Igloo9 Wrote:I haven't officially started learning Japanese yet, because I'm still working on learning the kanji. But I had a question.
I used to think that you could learn to speak/understand Japanese through complete immersion and nothing else. Just watch Japanese TV, J-music, J-games, etc. I thought if you did it 24/7, you wouldn't need to actually study grammar/vocab/sentences.
People told me it wasn't possible. You needed to also study, because even though you're exposing yourself to the language 24/7, you wouldn't really learn much because you wouldn't understand what you were watching/listening to, and would have no way to actually learn what it meant.
But I've heard stories of non-English speakers who became fluent in English after a year or two, by doing nothing but watching English TV. They never actually studied English. If that's true, couldn't it also happen with Japanese? I know Japanese is different, but all languages are different from one another. And I'm not talking about the writing system. Just the actual language itself, such as speaking and understanding.
It all depends on what kind of immersion we are talking about. In fact, it all depends on how wide a category of activities we decide to call "immersion".
If we define as immersion any and all things that have a purpose other than simply to study the language, then I think it's not only possible to learn a language through immersion, but, past an initial period of formal study (the size of which varies depending on the difficulty of the language - for some, it could very well be minuscule, for Japanese, not so much), easier to do. The initial period of formal study is necessary (with the more difficult languages) because, while some types of immersion are possible without knowing anything, they're not very helpful types of immersion. In fact, I can only think of two: listening to music, and watching stuff with subtitles. I assure you, just doing that will make progress very slow when you know nothing.
However, past that initial period of study, the possibilities open up. The thread mentions extensive reading. There's also readers, or reading regular content with various helpful tools (ranging from a dictionary to fancy software that delivers definitions at the click of a mouse or touch of a finger). And then there's the best one of them all: written communication, with native speakers (with the help of a dictionary, spell checker, grammar checker, google, and any other tool at your disposal).
All these methods, and many more, fit my definition of immersion: they serve a purpose other than studying. You are reading things that interest you, talking about subjects you are interested in, etc. Because of this, they are not only useful, but it is my belief that they are a better method of learning a language than studying for the sake of studying.
P.S. There is one significant exception to the rule of needing at least some formal study: English. English is so widespread, and most people are exposed to such massive amounts of it (especially in countries that don't dub American media) that, as long as you have a curious mind, you're gonna learn it from scratch without any study. Not because the crappy flavors of immersion (listening to things one doesn't understand and watching with subtitles) work well, but because there's so much of it that it doesn't matter that progress is extremely slow. By the time someone reaches adulthood, they've spent a couple of decades listening to it. With formal study, they would've been fluent already, but even without it they're past a point where formal study is needed, and ready to learn by using the language.
Other languages can be that exception too, for the same reason, if one spends a long time in an environment where they're used a lot. But English is used that way almost everywhere.
JusenkyoGuide Wrote:I have lived in Japan for 9 years... I deal with Japanese 24/7.
Nope, doesn't work. It gets you to a certain level, yes. I got to the point where I could do daily stuff because I had to. I learned more terms for education because that's what I work with... but I've developed more since I decided that this wasn't working and started doing the decks and studying, particularly with a language like Japanese that has multiple levels of politeness and a whole cultural aspect wrapped into it. I.e. I learned the hard way that terms I had picked up as a vol. firefighter were NOT appropriate to the school setting.
I'm not saying it cannot be done, because obviously it can be, but I would caution people in thinking that just coming over here or cocooning yourself in nothing put Japanese will work a miracle.
Obviously, if you define "immersion" as "using a language in everyday life and nothing else", you aren't going to learn it to any kind of a deep degree of proficiency. That's simply because only a very small portion of a language is used in everyday life.
But "talking to volunteer firefighters" and "doing decks" are not the only options. You could also read. Or communicate with different kinds of people. Or write. You really don't need to spend your days doing Anki decks to become more proficient in a language you already speak.
As someone who has learned several languages past the point of "everyday use", I'm telling you: there are better ways to learn than studying.
Edited: 2014-01-10, 3:40 pm
Seeing both is so handy for me at first.
