Talking to locals during a business trip in Tokyo, reading “Cien años de soledad” in its mother tongue, chatting in Pashto. Immersion experiences can be magical; they are also powerful.
It’s a rule-of-thumb that teachers, students, and everyday learners have agreed upon for years: If you want to master a new language, you need to surround yourself with its words, cadence, norms, parlances, and quirks. But why does immersion work so well?
Eyes on the Prize
Motivated learning, where a person feels a drive to acquire a new language, is essential. This often occurs when we travel to different countries. For example, as you retrieve your luggage and look around after an international flight, each new word feels and seems foreign. Your brain is having a field day, vacuuming up the new stimuli. You can’t understand anything, but your mind wants to understand everything. Unlike at home, where you can switch back into English or your native language at a moment’s notice, there is no backup plan. In turn, a massive incentive to learn arises, which can positively affect how you process information.
Interconnecting new input, your brain defines words through a web of associations. Sounds and images create meaning: it’s how we encounter language as children. This is immersion, which drives Rosetta Stone.
Decades of research show that language acquisition is enhanced and memory is stronger when learning involves multiple senses. Rosetta Stone provides a rich multi-sensory environment, carefully designed to enhance learning. This design helps you link your new language directly to the noises and sights of the real world.
Drawing from Real World Experience
Inspecting this type of research, the language experts at Rosetta Stone set out to create a program that simulates the immersion environment, triggering the motivational learning that is so critical to success in a new language. By using images, sounds, and text from Lesson 1, Rosetta Stone provides a natural route to learning. Let’s look at an example:
The Rosetta Stone Method
- Hear the phrase.
- The correct image matches to the phrase.
- Learn to say it right with TruAccent®.
In this process, nobody is stopping to translate a word. Instead, your brain makes the important connections on its own.
Tutoring Provides Immersion from Anywhere
Of course, the most important part of being immersed is a real-world conversation. Local speakers provide you with invaluable phrases and words that can polish your new language. More importantly, they can be become friends who correct your grammar, make jokes, or teach you useful expressions.
Rosetta Stone believes that one-on-one tutoring sessions with real native speakers are the most engaging and motivating way to practice conversations in your new language. Because traveling to faraway places isn’t always practical, a human-to-human conversation with our Live Tutoring gives you an immersion experience from anywhere in the world. Have advanced Korean syntax questions? Want to know customary greetings in Arabic? Supportive and knowledgeable, Rosetta Stone tutors create a comfortable learning environment where you can use your new language.
Immersion is the guiding principle behind Rosetta Stone. It fuels our technology, style, and—most importantly—customers’ success. Ready to start? Get immersed from anywhere with Rosetta Stone. The first lesson is free: try it now on iOS or Android.
