What languages do you speak/know?

[runningbird]

Originally Posted by aelle

Indonesian/malaysian is probably the easiest Asian language. Extremely simple grammar, straightforward sentence structure for a European language native speaker, latin alphabet, phonetic spelling and lots of borrowed words. I hope you get plenty of opportunities to practice the language, too - great countries!

Yeah, I don't know much about Indonesia. I know it is mostly Muslim and maybe some Buddhist, that English is widely spoken, and that it is kind of poor. I would like to visit though, especially Bali, which looks beautiful and intriguing. Have you been to Indonesia?

[aelle]

Originally Posted by runningbird

Yeah, I don't know much about Indonesia. I know it is mostly Muslim and maybe some Buddhist, that English is widely spoken, and that it is kind of poor. I would like to visit though, especially Bali, which looks beautiful and intriguing. Have you been to Indonesia?

Yes, several times - I work with many Asian countries and Indonesia in particular. It's the largest Muslim country on Earth, population wise, but they practice Islam in a somewhat relaxed manner - not at all like what you'd find in the Middle East. "Kind of poor"... that was true 50 years ago, but it's changing quickly. Sure, they still mostly have the class repartition of a third world country, with almost no middle class, but I work in the industrial world and when it comes to technology, they're ahead of us on many points.

The people are great and the country is indeed beautiful, Bali in particular!

[Scipio]

Originally Posted by runningbird

I would guess proficiency in language acqusition progresses via a complex mechanism. If I had to give a model though, I might say that it would be easier to first learn differential calculus and then integral calculus, rather than going straight into integral calculus.

I do not know about calculus, but I would agree in this way: You first have to learn prior knowledge and then learn the subjects that rely upon it. For example, you should first learn multiplication and division before you try quadratic equations. That is not because of the difficulty of the latter, it is because the latter relies on the former.

Learning a language is different. Babies learn Korean, English, Hindi, and Spanish just as well as each other. A human adult can do the same. The reason to start with a language closer to your own is more related to motivation--it makes the project seem less hard to complete.

[runningbird]

Perhaps. Could you rattle off the names of a couple of the polyglots who claim tackling multiple languages at once is more effective than one at a time?

[Scipio]

Originally Posted by runningbird

Perhaps. Could you rattle off the names of a couple of the polyglots who claim tackling multiple languages at once is more effective than one at a time?

Stewart Jay Raj and Dr Alexander Arguelles. Google and Youtube will both turn up good results. Because they're good doesn't mean they're right though. For example, there are better boxing coaches than Mike Tyson, even though he was very good at what he did.

My personal opinion is that it doesn't matter very much either way. As I said before, where is the evidence that one way is more efficient than the other? Nowhere. You brought in an analogy that didn't apply since you don't really "build" your Indonesian on top of your Spanish, they are alternatives that work independently from each other. That can not be said for higher level knowledge which requires lower level knowledge, such as the knowledge of multiplication required to do algebra.

My personal suggestion would be to stop worrying about it and learn based on your goals and what is convenient to you. If you have Spanish speaking family members living with you right now, I wouldn't be learning Esperanto. But if you're planning on traveling Europe with Pasporto Servo in 9 months, then by all means, study Esperanto first. It would be crazy to put the slight chance of some efficiency ahead of why learner actually wants to learn the language. Oh, and for some good advice from Arguelles, he has always said he made the most progress when he stopped worrying so much about his methods and just went and got the job done. There is a Youtube video of him comparing the situation to using razorblades. YouTube - The Parable of the Razor

[runningbird]

I am not worried about technique, I am just naturally strategic.

I think there probably is some "building" taking place. If you look at the brain of a bilingual speaker versus a monlingual, the bilingual will have a more built up language area. So let's say one exercises the "language acquisition muscle". In order to make a muscle bigger, you want to stress it in increasing increments.

As you learn a language, you go through different stages, including learning the grammar, understand subtleties and exceptions, and beginning to naturally think in it without without first translating everything to your mother tongue. If you could exercise each of these areas in increments, rather than going straight to heavy lifting, I think you might see faster growth.

I believe if you set out to bench 300 pounds without training with smaller weights, you could probably do it. Work on lowering the bar to your chest more slowly over time (with a spotter), and eventually stopping it midway, and then finally beginning to lift it. It might take 10 years. But I think eventually you could do it, although not the most efficient way of getting there.

It's just my vague, somewhat uncertain theory.

[Scipio]

Originally Posted by runningbird

I think there probably is some "building" taking place. If you look at the brain of a bilingual speaker versus a monlingual, the bilingual will have a more built up language area.

Because he speaks 1 more language than the monolingual.

So let's say one exercises the "language acquisition muscle". In order to make a muscle bigger, you want to stress it in increasing increments.

Right, and studying four languages for 30 minutes each every day, with increasing difficulty, accomplishes this.

As you learn a language, you go through different stages, including learning the grammar, understand subtleties and exceptions, and beginning to naturally think in it without without first translating everything to your mother tongue. If you could exercise each of these areas in increments, rather than going straight to heavy lifting, I think you might see faster growth.

What you are trying to say here? If you are using this paragraph as a point that a person should only learn one language at a time, I don't see how that is supported. If a person learns multiple languages, they learn them in increments too.

By the way, the polyglot Barry Farber just goes straight to native materials like newspapers, and translates the unknown words with a dictionary, to learn his languages. No easy learning materials that raise your confidence progressively. Stuart Jay Raj has also said he is a fan of just reading dictionaries. I on the other hand, do like the idea of using some "fake" (ie textbook or audio course) material that isn't designed for native speakers, in order to slowly build up my confidence. Those guys have unshakable drive though.

[newmark]

It is possible to learn more than one language at once, but you need the time and interest to do it. Also the more you practice any skill, the better you get. This is true of language learning like anything else.

And, learning some languages will be easier than others. If you are an English native speaker, learning Western European languages will be easier. If you already know Spanish, then learning Italian and Portuguese at the same time would be quite possible, if sometimes confusing.

Learning your first foreign language is always hardest because you are actually learning two things at once. How to learn a language, and the language itself.

[runningbird]

Try this picture:

You have 5 vertical ladders lined side by side. Each ladder is a a component of language learning that can be distinguished as a slightly different exercise for the mind and brain. But, each ladder has only one rung, because some things are not necessarily learned little by little; they come together synergetically. You can only simplify gramma so much until you have to make a leap.

So you have the ladders for languages lined up side by side with the different areas of language acquisition. When you reach the rung in an area of acquisition, you have gained proficiency. So the chart might look like:

Language: grammar rules -- level 1 implementation --- level 2 implementation --- fluent implementation

Japanese: --- ------ ----- ------


Spanish: ---- ------ ---- ------



Mother Tongue ___ _____ _____ _______


So mother tongue is the ground, because you have inevitably reached all of the "rungs of acquisition". You could maybe jump up and grab each Japanese rung, then swing your legs up, and center your weight on top -- or you could step on the Spanish (easier and more graceful).

I doubt this is a perfect model by any means. I could very well be wrong. My intuition just tells me this is probably a more accurate model than "hours = proficiency". By this ladder model it would make sense to start beginning a more difficult language as you are moving towards intermediate in the easier language -- so you can stand on the rungs.

Moreover, let me address your original objections to the conclusions of the study.

1. If the students learned grammar through Esperanto, they should have also learned it through French. There should be no advantage to the Esperanto students if they both spent, say, 200 hours on grammar.

2. The commonality of latin cognates should be beneficial. But you would think that a 3 year French student and 4 year french student sandwich a "3 French-1 Esperanto" student in between their proficiencies, not to lag behind him.

Ugh. I didn't mean to write so much.

[kattsand]

I know three languages. Swedish, Finnish and English.

All the languages (Except finnish) up here in Scandinavia are very similar so I can understand/speak Norwegian and Danish too without a huge effort.
Finnish is very different, nothing like the other languages up here. Swedish and English are more like each other than Swedish and Finnish.

[newmark]

Originally Posted by runningbird

Try this picture:
I doubt this is a perfect model by any means. I could very well be wrong. My intuition just tells me this is probably a more accurate model than "hours = proficiency".

I think that "hours=proficiency" is true, providing you follow a method that works.

Hours of studying grammar at school did not help me, and I don't think it would help many people.

Hours of listening (& reading) has helped me a lot. If you immerse yourself in a language you will learn it better. The best way of doing this might vary according to someone's personality, but the basic method is the same.

Note: I'm not saying learning grammar is useless. Just that it should be done in moderation, as an aid. Not as a method in itself.

[Froztwolf]

My native language is Icelandic, I speak English fluently, a little bit of Danish and I'm reaching level 2 proficiency in French.

[nick666]

I speak English fluently,German ,French like a 11 year old but my friends assure me I am fluent at ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

[ArthurHung]

I think everybody has unique ways of learning which is best for them... for example, I like to keep learning Mandarin in sooo many different sources, some from business partners, some from friends, some from online meetups, some from karaoke songs, some from fun books, some textbooks... the more unique (as in, that which I've never tried before), the more I am for it.

Most recently, I came upon this idea!

Google Translate

Wow, so useful and so fun. I translate random parts of Steve Pavlina's recent posts and the Chinese now has a more emotional/human connection to them to me, so I learn better.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Ex.

Money is not a power source. Money is in fact completely powerless. When I pay my taxes, I am giving away nothing of value. I am simply changing numbers in a computer somewhere. Some numbers go down while other numbers go up. It’s largely meaningless to me.

金钱并不是一个电源。金钱是完全无能为力的事实。当我在美国上税，我赠送任何价值。我只是改变了计算机数字 某处。一些数字下降，而其他数字上升。这是对我的意义不大。

And the best part of google translate is that when you go over the non-English words, it shows the English sayings so it's super easy to figure out. This is so awesome, had to share

[runningbird]

It works well? I tried translating English to Japanese and then I translated Japanese back to English, and it came back pretty nonsensical.

[ArthurHung]

It's wonderful for what it is. Of course, the more simple the language, the better it works.

Does anybody have any better suggestions or tools, for more accuracy or otherwise?

[modernthing]

- French mother tongue
- English just as fluently as French (spent some time living abroad)
- Dutch, good notions, not much of a choice as this is our 2nd language here and it's helpful to find work + worked in NL in an office with Dutch people, it helps the learning process
- Spanish, school level but good understanding
- German, understanding quite a bit with English and Dutch
- Japanese, vague notions now probably all lost, can still read a bit of Hiragana and Katakana

I find learning languages attractive and a mind opening tool