IMMERSION ISN'T WORKING!

You're spending so much time listening to, reading and watching native level content, but progress just isn't coming very fast! What's going wrong? Let's chat!
Who is this?
I'm Emily, Oxford graduate, polyglot, and the tiny and colourful creator of The Language Confidence Project. My mission is to make language learning feel good, and to help you to work through all the doubts and frustrations that can throw you off along the way.
Keep in touch!
🖤 Patreon: join the community here for our weekly Creative Space, monthly Q&As, and all kinds of other bonuses! / thelanguageconfidencep...
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Also, leave a comment! Sometimes I get lonely.

[@thelangconprojectpodcast]

What are you going to create or do with your language today?

[@etanol.]

keep a diary ✏️

[@thelangconprojectpodcast]

@@etanol. I love that idea! :)

[@elmadas]

teaching a course

[@thelangconprojectpodcast]

@@elmadas That's amazing! Hope it goes well! What are you learning and what are you teaching?

[@elmadas]

@@thelangconprojectpodcast thanks! I am learning French and teaching Permaculture, a method of design based on ecology. My first language is Italian.

[@NadeenJaya]

"For the past five years, I've been immersing myself in the English language. I thought consuming enough material alone would make me fluent in English. I spent more than six hours almost every single day listening to native English speakers on KZbin. Unfortunately, I still find it difficult to speak in English. I couldn't agree more with your advice: you must produce something in your target language if you want to speak it, period!"

[@thelangconprojectpodcast]

Thank you so much for your comment, and I hear you! Good luck as you venture into speaking more! Let us know how it goes!

[@KseniiaBezuhla]

I absolutely agree with you. I noticed it myself when ever I consume content no matter how much it affects me, if I do not discuss it with anyone or put it to something, the knowledge I gained through it eventually goes lost on me. But the truck is that this passive content consumption requires little effort and at the same time mostly keeps your brain relaxed, whilst reviewing it or pondering over it is much more complex. It takes more effort and more self-discipline to pursue the reflection. But it’s totally necessary and needs being put to life.

[@thelangconprojectpodcast]

100%! It does feel harder to actively create something with the language, it *is* harder, and there's more creative resistance, but it's essential! :) Thank you so much for stopping by! What language(s) are you working on? :)

[@Phylaetra]

I would say not even to speak, but to _converse_ in our target language. But I agree - while input is important, so is output. I would also argue that a little instruction helps a _lot_. There seems to be an antipathy to learning grammar, but trying to pick up grammar from observation alone, even observation and correction when you try to produce speech or writing is an exercise in frustration. Especially if there are multiple patterns for the same grammatical concept. Having someone explain the basic grammar concepts really speeds up learning.

[@victoriac8845]

I’ve fallen into that trap so much! thank you for helping me see where I should really be focusing my time 💗

[@thelangconprojectpodcast]

Thank you so much for your message, Victoria! Glad it helped! What are you working on right now? :)

[@victoriac8845]

@@thelangconprojectpodcast I’ve been studying Japanese for awhile and I’m starting to learn Portuguese too, hopefully I’ll have faster progress now that most of my time won’t be in just immersion.😄

[@_francaisconnecte]

Thank you! Your short video is so inspiring!

[@thelangconprojectpodcast]

Thank you so much!

[@sherlockhomeless7138]

Best video about language learning that I've listened to in a long time

[@thelangconprojectpodcast]

Thank you so much! What language are you working on at the moment, and how's it going? :)

[@sherlockhomeless7138]

@@thelangconprojectpodcast I'm learning Brazilian portuguese and yesterday I had my first conversation of one hour with a Brazilian girl yesterday! Granted, I was listening most of the time, but it was a great experience.

[@twodyport8080]

Background music is very distracting.

[@thelangconprojectpodcast]

Thanks for your feedback. If you want daily language courage with no background music at all, check out The Language Confidence Project podcast! There are almost 300 episodes already, and it's available on all the podcast players or on my website! What language(s) are you working on?

[@frankgradus9474]

Thanks awfully. That's a huge help.

[@thelangconprojectpodcast]

Thank you so much for your comment! What language are you learning, and how is it going at the moment?

[@oakstrong1]

Don't beat yourself if you can only speak a few phrases after a year, you are still learning faster than a native speaker has learnt their first language (with no interference from a different grammar). I think it's OK to just receive meaningful input for the first year or so before expecting any output beyond simple utterances. Just think: it takes FIVE YEARS for a child to learn to express himself with complex sentences in *almost* correct grammar in his NATIVE LANGUAGE, and TEN YEARS for that child to speak at adult level proficiency (fluently). That is, in 100% immersion.

[@Ricardo-xg6gx]

First of all, this comment came up as a consequence of today’s video, which I love the content of but not the title of. I’ll try to explain myself; in maths science and other sciences, there is a principle that says “one thing can be necessary but not enough”, and this can be applied to output resources in the learning process, to succeed fully requires input as well, but in right order (output firstly). As a student, I suffer from the plateau syndrome, but I believe, it would be temporal, so I appreciate a lot your knowledge trying to shed light on this complex state. Thanks.

[@thelangconprojectpodcast]

Hi! Thanks for your comment! I do have a video already about the Intermediate Plateau, and there will be more to come! Hope you have a good day! kzbin.info/www/bejne/eWLKh6udqK2riJo

[@Олександр-к6о2л]

I love these bright colours on the picture behind and on her hoodie))

[@thelangconprojectpodcast]

Thank you so much! Bright colours make me happy :) I'm glad they give you joy too! The big canvas behind me is a print by Leonid Afremov.

[@AlexThomson-EasternApproaches]

Thanks very much for this. Justified passion there!

[@thelangconprojectpodcast]

Thank you so much for your comment! :) What language are you learning, and how's it going?

[@AlexThomson-EasternApproaches]

@@thelangconprojectpodcast Georgian, and it's a nightmare getting the verb forms well enough learned for active recall. But I'm persisting, and this video has inspired me!

[@thelangconprojectpodcast]

@@AlexThomson-EasternApproaches I've just had a second comment on my channel from someone who's learning Georgian! How amazing is this!? So glad the Language Confidence Project can help you out! :)

[@AlexThomson-EasternApproaches]

@@thelangconprojectpodcast Great!

[@GrigoriiPolukhutenko]

Thanks for your tips, I'll try to do it.

[@wowillakati]

I like your idea about having a project in the target language, but i was wondering what project would you suggest for someone who is very beginner in the target language. Im learning korean I am at a point that i can read the alphabet but i cannot write yet or produce sth at this stage what project would you suggest?

[@thelangconprojectpodcast]

Hi! Welcome to the channel and thank you so much for your question! Here are THREE ideas for things you can do with your language as a complete beginner! 1) When you see any Korean content on Tiktok/KZbin/wherever else, leave a comment to say 감사합니다 (thank you) in Korean. Make sure you type it yourself each time rather than copying and pasting :) Slowly build up that message over time to add more details to your appreciation :) 2) Find a picture that you like (could be anything: townscape, nice house, zoo, kitchen, restaurant, whatever) and look up the words for ten important things you can see in the picture 3) Learn how to introduce yourself, and find as many opportunities as you can to introduce yourself and ask people what their names are :) Hope this helps!

[@wowillakati]

@@thelangconprojectpodcast Thank you these are great ideas!

[@bigbang259]

if someone isn't rely on their subconscious mind and keep translating and using subtitles, in this case it doesn't work. To activate immersion we should start using our brains in a natural way. Try to recall what you've hear, try it a lot. The only way to say something is to recall it. Translation or reading is not an option. Then it will work

[@thelangconprojectpodcast]

How do you make your language learning as natural as possible? :)

[@jean-louismorgenthaler4725]

According to my learning experience, reading, listening, writing and speaking go together. None of them should go without the others. Every second language learner has to develop all four in a coordinated and balanced way. None can be left behind. How to achieve this? Thinking is the key. Being knowledgeable AND being articulate are the means. Reading, listening, writing and speaking are the necessary practical competences. Paraphrasing Benny Goodman's and Luis Prima's classic standard, I want to say: "Think, Think, Think. Everybody starts to think. Now you think 'bout everything". 🙂

[@thelangconprojectpodcast]

Love it! What language(s) are you working on, and how are they going?

[@jean-louismorgenthaler4725]

@@thelangconprojectpodcast I'm French and I have been learning English since 2003. That year I had a family holiday trip to the USA and I got immensely disappointed: I couldn't understand people and they couldn't understand the poor school English I pronounced with a thick French accent. So, I started to study in a more effective way.

[@thelangconprojectpodcast]

@@jean-louismorgenthaler4725 Oh wow! That is DEDICATION! :D Do you get the opportunity now to talk to Americans from the same state? I bet it's a lot easier now! Do you have any particular things that you did to make your study more effective? :)

[@jean-louismorgenthaler4725]

@@thelangconprojectpodcast I can talk with American tourists visiting Versailles' Palace as I live next to Palace's park where I go biking several times a week. I'll tell you more later about how I practice. The basic idea is some sort of active virtual immersion.

[@JamesColemanChess]

Hey there, this was pretty interesting, I’m learning Thai at the moment (on amd off for a while but only seriously for the last 2-3 months) and I see a lot of people recommending loads of input. Yet some of them have done 1000+ hours and while their comprehension is good, they basically can’t speak. So I definitely think engagement with the target language is needed. Obviously I have a similar challenge to that which one of your other commenters mentioned (guy who is learning Korean) in that it’s a whole new character system which I’m just starting to get to grips with. I agree with your comments on active / passive learning. I find when I do exercises which have quizzes to review things or if I try to write a word, I tend to remember it a lot better than if I randomly just watch somethjng on KZbin or TikTok.

[@thelangconprojectpodcast]

Hi James! Thank you so much for your comment! What brought you to Thai, and how are you finding the learning process so far? :)

[@JamesColemanChess]

@@thelangconprojectpodcast Just that I’ve been there so many times and want to finally figure out what’s going on language wise, and it’s also fun to learn something a bit different to the norm. Still early days in my learning of the language to be honest especially with the challenges of learning that alphabet but I’m trying to improve every day and that’s all anyone can do really. Cheers :)

[@thelangconprojectpodcast]

@@JamesColemanChess YES - just get to know your language a little bit more every day! Thai is going to be SUCH an adventure - new script, tones... would you come back and update us from time to time? I'd love to hear how it's going!

[@cw8790]

Yes I agree speaking it’s important that’s why I signed up for tutoring speaking lessons

[@thelangconprojectpodcast]

Amazing! Have you started yet? How are they going?

[@blblalalbla]

Absolutely agree!

[@thelangconprojectpodcast]

Hope it helps! :)

[@ulrikof.2486]

For me, immersion worked well. But I had it combined with all other methods. My conclusion after having learned several languages: talking, understanding, writing and reading have to be learned by talking, listening, writing and reading. You should not leave one out. Although these capabilities are profiting from each other, you cannot learn talking well from listening alone, you have to talk and correct, and this is true for each capability. And everything helps, even reading a grammar book. But you have to combine, and you have to activate. Listening to an endless stream of talking or singing and doing nothing else won't do the job.

[@thelangconprojectpodcast]

Absolutely! It sounds like your language learning process has been really balanced :D Thank you so much for your comment!

[@MrSite3000]

Every person is a speaker and not everyone is a writer. Those who say about passive input mean, that it is easier and maybe more proper to start speaking after internalizing tons of listening and reading. That's all. Noone can speak fluently and with perfect grammar just out of listening.

[@MrMojo271]

I’ve been listening to German radio and music and TV for 2 years, and I am still not anywhere close to fluent. The only things I learn is the stuff I actively study.

[@thelangconprojectpodcast]

I bet you'll find there have been LOADS of intangible benefits to listening to so much real-life German, though! In terms of accent, choosing more "native-sounding" expressions, and just the act of thinking about different topics in German than any textbooks will have presented you with! :D

[@josedelnegro46]

Look we do not know how chaotic systems work. Take a nursery of children born tomorrow. Give them all the exact same stimulus and environment. Then tell is the exact hour that each child will speak the language introduced to them at birth to the PhD level in exactly the same discipline. No one can make such a prediction. Just because I have a sense of self even I cannot know how much exposure to a language I require to achieve any given goal. The only thing we do know is that 67 percent of the people on earth speak at least two languages. That tells me that the monolinguals are monolingual because of policy not because of ability.

[@anthonydavid5121]

During the 1980s, while In high school and college, I studied French. I did very well and advanced year after year. From the get go in French 1 we were taught basic grammer rules which later grew in French 2 and 3. We were also taught verbs and thier conjegations and the basic rules of each verb form .. the ir, er and re verbs! We were also taught nouns and pro-nouns and how gender was used in correlation to these nouns. These new nouns we would learn also had a direct relationship to the verbs we learned. Quickly, French was making sense and year after year I excelled in the language. In French 1 we were first taught the basics of how the language worked and the principles of French students needed to understand in order to progress year after year. The courses were taught to us in English which lessened as one advanced year after year. Interpretations were provided. We were taught maison mean house. There wasn't a picture of a house on a page forcing me to conclude presumptively and possibly incorrectly that maison meant house. I knew wihtout any doubt that maison meant house becasue a native French speaker told me as fact. Soon, I learned how to used these new words in gramatical exercises which was great becaue as my French became more sophisticated, I started understanding context. I was told that maison meant house and that it was feminine, therefore the adverb used to describe the house had to also be femine, but I was told that blanche was the feminine form of white. I never had to somehow figure it out on my own through deduction or second guessing. The rules were explained and then I started applyig them because I understaood them and the more I learned about the nuances of the rules and grammer that dictates teh languge the great my French abilites became. Had I never been told concretely by the French teacher that maison means house, how would I be able to identifying the picture of a house with certainty and absolute accuracy? Also, how would an Englsih speaker know "manger" means to eat or that all Fench verbs end in ir, er or re and follow a specific conjugation structure if not instructed in English? I still speak decent French all these years later, and attribute this long lasting knowledge to the way I was taught ... methodically and explained to me in English. You can't imagine how my world was rocked when I went to Barcelona to learn Catalan in 2021, a place which uses this stupid immersion technique as the paradigm of " instruction", and, I use the term instruction very loosly because there was never any instruction. I was never taught the things I needed to know about Catalan as a first year learner. Catalan language foundations were never established via instruction, therefor I had no way to even develop an elementary grasp of the fundimentals needed to learn the language. From day one I was literally just spoken at by the instructer in Catalan. Instructions about how the rules governing the language was never provided yet I was expected to somehow make sense of it all. Little made sense to me and nothgn was ever explained-one of the reasons why 70% of the students in my class dropped out. There was no actual teaching of Catalan using any methodology that slowly built upon itself, like the way I was taught and learned French. The onus to learn and understand is palced soley upon the student with little guidance from the teacher who is absolved of actually teaching the necessary building blocks of material needed to learn, understand and use the new language. Immersion failed the majority of my fellow classmates but me too. Depsite sticking it out to the end I fail the final exam and the course. Immersion is BS and it doesn't work. If it did, 70% of my class wouldn't have dropped out and I wouldn't have failed. It also robs you of any desires you once had at leanring a foreign language. It sucks, I hate it and will likely never learn Catalan if this BS paradigm remains in place.

[@edwardburroughs1489]

How did you learn English? If you could already speak a Romance language with any degree of fluency then Catalan should not have been alien to you, right?

[@anthonydavid5121]

@@edwardburroughs1489 I was born and raised in an English speaking country and my command of French is fair today. I never said Catalan was alien. In fact far from it. I spoke and read it surpisingly well. What I said was that I couldn't a(nd still can't) understand spoken Catalan. I hear words only and that's about all. My partner has two native Roamnce language ....native Catalan and Spanish,, therefor he pretty much does OK in reading and understanding spoken Italian. He can't speak it though desite it being a romance language.

[@paulwalther5237]

I need to learn to type in Korean or at least get a Korean keyboard :(. I liked this video probably because it resonates with my own thoughts on what's wrong with my Korean right now. I studied a lot of German in college and my 20's and gave all of the credit to my fluency to all the input I did. I didn't have any speaking partners and although I love writing in English I despise writing in a foreign language (add spelling and typos and it's way easier to criticize someone's writing than their speaking because it's memorialized forever for them to look at and pick apart.. yeah.. don't like it.) But I legit talked to myself in German. A lot. I imagined myself as a German speaker and acted it out in my imagination quite often. I liked the language that much. I think that counts as output too. I'm not doing that in Korean or I wasn't until recently I just started. Korean is a bit farther from English both linguistically and culturally which doesn't help either but I chose this so I can do it.

[@fabiothebest89lu]

When I studied Korean some time ago I purchased some stickers to put on my keyboard. Then you also can use the IME on your phone

[@paulwalther5237]

@@fabiothebest89lu I bought the stickers but they felt funny and didn’t stay on the keys very long either.

[@thelangconprojectpodcast]

Thank you so much for your comment! And yes, it's such a weird experience to get used to a completely new keyboard layout! I second the advice from Fabio regarding the stickers... if they came off too fast, it might be that a different brand is needed! And yes, talking to yourself definitely counts as output! What brought you from German to Korean?

[@Caminoteachers]

I’m tired of the CI crap that Krashen invented in the 70s and is prescribed as the best method in language teaching. Bologna. Yes, I said it.

[@Blacksquareable]

Mmm... it kind of does matter. The content needs to be meaningful to make the transition to active learning.

[@thelangconprojectpodcast]

Thanks for your thoughts! What language are you working on right now? :)

[@kundalini1953]

Background music is so annoying!

[@thelangconprojectpodcast]

Thanks for your feedback. If you want daily language courage with no background music at all, check out The Language Confidence Project podcast! There are almost 300 episodes already, and it's available on all the podcast players or on my website! What language(s) are you working on?

[@keithrobert5117]

You simply have to let go, be comfortable you don't understand a single particle, or unit. Chomsky said, birds fly, fish swim, and humans have language. You will slowly find yourself sorting things out. In Mandarin just follow the tone, semantically, literally and performance wise. And you must find content to your taste. I like poetry so I have zero interest in popular mechanics, whether in English, Chinese or Martian.

[@thelangconprojectpodcast]

Poetry is wonderful for appreciating the rhythm of a language! How long have you been learning Mandarin for? :)

[@keithrobert5117]

@@thelangconprojectpodcast 2 years. My pinyin is ma-ma hoo-hoo. Wo ai hao shi wen te bie Shashibiyu.

[@Kitiwake]

You glottal stop your "terminal T"s. I'm not sure you know it.

[@thelangconprojectpodcast]

😂

[@GrigoriiPolukhutenko]

Thanks for your tips, I'll try to use it.

[@thelangconprojectpodcast]

Thank you for your comment! And come back and let me know how it goes!

[@QrooSpanish]

I enjoyed the video. Nice job.

[@thelangconprojectpodcast]

Thank you so much! What language are you learning, and how are you getting on with it? :)

[@CoolstuffProduction]

Just found your channel Emily, very interesting topic. I agree with you 100%. I think passive listening is great but you are right, you have to follow up with some dedicated homework or study related to the piece you are listening to. Repetitive listening works for me too. Keep up the good work! You post every day??? Wow. Don't burn out, just keep in touch. Well done. Richard from Ireland 😊

[@thelangconprojectpodcast]

Thank you so much for your comment and your encouragement, Richard! It means so much when you're just starting out. I'm glad you've found this useful! And yes, I post every weekday! What are you working on at the moment, and how's it going? Emily from (well, not from...in?) Newcastle :)

[@CoolstuffProduction]

Thank you so much for your reply Emily, it is really nice of you. 🤩😊 On the language front, I am actually learning 6 languages at the same time, or keeping them going, by listening to podcasts for 2 hours each day during my work. I work alone, so I can do it. 😉 I then follow up with some homework for about 30 mins when I get the time. You have a wonderful collection of videos here, and very well produced too. I can't wait to listen to more of them. Take care and talk soon. Richard 😊

[@Aelfswythe]

I've known for so long that creating something in the language I'm learning is how I learn best, but no language learning that I've come across has addressed it. When I was taking French in college, what was the most impactful way for me to learn and understand the language was to write in French or do translation work from English to French. One of my favorite school projects was that we had to pick a French song and talk about it in class. I chose a Medieval song and compared old French with modern French. My professor loved it, but most importantly, I had fun and learned so much because I had to understand enough about the French language to understand the differences between modern and old French. I'd like to brush up on my French and become fluent, so I guess it's back to writing and translating!

[@thelangconprojectpodcast]

Yes! It makes such a difference when you can literally see your language working *for* you, no matter how new you are to it. I had to do a lot of Old French translation at university (worked a lot with La Chanson de Roland!) and it's so interesting to see how the language has changed! Keep us updated on your return to French, and I can't wait to hear what you translate next!