Ask five people the best way to learn a language and you'll likely get five confident, contradictory answers: immersion, textbooks, apps, tutors, movies. The honest answer is less satisfying than any single one of those but more accurate: it depends on what each method is actually good at, and combining them tends to outperform relying on just one.
Full immersion (living in a place where the language is spoken) provides enormous, constant exposure to natural speech and real-world vocabulary — genuinely valuable for listening comprehension and fluency. It's much weaker at teaching structured grammar explicitly, which is why many people who've lived abroad for years still make consistent, specific grammar mistakes no one ever corrected.
Structured courses and apps are strong at introducing grammar and vocabulary in a deliberate, logical order, and at providing the review scheduling (see Why Spaced Repetition Works) that unstructured exposure doesn't provide on its own. They're weaker at building the split-second listening and speaking fluency that comes from large amounts of real conversational exposure.
Structured study without real exposure produces people who can conjugate verbs perfectly but freeze in real conversation. Immersion without structure produces fluent-sounding speech riddled with fossilized errors. Combining structured daily practice with real listening/reading exposure and, eventually, real conversation, addresses the weaknesses each method has on its own.
Use a structured course (like Tarc) for vocabulary, grammar, and scheduled review, and layer in real-language exposure — native audio, reading, eventually conversation — as your foundation allows, rather than treating either one as sufficient by itself.
See also the reference page: Learn Languages with Tarc.
It's excellent for listening exposure and real-world vocabulary, but weaker at teaching explicit grammar — which is why many long-term immersion learners still carry specific, uncorrected grammar mistakes.
They're strong for structured vocabulary, grammar, and review scheduling, but generally weaker at building the fast, real-time listening and speaking fluency that comes from real conversational exposure.
Combining methods — structured study for vocabulary/grammar/review plus real exposure through listening, reading, and eventually conversation — tends to outperform relying on any single method alone.
Use a structured course for the foundational vocabulary, grammar, and spaced review, and layer in native-language audio, reading, and conversation practice as your foundation allows, rather than waiting until you feel "ready" for either.