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What to do when you can’t choose? | ||
Tags: Wanderlust | Choosing a Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Rem Groupie United Kingdom Joined 3558 days ago 66 posts - 96 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Mandarin, Czech, French | Message 1 of 23 26 November 2014 at 5:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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It’s the same old story that I expect you've heard dozens of times over on this forum;
desire, enthusiasm and a list of languages a mile long all tempered by the inescapable realities; Real life exists and there just aren't enough hours in the day. I've tried everything that I can think of to narrow my list down, but I still have a good half dozen languages that I simply can’t imagine not studying. Every time I try to work on one language I find myself getting distracted by thoughts of the other languages that I wish I could be studying as well. The end result is that I am very inconsistent in my studying and my progress suffers. :( I’m stuck. Any help/advice would be appreciated. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 3848 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch | Message 2 of 23 26 November 2014 at 5:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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You can start talking about the languages you study, your levels in every one of them,
your method, your resources, which are your favorite and so on. Every language is different, every situation is different. One can say "just study one" but I can see that "just studying one" can be boring. There are quite good posts on how to handle multiple language study, but we can give you more advices if you tell us something more :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4508 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 3 of 23 26 November 2014 at 5:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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Want mentality is not enough. Need mentality is better. If you don't seem to be able to
push through on willpower, make sure that you put yourself in a situation where you're not just reliant on your own erratic desires but make sure that there is an environment that you commit to that forces you to use certain languages at certain times. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Xenops Senior Member United States thexenops.deviantart Joined 3626 days ago 112 posts - 158 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese | Message 4 of 23 26 November 2014 at 5:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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A lot of people like to spend little bit of their day on each desired language, but do note that the progress is slow.
For myself, phonology (sounds of the language) is a deciding factor: if I seriously look at a language, see how it sounds, and don't like it, then that's that. I looked at Thai phonology for constructed language purposes, and just didn't like it. Another factor is: is there stuff I really want to read in the original? For German, French, Ancient Greek and Japanese, yes: so I will learn these languages at some point in time. This was a strike against Latin, since there's nothing in particular that I had to read in Latin (though "Metamorphosis" would be fun). Are there stuff that is only available in the original? For me, many Korean and Japanese comics are not translated into English, so that's a consideration. Will I use the language in real life? Since I might go to Italy or Spain for schooling, the respective languages are high on my list. I started studying Hawaiian, but found that it's not useful enough to invest time in, so I removed it. So I would recommend making a list of what's really important, and see if a certain language satisfies the majority. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6398 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 5 of 23 26 November 2014 at 7:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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Learning multiple languages doesn't necessarily mean slower progress or spreading yourself too thin (just like learning only one language doesn't necessarily mean fluency/proficiency). Try to define your needs and stretch your definition of studying. Are any of your languages related? Would you be satisfied with just listening to music in some of them or leisurely reading through grammars and fun facts without aiming to remember it all? How much free time do you have and how much more can you make?
For the record, I do think that you need to have one or two main languages. But it doesn't have to be to the exclusion of others. Try to be realistic and devote as little time to your lower priority languages as you can afford. Consider SRS'ing more or less everything you know. I assume you've already seen this wikia article? 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5029 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French | Message 6 of 23 26 November 2014 at 10:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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This is going to be bluff, but let me admit I have the same problem, so I address the same advice to myself.
The fact that you're seeking advice to change your behavior indicates that it's behavior that you want to change. You're dealing with two urges: 1. study lots of languages; 2. concentrate on a few languages. You would prefer to fulfill urge 2, but urge 1 is interfering. Urge 2 is thus the higher order preference; urge 1 is a lower order preference. Freedom, on some theories, results from picking the higher order preference over the lower one. I'm not sure about those theories, but I do believe the civilized and satisfied person is he who can resist his lower urges. And it's a problem most people face everyday, on many different issues. My advice: 1. Remember, you're in control. Yoo decide what you do and what you don't. You may be tempted to go one way or the other, but in the end you have the power to make whatever decision you desire. 2. Download ToDoist or some similar program. 3. Take a few hours and sit down. Make a list of your goals. Make sure this is a moment when you can calmly reflect--we want to make sure it's your long term thinking (your urge 2 thinking) that's in control, not urge 1. 4. Order these goals by what you, upon calm reflection, deem to be their priority. 5. That list is now your god. When you are deciding what to do, you do not consult however you feel at the moment. Your lower order urges, your urge 1s, are mecurial. They'll fluctuate depending on your mood, your appetite, the weather. But you are not going to pay attention to those, because you are not interested in those urges (those urges lead to you asking people on fora how to resist those urges!)--you are interested in your higher order goals, your urge 2s, and those are on the list. You can't trust your momentary urges: they will lead you astray. You can trust the list--the list represents you at your most rational. 6. Make time periodically to reevaluate the list. Say every Sunday morning. Only when you have an hour to reflect calmly and get in touch with your urge 2s are you permitted to alter the list. 7. Otherwise, you follow the list. When you have time you're trying to fill, you consult the list. You work at the highest priority possible and nothing else. 8. Make this a habit. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Rem Groupie United Kingdom Joined 3558 days ago 66 posts - 96 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Mandarin, Czech, French | Message 7 of 23 26 November 2014 at 11:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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Ok. Here’s a more detailed post (which ended up being longer than I intended). I tried
not to ramble on too much. :) Time On most days I can dedicate 3-4 hours to language learning (split up into smaller chunks throughout the day). I can get in more time at weekends. I spend time online playing games etc. which I could also cut back on to give myself some more time as well. Resources I don’t really have a favourite system/resource for learning languages. It’s a rather ad hoc arrangement depending on what I’m doing at the time. Other Info. Speaking and listening are definitely my weakest areas regardless of what language I’m learning. ____________________________________________________________ _ Here’s a list of languages that I’m either learning or want to learn/have studied in the past. Bear in mind that this list has already been whittled down substantially. I’ve ‘had a go’ (tinkered here and there) with most of the languages on this list. Main Languages German and Mandarin are my ‘main’ languages. I’m studying them as part of my degree, so these are definitely ‘active’. My main resources for these are pretty much decided by what I need to learn for my course. French I've enrolled on a course for French out of interest. I’ve always wanted to learn French, but never really made the effort (being told by my school that I wasn’t allowed to take it as an option didn’t exactly boost my confidence here either). I’ve had a few ‘false starts’ since school as well. In the past I’ve enrolled on evening education courses but never lasted more than a few weeks each time. This time feels different though...I’m almost three months in this time and still going. I’d like to get to at least (what I call) a decent ‘tourist level’ in French. I haven’t been to France since I was a (monolingual) kid. I’d love to go back there as an adult and be able to make my way around without having to rely on finding people who can speak English. Czech Beautiful language! What more can I say? I could listen to it all day and not care that I don’t understand a word of it. :) I’ve heard people say that the grammar is difficult but I LOVE grammar, so maybe this is a good thing? I have a phrasebook and an audio course, but finding resources for English speakers seems to be a bit of a pain. It looks as though online resources would probably be the best bet for this one. Italian I’ve heard people say that you shouldn’t try to learn Italian alongside French. I’m not sure how true this is, but I still want to learn it. As far as usefulness goes though, I’ll probably never have an actual need for it. Spanish Pretty much the same as Italian. I’d love to learn it, but I don’t imagine it ever being needed/useful in my life. The rolled ‘r’ would be a definite thorn in my side. I’ve tried and, likely, will keep trying to get it even if I never end up learning to speak Spanish (stubborn?). I’ve fluked it a couple of times, so I know that it’s possible. Thai The script looks cool and, again, I like the sound of it (the sound of most of these languages seems to be one of the big draws for me). I have had a look at Thai, but I must admit that I’m a little reluctant to attempt it properly as I’m already studying Mandarin and they are both tonal languages. I’m not sure how much of a problem/confusion this might cause. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Rem Groupie United Kingdom Joined 3558 days ago 66 posts - 96 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Mandarin, Czech, French | Message 8 of 23 26 November 2014 at 11:36pm | IP Logged | ||
I hadn't seen that. *reading it now* Thanks :) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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