rob Diglot Senior Member Japan Joined 6170 days ago 287 posts - 288 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, Norwegian, Mandarin
| Message 1 of 3 11 January 2008 at 6:33pm | IP Logged |
This question is mainly for Professor Arguelles, but I'm sure others may be interested in the answer given. Firstly, I'd just like to say that I find your posts both educational and inspirational. I found your study chart to be particularly motivating to adapt and use for my own circumstances. Though of course my chart is rather small, it is still very helpful, and encourages me to construct a chart which reaches a good number of rows within my lifetime!
My question relates to simultaneous language learning in your experience. I remember a post whereby you said it was advisable or even necessary for an aspiring polyglot to do this, contrary to the usual advice that one should learn a single language at a time. It is clear from your charts that you must have engaged in simultaneous learning when you were a beginner of each language. I would be interested to know how many languages you personally have successfully studied at the same time. Or is this not really the way you work, but rather, you have always had a large base of languages and worked through them all over a matter of years?
Just to clarify, I'm not going to use your reply as an excuse to go out and try to learn 10 languages at the same time, but rather, I'm just interested in the development of a "professional".
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rob Diglot Senior Member Japan Joined 6170 days ago 287 posts - 288 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, Norwegian, Mandarin
| Message 2 of 3 13 January 2008 at 4:18am | IP Logged |
It looks like I have found the answer to my own question here
Rather than delete this post in embarassment that I didn't find this post sooner, I would just like to reitterate that the post above is truly inspirational and motivational. Of course, if the Professor would like to expand on any points raised, they would be read with interest, but the above post is comprehensive.
Thank you.
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ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7261 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes
| Message 3 of 3 13 January 2008 at 8:59pm | IP Logged |
Following the link to my own old post and rereading it, I suppose I should update that at some point soon when I have the time, for I am no longer in Lebanon, and I have somehow or other managed to revive a fair number of those whom I thought were aborted and lost and gone forever…
Yes indeed, under the idyllic conditions I enjoyed in the mid- to late-1990’s, I did begin the simultaneous study of scores of languages. As each provided a comparative frame of reference for the others, and as each is only a small part of the whole, I do wish I had done even more. Truly, the more the merrier, and so the limited number was purely external. That is, there was no problem whatsoever with confusion or interference within my brain, but there was a need to sleep, eat, teach my classes, etc.—and there are only 24 hours in a day.
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