Register  Login  Active Topics  Maps  

Maintaining languages

 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
Teango
Triglot
Winner TAC 2010 & 2012
Senior Member
United States
teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5316 days ago

2210 posts - 3734 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Russian
Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona

 
 Message 1 of 3
04 December 2010 at 2:44am | IP Logged 
Juggling languages is far from easy, especially for a relative beginner. I can see how it can take years of dedication and experience to finally settle on a suitable language learning and maintenance schedule, which is why in part I have nothing but respect for people like Professor Arguelles, who can keep on acquiring and maintaining so many languages, and also hold down a job and raise a family at the same time.

There are also a lot of excellent strategies and examples on the forum on how to do this, and I'm only just now beginning to get a clearer view of the general picture. As language learning is very time demanding, one of the strategies I use to make things simpler is to group languages I'm maintaining according to how easy they will be to continue practicing later on. In this respect, I find the following general categories useful in helping me organise how I structure my maintenance programme:

1. Languages at home - e.g. languages you can practice daily at home with your family or partner.

2. Languages in the community - e.g. languages you can practice at work, whilst living in the country, or with friends and neighbours in the local community.

3. Hobby/School languages - e.g. other languages you've signed up to study or you'd just like to learn to some degree of fluency, but that will require an ongoing immersion routine to maintain over the following years once you've reached basic fluency. I initially aim for at least a couple of hours each week for languages I'm more comfortable with, which is about all I can fit in whilst working during the week and learning a new language in my spare time.

4. Fun weekend excursions - e.g. wanderlust, dabbling, procrastination, call it what you will - the main thing here is that you just let your passion for languages determine when and how you return to review. I tend to picture this as a fun and colourful patchwork quilt, with strips of various languages loosely stitched together - an indulgent comfort blanket to look forward to from time to time on stolen weekends. ;)

Edited by Teango on 04 December 2010 at 2:51am

1 person has voted this message useful



hrhenry
Octoglot
Senior Member
United States
languagehopper.blogs
Joined 4890 days ago

1871 posts - 3642 votes 
Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese
Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe

 
 Message 2 of 3
04 December 2010 at 4:02am | IP Logged 
I would combine categories 1 and 2, especially if you live in a country where your target language is spoken.

Also, this is probably nitpicking, but I wouldn't use the work "practice" for that category. If you're living with the language day-in, day-out, I personally wouldn't consider it practice.

Category 3 is simply actively studying a language, at least to me.

Truthfully, I've never really considered category 4. If I travel somewhere and end up using a phrasebook or such, I'll surely forget anything I looked up after returning home. I suppose that category 4 could become a category 3 for me, meaning it inspires me to actually study the language, but just casually looking up a word à la word-of-the-day calendar, I'll just forget it minutes after looking at it.

R.
==
1 person has voted this message useful



Teango
Triglot
Winner TAC 2010 & 2012
Senior Member
United States
teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5316 days ago

2210 posts - 3734 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Russian
Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona

 
 Message 3 of 3
04 December 2010 at 4:22am | IP Logged 
Oh of course, I'm not ruling out crossovers between categories. For example, my girlfriend's Russian, but she speaks English both at home and at work (categories 1 and 2); whereas when I was living in Germany, I probably fell into categories 2 and 3 and didn't really speak German in the home at all.

The whole thing is really just a way of reminding me that I can still maintain languages without having to pencil it in each week, just by nature of being in or building a target-language environment around me. The main calculation for me is to work out how many languages are more or less just in category 3, and then schedule these in for a bit of ongoing maintenance during the week.

I also get to indulge my wanderlust at weekends and not feel too guilty, which is always a bonus. ;)

Edited by Teango on 04 December 2010 at 4:24am



1 person has voted this message useful



If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register


Post ReplyPost New Topic Printable version Printable version

You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum


This page was generated in 0.3438 seconds.


DHTML Menu By Milonic JavaScript
Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved
No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization.