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Best way to study multiple languages? | ||
Tags: Maintaining Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| koba Heptaglot Senior Member AustriaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5802 days ago 118 posts - 201 votes  Speaks: Portuguese*, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Hungarian, French | Message 1 of 7 02 April 2012 at 5:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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Since the past year - since the number of languages I'm working on have increased -
I've been struggling a lot to find ways to keep studying the languages I already know and it makes me wonder if the methods I'm using are really being effective. There are languages I speak that I've learned to an intermediate level, so I feel comfortable using them but I would still like to speak them in an advanced level (C1>) and thereby improve my diction. I have been using 5-6 languages daily and sometimes I feel overwhelmed, specially when switching languages. In my study routine I always try to divide my free time to study all of them on the same day. Well, I can't say I really study them in a traditional fashion with textbooks, but I get native materials and media in the target language to do that. So, how do people who speak 6+ languages keep studying their languages? Do you use all the languages on the same day or do you think it's better to divide the task in days? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6531 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 7 02 April 2012 at 6:39pm | IP Logged | ||
If you continue, eventually it'll be very easy to switch. I think twitter is a great resource for keeping in touch with your languages, btw. Tweets appear as they are posted so my timeline can be: portuguese-italian-spanish-german-finnish. For example. The more you switch the easier it gets. Apart from setting various languages everywhere (software, sites) and finding things you like (twitter accounts, music etc), I think there's no need to artificially make sure you study each language daily. If you love the language, you'll use it enough not to forget it. If not, find some interesting/fun stuff that will help you develop good habits. Also, do you use SRS? For me that's a tool for reliving my best moments in my target languages. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5268 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 3 of 7 02 April 2012 at 8:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have been wondering about this myself. I struggle hard to keep up my old languages as well as learning
new ones. My Italian in particular has suffered badly lately, and I will need to do a lot more there. I do not follow any particular system. I just do what I want to do when I want to do it. At the beginning of the year I identified the three languages that I wanted to learn, or learn better. The other I just consider my " upkeep languages" which normally do not get too much attention. The last two challenges 6 WC and Tadoku have helped me focus though. The 6 week challenge helped me focus on Russian and the Tadoku challenge helped me focus on German and Italian and pushed me into reading Russian. At the beginning of the year I also set goals as for how much I would read/ or films I would watch to help me keep the other languages alive. I could never do all my languages every day, because that would not leave me enough time to learn the new languages. I am impressed at those who can make that work though! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5064 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 4 of 7 02 April 2012 at 9:06pm | IP Logged | ||
I'm a BIG fan of using Twitter for language-learning purposes. You get bite-sized chucks of information in a language, and if something interests you, you can click through to see a complete story or post. And it really doesn't take up much of your day. R. == 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| JiriT Triglot Groupie Czech Republic Joined 4731 days ago 60 posts - 95 votes Speaks: Czech*, English, German | Message 5 of 7 02 April 2012 at 9:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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I do not know so many languages. But how study say German and English? I believe, one
can study some amount of time a day or a week. First, most people go to work and have only a limited amount of time. Secondly, even if one has a day off, one is not able to study say 16 hours a day (most people). When we consider a memory work, one can learn say 30 new words a day. One can learn it in one language or in more languages. But the memory capacity is roughly the same. I believe, it is best to concentrate on one language. For instance, I use memory drill for German vocabulary (and do some reading and a lot of listening). But I can repeat my English vocabulary simply by listening and reading. In fact, I do not learn English, but I intentionally use it. If you know some language pretty well, it is not necessary to read in it every day. So, one can learn one language, say German, intensively. A lot of listening and reading, some memory drill and maybe grammar drill. Besides, one can use a language, he knows well, for instance listening to the radio and reading. Some news article or a book. Just for pleasure. And I believe, it is possible to learn a third language. Not very intensively, with the aim to learn some beginner textbook with the basic grammar and vocabulary of say 1200 word in a year. To learn the third language twice a week for half an hour and daily short listening, say 10-15 minutes and a short memory drill for vocabulary. Edited by JiriT on 02 April 2012 at 9:20pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| koba Heptaglot Senior Member AustriaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5802 days ago 118 posts - 201 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Hungarian, French | Message 6 of 7 03 April 2012 at 5:17am | IP Logged | ||
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I have never used Twitter because I have never seen the point of it but I think it's
worth a try. I will try to dwell more on literature as well instead of just watching TV/listening to music in the languages I want to keep studying, because that's mostly what I do and it hasn't been so effective, except for maybe Hungarian, which I spend more time studying. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| arturs Triglot Senior Member Latvia Joined 5205 days ago 278 posts - 408 votes Speaks: Latvian*, Russian, English | Message 7 of 7 04 April 2012 at 10:06am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't know your weekly schedule etc., but usually I have more to do on the first days of the week, so I put the languages that are at a higher level in the beginning of the week, because they need only some listening and reading stuff and that can be done anywhere at any free time. The languages that need more study, I put on the end of the week because then I have time to sit down and do more serious studies. Whenever you have some free time and you have done everything that was scheduled concerning languages, you can do something for another language.
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