Can you? Should you? What's the best way to go about it? When shouldn't you? patreon: www.patreon.com/languagejones Edited with Gling AI: bit.ly/46bGeYv
@@carsonwright3907 yeah idk if kids these days will be interested in learning other languages when they cant even speak english properly anymore. Skibidi toilet ohio mewing for lookmaxing
I'm doing two languages right now. I find that doing the same language for a long time can cause fatigue. So I do one until I burn out, then I switch to the other. It's taking a while, but it's definitely helping me keep motivation.
My senior year in highschool, I was studying [5th year] Spanish, [2nd year] German and [1st year] French at school; I was also studying Russian with a private tutor, and Japanese in a night-class. I never had any issues keeping them separate in my mind. More than 50 years later, and I can still get by in the first 3 reasonably well.
@@samueldickey8333 I was studying Spanish at the uni and at the same time had added also mandatory French and Italian and aced them all. Now I started learning Hungarian, Finnish and German and no problem with them either, I don't get them mixed.
People are always surprised at not confusing them. There seems to be another skill that doesn't involve binary activation-suppression but more like a lazy susan rotation of languages. Self-learned Norwegian (Berlitz) while taking French, then took German while keeping up with Norwegian, all the while in 3rd and 4th year Russian. True, they all started at the same time. So perhaps the question is whether to START two languages at the same time, or devote study time to overlapping languages, perhaps in different stages (nouns and pronouns in L2 and verb tenses in L3).
2:36 -- My parents just got called out, I bet their ears are burning. They spoke their native language as a secret language and never taught us kids, who consequently grew up as American English monoglots, more's the pity. We couldn't help but pick up some swear words, though.
It was the same with my parents: they were TOLD not to speak two languages in a fear I would not learn to speak either! The reason for the fear was based on Finnish immigrants living in close communities in Sweden. The people in the community mixed freely the two languages, which evolved into kind of Swedish creole: the children growing up learned that instead of being able to speak either Finnish or Swedish. This unusual phenomenon (in Europe, at least) became the basis for the advice to speak only the official language of the country, without any regard of the circumstances of the original study.... I was told the same nonsense 30 years later by my well-meaning childminder: I told her that most of the world population grew up bilingual and some even tri-lingual without any harm, which shut her up a bit. Likewise, I was told I am not allowed to speak my language when I took and picked my kid up from nursery. I later learned how the nursery teacher spoke disparagingly about speaking my language to my toddler, who started rejecting it. Being the only one in a hundred mile radius, my son didn't have the same linguistic-emotional support as other immigrant communities. In fact, when he finally met another kid speaking my language, they spoke English to each other: even hearing both parents communicating with them in Finnish, they could not comprehend the other would understand them, even. 😢 For the same reason, my eldest kept translating everything I said to his baby brother.😅 We have much easier time nowadays, thanks to Internet and video technology.
Italian and French learner here. Encouraging suppression is a game changer. I often get distracted while listening to audio lessons in one language, because I try to remember a word or phrase in the other language. If I can't remember on the spot, I get frustrated and feel like I can't move on until I figure it out. You've given me the permission to stop doing that. Thank you!
I'm an interpreter, which necessarily involves using two languages at once. When studying, I've often deliberately mixed languages. I'm a native English speaker, but I studied Chinese at a French university. My Portuguese textbook is in Spanish. When creating my own exercises, I often use the grammar-translation method by translating a Norwegian text into Spanish, for example.
yesss, i find learning korean in Japanese way easier because there's a lot of words, phrases and grammar rules i dan directly translate from korean into japanese that don't exist at all in english
@@lol-xz2fl Yeah, that's exactly why I imported my Portuguese textbook from Spain to Australia. I looked at ones in English and like 90% of the rules were the same as in Spanish and other Romance languages and I can already just pick up a text in Portuguese and read it because of the huge overlap in vocabulary. I desperately needed a resource that assumed I already had that knowledge, to save time. Other instances of using two languages at once have just been to make my brain work harder to relieve boredom or to refresh a language while studying another. Studying Chinese in Bordeaux was just because I lived there though. As an interpreter, I only work in two languages at a time but I've been a multilingual tour guide and done some rapid switching for mixed groups of passengers.
Being at different stages in separate languages definitely helps. Learning the same thing, at the same time in both languages is where people get all sorts of confused. I can speak German better than I can understand it, and I can understand Spanish better than I can speak it, but ultimately I am making progress on all fronts. Another thing, don't undergo the "embryonic" stage of a new language at the same time as another. Getting the hang of one (definitely doesn't need to be perfect) before jumping into the other helps create an offset and therefore separation. Also helps with mental energy too as the early stages can potentially burn you out.
Hahaha i understand what you mean , how i am able to read korean easily and not understand the meaning, yet i can speak and understand Japanese but i can't read kanji that well , i can guess most romantic languages meaning by being native if i see it written down , yet listening to it i am at a complete lost
Small children are language geniuses. My son spoke flawless Mandarin with his Chinese grandparents, flawless English with my parents and a jumbled mashup of the two with my wife and me! That almost counts as three languages at once!
Random thought: I wonder if anyone has researched the phenomenon where the most recent “second language” inserts itself in the brain while speaking a third. For example, I remember responding to a Chinese cab driver saying, “Esta bien” without thinking. It feels as though there’s some work involved in “replacing” the language in the additional language slot in the brain.
I had a waitress speak to me in French while I was in Madeira. Madeirans don't expect tourists to speak their language, but we had just ordered in English. It was fine because my French is passable, but it was amusing. The fact that they learn several languages just to cater for tourists is so impressive!
I have noticed this. I think mri research would help there. My hypothesis is that your language centers have a sort of "temp zone" for newly forming languages which then mature into distinct regions of activation. This regional separation hypothesis would explain why it becomes a little harder to translate (unless you practice, if that's your thing) the more developed a target language becomes in your brain
If I remember correctly, languages acquired in childhood are stored differently than languages acquired in adulthood, so until you gain enough experience in a new language, your brain reaches for "not my L1" and goes with whatever is easiest to pull up if you're not super focused on what you're saying.
My L3 is German and my L4 is Russian. I mix up da and ja way too often. This is made worse by the fact that "da" and "ja" exist in both languages, but mean different things
This video came at the perfect time for me! I've been learning Korean for two years.... It's the language I study because it makes my heart happy. By a weird twist of fate I now find myself going to Japan next year, so I am trying to cram Japanese into my brain (really cram.... Like 5 hours a day cram). In some ways, having a good grasp of Korean grammar is making Japanese a million times easier, but I was a little worried about trying to study the two languages at once because I'm simply not willing to stop studying Korean 😂. But this video addressed my concerns and gave me some great tips, so thank you thank you thank you!!!!!!
Do you have languagereactor? I was able to communicate in Mandarin in less than a year and I spent 90% of my time just watching Chinese tv on youtube and netflix. I'd avoid spending more than an hour a day on grammar or boring exercises, they make you feel like you're progressing but often you just burn yourself out. Good luck!!
@@alicesenz6374 I've not heard of languagereactor.... I'm using a combination of study tools though. Grammar is actually one of my favorite parts of language learning, but since the grammar of Japanese has so far been basically the same as Korean I haven't had to learn any new grammar - yet lol. I'm mostly learning phrases, hearing and speaking, and yeah lots of Japanese TV
Opposite, though I haven't given Korean serious attention yet. You couldn't convince teenage me not to self study Japanese (because my school didn't have it as a language so I took German) but you could have convinced me to study both Japanese and Korean. Makes me mad at myself because Hangul is so much easier than the Japanese system and like you said, the grammar is similar.
Oddly enough, my brain went to "der Steg" before "die Brücke" when you mentioned the bridge example. I guess as a musician by trade, I spend more time thinking about the bridge of my bass than bridges that a car might drive over! Thanks for the video!
I’m learning too many. In order of importance Russian > Persian > Uzbek (unironically) > Latin > Modern Greek. Definitely making the most progress in the first two and I do them every day; others it’s every other or every few days. Luckily I can maintain my French by studying them since I use the French ASSIMIL manuals to study.
@@drnorse3243 with a textbook. I’m using one from Georgetown University Press called Elementary Uzbek by Nigora Azimova. I’m also planning on getting a tutor from Italki.
Our daughter has grown up with four languages English, another Germanic, a Slavic and a Romance language, and almost six years old, is fluent in all of them. Her pronunciation is amazing in all of them. My wife and I speak all of those, so we can correct her constantly. She is able to switch really well between them, since we actively speak three of them at home. Cartoons have been a great teacher for two languages.
@@StillAliveAndKicking_ English is my mother language and I didn't start speaking until I was 5, as well. By the time I was in my 20's I spoke 6 languages. By my 40's I added one more. I was a bit of a late bloomer but it worked out haha.
This was SUPER helpful, thank you! I'm currently trying to revive my Hindi while planning to start learning Māori, and the advice in this video is just what I needed, just when I needed it.
It helps to gain enough proficiency in one language to "get around" before trying to learn another. Having multiples helps when I get bored with one. But I only like to have one at the "I can't put basic sentences together" level.
My parents went with the "secret language" route for ASL despite knowing that I'm hard of hearing since I was 2, not knowing that kids soak up language and I was acquiring receptive skills in ASL that entire time without developing the ability to produce it myself. But it's wild that my parents would overlook that because my dad went through the EXACT SAME THING with German when he was a kid where the adults all used German with each other but not with the kids and he acquired German receptive skills but no speaking skills as a child as well. That's why learning ASL for me as an adult was much easier than any other language and why learning German as an adult for my dad was easier for him than any other language.
Two at once? I can barely cope with one. I haven't studied French in decades, but I still find French sentences popping into my head when I'm stuck on something I want to say in Japanese, it's like my head separates languages in to 'English' and 'Other'. I would honestly like to learn Korean as well, but I think I'd need to be retired to have the time (hides Hangul sheets under bed).
I've noticed the same phenomenon and wonder what the research says about it. I have my native tongue, English, and then the foreign tongue I'm best at, German. When reaching an impasse in other languages, my brain wants to plug German into the gap. To a lesser extent it will try to resort to the foreign tongue I'm spending the most time on now, French.
@@CountofSerenno in my experience, both American and Canadian English are low context language - Canadians and Americans tend to say what they mean, and when they don't they give huge cues that's they are being obtuse. French speakers and to a lesser extent British English speakers tend to use contextually sensitive speech. Often what they say can only be understood by taking into account the cultural context of the sentence. Japanese is actually much, much worse in this way. Frequently when taking to my Canadian and American relatives I've had to backtrack and say the equivalent of 嘘だよ to make sure they understood. In the other direction, the sheer politeness of North American speech can be overwhelming. I was once accosted by a beggar in Halifax and I honestly thought they were asking for directions.
It's weird how words will stick with us after so long. I attempted to learn German back in Jr. High (early 2000s) but didn't really give it the devotion necessary for truly learning a language. Since then, I've picked up the book once in a great while and read some phrases, but I've never really "studied" German again (picked up French instead, at which I'm getting decent). Nevertheless, I still remember quite a bit of German vocabulary and can understand very simple sentences and sometimes catch the odd phrase here and there in song lyrics. Occasionally when my brain hears either French or German, it mixes up which language it wants to listen for.
I’m French and just yesterday I was getting an haircut and it happens that my hairdresser, his staff and other clients are naturalized French citizens from Algeria. They were talking between each other and I understood that one client was describing his holidays in the Algerian coast because he kept on switching between Arabic and French. Sometimes it was just a word, sometimes a whole sentence, sometimes whole parts of the discussion. At a moment, my hairdresser said he was sorry that they were discussing in a language I couldn’t understand. But I responded that on the contrary I was fascinated by the way they kept switching languages and that I was trying to understand the logic that made them speak French at certain times, then all of a sudden back to Arabic. He explained me that all Algerians are bilingual from childhood and even if Arabic is the official language, speaking both is part of the daily life. So there’s no logic, it’s just that for whatever reason, sometimes it’s the Arabic word that comes to their mind, sometimes it’s the French word that comes out first. And then that suffices to change the direction of the bilingual switch in their brain. I had with him the most interesting discussion I ever had while getting my hair cut. On another point, I don’t know how it is in every other countries, but In France I started to learn languages in middle school and we have to study different languages at the same time. For me it was English, Spanish (the other choice was German) and Latin. So the exercise of learning multiple languages at once is not unfamiliar. I’d say that in the short term it was not very beneficial for each language separately, because English was the only one that caught on for me. On the long term, studying Latin and Spanish was very beneficial when years later I started to learn Italian. Also I can mainly read Portuguese and understand spoken Spanish because of those basics I studied long ago. I also find that knowing English makes me able to understand roughly the context of articles written in Dutch or German.
Good timing, I've been mulling over studying 2 unrelated languages at once, and was thinking of devoting a given week to one then switching next week to the other. That way, there's enough time to adjust to & focus on the one language, and I can gain the memory advantages of spaced practice. That being said, I'm not sure a week is the ideal switching time for this, maybe the spacing would be more beneficial switching every few days. Probably can decide what's best through trial and error, though I wonder if this has been properly researched
I've studied multiple before with success, what languages do you want to study? Personally I just follow what I have motivation for and make sure I have movies/books/tv shows that excite me in my target language. Whatever you do make sure you're listening to the language as much as possible! Sometimes I'll go weeks just studying one and other times I'll study both in the same day. Only problem is speaking skills decline if I abandon it too long, but I don't like to speak until I've been studying one for a few months anyway.
I needed this video right now, how did you know?! I have been working on my Spanish for almost exactly a year now, that whole time I have been using German as the 'carrot on the end of a stick'... German is my heritage language, but I grew up only knowing the sweet things my Oma would say to me. I like Spanish, I really do!... but good gosh how I want to learn German SOOO badly. I feel so silly for even having this crisis.
You’re welcome! It’s a pretty common concern, and UA-cam recommended that a lot of people were searching either similar questions. But I think the key is figuring out why people are really asking! Enjoy your German journey, and best of luck with the continuing Spanish study
Suppression is such an interesting concept! I spent a year studying Spanish and then another studying Japanese, sequentially. I’m still very basic in both, but one time when I had to give directions to a couple in Spanish, a Japanese “hai” slipped out of my mouth. I was so embarrassed, especially because my Japanese wasn’t even good…
I feel bad because Spanish feels so much quicker than my progress in Japanese despite nearly minoring in it in university (I was missing the culture class and I could have done 3 credits of self study my final year.) They do mix, usually when I feel pressed to reply. But German, the language I studied in high school because they didn't have Japanese, randomly chooses its moment to just yell out the word I am looking for in either of the two. Then, I am stuck.
So true. I play multiple musical instruments. So many transferable skills between them. But you have to practice switching between instruments as well as the individual instruments themselves in order to avoid confusion. It’s a particular skill to control that partitioning. Well articulated.
You are the first linguist I’ve heard discuss that concept of suppressing other languages when you are actively using a target language to speak and communicate in that moment. I never realized I did that when speaking one of my languages over the others. I also have a long buffer time searching for the right words. I love your analogy of switching languages to switching the types of utensils you use to eat.
I'm in the thick of studying Japanese right now, and I'm definitely suffering from "shiny new language" syndrome. Because characters and meanings are occasionally similar in Mandarin, I find myself wanting to switch to Chinese instead, especially since I'm more interested in speaking that language. But I think for myself, sticking to just one will be better in the long run. This video will definitely help me in the future when I take up Chinese next, though!
Your insights into phonology and the importance of separating languages in both practice and environment are super helpful. I love your approach to language learning as a joyful journey rather than a chore. Looking forward to implementing your tips! Keep up the great work!
For my own purposes, I find taking a break on one language for a few months (letting it simmer) or just "maintaining", while focusing on another works for me best. Helps from burning out on one or the other, and I think it helps to solidify a base in the language on a break. Like a sort of settling period for all the short term stuff get into long term or letting the unconscious neural stuff happen, idk i ain't a doctor. Probably not as good as doing whole-hog into one for a long time, but way better than partitioning each day between multiple languages. I find that when starting back up the other language, I progress a lot faster or get through any previous plateaus now that it's fresh. 100% anecdotal, YMMV of course
I learn 3 now, feeling awesome. And also we slowly learn 10 in the language club and brain gets so much happier while we do that (by special method, that we update along the go) loving your videos ❤
Just got the ol' UA-cam "Al-Gore-Rhythm" referral for your channel and enjoyed it. There is another reason for learning multiple languages at once that you failed to mention, and that is some people such as myself at age 70 statistically don't have that many years left to study as you, for example. Therefore, an efficient use of time, i.e. learning multiple languages simultaneously is almost a must (though I'm not sure one MUST learn a language at my age). I'm a native English speaker with a college degree in Spanish (probably a C1 level here), just completing one year of French (probably a B1/2 level here), using acquisition/assimilation/emersion techniques, and starting on Italian (which after Spanish and French I find amazingly easy). I read/listen daily in each language but with much more time given to whatever my new target language is. So, I'm not technically "learning" two at the same time, though I'm seriously considering throwing in Portuguese with the Italian. My secret language was Southern but stopped using it when my kids figured out what "y'all might could" meant. Oh, well. C'est la vie said the old folks.
Love the suppression advice!! As I learn more Spanish I thought I was forgetting French, yikes! The suppression is such a real thing! I was not forgetting, I was just tuned to another channel, whew!
There was a semester of college when I was taking German, Spanish, and French classes, but I was majoring in German and minoring in French, and already had taken 4 years of Spanish in high school. As with some many things, it depends on what you're doing and why you're doing it. I am learning Arabic just for fun and because I genuinely love the all those consonants. So there is no pressure there, it's all a treat for me. But I waited 2 years to do so after I had started working on Latin again because of the time commitment. Once my Latin was in a better place, I could start Arabic from scratch and focus on it more. I don't have to actively study German anymore because it's my job and part of my daily life. With Latin, I am getting back into a language I loved as a child. With Arabic, it's totally new to me and therefore interesting and exciting, I like just putting on YT documentaries in Arabic and seeing what I can pick up and learn from them. But I enjoy the process, and that's why I'm doing it, and to learn more about language learning.
Great video and very relevant! I have managed to learn Mandarin, German and French separately, but paid little attention to maintaining my languages while I was learning a new one. Now I've got a position where I need to use all 3 constantly and I'm trying to brush up - the hardest part is finding the time in the day!
I am learning German, Russian and Korean. I have already been learning German for ~2.5 years (I am already fluent because my native languages are English and Afrikaans), but I only recently started learning Russian and Korean from scratch. This is a horrible idea in my opinion, but because I’m a high school student, I have a lot of free time to spend on these languages and it’s only a hobby, I don’t need to speak these languages for a job or to assimilate into a new society. So I think if it’s only for fun you can learn as many languages as you want, no one is stopping you.
I woke up this morning to see you had a new video uploaded Mr. Jones, and I must say I thouroughly enjoyed this one. The other day I couldn't really muster up the energy to make lunch for work so I took some cup noodles instead. Anyway I apprreciate all the hard work you put into helping me distract myself from my enevtible demise and wish you all the besy while you do the same for yourself. All the best from a friend whos never met you.🙈
Thanks so much for this video! I've been studying French and Spanish and have been at an intermediate level in the past. I'll be needing French for a trip in November, but I don't want to lose ground with Spanish. Love the concept of suppression! The suggestion to use different tools and places to learn is 🎉
I studied French about 15-20 years ago. It was mostly unused and sitting in a dormant part of my brain. Then I started learning Italian 2 years ago and was amazed at how much french my brain had actually retained, despite the long hiatus.
I always recommend learning two at once with the option of taking one more seriously! Getting the phonology right before you start worrying about anything is crucial!! Your progress can never be hurt my more familiarization with how you’re going to hear it, how it’s said and what patterns you hear (before you know what any of them mean)
I love that you talked about how each language feels different in the mouth. I haven't studied linguistics and I've never heard anyone talk about that before, but it's the key to me being able to activate and suppress different languages. French feels different to Italian and so when I'm speaking one or the other, I go to that part of my mouth and the mix ups reduce significantly!
I only began learning languages as a serious hobby a year ago, so I don't have much experience in terms of the comparative effectiveness of different approaches, but I'm now studying three and I feel like what's allowed it go fairly well, besides getting lots of comprehensible input everyday, is that I began studying each of them at different stages. I began with Portuguese (as a Spanish native speaker and more than a decade after having taken a course on it at uni for a year) and after two or three months, feeling comfortable with my comprehension and increasing capacity to write and speak it, I began learning French from scratch (because I was going to France on tour with a band). Soon I decided to get French-learning content in Portuguese (both UA-camrs and Duolingo) so as not to steal so much time from the Portuguese learning, while I was starting to listen to Portuguese content aimed at natives but in rather formal settings (lectures, talks, news reports, etc.). 6 or 7 months later, while I was listening to and understanding more informal podcasts and youtubers in Portuguese (having an upper intermediate level, I'd say), listening to more formal content in French (lower-intermediate level), I decided to start learning Danish. My progress with the first two was quite fast. I could hold conversations (with some difficulty, but still) in France with natives after ~8 months of learning it with 1 to 3 hours of input a day, every day) and although I haven't had the chance to practice my Portuguese with natives, I feel quite prepared to do it. Danish learning hasn't gone as fast, but I feel motivated and have no pressure, so I feel like I can go on with the three for quite a while. Of course, I can't know for sure if it would've been more effective to study them consecutively, but since I don't feel like I "study" Portuguese now, I just consume content that interests me in Portuguese more than 1 hour a day, read aloud whenever I can and speak to myself while walking the dogs (🤪), and soon might be doing the same with French, I'd say that this was the best choice for me! It feels like I only "study" (and struggle) with one at a time, and the other(s) just improve by virtue of what I watch and listen to in my leisure time.
First, I love your channel. Thanks for all of your information… I have a love affair with Latin and new Latin(Spanish) i worked at Spanish and got it to around a B1 level (possibly B2 but I doubt it) and just picked Latin back up. I’m learning both via comprehensible input, but Spanish through watching videos and Latin through reading, and a grammar. I’m glad to hear that this is going to get easier!
this is a skill--i don’t know who can relate to this, but my brain has two modes: english (my native language) and not-english. so sometimes if im speaking spanish i say a word in french and absolutely cannot think of what it is in spanish. sometimes a choctaw word (language ive started most recently) even pops into my head. practicing the separation is important!
Interesting to hear others have experienced a similar thing to me (a native English speaker)! "Having a go" in French or Malay, if I can't find the right word in the language in use, it seems the word from the other language crops up from the foreign language side of my brain instead! It's hardly as though they're similar languages (although Indonesian has certain words with European roots). Occasionally even Afrikaans words reappear, a language I've not used for >30 yes, but with 5 years learning at primary school! Mind you, due to the colonial history of the Netherlands / VOC, Afrikaans has Malay/Indonesian derived vocab (amongst many other languages). Anyhow, anyone else found something similar?..
@@hannahmc5291I can relate to the English/non-English mode. It’s similar to having my password reset because I forgot it, but then my fingers begin to type the “forgotten” password. Brains are funny things.
I found learning Spanish and French (just for fun) at the same time at a beginner level too confusing because of their similarities. With Greek and Spanish the different alphabet is very helpfu, but mixing Mandarin and Spanish is even better. I work in a school where kids are expected to speak Khmer half a day (3+ hours) and English the other half, minus two lessons of Chinese per week. Most children are likely to speak Khmer at home, but a fairly high percentage speaks some other language. I found that even those children who study English full time, are behind of monolingual English kids of the same age especially when it comes to grammar unless they also speak, read and consume other English media at home. (I'm comparing my grandchildren of the same age.) These children have much harder time learning the same content and doing well in international exams, which are aimed at English speaking ex-pats studying English full day and communicating with English-speaking relatives. It doesn't help that the ratio of children with learning difficulties and their often behaviour doesn't exactly help. However, when it comes to everyday verbal communication, especially comprehension, it is pretty good by 3rd grade, and by the time they finish basic education at 18, I am sure even the kids with mild learning challenges speak English at least as well as I do, and the normies will do even better. (I'm non-native speaker with only very basic education grammar. Don't ask me what grammar terms mean or their rules!)
I wouldn’t. I’m currently learning French as a native English speaker and I have thought about also learning Italian, but I’ve only been studying French for 3 months and even though French and Italian are both Romance languages and thus similar, French pronunciation is hard to master and so is correct verb tense so I’d rather focus on just French since I’m so early into my language learning. For instance, libraire means bookseller in French and NOT library. As an English speaker it’s odd to me bibliothèque means library in French since in my English mind library should simply be libraire. However, living in SoCal I know a tiny amount of Spanish and I know biblioteca is library in Spanish and Italian so I can reason in my mind that bibliothèque means library in French.
I have taken all the languages courses on Duolingo, but I'm especially focused on Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Chinese, Portuguese and Vietnamese, the rest being studied only occasionally. Like Dr. Jones said, there's only so much time in a day...
Thank you for the video. I have mused this problem a few times and generally heard conflicted advice...sometimes self-contradictory advice. But I think this approaches it from the right angles to answer the question and might actually give me good relevant advice. Because it might be good advice for 2 of my target languages that are related, one of which I only maybe want to get to an A2/B1 level but is currently my highest priority, but the other I want a deeper understanding, but with less of a priority. And then have a 3rd to move onto.
That was really helpful! Trying to learn Armenian (still looking for good resources for western by the way…) and Vietnamese at the same time, my biggest issue as a disorganized mom is time management 😅 but attributing a studying place is a wonderful idea! 💖👏
I am conversational in Italian, but nowhere near fluent. I did not grow up speaking the language, but have Italian citizenship by descent, as well as U.S. citizenship (English is my first language). We are moving to Spain, and I am still somewhat of a beginner in Spanish. I want to continue my progress in Italian, and learn Spanish, so this topic is important to me. I also have a beginning understanding of French and want to continue learning that language, but my immediate need is getting up to speed in Spanish (Castillian). The problem I have is that the better my Spanish becomes, the more my Italian suffers. I am hoping there is a way for me to continue to seperate them, yet progress in both. Thanks for doing these, and also for dispelling so many language myths.
Studied Latin and Greek in school. So much fun. One alone would have been torture, for I'd've not been able to learn the other! Sanskrit, as mentioned in the video, has waited for me for the past too many years
This was helpful to me! I'm bilingual in American English (mother tongue) and Castellano (Argentine Spanish). I study languages for fun. I'm currently studying French, Italian, and Norwegian. I separate in time more than place. I don't study more than one language in a day. My progress in each isn't super fast, but I'm having fun. French and Italian have a lot of concurrence with Castellano, and Norwegian had a lot of concurrence with English. Scot's Gaelic and Greek are next on my list. I've studied them a little but set them aside for now.
Hey not bad, often times i find videos from multi lingual people who either are trying to sell you on a bs theory on how to learn a language fast when in reality they’re just trying to show off or just don’t realize that their method only works for them. I appreciate that you actually provide a good pointer for people trying to learn multiple languages and your presentation skills are great as well. That aside, I’m aiming for german and italian and somehow still remember a lot of words from the time i tried to learn russian. So who knows, maybe one day I’ll be able to add those 3 to my repertoire 😁
Thank you for the video Mr Jones!, you helped me out, I’ve been postponing studying, now I’ll retake French and maybe I’ll start from scratch with German😅
I'm definitely an immersion-only learner. So that's one at a time for me. However, if I'm just working on memorization tasks like learning writing scripts or new vocabulary, its all flash cards so I can work on one language or three. It doesnt seem to matter in that context. But the baseline grasp of the sound, feel and grammar needs to be firmly in place and learned on its own - at least with the way my brain seems to operate.
I studied Spanish enough that now all that's left isn't really fun anymore, just practice and work. I missed the fun, discovery phase that was in the beginning so I started to learn French just to enjoy that part again... then I did that with Italian and was blown away at how much easier and rapidly you can learn Italian if you already are advanced in spanish. Long story short now I'm learning both, having a lot of fun and making progress literally 10 times faster than I did in spanish since I've already done this before. It's definitely possible.
I love this! I’m doing great on my Spanish studies so I decided to learn mandarin because there are a lot of mandarin speakers at my work, as well as Spanish speakers. I just have to learn mandarin a little more passively because Spanish is my main focus. But eventually I will be comfortable with Spanish and know that I’ll be able to hit the ground running with Chinese.
As a kid, i learned both English and French at the same time as my first languages. No regrets, I'm fluent in both. I also know basic Spanish, and have also started learning basic Japanese, as Japan is my favorite country i would like to visit 💙
i’ve been learning spanish and japanese and i’m so glad i learned spanish pronunciation and some grammar as a child (even if i didn’t retain vocab) because i can see how learning 2 phonologies and grammars from new as an adult would make someone feel crazy, and i think it makes it easier to contextualize new words i’ve learned into the language they belong to. “this word is said in this kind of sentence with this accent, so it is a spanish word.” “this word is said in this other kind of sentence with this other accent, so it is a japanese word.” the one downside is i absolutely have to train phrases and sentences when i learn new vocab otherwise the words just sort of float around in a ???? “this is a word in some language!” type of space. i’m not learning korean on purpose, but i’ve picked up some of it from exposure and somehow that has helped me with japanese because if there’s a word floating around in space, and i know what it means, if i know a cognate in korean i can pretty safely assume it’s japanese. i don’t know if i’m “supposed” to do that. but it helps.
As I'm currently trying to go from self-study beginner to conversational w italki teachers, I've been noticing my brain tryna figure out this switch more fully & acutely and that grandma clip was too accurate 🤣🤣 It's like the partition is a window some minimal UV blocking rather than a blackout curtain, and it feels like I'm tryna diy a screen piece by piece like a mosaic until i can get a good curtain. Such an interesting feeling.
As a polygloth myself, I learnt 15 languages at different lvels. Some helped each other in terms of grammar or vocabulary, and sometimes they were hindering the learning process.Now travelling between Japan and Taiwan, I often have to switch between Japanese, Mandarin and Minnan in my mind, and in the case of Italian and Spanish, I often choose the wrong words from Italian in which I am more proficient when I try to express myself, yet have no difficulty in listening or reading Spanish. And very nice video, thanks for pointing out the mistakes I have done throughout the years, albeit too late for me :D
Have you made any videos in your strongest languages (besides English)? Your strongest ones are French, Spanish, and...what else? Thanks! Love your content!
I have a problem. I'm already learning two languages. English, which I'm already very good at, and japanese, which I'm just starting to learn. But I started to plan a travel to Istambul pretty soon, and I want to know a little turkish before going there. Should I prioritize and only learn the ones I think are more important? Or should I keep working in each one?
I never stuck to one language once, I loved them all too much and couldn't resist trying them. I don't bother to change where I'm sitting either, I'll switch from Arabic to Russian to Portuguese all while sitting on my ass in bed. It works fine for me, with the obvious caveat that your skill will be determined by how much time you spend learning that language. Spanish I studied very very sparingly so it's only after 10 years that I'm reading and speaking. Chinese I became obsessed with so I was having spoken conversations within a year. (though even during my Chinese obsession I occasionally took breaks to learn other things. Opening up a video about Indonesian grammar didn't make the previous 6 hours of Mandarin listening disappear). People also have a habit of deciding what language to learn based on "vibes" without knowing anything about the language or culture or having any idea of how they want to engage with the language. My only issue: Whenever I try to speak Spanish I've had a Portuguese accent for some reason despite the fact I can't even understand much Portuguese. I hope this will change as I practice speaking more.
I studied several languages simultaneously in college. The approach was philological and stressed reading over speaking. They were staggered and literally all I did. I didn't have a job. So, I started Latin in semester one of year one, started ancient Greek in semester one of year two, and started German in semester two of year two. The following summer I started more languages like French, Italian, and modern Greek. Even my fun time though was devoted to language learning. Once a week I'd go out to a restaurant and spend several hours only speaking German.
I had to study Italian and Ancient Latin when I took my degree in Liberal Arts here in Brazil, and I kept studying the two languages at the same time for 3 years. I couldn't say no, because I was in a scientific initiation program in the 16th century literature at that time, and my advisor's library was mainly in English and Italian. Well, it has been a challenge, but a very good experience at the same time.
@@smeegy1 not quite tho...Japanese has a lot of phonemes that aren't present in Spanish. Is Spanish phonology more similar to Japanese than English, that's a yes, for sure. But people tend to stretch a lot...for example, they tend to mention that the Japanese r sound is a flap r [ɾ] like pero in Spanish when it's actually a lateral flap [ɺ] or the u, unlike Spanish [u] the Japanese u, depending of what consonant is accompanied and the speaker, is compressed [ɯᵝ], unrounded[ɯ], centralized [ɨ] or even compressed and centralized[ɨᵝ]...
@@sophiegonzales2615 look up a hiragana chart. A Spanish speaker will have no issue saying nearly all of them. The u is SLIGHTLY different, that's it(vowel wise) . And if you can do the Spanish r the Japanese one is easy af. The "musicality" of Japanese being divided into moras and not syllables, pitch accent, and particle markers are going to be the actual challenges, not pronouncing the characters.
I'm learning ASL for my own personal needs and speak English as my first language. i think learning a nonverbal language alongside a spoken one helps circumvent a lot of these issues as i'm currently learning Spanish as well.
I never really studied more than one language at a time, but after a year in Ukraine I also came back being able to have solid conversations with my mother and her family in Spanish because I used to hang out with the latinos in the dorm a lot. Living in Kyiv at the time (2017 is when I moved) there was still a lot of russian language on the street (significantly less now but you can still here it). From that, I understand a significant amount of it. I would never say I studied multiple languages at the same time though, since the only one I had classes in and actively worked on during my free time was Ukrainian.
I'm reading the same book in five different languages right now. I've been doing it for a month, and so far I don't see any problem with it. By the time I was 23 I had learned a bit about each of the four foreign languages. I'm sick of not knowing more of them, enough to be comfortable. Going over the content five times actually is kind of helpful. I start with the most familiar language first, and go in order to the least familiar. The additional context helps more for the unfamiliar languages. And so far I don't think it's confusing or mixing anything up for me, but rather contrasting differences. Like I just heard Portuguese use a Germanic sounding word for cords, but Spanish used cordas or something like that. Okay. Interesting.
I was under the understanding that if you learn two languages at the same time you should pick two from different language familys and try and link them together so you learn the word from your language in the one then go to the next language convert it to that and then go back to base language again and rotate clockwise and counterclockwise around with it but i'm not a linguist. I can see why that probably isn't the best way to do it. informative video.
Thanks for this video, a great subject. I was of the mind that learning two similar languages at the same time would be a big no-no because of the confusion. So after learning Japanese for a while, I decided to go for Russian, thinking these two languages to be so different, it couldn’t be a problem. But just as I started building my sentences in Russian, Japanese, all of a sudden, popped into my russian phrases ! So weird and mystifying !
I moved to Casablanca a couple of months ago where everyone is constantly moving back and forth between two or more languages. Most of the time it's French and Darija (Moroccan Arabic). I came with no skills in either language. So I have to be learning both languages at the same time in order to navigate this city. There's no point in trying to be a purist and do one at a time. I guess the "target" isn't so much language, as communication. I haven't been able to do any traveling yet, but other regions of Morocco have different mixes of languages and dialects. Language is one of the coolest things about Morocco!
On related languages, I am currently learning Turkish (and at one point was interested in learning Ottoman Turkish, specifically). When I eventually read Edward Granville Browne's "Year among the Persians" I laughed out loud, because his description of trying to learn Turkish, realising he had to learn Persian to make progress in Turkish, and then realising he needed Arabic to make progress in Persian was both exactly my experience and also exactly what my professor had told me. This is far less true for modern republican Turkish and somewhat less true for modern Persian, but when dealing with Ottoman Turkish and Classical Persian it is comically true that progress in one language is gated behind progress in another.
A possible way: study a course book of language A, use a vocab trainer, after finishing the course use space repetition for the vocabs. "Write and listen" language A but only at the level you already know, solidify you skills. Now do the same for language B but read and speak the language. After solidifying the two languages switch their parts from "Write and listen" to "Read and Speak" and vice versa. After solidiying the skills for both of the languages, even with the switc, use spaced repetition for the skills too, so you get free time to someday insert another course.
I wonder how many people are good at planning and maintaining consistency. Sure, if you can commit hours of your day to learning two languages and consistently show up every day to work on it, you can definitely achieve it. Can you squeeze in between house chores/ work/study/ out of other responsibilities? Most people, however, are quite disorganized and only study based on “motivation,” wasting their time on activities in a chaotic way. Some are prone to doomscrolling. If you’re not organized and disciplined enough, don’t even bother. You might end up like many who start learning a language but never reach an intermediate level. It’s twice the challenge-btw, a challenge in itself that most people fail at. Making a commitment and sticking to it is key. The harder the challenge, the more seriously you need to take it in order to tackle it. Relying solely on motivation? You’re never going to achieve anything that has delayed gratification. Learn how to play an instrument? Forget it. Learn a language? Nope. Getting a fancy degree? Not happening. Becoming a good listener? Cultivating strong relationships? Same story.
I’m learning Spanish and Korean together and it’s definitely slowing me down 🤤.I already spoke some spanish and came back to learning after hs and college. But I feel I would have learned Spanish quicker. I do mix up the languages - vocabulary at times. I have been thinking of pausing one but I get scared I will lose one. In all honestly if I drop one to come back later it should probably be Spanish because I am most advanced in that and could easily watch shows in Spanish and feel I would be able to pick up more easily later. I am A2 in Spanish moving towards B1 and for Korean I am A1 and finding it very hard lol. Native English speaker.
For me I'm doing 3 ☠️. I'm low advanced level Korean trying to get to native level(b/c my mom is Korean and I grew up with it a little), so I progressed a lot recently, but I also started Japanese a few months back, and trying to expand the Spanish I half-assed in highschool but now want to get better. I wouldn't say it's caused any problems except balancing the time, but it's doable. But 3 at a time is probably the limit, I recommend get to a level you desire in a language and you can stop trying to progress to focus on others, but remember to still be exposed to it through speaking, entertainment, etc, to not lose your progress
I am sure it's totally possible to learn even more than 2 languages at the same time and I think it all goes back to necessity, commitment and goal (the level one wants to reach). I myself speak English, Italian, Spanish, Arabic alongside my native language which is Portuguese. I have an interest in Latin, Ancient Greek and Classical Hebrew also... I know some Modern Hebrew too, however I do not have the goal of mastering to the point of becoming capable of speaking on it on every single real life situation, I just want it for some very general contexts. As for Arabic, though, I do wish to reach a high level, so I have a much higher demand on studying it, exposing myself and practice for it. For the languages I became fluent already and feel comfortable on my current level, I am constantly activating them because there is literature and media I consume on them as well as native speakers I talk to regularly, however, this does not provide me the grammatical refinement I need for a more complete mastery, therefore, as currently I unfortunately cannot find more time to study more than a single language in a scheduled manner, what I do is sticking to a single one of them for a fixed period of time, let's say 2 weeks or a month, and by the end of this period I switch to another one to focus on. I do include my native language in this process too! I keep doing this approach until I go through each of the language I am interest on in relatively short cycles. I believe that by doing this, I learn more effectively on the long run, keep all my languages "ready for duty" and I never feel bored of studying, which can happen if one should stay too long doing the same routine non stop.
I'm currently reinforcing my Yiddish vocabulary with Duolingo and taking Hebrew at my university, and I find it kind of confusing because of the lack of similar grammar (and the differing pronunciation I guess, but I learned modern Hebrew pronunciation long ago at this point, so it's already distinct in my head), but in some ways it's very helpful to have the Hebrew for the Hebrew-derived words in Yiddish.
My Eldest is really good at learning languages, he's been learning (at school) French for 3 years, German and Latin for 2; he also decided a year ago to learn Italian on Duolingo, though he gave that up after about 6 months . Now because he was really good at Latin, he's just started Ancient Greek (his school is really keen on the classics). I honestly don't know how well he's going to do with all of them, but I strongly suspect he'll surpass my German knowledge quite soon.
Im Moving to Brussels, so I'm learning both French and Dutch. I'm focusing mainly on French, though, as my partner's parents speak only French, and significantly more Dutch/Flemish speakers speak English than French speakers, so French will get me further in Brussels. Curently taking French 3 at B1, doing alright but I still have a while to go
I learned Spanish and French together in high school and Arabic and Hebrew in college, so I hope you can learn 2 languages at the same time! Also, last year was a VERY awkward time to be in both of those classes
Please treat this as constructive feedback, but I think the lighting in your past videos was better. Anyways, I'm focusing on one language, but I sometimes wonder if I want to go to another one in the same family. Learning a language opens up a whole new cultural world, and I want to see more worlds. I appreciate the video!
8:00 This! When I started learning Chinese (about 3 months in) I focused on pronunciation a lot, now I pretty much have it down after doing a little bit everyday (I’m still practicing it)
At school (Portugal late 80s and 90s), I started French in year 5, then English in year 7, then Latin and Greek in year 10. All carried out until year 12 (last year). At the Conservatorium, we had 3 years of Italian and 3 years of German, both learned at the same time.
I separate contexts. German I use casually for most things, it's kinda my heart language in a way. It was an academic tool in college, but that was a long time ago. Spanish I use at work or work-related things, but it's been useful for dating around here too. Russian I use in vacation contexts [Eastern Europe, Western SF, Alaska, New York, etc.]. Also serves as a bully to continue German conversations [Germans have a bad habit of English switching], initiate Russian ones, and stop everyone else, scammers included. Also, Cyrillic is a dope script.
I studied both Spanish and German at the same time at university: 8 full university courses over 8 months. I already spoke French and English. It was confusing but I managed. Unfortunately that was 35 years ago and I haven't really had a chance to practice so I can't speak them anymore but I still remember a lot.
I've been learning Dutch for years, and after writing my Dutch language tests for residency, I've switched over to French mostly (and a little Dutch) and I'm finding more and more similarities there. I lived in Canada most of my life and couldn't really "get" French. Since acquiring more experience with non-English languages in general since moving to Europe, I'm not as uptight about my language skills, and I'm starting to understand things in French that broke me as a kid. My 11 year old has spoken Dutch at school for over half his life. He reads, speaks, and understands Dutch at his age level according to the basisschool tests. Our only real concern is that his teachers might be biased to think he's slower at reading because his parents aren't Dutch fluent, and that could affect his school choices next year. His current language of study? Japanese. We figure he's going to likely going to learn French / German / Spanish as well anyhow, so there's no big worry about picking a non-European language.
I have a complex relationship to this question because as a deaf person who would *like* to learn foreign languages, there's the attractive notion of studying the language and its corresponding sign languages side by side -- I speak English quite well, which has led to the expectation in foreign language courses that I pass the audio and spoken portions of the coursework like my hearing classmates. Studying the sign language that corresponds to the country in question would make the listen and spoken portions of those classes much easier. Of course, sign languages are not just hand ciphers for the languages they correspond to, there can be multiple sign languages for a single given spoken language (English), and some countries have multiple sign languages (China, Canada). All of that is in addition to the fact that it's hard enough to find interpreters certified in the primary language of a given language *in* the country where it is spoken, and the fact that ASL, the language with the most certified interpreters out there, is still woefully understaffed. Finding a foreign language instructor for my target sign language (either French or Quebecois Sign Language) has been an exercises in futility thus far.
I'm currently learning two languages at the same time, French and Czech because I like those countries. While French was pretty easy to catch up only using Duolingo as I'm a Catalan and Spanish speaker, Czech was a pain in the ass. Now, I've switched to learn Czech from books made specially for that and I feel that I'm learning better than through the senseless repetition of Duolingo. And having sets of completely different vocabulary makes it impossible to mix them.
I speak Tamil moderately well and English natively, but learned Hindi ~10 years ago. But I only got to an intermediate level and never really spoke much, though I can understand most content. The last year and a bit I have been learning Spanish, and I definitely am seeing some corrupted files with Hindi during the process. If I am struggling with a word, I revert to the Hindi word - somehow my brain goes to the next highest energy retrieval, instead of going for the lowest energy one. I cannot imagine learning both languages at the same time!
The two languages I’m currently learning are Spanish and how to understand my kids
The first is relatively simple, the second profoundly impossible.
Make them learn another language, they'll thank you later
This one is gold
@@carsonwright3907 yeah idk if kids these days will be interested in learning other languages when they cant even speak english properly anymore. Skibidi toilet ohio mewing for lookmaxing
@@BooksWithBradThis is a weird channel to bring a prescriptivist view into.
I'm doing two languages right now. I find that doing the same language for a long time can cause fatigue. So I do one until I burn out, then I switch to the other. It's taking a while, but it's definitely helping me keep motivation.
That’s often my approach!
Same here (I mentioned that in my comment above)
Although the greatest joy is doing two languages at the same time.
exactly same thought when I learn French and Japanese at the same time
Yes , otherwise is so tiresome to continue practicing when nothing feels new
The idea of supression in studying multiple languages was one I had never thought about. I will take that into consideration, thank you.
My senior year in highschool, I was studying [5th year] Spanish, [2nd year] German and [1st year] French at school; I was also studying Russian with a private tutor, and Japanese in a night-class. I never had any issues keeping them separate in my mind. More than 50 years later, and I can still get by in the first 3 reasonably well.
I honestly believe that what helped you was that you didn't start them all at the same time,
japanese got bro
@@samueldickey8333 I was studying Spanish at the uni and at the same time had added also mandatory French and Italian and aced them all. Now I started learning Hungarian, Finnish and German and no problem with them either, I don't get them mixed.
People are always surprised at not confusing them. There seems to be another skill that doesn't involve binary activation-suppression but more like a lazy susan rotation of languages. Self-learned Norwegian (Berlitz) while taking French, then took German while keeping up with Norwegian, all the while in 3rd and 4th year Russian. True, they all started at the same time. So perhaps the question is whether to START two languages at the same time, or devote study time to overlapping languages, perhaps in different stages (nouns and pronouns in L2 and verb tenses in L3).
@@miufke_ Russian too
2:36 -- My parents just got called out, I bet their ears are burning. They spoke their native language as a secret language and never taught us kids, who consequently grew up as American English monoglots, more's the pity. We couldn't help but pick up some swear words, though.
It was the same with my parents: they were TOLD not to speak two languages in a fear I would not learn to speak either! The reason for the fear was based on Finnish immigrants living in close communities in Sweden. The people in the community mixed freely the two languages, which evolved into kind of Swedish creole: the children growing up learned that instead of being able to speak either Finnish or Swedish.
This unusual phenomenon (in Europe, at least) became the basis for the advice to speak only the official language of the country, without any regard of the circumstances of the original study....
I was told the same nonsense 30 years later by my well-meaning childminder: I told her that most of the world population grew up bilingual and some even tri-lingual without any harm, which shut her up a bit. Likewise, I was told I am not allowed to speak my language when I took and picked my kid up from nursery. I later learned how the nursery teacher spoke disparagingly about speaking my language to my toddler, who started rejecting it. Being the only one in a hundred mile radius, my son didn't have the same linguistic-emotional support as other immigrant communities. In fact, when he finally met another kid speaking my language, they spoke English to each other: even hearing both parents communicating with them in Finnish, they could not comprehend the other would understand them, even. 😢 For the same reason, my eldest kept translating everything I said to his baby brother.😅
We have much easier time nowadays, thanks to Internet and video technology.
What language was it
Italian and French learner here. Encouraging suppression is a game changer. I often get distracted while listening to audio lessons in one language, because I try to remember a word or phrase in the other language. If I can't remember on the spot, I get frustrated and feel like I can't move on until I figure it out. You've given me the permission to stop doing that. Thank you!
I'm an interpreter, which necessarily involves using two languages at once. When studying, I've often deliberately mixed languages. I'm a native English speaker, but I studied Chinese at a French university. My Portuguese textbook is in Spanish. When creating my own exercises, I often use the grammar-translation method by translating a Norwegian text into Spanish, for example.
Interpreting is probably the exception.
yesss, i find learning korean in Japanese way easier because there's a lot of words, phrases and grammar rules i dan directly translate from korean into japanese that don't exist at all in english
In other words, you're a fancy pants 😅
@@lol-xz2fl Yeah, that's exactly why I imported my Portuguese textbook from Spain to Australia. I looked at ones in English and like 90% of the rules were the same as in Spanish and other Romance languages and I can already just pick up a text in Portuguese and read it because of the huge overlap in vocabulary. I desperately needed a resource that assumed I already had that knowledge, to save time.
Other instances of using two languages at once have just been to make my brain work harder to relieve boredom or to refresh a language while studying another.
Studying Chinese in Bordeaux was just because I lived there though.
As an interpreter, I only work in two languages at a time but I've been a multilingual tour guide and done some rapid switching for mixed groups of passengers.
I'm a translator who wants to go down the interpreter training route, could you tell me a bit about how you became an interpreter and how you find it?
Being at different stages in separate languages definitely helps. Learning the same thing, at the same time in both languages is where people get all sorts of confused. I can speak German better than I can understand it, and I can understand Spanish better than I can speak it, but ultimately I am making progress on all fronts.
Another thing, don't undergo the "embryonic" stage of a new language at the same time as another. Getting the hang of one (definitely doesn't need to be perfect) before jumping into the other helps create an offset and therefore separation. Also helps with mental energy too as the early stages can potentially burn you out.
I like the term “embryonic stage”. I think your advice is pretty sound.
Hahaha i understand what you mean , how i am able to read korean easily and not understand the meaning, yet i can speak and understand Japanese but i can't read kanji that well , i can guess most romantic languages meaning by being native if i see it written down , yet listening to it i am at a complete lost
Small children are language geniuses. My son spoke flawless Mandarin with his Chinese grandparents, flawless English with my parents and a jumbled mashup of the two with my wife and me! That almost counts as three languages at once!
Your child out here creating English-Chinese Creole, so one half of Singlish
Random thought: I wonder if anyone has researched the phenomenon where the most recent “second language” inserts itself in the brain while speaking a third. For example, I remember responding to a Chinese cab driver saying, “Esta bien” without thinking. It feels as though there’s some work involved in “replacing” the language in the additional language slot in the brain.
I had a waitress speak to me in French while I was in Madeira. Madeirans don't expect tourists to speak their language, but we had just ordered in English. It was fine because my French is passable, but it was amusing. The fact that they learn several languages just to cater for tourists is so impressive!
I have noticed this. I think mri research would help there. My hypothesis is that your language centers have a sort of "temp zone" for newly forming languages which then mature into distinct regions of activation. This regional separation hypothesis would explain why it becomes a little harder to translate (unless you practice, if that's your thing) the more developed a target language becomes in your brain
If I remember correctly, languages acquired in childhood are stored differently than languages acquired in adulthood, so until you gain enough experience in a new language, your brain reaches for "not my L1" and goes with whatever is easiest to pull up if you're not super focused on what you're saying.
That’s what last week’s video was about!
My L3 is German and my L4 is Russian. I mix up da and ja way too often. This is made worse by the fact that "da" and "ja" exist in both languages, but mean different things
This video came at the perfect time for me! I've been learning Korean for two years.... It's the language I study because it makes my heart happy. By a weird twist of fate I now find myself going to Japan next year, so I am trying to cram Japanese into my brain (really cram.... Like 5 hours a day cram). In some ways, having a good grasp of Korean grammar is making Japanese a million times easier, but I was a little worried about trying to study the two languages at once because I'm simply not willing to stop studying Korean 😂. But this video addressed my concerns and gave me some great tips, so thank you thank you thank you!!!!!!
I’m so glad this was at just the right time!
it's funny cause the reverse happened to my brother. he's now pretty dang proficient in both. you got this!
Do you have languagereactor? I was able to communicate in Mandarin in less than a year and I spent 90% of my time just watching Chinese tv on youtube and netflix. I'd avoid spending more than an hour a day on grammar or boring exercises, they make you feel like you're progressing but often you just burn yourself out. Good luck!!
@@alicesenz6374 I've not heard of languagereactor.... I'm using a combination of study tools though. Grammar is actually one of my favorite parts of language learning, but since the grammar of Japanese has so far been basically the same as Korean I haven't had to learn any new grammar - yet lol. I'm mostly learning phrases, hearing and speaking, and yeah lots of Japanese TV
Opposite, though I haven't given Korean serious attention yet. You couldn't convince teenage me not to self study Japanese (because my school didn't have it as a language so I took German) but you could have convinced me to study both Japanese and Korean.
Makes me mad at myself because Hangul is so much easier than the Japanese system and like you said, the grammar is similar.
I am 63 and learning French and Spanish. I just alternate them day by day. I am making progress and enjoying it. Not mixing them up too often.
Oddly enough, my brain went to "der Steg" before "die Brücke" when you mentioned the bridge example. I guess as a musician by trade, I spend more time thinking about the bridge of my bass than bridges that a car might drive over! Thanks for the video!
Steg ist Deutsch? Ok.
I’m learning too many. In order of importance Russian > Persian > Uzbek (unironically) > Latin > Modern Greek. Definitely making the most progress in the first two and I do them every day; others it’s every other or every few days. Luckily I can maintain my French by studying them since I use the French ASSIMIL manuals to study.
Being a native Russian speaker I cannot see why people want to learn the language of one of the most toxic countries in the world
How does one even study Uzbek
@@drnorse3243 with a textbook. I’m using one from Georgetown University Press called Elementary Uzbek by Nigora Azimova. I’m also planning on getting a tutor from Italki.
Our daughter has grown up with four languages English, another Germanic, a Slavic and a Romance language, and almost six years old, is fluent in all of them. Her pronunciation is amazing in all of them. My wife and I speak all of those, so we can correct her constantly. She is able to switch really well between them, since we actively speak three of them at home. Cartoons have been a great teacher for two languages.
My sister is seven , she cant pronounce my or her name properly, she is so lovely
I didn’t start speaking (English) until I was five years old.
@@StillAliveAndKicking_ English is my mother language and I didn't start speaking until I was 5, as well. By the time I was in my 20's I spoke 6 languages. By my 40's I added one more. I was a bit of a late bloomer but it worked out haha.
@@bgriffiths1840 There’s hope for me yet ! I kind of speak French (B2+) and I’m learning German (B1).
This was SUPER helpful, thank you! I'm currently trying to revive my Hindi while planning to start learning Māori, and the advice in this video is just what I needed, just when I needed it.
As an adult, probably a massive waste of time. You become bad at both languages instead of poor with just one.
It helps to gain enough proficiency in one language to "get around" before trying to learn another. Having multiples helps when I get bored with one. But I only like to have one at the "I can't put basic sentences together" level.
My parents went with the "secret language" route for ASL despite knowing that I'm hard of hearing since I was 2, not knowing that kids soak up language and I was acquiring receptive skills in ASL that entire time without developing the ability to produce it myself. But it's wild that my parents would overlook that because my dad went through the EXACT SAME THING with German when he was a kid where the adults all used German with each other but not with the kids and he acquired German receptive skills but no speaking skills as a child as well. That's why learning ASL for me as an adult was much easier than any other language and why learning German as an adult for my dad was easier for him than any other language.
Two at once? I can barely cope with one. I haven't studied French in decades, but I still find French sentences popping into my head when I'm stuck on something I want to say in Japanese, it's like my head separates languages in to 'English' and 'Other'. I would honestly like to learn Korean as well, but I think I'd need to be retired to have the time (hides Hangul sheets under bed).
I've noticed the same phenomenon and wonder what the research says about it. I have my native tongue, English, and then the foreign tongue I'm best at, German. When reaching an impasse in other languages, my brain wants to plug German into the gap. To a lesser extent it will try to resort to the foreign tongue I'm spending the most time on now, French.
French is the most difficult and most illogical language on the planet. Greetings from Ontario 😅
@@CountofSerenno French is beautiful and useful and interesting, but yeah, it's ridiculous!
@@CountofSerenno in my experience, both American and Canadian English are low context language - Canadians and Americans tend to say what they mean, and when they don't they give huge cues that's they are being obtuse. French speakers and to a lesser extent British English speakers tend to use contextually sensitive speech. Often what they say can only be understood by taking into account the cultural context of the sentence. Japanese is actually much, much worse in this way. Frequently when taking to my Canadian and American relatives I've had to backtrack and say the equivalent of 嘘だよ to make sure they understood. In the other direction, the sheer politeness of North American speech can be overwhelming. I was once accosted by a beggar in Halifax and I honestly thought they were asking for directions.
It's weird how words will stick with us after so long. I attempted to learn German back in Jr. High (early 2000s) but didn't really give it the devotion necessary for truly learning a language. Since then, I've picked up the book once in a great while and read some phrases, but I've never really "studied" German again (picked up French instead, at which I'm getting decent).
Nevertheless, I still remember quite a bit of German vocabulary and can understand very simple sentences and sometimes catch the odd phrase here and there in song lyrics. Occasionally when my brain hears either French or German, it mixes up which language it wants to listen for.
Sacrificing my precious time for the algorithmic gods.
I’m French and just yesterday I was getting an haircut and it happens that my hairdresser, his staff and other clients are naturalized French citizens from Algeria. They were talking between each other and I understood that one client was describing his holidays in the Algerian coast because he kept on switching between Arabic and French. Sometimes it was just a word, sometimes a whole sentence, sometimes whole parts of the discussion. At a moment, my hairdresser said he was sorry that they were discussing in a language I couldn’t understand. But I responded that on the contrary I was fascinated by the way they kept switching languages and that I was trying to understand the logic that made them speak French at certain times, then all of a sudden back to Arabic. He explained me that all Algerians are bilingual from childhood and even if Arabic is the official language, speaking both is part of the daily life. So there’s no logic, it’s just that for whatever reason, sometimes it’s the Arabic word that comes to their mind, sometimes it’s the French word that comes out first. And then that suffices to change the direction of the bilingual switch in their brain.
I had with him the most interesting discussion I ever had while getting my hair cut.
On another point, I don’t know how it is in every other countries, but In France I started to learn languages in middle school and we have to study different languages at the same time. For me it was English, Spanish (the other choice was German) and Latin. So the exercise of learning multiple languages at once is not unfamiliar. I’d say that in the short term it was not very beneficial for each language separately, because English was the only one that caught on for me. On the long term, studying Latin and Spanish was very beneficial when years later I started to learn Italian. Also I can mainly read Portuguese and understand spoken Spanish because of those basics I studied long ago. I also find that knowing English makes me able to understand roughly the context of articles written in Dutch or German.
Good timing, I've been mulling over studying 2 unrelated languages at once, and was thinking of devoting a given week to one then switching next week to the other. That way, there's enough time to adjust to & focus on the one language, and I can gain the memory advantages of spaced practice. That being said, I'm not sure a week is the ideal switching time for this, maybe the spacing would be more beneficial switching every few days. Probably can decide what's best through trial and error, though I wonder if this has been properly researched
I've studied multiple before with success, what languages do you want to study? Personally I just follow what I have motivation for and make sure I have movies/books/tv shows that excite me in my target language. Whatever you do make sure you're listening to the language as much as possible!
Sometimes I'll go weeks just studying one and other times I'll study both in the same day. Only problem is speaking skills decline if I abandon it too long, but I don't like to speak until I've been studying one for a few months anyway.
I needed this video right now, how did you know?! I have been working on my Spanish for almost exactly a year now, that whole time I have been using German as the 'carrot on the end of a stick'... German is my heritage language, but I grew up only knowing the sweet things my Oma would say to me. I like Spanish, I really do!... but good gosh how I want to learn German SOOO badly. I feel so silly for even having this crisis.
You’re welcome! It’s a pretty common concern, and UA-cam recommended that a lot of people were searching either similar questions. But I think the key is figuring out why people are really asking! Enjoy your German journey, and best of luck with the continuing Spanish study
Suppression is such an interesting concept! I spent a year studying Spanish and then another studying Japanese, sequentially. I’m still very basic in both, but one time when I had to give directions to a couple in Spanish, a Japanese “hai” slipped out of my mouth. I was so embarrassed, especially because my Japanese wasn’t even good…
I feel bad because Spanish feels so much quicker than my progress in Japanese despite nearly minoring in it in university (I was missing the culture class and I could have done 3 credits of self study my final year.) They do mix, usually when I feel pressed to reply. But German, the language I studied in high school because they didn't have Japanese, randomly chooses its moment to just yell out the word I am looking for in either of the two. Then, I am stuck.
So true. I play multiple musical instruments. So many transferable skills between them. But you have to practice switching between instruments as well as the individual instruments themselves in order to avoid confusion. It’s a particular skill to control that partitioning. Well articulated.
You are the first linguist I’ve heard discuss that concept of suppressing other languages when you are actively using a target language to speak and communicate in that moment. I never realized I did that when speaking one of my languages over the others. I also have a long buffer time searching for the right words.
I love your analogy of switching languages to switching the types of utensils you use to eat.
I'm in the thick of studying Japanese right now, and I'm definitely suffering from "shiny new language" syndrome. Because characters and meanings are occasionally similar in Mandarin, I find myself wanting to switch to Chinese instead, especially since I'm more interested in speaking that language. But I think for myself, sticking to just one will be better in the long run. This video will definitely help me in the future when I take up Chinese next, though!
Your insights into phonology and the importance of separating languages in both practice and environment are super helpful. I love your approach to language learning as a joyful journey rather than a chore. Looking forward to implementing your tips! Keep up the great work!
Really love the channel and hope you keep investing in it!
THANK YOU!
Thanks for sharing! I'm a new subscriber!😎👌🏽
For my own purposes, I find taking a break on one language for a few months (letting it simmer) or just "maintaining", while focusing on another works for me best. Helps from burning out on one or the other, and I think it helps to solidify a base in the language on a break. Like a sort of settling period for all the short term stuff get into long term or letting the unconscious neural stuff happen, idk i ain't a doctor. Probably not as good as doing whole-hog into one for a long time, but way better than partitioning each day between multiple languages. I find that when starting back up the other language, I progress a lot faster or get through any previous plateaus now that it's fresh.
100% anecdotal, YMMV of course
I learn 3 now, feeling awesome. And also we slowly learn 10 in the language club and brain gets so much happier while we do that (by special method, that we update along the go)
loving your videos ❤
Just got the ol' UA-cam "Al-Gore-Rhythm" referral for your channel and enjoyed it. There is another reason for learning multiple languages at once that you failed to mention, and that is some people such as myself at age 70 statistically don't have that many years left to study as you, for example. Therefore, an efficient use of time, i.e. learning multiple languages simultaneously is almost a must (though I'm not sure one MUST learn a language at my age). I'm a native English speaker with a college degree in Spanish (probably a C1 level here), just completing one year of French (probably a B1/2 level here), using acquisition/assimilation/emersion techniques, and starting on Italian (which after Spanish and French I find amazingly easy). I read/listen daily in each language but with much more time given to whatever my new target language is. So, I'm not technically "learning" two at the same time, though I'm seriously considering throwing in Portuguese with the Italian. My secret language was Southern but stopped using it when my kids figured out what "y'all might could" meant. Oh, well. C'est la vie said the old folks.
That's me. Can't help myself.
Love the suppression advice!! As I learn more Spanish I thought I was forgetting French, yikes! The suppression is such a real thing! I was not forgetting, I was just tuned to another channel, whew!
There was a semester of college when I was taking German, Spanish, and French classes, but I was majoring in German and minoring in French, and already had taken 4 years of Spanish in high school.
As with some many things, it depends on what you're doing and why you're doing it. I am learning Arabic just for fun and because I genuinely love the all those consonants. So there is no pressure there, it's all a treat for me. But I waited 2 years to do so after I had started working on Latin again because of the time commitment. Once my Latin was in a better place, I could start Arabic from scratch and focus on it more.
I don't have to actively study German anymore because it's my job and part of my daily life. With Latin, I am getting back into a language I loved as a child. With Arabic, it's totally new to me and therefore interesting and exciting, I like just putting on YT documentaries in Arabic and seeing what I can pick up and learn from them. But I enjoy the process, and that's why I'm doing it, and to learn more about language learning.
Great video and very relevant! I have managed to learn Mandarin, German and French separately, but paid little attention to maintaining my languages while I was learning a new one. Now I've got a position where I need to use all 3 constantly and I'm trying to brush up - the hardest part is finding the time in the day!
I am learning German, Russian and Korean. I have already been learning German for ~2.5 years (I am already fluent because my native languages are English and Afrikaans), but I only recently started learning Russian and Korean from scratch. This is a horrible idea in my opinion, but because I’m a high school student, I have a lot of free time to spend on these languages and it’s only a hobby, I don’t need to speak these languages for a job or to assimilate into a new society. So I think if it’s only for fun you can learn as many languages as you want, no one is stopping you.
You're South African and learning Russian and Korean? ME TOO but I learn Chinese instead of German because I'm taught Chinese at school
I woke up this morning to see you had a new video uploaded Mr. Jones, and I must say I thouroughly enjoyed this one. The other day I couldn't really muster up the energy to make lunch for work so I took some cup noodles instead. Anyway I apprreciate all the hard work you put into helping me distract myself from my enevtible demise and wish you all the besy while you do the same for yourself.
All the best from a friend whos never met you.🙈
Thanks so much for this video! I've been studying French and Spanish and have been at an intermediate level in the past. I'll be needing French for a trip in November, but I don't want to lose ground with Spanish. Love the concept of suppression! The suggestion to use different tools and places to learn is 🎉
I studied French about 15-20 years ago. It was mostly unused and sitting in a dormant part of my brain. Then I started learning Italian 2 years ago and was amazed at how much french my brain had actually retained, despite the long hiatus.
I always recommend learning two at once with the option of taking one more seriously! Getting the phonology right before you start worrying about anything is crucial!! Your progress can never be hurt my more familiarization with how you’re going to hear it, how it’s said and what patterns you hear (before you know what any of them mean)
I love that you talked about how each language feels different in the mouth. I haven't studied linguistics and I've never heard anyone talk about that before, but it's the key to me being able to activate and suppress different languages. French feels different to Italian and so when I'm speaking one or the other, I go to that part of my mouth and the mix ups reduce significantly!
I only began learning languages as a serious hobby a year ago, so I don't have much experience in terms of the comparative effectiveness of different approaches, but I'm now studying three and I feel like what's allowed it go fairly well, besides getting lots of comprehensible input everyday, is that I began studying each of them at different stages.
I began with Portuguese (as a Spanish native speaker and more than a decade after having taken a course on it at uni for a year) and after two or three months, feeling comfortable with my comprehension and increasing capacity to write and speak it, I began learning French from scratch (because I was going to France on tour with a band).
Soon I decided to get French-learning content in Portuguese (both UA-camrs and Duolingo) so as not to steal so much time from the Portuguese learning, while I was starting to listen to Portuguese content aimed at natives but in rather formal settings (lectures, talks, news reports, etc.). 6 or 7 months later, while I was listening to and understanding more informal podcasts and youtubers in Portuguese (having an upper intermediate level, I'd say), listening to more formal content in French (lower-intermediate level), I decided to start learning Danish.
My progress with the first two was quite fast. I could hold conversations (with some difficulty, but still) in France with natives after ~8 months of learning it with 1 to 3 hours of input a day, every day) and although I haven't had the chance to practice my Portuguese with natives, I feel quite prepared to do it. Danish learning hasn't gone as fast, but I feel motivated and have no pressure, so I feel like I can go on with the three for quite a while.
Of course, I can't know for sure if it would've been more effective to study them consecutively, but since I don't feel like I "study" Portuguese now, I just consume content that interests me in Portuguese more than 1 hour a day, read aloud whenever I can and speak to myself while walking the dogs (🤪), and soon might be doing the same with French, I'd say that this was the best choice for me! It feels like I only "study" (and struggle) with one at a time, and the other(s) just improve by virtue of what I watch and listen to in my leisure time.
First, I love your channel. Thanks for all of your information… I have a love affair with Latin and new Latin(Spanish) i worked at Spanish and got it to around a B1 level (possibly B2 but I doubt it) and just picked Latin back up. I’m learning both via comprehensible input, but Spanish through watching videos and Latin through reading, and a grammar. I’m glad to hear that this is going to get easier!
this is a skill--i don’t know who can relate to this, but my brain has two modes: english (my native language) and not-english. so sometimes if im speaking spanish i say a word in french and absolutely cannot think of what it is in spanish. sometimes a choctaw word (language ive started most recently) even pops into my head. practicing the separation is important!
Interesting to hear others have experienced a similar thing to me (a native English speaker)! "Having a go" in French or Malay, if I can't find the right word in the language in use, it seems the word from the other language crops up from the foreign language side of my brain instead! It's hardly as though they're similar languages (although Indonesian has certain words with European roots).
Occasionally even Afrikaans words reappear, a language I've not used for >30 yes, but with 5 years learning at primary school! Mind you, due to the colonial history of the Netherlands / VOC, Afrikaans has Malay/Indonesian derived vocab (amongst many other languages).
Anyhow, anyone else found something similar?..
@@hannahmc5291I can relate to the English/non-English mode. It’s similar to having my password reset because I forgot it, but then my fingers begin to type the “forgotten” password. Brains are funny things.
I found learning Spanish and French (just for fun) at the same time at a beginner level too confusing because of their similarities. With Greek and Spanish the different alphabet is very helpfu, but mixing Mandarin and Spanish is even better.
I work in a school where kids are expected to speak Khmer half a day (3+ hours) and English the other half, minus two lessons of Chinese per week. Most children are likely to speak Khmer at home, but a fairly high percentage speaks some other language. I found that even those children who study English full time, are behind of monolingual English kids of the same age especially when it comes to grammar unless they also speak, read and consume other English media at home. (I'm comparing my grandchildren of the same age.) These children have much harder time learning the same content and doing well in international exams, which are aimed at English speaking ex-pats studying English full day and communicating with English-speaking relatives. It doesn't help that the ratio of children with learning difficulties and their often behaviour doesn't exactly help.
However, when it comes to everyday verbal communication, especially comprehension, it is pretty good by 3rd grade, and by the time they finish basic education at 18, I am sure even the kids with mild learning challenges speak English at least as well as I do, and the normies will do even better. (I'm non-native speaker with only very basic education grammar. Don't ask me what grammar terms mean or their rules!)
I wouldn’t. I’m currently learning French as a native English speaker and I have thought about also learning Italian, but I’ve only been studying French for 3 months and even though French and Italian are both Romance languages and thus similar, French pronunciation is hard to master and so is correct verb tense so I’d rather focus on just French since I’m so early into my language learning.
For instance, libraire means bookseller in French and NOT library. As an English speaker it’s odd to me bibliothèque means library in French since in my English mind library should simply be libraire. However, living in SoCal I know a tiny amount of Spanish and I know biblioteca is library in Spanish and Italian so I can reason in my mind that bibliothèque means library in French.
Going to take your advice and use different locations for different languages! 😀
I have taken all the languages courses on Duolingo, but I'm especially focused on Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Chinese, Portuguese and Vietnamese, the rest being studied only occasionally. Like Dr. Jones said, there's only so much time in a day...
Thank you for the video. I have mused this problem a few times and generally heard conflicted advice...sometimes self-contradictory advice. But I think this approaches it from the right angles to answer the question and might actually give me good relevant advice. Because it might be good advice for 2 of my target languages that are related, one of which I only maybe want to get to an A2/B1 level but is currently my highest priority, but the other I want a deeper understanding, but with less of a priority. And then have a 3rd to move onto.
That was really helpful! Trying to learn Armenian (still looking for good resources for western by the way…) and Vietnamese at the same time, my biggest issue as a disorganized mom is time management 😅 but attributing a studying place is a wonderful idea! 💖👏
I am conversational in Italian, but nowhere near fluent. I did not grow up speaking the language, but have Italian citizenship by descent, as well as U.S. citizenship (English is my first language). We are moving to Spain, and I am still somewhat of a beginner in Spanish. I want to continue my progress in Italian, and learn Spanish, so this topic is important to me. I also have a beginning understanding of French and want to continue learning that language, but my immediate need is getting up to speed in Spanish (Castillian). The problem I have is that the better my Spanish becomes, the more my Italian suffers. I am hoping there is a way for me to continue to seperate them, yet progress in both. Thanks for doing these, and also for dispelling so many language myths.
Studied Latin and Greek in school. So much fun. One alone would have been torture, for I'd've not been able to learn the other! Sanskrit, as mentioned in the video, has waited for me for the past too many years
This was helpful to me! I'm bilingual in American English (mother tongue) and Castellano (Argentine Spanish). I study languages for fun. I'm currently studying French, Italian, and Norwegian. I separate in time more than place. I don't study more than one language in a day. My progress in each isn't super fast, but I'm having fun. French and Italian have a lot of concurrence with Castellano, and Norwegian had a lot of concurrence with English. Scot's Gaelic and Greek are next on my list. I've studied them a little but set them aside for now.
Hey not bad, often times i find videos from multi lingual people who either are trying to sell you on a bs theory on how to learn a language fast when in reality they’re just trying to show off or just don’t realize that their method only works for them. I appreciate that you actually provide a good pointer for people trying to learn multiple languages and your presentation skills are great as well. That aside, I’m aiming for german and italian and somehow still remember a lot of words from the time i tried to learn russian. So who knows, maybe one day I’ll be able to add those 3 to my repertoire 😁
Thank you for the video Mr Jones!, you helped me out, I’ve been postponing studying, now I’ll retake French and maybe I’ll start from scratch with German😅
I'm definitely an immersion-only learner. So that's one at a time for me.
However, if I'm just working on memorization tasks like learning writing scripts or new vocabulary, its all flash cards so I can work on one language or three. It doesnt seem to matter in that context.
But the baseline grasp of the sound, feel and grammar needs to be firmly in place and learned on its own - at least with the way my brain seems to operate.
I studied Spanish enough that now all that's left isn't really fun anymore, just practice and work. I missed the fun, discovery phase that was in the beginning so I started to learn French just to enjoy that part again... then I did that with Italian and was blown away at how much easier and rapidly you can learn Italian if you already are advanced in spanish. Long story short now I'm learning both, having a lot of fun and making progress literally 10 times faster than I did in spanish since I've already done this before. It's definitely possible.
I swear that UA-cam is reading my mind... I was just thinking about this this morning lol
love the consistency content language jones
I love this! I’m doing great on my Spanish studies so I decided to learn mandarin because there are a lot of mandarin speakers at my work, as well as Spanish speakers. I just have to learn mandarin a little more passively because Spanish is my main focus. But eventually I will be comfortable with Spanish and know that I’ll be able to hit the ground running with Chinese.
As a kid, i learned both English and French at the same time as my first languages. No regrets, I'm fluent in both. I also know basic Spanish, and have also started learning basic Japanese, as Japan is my favorite country i would like to visit 💙
i’ve been learning spanish and japanese and i’m so glad i learned spanish pronunciation and some grammar as a child (even if i didn’t retain vocab) because i can see how learning 2 phonologies and grammars from new as an adult would make someone feel crazy, and i think it makes it easier to contextualize new words i’ve learned into the language they belong to. “this word is said in this kind of sentence with this accent, so it is a spanish word.” “this word is said in this other kind of sentence with this other accent, so it is a japanese word.” the one downside is i absolutely have to train phrases and sentences when i learn new vocab otherwise the words just sort of float around in a ???? “this is a word in some language!” type of space.
i’m not learning korean on purpose, but i’ve picked up some of it from exposure and somehow that has helped me with japanese because if there’s a word floating around in space, and i know what it means, if i know a cognate in korean i can pretty safely assume it’s japanese. i don’t know if i’m “supposed” to do that. but it helps.
As I'm currently trying to go from self-study beginner to conversational w italki teachers, I've been noticing my brain tryna figure out this switch more fully & acutely and that grandma clip was too accurate 🤣🤣
It's like the partition is a window some minimal UV blocking rather than a blackout curtain, and it feels like I'm tryna diy a screen piece by piece like a mosaic until i can get a good curtain. Such an interesting feeling.
As a polygloth myself, I learnt 15 languages at different lvels. Some helped each other in terms of grammar or vocabulary, and sometimes they were hindering the learning process.Now travelling between Japan and Taiwan, I often have to switch between Japanese, Mandarin and Minnan in my mind, and in the case of Italian and Spanish, I often choose the wrong words from Italian in which I am more proficient when I try to express myself, yet have no difficulty in listening or reading Spanish. And very nice video, thanks for pointing out the mistakes I have done throughout the years, albeit too late for me :D
Have you made any videos in your strongest languages (besides English)? Your strongest ones are French, Spanish, and...what else? Thanks! Love your content!
I have a problem. I'm already learning two languages. English, which I'm already very good at, and japanese, which I'm just starting to learn.
But I started to plan a travel to Istambul pretty soon, and I want to know a little turkish before going there. Should I prioritize and only learn the ones I think are more important? Or should I keep working in each one?
I never stuck to one language once, I loved them all too much and couldn't resist trying them. I don't bother to change where I'm sitting either, I'll switch from Arabic to Russian to Portuguese all while sitting on my ass in bed. It works fine for me, with the obvious caveat that your skill will be determined by how much time you spend learning that language. Spanish I studied very very sparingly so it's only after 10 years that I'm reading and speaking. Chinese I became obsessed with so I was having spoken conversations within a year. (though even during my Chinese obsession I occasionally took breaks to learn other things. Opening up a video about Indonesian grammar didn't make the previous 6 hours of Mandarin listening disappear).
People also have a habit of deciding what language to learn based on "vibes" without knowing anything about the language or culture or having any idea of how they want to engage with the language.
My only issue: Whenever I try to speak Spanish I've had a Portuguese accent for some reason despite the fact I can't even understand much Portuguese. I hope this will change as I practice speaking more.
I studied several languages simultaneously in college. The approach was philological and stressed reading over speaking. They were staggered and literally all I did. I didn't have a job. So, I started Latin in semester one of year one, started ancient Greek in semester one of year two, and started German in semester two of year two. The following summer I started more languages like French, Italian, and modern Greek.
Even my fun time though was devoted to language learning. Once a week I'd go out to a restaurant and spend several hours only speaking German.
I had to study Italian and Ancient Latin when I took my degree in Liberal Arts here in Brazil, and I kept studying the two languages at the same time for 3 years. I couldn't say no, because I was in a scientific initiation program in the 16th century literature at that time, and my advisor's library was mainly in English and Italian. Well, it has been a challenge, but a very good experience at the same time.
Im learning Spanish and Polish currently, with the plan to eventually slowly add in Japanese.
Japanese has basically all the same sounds as spanish so you shouldn't have a hard time at least in terms of getting the accent down.
@@smeegy1 not quite tho...Japanese has a lot of phonemes that aren't present in Spanish. Is Spanish phonology more similar to Japanese than English, that's a yes, for sure. But people tend to stretch a lot...for example, they tend to mention that the Japanese r sound is a flap r [ɾ] like pero in Spanish when it's actually a lateral flap [ɺ] or the u, unlike Spanish [u] the Japanese u, depending of what consonant is accompanied and the speaker, is compressed [ɯᵝ], unrounded[ɯ], centralized [ɨ] or even compressed and centralized[ɨᵝ]...
@@sophiegonzales2615 look up a hiragana chart. A Spanish speaker will have no issue saying nearly all of them.
The u is SLIGHTLY different, that's it(vowel wise) . And if you can do the Spanish r the Japanese one is easy af.
The "musicality" of Japanese being divided into moras and not syllables, pitch accent, and particle markers are going to be the actual challenges, not pronouncing the characters.
I'm learning ASL for my own personal needs and speak English as my first language. i think learning a nonverbal language alongside a spoken one helps circumvent a lot of these issues as i'm currently learning Spanish as well.
I never really studied more than one language at a time, but after a year in Ukraine I also came back being able to have solid conversations with my mother and her family in Spanish because I used to hang out with the latinos in the dorm a lot.
Living in Kyiv at the time (2017 is when I moved) there was still a lot of russian language on the street (significantly less now but you can still here it). From that, I understand a significant amount of it.
I would never say I studied multiple languages at the same time though, since the only one I had classes in and actively worked on during my free time was Ukrainian.
I'm reading the same book in five different languages right now. I've been doing it for a month, and so far I don't see any problem with it.
By the time I was 23 I had learned a bit about each of the four foreign languages. I'm sick of not knowing more of them, enough to be comfortable.
Going over the content five times actually is kind of helpful. I start with the most familiar language first, and go in order to the least familiar. The additional context helps more for the unfamiliar languages. And so far I don't think it's confusing or mixing anything up for me, but rather contrasting differences. Like I just heard Portuguese use a Germanic sounding word for cords, but Spanish used cordas or something like that. Okay. Interesting.
I was under the understanding that if you learn two languages at the same time you should pick two from different language familys and try and link them together so you learn the word from your language in the one then go to the next language convert it to that and then go back to base language again and rotate clockwise and counterclockwise around with it but i'm not a linguist. I can see why that probably isn't the best way to do it. informative video.
Thanks for this video, a great subject. I was of the mind that learning two similar languages at the same time would be a big no-no because of the confusion. So after learning Japanese for a while, I decided to go for Russian, thinking these two languages to be so different, it couldn’t be a problem. But just as I started building my sentences in Russian, Japanese, all of a sudden, popped into my russian phrases ! So weird and mystifying !
I moved to Casablanca a couple of months ago where everyone is constantly moving back and forth between two or more languages. Most of the time it's French and Darija (Moroccan Arabic). I came with no skills in either language. So I have to be learning both languages at the same time in order to navigate this city. There's no point in trying to be a purist and do one at a time. I guess the "target" isn't so much language, as communication. I haven't been able to do any traveling yet, but other regions of Morocco have different mixes of languages and dialects. Language is one of the coolest things about Morocco!
On related languages, I am currently learning Turkish (and at one point was interested in learning Ottoman Turkish, specifically). When I eventually read Edward Granville Browne's "Year among the Persians" I laughed out loud, because his description of trying to learn Turkish, realising he had to learn Persian to make progress in Turkish, and then realising he needed Arabic to make progress in Persian was both exactly my experience and also exactly what my professor had told me.
This is far less true for modern republican Turkish and somewhat less true for modern Persian, but when dealing with Ottoman Turkish and Classical Persian it is comically true that progress in one language is gated behind progress in another.
A possible way: study a course book of language A, use a vocab trainer, after finishing the course use space repetition for the vocabs. "Write and listen" language A but only at the level you already know, solidify you skills. Now do the same for language B but read and speak the language. After solidifying the two languages switch their parts from "Write and listen" to "Read and Speak" and vice versa. After solidiying the skills for both of the languages, even with the switc, use spaced repetition for the skills too, so you get free time to someday insert another course.
Dying: bunny in ASL and take a shot. Great insights on suppression, a change of space, and permission to be happy.
I wonder how many people are good at planning and maintaining consistency.
Sure, if you can commit hours of your day to learning two languages and consistently show up every day to work on it, you can definitely achieve it.
Can you squeeze in between house chores/ work/study/ out of other responsibilities?
Most people, however, are quite disorganized and only study based on “motivation,” wasting their time on activities in a chaotic way. Some are prone to doomscrolling. If you’re not organized and disciplined enough, don’t even bother. You might end up like many who start learning a language but never reach an intermediate level.
It’s twice the challenge-btw, a challenge in itself that most people fail at. Making a commitment and sticking to it is key. The harder the challenge, the more seriously you need to take it in order to tackle it.
Relying solely on motivation? You’re never going to achieve anything that has delayed gratification. Learn how to play an instrument? Forget it. Learn a language? Nope. Getting a fancy degree? Not happening. Becoming a good listener? Cultivating strong relationships? Same story.
I’m learning Spanish and Korean together and it’s definitely slowing me down 🤤.I already spoke some spanish and came back to learning after hs and college. But I feel I would have learned Spanish quicker. I do mix up the languages - vocabulary at times. I have been thinking of pausing one but I get scared I will lose one. In all honestly if I drop one to come back later it should probably be Spanish because I am most advanced in that and could easily watch shows in Spanish and feel I would be able to pick up more easily later. I am A2 in Spanish moving towards B1 and for Korean I am A1 and finding it very hard lol. Native English speaker.
For me I'm doing 3 ☠️. I'm low advanced level Korean trying to get to native level(b/c my mom is Korean and I grew up with it a little), so I progressed a lot recently, but I also started Japanese a few months back, and trying to expand the Spanish I half-assed in highschool but now want to get better. I wouldn't say it's caused any problems except balancing the time, but it's doable. But 3 at a time is probably the limit, I recommend get to a level you desire in a language and you can stop trying to progress to focus on others, but remember to still be exposed to it through speaking, entertainment, etc, to not lose your progress
I am sure it's totally possible to learn even more than 2 languages at the same time and I think it all goes back to necessity, commitment and goal (the level one wants to reach).
I myself speak English, Italian, Spanish, Arabic alongside my native language which is Portuguese. I have an interest in Latin, Ancient Greek and Classical Hebrew also... I know some Modern Hebrew too, however I do not have the goal of mastering to the point of becoming capable of speaking on it on every single real life situation, I just want it for some very general contexts. As for Arabic, though, I do wish to reach a high level, so I have a much higher demand on studying it, exposing myself and practice for it.
For the languages I became fluent already and feel comfortable on my current level, I am constantly activating them because there is literature and media I consume on them as well as native speakers I talk to regularly, however, this does not provide me the grammatical refinement I need for a more complete mastery, therefore, as currently I unfortunately cannot find more time to study more than a single language in a scheduled manner, what I do is sticking to a single one of them for a fixed period of time, let's say 2 weeks or a month, and by the end of this period I switch to another one to focus on. I do include my native language in this process too!
I keep doing this approach until I go through each of the language I am interest on in relatively short cycles. I believe that by doing this, I learn more effectively on the long run, keep all my languages "ready for duty" and I never feel bored of studying, which can happen if one should stay too long doing the same routine non stop.
Language Jones !
I see what you did there!
I'm currently reinforcing my Yiddish vocabulary with Duolingo and taking Hebrew at my university, and I find it kind of confusing because of the lack of similar grammar (and the differing pronunciation I guess, but I learned modern Hebrew pronunciation long ago at this point, so it's already distinct in my head), but in some ways it's very helpful to have the Hebrew for the Hebrew-derived words in Yiddish.
My Eldest is really good at learning languages, he's been learning (at school) French for 3 years, German and Latin for 2; he also decided a year ago to learn Italian on Duolingo, though he gave that up after about 6 months . Now because he was really good at Latin, he's just started Ancient Greek (his school is really keen on the classics). I honestly don't know how well he's going to do with all of them, but I strongly suspect he'll surpass my German knowledge quite soon.
Im Moving to Brussels, so I'm learning both French and Dutch. I'm focusing mainly on French, though, as my partner's parents speak only French, and significantly more Dutch/Flemish speakers speak English than French speakers, so French will get me further in Brussels. Curently taking French 3 at B1, doing alright but I still have a while to go
I learned Spanish and French together in high school and Arabic and Hebrew in college, so I hope you can learn 2 languages at the same time! Also, last year was a VERY awkward time to be in both of those classes
Please treat this as constructive feedback, but I think the lighting in your past videos was better. Anyways, I'm focusing on one language, but I sometimes wonder if I want to go to another one in the same family. Learning a language opens up a whole new cultural world, and I want to see more worlds. I appreciate the video!
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This! When I started learning Chinese (about 3 months in) I focused on pronunciation a lot, now I pretty much have it down after doing a little bit everyday (I’m still practicing it)
At school (Portugal late 80s and 90s), I started French in year 5, then English in year 7, then Latin and Greek in year 10. All carried out until year 12 (last year). At the Conservatorium, we had 3 years of Italian and 3 years of German, both learned at the same time.
I separate contexts.
German I use casually for most things, it's kinda my heart language in a way. It was an academic tool in college, but that was a long time ago.
Spanish I use at work or work-related things, but it's been useful for dating around here too.
Russian I use in vacation contexts [Eastern Europe, Western SF, Alaska, New York, etc.]. Also serves as a bully to continue German conversations [Germans have a bad habit of English switching], initiate Russian ones, and stop everyone else, scammers included. Also, Cyrillic is a dope script.
I studied both Spanish and German at the same time at university: 8 full university courses over 8 months. I already spoke French and English. It was confusing but I managed. Unfortunately that was 35 years ago and I haven't really had a chance to practice so I can't speak them anymore but I still remember a lot.
I've been learning Dutch for years, and after writing my Dutch language tests for residency, I've switched over to French mostly (and a little Dutch) and I'm finding more and more similarities there. I lived in Canada most of my life and couldn't really "get" French. Since acquiring more experience with non-English languages in general since moving to Europe, I'm not as uptight about my language skills, and I'm starting to understand things in French that broke me as a kid.
My 11 year old has spoken Dutch at school for over half his life. He reads, speaks, and understands Dutch at his age level according to the basisschool tests. Our only real concern is that his teachers might be biased to think he's slower at reading because his parents aren't Dutch fluent, and that could affect his school choices next year.
His current language of study? Japanese. We figure he's going to likely going to learn French / German / Spanish as well anyhow, so there's no big worry about picking a non-European language.
I have a complex relationship to this question because as a deaf person who would *like* to learn foreign languages, there's the attractive notion of studying the language and its corresponding sign languages side by side -- I speak English quite well, which has led to the expectation in foreign language courses that I pass the audio and spoken portions of the coursework like my hearing classmates. Studying the sign language that corresponds to the country in question would make the listen and spoken portions of those classes much easier.
Of course, sign languages are not just hand ciphers for the languages they correspond to, there can be multiple sign languages for a single given spoken language (English), and some countries have multiple sign languages (China, Canada).
All of that is in addition to the fact that it's hard enough to find interpreters certified in the primary language of a given language *in* the country where it is spoken, and the fact that ASL, the language with the most certified interpreters out there, is still woefully understaffed. Finding a foreign language instructor for my target sign language (either French or Quebecois Sign Language) has been an exercises in futility thus far.
I'm currently learning two languages at the same time, French and Czech because I like those countries. While French was pretty easy to catch up only using Duolingo as I'm a Catalan and Spanish speaker, Czech was a pain in the ass. Now, I've switched to learn Czech from books made specially for that and I feel that I'm learning better than through the senseless repetition of Duolingo. And having sets of completely different vocabulary makes it impossible to mix them.
I'm currently studying Russian and Japanese. Double the languages double the fun!! 😅
I'm having a blast more than ever 😊
I speak Tamil moderately well and English natively, but learned Hindi ~10 years ago. But I only got to an intermediate level and never really spoke much, though I can understand most content. The last year and a bit I have been learning Spanish, and I definitely am seeing some corrupted files with Hindi during the process. If I am struggling with a word, I revert to the Hindi word - somehow my brain goes to the next highest energy retrieval, instead of going for the lowest energy one. I cannot imagine learning both languages at the same time!