I barely understand anything. Is immersion actually helpful?
Absolutely!
Immersion is crucial for mastering a foreign language. Your brain is a pattern-recognition machine, optimized for language learning and designed to learn languages naturally. By surrounding yourself with content in the target language (TL), you begin to internalize vocabulary and grammar intuitively, even if you don't notice it.
The AJATT method encourages you to integrate your TL into your daily life through various forms of media, such as watching movies, TV shows, reading books or manga. The method allows you to immerse in the language without needing to travel to a country where the language is spoken or take traditional classes.
When you spend a significant amount of time immersed in a foreign language, your brain automatically starts to decode it. This process happens in the background, often without your conscious awareness, which can make it hard to feel like you're making progress. However, this is exactly how you learned your first language as a child.
The more you listen to the language, the more data you provide your brain to help it decode and eventually understand it. The only way to truly master a new language is by listening to it for thousands of hours. AJATT is based on the idea that you can learn a language just like native speakers do — through exposure rather than rote memorization. Simply memorizing vocabulary lists or drilling flashcards will not lead to real understanding.
Using target language subtitles helps with comprehension. They must be used moderately because subtitles turn listening immersion into reading immersion. That said, subtitles are invaluable when you can't understand the content and there's no other aid.
One effective strategy is to watch content that is very easy. This would be slice of life anime or even shows for children, such as Digimon, Doraemon, Pokemon, One Punch Man, Crayon Shin-chan. This works for people who are motivated by high comprehension, but the content itself doesn't matter as long as they can follow along and understanding most of what they hear. Just remember that all content you immerse with should be made by native speakers for native speakers.
Alternatively, watch content that you are interested in, regardless of how much you understand. With this approach, it's easier to lose yourself in the content to the point that you forget that you're "studying". This works for people who are motivated by the nature of the content itself and get bored by the easier content. You can enhance this approach by rewatching shows you've already seen in your native language. Since you are already familiar with the story and dialogue, not understanding every word in the TL won't be an issue.
Personally, I was never a fan of watching shows for children. As a beginner, I immersed in anime that I found interesting, even if it was difficult or I didn't understand much at first. To bridge the gap, I used an SRS to quickly learn the most common words using a premade deck. After memorizing just 1,000 to 2,000 words with the SRS, I became able to watch any regular anime comfortably and mine sentences without relying on content for learners or children.
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