Even if I don't understand at least 90%, is immersion still valuable?

It’s surely good for reinforcing grammar, but what about vocabulary?

1 Like

Mostly reinforcing and building some fundamentals for future vocab, but I can not say Ive learned more then 10 words after 90 episodes of black clover (even tho I was understooding more then 95%, i guess)

Idk, we probably learn all vocab at once just little by little by accustoming to it.

I’m looking forward to see more responses from more advanced learners.

3 Likes

If I miss enough vocab to lose track of what the character is even talking about, I find myself tuning out completely.

But at least immersion is still valuable to get a feel for the natural flow, i.e. where people make pauses to think, intonations, reactions.

3 Likes

Like casual said, it might still be good to get a better feel for the language, particularly when it comes to flow, pronunciation etc

If your goal is to acquire vocab and get exposure to familiar situations, words and grammar usage, something more beginner focused would probably be more suitable.

For Tadoku/extensive reading, the recommendation is to immerse yourself in material that is a little bit below your level so that friction is easy and you can get into a flow state where reading feels natural and engaging.

For listening, something like “Nihongo con Teppei/Japanese Podcast for Beginners” is great for hearing the new grammar concepts and vocab you’re learning as a beginner in simple but fun sentences. There’s also some rephrasing/repetition to actually make it possible to learn new words because the context gets explained in different ways.

1 Like

While some might disagree, other than the random YouTube videos and other random romps, I’m basically waiting til I feel comfortable with more vocab before what I consider immersing. Like N3 level (and grammar), I guess, if I had to put it somewhere. Knowing like the core 2k or whatnot (I’m not really using any premade decks at the moment). And like the first 1000 Kanji. I’m comfortably advancing, and while I know there are things I can do to speed things up, I’m continually having fun. At 150 days, I’m perfectly happy with my progress.

3 Likes

I’d say it depends on context. personally I flipflop around reading/anime and don’t immediately learn new words from them, however if I watch an anime, see the word in a different setting like a book or something then see it in another anime, there is a good chance I catch the word, even if I have “less than ideal understanding”

As the others said, it’s still valuable for flow, but you will pick up words over time anyway, even if it isn’t immediately clear. You’ll eventually start saying to yourself “I’ve heard that word a lot… but what does it mean?” After you look it up or piece together the meaning you probably won’t forget after that point.

Or you can be me with financial vocabulary and forget the word for “tax” every time you need to use it, which is more often than one would expect.

2 Likes

As a comprehension rate of 10% I personally don’t think it’s worth it as a study material. However, it’s still good to listen to content you don’t understand just to hear the flow and sounds of the language. I just wouldn’t bother making it a huge part of your study routine until you acquire more of the basics.

1 Like

Really depends on how much you value efficency and how well you tolerate not understanding things, before you tune out or become frustrated. And how you define valuable.

I have a high tolerance and don’t care about efficency at all, so as long as I can follow the plot somewhat I don’t mind a low understanding of the actual spoken words. I feel this experience is still highly valuable to me. I get tons of exposure, reinforce known vocab and grammar, get a feel for usual sentence structure and build up a memory of common building blocks. I also “learn” a ton of new words and grammar. By “learn” I mean, I start to recognize words or grammar, and might recognize the word/structure in a different context as “I have heard this before”.

But for me, this is a bonus, the most valuable thing of immersion is the immersion itself. As long as I enjoy the process (and don’t slack too much in learning vocab and grammar here on bunpro) it’s a given I will become better over time.

A lot of folks have trouble trusting the process and their abilities, or care most about efficency or really don’t deal well with not understanding enough to feel comfortable. I don’t recommend forcing yourself to immerse, if you don’t enjoy it. The time is better spend finding something you enjoy. :slight_smile:

3 Likes

While I struggle to stay engaged watching 20 minutes of something where I only understand 10%, i noticed music works well for me. If I listen to the same Japanese song while also learning new vocab and grammar over the course of weeks occasionally, I understand 10%, then 11%, then 12%, then 13% etc etc. And suddenly you comprehend an entire sentence here and there. Do what works for you and don’t stress over optimization.

Similarly, people will tell you not to watch anime with English subs for immersion. At my early learning stage I find it very nice that the English subs help me fill in the blanks, I repeat a sentence in my head and suddenly it makes sense. It’s not efficient but at least I enjoy it. I’m not in a hurry to be fluent anyway. It’ll come eventually.

For instance, I found this group because of an anime outro, listened to a few more of their songs and this one has a lot of core-deck vocab and is basically full of early tae-kim grammar points :smiley:

The anime outro I was talking about (Teogonia) - but I found this one substantially harder to follow than the first one.

1 Like

I’ve definitely listened to a small playlist and remembered some words that way too, although there’s a downside.
In songs, pitch accent goes out of the window to match the song’s pitch.
E.g. the very first 3 words of the song, もしこの世界 all have song pitch.

As long as music is not the only listening practice, the brain should eventually figure out what’s standard and what’s song-specific.

1 Like

I did my first immersion [manga] with N5+ kanji damage.
I that was the right time for me to try it.

There are two ways to start immersion
High Context. [my fav] figure out what is going on from the pictures. Examples

1)Recipes and instructions with pictures
2) Let’s play of a video game
3) Cat Videos https://youtube.com/shorts/5KRof1MduHg?si=I7fyuNnTmL1nQ0Vh
4) Or what ever anime you like

The strat is you pick up what’s happening from the pictures, and notice what you can. for my lil sister that’s “これは” and “ごめん” and you can pick up new words that are super obvious from context like “びっくり”, “ダメ” and “無理” for me it’s

Japanese sentence: "セツや清正は、昨夜杏奈が外で倒れいたことなど気にかけない様子で接してくれています。
昨夜, that’s probably late. Anna outside is fallen so… Setsu is worried. not sure what 気にかけない様子で接してくれています。is, but Auntie’s gotta be worried


I understand like half of the words in this sentence - but I’m still having fun. :slight_smile:

Second Method is Prepare
Use
1)ocr
2) subs2srs
3)megaku
4)jbdb
5)ankimorph,
6) bunpro’s yotsuba deck ect
to look up words to get 90%.

Just a recommendation since I enjoyed it so much: yesterday I watched 彼女と彼女の猫 and I understood maybe 60-70% (which I’m really not used to at my level) with the typical issue of some sentences where I understood every single word but couldn’t parse the sentence. I recommend, it’s fairly short