For example use phrases like this:

"I can"
"I know"
"I have"
"I earn"
"I achieve"
"I weigh"
"I drive"
"I own"

Whatever your goals will be it family goals or physical or mental goals, when you got that list of 10, take it and imagine if you had a magic wand and you could wave this magic wand and could have any one goal on your list within 24 hours.

Which one goal would you want the most right now? Usually that thing will jump out at you. Circle it.

If that goal you have circled is not learning a language then don't bother learning a language right now especially not with immersion and close this tab and do whatever but learning a language. You will save yourself and others time and effort.

If you are not motivated right now to study a language you will not be successful. You would be just forcing yourself and dreading every second. You need to be interested in the language you want to study. This is after all not school so nobody is forcing you to do this. You need to be aware that you want this yourself and that you need this for yourself. There is no room for self doubt or thinking whether you can do this. This is just a matter if you want or not.

The trifecta¶

I cannot stress enough how imperative it is to be motivated especially with language learning and especially with immersion where you are responsible for yourself. Language learning is a trifecta built upon three things. Your success depends on these. If you got those three things you will succeed.

trifecta

Motivation or fun: The primary driver. It makes consistency possible.
Time: Raw hours you put in.
Method: Traditional method, Immersion method, etc.

If you are motivated you're halfway there. Method doesn't matter if you got plenty of time. You can acquire a language by using the most inefficient method there is if you study with it for long enough like 10 years. But if you use the right method you save yourself a lot of time. Without motivation you won't stick.

Notice how the list doesn't include intelligence, being healthy or young. These things don't matter. You can be doubtful, confident, stressed, feeling down, joyful, depressed but you must be motivated. It does depend on a concrete personal reasons that sustains you through challenges and plateaus.

If there is not a thing that drives you for example the idea of watching or reading your favorite series in your target language, passing a certain level of language proficiency or something different then chances of you successfully learning a language are slim.

Your motivation can range from a passionate life goal to simple curiosity. It can be not being able to look yourself in the eyes after a year if you haven't started learning a language until then. A vague interest i.e a language just seems interesting to you and you would like to try it out then thats enough as well to get one foot through the door. But then you still need something concrete you can aim for. Something concrete provides direction, measures progress and maintains focus.

Having that something is important!

Essence of immersion - Learn and hike¶

tozan

Language learning is not a race. It's not a battle nor a competition who can spend the most time learning on a given day or who can comprehend the hardest things or who reads the fastest. It's not about who knows the most words or sounds the most native like or passes the hardest exams nor about who has studied the language for the longest time. Everybody has their own motivation and interests out of which their own personal goals emerge and come forward. Based on these goals everybody has their own things they should focus on to accomplish. Everybody perceives the world differently and uniquely thus have they own goals. Even if two people got the same goal they reach it by different means and experience.

So logically you can't really compare yourself to others, yet there are people who can't help themselves but indulge in this act once in a while nonetheless and most often in a self destructive manner. They compare reading speeds and get discouraged by the progress of others. They think they're doing something wrong and start to point fingers inwards and blame themselves. They become discouraged because they are not reading for 15 hours straight or are learning 100 words every day.

What these people don't realize is that these massive numbers are from a small minority and that everybody is different to begin with and has their own lifestyle and path. One of the most harmful ways to view language learning is as comparison or competition.

Somebody that manages "only" one hour a day because of their schedule is somebody's else's 15 hours a day. As long you are consistent putting in the effort you can manage you are going to achieve your goals.

Some have more time, some have less. Some maybe learn faster, some maybe don't. Some maybe interested in one thing but not another. All of that is fine. We are learning after all for ourselves.

Think of it like this. Wouldn't it be weird to say "Ohh I needed 2 weeks to learn how to play volleyball or "I learned how to cook in 3 months." These just sound weird, because nobody is even looking at how long they take for these things. Things like these make it seem like you are in a race to go as fast as you can. But immersion is not a race. Immersion is a hike.

You go in this direction because it looks interesting, i.e immerse in a show that seems interesting to you for a bit, you might want to go slower and enjoy other things, i.e prioritize other things in your life, sometimes you go uphill, i.e listening becomes easier, sometimes you go downhill, i.e reading feels like a drag, but everything lies on your path to reach your goal. You are your own guide.