The idea of setting off to immerse yourself in the country hoping it will magically make you fluent in the language seems exciting and pretty cool.. it does make sense, but there’s a better and much easier way.
You can immerse yourself in English from your home without traveling to the country. You can choose to travel but it’s not necessary, especially in the early stages of your learning. Modern technology has made it incredibly easy for us to immerse ourselves without the need to travel.
It might seem like a good idea, but here we are going to show you the reasons why you shouldn’t and what you can do instead to allow the language in without having to plan flights or break the bank.
9 Reasons Not To Travel For Immersion In English
1. Very Costly
An obvious problem with traveling to another country is the cost. Getting up and deciding to travel to a country will eat at your wallet (cost money) with flights and hotels. You will inevitably be spending a lot of money just to stay in the country. Unless you have someone to visit and stay with, oh boy, you will be paying a considerable amount for hotels alone!
2. Can Cause Lot Of Stress & Anxiety
Not only will it cost you a load of money to immerse yourself, but it will also quite likely enduce a fair amount of stress – you are with foreigners who speak another language, nerve-wracking! Just imagine you are at the airport or in a taxi, and you ask for the wrong directions, or you say yes to something you thought was actually something else, this can be very stressful, especially the more beginner you are.
3. People Don’t Have Time To Help
People are busy and are not going to really help you. The reason mainly is because they’re not being paid to help or coach you, they are normal people, with their own lives. So, getting help from random strangers who are super busy is very unlikely, and even if they do help it will be quick and with a lot of impatience.
4. Saying Goodbye To Family & Friends
Going to the country is time-consuming, so you will be gone for a select period. This means if you have a family of your own, you have kids, you will have to say goodbye to them to travel to the country. If you don’t have your own family, then you have your friends, parents, and siblings to say bye to… you get the point. The only way this could work is if you are a loner (person alone) or bring them with you.. but you still have the other 8 reasons not to do it! -:)
5. Different Timezones
Not only will you suffer jetlag (your internal body clock is messed up) that will continue for some time, but you will also have to adjust your natural body clock and timezone to the new country. Dinner could be at a later time for example, or it gets dark at an earlier time, etc. It will take some time to adjust to these new time zones.
6. Not For Beginners
If you go to the country without enough input or language in your brain and by being more of a beginner, you will struggle tremendously to understand much – the more beginner you are the more difficult it will be. You need to have at least 3-6 months of language in you before thinking about traveling.
“You have to have put in at least three to six months with the language so that you can take advantage of being in the country where the language is spoken, so you can actually immerse yourself in the language.”
— Steve Kauffman, YouTuber & Language Enthusiast (knows 20 Languages)
“I would have been better off staying at home and listening to material for which I had some text, maybe beginner material, even phrasebooks. Hearing them over and over again in sort of a concentrated fashion, being in the country didn’t do anything for me.”
7. Limited On Time
Traveling to the country is not a good strategy for maintaining your English because you only have a certain amount of time in the country. Sooner or later, you have to leave the country.. and now what you gonna do? You need a consistent, reliable, and sustainable way to get constant exposure to the language. We provide this for you in our InterFluent Program.
8. The Language Barrier
This seems obvious, but the language barrier with people could possibly help you immerse… sure, but could also deter (stop) you from wanting to speak at all, resulting in losing your confidence and even worse, giving up altogether in English – this can harm you a lot on a phycological level!
9. Might Dislike The Culture Or Country
Traveling to the country may seem exciting at first, but when you get over to the country you may find quite quickly that you don’t like the culture, environment, or even the people. Along with the other point, you may be put off altogether with learning the language and wanting to give up!
You Can Become Fluent By Immersing Yourself At Home
So, now you know why you shouldn’t travel to the country (England in this case) to learn or immerse yourself in English… how else can you do it? At home. Technology has allowed us to find and consume (receive) mountains of content through YouTube & Blogs like the one you are seeing here!
Interesting resource for you to check out (alondside this article) – Credit Steve Kauffman:
Bottom line. There’s no need to travel to the country… UNTIL you are able to practice your speaking. Let the language come to you, especially if you are more of a beginner. You can do this from home!
Finding Your Materials
There are two types of input – Passive & Active. Passive is material at your current level, and active is material a little bit above your level. Passive learning is having the input with some, but not all of your focus. Active learning is where you are 100% focused. We’ll be getting a ton of both… from home!
YouTube
This is one of the most powerful resources of content/input you can get! I’ve been able to understand native French content/speakers all from input alone and YouTube was a huge part of my success.
When finding your materials on YouTube make sure you understand about 80%, in other words, make sure it’s a little bit above your level (check out this article for more on CI+1) and of course, make sure you find interesting and exciting content personalized to you.
My students have been able to make huge progress with their listening and reading thanks to my InterFluent course. Feel free to check it out if you want – all the materials are provided and ready for you to start immersing yourself right now.
Articles
Articles are going to be your best friend through the immersion stage (along with Podcasts). You want to find materials around your current level AND material that is interesting to you.
This is crucial because to be able to get a load of input, it not only has to be at your current level but engaging so you keep getting the input in. The point I’m trying to make here is INPUT is the answer to speaking fluently in English… and you can do it at home! Right at your fingertips. Get input in right now!
Podcasts
Podcasts are the same as Articles. They are an amazing way to get a ridiculous amount of passive input into your brain. Again, find material that is around your level, maybe a little above but only by 5-10% (not 20%), and find material that is interesting most importantly! The more engaged you are in the content, the more you will acquire, and the more you will start speaking fluently in English.
LingQ has an amazing amount of materials on their platform that you can review and add to your library. Combine that with our InterFluent program and you will have ALL the input you need to becoming fluent in English… fast!
The Bottom Line
You absolutely can immerse yourself AND get to fluency from the comfort of your home! Start by getting in lots of input. The rest will take care of itself. No flights, no stress, just enjoying rich content online.
There is, of course, a lot more to this that I can’t cover here, so again check out our course to get the whole system laid out for you from start to finish – there is a process to this.