What was it like after you decided to come back

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Carmody
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What was it like after you decided to come back

Postby Carmody » Mon Apr 25, 2022 4:03 pm

There is a very interesting thread entitled "How far should you take a language if you're bored with?" I am learning lots from it but don't want to hijack it so my question is:

After you took a break of some time from studying your chosen language,

1-Did you go back to studying it again?

2-Did you never go back

2-Did you have to start all over with the language? What percentage did you remember?

3-Why do you think the study break was needed?

4-Could a study break for some period of time be an assistance in the learning of the language?

Thanks so much.
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Re: What was it like after you decided to come back

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Mon Apr 25, 2022 5:00 pm

I take Irish as an example. I studied it on my own in the early 1990s. After some time I took a break/gave up. I didn't have any idea for how long the break would last, or even if I would ever pick it up again. But that I did.

1-Did you go back to studying it again?
Yes.

2-Did you never go back

2-Did you have to start all over with the language? What percentage did you remember?
I didn't have to start all over again. It's difficult to give an estimate of how much I remembered, but some things had stuck.

3-Why do you think the study break was needed?
Lack of progress / motivation / aptitude. It had nothing to do with lack of opportunities to use the language. (That was never my focus.)

4-Could a study break for some period of time be an assistance in the learning of the language?
I don't take a break if I don't want to or have to. But if I take a break and pick the language up again, I always notice that there are things that have sunken in. If nothing else, perhaps just a basic feeling for how things can be "different". And that it's OK to be different.
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Re: What was it like after you decided to come back

Postby Le Baron » Mon Apr 25, 2022 5:31 pm

Carmody wrote:There is a very interesting thread entitled "How far should you take a language if you're bored with?" I am learning lots from it but don't want to hijack it so my question is:

After you took a break of some time from studying your chosen language...

1-Did you go back to studying it again?
2-Did you never go back

I'll answer both. There were several and for some of them I didn't go back. I just stopped. I only restarted study on the languages I knew best and which I knew I would use and anything else was a new language.
2-Did you have to start all over with the language? What percentage did you remember?

I didn't have to start all over again, but I'd lost some facility. I think there's a difference between stopping active study on language you will still passively use and stopping study where you no longer engage with it at all. In the latter case I'd say it also depends on how far you went. I pushed a few up to A2+/B1 and I can still remember things after some years of never engaging. Languages below that have pretty much faded. Everything above that level stays intact apart from vocab shrinkage and a little rustiness in use.
3-Why do you think the study break was needed?

The feeling of being chained to study commitment; especially in times when other things demanded more time and attention. Some loss of ardour.
4-Could a study break for some period of time be an assistance in the learning of the language?

Beneficial perhaps for recharging motivation and space for reassessing what you're doing. Looking at what was most retained might be a clue as to what and why some things stick. E.g. if you remember a lot of words relating to a particular topic it indicates to me that learning from things that interest you likely causes less painful and more deeply-planted acquisition.
Last edited by Le Baron on Mon Apr 25, 2022 5:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What was it like after you decided to come back

Postby luke » Mon Apr 25, 2022 5:37 pm

I've taken breaks after every language I've studied. The breaks have always been for years and the breaks did not help me learn.

Using Spanish for the example, since it's not that unlike French, other than I'm back at it again.

1-Did you go back to studying it again?
Yes. I had Spanish in Middle school (2 years) then dropped it until late university years when it became a requirement (1 year).
Promptly dropped it again for a couple decades and then decided to learn it to find out "why are the natives happy"?
Studied for a couple three years, then dropped it when I realized some people who speak the language are jerks, just like in my native language.
Dropped it again for about a decade.
Have been back studying again for about 2 years.

2-Did you have to start all over with the language? What percentage did you remember?
At university, after about 8 years off, I remembered the basics. 30%?
2 decades later I remembered less. 10%?
Another decade later, I remembered more than when I started the previous decade, but there was a lot of atrophy. 20%?

All of the percentages are my guesstimate of where I started after the absence, not comparing middle school to recently.

3-Why do you think the study break was needed?
It became a non-requirement after I got out of school.
I mentioned the jerk, right?

4-Could a study break for some period of time be an assistance in the learning of the language?
A short break maybe, but I'm skeptical. A short break? You have to sleep once in a while, that's a break. If life gets busy or changes directions, a break may help you deal with the rest of life, but I don't see it assisting the learning.

I'm sure everyone else is better at learning languages than I am. Maybe I make it harder than it needs to be, but I think that with continued effort and evaluation, more and more gaps, crevices and holes can be filled. My hypothesis for the "secret" at the "post-intermediate" stage is to focus on some specific thing you want to be able to do, then work on it explicitly for some weeks and watch for signs of improvement. If one is content with their level, they can just keep doing what they enjoy, and that too, will gradually strengthen the edifice, or at least delay atrophy of whatever one deems worthwhile.
Last edited by luke on Mon Apr 25, 2022 6:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What was it like after you decided to come back

Postby Le Baron » Mon Apr 25, 2022 6:07 pm

luke wrote:Studied for a couple three years

That's one for the other thread. :P

Can I ask, what level do you think you achieved each time you reached the peak before stopping?
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Re: What was it like after you decided to come back

Postby zenmonkey » Mon Apr 25, 2022 6:52 pm

Carmody wrote:After you took a break of some time from studying your chosen language,

1-Did you go back to studying it again?

I've taken a break or breaks from Tibetan (->A2), Hebrew(->B1), Yiddish(->A2/B1), Mandarin(->A1), Arabic(->A2), Setswana(->A1), Zotztil(->A1), Portuguese(->B1 receptive), Italian(->B1 receptive), and German(->intermediate B2 tested). (There might be a few others that I only studied for a trip like Polish, Czech, or for a few hours or because the script intrigued me like Baybayin).

I've regularly gone back to German. On and off dabbling in Portuguese and Italian. A little bit with Hebrew and Yiddish.
My German is active and I can speak it enough to get along. But I'll go back to studying it in the next weeks, casually.

2-Did you never go back?

I do not have plans to study Mandarin again. Probably Setswana will fade away. Arabic? Who knows. No regrets, really (well, perhaps for Tibetan because of how much effort I put in (2+ years) and frankly how wrong, I went about it...). I do have plans to get back to Portuguese, Hebrew, Italian, Yiddish, Zotzil, and Tibetan. Maybe in that order. Is that too many? (for the peanut gallery, you won't see me doing youtube videos of my languages). Every pause in active studying of German has been followed by a restart that lasts a month or three. I've learned it in spurts.

2-Did you have to start all over with the language? What percentage did you remember?

German was a little rusty, but two weeks brought it back to the usual stumbling B2. Everything else false off to <20%. I'd be a false beginner in Hebrew, Yiddish, Portuguese and Italian. All else is lost. Probably < 10% in Tibetan and Arabic. <5% on Zotzil and Setswana.

3-Why do you think the study break was needed?

My sanity :) or I got involved in other things. I don't think it was actually needed in my case. I'm just a busy guy that gets involved in too many projects. Something false off the table, sometimes it is language study. Plus I probably don't really know how to learn well, but I just bang my head about, and then I stop.

4-Could a study break for some period of time be an assistance in the learning of the language?

Yes, absolutely. I certainly found that breaks allowed for the consolidation of German and French.

And like look says "I'm sure everyone else is better at learning languages than I am."
I bet that deserves a poll! :lol:
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Re: What was it like after you decided to come back

Postby luke » Mon Apr 25, 2022 8:03 pm

Le Baron wrote:
luke wrote:Studied for a couple three years

That's one for the other thread. :P

Can I ask, what level do you think you achieved each time you reached the peak before stopping?

For the other thread, "couple three" means 2-3.

As far as level "achieved", in middle school and university I was near the top of the class, but that doesn't mean much. There were no Latinos looking for an "easy A". I only remember one "serious student". That was at university.

Using my prior B1 tested level in Esperanto as a guide, I "achieved" a similar level in Spanish 15 years ago.

When I picked up Spanish again 2 years ago, I wasn't quite starting over, but there was a lot of re-learning.

I've heard and can imagine it being true that hitting a much higher level, like C1, may have made a big difference in "retention".

"Intention" may have made a difference too. I.E., after each of the "breaks", I was not thinking, "I'll pick this up again later". An intention to pick it up later might have helped.
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Re: What was it like after you decided to come back

Postby Le Baron » Mon Apr 25, 2022 9:51 pm

luke wrote:As far as level "achieved", in middle school and university I was near the top of the class, but that doesn't mean much. There were no Latinos looking for an "easy A". I only remember one "serious student". That was at university.

Using my prior B1 tested level in Esperanto as a guide, I "achieved" a similar level in Spanish 15 years ago.

When I picked up Spanish again 2 years ago, I wasn't quite starting over, but there was a lot of re-learning.

I've heard and can imagine it being true that hitting a much higher level, like C1, may have made a big difference in "retention".

"Intention" may have made a difference too. I.E., after each of the "breaks", I was not thinking, "I'll pick this up again later". An intention to pick it up later might have helped.

I only asked because I'm generally of the view that a lot of spoken usage/interaction is what really makes a language stick over time as a habit or motor-skill. So I was really also asking about how much talking had gone on. I get the impression you live or have lived among Spanish speakers.
This is not a nosy inquiry, I'm just throwing it out there. I've found that every language I've had to use is the one I can leave alone and it stays fairly intact. Ones where I've reached a reasonable listening (and perhaps reading level), but didn't do any or much interaction seem to fade faster because they aren't a habitual motor skill with a wagon wheel rut you can just drop back into.
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Re: What was it like after you decided to come back

Postby luke » Mon Apr 25, 2022 10:30 pm

Le Baron wrote:I only asked because I'm generally of the view that a lot of spoken usage/interaction is what really makes a language stick over time as a habit or motor-skill.

That could well be. One would think more memorable experiences would improve the memory aspect of the language learned.

I also wonder if there's some, "how full was the tank?" going on. Say A level puts 1 unit in the tank and B level puts 2 more units in the tank, and C level adds 4. If the student quits using the language and the tanks gradually goes from 7 to 4, they're still beyond where they were when the B tank got filled. But if the student were only at B level, losing 3 units in the tank might feel like a bigger setback.
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Re: What was it like after you decided to come back

Postby Ug_Caveman » Mon Apr 25, 2022 10:48 pm

1-Did you go back to studying it again?

Yes, I'm now studying Dutch far more regularly now than I have been over the previous 10 months where I'd lapsed heavily.

2-Did you have to start all over with the language? What percentage did you remember?

Not particularly, my skills of reading and writing are generally OK, listening and speaking have suffered a bit more.

3-Why do you think the study break was needed?

Yes, but I'd imagine that's relative to ones personal circumstances.

4-Could a study break for some period of time be an assistance in the learning of the language?

I don't feel experienced enough in language learning to really comment on this.
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