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Is It Time to Take a Break? | ||
Tags: Simultaneous study | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Darklight1216 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4889 days ago 411 posts - 639 votes  Speaks: English*, French Studies: German | Message 1 of 10 23 January 2015 at 12:22am | IP Logged | ||
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Now that it's 2015, I've been studying German for a year and I'm having second
thoughts. I've taken the time to re-evaluate my goals and my current progress and I'm wondering if I've reached the point in my relationship with German in which we need a break from each other, so to speak. Here's a little history: I had planned on studying German and then Spanish afterwards. After one full year of studying German independently, I've be very disappointed by where I am in this language (particularly when I compare it to my first year progress in French). At the same time, I've had more and more encounters with mono-lingual Spanish speakers, and naturally I've been unable to communicate effectively with them. In addition, I realized that since my goals were always lower in German than the other two languages, it might be a better idea to get the tough stuff out of the way first. To clarify, I want to have native level French (leave me alone, I can dream) and about a C1 in Spanish while I'd be quite happy with a B1-2 in German. So basically, I'm starting to think that I should take a break from German, study Spanish instead and when my skills in Spanish are sufficient, I will pick German back up again. I know that many of you are on the polyglot path so please give me your advice and opinions. Do you think it would be better to “finish off” German first and then start Spanish or should I take advantage of the fact that I live in a Spanish speaking nation and then pick German up again later? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4310 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 2 of 10 23 January 2015 at 12:28am | IP Logged | ||
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What about option 3: study them simultaneously?
If you're not even B1 in German, then taking a break might mean almost 1 year lost. Get it to a level where it is easily maintainable by watching TV and reading a bit here and there. But that's independent from the question whether you should start Spanish. Edited by daegga on 23 January 2015 at 12:45am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Darklight1216 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4889 days ago 411 posts - 639 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German | Message 3 of 10 23 January 2015 at 12:58am | IP Logged | ||
You know, I had almost titled this thread "Is three a crowd?" Losing everything and starting (almost) from scratch would be pretty lousy... On the one hand that sounds like I get to have my cake and eat it too. But on the other hand, I have to wonder about how much that will slow down my potential progress in Spanish. I mean three languages at once is intimidating to me. Edited by Darklight1216 on 23 January 2015 at 1:08am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| carlyd Groupie United States Joined 3778 days ago 94 posts - 138 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 4 of 10 23 January 2015 at 1:39am | IP Logged | ||
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I did the exact same thing. I was studying Spanish and wanted to learn German. I'd lost the spark for Spanish, but I felt like I should "finish it off" before I switched to German.
I spent 10 years not working hard enough to finish off Spanish--and not starting German. Follow your heart and switch to Spanish. I've spent an amazing amount of time on German since the beginning of December and I've worried that I would totally lose Spanish--today I had a conversation in Spanish (the first in two years) about replacing the gate and yes, I had to back a couple German words out of the conversation but otherwise it was fine. German will be waiting for you when you're ready to come back. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5051 days ago 2237 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 5 of 10 23 January 2015 at 2:29am | IP Logged | ||
Sticking with German, after what you've written, would be a lot like a sunk cost fallacy.
Edited by iguanamon on 23 January 2015 at 3:29am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| smallwhite Pentaglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5097 days ago 537 posts - 1045 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish | Message 6 of 10 23 January 2015 at 3:43am | IP Logged | ||
True if insisting on the sunk item is a bad thing and makes your life outright worse. If OP likes German and wants the benefits of knowing German, then the current frustration s/he has is just 1 bad thing that would eventually lead to 100s of good things. OP can consider rotating between languages; 1 month of this, 5 weeks of that. I find it far more efficient, interesting and sustainable than continuous study, and I do it deliberately. But I have to ask - OP has studied German for a year, but hasn't seem to have reached B1/B2. Why not? HTLALer fanatic gave me the impression that it doesn't take very long to learn German to a useable level. If it's because OP didn't really like German that much and didn't dedicate much, or because German was too hard/boring/annoying for OP, these won't change, and OP might as well give up German now. But if it was due to controllable factors, I would fix those factors, give German 2 more months and reach B2, then run happily towards Spanish. Edited by smallwhite on 23 January 2015 at 3:51am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6386 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 7 of 10 23 January 2015 at 8:00am | IP Logged | ||
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By Spanish-speaking nation, do you mean the USA? Or are you currently somewhere else, temporarily? I'd only advice you to take a break from German if it's the latter, or if you've lost your interest in German.
You've been around for a while; have you seen my wikia articles? Also, native-level French is a lifelong commitment. To many, this wouldn't really "count" as learning three languages at the same time. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4955 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 8 of 10 23 January 2015 at 8:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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One year in German from scratch might not be enough to reach a B2; actually an A2 would be more logical for people from different backgrounds. I studied Norwegian, assumed to be easier, for one hour a day and only reached the intermediate level around the 24th month.
3 persons have voted this message useful |
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