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Anyone learned 5+ new languages? | ||
Tags: Simultaneous study | Beginner | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| 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 17 of 38 08 July 2012 at 12:46am | IP Logged | ||
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An important factor is synergy. Related languages can reinforce one another and keep one another alive, so learning Portuguese, Spanish and Italian at the same time is very different from, say, Hindi, Danish, Croatian.
Oh and there's a difference between starting a few langs from scratch and being a beginner in several languages. The latter is easier. Anyone who watches TV or commutes has enough time for 2-3 languages. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| prz_ Tetraglot Senior Member Poland last.fm/user/prz_rul Joined 4859 days ago 890 posts - 1190 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Bulgarian, Croatian Studies: Slovenian, Macedonian, Persian, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Swedish, German, Italian, Armenian, Kurdish | Message 18 of 38 08 July 2012 at 1:06am | IP Logged | ||
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Hmm... Seems like I'm at gunpoint now ;)
Well... as I've said, every kind of motivation is positive :P 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 19 of 38 08 July 2012 at 1:20am | IP Logged | ||
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OK thought I'd explain why I'm doing it. The main reason is that I have a really strong interest in about 10 languages. Reminds me on what a Russian author recommended to aspiring writers: "Would you be able not to write this? If you would, don't. If not, good luck."
To me giving up/putting a language on hold would mean avoiding it actively, as they're a part of my lifestyle. Spanish even managed to enter my life without a warm welcome, simply because so much great stuff is in it. Gotta admit I no longer consider one of my original reasons important, though. It felt right to start learning almost all of my languages before turning 20, as learning the pronunciation is supposedly easier when you are young. A related factor is that I wanted to learn more while I still have the time. It basically started as simply getting used to the languages, so that it was easier to study them properly later. I didn't quite realize how far this could get me :) (sadly, not with Danish....) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| prz_ Tetraglot Senior Member Poland last.fm/user/prz_rul Joined 4859 days ago 890 posts - 1190 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Bulgarian, Croatian Studies: Slovenian, Macedonian, Persian, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Swedish, German, Italian, Armenian, Kurdish | Message 20 of 38 08 July 2012 at 1:37am | IP Logged | ||
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I'd like to add one 'little' thing. Time doesn't wait for us. The only thing we can do is to make use of it as effectively as we can. Edited by prz_ on 08 July 2012 at 1:38am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Marikki Tetraglot Senior Member Finland Joined 5495 days ago 130 posts - 210 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Spanish, Swedish Studies: German | Message 21 of 38 08 July 2012 at 1:59am | IP Logged | ||
According to the latest Nielsen report an average person in the U.S. spends 34 hours per week watching TV. Maybe those who study many languages havent given up their lives but just watch less TV. Edited by Marikki on 08 July 2012 at 2:06am 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5130 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 22 of 38 08 July 2012 at 2:10am | IP Logged | ||
I've given up TV. Well, in a manner of speaking - I got rid of cable TV. The only way I can now watch TV is via the internet. Since I have to actively look for what I want to watch, I'm much more choosy about what I watch. And in many (I'll say most) cases, it ends up being a show in the language I'm either studying or maintaining. R. == 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5334 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 23 of 38 08 July 2012 at 9:02am | IP Logged | ||
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I think perhaps I was not specific enough in my description. The situation I was thinking of was one where someone knows no foreign languages, or perhaps a foreign language to A2 or B1, and then decides to go for 10 foreign languages (or 40 languages), all started at the same time, being a beginner in all 10 language. It is often a teen ager, though not always. I would think that such a task would be easier if you already had mastered one or two languages, so that you know what it entails.
I would not question the wisdom of studying 10 languages as such - I agree with Serpent on that one - in some cases it is simply a need. The last place on earth I would question the wisdom of studying several languages at the same time would be here :-) And given that I have courses for at least 15 languages in my book shelf, I would be particularly badly placed for doing so anyway. The purpose of this exercise was mostly to find out whether there are any such "from zero to polyglot" stories around. A lot of people add more languages as they go, but 10 languages from scratch - I have yet to hear a true example of that. Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 08 July 2012 at 9:03am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5532 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 24 of 38 08 July 2012 at 1:29pm | IP Logged | ||
For me personally, that would have been—as the doctors say—contraindicated. For a couple of reasons: 1) I work most effectively when I'm completely obsessed. 2) Even when I was studying intensively, I'd have good days and bad days, and the difference between them was equivalent to a full month's progress. That was hard enough to bear. But if I had been learning less quickly, a bad day would have been equivalent to losing half a year's progress, and that would have broken my heart. 3) Some of my most effective techniques involved keeping my French "activated" 24 hours a day, and shutting down my English as much as possible. This created a vacuum that my French rushed to fill—it gets easier to learn vocabulary when I have no choice. 4) There's only so many hours of high-quality concentration in a day. Right now, I'm learning mnemonics for 3 hieroglyphs a day, using French resources, and it still hurts to loose those 10 good minutes. So few people succeed in learning their first foreign language. When somebody says they're going to start by learning 10 languages in parallel, all down around A1, I figure their odds are substantially lower than usual. But hey, maybe they're a very patient multitasking genius, and as long as they're having fun, it's not my job to tell them they're doing it wrong. And knowing HTLAL, somebody's going the announce the "Brainmelter Challenge: Assimil Times Ten" just to find out what happens… 7 persons have voted this message useful |
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