How to Build your own Immersive Language Experience from Home
Whether you’ve just started a language journey or if you’ve been on that path for a while, I am certain that you’ve heard the refrain, “the best way to become fluent in another language is to immerse yourself in that language.” Would you like to move to Mexico or Colombia for a year? Of course! Why not?! Except, wait a minute…you have a ton of real-world responsibilities. For most adult language-learners, living abroad for an extended amount of time is just not feasible. There are too many barriers that make it nearly impossible. There’s got to be another way to become fluent, right?
The reason that language immersion is so effective is because it is naturally focused on listening and speaking, and more importantly, it allows for feedback within the input-output loop. In other words, when you are immersed in a language, you are listening to the target language (input) all the time, and you are “forced” to speak in the target language (output). Whomever you are speaking to will understand you or they will need to clarify. Either way, you are receiving feedback on your output. That feedback and clarification, or rather, the negotiation of meaning, is essential to language acquisition and fluency.
Luckily, there are ways to build an immersive language experience from home. The key to building an immersive language experience for yourself is to create an environment for consistent oral input and output, accounting for ways to receive natural feedback through the negotiation of meaning in the target language.
The strategies that follow outline best practices for building a Spanish-language immersion program for yourself (but they can be applied to any language)…from the comfort of your own home.
1. Consume Spanish-language Media
Consuming Spanish-language media is one of the most enjoyable ways of building an immersive language environment in your home. While there certainly is a time and a place for consuming written media, like reading news in Spanish for example, the key here is to replicate the auditory experience of an immersive environment. Listening to music and podcasts or watching shows in Spanish is a great way to incorporate Spanish listening practice throughout your day. This can range from a very passive activity to a highly active exercise. Be sure to find genres that you love! Remember, this should be fun - not just another chore to tack on to your “to do" list.
Music
Listening to Spanish-language music in the background of your daily life is a great way to ensure that your mind will never be fully shut off from Spanish. This is an easy way to practice your listening skills while keeping it mostly in the zone of a passive activity. Music is inherently cultural, and language is not separate from culture. The more you are exposed to various genres of Spanish-language music, the more understanding you will have of different dialects, slang, and variation in pronunciation, which means your overall Spanish comprehension will be much improved.
Pro tip: Adapt this activity from being more passive to being more active. Perhaps you found a few songs that you absolutely love? Dive into the lyrics (Google it, if need be). Then sing along with the songs. (Yes. Sing along. I’m not even kidding!) Matching the sounds, articulation, and pacing of someone singing in Spanish will do wonders for your pronunciation!
Here are some recommendations for various genres of Spanish-language music!
Shows & Movies
Watching shows or movies in Spanish does take a little more active, cognitive space than simply listening to background music, but it is also highly rewarding. You likely already spend some time on a weekly basis watching shows or movies. Why not change it up and make Spanish-language selections instead?
Find shows or movies where the original audio is in Spanish, and always be sure to listen in Spanish (not English-language originals that have been dubbed in Spanish). Keeping the original sound is important to comprehension and acquisition. Depending on your level, you may wish to watch with English subtitles (beginners) or with Spanish subtitles (intermediate or advanced learners) for visual support. If you have extra time on your hands and want to get the most bang for your buck, you should watch the show a couple of times - maybe once with subtitles on in English and then once in Spanish, or once in Spanish and then without subtitles.
Pro tip: If you are ready to watch a show without any subtitles (or if you find subtitles distracting), soap operas are the best bet. The context is already obvious, so you don’t have to concentrate too hard on the plot lines. You will acquire Spanish vocabulary and expressions as you predict what is being said. You can also accomplish this same idea with shows that you have already watched, where you already know the context and plot line.
As a reminder here, be sure to find the genres you love. You will be spending significant time actively engaging in this media, so be sure that you enjoy it! Learning Spanish should be fun, regardless of your end goals for becoming fluent.
Here are some recommendations for the best Spanish-language shows and movies on Netflix!
Podcasts
Listening to podcasts is certainly the most intensive form of media consumption in Spanish, given the fact that you will have limited access to context clues, particularly visual clues. As a beginner or intermediate learner, do not get defeated if you understand very little of what is happening in a podcast. This is a high level activity that I wouldn’t expect beginners (or even learners with a lot of experience) to be able to comprehend fully. That said, part of language immersion is experiencing some level of “noise” and confusion.
If you are a beginner, then allowing that noise to teach you about speech patterns and pronunciation in Spanish is a great target. If you are an intermediate or advanced learner, then slowly you’ll be able to connect some of that “noise” to previously acquired language and build comprehension over time.
Regardless of your level, I suggest that you research the episode prior to listening and construct some context clues of your own. If there is a summary of the podcast on your streaming platform or online, read the summary. If you know the topic being discussed is on climate change, for example, then read an article in Spanish on climate change and pay attention to key vocabulary that you might be able to listen for in the podcast. Find topics that interest you. Find topics that you already know a lot about. Do what you can to build your background knowledge on the episode before listening.
Here are some recommendations for the best Spanish-language podcasts!
Instructional or Guided Videos for your Hobbies
Do you ever look for new guided classes online (yoga or meditation, perhaps) or look up new techniques for hobbies that you’re fairly proficient in already (maybe knitting or woodworking)? Next time you find yourself searching for instructional or guided videos for your routine activities, try looking for them in Spanish. With routine activities or hobbies that you’re well versed in, you will not have to exert too much mental effort concentrating on the “what”, so instead you can concentrate on the language being used. The visuals of an instructional or guided video will also aid in your understanding without having to translate through English. If you need extra support, you can always put up the subtitles as well.
Being familiar with the language of your regular activities and hobbies is a good idea anyway, as it’s likely that you will talk about them at some point with someone in Spanish. These topics of conversation have a tendency to come up in small talk: What do you do outside of work and taking care of your family?
2. Narrate your Life
Bring your internal dialogue out into the open! Yes, speak your mind…out loud! (Again, I am not joking.) It’s important that this narration is spoken for several reasons. Spoken narration helps you to work through pronunciation and trains your tongue in Spanish-specific speech patterns, so that certain sound combinations occur more naturally over time. Additionally, the work your brain has to do to go from thinking to speaking will help your recall when you are “on the spot”. We typically get nervous about speaking Spanish with others who are fluent; your affective filter goes up, and it seems like you forget everything that you thought you knew. Getting in the habit of narrating your thoughts out loud helps to hardwire that language in your brain, making it a lot easier to access when under pressure from your nervous system.
It is, I admit, impractical at times to be speaking to yourself out loud. In that case, depending on your environment, either whisper audibly to yourself, or at the very least, visualize yourself speaking.
This activity is something you can do on the go - always be narrating! You won’t have time or space for hyper-focusing on the things you don’t know. There will be missing vocabulary and grammar structures, and that is perfectly fine. It gives you the opportunity and practice to work around the things you don’t know. In real time conversations with people, no one is waiting for you to dig out your resources to find the word or structure that’s missing, and therefore, you are forced to try to generate understanding (make meaning) with what you already know. When you find yourself repeatedly missing something, then take a mental note of it, and return to your resources later to add it to your working knowledge.
Narrating the things that you see, do, and think throughout your day allows you to practice specific targets as well. Depending on what you narrate you could:
Work through dialogue (who says what to whom?) to target indirect object pronouns
Recollect what happened yesterday to target the past tenses
State what you want to see happen to target the subjunctive mood
Review the steps of a work project to target commands
Pro tip: If you want to target practice something specific, create a few sentence starters for yourself to use throughout the day. For example, if you’d like to work on when to use the preterite versus the imperfect past tense, start with one verb at a time and generate the sentence frame for that verb in each tense (i.e. take the verb ir and start with Yo iba a ____. for “I was going to ____.” and Yo fui a _____. for “I went to _____.”). This will help you internalize the differences in context across those two past tenses. Focus on one verb in its various forms each day of the week, then switch to another verb the next week. You’ll be surprised how much easier these internalized phrasal patterns are recalled when you’re “on the spot” in your next conversation.
If you find yourself starting this practice of narrating the day in Spanish, but then at a certain point forgetting and switching back to English - because English is also part of your regular day and your internal dialogue - don’t sweat it. Instead, plan for it. Give yourself some reminders throughout the day to prompt you back into Spanish-mode. Maybe they are visual cues (a Post-in note on your fridge or on the shoes you wear most, for example), or maybe you put periodic alarms on your phone, whatever system works to bring your attention back to narrating in Spanish.
3. Commit to Conversation Practice (In Real Time)
The consumption of media (language input) and narrating your life (language output) are both great ways to keep you as “immersed” as possible in your daily life; however, those strategies don’t go far without the natural feedback you get from interactions with fluent Spanish speakers. Feedback from conversation practice allows you to complete the input-output loop by refining your skills and acquiring necessary language adjustments.
Committing to conversation practice, in real time, can look different for everyone. There are plenty of different options available for whatever schedule and level of commitment you are able to swing - from in-person options to online options, one-to-one to small groups, casual conversation partner(s) to professionals.
You might be lucky enough to have a native speaker in your life who would be willing to practice with you. Though, as a word of caution, it can be a burden on your relationship, so be sure that both of you are deriving value out of the conversations and the time spent together. If you are accustomed to speaking English with this person, it will take a lot of perseverance and clear expectations by both partners to maintain a “Spanish only” conversation. Whenever you fall back on your commonly held language to fill in the gaps in your Spanish-language fluency, you won’t end up working through the process of creating meaning with what you do know, and you won’t get the feedback from your conversation partner that will help you naturally acquire new information.
For this reason, I recommend compensating your conversation partner(s). There are many different services out there that provide access to a variety of Spanish-speakers at a range of price points (italki, HelloTalk, Tandem, to name just a few). When you pay for conversation practice, both parties are clear on the expectations, you won’t have to account for your partner’s commitment to “Spanish only” like you would with friends or family or with language-exchanges, and there won’t be any unnecessary burden placed on your relationship. Whatever style of conversation practice you choose, though, just be sure that you focus on spoken conversation - the key to the input-output feedback loop of language immersion experiences.
4. Find Goal-oriented Instruction
In addition to setting up your environment to replicate an immersive language experience, you should also incorporate goal-oriented instruction. This might look like a formal class, or it might be more self-curated (like viewing a series of YouTube lessons, for example).
Self-curating your own language instruction is tricky and is certainly not conducive for people with time restraints. While there are a lot of wonderful resources in the mix, there is also a lot of unprofessional noise. Not only can finding the gems be time-consuming and potentially boring or demotivating, but you also won’t likely know what to be looking for exactly in terms of language targets. You might go through a lot of lessons that are either too high a level or that are too easy for you, neither of which will help your language acquisition.
Taking a class that’s level-appropriate will target the correct building blocks for acquisition and take the onus off you with searching through materials on your own - not to mention that having a teacher (mentor) and thought-partners (fellow language-learners at your level) helps keep you motivated. Taking just any class, though, can be problematic, as they often don’t account for your individual language goals. You may find yourself diving deeper into reflexive verbs, for example, by talking about your morning routine (and no one cares what time you brush your teeth or if you use conditioner when you shower). Honestly, it’s a topic that lends itself nicely to learning about reflexive verbs, which is why it appears as such in a lot of curricula, but it’s not universally applicable. It is not the only way to learn how to use reflexive verbs.
Any formal instruction you choose to participate in should be highly functional, progressing you forward through your goals to your “endgame” for learning Spanish (e.g. travel purposes, career goals, other personal reasons). I use endgame loosely here, because learning a language never has a true end point; it’s an ongoing process. Whether your formal instruction happens in a class, a small group, or one-on-one, it ideally is an intimate experience and well-tailored to where you are at with the language and where you want to go.
Keep in mind that formal instruction might happen within the same space as your conversation practice, but make sure that instruction doesn’t replace conversation. Learning through instruction should not happen in isolation. Real-time interactions in Spanish are necessary to the immersive experience, and thus, conversation practice should be implemented in tandem with instruction.
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All of the many aspects of being immersed in a language experience can be overwhelming, and so can trying to implement all of these strategies to replicate that experience. Depending on your lifestyle, it may not make sense to put all of these strategies into play at one time. Instead, try starting with one strategy and making it a habit. Then add another strategy and make that a habit within your daily life. And so on, and so forth. As you go through this process, keep in mind that becoming fluent in another language takes a lot of time, even for those living abroad in an immersive language experience. There is no magic, “become fluent in 6-months” solution, and any program stating so is bluffing.
Set up your Spanish-language environment throughout your day, never let a day go by without thinking (out loud) in Spanish, seek out natural feedback in frequent conversation partners, and get individualized instruction. Once all of these strategies are in place, your Spanish will grow leaps and bounds, and your skills will be fast-tracked to “destination fluency”. You’ll have built yourself a successful language immersion…right from home!
