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Choosing a Slavic language | ||
Tags: Slavic Languages | Choosing a Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4046 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes  Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch | Message 25 of 32 20 August 2014 at 4:45pm | IP Logged |
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Thank you @Tarvos for this post so dense of information.
I'm aware that mastering (to me means from C1 on) a language it's a completely different task than reach a basic fluency on it. For all the language I will learn that are not part of my daily life (like can be to me in this moment English and Dutch) I don't even need to master them. I'm B2 in English and still I can use the language everyday and I can enjoy the impressive amount of native resources without many troubles. Problem is: this level is still not very easy to achieve. Very experienced polyglots like Benny Lewis, Emanuele Marini and probably you can do it, while "normal" learners like me lack in process optimization. Intensive study for three months for every new language can be a very good idea. I guess that the results reached in those 3 months are very different according to the learner. I am more efficient than the first foreign language learner and you are more efficient than me. Which level are you able to reach in 3-4 months? How much time you dedicate to reach this goal? Then, other questions arise in me. If you don't drop a language but you start another one immediately after, how do you manage to fill the gaps in the language if you didn't reach a level that satisfies you (let's say you start Welsh - random language, just for the example - you reach B1 but you want B2, and then you start, for example, Danish), how do you manage a new language plus a partially learned language? B1 can be already a really satisfying level to reach, for me, in all the language that are not essentials, because in my opinion they can mature simply by reading and listening-watching multimedia. More or less is this the idea in your last sentence, or did I misinterpret? Edited by tristano on 20 August 2014 at 8:40pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4706 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 26 of 32 22 August 2014 at 10:45am | IP Logged |
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I can reach about B1 or so if I study intensively for about 3 months in most related
languages to things I know. Maybe slightly less for Mandarin or so, but still quite a high level (I think the thing with stuff like Mandarin is that you have trouble with reading, but in speech your level will get good). I don't have an exact time count of what I do because I hate that type of organization, but what I can tell you is - steady as she goes. Don't rush; steady as she goes, and make sure you keep speaking and practicing in the first couple months. Without spoken practice and context you're nowhere. For example, I studied Swedish intensively for four months and because it's so close to my native tongue after those four months I could speak reasonable Swedish. After reading a few more novels I spoke Swedish well albeit with some imperfections and holes (let's say after 6 months to a year). This is the normal process for a language reasonably close to your own or to one you know well (for me, I would indicate that I spoke Dutch, English and satisfactory German already). I would not say that I have mastered any language besides English, but that my French is definitely on the way there. Other languages such as Swedish are also pretty high level. The real key is focus. If you focus for a couple months, you can shoot upwards to a good level. The stage from B1 to B2 is where grammar comes into play, and where you need lots of input. This is where you practice writing and reading more complex issues and you get lots of exposure to boost yourself. But this is not always something you need explicit study for. In some languages, like Mandarin, there's grammar to learn but it does not consist of conjugations. In French, this is where I would make sure I really have a handle on some of the more uncommon tenses (except the subjonctif de l'imparfait maybe). But at B1-B2, know your futur, conditionnel, imparfait, plus-que- parfait, présent, futur proche, passé composé, subjonctif, etc. Fortunately I only really had to learn the subjonctif properly when I got back into French some years back. (I'd even seen the passé simple). And the other thing that you need to set for yourself are mini-missions in order to tackle the problematic aspects of a language. If it's Dutch, you need to set aside a week at some point just learning the word order because in Dutch it's important and very different from Italian and English. Similarly you need to have a mini-mission to learn how to pronounce words correctly in Dutch and master that "g" sound. I'll give you an example of a mini-mission and a target I set for Chinese: the first two weeks are dedicated to tones and pronunciation. It's gotten so good that my teachers barely have to correct me for tone (they sometimes do when I speak too quickly). But I can always pronounce tones given a prompt now. My next mini-mission for Chinese is to learn how you pronounce tones in a sentence context so that it flows more naturally. But this means: keep speaking out loud and repeating after the Assimil sentences. I have said sentences over and over and I even do it during class when I pronounce "qù" 20 times just to get it right. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4046 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch | Message 27 of 32 24 August 2014 at 2:11pm | IP Logged |
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I read and read and read your last thread many times.
I have now a clear understanding of your method. Thank you very much for your very valuable advices. I'm really happy that this post with all my doubts brought to this conversation. By the way, I made my mind about which slavic language to start with. I go with Polish. I will put my focus on it starting between december and january. Though I will allow myself to dabble it before that date. These are the reasons: - It sounds beautiful to my ears - The culture and the country are also beautiful - There are more poles than russians in my city - Many latin words where this doesn't happen with Russian: more vocabulary discount - There isn't the problem of cyrillic to slow down reading (at least initially) Thanks to the last two points I think that it will allow me to progress faster, as a first slavic language. I feel it is a very safe choice. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7155 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 28 of 32 25 August 2014 at 4:55pm | IP Logged |
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Despite my soft spot for Slovak, Polish was the first Slavonic language that I began to learn (and all I had for a background was in English, French, and some Latin, German and Hungarian) so I have an idea already of what you'll be going through. Feel free to ask about anything about Polish that seems tricky for you when the time comes.
May your studies fill you with the joy of discovery. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4046 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch | Message 29 of 32 25 August 2014 at 7:04pm | IP Logged |
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Thank you very much @Chung! The grammar is intimidating but so it is for a lot of languages.
Better to concentrate to the prize, that is so much rewarding! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5333 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 30 of 32 26 August 2014 at 6:44am | IP Logged |
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Good choice! Polish is a beautiful language, and if you have more opportunity to use it where you live, then
go for it. I made the same choice as you the first time round, and I never regretted that :-) 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4046 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch | Message 31 of 32 26 August 2014 at 9:55pm | IP Logged |
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Thank you Cristin :)
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Enrico Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 3744 days ago 162 posts - 207 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Italian, Spanish, French | Message 32 of 32 29 August 2014 at 8:35pm | IP Logged |
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I vote for Russian because there are a lot of materials in Russian in the Internet and another materials like literature.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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