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

[neofight78]

Yes, in fact, and this might be heretical on this forum, I actually mostly advise people not to try to learn another language. Unless you really need it or you love the process, it's a massive cost to pay. Economically speaking, unless you are learning English, for 99% of people spending that time on other skills will be a much better investment. If you are doing it for fun or interest, it's still a massive amount of time you could spend on other hobbies, family, exercise etc. This is not to say you won't get anything out of learning another language, it's just the opportunity cost is huge.

Having said that, some people get home from work and sit in front of the telly all evening, so learning another language beats that

[lysi]

If you are doing it for fun or interest, it's still a massive amount of time you could spend on other hobbies, family, exercise etc. This is not to say you won't get anything out of learning another language, it's just the opportunity cost is huge.

This isn't an entirely fair analysis because the distinction between time spent on languages and time spent learning other skills or doing things you like isn't that clear. 100 hours reading in a foreign language is 100 hours reading and 100 hours learning a foreign language.

[Sonjaconjota]

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?"

That's why I put off starting Japanese. Right now my plan is to go on studying other languages for the next eight years and then start Japanese as a birthday present to myself when I turn fifty. I know that I will want (and need) to dedicate several years practically exclusively to Japanese.

[coldrainwater]

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

Objectively speaking, learning Spanish (first foreign language) to an intermediate level acted as a direct catalyst for learning German and I didn't hesitate in picking or starting my third. However, to answer more generally requires a bit more explanation.

I am strongly tempted by language families that have now become open to me (Romance and Germanic) and the tendency to build receptive skills in those related languages is quite potent. A new family opening up is very much like an entire world opening up and that feeling and desire to learn from native sources [still] far outweighs the various detractors. I am more tempted to adjust my lifestyle and open up more time for learning generally than I am to skimp on the languages and other intellectual pursuits that I care most about.

Prior to learning Spanish, I couldn't claim anything of the sort for Germanic or Romance languages since they were simply too far out of reach and needed to compete with dozens of other equally unknown languages. Strategically, I know I can use parallel texts, LR and the multi-track approach to consume challenging texts almost from day one, so I still look at the process with fresh eyes and feel the challenge suits my learning preferences. Latin also gained in appeal via the acquisition of Spanish and is a strong contender for the fourth spot.

There may be a point to be made in chaining languages from the same family for me, especially with respect to reading. It feels almost wrong not to at least plan on taking what discount may be offered in learning to read a new language based on all the prior effort invested. So the net impact is close to encouragement than being put off. I only need one valid path to my next language that makes sense to see a net benefit and avoid feeling discouraged. There is also the notion of calendar time invested versus hours invested. If I can put in a huge effort and build decent reading skills in say 6-12 months, I perceive that as worth it, even if the hour total is very high (after all I am then only 6-12 months older, not 6-12 years older, which could be the case with much tougher languages).

[Iversen]

If I had 48 hours per day instead of 24 I could start a couple of new languages so it is definitely the time investment that blocks me from doing that.

[Tutescrew]

If the opportunity “lost” is web-surfing, watching Youtube, listening to useless radio in the car, etc, there really isn’t much loss.
True, I could spend that time with some other form of self-improvement like more exercise, volunteering, or some other pursuit that seems noble...but at the moment, just making an attempt to learn a language seems to have immediate benefits, probably because it requires the discipline to forego the useless stuff.

Tutescrew

[golyplot]

Having said that, some people get home from work and sit in front of the telly all evening, so learning another language beats that

But that's how you learn languages!

[lusan]

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.

Agree 100 %.

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.

No way. It takes too much time. Life is very short. French + Italian + English + Spanish + Polish... demasiado! I am drowning. How to add another animal to this farm? I think I have enough with these beasts for the rest of my life.

[einzelne]

This isn't an entirely fair analysis because the distinction between time spent on languages and time spent learning other skills or doing things you like isn't that clear. 100 hours reading in a foreign language is 100 hours reading and 100 hours learning a foreign language.

It is really not that clear indeed. First, even at the advanced stages you reading speed in L2 is slower than in your native language, even when you can read extensively, you can read and digest way more in our native tongue.
Second, you don't mention how many hours of study need to be taken before you can start reading unadapted books without suffering a burnout after the first dozen of pages. It all depends on on L2 and L1 and what type of books you want to read in your L2 (imagine someone who wants to read Thomas Pynchon in the original, or Plato. Hell, I don't envy those who want to read even relatively easy fiction in Japanese or Mandarine!).

A telling example from my own life: I started to learn French because, as a cinephile, I would love to read French books on cinema. What happened is that the first year I basically stopped watch films! So, there will be trade-offs, no matter what.

[vonPeterhof]

The time investment question doesn't really factor into my decision to pick up a language mainly because most of the time I pick up languages with no real goal of "mastering" them, or sometimes just with no real goal period. While on some level I would like to replicate what I've achieved in Japanese with another language (for an additional challenge I'd like to achieve that with a language that has far fewer resources and media available, like Abkhaz or Manchu), it's not really a priority for me right now. Right now I mostly study languages to satisfy my curiosity, so I usually go through a cycle of a "honeymoon" phase where I spent a lot of time on the language, followed by a cooldown phase where the novelty wears off and I eventually move on to another language. Basically time investment doesn't scare me off because I get to decide how much time I want to invest in a particular language.

...except that's not quite the case. While I don't have a problem with quitting learning languages I'm no longer interested in, something akin to the sunk cost fallacy compels me to at least put some effort into retaining what I learned. The problem is that even if I put in the absolute minimum amount of time and effort to this end in a particular language, the fact that by now the languages I've tried out in the past number in the dozens means that it all still adds up to a sizeable chunk of my daily schedule. I've even gone through several cycles of where I cut ties with some of those languages entirely only to start gradually unsuspending the Anki deck several months later. I guess this is something I'll have to think about more and address at some other time...