Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread
Posted: Tue Feb 09, 2021 2:46 pm
In my experience the main factor that might permit a speedy learning process is whether you know some related languages or not. If you do then the many words will look slightly different, but you will remember them much easier even with some minor differences. And it also helps if you can reuse some grammatical patterns. Without such support ... well, expect longer learning time. But full-time study in a class room under the supervision of a teacher? Not with me...
A couple of examples from my own learning history:
While I studied French at the university (with courses in some old Romance languages plus Catalan and Italian) we suddenly were told that there would be courses by a native Romanian teacher. We started out with 5 learners (including 3 students and 2 teachers), but already after the first semester I was alone. The first teacher went home and we got another, but all in all I had 3 years of courses, 2½ of which with just me and a native teacher, and I was fluent in Romanian after that, although we only did two hours each week - but on my wish totally in Romanian. Did I also forget it fast? Oh yes, when I left the university I didn't feel like visiting Ceaucescu's Romania, so I lost everything except the word for 'ashtray', "scrumiere" - heaven knows why it didn't loose that too (I'm a non-smoker). However when I discovered HTLAL and returned to the language I could resusscitate it within a few weeks to the level where I could have simple conversations during a trip to in Romania and Moldova - and since then I have done several monolingual trips to Romania without any problems.
As for Portuguese I had only had a comparative one-semester course for all Romance languages and definitely couldn't use the language for anything practical. But I knew some Spanish and French, and I also had also learnt Catalan (although it wasn't in topnotch condition back then). Then I happened to buy a trip to Cabo Verde in 2006 with less than a month to the departure, and I launched a frenetic homestudy attempt. And I got a chance to test it in practice already the first day down there because I had ordered a triple-island roundtrip through a local company down there, and the idea was that I should call them by phone when I arrived. But the lady who took the phone only spoke a little German so I had to discuss my travel details with her in a mixture of Portuguese and Spanish. Later, when I went to their office to fetch my tickets, it turned out that the owner was German and then we of course spoke German to each other. But I could still use my brand-new Portuguese for minor practical purposes later on the voyage - less than one month after I had started to study it. And just 5 months later I visited Moçambique where I spoke Portuguese all the time, even when my fridge didn't work - but NOT when I was told to leave the hotel because my Danish travel agency only had reserved two nights for me, but cashed for four nights.Then I spoke English (and got my last two nights after an angry telephone call to Denmark). Later I have also done several monolingual trips to Portugal and one to Brazil without having any trouble with the Portuguese language.
On the other hand, I have still not had the opportunity to really activate my Slavic languages on holidays. The best chance I had was during the polyglot gatherings in Bratislava - especially the last one where I didn't enter the venue except one afternoon to have a chat with some of the other participants. But during a two week roundtrip I spent time in Vienna (German), Bratislava (Slovak), Eastern Czechia (Czech - not studied), Lviv (Ukrainian - not studied) and Southern Poland (Polish) - and with such a schedule you never get to feel really immersed anywhere. As for my Greek I have been there 4-5 days the last two times, and only near the end I felt confident enough to speak the local lingo. And I have studied Greek and Russian in their written forms for close to ten years now, so it's about time that I get the final nudge to get them activated, but well, it hasn't happened yet. And corona doesn't help me to add new spoken languages.
PS: this rant originally was written for the thread about language learning as a full-time job, but then it just grew and grew ...
A couple of examples from my own learning history:
While I studied French at the university (with courses in some old Romance languages plus Catalan and Italian) we suddenly were told that there would be courses by a native Romanian teacher. We started out with 5 learners (including 3 students and 2 teachers), but already after the first semester I was alone. The first teacher went home and we got another, but all in all I had 3 years of courses, 2½ of which with just me and a native teacher, and I was fluent in Romanian after that, although we only did two hours each week - but on my wish totally in Romanian. Did I also forget it fast? Oh yes, when I left the university I didn't feel like visiting Ceaucescu's Romania, so I lost everything except the word for 'ashtray', "scrumiere" - heaven knows why it didn't loose that too (I'm a non-smoker). However when I discovered HTLAL and returned to the language I could resusscitate it within a few weeks to the level where I could have simple conversations during a trip to in Romania and Moldova - and since then I have done several monolingual trips to Romania without any problems.
As for Portuguese I had only had a comparative one-semester course for all Romance languages and definitely couldn't use the language for anything practical. But I knew some Spanish and French, and I also had also learnt Catalan (although it wasn't in topnotch condition back then). Then I happened to buy a trip to Cabo Verde in 2006 with less than a month to the departure, and I launched a frenetic homestudy attempt. And I got a chance to test it in practice already the first day down there because I had ordered a triple-island roundtrip through a local company down there, and the idea was that I should call them by phone when I arrived. But the lady who took the phone only spoke a little German so I had to discuss my travel details with her in a mixture of Portuguese and Spanish. Later, when I went to their office to fetch my tickets, it turned out that the owner was German and then we of course spoke German to each other. But I could still use my brand-new Portuguese for minor practical purposes later on the voyage - less than one month after I had started to study it. And just 5 months later I visited Moçambique where I spoke Portuguese all the time, even when my fridge didn't work - but NOT when I was told to leave the hotel because my Danish travel agency only had reserved two nights for me, but cashed for four nights.Then I spoke English (and got my last two nights after an angry telephone call to Denmark). Later I have also done several monolingual trips to Portugal and one to Brazil without having any trouble with the Portuguese language.
On the other hand, I have still not had the opportunity to really activate my Slavic languages on holidays. The best chance I had was during the polyglot gatherings in Bratislava - especially the last one where I didn't enter the venue except one afternoon to have a chat with some of the other participants. But during a two week roundtrip I spent time in Vienna (German), Bratislava (Slovak), Eastern Czechia (Czech - not studied), Lviv (Ukrainian - not studied) and Southern Poland (Polish) - and with such a schedule you never get to feel really immersed anywhere. As for my Greek I have been there 4-5 days the last two times, and only near the end I felt confident enough to speak the local lingo. And I have studied Greek and Russian in their written forms for close to ten years now, so it's about time that I get the final nudge to get them activated, but well, it hasn't happened yet. And corona doesn't help me to add new spoken languages.
PS: this rant originally was written for the thread about language learning as a full-time job, but then it just grew and grew ...