Learning more than 1 language at a time

wolson
 June 16, 2008, 03:59 PM posted in General Discussion

     With all of the Pods coming out and the offer from Praxis to participate in multiple Pods, I have a question:

Are there advantages or problems from learning more than one language at one time?

    If there are people here who have done this (and I sustect that there are) what were your experinces?

     Perhaps there are some here at CPod who are learning several languages at this time. Please comment on your experience in doing so.

 

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wolson
 June 16, 2008, 04:06 PM

      I have only tried to learn one language at a time. While I pretend to speak about 5 or 6 languages (English, German, Chinese, Italian, Yupik and Korean) I have found that sometimes, when I try to switch languages, I will actually mix words and structures, sometimes without realizing that I have done so.

      It seems to me that if I were learning more than one language at a time, I might not learn either. Yet I have learned multiple computer languages simultaneously and was able to learn them successfully. For example, I learned Forth and Pascal simultaneously. I also learned PL1 and Algol simultaneously. So what would be different with a spoken language?

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mayor_bombolini
 June 16, 2008, 05:42 PM

Wolson,

I have a similar, related question.  Given some of us have 10 to 20 hours for study of Chinese, does it make sense to devote time to another language?  

If I had 55 hours a week (my average work week) available to study Chinese, I think spending another 10 to 20 hours studying other languages would be fun / synergetic (is that a word?).

I spent some time going throught the Italian Pod lessons over the weekend.  It was fun, but I didn't have the energy or rather mind set to learn the material.

There is a time/benefit trade-off. 

I've made a decision to get through Intermediate level (as CPOD defines it) and solidify my knowledge of Chinese before I start using some of my 10 to 20 hours for Italian and Spanish.

Sorry Praxis, you'll need to wait a bit for my Praxis Pass upgrade money.