Hello everyone,

I know its not quite the same because all languages use the same alphabet but in school I used to learn English, Spanish and Latin at the same time. However, how fast you will progress depends on the time you invest.
Personally, I think it is better to start with a new language as soon as possible because your brain needs time to build long term memory and to get used to the language.

Silmara *wave*

Yes, actually. 
Japanese is my 5th language.  Let me be fair and explain.
I was born in the USA as a first generation Mexican American, so I got English and Spanish for "free". 
My first foreign language I studied was Italian. A huge advantage was knowing Spanish already.
One year later, I took up French, the language I have always wanted to learn. It too had elements of English, Spanish, and Italian.
A year later, I took up Japanese, mostly because I considered it a challenge since I would have absolutly no jumping off place in grammar or word orgins. 

I am going to chill out on these last ones for a while.  Japanese is more work. It seems like learning Kanji is a language on its own anyway because learning the RTK has taken some time away from my regular Japanese studies.

The reason I took on these langauges a year apart is because you will always be learning a language for LIFE. You never stop learning one and you get better with age, assuming you keep up. Even English. I learned 2 new words today I had never heard of before, from a Kindergaterner!!! A year apart seemed right for me. It is important to get a good head start before moving on to the next language.

I took the Pimsleur course with all of them as a jumping off place. I also got additional resources along the way.  I rotate between Italian and French by either reading, other audio lessons, or whatever other media I could find. Movies, music, TV, books, internet websites, etc.  Right now I focus more on Japanese, which I have been studing for a year and 9 months. The important thing is to alway do something to keep up what you have learned.  It is easier to maintain then to learn someting new and a little goes a long way.

Good Luck
Buena Suerte
Bouna Fortuna
Bon Chance
Ganbatte

I fully intended to study Korean once I get conversant in Japanese. But I can't seem to get the same exposure or interest on the language as I did in Japanese.

I've started hangeul about 3 times already but I can never seem to progress due to lack of interest.

Maybe I'll start again after I finish RTK.

I can speak English, Filipino and Japanese.

I've always found the onomatopoeia interesting:

Dog:
English - arf arf
Filipino - aw aw
Japanese - wan wan

Frog:
English - ribbit ribbit
Filipino - kokak kokak
Japanese - gero gero

@playadom:

when you start learning German and need help somehow I would be happy to help.

Actually, this offer is not restricted to playadom - so if anyone has questions or wants to chat in German just let me know.

I know this was off topic - sorry

nest0r wrote:

I'm dying to start on French, now that I'm working out this method of self-study with Japanese, but I keep telling myself to just wait another 1.5-2 years or so. But still!

IMO, that's a long time to wait. There are 2 main problems I can think of with learning 2 languages at once: 1) time constraints 2) confusion issues

1) Do you have enough time to devote to each language to make progress? For me, the optimal number of intensive study hours is 300-1000/year. 100-300 hrs still causes improvement. Less than 100 is pretty much worthless. More than 1000 causes brain damage.

2) Starting 2 languages at the same time, especially if they are similar, causes me some confusion. Eventually things work themselves out, but it's more efficient to stagger them a little. I like to wait at least until I've reached low-intermediate in one before I start a new one.

(Japanese is my 5th of 6 languages)

I am learning Japanese and Chinese (Mandarin) at the moment.

Not being able to devote all your time to one language DOES mean slower progress, but I was dying to learn another language, so I'm willing to make that sacrifice.

One thing Khatzumoto recommends if you are much stronger in one language than the other is learning your 3rd language by using your 2nd language (instead of your native language). To explain better:

I've been learning Japanese for a long time, but my Chinese is at a beginner level.
So I've taken it upon myself to get hold of Chinese textbooks for Japanese people, and to do ACATT (All CHINESE All The Time), where my 10,000 Chinese sentences will be translated into Japanese, i.e. I won't use English at all.

This way, learning the 3rd language is continuously helping to consolodate and review the 2nd language.

I don't think it's bad to study more than one language at once, though I have a feeling that focusing on one is best. In my case, though my French is better than my Japanese, which is better than my Cantonese, I've been focusing on Japanese mostly because it is so easy for me to find native Japanese speakers here (apart from the fact the language is so much fun.) However, I try to "maintain" my French and Cantonese by watching TVs or movies on occasion. The thing is, I don't want to lose what I've gained in those languages while I focus on Japanese. Plus, languages take time to really sink into your brain, until you really feel comfortable in the language - so I've kind of put those languages on the backburner, so to speak, while I get Japanese boiling (Khatz has a good thread on this image.) If your curious in another language, listen to bits of it on occasion, pick up the basics, let some of those neural connections begin to develop. Then when your turn your full attention to it, some prep work will already be done.

I'm planning to take up Dutch at a slow pace, while still devoting most of my time to Japanese. By "a slow pace", I mean that I am prepared to spend about two or three (strictly time-boxed) hours a week on Dutch. If it doesn't work out, I'll drop Dutch and try again after I get my Japanese to a satisfactory level. Basically, I want to become fluent in Japanese, but I don't mind settling for a basic understanding of Dutch (for now, at least).

Last edited by hknamida (2008 September 04, 2:53 am)

I am surprised to see a lot of interest in Korean.  I tried it once. I got a hold of the Pimsleur Korean: Quick and Simple audio stuff. I was still in the middle of learning everthing else. (see my earlier post)  I was facsinated by the writing system and the history behind it.  I must of had a melt down but I got the biggest headache of my life!!!  I felt sick. I am not using a figure of speech. My brain must have overloaded. 

I had trouble hearing the sounds. For me, it was worse than French.  I just could not get it. The headache scared me so much that I have not gone back to Korean since.  It was probably too soon anyway.  Maybe in the future I will return to it, but I do not have an interest in becoming fluent in Korean, anyway. 

Has anyone else ever experianced an overload like that?

I've thought about giving a romance language a shot.

I studied Latin in high school and college.  I think that was actually a hindrance once I tried to learn a spoken language like Japanese. 

I've forgotten most of the latin...but I bet it's still in there somewhere.  So if I started on Spanish or French, it might come in handy.

Right now my Japanese is far from conversational even though I'm studying for JLPT2.  So I think I have a lot more work to do in Japanese.

My first couple years of studying Japanese were really poor.  Low motivation, bad study techniques, and beating my head against the kanji wall before I found RTK.  But now I've learned a lot about how to learn a foreign language...so I am curious to see how quickly I could progress in a language that is 1) more like English 2) Doesn't have Kanji 3) would benefit from my latent Latin knowledge.

Maybe after the JLPT I'll give Spanish a try. 

Also, I think after a change of pace doing mostly Spanish and just maintaining Japanese, it might give me a second wind when I shift back to Japanese full time.

Wisher wrote:

Has anyone else ever experianced an overload like that?

*waves hand* When I started studying Korean, it made my head hurt. I had such a low tolerance for it! All the letters are the same shapes turned in different directions @_@ But when I came back to it, I got used to hangul and actually started learning stuff. Writing down sentences helps. What I'd like to find is anime dubbed into Korean...but I don't know where to find that.

QuackingShoe wrote:

I studied Latin in high school as well, and hated it so thoroughly that I have almost no desire whatsoever to learn any western language because any similarity makes me feel ill. Cases? No. Declensions? No. Gender? No. If the language is heavily defined by any of those, I'm not for it

Ah, that's funny, my criteria for learning a language goes something like this:

Gender? Yes. Cases? Yes! Declensions? YES! If the language is heavily defined by any of those, I'm FOR it!

I suppose it doesn't help that I'm minoring in linguistics at university.

Last edited by playadom (2008 September 06, 8:19 pm)