The "no escape" mindset to learning

Guillaume Hansali -

The power of immersion

When learning a language, nothing beats complete immersion.

The idea behind immersion is to intertwine studying with mundane occupations.

A problem I find with focus studying is that while it allows you to get in the zone and concentrate your efforts on, say, vocabulary, reading, grammar, etc., you will eventually get "out" of the zone, back to your "normal" life.

This context-switching signals your brain that studying is an extra activity that doesn't connect directly to your survival (a bit dramatic, I know). In other words, it is less relevant than other occupations.

When I arrived in Japan 17 years ago, I decided that improving my Japanese ability was my number one priority, and I removed every possible "escape" from total immersion.

  • Computer (no smartphones at the time) set to Japanese
  • Listen only to Japanese radio and TV
  • Chat only in Japanese on forums and Mixi (懐かしい！)
  • Never use my native language except when I called my parents (not nearly frequently enough. Sorry, Mom!)
  • Didn't make any new non-Japanese friends

In retrospect, I probably went a bit too far, especially the last point, and I experienced a few lonely moments. But I'm convinced that the "no escape" mindset helped tremendously.

The "no escape" mindset

Without going as Spartan as I did, here are a few simple things you could do to implement the no-escape approach (replace Japanese with your targeted language):

  • Set the default language of your smartphone and computer to Japanese
  • If you play games on your smartphone, try to play them in Japanese
  • Watch anime (or any other Japanese show you like) without English subtitles <= if you can have Japanese subtitles, even better!
  • Use Amazon, Rakuten, or Pizza Hut (no affiliation :p) in Japanese

In short, try to "Japanize" your natural environment.

Your productivity might drop a bit after setting your computer to Japanese. And the last thing you want after a long day of work is more cognitive strain. But telling your brain that it has no escape really makes a difference.

We have to make our brains believe that our survival depends on it. And to some extent, it does a bit.