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All languages you know seem to suffer?

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outcast
Bilingual Heptaglot
Senior Member
China
Joined 4949 days ago

869 posts - 1364 votes 
Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin
Studies: Korean

 
 Message 1 of 5
16 August 2012 at 6:08pm | IP Logged 
At the same time? Has this "half-illusion" happened to you?

I'm not one to make these kinds of topics, because I have mostly read others sharing their experiences and thus learned much from that, and made me prepare for all the ups and downs of learning a language. But I don't recall this sort of question so here it goes...

What I mean by "the half-illusion that all languages suffer", is that I feel like I have LESS of a command in all my languages than about five weeks ago. At that time, I started this heavy vocabulary and simulated immersion phase in both German and French, ravving up my reading, listening, and now my writing. Basically, to get out of B2 and into a solid C1 in both languages, which is no simple task without being in the countries sorrounded by the languages.

I have noticed my Englsh spelling suffer slightly but visibly, as well as my "quickness on my feet", I need a split-second more to convey into writing what I'm thinking. It almost feels like the grammar and sentence structure of the two languages I'm soaking interferce if ever so slightly. My English vocabulary has suffered ever so slightly, but not yet in any deleterious fashion. My Spanish vocabulary however has suffered more significant attrition as I have not read in this language at all in a few months.

So, in short, I feel that I have a little less command in both my native languages... the problem is I feel the same in German and French!! I can't express myself in those languages the way I can in the first two, and I'm making some silly mistakes I would not have made a few weeks ago. Here is the caveat:

I'm writing much faster in those languages, and trying to express far more complex ideas, so that's where I think the "illusion" comes that I'm actually worse off. When I rationally think about it, I know I'm expanding my vocabulary and writing skills and I'm much better than at the start of all this, but I have such a long way to go that at the moment it doesn't feel like it.

So, to conclude, at this very moment, I feel that I'm not at my best in any of my languages... anyone felt like this?
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montmorency
Diglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4828 days ago

2371 posts - 3676 votes 
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Danish, Welsh

 
 Message 2 of 5
16 August 2012 at 6:22pm | IP Logged 
Certainly noticed my native language suffering sometimes - I hope temporarily - to the
extent that I won't be able to think of a common word for minutes at a time, and need
some sort of external stimulus to "kick start" it.


However, I think that can sometimes happen when concentrating intensely for long periods
on anything - it doesn't have to be non-native languages.


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Bao
Diglot
Senior Member
Germany
tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5
Joined 5766 days ago

2256 posts - 4046 votes 
Speaks: German*, English
Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin

 
 Message 3 of 5
16 August 2012 at 10:50pm | IP Logged 
At times. Afterwards, I tend to see sudden improvement.
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Iversen
Super Polyglot
Moderator
Denmark
berejst.dk
Joined 6703 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
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 Message 5 of 5
17 August 2012 at 8:52am | IP Logged 
I think it may be due to an optical illusion: when you spend a lot of energy you expect a lot of improvement, and if there isn't enough then you may see a slight improvement as a failure, maybe even as a disaster. Besides you see a lot of unsolved problems when you study - it's like science: the more you learn, the more new problems you can see which you just weren't aware of before. Including problems which you thought you had solved, but you hadn't .. and now you can see that because you have learnt something more in the meantime.



Edited by Iversen on 17 August 2012 at 8:54am



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