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Learning many languages simultaneously | ||
Tags: Simultaneous study | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| hp230 Tetraglot Newbie TunisiaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3628 days ago 30 posts - 63 votes  Speaks: German, Arabic (classical)*, French, English | Message 1 of 18 29 January 2015 at 7:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
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This may be an odd question but can we set a limit for the number of languages that someone can learn at the same time? How efficient would that be? Does that depend on the languages learned? and what are the qualifications needed to do so?
I've learned from somewhere on the internet that 2 languages is the maximum number to assure the efficiency and quality of learning Is that true? I know - arguably - that one language at a time would be the perfect case but can we hope to do more? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4571 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 2 of 18 29 January 2015 at 7:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
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You can do as many as you can handle. Some people can manage 30 at a time, some people can't even manage one.
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| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6532 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 3 of 18 30 January 2015 at 12:35am | IP Logged | |||||
It does. Ideally you need a background in linguistics or at least a practical understanding of how languages work and evolve. More importantly, you need to have a passion for more or less all your languages, otherwise you'll keep adding new ones because they're so shiny.
Don't believe what you read on the internet. And don't ask one place on the internet to confirm or deny what you read at another one. There's nothing inherently perfect about learning only one language at a time. This limits the synergy. And by this logic you're never "done" even with your native language. See also: Prof Argüelles biography, deciding whether you should learn several languages at once. I personally chose to start more or less all languages I have a serious interest in before the age of 20. (I'm 24 now) 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4379 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 4 of 18 30 January 2015 at 1:18am | IP Logged | |||||
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Learning languages isn't an exact science. Every time the idea of numbers comes up, the name Moses
McCormick also comes up. He tends to study languages in pairs of 4 or 5. He may not be at the native level in any of them but has an interest of keeping the number high. 1 day Moses can be studying Chinese, Japanese, Georgian, Turkish and another day he would be doing Korean, Arabic, Spanish, etc. Some of these languages may be related or from totally different families. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| smallwhite Pentaglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5243 days ago 537 posts - 1045 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish | Message 5 of 18 30 January 2015 at 3:51am | IP Logged | |||||
You probably mean Luca the Italian polyglot. Luca used to say it's best to learn 1 language at a time, but later changed to say that 2 at a time was possible/better/best/??? (I forgot what he said). I don't know if that magic number is true. Has Luca changed again lately? 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| robarb Nonaglot Senior Member United States languagenpluson Joined 4994 days ago 361 posts - 921 votes Speaks: Portuguese, English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, French Studies: Mandarin, Danish, Russian, Norwegian, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Greek, Latin, Nepali, Modern Hebrew | Message 6 of 18 30 January 2015 at 5:18am | IP Logged | |||||
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Definitely not true that 1 at a time or 2 at a time is best in general. It depends on your motivation, goals, time,
relationship among your languages, learning methods... My personal strategy is a cumulative one: I don't really stop studying a language, I just keep adding new ones and continue to study all of them simultaneously. I'm up to 21 now and I haven't yet had to drop studying a language completely. Of course, in any given month I spend far more time with some of my languages than others, for example when I'm traveling, reading a novel, or working through a series of lessons in one or a few of my languages. But I don't ever pick a small set to the total exclusion of the others. This cumulative strategy doesn't seem to be very popular and probably isn't right for everyone. But it works pretty well for me. I'm pretty confident I would have less success if I limited my studying to 1 or 2 at a time. At the very least, it's certainly better to do 1 hour of the primary language and 1 hour divided among the others, than to do 1 hour of the primary language and nothing else. So arguing that fewer is better presupposes that you'd be able to get yourself to dedicate all the same amount of time to the primary language. That's not the case, however, when I'm working through beginner-level material in a new language (mentally tiring) while also listening to podcasts in a stronger language (easy, can do while washing dishes). 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| hp230 Tetraglot Newbie TunisiaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3628 days ago 30 posts - 63 votes Speaks: German, Arabic (classical)*, French, English | Message 7 of 18 30 January 2015 at 7:29am | IP Logged | |||||
Yes that's probably it, but I can't answer your question hhhh ? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| hp230 Tetraglot Newbie TunisiaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3628 days ago 30 posts - 63 votes Speaks: German, Arabic (classical)*, French, English | Message 8 of 18 30 January 2015 at 7:41am | IP Logged | |||||
Thanks for your post; I'm now 21, and I'm so excited about learning new languages, I admit I don't have enough experience studying languages without a tutor (I only started German last year) but I am so satisfied about the level I reached.I just want to start an adventure to learn 2 or 3 languages this summer, so I wanted to ask about what should I prepare for this adventure.(I'm going for Russian Japanese and Italian) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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