Learning a New Language through Comprehensible Input
- Calvin Stevens
- Jan 17
- 6 min read
There is a common misconception amongst language learners that full immersion will exponentially improve your fluency levels. Well, it’s not really a misconception, per se, but there’s a lot more to immersion than simply living in the country of your target language. I don’t doubt that my Mandarin would improve twofold if I was living in China; naturally you’re bound to pick up on something. But the exponential growth is only going to come with the right type of immersion. Simply existing in China is not going to make me fluent in a year. There are even numerous English-expat communities in Spain who, despite having lived there for many years, still cannot speak Spanish, in part due to refusal but also partly because of ineffective immersion. Thus, enter my best piece of advice to new language learners: immerse yourself with comprehensible input.
What is comprehensible input?
Also referred to as the Input Hypothesis, comprehensible input is a language acquisition method, developed by renowned linguist Stephen Krashen in the 1970s, in which students consume batches of information (in their target language) that they can mostly understand but not necessarily fully. Steve Kaufmann has a series of videos that comprehensively (pun intended) illustrate the concept and its inner workings. But, to simply put, the method allows learners to fill the gaps and infer meaning from within a sentence they know only, say, 80% of the vocabulary. Learners are thus able to acquire language naturally, mimicking the way a child acquires language.
And as we all know, children are like sponges when it comes to language-learning.
Allow me to illustrate
Suppose I don’t know any Mandarin and come across a local Chinese who yells out to me: “Píngguǒ!” Now, if you don’t speak Mandarin, you will have no idea what that means. So suppose he yells it again.
“Píngguǒ! Píngguǒ!”
Maybe even thrice, “Píngguǒ! Píngguǒ! Píngguǒ!”
Do you get it yet? Of course not. Not unless you’re the wizard of inference. This is an example of incomprehensible input, and it’s not all that useful. Hence, even if you did live in China, you’re not just going to understand words by listening in on daily conversations. Something more needs to happen.
Let’s take that same example, except now I’m visiting a fruit stall, and the man yells out “Píngguǒ!” while holding up an apple. From this, I’m able to properly infer that he is speaking about an apple. There’s an action, something that gives me an indication, inferring a given input. This, my friends, is comprehensible input; and we can take this example slightly further.
Suppose I already know the word for “you” (nǐ) and the question word ma. If the man then asks me nǐ mǎi píngguǒ ma? and briefly gestures at his stall where there is, say, a price tag below the apples, then I can probably infer that he is asking me if I would like to buy some apples. Notice how, in this scenario, I never knew the word mǎi and yet I was able to work out, naturally, what the man was asking me. That’s the secret of comprehensible input: you only need to know maybe 50 to 60 percent of the words in a given sentence to correctly infer the rest. The human brain is magical that way. It automatically fills in the gaps for us; almost like a personal, biological autocorrect. And as time passes, your brain will begin to organically acquire a new set of vocabulary without you having to rigorously study a dictionary or flash cards.
And the best part? You don’t even have to know 100% of what a native speaker is saying.
The best type of resources for comprehensible input
Have you ever wondered why children are so effective at learning a language? Well, part of the reason is this: the entertainment they consume, the interactions they encounter, are some of the best comprehensible input resources out there. Think about it. A child’s parents speak to them in simple words, often showcasing their actions — they know to identify “mama” and “papa”; their books all have simple sentences with accompanying pictures; and their shows all use simple language with, again, accompanying pictures/animations.
It may sound degrading when I tell you this, but I promise I’m being serious: you need to indulge in kiddies’ entertainment.
As a Mandarin learner, one of the most invaluable beginner resources I have found is — and I kid you not — Peppa Pig. There’s an entire Mandarin version of the series up on YouTube, and the wonderful thing about Peppa Pig is that either the characters or the narrator will practically voice the exact action occurring on screen. So, when Peppa prepares a salad, she will invariably pick up the ingredients one by one and they will be blatantly named aloud, making it incredibly easy to infer the meaning of certain words. Admittedly though, I had to watch the show at 0.75 speed during the initial stages. Any faster and it was going to become incomprehensible input. So always remember to customize the resource to your level, and don’t be embarrassed!
Of course, if you are embarrassed and don’t want to explain to your family why you’re watching Peppa Pig, or if Peppa inevitably bores you to the point of wanting to punch your screen, you’re going to want to add in a bit more “adult” content. And no, not that adult content; I’m talking about content that you have an interest in (although, I suppose one can certainly have an interest in that content, but for language learning I suspect that content may not be too helpful here). You see, things are going to stick a lot easier if you are interested in the content you’re consuming. Moreover, you’ll start to associate language learning with something fun; and that, ultimately, is the goal: to have fun. So, if you enjoy baking, watch an [insert language] baking show! Do you watch football? Try find commentary on a game in your target language. Because you already know terminology from your native tongue pertaining to said entertainment, you’ll naturally pick up on words more easily.
I, for one, enjoy playing and watching table tennis. Finding Mandarin commentary on games was fairly easy; the Chinese certainly don’t suffer from a table tennis deficiency. But what I found surprising was how quickly I could pick up on the words for “forehand”, “backhand”, “slow ball”, “fast ball”, etc. I guess I was just already well acquainted with commentary of the game in general, so inferring certain words wasn’t as hard as I initially thought.
Are you into comics? Those are fantastic resources; they act in a similar manner to children’s picture books.
Playing video games? These are also great, although be careful of the language used — I was told, of Black Myth: Wukong, that the game used more traditional language not commonly used in everyday speech.
Watching dramas? Some of my favourite resources are dramas (c-dramas are just… chef’s kiss) but, as with video games, make sure the language is relevant beforehand.
Unfortunately, podcasts are out of the question if you’re a complete newbie. Why? Well, because they essentially follow my prior example of the man yelling “píngguǒ!” with no further context. The problem with podcasts is that they don’t provide anything to build off of during the initial stages of language acquisition. It’s a bit like if you stuck a baby in a series of business conferences every day; I doubt the baby would ever pick up on any of the words simply because there is nothing for it to connect the dots. The exact same can be said of immersing yourself in the target country and simply listening in on conversations without any prior context. Hence why I say it depends entirely on the right immersion.
Podcasts are fantastic resources, don’t get me wrong — I listen to a few, myself — but only once you’ve got a basic understanding to go off of. Once you’re able to understand 50% of the words in a podcast episode, then you’re able to start fully utilizing it as a form of comprehensible input.
Ultimately, the key with comprehensible input is to find resources that are of your language level. Thereafter, you can slowly start adding in words you don’t know, keeping it at such a pace that you can still understand what is being communicated at large. Once you’re able to master the simple things, you’ll slowly find your brain recognizing more and more words organically. Better yet, your brain will get better at inference and remembering new words because, at the end of the day, comprehensible input is all about training your mind to acquire language. It is not merely about acquiring language, building vocabulary, or remembering grammar; rather, it is about how to do these things.
In this manner, children actually have something we can learn from. Immersion is only useful when we take effective measures to understand said immersion. We need to return to a state where our mind becomes an uncarved, pliable, malleable piece of unbound potential for learning. I envy children in this regard. They are masters of doing just that, and they don’t even know it. Ignorance is bliss, but you must admit it’s pretty good for learning not just the what but the how.
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