More Experience -> Fewer Resources?

[katarinaantalya]

Hey all!

I was curious if anyone else has found that the more languages they learn, the fewer materials they need to do so. German was the first language I learned, starting when I was fourteen, and I must have eighty to a hundred books on my shelf for it - courses, reference grammars, practice books, dictionaries, novels, you name it. The next, French, I have probably half as many resources for, even though I lived in Montreal, where such things were easy to find, much more so than for German. For my most recent language, Swedish, though, I have the Teach Yourself course and that's absolutely it.

Has this been the case for any of the rest of you? Does superior familiarity with the intricacies of language learning automatically lead to a reduction in desire for outside support?

[Gordafarin2]

I think as you gain experience you get a sense of your personal learning style and your goals in the language.

So on your first language, you might dabble in a bunch of different courses, and find that you really like TY but dislike Pimsleur (for example). You might realise that you only care about reading literature, so you don't waste your time practicing speaking. OR the opposite, you've spent your time going through 5 reading-focused textbooks when you needed something more well-rounded.

I do like to have at least more than 1 instruction material to refer to, though. It can help to have the same topic explained to you in different ways. But yes, I absolutely have fallen into a 'routine' now, whereas when I first started learning on my own, I did a lot more wandering around trying to figure out what worked!