So I made a post a little while ago over here. This post was an opinion of mine stating that I think that a lot of people tend to delay immersing themselves in Native Material. Since then, I've also read quite a few posts, some new and some old, like this one here, surrounding immersion and I wanted to make this guide based on my opinions regarding using input based methods. Now, I'm not going to beat around the bush or dilly-dally here. Let's just get straight into it.

If you feel skeptical about this guide, you're free to ask questions in the comments or consult sites like https://learnjapanese.moe/ or https://refold.la/ which are established input guides.

Now, why am I making this? u/rgrAi had asked me on my last guide (a guide for ASBPlayer) to make a guide regarding how to use dictionaries, but I wanted to make an actual immersion guide.

Before I actually get into shit, I wanna address some preliminary stuff.

1. No matter how prepared you may think you are, native content will always be "hard."

Now, I'm putting the word "hard" in quotation marks here cuz this will always depend on the person. For me, I was at around the N5 level when I started reading visual novels (I was basically searching everything up), but the most common scenario will be that most people will either delay immersion because they don't think they're ready, or they'll go into immersion, come out understanding nothing, then either blame immersion for "not working" or blame themselves for not being at a high enough level. I think all of these are kinda ridiculous because for starters, building up a base is going to be somewhat essential for making native material more "comprehensible", but even then, you (the person going into native materials with a base) have not been exposed to a lot of structures and how they have been used. Now, obviously, if you go into native material as someone with N1-level knowledge, your foundation will be much higher, making it easier, but there will still be a lot of structures and contexts in which these structures (grammar and vocab) are used that you have not exposed yourself to yet, thus still making things hard, even if you have a higher foundation. Now, a lot of people who go into immersion earlier will have exposure to these harder N1 grammar points and they'll have been exposed to the ways in which they're usually used, so not only will they be at the same level as N1 people by the end of this, but they'll actually know how to use the grammar points and vocab properly, and they'll (hopefully) be able to understand it by the end. But, this requires a lot of exposure to native content, and it's still going to take time and energy to get used to it, so it's still going to be hard regardless, so instead of waiting, people are better off trying it out, seeing if they can handle it, and if they cannot, then come back when they can tolerate it more.

2. JLPT levels do not matter.

Now, this links to another post that I had actually linked above where the user seemed to be quite pedantic about the JLPT levels of each word and grammar point that they came across. Now, this is NOT me attacking that user specifically, but this is somewhat representative of a common complaint I have encountered around this subreddit with regards to people getting into immersion. Now, I'm going to say this, but the JLPT does not matter when it comes to native content. Like at all. You will find a lot of material, even children material, using N2-N1 grammar points and vocab and that's because the JLPT is designed to introduce grammar and vocab systematically as the person studying for the JLPT advances through the JLPT. Now, obviously, the Japanese do not care for the JLPT as Japanese for them is Japanese, so native content is going to have all sorts of grammar points and structures that will be above the level of the person going into immersion, but it's something that you're going to have to get used to and you'll just improve as you go along.

3. Osmosis learning can work, but…

So when it comes to immersing using input, then it is quite widely known that the input has to be comprehensible in order to be seen as effective. Now, when it comes to native material, a lot of people recommending building a foundation before diving into native content, and do not get me wrong, I agree that you need a foundation before going into native content. However, I definitely think it's possible to learn from native content alone, even without a foundation. There will always be some percentage of the materials that you immerse yourself in that you will understand, and if you understand that, you can build your understanding through watching more, provided that there are comprehensible bits in the material you're watching, from which you'll eventually grow your comprehension. Now, bear in mind that this is going to be much, much slower than building a foundation then going into native content beforehand. But you can use beginner materials like comprehensible input content to build a foundation without explicit study, as long as you understand the input/the input is comprehensible. Now, if you want to go directly into native content, I will always recommend building a foundation before going into native content.

Recommended Foundation:

This is what I would personally recommend for building the foundation needed for going into Native Content.

Kana (Hiragana and Katakana): https://realkana.com/

Tae Kim (Basic grammar guide): https://guidetojapanese.org/learn/ (This will be enough to build a foundation for going into native materials. You will learn grammar, kanji, words, etc. from immersion alone).

Anki: https://apps.ankiweb.net/ and Kaishi 1.5k: https://github.com/donkuri/Kaishi

Learning through immersion: An All-in-One (and about kanji…)

Now, depending on the route that you go down, reading or listening, your comprehension will improve regardless, but listening will develop different skills compared to reading. I would like to assert that immersing yourself in native content will help you to develop your reading skills/listening skills to a near-native level (obviously). The reason I am pointing this stuff out, however, is because I've seen a lot of people do things like separately learn kanji on their own, which I think can help in some use-cases, but it's not going to be effective for learning to read kanji using words. This video it quite well, but I think that just using Anki and reading by themselves is good for most people out there learning kanji. It's also why I didn't address kanji in the pre-requisites above. You can pretty much learn Kanji through memorising words using Anki, sentence mining (covered below) and through reading lots.

And now, I shall get into the actual basics of immersion.

Now, I shall be using Japanese subtitled anime for the basis of these explanations and examples, but if you intend to use other material to immerse (VNs, LNs, etc.), a lot of these same processes should be able to apply.

Now, the setup for the software needed to immerse with these sorts of stuff can be found here. I don't really wanna go into explaining how to setup any specific software, but the setup guides for each medium can be found here;

https://xelieu.github.io/jp-lazy-guide/

This setup guide includes things like Yomitan:

( https://learnjapanese.moe/yomichan )

ASBPlayer ( This link here )

You can also find resources and a 30 day routine here:

https://learnjapanese.moe/resources/ (resources)

https://learnjapanese.moe/routine/ (30 day routine)

Types of Immersion:

There are two main ways to immerse: extensive/freeflow immersion and intensive immersion. Either version works but they both provide their own benefits.

Benefits of Intensive immersion: You'll learn a lot of technicalities regarding the language as every unknown thing will be searched up using a dictionary, like textbook learning. You'll gain good comprehension of the language and good technical knowledge of the language. Among other benefits.

Benefits of extensive/freeflow immersion: you'll be exposed to contents at a native speed, meaning that you'll build up fast processing speed and automaticity, meaning no more translating in your head. You'll also be able to understand sentences without having to process every single word. Among other benefits.

People usually read using intensive immersion and listen using extensive immersion. Eventually speaking, intensive immersion will slowly become extensive immersion because things will become more automatic as you become exposed to it, but people tend to separate the two activities at the start, so I shall be treating them as two separate activities anyways.

Now, I'm going to provide a demonstration video on both types of immersion linked below:

(Enable subtitles and pause the video to read the subtitles if they go too fast)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-Zsho9i27M

Now, in case you don't want to watch the video (which I suggest you do because it provides a real-time demonstration/thought process of how the process works), I shall provide a step-by-step guide for each immersion process.

Intensive:

1. Encounter sentence
2. Try to read it and understand as much as you can
3. Search up any unknown words or grammar using a dictionary or Google
4. Try to decipher the sentence for 1-2 minutes and move on if you decipher it
5. Move on after 1-2 minutes if you still can't understand it

Pause and search up every word that you don't know and try to understand each sentence.

"Why should I skip the sentence if I don't understand it?"

Well, there's no point wasting time on something you don't understand. You're better off skipping it and coming back to it either when you can understand more or you have more context, and unless you need to be able to understand it to understand a central plot point, I would not recommend chucking it into Google Translate (my own opinions on why are over here).

Now moving onto extensive/freeflow:

Extensive/Freeflow:

1. Let the video play
2. As you encounter sentences, try to understand as much as you can and if you can't understand it, let it wash over you
3. Pause occasionally to search up words (preferably 1 unknown word from a sentence where you will know all of the other words besides the word you're searching up; these are called 1T sentences).

As you encounter each sentence, read/listen and understand as much as you can. If you can't understand something, let it wash over you and move onto the next thing, but if it's a word from a 1T sentence, search it up to understand the sentence.

Example of this:

彼が走る。

If you have a sentence where you know every word besides 走る, then search up the word 走る and try to understand the sentence.

The reason why 1T works is because these sentences are 1 level above your level of comprehension and are thus quite accessible for said level. (Though, if I am wrong about this since some ideas in the input hypothesis are said to be outdated, I shall update my research).

How to consult a dictionary

Now, this is what u/rgrAi actually requested and what partially led me to make this guide.

Apparently, people do NOT know how to consult a dictionary, so I shall cover it.

1. Find a sentence where there is an unknown word and use a dictionary to search words up. I shall be using Yomitan.

I'll use 合う since it has multiple definitions.

1. Use the context of the sentence and run through each definition to see what makes sense in context.

The sentence I am trying to analyze is:

つまり指輪を持つ者同士は奪い合い戦い合うライバル！

I will try to match each definition up to see what makes natural sense within the context of the sentence.

The one that makes the most sense in this case is the third definition: to do … together.

1. I will search up and repeat the same process for any words that I do not know. If there are multiple words whose definitions that I don't know, I will make a list of the definitions that I think will be correct in a notepad then once I have all of my definitions, I try to match the sentence up.

2. Once I have all of the definitions for any unknown words, I will try to match them up. If there is a definition that I have that does not match up to the rest of the sentence, I'll consult the dictionary again and keep matching the definitions against the context of the sentence until I find something that is correct.

"What if I understand the sentence incorrectly?"

That's fine. It may happen at the start anyways. The only way to fix that is by doing this process more. The more you come across stuff that you will interpret correctly, the more your knowledge builds, and the knowledge that you once misinterpreted will become something that you will know.

Now, I'd like to move onto one final thing.

Sentence Mining

So, remember the program that I mentioned earlier in the prerequisites tab? It's called Anki. Now, Anki is a flashcard app that uses spaced repetition (basically, it increases the intervals between reviews so that you can remember things for longer) in order to help you remember information for longer. A lot of people recommend it for learning vocab as you can use it to remember vocab for long periods of time.

Now, after your core deck, it is recommended to do sentence mining.

"What is sentence mining?"

Sentence Mining is the act of taking words from your immersion and putting them into Anki cards like this:

My Sentence Mining Workflow

Now, sentence mining works because it allows you to pick and choose what words you'd like to remember. Now, you can theoretically learn through just immersion alone and without using Anki, but the rate at which you'll encounter a lot of words will be very infrequent because while a lot of common words will be words that you'll remember due to encountering them all the time, rare words or words that appear less frequently will appear so infrequently that you will not expose yourself to the words enough to remember them. So by putting them into Anki, you can review them regularly and thus remember them easily.

Now, you're free to mine however you'd like, but a lot of people recommend mining using 1T sentences (I mentioned them earlier, but they're sentences which have 1 unknown word in them, and by knowing this unknown word, you'll be able to understand the sentence). These make for having great example sentences. In the example above, let's say I knew all of the words in the sentence besides 奪い合う. This means that by mining the word and learning it, I understand the sentence in my card and I learn a new word/have a good example sentence to go along side this.

If you would like a good note type/setup for this, here are some links:

Arbyste's JP mining note: https://arbyste.github.io/jp-mining-note/

LazyXel Guide: https://xelieu.github.io/jp-lazy-guide/setupAnki/

Immersing using domains.

Now, this is something that I'm adding post edit, but I wanted to talk about domains.

"What are domains?"

Domains are basically small subsections of media (like a specific genre or works by one specific author. Domains are actually really useful for getting good at the language fast because you're essentially limiting the scope of the words and grammar that you encounter. This means that you will encounter the same sets of words more frequently, thus allowing you to pick up words more easily as you'll be encountering them more frequently. This way, by limiting yourself to a certain genre of content, you'll build a good base comprehension that you can easily carry over into other genres or works of content, allowing you to have an elevated baseline level of understanding when watching other "domains" of content.

Now, you can immerse without restricting yourself to a certain domain, but you won't be restricting the amount of words that you encounter, meaning that you will encounter words far more infrequently, thus not giving you enough exposure to let you memorise a lot of words, meaning potentially slower progress.

Anyways, this has been my guide. If you have any questions, leave them in the comments below and I shall answer them.