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How to maintain 5 languages | ||
Tags: Maintaining Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Mankogadaisuki Decaglot Newbie Brazil Joined 3907 days ago 5 posts - 6 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Spanish, Galician, Arabic (classical), Russian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, German | Message 1 of 22 16 March 2014 at 8:34pm | IP Logged |
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Hello everybody,
At the moment, I am studying actively the following languages: Japanese, English, Estonian, Russian and Chinese. I would like to know how you guys maintain a few languages working full-time five times a week. Please, also consider that I do not live in an environment where people speak any of those languages above. Regards 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5253 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 2 of 22 16 March 2014 at 9:37pm | IP Logged |
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First, welcome to the forum, Mankogadaisuki! There's a big difference in maintaining languages after you have learned them and maintaining studying languages that you haven't learned yet.
I will assume that you mean the latter. If that is the case, have a look at your fellow Brazilian Expugnator's log. He is a master of time management and juggling. Member, Serpent, is also quite adept at studying several languages simultaneously and gives good advice for those who would like to do that. Also, you should consider updating your profile to reflect the languages you "speak" and the ones you study. Looking at your profiles helps members to give you more informed advice. You can edit your languages by clicking "Portuguese" and then add a language. For example, by your post it looks as if you speak English. Boa sorte e bem-vindo ao forum! Edited by iguanamon on 16 March 2014 at 10:47pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
 DavidStyles Octoglot Pro Member United Kingdom Joined 3932 days ago 82 posts - 179 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Latin, French, Portuguese, Norwegian Studies: Mandarin, Russian, Swedish, Danish, Serbian, Arabic (Egyptian) Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 22 16 March 2014 at 11:02pm | IP Logged |
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Teaching them (or otherwise using them professionally) helps a lot ;)
If that's not an option or a desire of yours though, then watching regular TV/film in the relevant language helps a lot. This can be web TV, or it can be a DVD collection, or as in my case, both. Reading too, of course, and it is of great help to have at least one friend with whom you can converse in that language, be it nearby or electronically. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Mankogadaisuki Decaglot Newbie Brazil Joined 3907 days ago 5 posts - 6 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Spanish, Galician, Arabic (classical), Russian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, German | Message 4 of 22 17 March 2014 at 1:00am | IP Logged |
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I have just finished reading the most relevant part of Expugnator’s blog. He is indeed
a master of time management; however, I should, perhaps, reconsider whether I should drop one more language or not. I have already decided to not study German or Korean for now. @Iguanamon, the definition of “having learned a language” is complicated because it will vary according to the person. I can tell you that I am quite comfortable in a few languages for reading and comprehension. It is complicated for me to list the languages I speak since the only one I really speak is Brazilian Portuguese. Furthermore, I feel like I am always learning something new even in my mother tongue. I am always checking the words in the dictionary and learning new expressions that appear in the media, among young people etc. The other day I was reading an article about astrophysics in English and another one in Portuguese. I could understand in English, but not in Portuguese, despite the fact that the first language is not my mother tongue. My passive skills (writing and listening) are much better even in Portuguese, despite the fact that I have been trying to speak as much as I can; however, the “failure was not due to the lack of training because I speak in Portuguese every day. Brazilian people often say that it requires a “couple of years” for me to answer them (in Portuguese). Obviously it is much exaggerated, but the situation get worse in other languages. I can speak neither fast nor as well as I can understand or write. For example, as for Japanese, I can understand NHK (Japanese channel), read newspapers (Yomiuri Shinbun, Asahi Shinbun, Mainichi Shinbun), magazines, manga and watch movies or dramas without subtitles. If you ask me whether I can speak Japanese, I would answer ‘no’. So, I might ‘delete’ all the languages I have listed there soon again. Anyway, as DavidStyles said, I will try to continue watching things in Chinese, so that I won’t get totally rusty on that language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6588 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 5 of 22 17 March 2014 at 11:00am | IP Logged |
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Thanks, I really appreciate being recommended :)
Don't worry, we all know that speaking is a gradual thing. Speaks vs studies is more about what you've achieved so far than whether you're still learning the language. I'd say that apart from English, there's no default assumption that you're no longer studying the language. But with your level of English, it's also puzzling to see that you don't claim to speak it. There's also this thread, btw. In short: please don't delete your languages! Now as for the main question, it's an important topic to me and I've started a wikia article about that. One thing I've been meaning to add is how challenges help. Look around and you'll see various, like TAC (no, it's not too late to join! you'd be welcome in teams Advanced English and Exploradores among others), then there's also the 6 week challenge, Tadoku, Super Challenge (it starts in May and there's a prep challenge in April) and the small but cozy consistency thread. For most of these you need to choose your focus language(s), which can of course be different for every challenge. It's a great way to focus on something specific without neglecting other things. In general I don't think you should drop any of your languages. I'd say it's actually easier to manage 5-7 than 2-3, since if you're learning less than four languages, one will tend to dominate, to the point of excluding the others. But the "do something every day" idea is overrated. Your sessions need to be long enough to experience flow. Especially when you've already achieved a pretty high level or have a regular contact with a group of related languages (in my case it's most of the Romance ones), you won't lose your knowledge unless you take an extended break. (see this thread too) One more idea I like is focusing on one problem at a time, whether language-specific or something that several of your languages have in common. If you do SRS (or have a lot of cards but no longer do it), see this thread. Also, just like with your level, your learning intensity is also a sliding scale. It's fine to have hardcore sessions only once a month or so. Whatever works for you. Hope this helps :-) My own study patterns are best seen in my 6 week challenge stats, I think. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5157 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 6 of 22 17 March 2014 at 10:24pm | IP Logged |
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Welcome to the forum, Mankogadaisuki.
Perhaps looking at the descriptions of the CEFR may help you evaluate your level. If you can do what you said for your Japanese, then you have at least 'basic fluency' in it. That's how I'd describe my French: I'm far from being able to understand anything or say anything, but I can already make a good use of it. In the case of this forum, you can list a note as "Speaks' and keep studying it, it's perfectly normal for us. It's important to have an arsenal of 'extensive' actitivies you have on hold for whenever time break you may find around the day: reading a book or watching a video are the most common ones, but a lot of people like SRS such as Anki, Memrise or traditional flashcards. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6588 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 7 of 22 18 March 2014 at 9:22pm | IP Logged |
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Another member has started a similar thread. Cross-linking here because you'll both benefit from the advice the other person got.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4038 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch | Message 8 of 22 19 March 2014 at 10:14pm | IP Logged |
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Hi @serpent, it is not a case that I opened a
similar thread, since I did it after having read this one. My question is slightly different but I am following this one as well. Really interesting the thing you said talking about it is easier studying seven languages than three. However I was wondering how many of these can be new in a convenient way.I still don't know if it was a mistake starting three new languages or if I could add new ones. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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