90 day language/purpose trial

[kat]

I've previously tried 30-day trials. However, I'm currently thinking about questions of contribution, purpose, etc, and not finding exactly what I want to do. I came across http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/200...n-3-semesters/ - which recommends a 90 day purpose trial. I've decided to do this with language learning. While pure language learning is almost assuredly not my purpose, it figures strongly into several things that 'feel' promising.

I'm currently fluent in English and have what I'd call 'basic fluency' in Italian - I can discuss essentially anything, hold long conversations, read books, etc. My Italian grammar is fairly decent, though imperfect, and my vocabulary is noticeably short of native, but not terribly poor.

I also have a lower level in several other languages which I've studied: I can understand a fair amount of French, German, and Esperanto, and hold basic conversations in the latter two. I understand some Swedish, Dutch, and Spanish, largely due to similarities with the above, though I've studied some Dutch. I have some basic ideas about Polish, Japanese, and Persian, but no real level of accomplishment in them. I've dabbled in a few others to even smaller degrees, but for the purpose of this post, they're irrelevant.

My primary goal for these 90 days is to reach basic fluency in Esperanto, German, Dutch, Castillian Spanish, and 'basic passive fluency' (ability to understand, but possibly not speak/write) Polish.

My secondary goals are in pronunciation, understanding, wanderlust, and linguistics.

Pronunciation: to develop a regional accent on my Italian, be able to pronounce French with a Parisian accent (my current French accent is terrible), finish a book on phonetics that I've been working with (and end up being able to pronounce essentially all sounds used in human languages, though if consonant clusters with glottalic initiation only used in the Caucaus mountains continue to evade me, such is life).

Understanding: understanding the last lesson of 'French in Action' (spoken French is difficult for me), and understanding an entire song in each of Persian and Japanese.

Wanderlust: spend at least 50 hours listening to languages not on this list.

Linguistics: read several books on language (languages of the world, practical study advice, grammars of specific languages, etc).

Reaching the primary goal is more important than reaching all of the secondary ones combined.

I am aware that this plan is absurdly ambitious, and that reaching fluency in even two languages in 3 months from where I am now would be quite difficult. Regardless, given my current level of Esperanto, the similarities of Italian/Spanish and German/Dutch, and my limitation of Polish to passive, it's exciting, and seems to almost dance on the edge of possible.

I'll need to learn 150-400 words/day, but this will be lightened by cognates. I don't expect grammar to be a large problem; Spanish grammar is very similar to Italian, and my German and Dutch grammar are coming along reasonably. Esperanto grammar is fairly simple, and aside from fine points of participle and preposition use, I don't have much trouble with it. Polish grammar will be more challenging, but I'll be able to temporarily gloss over the hard parts by not aiming for active use; perfective vs imperfective tenses will probably be a sticking point. I'll pick up some idioms from context, but I don't intend to focus on them.

This forum post is intended to keep me from quietly backing out of it. Comments/advice/etc are welcome. I'd prefer -not- to be told that it's impossible or that I can't do it. I already know that it stretches the limits, at best, but given my background, I think it's not 100% insane.

I'm starting the trial September 12th, 2007.

As for non-essentials that I'm willing to cut: essentially everything (after the 20th or so), beyond continuing to think about goals/purpose, eating, working out, relaxing, sleeping, and minimal obligations for the job which I may start after this trial is over.

[Brutha]

Do you want to live in central Europe during your trial?

I'll need to learn 150-400 words/day, but this will be lightened by cognates. I don't expect grammar to be a large problem;

Are you experienced enough with mnemonics to accomplish that task?

[kat]

Originally Posted by Brutha

Do you want to live in central Europe during your trial?

Are you experienced enough with mnemonics to accomplish that task?

I live in Switzerland, and have for nearly a decade.

I'm not extremely accomplished with mnemonics, though I can use them. I plan to use a combination of the most effective study techniques which I've found so far, which are Assimil and "Listening-Reading" (listening to audio in the target language, while reading a parallel text), supplemented by copious exposure to native materials (this is mainly limited by the hours in the day).

My Dutch is much worse than my Esperanto or German, but I just spent the last hour and a half watching a film in it. I managed to get the gist of most scenes, and understood a fair chunk of the distinctly Dutch (ie, non-cognate with German or English) words, but did still miss the majority of words. I'm at the level of being able to pick out words and phrases (not necessarily phrases I've heard before, but still only simple ones). When I was last in the USA, in January, I could understand the news in Spanish quite easily, despite never having studied it.

Explicit memorization of words isn't going to be my primary technique; I may supplement with it if I feel it would be helpful (ie, for any basic words which are just not sticking). Instead, I'm going to aim for picking up words through 'comprehensible input'. I've found in the past that this works fairly well; it's how I've learned essentially all of the Polish I know, along with reading a couple of Polish grammars.

This is partly going to be an experiment in extremely efficient learning methods; it's a subject I've been reading as much as I can find about. On top of that, it's largely a matter of consolidating a lot of knowledge that I've gathered about these languages over the years, but never bothered to pull together with enough effort/time.

[Freelancer]

This is impressive, good luck !!

[kat]

Originally Posted by Freelancer

This is impressive, good luck !!

Dank je wel/thank you very much!

[Freelancer]

Originally Posted by kat

Dank je wel/thank you very much!

haha

*huge grin*

[Sam988]

I'm fluent at portuguese (my native language), english, and virtually in spanish (i understand everything, and can hold a conversation normally but still make some grammar mistakes here and there). I also comprehend virtually everything in german (lived there from just born to 5 y.o., i knew it all but "forgot" it, since i didn't practice it when i came back to brazil) but still don't speak it fluently.

I'm currently working in perfecting my spanish and on improving my german.

One tip i can give you is to forget memorizing word by word, it never worked for me at least. The best to do if you want to learn a new language is to read texts about subjects that interest you (this is REALLY important, otherwise you'll just get bored about learning the new language and won't learn it as quickly since you will frequently stop reading the text because you get tired of it) and search in the dictionary every word that you don't know.
This method is the best in my opinion because it isn't boring and you can put more time and dedication to it because you don't get bored as easily as just learning words one by one.

Also, i hate learning languages by studying their grammar. Again, i just read texts on the languages and i intuitively learn all those boring grammar rules. But i don't know, that's me. Maybe you think it's better to learn rule by rule and word by word, it depends on each person's learning style. I just wanted to give you an insight into different methods of learning a new language, hope you can make something useful out of it.

[kat]

Originally Posted by Sam988

I'm fluent at portuguese (my native language), english, and virtually in spanish (i understand everything, and can hold a conversation normally but still make some grammar mistakes here and there). I also comprehend virtually everything in german (lived there from just born to 5 y.o., i knew it all but "forgot" it, since i didn't practice it when i came back to brazil) but still don't speak it fluently.

I'm currently working in perfecting my spanish and on improving my german.

One tip i can give you is to forget memorizing word by word, it never worked for me at least. The best to do if you want to learn a new language is to read texts about subjects that interest you (this is REALLY important, otherwise you'll just get bored about learning the new language and won't learn it as quickly since you will frequently stop reading the text because you get tired of it) and search in the dictionary every word that you don't know.
This method is the best in my opinion because it isn't boring and you can put more time and dedication to it because you don't get bored as easily as just learning words one by one.

Also, i hate learning languages by studying their grammar. Again, i just read texts on the languages and i intuitively learn all those boring grammar rules. But i don't know, that's me. Maybe you think it's better to learn rule by rule and word by word, it depends on each person's learning style. I just wanted to give you an insight into different methods of learning a new language, hope you can make something useful out of it.

Thanks for the advice. If you read my second post in this thread, you'll find that your approach is extremely similar to mine - we both focus on exposure to real, interesting material. Word lists + grammar are, by themselves, useless, in my opinion, or close to it. I do find that reading explicitly about grammar, in moderation, after meaningful exposure is helpful. I also dislike using dictionaries; I'm starting to experiment with it, using online dictionaries and the ability to just click on a text to look up the word, but if it's a matter of using physical dictionaries, I don't find it worth the bother. Learning languages similar to already-known ones, or specially prepared bilingual texts with appropriate notes ("Breaking into Japanese Literature" is a good example of this) makes a dictionary much less necessary.

[kat]

I've listened to several hours of Dutch radio today, watched a Dutch movie (~1.5 hours), and read 3 books on language learning (as well as one yesterday, before the start of the trial); the books were fairly general, though I picked up a bit on Japanese and Spanish from them. I also tried out lingq, and did some work with Italian and German there. I've managed to get my ear used to Dutch again; it had been a while that I was neglecting it.

So far so good. Now to keep avoiding being a 三日坊主!

[Sam988]

Originally Posted by kat

I also dislike using dictionaries; I'm starting to experiment with it, using online dictionaries and the ability to just click on a text to look up the word, but if it's a matter of using physical dictionaries, I don't find it worth the bother.

Yes yes i forgot to mention that (probably because i don't even consider physical dictionaries anymore, so when i say dictionary i mean online dictionary ); Online dictionaries are much more complete and much faster for locating the words. Not considering the possibility to have dictionaries translating an unknown word into more than one language, which clears the meaning of the word since sometimes translating a word into just one language is not very effectice for getting to know it's real meaning.

[Kryptik]

Kiel vi fartas? Ik spreekt Esperanto en Nederlands. ...y poco Espanol (lol I dont even know if the last part is correct.. I'm still really bad at spanish).

I wish you luck in achieving your goals!!

[kat]

Originally Posted by Kryptik

Kiel vi fartas? Ik spreekt Esperanto en Nederlands. ...y poco Espanol (lol I dont even know if the last part is correct.. I'm still really bad at spanish).

I wish you luck in achieving your goals!!

[Translation provided, since this is an English forum]
Mi fartas bone, kaj vi? / I'm doing well, and you?

Hoe leerde jij Nederlands? / How did you learn Dutch? [Please correct me if I'm wrong!]

I'm not even starting Spanish yet; so far, I've focused on Dutch, with a fair chunk of Italian and Japanese, and only a little German and Esperanto. A couple of grammatical weak points I have in Italian will carry over directly to Spanish, so I'm planning to clear them up first. Polish and Persian will pop in when I'm needing a break from the rest of it; I work best when I have a small list of things to bounce around between.

Dank je/Dankon/Thank you!

[Kryptik]

Mi fartas tre bone. Dankon. / I'm doing very well. Thank you.

Ik was in Nederland geboren. / I was born in the Netherlands.

Once again, I wish you the greatest of luck. I see myself starting one of these soon to improve my language skills.

[Freelancer]

Damn you guys amaze me with your ability to learn languages, I merely capable of reading/writing English with decent speaking ability's. Dutch is my native language so thats easy.

I've studied french and german for short periods but pretty much forgot everything (forced to study a language is bad for comprehension lol).

Hmmm thinking about it, I'm not THAT bad at languages either, I just don't put the time in it...You know I like your 90 day language plan, I might try something similar (learn to speak proper english and remove the accent out of my dutch).


Edit; Also noticed that I had a decent intuitive understanding of your little piece of esperanto which I didn't expect because I only dabbled in it for like a hour or 2 months ago...
Damn I might be better at this than I thought...

[DeathStorm]

Grützi!

As I have mentioned elsewhere I also am a multilinguist and am equally fluent in 5 languages plus have some basic notions in a few others. However, I rather attribute this to my environment[s] and natural personal growth during childhood ìrather than personally pursued methods.

As a matter of my personal identity (and integrity) I don't perceive any of the languages I know as "mother" or "foreign" languages since I've spoken them all my life long. I think - depending on the Canton you live in - there is a somewhat similar attitude as well?

Anyway, I'd feel challenged to see whether I'd be able to fully learn a new language by following one of the methods here.
As soon as I am done with writing a vague schedule for my university, I'm gonna try learn sign language, so that I can communicate with those who have hearing impairments/are deaf.

I'm currently choosing between ASL (american sign language) and BSL (british sign language) which are quite different from each other (like German is different from Italian). I tend towards ASL since it has more similarities with other sign languages such as French Sign Language, which I might learn later.
From what I've heard so far, they are supposed to take a lot of time to learn - especially because of the grammatical structures that differ from spoken language, but they are really intuitive and somehow are "mnemonics" by themselves.

Does anyone else here have experiences with sign languages?

kat, may I suggest that you add "Wanderlust" to primary objectives as well? But I mean Wanderlust within the languages.
Do anything you like apart from languages in those languages. For example, if you like Fashion magazines, read them in the languages you want to learn before and while you learn the language. It helps and stimulates your curiosity!
Also try communicating a lot [if not only!] with people who speak those languages at mother-tongue level, so that you intuitively assimilate their way of syntactic thinking and - obviously - their pronunciation.

Cmq, In bocca al lupo :P

[kat]

Originally Posted by Freelancer

I've studied french and german for short periods but pretty much forgot everything (forced to study a language is bad for comprehension lol).

Hmmm thinking about it, I'm not THAT bad at languages either, I just don't put the time in it...You know I like your 90 day language plan, I might try something similar (learn to speak proper english and remove the accent out of my dutch).


Edit; Also noticed that I had a decent intuitive understanding of your little piece of esperanto which I didn't expect because I only dabbled in it for like a hour or 2 months ago...
Damn I might be better at this than I thought...

I agree that forced language learning is terrible (I had 3 years of French in elementary school, which I learned..... extremely little in).

I've had a similar experience with Esperanto - I found myself able to understand quite a lot after a really small amount of time, and this only faded a little when I neglected the language for a few years. It came back quickly too.

Good luck if you try a 90-day trial too!

[kat]

Originally Posted by DeathStorm

Grützi!

As I have mentioned elsewhere I also am a multilinguist and am equally fluent in 5 languages plus have some basic notions in a few others. However, I rather attribute this to my environment[s] and natural personal growth during childhood ìrather than personally pursued methods.

Grützi
I'm in the Italian part of Switzerland, so I've heard that greeting rather rarely.

Lucky you, to speak 5 languages at such a high level!

Originally Posted by DeathStorm

As a matter of my personal identity (and integrity) I don't perceive any of the languages I know as "mother" or "foreign" languages since I've spoken them all my life long. I think - depending on the Canton you live in - there is a somewhat similar attitude as well?

I live in Ticino. I haven't seen that attitude here; a few people have two or more native languages, but there tends to be a sharp distinction made between native language(s) and other ones (but it's more 'other/secondary/learned' than necessarily 'foreign', per se, since Switzerland's two largest languages, French and German, aren't native languages of many people here in Ticino, the only Italian canton, but are quite commonly learned to one degree or another).

Originally Posted by DeathStorm

Anyway, I'd feel challenged to see whether I'd be able to fully learn a new language by following one of the methods here.

I'm extremely tempted to learn one from scratch via Listening-Reading, but my attempts to do so so far have been pretty limited, unfortunately. If you try anything, tell me how it goes!

Originally Posted by DeathStorm

As soon as I am done with writing a vague schedule for my university, I'm gonna try learn sign language, so that I can communicate with those who have hearing impairments/are deaf.

I'm currently choosing between ASL (american sign language) and BSL (british sign language) which are quite different from each other (like German is different from Italian). I tend towards ASL since it has more similarities with other sign languages such as French Sign Language, which I might learn later.
From what I've heard so far, they are supposed to take a lot of time to learn - especially because of the grammatical structures that differ from spoken language, but they are really intuitive and somehow are "mnemonics" by themselves.

Does anyone else here have experiences with sign languages?

I've read about learning sign languages, but never tried to. They sound quite interesting, grammatically, but the fragmentation (ie, BSL and ASL not being mutually comprehensible) has tended to dissuade me. I only know one nearly deaf person, but she has enough hearing in one ear (when she's wearing her hearing aid, at least) that we communicate perfectly well using English; I don't think she knows sign language.

Originally Posted by DeathStorm

kat, may I suggest that you add "Wanderlust" to primary objectives as well? But I mean Wanderlust within the languages.
Do anything you like apart from languages in those languages. For example, if you like Fashion magazines, read them in the languages you want to learn before and while you learn the language. It helps and stimulates your curiosity!
Also try communicating a lot [if not only!] with people who speak those languages at mother-tongue level, so that you intuitively assimilate their way of syntactic thinking and - obviously - their pronunciation.

I'm listening to native material; I've been watching anime, listening to tons of Dutch radio, watched a movie in Dutch, etc. I consider this critical. It holds my attention for longer, more consistently, than pure academic study of language does, trains my ear to get used to dealing with real language, is exciting when I manage to understand something (or, occasionally, everything), etc. I agree that it stimulates curiosity. It also helps me remember words; if I've come across a word in the material I use to 'study', and forget it, but recognize it without remembering the meaning in a real context, I rarely forget it again once I've studied it one more time.

For syntax, the best thing I've found, by far, is buying Assimil and using it more or less as described (the instructions vary a lot in detail from book to book), with the -crucial- addition of 'shadowing' (repeating at exactly the same time as the native speaker on the CDs). I've found that this drives syntax into my head, as well as a fairly decent intonation, rhythm, pronunciation, etc. I corrected a -lot- of errors in my Italian, which I had been making for years, through this. I also changed my German accent from one which anyone who would give me an honest opinion on it roundly criticized, to one which fairly frequently gets praise (it quickly becomes obvious I can't say -much- in German, but I can say it decently).

Speaking to native speakers is definitely helpful too. I'm too bashful about it when I'm at a beginner, or even intermediate, level; I should definitely work on overcoming this.

Originally Posted by DeathStorm

Cmq, In bocca al lupo :P

Crepi il lupo!

[Freelancer]

Originally Posted by kat

I agree that forced language learning is terrible (I had 3 years of French in elementary school, which I learned..... extremely little in).

I've had a similar experience with Esperanto - I found myself able to understand quite a lot after a really small amount of time, and this only faded a little when I neglected the language for a few years. It came back quickly too.

Good luck if you try a 90-day trial too!

I won't be able to do a 90-day trial in quite some time since I'm busy right now but perhaps in the future. I am however going to a toastmasters meeting in about a week and apparantly your only allowed to speak english there, what a nice coincidence.

[DeathStorm]

Originally Posted by kat

I live in Ticino. I haven't seen that attitude here; a few people have two or more native languages, but there tends to be a sharp distinction made between native language(s) and other ones (but it's more 'other/secondary/learned' than necessarily 'foreign', per se, since Switzerland's two largest languages, French and German, aren't native languages of many people here in Ticino, the only Italian canton, but are quite commonly learned to one degree or another).

Ah! Bene, una ticinese Yes, I now understand your situation.
(I also know some who study programmes in Italian language at the university of Mendrisio) I can suppose that there might be some geo-historical/-political sentiments involved, as well, maybe among older generations - but then one of my best friends is from Basel and prefers speaking in Italian (i.e. makes lots of mistakes when speaking German or French :P)

I'm mentioning all this because I have a feeling (and this is not statistics...) that the personal-social attitude towards a language is also relevant to the level of familiarity one reaches with it.
I'm not sure, but you might be familiar with the overall Italian attitude towards the English language and - in my opinion this is a result of it - the sometimes funny and contagious "maccheronic inglisce" accent that doesn't spare even those who have PhD's in "lingue straniere: inglese".
When I started learning Mandarin, I never thought "I'm learning a foreign/secondary language"... I think it somehow influences the perception of the language and our relationship to it.

Originally Posted by kat

I've read about learning sign languages, but never tried to. They sound quite interesting, grammatically, but the fragmentation (ie, BSL and ASL not being mutually comprehensible) has tended to dissuade me. I only know one nearly deaf person, but she has enough hearing in one ear (when she's wearing her hearing aid, at least) that we communicate perfectly well using English; I don't think she knows sign language.

Yeah, the fragmentation can be easily discouraging. We must bear in mind that the "deaf population" have their own linguistic history, roots and dynamics.
I know very few deaf people; I'm rather looking forward to meet and communicate even with deaf people I randomly meet on the road, just out of curiosity, and I'm somehow fascinated by their culture. I recently also discovered an attempt to create 'music for the deaf', through dance choreographies involving a lot of sign language and strong visual rhythmics.
And there is much more...

Originally Posted by kat

Speaking to native speakers is definitely helpful too. I'm too bashful about it when I'm at a beginner, or even intermediate, level; I should definitely work on overcoming this.

Yeah, I mean, this is another problem I often observed among my friends who study 'foreign' languages, especially when they take classes.
Imagine 30 people attending a 3-year intensive course in "Introductory Arabic", none of which is a native speaker or has relatives or close contacts who are native speakers.
How can they possibly get the correct syntax-mentality and pronunciation if the only people they ever communicate with in Arabic are the other non-native speakers in their class (and maybe the teacher; but very often I've seen that the teacher is also a non-native speaker)?
In my opinion, language learning is yet another field where "group study" (with other beginners) is pretty inadequate, if not harmful.
I'm not really acquainted with the methods you mention (though I have often seen "Assimil" in the bookstores), but for many people it seems pretty hard to "unlearn" the wrong pronunciation once they start using and thinking with it daily.

[kat]

Originally Posted by DeathStorm

Ah! Bene, una ticinese

Well, that's controversial

Originally Posted by DeathStorm

Yes, I now understand your situation.
(I also know some who study programmes in Italian language at the university of Mendrisio) I can suppose that there might be some geo-historical/-political sentiments involved, as well, maybe among older generations - but then one of my best friends is from Basel and prefers speaking in Italian (i.e. makes lots of mistakes when speaking German or French :P)

I'm mentioning all this because I have a feeling (and this is not statistics...) that the personal-social attitude towards a language is also relevant to the level of familiarity one reaches with it.
I'm not sure, but you might be familiar with the overall Italian attitude towards the English language and - in my opinion this is a result of it - the sometimes funny and contagious "maccheronic inglisce" accent that doesn't spare even those who have PhD's in "lingue straniere: inglese".
When I started learning Mandarin, I never thought "I'm learning a foreign/secondary language"... I think it somehow influences the perception of the language and our relationship to it.

Yes, I agree. Perception and attitude play a large part.

Originally Posted by DeathStorm

Yeah, the fragmentation can be easily discouraging. We must bear in mind that the "deaf population" have their own linguistic history, roots and dynamics.
I know very few deaf people; I'm rather looking forward to meet and communicate even with deaf people I randomly meet on the road, just out of curiosity, and I'm somehow fascinated by their culture. I recently also discovered an attempt to create 'music for the deaf', through dance choreographies involving a lot of sign language and strong visual rhythmics.
And there is much more...

That sounds quite cool. Good luck, and post about it!

The cultures I'm fascinated by are ones like those of Holland, Germany, Iran, and Japan, to name only a small subset.

Originally Posted by DeathStorm

Yeah, I mean, this is another problem I often observed among my friends who study 'foreign' languages, especially when they take classes.
Imagine 30 people attending a 3-year intensive course in "Introductory Arabic", none of which is a native speaker or has relatives or close contacts who are native speakers.
How can they possibly get the correct syntax-mentality and pronunciation if the only people they ever communicate with in Arabic are the other non-native speakers in their class (and maybe the teacher; but very often I've seen that the teacher is also a non-native speaker)?
In my opinion, language learning is yet another field where "group study" (with other beginners) is pretty inadequate, if not harmful.
I'm not really acquainted with the methods you mention (though I have often seen "Assimil" in the bookstores), but for many people it seems pretty hard to "unlearn" the wrong pronunciation once they start using and thinking with it daily.

I know the system you described all too well; I had 3 years of classroom study of French, and 3.5 of Italian, with disastrous results. I've made much more progress in a matter of -weeks- with other methods, and other languages.

It's definitely harder to unlearn incorrect pronunciation than to learn it correctly in the first place. When I started 'shadowing' recorded native speakers, the language which gave me the most trouble was Italian, in terms of making progress, and then immediately retrogressing (and I suspect English would be even harder, but I haven't tried, though there, my pronunciation isn't incorrect/non-native, merely different from most recorded speakers, due to the many English accents in existance).

[kat]

Well, my study time has been a bit more disorganized than I considered making it, but having my last wisdom tooth pulled, etc, has slowed me down less than expected as well.

I've now read a whole book in Esperanto. I've also listened to several hours of Dutch radio most days, excluding Tuesday->Friday, when I was offline, and slept most of the time, recovering from the extraction [although I did some light Japanese nonetheless, and some non-language persuits]. My Dutch comprehension is fairly good at this point, and hearing an URL earlier, I managed to spell it correctly on the first try, understood the contents nearly perfectly, and picked up a few previously unknown words from context.

Thumbing through a German book today, I found that I had no serious trouble with the back cover, but that the actual text still contained too many unknown words for me to make out as much of it as I'd like to. The Dutch radio is, I think, improving my German (they're quite similar languages). For some reason, the German grammatical constructs stood out at me when I started looking at structure, rather than content; they were also clear without needing to think about them when I attempted to read, which was good.

On the wanderlust side, I've done a bit of Turkish, Finnish, and Japanese.

[DeathStorm]

Hehe, nice to hear about your progress

Maybe - especially amidst all hussle in one's healthcare and education - it might also be more convenient and effective to learn "sequentially", i.e. one language at a time (per week/month)?

P.S. Agglutinatives can be fun

[kat]

Originally Posted by DeathStorm

Hehe, nice to hear about your progress

Maybe - especially amidst all hussle in one's healthcare and education - it might also be more convenient and effective to learn "sequentially", i.e. one language at a time (per week/month)?

P.S. Agglutinatives can be fun

Agglutinative is definitely fun, but it's an area I won't touch much for a while yet, beyond its use in Esperanto.

Healthcare and education are both settled: I'm pretty much recovered from having my last wisdom tooth pulled, and, to the best of my knowledge, I've graduated from University.

Of course, I have a new challenge: I started a job this week. (Yes, I've read Steve's articles on having a job: regardless, I have chosen to take one for the time being - it's interesting, stretches me in some new directions, etc). On the positive side, this means that I hear significant amounts of Italian and German daily. On the negative side, I have less study time - but I can (and have) listened to music/language tapes via the mp3 player at work.

Outside of work, I've managed several hours of language study most days, though I took last night off and just crashed. I listen-read two books in Dutch this week: "Matilda" and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." My Dutch vocabulary is increasing rapidly, my comprehension has improved further, and the grammar feels more natural to me. I've started being able to actively use it a little bit, at least in talking/thinking to myself, which is a good sign. Flemish accents now sound fairly exotic to me, and easy to distinguish from the Dutch accents I've been listening to a ton of internet radio in.

My German has gone slightly downhill in one way - more southerly/Swiss accents throw me, at least at first, and I mishear them a bit, but this should be easy to clear up.

In Esperanto, I've just started reading the stuff at Verkoj de Jorge Camacho - so far, it's somewhat challenging, but interesting.

Sequential learning would, all else being equal, almost certainly be more efficient. However, it also doesn't really interest me, and I don't tend to enjoy it - which feeds into me not doing it. What's the point of a hobby I don't enjoy?