JapaneseRuleOf7 Wrote:Heh, I wish.

Having lived in Japan for years, in an entirely Japanese environment, you'd think I'd have picked up a few words by now. I've watched many thousands of hours of TV, work in Japanese offices, and all of my friends speak Japanese. If immersion works, it doesn't work for me.

I can't speak for everyone who lives here, but judging from the "foreigners" I've met, one thing seems clear: those who can speak decent Japanese have studied their asses off. And that includes Khatz.

Apparently watching basketball games won't enable you to actually play the sport. Who knew?

Nobody claimed that it was a magic pill, but a complete immersion environment to compliment your SRSing brings you to levels of naturalness and depth not possible without it.

You essentially managed to miss the entire point.

JapaneseRuleOf7 Wrote:Heh, I wish.

Having lived in Japan for years, in an entirely Japanese environment, you'd think I'd have picked up a few words by now. I've watched many thousands of hours of TV, work in Japanese offices, and all of my friends speak Japanese. If immersion works, it doesn't work for me.

I can't speak for everyone who lives here, but judging from the "foreigners" I've met, one thing seems clear: those who can speak decent Japanese have studied their asses off. And that includes Khatz.

Apparently watching basketball games won't enable you to actually play the sport. Who knew?

Textbooks about basketball, that's what enables you to play it

JapaneseRuleOf7 Wrote:Apparently watching basketball games won't enable you to actually play the sport. Who knew?

That's a flawed analogy. While watching basketball, you're not practicing your basketball skills. While listening to comprehensible Japanese, you ARE practicing your Japanese comprehension skills.

Immersion, using materials you actually understand, is an invaluable tool for learning any language. If thousands of hours of listening to Japanese didn't work for you, it's because you didn't understand what you were listening to.

patriconia Wrote:Before I started studying Japanese, I would listen to a lot of J-pop and watch anime, and all I really learned were a few basic words like "motto" and "ai".

I have similar results from listening to some Japanese music and other things - only learning a few words in hundreds of hours of learning. Since I now have a few thousand vocabulary, listening to Japanese TV shows, I can pick up a few words here and there and I consider that somewhat of a review. I suspect this is the same for most people, so that answers the OPs question "does it work" with an answer of "yes it works, but not very well".

So, I think there is some utility in it if you want to go dow that route. The words I did learn through immersion I am very grateful for, and since I enjoyed listening, it is a few words that came at no cost to me. However, I am not about to go down the full AJATT route because it is too much of an intrusion into my life and I have other things I'd rather do, but that's just me.

If I was in more of a hurry to learn and wanted to make Japanese my singular goal, I would consider passive audio immersion because it can only help. We're really talking about downtime here (I wouldn't consider replacing active study with passive immersion). The only cost is opportunity cost and the benefit is very little, but I can see how that very little benefit could be worth the other things someone could be doing if you ware in an extreme hurry and don't mind giving your life over to Japanese.