#ci method

[rigelmejo]

Mini rant about "learning through comprehensible input" and the many situations it's used to mean somewhat different things:

In traditional language learning, using classrooms and textbooks, grammar guides and flashcards: comprehensible input are the dialogues/paragraphs in your textbook that you get a vocabulary translation list for and grammar explanations for so you can comprehend it. It can also be tutoring sessions, where you talk with the tutor and they use translations and gestures and visuals to make sure you can understand them. Once you reach a decent level of understanding the language, comprehensible input becomes any regular material for native speakers you can understand the main idea of (or more). So if someone who took classes for years is telling you to immerse in materials for native speakers, they probably assume you have some prior knowledge about the language and can understand the materials for native speakers to a degree. If a teacher is recommending you immerse in the language, they probably mean to immerse with content that uses words/situations you've studied in class at some point. These people do NOT mean for a brand new beginner, who knows nothing, to just go sit and watch movies for adults in the target language and magically learn over time.

In Refold/Mass Immersion Approach community, online communities where the study method involves a lot of flashcards/anki/SRS/apps with vocabulary/making word or sentence lists with translations: when they say comprehensible input, they mean material you can understand the main idea of, with the help of looking up word translations and grammar! They usually expect you will at least look up some key words once in a while, or immerse with stuff that uses words you've recently studied (in anki). When they say "immerse a lot and often" sometimes they do mean to immerse with input you do NOT understand, but when they're saying to get mostly comprehensible input, they mean either stuff made for learners to be understandable OR you using tools like word translation to be able to understand the material. There are people who did try to immerse with input they did not understand (maybe because they didn't understand the advice to immerse in materials for native speakers), without looking up words or using any tools to help them understand, and thousands of hours later they still were beginners. The people who successfully have used anki and immersion to learn a language, usually mean using immersion material that you can comprehend the main idea of (with tools/aids if necessary like word translations or word definitions in the target language). Notice that for these learners, comprehensible input MAY NOT BE comprehensible if you're relying on ONLY what you already know, and may require TOOLS to be comprehensible. They're expecting you to USE TOOLS to make the input comprehensible! (Flashcards, definition lookups in target language, word translation lookups, grammar explanation lookups).

Comprehensible Input Method/Automatic Language Growth/Nature Method Learners: By comprehensible input, they mean only materials you can understand the main idea of (without needing tools/aids). This will initially be materials MADE FOR LEARNERS, like the Nature Method textbooks with illustrations to explain the meaning, and Comprehensible Input lessons on youtube where the teacher shows you pictures and uses gestures to communicate the main idea. Then the materials may be graded readers made with a vocabulary a learner is expected to know, and possibly a vocabulary list in the back. And podcasts for learners, that use a limited number of words they expect the learner to know and define new words. Eventually, this can mean cartoons for toddlers where the visuals about what is being said, in addition to the words you already know, makes the main idea understandable. Then eventually cartoons for older kids, and shows, novels for kids, and novels for adults, etc as you learn more words and understand more (without needing tools/aid). So the key here, is this kind of learner usually means MATERIALS you can understand without any tools! This is a huge difference from the Refold learners, who often mean comprehensible input as ANY input if you're using enough tools TO comprehend it.

ALL of these learners usually mean, by comprehensible input, materials you can understand the main idea of - with or without tools. If you cannot understand the main idea - use tools! If you can understand the main idea, cool, you comprehend it enough to learn from it! None of these learners are trying to suggest beginners trying to learn a target language just listen to adult radio in the TL for 2000 hours and somehow 'learn.' All of these learners think a beginner NEEDS either a lot of visuals to allow for understanding (comprehensible input lessons, nature method), so the learning aid is built INTO the materials initially. Or these learners think beginners NEED to use tools to make materials understandable (translations, dictionary entries, anki to memorize words, textbooks), to be able to learn from materials. In either case, the advice to use comprehensible input assumes you are comprehending the main idea being conveyed in the material, and if needed you're using additional tools/aids/resources to figure out the main idea being conveyed.

There's a guy on youtube who keeps making these videos about using input to learn japanese, and I overall agree with him. But he only mentions a few times he uses anki to study (so uses tools to understand more), and he learned a decent number of words before using audio-only as input to study with (so he could comprehend the main idea to a degree), and the impression I get from comments is that some people sincerely think he's saying to listen to regular japanese materials for adults for thousands of hours and that itself will be enough to learn. I don't think he necessarily makes it clear how much initially VISUAL input is better if someone is going to just watch materials in japanese, how much his explicit study with anki may be increasing what he can comprehend, and how much using materials-made-for-learners works better in the beginning (he does recommend learner podcasts like Nihongo Con Teppei and Learn Japanese with Shun). I think the guy's heart is in the right place, and he's got good advice. I just get frustrated with how MANY people are misunderstanding his advice. Especially beginners, who may think when he says immerse in content you only understand 10% of... he is assuming the beginner is looking up key words, and making new anki cards of words they're hearing to study more.

As a learner... please don't bash your head into content you don't understand the main idea of for hundreds of hours. I am begging you, do something like look for materials MADE FOR LEARNERS to be understandable (comprehensible input lessons, graded readers, textbooks, sentences with translations, dialogues, or even cartoons with clear visuals about what is going on), or USE SOME TOOLS to make things understandable to you! Please...

[tempo-takoyaki]

Listen, I love the "XL helps HC to see how beautiful he is" scenario as much as the next person... But I also see it like this.

[potatosaresweet]

Homura Akemi: I watched the love of my life suffer so much and even die and so i bent the laws of nature itself and turned myself into a powerfull being people call evil to protect her and created a safe space for her where no one will hurt her again

Hua Cheng:...you get it

[unblissfulawareness]

Jasper was just trying to dress up in his own home in peace, Piper.

[violetfractal]

Girl who's lost the plot: "being assigned female is a privilege"

[talk-danmei-to-me]

It's you Xie Lian. The answer to what makes Hua Cheng, Hua Cheng is Xie Lian.

Like honestly, this boy is so dumb sometimes.. I know Hua Cheng has lost his game this book with his special person and joking about marriage, but my dude, seriously?

[corneredcopia]

While I draw I like to have a little bill cipher staring at my work to motivate me

[yeonslayjun]

MXTX WHY?!?!?!?

AFTER TRAUMA DUMPING ALL THAT SHIT YOU'RE TELLINH ME HUA CHENG WAS KISSING XIE LIAN DEEPLY?!?!!??!?!!

i am not okay

IDK WHETHER to scream cry laugh or just die.....dying seems easier

[rigelmejo]

Picking up a second language from television: an autoethnographic L2 simulation of L1 French learning

I deeply appreciate this experiment one person did with their own language learning, Picking up a second language from television: an autoethnographic L2 simulation of L1 French learning, and it's free to read if anyone else is curious.

The writer did the following: attempted to learn French by watching TV shows in French with no subtitles, and no word lookups or translations, for 1200 hours. They started with shows for adults, and realized children's cartoons were much easier to learn new words from initially as the visual context and slow speech helped them figure out word/phrase/grammar meanings, and then watched children's cartoons for a while until gradually increasing difficulty of shows again. While in the first several hundred hours, they watched some cartoons by repeatedly watching certain sentences and scenes over and over, attempting to understand as much as they could, such as with the cartoon Calliou. After 1200 hours, they started reading French, talking to people in French, and reading some grammar explanations at that point. They passed a B2 test at the conclusion of 1500 hours, with the first 1200 being watching French TV with no tools/explanations and then the last 300 hours including speaking and finally looking up some explanations and seeing french writing.

This account of their experience is incredibly interesting to me. It shows a few things which (at least for me) can be learned from.

1. That a goal of aiming for over a thousand hours spent trying to understand materials in your target language is useful.

2. The time they spent engaging with French is (very roughly) similar to FSI estimates if you include the hours of outside-class study recommended, 750 class hours plus time spent studying outside of class (2 hours outside of class per class hour is the FSI recommendation - which would be 2250 for French). The time it took him to pass B2 is in the 1000+ hour range, which is similar to classroom time plus outside study time expected. Automatic Language Growth type courses tend to suggest 1000-2000 hours to speak on an adult level and understand others, with 1500 being the suggested study length Dreaming Spanish suggests and ALG Thai programs recommending 2000 hours. Some learners who've done DS and ALG Thai programs suggest they feel they can understand people and discuss things on a basic level at those hours, but feel they need more hours to really be 'fluent'. I think that aligns well with the 1500 hour French study linked above, where he felt 1500 hours felt intermediate and capable of talking with others/working/understanding others but by no means fluent. So my personal thoughts on this is... the French 2250 hour estimate (FSI class-hours estimates added to 2 outside-class hours per hour as FSI suggests) is probably roughly in line with people's experiences.

And the earlier goal of 1500 (1000-2000 depending on the individual, and the target language) being a good initial goal for basic ability to do all things in the language (but not necessarily well and not mastered). Perhaps this number could be several hundred hours, and less than a thousand, if your target language is similar to one you already know or you have experience learning languages already. But the thought I am concluding from all of this is: expect 1000 hours or more trying to understand stuff in your target language if you wish to be able to understand the main idea (or more) of most things, and communicate your main idea with others.

(And for the sake of curiosity, FSI estimates 2200 class hours for Japanese and Chinese, so 6600 hours total, for an English speaker. So probably...at minimum 1000 hours to start speaking, like ALG Thai learners notice, at minimum 2000 hours to start understanding the main idea of most things, and based on FSI estimates... perhaps 3000-3300 hours minimum to start feeling similar to that level achieved after 1500 hours studying French or Spanish).

3. He studied French with zero aids like grammar guides or translations or even the French alphabet and a pronunciation explanation. He mentions in his paper, that being able to look up translations, or even see French subtitles on the TV shows, may have potentially sped up his progress. (Or perhaps not, as he didn't try those tools until 1200 hours in). Many of us learners HAVE used such tools already. The lesson I take from his experience is...even if you use NO tools or aids to learn, if you dedicate 1000+ hours to attempting to understand visual-audio situations (videos or classes or your life experiences in a country) you will make progress and increase your understanding of the language. If you initially focus on more-visually understandable things, like children's cartoons or ALG teachers who visually attempt to explain or a person helping you through a situation (like a native speaker talking to you as they help you grocery shop), then your initial progress as a beginner will be FASTER. And it may well be necessary to understand a certain amount, as a beginner, for the target-language input to be useful. You don't need to understand 100% or even 90%, but you do need to understand enough to hear at least 1 word or phrase or grammar piece every couple minutes that you can GUESS at the possible meaning of. At least, to learn in a timely manner.

So as a beginner, visual-audio input is much more useful than audio only - especially if you don't have cognates to use to make guesses. And visual-audio input where the speaking is ABOUT something in the same scene/experience/event so it's easier to guess what bits of the language mean. And if you choose to use tools like a translation app/site, if it's helping you figure out meaning of bits of language then it may be particularly useful as a beginner. (There's certainly language learning camps that think using translations lessens your actual learning of the language, but based on his paper... I at least think, what I take from it, is that those beginning few hundred hours it's most important you find a way to UNDERSTAND the main idea of the target language material. My take is that, even if that involves translation tools for 300 hours initially, it's worth it. You can abandon translation tools once you understand enough stuff in the language - like a few hundred key words or pronunciations etc - to start understanding really basic main ideas from kids cartoons. But if you can't even guess "cartoon character is pointing to bike, seems to want bike, even though I have no idea what words they're saying, maybe one of those words was bike..." then you aren't going to comprehend enough to guess word meanings. It seems like after the first few hundred hours, the need for translations and/or kid cartoons is less. Once you have some small base of words/phrases you've guessed the meaning of, then it's possible to start guessing the meaning of conversations even when there's no visual context to indicate what's going on - such as adult shows where they discuss off-screen abstract topics, and audio only materials).

4. There is no huge need to pick the 'perfect' study method or materials. After the initial beginner stage of learning some key words/phrases from visual context (a few hundred hours), you WILL continue learning and make progress as long as you keep engaging with the language and trying to understand the main idea. So study/watch/listen to whatever you like that, that you can get yourself to engage with for 1000 hours or more. Some people will want to keep looking up word-translations, do that. Some people will love cdramas or anime or shows and just want to watch tons of shows. Some people will feel more comfortable watching/doing easier things like a tutor that matches your comfort level (like crosstalk), immersion with someone helping you navigate, watching cartoons, watching stuff for learners (like Comprehensible Input youtube channels). Some people want to jump into the deep end and go for audiobooks or podcasts. If you are able to even just GUESS a word/phrase/grammar point meaning every 1-3 minutes (or more often) then you'll likely keep improving your understanding. No need to be perfect, just figure out a way to keep yourself engaged. Because it'll take a thousand hours or more.

5. I hate to say this because I love reading... but to develop listening comprehension... you need to listen. Having visual-audio materials as a beginner is critical. Even if that means graded readers you read paired with an audiobook. And you'll need to keep listening for at least 1000 hours to build good listening comprehension - it takes time to get used to hearing the pronunciation, to mentally separating it into phrases/words, to adjusting to various speeds, to emotional meanings and implications, to adjust to understanding various accents. His paper indicated he struggled with understanding faster speech until he'd studied enough hundreds of hours, and then struggled with slang and accents much longer. Listening comprehension is critical to: conversing with others, speaking and being understood, listening to shows and audio. So it must be worked on. That is not to say you can't study by reading - I sure did! And still do! But that the hours spent reading WITHOUT audio will not contribute to some of those critical listening and speaking skills.

Reading on it's own will help prime you to pick up vocabulary when listening faster, help with increasing vocabulary, help with getting used to word usage and grammar. But based on his paper... for him, at least, it seems reading skill was picked up Extremely Fast after already having a good ability to listen and speak with people. He picked up reading skills within months! From my own experience... I mostly studied with reading ONLY activities, in French and Chinese, and improving in my listening skills takes A LOT of hours. It will not be as good as my reading within a few months. I think I may pick up listening skills Somewhat faster than someone who's read less, since I am primed to learn listening comprehension of words I understand in reading faster than trying to comprehend brand new words. But so many listening skills are lagging significantly. My Chinese listening skills are much better than my French listening skills, since I did often listen while reading when I studied. But there's still so many key aspects of words that I don't have natural ability to simply verbalize without thinking, like instantly saying the right tone, or instantly knowing the right pronunciation for some words I can read fine. And comprehension of listening to people is way lower than my ability to read and comprehend.

[hiddeninthe-veil]

(squinting at myself Real Hard:) what.... are emotions. what is feeling things. am i feeling emotions right now. what

[tiercel]

Once again asking when the T pellet will be available for men that are not cis & old

[nowtoboldlygo]

AVOID These MISTAKES When Getting INPUT - Superbeginner Spanish

[konanigari]

West Coast Shit 👌🏾

[ohnoitstbskyen]

Ok so I’ve had this question for a while and I feel like you’ll be able to give me a good answer. I understand that we’re absolutely not supposed to support anything JKR does monetarily and I never intend to do so. However is engaging with Harry Potter media *at all* also something I should not do or is it only things that give her money?

Like, would there be anything wrong with me playing Hogwarts Legacy if I pirated it? Is fanfiction and fan art ok to consume? Or is engaging with the IP at all going to be harmful in a way that I don’t see atm?

Thank you for your time!

I don't really think a cis person is the right person to ask about this, but I also know that trans people are sick to death of having to field these questions so I'll do my best to answer this, if everyone who reads my answer will promise me that you will NOT use anything I say in this post as an annoying argument against a trans person who has a different opinion on the matter. Remember whose opinions are actually important here.

And look, number one, you can do whatever the fuck you want. Nobody can stop you. If you, in yourself, in your soul, feel morally comfortable consuming Harry Potter by some convoluted method of Ethical Consumption™, then go and do that, and own it, and have the strength to be judged for your decisions.

Trans people might not trust you - hell, I'll probably not trust you either. They might get angry at you, and criticize you, or roll their eyes and call you a fucking loser. If you have the moral conviction that what you are doing is right, and that you are acting in accordance with your beliefs and you are not doing harm, then stand by that conviction and face the consequences. Have that strength of character.

But if you feel the need to go around posting and arguing that it's unfair, that you shouldn't be judged, that you should get to be a special exception and people are unreasonable when they get mad at you... then that is evidence, proof positive, that you are a fucking loser. That you are cowardly, and you don't actually believe that what you are doing is right, you just want the world to affirm your fragile ego while you enjoy your little treats.

To be clear, I am not accusing you of doing this (you seem to just earnestly be asking for guidance), but there's a hell of a lot of people who do do this, and you don't want to be one of them.

So that's number one. Do whatever the fuck you want, and face the consequences with a spine.

Number two is... just fucking drop it. That is my earnest advice to you. Just fucking drop Harry Potter. They are children's books from the early 2000s, they just are not that fucking good or important. The Hogwarts Legacy game is live service slop; the movies are passable at best and their quality comes from the actors being better than the source material. Just drop it. Harry Potter has nothing to offer that you can't get elsewhere from better media with better authors, or problematic authors who have good grace to at least be dead.

Don't waste your life thinking about complicated ways to circumvent the moral problem of JK Rowling's rancid transphobic hate-aura at the center of the franchise, don't waste your finite time on Earth trying to thread that stupid needle. Harry Potter isn't worth this. Rowling is old, and shriveling from hate and mold fumes, at the very least just wait for her to fucking die, and for her political project to fail, before you pick that world back up again.

I speak as someone who read the first book at age 11, hyperfixated on relating to Harry, and whose entire cultural life was consumed by the franchise for over a decade. It is not worth it. You don't need it, you don't need the stress of trying to navigate how or whether to engage with it ethically. You almost certainly have an enormous backlog of other books, games, movies and TV shows you've been meaning to get around to, so just go do that instead. I promise you it will be infinitely more rewarding, and infinitely less compromised by stress and guilt and cognitive dissonance.

And while you're at it, send some money to a trans charity and go scream invectives at a transphobic politician some time.

[beautifulsummersunsets]

China: OMG! Do you watch our shows!? Wait, let me share with you the full episode with english subtitles on our official youtube account so you can enjoy it properly 💗

Japan: Not Japanese? Then fuck you 🙃

[rigelmejo]

Language Learning Terms

Some useful terms below. I will not define comprehensible input and related terms in depth here, as I already did that on this post (I will summarize on this post though).

Comprehensible Input generally is anything you understand the main idea of - literally anything. It's any experience in the language you understand. (So textbook dialogues with translation and grammar notes to explain what the dialogue means, conversations where someone gestures to get the main idea across, cartoons for toddlers where the visuals make what's happening clear, bilingual texts, learner podcasts with translations or explanations, graded readers, CI Lessons, etc... and then once you understand more of the language, most things become comprehensible input as you understand more things).

Comprehensible Input Lessons are TRPS lessons, Learner Podcasts, Graded Readers, and anything designed to be completely understood to a learner for their level of knowledge, typically CI Lessons for beginners are audio-visual lessons where all of the meaning can be understood from the visuals alone - Dreaming Spanish is an example, or the teacher provides a short word list-summary of things the learner needs to understand to follow along - Lazy Chinese is an example.

Automatic Language Growth is a theory of language learning Marvin Brown came up with, and he made an ALG Thai school that followed the theory. ALG theory is that people learn language only by meaningful experiences in the language. And that any explicit study, any thinking about the language features, or speaking or reading before you have a good grasp of the language, causes issues. ALG Lessons are a subset of CI Lessons, stricter requirements for ALG Lessons as they MUST be entirely in the target language and must not contain text until the learner is higher level, must not ask the learner to speak until they're a high level, and must not contain translations. ALG Lessons are Comprehensible Input Lessons, but CI Lessons are a broader category of things. The general term comprehensible input is even broader still, as it is anything you can understand the main idea of in the language you are learning.

CI Method - this is how Dreaming Spanish learners tend to refer to Dreaming Spanish's method of learning. The method is ALG, with some relaxing of the ALG recommendations. The method can be boiled down to: you learn by extensive listening to CI Lessons (particularly ALG Lessons if you're being strict about ALG), and by extensive listening to Learner Podcasts (particularly ones that use zero translations if you're being strict about ALG), and then eventually extensively listening to media made for native speakers that you can understand the main idea of. So the entire "learn by only comprehensible input" learning method is to learn entirely by extensive listening to stuff made for learners, then stuff made for native speakers, that you can understand.

Learner materials/materials made for learners - any learning material designed with a learner in mind. So graded readers made for learners who know X amount of words, learner podcasts made for learners who are beginner/intermediate/advanced, CI Lessons made for beginners with many visuals, CI Lessons made for intermediate learners where they assume the learner knows X words, dialogues with translations, textbooks, podcasts that include explanations of new words and grammar, classes. Usually a learner material will contain whatever it expects you to need - so if it's made to be studied intensively then the material will include any translations and explanations it expects a learner at that level to need, and if it's made to be studied extensively then it will use mostly stuff it expects the learner at that level to already know and enough context to guess/figure out the unknown bits.

Extensive - this word is used to refer to extensive listening and extensive reading. All it means is that you listen or read without looking anything up, without relying on any explanations or needing any language learning tools to help. Extensive reading is what you do in your native language now, any time you read. Extensive listening is what you do in your native language now, any time you listen. Extensive reading or listening is usually done with things you understand the main idea of, because it can be frustrating if you do NOT understand at least that much. Typically learner material that is made to be read extensively uses 95-98% words they expect you to understand already, as if you know less words than that you tend to feel frustrated reading extensively.

Intensive - this word is used to refer to intensive listening and intensive reading. All it means is you look up words/explanations/use aids to understand something. You usually look up at least enough unknown words/grammar to understand the main idea, you may look up every single unknown word if you want to. You did this in your native language back in school, when your textbook would define a bunch of terms for you in a glossary and you had to read the definitions before you could read the chapter. You needed to read those definitions, to understand the chapter. Intensive reading is just doing the same thing, in new languages. Some intensive reading materials are already-made for intensive reading with ease: Parallel texts, Graded Readers with vocabulary lists you must read in advance, a learner podcast episode with a list of vocabulary translations in the summary (or that translates when speaking when they figure the word will be new to their audience), textbook dialogues that define all the words before you read the dialogue, textbook passages where they give you the word definitions in advance. Typically learner material designed to be used intensively is 90-94% words you know, and then it defines the key words you don't know. Typically learner material designed to be used intensively that uses less than 90% words you know feels exhausting, even if they define many key words, and that is why for example an Advanced Textbook excerpt feels exhausting if you're a Beginner - despite the Beginner and Advanced textbooks including some intensive reading. Any time you ever listened to a technical podcast, or read a technical text, and looked up a bunch of unknown words that seemed key to understanding the material, you were intensive reading.

Typically in our native language, we did a mix of intensive reading (teacher providing us vocabulary lists, textbook defining vocabulary) and extensive reading (the novels the library suggested were at our reading level, the reading material our teachers gave us that they did not expect us to need word-definitions to understand). Eventually, in our native language, we probably switched to reading and listening to most things extensively, and just looking up a key word once in a while if we hear a word we don't understand and feel particularly frustrated or confused because we can't understand it. The same eventually happens in the language you are learning - you'll look up a word occassionally, but you won't strictly need to. This could be called extensive listening/reading while looking up a few words, or intensive listening/reading while looking up a few words, as it's a bit of both. Different language learning materials will define the activity of "reading/listening while looking up only a few words" differently. I feel at the point you're understanding most stuff, whether you look up a word once in a while or not doesn't particularly change the primary activity which is just reading/listening for long stretches.

Immersion - used to define any activity where you are engaged with the language. Sometimes this is used to define a class that's entirely in the target language (example: a Spanish class taught entirely in Spanish, in Spain). Sometimes used to define living in a country that speaks the language (as in - you are immersed in the language any time you leave your home). Sometimes used to define staying at a home that speaks the language (immersed at home), or living with a partner/family members that only speak the language. Sometimes used to define watching shows, listening to, or reading media in the language - intensively or extensively. ALG Thai classes are an example of immersion classes, you take classes entirely in Thai, perhaps while living in Thailand. Dreaming Spanish website is an example of immersion classes, you hear only Spanish in the lessons. Watching anime in Japanese, whether you look up words or not (intensive or extensive), is immersing. Reading French books, whether looking up words or not (intensive or extensive), is immersing. Watching Chinese dramas, whether you look up words or not (intensive or extensive), is immersing. The term immersion can get confusing because, like the general term comprehensible input, it means A LOT of things broadly. When some people say immersion they mean engaging with the language extensively (no word lookups) - like Dreaming Spanish purist learners who are only learning by extensive listening. When other people say immersion they mean engaging with the language intensively (lots of word lookups) - like Refold Japanese learners who are looking up many words and making anki cards to study. Some people mean immersion as in they are living, working, doing everything in the language. Some people mean immersion as in they live in a country that speaks the language, but in their daily life they avoid using the language or engaging with it as much as possible. This is why it can be frustrating when you're told "just immerse!" okay but... what does the person saying that specifically think of when they say 'immerse' as there's many activities that count as immersion. And sometimes people mean wildly different things by it (such as meaning intensive versus extensive study, depending on the person saying to immerse).