Some weeks ago Khatzumoto over at AJATT plugged the idea to listen to another language you don’t know in order to get your motivation back for (in his case) Japanese. Soon a comment flood occured in which people encouraged each other to learn another language next to the language you already were studying. Right away I was thinking; “bad, BAD, idea“. People misinterpretent Khatzumoto simply, although he now propagates something that’s pretty dangerous in my eyes. Why learning another language? If you’re not fluently already at your first target language, you’d better spend you time with more input in that language.
If I’m looking to myself, I see that I want to learn Portuguese so badly, almost more than Spanish. Why is that? I think that the main reason is that compared to Spanish, Portuguese sounds exotic to me (there was a time Spanish was exotic as well, but now it’s simply my third language). Still, I refuse to spend time with Portuguese. Not only is it close enough to Spanish to get confused, it’ll also take away my precious time that I now dedicate to Spanish. I’m not fully fluent at Spanish yet, so why would I share my ‘Spanish time’ with a third language? It makes no sense.
To me, learning two languages at the same time isn’t the wisest thing you could do. Sure, Josh at Language Geek appearently has enough to study three languages at the same time. But if you look close, you see that he has to make time and work things out in order to succeed. It also implicates that a serious immersion environment isn’t really possible for him, because an immersion environment with more than one language is just an environment without real immersion. Imagine: I’m learning Portuguese and Spanish at the same time. In the morning I’d do everything in Spanish and in the afternoon I’d do everything in Portuguese. After a while I wouldn’t speak Spanish nor Portuguese, but some creole form. Even if I’d choose two completely distinct languages, it’s possible that I’d mix them up at some point.
That’s also one reason why most polyglots prefer studying languages from textbooks instead of getting fluent by being immersed. Learning more languages at the same time by being immersed is next to impossible. This could also explain why most polyglots aren’t really fluent in most of the languages they know, or are only fluent at the languages they *did* immerse in for a longer time. It could also explain why many people that learn more languages simultaniously tend to concentrate on grammar, rather than on real language that’s used in daily life situations.
A quick question to my Twitter followers (follow me @spanishonly) revealed that most think it’s possible to learn two languages at the same time to some extent, but @pikorua revealed that she’s mixing up her Spanish and Portuguese way too often. This confirmed what I already thought: stick to Spanish (or any other target language you have) and only start studying another language when you’re either a) fluent in Spanish, or b) you’re satisfied with the level you’ve reached. Only then it’s time to immerse yourself in a new language.
So, to sum it up. Do I want to learn more languages at the same time? Yes, just like many other people (There’s so little time and so much I want to learn! Ahhhhhhh!). Is it a wise thing to do? I don’t think so. The only way to know you’re ready to learn a new language is when you can learn the new language through your former target language (in my and probably your case, Spanish).
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Depends on a lot of things. What are your goals? Where do you live? What kind of time do you have available to learn? How similar are the languages you’re learning.
Let me give you my example. I’m simultaneously learning Spanish & Vietnamese, obviously not from the same language family, so mixing up vocabulary is virtually impossible.
What are my goals? In Vietnamese my goal is to learn enough to be able to understand and be understood by my wife’s relatives in Vietnam. BTW, Vietnamese are for the most part not used to hearing foreigners speak their language, so pronunciation is key. In Spanish my goal is just to be able to read/understand with total comprehension and teach my daughter enough Spanish to get her to the point where she can make Spanish speaking friends with spanish speaking parents and they can help me fill in the gaps. Near-native fluency is not my goal in either language.
Where do I live? In California where I have 8 different Spanish channels on TV, tons of native speakers here, plenty of bilingual materials available for learning. For Vietnamese my in-laws are native speakers, my wife is a native speaker and we’re 30 minutes from a large Vietnamese coummunity.
What kind of time do I have? Very limited. I have 3 kids, all under 2 years old. I have maybe 1-2 hours per day to study languages on top of the time I need to study for an exam related to my job.
Like I said, my goal is not near-native fluency. I don’t need to speak like a native, it would be nice, but since I don’t either have the time or the need to do so I don’t need to be “All Spanish All the Time.”
No, but if you do want to become fluent; would you ‘waste’ time on a second foreign language? Wouldn’t you want to become fluent ASAP? I think you would.
Your situation is totally different than mine, yes. My second foreign language would be Portuguese (which I actually need), which is pretty close to Spanish. But the biggest “no-factor” is stealing away time from my Spanish. The more I can concentrate on Spanish, the easier it’ll be to become fluent. If you divide your time between two languages, it cost a lot more energy than you’d spend the same time on just one language. That’s a fact.
By the way: good luck with your Spanish!
Ramses, maybe the reason you think it’s a bad idea is because you’ve stated you think it’s a “waste of time.” I agree, Vietnamese is absolutely taking away time that would help me become fluent in Spanish faster, at least in an obvious way. However I prefer to think of my Vietnamese education as helping, rather than hurting Spanish.
Examples. Whenever I learn a new Viet word or phrase I make sure that I either know how to say it in Spanish or learn how. That way I’m getting a mental repetition in Spanish and in Vietnamese. Also, since I’m an absolute beginner in Vietnamese compared to “Advanced Intermediated” in Spanish I’m forced to rethink things like grammar, word placement, pronunciation (Vietnamese is a tonal language). I ALWAYS think about how my Vietnamese lessons relate to Spanish because I am quite afraid that my gains in Spanish will be lost and I’ve worked too damn hard to get to where I am.
Funny thing, I’ve also noticed that my Spanish is beginning to be infiltrated by French. I took 4 quarters of French back in college 6 years ago and haven’t touched it since. Now all of a sudden I mix up “postre” and “paster,” “ir” and “aller” and other phrases. Weird.
Not sure I agree with you here. Millions and millions of children, teens and students learn two foreign languages at school (we did) and later in universities and they get buy just fine. No brain overload, no mixing up languages. Our brains are pretty good at parallel processing, linearity doesn’t necessarily bring greater success. Time may be an issue, but parallel processing certainly is not. Exploring several languages at a time may facilitate learning instead, since you probably are exposed to different parts of grammar at any given time and it may help to analyze the both languages better. The more ground you cover in languages the more you start find associations and links between languages, be it invocabulary or grammar. Historical and cultural intermingling of languages starts to unfold as you learn further. Also, at least for me, learning two languages simultaneously helps me to compare my level and spot the weak areas. Hey, how come I can come up with that particular construction in one language but still can’t in another?
Though it apparently is different for different folks. What suits me doesn’t suit you and vice versa. We’re all different learners.
Jup, there’re different learners, but there’s a general outline. Also, I meant this post mainly to warn people against ‘time splitting’, as this blog is all about learning Spanish hardcore.
Another point against learning languages at the same time: if they’re too similair (like Spanish and Portuguese, or Spanish and French) you’ll mix up things sooner than later. Learning Vietnamese and Spanish at the same time isn’t a bad thing, apart from the time aspect.
As you used me as an example of basically what you think people shouldn’t do, I suppose I’ll respond.
Glenn more or less hit the nail on the head: it depends on what you’re trying to do. Do I think I’m going to become fluent in my chosen languages as fast as you’re going to become fluent in Spanish? Of course not; that would be entirely illogical. I’m not an idiot. I realize that by studying multiple languages, I’m slashing the amount of time I can spend with any one of them. But I’m interested in all of them, and I’m on no particular time table for learning them. They’re hobbies, things I enjoy to do; if I’m not making rapid progress with all of them all the time, so what? They’ll be there waiting for me whenever I want to hit them hard.
I also agree with Glenn in that studying more than one language at a time has its perks; concepts you learn in one very often apply to others. Knowing German grammar and understanding the case system let me easily pick up on the Russian cases, and the bulk of them work in a similar fashion in both languages. That’s just one example of many.
And finally, to imply that those of us who aren’t studying languages in the way that you deem best are “wasting our time”? Well, that’s just insulting. As aabram said, people are different; what works for you won’t work for everyone. If I were to toss all of my languages but one, and just focus solely on it around the clock, I’d just burn out.
Although this is a fairly old post, I’ll reply to your comment.
I don’t know how well you know my blog, but Spanish Only is all about learning one language hardcore in order to become fluent in it. Also, I’m all for immersion, not for studying grammar or things like that.
You like to study grammar, fine. I don’t study grammar, so learning a similar language isn’t helping me directly because I don’t think about a language’s structure. I just take in, take in, take in. People say that Spanish and French are very similar in terms of grammar. I’m not even looking into French grammar, my only goal at the moment is to understand the language, not to produce.
Also, because fluency is my goal, I see spending time on another language as a waste of time. I don’t say it’s a waste of time to learn other languages, I just think time is better spent at the language you want to become fluent in first. I don’t see how that is an insult. I speak for myself, what you think is up to you. I’m not some kind of god, I only give people advice on how to learn, be free to do what you think is right for you.
About the burn out thing: have you ever tried to put all your effort in one language? I think you’d be pretty amazed how wonderful it is to know a foreign language really well. Next to that: it’s just plain fun to understand a lot more week after week, because you make so much progress.