Stressing about how to divide time between languages

[lingzz_langzz]

Sometimes I'll be listening to a podcast in German, and I'll start fretting so much about whether I should shut it off and study Persian instead that I find it hard to concentrate. My Persian's far weaker, and I feel an urge to bring it up to the same level as my German quickly. However, when I'm learning Persian, I worry about letting my German rust. Or maybe not rust, but lose its edge. I suspect it's already gone slightly dull because I've been putting most of my time into Persian and doing nothing more with German than listening to about one podcast episode a day.

There's a part of me that wants to just throw German out the window until my Persian's at the same level my German was at its best, and then go back to German with fingers crossed and see how badly it's deteriorated. I have to admit I'm having a lot more fun with Persian right now, and I'm sure that's because there's still so much novelty and challenge. How bad would my German get if I were to do this, I wonder? Any of you ever run this experiment on yourselves?

Hey there! Losing a language is really about more than a few weeks (or even months) of a break, unless you're at an A1 level so I wouldn't really be worrying about your German. And besides, you can still listen to music, consume podcasts or YT videos just for fun, without really learning the language actively. If you don't, though, that's totally fine and let me tell you - some of the biggest signs of progress I notice in my languages are usually after a rather long break. It's sooo worth it to lose the focus of one of your TLs for a while and just move with another one. The challenges are different and you're learning a different language but your brain will still be processing German.

Especially if Persian brings you more pleasure right now, there's nothing you can really do about it. However, there are many ways how you can actually include German in this as well - try to look out for learning resources for German speakers or translate or your notes from Persian to German. I'd do those only if you really cannot let German go. If I were you, I would though!

[Khayyam]

Sometimes I'll be listening to a podcast in German, and I'll start fretting so much about whether I should shut it off and study Persian instead that I find it hard to concentrate. My Persian's far weaker, and I feel an urge to bring it up to the same level as my German quickly. However, when I'm learning Persian, I worry about letting my German rust. Or maybe not rust, but lose its edge. I suspect it's already gone slightly dull because I've been putting most of my time into Persian and doing nothing more with German than listening to about one podcast episode a day.

There's a part of me that wants to just throw German out the window until my Persian's at the same level my German was at its best, and then go back to German with fingers crossed and see how badly it's deteriorated. I have to admit I'm having a lot more fun with Persian right now, and I'm sure that's because there's still so much novelty and challenge. How bad would my German get if I were to do this, I wonder? Any of you ever run this experiment on yourselves?

Hey there! Losing a language is really about more than a few weeks (or even months) of a break, unless you're at an A1 level so I wouldn't really be worrying about your German. And besides, you can still listen to music, consume podcasts or YT videos just for fun, without really learning the language actively. If you don't, though, that's totally fine and let me tell you - some of the biggest signs of progress I notice in my languages are usually after a rather long break. It's sooo worth it to lose the focus of one of your TLs for a while and just move with another one. The challenges are different and you're learning a different language but your brain will still be processing German.

Especially if Persian brings you more pleasure right now, there's nothing you can really do about it. However, there are many ways how you can actually include German in this as well - try to look out for learning resources for German speakers or translate or your notes from Persian to German. I'd do those only if you really cannot let German go. If I were you, I would though!

It's encouraging to know that you've actually noticed improvement after long breaks. I have a drummer friend who says the same thing about taking long breaks from drumming.

I've already decided to plow through with my Persian bible project and just listen to that one German bible podcast as I mentioned above, but I appreciate your assurance on this point.

Re: laddering from German to Persian: that's actually how I got started with Persian. I used the Assimil Persian course for German speakers. It worked great and I'm glad I did it, but the more advanced I get with Persian, the more impatient I become to reach the same level as I have with German. So I mostly just use English as my base language now. (Occasionally I do use German words to make my vocab lists.)