One of the most effective ways to study a foreign language is to fully immerse yourself in that language. This generally involves entering an environment in which the chosen language is the only language used. One of the reasons that total immersion is very effective is because it forces the student to learn. Because the student is now in a situation in which they have no choice but to interact with the language, they will learn through constant exposure. While this may seem intimidating, and it can be at first, I myself have found that it most definitely is an effective way to learn.

When I arrived in Okinawa and began living on one of the military bases there, I had already learned small amounts of Japanese and my small degree of fluency was good enough for my friends to use me as a somewhat convenient translator, but my knowledge was still limited. After I moved to Tokyo, I began to study Japanese at my university. The Japanese classes, of course, were no longer the only time I encountered the Japanese language; as I no longer lived on an American military base, there were not a lot of foreigners to talk to outside of my school, and as a result, my level of immersion in the language was much greater than it was when I lived on Okinawa.

Although I was mostly comfortable with the language before, I found that this sort of total immersion helped me to greatly increase my ability to understand the language. Basically, as long as I live in an area in which Japanese is the language used, I am exposed to the language constantly. This does two important things for me. First, it forces me to practice. Every time I go somewhere, whether it’s to buy food at a store or restaurant or go to Akiba to buy video games, I will likely end up conversing with someone. Even if it’s something as simple as asking for a bag to put my food in to carry it home, this is a form of practice, and practice makes me, and anyone else learning any other language, more fluent.

The second thing that this does for me is that it makes me more comfortable with the language. In my case, this mostly applies to listening and reading. I have found that Japanese people tend to speak to each other at a rate of speech that is considerably faster than the rate at which people speak in listening tests at school, for example. When I asked a Japanese colleague here at Youyou about his experiences with going abroad, he told me that he experienced the same thing with English. Getting used to the way that people actually speak outside of classroom settings is very important, and this sort of immersion has helped me greatly. For reading, because I constantly see kanji almost everywhere, I have become rather used to seeing it, and I have learned the meanings of kanji simply through seeing them, even if I do not know the readings. Once I learn the meanings, I can then learn the readings, but even without knowing the readings, I have found that just knowing the meanings has allowed me to be able to understand written text.

Overall, I feel that this way of learning is highly effective. While it can be difficult and expensive to go live in another country with a different language, I have found that it has greatly benefitted me and my ability to understand Japanese. I think that most students of foreign languages should definitely try it if they are able to, as it is one of the most effective ways to learn.