In a move reflecting so many people on this forum, I've gone absolutely nuts with the number of languages being learnt. It started simple with Spanish, then I added Catalan into the mix, and still all was well. So why did I start to learn Portuguese earlier this year, then add French, and now Dutch?!
I feel I must first wrap up some things in this log before going into details since it's been months since I've posted here.
Super Challenge 2020/2021 debriefI
signed up to a double Super Challenge (SC) for the Romance family of languages. I'm glad I did given how I branched out. The double challenge then entails 10,000 pages of reading, and 300 hours of 'films'.
I finished the 'films' part of the SC in September 2020, so a year ago. I have only actually watched a couple of films, so almost all of the 'films' part both during the actual challenge and since is in the form of audiobooks, with some podcasts, Youtube and TV thrown in here and there. I finished the reading part of the challenge back in June. The reading part was a lot harder and required a lot more discipline. Since the challenge finished I'm finding it harder and harder to read because I just can't be bothered, so I was glad when it was there to give me something to aim for.
As a clear convert to using mass input as a means to learning a foreign language, I'm obviously going to be happy with what I get from it, but it's a bit hard to say whether reading is all that much help when I do so much listening. In the end I think I quite like my ratio of about 25% of time spent reading, and 75% of time listening/watching where input is concerned. I wouldn't say my Spanish level has rocketed (diminishing returns and all that), but my Catalan comprehension definitely has. I'm now fairly comfortable reading and listening to Catalan literature, and also watching Catalan TV.
An update on speakingIt seems crazy that I last posted in March! That post was about my first conversation in Spanish. Well, I've had one or two conversations per week ever since (totalling some 26 hours). It doesn't really sound like much, and I guess that's because it isn't, but it's good solid work in my opinion. I wouldn't particularly say my level has changed that much beyond the first few lessons when I had to build the muscles in my mouth etc. Is this evidence that speaking ability comes mainly from input? Absolutely not because it's one uncontrolled data point, but it is interesting to note.
I am by no means a great orator in Spanish (or in English), but I am fairly comfortable with speaking. I stopped getting nervous for speaking Spanish about 3 hours in when I realised I could just do it and I'm not going to forget how.
All these other languagesSo what about everything else?
PortugueseI added Portuguese earlier this year as part of an experiment on mutual intelligibility, and I even
started a (now dormant) log for it. I read/listened to the first three Harry Potter books, and my level at the end was actually quite acceptable. I'd go so far as to say I was pretty good at reading by the end. However, I didn't keep up with it because I got distracted by...
...FrenchFrench caught my eye because I'm going to France shortly. Yes I've been to France (and Belgium and Monaco) since I've been learning Spanish and not been distracted, but this time I was already distracted by Portuguese so what harm is there to be done? I basically just did the same thing with French - I'm just coming up to the end of the second Harry Potter book. French is far harder to do this with than Portuguese is from a Spanish/Catalan background! Even just after reading the books in Portuguese, it is much harder in French, and that's even with studying it in secondary (high) school. I think I'm coming round to it after almost reading two entire books, but boy has it been a slog. I feel it would have been better to start with something easier, but there we are.
DutchSimilarly to French, Dutch caught my eye because I'm going to Belgium (but the Flemish part) soon. Despite some related knowledge (English native and German at school), I can't just start Dutch up on input - or at least I'm unwilling to suffer through 20 hours of Peppa Pig. So I've bought myself the Assimil Dutch course, I am a third of the way down the Duolingo tree, and I'm using Clozemaster. Back to standard studying type learning for me then... Will I be able to get to A1 by mid-November? I don't know, but I might as well try. Although the last time I was in Flanders, all the times I could have used Dutch (Flemish), people knew English. That's not to say it's not worth it giving it a go of course!
I'm not sure what my long term plan is with Dutch. I might just give it up, I might pivot to another Germanic language, or I might keep going. We'll see.