> Immersion is overrated, even if you're trying your best to study vocabulary in your off hours. You won't just start "dreaming in a foreign language" because y

> Immersion is overrated, even if you're trying your best to study vocabulary in your off hours. You won't just start "dreaming in a foreign language" because you've been around it all day. It works for me. Even if immersion means a lonely weekend with a book in a foreign language. I begin to verbalise my thoughs in a foreign language, at least partially. The longer exposure to a language, the more foreign language in my thoughts. Sometimes I even need to make a conscious effort to switch to my native language, because I'm thinking slower and shallower in a foreign language. > No one will put up with your shitty language skills for more than 5 minutes... Possible it is the reason why immersion doesn't work for you. You need to stop using your native language for some time. Completely. Native language shouldn't be an option. When you mind sees an easy way to deal with language problem (switching to native) it uses easy way. It is the general principle of how human mind works: use the easiest possible way to get a desired result. When I'm reading book, using native language is an option: I can translate sentencies into my native language and understand them from the translation. I did this before, but then my mind developed a shortcut way, not translating, just understanding. It is much easier. After that I got troubles with translating, it is hard, you know. I just do not know a good translation for words, I understand meaning of words, but it take a lot of effort to separate meaning from foreign word, and then to find a native word with this meaning.