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A method for dealing with wanderlust? | ||
Tags: Wanderlust | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| ihoop Newbie United States Joined 4406 days ago 29 posts - 66 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 1 of 25 30 July 2014 at 4:34am | IP Logged | ||
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Hey all,
Around two years ago I began seriously studying my first foreign language, Mandarin. It was a rough ride with many ups and downs, but I have finally reached a sort of level where I can be proud of myself. I would honestly rank my Chinese at somewhere between B1 and B2. That being said, I have reached many milestones, such as having tons of friends who only speak Chinese, and having a deep/expressive relationship with a significant other that exists only in the Chinese language. Recently, even though I know my Chinese still has a long way to go (comprehension of news is almost non-existent), I have been getting the urge to study Spanish! I feel like, at this point, studying Spanish would feel like a walk in the park compared to studying Chinese. A language that has relations with my mother tongue, and alphabet that I can recognize, etc. I don't want to leave mandarin "half finished" so to speak, so I was thinking of setting some rules for myself. Maybe, if I finish a solid two hours of Mandarin study in a day I will "reward" myself with a lesson of FSI Basic Spanish, or something along these lines. The only thing I am worried about is that if my brain starts to fill up with Spanish I might lose some proficiency in Mandarin. Any thoughts? And, how have you all dealt with language wanderlust? Thanks for reading! -Ian Edited by ihoop on 30 July 2014 at 4:34am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| outcast Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member China Joined 4745 days ago 869 posts - 1364 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 2 of 25 30 July 2014 at 6:50am | IP Logged | ||
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My personal experience is probably not too helpful: When I was in my teens I was totally dominated by wanderlust: from German to Italian to French, to video games to swimming to reading encyclopedia articles. So wanderlust totally defeated me and I didn't learn to speak any language then, though I did learn quite a bit about phonetics, pronunciation, and the grammar of languages, plus some vocabulary. All that definitely helped me when I got finally serious in my twenties).
In my twenties, today, my wanderlust (which I am sure would have won again), was defeated by an even stronger urge (that's scary): my obsession with finishing what I start. I started getting this trait in my early 20s, and now it's a part of me for better or worse (there are times when it is not good, actually: it's hard to compromise with yourself when you only accept finishing as the only successful outcome). So, when I studied my three languages which I now speak at a solid B2 level, getting to a point of conversing about serious topics and watching adult shows and reading adult books was my goal, and so this stubborn tunnel vision set in which defeated wanderlust. In your case, I think two things are at play. If you still have an inkling or urge to study Mandarin further, do so. Use up that remaining energy force. If you really don't feel like studying Mandarin PLUS want to study Spanish, I think you have reached a level in Chinese where a significant pause of a few months won't affect you, even if you did nothing with the language. However, the fact you stated if I understood right that you are involved in a personal relationship that permits and promote the use of Mandarin, then you would not be losing proficiency much at all. In fact, many of us recently here have been discussing how pausing a language learning process after a real-effort of an extended time (and you going from 0 to B1-B2 certainly applies), and then returning to it months later may actually be beneficial somehow. As others here will tell you and as I tell you now, that "half-finished" feeling will never go away. Don't let it fool you, it's a mirage. There is no water when you get there, just another mirage. At some point, you have to make a decision. Some make the decision based on their usage of their L2. Can they perform all required task in L2 with their current level? If yes, they move on. Others use the 80-20 Pareto: if you think you have reached 80% of the way into Mandarin, with 20% of the effort, is it worth it to you to get that remaining 20% and having 80% of the work still ahead of you? Edited by outcast on 30 July 2014 at 6:58am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| JohnPaul Diglot Newbie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5506 days ago 28 posts - 63 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish | Message 3 of 25 30 July 2014 at 9:42am | IP Logged | ||
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Perhaps it is time for you to look for Spanish language learning materials for people whose first language is Chinese.
Use your Chinese to teach yourself Spanish. Considering your level of Chinese and the vast differences in the languages you will not need to worry about getting confused. Here is an idea but you would need to adapt it to your own needs: Assimil Chino Perhaps others know of good sources of study aides. -John Paul 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4805 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 4 of 25 30 July 2014 at 10:20am | IP Logged | ||
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Is the urge 100% Spanish specific or are there other languages included? Are you having enough fun in
Mandarin or rather, are there things you miss in Mandarin? I can see three basic options: 1. Find what is missing in your Mandarin studies and find a solution to that particualar trouble. If the trouble is being in the plateau phase, that is gonna be harder 2. Consider learning Spanish as well. Whether you have time for it, what do you expect from it etc. 3. If there is a wandrlust going on and more languages are on the list, just give yourself a month or two to explore all the options, satisfy your curiosity and find out realistic goals on the way. This one worked for me. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| soclydeza85 Senior Member United States Joined 3703 days ago 357 posts - 502 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, French | Message 5 of 25 30 July 2014 at 1:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've done the same thing and I'm sure many others on here have too. 1) Keep your Mandarin alive. Keep studying, even if you slow your pace a bit. 2) Start slow with Spanish. Don't study it so much that it takes away from your Mandarin, but enough that you are learning and enjoying it. What I've found: when I start to wander around to different languages it eventually increases my desire to study my main language more, since it really puts into perspective how far I've come with it. I have kind of the opposite problem: I'd like to start working on a second language, but every time I do I end up just becoming more attracted to my main language.
People on here have many different methods for studying multiple languages (1 hour per day each, study them every other day, study L3 through L2, etc) and can probably give you better advice for an actual method (personally, I'm a fan of studying when you want to, however much you want to, as long as you study); my advice is to make sure you don't leave your Mandarin behind. Always keep it alive, treat Spanish as secondary. Good luck. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| YnEoS Senior Member United States Joined 4050 days ago 472 posts - 893 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian, Cantonese, Japanese, French, Hungarian, Czech, Swedish, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish | Message 6 of 25 30 July 2014 at 6:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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With Cantonese, I eventually got frustrated with active study because of how much effort I had to put in for relatively slow progress. I wanted to put the effort I was giving to Cantonese into other easier languages where I could see more practice.
In the end I decided that one of the biggest obstacles of learning Cantonese was learning all the chinese characters. So I made a redundant Anki deck for learning them that could function on its own without any course. Basically I had character cards, compound word cards, and sentence cards, some with audio, so I learned after I learned specific characters, I could review them while learning grammar and usage so as to never get overwhelmed. It definitely slowed my progress, but so far I've been doing it for 358 days, averaging 14 minutes of study per day, and I've got 2500+ mature cards in my memory and 400+ immature cards recently learned. This all took me a grand total of 86 hours combined study and I estimate I've learned between 1000 and 1500 characters by now. If you're not in a hurry to become fluent in Chinese soon, but just want to make sure you keep progressing, I highly recommend doing a "slow growth" period using Anki or some other program that builds your routine for you. It frees you up to have fun with other languages, and it's a remarkably easy and efficient way to allow more difficult languages to slowly soak in. Edited by YnEoS on 30 July 2014 at 6:59pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4685 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 7 of 25 30 July 2014 at 8:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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Any thoughts? And, how have you all dealt with language wanderlust?
Succumb totally. ----------------------------------------- I strongly second YnEoS's recommendation for a 'slow growth' period for Mandarin. Two years is a long time to do active study; I think a respite would help. Don't stop, of course, just take it easy. The only thing I am worried about is that if my brain starts to fill up with Spanish I might lose some proficiency in Mandarin. Yes and no. I find it's hard to activate more than one language, and I often have the impression that I'm losing proficiency in my passive languages - but often it's only a surface level proficiency that disappears, the kind that can be reactivated when needed. Of course, if I completely ignore a language then it really does start to fade. Edited by kanewai on 30 July 2014 at 11:29pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| JamesS Diglot Newbie Australia Joined 4011 days ago 20 posts - 30 votes Speaks: English*, Indonesian Studies: Javanese, German, Mandarin | Message 8 of 25 30 July 2014 at 11:03pm | IP Logged | ||
I think if you cut back your mandarin to an hour a day you will still make very good progress and then you could bring in another language as well. I don't know if it is really so important to 'finish' a language, unless there is some sort of professional or other need to be at a native level of proficiency. If you think about it, people like you and I could always spend more time improving our English but the fact is that short of wanting to pursue a career as an English professor it's just not necessary. I think you also might find that even if you take a complete break from Mandarin, if the fire is still there then you'll be back sooner or later! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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