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Russian or swedish ? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| albysky Triglot Senior Member Italy lang-8.com/1108796Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4393 days ago 287 posts - 393 votes  Speaks: Italian*, English, German | Message 1 of 8 15 December 2013 at 5:54pm | IP Logged | ||
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I still can not make up my mind on which language to learn next . I like them both , I love the culture of
Sweden on the sound of its language . Russian would be the key to very different places and cultures . I fear for swedish it could be hard to find lots of resources like books ,audiobooks and interesting podcasts and also that it could be difficult to practise the language ,since swedes are not a lot and apperently most of them know English amazingly well . Russian could be turn out to be more useful ,l think it would not be that hard for me to find natives to talk to , online and in the real life too . What would you suggest ? Edited by albysky on 15 December 2013 at 5:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4849 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 2 of 8 15 December 2013 at 6:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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Please learn the language you like best. And if you like both, do learn both! This hasn't got to be an "either-or" decision. You can start learning Swedish and as soon as you've got a foundation you can take up Russian as well.
Also, Sweden is a wealthy European country with nine million inhabitants. There's plenty of resources and people to talk to! It's not like you're learning Basque or Navajo... 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Henkkles Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4258 days ago 544 posts - 1141 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: Russian | Message 3 of 8 15 December 2013 at 7:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well I think if you know English and German it would be very easy to get your Swedish to an okay level so fast that you'd have it on a steady base and could start learning Russian. I'd say a few books about Swedish over the course of one idle month or three busy ones and you should be over the worst. It's almost like German, just way easier.
Also wow there are like ten million people in the world who speak Swedish, do you think that's not enough? And here I am reading my Northern Sami textbook and I was studying Icelandic earlier. Edited by Henkkles on 15 December 2013 at 7:26pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6602 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 8 15 December 2013 at 7:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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And speaking of media, there are also works translated from Danish, Norwegian and Finnish that would otherwise be inaccessible for you. Russian will take longer to actually start reading for fun, I'm afraid.
As for practising with native speakers, your best bet is to get to know them online first. Preferably language geeks who are NOT learning Italian ;P If you just approach a random person, yeah, you may need to be convincing (although it's mostly about the accent and *looking* comfortable). But if you warn your friends in advance and meet them during your trip, they will already know your level and even if you suddenly forget everything, they will help you calm down a bit or at least won't mind switching to Swedish after a few minutes of English. (But for long-term friendships/relationships changing the language can be hard) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| culebrilla Senior Member United States Joined 4002 days ago 246 posts - 436 votes Speaks: Spanish | Message 5 of 8 16 December 2013 at 1:54am | IP Logged | ||
You can do both, but you will NOT be equally good at both if you devote the same amount of time to learning one as you do learning two languages. (especially since these are relatively dissimilar languages, ain't no synergy here) If you spend X hours on both languages instead of x hours on one language, you will have roughly the same level (potentially better since you may be *slightly* more efficient learning languages) in both languages but with double the time investment. An analogy with sports: If you are Lance Armstrong and want to become a world class triathlete or a world class cyclist, you have to pick one or the other. Ain't no having both. If you want to become a NATIONAL class level triathlete AND NATIONAL class cyclist, then you could do both. Compromises ya'll. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6602 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 6 of 8 16 December 2013 at 3:46am | IP Logged | ||
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It's not that simple though. Look at kujichagulia's log for example.
For maximum efficiency, you need to see how much time you can devote to your higher priority language, and then add the second one on top of that if there's time. Try not to hit your limit, it will be exhausting and demotivating. Over the last 6 weeks, I limited myself to roughly 170 hours of everything that's not Italian, and I'm extremely relieved that the challenge is over (full stats here). Of course there's the caveat that languages are my life :-) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| albysky Triglot Senior Member Italy lang-8.com/1108796Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4393 days ago 287 posts - 393 votes Speaks: Italian*, English, German | Message 7 of 8 16 December 2013 at 10:17am | IP Logged | ||
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An analogy with sports: If you are Lance Armstrong and want to become a world class
triathlete or a world class cyclist, you have to pick one or the other. Ain't no having both. If you want to become a NATIONAL class level triathlete AND NATIONAL class cyclist, then you could do both. Compromises ya'll. . I like this analogy with sport , by the way I like both cycling and running as well :) . I always prefer to learn one language at a time and when I am good enough I go on with another one , if I want to learn another one . I am happy when I can uderstand most of what I listen to and read , it could be a modern novel like the kite runner or a radio program I like . If I don't speak so well , it is not such a big issue for me , since I know that if I really need the languge with a solid passive base I can improve my speaking skills fairly quickly . 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| culebrilla Senior Member United States Joined 4002 days ago 246 posts - 436 votes Speaks: Spanish | Message 8 of 8 16 December 2013 at 12:39pm | IP Logged | ||
For most people, it isn't important to reach a near-olympic level in several sports (Like having a C2 in several language AND formal degrees in them) but being at a college-scholarship level (C1) in several is enough. Different strokes for different folks. Don't get me wrong, you can reach a very high level in a bunch of languages, but it is going to take a lot more time than what beginners who have never learned ONE language to a high level think. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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