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Do Polyglots’ Returns Have to Diminish? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| cpnlsn88 Triglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5036 days ago 63 posts - 112 votes  Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Spanish, Esperanto, Latin | Message 33 of 55 20 October 2014 at 8:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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An interesting article from a number of perspectives. I guess I'd want to follow up by
finding out what the differences are between those S3's that did well and those who did less well - in terms of continued input and what feelings or personalty traits they had towards language speaking. I think there are some people who (I'm sadly not one of them) who can just throw themselves into speaking the language and persevere irrespective of failings or gaps they may have and end up making a lot more progress as a rsult. In FSI terms I can understand S2 isn't usually enough to withstand attrition, whereas S3 usually is. So for example some people have stated C2 levels don't need maintenance but possibly a degree of 'activation' after lengthy non-use. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| 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 34 of 55 22 October 2014 at 6:03am | IP Logged | ||
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Is there any evidence other than the anecdotal claim in the FSI article that maintenance effort sharply drops at C2
level? I have definitely noticed that weaker languages are harder to maintain, but I don't think that's any deeper than the fact that it's more effort to engage with a weaker language, whereas you can effortlessly listen to 10 minutes of a stronger language during dead time. But perhaps there are other effects that make stronger languages particularly stable? If that's the case, then the picture is optimistic for hyperpolyglots who don't insist on always having active fluency in all languages. There might be some benefit in making sure you don't leave too many languages at B2-C1 level for too long, but instead make a concerted effort to bring older languages up to C1-C2 where they'll be more stable, allowing you to focus on new ones. As for the loss of speaking fluency, I don't believe it has to be as bad as some here have claimed. In my case, I've found that even after over a year of only passive use in a language, I'm still able to speak it. I may have to search for basic words once in a while, but I've never lost a language completely. In fact, I have reason to believe I wouldn't lose a language completely no matter how long I went without speaking it, because I'm often able to speak a language--not fluently, but well enough to get the message across--on my very first try, assuming I've studied it passively to a high level (which probably involves some thinking in the language). So if I'm reading and listening at C2 level, I believe the "get the message across, and re-activate fluency in a few days" condition would be met automatically, even for a language that had never been active in the first place. Not all people may be able to do this, though. Interesting that almost everyone dislikes the idea of reviewing each language every day. Do short reviews seem to short? In my podcast-listening experience, I have the impression that episodes of 15-30 minutes are the most efficient. Shorter, and I never fully transition into processing that language. Longer, and I feel I could've easily reviewed multiple languages in that time. Do you all also think that 15-30 minutes is a good review time? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| outcast Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member China Joined 4948 days ago 869 posts - 1364 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 35 of 55 22 October 2014 at 7:29am | IP Logged | ||
What makes you say "almost everyone" dislikes reviewing all their languages every day? In my specific case, I just proffered a possible way to maximize review time and allow you to get on with other things in your life (that is, if you are unlike most of us here with no lives outside language learning :) ) Certainly, reviewing every language every day is just as viable, and there is no evidence certainly, to prove one way is better than the other (or both better than any other). At the end of the day, what is most effective is what works best for you and/or keeps you the most entertained or engaged, which makes the mind far more receptive to learning. I PERSONALLY find that I learn "better" when I rest from a language for a couple of days, to get my "eagerness mojo" back to "high". I have learned that having that "itch" for going back to language Y makes me happier when I tackle it again, and thus I am much more open to learning and do not bore as quick. Finally, it depends on personal situation. I for example, am a native speaker of Spanish. I eventually plan to "recover" my lost Italian from childhood. I would then have 4 romance languages to maintain. Do I think it is a smart investment in time to review all four each day? Personally, no. In fact, I may think its not the most effective use of my time to review every day ANY of them at all. Stringing sentences in in French and Portuguese is easy for me, and that's logical. OTOH, stringing up German sentences still trips me up at times (complex verbal structures and usage of multiple particle words), and took me longer and more work to get through the hazards of verb placement, cases. Because many of the structures of German are unique to my set of languages, I plan on maintaining it more assiduously. If I learn Dutch some day, then I could make a choice, I guess. I don't feel I need to drill "romance sentence structure" in the same fashion, it would simply not be (for me) an optimal usage of time resources. The only reason I would review all languages of the same family every day is for vocabulary anti-attrition measures. And then I would purposefully seek lists or words that are NOT cognates across my set of tongues. If I am lucky, I get to strike conversation with someone in X language, and so for that day, I consider that my "review". So when I get home, I don't review that language even if it was on my plans to do so. Edited by outcast on 22 October 2014 at 7:31am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| 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 36 of 55 23 October 2014 at 5:35am | IP Logged | ||
Well, just that the vast majority of people on this thread either said they do or would ideally divide their language review time to do some languages on some days and others on other days. That's what I do too, but purely out of convenience (effort required to find content, length of podcasts). Why not try the naive solution, where you divide each day's review time equally among all languages? I was hoping someone would have experience with trying to do this, but it seems like the practical constraints are such that few people do. There must be something in the research literature on memory, even if it's not language study though. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6581 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 37 of 55 23 October 2014 at 8:03am | IP Logged | ||
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I doubt maintenance is less at C2. In fact, I suspect it's higher. The reason people
will almost always maintain the language and even improve once they have a very high level is probably simply that it's less of a resistance to use the language, they've invested a lot of time in it and likely have friends who speak it, etc. If you get a language to C2 it's part of your life, but this doesn't apply to hyperglots. In fact, I think there's a sweet spot where you can effortlessly (though it still takes time) maintain by listening and reading. Too low a level and it will be harder to maintain, but too high a level and you'll need to use it a lot to not lose the low- frequency register. At least that's how I do it. I get my languages up to a level where I can enjoy them passively without too much effort and then I cut down the study time a lot. I might go for C2 if I find a language that's useful, but so far English and Swedish are the only useful languages I've acquired. But if I move to France, I'll work on perfecting my French, of course, but then maintenance won't be a problem, either. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6702 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 38 of 55 23 October 2014 at 10:39am | IP Logged | ||
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I have heaps of printouts and dictionaries in all my languages, and even though I rarely do get through them all in one day I'll generally do something in each written language once a week. There are exceptions, but mostly at the lower levels where it is harder to find something suitable (and doable). But sometimes I deliberately make exceptions to the rule. For instance I totally avoided Irish from around May until this week because I didn't want it to take time and attention from my Southern Slavic activities, and for the same reason I haven't read anything in Old French, Old Occitan, Old English, Old Norse, Old Saxonian or Old High German for months. But these are purely passive languages, and I don't think I have left any active language totally untouched the last week or so - not even my weak ones. And in Novi Sad I spoke (or wrote something) in about a dozen languages so that gave a very valuable boost to my lamentably undernourished speaking skills.
So it clearly is possible to keep even 10-20 languages alive just by revisiting them regularly, but there are some which pose problems because you have to search hard to find interesting materials. And keeping languages active if you can't even think in them yet is definitely a problem. Edited by Iversen on 23 October 2014 at 4:30pm 2 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 39 of 55 23 October 2014 at 12:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yeah, I'm aiming for Iversen-style revision too :)
Also, longer sessions are good because of the flow state. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6702 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 40 of 55 23 October 2014 at 4:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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Ah, the fabled and elusive flow state. But then I ask myself whether I really can say that I'm "fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity" (quote Wikipedia). Yesterday it struck me that I was doing wordlists in Serbian and later also Greek, while I was listening through the four symhonies of Brahms and watched TV with Danish subtitles. Not simultaneously, but in short time slices. For me that is also some kind of flow.
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