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How separate can we keep related languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| drp9341 Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 4916 days ago 115 posts - 217 votes  Speaks: Italian, English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French Studies: Japanese | Message 1 of 7 12 March 2013 at 2:42am | IP Logged |
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Hello all!
I think all who have learned 2 or more related languages can empathize with this. Learning two or more related languages undoubtedly has it's benefits; a huge discount on work, "free" vocabulary and grammar etc. etc. But how many of you have actually managed to keep two or more related languages relatively separate? If one language is much more advanced than the other, sure it's easy. If one language is your mother tongue, then it can be done much easier. Although, how many of you have truly trained yourselves to keep two closely related L2s separate? There seems to always be some sort of interference. Factually speaking, all languages interfere with one another, whether it's your L1 and your L2, or L3 and L4, interference occurs, even when both are at the native level. (Look at bi-lingual speakers!) But for the practical purposes of this discussion I am referring to more general and noticeable interference. Last time I was home I said Carro instead of Macchina while speaking to my father in Italian. And although I can't remember specifics, I on more than one occasion used syntax from the "Spanish speaking part of my brain" when I was at a momentary loss for the Italian equivalent. I do the same thing in Spanish, although while immersed it's MUCH less frequent. Although one time while very sleep deprived I was told that I went on for at least 3 or more sentences in Italian while speaking to Peruvians :P When at a more advanced level, the interference tends to be more benign, like those above, and doesn't really greatly affect communication, but still: it shouldn't happen. So the question is: How much can we realistically hope to keep interference to a minimum? and, What is the best way to ensure low levels of interference across languages? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Emily96 Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4432 days ago 270 posts - 342 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Finnish, Latin | Message 2 of 7 12 March 2013 at 5:58am | IP Logged |
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I'd be interested in hearing answers to this question too! I get Spanish and Italian mixed up all the time, but i'm
hoping that will get better as i improve. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| drp9341 Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 4916 days ago 115 posts - 217 votes Speaks: Italian, English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French Studies: Japanese | Message 3 of 7 12 March 2013 at 7:50am | IP Logged |
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Despite the irony of responding to my own question, I'll be the first to share what I've done.
I'm a halfway-heritage speaker of Italian. Always had a partial knowledge, although I would say I hit B2-C1 speaking somewhere around the age of 17. Prior to learning Spanish, I had spoken countless hours, and listened to countless hours of Italian throughout my life. Around 4 months after I hit the level of Italian I mentioned above, I put myself to learning Spanish. While learning Spanish I was speaking a lot of Italian on a daily basis (Father's native, Italian class was 5days a week, & had 4 people in it in Highschool, and I had an amazing teacher.) When I got to a decent conversational level about 3 or 4 months later, I started listening to Spanish probably 1.5hrs+ a day. I also would speak it with my Central American friends for about 15minutes or so a day, on the ride to school. I never had huge problems with interference; rarely hindering communication. Given what was said above, I would tentatively recommend: 1. Start one language after already speaking the other fairly well. 2. Listen a lot to the language, get a feel for the new language: the intonation, stress, phonemes etc. 3. Don't stop speaking your other language. 4. Don't let yourself cheat by using your stronger language, well at least not too much :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4643 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 4 of 7 12 March 2013 at 9:12am | IP Logged |
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I certainly agree with your advice to start one language only when you have a good knowledge of the other. I started with Italian when I already had an advanced level in Spanish, and this was my experience:
1. Learning basic vocabulary and grammar in Italian was very easy, as so much of it is similar to Spanish. It just took a few months to get to a decent level. 2. Once I had internalised the main differences in vocabulary and grammar between Italian and Spanish, my passive knowledge of Italian became very good. After a few months I was even able to read "Il nome della rosa" by Umberto Eco without turning to the dictionary too often. 3. Writing Italian was more of an effort. I often had to stop and think twice as I was uncertain about spelling or whether a particular construction was correct and not influenced by Spanish. 4. Speaking was the hardest part, and where intererence from Spanish became a problem. However, with regular practice the interference became less significant. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6707 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 5 of 7 12 March 2013 at 9:47am | IP Logged |
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In my humble opinion interference isn't always a bad thing. If you don't know a certain word in Italian then your best bet could be an Italianized version of a Spanish or English word. And as times goes and you learn more genuine words the empty slots where the foreign words settle themselves will disappear and the problem will solve itself. Edited by Iversen on 15 March 2013 at 1:41am 7 persons have voted this message useful | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7209 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 6 of 7 12 March 2013 at 10:14am | IP Logged |
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I find when I read a lot my mind shifts into the target language. When I study, I may do 10 minutes of Spanish, then 10 minutes of French, then 10 of Esperanto, then 10 again of French. When I try "thinking" in one of the languages I notice interferece, especially if I am tired. However, if I read for 30-60 minutes, I can continue thinking in that language quite easily, especially in a language like Spanish which is my best foreign language.
That hasn't changed my study approach though. I think the interference will become less as each language improves. Also, if I were to be in a situation where I needed one language to shine, I think if I focused on that for a period of time, it would help a lot. For instance, if I were travelling to a Spanish speaking country, reading a long easy book in Spanish would minimize interference. Even in a speaking situation, it is very helpful for me to be able to just listen for a while so I can shift gears. I.E., it's much easier to speak Spanish if I've been listening to it for a few minutes than if put on the spot and told to "say something in Spanish", although I can do it. In some ways it is like warming up for a sport or to play a musical instrument. Edited by luke on 12 March 2013 at 10:17am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4672 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 7 of 7 13 March 2013 at 9:22pm | IP Logged |
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Native speakers don't care about interference, to them ''a mistake is a mistake''.
That's why I stopped learning Italian. They don't differentiate between mistakes a) made due to interference effect; b) made because your knowledge is shaky or lousy. I find Spanish and Portuguese are manageable., because I learned Brazilian Portuguese up to C1 level, and after that, I learned Argentinan Spanish through a contrastive method (via dictionaries of differences; and with the help of regular Brazilian Portuguese - Spanish dictionaries I got in Argentina). Edited by Medulin on 13 March 2013 at 9:25pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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