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Can another language make you relaxed? | ||
Tags: Epiphany | Multilingual | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Katie Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 6720 days ago 495 posts - 599 votes  Speaks: English*, Hungarian Studies: French, German | Message 1 of 17 16 June 2009 at 12:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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I am trying to make some sort of sense of this, and I would love to hear of others' opinions and experiences in the same or similar circumstances.
As I've mentioned, I've been studying Hungarian for a number of years. It has been a hard 'slog'. Ups & downs and I have to say, probably not the easiest language to start the language learning process with... So I decided that it was time to add another language to my studies. I would consider myself in the higher end of the scale of basic fluency. I do not however, want this other language to interfere with my studies - it is still very important to me to complete my Hungarian studies and continue to advance. After thinking and reading, I chose French. 1. Because I had already studied it at school so I had a bit of an idea about pronunciation etc. 2. I had read that it was one of the easiest languages for English speakers to learn 3. Extensive resources and 4. Another gateway to Europe (& my dream to travel). As I mentioned, I wanted to really take a laid back approach with French studies at this stage. So, I got some Michel Thomas CDs (which I'm enjoying by the way). I'm only doing this for now. I can listen to it and learn, but not get bogged down in grammar etc until I am far enough in my Hungarian studies... BUT, here's what I've noticed. Since starting some French studies, my Hungarian seems to be becoming more 'natural'. I mean that I am recalling vocabulary and sentence structure with less stress, and I'm feeling more comfortable with it. Has anyone else experienced this and have any insight? If I knew I would feel this way, I would have started French long ago!! I have attempted to figure it out and can only come down to one or two possible reasons... Perhaps I subconsciously thought that I was an idiot to not yet have a grasp of Hungarian and that perhaps I was useless at learning languages. I have to say, I am finding the French studies INCREDIBLY easy. Maybe I just chose a very hard language to get started on and so thought I was hopeless, when really I was okay and was holding myself back by being all 'uptight' about it? It feels almost as if I have relaxed a little and that's why things are flowing more easily now for me. Any experiences and thoughts on this? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6036 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 2 of 17 16 June 2009 at 1:31pm | IP Logged | ||
Perhaps you were trying too hard to master Hungarian. That could cause some fatigue in the long run. Focusing your attention on French allowed you to approach Hungarian 'with a fresh mind'. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5671 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 3 of 17 16 June 2009 at 2:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have a similar experience, in that I have been studying Czech for quiet a while, and fairly recently started studying Mandarin. Like you, I felt that, somehow, my Czech benefited from it. But, as I reflected on this, I began to believe it was just that learning Mandarin (at a very basic level) helped me see (in comparison) how far my Czech had actually come. This cheered me up, and made me feel better about Czech and more comfortable talking in it.
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| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6013 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 4 of 17 16 June 2009 at 2:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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I was living in the Basque country, trying to learn improve my Spanish and learn Basque, and every now and then talking/writing in Gaelic via the internet. One week I just felt like everything jammed up -- the brain machinery wasn't working at all and I couldn't express anything at all in any language but English. On the Saturday, I closed my Basque book after staring at it blankly for five minutes and decided to change tactic, and started on German (which I'd never studied before). I did half the MT Foundation course that afternoon
That night my Spanish was better than it had ever been. The next day I had a conversation in Gaelic and it was as easy as it had been previously. I don't know why it works, but in vague terms I suppose it's like a sort of "cross-training" for the brain, exercising the right bits even though it's a different activity. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| legasp Newbie Ireland Joined 5675 days ago 23 posts - 21 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Greek, Ancient Greek | Message 5 of 17 16 June 2009 at 2:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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The French is showing, in relative terms, how good your Hungarian actually is. I started with German and its been a hard slog too. I bought Michel Thomas French to listen to some day and went through a lesson or two and it actually made me want to dive back into German more. It made me realize I love the sound of German! And that I have an interest in German movies etc.
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| legasp Newbie Ireland Joined 5675 days ago 23 posts - 21 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Greek, Ancient Greek | Message 6 of 17 16 June 2009 at 2:40pm | IP Logged | ||
You are studying Irish ;-) Greetings from Dublin. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5768 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 7 of 17 16 June 2009 at 2:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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How to say? I seem to have a ladder of defaults. "native" default is German, "foreign" default is English "foreign NOT English" is Japanese.
Right now I'm struggling with Spanish (even though in comparision to Japanese is comes across as ridiculously easy) and whenever I can't come up with a phrase, it wants to switch back to Japanese, so suddenly Japanese isn't my "weak language" any more and it seems to take me less effort to maintain the same (low ._.;) level. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Katie Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 6720 days ago 495 posts - 599 votes Speaks: English*, Hungarian Studies: French, German | Message 8 of 17 17 June 2009 at 12:46am | IP Logged | ||
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I do find it interesting that most of those people who have experienced this, also played around with Michel Thomas... perhaps his way of making you approach language learning has all around benefits?!
Thanks for the comments so far. It really sparked my interest to feel an immediate change, and I am wondering now if there are ways that we can all continue to have this experience and aid our learning further! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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