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 Language Learning Forum : Lessons in Polyglottery |  | |
| TheElvenLord Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5880 days ago 915 posts - 927 votes  1 sounds Speaks: Cornish, English* Studies: Spanish, French, German Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 1 of 3 13 April 2008 at 1:02pm | IP Logged |
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Prof Arguelles
This is how it is at the moment - I am a student in High school/Senior school at the moment I can speak English fluently, Cornish at an advanced conversational and i have just started out with Mandarin. The latter two languages i have learnt at home at regularly, away from school. I also learn French and Spanish at school, with a little French at home. I started learning Cornish 4 mounths ago, and have experimented with other languages beforehand. A couple of weeks back, i decided i was going to learn Mandarin Chinese. I am doing the FSI course, Teach Yourself Chinese and TY Beginners Chinese script course and ChinesePod. I have alot of sparetime - potentially 2.5 hours - 5.5 hours a day (weekday) and i would estimate 6 hours - 8 hours on a weekend. This is not including Travel times and excercising, which would probably add up to near 1.5 - 2.5 hours a day/ (So overall that is 54.5 hours a week if i gave up everything else to study - the real figure i would be willing to spend (though not limited to) is 18-20 hours) For my GCSE's (GB) i am taking French and Spanish. The questions are 1) What ratio of time should i spend with my languages (Cornish (advanced therefore a low amount) Mandarin, French and Spanish) according to importance and difficulty in your opinion. 2) My goals are : Fluent in Cornish by March 09, Intermediate/Advanced in Mandarin by April 09, be advanced/fluent in French by April 2010 (the mounth before my final exams) and Advanced in Spanish by April 2010 (again, the mounth before) - Are these too hard goals to reach? - Please take this into account for previous question 3) After reaching these goals, should i "plug the gaps" in these languages by going to each country to practise, or move on Thank you very much in advance TEL 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7056 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes | Message 2 of 3 13 April 2008 at 6:12pm | IP Logged |
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“Fluent” and even “advanced” mean different things to everyone, so it is hard for me to answer your second question, but I would guess that yes, honestly, your goal of reaching this top level in four languages within two years time is unrealistic. Learning languages well always takes a great deal of time and effort, and you may make considerable headway if you are indeed able to give this endeavor a concentrated and regular 54.5 hours a week, but not if you only manage 18-20, even if you are systematic about it, though you should be able to establish your bases. The thing that makes it hardest for me to answer your questions is the fact that you say you are already at an advanced conversational level in Cornish after only 4 months of study. This could mean that you have a very high degree of talent, in which case you may be able to make the above goals. However, and I could be very wrong here, I suspect that you are speaking your Cornish (a revived language for those readers who do not know) in a circle of other revivers, which is very different from speaking a language that is the living currency of a land. To answer your 3rd question, yes most emphatically, after you learn your languages by study, you should go to the countries where they are spoken to polish them. As you make more progress, I believe you will realize that the path of the polyglot is a much longer and harder road than you seem to think it is now. If that does not discourage you, however, you can tread it to the end, knowing that learning these languages—Mandarin in particular—is a life-long task, not something that you can do in a year or two and have done with. At any rate, getting back to your first question, I cannot judge the importance of these languages for you, only their difficulty: basically, Mandarin is so much more different from your three European languages that you should give it as much time as you give to them combined. For example, if you do manage 3 hours a day, every day, give 90 minutes to Chinese and 30 each to French, Spanish, and Cornish.
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| TheElvenLord Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5880 days ago 915 posts - 927 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Cornish, English* Studies: Spanish, French, German Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 3 of 3 14 April 2008 at 7:25am | IP Logged |
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Thank you very much Professor.
The final point isd very helpful as for the goals, thank you, but we'll see if i can meet them or not. As said, Thank you very very much TEL 1 person has voted this message useful |
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