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Switching short intensive periods | ||
Tags: Learning Strategy | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| guiguixx1 Octoglot Senior Member Belgium guillaumelp.wordpres Joined 4093 days ago 163 posts - 207 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Dutch, Portuguese, Esperanto, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Polish, Mandarin | Message 1 of 12 21 February 2015 at 10:12pm | IP Logged |
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I don't know if my topic has already been dealt with, but I haven't found anything
about it... After trying different strategies (focusing 100% on one single language for several months; studying many languages at the same time, and everyday; ...) I am tempted to try another method: I seem to learn better when I focus on only one language, and seem to really make impressive progress when focusing extremely on only one language, even though I love using different languages everyday, and I am the sort of person who likes changes (I for example prefer to study 2 exams instead of 1 during one day in my study period). Thus, I was wondering if I would not try to study one single language hard (for now I'm doing intensive Dutch) and, instead of doing that for a couple of months, changing the language every coupld of weeks (maybe 4 weeks, max 6, I haven't really thought about a precise number). I would thus change regularly, changing from strong language (Dutch currently at C1) to weaker ones like Spanish for example (currently at +-B1), of German/Italien (currently at +-A2). Has anyone tried it? If yes, what happened regarding the levels in the other languages? and what happened regarding the level obtained after those intensive weeks, and how did the languages evolve after switching the language? BTW, when I say "intensive study", I mean spending most of the free time using the language, reading 1-2 hours a day, and more if it's possible of course, listening to the radio when walking, and talking to ourself in the language as well (something that has helped my English and Dutch (and even Spanish) immensely). The goal is thus to be immersed in the language, at such a point that words and phrases are flying when going to sleep and we just can't stop this flow and can't sleep before an hour in bed. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| liam.pike1 Groupie Australia Joined 3755 days ago 84 posts - 122 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto, French | Message 2 of 12 22 February 2015 at 12:03am | IP Logged |
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Ah, I'll be doing French and Spanish simultaneously now, so I'll be interested to get some responses from the
forum members... 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7206 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 3 of 12 22 February 2015 at 1:39am | IP Logged |
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I will be very interested in how this goes for you.
I would also like to hear your testimony on the "one language for several months" and "studying may languages at the same time eveyday" went for you. Also, did your results differ from what you expected? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6583 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 4 of 12 22 February 2015 at 9:15am | IP Logged |
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Seems pretty sensible. I'm sure nothing will happen to your "neglected" languages in a couple of weeks. I've neglected languages for up to a year with so significant adverse effects.
Another thing you can try, which is the direction I've been going towards, is having one "focus language" at a time, meaning you spend most of the study time on that signle language, but doing a little bit in your other languages, to break the monotony and keep them developing slowly at the side. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| guiguixx1 Octoglot Senior Member Belgium guillaumelp.wordpres Joined 4093 days ago 163 posts - 207 votes Speaks: French*, English, Dutch, Portuguese, Esperanto, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Polish, Mandarin | Message 5 of 12 22 February 2015 at 11:34am | IP Logged |
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@luke:
To answer you first question: When I began learning language, the first language I studied was English, and I wasn't at all into more than English at the moment. I just had to improve it for school. I did an intensive period, but I don't recall the precise duration. It was somewhere in a year, and I progressively began speaking all the time in English (I liked it actually), and I began to read books, progressively, because my level was very weak at the beginning. But after some time I went so far as to read min 100 pages (harry potter) a day, for every single day of my holidays (christmas, and all the others). So of course, if you read in the 1500 pages in 2 weeks, and you spend 90% of your day doing that, something HAS to happen. I also watched all harry potters, and after something like one year, I went from +- A2 (maybe even less actually) to somewhere in the B2. a year or so after that, when I saw no more improvement in my English, and was weak in Dutch, I did the same (although with less motivation, and it took far more time). It took me maybe 2 years to go from A1-A2 to a weak B2. To answer to your second question, I tried recently to study up to 8 languages (English , C1, university; Dutch, C1, university; Spanish, B1, 1 course a week at the uni; Italian, A2, 1 course a week at the uni + a bit of reading and podcast; German, A2, 1 course a week at the uni+ mostly podcast; ancien greec, 1 course a week at the uni; latin (total beginner), 1 course a week at the uni; and finally esperanto, a bit of lernu, on average 20 min a day) I tried this for 2 weeks before stopping. I realised that 1) I didn't have the time to work on them every day (and manage my normal study programme) and 2) I didn't improve at all in most languages (latin, ancien greec, esperanto, Spanish). I just noticed a slight progress in Italian and German, the languages I most focused on. Seeing this, I decided to use my time better and drop the weak languages to focus on only 1. Furthermore, because of some problems, I have to take 40% more courses in my study programme, and cannot afford much time for more languages @Ari: I could try that, but I think that, to improve enough, I need to really focus on just one. If I worked, for example, on 30 min of some language, along with a hard focus on another one, I don't think the 30 min be useful. I tried this 6 months ago (full focus on German while studying 20-30 min of Italian, and realized I never retained anything the next day...) Of course, all those experiences work that way for me. It could, however, work for other people, such as Moses (laoshu), whose multiple-languages-at-the-same-time work perfectly So I realize that, to notice masse improvement, I need to bombard my brain with one single language. I have done it for a couple of days, and had problems falling asleep yesterday, because I had sentences making themselves in my mind, and couldn't stop wondering which article went with some words when I had hesitations, or how to translate some words. I have had the same thing whenever I focused a lot on a language, be it English, Dutch, Spanish, or German 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4522 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 6 of 12 23 February 2015 at 12:22am | IP Logged |
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Why such long periods between changes, 4-6 weeks sounds like sports periodization? Does it
take you so long to get into the flow? I'm naturally switching between target languages more or less randomly, with periods ranging from days to weeks (like "watch a TV series" or "read a book", then move on). But my workload also fluctuates quite a bit depending on outside factors and current interest. Not sure if there is an optimum span... (I personally don't care much though). Edited by daegga on 23 February 2015 at 12:25am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| guiguixx1 Octoglot Senior Member Belgium guillaumelp.wordpres Joined 4093 days ago 163 posts - 207 votes Speaks: French*, English, Dutch, Portuguese, Esperanto, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Polish, Mandarin | Message 7 of 12 23 February 2015 at 12:31am | IP Logged |
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Well, I only need a couple of days to get into
the flow (I'd say 2, max 3) but getting into the flow is one thing, using it to make significant progress is another one. Furthermore, you can indeed easily get into the flow within a day in languages you can already handle, if you want to just read a book, but what about a language where you are at A2, or even A1? Not sure that studying it by 3—days periods would be long enough to remember the language and assimil its grammar. During the summer holiday I had the opportunity to take part to a 19-day event in the Netherland, with other student from all over the world, all learning Dutch as well, and teachers. The golden rule was to use only Dutch. Well, I quickly got into the flow, but I still had to wait for some time to begin noticing the progress. It's only by the end of the stay that I realized I was having difficulties using English as I could do before the stay. That's where I realized how much easier it was for me to use Dutch. So it did take me something like 2 weeks. Edited by guiguixx1 on 23 February 2015 at 12:42am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| guiguixx1 Octoglot Senior Member Belgium guillaumelp.wordpres Joined 4093 days ago 163 posts - 207 votes Speaks: French*, English, Dutch, Portuguese, Esperanto, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Polish, Mandarin | Message 8 of 12 24 February 2015 at 9:36am | IP Logged |
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Has anybody tried intensive periods with varying lengths of time and varying levels in
the language? It is true that having very short intensive periods (1-2 days) can be useful in a strong language that hasn't been used for a long time, but it wouldn't be useful with weak language... For that, a period of several weeks, or rather several months, and no shorter, would be useful 1 person has voted this message useful |
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