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Getting back into languages? | ||
Tags: Brushing up a language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| neok Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4208 days ago 14 posts - 17 votes Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 6 09 March 2014 at 4:43pm | IP Logged |
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About 9 months a go I took a break from learning languages. At the time I was studying
Russian, Egyptian Arabic and Portuguese. 9 months has passed by and I think that I am ready to start learning again. I've decided to drop Russian for now and focus on just Egyptian Arabic and Portuguese. But the problem is that I've forgotten a large amount of what I learnt 9 months a go and I'm not sure if I should carry on from where I was 9 months a go or start all over again. I can remember some of the stuff that I learnt and that would be a disadvantage of starting again, I would just be learning a large amount of things that I already know. What would be best to do? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4637 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 2 of 6 09 March 2014 at 5:17pm | IP Logged |
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What would you say your level was when you stopped? If you were still a beginner, you'd probably have to start all over again because regardless of what you think you've retained, there's probably a lot more that you forget. If you were intermediate, just pick up where you left off.
3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 4083 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 3 of 6 09 March 2014 at 6:28pm | IP Logged |
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For written material, I would start again. If you have retained some of the stuff, it
will just be a fast review (go as fast as you can). Reviews are always good :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5983 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 4 of 6 09 March 2014 at 7:08pm | IP Logged |
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I would start off where you left off, at least to start with. After a couple of weeks of exposure/study, you will probably find you can recall more than you thought was initially possible, while at the same time the specific areas that you really will need to go back and relearn should become more obvious to you, so that you can better target your revision. Good luck!
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5910 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 5 of 6 09 March 2014 at 7:47pm | IP Logged |
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I would start from scratch, and just see how it goes. That should give you a better idea of whether you need the review or if you should pick up where you left off instead. If you feel like the stuff you're reviewing is boring or too easy, skim through it or skip it and move on. If you feel like you've never seen it before, you should probably review it :-) As long as it doesn't bore you, it won't hurt you to go through the same thing twice...
Liz 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 6 10 March 2014 at 12:04am | IP Logged |
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I was in the samw situation as you in 2006, except that my pause had lasted 25 years. My advice would be to track the exact same textbooks which you used last you studied and then use them to establish a link back to something you already have learnt, but just forgotten. And after a dose of this then proceed to simple genuine texts with a translation to get the positive feeling that you can understand your old target language with a little help. With speech (podcasts etc) a transcript will be useful, and it has the same function, namely to reestablish your feeling of having læearnt sometyhing.
And THEN start from scratch again! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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