I need to find a better way to learn languages. I don't mean a better way for humanity to learn languages, I mean just me. Furthermore, I need some customisation of learning that will keep me interested and on track. So I have been racking my brain trying to think of a way. But what I have actually thought is there simply isn't anyway that I am ever going to enjoy studying languages. Much like mowing my lawn, I don't enjoy the process, but I do like the smell of fresh cut grass and the nice even lawn. In order to get one, you have to do the other.
However, I want to put in the minimum amount of effort to get the greatest result. So I've spent a lot of time thinking about what that means to me. When I look at what I want to do with all the languages I've learned, or I am learning, it is conversations. I want to speak to other humans. Not interested in reading, or writing. Listening and speaking are what I need. Obviously, you need vocabulary to speak, and the quickest way to get that is reading and listening. I'm also not interested in being at a C1/2 or near native level, I just need to hold my own in most conversations about typical stuff.
I played around for a couple of hours with the study-time calculator thing. I realise it isn't accurate and is an indicator only. But here were some of the estimates I looked at.
Korean, 2 hours per day = 2 and bit years to get to B2
French, 2 hours per day = 9 months from B1/2 => C1
Italian, 2 hours per day = 6 months from B1/2 => C1
In theory, the best move for me would be to spend 6 months getting Italian to C1. But to what end? It isn't like this will magically change everyone in my neighbourhood to be Italian. Also, this is 2 hours out of every single day, and time is a precious commodity. There is also maintenance. If I want to park French and not lose what I spent time learning, then I need to maintain it.
I've basically settled on the idea of focusing on one language since as noted in my previous post that gives me the most bang for my buck. Since I don't want to lose what I've gained in Italian and French, the plan is to maintain them. I have more or less determined that I will do this:
- 30 minutes of French, either listening or reading. Then one language exchange with my friend, which will give me 30 minutes of conversation each week.
- 30 minutes of Italian, either listening or reading, plus working my way through the block of Italian books I have. Then one language exchange with my friend, which will give me 30 minutes of conversation each week.
Any work did previously with Mandarin, Setswana, or other languages will be lost to the wind. I'll have to just start from scratch again if I ever decide to pick those back up.
Having made those decisions, and having decided that I'll put in the 2 hours a day into Korean, I need to come up with this "better way" to learn. This I'm not really sure about. I've been thinking I would continue with my teacher, but stretch those lessons out to bi-weekly instead of twice a week. But how to study in the meanwhile? When I was in Korea, I bought two books for English learners in a second-hand store. (SOS7200, book 2 and 3) These books have sentences to sentence translations, and some simple dialogues. For example:
A: Which one do you want, this one or that one?
B: Either will be fine.
A: Are you sure?
B: I'm not picky.
A: Don't blame me if you really don't like it.
There are also numerous individual sentences. So I'm thinking this would be very useful for sentence mining. I have read a lot about sentence mining to learn Japanese. But I've never really tried it for language learning. I did find many of the stock phrases from Pimsleur useful while in Korea. I've also made some "Islands" before in French and Italian when I first started doing language exchanges, which always gave me a bit of breathing room when speaking. Not only that, but I like the way Leosmith used the
Korean Pimsleur and I considered doing something along those lines, and also grabbing audio from the FSI / DLI tapes.
I have two Korean grammar books, basic and intermediate, with workbooks. So I don't think I'll lack for resources. I also already have 2 conversation partners lined-up for Korean. The real problem is going to be doing 2 hours of Korean and 1 hour of French & Italian every day.
This isn't a well formulated and thought out plan, so I would actually like your opinion. Anyone used sentence mining? I have no issue with using Anki for an hour or so every day. I like the Pimsleur workout that Leosmith did, and I have a dozen physical books in Korean and access to a bucket load of Korean dramas. What else should I be doing in the two hours a day between lessons?
Also, what about language maintenance? Anyone got any suggestions? Is my 30 minutes going to cut it? Should I be doing something else?
What about my decision? Should I actually ignore Korean and get a C1 in Italian? Should I be doing Italian and Korean?