Self Study and Language Immersion

Language, we already know, is best learned through immersion. Immersion generates assimilation. The best way I can describe what I know about immersion and assimilation is by comparing the information we receive about the new language with a stream of water, and the student with a sponge. Water will penetrate in the sponge and bath every room inside it. Now, our sponge will grow, and will keep growing without any boundaries.

Immersion is guaranteed to be there when we move to a place where nobody speaks our native language. But can we create an environment of immersion whenever we are not able to move to a our target language speaking country of choice? Although not extremely simple, this is feasible. Let's review some techniques to produce language immersion:

1) We can watch TV series and movies in the target language. For this to be done immersion-style we need to watch this TV programs at least for some four hours per day. Even without resorting to a dictionary, the sounds of foreign expressions will be recorded in our brains, often associated with specific situations. In this way, our mind links sound with ideas. The drawback of this method: broadcasting in languages that are not very popular in our country will usually be rare. The Internet allows us to bypass this problem, because there exist video clips and program streaming in several foreign languages. Then it turns to be a duty of the language learner to explore the web and spot all the websites offering this material.

2) Room and ware labeling. Although very appealing and fun, sticking labels on mirrors, light switches, doors, doorknobs, TV sets, home appliances, pictures, etc. is not a very powerful immersion technique. For those who are very motivated to learn, this technique will wear itself just a few days after starting, because the motivated learner assimilates this basic vocabulary very fast. On the other end of the gamut we have weakly motivated learners, and these usually won't get a catch of the new words even if the stick up notes are kept for one or two years. My advice: if these stickers are kept for several months, just get rid of them on the double. Because you either already know the names of the things tagged, or you don't and won't learn it by using the stuff labeling method.

3) Store information in index cards. Write words and phrases in index cards and store them in small plastic boxes. My choice are 3"x5" cards, and I keep them in Sterilite FlipTop boxes that can store 200 of them. But the amount of cards you write and store depends on your learning stage. I suggest to start writing 10 to 20 cards with the foreign names of nouns, verbs and expressions. Only after you master this first batch should you produce another 10 to 20 cards more. With this system, you are able to re-read any cards you wrote including the first ones. The more times you see your cards, your brain will more intensively record them, to your advantage.