[steven]

Kyle, I know what you mean, but I mean that there are people who disagree with my idea of what immersion really is. Some people think that immersion comes down to learning how to read and write kanji all day (that's a bit of an exaggeration), but I think that doing so is not NEARLY as important as some people make it out to be.

I've met and talked to people who have actually argued against immersion in that it is bad for your cultural identity, yada yada yada. If your ego goes as far as your cultural identity, there's a good reason immersion isn't for you-- it'd be quite hard to handle! A big part of the language is how and when to act a certain way. Even if you understand the spoken language, if you can't act normal (this is from the L2 perspective), then there's something missing. It's the idea that language goes WAY beyond words.

So my idea of immersion is using your ears and eyes the best you can. If you're worried about your cultural identity, then don't learn another language, because once you get far enough it will affect the way you think. Immersion, I think, is the only way to get beyond perfection. You want to understand how and when to say things, and how to act when saying them... then you want to get beyond that and loosen it up a bit.

Written language and especially kanji is a completely different world. I do agree that kanji is good in that if you know some kanji you can start to understand words you've never even heard before just based on the kanji that you THINK it is. I think the fundamentals of everyday conversation should be covered before you try to delve deeper into the kanji which you will hear only once in a blue moon when you're talking to someone.

It's my opinion that the learning process of second languages is essentially backwards. I'd think the first thing you'd want to do is get rid of your "cultural identity" and start building a new one in your new language. Only then can you start to fit in.

If you've ever been told "hen na nihonjin yori ii ne", (which I assume a lot of the non-Japanese on here have), then you probably know what I mean. You can be the token gaijin if you want (as it's a blast sometimes), but you should have an on off switch so you can fit-in in any situation.