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What’s the perfect number of languages? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Malcolm Triglot Retired Moderator Senior Member Korea, South Joined 7105 days ago 500 posts - 515 votes  5 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Korean Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Latin | Message 1 of 37 17 March 2005 at 3:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've been organizing a long-term language learning plan, but I'm concerned about the number of languages that one can or should learn in one lifetime.
We can become fluent in a new language in 1-3 years, but a certain amount of time and effort is required to maintain it. If you add one new language every 1-3 years, you'll eventually reach a point where it's impossible to maintain a high level of fluency in all of them. However, this is also complicated by the fact that languages get easier to learn with experience. This means that adding a 12th and 13th language is much easier than adding a 3rd and 4th. What do you think the perfect number of language is (if such a number exists)? Is there a point where you should stop learning new languages and focus on the ones you already know? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7166 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes 12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 37 17 March 2005 at 4:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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Malcolm, this is an interesting question but I fear you might not be able to ever find an answer for it.
As you progress in life it is probable that your interests will evolve and compete for your time. Learning language requires monkish work and dedication, and with more professional or family responsibilities, you will probably have less time available for it. As for the number of languages, it really depends what languages you want. If you want to do all of the major Romance or Germanic languages, this is not as hard as learning Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Thai, Russian and other languages with few or no similarities. Personnally I will be quite glad if I could speak and write perfectly in 6 to 8 languages. Perhaps if I have more time I'll add some 'easy' languages to fill in the gaps such as Dutch or Swedish. I encourage young people on this forum to try to learn hard languages when they still have a lot of time available for study - after they begin working they might lack the focus and energy needed for swift progress. I hope we'll hear from Ardaschir on this. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7046 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes | Message 3 of 37 18 March 2005 at 6:39am | IP Logged | ||
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This is a matter to which I have given much thought and even written about extensively in the book I am editing about language learning, so I am tempted to respond at length about this topic here, and even to offer to coach anyone like Malcolm who might care for my advice. However, I am somewhat apprehensive. Every time I have broached the subject in the past on this forum, I have inadvertently rubbed someone the wrong way by the tone of my writing. I never mean to be pedantic, but I am a professional academic after all, and so if I do accidentally slip into such a tone, I ask for forgiveness in advance. I can't write about this topic without using the word "should," but I always mean it in terms of an ideal to be striven for and never as a judgment on those who have not achieved it.
The answer to this question will differ based on the amount of study time he anticipates having at his disposal, the languages to which he currently aspires, and his primary motives for learning, which may be: 1. communicative / conversational / practical / functional -- i.e., you want to use the language you learn by speaking with people who speak it naturally. 2. cultural / literary / scholarly -- i.e., you want to learn the language so that you can read the books that have been written in it so that you can understand the cultural that it bears. 3. philological -- i.e., you simply love languages in and of themselves, as patterns and systems. Most anyone who aspires to become a polyglot will probably have a mixture of at least two of these motives, but I need to know which one predominates and what the exact mixture is before before I can even attempt to give a ballpark "perfect" figure. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| kidnickels Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 7040 days ago 124 posts - 119 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishB1, French Studies: Mandarin | Message 4 of 37 18 March 2005 at 8:56am | IP Logged | ||
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Isn't this going to depend more than anything else on the learner's raw ability? Let's face it - not everyone has the same aptitude for learning or retaining languages. The same amount of effort will yield six languages for one learner and three for another. So I don't see how anyone can tell another person the specific number of languages s/he should learn. Just keep going until your brain is full [:D] I'll second Francois' comments on the correlation between the number of languages you can learn/retain and the difficulty of the languages you choose. I expect to be highly proficient (thanks to whoever introduced that phrase to me) in Spanish by June 1st, six months after I started. But I wouldn't expect the same if I was learning Russian or Arabic. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7046 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes | Message 5 of 37 18 March 2005 at 11:10am | IP Logged | ||
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Yes, of course, obviously the number of languages a person can learn ultimately depends on raw ability + time dedicated + opportunity + quality of materials. However, let's keep our focus here -- this is not the question that Malcolm raised. He wants to know how to go about drawing up the horizons of a long-term language learning plan, and in order to do that, it is possible to make some generalizations if we know a) what languages a person wants to learn, and b) the kind of motivation that is driving him.
2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Malcolm Triglot Retired Moderator Senior Member Korea, South Joined 7105 days ago 500 posts - 515 votes 5 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Korean Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Latin | Message 6 of 37 18 March 2005 at 12:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you for your responses.
I have about 3 hours a day to study languages, and I could easily increase this to 5+ hours if I didn't waste so much time browsing websites aimlessly and watching television. I think I'm pretty good at language learning (at least above average), and I have a good memory. I also get exposure on a daily basis to all kinds of languages, especially Asian languages. My motivation is primarily of the first type; I want to be able to communicate with native speakers fluently. The languages I'm definitely going to learn (in the order I'm learning them) are: Spanish Mandarin Japanese French (primarily for reading) Cantonese German (primarily for reading) So far, I can "speak" in Spanish and Mandarin, and I get practice with these two languages all the time, but I'm still far from highly proficient/fluent. I can also communicate at a very, very basic level in Japanese. I've also touched upon Cantonese and I'm confident that I'll be able to learn it well. I know close to nothing about German. I plan to spend 5-7 years on the above 6 languages. Beyond this, I'm also mildly interested in the following: Italian (primarily for reading) Russian Korean Portuguese (primarily for reading) 3rd Chinese dialect Indonesian Hindi Arabic (reading only) 4th Chinese dialect Thai Vietnamese Latin (reading only) Sanskrit (reading only) 5th Chinese dialect I realize that this probably covers every major language, but I wanted to present them here to show the order in which I'd go about learning them. If I were to learn one new language every 1-3 years, it would be in an order similar to the above list. However, I would never expect nor plan to make it to the bottom. I'm thinking that Russian or Korean would be a good cut-off point, but I'm not sure. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Also, please keep in mind that this is a long-term plan. I'm 23 years old, if that helps. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kidnickels Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 7040 days ago 124 posts - 119 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishB1, French Studies: Mandarin | Message 7 of 37 18 March 2005 at 2:42pm | IP Logged | ||
Amen, brother. The Internet is simultaneously the best and worst thing to happen to language learners. (How about LL's for short?) Your list was interesting, btw. I think I'd benefit from sitting down and mapping out a long-term plan for learning languages - I've got about a half-dozen more I'd like to add (Japanese, Tagalog, Hindi/Urdu, at least one Scandinavian language, Armenian) and I'd like to advance my Mandarin and my Italian to high proficiency. I think I'll give a specific plan some thought this weekend. One great thing about this forum is the encouragement. In years past, I would have bailed on Spanish by now, especially once I reached 2000 words. Several of you have pushed me to keep pushing myself, and I'll hit 2500 words next week with 4000 well in sight by June 1st (my self-imposed goal for high proficiency). Thank you all for the help and the ideas. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| victor Tetraglot Moderator United States Joined 7108 days ago 1098 posts - 1056 votes 6 sounds Speaks: Cantonese*, English, FrenchC1, Mandarin Studies: Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 37 18 March 2005 at 2:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think that you have the potential to learn romance languages beyond reading level. It takes an extra step, and there you can speak the language. So many Chinese dialects! :D
1 person has voted this message useful |
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