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Can another language make you relaxed? | ||
Tags: Epiphany | Multilingual | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| andee Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 7079 days ago 681 posts - 724 votes  3 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Korean, French | Message 9 of 17 17 June 2009 at 3:04am | IP Logged | ||
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I experience ease and familiarity with a language I have studied a while once I begin the study of another language. I think it is to do with sequencing in your brain (I have no facts or recognised theories to support me, these are just my thoughts... so forgive me ha).
I think that when you are still actively studying a language and it is your most recent acquisition then your brain labels it as "learning", even if you are proficicent or have studied it for quite a while. As soon as you begin the study of another language, it get's moved from "learning" to "using", and the new language takes the "learning" role. When the language is in the learning area it can often become difficult to fully grasp what you have learned, but when it transfers to a using role, you magically assimilate a lot more. This has happened to me with several languages. There is also the language fatigue as someone mentioned. Just like any other exercise, you need rest or risk over-training. Most notably this has been evident in my Korean study. The last time I was in Korea I studied 4-5 hours a day 5 days per week as well as being surrounded by Korean all the time. I made heaps of progress but after a couple of months it became difficult to string sentences together so I stopped studying. A few days later I caught up and could speak better than before. 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 10 of 17 17 June 2009 at 5:21am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks Andee. I don't think I've been overdoing it with study, but perhaps it's just the expectations and pressures I put on myself that were holding me back.
Anyway, I decided it was good enough for me to continue studying French anyway! Oh and I rang my local library and asked them to do a search to tell me the nearest neighbouring library that had a decent collection of Hungarian books. Apparently one that is about 20 minutes or so from here has a good collection! So, I'll be heading over there perhaps on Friday to check it out!! They also have the full MT course for French, so I've got that on 'order' :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| gogglehead Triglot Senior Member Argentina Joined 6077 days ago 248 posts - 320 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Russian, Italian | Message 11 of 17 17 June 2009 at 10:01am | IP Logged | ||
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A few years ago, I attempted to develop a personal system of language learning and detailed this on my (now defunct) website. However I can now see that it was greatly flawed, and I cannot now see any real advantages of the method for the average learner, although I feel it helped me to learn Portuguese in very little time. But it was similar in approach as the phenomina suggested here. Basically, when seeking to study another language (Portuguese), and knowing only Spanish, I realised very quickly that even after 5 minutes of study in Portuguese, my knowledge and thoughts in Spanish flowed more fluidly. I put this down to a matter of confidence, and envisaged ways to break my psycological barriers that were surely holding me back.
However, to avoid going off on an little-related tangent , this was only a small part of my method, which I called the "track system". I knew that Portuguese was "leading" the Spanish, therefore I came to know it as the "leader". Spanish was the "trailer". Later, but over quite a short period, I became confidently conversant in Portuguese using Italian as the leader, although the former has been rather poorly maintained due to my own neglect. Then, when studying Italian, I felt I was not progressing very fast at all, and lacking confidence, until that it, that I introduced Russian as the new leader. My confusion at the strange new language, with its alien alphabet and grammar, somehow boosted my Italian to no end. Soon, maybe I will seek a new leader for my "lost soul" that is the Russian language. I know that this is not even slightly scientific, just a simple matter of the mind. I am not touting this idea, it was just my experience. Edited by gogglehead on 17 June 2009 at 10:02am 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 12 of 17 17 June 2009 at 12:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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gogglehead - that's actually really interesting! Thanks for sharing!
With hearing others' experiences in this, I wonder whether there IS something behind it? Whether it be dependent on personality/learning style or some other connection... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6153 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 13 of 17 17 June 2009 at 1:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think dipping your toe in another language stream really helps. I'm not sure if it's encountering a new grammar that causes you to appreciate other features in your first language, or the different phonetics. I find in really helpful when you're tired and feel you've expended all your energies on the first one.
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| julie1275 Diglot Newbie Korea, South Joined 5696 days ago 12 posts - 20 votes Speaks: Korean*, EnglishC2 Studies: Mandarin | Message 14 of 17 17 June 2009 at 2:25pm | IP Logged | ||
I am attending a foreign language high school in South Korea, the students of which were already moderately fluent in English from the beginning. Throughout our studying in Mandarin Chinese, our major language, many of us noticed that it is much easier to learn Mandarin than English, in that we already experienced confrontation with a language that has totally different structure and way of thinking and the new language is comparatively closer to our mother tongue. I guess you're experiencing the exactly same thing -or maybe the exactly opposite thing- we felt. You and I may have chosen to learn too hard language for beginners: Uralic and Altaic language for native English speaker and vice versa. (Korean is considered as an Uralic and Altaic language.) Thus, it is natural that we feel the 2nd foreign language a lot easier than the 1st one. In turn, that may lead us to be confident in our previous target language. 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 15 of 17 17 June 2009 at 11:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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julie1275 - why do we do it to ourselves?! haha I'm kidding, I have very strong reasons to learn this language first, as I'm sure you have for learning Korean - but there's definitely something encouraging about now taking on an 'easier' language!
For me, especially French - the sentence structure and grammar makes SENSE to me. In Hungarian there seems to be 4 million grammatical rules - of which almost every second sentence is an 'exception' to the rule! Of course, the French words are very close to English words in a lot of situations, which is a lot easier too. 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 16 of 17 18 June 2009 at 12:05am | IP Logged | ||
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I actually am thinking the other way around - I want to learn one or two more languages that are very difficult and alien for me next so that I am done with frustration and self-management issues once and for all. :D
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