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How much time to learn a language? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5332 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 1 of 23 10 March 2014 at 3:03pm | IP Logged |
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How long has it actually taken you to learn your language(s), and based on that, how many do you think it is
reasonable to learn for your average Joe with an avid interest, but no proven super talent in languages? Two things prompted my current question: The mentioning of Prof. Arguelles, who reportedly speaks three dozen languages, and our ever fresh supply :-) of newbies who want to learn 10-20 languages. For me two factors determine your possibility of success: The time and dedication you have, and the level where you define "speaking a language". And I am so not going to go down the road of discussing what it means to speak a language fluently, as Pandora's box is best left firmly shut... Now just to park the discussion on Prof. Arguelles, I have not heard him speak, but I am perfectly willing to believe that he speaks whichever number of languages he says he speaks (or the journalist says that he speaks). I do however think that his level of dedication, opportunity and talent falls outside my definition of the average Joe. I always feel like encouraging the newbies who come with the enthusiasm of the new converts, but I often doubt that they have the faintest idea how much work it takes to actually get really good at a language, and how much time and effort it takes to go from B1 to C2. My personal definition of speaking a language would be B1 - and I think you can reasonably expect to get there after a year or two with serious studying. C2, however, is a whole different ball game. If I look at my own language journey, and how much effort it took to learn each one, I get the following list: English C2 - 7 year at school, 7 weeks of semi-immersion, 3.5 years at the university, 25 years of work experience, thousands of hours of media exposure - and I am still learning. Spanish C2: 3 years of full immersion, 5 years of university studies, some conversation practise the last years and some media exposure French C1: 1 year of full immersion, 1 year of university studies, a little bit of media exposure German B1: 2 years at school, 2 weeks immersion, approximately 50 evening classes Italian B1: approximately 20 evening classes, 5 weeks semi-immersion, 1 week full immersion, 3 boy friends (and a lot of help from the fact that I already spoke Spanish and French). We are all different, and many may be considerably more effecient than I am, but I have dedicated a considerable part of my life to language studying. The conclusion I draw based on my experience, is that if your ambition is a C1-C2 level you need to spend years on that. If your ambition is a B1-B2, you are more likely to get to the 10 or 20 languages you want, but I would think most people would have more than enough keeping up with 3-8 languages, even if they are super dedicated. Even for the most dedicated among us, there is such a thing as work and family that will take a huge chunk of your life. I can understand that when you are 18 years old those factors may not appear important, but I can assure you that they are. Sometimes I look at my CV which is filled with activities and courses except from a 10 year chunk which is empty, except for my work, and I hear the following imaginary conversation with a prospective new employer: "So mam, what did you do for those 10 years, just slacking"? Me: "Yep, just slacking with a full time job, creating a show garden, starting my own company, looking after a dying mother and raising two kids. I know I must appear lazy for not having done any serious language studies in that period. Promise to do better in the future, sir!" And variations over that theme, would be a reality for even the most avid language student :-) Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 10 March 2014 at 9:25pm 15 persons have voted this message useful | |
| yantai_scot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4800 days ago 157 posts - 214 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 2 of 23 10 March 2014 at 4:13pm | IP Logged |
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I'm really interesting in knowing more about the senior members of the forum, such as
yourself Solfried and the work you've put in over the years to get where you are. I'm not planning on being a 'proper' polyglot. Just studying one is hard enough. But it really helps to read the experiences of others who have actually achieved in teaching themselves. It contains the wanderlust and keeps me plodding towards on my medium term goal (1 month down, 5 to go...) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 3 of 23 10 March 2014 at 4:31pm | IP Logged |
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I don't really know. I think I could study 50 languages over the course of a lifetime,
but how much I will actually speak of them is anyone's guess (and so context-dependent - once you are in a situation where that language becomes your primary vehicle, that the level becomes better - and your skill set changes). Furthermore you always get bonused by knowing related languages, so saying that you speak 25 languages takes on a different type of meaning if they're spread across 2 or 3 families (Portuguese/Galician/Spanish/Catalan/Occitan/French/Lombard/ Italian/Sicilian/Romanian) + (Dutch/English/German/Frisian/Afrikaans/Swedish/Danish/Norwe gian/Icelandic) + Russian/Polish/Czech/Serbian is of another order than Dutch/English/Korean/Tupi/Arabic/French/Spanish/German/Irish /Abkhaz/Samoan/Malayalam/Ma ndarin. And both are equally impressive in my book, it's just that when someone speaks 15 languages the line begins to blur between the various languages. And as for how long: in most of my languages I would be ready to open my mouth anywhere within 3 months and a year, and speaking them well would take somewhat longer, but I would say that right now I have no problems conversing in 7 languages and can get by in 1 more, and have structural knowledge of another one or two. So I don't know. It takes time, and I'm not as good a speaker of Romanian as I am of French and not as good a French speaker as I am an English speaker, but my level certainly cuts the mustard for a lot of things and anyways languages are about communicating. If we go by a B1 rule I might even include Hebrew, but I go by B2 (in which case I manage 7, of which I can handle 2 at native, one advanced, and the rest only just B2). Furthermore, the 10th one takes less time than the third one. My third language is French, and that took me years with breaks to get right and even now as I approach a level where I can handle advanced material, documentaries, philosophy and so on I still recognise gaps in my French (even though I am pretty good at French) so I'm not sure I can and want to give a definitive answer. But I also don't care. I will be spending 6 weeks in Romania and living in a flat with an aged woman who doesn't speak a word of English. So. You figure out how you survive that without knowing Romanian. You see, I don't think I am going to care - as long as it gets me the bottle of țuică off the shelf... Edited by tarvos on 10 March 2014 at 4:33pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5260 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 4 of 23 10 March 2014 at 4:49pm | IP Logged |
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I could study for the next 100 years and never speak Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) properly, the idioms and puns involving the choice of when to use a Turkish, Greek or Hebrew origin word over a Spanish origin word for effect is an aspect of the language I will never manage to acquire due to the moribund nature of the language, the lack of opportunity to speak with native-speakers and the lack of popular Ladino media. Even if I had all that, without that multilingual background, I wouldn't be able to speak Ladino with that skill. The right word, paraphrasing Mark Twain, is the difference between "lightning" and the "lightning bug".
The few Sephardim remaining who still speak Ladino grew up multilingual. They were surrounded by Turkish, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew and French at school. Later they learned Spanish, Hebrew or English in the diaspora. They spoke Judeo-Spanish at home and incorporated a lot of that mixture into their language in a playful way that showcases their mastery of language skills in general. Could I have a conversation in Ladino now, yes, but I will never speak it with the dexterity and flow that I can with my other imperfectly spoken languages. I accept that. It will be enough for me to get used to the language and appreciate those qualities and aspects that make it unique as a language. Will I claim to speak Ladino? Even if I do at some point, that ability will only be to a certain level- "not bad for a foreigner", perhaps. Which is what I strive for anyway. Spanish, I learned years ago, I've never taken a test. It probably took me about five years, but I wasn't counting back then. As Christina says, I am still learning, every day despite that knowledge. There's always a new word, grammatical construct or concept to come across. I could spend a lifetime and still not be satisfied. Portuguese took me about three years to reach an advanced level and I am still not satisfied despite the fact that I can watch and enjoy television series, movies, podcasts, read just about anything and pass a college course in environmental sustainability given entirely in the language. Haitian Creole took about three months to reach a low intermediate level and then I put it in maintenance, slow improvement mode. I will bring it back up on the rotation, soon come. I already spoke two Romance languages and had studied French in high school for a year in addition to being a native English-speaker which helped me to advance fairly quickly in the language. It's one thing to talk about learning a language, it's another thing entirely to make it happen. For the vast majority of us, that takes time and effort to learn and maintain- a lot more time and effort than most newbies think. So, newbies, if you haven't learned your first second language as an adult yet, don't expect the forum to be awed and impressed by your grand ambitions. I can't speak for others, but what awes and impresses me most is the quiet, consistent and persistent effort that many members put in to their languages on a daily basis in order to reach their goals- be that one language or several. Edited by iguanamon on 10 March 2014 at 5:32pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4045 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch | Message 5 of 23 10 March 2014 at 5:17pm | IP Logged |
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@Tarvos, ul Lumbaard a l'e' minga una lingua latina, a l'e' una lingua celtica ca l'e'
influenzada dall'Italian ca l'era ul dialett de Firenze ;) Al vegn da la lingua dei Longubaard :) (sta minga li' a varda' lo spelling ke al cugnusi minga, mi sun sulament vun ca la capis ma ca la parla minga e sta lingua ki l'e' minga insegnada a la scola :) (Transl. @Tarvos, Lombard is not a romance language, but a Celtic language that is eventually influenced by the Italian that was originally the dialect of Florence ;) It comes from the language of Longobards :) (don't look at the spelling for I don't know it, I'm only a native understander of the language that is not taught at school :) ) -- Hi Cristina, to me it depends also about the goals that the single individual has. I, for example, am not interested about speaking 36 languages. I'm more interested in speaking 6 and understanding 30, so I can read, watch movies, I can access to the culture but not necessarily speak the language, whereas for others I repute it a must have. Example: while I want to learn German well, I'm probably satisfied enough about having basic conversations in Dutch and being able to understand Frisian, Limburgish, Swiss German, and maybe learn a Scandinavian language and understand all the others. While I want to speak and read Mandarin, maybe it's enough to me understand solely Cantonese, speak Japanese, understand Korean, Thai, Lao and Vietnamese. And so on. Most probably if I'll really commit myself I will die just having done the half or less of what I wrote so far. After, unless one dedicates its all life to language study like really succesful polyglots as Prof. Arguelles surely is, people claiming can speak 40 languages most probably will speak 4-5 really well, have a 20ish of closely related and mutual intelligible dialects, knows the basics of another 4-5 and the remaining can say "good morning", "how are you" and "my overcraft is full of heels" ;) Or is a freakin genius :) In any case it's an incredible amount of work. Edited by tristano on 10 March 2014 at 5:26pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 6 of 23 10 March 2014 at 5:23pm | IP Logged |
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Not according to Wikipedia it isn't, tristano. It is Romance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lombard_language And it certainly isn't Celtic because it doesn't at all resemble Breton or any other Celtic language, but what you wrote looks like a variation of Italian to me. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4045 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch | Message 7 of 23 10 March 2014 at 5:38pm | IP Logged |
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Curious. The same article some month ago reported that it was a celtic language and
insisted on the fact that has many phrasal verbs, feature really odd in romance languages. Also, according to wikipedia, its Ancestor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lombardic_language ) is a Germanic language. About the official spelling, it uses umlaut extensively but the same dialect a century ago was a lot less Italianized than the one spoken today (there are not native speakers that cannot understand Italian). And the local variations were significant also among confining villages, not to talk about different cities. The degree of intelligibility with Italian is in any case so low that people from other regions often can not understand a single word, still today. Curiously enough, I shown a written text to a Sicilian colleague and a French one, the Sicilian wasn't absolutely unable to understand any word while the French one managed to grasp the general meaning. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 8 of 23 10 March 2014 at 6:04pm | IP Logged |
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Maybe the historical ancestors in the regions were Celtic tribes, mixed with Germanic
tribes (also makes sense given the location), but the language certainly doesn't look and feel Celtic, and the appearance of some phrasal verbs would not identify the language as Celtic either. The fact that Swedish has a reflexive marker -s on verbs doesn't mean that it is Slavic (because Russian has -ся/сь) 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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