If I could fit more words into the title it would read:

“Immersion: The Fastest Way To Learn Japanese and The ONLY Way To Become Fluent.”

Here’s why – you did not grow up learning your native language. You grew up living it. The language you were subjected to was not carefully prepared and handpicked for your particular “level” of understanding, you were bombarded 24/7 with language every single day from a trillion (yes, trillion) different sources.

Your parents, the T.V., the radio, strangers, friends, family all spoke to you in your language all the time. It was not a sterile environment with textbooks and flashcards. It was a living breathing fully immersed world, and your young and open mind absorbed tiny bits of language information every hour of every day.

A great language student will strive to replicate this environment as completely as possible. To learn from many different sources will help you to maximize the amount of neural connections you make and retain every single day. The Japanese words and phrases that feel the most natural for me are the ones that I picked up by watching a Studio Ghibli movie or hearing in a song I really liked shortly after learning a new word.

It is the strangest thing, and I’m fairly certain all of you have experienced this to some degree. You can study vocabulary lists for weeks straight but the words just leave your head as easily as they went in it, but one day you just hear a word in a song or on a show – one of the very same words you were just studying and now the word just wont leave. You couldn’t forget it even if you wanted to.

The most glaring example of this that I can find in my own personal studies is the word

“皆” (みな). For some reason I just could not get this word to stay in my head – it was just one of those flashcards that I always seemed to forget. One day, however, I was watching Nausicaa and one of the characters had said it. That very moment something happened in my brain, a gear clanked right into the right place or something, and ever since that day I never missed that word when it was said – even if I didn’t understand any other word in a sentence, I could still pick that one out.

We Are The Borg. You WILL Be Assimilated.

What I did from then on out was force myself to watch some form of Japanese media every day until this same phenomenon occurred, and almost every time I did I picked up a new word that just stuck with me. The beautiful thing is, the more sources of media I added (books, radio, internet articles, etc…) the more often I could make these connections and the more rapidly I retained information. There came to a point where the only real “studying” I was doing was writing Kanji, and the rest was just assimilating the information.

I am going to issue a challenge to anybody reading this article. Go out and find one form of media to watch/read/listen to/whatever under the following criteria:

Have fun!

It has to come from Japan.

It has to be targeted to Japanese speakers.

It has to be something you enjoy.

It cannot contain subtitles or translations.

Seriously, have fun!

Now just listen and pay attention. That is it! Don’t try to manufacture the experience by reviewing scripts or lyrics first, just watch and listen. If you notice a word being said often, yet you don’t know the meaning of the word, look it up (just like you would with your native language), you will very likely not forget this new word.

Don’t Limit Yourself!

Don’t JUST watch anime. Don’t JUST listen to J-Rock. Don’t JUST change the voices on Street Fighter 4 to Japanese. Really go out there and try to find new things. The more variety of media sources you expose yourself to, the more unique vocabulary and grammar you are also exposing yourself to – meaning new opportunities to learn Japanese naturally!

If you really want to get motivated (and stay motivated) to immerse yourself, check out Khatzumoto’s blog – All Japanese All The Time. This guy really has immersion figured out. This is a great resource.

Like this blog? Have any questions? Let me know in the comments below!