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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| will72694 Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5544 days ago 59 posts - 60 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 1 of 7 20 May 2009 at 12:46am | IP Logged |
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As of now I am spending two to three hours a day on my Russian, and I have been studying Swedish and Spanish
each for one hour a day. I have loads of free time (about seven hours a day) so this is not difficult. I am just wondering if it is a bad idea to learn so many languages at once. I'm not sure if I can keep from getting brain overload, or if my time would be better spent on just studying Russian -- A LOT. I don't really have the problem of confusing them, as they are all very different -- except for the odd English loanword. I heard that learning many languages at once can be bad if they are too similar, but they are all from separate Indo-European branches. Thanks in advance! I may keep a log (or journal entry) on this subject! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Kyrie Senior Member United States clandestein.deviantaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5569 days ago 207 posts - 231 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Portuguese | Message 2 of 7 20 May 2009 at 12:58am | IP Logged |
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It's possible to learn all three languages at once but I wouldn't advise it if you are just now starting out all three languages.
And they may be from a differrent family, but trust me, I used to get my Hebrew and Portuguese mixed up a lot. That's why I only study Portuguese right now. If I were you, I'd just study Russian - or whatever language you want to learn the most. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| andee Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 6917 days ago 681 posts - 724 votes 3 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Korean, French | Message 3 of 7 20 May 2009 at 2:19am | IP Logged |
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I just wrote something about this somewhere else, but basically, if you are a beginner in a few languages and you haven't previously studied language in a serious manner, then I would say focus on one at a time.
However, if you have previous experience with language study and can have a conversation - albeit limited - or read something without translating the words into your native language, then I would say, give another couple of languages a chance. The brain is an amazing thing, and take this however you want since I haven't done any research in this field; this is just based on personal experience. Anyway, I believe that once you have begun to think in a second language, your brain has developed itself into a language partitioning machine. By that I mean, it seems to me that once it's effectively separated two languages from one another and knows how to do that, the next languages are partitioned into their own entities a lot faster. For instance, a long, long time ago, I studied French and decided to learn some Spanish too. Spanish was kicked out of bed almost immediately because of the confusion. Closely-related you say? Well, when I began studying Korean I also began with Chinese... the biggest thing I remember? Consistently using Chinese family members in Korean. It wasn't until I had a solid grounding in Korean that this partition seemed to take place. I studied Korean almost exclusively for that to happen. I say almost exclusively.. I did dabble with Arabic and continued haphazardly with Polish, but not in a manner that is worthy of calling study, and in any case, they were not at the same level as my Korean by that point in time. These days I can happily pick up any two or three languages at a beginners level and not confuse them in the slightest. I can actively separate French, Spanish, and Italian; the latter two both at the same mediocre level. Most notably though, I began Spanish and Japanese at the same time as an experiment more than anything, and there have been no problems even from the outset. And whilst, vastly different, I have little doubt that if it weren't for the partitioning I spoke of taking place, then confusion would occur. Case in point... I've even studied Indonesian and Malay side-by-side, but you could argue that they are so closely related that assist each other. I don't know if this kind of partitioning is the case, but look at two other serial learners on this forum; Professor Arguelles and Fanatic. They both speak and study multiple languages simulatenously, but it is my understanding that they both had good foundations (or even fluency?) in at least one language before becoming that efficient serial learner. Edited by andee on 20 May 2009 at 2:24am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| milele Triglot Newbie Poland Joined 5507 days ago 10 posts - 10 votes Speaks: Polish*, Russian, English Studies: Italian | Message 4 of 7 20 May 2009 at 2:58am | IP Logged |
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will72694 if I were you I would start with one of them. Maybe start with the one you consider the easiest or you like the most. Then after some time you could start the second and the third one. But it helps a lot when you have good foundations in one language.
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| will72694 Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5544 days ago 59 posts - 60 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 5 of 7 20 May 2009 at 2:20pm | IP Logged |
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I think I may just focus on my Russian after this, maybe with a little Swedish, though. I am not too interested in
Spanish yet. I did have a problem yesterday when I was telling a friend a sentence in Russian and it came out "Jag bara говорю по-руссски чуточку." I think that could seriously mess me up in the long run. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| milele Triglot Newbie Poland Joined 5507 days ago 10 posts - 10 votes Speaks: Polish*, Russian, English Studies: Italian | Message 6 of 7 20 May 2009 at 2:34pm | IP Logged |
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Good luck with Russian:) I'm really mad about this language. It's really fascinating!
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| GoingGoingGone Newbie United States Joined 5508 days ago 28 posts - 39 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Swedish, Mandarin | Message 7 of 7 20 May 2009 at 6:09pm | IP Logged |
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I am by no means an expert, but it sounds like you answered your own question when you said you had no trouble with confusing them. I don't think you will get "overload". Considering the amount of time you spend on languages each day, I think you would get "overload" doing one language that whole time. I would not want you to get bored with that language spending so many hours a day on it that you would want to quit.
I wondered what language I should work on next, but I never struggled with whether I should take more than one or not. For 3 years in High School I was taking 2 languages at a time with no problem. If you are in a hurry to learn one language because you are travelling there or need it for work, then stay with one. But otherwise I think what you are doing now is good. You have a lot of time to spend studying and if you do not divide your time with different languages you risk getting tired of the one. I am not an expert, as I said, but just giving a regular person's opinion. I am studying French and Italian at the same time now and I will be adding Mandarin within the next month. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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