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5 languages in a year | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| vb Octoglot Senior Member Afghanistan Joined 6425 days ago 112 posts - 135 votes  Speaks: English, Romanian, French, Polish, Dutch, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Russian, Swedish | Message 1 of 54 27 April 2007 at 2:45am | IP Logged | ||
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Hi,
I am considering taking a year out to attempt to get as far as I can in 5 languages, working 8-10 hours a day. My current picks are German, Mandarin, Hungarian, Danish (for the films!) and Esperanto (or some other artificial language - any suggestions?). I have the following question for the experienced polyglot language learners on this site - I would be very grateful if you could give me some advice! I would like to use a different approach to language learning for each language and am open to more unusual methods, having had only very typical learning experiences so far. Has anyone got any suggestions for suitably suitable, discrete methods for each? Thanks in advance, Bob PS - I am currently fluent in English, Romanian and French and have good comprehension of Italian and Latin. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Magnum Bilingual Triglot Retired Moderator Pro Member United States Joined 7120 days ago 359 posts - 353 votes Speaks: English*, Serbian*, French Studies: German Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 54 27 April 2007 at 3:07am | IP Logged | ||
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Very few people have tried 5 languages at once. The only person I can remember doing it is Ardaschir. Search for his posts and you might find suggestions and ideas.
My advice would be to pick out 1 language and study until fluent, then move on to the next. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Guanche Hexaglot Senior Member Spain danielmarin.blogspot Joined 7049 days ago 168 posts - 178 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, GermanC1, RussianB1, French, Japanese Studies: Greek, Mandarin, Arabic (Written) | Message 3 of 54 27 April 2007 at 3:41am | IP Logged | ||
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5 languages! wow, I'm currently struggling with two: Mandarin and Japanese, and sometimes it's overwhelming. However, if you plan to devote 8-10 hours per day (lots of spare time, huh?), I think it may be reasonable.
Good luck! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6871 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language | Message 4 of 54 27 April 2007 at 7:39am | IP Logged | ||
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How are you going to keep from burning yourself out? I'm tired from an hour or so of studying on some days.
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| vb Octoglot Senior Member Afghanistan Joined 6425 days ago 112 posts - 135 votes Speaks: English, Romanian, French, Polish, Dutch, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Russian, Swedish | Message 5 of 54 27 April 2007 at 3:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yeah - burning out might be an issue...I must have completed two or three preliminary lessons in more than 10 different languages in my life thus far: Lithuanian, Estonian, Portuguese, Malay, Thai...before inevitably throwing in the towel (I have a true dilettante's collection of about 50 different Teach Yourselfs, including 'The Franco-Norman Dialect of Guernsey'!). I think this was mainly because I did not appreciate the true value of knowing foreign languages (ie I was young and foolish).
HOWEVER, I have just spent a gruelling year teaching Maths in a rough school (where I *had* to work 10-12hrs+/day just to get by) and decided to do some hardcore studying after it had finished. The year definitely gave me a work ethic and learning the SOWPODS lexicon (100,000 words+) for a currently fizzling obsession - Scrabble - taught me how to cover a large body of information systematically, with dogged determination. Anyway, I managed to do about 6 hours today: went through the basic phonemes/tones in Mandarin with the help of a CD (sticking with Pinyin script for now) and barrelled through about 7 chapters of a Teach Yourself German (ed. Eugene Geiger - lots of exercises to do). Will probably start Danish tomorrow before reviewing the German and Mandarin I have done today. Will keep you guys posted on my progress (or lack of it!) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6706 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 Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 54 27 April 2007 at 5:53pm | IP Logged | ||
Even if you can spend 8 hours a day I think this is too much, - to start 5 very different languages at the same time is a recipe for disaster. At most two at a time if you have enough time, and even then I think it will be a problem to stay equally focused in both languages. When you have attained the level where you can benefit from genuine material (and discuss the world situation) in the first or the two first languages, then you are over the worst hurdle, and then you can judge whether you still have the energy to add one or two languages more. But to start the five languages you mentioned within one year is a gruelling task even with spaced-out starting points. Good luck, - you will need it! Edited by Iversen on 27 April 2007 at 6:00pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6553 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 7 of 54 27 April 2007 at 8:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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I probably wouldn't try it myself; I'm studying Mandarin and Japanese like Gaunche, and it takes all my free time. But if I were to try it, I'd probably shoot for 45 to 60 min, twice per day, in each language. I'd try to keep them seperated nicely. Maybe something like: L1,Breakfast,L2,L3,Snack Break, L4, L5, lunch, L1, L2, exercise, L3, L4, Supper, L5.
Interesting experiment. Good luck! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6771 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 8 of 54 27 April 2007 at 11:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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The similarities between German and Danish will certainly help (unless you're the easily confused type, but I doubt that). Esperanto would be a walk in the park, lacking a rich cultural legacy to untangle like natural languages have.
If you're actually in Afghanistan, why not learn Persian or Pashto? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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