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Trouble switching between languages? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| laika3 Newbie United States Joined 4822 days ago 2 posts - 4 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Swahili | Message 1 of 6 21 February 2011 at 11:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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Do any of you who are studying or have studied more than one language at once have trouble switching between them? I am studying Russian and Spanish (Russian in college classes and Spanish independently). I've studied Spanish since middle school and am fairly comfortable with it, and I'd say I'm about intermediate-high in Russian. I was listening to Spanish radio last night and writing in my Spanish journal this morning, and at Russian class this afternoon, only Spanish was coming to me. I couldn't remember very, very simple words in Russian, words I have known for years (such as "every" and "seven"). I find the opposite happens as well.
Any tips from you seasoned language learners on mentally keeping languages separate? Part of me says I should only study one language at once, but I would hate to take a step back in my Spanish. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| polyglHot Pentaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 4863 days ago 173 posts - 229 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, English, German, Spanish, Indonesian Studies: Russian | Message 2 of 6 21 February 2011 at 11:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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I can keep 3 of 6 languages seperated at any given time, however the 3 currently de-
activated ones will suffer if I try to speak them. The reason that I can switch between 3 is that my Norwegian and English are completely fluent so there is no actual consious thinking going on. Currently I can speak Russian too, but at a beginner level of course. I can still switch to Indonesian some times. You just have to wait until you have completely mastered either Russian or Spanish, then you will have "room" in your brain for a 3rd etc. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5131 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 3 of 6 21 February 2011 at 11:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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My experience is much like polyglHot's. English and Norwegian is there at any time. The others suffer when I am learning a new language. It does get better once your brain has gotten used to all the turmoil.
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| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5563 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 4 of 6 22 February 2011 at 12:44am | IP Logged | ||
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I suffer a lot from language interference. It even messes up my native language, so studying only one language at a time doesn't seem like a viable option.
Maybe you're like the two posters before me, and things will sort themselves out. Or maybe you're more like me and have to consciously work for it. Now, this usually happens to me in a normal conversation, sometimes when I have to recall isolated words (vocab quizzes!) and rarely while writing. Why? Because I don't practice speaking enough. Because I don't like to talk a lot. Because my mind treats words as little pieces in a gigantic puzzle and likes to try out where they fit, and when my French teacher asks us if we know the word for swim suit, it wants to crow out "Of course! It's mizugi!" (happened today - and when I just tried to remember the English word for swim suit, the first one that popped up was bañador ...) What helps me most is to paraphrase the word or expression in the target language. Sometimes, that alone is enough to remember it, usually the conversation partner will help out. And talking more also helps. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| BartoG Diglot Senior Member United States confession Joined 5244 days ago 292 posts - 818 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Italian, Spanish, Latin, Uzbek | Message 5 of 6 22 February 2011 at 1:24am | IP Logged | ||
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I think there's a lot to what Bao says about finding an individual word. I get interference between all my languages when trying to come up with a word I don't remember. That includes coming up with the French when the English has gone missing. At times, a word will pop up from a language I haven't studied in years and never really learned.
The key is to minimize the time that you're grappling for words and maximize the time that you're speaking smoothly. Part of this is accomplished with fluency, as Solfrid and polyglHot indicate. But there are two other related elements, for what you're looking for is to speak at your ease and without the sense of speaking a "foreign" language. A first element in this is to have a personal identification with the language. A lot of people's personalities shift slightly, to match the culture of the language they're speaking, for example. If you're feeling Spanish, you'll speak in Spanish. If you're feeling French, you'll speak in French, and so on. This comes from speaking with native speakers of the language - you pick up their mannerisms and manners of speaking. Also of help is to watch your pronunciation. It's not that you'll feel French if you speak correctly, per se. It's that you'll feel yourself speaking more from the nose and the front of the mouth, which changes the voice you hear in your head ever so slightly as well. By mimicking others and mimicking the sound of your language, you will come to physically identify with the language you're speaking; the physical apparatus of speech, the sound in your head and the postures you strike will all root you in this. The second element is to know your limitations and adapt for them. The hardest struggle for me in learning French was realizing that even if I spoke it perfectly, I would not be able to say in French what I say in English - nor vice versa! - because the languages don't approach the world quite the same way, and so I had to find new ways of expressing myself. If you're speaking a second language in which your skills are weak, you need to stick to simpler sentences and to things you can talk about or talk around. And when you get yourself truly into a mindset where you're speaking language X (see paragraph above) you'll be less inclined to need words you don't know because you won't be thinking about things you lack the words to think about. As for your classroom situation, it's perfectly natural to have a problem coming up with vocabulary words, because that's not language, that's drilling, and so the goal is to come up with a word paired with another word, not to find the right set of words for self-expression in a social context whose features include speaking in a certain language. In short, the goal is not to switch languages: The goal is to switch social contexts, making use of your whole body and your whole mind to fit into a place where speaking one language instead of another is just a part of fitting in. In contexts where one language is used instead of another for artificial reasons, of course you'll get interference. Likewise, when you stray beyond things you're comfortable talking about, you'll get interference. In both cases, language doesn't come naturally because you're trying to bring it about artificially. Nothing to worry about, just as long as you make sure that you have enough opportunity to use your languages in a way that is real to you for them to become a part of you till fluency comes. Edited by BartoG on 22 February 2011 at 1:27am 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| polyglHot Pentaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 4863 days ago 173 posts - 229 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, German, Spanish, Indonesian Studies: Russian | Message 6 of 6 22 February 2011 at 11:40am | IP Logged | ||
I don't speak a lot, but I don't think that's detrimental to language learning. I think that it's a plus actually, as it allows you to observe your surroundings and have maximum input at any given time. I believe being a selective mute is actually a good thing if one wants to be a "polyglot", I know I would have been monolingual had I spoken a lot as a child. Why, you ask? Because I would have spoken in Norwegian. AAAnyway this is beside the point. Now of course it helps to "act as a Russian" if I want to speak Russian. Fortunately I am still in Russia so I can observe the behaviour, however I think this applied more to Spanish, as they have a destinct attitude with all the hand gesturing etc. The easiest method I employ is the melody of the language, I don't know the exact linguistic term for this but, prosody or something. Changing the actual melody/accent of how you speak works wonders. You can also use different vocabulary in each language. In Indonesian for instance, one wouldn't use too many swear words, as oposed to Russian where one doesn't use a lot of slang. For example. Another useful method is speaking the language as soon as you wake up, seeing as you aren't consiously thinking yet, you will start speaking your target language. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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