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First steps in polyglottery | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Lessons in Polyglottery |  | |
| gidler Senior Member Finland Joined 6405 days ago 109 posts - 118 votes  1 sounds Speaks: Finnish* | Message 1 of 8 18 November 2007 at 11:26am | IP Logged |
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Dear Prof. Arguelles,
First of all, I realize that you may prefer to use your limited time for answering other questions that are useful to more people. But I would of course be most grateful if you could take a look at these personal issues of mine. I am a 20-year old Finn, currently an undergraduate student at the University of Edinburgh. I have been studying Japanese for about a year and have reached an intermediate level. Only recently I started keeping detailed notes of how much time I've devoted daily to language studies (inspired by your recommendations at this forum), and this has tremendously increased both my motivation and the time I have actually used for studying. The dream of becoming a polyglot now seems much more realistic to me as my learning capacity has grown, so I'm planning to start learning other languages alongside with Japanese. I learned Swedish at school and reached a level at which I could quite comfortably read newspapers. But because of over two years of complete disregard for the language, my vocabulary has shrunk to a fraction of what it was. I'm comfortable with the grammar though, at least in passive use. I am now thinking of picking a Germanic language. German feels more interesting to me and undoubtedly it would be more useful than Swedish on the path of a polyglot. But on the other hand, I could get my Swedish up to basic fluency more swiftly than German. Which one would you recommend me to study first, and if Swedish, how do you think I should go about "reviving" it? As for romance languages, I have been pondering which one I should start with, French or Spanish. I have got the impression that Spanish is somewhat easier, but French interests me more even though I am slightly scared of its orthography. My current plan is to begin with Pimsleur French, and continue with Assimil as soon as get past the initial bewilderment with Pimsleur. What do you think of this plan of Japanese + German/Swedish + French? I can devote maybe six hours per day for studying (less on some weekdays, but weekends compensate). Later on I would like to delve into Russian, Estonian, Korean or Mandarin, and other languages, but for the time being I was thinking three might be a good number. Finally, while I have no problems whatsoever with English at the university, my listening comprehension of rapid informal speech is far from perfect and I often have to ask people to repeat. Do you think the problem will fix itself automatically during my four years in the UK, or should I actively do something about it? Have you ever had similar problems with other languages? Thanks, J. Määttä Edited by administrator on 27 February 2011 at 10:35pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7038 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes | Message 2 of 8 18 November 2007 at 5:12pm | IP Logged |
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Mr. Määttä, do you feel any personal affinity for or attraction to Swedish? If you do, then since you have a base already, you should revive it before beginning German. If you do not, you should start German now. You will not lose or damage your Swedish, but you will be able to transfer many of your skills from it. This will be a proverbial two-way street, so you may thereafter profitably turn back to Swedish and you should soon find that you are the stronger in it. As for the Romance family, learn French and Spanish in that order, then Latin.
As you are planning to learn through Assimil, I really see no need for you to begin with Pimsleur, but if there are still well-stocked used bookstores in Edinburgh, you might really profit from tracking down some older parallel methods for these languages such as the older Linguaphone or Berlitz Self-Teacher series in which the text is essentially the same for each language, which greatly facilitates their simultaneous acquisition. I do believe you will make more progress if you can manage to study both new languages simultaneously, and I encourage you to try it. There is no reason to confuse them, but if you do, you can always simply choose one for now and leave one for later. You say you have an average of 6 hours a day, so reserve the most regular ones for German and French and give them a systematic 1 hour a day each. I assume you need at least 3 hours for Japanese, and you should give some active time to English as well. I would not worry about understanding rapid informal speech in the local dialect as that will take care of itself over time, but I would concentrate on consciously mastering the formal language in every respect while you have the perhaps temporary advantage of attending university in a place where it has long been established. If Japanese is your major, consider a minor in English literature. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| gidler Senior Member Finland Joined 6405 days ago 109 posts - 118 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Finnish* | Message 3 of 8 18 November 2007 at 5:50pm | IP Logged |
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Thank you for the advice. I shall begin with German and leave reviving Swedish for later. I'm not really afraid of confusing German and French, however if I were to try German and Swedish simultaneously there would most likely be problems.
Used bookstores are something I had not considered at all as a source for material. I'm going to research their locations tomorrow. I may have been unclear about my Japanese - it is not what I'm studying at the university (my major is computer science, which is in truth starting to feel increasingly uninteresting in comparison to languages). Unfortunately the degree structure is very inflexible and I'm unable to take any courses outside the School of Informatics. Edited by gidler on 18 November 2007 at 6:23pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7038 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes | Message 4 of 8 29 March 2008 at 10:43am | IP Logged |
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Mr. Määttä, how are your language studies coming along? Well, I do hope, but I wonder if I can offer you any further assistance? In any case, I am curious, and I would simply be appreciative of periodic progress reports from those who have sought my counsel in this regard.
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| gidler Senior Member Finland Joined 6405 days ago 109 posts - 118 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Finnish* | Message 5 of 8 31 March 2008 at 7:30am | IP Logged |
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Unfortunately my studies have not progressed as well as I aspired in November. Around December I began agonizing about probably the biggest decision of my life so far, that is, my stay in Edinburgh, because of my dissatisfaction with the undergraduate program to which I am enrolled. For months most of my language study motivation has been gone, with barely enough energy left for maintaining my current level in Japanese. However, I have finally decided to return to Finland after this semester. Finnish universities do not thwart my interest in mathematics and computer science by stubbornly limiting the amount of courses I am allowed to take per semester, et cetera. Maybe I will return to the UK to pursue a Master's Degree. But I digress... With my life returning to tracks I can be happier with, I believe it is just a matter of time before the itch to open my Assimil German and French books returns. Thank you, Professor, for your inquiry–I hope to report of better progress in the near future.
P.S. I was very pleased to see your demonstration of the "scriptorium" exercise, for what you present in the video has been my primary method of study of Japanese all along the line! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Makrasiroutioun Quadrilingual Heptaglot Senior Member Canada infowars.com Joined 5888 days ago 210 posts - 236 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Armenian*, Romanian*, Latin, German, Italian Studies: Dutch, Swedish, Turkish, Japanese, Russian, Arabic (Written) | Message 6 of 8 31 March 2008 at 10:00am | IP Logged |
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Mr. Määttä, I cannot give input of Professor Argüelles's calibre, but I too have gone through a similar experience (I was kicked out of a law school and it was a very traumatic and unexpected situation) and it set back my language learning progress - my truest passion. But as soon as I got my hands on fresh new language-learning material, it kindled anew my adventures. I have faith that you too will get back at it.
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| ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7038 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes | Message 7 of 8 06 April 2008 at 9:29pm | IP Logged |
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Mr. Määttä, I am sorry to hear of your difficulties, but I also trust that, once your life has resumed a more settled pace, the deep-seated interest you evinced in languages will return and you will be able to resume where you left off and make progress from there. Do keep me appraised!
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| gidler Senior Member Finland Joined 6405 days ago 109 posts - 118 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Finnish* | Message 8 of 8 09 August 2008 at 12:32pm | IP Logged |
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Professor Arguelles, I am happy to report that in June my motivation returned and I have been able to commit at least an hour or two every day for studying. It is less than what is required for the kind of polyglottery I aspired to last year, but for the time being I am relatively satisfied with this pace. So far, I have not returned to French and German, because improving my Japanese feels much more rewarding. Of course, I expect that to change when I reach a certain degree of fluency. Lately, though, I have also taken interest in the art of translation (from Japanese into Finnish), and it might end up consuming much of my time if at some point in the future I feel confident enough to try doing it professionally along with my university studies.
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