Language learning plan for the year: Esp + Cat + Ch + Ru + Pol ?

[guiguixx1]

Hi everyone!

This year I'm in Spain to give conversation classes for the school year and I am taking this opportunity to improve my Spanish. Before coming, it was between B1 and B2. I've been there for 2 weeks already and I guess it is now at B2. My level improved quickly throughout the first week. My objective when I'll be leaving, in 9 months (end Juin) is C1.

As I am living in Valencia, and since the place where I work uses Catalan as their main language, I have to learn Catalan. After one week of self-study, I've reached about A1 and aim for B1 by the end of the year (preferably by Christmas already), which shouldn't be difficult with my linguistic background. I guess 1 month should be enough for that (unless I'm being too optimistic?).

At the beginning, this was my objective and it looked doable, although going from B2 to C1 in Spanish will take time. Nevertheless, I am wanting to change this plan. One of my colleagues speaks native German and Polish. Therefore, I wanted to work on Polish as well and reach A2 to be able to have basic exchanges with her. One year ago, I studied it until A1-ish.
I also wanted to study Mandarin Chinese, which I also had at A1 some time ago. I also want to reach A2.
And I would also like to have basic conversation skills in Russian, which I have studied very recently, maybe at A1, although I'm not sure I've reached it yet. My goal, for this school year, is to be able to have basic speaking skills in these three languages (Russian, Polish and Mandarin Chinese), thus A2. I know that Polish and Russian are similar, but since I already studied Polish some time ago, I can already grasp some differences with Russian.
Although I studied them some time ago, I guess that I could revive them in a week or two, hopefully.
B1 would be for later.

I was thinking about the following methodology: keeping Spanish as the main language (and using as little French and English as possible), thus studying it about 2 hours per day (probably spent reading and studying vocabulary) + my daily language use, i.e. exchanging with natives, going to language meetings, ... I would thus work on Spanish every day for the whole year.
I would then work on each of the four other languages in a row: about 1 month for each so that I can let 2-3 languages sleep while studying the last one. I have noticed that my language level seems to increase when I let the language have a break, as if my brain uses this time to digest it.
Furthermore, working on a language for too long doesn't suit my method: I like to have regular changes in my language focus, especially with weak languages. I would thus quickly get to B1 in Catalan, and slowly get to A2 in the others. By Christmas, I would thus be able to speak Catalan and would let it aside (i.e. stop studying it but keep using it in my daily life and at work), I would thus switch between the 3 others.

The last time I worked on many languages at the same time was 3 years ago. After spending one year on Spanish, I decided to work on Italian, German and Esperanto. I studied them all at once, and failed. It took me some time to manage them all. But this time, instead of working on all languages every day, I would work on each for one month (or so) and let it sleep for 2 months, thus increasing my focus. I would spend 1 hours (at best) on my second language of the moment.

Thus, as a summary:
Spanish: B2 to C1
Catalan: A1 to B1
Mandarin Chinese: A1-ish to A2
Russian: A0-A1 to A2
Polish: A1-ish to A2

Would you recommend this methodology? Or do you think it is, as I myself also believe, too much? Would you advise to drop one language? Have you ever tried something similar and could tell me how it worked (or not)? I am eager and curious to know what you think about this!

[tarvos]

Waaaaaaay too much at the same time. One is already a lot of focus, two is the maximum I would normally suggest. When I study multiple languages, this is always a consequential process, never a simultaneous one, and triply so with so many varied language groups.

I'd stick to Catalan and maybe one other language. Keep in mind that if you stop learning them you'll lose them anyway.

Note that every language that people would say I am studying simultaneously is a language in the B-levels at least and is solely in maintenance mode where all I am doing is reading it and using it every once in a while. Not even Arguelles or Richard Simcott would study so many languages at the same time if they were all starting them basically from scratch. One by one is much easier, and besides you have the opportunity to benefit from the environment for your Catalan and Spanish. Your Catalan will improve quickly. Just go for that

[guiguixx1]

Thank you for your answer ! I guess my Catalan will improve quite fast, but I don't need to go any further than B1 so I guess I won't need to focus much on it, which is why I wanted to focus on others as well and since I know that I don't like to focus on one language for much more than one month, I thought I could work on others during the year, but remember that I won't be working on more than two languages at a given time: Spanish + one of the four others (or Spanish + Catalan + another one, but Catalan would be for daily use and not for focused study )

[guiguixx1]

Thus you would advise me to keep working on Spanish every day and to study Catalan and another language alternatively? Thus focusing on two new languages (one easy, Catalan, and one difficult, Polish, Russian or Mandarin Chinese)?

I would underline that there is no language that I'm learning from scratch (I studied the three difficult before already, but haven't had time to reach a decent level yet). There is only Catalan which is "new", although very simular to Spanish and French. Reading it is quite transparent

[tarvos]

The problem is that one month won't get you up a level in these languages because you don't have the framework for that language group in place. It took me a year (at least) to get from zero to B1-ish in Mandarin, and I spoke about eight languages fluently at the time already. Russian took me even longer (although that was the first time I did it on my own). Polish is similar to Russian. At B1 maintaining them in the long run will be an issue. If you study them for one month then drop them you can start over the next time you start because you'll have forgotten most of what you learned.

If you're new to a language family, expect to be in it for the long haul. You're going to need a minimum of a couple months to see any kind of progress, and if you want to see it in one month, it's practically mandatory that you make it intensive (like I did when I was in China).

On the other hand, with all your Romance languages, Catalan is a cinch, and you might just go as far as B2 because that will make maintenance much, much simpler later on.

There are a couple basic rules when it comes to multiple languages, in my opinion:

- Consecutive is better than simultaneous
- The further away from your background the language is, the more time you will need to absorb the language and to improve (and the larger the necessity for cultural immersion)
- B2 is the killer level because that's when you'll stop feeling much of the effects of atrophy
- the thinner you spread yourself, the more work you'll have to do to catch up later
- Similar languages are low-hanging fruit and getting to B levels in them is easy (the difficulty is in the details, but that's not always necessary to learn).


You don't need to spend five years learning Mandarin before you get to B2, people who say that are either lazy or slow tortoises who simply don't use any kind of efficient methodology to study. But you do need time, and to get anywhere near the level of improvement you would like you need minimum three months, more likely six if you're spending time on Spanish and Catalan as well. And that's for an experienced language learner - if you were a novice I'd double that.

[guiguixx1]

I always tend to bite off more than I can chew. I wanted to study 1 month Polish, then the next one Chinese, then Russian, then Polish again, but I guess I will have to choose only one of them. I really wanted to work on Chinese and Russian because these are the last languages that I really want to be able to speak one day, but with Spanish and Catalan in the way, it a probably too much ^^' I think I will rather focus on Catalan until I can use it at work before focusing on another of the 3 others and only choose one of them. It's better to get anywhere in one of them than nowhere at all and wasting my time on 3, even if I would not be studying them all at the same time. I guess I will choose Polish since I really worked on it before. I don't remember how long I studied it, but I remember that I really began getting somewhere and reading very simplified texts. This one will probably be the easiest and fastest to my way to A2, although I know Polish definitely won't be a piece of cake haha

[ASEAN]

Glossika's Catalan course and other minor languages are free of charge. https://ai.glossika.com/app/courses

As for your plans, I agree with tarvos.