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Anyone learned 5+ new languages? | ||
Tags: Simultaneous study | Beginner | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5395 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 33 of 38 20 July 2012 at 5:36am | IP Logged | |||||
They have the Swedish course in German and Dutch base as well as the French base. How good is your German? :-)
That is a really interesting idea. I think having target-language based teams is working really well for some teams, but less so for others. (I'm on the Romantics and the Romance+Slavic teams, and there are only 3-4 of us that are really active with each other logs. Plenty of people still active, but not so much inter-active, which is a huge part of the team idea.) I'm not sure something based on a method would work for a team, per se, but maybe we could have an ongoing Assimil support group. I know my therapist would make me join. Edited by Kerrie on 20 July 2012 at 5:42am 3 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 34 of 38 20 July 2012 at 7:29am | IP Logged | |||||
But my dearest, I would not insult you by implying that you started all from scratch at the same time. The 0 to 10 cases I was looking for do not cover people like you and Serpent, because you know what learning a language entails, and you have already progressed to a higher level in some of the languages. I assure you that no wounding was intended :-) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5395 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 35 of 38 20 July 2012 at 12:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
LOL. Okay, then we can be friends again. :-) I thought I was going to have to disown you! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kronos Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5261 days ago 186 posts - 452 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 36 of 38 22 July 2012 at 8:51am | IP Logged | |||||
Hi Kerrie, it's indeed flabbergasting to discover how our wish lists are almost identical. I've found your log now and see that your general approach to learning and some of the language preferences are similar to mine, too. (e.g. for some reason I have always been fascinated with Russian, but could never stand the sound of French in spite of wanting to learn it!). If you like, let's stay in touch on our Assimil projects. I will soon start my own log in the log section where I will report on my progress regularly. Czech, Catalan and Serbo-Croatian were also on my wish list, but I had to draw a line somewhere and can care about them sometime in the future if I want to. Unfortunately Prof. Arguelles rates the Assimil courses for the last two their best courses ever, so it's difficult to resist learning them. I see plans of an Assimil Challenge are likely to materialize soon, so I will reserve Turkish for that and for now start with four languages instead of five, which honestly is already more than enough. With some discipline I could devote two hours a day to these courses app., and this is doable. Learning too many languages comes with a risk. If I learn too many, especially as a relative beginner, I will eventually find myself having to manage one or two dozen of them without being able to give any of them up and not getting any of them to a really advanced level either. Therefore I have set priorities. If I get a language to a sound C1 level, comparable to my English, I can, in principle, do almost anything with it - reading and enjoying the most advanced stuff, writing on forums like this one and discuss with native speakers, having conversations with people on many topics, getting along in a foreign country, even try earn some extra money as a freelance translator or similar jobs if I really put some effort behind it. - But this one can do with only a handful of languages. If on the other hand I knew all of the dozen or more languages just at an intermediate level, I would be able to do none of those things, and that's unsatisfying to me. So I have to find a balance between "working" languages and those which are only potentially so. Some which I really know well, no matter if I want to speak in them in the first place, but in which I am functional, and others in which I am not or not yet. My priority languages (in addition to English) are Spanish, French, Italian, always have been, and Russian will be a long-term project. I have some fascination for Swedish, and for Polish there are practical reasons since for some reason I get to know people from Poland or of Polish descent all the time and this doesn't stop; one day I may even find myself traveling there. The other languages on my list are more optional. I also don't expect too much from Assimil. Even after having finished three Assimil courses in say, French, and amply supplementing this with other kinds of learning materials, having spent up to two years on the language, I guess I will be at an upper intermediate level at best, and afterwards will have to put in about the same amount of time reading, writing, doing concentrated vocab work, talking to people etc. just to raise it from B2 to C1. Unless you are a language genius you can't do this for a dozen languages while having to earn a living etc., and I probably wouldn't do it if I had all the time in the world either. Languages are great, but there are also other things in life. ------------ Ah, there's one thing I can add concerning Russian: Assimil has put out altogether FOUR courses for that language, possibly more than for any other. The first one, by A. Chérel, came out in 1951 (Eng: Russian without toil), the second one in 1971; then there was the 'Nouveau Russe' in the late 80s/early 90s, and eventually 'Le Russe' a few years back (now also out in English). There is a helpful thread comparing the first three courses systematically. According to this, the first and second courses overlap, but the second is more even, has more pleasant audio, and the language has less archaisms while the older course goes deeper into advanced points of grammar and has more excerpts from literature, therefore one could take the second as the main course and add the first to complement it, which is what I intend to do (I have both). - As far as I know the later Nouveau Russe has received mixed reviews, while the most recent Le Russe is again more popular with learners. Edited by Kronos on 22 July 2012 at 8:56am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5395 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 37 of 38 22 July 2012 at 2:32pm | IP Logged | |||||
I had heard this of the Catalan course, but I don't remember seeing anything specifically on the Czech or SC courses. Back when I read most of his posts, though, I didn't have the interest in Slavic languages that I have now, so I probably just don't remember. :-) Assimil has a new Croatian course out now anyways, which is what I am using.
The best one is the one you will use. =) I also have the old courses, but I like having an English version that I can hold in my hands, at least for my primary studies. Plus, there is a lot of solid material out there for Russian. 1 person has 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 38 of 38 22 July 2012 at 2:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Yeahhhh Catalan... I'm tempted to do two new+two old langs for the Assimil: Norwegian (Swedish if I find it), Catalan; Romanian, Polish. :D
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