|
 |
Minutes a day / hours a week to maintain | ||
Tags: Maintaining Languages | Time to learn | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| outcast Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member China Joined 4947 days ago 869 posts - 1364 votes  Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 9 of 28 06 August 2013 at 7:54pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
But isn't speaking a language with high fluency: uninterrupted flow, varied vocabulary
with synonyms and good idioms, few grammar mistakes, not a performance? The argument would be that to keep such level, practice is required. OTOH, if you reach such a level it means you have practiced the language for so long, that it is burned into you and thus in fact one does not need as much maintenance. This question has always bugged me and I wonder what language experts, and hyperglots hav e to say about it. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5554 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 10 of 28 06 August 2013 at 9:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
I think one of the key issues here is that our depth of understanding and access to knowledge, and the speeds and fluency with which we employ various language skills that work together with this knowledge, are not uniformly distributed.
Whereas some vocabulary and grammatical patterns may be deeply engrained and relatively automatic after months and years of sinking in and repeated exposure, other less consolidated words and fledgling skills may still bare tender shallow roots and degrade more easily and rapidly over time. In this sense, it isn't simply a matter of how much time we should spend on maintaining each language overall, but rather, being more selective...i.e. letting go of what needs little or very light maintenance and trusting in natural exposure, and focusing on other less certain aspects we may want to work on and improve. Edited by Teango on 07 August 2013 at 12:00am 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| casamata Senior Member Joined 4260 days ago 237 posts - 377 votes Studies: Portuguese | Message 11 of 28 07 August 2013 at 12:56am | IP Logged | |||||
You can seriously not play the guitar for months and be as good as before? I honestly find that very hard to believe. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| casamata Senior Member Joined 4260 days ago 237 posts - 377 votes Studies: Portuguese | Message 12 of 28 07 August 2013 at 1:02am | IP Logged | |||||
I remember barely speaking any Spanish for 2 years and all of a sudden, being able to speak very fluently and with almost as good of an accent as before when hosting a Mexican friend that visited me. Edit: but I was only fluid in speaking informal, low-level, colloquial Spanish that was so ingrained in my head that I don't think I would ever forget it even if I had spent 50 years not speaking. But I had embarrassingly forgot many basic words such as "butter", "ice skates", and "swimming trunks" due to so much language atrophy. My advanced vocabulary was locked away in a deep recess of my brain. And within a month (30 hours total, an hour a day), I had almost recovered all of what I had lost (90% of my previous level?). But to get back to where I was before the two year hiatus, I think it took about 6 months, or 180 hours total, to recover it all. But I also notice that if I only speak Spanish (actively) one or two hours in a week, I'm not as comfortable, stumble, and am not anywhere as fluid as even the previous week where I had daily one hour skype chats with natives. It goes away quickly but comes back quickly, is what I'm saying. I can see both points that are being made, that beginners or advanced speakers can have varying levels of language loss or maintenance ability. Edited by casamata on 07 August 2013 at 1:03am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4826 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 13 of 28 07 August 2013 at 1:16am | IP Logged | |||||
I used to study classical guitar (not very successfully, but enjoyably enough). I remember reading in one of my tutors, a story about a guitarist who was about to be called up to the army to do his stint of national service, and was worried about what he would do to keep in practice, as he wasn't going to be able to take his guitar with him. Unfortunately, I can't now remember exactly what it was he came up with, but he came up with something ... whether it was finger exercises or mental exercises, or both, I'm not sure. I'll try to dig out my old tutors some time. Whatever it was he did, it seemed to work, and when he returned he recovered his old playing ability quite quickly. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6907 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 14 of 28 07 August 2013 at 10:50am | IP Logged | |||||
Maybe I'll lose something but that's so little it's not even measurable (not at all comparable to what a marathon runner would lose after ignoring exercises for some time). In other words - the skills I have at my current level (whatever that means) won't change much. (I'm neither a classical guitarist nor a shredder) Explanation: I play a number of other instruments and get my share of dexterity/intonation/rhythm/etc. from there. On the other hand, I know people who after a long break can't handle their guitar/whatever at all (at least it sounds that way), as if they're back on square one. Lesson: If you learn something well, it won't go away. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Henkkles Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4251 days ago 544 posts - 1141 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: Russian | Message 15 of 28 07 August 2013 at 11:14am | IP Logged | |||||
|
When I don't play guitar for a while I find myself picking up where I left off in minutes and I actually come up with better, cooler and fresher ideas.
I used to play a LOT of Guitar Hero as a teenager and I picked it up for funsies again lately after a few years and I found myself being better at it than when I had played it actively at age 16 or something, after the initial warmup. So what gives. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7203 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 16 of 28 07 August 2013 at 12:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
This is an interesting concept. What I've found with Spanish is that I can maintain a decent foothold in the language by doing 5-10 minutes of FSI drills per day. I also let the language go for a couple years and even a non-intense reconstitution program, such as FSI substitution and variation drills, listening to and shadowing a short (2 hour) book that I had previously studied and reading a translated work for a couple of hours bolstered my skills, perhaps not to where they once were, but at least knowing I'm moving slowly forward again, rather than rusting. To me, the questions behind the original question are: 1) How do I maintain most of what I learned if I know longer have the study like a fiend any more? 2) If I let the language go, how do I get it back as quickly and painlessly as possible? 3) If I get passionate about the language again, how do take it to the next level? 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
