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Every language every day?

 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies Post Reply
Darya0Khoshki
Triglot
Groupie
United States
Joined 5060 days ago

71 posts - 91 votes 
Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Arabic (Iraqi)
Studies: Persian

 
 Message 1 of 7
12 February 2011 at 12:25am | IP Logged 
I have a question for those of you who actively study more than one language, even if you're just in the "maintaining" stage.

Do you prefer to do a little bit of every language every day or do you alternate days?

For example, if I am going to study an hour and a half day total, is it more productive to do 1/2 an hour of Farsi and 1/2 an hour of Arabic and 1/2 an hour of Kurdish EVERY day or is it better to have "Kurdish Day", "Farsi Day", and "Arabic Day" for a whole 1 1/2 hours of focused study?

And actually, an hour a day MAX is more realistically how much I could study, especially on days when I work. ;-)

What's your personal strategy?
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Lucky Charms
Diglot
Senior Member
Japan
lapacifica.net
Joined 6941 days ago

752 posts - 1711 votes 
Speaks: English*, Japanese
Studies: German, Spanish

 
 Message 2 of 7
12 February 2011 at 3:20am | IP Logged 
I'm actively studying Persian (beginner), German (intermediate), and Japanese (basic
fluency - this one is probably equal parts maintenance and active study).

I kind of do a combination of what you described. I have a bare minimum I do for each
language each day (Anki reviews, skimming over previous lessons), which probably takes
less than 10 minutes for each language. On top of that, I have a designated language
for the day. If today is German Day, for example, I'll listen to German on my iPod all
day and try to think and write memos to myself in German as much as possible. In the
evening I'll read a couple pages from a book (underlining words I don't know), or read
a der Spiegel article on my kindle (highlighting words I don't know), or make
flashcards from previously underlined/highlighted words that particularly capture my
interest, or watch some German on YouTube, etc. Sometimes I do only one of these
things, and sometimes I do a few.

Rather than sitting down and doing it all at once, I find little open moments
throughout my day. If you adopt such an approach, I think you'll be surprised at how
much more time you actually have than "an hour a day max"!
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thecrazyfarang
Diglot
Newbie
France
thefarangsdiary.blog
Joined 5043 days ago

18 posts - 25 votes
Speaks: French*, English
Studies: Thai

 
 Message 3 of 7
13 February 2011 at 9:27am | IP Logged 
I do agree with Lucky Charm.
I am currently learning Thai, Latin and English.
Thai is my priority, so most of my time is devoted to it.
But, in my opinion, it's also important to keep in touch with the other languages that I study, so I spend at least 15-20 minutes with Latin and English every day.


Edited by thecrazyfarang on 13 February 2011 at 12:13pm

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LouisaBalata
Triglot
Newbie
France
Joined 5010 days ago

9 posts - 25 votes
Speaks: French*, English, Arabic (classical)
Studies: Arabic (Levantine), Persian, Modern Hebrew

 
 Message 4 of 7
28 February 2011 at 10:03pm | IP Logged 
Agree with everyone ...
I do spend at least 10 on each of my languages, and try to spend a bit more on them during week ends ... But I'd
be afraid of loosing motivation with alternate days ( "I did that two days ago I can't forget what I learned, I can skip
today" ), whereas my self obligation to learn or at least read a little everyday keep me going ...

1 person has voted this message useful



polyglHot
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5058 days ago

173 posts - 229 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, English, German, Spanish, Indonesian
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 5 of 7
28 February 2011 at 10:14pm | IP Logged 
If you don't have enough time, why not just study one language? I see that you study
Persian...
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mayfair
Diglot
Senior Member
Australia
theasiaanalyst.wordp
Joined 5411 days ago

48 posts - 74 votes 
Speaks: English*, Japanese
Studies: French, Korean, Mandarin

 
 Message 6 of 7
28 February 2011 at 10:32pm | IP Logged 
LouisaBalata wrote:
whereas my self obligation to learn or at least read a little everyday keep me going ...


I agree that self-obligation plays a part, but I also think that the sense of accomplishment when you finish with your final language for the day is good motivation.

I have no proof, of course, but personally I feel that learning a language for one hour and then skipping the next two days would not be all that productive. I think it would be much easier to learn new vocabulary when you see it once a day, rather than once every three days.
1 person has voted this message useful





Iversen
Super Polyglot
Moderator
Denmark
berejst.dk
Joined 6695 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 7 of 7
01 March 2011 at 12:22am | IP Logged 
I want to spend time on many languages every day, but I reserve my intensive study time for just a few of them according to some kind of chaotic rotation system - I simply get bad conscience if I neglect a language for more than a week or so.

The rest of my study time is taken up by TV watching, surfing, recreative reading and other extensive activities.

Edited by Iversen on 01 March 2011 at 12:24am



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