Immersion is the way to go (and stop looking for excuses)

Okay, okay. I said that I’d take a small break from publishing posts because of my exams. The thing is; I had some time left and didn’t want to keep a fresh article away from you guys. Next article will – hopefully – cover some more material sources.

Research shows (PDF alert! Scroll down to page 5 and search for “NL”) that the Dutch (along with the Swedes) are the best speakers of English outside the Anglosphere. It appears that I live in the Netherlands (I’m here? I’m here!) and as you can see I can write stuff in English without too much trouble. Does it have to do something with all the raw herring we’re eating? Could be. Is it because of our outstanding language instruction in school? No way, it sucks! There’s a more obvious reason for all this English speaking: we sub everything. Yes, if it’s in another language we’ll put subtitles under it and will never dub it (although I saw some American teen show being dubbed some days ago. Yuck). The Swedes? The same. We just hate dubbing with all our guts. Considered that the average Dutchman spends a huge amount of time in front of the TV, with loads of English packed at each and every channel, it’s not weird we’ll start speaking English at some point (real life example: when someone saw something funny on TV which was in English, he’ll tell the joke in English most of the time and won’t translate it into Dutch).

Another thing that helps us boosting our English skills is that we import all big shows from the US and UK. Then we sub it and watch it. No fake, lame, dubbing (although I *do* like dubbing in Spanish, because it’s done really well and helps us enjoying American stuff while staying immersed. Yay!), just plain listening and reading the subs when you don’t understand what’s going on. Of course, not everyone is fluent at English in the Netherlands, and the things people can weren’t learned in the most effective way (reading subtitles in your native language won’t teach you another language). But still, they can converse to some level. Do people in the Anglosphere find this weird? Not really, they expect people to speak English. Did you ever go abroad? Did you expect people to speak English, even if it’s just a little bit? Probably. Everywhere we go, we try to impose English to people. If you think about it, it’s pretty cocky. Anecdote: I went to the Alhambra when I spent some time in Málaga last April. Because the trip was a bit pricey for most students, I went with two other friends and a group of American and  Canadian tourists. Everything went great, but when we arrived at the Alhambra and the tourists wanted to know some things, they expected everyone to speak English. “Yo Ramses, translate this, will you? Isn’t it ridiculous that they don’t speak English?“. I almost asked why they didn’t speak Spanish, but I could control myself.

English is a world language, but so is Spanish. And still, we don’t expect people to speak Spanish. I was talking to some classmates the other day, and they were whining about how hard Spanish is, that they need to cram all this grammar, etc., etc. Then I asked: “Do you speak English?“. “Of course!” someone answered. Then she said that it’s pretty obvious considered that most things on TV are in English. So I was like “WTF?!“. If you say it yourself that immersion helps, why won’t you apply it to Spanish? It has served you well with English, so why not with Spanish (which is, according to some, even easier than English)? Just read the first page of this thread, and it’ll dawn on you: immersion is simply the way to go. I don’t know how often I have to say it, but I’ll say it now: stop looking for excuses. Research (yes, more research, hehe) has proven that massive input is better than grammar instruction and aqcuiring a massive vocabulary through context is better than learning it by memorizing word lists. And still people will say things like: “Yeah, but… maybe, just MAYBE a word list will work” or “Hey man, learning grammar has served me well. I think I’m pretty fluent!“. Yeah, thinking that you’re fluent doesn’t make you fluent. I’m not fluent yet. I know that. But all I need to do it getting more input.

Sure, in the end we all need comprehensible input, but that’s pretty much what the SRS does. After that, all you have to do is turning on that television, start listening and get the heck fluent (hm, am I using that phrase too much? Oh well, it’s my credo from now on).

P.S. Still thinking “Ramses, you suck you may be right, but it won’t work for me!“? Read this interesting article. It’s a must-read.

Tagged as: immersion, Listening, natural learning