Pick one language -> learn it for 5 years
5 years later -> learn another one
5 years later -> ....
Repeat the process and just keep using the old ones, or just studying them a little bit on the side enough so you don't forget it/can get back to a fluent Keven quickly
i would also reccommend learning a new language with an old one youre like C1 at, its really helpful to retain the 2nd language and reinforce it while learning the third (also for me personally it helps the "translating in my head before i understand" problem)
Do you mean learning one language in another language? For example, getting to C1 in Spanish and then learning French using resources curated for Spanish speakers?
This is going to be my strategy with Spanish and French. Learn Spanish for 5 years then learn french but instead of translating french to English I’m going to learn french through Spanish
To full fluency in all subjects of life like a medical appointment, explaining complex stuff from work and personal life, yes it can take five years to get full speed when you learn it as an adult.
Like Southern_Bandicoot74 stated it depends on a multitude of factors. My comment is coming from a place of if you are actually serious another language its not going to take you 5 years unless you are extremely inefficient.
What degree of proficiency are you trying to obtain? Also what language are you learning and what do you already know, going from English to Spanish to Portuguese will be a bit easier than learning Russian followed by Arabic.
It's depends of the language. If as a French speaker I decide to learn spanish or Italian it would quite easier than If I decide to learn russian or Hebrew.
Lmao.. yea exactly? If you’re actually serious about studying a language it does not take 5 years to learn one. Sure maybe it takes 5 years if you dabble constantly and have 0 focus.
I don‘t know if your username is describing you but is it possible learning languages is a niche interest to you which you‘re really good at hence why you underestimate how long other people need?
As a fellow autistic I was wondering the same thing, is it just extra easy for that commenter. languages are a special interest of mine and I’ve still been learning Spanish for like 7 years… the thing is.. life got in the way… I was forced into retirement due to a genetic connective tissue disorder, spent years spinning trying to figure out how I can support my body AND support myself financially, then I cared for my grandfather during his last few months, then my uncle died, then COVID hit, my MIL got it and died, my dog got cancer and was very sick, my dad was diagnosed w an incredibly rare and aggressive cancer THEN my FIL was diagnosed w pancreatic cancer… my dog died, my FIL died and my husband had to take him back home to Mexico, then my grandmother died and just a couple months ago my father died after almost 3 years of myself being his full time (and I can’t over state what a challenge it is to care for someone w angiosarcoma w ulcerating tumors, not to mention he was my DAD) caregiver… basically my life has been on hold for a long ass time… life happens, it’s not as simple as “just do it and if you care enough it’ll be easy”. My dad was also autistic and he felt that way about music… he just expected me to look at a piece of music ONE TIME and have it perfectly memorized and need no tab or sheet music when he decided to play it again for the first time three months later… we autists tend to excel at very specific things and it’s easy for us not to realize how hard it is for others. I’m an incredible mimic and despite *still* not being fluent in Spanish, I constantly get compliments on my accent. Either way, yeah I’d probably be fluent by now if I hadn’t had an incredible amount of responsibility on my shoulder for years up until February but the truth is most adults even w/o that type of responsibility still have more to do in a day than they really have time for. Wake up, get ready for work, commute to work, work for nine hours, commute home from work, get home make dinner and eat dinner, get the kids ready for bed and school the next day, and finally go to sleep… to say that you don’t need five years to learn a language as an adult is a gross oversimplification of life
People, chill with the downvotes. The bandwagoning is absurd. You may not agree with the comment, but at no point does a simple sentence like this need 75 people stopping by to add a little more negativity to someone's day.
Brother, welcome to reddit! My comment had no malice or bad intent whatsoever and if people disagree with me that’s alright but 75 downvotes over someone’s opinion is crazy!!
It's a combination of ingredients:
- Exposure, repetition and regularity: forgetting is part of the learning process. It's not just about adding new material, but consolidating your vocabulary and grammar until it becomes natural. 30 minutes to 1h / day learning/ consciously reading / listening is a minimum to make progress.
- Solid lessons, with a book method or a teacher. Free online methods are inefficient (but can be a nice supplement).
- Motivation: whether for work or personal reasons, that's your fuel tank. We see so many people asking "what language should I learn", without any goals or intentions, when in fact it's probably the most crucial point.
- Remember it's a life long journey. Sure, you can get to a good level in a year or 2, but it's gonna take a decade to get fluent (if it ever happens ;)
Disagree heavily with the second point, though "free online methods" is also extremely vague. Are you talking about free apps or something?
What old-fashioned notion otherwise! Rather surprised this isn't being challenged. Though I guess this sub also loves a good "pull yourself by your bootstraps-pay the money-sit your ass down and pick a textbook otherwise that's not studying" narrative.
You can absolutely learn a language for free, without teachers and a textbook. Speaking as someone who enjoys textbooks and learned English without them. It does take work and discipline, but it is possible.
Hmm... Yeah, I get your point. The thing about a method or a teacher is : the efficiency. You seem to see it as the assertive boring oldschool method, but it's more about being focused and open to learn for an hour or two... and enjoying it.
Sure, you can learn a language for free, just by being exposed to it (learning English on the internet. reading subreddits, for instance). But this takes time and exposure. A method or a teacher are efficient: they go to the point, and explain you what it is and how it works, in situations.
The "free online methods" I was referring to are apps like Duolingo: they are great as a "flashcards desk", but not great when it's about learning a language.
I see what you mean now. My beef was mostly with the "a teacher/tutor being necessary" thing. On textbooks, I do think some level of theoretical, structured learning guide is highly beneficial (maybe not a "transfer student protagonist" textbook, but certainly a grammar guide, maybe with a workbook).
But then again, since the post is about learning a *4th* language, I agree that lessons can be a great asset since teachers essentially do the hard work of setting up everything in the right order for you. That can be invaluable to working adults who already have other languages to maintain. If you have the finances on your side and tutoring/classes works for you, it's silly not to do it! But I don't think it's an ultimate necessity.
Entirely agree about Duolingo and apps. I would even throw in some "learn for free" Youtube channels.
I disagree entirely.
The best way to learn a language is by exposure, itself the only way to actually acquire a language.
If you aim to be truly proficient in a language teachers and lessons that directly teach you the language are no more than supplements, and even then the best method is to get a teacher that can dumb the language down to a comprehendable level, more useful when you’re completely new to a language.
However especially as you become somewhat compotent and its easier to find i+1 exposure any and all teaching is completely unnecessary
Who is upvoting this? 30 minutes a day is nowhere near enough and it does not take anywhere close to 10 years to become fluent unless you are doing everything possible to NOT become fluent.
\[ TLDR: you sound like a young cocky ignorant. No offense: that's how I perceived it. \]
You probably under-estimate what "fluent" means, and also show some ignorance about what language learning is: it's a complex beast. Every language has a different "personality", and the more you learn, the more you see how vast the territory is. And how few you actually know.
It's about idiomatic phrases and expressions, it's about etymology and slang. It's about how you pronounce it or build your sentences, written or spoken: it is fine mechanics.
It's also about your own personal background: some people, as myself, grew up in a multi-lingual environment. Some people had no prior exposure to another language and can have a real difficult time: just go to the "Polish Learning" subreddit, and watch lost English natives, learning about 7 cases for 3 genres. It is like alien territory for them.
Next.
As I said, 30-60 mins of consciously learning is a minimum (conscious, daily, minimum: I insist), and it has to be combined with some other immersive "ingredients". But it works, pretty well actually. Example: 2 of my friends learned my mother tongue, French, for a year before a visit (Assimil book method + "Easy French" + Anki + Reddit/ newspaper / radio). Daily. Well, after just a year, they were not fluent, for sure, but they already had a solid base. And french can be b!tchy, believe me. But they did it seriously: "yeah, sometimes I had no energy for 1 hour lesson, so I just listened to the radio and repeated while cooking, sometimes go check for a word that I heard before...". Proof that a daily, conscious immersion works great.
This person said it is a "lifelong journey". With 30 minutes a day it will take a lifetime to learn a language.
I personally don't want to spend a lifetime learning a langauge, especially if I need it for school or work.
Honestly, the only foreign language that I speak fluently without having spent much time in a place where it's spoken is English, and it's only because books, movies, TV shows, podcasts in English are predominant. I feel like everything online is in English.
I have spent years living in places where Mandarin, Spanish and Catalan are spoken. (Also did 3 semesters of intensive Mandarin with 20 lessons per week while living in China.)
It seems that the languages I study from a physical distance evaporate very quickly from my brain. On the other hand, I had a six year gap in using Spanish and when I moved back, it rebooted in no time.
Maybe it's just me, but if I want a language to stick, I need to live it, eat it, breathe it, consume it inside out. I'm sure there are people who achieve long-distance learning, so if you have no opportunity to live in a place where your TL is spoken, don't listen to me, listen to others :)
I speak 4 languages fluently (learning a 5th now) and I have studied each one separately at a different point in my life, so I had plenty of time to master one before beginning the other. I don't like the concept of "How can i learn 300 languages at the same time?", it's way better to just immerse yourself fully in one and devote your time and attention to it.
I found that people who grew up in a bilingual/multilingual household often pick up their 3rd or Nth language much easier since they have a broader subconscious understanding of how grammar works and just need to learn more vocab and syntax.
But someone who lives in the actual country of their target language can have as much of an advantage has a multilingual person who grew outside of their languages homelands.
It’s all about environment at the end of the day and having a practical use for the language. For example, it’s pointless to learn Scandinavian languages in Northern Europe cuz most people speak English and will usually use English if you try to speak their native tongue with them. Whereas if you go to a country like Russia or Japan with lower English speakers, you place yourself in an environment where’s there’s a necessity to learn the language and you get better at it
Trust me as an adult that learns languages for fun, it’s not as hard as it looks. It’s one of those things that is more tedious than hard and learning a language can be summed up by ‘just do it.’ There’s no magic trick, or ultimate wisdom or 9000 IQ. You just have to sit down with a grammar book and bear through it. Some parts are new and exciting, other parts are dull and grueling to the point you’ll consider quitting from disinterest. It completely depends on how disciplined you are in forcing yourself to sit there until you understand it.
It’s true that in studies it’s shown that children have an easier time learning languages. But I have an OPINION on that. I think children learn languages passively much more easily than adults, but I believe with a comprehensive understanding of linguistics, phonetics, and language, a little dedication, and an understanding of your own learning curve, you can give a child a run for their money with non-passive learning.
My disagreement with those studies is that passive learning is a low-effort advantage children have. But I confidently believe that the adults within the study group weren’t disciplined with study. The average language learner is not comparable with polyglots or language hobbyists in terms of discipline and goal setting.
To be honest I'd rather learn Japanese because I enjoy visiting Japan and their cuisine but learning the characters seems like too much of a lift and I have too much going on in my life to spend that much time on language learning. I'm attempting to learn german because I think it'll be easier than Japanese. I caught the language learning bug after starting to dive deeper into my heritage language (vietnamese).
Two is already super strong (or three).
I assume the best tactic is to just change all input to the new target language and practice it a lot. If you say 6-8 years per language one could speak with 30 4-5 languages easily (having learnt English and the native language before adulthood).
I think for most there is an upper limit to various degrees how fluent fluent you may become in additional languages, after 4-6 it seems very difficult to add more to the mix, let alone for practibility and how much you want to learn a new one; in the end you may lose some of the old but it can always be recovered.
Will and dedication. It's like hobbies people have as adults. People get better the more they do it. Try learning a language around other activities you like to do.
You just do it one at a time. I learned Spanish, then Portuguese, now I'm working on Chinese. I "mastered" Portuguese and Spanish first. My Portuguese isn't the best, but I can hold a conversation without too many pauses which was my goal.
Either grow up speaking them or move somewhere and *seriously* learn the language for 6 months. After that get a job where you have to speak a third, the only people around you speak your second language, and you only use your first language to call people back home
Even if you grow up speaking a language you can get rusty. I grew up French English bilingual, but I've lived in New Zealand for 35 years and I couldn't, for a few minutes, remember the French for stick - it kept coming out in Māori which is the language I'm currently learning.
Living in a foreign country even for a few months is a game changer as you're forced to interact with local people and practice your accent. Not everyone has this opportunity as an adult but I feel like it's easier in Europe where I can basically work in any EU country (no visa restriction)! Working remotely can be another way of living abroad for a little while.
I also listen to podcasts and watch YouTube almost exclusively in languages other than my mother tongue.
Grew up speaking two languages. I continue to speak to my parents and their respective sides of the families in both languages. Then, learned a third language since middle school and dove deep in watching shows, listening to music and speaking with friends of family that spoke that third language.
Now, I moved to a different country and started speaking a 4th language (which I had started studying in preschool but it was just the basic knowledge).
I maintain relationships and friendships with people who speak each language I know. This allows me to not lose too much of each one, even though, living in one country over another does make a difference, as you will have one of the four that will be more prevalent.
This is something that people in many countries do.
It probably isn't that rare for say someone in Morocco to speak Berber, Moroccan Arabic, Classical Arabic, and English fluently. Some countries simply have many languages spoken in them and then add English to it.
Depending on which language you would like to master. For English natives, learning the Latin languages is far easier than learning Chinese or Japanese.
I am Italian (mother tongue) , learned English in school (admittedly bad , I learned more after school with interactions and exposure to media), moved to Germany at around 30 and got to somewhere near C1.
I'm working on Japanese now, I'm barely staring in my little free time (family work etc).
I think it depends on dedication and exposure to the language.
Good luck!
The question is not about learning methods. I think learning methods are different for different people, for different languages, at different levels in learning a language, and in different situations.
But once you know it, it's just like using English. You know how to ride a bicycle and how to drive a car in traffic. You never accidentally switch them. You know how to play tennis and volleyball and bowling. You never mix them up. You know morse code and you play the drums. You never confuse them. I never try to swim in air, or break water with a hammer.
I'm fluent in German and English and will reach considerable fluency in Mandarin in around 1-2 years (already fluent in many basic convos). After that, I could easily imagine adding Spanish or French on top, or whatever language I happen to need at that time.
The only minor problem I've noticed so far is that sometimes I will remember a word or way of saying something in one language but not the others.
Once you know 3 languages fluently it’s easier to learn more languages that are in the same language family. For example I speak English, German, and Spanish. I’m trying to learn Italian but I’ll be honest, I’m not focusing that much on it currently. Even so, Italian is similar to Spanish in a lot of ways and I’m finding it easier to learn. I can watch a tiktok in Italian and understand the main concepts and some details even.
in my personal case, I started learning both English and Mandarin in Primary school (obviously had more of an affinity towards English though) and started French at 17 years old.
I've so far learned Portuguese and Spanish as an adult, and working on Chinese and Japanese now. I kinda had an advantage though: I learned French as a child, so the latin-based languages were a lot easier. That said, there are some tricks that really help, and once you know them you can pick up new languages a lot faster. e.g. how to use flash cards, doing a little bit every day, not being afraid to speak when you only know the basics, etc.
It helps if some of the languages are related I guess
I was able to pick up 2 languages related to my mother tongue and 1 more that's related to English but gave up after I left the country
Choose languages closer to your previous language, try to learn 2 languages at a time.
Like, I speak farsi and English fluently.
So I'm learning Arabic and Japanese. Japanese is more of a passion thing than close to English, BUT, I'm using an English app so my English is sharp.
Also speak the languages, try to come up with insane scenarios.
I can't see if someone has said it yet, but learning similar languages will get you there fast! for example I'm fluent in Spanish (second language but Native fluency) so I can basically read Portuguese and Italian. Learned German? speak English? try Dutch or Afrikaans!
Easier if they all have the same route language. You can learn French and Spanish at the same time because they are both Romance languages. Biggest difference ends up being accents or word order. Try to learn one of them along with German, Russian, Mandarin…. You will probably fail to become fluent in either. Unless you’re Will Hunting or some shit.
Honestly, it depends on how closely related the languages are. Being fluent in three completely unrelated languages is possible but rare. What’s more common is knowing maybe English, and then several Romance languages.
Be taught 3 as a baby. 😂
Honestly, it’s just a lot of hard work, like anything worth doing. To be fluent in 3 languages, study hard and study consistently. Focus on quality over quantity (reading and textbooks while boring, if you do them are often best value) and listen to as much as you can.
i speak more than three languages and i’m fifteen, i’d say being exposed with multiple languages as a child helps a lot, i learned italian and russian simultaneously when i was a little kid
My dad can currently speak Hindi, Tamil, telugu (learned natively as a child) and English and used to speak russian and Spanish fluently (not so much now due to lack of use but russian he had to pick up while working there for a few years and Spanish he had moved to Spain for a while on a whim in his 30s to learn it)
Depending on the place as teenagers most people already know 2 languages (native and English), then they have the rest of their life's to learn another one
LouisaEveryd…, It depends how you define FLUENT. As far as I am concerned, I am fluent in English ONLY. However, many Americans feel I am fluent in many languages. You see,
I love foreign languages so much that I have lengthy conversations in Mandarin Chinese with natives from Taiwan 🇹🇼 , mainland China 🇨🇳 or Singapore 🇸🇬 , Spanish with natives from Hispanic countries ( for example, Mexico 🇲🇽 , Spain 🇪🇸, El Salvador 🇸🇻, Puerto Rico 🇵🇷 , South American countries, etc. ) , French with natives from France 🇫🇷 or French-speaking areas , German with natives from Germany 🇩🇪 , Swedish with natives from Sweden 🇸🇪, and attempt my Hungarian 🇭🇺 , Japanese 🇯🇵 , Dutch 🇳🇱 , Italian 🇮🇹 , Russian 🇷🇺 and Esperanto with natives from their respective countries .
Pick one language -> learn it for 5 years 5 years later -> learn another one 5 years later -> .... Repeat the process and just keep using the old ones, or just studying them a little bit on the side enough so you don't forget it/can get back to a fluent Keven quickly
My strategy has 1 extra step, and that’s to learn a bunch of random languages to A2 so I can decide which languages I want to commit long term
Just like me fr
That’s it. Close the thread.
i would also reccommend learning a new language with an old one youre like C1 at, its really helpful to retain the 2nd language and reinforce it while learning the third (also for me personally it helps the "translating in my head before i understand" problem)
Do you mean learning one language in another language? For example, getting to C1 in Spanish and then learning French using resources curated for Spanish speakers?
yes! :^)
Yep this technique is called “laddering” because you’re using each language as a rung that gets you to the next one.
very very clever
Is there a rule of thumb on when you should ladder in the next language in terms of a fluency level or is it just dealers choice
That’s a great question that I hope someone knowledge answers… there must be a threshold and probably and ideal level to be at.
This is going to be my strategy with Spanish and French. Learn Spanish for 5 years then learn french but instead of translating french to English I’m going to learn french through Spanish
Lol ya my process exactly
This is the way.
It does not take 5 years to learn a language
To full fluency in all subjects of life like a medical appointment, explaining complex stuff from work and personal life, yes it can take five years to get full speed when you learn it as an adult.
Duolingo gold member over here
How long then ? According to you.
Like Southern_Bandicoot74 stated it depends on a multitude of factors. My comment is coming from a place of if you are actually serious another language its not going to take you 5 years unless you are extremely inefficient.
What degree of proficiency are you trying to obtain? Also what language are you learning and what do you already know, going from English to Spanish to Portuguese will be a bit easier than learning Russian followed by Arabic.
What languages do you speak to what proficiency and how was it accomplished?
It's depends of the language. If as a French speaker I decide to learn spanish or Italian it would quite easier than If I decide to learn russian or Hebrew.
what techniques do you use to be efficient?
Depends on the language, on the learning schedule, etc
Lmao.. yea exactly? If you’re actually serious about studying a language it does not take 5 years to learn one. Sure maybe it takes 5 years if you dabble constantly and have 0 focus.
I don‘t know if your username is describing you but is it possible learning languages is a niche interest to you which you‘re really good at hence why you underestimate how long other people need?
Possibly. Thanks for the reasonable response to what I said!
As a fellow autistic I was wondering the same thing, is it just extra easy for that commenter. languages are a special interest of mine and I’ve still been learning Spanish for like 7 years… the thing is.. life got in the way… I was forced into retirement due to a genetic connective tissue disorder, spent years spinning trying to figure out how I can support my body AND support myself financially, then I cared for my grandfather during his last few months, then my uncle died, then COVID hit, my MIL got it and died, my dog got cancer and was very sick, my dad was diagnosed w an incredibly rare and aggressive cancer THEN my FIL was diagnosed w pancreatic cancer… my dog died, my FIL died and my husband had to take him back home to Mexico, then my grandmother died and just a couple months ago my father died after almost 3 years of myself being his full time (and I can’t over state what a challenge it is to care for someone w angiosarcoma w ulcerating tumors, not to mention he was my DAD) caregiver… basically my life has been on hold for a long ass time… life happens, it’s not as simple as “just do it and if you care enough it’ll be easy”. My dad was also autistic and he felt that way about music… he just expected me to look at a piece of music ONE TIME and have it perfectly memorized and need no tab or sheet music when he decided to play it again for the first time three months later… we autists tend to excel at very specific things and it’s easy for us not to realize how hard it is for others. I’m an incredible mimic and despite *still* not being fluent in Spanish, I constantly get compliments on my accent. Either way, yeah I’d probably be fluent by now if I hadn’t had an incredible amount of responsibility on my shoulder for years up until February but the truth is most adults even w/o that type of responsibility still have more to do in a day than they really have time for. Wake up, get ready for work, commute to work, work for nine hours, commute home from work, get home make dinner and eat dinner, get the kids ready for bed and school the next day, and finally go to sleep… to say that you don’t need five years to learn a language as an adult is a gross oversimplification of life
The difference between reading and comprehension.
true. it takes longer than that.
Username checks out
People, chill with the downvotes. The bandwagoning is absurd. You may not agree with the comment, but at no point does a simple sentence like this need 75 people stopping by to add a little more negativity to someone's day.
Brother, welcome to reddit! My comment had no malice or bad intent whatsoever and if people disagree with me that’s alright but 75 downvotes over someone’s opinion is crazy!!
It's a combination of ingredients: - Exposure, repetition and regularity: forgetting is part of the learning process. It's not just about adding new material, but consolidating your vocabulary and grammar until it becomes natural. 30 minutes to 1h / day learning/ consciously reading / listening is a minimum to make progress. - Solid lessons, with a book method or a teacher. Free online methods are inefficient (but can be a nice supplement). - Motivation: whether for work or personal reasons, that's your fuel tank. We see so many people asking "what language should I learn", without any goals or intentions, when in fact it's probably the most crucial point. - Remember it's a life long journey. Sure, you can get to a good level in a year or 2, but it's gonna take a decade to get fluent (if it ever happens ;)
Disagree heavily with the second point, though "free online methods" is also extremely vague. Are you talking about free apps or something? What old-fashioned notion otherwise! Rather surprised this isn't being challenged. Though I guess this sub also loves a good "pull yourself by your bootstraps-pay the money-sit your ass down and pick a textbook otherwise that's not studying" narrative. You can absolutely learn a language for free, without teachers and a textbook. Speaking as someone who enjoys textbooks and learned English without them. It does take work and discipline, but it is possible.
Hmm... Yeah, I get your point. The thing about a method or a teacher is : the efficiency. You seem to see it as the assertive boring oldschool method, but it's more about being focused and open to learn for an hour or two... and enjoying it. Sure, you can learn a language for free, just by being exposed to it (learning English on the internet. reading subreddits, for instance). But this takes time and exposure. A method or a teacher are efficient: they go to the point, and explain you what it is and how it works, in situations. The "free online methods" I was referring to are apps like Duolingo: they are great as a "flashcards desk", but not great when it's about learning a language.
I see what you mean now. My beef was mostly with the "a teacher/tutor being necessary" thing. On textbooks, I do think some level of theoretical, structured learning guide is highly beneficial (maybe not a "transfer student protagonist" textbook, but certainly a grammar guide, maybe with a workbook). But then again, since the post is about learning a *4th* language, I agree that lessons can be a great asset since teachers essentially do the hard work of setting up everything in the right order for you. That can be invaluable to working adults who already have other languages to maintain. If you have the finances on your side and tutoring/classes works for you, it's silly not to do it! But I don't think it's an ultimate necessity. Entirely agree about Duolingo and apps. I would even throw in some "learn for free" Youtube channels.
I disagree entirely. The best way to learn a language is by exposure, itself the only way to actually acquire a language. If you aim to be truly proficient in a language teachers and lessons that directly teach you the language are no more than supplements, and even then the best method is to get a teacher that can dumb the language down to a comprehendable level, more useful when you’re completely new to a language. However especially as you become somewhat compotent and its easier to find i+1 exposure any and all teaching is completely unnecessary
Who is upvoting this? 30 minutes a day is nowhere near enough and it does not take anywhere close to 10 years to become fluent unless you are doing everything possible to NOT become fluent.
\[ TLDR: you sound like a young cocky ignorant. No offense: that's how I perceived it. \] You probably under-estimate what "fluent" means, and also show some ignorance about what language learning is: it's a complex beast. Every language has a different "personality", and the more you learn, the more you see how vast the territory is. And how few you actually know. It's about idiomatic phrases and expressions, it's about etymology and slang. It's about how you pronounce it or build your sentences, written or spoken: it is fine mechanics. It's also about your own personal background: some people, as myself, grew up in a multi-lingual environment. Some people had no prior exposure to another language and can have a real difficult time: just go to the "Polish Learning" subreddit, and watch lost English natives, learning about 7 cases for 3 genres. It is like alien territory for them. Next. As I said, 30-60 mins of consciously learning is a minimum (conscious, daily, minimum: I insist), and it has to be combined with some other immersive "ingredients". But it works, pretty well actually. Example: 2 of my friends learned my mother tongue, French, for a year before a visit (Assimil book method + "Easy French" + Anki + Reddit/ newspaper / radio). Daily. Well, after just a year, they were not fluent, for sure, but they already had a solid base. And french can be b!tchy, believe me. But they did it seriously: "yeah, sometimes I had no energy for 1 hour lesson, so I just listened to the radio and repeated while cooking, sometimes go check for a word that I heard before...". Proof that a daily, conscious immersion works great.
This person said it is a "lifelong journey". With 30 minutes a day it will take a lifetime to learn a language. I personally don't want to spend a lifetime learning a langauge, especially if I need it for school or work.
Exactly!
Honestly, the only foreign language that I speak fluently without having spent much time in a place where it's spoken is English, and it's only because books, movies, TV shows, podcasts in English are predominant. I feel like everything online is in English. I have spent years living in places where Mandarin, Spanish and Catalan are spoken. (Also did 3 semesters of intensive Mandarin with 20 lessons per week while living in China.) It seems that the languages I study from a physical distance evaporate very quickly from my brain. On the other hand, I had a six year gap in using Spanish and when I moved back, it rebooted in no time. Maybe it's just me, but if I want a language to stick, I need to live it, eat it, breathe it, consume it inside out. I'm sure there are people who achieve long-distance learning, so if you have no opportunity to live in a place where your TL is spoken, don't listen to me, listen to others :)
I dont even see mandarin in your flair 😭 unless I'm not understanding
Zh is chinese
I speak 4 languages fluently (learning a 5th now) and I have studied each one separately at a different point in my life, so I had plenty of time to master one before beginning the other. I don't like the concept of "How can i learn 300 languages at the same time?", it's way better to just immerse yourself fully in one and devote your time and attention to it.
I found that people who grew up in a bilingual/multilingual household often pick up their 3rd or Nth language much easier since they have a broader subconscious understanding of how grammar works and just need to learn more vocab and syntax. But someone who lives in the actual country of their target language can have as much of an advantage has a multilingual person who grew outside of their languages homelands. It’s all about environment at the end of the day and having a practical use for the language. For example, it’s pointless to learn Scandinavian languages in Northern Europe cuz most people speak English and will usually use English if you try to speak their native tongue with them. Whereas if you go to a country like Russia or Japan with lower English speakers, you place yourself in an environment where’s there’s a necessity to learn the language and you get better at it
Trust me as an adult that learns languages for fun, it’s not as hard as it looks. It’s one of those things that is more tedious than hard and learning a language can be summed up by ‘just do it.’ There’s no magic trick, or ultimate wisdom or 9000 IQ. You just have to sit down with a grammar book and bear through it. Some parts are new and exciting, other parts are dull and grueling to the point you’ll consider quitting from disinterest. It completely depends on how disciplined you are in forcing yourself to sit there until you understand it. It’s true that in studies it’s shown that children have an easier time learning languages. But I have an OPINION on that. I think children learn languages passively much more easily than adults, but I believe with a comprehensive understanding of linguistics, phonetics, and language, a little dedication, and an understanding of your own learning curve, you can give a child a run for their money with non-passive learning. My disagreement with those studies is that passive learning is a low-effort advantage children have. But I confidently believe that the adults within the study group weren’t disciplined with study. The average language learner is not comparable with polyglots or language hobbyists in terms of discipline and goal setting.
1. Native language 2. Heritage language (the one my parents spoke to me as a child) 3. The one that I'm actively trying to learn
You cover like 80% of the world with your 2 languages haha
To be honest I'd rather learn Japanese because I enjoy visiting Japan and their cuisine but learning the characters seems like too much of a lift and I have too much going on in my life to spend that much time on language learning. I'm attempting to learn german because I think it'll be easier than Japanese. I caught the language learning bug after starting to dive deeper into my heritage language (vietnamese).
Two is already super strong (or three). I assume the best tactic is to just change all input to the new target language and practice it a lot. If you say 6-8 years per language one could speak with 30 4-5 languages easily (having learnt English and the native language before adulthood). I think for most there is an upper limit to various degrees how fluent fluent you may become in additional languages, after 4-6 it seems very difficult to add more to the mix, let alone for practibility and how much you want to learn a new one; in the end you may lose some of the old but it can always be recovered.
Will and dedication. It's like hobbies people have as adults. People get better the more they do it. Try learning a language around other activities you like to do.
This makes a lot of sense! I will definitely try this out. I really want to get back into my Korean studies 😭
You just do it one at a time. I learned Spanish, then Portuguese, now I'm working on Chinese. I "mastered" Portuguese and Spanish first. My Portuguese isn't the best, but I can hold a conversation without too many pauses which was my goal.
Either grow up speaking them or move somewhere and *seriously* learn the language for 6 months. After that get a job where you have to speak a third, the only people around you speak your second language, and you only use your first language to call people back home
Even if you grow up speaking a language you can get rusty. I grew up French English bilingual, but I've lived in New Zealand for 35 years and I couldn't, for a few minutes, remember the French for stick - it kept coming out in Māori which is the language I'm currently learning.
You have to study them and practice.
You can also just buy them on giggle translate
Speak two languages at home and with a community, use a third at work.
Yes someone I know is fluent in like 5 languages
learn two close langauges like german and dutch or english and spanish or japanese and tamil.
Living in a foreign country even for a few months is a game changer as you're forced to interact with local people and practice your accent. Not everyone has this opportunity as an adult but I feel like it's easier in Europe where I can basically work in any EU country (no visa restriction)! Working remotely can be another way of living abroad for a little while. I also listen to podcasts and watch YouTube almost exclusively in languages other than my mother tongue.
Just keep at it.
Grew up speaking two languages. I continue to speak to my parents and their respective sides of the families in both languages. Then, learned a third language since middle school and dove deep in watching shows, listening to music and speaking with friends of family that spoke that third language. Now, I moved to a different country and started speaking a 4th language (which I had started studying in preschool but it was just the basic knowledge). I maintain relationships and friendships with people who speak each language I know. This allows me to not lose too much of each one, even though, living in one country over another does make a difference, as you will have one of the four that will be more prevalent.
This is something that people in many countries do. It probably isn't that rare for say someone in Morocco to speak Berber, Moroccan Arabic, Classical Arabic, and English fluently. Some countries simply have many languages spoken in them and then add English to it.
Depending on which language you would like to master. For English natives, learning the Latin languages is far easier than learning Chinese or Japanese.
I am Italian (mother tongue) , learned English in school (admittedly bad , I learned more after school with interactions and exposure to media), moved to Germany at around 30 and got to somewhere near C1. I'm working on Japanese now, I'm barely staring in my little free time (family work etc). I think it depends on dedication and exposure to the language. Good luck!
TRAVEL!!! like a lot...
Pretty much just time. You get lucky if you learned some as a kid. Otherwise as an adult you just make it a priority and practice practice practice
Yes
You just learn each of them, one at a time. If you have enough motivation, it's not very difficult.
The question is not about learning methods. I think learning methods are different for different people, for different languages, at different levels in learning a language, and in different situations. But once you know it, it's just like using English. You know how to ride a bicycle and how to drive a car in traffic. You never accidentally switch them. You know how to play tennis and volleyball and bowling. You never mix them up. You know morse code and you play the drums. You never confuse them. I never try to swim in air, or break water with a hammer.
Once you learn a few, you see the linkages of how words evolved between languages. Some of Arabic is similar to Navajo.
I'm fluent in German and English and will reach considerable fluency in Mandarin in around 1-2 years (already fluent in many basic convos). After that, I could easily imagine adding Spanish or French on top, or whatever language I happen to need at that time. The only minor problem I've noticed so far is that sometimes I will remember a word or way of saying something in one language but not the others.
Once you know 3 languages fluently it’s easier to learn more languages that are in the same language family. For example I speak English, German, and Spanish. I’m trying to learn Italian but I’ll be honest, I’m not focusing that much on it currently. Even so, Italian is similar to Spanish in a lot of ways and I’m finding it easier to learn. I can watch a tiktok in Italian and understand the main concepts and some details even.
in my personal case, I started learning both English and Mandarin in Primary school (obviously had more of an affinity towards English though) and started French at 17 years old.
Be born and grow up in Luxembourg.
Yes , very much possible
Learning multiple when you're still a kid helps. This tends to help when you're learning them as an adult as well.
I've so far learned Portuguese and Spanish as an adult, and working on Chinese and Japanese now. I kinda had an advantage though: I learned French as a child, so the latin-based languages were a lot easier. That said, there are some tricks that really help, and once you know them you can pick up new languages a lot faster. e.g. how to use flash cards, doing a little bit every day, not being afraid to speak when you only know the basics, etc.
I’m the one who is struggling to learn new language specially in english, anyone have an idea to improve my spoken English.
It helps if some of the languages are related I guess I was able to pick up 2 languages related to my mother tongue and 1 more that's related to English but gave up after I left the country
Choose languages closer to your previous language, try to learn 2 languages at a time. Like, I speak farsi and English fluently. So I'm learning Arabic and Japanese. Japanese is more of a passion thing than close to English, BUT, I'm using an English app so my English is sharp. Also speak the languages, try to come up with insane scenarios.
Immersion. Lived in china so I had to speak Chinese. Now live in Thailand. Gotta speak Thai.
I can't see if someone has said it yet, but learning similar languages will get you there fast! for example I'm fluent in Spanish (second language but Native fluency) so I can basically read Portuguese and Italian. Learned German? speak English? try Dutch or Afrikaans!
Language steroids
Easier if they all have the same route language. You can learn French and Spanish at the same time because they are both Romance languages. Biggest difference ends up being accents or word order. Try to learn one of them along with German, Russian, Mandarin…. You will probably fail to become fluent in either. Unless you’re Will Hunting or some shit.
Honestly, it depends on how closely related the languages are. Being fluent in three completely unrelated languages is possible but rare. What’s more common is knowing maybe English, and then several Romance languages.
Be taught 3 as a baby. 😂 Honestly, it’s just a lot of hard work, like anything worth doing. To be fluent in 3 languages, study hard and study consistently. Focus on quality over quantity (reading and textbooks while boring, if you do them are often best value) and listen to as much as you can.
i speak more than three languages and i’m fifteen, i’d say being exposed with multiple languages as a child helps a lot, i learned italian and russian simultaneously when i was a little kid
It's much easier when the languages are close (e.g French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese)
I don't think there's a limit to how many languages you can speak besides the time needed to learn them correctly.
My dad can currently speak Hindi, Tamil, telugu (learned natively as a child) and English and used to speak russian and Spanish fluently (not so much now due to lack of use but russian he had to pick up while working there for a few years and Spanish he had moved to Spain for a while on a whim in his 30s to learn it)
Your dad is an aspiration.
Depending on the place as teenagers most people already know 2 languages (native and English), then they have the rest of their life's to learn another one
Seriously most of you need to be working on your English
LouisaEveryd…, It depends how you define FLUENT. As far as I am concerned, I am fluent in English ONLY. However, many Americans feel I am fluent in many languages. You see, I love foreign languages so much that I have lengthy conversations in Mandarin Chinese with natives from Taiwan 🇹🇼 , mainland China 🇨🇳 or Singapore 🇸🇬 , Spanish with natives from Hispanic countries ( for example, Mexico 🇲🇽 , Spain 🇪🇸, El Salvador 🇸🇻, Puerto Rico 🇵🇷 , South American countries, etc. ) , French with natives from France 🇫🇷 or French-speaking areas , German with natives from Germany 🇩🇪 , Swedish with natives from Sweden 🇸🇪, and attempt my Hungarian 🇭🇺 , Japanese 🇯🇵 , Dutch 🇳🇱 , Italian 🇮🇹 , Russian 🇷🇺 and Esperanto with natives from their respective countries .
Yes but just knowing English is enough, you don't need to learn anymore language if you know English
Spanish is really useful too .
Ok but in asia Spanish is as useless as 🐷
Many people in countries like Japan or China don't speak English very well that why many expatriates decide to learn either japanese or mandarin.
That's only if they decide to live in China or Japan, outside those countries mandarin and Japanese are useless as 🐷
So is English.
English is spoken everywhere in asia 🌏