hey guys what's up Mack here and today I
just wanted to make a quick video to
answer a question that I've been getting
a lot recently which is what do you
think is the most ideal ratio between
passive immersion and active immersion
now the short answer is I don't really
think the ratio matters much at all
the bottom line is that the more you do
of each type of immersion the more
quickly that you're going to improve so
let's take a step back real quick and
define our terms so what do I really
mean when I say active immersion versus
passive immersion well I actually have a
whole video on this topic that I made a
couple years ago so I'll put a link to
that in the description but the short
summary is that active immersion is when
you're sitting down and giving your full
undivided attention to consuming
something in your target language
whether that's sitting down and reading
a book or sitting down and watching a TV
show and just pausing and looking things
up and making a real effort to try to
understand what's happening now you
don't actually have to be sitting down
while you do active immersion but for
whatever reason that's the image of
active immersion that I have in my head
on the other hand we have passive
immersion which is where you're
listening to something in your target
language while you do another activity
whether that's cook or clean or commute
or exercise now the amount of attention
that you're paying while doing passive
immersion tends to fluctuate a lot
moment-to-moment but because in general
you're going to be doing passive
immersion while engaging in a mindless
activity like cooking or cleaning it is
possible to pay a pretty decent amount
of attention to your target language
while doing passive immersion now
there's also a third type of immersion
called background immersion which is
where you pretty much just leave target
language Audio playing in the background
and then ignore it and do totally other
activities but that's not really too
relevant to this particular video now in
general active immersion is more
beneficial per minute than passive
immersion is simply because you're
paying more attention you're looking
things up and you're just doing more
work so if you ever have an option
between doing 10 more minutes of active
immersion or 10 additional minutes of
passive immersion well from a raw
efficiency point of view it's going to
be better to pick the active immersion
because you're gonna improve more per
minute while doing active rather than
passive but the thing is in general we
do passive immersion during times in our
day where we wouldn't be able to do
active immersion like I said earlier
right like when you're cooking cleaning
exercising these are all situations
where it's not possible to do active
immersion because by definition active
immersion is when you're not
multitasking it's when you're giving
your full undivided attention just to
the immersion and so when we're talking
about
times in our day where we're commuting
cooking cleaning these are things that
we have to do we can't just not clean
anymore or not commute anymore but those
are also times where we are not able to
do active immersion so we're left with
this choice of doing passive immersion
or nothing
and although active immersion is more
beneficial per minute than passive
immersion passive immersion is much much
much more beneficial per minute than no
immersion at all so it's always better
to just do passive immersion when you
can and do active immersion when you can
and this is why ratios aren't really
applicable so here's another framework
that you can use to think about it let's
say that we have this concept of
immersion points and it takes a certain
number of immersion points to get fluent
in a foreign language now let's say that
you get for immersion points per minute
when doing active immersion and you get
one immersion point per minute when
doing passive immersion well of course
if you have an option you want to be
doing active immersion because you're
gonna get more points per minute which
is going to move you closer to fluency
but during situations where active
immersion is impossible well it's still
better to do passive immersion than
nothing because at least you're getting
one point per minute and every four
minutes you basically have accumulated
the equivalent of one minute worth of
active immersion now this ratio of
four-to-one when it comes to the value
of passive versus active is a little
iffy it's hard to say exactly what the
difference is because like I said before
the amount of attention that you're
really paying while doing passive
immersion tends to change quite a bit
and also the more active immersion that
you do in general the more you're gonna
benefit from passive immersion but I
think as a general framework thinking of
three to four minutes of passive
immersion being equivalent to around one
minute of active immersion is probably
an okay rule of thumb so in conclusion
the ratio between your active immersion
and your passive immersion doesn't
actually matter just do active immersion
when you can and when you can't do
passive immersion and in general the
more you do of each the more quickly
that you'll move towards fluency I hope
this little video was useful to you guys
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this video thanks so much for watching
and I'll catch you guys in the next one
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