Learning a new language every year

[rdearman]

I know someone, an amazing polyglot who has learned a new language every year since he was about 14 years old, and he is in his 70's now. They are at a variety of levels, some he conintued, others he dropped. But this idea which his father told him long ago seems to be an interesting one. Certainly one which intrigues me.

Recently I was thinking that if I decided to do a new language for 2019 what would it be. Unlike most people here I don't have a long wanderlust list. In fact the thought of doing another language pains me. But I am interested to see how far I could get in a year. Not far I suspect given my track record so far.

Anyone thought about this type of thing? Anyone played with a new language for a defined time scale? Ever thought about just throwing a dart at a world map while blindfolded and learn whatever they speak there? (I realise the world is mostly water and it could take a lot of throws to hit land)

I could probably do 20 minutes per day.

[kanewai]

Somewhere, in an old excel spreadsheet I have hidden in a forgotten and dark corner of my computer, I have a great plan for adding one language a year and leveling up in each existing language. Kind of like this:

2010: French A1
2011: French A2, Arabic A1
2012: French B1, Arabic A2, Spanish B1

and so on. Eventually I would know ten languages. I hope I kept the list. It was stunning in its ambition and foolishness.

[Deinonysus]

If I could keep it down to one new language a year I might actually get fluent in something.

[David27]

The problem with this plan is you don’t have enough time. If you do 20 minutes a day, that’s 120 hours, assuming no loss of motivation and lost days over the year. Compare that to the FSI hours required to learn a language and it means you’ll have at best a basic level, but if you drop the language after the year you probably won’t have a good enough level to leave it without significant losses. It would have to be a language that you’re ok forgetting (mostly) after a year, or a language closely related to a language you already know (in which case 120 hours is enough time for a stable foundation). I’ve done this and it worked great, while I stayed within the Romance language family which I know the best. For you, if you don’t have a language that you strongly want to learn (high motivation) then I don’t see this as a fruitful use of your time.

[DaveAgain]

But I am interested to see how far I could get in a year. I could probably do 20 minutes per day.

Working within those limits, I think I'd choose something as close to English as possible: Danish/Swedish/Dutch. Whichever of those has the most TV/radio availabe and the cheapest books.

EDIT
The elinguistics.net widget is one way of ranking languages.

[Skynet]

I may only be 5 months into language learning, but I believe that it is entirely possible, provided one has the following independent variables: time, sincere dedication and a good course. Sincere dedication is by far the most important of these variables, and the lack of it is why so many people fail at their endeavours (not just language-learning).

I agree with Morgana that it is better to restrict oneself to just one language a year (even though I am not currently practising what I preach). After sitting my DELF B2 and Goethe B2 in 2019, I intend to pick up one new language and bring it up to the B2 level every year until I achieve my personal language goals. Since I started learning languages in the summer, my 'language year' is not a calendar year though.

[rdearman]

The 20 minutes is an estimate. If I really liked it I would sink more time. But might be worth spending more time. Food for thought. I am ok with a basic level and again if I liked it then I could just keep plugging away like Expugnator.

I can't focus solely on one language because I still have 4 others on the go. Once upon a time I thought about Dutch or a native American language. I also thought about Farsi or Urdu since I know native speakers I could take to you.

I am not good at learning languages like many here. For me it is a hard slog and so I don't contemplate it lightly.

Thanks for the feedback! Keep it coming.

[Brun Ugle]

The 20 minutes is an estimate. If I really liked it I would sink more time. But might be worth spending more time. Food for thought. I am ok with a basic level and again if I liked it then I could just keep plugging away like Expugnator.

I can't focus solely on one language because I still have 4 others on the go. Once upon a time I thought about Dutch or a native American language. I also thought about Farsi or Urdu since I know native speakers I could take to you.

I am not good at learning languages like many here. For me it is a hard slog and so I don't contemplate it lightly.

Thanks for the feedback! Keep it coming.

If you pick German, we really would have a common non-English language. It seems slightly more likely to happen than Setswana.

[rdearman]

To be honest if I did go with this I would exclude any other romance language, so German is more likely than Spanish. But since I have purchased already textbooks for Finish and Japanese ..

[golyplot]

Languages I study are always time limited. Even if it is a language I want to pursue long term, I know that realistically, I'll also want to do other things with my life, so I will end up stopping active study at some point. In the case of French, I keep coming back to it every year, while others (Spanish, Dutch), I studied for a while and then dropped. I do want to resume Spanish some time down the line, but Dutch is pretty much useless, so I knew from the outset that I would only be studying it for a limited period of time.