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Getting back into languages?

 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center Post Reply
neok
Newbie
United Kingdom
Joined 4205 days ago

14 posts - 17 votes
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 1 of 6
09 March 2014 at 4:43pm | IP Logged 
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 4634 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 
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 4080 days ago

818 posts - 1189 votes 
Speaks: English
Studies: German

 
 Message 3 of 6
09 March 2014 at 6:28pm | IP Logged 
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 5980 days ago

1485 posts - 2002 votes 
Speaks: English*, Japanese
Studies: French, German

 
 Message 4 of 6
09 March 2014 at 7:08pm | IP Logged 
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 5907 days ago

791 posts - 1053 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, English
Studies: Japanese

 
 Message 5 of 6
09 March 2014 at 7:47pm | IP Logged 
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 6701 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 
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!


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