Testing the “20x” Immersion Method for 100 Days

Summary

In this video, Josh recounts his 100-day Polish language learning challenge, where he tracked words from YouTube videos and vocabulary reviews. Despite interruptions, he consistently used Anki for vocabulary retention. The challenge revealed that immersion plus Anki was effective, with 80% retention of Anki-studied words versus 25% from immersion alone. Josh reflects on the importance of motivation and the long-term nature of language acquisition, concluding with insights for improving future language learning endeavors.

Takeaways

• 📚 The speaker, Josh, completed a 100-day language learning challenge in Polish, focusing on vocabulary acquisition through immersion and notecard study with Anki.
• 🔍 Josh's challenge was based on linguistic research suggesting that one should know a word after 20 exposures, which he tested through watching YouTube videos and vocabulary reviews.
• 📈 The challenge evolved from a 7-day to a 100-day endeavor, influenced by audience votes and including notecard study via Anki, with plans for a more scientific approach in the future.
• 🎥 The 100-day challenge involved watching Easy Polish videos, creating and reviewing vocab cards, and researching word conjugations, with a strict rule against other Polish study to track exposure accurately.
• 📉 Despite some disruptions like travel and holidays, Josh maintained consistent Anki reviews, but his YouTube viewing became sporadic, affecting the challenge's consistency.
• 🎉 Josh experienced several positive highlights, including the Easy Polish team's delightful content, quick alphabet and pronunciation learning, and the ability to understand a Polish meme and pick out individual words.
• 🌐 Lingopie, a language learning platform, was mentioned as a potential resource that could have further enhanced the challenge with its interactive subtitles and notecard-making features.
• 📊 After 100 days, Josh was tested on over 1000 words, knowing 62% of the 707 words he should have known based on 20+ exposures, and learning additional words through the process.
• 📉 Josh reflected on the effectiveness of Anki vs. immersion, noting that 80% of Anki-studied words were known compared to only 25% from immersion alone, suggesting the need for a more scientific approach to study selection.
• 💡 Two key lessons were highlighted: language learning is a long-term investment with lagging indicators of success, and motivation is crucial when immersing in unknown territory.
• 🛠 For future challenges, Josh plans to improve by structuring daily content, incorporating reading, using resources for language basics, vocalizing Anki reviews, and randomly selecting study materials for a fair comparison.

Q & A

What was the main objective of Josh's 100-day language learning challenge?

The main objective was to track every single word Josh heard across YouTube videos and vocab reviews in Polish to determine if he could learn a word after 20 exposures, as suggested by linguistic research.

How did Josh track his language exposure during the challenge?

Josh tracked his language exposure by watching Easy Polish videos, making and reviewing vocab cards, looking up word information and conjugations, and ensuring he accurately tracked how many times he was exposed to each word.

What was the result of Josh's 1000-word vocabulary test at the end of the challenge?

Josh knew 439 out of 707 words he should have known based on 20+ exposures, which is a 62% success rate. He also learned 71 words with fewer than 20 exposures.

What was the daily rate at which Josh introduced new words during the challenge?

Josh introduced new words at a rate of 4 new words per day, with 8 new Anki cards daily, which included both Polish-to-English and English-to-Polish reviews.

How did Josh's language learning process change after the first month of the challenge?

After the first month, Josh's consistent viewing of Easy Polish videos was disrupted due to travel, holidays, and other distractions, leading to sporadic viewing but consistent Anki reviews.

What was the role of Lingopie in Josh's language learning challenge?

Lingopie was mentioned as a helpful resource that could have further enhanced Josh's challenge. It's a streaming platform for language learners that allows for interactive subtitles and easy notecard creation.

What were some of the highlights Josh experienced during the 100-day challenge?

Highlights included the enjoyment of the Easy Polish team's content, quick mastery of the alphabet and pronunciation, understanding a Polish meme, and starting to pick out individual words without visual aids.

What lessons did Josh learn about language learning from his 100-day challenge?

Josh learned that language learning is like investing, requiring long-term commitment and patience, and that motivation while immersing in a new language is crucial for maintaining progress.

How did Josh plan to improve his language learning approach for future challenges?

For future challenges, Josh planned to incorporate more structured content viewing, reading at his own pace, using resources for language basics, vocalizing Anki reviews, and randomly selecting words for Anki to better understand the effect of studying versus immersion.

What was the total amount of Polish words Josh was exposed to during the 100-day challenge?

Josh was exposed to around 80,000 words in Polish, with 3/4 of that through YouTube and 1/4 through Anki.

Outlines

00:00

📚 100-Day Language Learning Challenge: Polish Immersion and Anki Study

Josh, the narrator, embarked on a 100-day challenge to learn Polish by tracking every word he encountered across YouTube videos and vocabulary reviews. Based on linguistic research suggesting that one should know a word after 20 exposures, Josh took a 1000-word vocabulary test. The challenge involved watching Easy Polish videos, creating and reviewing Anki flashcards, and looking up word information. Josh also shared his experience with the Easy Polish team, the quick grasp of the Polish alphabet, and the realization of understanding a Polish meme. Despite interruptions like travel and holidays, Josh maintained consistent Anki reviews, but his YouTube viewing became sporadic. Lingopie, a language learning platform, was highlighted as a potential resource for future challenges.

05:00

📈 Reflections on Language Learning: Polish Progress and Insights

After completing the challenge, Josh analyzed his results, noting that out of 707 expected known words, he correctly identified 439, a 62% success rate. He also recognized additional words seen less than 20 times and some that fell into a 'gray zone' of partial understanding. Josh reflected on the effectiveness of immersion combined with Anki, finding that words studied in Anki were better retained. He also discussed the importance of motivation in language learning, the need for a structured approach to ensure consistent progress, and the value of reading for pacing and understanding. Josh concluded with lessons learned and suggestions for improving his language learning strategy in future challenges, emphasizing the importance of enjoying the process and finding the right balance between structured study and immersive experiences.

Keywords

💡Language Learning Challenge

A 'Language Learning Challenge' is a self-imposed task where an individual commits to learning a language within a set timeframe, often with specific goals or methods. In the video, the challenge is the central theme, where the creator, Josh, documents his 100-day journey to learn Polish by tracking and reviewing every word he encounters, aiming to test the linguistic theory of word retention after repeated exposures.

💡Immersion

Immersion refers to a language learning method where one is surrounded by the target language as much as possible, often through media like videos, music, or conversations. In the script, Josh uses immersion by watching 'Easy Polish' videos, which contributes to his overall language acquisition process and helps him understand the language's rhythm and pronunciation.

💡Anki

Anki is a flashcard application that uses spaced repetition to help users memorize information more efficiently. In the video, Josh uses Anki to create and review vocabulary cards, which is a key part of his learning strategy. It helps him reinforce the words he has been exposed to during his immersion sessions.

💡Spaced Repetition

Spaced Repetition is a learning technique where material is reviewed at increasing intervals over time, which is proven to enhance memorization. Josh's use of Anki exemplifies spaced repetition, as he reviews vocabulary cards at varying intervals, allowing him to remember Polish words more effectively.

💡Vocab Test

A 'Vocab Test' is an assessment that measures an individual's vocabulary knowledge in a language. In the context of the video, Josh takes a massive 1000-word vocab test to evaluate his language learning progress after the 100-day challenge, which serves as a metric for his word retention and understanding.

💡Linguistics Research

Linguistics Research refers to scientific studies conducted to understand the nature, structure, and variation of language. The video mentions this in relation to the theory that one should know most words after hearing them 20 times, which is the basis for Josh's language learning experiment.

💡Notecard Study

Notecard Study is a traditional method of learning where information is written on cards for easy review and memorization. In the script, Josh incorporates notecard study into his challenge by making and reviewing vocabulary cards, which helps him focus on individual words and their meanings.

💡Lingopie

Lingopie is a language learning platform that offers streaming content with interactive subtitles for language learners. In the video, it is mentioned as a potential resource that could have further enhanced Josh's language learning experience by providing an integrated way to watch content and create notecards.

💡Polish Language

Polish Language is the focus of Josh's language learning challenge. It is a Slavic language spoken primarily in Poland. The video revolves around Josh's experience learning Polish, from understanding its alphabet and pronunciation to recognizing individual words and the language's unique grammatical structures.

💡Comprehensible Input

Comprehensible Input is a theory in language acquisition which suggests that learners acquire a language when the input (language they receive) is slightly more advanced than their current level but still understandable. The video discusses this concept in the context of Josh's immersion in Polish content, which gradually becomes more comprehensible over time.

💡Lagging Indicators

Lagging Indicators are metrics that show the results of past performance or actions after a delay. In the video, Josh uses the term to describe language skills like vocabulary size or speaking ability, which may not show immediate improvement despite consistent effort and study.

Highlights

Completed a 100-day language learning challenge tracking every word in Polish from YouTube videos and vocab reviews.

Linguistic research suggests knowing most words after 20 exposures, which was the basis for the challenge.

Participated in a 7-day challenge initially, leading to the 100-day challenge after scoring 18% on a vocab test.

Included notecard study via Anki based on community votes.

The 100-day challenge involved watching Easy Polish videos, making vocab cards, and looking up word information.

Maintained consistent Anki reviews despite sporadic video watching due to travel and other commitments.

Developed an affinity for Polish and the sounds stopped feeling foreign after a few weeks.

Understood a Polish meme on day 26, indicating progress in language comprehension.

Started recognizing individual words in Polish by day 70, even without full vocabulary understanding.

Lingopie, a language learning platform, was highlighted for its interactive subtitles and notecard features.

Consumed around 80,000 words in Polish over the 100 days, with 50 episodes of Easy Polish and daily Anki reviews.

Knew 62% of 707 words expected to be known after 20+ exposures, and learned additional words with fewer exposures.

Notecard reviews in Anki were 80% effective compared to 25% from immersion-only words.

Language learning is likened to investing, with returns and signs of success appearing over a long period.

Importance of motivation in language learning, especially when immersing in unknown territory.

Suggestions for improvement in future challenges include planning content, incorporating reading, and using resources for language basics.

Proposed future challenges to include random sampling for Anki notecards to better understand study vs. immersion effects.

Encourages community to share their language challenge experiences and expresses intent to document progress more frequently in future challenges.

Transcripts

Czesc!I just finished a 100 day language learning  challenge where I tracked every single word that  

I heard across YouTube videos and vocab reviews  in Polish. I needed to track every word for you  

fellow word nerds because according to  linguistics research I should know most,  

if not all, of the words that I heard  20 times. So I did the challenge and  

took a massive 1000 word vocab test  at the end based on my word-specific  

immersion data. Mam na imie Josh and here s the  story of what happened during the challenge,  

the test results and a few lessons to  improve how to learn languages.  

Earlier this year, I did a 7 day challenge  with Polish to test out this linguistic theory  

that you learn a word after 20 exposures. After  scoring an 18% on the vocab test, I knew that I  

needed a longer period of time to test this out,  which many of you agreed with. I then started  

what I thought would be a 30 day challenge but  morphed into a 100 day challenge Bo tak. Based  

on more than 300 of your votes, I opted to include  notecard study in this challenge via Anki, but my  

plan is to do an even more scientific challenge  for another language so subscribe to the channel  

if challenges like this are interesting to you. The 100 day challenge consisted of the following:  

1. Watching Easy Polish videos, most of  which are between 10 and 15 minutes long.  

2. Making and reviewing vocab cards as I saw fit 3. Looking up info about Polish words and  

conjugations if I was confused 4. To ensure I accurately tracked  

how many exposures I had to each word, no other  Polish study or video watching was allowed  

So the challenge started - i jak by?o  (How was it)? The watching was-a-good:  

1. Weeks 1-3 went really great with Easy Polish  videos, sometimes rewatching to reinforce what  

I was slowly learning. I also started making  vocab notecards based on what I was watching,  

which would slowly drip feed into my rotation at  a rate of roughly 8 new cards per day. Because I  

included Polish-to-English and English-to-Polish  reviews, this is really a rate of 4 new  

words introduced per day. I ended up making 800  Anki cards for 400 Polish words within the first 3  

weeks of the challenge but it still took  me the full 100 days to get through them.  

2. But after a month, things started to go off the  rails with my Easy Polish watching as we needed to  

travel internationally for a family wedding. And  then there were a few holidays. And then I started  

watching Breaking Bad. But amidst the excuses,  poor decision making and sporadic Easy Polish  

watching, I still kept up with vocab reviews. And  that s how the rest of the 100 days went, with  

consistent Anki and sporadic YouTube viewing. But there were some really fun highlights over  

the course of the challenge: a. The first is that the Easy Polish team  

is delightful which makes it even more amazing  that their content is free. And yes I did support  

them on Patreon for part of this challenge. b. The alphabet and pronunciation came quickly,  

so the sounds stopped sounding  foreign after a few weeks.  

c. Luckily, Polish nouns only have 35 possible  endings so you only have to forget your wedding  

day, the smell of vanilla extract and all  of those pesky social security numbers to  

remember all the endings for 1 noun. d. On day 26, I happened to see a  

Polish meme that I understood. e. On day 70, I started closing my  

eyes while watching and the language  was no longer just a flow of sounds.  

I could pick out individual words, even if I  didn t have the vocab to understand them  

One resource that could ve helped me even  more with a challenge like this is Lingopie,  

the first sponsor on this channel. Lingopie is a  great streaming platform for language learners,  

with awesome content if you re just starting out  like I was or if you re looking for something more  

advanced. Not only can you choose if you want  1 or 2 (or 0) languages for the interactive  

subtitles, but they re also super responsive and  non-obtrusive, so you can watch, do a lookup and  

get back to watching with minimal interruption.  And as you re immersing and doing these quick  

lookups, you can make notecards with 1 click.  Lingopie currently has 9 languages supported  

within the platform itself, but where story-based  content really shines is the integration with  

Netflix, which gives you access to an even bigger  source of content to use Lingopie s powerful tools  

if you want to run a challenge like the one  in this video. If the comprehensible input  

approach is your style and you want to support  a company enabling language learning challenges  

like the one I m sharing today, Lingopie has  a 7-day free trial and is offering a crazy  

70% off their Lifetime plan. Links are down in  the description and thank you to Lingopie.  

Now back to the challenge. After 100 days of  watching and reviewing, all in, I consumed  

around 80,000 words in Polish, with 3/4th in  YouTube and 1/4th in Anki. This represents 50  

episodes of Easy Polish and 95% of days reviewing  vocab with Anki. I had come across more than 700  

words 20x so that was my theoretical vocab. But then it was test day. The test consisted of  

over 1000 words, 707 of which I should know since  I saw them 20+ times and 350 other words that  

likely were not in my vocabulary, to create more  of a double blind experiment. For the test, I was  

given all the Polish words and I had to produce  the English meaning. Here are the results:  

Of 707 words that I should ve known, I knew 439  of them. While that 62% is barely a passing grade,  

I also learned 71 words that I saw less than  20 times and there were another 50 words that  

I put in a gray zone that I got wrong during the  test but could recognize in context on a better  

day. Comparing this to the simulated learning  curve, I got 72% of the way to the goal of the  

100 day challenge. Zooming out, spending only  27 hours over the last 100 days, I m very happy  

to have learned more than 500 Polish words.  So I m proud of the challenge but clearly my  

version 1 model needs some tweaking. It s great to have this data because I knew  

immersion + Anki could work but when we look  deeper into the data, you can really see how  

notecards and studying accelerate the pace of  what you learn while immersing. Of the words  

that I got into Anki, I knew 80% of them  compared to just 25% of the immersion-only  

words. It s not clear cut that Anki was  completely responsible for this difference,  

because I selected words for Anki based on what  was common and seemed useful. But discussing this  

with my wife who s in the middle of a master s  degree, the next challenge I do like this, I ll  

need to randomly sample what words I put into Anki  vs. just get exposed to via TV and immersion to  

get a better image of the effect here.  But because notecard reviews pull your  

focus to one specific thing with a clear  1:1 translation at a reasonable pace,  

my gut says it s more effective than immersing,  even if it s more soulless. That being said, I do  

think that reading in Polish that matches my level  could be a good middle ground between grinding  

Anki and using YouTube. I could also design a  different test using multiple choice answers.  

Now I want to reflect on 2 very  important lessons that I learned  

1. Language learning is like investing: a. Returns only come over a long period of time  

b. Many signs of success are lagging  indicators, like the size of your vocab  

or your ability to speak. What do I mean by that?  

We generally think of language skills as reading,  listening, speaking and writing but those can be  

broken down into further skills like your  ability to recognize the meaning of words,  

your ability to produce words that  have your intended meaning and your  

intuition about the grammar and structures. When I say certain skills are a lagging indicator,  

I mean you don t see outward signs of success  despite putting in objectively meaningful work  

like studying and immersing. In the very simple  theory that I was testing for this video,  

you need to see a word 20 times to reliably be  able to understand its meaning. But if you see  

it the 10th time and can t define it, does that  mean you ve wasted all your time because you  

can t understand it? No - you re clearly on the  path to understanding. And when you zoom out to  

the 10 s of 1000 s of words in the language you  re looking to understand, you see the challenge.  

You have all of this latent knowledge somewhere  in your brain that just needs more watering and  

nurturing to blossom into what we see as the  ability to read and listen and eventually speak  

and write. You need to learn so many things, and  for a language not similar to your own, 100 days  

is not nearly enough to lay the foundation so that  many of those seeds can poke above the surface.  

But while vocabulary is a lagging indicator,  over the course of this 100 day challenge,  

I was able to get a feel for the music of the  Polish language: I can listen and not feel  

lost. That being said, this immersion heavy  approach did not teach me verb conjugations,  

because individual conjugations don t show  up often enough to hit that 20 number.  

2. The Importance of Motivation  While Immersing in Unknown Territory  

One big success of the immersion approach is that  I was able to develop an affinity for Polish.  

Instead of a frustrating impenetrable  mass of Eastern European squiggles,  

the language now sounds charming. That being  said, early on while immersing you have to  

balance enjoyment and understandability. Like  we showed in a recent video, kids' shows are  

easier to understand but if it s not the right  show, you ll want to stop watching. On the other  

hand, interviews are impossible to understand as  a beginner but subtitles can make them fascinating  

and motivating, plus they slowly help build  understanding. The pacing of a content-led  

approach is also much more dynamic and engaging  than classes. Based on my experience learning  

German, I recognize the feeling of I understand  5% but am happily still watching and I know it s  

a viable start to getting far with a language. The last step is reflecting on what I would do to  

make things go better in the next challenge I do: 1. As someone who doesn t have hours and  

hours to spend each day immersing in the trenches  as I got started learning a language, I would ve  

watched more content by deciding each day what  I would watch on the next day. That would leave  

room for making it feel like good, lazy leisure  time but give enough structure to avoid skipping  

a day because I wasn t sure what to watch. 2. In the future, I would incorporate reading as  

well, as the pacing of dialogue even in beginner  videos is tough to get right. Videos are either  

slow enough but boring or too fast so the words  aren t sticky. Reading lets me go at my own pace  

which has worked great for me in the past. 3. Finding some online or print resources to  

spend more serious time on the basics of  the language with some explanations would  

ve been quite helpful in that first month. 4. For vocab reviews in Anki, saying things  

out loud would ve helped by injecting  more friction into understanding the  

smallest building blocks of the language. 5. And measurement-wise, like I mentioned,  

I would randomly select what I could make Anki  notecards for to better get a sense of how  

studying vs. immersing compares. Let me know in the comments if  

you ve done a language challenge like this. If  I do this again, I ll definitely document after  

30 days and maybe 60 days, because 100 days of  work for each video was a bit much this time.  

Don t forget to subscribe to enable more videos  like this and I ll catch you in the next one.