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Continuous Language Learning? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| vexx Groupie Australia Joined 5005 days ago 81 posts - 82 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Latin | Message 1 of 11 14 August 2010 at 8:17pm | IP Logged |
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Is this what people do?
Just continually learn languages in a short period of time? Say it takes 6 months to become really good working quite hard over this time. First six months; doing all sorts of Assimil, Pimsleur+ MT in Italian (or any other materials you find better. i only really know of these cos im doing this) Next six months after completiting these and reviewing advanced texts/movies, and then spending the next few months on Spanish and then French (as these would be perhaps be shorter.. or not) After 1-2years of finishing and getting good, could one actually speak all three quite will still? Will there be confusion? Will a lot of the previously learnt language be lost? If you were still able to speak each after learning all three, and then went on and did the same for Norweigan, then Dutch, and then after for Japanese and Chinese After the years could one potentially speak at a high level at all of these languages? Does language learning really work like this? I'm getting excited knowing how quickly one can get to a high level with intensive study, and wonder about learning more&more.... but does it remain? Any thoughts on this is helpful! especially those who may have experiences such a thing! VEXX. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5798 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 2 of 11 14 August 2010 at 11:11pm | IP Logged |
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You can't just leave a language to one side while you work on another. You have to keep using them or they get rusty.
3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| daniela Newbie Romania Joined 5068 days ago 18 posts - 29 votes Speaks: Romanian* | Message 3 of 11 15 August 2010 at 12:20am | IP Logged |
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I think it would be useful if you would slow down and think about what you want to learn and why. Make a list with the languages that interest you and the reason for your interest. Watch a movie in everyone of them. Which language do you like best? Reorder the list. Which of them will benefit you in the future? What other questions you think are worth asking? Rearrange them again.
Learning a language is a lifetime endeavour. Even in your native language there are still unknown words and subtleties. Put on the list the level you would like to achieve in each language and start with the one in the front of the list. After you reach a level at which the language can be used, start using it. You didn't learned it to show off. By using it, in time it will improve. Then start the second. But you should always use them. Read a book, watch a movie, talk to a friend, research a subject that interest you on the internet. Things like this are not work, but will keep the language alive in your mind and unconsciously expand your knowledge. This doesn't mean that you have to use each one every day. The length of the pause you can make without losing significant parts of your knowledge increases with the time for which you have known that language and the level you achieved in it. Now they are just languages. Exotic, interesting, capable of bringing you other people's admiration. Learn one and you'll see it transform. It will become a tool to express yourself and maybe a significant part of your life. Different languages have different focus. Some things are better expressed in one or another. They are not objects to be collected, but close friends, facets of your personality. Edited by daniela on 15 August 2010 at 12:32am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5553 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 4 of 11 15 August 2010 at 12:53am | IP Logged |
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* Unless you really enjoy the process of intensively studing the language in question you are very likely to burn yourself out in no time. Some people manage to do it, but don't make the mistake to believe you're one of them until you have proof for it. Intensively studying one language for a month is different from intensively studying languages for years.
* You can learn the basics in that time, but you are not likely to reach a very comfortable or even near-native level. That means that you can not easily maintain the language by using it; which means that with every subsequent language you will either lose more of the previous ones, or you will have to lower the intensity of your study. Any way the old and new languages will suffer from it. Especially if you are learning two languages with very similar grammar or phonology, you will suppress the old one in favour of the new one which means that you will lose the active command of the old one unless you work for it - either at the same time or once you do have the basics of the new language down. * Do not expect to learn a language like Japanese or Chinese within a couple of months. It's simply unrealistic. I'm not saying it might not be possible, and if you can do it without burning yourself out, do it. But don't expect being able to do that. A better plan would be to study each language until you can comfortably maintain or improve it, then take a break to sort out how the new language fits best in with the other ones, and only after that pick up the next one. Maybe you will be able to cope with more than one new language at a time, but that's something you will have to find out yourself. Edited by Bao on 17 August 2010 at 11:23am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| vexx Groupie Australia Joined 5005 days ago 81 posts - 82 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Latin | Message 5 of 11 15 August 2010 at 3:33am | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the replies peoples!
I didn't mean i was actually going to do this, i was just wondering if it was possible. I probably couldn't do 6 month intensives of all sorts of languages for a long period of time :S At the moment i'm going to learn Italian+ reading Latin for a year (maybe more), and then possibly begin French for over a year and then put in some Japanese here and there. I'm not expecting fluency in all of them but I want to be good in all of them. & definitely not expecting the ability to read Japanese well any time soon! But basically, from my main topic, it IS possibly to continuously learn languages then, interesting. It seems difficult to be able to practice all these languages to keep them at the high level, one can not simply read a book in all 4 learnt languages per day. How does maintaining work if there are a few or more languages wanting to be saved? Does it really have to be everyday? Or roughly a few hours a week? I'm afraid if i learn languages and don't practice them for a little while i will lose everything! Especially if i become interested in new languages ~ 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5798 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 6 of 11 15 August 2010 at 1:52pm | IP Logged |
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If you really want to be a polyglot, you have to do it professionally. You need to get a job that lets you practise all those languages regularly.
Which either means language teaching, diplomatic translation services (EU or UN) or (shudder) technical support call-centres.... 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| vexx Groupie Australia Joined 5005 days ago 81 posts - 82 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Latin | Message 7 of 11 15 August 2010 at 2:20pm | IP Logged |
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Hmmm I see. I just watched a youtube video on a guy who speaks many, many languages fluently and spends most
of everyday practicing them (the video he was saying his routine which of that day consisted of ~15 languages, with a focus on Arabic). so crazy, he loved it so much though. So with your languages, you speak a few at a basic fluency, how did you come to that? was it through the methods of doing intensively for a few months and then getting better over time with movies/reading? or did you live in different countries or what? how do you maintain those languages now? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tpark Tetraglot Pro Member Canada Joined 6833 days ago 118 posts - 127 votes Speaks: English*, German, Dutch, French Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 11 17 August 2010 at 5:29am | IP Logged |
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I have very limited time to study, so I'm limited in what I can reasonably maintain. Dutch is a "daily use" language, but I don't really use it heavily unless I'm in The Netherlands, or my wife's relatives are in town. French is a bit easier, I listen to the radio in the car, watch the TV, and read the newspaper on the internet. There are some French speakers which I talk to on a regular basis, but if there are English only speakers, we speak English. I've done some study of German (Pimsleur, Michel Thomas) but I'm still pretty hopeless at it. I think I can probably get German up to useful level, but already I can tell that additional languages would require too much time. I already study far too little for quick progress, and I'm sure that adding additional languages would dilute the time I already dedicate to study.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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