233: The dubious benefits of immersion

 In this solo episode, Olly discusses whether immersion is all it's cracked up to be.

Episode Summary:

• Immersion is always held up as the "holy grail" of language learning
• Definition: Spending all day every day in a native-level environment
• It's not all it's cracked up to be
• Survival bias is at play:
  • Katzumoto: 10,000 hours of Japanese
  • Gabriel Wyner: 8 weeks in Middlebury
  • Your friend who went to China and was fluent in 3 months
• Immersion only works if you are able to go full-on enough, for long enough, and stay positive enough to make it to be successful... not practical for most people
• As a study strategy, it leaves a lot to be desired:
  • You don't understand anything
  • There's no structure
  • Not enjoyable
• My experiences with real immersion were not good
  • Paris, Japan, Egypt
• Immersion is much more effective when you can already hold you own
• Theory of "Comprehensible input"
• What's the opportunity cost?

Resources Mentioned in Today's Episode:

• Interview with Stephen Krashen - Language learning in the polyglot community
• Language Learning Foundations - my step-by-step guide to effective language learning

Start Speaking Today:

I’d like to thank italki for supporting the show. To claim your free lesson and start speaking today, visit: https://iwillteachyoualanguage.com//italkishownotes

Do you have a question?

Ask me your language learning questions by clicking here, and I’ll do my best to feature it on the show! Also, please subscribe to the show on iTunes to get automatic updates.

---

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the podcast! If you’ve got any comments about the show then please leave them in the “comments” section below! If you’d like to help me out, then I’d love it if you could…

• Share the episode using the social media buttons around you
• Leave an honest review and rating of the podcast on iTunes (click here to do that)

iTunes reviews in particular really help the rankings of the podcast and help me to reach other aspiring language learners out there! See you in the next episode of the I Will Teach You A Language podcast!