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HOW much easier is your third language? | ||
Tags: Time to learn | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Randwulf Newbie United States Joined 4892 days ago 32 posts - 93 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 20 13 September 2012 at 1:26am | IP Logged |
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How much easier is it to learn a third language than a second?
I've often seen it said that learning a third language is easier than a second but I can't find the question addressed in concrete terms. So I'd like to get some experiences from people who have learned more than one foreign language. So, what was your second language, what was your third language, and how long did it take you to learn your third language to a roughly equal level of proficiency as your second? For reference, the FSI's categorization of languages by difficulty: http://www.effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-guide/lang uage-difficulty The categories of languages are: Category I: Languages closely related to English 23-24 weeks (575-600 class hours) Category I+: Languages closely related to English 30-36 weeks (750-900 class hours) Category II: Languages with significant linguistic and/or cultural differences from English 44 weeks (1100 class hours) Category III: Languages which are quite difficult for native English speakers 88 weeks (2200 class hours; about half that time preferably spent studying in-country) And these time estimates are the time required to reach "S3" proficiency: "Speaking 3 (General Professional Proficiency) Able to speak the language with sufficient structural accuracy and vocabulary to participate effectively in most formal and informal conversations in practical, social and professional topics. Nevertheless, the individual's limitations generally restrict the professional contexts of language use to matters of shared knowledge and/or international convention. Discourse is cohesive. The individual uses the language acceptably, but with some noticeable imperfections; yet, errors virtually never interfere with understanding and rarely disturb the native speaker. The individual can effectively combine structure and vocabulary to convey his/her meaning accurately. The individual speaks readily and fills pauses suitably. In face-to-face conversation with natives speaking the standard dialect at a normal rate of speech, comprehension is quite complete. Although cultural references, proverbs and the implications of nuances and idiom may not be fully understood, the individual can easily repair the conversation. Pronunciation may be obviously foreign. Individual sounds are accurate: but stress, intonation and pitch control may be faulty. Examples: Can typically discuss particular interests and special fields of competence with reasonable ease. Can use the language as part of normal professional duties such as answering objections, clarifying points, justifying decisions, understanding the essence of challenges, stating and defending policy, conducting meetings, delivering briefings, or other extended and elaborate informative monologues. Can reliably elicit information and informed opinion from native speakers. Structural inaccuracy is rarely the major cause of misunderstanding. Use of structural devices is flexible and elaborate. Without searching for words or phrases, the individual uses the language clearly and relatively naturally to elaborate concepts freely and make ideas easily understandable to native speakers. Errors occur in low- frequency and highly complex structures." So what we can say from this is that, ASSUMING learning a second language does NOT make learning a third language easier, and ASSUMING these time estimates are accurate then for a native speaker of English who learned a category I language as their second language:
Those are the results we'd expect if learning a second language did not make learning a third easier. But what results do we actually have? Edited by Randwulf on 13 September 2012 at 1:28am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6597 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 20 13 September 2012 at 1:54am | IP Logged |
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You'll find this thread interesting.
Obviously, a factor to take into account is language families. It doesn't only matter whether the language belongs to the same category but also whether it's related linguistically and how closely related. For example, although Portuguese, Spanish and Romanian are all in the first category, Romanian will be more difficult than Portuguese if you learn Spanish first. (TBH I'm not even sure Romanian should really be in the same category) Also, the ease is not so much about time but more about efficiency. Nowadays, most traditional textbooks make me want to puke, because as a linguist with some practical knowledge I usually know what they're trying to explain, and it's even worse if they try to sugar-coat it because many learners are afraid of grammar. When you're learning your second foreign language, you already know what works for you and what doesn't, you have a realistic idea of what it takes (and of how languages work in general, though the surprises never stop, fortunately) and you have more confidence. With related languages, you also have a lot of passive understanding and in most cases an overview of the grammar (maybe with some significant gaps). Even if the language isn't closely related, it's also likely to have loans from the first one if it's a major language like English, German or French. Edited by Serpent on 13 September 2012 at 2:11am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4707 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 20 13 September 2012 at 9:19am | IP Logged |
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I don't know, I just study it and find out.
5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| vonPeterhof Tetraglot Senior Member Russian FederationRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4772 days ago 715 posts - 1527 votes Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC2, Japanese, German Studies: Kazakh, Korean, Norwegian, Turkish | Message 4 of 20 13 September 2012 at 11:22am | IP Logged |
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My father, who has unsuccessfully attempted to learn a third language on three occasions (Korean in high school, German at university and Kazakh in his late thirties), has this theory that it's actually more difficult to learn a third language than a second one. He believes that grasping the second language is not too hard for the human brain, because it treats the native and second language as separate categories of data, say "The Native Language" and "The Other Language". When we try to learn a third language it interferes with "The Other Language" category and it takes considerably more effort to learn to create new categories for additional languages. Aside from himself he gives two examples from people he knew. The man who tried to teach him Korean was a Sakhalin Korean, so his native language was Korean and Russian was his second. He never got any good at English, even by Soviet standards. The other one is my father's classmate who emigrated to Israel in the early nineties. He spent years struggling to learn Hebrew in a fully immersive environment and when he finally reached somewhat comfortable fluency he discovered that he forgot nearly all of his English.
Of course, all of these examples can be explained by other factors (dissimilarity of languages, lack of motivation, "use it or lose it", etc.). I've also heard anecdotal accounts about some hyper-polyglots who say that it only really gets "easy" after one's fourth/fifth/seventh/etc. language, but these usually aren't followed up by explanations or mentions of other factors. I believe that the major boost that comes with having previously learned a language is the knowledge of "how to learn a language". When you start the next language you have already developed some skills in general language earning and know what methods and resourses work for you. Some people figure out everything they need to know about it after their second language, others need some more trial and error, which may account for some of the variation. Edited by vonPeterhof on 14 September 2012 at 10:56pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Majka Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic kofoholici.wordpress Joined 4657 days ago 307 posts - 755 votes Speaks: Czech*, German, English Studies: French Studies: Russian | Message 5 of 20 13 September 2012 at 11:51am | IP Logged |
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In my opinion, it is not the language itself which becomes easier to learn.
With the second language, we have "learned to learn". We know what to expect, what works and what doesn't. For me, a big plus is also the knowledge that not every language works the same way. The syntax may be different, there are or aren't cases, nouns have or haven't genders, the politeness levels work in different ways. It is easy to understand in theory but I needed months, even years for it to really sink. And after this happens, we are really ready learn third, fourth etc. language on discount. The vocabulary and grammar in the third language may or may not come with similar discount (cognates, similar grammar concepts between languages), but for me, this is not as important as really accept that to really learn another language I may need to rearrange the way how I think. I would argue that if I choose the hardest way for my second language (learning the "most difficult to learn language"), and then I would learn an easy language as my third, I would get huge discount - nothing can really throw me, there are no hidden surprises. Going the opposite way, for example, if Spanish speaker learns Italian as a second language, won't really prepare me for a challenge like Korean. I would probably have good study habits, know if I am aural or visual learner, but the biggest problem stays - I would be completely unprepared for the big differences and would need the time to work through it, just like if it would be my second language. I have seen it recently with Turkish - it has a very logic syntax and grammar, nothing really complicated. But I needed time to wrap my mind around it, no language I know has prepared me for it. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5207 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 6 of 20 13 September 2012 at 11:59am | IP Logged |
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From my experience so far: yes, it's certainly easier and more efficient since you've
figured out by that point, at least to some extent, what works for you and what doesn't, and what mistakes you made first time round. It's still no walk in the park though - even if it's a similar language to your second, there's still a wealth of grammar points, vocabulary, and expressions that take time and effort to learn, and you still need to put in the hours of input and practice. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| schoenewaelder Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5560 days ago 759 posts - 1197 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 7 of 20 13 September 2012 at 2:22pm | IP Logged |
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I thought at the beginning it was much easier, but now it just keeps getting harder and harder. (And starting the subsequent languages in the same families was also reasonably painless, but I haven't really got beyound A1 with them)
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4665 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 8 of 20 13 September 2012 at 4:40pm | IP Logged |
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Assuming that you count French as my first foreign language, then it's not helped a great
deal with my second foreign language (Japanese). To be honest, I'm not sure what would help; perhaps a knowledge of written Mandarin might have helped with the kanki, but it's only taken 4 months or so, so it wasn't a particularly arduous task. I think I'm now at the stage where I'd happily try another language and I think I know *how* I'd go about learning it (always assuming I picked one with a reasonable body of materials). Those techniques have been mostly picked up through wanting to learn Japanese rather than through learning (a poor amount of) French at school. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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