|
 |
Studying several languages at once | ||
Tags: Simultaneous study | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| cmmah Diglot Groupie Ireland Joined 4330 days ago 52 posts - 110 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Irish | Message 1 of 11 18 July 2012 at 9:38pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Over the course of my life (not within the next ten years, probably), I'd be looking to become proficient in these languages:
French Spanish Irish Mandarin Chinese And possibly (these aren't really priorities): German Portuguese A Scandinavian language (any suggestions?) And maybe some others. How would you suggest I go about this? I'm studying French and Spanish actively at the moment. I've dabbled in Mandarin (though I wouldn't really call it studying), and I'm starting Irish classes in September (I want to learn a certain dialect, so most resources wouldn't be particularly helpful). In Spanish and French, I'm reasonably advanced. I could tell my life story, order a pizza, and describe my plans for next year etc. I've only got some very basic Mandarin and as I said, I haven't done any Irish yet. I see people on here who study 5+ languages at once. I wonder how they do this. Any advice appreciated. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| outcast Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member China Joined 4748 days ago 869 posts - 1364 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 2 of 11 18 July 2012 at 10:35pm | IP Logged | ||
|
First, a few people are just able to study 5 languages at once WITH EASE. Just like some people can watch over brewing coffee, talk on the cell, send an e-mail, and tell a guest to sign the guestbook. Just the way it is. Also, it is a question of time.
A lot of people I suspect do a periodic rotation. X-time (one week, one month... or one day, why not) focusing solely on language A, then rotating to another language. Those that don't exclusively focus on one still have a particular language as their main daily activity, and just cursorily review the other languages on any given day. Even though I claim to speak the languages I do, I'm still not advanced, or what I consider to be advanced at least. I probably have a slightly lower bar for "basic fluency" (to me it is able to converse without the native showing significant frustration or unwillingness to go further), but a higher one for "advanced" (to me advanced is fluency without any debilitating searching for words). That means I am still actively studying all three. What I did, as a beginner, was just focus on one language for 3-6 months, to push through the "easy" stage when you make rapid progress and have the most material available. When I reached that level, I went onto the next. Ever since I have been "shortening" my shifts two two months (when I did a major review of all three), then two weeks... now I'm down two rotating every two days, since I can read and watch French and German tv with relative ease (always could Portuguese for obvious reasons). What that did, at least to me, is infix the language patterns and vocab so that now I feel more comfortable switching without much if any mixing (specially French/Portuguese). In fact that is part of my goal, to eventually just switch automatically without having to "warm up". And I think, afterall, that you have already done this! Spanish and French at the same time is not something many dare, because of the dreaded mixing. Once you get to a certain point, you will be able to add another language. In short, many people that are learning 5 or 6 languages are not at the exact same level in all of them, they may have felt comfortable enough in some to add others without risk of regressing in the ones they already had been studying. Edited by outcast on 18 July 2012 at 10:36pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6955 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 3 of 11 18 July 2012 at 10:59pm | IP Logged | ||
This pretty much describes my studying profile with each of my languages getting different priority. In addition, I didn't start learning each language at the same time nor have I studied each at the same intensity (related to the first point of different priority). 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6396 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 4 of 11 18 July 2012 at 11:29pm | IP Logged | ||
|
For me my languages are a part of my lifestyle. I use my native language as little as possible, certainly not for reading, music or movies. And I love every minute of it.
I don't recommend making any plans for your future studies. Start a new language when you can't help it, when you can't live without it. Or let it enter your life, like Spanish entered mine without an invitation. Too much good stuff, including stuff for learners. I couldn't resist :p 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Wulfgar Senior Member United States Joined 4470 days ago 404 posts - 791 votes Speaks: English* | Message 5 of 11 19 July 2012 at 6:34am | IP Logged | ||
I recommend not doing this, even though I am. If I had to do it all over again, I'd learn a single language to the level I desire (C1/C2), then move on to the next. That way I wouldn't have to do any maintenance. Time-wise, it's more efficient. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Rajsinhasan Diglot Newbie Joined 4497 days ago 24 posts - 34 votes Speaks: English*, Creole (English) Studies: Portuguese | Message 6 of 11 19 July 2012 at 6:53am | IP Logged | ||
|
My own personal experience with this would say that it's much better to reach basic
fluency in one language before moving onto another. At one time I was studying three languages actively devoting time to each throughout the day and sometimes rotating but at the very least I didn't have an efficient method for this or I just didn't have the time/energy to allocate practice of both active and passive skills. In the end, I learned none thoroughly except being able to read and my language goals have changed with wanting to speak now as well. Well, I guess I learned how to learn a language, what suits my learning style, and what exactly I want out of it; I found myself dissatisfied with not being able to speak a living language. However, I didn’t focus on speaking originally solely because of a speech impediment but I’m not allowing it to hinder me any longer. With learning one language now, I find that I'm moving a whole lot faster and retaining more and able to find time to speak, write, read, etc. each day for my target language and not feel overwhelmed Edited by Rajsinhasan on 19 July 2012 at 7:00am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4332 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 7 of 11 19 July 2012 at 10:22am | IP Logged | ||
|
I would think the average person would find it less efficient learning multiple languages at once.
When I started learning German, I momentarily lost the ability to effectively access my school French. That makes sense to me from a neural point of view. You do have limited cortical real estate so each new language (with all the connections between words etc) needs to rewire existing neurons or grow new tissue. As this is presumably an iterative process it takes a finite amount of time/learning before two distinct languages are distinctly defined cortically. I would assume that it would be much harder to train up your brain with five separate inputs simultaneously. Of course, people vary, so some may find this easier than others, but I can't believe it would ever be as efficient to learn five languages simultaneously, rather than five sequentially. Edited by patrickwilken on 19 July 2012 at 10:24am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6396 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 8 of 11 19 July 2012 at 12:39pm | IP Logged | ||
2 persons have voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
