I only do what's easy and fun

[Tomás]

I have learned Spanish to a good intermediate level over the past year-and-a-half, and I have a bit of leftover French from when I was a child living in various African countries. I had assumed that French would be my next language project after Spanish. But now Hindi has popped onto the radar screen, simply because I love Indian classical music and have a vague dream of reading its musicology in the original language.

So here's my current crazy scheme: I am studying Hindi from a Spanish base via "Hindi para Principiantes" (a translation of Rupert Snell's "Teach Yourself Hindi for Beginners" -- an excellent course). It's going fine so far.

But then I felt Assimil deprived. I loved Assimil for getting started with Spanish, but Assimil only has French and German bases for Hindi. So I got the French base and am working through it. The first lessons are going fine. I have only had to look up a few French words so far.

But using the French-based Assimil to learn Hindi gave me the itch to finally get to French, so I am using the Spanish-based Assimil course to study French. I know that studying two new languages simultaneously is not recommended, but my excuse is that I already know baby French from my childhood and so I am not really exerting myself that much to pop through a lesson of Mauger or Assimil once a day.

I have had this dream of learning French from FSI, mostly because I remember my father studying French from that very same course back in the mid-1960s when he was in the Foreign Service and I was a child and we were stationed in Cameroon. It would be nostalgic for me to replicate Dad's experience. But the fact is that I have realized that I like learning the receptive language skills and lack the motivation for drilling and killing my output skills. I'm probably never going to do FSI.

Anyway, although I've been maintaining my Spanish just fine, I haven't been on this forum for months, but this is my new double switchback triangulation approach. Someone talk me out of it!

[Random Review]

Sounds great fun to me! As long as you are following your joy, that is the main thing. Unless you are studying for a specific professional goal or have a native speaker for your partner, what other point is there to studying a language?

[Brun Ugle]

I don't see anything wrong with studying two languages at once. It's just a matter of time. Since you're splitting your available time in two, it'll take longer to reach an advanced level. I think studying two languages at once can be a problem for someone who's never learned a language before because they don't know what they're doing. If you add all the trial and error and frustration of learning your first language to the problem of splitting your time, it makes failure more likely. Since you've already learned Spanish, you already know what works for you and you know how to keep going in the face of difficulties.

To me, your double switchback triangulation sounds great. I think when you get further into the French-based course, it might be a struggle, but if you're prepared for a bit of dictionary work, it shouldn't be too much of a hindrance.

[blaurebell]

No, I won't talk you out of it French is awesome and if you know Spanish and English it's incredibly easy to pick up, tons of vocabulary and grammar overlap. With prior knowledge even more of a plus! Also, since the two languages you are learning are not close and you're using one as the base for the other you'll have no issues with mixing them up. Good choice to pick Spanish base for French, this way you will pay special attention to all the similarities and differences. I really should have done that!

By the way, I learned French to learn Russian from it. Or at least that was my excuse However, when laddering from a weaker language I find that learning from 2 different languages as a base more effective, because that way you get the actual concepts linked up with new vocabulary and not words in one language to words in the new language. Otherwise I might end up with a weird vocabulary procession in my head that goes English -> French -> Russian, rather than concept -> Russian.

[Tomás]

Eighteen months ago I began learning Spanish as an adult. I studied fairly diligently for six months--courses, Anki, etc. Then I stopped studying altogether. For the past year I've only done what's easy and fun. No Anki, no studying. I rarely even look up words.

But I still do something in Spanish every day. I am still improving, but at a much slower rate than I would if I studied. Still, I have successfully read some novels, listened to some audiobooks, watched some TV shows, and completed some online college courses.

This week I added French and Hindi. French is easy and fun. I am eight lessons into Assimil's El nuevo francés sin esfuerzo. It's not fun but it is easy for me. I've LRed Journal en Francais facile every morning. That is not easy, but it is fun. I've watched four episodes of French in Action. That is both easy and fun. I've even begun to read some Inspector Maigret--very difficult for me, but sort of fun.

Hindi so far is neither easy nor fun. I have studied two chapters in Hindi para Principiantes, and done several lessons of Assimil. It feels like work to me. I've learned a few symbols in the Devanagari writing system. That is not easy, but it is sort of diverting. I am going to buy a fountain pen with a right oblique nib. I enjoy calligraphy a little bit, and so maybe I can make learning Devanagari more fun if I treat it as calligraphy instead of work.

I really need to get to the point where I can consume native materials in Hindi, but that seems much farther off for Hindi than it was for Spanish or will be for French. Clearly learning the writing system is a necessary first step. I won't even be able to complete Assimil without learning the writing, because it drops all romanization halfway through the course.

[Tomás]

After one week of study, I've decided to set Hindi aside. For one thing, I really need to learn Devanagari script before studying Hindi seriously. I will do that as a side calligraphy hobby so that I can read Indian music. I really only need to learn seven characters out of the alphabet for reading music, so I will at least do that. But I am leaving the language alone for now. It is just too difficult and too much, especially when I am also dealing with Spanish and French.

Meanwhile, after one week my French is roaring ahead. I am already watching Tintin cartoons and reading Inspector Maigret Easy Readers. I only get about half of the words, but it's enough to follow the story. The benefit of already having one language under my belt is that I have developed a high tolerance for ambiguity and not knowing what is going on, and also developed skills in guessing meaning from context.

I'm doing a ten-day, 1000-word Anki campaign. I have the 5000-word French deck, and in six more days I will own the thousand most frequent words in French. Then I will take a break from Anki. I learned from my experience with a Spanish Anki firehose that I burn out. But I think if I intersperse ten-day, 1000-word campaigns with some breaks n between that I should have all 5,000 words within three or four months.

I get a huge discount in French from knowing Spanish and English. It takes me longer to recognize the Spanish cognates than the English. The downside though is that now I have false friends in two different languages. That's twice the odds of guessing wrong!

[Tomás]

English: to be bothered
Spanish: ser molestado
French: Être dérangé

In English, to be deranged and molested are far more serious outcomes than being bothered.