Month 3 of Immersion: Why Immersion is hard for some people

It’s not often talked about, but I feel I can shed some light on it. A co-worker and friend of mine is a pretty rough dude. He is a self proclaimed “thug”. Grew up in a poor Louisiana neighborhood where people would take guns to school for protection. They wouldn’t shoot up the school like the more recent incidents we’ve been having in the states the past few years, but it was common place to have people in possession of guns and knives. He got into trouble, even dealt drugs at one point. To this day, he can’t completely escape that lifestyle, still taking a liking to frequenting bars and clubs in rough neighborhoods. Well, this same guy is a deathly afraid of heights. While working at a grocery store, he was too scared to turn himself around to go down a ladder at the height of about 11 feet. It got to the point that they almost had to call the fire department to take him down. So naturally, he doesn’t like things like roller coasters either. That being said, there are millions of people who enjoy roller coasters. While having a conversation one time with him he stated “You can’t explain to people who like roller coasters that you don’t like riding them, because they just don’t get it”. While this obviously doesn’t apply to most people, it does apply to some. And I’ve heard it myself; “You have more chances of dying in a car accident. C’mon look at all the little kids riding. Nothing is going to happen, it’s so much fun. Just do it.”

Having been in local Japanese learning communities for a long time, including one that I created and ran for years, I’ve come across all types of people. I’ve also been part of communities online and followed various you tubers over the years. The mass immersionists tend to have this “Just do it" mentality. “If watching 8 hours of anime per day works for me, it’ll work for you too. You literally just have to watch TV.” In the age of multiple streaming services and full seasons of shows being released on day one, binging is sort of what people do now. In fact, you may be or know someone who waits until a show is released fully so that can binge the whole thing on a weekend. Growing up, I watched my family tear through multiple movies over a weekend. I saw my brother glued to an old CRT monitor watching about 100 episodes of CD-R burned copies of Naruto in a few days. I’ve lent DVD sets that took me months to watch only for some friends to give it back after a couple days after watching the whole thing. Whenever I told them, I just can’t marathon things, often times they would respond “Why not, it’s just watching TV.”

Maybe part of it is just me. I grew up in the 90s when things like ADHD and depression weren’t so commonly diagnosed. I’m pretty sure I have or had some form of ADHD. It’s hard for me to sit for long hours, I tend to pace around, when watching a movie with friends, even if it was something like Spider-man (2002), I couldn’t wait for it to be over so that I could go play a video game or do something else. Part of it stems from that. Another part stems from the fact that I don’t always like to to be surrounded by noise. People who have little issues marathoning episodes also don’t seem to have very many issues with constantly being around sound. Be it a movie, podcast, video game, music, something typically tends to be in the background. Me, I like silence. The years have taught me to enjoy peace and quiet, give the mind a rest. These days, people don’t talk to each other as much, especially Millennials and beyond. But our minds are loud, filled with work, harrowing world news, scathing social media opinions, endless TikTok scrolling, Spotify, Netflix, Disney Plus, the latest Marvel movie….Bunpro forums. This clutter, when used correctly can actually be very beneficial for learning language. Some of us however, no matter the benefits, often times can only take in so much at a time. Silence is golden, and it may not be the most golden thing for effective language learning/acquisition, but it keeps me sane.

While I do feel that I have some form of ADHD, I’m confident that I don’t suffer from depression. I’ve spoken with Japanese learners who have depression, and while some did get to a relatively decent skill level, they struggled with being consistent about it. Often times I would encourage them to study daily, even if it was just 5 minutes. For some even that was difficult, much less sitting through an entire episode of something they struggled to understand. Watching, playing, and reading in a language you’re learning is something that is not easy, and I’m sure everyone reading this right now knows that feeling. For someone with a mental health condition, it’s likely going to be harder.

Over the years, I have learned to take steps to ensure that I am consistent with my intake of Japanese content. I’ve tried to do the whole binging thing, but I just end up burning out after a short time. Just shifting everything to Japanese cold turkey doesn’t really work for most unless you already have a good amount of vocabulary and grammar down. 1 or 2 episodes per day is usually what works for me, along with reading and other listening content such as Youtube videos. Content is generally enjoyable to me if I can understand 40-60% of it. At times I admittedly understand less than that, but thats just going to be the case for a while.
If you’re struggling with immersion like I had in the past and still do to an extent, I feel that the key is baby steps. If one episode of an anime or a drama is too much for you, try to watch only half of it, then watch the other half the next day. If you have to pause to look up words, you should. I also don’t think it’s a good idea to look up every single word, learning from context is important too. Don’t force yourself to read if your mind is tired, read when you’re rested. But most importantly, if there is something you want to experience in Japanese, don’t give up on it because it becomes too difficult. It will get easier with time. I have struggled to play through Persona for the past decade or so. I’ve tried playing through Persona 4, Persona 4 Golden, and Persona 5. In each game I got maybe 10-15 hours is before I stopped. Each game was quite expensive. I‘ve had easy access to the English versions of these games for cheap or free even, but that was never an option. I am now playing through Persona 5 Royal, 22 hours in and well…it hasn’t been easy, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. The fact that I get to experience a game that was conceived, programmed, animated, written and voiced in Japanese in it’s original language means having an experience that in reality, very few people who aren’t native get to experience. The struggle is worth it I feel.

With one fourth of the year over, I feel like I haven’t immersed as much as I would have liked. This past month I did relapse a bit and watched a bit more content in English than I would have liked. I did re-watch Cowboy Bebop which I had never experienced in Japanese and boy was that something. Finished the first volume of Uzaki-chan wa asobitai, which I enjoyed quite a bit. Still getting through the Hataraku Maou Sama light novel, and am 25% done. Really want to ramp up my reading in April and be more consistent about watching more episodes daily. A bit more hectic at my job recently, and some possible schedule changes that could affect my daily routine, but that’s just life. Parts of it change, just like language.

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immersion does not work until you are able to comprehend aleast a good chunk of it. I have been studying japanese on and off for the better part of 18 years. If you do not have atleast a solid understanding in grammar, it becomes very hard to break japanese down to try to learn from it. The people that are able to learn from 8 hours immersion a day likely could have learned faster had they spent more time studying grammar and vocab. The most important thing when studying japanese is to just keep with it. I look back at my time line of learning, and while im not even close to fluent, I can see large leaps in progress over time.

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Just wanted to say I really appreciate your thoughts and I really enjoy reading your posts.

The best sleep I get is when I am reading a physical book for an hour or so before going to bed, just peace and quite.

Hataraku Maou Sama is amazing! Soo happy that we will get a second season.

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Thank you, and I’ll be happy to share more in the future.

But yes, Hataraku Maou Sama is pretty great. I will admit that I am lost at times since it’s my first light novel. But I’ve been slacking on the reading before bed. I have my Kindle right next to my bed, but I I also have my phone. Gotta get out of that habit.

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