If you’ve been in the Japanese studygram community on Instagram you may already know what this is, but #minimmersionweekend is a retreat based around immersing yourself in your target language for a weekend with no rules (which I love, as I’m not a fan of many of the challenges often posted). It was created by @leaf.ling_learns and @rubygagotoku and on the Discord server you can also find fun events being streamed in a variety of languages, so there’s something for everyone.
I can’t remember how many I’ve done (I think this is my third), however due to family commitments on Saturday I started on Sunday and finished on Monday as in the UK it’s a long bank holiday weekend. I usually know what I’m using in advance but decided to wing it this time! Every time there’s a #minimmersionweekend a bingo board is posted and I like to see how many I can get (no pressure, of course!).
I never get all of the boxes but I like having a variety of things to choose from, and it’s very flexible too! Basically you pick whatever you want to do for your grid – after all it is yours, it’s your weekend so pick as much or as little as you want to do!
Day 1
I had a number of errands to run in the morning/afternoon so I started late, but I started off with watching the first episode of 俺の家の話, a drama that aired in spring this year. It is the last project Tomoya Nagase (or Nagase-kun to my teacher, she loves TOKIO and Nagase) worked on, and it is about a pro-wrestler and his family who come together after their father becomes ill and requires care. I’m only on episode one so I can’t really say too much about it right now, but my teacher has watched it so I plan to talk to her about it on Day 2.
I usually don’t produce any output but I did try reading out loud, which I never, ever do, but what I chose had a lot of small furigana and I wear glasses, so that didn’t go brilliantly! I think I’ll stick to reading and when I recognise more kanji reading out loud will be easier for me.
For the rest of the evening I chose to read as it’s been a tiring day, and I chose the manga I’m currently reading, which is これは経費で落ちません！- I LOVED the drama so I bought all the manga volumes after finishing it. The drama stopped after one season but there’s more story to go, so I will continue to read the manga. There’s still a lot of kanji and vocabulary I don’t know but I try not to look everything up and try to guess what it means in context. One reason this manga appeals to me is that like the main character I’m also an accountant, although I’m not such a stickler for the rules as she is. Still, I get to learn some useful finance vocabulary! I also read an old copy of 日経ウーマン, a magazine aimed at women around my age. Again, there’s no furigana here so it takes me a long time to get through an article, but at least there are pictures.
And not immersion related, but I made ramen for dinner! I roughly follow Just One Cookbook’s recipe for chashu pork using pork belly slices instead of a joint, soy sauce eggs (I usually follow this recipe but left it rather late today) and make my own soup base using miso, soy sauce, shiitake mushrooms and other things I have in my cupboard. I also had a glass of umeshu on the rocks, one of my favourite drinks!
Day 2
My second day has been relaxed, starting with watching some Japanese TV to get that weather forecast box and some irrelevant to me weather updates! In my former Japanese group class we would often have to present the weather using a Japanese map (as below) and talk about it, so it was a nice refresher. The weather today in the UK has been awful so I also got a bit of weather envy.
(I watch Japanese TV via JapanNetTV using their Muji TV mini package, which is $6/month for the most basic channels like NHK, 日テレ and フジテレビ. I’m sure there are other options out there depending on what you want but this works well for me!)
Also, podcasts! This morning I listened to an episode of The Miku Real Japanese podcast – I love Miku! Her YouTube videos are excellent, her voice is easy to understand and she speaks at a pace I don’t feel lost with. Her podcast is new and I finally got around to listening to the first two episodes today! It makes a nice change from all of the true crime podcasts I end up listening to most days…! I also discovered a singer called Kiro Akiyama, who Spotify started playing after my playlist ended. モノローグ is my new pop rock jam, go check it out if that’s your thing!
I then had my scheduled lesson with my teacher, which is mostly conversation. She did remind me that I can dictate the lesson rather than just general speaking so I’m going to see how I get on this week and actually make notes about things I want to discuss further with her.
A few weeks ago I made a book cover using a tutorial in a sewing book and it came out too small, and since making covers is popular in Japan I put 本カバーの作り方 into YouTube to see what was out there… turns out there’s a lot! In the end I went with this video, and ended up with this (below image) as my final finished cover. My previous attempt at making a cover was unsuccessful and apart from getting my inside fabric the wrong way around (the pattern looks odd if you look close enough, but as a book will be inside I’m not precious about it) I think I did a good job! The video was easy to follow (I didn’t even realise there were written instructions) and it was great listening practice.
Thoughts
I know, immersion should be a way of life, but this is a good way to try new things and push yourself out of your comfort zone. Many of the things I do during these weekends I do as part of my daily studies, like listening to a podcast or watching vlogs (since my first minimmersion I watch a lot more of these), but having a set time for this really puts me in the right mindset. Due to seeing family I haven’t done as much as I’d like but doing little bits spread throughout the day worked this time!
Here’s my finished grid!
One major thing I’ve learned is that I don’t need to understand everything I read. If I did, I wouldn’t need to study! When I picked a difficult manga I knew it would be difficult, but I wanted to read it because I wanted to read the story. When I pick something it has to interest me, and not be chosen because it’s recommended for my level. When I first started reading it I was looking up every single word I didn’t understand, only completing a few pages at a time because I was in the dictionary more than the manga. Now I push through, using the pictures to help me understand the context and what words could mean. I probably don’t understand most of it but to me, I’m immersing and exposing myself to more words, and the more I see these words the more I’ll understand in time. I need to patient and this month I will be using Anki to work on my vocabulary, which I think is becoming a weak point.
If this sounds like an event you might enjoy (spoiler: you will) then do follow @leaf.ling_learns and @rubygagotoku on Instagram and join the Minimmersion Discord server! It’s usually every couple of months and I might mix my languages with the next one so I can take part in the Korean streams! I’m still a beginner with that language but immersion is definitely the way to go.
Amanda
アマンダの勉強 / Amanda Learns! 