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Interference: what is the risk really? | ||
Tags: Language Interference | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6781 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes  Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 1 of 20 13 January 2012 at 1:05am | IP Logged | ||
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To start off, the worry that you're gonna get mixed up and use a word from another
language by mistake seems all but universal, presumably because it happens to all of us at one time or another. Even if we catch ourselves before we pronounce it, it does happen. I expect this is the most common thing that people are afraid of, and I think that for most people this is what is meant by getting mixed up. Beyond that it's also true that some people use syntax from their native language in the target one inadvertently, but this tends to be a systematic and unconscious mistake. Given the above, what seems to be missing is a basic (shall we say) risk assessment and cost/benefit consideration. I think most people will grant that learning a language from the same language family is advantageous because of the transparency. However, worries about confusion tend to arise in the same breath. How big is the risk really and how big is the benefit? It's odd that this never seems to come up. To put it plainly: what is the most confused anyone has ever gotten by learning two languages? And was it a permanent condition, or did they manage to overcome it over time? Basically, I think this concern is way overblown and I'd like to hear more about any possible traumatizing experiences to show us otherwise. Edited by numerodix on 13 January 2012 at 1:07am 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5413 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 2 of 20 13 January 2012 at 1:27am | IP Logged | ||
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I'd say repeated usage solidifies various languages within their respective barriers. A toddler raised bilingually may code-switch when not appropriate (i.e., when speaking to a monolingual parent) but by primary school age ought to be able to distinguish between the languages.
6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| TixhiiDon Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5462 days ago 772 posts - 1474 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, German, Russian Studies: Georgian | Message 3 of 20 13 January 2012 at 2:19am | IP Logged | ||
I think you hit the nail on the head in your first paragraph. In the real world, when you are out there communicating with native speakers in your languages, there isn't really any risk, other than feeling a little frustrated and looking a little foolish. In my case, sad to say, interference leaps the boundaries of language families and I can distinctly remember three conversations when I intermixed Japanese with, respectively, German, Russian, and Georgian. No harm done, but my conversation partners in all of those cases were not close friends of mine, and I guess I looked a little bit weird to them. "Who is this crazy white British guy mixing up Japanese with German/Russian/Georgian??" That kind of thing. On the other hand, I studied both Russian and Polish at university, and because of the closeness of the two languages, I had real problems when a Polish lesson followed a Russian lesson and vice versa. I quit Polish in the end, for reasons other than interference, but if I had taken both to Honours level and if I had had Russian and Polish exams on the same day, it's possible my grades could have been affected. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5007 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 4 of 20 13 January 2012 at 2:39am | IP Logged | ||
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My French has always been mostly advantage for my Spanish, especially when it comes to reading. No trouble with that. With listening, I noticed the advantage a bit later, when I got more used to hearing Spanish, even though it still doesn't help when the speakers speak really fast. The vocabulary may be nearly the same but the pronunciation in full speed is not.
With writing, there is only limited help. I know what approximately is the word I should use but I often make many minor mistakes in the words unless I look in a dictionary. Grammar is similar in many ways, which is wonderful, but there are some differences, often seemingly unimportant, which I am repeatedly making mistakes at. It took me weeks to remember the "a" in near future tense in Spanish. example: Je vais aller au cinéma. x Voy a ir al cine. The interference came when I was trying to speak. As I am not used to speaking Spanish, my brain tries to deal with the Spanish communication by listening Spanish and speaking French. But it will fade away with more practice, I am sure of it. But these are both foreign languages for me. I have more worries about interference with Slavic languages, one of which I'd like to start learning when time allows it. Either Polish or Russian. I can already understand a lot of writen and spoken Polish (even though there are tons of false friends) without any studying because it is so similar. But it will have to compete with my native language, the one which has roots the deepest in my mind. So, I am quite curious about it. I fully agree with nway that any trouble can be overcome by practice and using the language. I'd say it is a good thing to not underestimate the danger but it shouldn't be exagerated. After all, the languages are just fun, you can always stop and postpone one of the languages. I guess "removing" the interference would take much less efforts than for exemple unlearning bad pronunciation. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Mauritz Octoglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 5066 days ago 223 posts - 325 votes Speaks: Swedish*, EnglishC2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, Esperanto, French Studies: Old English, Yiddish, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, Korean, Portuguese, Welsh, Icelandic, Afrikaans | Message 5 of 20 13 January 2012 at 3:32am | IP Logged | ||
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I have never had any feeling of interference despite having learned a couple of related
languages (French, Spanish and Italian), but I have experienced something that could be considered interference. If I speak one language almost exclusively for a long period of time, I sometimes exchange some of the most common words and phrases that use very often. When I came home to Sweden after three months in Russia, having spoken mostly no Swedish and almost only Russian, I repeatedly used "da" in Swedish. This was almost two years ago, and I still may say some things in Russian, which tends to confuse my girlfriend ("значит/znachit", "но/no..." etc). The same thing sometimes also happens when I've exclusively spoken a foreign language for a day and the try to change to another (not Swedish) in the evening. Especially changing from Esperanto to Italian seem impossible. I think the key is to regard the languages as separate from the beginning and to not just skim through the basics because you've "already learned it". When trying to speak your target language: forget that you know any other language. Think of the language as the only one you know and just imagine that you have a slight (or maybe a very serious) dementia that'll wear off with time. Forcing yourself to only thinking in and about the language will stop any confusion. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6009 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 6 of 20 13 January 2012 at 11:58am | IP Logged | ||
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As far as I can see, most interference is just a simple consequence of knowing something better in one language than another, so I just take it as feedback that I need to learn the item properly in the language I'm attempting to use.
Interference is probably only demonised because it is so noticeable -- you always end up consciously aware of it, so it's hard to ignore. But you probably make a great many more errors of other types and fail to notice. And of course you never notice the holes in your language because you never attempt to say them. Perception tells us interference is a bigger problem than it is. 11 persons have 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 7 of 20 13 January 2012 at 1:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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Or in other words:
Assume you know two related languages and a number of simple conversion rules, and you stand in the middle of nowhere with a speaker of language YOUR-BAD-LANGUAGE. Now you have to refer to something for which you know a suitable term in language YOUR-BETTER-LANGUAGE. Then your chances of saying something understandable in language YOUR-BAD-LANGUAGE are quite good if you try out a converted version of the word you know in language YOUR-BETTER-LANGUAGE. If it doesn't work - and you can see that on the expression of the other person - then and only then you may have to resort to circumlocutions or you may even have to give up and say something completely different. But try the conversion first, even though it sometimes fails. If you have lots of time and a dictionary, then try the dictionary first. Edited by Iversen on 13 January 2012 at 1:18pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| clumsy Octoglot Senior Member Poland lang-8.com/6715Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5176 days ago 1116 posts - 1367 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Japanese, Korean, French, Mandarin, Italian, Vietnamese Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swedish Studies: Danish, Dari, Kirundi | Message 8 of 20 13 January 2012 at 1:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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la interferenza es kein problem for man.
man interferenza에 مشکلت yo'q байна. 8 persons have voted this message useful |
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