How To Create A Language IMMERSION BUBBLE | Polyglot Language Learning Tips 

I hope you all love the video and would love to get your thoughts and experiences! I particularly liked digging in a little bit to this notion of self confidence in learning and speaking a language, and how it's a lot more complex than simply having the skills. I think this is a great topic for another video! Here are links to my book and Day 02 of the Daily Language Diary series mentioned in the video: *Day 02 of my Daily Language Diary - Where I tell the lovely story of my French Immersion Bubble* ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-iJYSrOkezXo.html *My Book! How To Maintain Languages* (you'll love it ❤️) www.kumabrand.com/shop

I do two immersion bubbles a day, divided by time: German for the morning and Malayalam for my afternoon 'siesta'. It's kind of funny, because I come to associate my German with cool brisk walks and homestyle breakfasts and Malayalam is tied to hot, sticky afternoons and prepping dinners. Which suits my real-life cultural experiences of both languages, fairly well!

Disney plus has most of their content in about 12 different languages, if you like that sort of thing. Could help with immersion.

Your channel is really underrated. You deserve more subscribers than other language learning channels.

My ultimate goal is to reach a point where I can function entirely in French and create a monolingual emersion bubble. I only watch movies, television series and read books in French. But I always take a break through out the day and watch RU-vid. For me it doesn't matter what language of the content I watch on RU-vid as long as I like it.

To me music has always made a difference in my language learning, especially for vocabulary learning and association and for learning some linguistic structures without thinking especially if I have the lyrics to read as well. This is because I started my real language learning experience like that back in the day when there weren't many tools to learn languages the fun way.

your channel is so good! I think your channel will grow to be massive in no time!

Hi, I've just discovered your channel and I already consumed a ton of your videos. Very interesting contents and a very good and clear dialectic. I'm currently studying English and Spanish and your tips are very helpful for me. So, congratulations and keep it up :) . Greetings from Italy

Absolutely spot on! Finding a bunch of different media on the platforms I like in the languages I study has been a massive motivation and learning boost through my intermediate learning. I genuinely feel like I've made a significant step up in how confident I feel in my languages and haven't felt my motivation drop whilst doing so.

I've been doing this with Hebrew for a while. Switching my music taste was surprisingly easy. Probably because I was already tired of my usual music taste. I didn't intentionally stop listening to other music, but it sort of just happened that way. I recently got into listening to podcasts. This is also relatively easy since I don't actually like many podcasts in English. I always just pop on the Hebrew podcasts while I'm in the car. I'm still trying to get into other media. I love watching youtube videos in English, but I haven't found any Israeli youtubers I enjoy. I tend to like language learning or commentary channels. I did find one documentary I enjoy. Maybe I'll go look for more. I'm still at the lower end of intermediate, so I know a lot of content I could potentially enjoy is still too hard for me. My reading isn't as good as my listening, so I'm focusing more on improving my reading than finding more content.

I'm catching up on the daily language vlogs and enjoying them, but here to say that this slightly more planned format is my perferred setup! Thanks for your videos, really enjoying them! Not necessarily from you, Robin, but I'd love to see a/some language youtuber(s) brainstorm ideas for creating immersion bubbles, or simply utilizing scant resources, when studying a language that doesn't have a lot of already existing or easily accessible online content. I can speak Klingon (the constructed language from Star Trek) and when I started I literally went to the one North American conference of Klingonists and got advanced speakers to do recordings--at the time those recordings were the longest recordings of people speaking the language (without a script). Now, I've used those recordings to help me achieve high-intermediate fluency, and I know they've been helpful to others. SO! I guess I'm just giving an example of how one might have to create one's own resources in order to learn less-often-studied or minority languages!

Thank you very much for sharing!!!!! it resonates a lot! I use the tips you give, they work best!!!

Interesting analogy to micro and macro environments. I am working on systematizing my input environment. Trying to listen 100 % (not close, but approximating it) of the time where I can listen. Not necessarily in my target language, but at least in one of my previously acquired languages. I try to notice when I am doing something, where I could be listening passively, but I am not. I think creating easy systems for this is what's important. Accessibility etc. Great video :)

Im Brazilian i love your ideas about learning language.

The advice about using sticky notes is really great. I think I will try it out as well.

i’m learning spanish, and my family and some of my friends speak spanish, so i try to talk to them en español. also, a great tip for me is I changed my iPhone’s language to spanish so it kinda forces me to learn. keep it up guys ! :)

I am an a English native speaker (USA). I use both my iPhone and iPad frequently throughout each day. I switched my phone to Spanish. It has been tough at times, but very helpful overall!

I started learning Spanish just over a month ago, one of the first things I did was change my Facebook and Twitter settings to Spanish. I've found it so beneifical.

Nice idea, thanks.

im a beginner in self learning korean, 4 months. its been challenging and fun. i try to immerse myself with podcasts, kdrama, kpop etc.

I think I'm in looooooove ❤😂

God aften, min ven. Det er første gang i dag, at jeg har lyttet i dag til noget, der ikke er på dansk og portugesisk. Okay, I'll stop messing around now. My immersion bubble has lasted for most of the day today with podcasts and music. I've decided to revive Danish while you're working on reviving your German. Tracking sheets are setup with fun materials that I couldn't wait to dive into yesterday. I wholeheartedly agree with your points on burnout. I've carefully chosen material with which I'm familiar as well as new stuff, so that I hopefully don't wind up feeling at sea. One more note - for anyone joining in on shaking the rust off a language, it was highly useful yesterday to watch Robin's daily series, days 2,7, and 9 before diving in! Thanks for the great content, Robin!

Very useful video.

In the future when I feel myself leaving the B2 Russian level I will use work as a separate immersion bubble for Polish. So many of my colleagues are Polish (many other origins too). I can't completely immerse myself because obviously it's an English workplace but I can hopefully get in that mindset. Poles have always been a large group in my workplaces. They were the dominant group in my first full-time job which is what sent me on my path in Slavic languages.

My classmates in German class should see ur videos.. Thanks..

Good advice about stockpiling content, I'll start doing that now for german podcasts and films. I also like the idea of going for the culturally relevant ones (must see films for that country)

Hi Robin, I have been learning six languages and I found out that initially you have to limit yrsf to 3-4 items. Mix of media anyway. And once you feel comfortable you can enlarge. Otherwise you risk burnout too.

I'm under lockdown and high risk if I get Covid. I thought what am I going to do the next 3-6 months. I think an immersion bubble for 4 hours a couple times a day for 'forgotten' but not lost Spanish would work. I need to get some materials together on a super-tight budget, but I'm fairly resourceful and willing to experiment. I've already started. Thanks for your RU-vid channel.

How to immerse if I need to practice two or three languages?

The immersion burnout is actually why I'm easing myself into German. I'm relatively well-immersed in Spanish right now, but I'm always looking for more things I can use for listening. I'm not really in a position to watch movies in my target language, but at least short cartoons are available!

I was about to ask for the coffee mug, then you grab it. Lol. Nice content as always.

Yeah sir im gonna need you to speak Greek. I need to be totally immersed. Thank you.

brute force ajatt is 100% a recipe for burnout. for sure. as someone who has seen success from the ajatt style immersion, I (and many others have) avoided burnout by trying to make the language enjoyable. something you look forward to. in my case, i had fun by the consistent improvement in; parsing words, recognizing meanings etc... not just by the content. sometimes i would even enjoy content in my target language that i dont in my native langauge

Cool!

Great video Robin, although I would disagree with the music bit. The vast majority of phrases that are 100% cemented in my brain come from songs in my target language. But I'm a music lover, so I listen to music 90% of the day, from the moment I wake up until I go to sleep. I always have it on. Not only did listening to music take my pronunciation to a new level, but it also provides constant repetition tied with the emotion and fun that music brings me. You can listen to a good song several times per day, and thousands of times before you get bored of it. No amount of podcasts can compete with that level of repetition for me because I find Podcasts boring. Different strokes for different folks, I guess :)

Immersion is the key, I become one with English and English with me. But seriously, I agree, we can't learn other languages without understanding their culture because they come hand in hand. I get it now why it doesn't work in school, no problem, I don't need school anyway.

شكرا كلام جميل👍

Got a question. How do you climb up to the level, where you can choose to listen to podcasts or youtubes, etc? Outside of listening to music or writing stickers and using them around the house, how do you create more immersion, when you are not yet advanced enough for podcasts and such? Just wondering what you might do at earlier stages?

I listen to multiple types of French radio stations. I also watch french TV from news to sitcoms to university level philosophical debates however far fetched. I ONLY HAVE TO UNDERSTAND THE TITLES SENTENCE and whoosh I am off! I find listening to French music very helpful. I prefer songs with lyrics as it makes it easier to learn. Reading wise I try to read french dictionaries learning to read is key skill a whole world opens up. I also flee to English plus lessons when it comes too much. France is not easy or slow. I try to create petite France a la Maison but be myself in anglais.

This is really nice information and informative, I just wish he'd get to the point faster, there seem to be a lot of "fluff" words throughout

6:57 Hello i have one question, in this videos you use the expession "cold turkey", for me someone who is not native speaker, its hard knows what mean, cuould you explain me the mean of that expression?, please. Thank you for all you videos those are awesome and useful to me, thanks again

Short story of an immersion bubble gone wrong: In 2018, I started to immerse in he English language, because I was going to England for two weeks in 2019 and wanted to be able to communicate on a high level. I started out watching Cinema Sins, and I gradually discovered more and more english content. I'm pretty comfortable with and confident in my English now - the only problem is that I've gotten so used to watching things in English that I rarely consume anything in my natinve language anymore, which has made it so that I've gotten a bit rusty (I'm a billingual, so I speak half as much German at home as other teens. No wonder my skills are decaying xD) It's not a huge problem though, I've been wanting to read more again, anyway. Just wanted to mention that it's possible, even though it's usually not that big of a deal.

Music: I’m a metal head. No, you can’t use Rammstein to learn German-they use an archaic grammar (it’s like “wouldst thou give up thine garter, oh fairest of the fair?”). Most German metal bands sing too fast for using it for a learning tool. Maxim has some excellent songs for German language learning (search by his album Meine Soldaten or you’ll get the horrid rap he tried to do first, and he says it was awful; it’s not just me). Megahertz (I prefer their old school stuff from 15 years ago) has some. Nena (I prefer her 80s stuff) is also good, as is Die Phudys. Laibach has a few slower ones for metal heads. For more recent, Faun and Silbernond work. I pick a song to start with, copy the German lyrics by hand into a notebook, translate it with my German dictionary-then compare to an online English translation (99 Luftballons is actually not about what the English translation says, just FYI). --Then I play the song several times while I sing along in German, until I can get it down fairly well enough to sing along in the car. RU-vid is your friend for finding songs you like, for this purpose. Music/singing is a key component for teaching ESL in K-5, so why shouldn’t adults use it for themselves in their target language? (When I was trying to expand my Spanish--a long story I won’t share here-Christina Aguilera’s Spanish cds were a godsend.)

Wisdom

How do i find podcasts? I have no idea where to find them, have tried many times. I feel like a 50 yo trying to figure out internet......

Fist viewer

On a different note: Robin where are you from? You seem to drift in between English and North American accents. Or...I need to sort my ears out.

Do you have a P.O. Box? I'm a Starbucks employee and love your videos. I wouldn't mind sending a bad or two of beans.

Interesting. About Immersion burnout: I think it may happen more if it's done too much too soon (as you said, little by little is good). I had done immersion bubbles for my English and Japanese but while still living in France, and I think that worked very well for me: by living in my homecountry, I had to use French regularly as well, so my brain got used to understanding more English while learning to go back and forth between the 2 languages naturally. (On the contrary now, by living in the country of my 3rd language for several years, I'm kinda of getting too much of it (^-^; ) ) Many people have often told me that my ability to go from 1 language to another and then another again naturally was impressive, but the truth is I never put much effort into that specific point, and I think it is because of those **not** 100% immersion bubbles that I was upholding for myself? Ironic that I'm kinda complaining about living in Japan where I can use it everyday, where it's what all Japanese learners dream of for years! :D

today is a Monday haha

Matt va s Japan did the MIA approach successfully but i think he was only doing a couple of hours a day which means he also had a life.

I'd like to have a friend who speaks german :/

I'm catching up on the daily language vlogs and enjoying them, but here to say that this slightly more planned format is my perferred setup! Thanks for your videos, really enjoying them! Not necessarily from you, Robin, but I'd love to see a/some language youtuber(s) brainstorm ideas for creating immersion bubbles, or simply utilizing scant resources, when studying a language that doesn't have a lot of already existing or easily accessible online content. I can speak Klingon (the constructed language from Star Trek) and when I started I literally went to the one North American conference of Klingonists and got advanced speakers to do recordings--at the time those recordings were the longest recordings of people speaking the language (without a script). Now, I've used those recordings to help me achieve high-intermediate fluency, and I know they've been helpful to others. SO! I guess I'm just giving an example of how one might have to create one's own resources in order to learn less-often-studied or minority languages!