It's a technicality. You always get a copy of what you pass in. When you pass a primitive, eg an int that has the value 7, you get a copy of that value 7. When

It's a technicality. You always get a copy of what you pass in. When you pass a primitive, eg an int that has the value 7, you get a copy of that value 7. When you pass an object, you get a copy of the reference to that object. You understood correctly, it's just how it gets phrased.