Maintenance with 10+ languages

General discussion about learning languages
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Systematiker
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Languages: ENG (N); DEU (C2+) // SWG (~C1); BAR (~C1); SPA (4/3); FRA (~C1); SCO (~C1); NLD (~B2*); LAT (Latinum Bavaricum); GRC (Graecum Bavaricum); CAT (~B2*); POR (~B2*); SWE (~B2*); HBO (Hebraicum); DAN (~B1*); RUS (~A2); KOR (~A1); FAS (still a raw beginner)
*Averaged for high receptive skill
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=7332
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Re: Maintenance with 10+ languages

Postby Systematiker » Sun Mar 18, 2018 12:43 am

I spend a lot of time on both maintaining and improving. There’s a couple of factors- not only the ability I have in a given language, but also the speed with which I acquired it. The context also plays a role.

I make efforts to spend daily time with some of my stronger languages (e.g. Spanish), because I don’t like needing the “warm up” time, as Iversen mentioned.

I lost a lot of Hebrew rather quickly when I dropped it, and it’s relevant that I went from 0-exam in less than six months (and getting it back proved about as hard as the first time around). Dutch rusts within a narrower band, but I used it more and German likely bolsters it. I have taken, I think, years off Spanish and French without noticing a major change in reading ability (but losses in other areas). Yet, I retained almost all the Russian I first learned in 05 or 06, despite a very low level and despite not touching it for around a decade, and despite the fact that I learned it in a matter of weeks - probably because I learned almost all of it in Russia.

So a lot of my experience follows your predictions, aside from native-context outliers (my Korean is like my Russian). On the other end, I imagine that e.g. Swedish would disappear fast if I neglected it, despite having at least receptive ability where I read novels and listen to native podcasts.

All that said, I do spend hours most days in my languages, I’ve simply been able to organize my life in that manner. Even when using a rotating schedule, i rarely let any language go more than a couple days without touching it. (Do please note that I still need to get around to updating my language list, and that there’s the occasional exception where “of course I’m still studying that, I’ll get back to it someday...”)

The only things I never worry about are German and English.
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