Immersion learning

This guide uses Japanese as the example; the same approach works for any language.

Is immersion for me?

Textbooks and drills — I doubt many people genuinely enjoy them. Where does the motivation come from for something you dislike, and how long can it last?

Immersion is different. It has exactly one requirement: a genuine interest in the content — anime, variety shows, films, novels, games, manga, anything you enjoy.

No prior knowledge, no talent, not even “resolve” needed. All it takes is a willingness to engage with the content.

Pick content you love. Nothing matters more.

What is immersion?

Listening to and reading things made by native speakers for native speakers: anime, novels, games, variety shows — things made for a native audience. Every show you watch and every game you play already counts.

Instead of “learn first, use later”, immersion lets you learn naturally by using.

Immersion is the road every language learner has to walk eventually. Vocabulary drills, grammar study and exercises give you a foundation, but a language is far too vast for any textbook to cover. You can read this paragraph effortlessly not because you memorised grammar rules, but because more than a decade of massive input in your native language built countless intuitions in your brain. A foreign language works the same way: that intuition only comes from large amounts of real input.

Immersion does start with a stretch where you understand almost nothing. But because you chose content you love, you can keep watching even without understanding all of it. Fast or slow, a lot or a little — what matters most is your interest in the content itself.

How does immersion learning work?

Language isn’t “learned”, it’s acquired. You never memorised grammar tables for your mother tongue, yet you speak it more naturally than any grammar book could teach — thanks to one thing only: massive amounts of input you mostly understood.

“We acquire language in only one way: by understanding messages.”
— Stephen Krashen

Knowing a word’s meaning is only the first step. To acquire an intuition for how the word is used, you have to meet it — and understand it — many times across many different contexts.

Immersion exposes you to exactly that variety. Every time you see a word and understand it, your intuition sharpens. Eventually it becomes clear enough that you simply know how the word is used.

Getting started

Step 0: Set up Fushi

The recommended pack in the onboarding guide already bundles the common dictionaries and audio libraries — no need to hunt for resources yourself.

Download Fushi and follow the onboarding guide: dictionaries, word-audio database, then install and connect Anki. From then on, one tap looks a word up while you watch or read, and another tap makes an Anki card with the sentence, audio and screenshot.

Step 1: Learn the kana

Recommended: kanabr (GitHub), a typing trainer by L-M-Sherlock that unlocks kana step by step — and teaches you to type Japanese along the way.
Or any tool you like.

Getting through hiragana is enough. It doesn’t need to be solid — vocabulary study will reinforce it over and over.

Step 2: Core vocabulary and grammar

5–20 new cards a day is plenty, and you can lower the desired retention to 70–80%. Anki reviews pile up after two or three weeks; adding too many new cards is why most people quit Anki.

Recommended Anki decks:

Kaishi 1.5k: original deck (with translations into several languages in the same repo).
Onigiri Grammar: the Anki deck is Chinese-only, so use the Onigiri grammar guide on aiueo.cc instead; up to N3/N4 is enough.

While you’re still learning vocabulary, start the next step: immersion.

Q: Learning kana is so boring — is that normal?

Completely normal, and almost everyone feels the same.

You don’t need to wait until you “enjoy learning kana” to begin — that day may never come. What you need is to start moving, even if it’s only five minutes a day, even if all you remembered today was あ.

Progress itself creates motivation. The day you suddenly catch a word in an anime, all the tedious groundwork will feel worth it. But that day won’t arrive on its own — you have to get through the “I understand nothing” phase first.

Q: How much time should I spend on Anki each day?

Less than you think.

15 to 30 minutes a day, depending on how much you can stomach, done properly, beats an occasional two-hour session by a wide margin. The reason is simple: habit matters more than intensity. A plan you can keep every day is worth far more than a “hardcore plan” you follow on and off.

On a bad day, do just 5 minutes. 5 minutes counts. A slow cart is fine; what matters is not falling off. Once the habit breaks, restarting costs far more willpower than you’d expect.

Q: My memory is terrible and I keep forgetting — what do I do?

Forgetting is normal. Fighting it is the whole point of Anki.

Not today, not tomorrow — but one day it sticks.

Step 3: Immerse, mine cards and study vocabulary at the same time

Start with easy material — slice-of-life shows are easier than battle anime, light novels easier than literary fiction.

Watch what you love, tap unknown words to look them up, and mine cards when it feels worthwhile.

Vocabulary study is the one active, non-immersion method that matters: early on it builds your vocabulary fast.