Missing in Immersion

Immersion has helped me tremendously in improving my language skills. In fact, there is a clear difference in how I feel about a language that I immersed in and a language that I studied.

Spanish, was likely the language in which I experienced the deepest immersion and also a lack of formal education. A friend taught me some basics for a couple of lessons and that was it. During this immersion, I basically only used Spanish and my English suffered a lot. The immersion was mostly speaking to people, listening to music and reading books. Some by Carlos Cuauthemoc Sanchez, and some by Isabel Allende - incredible books!

My Spanish progressed a lot, but I do see some mistakes that I made: I did not watch enough TV. The telenovelas felt boring and meaningless but also too difficult. Still, maybe it would have been helpful if I forced myself to watch some TV.

The main point that was missing was feedback on my pronunciation and choice of words, grammar and sentence structure. While it is pretty accurate, there are still some mistakes and I am just not aware of these.

Personally, I feel a perfect immersion would be a lot of reading and TV, but also some fun activities and maybe 30 minutes per day a dedicated lab to correct major mistakes!