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One language at a time? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5008 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes  Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 9 of 40 28 June 2013 at 3:09am | IP Logged | ||
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I wouldn't be so sure it's necessarily better that the children learn bits of two languages than to master one. I think ideally, they should get a useful level in two languages because right now, most leave school with only little of both, find out it's useless, quit, forget everything and complain for the rest of their lives "I am bad at learning languages. If only I knew English." The more intelligent ones learn at least English on their own from movies, music and computer games.
But I totally agree children should get used to foreign phonetics or two or three as soon as possible. I recommend reading the wikia article Serpent linked. We tried to put together some questions one might want to ask themselves when considering this matter. In general: if you are learning your first foreign language ever (school classes don't count in most cases), I'd recommend you to start one and see how it goes. If you feel you want to add more, you are comfortable with your pace, have plenty of free time and desire more variety than add another. If you find you have only enough free time for one or that you are not willing to sacrifice the speed of your progress or that you are just in love with the one, than leave it. You can take on another any time later. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| anethara Diglot Newbie England Joined 4241 days ago 25 posts - 40 votes Speaks: English*, Sign Language | Message 10 of 40 28 June 2013 at 11:55am | IP Logged | ||
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I think it depends on what's best for you, what languages you're learning (I imagine it
would be harder to learn Italian and Spanish together as you'd get them confused, rather than, say, French and Norwegian!) and why you're learning them. My interests tend to be intense and short-lived and I'm only learning languages for enjoyment, so only learning one language leaves me bored and likely to abandon it: I've found learning two languages at the same time makes it more enjoyable for me and I've stuck with the two languages I'm learning. But I can definitely see how learning one language would lead to faster progress and less confusion so it's probably best to just focus on one if you're learning for fast progress. Do what you want and what you feel is best for you, in my opinion. However, I'm really not an expert and could be wrong! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5227 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French | Message 11 of 40 28 June 2013 at 4:53pm | IP Logged | ||
No need to worry: children nearly always master one language, no matter how busy you keep them with other languages (or any activity). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5008 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 12 of 40 28 June 2013 at 7:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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True :-)
Even though I meant one foreign. (I am making sure it's obvious because there are such crazy people that blame foreign language classes for worse knowledge and use of Czech) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6596 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 13 of 40 28 June 2013 at 8:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well, here there are (used to be?) many TV-commercials with a typical American intonation that sounds silly in Russian, the dubbing for many non-fiction/documentary programmes is horrible and to some extent this affects the music culture too... but if you also consume quality media, these won't hurt your native language.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5008 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 14 of 40 29 June 2013 at 2:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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The antidote for those is easily available. Books!
(Yes, some of the people making commercials and dubbings should be punished for attempt on language murder and damage to every brain in contact with the products of their work. One of the most horrible things of recent commercials is verb "omlékovat" which means to dip an Oreo in milk. Wouldn't you want them punished for such atrocities?) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6596 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 15 of 40 29 June 2013 at 2:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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Books won't fix the unnatural intonation though. Unless they're audio books.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Retinend Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4307 days ago 283 posts - 557 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), French | Message 16 of 40 30 June 2013 at 3:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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Excuse me for being naiive, but why would you want to study more than one language at a time? Everyone who gets to fluency in ONE language spends about 1000 constructive hours on her studies. So then, for her to HALF the maximum potential language-learning time she can possibly give herself (by insiting on two at a time) is to DOUBLE the amount of real life-time it will take you to develop fluency in both. There seems to be a taboo on the forum about talking about actual time spans for effective learning, but from what I gather it's not unrealistic to expect results from a year of study, given dilligent work of hours per day.
A year of your life on this earth is a big sacrifice, but it's a true "investment" of time. Worth it. Call it 333 days a year at 3 hours a day average (no less). That makes sense with this 1000 hour figure. Now that's achievable by an average person, especially by a student with much more free time besides her coursework. But SIX HOURS a day average (no less) purely for language-related study?! Who has this time? except the very few? To stick to just 3 hours a day (by no means a trivial dedication) would yield 2 years of your life spent to gain fluency in the two languages... which would in any case be the same result as devoting one year solely to the one language and another year hour to the other. Maths so basic that even a Humanities graduate like me can do it. Edited by Retinend on 30 June 2013 at 3:59pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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