IWTYAL 233: The dubious benefits of immersion

In this solo episode, Olly discusses whether immersion is all it's cracked up to be.

Episode Summary:

• Immersion is always held up as the “holy grail” of language learning
• Definition: Spending all day every day in a native-level environment
• It's not all it's cracked up to be
• Survival bias is at play:
  • Katzumoto: 10,000 hours of Japanese
  • Gabriel Wyner: 8 weeks in Middlebury
  • Your friend who went to China and was fluent in 3 months
• Immersion only works if you are able to go full-on enough, for long enough, and stay positive enough to make it to be successful… not practical for most people
• As a study strategy, it leaves a lot to be desired:
  • You don't understand anything
  • There's no structure
  • Not enjoyable
• My experiences with real immersion were not good
  • Paris, Japan, Egypt
• Immersion is much more effective when you can already hold you own
• Theory of “Comprehensible input“
• What's the opportunity cost?

Resources Mentioned in Today's Episode:

• Interview with Stephen Krashen – Language learning in the polyglot community
• Language Learning Foundations – my step-by-step guide to effective language learning

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Olly Richards

Creator of the StoryLearning® Method

Olly Richards is a renowned polyglot and language learning expert with over 15 years of experience teaching millions through his innovative StoryLearning® method. He is the creator of StoryLearning, one of the world's largest language learning blogs with 500,000+ monthly readers.

Olly has authored 30+ language learning books and courses, including the bestselling "Short Stories" series published by Teach Yourself.

When not developing new teaching methods, Richards practices what he preaches—he speaks 8 languages fluently and continues learning new ones through his own methodology.