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Do Polyglots’ Returns Have to Diminish? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| robarb Nonaglot Senior Member United States languagenpluson Joined 5058 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 1 of 55 16 October 2014 at 7:03pm | IP Logged |
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I have often heard it said, and have long believed based on my own experience, that it gets easier to learn
languages as you learn more of them. Yet this appears to fly in the face of the evidence: it seems like normal people are able to learn one language in one year, but learning thirty languages in thirty years is a rare and notable feat- despite the fact that one language in one year doesn't seem to require full-time study. Some talented language learners have accomplished a lot in a short time, but I haven't seen it scale to decades. My question is, why is 30 in 30 harder than 1 in 1? Here are some possible explanations: 1. Almost no one actually wants to know more than 20 languages. Most of those who become polyglots are not trying to push the limits of human linguistic achievement. Even those who say they want to are eventually turned away by other, higher priorities such as work or family. 2. Fast progress requires too much effort, and those who learn a language quickly cannot maintain the pace without burning out. 3. The burden of maintaining known languages outweighs the benefit of learning experience. Our excessive emphasis on learning rather than maintenance techniques means we haven't yet learned to optimize the cumulative learning of dozens of languages. 4. The burden of maintaining known languages outweighs the benefit of learning experience, and this is inherently true. I have studied 20 languages total (11 beyond a beginner level) and I find that maintenance is barely a problem for me at all. Note that I'm not talking about maintaining ready speaking fluency: I consider a language to be known and successfully maintained if I can understand it, and could re-learn to speak it in a few hours to a couple days. All I do is follow the general advice of incorporating the language into my daily life; I review my languages as I do chores or instead of watching TV and reading in my native language. My leisure, downtime and mindless-work time is enough to do this in 20 languages. The story of Professor Arguelles, however, suggests that at something more than 20 languages, free time is no longer enough to cover maintenance. He had to sacrifice significant learning time in order to devote more time to maintenance. Is it possible to invent smarter, more efficient maintenance? I've thought of a hypothetical way to do this: create a podcast that is like a news/variety radio show, except each segment (~2 minutes) is in a different one of your languages. Even if you have 40 languages, you could review all of them every day in just an hour and twenty minutes: far less time than many serious musicians spend practicing. This method rests on three assumptions: 1. Two minutes listening every day is enough to maintain a language that isn't otherwise in active study/use 2. Reviewing multiple languages in rapid sequence wouldn't cause them to interfere with each other 3. Such a thing could actually be constructed by automatically stitching together existing broadcasts in a way that the transitions wouldn't be jarring. Anybody ever tried anything remotely similar (reading a short article in each language, for example?), or have thoughts on the general question of scalability of short-term progress? Edited by robarb on 16 October 2014 at 7:56pm 7 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6596 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 2 of 55 16 October 2014 at 8:24pm | IP Logged |
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I generally get daily exposure to nearly all my languages on Twitter. I also find that related languages keep one another alive, for example I have much more exposure to Polish and Ukrainian than to Belarusian, but I doubt my Belarusian comprehension has suffered significantly from not reading in it for a year.
One more factor here is that what is learned quickly, can also be lost quickly. See Volte's experience with LR, for example. This also applies to short-term immersion. After two weeks you can surpass someone who's been learning the language for a year, but you'll also forget it much faster. In more scientific terms, from what I understand the brain creates numerous neural connections/patterns as we learn, and it's always tempted to reuse them for what you learn later. This is why interference happens, and why we may forget a lot if we focus excessively on a new language. Of course it can generally be re-learned, and the progress is often worth it. But after finding out about that I'm working even harder to contrast related languages, use L3-based materials and dictionaries etc. One language at a time is just a temporary escape from interference. "If you can't beat them, join them." And very true about the fact that most simply don't have a strong enough desire to learn many languages. "I want to learn a new language" generally indicates a higher interest in the process than in any specific language. Many are doomed when they reach this point, which often happens after 2-3 languages, or even after your first. Also, life will also get in the way sooner or later. You need a bit of luck in order to learn a new language in a year without any unexpected setbacks. In practice this doesn't seem all that common, just doable if everything goes right. But I can't even think of anyone who's learned two different languages in two consecutive years, focusing on one language at a time. I admit that I sometimes feel alienated here on HTLAL. "Learn any language" means different things for us. The most common emphasis seems to be on independent learning; HTLAL is also the Mecca for those who want to learn one or two obscure languages (and that's how I found myself here while learning Finnish). The truth is that learning one, 3-5 and 10 languages are all very different mindsets. Edited by Serpent on 16 October 2014 at 9:58pm 9 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5344 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 3 of 55 16 October 2014 at 9:21pm | IP Logged |
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The thing is, there wouldn't be much point in spending five or seven years or more learning a language in order to listen to a five minute podcast every other day. That's why professor Argüelles gave up on several of his languages: he needed more time to devote to those in which he had reached an advanced level. Fifteen minutes a day for Arabic or Korean literature is simply not adequate.
To just maintain a language cannot be the rationale for learning it in the first place. In reality you never finish learning a language, and given that the number of hours in a day remains fixed while the demands placed on them increase exponentially both as you add languages as well as as you reach a higher level of proficiency, the outcome is predictable. What sort of solution can there be for this? You can either increase time or decrease your number of languages. Since the first mostly is not an option, there remains only one alternative: a wise selection. 14 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6596 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 4 of 55 16 October 2014 at 9:48pm | IP Logged |
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Instead of reading 15 mins a day for the whole year, you can read 1 hour a day for 4 months. Obviously this depends on how your interest in literature/culture works. For example, I tend to like the element of mystery that an incomplete comprehension (70-85%) brings with it. If I wanted to read the Great Books with a 100% comprehension I'd be learning fewer languages.
Also, I find the short-term challenges like Tadoku or 6WC very useful for focusing on a specific language or several. And I just came across this quote on Twitter: Es la magia de apostarlo todo por un sueño que no ve nadie. Nadie excepto tú. Edited by Serpent on 16 October 2014 at 9:56pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| AlexTG Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 4637 days ago 178 posts - 354 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Latin, German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 5 of 55 16 October 2014 at 10:07pm | IP Logged |
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If he lived for 500 years I suspect someone like Professor Arguelles would adopt the
strategy of abandoning his advanced languages completely, starting on new ones, and then after a century abandoning those for a different set of languages (rince, repeat, until dead). This would allow him to get through a maximal amount of "great literature" in his life time. As it is we only live for 80ish years, so it's a struggle to get through the great literature in just our mother tongue :(. I wonder what happens to an advanced language if you abandon it for a century... Edited by AlexTG on 16 October 2014 at 10:34pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4706 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 6 of 55 16 October 2014 at 10:49pm | IP Logged |
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I think the original paragraph spells out the problem - it's easier to learn the grammar
and vocabulary and other nitty-gritty of the language because you have more knowledge. The hard part is to pick the languages you want to stick with - and usually you don't even pick them. They stick to you like glue and you end up returning to them. What I do to practice mine is keep a multilingual blog, and even there I notice how much effort and time I have sacrificed on certain languages. French is so much easier for me to write in than even Russian it's just unfunny. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5429 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 7 of 55 17 October 2014 at 3:14am | IP Logged |
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I don't think this question can be addressed if one does not first define the level of proficiency that one is talking
about. Are we talking about achieving and maintaining a set of languages at a C1-C2 level or more like a A-B level? I think most polyglots and hyperpolyglots acknowledge that some languages are stronger than others. When people claim to know large numbers of languages, I think there's usually a small set of high-level languages and many at some sort of intermediate level that can be upgraded or reactivated in the right circumstances. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| cpnlsn88 Triglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5036 days ago 63 posts - 112 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Spanish, Esperanto, Latin | Message 8 of 55 17 October 2014 at 3:44am | IP Logged |
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I am no where near having now or ever in the future 20 still less 30 languages! That
said, a little maintenance goes a long way, provided you are reasonably fluent in the first place. I am kind of a fan of two things - 1)developing a concept of 'maintain and extend' whereby you start to diminish your level of work on a language but extend in some area or another (areas of vocab, grammatical accuracy etc) 2)maintenance by 'pulse' so you're not doing it every day. There certainly are diminishing marginal returns in language learning but it is a good idea to find ways of 'extending' while maintaining, that might be able to bring significant dividends. So much effort is put into getting 'there' in language learning we put less effort into working out what to do when we've more or less arrived - it's difficult to know how to fruitfully 'stop' (or at least slow down) in a language. And, by the by, Twitter and Facebook are great ways of keeping up with languages without having to think too much about it. This comment is largely about maintenance in one language but it is of course related to having a collection of languages where the demands of maintenance accumulated together are too great (there is more in life than language learning!). 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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