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What are your hairy goals? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6604 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 41 of 111 15 August 2014 at 12:29am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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In Danish
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| JClangue Newbie Canada Joined 3763 days ago 15 posts - 20 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Catalan | Message 42 of 111 15 August 2014 at 7:49pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I've only dabbled in a few languages but I want to get an intermediate level, about B2
level, in five languages in a year. Is this possible? French, Spanish, German, Mandarin, and Portuguese. I've really been motivated by some of the polyglots I've seen post here and ready to get started! First post! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5341 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 43 of 111 15 August 2014 at 8:03pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Welcome to the forum :-) And no, it s probably not possible, but go ahead and try anyway. If you succeed you will be our new hero :-) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| JClangue Newbie Canada Joined 3763 days ago 15 posts - 20 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Catalan | Message 44 of 111 15 August 2014 at 8:23pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
May I ask why it isn't possible? I don't know how to change my second language from Catalan to French but I'm probably at a B1 level for French after taking a few college classes. And I've had like 100 hours of speaking practice on skype with native speakers. Wouldn't my French knowledge help me learn Spanish and Portuguese to B2 relatively quickly? It'd be nice to do it quickly. So inspired by how fast some people master languages! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7163 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 45 of 111 15 August 2014 at 8:35pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I think that Solfrid meant to say that it's possible but not probable. You'd raise your chances of success by interacting a lot with native speakers (either via expats, Skype or extended travel) and sticking to daily exposure/study in these languages on your own or in classes. Knowing French would help you indeed in picking up Spanish and Portuguese, but define "relatively quickly". Do you mean you think that you can do it in 6 months whereas someone without that background could do it in 1 year? Do you mean 1 year versus 2 years in someone else? Also keep in mind that as much as you can depend on similarities, you'll have to be aware of false friends and not end up learning Spanish and Portuguese with French interference. That is, beware of using French as a crutch to the point where what you produce in Spanish or Portuguese comes out with syntax, stylistic choices, gender agreement being grammatical in French but turn out to be rare if not ungrammatical in Spanish or Portuguese. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5243 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 46 of 111 15 August 2014 at 9:07pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
It really is doubtful, but, it would depend on the time you plan to study. If we use the standard Foreign Service Institute (US Government) estimates for hours to learn a language. A copy here French - 600 hours Spanish - 600 hours Portuguese - 600 hours Mandarin - 2200 hours German - 900 hours So you'd be looking at 4900 hours of study. If you studied for 8 hours a day, every day, then you'd complete 4900 hours of study in only 612.5 days, and there are only 365 days in a year. You'd have to study for 16 hours per day to do it in under 365 days. The other problem you would encounter is something we like to call "Interference" this basically means you'll start to confuse words and mix them together. For example my Italian frequently interferes when I'm speaking to my French tutor because the odd Italian word will pop into my head and out of my mouth. Interference is a real problem, especially if you're learning closely related languages. Personally I'd advise you to perhaps start Mandarin & French. They are completely separate and distinct language families and you'd be unlikely to confuse them. Mandarin take so much longer to learn you can run it in parallel with learning others. Of course you can short-cut a lot of work in Mandarin for example if you only learn to speak, not write or read Hanzi so that wouldn't be B2 since B2 users need to use text. Don't forget B2 is a vantage user: - Can understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in his/her field of specialisation. - Can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without strain for either party. - Can produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects and explain a viewpoint on a topical issue giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options. The thing to remember is the distance between the CELF levels. But an example I like of the journey might be like this Person lives in Los Angeles. Point 0. 0->A1 Drive one block to starbucks. A1->A2 Drive from Starbucks to city limits. A2->B1 Drive to Nevada state line. B1->B2 Drive from Nevada to Ohio. B2->C1 Drive from Ohio to Peking. C1->C2 Drive from Peking to Mars. I don't think any one here wants to squash your enthusiasm but B2 in 5 languages is going to be really hard even in 5-10 years. But if you want to go for it, who am I to stop you! Start a log and you'll get encouragement here. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| JClangue Newbie Canada Joined 3763 days ago 15 posts - 20 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Catalan | Message 47 of 111 15 August 2014 at 10:06pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Thanks for the help guys! I get really motivated seeing the videos that Timothy Doner and
Benny Lewis post online. They speak really fluidly and some native speakers write that they have really good accents to boot. Maybe B2 in 1.5 years then. Intereference is real but learning related things will help more than it will hurt. I think about examples like playing related instruments like the violin and the viola. Or similar college degrees like chemistry and biology. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5137 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 48 of 111 15 August 2014 at 10:18pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
From time to time we see claims of people learning multiple languages to a conversational in a year, but in practice, they're not really successful with getting all their languages up to the same level. There's been talk of Gabriel Wyner learning four languages to a B2 or above level, but even he has stated elsewhere that it took him "a few years". Yes, you'll have some discount learning other romance languages, but I don't know of anyone learning Mandarin to a B2 level in a year unless they're immersed in-country. I think the more important question is: Why the rush? R. == 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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