The Secret of Immersion
How immersion helps you grow your language skills.
when you were a kid, did you ever have the super privileged and lucky friend who would go to another country for summer break? and then to top it all off they came back talking like someone from there, with no accent?
Well there’s a reason for it!! immersion! immersion is the ultimate tool to learning a new language!
but who has the privilege to fully immerse themselves in a new country to master a new language when your responsibilities are citizen to a different country? SURE WITH THe rise of digital work and digital nomadry a lot more people can pull it off these days, but if you’re in the us, those fully remote opportunities are not as plentiful as before :’(.
so as a working adult full of responsibilities, how does one simulate an immersive experience?
narrate your day: as your moving along throughout your day, try changing your internal dialogue’s language setting to the language that your learning (Spanish if you’re here i’m assuming ;p). “Abri la puerta para entrar en el edificio de mi oficina. salude a mi compañera y fui a mi escritorio.” for example
have conversations in the language: if you’re lucky enough to have access to people with whom you can converse and practice with in your target language (spanish) if not, you can always find someone here ;) or schedule a session with me 🙋♂️
listen to music in the language: pop on some bad bunny! here’s a playlist i’ve made of some bumpin spanish music that is a little more… underground ;)
watching shows/movies in spanish: luckily with streaming there are a lot of high quality shows/movies in spanish! set the subtitles to the setting you need, depending on your level. if you’re a super beginner, try watching any kids show with spanish audio and english subtitles, or if you’re comfortable, spanish subtitles as well! the key is to try and immerse yourself into the world using spanish as deeply as possible, but remember to match your ability level with the exercise you’re doing!
read in spanish: there are so many different types of books! romance, nonfiction, history, poetry, etc. if you go to my tiktok you’ll find a list of books in spanish, and pro tip, when you’re reading, read out loud to get in pronunciation practice as well!
listening to audiobooks/podcasts in spanish: this is probably going to be harder because you don’t have subtitles or closed captions, you have to just listen to the audio and be able to comprehend. (i will get into this later on this post in more depth).
do simple math in spanish: simple arithematic, adding, subtracting, etc. and this will really help you practice your numbers which are notoriously difficult for people to employ! if you can get up to the 1,000,000’s there won’t be a date you won’t be able to read confidently!
learn in the language: if you have the skill level, try learning a completely brand new concept in the language! maybe even more elementary things you’ve never learned about in your mother language could be a great place to start!
this list by no means is exhaustive. these are just some ways to immerse yourself into the language.
but what does immerse really even mean?
operating in the language.
the more you have to live in the language the more your brain is going to create synapses for you to process in all different types of realms.
According to pettito’s research it’s scientifically proven that immersion leads to more efficient neural processing of the target language.
circling back to the audiobook portion: In my personal experience, i found that listening to an audiobook of a fiction romance novel, so something more in the literature realm, is actually easier for me to follow than something that is nonfiction and a lot more facts and figures!
currently I’m listening to “el vampiro de la colonia roma” and “utopia para realistas”. “el vampiro de la colonia roma” is the fiction romance novel i’m referring to. the narrator is almost like a voice actor, capturing the regional mexican accent of the character and reading with very natural inflections and cadence. its very easy for me to follow, and pick up on new words from the context clues
whereas the other audiobook: “utopia para realistas” is more of a challenge for me to process. for one, the narrator speaks a lot faster, two its in a spanish accent that im not super fond of, and three most importantly, there are a lot of facts and figures. I have to concentrate a lot more concertedly in order to keep up with what’s being communicated. ultimately, its my most challenging exercise i’ve found for operating in the language.
as a college grad, i’m no stranger to dense texts, facts and figures, and synthesizing conclusions. but i’ve always done it in english! those neurons that do that higher order thinking have always been trained in english so i’m a little out of my depth trying to do the same mental tasks in spanish!
I find myself listening to the audio and comprehending it, but analyzing the information in english! but if I concentrate I can analyze it in spanish! and I can feel my brain getting bigger when I make the concerted effort to remain in spanish, not allowing myself to oscillate to english.
now since spanish was my first language, and the primary language my mother spoke during her pregnancy with me, i probably have some deepseated neurons from the conception of my life that permanently primed me for spanish.
but all the same, it feels really cool. like i can cerebrally experience myself entering spanish mode and it almost feels like a return to my home? my default settings?
like a lot of the times when i’m using spanish it feels a bit more superficial in my brain than when I use english. but when I focus on that “utopia para realistas” book and i’m learning in the language its like im not cosplaying a spanish speaker anymore and I become it.
similar to when i’m a little drunk (hehehe) and speaking spanish, there’s a lot less thinking and a lot more just being a spanish speaker.
and essentially thats what all these immersion techniques are working to get you to do. is to become the version of you that speaks the language.
they’ve done studies and found that when you speak another language, you have a different personality! and that’s what i’m discovering through my own experience in my body. its not just speaking, writing, reading, communicating even an other language. its really becoming the version of you who is that person in that language.