How fast can you learn it? An answer. (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

How fast can you learn it? An answer.
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Language Learning Forum : General discussion

23 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3

Préposition
Diglot
Senior Member
France
aspectualpairs.wordp
Joined 4924 days ago
186 posts - 283 votes

Speaks: French*, English^C1
Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Swedish, Arabic (Levantine)

Message 17 of 23

24 January 2011 at 6:16pm | IP Logged

It's actually very depressing to read that your 4 years-long degree will just about get you to an intermediate level in Arabic. I'll just pretend I haven't read this and that I can reach a better level in the same time :P
1 person has voted this message useful

Kubelek
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
chomikuj.pl/Kuba_wal
Joined 6662 days ago
415 posts - 528 votes

Speaks: Polish*, English^C2, French, Spanish
Studies: German

Message 18 of 23

24 January 2011 at 6:33pm | IP Logged

It sounds like an interesting idea. When I put Spanish + French my Portuguese or Italian
timelines are impossible to predict.

I hope it means that it will be mind-blowingly easy ;)

Edited by Kubelek on 24 January 2011 at 6:34pm
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liddytime
Pentaglot
Senior Member
United States
mainlymagyar.wordpre
Joined 6039 days ago
693 posts - 1328 votes

Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician
Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written)

Message 19 of 23

24 January 2011 at 7:36pm | IP Logged

Arekkusu wrote:

It says I should reach intermediate in Japanese in 4 years and 36 weeks. It's been about
2 years and 25 weeks and I've passed B2 already. I doubt such a great difference is
indicative of an accurate system.

Yes, but my bet is you probably put in more than 5 hours a week towards Japanese. If not, you are extremely
gifted!!
1 person has voted this message useful

Arekkusu
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Canada
bit.ly/qc_10_lec
Joined 5191 days ago
3971 posts - 7747 votes

Speaks: English, French*, German^C1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto
Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian

Message 20 of 23

24 January 2011 at 8:19pm | IP Logged

liddytime wrote:

Arekkusu wrote:

Yes, but my bet is you probably put in more than 5 hours a week towards Japanese. If not, you are extremely
gifted!!

I suppose I sometimes put in more than 5 hours per week, but since not all hours are equal, I think this can have a huge effect on the result. 2 hours doing written exercices, watching a movie, or having an active conversation with a native speaker don't give the same result. In any case, the idea that you'll still be a beginner after 4 years is extremely depressing.
1 person has voted this message useful

litovec
Tetraglot
Groupie
Switzerland
lingvometer.com
Joined 4941 days ago
42 posts - 60 votes

Speaks: German, Russian, French, English

Message 21 of 23

25 January 2011 at 7:22pm | IP Logged

hjordis wrote:

What about unrelated languages with similar grammar? Surely in the first language most people would spend a lot of time trying to get used to a new grammar, while the second time around they'll understand how two or three of the hardest parts work, even if they don't know the specifics.

Could you please provide an example of unrelated languages with similar grammar?

Segata wrote:

edit 2: Wait a minute. With this setup, I still need 1220 hours. This is even worse ;)
From my own experience, there's a huge amount of similarities between Japanese and Korean that counts for more than 100 hours. [...] My knowledge of Japanese makes learning Korean vocabulary so much easier. Oftentimes when I read Korean text and encounter new words I think "Oh, this is probably [Insert Japanese word]" and I'm usually right.

Amazing! Actually, I didn't account for two languages having one influentor, I should definitely correct this.

Kubelek wrote:

It sounds like an interesting idea. When I put Spanish + French my Portuguese or Italian
timelines are impossible to predict.

I hope it means that it will be mind-blowingly easy ;)

It sounds credible. Look, with Spanish+French your reading and comprehension skills in Italian are already at the intermediate level :-). You only need to bring your writing and speaking skills up there

Arekkusu wrote:

In any case, the idea that you'll still be a beginner after 4 years is extremely depressing.

Well, it's statistics (source: American DLI). On the other side, after beating the average time you must be rather satisfied than depressed ;)
1 person has voted this message useful

lerner
Groupie
Germany
Joined 5628 days ago
51 posts - 79 votes

Speaks: Hindi*
Studies: English^C2, German^C1, Spanish, Dutch

Message 22 of 23

26 January 2011 at 12:45am | IP Logged

I don't know whether it's a discrepancy or not but when I enter the following languages (Target language : Dutch)

English     Fluent
German     C1: Advanced
Spanish     B1: Intermediate
Hindi/Urdu     Fluent

The result reads : Spending 5 hours a week on it, you'll need 96 weeks or 1 years and 44 weeks. (480 hours for B1/2)

Now, if I remove Spanish from the mix, the time required reduces drastically.

Result for above languages (- Spanish) : It's hard to draw any definite conclusions in your case, but we assume that spending 5 hours a week on it, in half a year or less you'll achieve an intermediate level. That's about 130 hours, about a fourth of the 480 hours in the previous case.

How does not knowing Spanish (which I really can't speak) lead to a decrease in the number of hours required to reach an intermediate level in Dutch?

Edited by lerner on 26 January 2011 at 1:37am
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garyb
Triglot
Senior Member
ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5017 days ago
1468 posts - 2413 votes

Speaks: English*, Italian, French
Studies: Spanish

Message 23 of 23

26 January 2011 at 5:16pm | IP Logged

The fact that it would take me as long to get to an intermediate level in Russian as it would to learn SEVERAL Romance languages does make me think...

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