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Language learning = endless? | ||
Tags: Time to learn | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| dairwolf Newbie Germany Joined 4974 days ago 6 posts - 6 votes Speaks: German* | Message 1 of 14 14 December 2010 at 6:31am | IP Logged | |||||
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Hey folks, I think this one is rather easy for experienced language learners. If I want to learn a language, does this mean that I have to invest time on learning the language every day for the rest of my life? Even if it was just 10 Minutes, that would be quite frightening to me. I have the impression that this whole deal of learning a language is too big for me to ever conquer it. I don´t have a problem with learning 3 hours now, then maybe half an hour every day for a week, spicing my learning process up with some extra long learning sessions from time to time and so on, but if I think of it as a never ending thing all my motivation just gets killed! It feels like learning itself doesn´t make sense (yes, it´s crazy, but I can´t explain it to myself!) I feel like I have a "knot" in my thinking. Can anyone untie it? Thanks!
P.s.: The above question put in other words might amount to something like: Is it possible to learn vocabulary in a way so that you will NEVER forget it anymore? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Raari Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4908 days ago 4 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Japanese, Mandarin | Message 2 of 14 14 December 2010 at 6:56am | IP Logged | |||||
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You've been studying your native language for your entire life so far; that hasn't gotten you down, has it? That said, if you were to stop using your native language now and move to a country where you never heard German again, in twenty years (to pull a number out of the air) there's a good chance you would forget German, or at least have some serious trouble speaking like you used to. In fact, there's a good chance you would forget -anything- that you didn't look at, hear, or think about for twenty years.
I might be tightening your knot more than untying, but my point is, learning -anything- is a lifelong endeavor. You will never 'finish' learning anything unless you decided you've finished. You can either say "Wow, learning takes forever" and decide never to learn an instrument / study the law / study a language, or you could start now and enjoy the journey. You'll never reach "the end" so you might as well make the best of the middle. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Merv Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5084 days ago 414 posts - 749 votes  Speaks: English*, Serbo-Croatian* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 3 of 14 14 December 2010 at 7:17am | IP Logged | |||||
No, you are right that the process never ends. The trick is to learn through things you enjoy. It doesn't have to be a chore. Watch a movie, every week to keep up with the language, call up a friend who speaks it, practice a bit of writing, read a book, etc. Once you have a good base, there's not that much work involved. I know a lady who was born in Germany and her native language was German. She lived as a girl for some years in Cuba before coming to the US. Naturally, she was fluent and had a native accent in both German and Spanish. Today, she can only speak English and can no longer speak either German or Spanish. So yes, if you do not use it, you will lose it. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6514 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 14 14 December 2010 at 8:13am | IP Logged | |||||
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I personally can't get through every one of my languages and dialects every single day, but I try to do it at least once or twice each week. It may not be enough to keep them all in pristine condition, but my ambition level is "basic fluency or more", and that's feasible. Butthis relaxed attitude doesn't function with languages you haven't learnt properly in the first place. The better your command the easier it is to maintain a language.
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| Tyro Diglot Newbie Sweden Joined 5205 days ago 9 posts - 11 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: French | Message 5 of 14 14 December 2010 at 10:37am | IP Logged | |||||
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Iversen: If you don't mind, how do you have time for all that? You're studying ten new languages simultaneously, while maintaining another ten, and you seem to spend quite some time here aswell.
How do you manage?? I find it hard to study two three languages at the same time, there never seems to be enough time. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6514 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 14 14 December 2010 at 11:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I haven't got enough time either. But on most evenings I can find time to do at least a couple of hours of intensive study of my new and/or weak languages, and on top op that a couple of hours surfing - I can cover several languages in that time. Besides I often watch television while reading or writing here and I have got TV in Danish, English, Swedish, Norwegian, German, French, Spanish and Italian to choose from. For the rest of my languages I have to watch internet TV, but with more than 100 channels to choose from just in Portuguese, plus podcasts in Latin, Dutch, Afrikaans and other languages the internet is a treasure trove beyond belief. Moreover when I travel in busses or trains or walk I try to maintain an constant inner monologue in various languages... you get the picture.
Of course I also spend time doing my job, speaking to my family and doing webmaster tasks for my travel club, but I don't have kids, I hate bars, TV shows, action films, long novels in Danish and empty smalltalk - just think how much time most people waste on those activities. Nevertheless I could always use a couple of hours more... Edited by Iversen on 15 December 2010 at 12:04am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6361 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 7 of 14 15 December 2010 at 12:40am | IP Logged | |||||
Some people have interesting definitions of the word "study". 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 4941 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 8 of 14 15 December 2010 at 12:42am | IP Logged | |||||
Change the word "study" to "learn" and it makes sense. R. == 1 person has voted this message useful |
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