Comments | linguaphiles: Learning Two Languages At Once and Self Study

wigglybob in linguaphiles

Learning Two Languages At Once and Self Study

Jan 11, 2012 18:26

Has anyone learned two languages at once? How was that experience? I'm currently taking Sanskrit at my uni, but I also want to learn Japanese by self study. They're not related; therefore I won't be concerned about confusing the two. I'm ready to dedicate my time to both languages.
On to self study. For monetary and schedule reasons, I'm attempting ( Read more... )

japanese, sanskrit

Comments 23

mack_the_spoon January 12 2012, 00:22:03 UTC

I don't know about Japanese or Sanskrit, but just a warning: no matter how unrelated the languages are, you're probably in for a little bit of confusion between them, anyway! One semester at school, I was studying Koine Greek and Ilocano at the same time, and sometimes I would think of sentences using a mixture of them (sometimes with Mandarin Chinese or French thrown in, too). But I passed both classes, so it's possible - it just adds to the complexity of the task. :)

wigglybob January 12 2012, 00:43:47 UTC

Haha. I know some kids who learned Chinese and Spanish at the same time. It does add complexity, but I'm in for the ride :)

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wigglybob January 12 2012, 00:43:03 UTC

That is a good idea or maybe a magazine. Thanks!

xchristinax January 13 2012, 07:35:12 UTC

unlike other languages, it will be years before you can even look at a newspaper or magazine without crying.

ive been living in japan for 3 years and i still guess at the contents of a newspaper.

coranglaisman January 12 2012, 00:57:48 UTC

I have been learning Finnish on my own for well over a year now, and it is HARD. I feel like I've gotten myself to a reasonably competent level in reading/writing and speaking, but I feel like I have not learned to comprehend other speakers very well simply because I have no native speakers (or even non-native) in my community. And even then, I have doubts about the way I have learned to say or pronounce things, even though I listen to a lot of Finnish music and try to use social networking exclusively in Finnish and follow Finnish people and pages. But at the same time, I'm quite impressed with myself for having learned this amount of Finnish all on my own and without having spent any money on it (not counting the music I've bought ( ... )

aindreas January 12 2012, 01:34:39 UTC

You'll find lots of discussion about this on here. I'd have a browse through some of the pertinent tags.

I'm completing a BA in three languages, and I've not had any significant problems. Obviously there's the time commitment, but don't let confusing languages make you think that you're taking on too much. Keeping them separate is a matter of training and practice. I've never taught myself a language from scratch to proficiency, but I'd say about 75% of learning occurs outside the classroom anyway. So if you've got the drive, I'm sure you'll do great!

wigglybob January 12 2012, 02:06:08 UTC

What are the three languages? How do you manage your time with it all? I'm nervous about just learning two languages lol.

aindreas January 12 2012, 14:41:25 UTC

German, Spanish, and French. Obviously doing three means that each language is going to be that much weaker because of the time devoted to the other two, but you learn to create a lifestyle where basically every moment possible is turned into a learning opportunity. Read the paper in the morning in Spanish, listen to German radio on the bus to classes, jog to French music, cook from recipes in French, never watch movies that aren't in or dubbed into the foreign languages, set Wikipedia to Spanish, read novels in German, set your computer and iPod to French. You get the idea. It's not about setting time aside to review your flashcards. It's about the everyday things you do - reading, exercising, listening to music, cooking, watching TV - that you're going to do anyway, and just switching the language you do them in.

And the fact that I'm studying three easy, similar languages is certainly an advantage. It would be a different story if it were Polish, Arabic, and Japanese. :)

di_glossia January 12 2012, 01:59:57 UTC

I've almost always studied two or more languages at the same time without confusion. That is to say, in a classroom setting, I have never had issue with confusing the languages. Outside the classroom, especially in speech, I make mistakes, but that is mostly because I don't know a word in one language that I know in another and my mind supplies a "more foreign" word than my native language ( ... )