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Language retention | ||
Tags: Maintaining Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| arkady Bilingual Diglot Groupie United States rightconditi Joined 5402 days ago 54 posts - 61 votes  Speaks: English*, Russian* Studies: German | Message 1 of 17 11 February 2010 at 8:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hello!
I have a general question to all of you who have learned and are able to converse in another language. If you are not able to speak the language on a regular basis, but have achieved some modicum of fluency, how do you make sure that the time you spent does not go to waste? For instance I speak fluent Russian because I was born there, but even though I live in America, Russian is still spoken within the family. However my Russian is getting weaker all the time and I find myself injecting English words as substitutes, even my dad is starting to speak more English with me. So if I am starting to forget my native tongue, how in the world am I going to retain a newly acquired language? I am learning German now because of random historical ambitions, but am beginning to realize that this will be a serious investment if I plan to be able to converse in it. Yet there is no one around me that speaks German, so if I do get past all the lessons and learn it, how can I make sure this time does not go to waste? Ultimately I would like to know German and Spanish. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5455 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 2 of 17 11 February 2010 at 9:00pm | IP Logged | ||
You will just have to revive your dying languages from time to time by using them; speaking, reading, listening to the radio, watching TV, writing, etc. You forget, but I don't think you will loose a language completely. It will slowly come back when you start using the language actively again. And this process will be a lot faster and easier than when you learnt the language in the first place. I don't think you should worry too much about the fact that you are using a lot of English words now that you live in America. If you move back to Russia, the Russian words will come back in a few days, I think. Edited by tractor on 11 February 2010 at 9:05pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6013 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 3 of 17 11 February 2010 at 9:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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You never lose anything 100% -- things will come back to you with relatively little effort when you get an opportunity to use a language.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6584 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 4 of 17 11 February 2010 at 9:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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The classic tip is to find a routine for doing something in the language. I listen to Les Nouveaux Chemins de la
Connaissance on Radio France Culture for 50 minutes every weekday to keep my French going. I never really read anything in French anymore, though, so my spelling is likely to be crap. But that's easily revived. In the end, I find learning a language to be more fun than knowing a language. Knowing French is mostly a bother; I feel like I need to keep it maintained even though I have no use for it. I'll probably want to travel to France at some point, though, so letting it go seems a waste. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| arkady Bilingual Diglot Groupie United States rightconditi Joined 5402 days ago 54 posts - 61 votes Speaks: English*, Russian* Studies: German | Message 5 of 17 11 February 2010 at 9:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the inpute folks, that is definitely comforting, as it would be a rather unfortunate and bitter realization to know that all the hard work went down the drain.
tractor: I would never move back to Russia, although I certainly might visit. It would be interesting if they could determine whether I have an accent. Some newly arrived Russians have remarked that my Russian seems to have a slight English accent to it, but that is a trivial peculiarity. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| chucknorrisman Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5450 days ago 321 posts - 435 votes Speaks: Korean*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, Mandarin, Lithuanian, French | Message 6 of 17 11 February 2010 at 9:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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I agree that doing something in the language is very helpful.
I think that studying languages related to or has a lot of vocabulary from the language you want to maintain could also possibly be helpful. I am currently studying Chinese, and since Korean has a lot of Chinese loan words, I study the Korean counterparts of each Chinese letters as I study the characters. Edited by chucknorrisman on 11 February 2010 at 9:34pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| canada38 Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5497 days ago 304 posts - 417 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Japanese | Message 7 of 17 11 February 2010 at 10:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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You won't completely forget Russian any time soon. I stopped studying French a few years
back, and although I have forgotten some complex grammar and technical vocabulary, I can still express myself with ease. For German, of course at first you'll have to start small with basic books and films etc.; the subject of these depending on the materials available to you. On the other hand, you'll always be able to enjoy Russian news, books and the like without having to decide if you have enough skill yet. My point: You want to learn German, so reading a boring easy novel won't be a chore because you like the language. Russian is your native language, so it won't be too exciting to study it, but you can do ordinary things like watch the news online in Russian effortlessly to retain your language skills. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5432 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 8 of 17 12 February 2010 at 12:00am | IP Logged | ||
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We all know the old saw, "Use it or lose it." This applies to languages like anything else. But, as others have pointed
out here, if your level of proficiency was really high, it will come back quickly when you are again immersed in the language. In the meantime, you have to work at it. What I have found useful for Spanish is a product called the Language calendar available from a Canadian company www(dot)langal(dot)com. I have it up on the wall in front of me, and it allows me to maintain my Spanish by looking at phrases everyday. Of course, it's not like a trip to Spain or Mexico but it helps a lot. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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