No, you did not learn Japanese watching anime. Everyone who claims they did are either lying by omission or just flat out lying using Google translate to prove they did. “But kids learn from immersion! So I learned Japanese from anime.” Yeah, no you didn’t. You also don’t know what total immersion is or when the cut off age for that is. What experience do I have to talk about this? I am an American who moved to China to teach English to kids. Not only have I experienced the lie that is immersion but I have also met people here who have been here for 10 years who speak less Chinese then me. Simply because they bought the lie that is immersion. Let’s just cut to it.
Total immersion is real. Yes, kid learn from total immersion. However, do you know what total immersion is? It is when you are 100% consumed by the language you are not familiar with. Total immersion also has an age cut off because of how our brain works. Once you are able to think in your native language easily/fluently total immersion drastically drops. By the age of 7, younger in some cases, people are can no longer purely learn through total immersion. This is because you can no longer totally immerse yourself.
So, what is total immersion? I hear you not asking because you’re so sure you’ve learned Japanese through anime of the week. Total immersion means you isolate your native language from your life. What this means is you do no type in English, you do not use subtitles, you do not listen to things in English, you do not read English, and you are not even supposed to think in English. Your mind needs to be 100% immersed in this new language you are learning. Yeah, if you use subs you are not immersed. You are fucking reading which means your mind is thinking in English. If you watch for 5 hours stopping and texting friends in English. Guess what. You are also no immersed. You need to 100% isolate yourself from your native language. Did you go outside and buy something from McDonald’s in English? You’ve already failed.
“Well, how do kids learn from it then?” I am surprised I have actually seen this stupid fucking question. Babies don’t know a language when they are born. Instead, we pick up a language because we are immersed with the language at home and in our nearby settings. This is why people who grow up in a multi language household have kids who can easily pick up a language. Compared to those who try a multi language household when the kids are much older. Our brains get used to a language and stick with it. This is why as you get older it gets progressively harder to learn a language.
To add more to this. I work at a total English immersion school. Which means all instructions are given to 3 year olds in English. These kids do not know a lick of English. However, the goal is overtime they will learn through total immersion. You have some parents who 100% buy the total immersion bullshit and don’t do the homework with their kids. They also don’t have them practice English outside of the class. These kids are always my worst students. They are super far behind in every regard. Then you have the parents who understand the kids need to do the homework and practice English at home. These kids are my best and learn a lot. I would like to remind you. My students are 3 years old. The weeb immersed version already stopped working on them. They spend 2 hours each time in a pure English environment. No subtitles and no translation. This is way more then your anime with subtitles. At three years old these kids need to study and practice the language. They are studying grammar. They are studying words. They are doing way more then just “immersion”.
Now my own story. I moved to China over a year ago. I wanted to test the immersion theory. A professor in college once told me if I lived in a country for a year I would be fluent because immersion. It is over a year and I struggle in my Chinese classes. Which, I did not start them until a year after being in China. Living in China I am immersed. Everything is in Chinese. The people speak Chinese. I had to learn a few phrases to survive but I did not learn those through immersion. Coworkers taught them to me and spent actual time teaching me these phrases. I know very little Chinese. My listening is awful. My speaking is awful. My reading is somehow the best of all my abilities. My writing is non-existent. So, how is it my Chinese is so bad if I am 100% immersed in the language because I live in the country? Simply because my mind is still thinking in English, I am texting people in English, and I am still listening to my music. Even this blog post is counter intuitive to my immersion in Chinese.
What about my co workers? I know people who have been here for 2 years, 3, 4, 5, and 6 years. I know people who have been here longer too. Of these people almost none of them can speak Chinese. There are three who can. All three of them put in tons of effort to learn Chinese. Down to flash cards, studying the language, taking tests, studying grammar, paying for classes, and much more. I know a guy who has been here since before Trump took office. The dude didn’t start to learn Chinese until recently. He has been here for 5 years and the immersion shit didn’t work. Under every idiots understanding of immersion learning he should be a master of the language. Where as a guy who has been here for 3 years but went to classes and studies his ass off speaks way better Chinese then him. As for the longest I’ve seen someone here without being able to speak Chinese? 10 years. Dude is married with a family and has been here 10 years. He can’t speak a lick of Chinese.
Which gets me to my next point. Yes, anime can help you work on your listening. It can be a tool to help you learn Japanese. However, your ass will never learn Japanese through it. “Peter from jlist…” Okay, I’m going to cut you off there. I have never seen Peter from Jlist claim this. In fact, in one of his blog posts from over a decade ago he talks about how he studied Japanese in school. He talked about how his family would host foreign exchange students from Japan all the time. That since he was a kid he was exposed to Japanese and had natives teach him the language. Peter did not learn Japanese through anime. I’m sure it helped his listening. As did his college years of blasting Jpop in the school parking lot (why do I remember this blog post?). However, the dude has put in an insane amount of time studying the language. The dude lives in Japan. The dude STILL studies the language to this day. He’s written numerous posts over the decade about his struggles with learning phrases and meanings.
“But I learned these phrases.” Yeah so what? I’ve learned phrases watching Telemundo growing up at my grandma’s house. Doesn’t mean I know exactly what they mean or how to pronounce them correctly. Doesn’t mean I can speak Spanish. If you want to learn a language you need to study it. You need to use it and you need to immerse yourself in it. Also, please for the love of god do not try to speak Japanese like anime. Peter from Jlist has blog posts about how him and his kids will talk like anime characters to annoy his wife because she hates how exaggerated everything is. If you want an easy example then look at American TV. Look at shows like Monk, Law and Order SVU, Friends, and Big Bang Theory. Many people on these shows talk with such odd speech patterns, odd cadence, and very odd word usage. This is true for all entertainment mediums. You can even look at YouTube. People do not talk that fast in day to day life. People do not ignore that many commas and periods. People take time to breathe between words. Everything is distorted for short attention spans and algorithms. Growing up I loved Law and Order SVU. No idea why my mom let me watch it. I loved the main character. My mom was confused when I started to call him “the weird guy”. It was because he spoke in such a weird unnatural sounding way. I said the same thing about Ross and Chandler on friends as well. My mom didn’t understand at all what I meant.
The same thing is true with anime. The same thing people here in China told me to look out for when finding TV shows to watch. I was even given a list of TV shows to ignore because of irregular speech patterns. I actually remember a time I met someone who most of their later in life English learning was from American TV shows. They spoke in such a weird way that it was hard to pay attention. I did not want to be rude to them. However, they did not sound American. Like many claimed they did. They sounded like a sped up faux Hollywood with an irregular cadence to everything they said. Tons of skipped punctuation marks in their speech. Everything about their speech pattern sounded off.
For an extra kick. If immersion worked like people thought it did then we would all be fluent in Spanish from Dora the Explorer.