Language immersion and conforming in another language
10/18/24 • 26 min
In this episode I reflect on my immersive learning approach, surrounding myself by the language and using the language in a lot of different environments. Immersion made a big difference to my learning, it helped me ‘see’ myself as a part of the language community, partaking in everyday life in Chinese, without being in China. What types of immersion are there, and does immersion ultimately mean ‘conforming’, fitting into the society the language is spoken in? In this episode I’m going beyond the mere acquisition, looking at the cultural and other considerations related to language learning.
In this episode I reflect on my immersive learning approach, surrounding myself by the language and using the language in a lot of different environments. Immersion made a big difference to my learning, it helped me ‘see’ myself as a part of the language community, partaking in everyday life in Chinese, without being in China. What types of immersion are there, and does immersion ultimately mean ‘conforming’, fitting into the society the language is spoken in? In this episode I’m going beyond the mere acquisition, looking at the cultural and other considerations related to language learning.
Previous Episode
Language attrition: the other side of the coin
When looking at language acquisition and learning, we rarely consider the other side of the coin: language attrition. This means a language is disappearing, the speaker can’t speak it as well as before. The speech becomes slow and less complex. Attrition happens, and when a language, even a first language, is spoken less, there are small sign of attrition right from the start. It’s frustrating, especially when one has put in a lot of effort learning a language, for it then to disappear. But: is attrition reversible? What was my experience, especially as I was so immersed in Chinese that I spent less time speaking Danish, Spanish and other languages I used to work in?
Next Episode
Researching Chinese
Learning Chinese gave me a new understanding of language acquisition, and a new direction for my research. By going through the process myself, I experienced the mechanisms of language learning subjectively, with my own feelings and experiences. I found topics I wanted to study in more detail, objectively and using robust research methodologies. By pairing my own experiences with my research, I was able to look at learning from a different perspective and certain processes caught my eye. For example, listening to learners who were a little bit better than myself, but far from perfect, I was able to copy their strategies to make their speech sound more ‘fluent’, because their strategies were more restricted and stood out to me immediately. I started to study these strategies in detail, learning a lot of useful expressions as a byproduct of my research, so reinforcing my learning of Chinese. My language learning and research worlds had started to go hand in hand, supporting one another.
If you like this episode you’ll love
Episode Comments
Generate a badge
Get a badge for your website that links back to this episode
<a href="https://goodpods.com/podcasts/will-i-ever-learn-chinese-597243/language-immersion-and-conforming-in-another-language-76687283"> <img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/goodpods-images-bucket/badges/generic-badge-1.svg" alt="listen to language immersion and conforming in another language on goodpods" style="width: 225px" /> </a>
Copy