What now?

General discussion about learning languages
queenkatherine__
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What now?

Postby queenkatherine__ » Thu Aug 05, 2021 9:54 pm

Okay, so my story is a tricky one. First, I started learning Spanish, and it was going smoothly and amazingly. Then, I was like, I'll try French since Spanish is going so well. And I completely fell in love with French. And I left my Spanish. So, what now? Should I get to c1 in French (which'll take around a year) or learn both Spanish and French at the same time? I'm definitely more advanced in Spanish, but if I leave French for even a week, I feel like I'll lose my entire progress, since French requires so much attention. Should I ''finish'' learning French and only then pick up Spanish, or should I learn both at the same time?
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Deinonysus
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Re: What now?

Postby Deinonysus » Thu Aug 05, 2021 10:33 pm

I switch languages a lot and my general observation is that whatever level I have reached with a language, it will rust a bit but I will never lose it, and if I haven't used a language in a while and get rusty it usually takes me a couple of weeks to review and get back to my previous level. You certainly won't lose everything you've learned if you don't reach C1. I'm maybe around a B2 in French and I can drop it for months and still be able to pick up a French book and read it. Spoken French is a bit trickier, when I get rusty it takes me a week or two of watching the news every day before I can understand it for extended periods without a lot of effort.

I personally prefer to work on one language at a time, but if you're able to set up a routine where you're able to make good progress in both I don't see any harm in it. You can always adjust your routine as you go along depending on your motivation, time availability, and goals.
Last edited by Deinonysus on Fri Aug 06, 2021 12:46 am, edited 1 time in total.
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iguanamon
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Re: What now?

Postby iguanamon » Thu Aug 05, 2021 11:09 pm

queenkatherine__ wrote:...Should I get to c1 in French (which'll take around a year) or learn both Spanish and French at the same time? I'm definitely more advanced in Spanish, but if I leave French for even a week, I feel like I'll lose my entire progress, since French requires so much attention. Should I ''finish'' learning French and only then pick up Spanish, or should I learn both at the same time?

First, welcome to the forum, queenkatherine! All I can do is tell you about my own experience and my observations after 11 years on this forum and its predecessor.

Edit: With egg on my face for not having looked at your profile! Yes, you have what it takes to learn them both simulataneously. It will require scheduling and discipline, but you have proven yo can do this. Best of luck and apologies for not noticing your language experience.
Last edited by iguanamon on Fri Aug 06, 2021 12:05 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Le Baron
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Re: What now?

Postby Le Baron » Thu Aug 05, 2021 11:15 pm

queenkatherine__ wrote:Should I get to c1 in French (which'll take around a year)...

A year? Really? If it's only going to take a year I think you should go for it and learn them together.

Is Hungarian your native language?
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smallwhite
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Re: What now?

Postby smallwhite » Fri Aug 06, 2021 8:15 am

Alternating roughly 6 weeks each worked well for me.
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s_allard
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Re: What now?

Postby s_allard » Fri Aug 06, 2021 4:01 pm

queenkatherine__ wrote:Okay, so my story is a tricky one. First, I started learning Spanish, and it was going smoothly and amazingly. Then, I was like, I'll try French since Spanish is going so well. And I completely fell in love with French. And I left my Spanish. So, what now? Should I get to c1 in French (which'll take around a year) or learn both Spanish and French at the same time? I'm definitely more advanced in Spanish, but if I leave French for even a week, I feel like I'll lose my entire progress, since French requires so much attention. Should I ''finish'' learning French and only then pick up Spanish, or should I learn both at the same time?


My own opinion is that it would be best to work on one language at a time and get it to a high enough level where you will have a really solid base that you can always go back to. The obvious problem with learning two related languages
simultaneously if that you will mix them up. The many superficial similarities between French and Spanish will be a cause of confusion. What you want to able to do is to switch the language on in your head and feel that you are totally in the language. All the words that come to be mind will be French or Spanish and preferably not both. Remember that you are dealing with three languages, including English. That makes for a lot of words circulating in your brain. I suggest you stick to one language before working on another.
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Cavesa
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Re: What now?

Postby Cavesa » Wed Aug 11, 2021 8:38 am

Welcome to the forum!

I recommend learning both languages, because you don't gain much by postponing any of them at this point, and you want to learn them both (and might actually miss out on opportunities in the postponed language). The "damage" has already been done, the interference will remain and the only way to get fully rid of it is improving both foreign languages. You will not learn that much faster at the higher level, if you give up the beginner language anyways.

But of course there are factors that need to be considered and adjusted: how much time you can put into language learning? How do you want to divide it between the two? What methods are you using for each?

More time leads to more progress (even though the relation between the two is not that simple), different methods tend to lead to less confusion. Tons of listening helps against the interference enormously too.

Two languages are actually not that many, I'd say the main worries are related to learning each of them, not learning the two of them together.
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Kraut
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Re: What now?

Postby Kraut » Wed Aug 11, 2021 9:30 am

I'm a teacher of French (now retired) and have to completely switch it off now that I'm learning Spanish since it is too overwhelming. While both languages share vocabulary, French phonetics will be a major problem.

Therefore I would first study French and take it to fluency and then go back to Spanish with its easy letter/phoneme correlation. Knowing English and French already will then make Spanish easy.
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garyb
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Re: What now?

Postby garyb » Fri Aug 13, 2021 8:30 pm

If you can get from A2 to C1 in a year, you're probably already a more expert language learner than most of us here!

I've had similar dilemmas - in fact, my story is similar as I started with French and then soon decided I wanted to learn Spanish and Italian too - and it feels like a head versus heart thing. Getting one to a high level before starting the next makes the most sense logically, since you'll confuse them less and benefit more from the similarities and so learn the second one more quickly, so that's what I chose. However my plan had a big flaw: it didn't consider that life is unpredictable or that motivation (in my case, from having opportunities to use the language) was a factor at least as important as knowledge of similar languages.

So I kept focusing on French, despite the Spanish friends I was hanging out and partying with. Despite the big Spanish community in my city. Despite the language exchange evenings where the French table usually just had a handful of beginners while the Spanish one on the other side of the room was always buzzing with native speakers. Thinking that the investment in my French would pay off one day when I'd cash it in to reach fluency in Spanish in a matter of months and be able to take full advantage of these situations. And the theory seemed all the more credible when I picked up Italian next, another language that featured heavily in my social life, and did learn the basics very quickly. That was with one similar language under my belt; imagine how fast it would be with two!

What actually happened in the end was that by the time I reached a level I was happy with in French and Italian (around a high B2), things were different. Social circles change and people come and go, and I no longer hung out regularly with Spaniards. The community in my city had shrunk, or at least settled down and become much less visible. That language exchange event had all but died. I have (or at least had...) an advanced level in French, a language that I don't have and have never really had much use for. I've now been learning Spanish for a good few years, but since it's not a part of my life like it was back then I've just not had the same motivation and my progress has been very unimpressive. I do kinda wish I had followed my heart, seized the moment, struck while the iron was hot, etc. and just dropped French for Spanish when I saw that the latter had much more to offer me.
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