Learn Two Languages at Once

Is it effective to learn two languages at the same time? Maybe. It depends.

Timelines:
0:15 Small confession on technology.
2:20 Russian - Czech language experiment.
4:24 Manfred Spitzer - «Lernen» book.
4:49 Brain requires repetition and novelty.
6:05 Developing attentiveness for Russian cases.
7:30 I’m happy to wait another few months before speaking Czech.
8:23 Strategy for learning 2 languages at the same time.
8:58 We need to do things we enjoy doing in language learning.
9:53 Language learning is not a race.
10:30 Why we can’t understand when we listen.
10:58 Why are different polyglot methods equally efficient?
11:56 Discussion with Richard Simcott.
12:24 «Babel no more», hyperglots and Canadian TV.

[Thelinguist]

I have no rules for maintaining my languages. The key is to learn the language through lots of input and then you tend not to lose them. I occasionally refresh them by reading or listening to an audio book.

[Thelinguist]

I tend to focus on one at a time, or at least 80% on one and 20% on another language where I am already fairly advanced.

[Thelinguist]

Most of my learning time is just listening while driving or doing other tasks, or reading. All in I think I am at 1 to 1 and a half hours a day. More than half of that is casual listening.

[hieronyma_]

The German polyglot Emil Krebs studied a different language every day of the week and alternated. It works pretty well if you want to balance a lot of languages.

[nazarenovallejos]

If both Languages are very different is easy learn one, three or whatever you want more. In my case I am a Spanish native speaker my first foreign language of course was English, then I started with this idea of learning two languages at the same time and I did it, I actually doing it right now with Italian and Japanese both completely different languages. Italian for me is a lot easy improving much more faster because it's too similar to my mother tongue and Japanese has a totally different writing system, pronunciation, vocabulary, grammatically, etc. The key after all of course is motivation and pasion for that new language.

[vxenon]

Is like school learning physics, algebra, english, chemistry, spanish, in one symester.

[chubashijin]

as for me, it is a great temptation to learn several languages at the same time and to study them theoretically. I'm interested in not only learning languages, but also in academical linguistics, especially in comparative one.

[Thelinguist]

Do what you are comfortable doing. I am also continuing with my listening and reading of Russian, and speaking with our tutors at LingQ, while studying Czech.

[Thelinguist]

Yeah I don't want to be too dogmatic, but just speaking won't get you there, unless you do a lot of it. You have to listen and read, but if you get in a lot of speaking you will get in the listening. You also are best advised to read, and occasionally to review the grammar.

[dragonswordmountain]

I'm so interested in this novelty brain boosting memory thing, what you said about one week in Russian, really impacted me...it's like, the more you have fun and shuffle it, the better, faster the brain learns, as aside of just one language and then go for another after fluency. You just sparked a passion on me to learn several languages at the same time.

It's like going to school; learn math, science, history and then come back the next day for more novelty on the same subject. It ain't just math for one year and then just history for the next grade.

[Thelinguist]

I have been working since I was 21, 45 years. I now have some perks.

[metallicagabbe]

Quite interesting. I'm currently learning both French and Danish concurrently and I really like being able to switch between the two of them.

[garagemdotipo]

Steve, você é minha inspiração para eu atingir minha sonhada fluência em Inglês.
Gosto muito dos seus vídeos. Obrigado!

[Thelinguist]

No I think motivation is all important. Do whatever you are motivated to do.

[elshisu]

In my opinion and experience it is possible but the two languages need to be really very different. That is, no way to learn portuguese and spanish at the same time, but it is a lot easier to learn russian and mandarin at the same time. This works for me, but may not work for other people.

[seop]

Interesting. Novelty is known to lead to neuroplasticity, and that tends to spread beyond the 'novel' domain. I.e., the growth is benefited in all sorts of areas. It probably says that in that book.

I like how you're separating out the skills, reading in one, speaking in the other. Seems a cool idea!

[Thelinguist]

Sure. It would be great to interview him. His perspective, and his experience, would be of great interest to others. I have had an exchange with him but not in the form of an online interview.

[Thelinguist]

You have to find your own way. i can only talk about what I am doing. I used to concentrate on one at a time, and now I am trying to do two at the same time. I will let you know how things work out. Why don't you do the same.

[Thelinguist]

I prefer to focus on one language for longer periods of time, but whatever works for you is fine.

[stefanreichenberger]

From my experience, learning two languages at the same time is feasible provided that one has enough spare time available per week. In fact, I'm studying Russian and Czech in parallel in order not to overwrite one language with the other. I try to alternate on a daily basis: something like studying Russian on 3 days per week and Czech on another 2-3 days. I also try to listen to news in Russian (on RFI) and Czech (on Radio Praha) every day.