Learning multiple languages at the same time - My 5 Pillars (Golden Rules)
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 ก.ค. 2024
- Hello everybody!
Today I'm bringing you the video that won last week's poll about which one should be up next, so here it is: My FIVE PILLARS, or golden rules to make the most out of learning multiple languages at the same time!
To be quite honest I'm not completely satisfied with the result but I hope it's decent and it can still be helpful for you guys, which is the most important thing! :)
1:56 - Keep the number of languages limited to 2 (max. 3 if intermediate)
2:45 - Pick languages that are sufficiently different one from the other
4:33 - Have a main language and a background language (75%-25% split time-wise)
5:48 - Keep separate study sessions, resist the temptation to "think" in both languages
7:16 - Switch language when frustrated, using variety to avoid it and to keep a positive learning experience
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#languagelearning #languagetips #polyglot #multilanguage
![How do you maintain several languages? - My personal routine [MULTILINGUAL video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/7b07aZLAlrQ/mqdefault.jpg)
![How do you maintain several languages? - My personal routine [MULTILINGUAL video]](/img/tr.png)
I invite everyone to try hard to learn new languages , and challenge their minds its a great skill to develop
Well said! And thank you for watching :)
Ah, you're just the best!! I can't express with words how inspired I get when I watch your videos. Because of You, I study harder (and smarter) :)) Keep it up, Stefano & terkut Suomesta
It's truly rewarding to hear this, I'm happy to be able to help and thanks so much for your kind support!
Interesting. I find learning just one language so time consuming I couldn't imagine learning 2 at a time. Keep up the good videos!
Learning one language at a time is better, but two can be possible and I find it so difficult to resist when you learn languages as a hobby.
To answer the question of Stephano : I learn Romanian as the main language and discovered Russian more recently so I couldn't resist and I'm learning Russian too.
Maybe I should learn Russian as the main target language according to Stephano's advice, all the more as I am more interested in Russian now...
@@AlinefromToulouse I think that is one of the hardest thing about language learning is resisting the pull of other languages! Especially when you start to get to the intermediate stage and things slow down.
Good luck with Romanian and Russian Aline
@@luketruman3033 That's the problem I've been having for several years, always just bouncing between languages each week and not making any actual progress.
@@RickyC0626 Have you tried joining some sort of challenge or committing yourself to one thing for a few months or a year to see how it goes? My friend had this problem and said the add1challenge helped him out quite a lot.
@@luketruman3033 Yes, currently I have been studying Japanese on and off for a year. Progress is decent, but I need to make it a habit to progress even more
Pillar 2: very important! I tried learning similar languages (Italian and Portuguese). Even though they are easy to understand, I confused their grammar and vocabulary. So, I made adjustments: postponed learning Portuguese and ended up learning Italian and Czech.
Português brasileiro ou de Portugal?
@@user-hs8uw4hn3n Português brasileiro.
@@1rsalc Que bom! Continue estudando
Your approach is most appealing to me. I value the pillar pointing out the importance of different aspects of contrast between the languages. Thank you for the motivation! I'm learning Italian and isiZulu.
Sounds like a very nice plan! Thank you so much for watching and commenting :)
Is all so clear now , thank you !
You are absolutely right, as always
I needed this video. Thanks so much Stefano!
It's so cool to hear that, thanks for the comment!
I really like your advices because I'm studying languages and they're so useful for me! I'm going to take into account, Thank you!:)
I'm learning German because I like it and French because I have to!
Wow well then hopefully you could relate to my introduction here :)) I hope you have fun in your learning process!
th-cam.com/video/IJKtf48Udds/w-d-xo.html
@@linguaEpassione hi I am interested in your opinion::::
If I know 5 languages, but I don't speak all of them fluently,am I still good or not?
I mean good at learning languages 😊
Bonjour !
Je m'appelle Nolan, je suis mèxicain mais j'habite aux États-Unis depuis peu de temps, je suis cuisiner et j'apprend le français, l'italien, portuguese et l'anglais at même temps aussi. A bientôt et bonne journée !
@@cookingrelaxnature5030 Hello! I'm learning english, italian, french, portuguese and chinese mandarin but I'm not speak fluently all this languages but I'm feeling good keeping up my efforts. Ne jamais abandonner !
Hi. I've been studying Spanish for a year in high school, and I love it. I've been making huge progress. As I'm Finnish, you surely know that we're required to also take Swedish classes. It's a bit of a pain as, mostly the small words like prepositions and articles, get mixed up between the languages. I'm also taking 2 courses of Italian next year.
Thank you for your videos, and awesome that you're learning Finnish.
Kiitos ja onnea kielten opiskeluun! (vaikka "pakkoruotsi" ei oliskaan niin hauskaa)
Love your content, Thank you.
Merci beaucoup! I was struggling because i wanted to learn Mandarín, French and Germán at the same time and now im going to focus just in the fist two. I appreciate all the information that you shared with us, i hadnt find tips like this in other videos. Saludos desde México :)
This is so helpful, thank you!
I agree with you it’s much easier to focus on 2 different languages. Like Spanish and Russian.
Nice video, currently I'm learning japanese and improving my English at the same time
Thanks a lot Stefano! This is the best video about learning multiple languages! Keep up the good work 🙂
Thanks a bunch to you for your kind words, it's really encouraging to hear that :)
Toooop!!!
Bei tips Stefano!
😎😎😎
By the way, thanks for your great tips as usual. I like watching your videos!
My pleasure, thank you for watching and taking the time to leave a comment!
WOW, so encouraging to listen to your videos! I've been studying 9 languages and just started this summer your beautiful madrelingua ! But some of the "old" languages I have almost forgotten or they are very rusty. Your video really encourages me to brush up my rusty Russian. I think I can add it to my recently started Italian studies without getting too confused. Puhut muuten aivan mahtavaa suomea! Olen aivan äimistynyt! Oppisinpa minä vielä yhtä hyvin italiaa! Terveiset Helsingistä :-)
Hei! Kiitos for watching and I'm really happy to hear that this can be helpful and encouraging :) Good luck with my madrelingua, I hope you enjoy learning it. Mä olin muuten eilen Hesassa :-O mutta vain lyhyesti :) Kiitos vielä kerran, että jaksoit katsoa ja kommentoida!
Those were interesting tips, Stefano, thank you.
Thank you for listening and leaving a comment, I really appreciate that!
Super great video. I am glad you did this video and thx to all who voted for this one 🤣 Your tips are really helpful for me. As I am learning Dutch and Croatian at the same time (Dutch intermediate, Croatian from scratch) checks off number one and two of your tips. Number 3 and 4 are super. As I wasn't sure how to go with my time and when to do which one. So this is amazing now. I will focus on my Croatian (scratch). And hell yes... I love number 5 🙌🏻 Thank you very much Stefano. I really love your channel. Happy Sunday to you and your family. I am just on vacation in the Netherlands and its so exciting to speak my Duch which I have been learning for almost one year now. Makes me feel a little bit proud 😊too.
Great as always! Regards, Stefano!
Cheers Manu!!
I'm learning Korean and Spanish! I started learning Korean a year ago but gave up out of frustration. Now I decided to start back with it, and this time with Spanish!
Zsaquez Flucker I’m currently learning Spanish and Korean too. Yo también estoy aprendido español y coreano. 안녕 👋🏾
@@2weird4m3 Pasaron 2 años (o más), cómo te fue aprendiendo español :D?
Wow - du sprichst tatsächlich einwandfrei Deutsch und man hört so gut wie keinen Akzent. Das ist wirklich beeindruckend! Ich lerne seit ein paar Jahren mit großer Leidenschaft Italienisch und hoffe, eines schönen Tages einmal so gut Italienisch sprechen zu können, wie Du Deutsch sprichst - Il mio piu grande rispetto 👍 Cari saluti dalla Germannia e una buona giornata
Great tips. I was having trouble learning Italian or Korean because I felt like my Japanese studies would plummet. I like your ideas about making sure the study time is set and different as well as having the languages be sufficiently different from one another!
Thank you so much. Your video really encouraged me that I'm on the right track with my strategy in learning Polish at an intermediate/advanced level and Mandarin at a beginner's level at the same time. Polish is relatively easy with my background in Russian, and so I devote about 25% of my language learning time to it, while Mandarin gets about 75% of my time. Also they are sufficiently far apart for me never to get muddled, as the challenges and also the language learning methods are necessarily different. The only thing I do find rather difficult is social situations in which both language skills would be desirable - gatherings where there are both Polish and Chinese speakers, and I would like to use both languages. :-)
Ottimo video come sempre Stefano! Mia lingua madre e' l'inglese, ma sto imparando l'Italiano e il tedesco, e il tuo canale e' molto utile :)
I really love your approach to language acquisition, and I really needed to hear this. I get caught up wanting to learn 4 langauges at a time ahaha. But I need to stick with 2, but put more focus on one of them. Right now I am focusing on Spanish as it is my priority, but I am also learning Italian. And i know, those langauges are very similar to eachother, BUT I did spend 3 to 4 years studying Italian in the past and I have a really good base so i dont ever find myself confusing the languages.
Once I get to about an intermediate in Spanish, I will add in the 3rd language, German. And once I feel comfortable in all of those languages, I will finally add in the 4th language, Swedish. Throughout my language learning journey I have studied each of these languages for at least one year, so none of them are completely new to me. I just get too excited and I want to learn them all at once lol! But i do know that the most effective way to learn is to focus on one or two langauges at the most, and then add in more languages. Thank you for the wonderful tips!
Many thanks. Great tips. My two passions are Scottish Gaelic and German.
thank you so much for the good ideas ..God bless you
Thank you for watching and commenting!
I forgot to say....great video, some great tips ! . Grazie
Great channel with a built-in boost in motivation! Let me ask you this, though: How would you proceed in my particular case: I teach English and French and my mother is of Romanian descent. We don't have to discuss English, but rather the other two languages. I've gotten a little rusty in French over the last decade and never transcended an every-day conversational level in Romanian. Would it be feasible to refresh those two while simultaneously tackling either Dutch or Japanese?
Awesome video
Un altro ottimo video! Grazie mille per tutti i consigli. I'm a native Portuguese speaker learning Italian and Finnish using exactly the tips you'd just said.
I'd love to hear more about on how you learnt Finnish, I feel kind of lost and don't know if I should focus a lot on vocabulary or grammar, etc.
Novamente, belíssimo trabalho. Obrigado. :)
Obrigado eu! Finlandese e italiano mi sembra un'ottima coppia per te :) Well, as you may have seen in my video about how I learnt Finnish (in Finnish), I actually started from grammar and went on from there, but it's not something I recommend to everybody; you have to absolutely love grammar per se in order to follow that path, otherwise you just get frustrated with too many rules etc. First you have to find what you like most: reading? conversation? grammar? Then adjust your learning activities :) Ainda uma vez obrigadinho e até mais!
I studied 2 languages parallel in Munich i.e. English and German, which I had learned at high school in Finland, but both needed major improvement. I spent 3 years daily using only English-German dictionary and documentation from my work. It worked for me. I spoke German at work and English after work with my English friend who was really helpful. I was later seconded to Indonesia and needed both languages in my work daily. So, this worked for me, but I think that learning one language at a time is a good advice.
Good luck! I study multiple languages too :)
Wish your channel existed when I was at school 😃 when I was finishing high school in Russia I studied English, Spanish and French. I studied English since I was a child. I started studying Spanish at 16 and it came super easy for me. I restarted French at 17, my first attempt was at 12. The break happened because I couldn’t find French classes in my city. I even studied German and it’s at a good basic level 😃 problem is I didn’t have a chance to practice German a lot. That wasn’t the case with Spanish and French. Especially French. I got fluent in French in less than 2 years. Passed my English and French exams in 2012 with flying colours 😎
I'm really happy i heard your tips, right now i study 3 languages (Japanese, German and Russian) they really are different in terms of everything but it's fun
Extremely Helpful.
We begin to comprehend this world, as a child with our senses and imagination.
Later on we pick up Script based languages.
Visual/Sensual Vocabulary can supplement our acquisition of Script and sound based languages.
You gave me a push thank you for that. I'm learning Deutsch & Turkish.
I am a new subscriber. I am wondering what language of the ones you speak has been the hardest to learn and which the easiest and why. Thank you for considering this question.
I am learning 3 at the same time on different paces. Spanish, Finnish and Hebrew, each for different reasons. The tips are helpful especially the 70/30 rule. Will apply that with my studies. Thanks!
I try 10 languages.
25 minutes each languages in 30 days you will learn a lot.
You ll be impressed.
Use only two books for every language.
Example:
Teach yourself polish + le Polonais sans peine assimil.
I've decided to check this video because I'm currently learning Polish (which, for me, as brazilian portuguese speaker, is very difficult!) but also wanted to learn Finnish at some point. Your advices were very useful and I will start to add a B language for fun: I will try to learn Italian, which would be the easy language for me, since I speak portuguese. Your advices made clear that now would be kind of complicated to add Finnish to the equation, since both Polish and Finnish are languages with grammatical cases and VERY HARD to learn.
I will give it a try for fun because I also always wanted to learn Italian and, other than that, I feel frustrated sometimes when I get stuck with Polish. After I get fluent in Polish, I'd start Finnish (it will be easy to keep Polish because I can simply talk everyday with my friends and my girlfriend and I spend half of the year in Poland itself).
Thank you for your videos. I'm new to the channel and I'm loving to watch it.
Great advices, I'm a native spanish speaker and grew with english (games, movies and media in general) to the point I'm confident in holding a conversation.
Right now I have portuguese, catalan, german and some latin (this last one due to being catholic).
I will focus with portuguese and german, I have the same level in both languages, my greatest problem is that I'm constantly mixing my castillian with portuguese and viceversa, not the pronuntiation, thank God, so I hope to learn it quickly. But I will avoid practicing catalan and latin until I have enough fluency. Then I might take basque instead of either catalan or latin following your advice of studying distant languages.
Thanks for inspiring a fellow lover of culture.
Thank you for the nice comment! I do think you'll notice a good deal of a difference after tweaking your strategy the way you described. Good luck and happy learning!
I started studying Italian, 4 months ago. This is my seventh language. Besides, about 40 years ago, I learned German, which was my sixth
language, but I forgot most of it, because I never use it. Now, I am trying to refresh my German and I am making progress. German and
Italian are different enough, to study them together, but I will follow your suggestion, not to study them at the same time, for example
I will study them on different days. Greetings from Canada, Alex
It's great to hear from you! Bye.
I used to think it was bad to learn two at one time. But I actually now agree with you. I've been learning Russian and Spanish since July. I'm using LingQ.
I have studied at the same time Polish and German from zero, but evetually had to prioritize German (for life reasons) and ended up having to pause Polish because it was stopping me from advancing faster with German. However, I can't wait to reach a good level of German (which I need right now to study) to be able to go back to Polish and maybe start with Japanese at the same time and follow your tips, which sound very reasonable :)
Ciao Stefano! I completely agree with your tips, I’m doing the same myself: devoting full time (at least an hour a day) to my new language (Swedish), and having two more languages in the background (German and Japanese, both between B2 and C1 levels). What I’m actually doing is more focused study on Swedish, mainly by learning through Assimil by myself and having weekly Italkie lessons with a Swedish native speaker, while for the other two I mainly rely on regular conversations with Italkie teachers based on articles I read and prepare beforehand.
This sounds like a truly powerful routine you have in place there, congrats! Especially, I definitely know what it means to have and maintain such a high level of Japanese, 簡単じゃないから頑張ってね！ :)
linguaEpassione Stefano, il giapponese ormai è una missione di vita 😆
Yari Simone Prete ふむふむ、面白いもんだな、俺も今日本語やスウエーデン語学んでる、えーと。。お互い言語相棒なれないかね:3
I'm going to learn spanish and irish and your tips are a great help. Thank youuu
How cool to hear that! Thank you for watching and taking the time to leave a comment! :)
I am fluent in both English and Cantonese but I always have to maintain my Cantonese skills. I learned in European French in school because we had to. Right now, most of effort is into learning Brazilian Portuguese but I learn a little bit of Farsi/Persian on the side.
I'm between B1 and B2 in Spanish, I've been learning it for years and I study it in university. Granted I do learn new things but currently I'm at that point where I only have to improve my skills and practice so I felt okay picking up another one. I started Mandarin and I spend most of my time practising that. I also picked up Portuguese but because I'm intermediate in Spanish, Portuguese was extremely easy for me so I don't have to study it as hard as I thought. I practice everyday and learn new verbs but I don't actively study as much as I do with Mandarin.
Great videos, I've just found your page and I want to be a polyglot one day so you're really motivating me. Plus it's great practice for me, thank you for your videos! Love from England :))
When would you recommend adding more languages? I was thinking of starting Korean and Italian again when I finished HSK3 (around intermediate) in Mandarin and got to my level I am in now Spanish with Portuguese (and of course improvedy spanish). Do you think this would be a good idea? I know the feeling of wanting to learn every language at once haha but in order to improve my current languages I wouldn't mind waiting, I was just wondering if you had advice on it.
Hey Rev, thanks so much for the kind comment and for sharing your language story :) It does sound like a good plan to wait for Portuguese to catch up and for Mandarin to consolidate before you start Korean and (especially) Italian. You don't want Italian to mess up your ES-PT combo by starting too soon. Keep going, you'll get wherever you set your mind to ;D
I learn Korean for fun. I learn Arabic seriously for education purposes. And I still study English as well sometimes although I'm already good at it. I believe I still need to make more improvement in my English skills. Learning language is a never ending adventure n-n 💛
Ciao Stefano! Ho trovato il tuo canale grazie alla intervista pubblicata da Davide Gemello (Podcast Italiano). Ti voglio ringraziare per l'intervista e anche per i consigli che ci hai dato in questo tuo video. Il consiglio più prezioso per me e' - non cercare a trovare le traduzioni in entrambe lingue. Prima sono caduto in questa trappola quando ho iniziato a imparare il turco..
Insomma, grazie mille. Adesso sarò più consapevole nell'apprendimento delle lingue!
I'm happy that I found someone with the same philosophy as me!
Hey there, thanks a bunch for your comment!
Am learning French and Deutsch , but I started learning Deutsch after I have already spent 7 months learning French .
It's in one of the pillars that you mentioned being an intermediate at one language and a beginner on another
That sounds good! Plus, French and German are not in the same language family, you can keep going I think :) Bonne continuation!
Im danish and learning icelandic and spanish at the same time, but I am already almost fluent in spanish, so Im just maintainng and practising spanish while learning icelandic.
Good example, keep it up!
Muy bien amigo Vikingo. Saludos!! 😉
Ein weiteres gutes Video von dir Stefano, ich habe darauf lange gewartet. Du weißt schon dass ich jetzt entweder Slowenisch und Deutsch lerne, und ich glaube das ist okay, weil Slowenisch sich von Deutsch unterscheidet, die Niveaus ganz verschieden sind und auch weil ich muss Slowenisch bis den Sommer lernen, für den Urlaub.
Grüße, Joel :)
Danke Joel, und es stimmt, bei dir sieht's gut aus! :)
Wise words. 😊
I'm happy you liked the video. Thanks for checking out my channel!
Perfect video. Seems to fit with me.
I'm studying Finnish (more) and Russian. Maybe too difficult both?
I study languages as a hobby, and it really relax me. And i am so happy that i found your channel.
Thank you again!
Thank you Laís, loved your comment! It's true for me as well, learning languages is relaxing! :) Where are you from?
@@linguaEpassione I am Brazilian, but I live in Japan for 13 years now. Love to live here, but my dream is to go to Finland. :D
Me too...👍
What do you think about learning Italian and Latin at the same time? I have already reached an intermediate-advanced level in the former (if I were to rank my skills I'd have to say I'm a strong B2) and have a basic level in the latter (I'm using the wonderful Familia Romana course and reading and transcribing every single lesson and I've made some great progress), which I want to use mainly for reading and PERHAPS listening to some podcasts and I don't notice any interference from one to the other thus far. I'm learning both everyday and I dedicate more time to Latin as it poses a bigger challenge due to the more complex grammar (my time is kind of divided in 65% for Latin and 35% for Italian). My mother tongue is Spanish and I also have already achieved fluency in French.
what do you think about learning Latin and French at the same time?
I have found that as I learn two languages at once, if I stop one and do a one or two-month bootcamp on the other, when I come back to the other one, I remember so much more than when I stopped working on it!
:-O Wow, that's pretty strinking, keep on the good work then!
Great points! 🎯 I’ve reached the same kind of conclusions and practice, with one partly exception: *Difficulty difference*. I already consciously choose languages which maximize differences (right now: Korean & Dutch, while upping my level of Polish from B1-ish). And I do learn a language that comes really easy for me: Dutch. The reason why it comes so easy is that I already know a lot of Germanic languages (English, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, some Icelandic, and Esperanto helps a bit too, even tho it’s not Germanic per se). Korean takes more time…
So, I’ve already been practicing the distance in difficulty as well, but unconsciously. You made it concious for me, and you’re completely right! I was trying to learn my first Slavic language (Polish) and Korean at the same time, and it was not feasible neither cognitively nor temporaly. Thanks! 🙏
Thank you Kim for your contribution, a really interesting (self-)analysis! I'm glad this video brought you some added value :) Keep going and let me know later how the Korean-Dutch double punch works out :)
Thanks, Stefano. 🙂 I might do. 👌
WOW! I really appreciate your advice on not sharing study time and with another language and saying the new one is ruining the old! I had NO idea, and wish someone had told me this 35 years ago when my Spanish essentially died when I was studying Russian!
Question: do you have any advice for someone who is learning one language and wants to revive an old language that they used to speak long ago? Example: I've been studying Irish for 2.5 yrs and almost at B1 level with it. Years ago I had gotten to about a C1 level in Russian but years of non use has pushed it back in my brain. I'd like to revive it, but am afraid of messing up my Irish. Have you done a video about reviving a forgotten language? Thanks!
Well, Stefano, I'm not that fluent as you are with those languages, which I know, but I do speak more or less fluently around 2 or 3 languages, but I'm able to make myself understandable in six languages. For the moment being I decided to start to study two more languages - Tatar and Chinese, an easy one, and the other one, more comlicated according to your suggestion. The easiest language for me to beguin to use and to understand it was bahasa indonesia.. I never learned it, but began to use it in few weeks, when it was necessary.
I started Turkish last March and fell in love spiritually with the language, I started to do Spanish at the same time and they were easy not to get confused because of the overwhelming differences. Later in the year I was getting really good at Turkish now I speak it at C1, and Spanish at B2, I wasn’t sure what else I wanted to do but Hebrew sounded really dope, I’ve attempted Hebrew multiple times but my brain has trouble with Semitic languages. I realized I had a knack for Turkic languages though, and later that year I started Uzbek, Uzbek and Turkish are similar but Uzbek is a different branch. I can now speak Uzbek at a decent level and I understand more than I can speak. I surprisingly don’t confuse the languages often, however sometimes I do, but when I tried Azerbaijani, it was a nightmare, because it was so similar to Turkish, it would be like me doing Italian with my Spanish too, so I stopped that, although I understand the language well, I just can’t speak it, and I don’t plan to learn it until after going to Turkey and getting more practice with Turkish for. I also got into Russian and I’ve almost gotten nowhere with this language, Japanese is really calling me, and when I was learning it, it made me feel amazing, I suppose I like the energy of it, so maybe I will do it again. Besides that, I got some weird fantasies for Sakha and also Pashto, but I decided that I need to put them on hold. I also decided that maybe learning things like Persian wouldn’t be good for me, because the writing system is really different, I find Japanese to be easier, ironically. I suppose in my experience, I added to many new languages, since I’m really advanced with Spanish and Turkish, I can only hold space for one more language. I do want to learn finish too, but currently Hebrew is really calling me, though Japanese and Persian call me too, I think I would be happy to speak any of those languages, but it’s hard
To know which one you really want to do,
R S123 I’d be down for a language partner. My Turkish is more intermediate level, but it’s advanced in lots of ways.
i am soooo fond of learning languages.. i'm bilingual in english and arabic languages.. they're both identically easy to me.. but i also know russian and french very well.. i fell in love with the italian language and decided to learn it.. and guess what.. unlike what you're saying my knowledge of french is helping me like A LOT.. my daily rutine is to revise russian and french and emphasize on italian as a little baby who needs a little bit more attention.. i keep reading in english and arabic for relaxing.. and also keep swapping between russian and french aiming at mastering them like i do with english .. once i finish later with italian.. it will join the swapping rutine and i will start with turkish.. because i'm kinda curious of it as a very different language..
@the 4th point. I'm fluent in 3 languages, currently learning 3. 2 at school and one on my own (with me being relatively fluent in say a daily conversation in 1 of them, having the basics on another one of them and being a beginner when it comes to the 3rd). Vocab tests are such a pain because I will not always be able to recall specific words in the language that you want me to right in that moment. That results into my language grades being slightly lower than they should but I guess that's life.
Perfect..I am now doing two. Starting with French because I have always wanted to learn, and now Japanese because i lived there as a child and have friends there. Thank you for the great tips because I thought maybe it was too much, but do about 95% French because it's the one I began with. No more combining the classes..lol.
Great to hear that! Good luck or rather bonne chance! :)
@@linguaEpassione Salut, merci.
Fantastic channel
Hi Stefano!
Your videos are really interesting, I watched a few of them today for the first time. I was wondering if you could explain how you keep up with so many languages, and maintain all of them at a fairly high level. I feel like I just forget or at least massively regress in a language when I start another one. For example, I almost completely forgot Dutch after high school even though it was the "foreign" language I was the most proficient in at the time. Then, since graduating from university, my active skills in German have worsened drastically even though it's one of my working languages, and I regressed quite a bit in Finnish during the past 9 years after coming back from my exchange year there. And there are a couple of other languages I started over the years but never found the time to study properly.
Btw, I'm also a translator who lives in Brussels, I also studied for a year in Heidelberg, and my favorite language is also Finnish (though I'm not at your level yet 😅).
Anyway, any tips and tricks to share?
Thanks for these inspirational videos!
I want to learn both Brazilian Portuguese and Finnish to a very high level. I discovered your channel as soon as I started learning Finnish btw
Brazil and Finland couldn´t be any different in language, culture and climate, so the pillar of a stark contrast is there. My mother tongue is Deutsch nur so nebenbei (bin aus Österreich), und das sprichst du ja eh auch - zwar auf einem netten Anfängerniveau, aber immerhin (Achtung Ironie 😂) !
Thank you, Stefano. I tried this on a whim: I studied Mandarin (very basic level) before son's wedding in China. Recently in bookstore I picked up Cantonese book, couldn't put it back and bought it. So I returned to Mandarin in parallel with new Cantonese study. It's funny how the Mandarin comes back to me and feels comfortably "native" compared to the Cantonese! The challenge, as you mentioned, is not to try to translate the Cantonese into Mandarin as I study.
I rather focus in one language, it works for me! To keep up with the other languages that i already speak I read books, watch tv, listen to music or podcasts, but not as a learning sessions It’s just that iI like to maintain the knowledge I have, my everyday life is so multilingual and gets a little messy in my head sometimes so I prefer one language at the time! By the way I speak Spanish, Italian, French, English and learning Norwegian.
I also happens to me, I am a native spanish speaker, I learnt english throughout my childhood and I'm currently learning russian, but at the same time I want to learn: turkish (or kazakh), mongol, georgian, finnish, chinesse, bulgarian, greek and german xD. Being a language enthusiast is another whole experience!
I started learning Chinese this year and I keep studying Spanish and English. My main language at that time is Chinese. I'm really focused on learning it. Hopefully I'll be able to hold a simple conversation at the end of the year.
Hi, Stefano......thanks for your great videos........
what is your opinion about my studies of languages?
English right now is B2, Finnish is A2.2 and i am going to start my school german that is about A0.1 :-) .......(along with finnish)?
Hi Dimitriy, it sounds good as far as I can tell. German shouldn't collide with Finnish all that much. Plus, if German is at school and Finnish isn't, that's another factor that helps keep them separated. Best of luck to you!
Thanks for your sharing. I found target languages I chose which are so different from my native language (Chinese). I admit that I am the greedy one coz languages are so fascinating. About the fourth pillar, I happened the same, too. When I studied Spanish or French, I tried to translate one sentence into Japanese. That was totally messing up about grammar structure.~XD
I would like to know how you maintain your listening skills. That is always my Achilles'heel.
Hello, yes, I'm pushing my spanish uphill. I've been stuck at about B1-2 for ages. I've asked my italian teacher to push me to B1 by this coming Christmas,or by end of year. And I'm just ticking along with Portuguese. Unfortunately the three languages I love most are latin based so it's easy to muddle. But I keep portuguese in the shade. Good tips , thank you. !
I'm learning Turkish(A1) in Japanese(B2). It happens to fit a main language and a background language. In the process, maybe I'm not really learning Japanese, but this method gives me the opportunity to keep in touch with Japanese.
2: what if you can't pick up 2 very different languages? EG: I have to improve my German (now at B2) and at the same time learn Swiss German, at least to be able to understand it. How did you manage to learn the 2 Finnish registers of the language? If I didn't get wrong there is more or less the same relation between the 2 Finnish languages, and German and Swiss German. In Switzerland everyone uses Swiss German (a variety of the Alemannisch) to talk but everything is written in High German which is also called the Schriftsprache. Would you have some good advice? :-)
I have been learning English and German for several years, but I still mix them up. Even though my level in both languages is different, I still mix them up. What has helped me overcome this issue is to apply a rule similar to yours, which is giving more time to one language than the other. Do you have any additional tips? Is anyone studying both languages at the same time? How are you dealing with both?
I'm studying Japanese for work and Greek for the fun of it. I'll admit I tend to work two days on greek one day on Japanese, and to work on greek when I feel tired. I find it's easier for me to learn two languages at the same time. Not more than two, that'd be a recipe for failure (for me).
Grazie Stè (i do speak Arab, English and Italian of course) però la nostra è la lingua più spontanea e "musicale" a parer mio e di amici stranieri.
Sto studiando anche Giapponese, è molto interessante, ma mi va ad incidere sul focus che serve nell'arabo.
This video helped me a lot, I appreciated it :)
Very good ideas! I do think that if you have at least a B1 level at one language, you can keep up improving this first language and add another. For example, nowadays I'm studying French and Italian. I listen to many videos on both languages, and I'm almost fluent in both languages. So I decided to learn German and I am trying to achieve a basic level. Thank you for sharing your experience with us! Greetings from Brazil!
Saudações e tudo de bom pra você!
Muito obrigado. Igualmente!
Hello Stefano . I'm at B1-B2 in spanish. I haven't done much with it for years but I'm trying to push it higher. I am learning Italian and Portuguese now. Unfortunately for me the languages I love are all latin based :-) but on the other hand it does have some advantages, e.g. The phrases I know in Spanish I create similar phrases in Italian and Portuguese. What I call my " piggyback " method
I do 3. But
1. is advanced and more using it daily and taking notes.
2. I am actively trying to advance
3. I just drill verbs and it sits in the background and the goal is making the verbs subconscious
Sounds fun! :)
6:30 This happens sometimes, and you are totally right! The mental confusion that results is horrendous. Trying to read the chinese sentence with the kanji pronunciation is not a good idea.
A few years back I decided, due to circumstances and desire, to take 4-5 new languages at the same time while maintaining 2-3 strong languages. I was disappointed to notice that it wasn't working haha. This taught me to try and focus on only one language at a time (while practising other, strong ones). I find it hard to work on 2 weak languages at the same time because I like to immerse myself in one language. Dividing my time on 2 languages also divides my energy and makes learning slower, which I don't like...
I feel you man :) Hope you've found your perfect balance with the strategy you're using now!
it is true that we can learn two linguistically different languages at the same time. Now i am learning Spanish and French, which makes me pretty confuded sometimes... But after all, ur tipps are very useful and i shall take your advices into consideration in my futural language learning. Thx, 谢谢！
I too have started with both languages French & Spanish. Are you still studying these languages.
VERY helpful video. Starting another language will help my ongoing Mandarin study. Japanese is very different in grammar, words, & pronunciation. But it violates rule 2, because both languages use Chinese characters (with different sounds). So I'll postpone Japanese until my Chinese is much better. Meanwhile, I will start Turkish, or Hindi, or Portuguese (I already know Spanish and French). Thanks for the ideas.
Thank you for the tips! I'm learning my 4th language right now (Italian) and I'm planning to start French or Arabic (or both) in the next semester. Now I'm thinking that maybe French can be a bad choice now, because of Italian. I'm not sure about it.
Hi Grace, I'm glad this could be helpful for you, and big thanks for watching and leaving a comment!
Hey, what about immersion and speaking the language you’re learning in your day. If you’re learning 2 lanaguhws how can you immerse yourself or talk in the language. Do you try to speak on language one day and another another day?
Interesting approach indeed, however, i find it easier to learn two languages at the same time which are similar, for example currently i am learning Portuguese and Italian, they both have Latin root, and it could be confusing at times, however, learning a new language could be confusing, i see it this way, as long as i understand why i am confused in the first place, Italian is the language of my passion, and Portuguese is a necessity, since currently i live in Portugal., the mother tongue is quite important, and i think it's within the level of difficulty and naturally how many other languages one already knows., really interesting video, it is good to understand how others learning and how many different approaching techniques we all have, which the basics and fundamentals always similar . many thanks.
I am learning one language right now, but, I just realized today that I am not only learning this one language, but I am also exploring what the best way for me to learn languages is. So, I think I will stick with this language only, but have the possibility of learning two at once in the future.
Hi Lorna, no hurry, you will figure out your best way - wishing you all the best :)
Great video. I'm learning french and japanese.
Now I am trying to brush up my rusty German as well as to get to a A2 level in Russian. I also study Japanese, but since I have already achieved an advanced level in the language, I study German/Russian through Japanese and English (and not Portuguese - my mother tongue), which I've found to be an really interesting way to maintain the languages I already speak well.
So I like the pillars you have listed and I have found a way to effectively study three languages. My question is, I can't decide on which third language to go with. There are so many I want to learn (Welsh, Greenlandic, Georgian, Old Church Slavonic, Cornish, Samoan, Estonian, Afrikaans, Icelandic, and many more) but I just can't pick that third one. My life goal in linguistics is to learn 40 languages.
English is my native language and the two foreign languages I am strongest in are German and Russian. For the third language, I can't decide if I want to go with Afrikaans, Finnish, or Welsh.
As of now I am learning Finnish as the third, but this video has made me rethink this. I would appreciate your input.
Hey Cody, thanks for sharing your language story! Why are you rethinking it? If your level in German and Russian is strong enough, I think you can go ahead and add Finnish as a 3rd language, as it's different enough (that I can assure you :D). Just make sure you enjoy the process rather than obsessing with the results and you'll be fine and happy :)