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Learning languages simultaneously? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| souley Senior Member Joined 7240 days ago 178 posts - 177 votes  Speaks: Swedish* Studies: Arabic (Written), French | Message 9 of 22 10 February 2005 at 10:54am | IP Logged |
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Ardaschir, How far along do you believe a person should be in a language before he takes on another one?
Because I would like to start studying another language besides my target language, but dont know when to begin, as I am of course very eager, but dont want to mix them up of course. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7375 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes 12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 10 of 22 10 February 2005 at 11:28am | IP Logged |
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Souley, I am not Ardaschir but offers my two cents anyway:
Unless you are already proficient in many languages, it is not a good idea to spread your energy across several languages at the same time, no matter how eager you are to learn languages. This almost invariably results in not finishing any language. In English : "If you chase two rabbits, you will lose them both." 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7255 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes | Message 11 of 22 11 February 2005 at 8:29pm | IP Logged |
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If you are intelligent, have the right motivation, and above all are disciplined and learn in a structured enviornment, then it is not impossible to begin learning two languages at a time. However, it is generally not advisable for anyone to do this until they have already learned a handful of other languages well and thus developed an intuititve understanding of their brain's foreign language acquisition process. Before they get to this point, most people run a very serious risk of confusing any two languages they study simultaneously because they do not have proper mental categories for each one but rather put everything they learn into the single same mental category of "foreign language."
Well, I think there are three fundamental stages of foreign language acquisition. In the first stage, you are truly learning lots of new information - structure, sound, and words - in a phase of what might be termed passive acquistion. After a point you cross a line when you realize there are no grammatical points that you haven't seen before (not that you've mastered it all, but you have a complete theoretical overview) and you have built up a substantial core vocabuarly of thousands of words generally suitable for conversation. At this intermediate stage, you are in more active control of your learning, and you are polishing the various rough spots and weaknesses in your command. Later on, you may cross into a more advanced stage that will last the rest of your life, when you have a large enough vocabulary to begin enjoying literature and when you begin ironing out the external elements in your active command of the language because you have moved on to a stage of reflective refinement. I do not believe you should begin studying another language (is it Urdu?) until you have crossed that first line with your Arabic. How can you tell? Get a new and different teaching grammar of Arabic and work your way through it. If there is nothing you haven't met before, then you are ready to move on. If there is still new information (dual forms, etc.) to be digested, you will probably be better rewarded in the long run if you hold off on the next language for a bit longer. With Urdu, the better you know Arabic, the easier it will be, and if you should happen to learn Persian first, it will be no challenge at all. Edited by Ardaschir on 11 February 2005 at 8:37pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | |
| souley Senior Member Joined 7240 days ago 178 posts - 177 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: Arabic (Written), French | Message 12 of 22 11 February 2005 at 9:36pm | IP Logged |
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Thank you for your response Ardaschir. Have you yourself studied Urdu? And if so, for how long and what were your thoughts on the language?
Please do respond to my PM I sent you today/day before, would be very interested to hear your thoughts. Kind Regards 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| van2209 Newbie Joined 7224 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes | Message 13 of 22 12 February 2005 at 2:28pm | IP Logged |
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Hi everyone,
I'm new to this forum, but I stumbled on this website a while ago. I've also been very confused about whether to learn more than one language at a time (I've been studying French and Portuguese separately, on and off for several years). I thought it might be a bad idea until I found that there are many academic programs that encourage this and have produced students who communicate well in their chosen languages. I'm not just talking about programs for children, but also university programs where people major in more than language. I also should have solved my dilemma by looking at an example right at home. My dad learned French and Arabic (without majoring in them and without prior knowledge of them) at university, is fluent in them and has worked professionally with these languages. I'm certainly not an expert, but I'll make a suggestion anyway  . If you really need or want to learn more than one language at once, go ahead and keep adapting your learning plan to challenges you face along the way and noting the biggest areas of confusion. If you can't handle it, then just focus on one. At the end of the day, realise that in this (and almost all areas of life), no one can be 100% certain of what will work for each individual. Even experts on languages have disagreements and our knowledge of how the brain works is still evolving.
Good luck! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7375 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes 12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 14 of 22 12 February 2005 at 3:46pm | IP Logged |
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Welcome to our forum van2209,
Yes indeed, many of us have been confronted by the wish to learn several languages at the same time. In earlier discussions it seems the consensus was that if this is your first foreign language(s), it is probably not a great idea to divide your efforts across several languages. Better go with all you got after one language, then move to another when you have reach a satisfactory level in the first one. If you study languages at University like branches and have a lot of time to study, perhaps you can fit two languages at the same time. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ElComadreja Senior Member Philippines bibletranslatio Joined 7237 days ago 683 posts - 757 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Cebuano, French, Tagalog | Message 15 of 22 12 February 2005 at 3:55pm | IP Logged |
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I think you also have to evaluate yourself and see if you are getting multiple languages confused. For me, if they are far enough apart, I'll go ahead and try it. I learned some japanse while i was learning spanish, but something like spanish & portugese at the same time is a mess.
But, I threw out japanese at a point, so i could devote double the time to spanish. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Bradley Groupie United States Joined 7222 days ago 55 posts - 56 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 16 of 22 15 February 2005 at 10:52am | IP Logged |
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It is clear that a beginner should not start two languages concurrently, but it is alright for a beginner to start a second language once he/she reaches the intermediate point in the first language?? What exactly constitutes Intermediate? Would this be finishing all three levels of Pimsleur? or what would be the sign that it is alright to begin a new language?
1 person has voted this message useful |
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