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3 Languages at Once in University | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| vavarazzi Newbie United States Joined 5864 days ago 7 posts - 7 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Vietnamese | Message 1 of 8 29 May 2011 at 1:53am | IP Logged |
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Hello everyone! First of all, I've been lurking this forum since high school but have never gotten around to posting...so here I am! Nice to finally talk with all of you.
Anyways, I know that this is primarily a forum for people who study languages on their own, but I am being presented with a unique opportunity this upcoming year to potentially study 3 languages at once in university. I'm just wondering....is this a horrible idea? From what I understand, learning 3 languages from scratch at the same time is definitely bad, but what about when these languages are all at different stages? Basically, I have to take a 500-level advanced technical Japanese course, as well as a complete beginner's level Vietnamese course, for my program requirements. Those things are set in stone. I'm at an advanced enough level in Japanese that I feel no threat to my proficiency from starting Vietnamese. But I realized...because of the way I've set things up, I have an empty spot in my schedule for the whole year. Since I have no other requirements, I would love to put Spanish there! I studied Spanish for one year in community college, and I don't think it would take much brushing up during the summer to get back to the level I was before. (I don't know if it makes a difference in the decision, but I wanted to note that I had an okay proficiency in reading and writing but was never really very good at speaking.) My parents and friends are worried that I'll be overwhelmed, but being a lover of language, it sounds totally fun to me....and my goal in life is to be at least trilingual anyway, so why not? It's not like I'm starting from scratch with three different ones. I'd call my current self lower-advanced Japanese, upper-beginner Spanish, and completely-from-scratch beginner Vietnamese. So I ask you...do you think this kind of thing is doable? And how would you guys suggest dividing up the time after classes toward maintaining the three languages? Japanese is the most important language to me, if that means anything. Thanks! Edited by vavarazzi on 29 May 2011 at 1:54am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| vavarazzi Newbie United States Joined 5864 days ago 7 posts - 7 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Vietnamese | Message 3 of 8 29 May 2011 at 3:09am | IP Logged |
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Oh, yes, forgot to mention that. This is my last year in university and I've completed all the requirements for my degree otherwise. I'm a Japanese major so yeah, no engineering or anything.
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| NickJS Senior Member United Kingdom flickr.com/photos/sg Joined 4894 days ago 264 posts - 334 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Russian, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 4 of 8 29 May 2011 at 8:01am | IP Logged |
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I'm new to learning languages, but I personally would go for it. I've just finished
university and wish I would have taken advantage of the resources that were provided free for me, such as language classes. Even more so it gives you a good footing in the language such as Vietnamese so that you can progress to a more advanced level with it after your studies have ended at university. I can't really give much advice, but I know if I had the option again I would do it even if only supplementary to my own language study at home. I also wouldn't let others make you doubt your ability to deal with those languages all at once, if you feel you can do it, go for it. Hope your studies go well! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5946 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 5 of 8 29 May 2011 at 3:17pm | IP Logged |
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Sounds good to me. I'd recommend getting hold of the Michel Thomas Foundation and Advanced courses in Spanish and doing them over the summer -- from the way you describe your level, I think you'll get a lot out of it, and the Spanish classes next year should be a walkover, leaving you more time to focus on the Japanese and Vietnamese.
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| Alacritas Tetraglot Newbie Portugal Joined 4863 days ago 24 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English*, French, Portuguese, Spanish Studies: Dutch, German, Latin, Bulgarian | Message 6 of 8 30 May 2011 at 10:46am | IP Logged |
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Go for it! You sound motivated and enthusiastic -- the two most important factors in
language learning, in my opinion. If you put in the time, you'll be fine. And like Cainntear said, since you already took some Spanish, that won't be as hard. I know everyone says Spanish is super easy and then other people yell and scream that it's not, but Spanish is definitely easier in the beginning than most languages. It gets hard later, but by that time you've already got a foundation in the language. I don't think there'll be a problem mixing up any of the three languages, either...haha 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| adamtk Newbie AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4736 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: English* | Message 7 of 8 04 October 2011 at 10:00am | IP Logged |
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From my own experience. The mind was willing, but the uni was unable :P
It was annoying. I was attempting Japanese (as a major) and Spanish as a minor. The trouble was spacing out the tutorials so you have time to mentally switch languages before class. One session almost did my head in when I had schedualed a Spanish tutorial straight after a Japanese lecture. There was a Spanish exam that day, and I had only 30 seconds between one class to the next, and mentally switch languages. To cut a complicated story short, I ended up failing the Spanish test by completely forgetting that I had answered the questions in Japanese! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4824 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 8 of 8 04 October 2011 at 10:15am | IP Logged |
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Put me down for "bad idea."
Don't worry about wasting your time or the opportunity that college presents - there ought to be dozens, maybe hundreds, of interesting courses at your university. Take one in a new field. You'll have ample opportunity in life to learn Spanish on your own. Or to put it another way: use this opportunity to do Japanese and Vietnamese right! 50/50, not 33/33/33. People I know who are truly multi-lingual say the first language is very hard, the next one is also very but maybe slightly less so,the third one is just hard, and then it starts getting a little bit easier. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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