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Brain interference | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6593 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 1 of 8 09 December 2006 at 7:27am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm remembering something from the book Mozart's Brain and the Fighter Pilot, by Richard M. Restak. The book is all about getting the most out of your brain, and Restak is a neurologist and psychologist, I think. It was a while ago I listened to it (I have it on audio), and I never went through the whole thing, but I do remember him talking about interference in the brain, and I remembered it now when thinking about the interference when learning different languages.
What he said was this: the brain uses different centres for doing different things. Working on an algebraic equation engages different areas than playing Quake. When we learn something, it is connected to the part of the brain that is activated when we use our skills. The learning uses not only the memory parts, but also the parts used when engaging in the activity (tremble before my neuroscientific vocabulary!). In essence, the learning of, for example, vocabulary engages not only the memory areas, but the language areas as well (of course). In his book, Restak warns that you shouldn't do two learning activities that use the same brain space right after each other, since the brain "lags behind" a bit with the learning. Basically, just as your language centre is trying to sort out all that you've recently learned in Spanish, to send it to the memory centre, you're telling it to start interpreting some German. No wonder they get mixed up! Your brain will have to send the info about Spanish to the memory and work on German at the same time. According to Restak, this can hamper your learning. The solution, then, is to allow the language centre to sort out your Spanish in peace for about an hour, after which it'll be ready to tackle the German. This intermediate hour should utilize a completely different part of the brain. Tetris, for example, is all about shapes and spatial intelligence, and should have little to do with your language centre. The reason I'm babbling on about this is that I've read several accounts on these forums about how you can keep up your interest by switching languages every half hour. According to Restak (as I interpret and remember him), this is madness. The imprints will get mixed up and you will learn less. So, my question is: you who have had problems with mixing up the languages, have you maybe studied them too close toghether in time? I'm just parrotting the author here, and have no idea if this is all true, but it might be something to have in mind. I've read it somewhere on this forum that after having gotten a bit on the road to mastery of a language, the brain allocates a certain space for it, which would probably be the reason why you don't mix up vocab as easily when you're advanced enough. Thoughts? Comments? Does all this seem reasonable to the polyglots (or psychologists and neuroscientists) of the board? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Alijsh Tetraglot Senior Member Iran jahanshiri.ir/ Joined 6633 days ago 149 posts - 167 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Persian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: German, Italian | Message 2 of 8 09 December 2006 at 1:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yes, Ari. The right and left parts have different extent of role on different actions. If I remember rightly, the part dealing with music abilities differs from that of math and language. It is said that if you do things that use both parts effectively, your brain ability dramatically increases.
And in the learning techniques, I have frequently read that there should be an interval between learning similar materials. Personally, I don't always do this. To sum up, I think the most important thing is to review what you have already learned. If you do so, I think you can learn everything together :D Edited by Alijsh on 09 December 2006 at 10:14pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Polyglot2005 Senior Member United States Joined 7199 days ago 184 posts - 185 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 3 of 8 09 December 2006 at 8:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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Ari, that is an interesting post. I've heard of the book before and remember it because of its unique title. I'm going to have to find this at my library.
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| Timbaland Newbie United States Joined 6578 days ago 36 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English* | Message 4 of 8 09 December 2006 at 10:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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I find it effective to take a slight break before switching languages when learning them. One of the things I learned in college was the value of subconscious processing, or "sleeping on it", as the phrase goes.
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 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6714 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 5 of 8 11 December 2006 at 3:46am | IP Logged | ||
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"The proof of the pudding is in the eating". If I felt that switching between languages hampered my learning I would immediately stop doing it, but I feel the opposite: when I have been doing dictionary exercises in for instance Greek, then I relax for instance by reading a bit of Spanish or watching Italian TV news afterwards. Even worse, I often do two or three activities at the same time in different languages. For instance I might be listening to Spanish TVE on one of my TV sets, on my other TV there is a programme running silently with Danish subtitles, and on top of that I could be posting in English in this forum. Apart from the incessant knocking on my door by people who are coming to take me away to the nearest lunatic asylum ha ha I have felt no negative effects of this way of life.
Edited by Iversen on 11 December 2006 at 4:31am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6593 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 6 of 8 11 December 2006 at 4:40am | IP Logged | ||
Ah, but here you're varying Greek with Italian, English and Spanish, all of which you already know, according to your profile, which would mean that there's already a brain centre specified for those languages. So interference wouldn't occur. And besides, you might be enough of a polyglot for this effect not to be noticeable, as it has been pointed out by many that once you know enough languages, doing several at once is no longer a problem. I'm not saying the book is right about it, just that your claim doesn't really disprove it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6714 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 7 of 8 11 December 2006 at 5:39am | IP Logged | ||
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You may have a point there, but as I understood the theory there would be interference even between fairly well established languages, and that is the point were my experiences say something different. With 'new' languages the concentration needed is bigger, so I would not be doing as many things in the same time if one of them involved for instance Greek. But still, I don't seem to forget the Greek words I have just learned even if I switch immediately afterwards to an activity in another language.
I cannot test the effect of switching back and forth between two 'unestablished' languages, because Greek for the moment is the only language that I study actively with the methods of a beginner. But in November I was in the situation of alternating Greek and Portuguese, where I started out at a fairly low level in the latter. In my optic it is worse continuing an activity after it has become boring, - if that happens you should change to another language or another activity or both to continue learning anything. It is more important to avoid boredom than to avoid interference. Edited by Iversen on 11 December 2006 at 5:42am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Andy E Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 7114 days ago 1651 posts - 1939 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 8 of 8 11 December 2006 at 7:23am | IP Logged | ||
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To-date my experience has been the same as Iversen. For the last 4 months, I have "doing" German, French and Spanish every single day one right after the other without any break.
I have done this precisely to avoid the interference that I've experienced in the past - to keep all the sounds fresh in my mind. What I've found is that the more often you do it, the easier the switch becomes. Until recently I was also following the same path with studying Catalan but time constraints (I'm on a strict self-imposed study schedule) mean that I've had to postpone that language until the New Year. But again, I found no problems that I can recall. I'd be interested to know if studying two "new" languages simultaneously would make a difference but I'm not convinced that it would. Andy. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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