Does the time investment in a new language put you off learning it?

General discussion about learning languages
User avatar
rdearman
Site Admin
Posts: 7231
Joined: Thu May 14, 2015 4:18 pm
Location: United Kingdom
Languages: English (N)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1836
x 23120
Contact:

Does the time investment in a new language put you off learning it?

Postby rdearman » Thu Apr 15, 2021 7:41 am

Having learned one other language does that put you off learning another? If so, why? If not, why?
1 x
: 0 / 150 Read 150 books in 2024

My YouTube Channel
The Autodidactic Podcast
My Author's Newsletter

I post on this forum with mobile devices, so excuse short msgs and typos.

User avatar
verdastelo
Orange Belt
Posts: 202
Joined: Sun Jan 31, 2016 1:20 pm
Languages: Punjabi (N), Hindi-Urdu (near-native), English (C1+), Russian (B1+), French (A2+), Chinese (A1+), Kannada (A0+)
x 740

Re: Does the ti e investment in a new language put you off learning it?

Postby verdastelo » Thu Apr 15, 2021 10:04 am

It does, unless you are really passionate about your new language(s). I realised it last year when, despite spending ~500 hours on Russian, I was nowhere near the level where I could put away my Oxford Russian-English dictionary and jump into literature. Towards the end of the year I was able to more or less grasp the lectures from Arzamas and relish Diesel Show, but anything even moderately serious was beyond my scope. It was a humbling experience. As a consequence, instead of adding more languages to my routine in 2021, I am focused on improving Russian. I have postponed learning Sanskrit and German to next year or the year after that. Japanese and Korean will get their turn sometime around 2025. As for Bengali, Telugu, Persian, Hebrew, Yiddish, and others, I don't know when I'll get to them.

However, I couldn't put off French because I was learning it concurrently with Russian last year. So I am still slogging through my copy of Assimil French with Ease. Moreover, René Girard and Andreï Makine have got me interested in French as a language, not just as a tool. Also, I couldn't put off Chinese because the characters are absolutely adorable. Instead of putting off Chinese, I made a partial exception and decided to start reading and writing. Not exaggerating. There are times when I can write and type whole sentences and don't have a clue on how to pronounce some characters. For instance, "I want [to go]! When does the game end?" is 想啊!比賽幾點結束? But I again forgot how to pronounce 結束 (to end). Damn! :o

Image
Last edited by verdastelo on Fri Apr 16, 2021 1:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
6 x
The life of man is but a succession of vain hopes and groundless fears. — Monte(s)quieu

User avatar
Le Baron
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3505
Joined: Mon Jan 18, 2021 5:14 pm
Location: Koude kikkerland
Languages: English (N), fr, nl, de, eo, Sranantongo,
Maintaining: es, swahili.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=18796
x 9384

Re: Does the ti e investment in a new language put you off learning it?

Postby Le Baron » Thu Apr 15, 2021 1:52 pm

rdearman wrote:Having learned one other language does that put you off learning another? If so, why? If not, why?


Do you mean in terms of languages which are related or in groups (romance etc...)? Or perhaps something like: having failed at Cantonese (I did), feeling apprehensive about tackling Mandarin?

In general I take each language as a separate entity, even though they might be related (e.g. Spanish-Italian) which may be a help or a hindrance. However, having failed with Cantonese I am indeed not all that motivated to launch myself into something like Mandarin.
0 x

User avatar
Steve
Orange Belt
Posts: 169
Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2016 7:53 am
Location: US (Wisconsin)
Languages: English(N), Spanish (Intermediate), Ancient Greek (Intermediate), Hebrew (Beginner), ASL (Beginner), German (Beginner)
x 801
Contact:

Re: Does the ti e investment in a new language put you off learning it?

Postby Steve » Thu Apr 15, 2021 1:58 pm

Yes and no. It encourages me as to what is possible but it also makes me more realistic about what is possible. Basically, it makes me more selective about what I put my time into so I can get closer to what I really want to be able to do.
4 x

User avatar
rdearman
Site Admin
Posts: 7231
Joined: Thu May 14, 2015 4:18 pm
Location: United Kingdom
Languages: English (N)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1836
x 23120
Contact:

Re: Does the ti e investment in a new language put you off learning it?

Postby rdearman » Thu Apr 15, 2021 4:13 pm

Le Baron wrote:
rdearman wrote:Having learned one other language does that put you off learning another? If so, why? If not, why?


Do you mean in terms of languages which are related or in groups (romance etc...)? Or perhaps something like: having failed at Cantonese (I did), feeling apprehensive about tackling Mandarin?

In general I take each language as a separate entity, even though they might be related (e.g. Spanish-Italian) which may be a help or a hindrance. However, having failed with Cantonese I am indeed not all that motivated to launch myself into something like Mandarin.

No I mean languages in general. For me the thought of investing that much time again fills me with apprehension.
2 x
: 0 / 150 Read 150 books in 2024

My YouTube Channel
The Autodidactic Podcast
My Author's Newsletter

I post on this forum with mobile devices, so excuse short msgs and typos.

lichtrausch
Blue Belt
Posts: 511
Joined: Thu Jul 23, 2015 3:21 pm
Languages: English (N), German, Japanese, Mandarin, Korean
x 1379

Re: Does the ti e investment in a new language put you off learning it?

Postby lichtrausch » Thu Apr 15, 2021 4:59 pm

rdearman wrote:Does the time investment in a new language put you off learning it?

How could it not? We are all (for the time being) stuck with a severely limited lifespan. Turkish, Tamil, and Arabic are three languages I would love to learn but can't imagine finding the time to do so.
4 x

golyplot
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1726
Joined: Mon Jan 16, 2017 9:41 pm
Languages: Am. English (N), German, French, ASL (abandoned), Spanish, Dutch, Italian, Japanese (N2)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=12230
x 3404

Re: Does the ti e investment in a new language put you off learning it?

Postby golyplot » Thu Apr 15, 2021 5:04 pm

I've definitely been thinking a lot about this, especially after discovering how hard Japanese is. I keep thinking "do you really want to go through this again?"
1 x

User avatar
Le Baron
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3505
Joined: Mon Jan 18, 2021 5:14 pm
Location: Koude kikkerland
Languages: English (N), fr, nl, de, eo, Sranantongo,
Maintaining: es, swahili.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=18796
x 9384

Re: Does the ti e investment in a new language put you off learning it?

Postby Le Baron » Thu Apr 15, 2021 5:47 pm

rdearman wrote:No I mean languages in general. For me the thought of investing that much time again fills me with apprehension.

Ah...oh yes indeed. It's astonishing how time makes you temporarily forget the sheer slog involved at the intermediate stages.

I've learned my lesson enough to make sure I at least don't get foolish ideas of embarking upon another, fooling myself with: 'I'll just dabble to A1 for distraction'.
0 x

User avatar
einzelne
Blue Belt
Posts: 804
Joined: Sat Mar 17, 2018 11:33 pm
Languages: Russan (N), English (Working knowledge), French (Reading), German (Reading), Italian (Reading on Kindle)
x 2882

Re: Does the ti e investment in a new language put you off learning it?

Postby einzelne » Thu Apr 15, 2021 6:59 pm

Absolutely. Yes, it is true that learning your second language is easier once you get to the advanced level in your first one.

Still, it might be somewhat misleading: sure, now you know what works and what doesn't work for you, you know how to organize your routine in order to progress etc.
Yet there's one thing where you cannot cut corners: you still need to master a huge vocabulary, provided you want to enjoy complex materials targeted at adult educated native speakers (even in case of related languages). Second, it still takes a lot of time to train your ears.
It took me a while before I finally understood that this is actually the real challenge in language learning. I think it happened with my 5th language.

After French, it took me 2 months to reach a solid intermediate level in Italian (passive skills). But I dropped it because I didn't have time to work on my vocabulary.
I fooled around with Latin and dropped it for the same reason (although my major aim is to read New Latin and Mediveal Latin texts which are way easier than Classical Latin).
And I know now that, as much as I love Ancient Greek, it is useless to even try, provided how much time investment it would require.
Time and again, I think about learning Spanish, mainly for nostalgic reasons, since, when I was in my teens and early 20s, I was a big fan of Latin American literature. I would love to read Cortazar in the original. But then I remind myself that I still cannot read Proust and Musil without a dictionary. It would be wiser to spend my time on expanding my vocabulary in the languages I already feel more or less confident (where I can simply read the books I'm generally interested in reading, not some stupid adapted or YA junk, and slowly but steadily expand my low-frequency vocabulary).

Sometimes, I feel really sad about my limited possibilities. But I remind myself that my parents, for instance, didn't have the environment to learn even a single language. I can read literature in three languages. I guess I shouldn't complain after all.
11 x

gsbod
Blue Belt
Posts: 839
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 3:22 pm
Location: UK
Languages: English (native)
German (advanced)
French (intermediate)
Japanese (intermediate)
Spanish (learning)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=1152
x 2900

Re: Does the ti e investment in a new language put you off learning it?

Postby gsbod » Thu Apr 15, 2021 7:04 pm

Yes, sort of. Or at least, once I'd learned a language to C1 level (which was actually the third language I'd seriously tried to learn) it changed my perspective a lot in terms of what is possible, what the benefits are, and what it takes to get there.

I couldn't imagine at any point in the near future deciding to pick up another language from scratch and taking it to a C1/C2 level. It's just too big a commitment, since it would require setting aside sufficient time fairly consistently over a period of 4 years or so, sufficient access to textbooks, tutors, native materials and people to talk to, and a sufficient need to have that language in my life to justify the time and expense.

However, I also appreciate that it's impossible to predict how life's twists and turns will go over the next four years regardless of your intentions, it's hard to gauge how accessible a language is until you spend some real effort trying to access it, and you simply don't know how important a language will become, or not, to you in the future.

So I am still very much open to starting any language, or brushing up a language I have learned previously, as and when the curiosity takes me. I find languages interesting enough in and of themselves that it can be a fun diversion. And if I have travel plans coming up (one day I will), it can be useful getting some tourist level competence in a relevant language even if it gets dropped again as soon as the holiday is over.
10 x


Return to “General Language Discussion”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests