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One language at a time? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4280 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 33 of 40 19 July 2013 at 12:57am | IP Logged | ||
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This week I decided to do five languages simultaneously, which requires quite a large
amount of time. I usually do afternoon of trying to get Spanish to C2, do Dutch grammar, then Italian grammar, then watch television, which is Spanish news, and a break to watch the Ashes cricket from SkySports (my only English source currently). After dinner, I start some more Portuguese, then around 23h00 the new addition is trying to get French to seriously advance from where I started earlier. I started French in secondary school, but stopped after starting university around 2007. My grammar was scattered and at that point probably generous to be B1, and I never had tried to improve due to time spent on university. I think this link is what inspired me this week however: http://www.cicnews.com/2013/07/quebec-announces-major-immigr ation-programs- 072652.html Thus, five languages in one day, from approximately 12h00 noon to 01h00-02h00 in the morning. It seems fine, only quite rigourous, but I was wondering if anyone else has done this type of schedule, and what their advice would be for such a schedule. Edited by 1e4e6 on 19 July 2013 at 1:02am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4999 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 34 of 40 19 July 2013 at 7:06am | IP Logged | ||
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Good luck with keeping to that. If you manage to do this for longer time, your results will surely be awesome!
The only time when I was able to spend 6+ hours on languages, and on two or three, was when I was spending at least part of the time on less intensive activities. A day like this: reading an English book, than working on the French grammar, than watching a tv series in Spanish. Such diversity in activities helps a lot. Are you going to make a log? I'd be interested to read about your progress (And you might feel good because of all the admiration received:-) ) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4134 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 35 of 40 25 July 2013 at 3:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm focusing on one at a time, because I prefer to "immerse" myself (Can't really immerse
myself, since I'm not in a Spanish-speaking community, but I do my best to simulate immersion). If I were learning more than one language at a beginner/early intermediate level, I'd probably lose momentum. I think that once you've reached a certain point, you can continue learning/maintaining languages and add a new one - but for me, I think I'd rather just add one new one at a time. Edited by Stelle on 25 July 2013 at 3:16pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Retinend Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4298 days ago 283 posts - 557 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), French | Message 36 of 40 25 August 2014 at 11:38pm | IP Logged | ||
I'm bumping this thread for a little humble pie. Regarding this post of mine:
After now experiencing the advantages of the alternative, I would like to say that I now disagree with myself and agree with Serpent and Tarvos that "one language at a time" is not as good as simultaneous study. I first interpreted Serpent's "burnout" as being a literal inability to continue working. But "burnout" can be more subtle. Even with the greatest passion for a language, your burnout will accrue unless you refresh yourself by switching activities and languages. Little distracted moments are much more infrequent when you limit yourself to (in my case) just 15 minutes at a time. There's a lot of wisdom in the commonplace "a change is as good as a rest." I no longer believe that it's irrelevant how much time the proverbial 1000 hours of study is spread across. Now that I can compare German, I language I've learned for a couple of years now, with Spanish, a language I've only learned for 7 months, it's clear to me that real familiarity simply does take time. Specifically, the time I've spend on both languages is comparable, with German at 300 hours ahead of Spanish, yet my knowledge of German is indescribably more "settled," in a way that cannot be compared with the Spanish words which I had no acquaintance with before 7 months today. I always knew about the findings of Ebbinghaus, the psychologist of memory, yet I allowed myself to forget the clear lesson of the forgetting curve (as applied by SRS enthusiasts/ memrise/ Goldlist enthusiasts), because I was obsessed with working as intensely as possible on one language: German. But now I regret disregarding "digestion time" for languages and warnings on this forum of "overlearning." These are, I now appreciate, serious considerations if you want to see the best results. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6587 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 37 of 40 26 August 2014 at 1:17am | IP Logged | ||
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Good to hear!
And hm interesting, so maybe I could've developed burnout even with Finnish if I hadn't also been learning English, German, Latin and later Ukrainian. This never felt like taking a break from Finnish (and I was learning all but Ukrainian at the lyceum), but now I wonder if this was more significant than I realized back then. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4434 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 38 of 40 26 August 2014 at 11:38am | IP Logged | ||
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This is an question posted a while ago. You get different answers from different people. The polyglot
Moses McCormick tends to study languages in groups of 4 or 5 at a time. Studying languages is a time consuming process. Most people like myself don't have the time to study more than 1 at a time. If you spend just an hour with a language, 5 would add up to 5 hours of your day. I normally prefer to get a language up to an upper intermediate or lower advance level before starting the next. If I'm not comfortable watching local TV or listen to the radio, then I'm not finished with a language. Otherwise you end up with half-dozen languages on your list but you are not fluent in any of them. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Retinend Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4298 days ago 283 posts - 557 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), French | Message 39 of 40 27 August 2014 at 10:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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If I understand you - I think that yes it would take a certain bravery to commit to a
program of study that will stretch over years and ultimately decades. But if you have the confidence (say, from previous language learning success), the solidity of lifestyle and the farsightedness, I would say that, yes, even dividing up one study hour into two study blocks for two different languages. Because of reasons I mentioned, I believe that you advantage yourself if you deliberately increase the overall time frame in which you assimilate the contents of your study (mainly Ebbinghaus's insight). Serpent - if it's relevant, I personally consider a switching of activity enough to "renew" your concentration (compared with continuing on with the same one, for longer) even if it's a different activity within the same language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4697 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 40 of 40 27 August 2014 at 11:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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I would clarify that I do focus on one language, but don't neglect other ones. They are a
part of my life and there's no reason to cut them out entirely. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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