Is It Possible To Learn Multiple Languages SIMULTANEOUSLY?

Simultaneous language learning sometimes gets a bad rep. Is it possible? Should you try it? Should it be avoided? Let's find out.

Language education – the process and practice of teaching a second or foreign language – is primarily a branch of applied linguistics, but can be an interdisciplinary field. There are four main learning categories for language education: communicative competencies, proficiencies, cross-cultural experiences, and multiple literacies.

Language education may take place as a general school subject or in a specialized language school. There are many methods of teaching languages. Some have fallen into relative obscurity and others are widely used; still others have a small following, but offer useful insights.

While sometimes confused, the terms "approach", "method" and "technique" are hierarchical concepts.

An approach is a set of assumptions about the nature of language and language learning, but does not involve procedure or provide any details about how such assumptions should be implemented into the classroom setting. Such can be related to second-language acquisition theory.

There are three principal "approaches":

The structural view treats language as a system of structurally related elements to code meaning (e.g. grammar).
The functional view sees language as a vehicle to express or accomplish a certain function, such as requesting something.
The interactive view sees language as a vehicle for the creation and maintenance of social relations, focusing on patterns of moves, acts, negotiation and interaction found in conversational exchanges. This approach has been fairly dominant since the 1980s.
A method is a plan for presenting the language material to be learned, and should be based upon a selected approach. In order for an approach to be translated into a method, an instructional system must be designed considering the objectives of the teaching/learning, how the content is to be selected and organized, the types of tasks to be performed, the roles of students, and the roles of teachers.

Examples of structural methods are grammar translation and the audio-lingual method.
Examples of functional methods include the oral approach / situational language teaching.
Examples of interactive methods include the direct method, the series method, communicative language teaching, language immersion, the Silent Way, Suggestopedia, the Natural Approach, Tandem Language Learning, Total Physical Response, Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling and Dogme language teaching.
A technique (or strategy) is a very specific, concrete stratagem or trick designed to accomplish an immediate objective. Such are derived from the controlling method, and less directly, from the approach

#metatron #polyglot #learning

[sev]

In school I had to learn French and English (starting 1 year apart) at the same time. Mixing them up was actually no problem at all, I guess they are far enough apart. However, I later studied in Japan and took Japanese classes. At that point I haven't used any French (I had reached level B2, although just barely, so it wasn't just a few sentences) for 1-2 years and whenever I tried to speak French later on I could only remember the Japanese words for whatever I was trying to say.

The most interesting thing for me is your experience with mixing up your mother language. It happens to me so so quickly. After a few weeks of only speaking English I struggle with speaking German, like sentence structure and specific words. Conjunctions and filler words are especially bad for me personally. Sometimes I also sound like an absolute idiot when speaking German because I overcompensate by using archaic German words for things that have long been replaced by anglicisms in everyday German speech but I completely forgot (or am unsure) about that.

[nickpavia]

It is definitely possible! Learning languages simultaneously is the only way that language learning stays fun for me. When I get bored with one language, I just switch to another. Although at this point, I am probably using at least 3-4 languages a day. (Though by "using", it may be something as simple as listening to a song or writing a comment on a YT video in that language). A lot of people seem worried that they will mix languages up if they are studying multiple at once, but I have never had that problem. Also, if I don't use a language for a few months and then come back to it, it seems like I have gotten better at the language despite it lying dormant. In short, take a break if it stops being fun. Language learning is usually a waste of time unless you enjoy it.

[corinna]

I'm doing it right now with Finnish and German. Sometimes I'll mix up words, but overall it's not that hard to keep them separate.

[sakesaurus]

I remember that time in school when i was doing both finnish, swedish, russian (native) and english and i remember how my Russian was kind of sad in comparison. I didn't have bad grammar but I had tougher time expressing thoughts in russian. And it was actually really hard to express emotions finely. I feel like talking one language half-decently is so much more impressive than remembering this much information as 4 languages.

[paulwalther]

I am mixing up Korean and Japanese quite a bit. I suspect it's because I'm old. When I was in college I got into language learning and studied German, French, Spanish all at the same time pretty much. My boss at work who was Greek American thought I would mix them all up but I didn't. That was college. Older me decided to study Japanese at age 34 and then moved to Japan at age 39 for two years. I had problems switching between English and Japanese. Mostly, if I were having a conversation in Japanese and then switched to English, switching back to Japanese was hard. Then after returning to the US I decided to learn Korean at age 42. The beginner grammar and stuff went well because of my Japanese studies (similar word order, post positions instead of prepositions etc) but then when I tried doing free talking instead of just textbook style short conversations Japanese would get mixed into my Korean. And I didn't even realize it unless the person I was talking to couldn't understand me and then I would think hmmm maybe I'm mixing in Japanese... I've found that choosing an iTalki tutor who speaks both languages can be a better choice since Koreans that don't speak Japanese tend to get annoyed at me if I speak Japanese to them (go figure!). I'm blaming my age and too many years of sleep deprivation but it could be other reasons too - like even though I am conversational in Japanese it's still a distant hard language for me while European languages sink in better.

Interesting and very relevant topic for me. I'll look for your other videos.

[michaelstagar]

Outstanding! Neurological similarity between woodworking and welding. You are not going to mix them up, but if you do, your will find out quick enough!

[rdand]

I'm a native English speaker (USA), somewhat conversant in Spanish, with a smattering of Portuguese, French, Italian, German, and Russian. I've decided to give Romanian a try, and as was stated in the video, it's different enough from the other Romance languages that I'm not getting confused. There's also a Slavic influence to it, which makes me grateful for having studied Russian to some extent. Be that as it may, currently, in addition to Romanian, I'm going to study Russian again. And I'm using Duolingo for both, not as a main source, but as one source, based on a previous video on this channel.

[PaulFromCHGO]

I am trying to learn 2 languages (Italian and German). Apps like Duolingo and Babbel will ask for a reason like "to improve skill" or "for fun" or "for business". My reason is a bit more direct. I now have Italian (and soon, Austria) citizenship and want to move to the EU (from the US) in a few years. So, my goal is to become as fluent as possible so that I can integrate into Italy and Austria more easily. I hope to be able to meet new Italian and Austrian friends soon after I get past A2.

[Phylaetra]

I am working (actively taking classes in) French (B1), German and Swedish (A1 both) - I am also fiddling around with Latin and Greek, but nor very actively. My classes are on different days, and then 3 days later I'll do the homework and study, with the extra day each week taking a little time for Latin and Greek (I have a tutor and every 2-3 weeks we meet and go over the assignments in the GCSE series by Taylor - I'm most of the way through the 1st book in both).

I have not really had a problem mixing them up, and it actually helps that German and Swedish have words that are cognate, but not cognates with the English (or French) word. Latin and French are different enough that they don't get mixed up, but they do both help each other a bit (with vocabulary - their grammars are fairly different) - also nice that Latin and Greek are helping me negotiate the case system of German.

I do the Duolingo 'lessons' for French, German, and Swedish daily - I find Duolingo to be a pretty decent vocabulary tool, even if it isn't great at teaching grammar, and the pronunciation - both listening and speaking - isn't great. For an 'on' day, in addition to the class or homework, I will also fit in some YouTube videos or other online resources in my target - which really helps too.

For French, I do have a conversation group that I join online as well (through the Alliance Francaise), but I haven't found something similar for German or Swedish - but I am also not yet ready to try free-conversation in either language, maybe in a year or so.

I don't think I could squeeze another language in and be at all effective at learning them all. I may even end up dropping one if it becomes overwhelming, but I have managed fairly well since the start of the year, and seem to be keeping up with my classmates. So - until I get to my goals in these languages, I won't be adding any others - though I do want to learn another six eventually, I won't be starting another until maybe 2029/2030; and won't be finished until ... well, never? Because maybe by then I will have a couple of others I want to add too.

[travelingonline]

With multiple languages, at some point the infamous "false friends" accumulate to form an awkward barrier to progress. In addition to learning more new words you have to focus a lot of energy to stay alert to all kinds of fine distinctions and avoid confusion. So I find keeping languages completely apart and making an effort to not translate or switch is much easier. I had a stunning experience when I returned from Japan. I am German. My first foreign language was English which I perfected by the age of 17. I went to Japan where I only spoke Japanese, but I also sometimes spoke English with people from America Australia and England. When I returned with Singapure Airlines I found myself to be able to speak only German and Japanese. But when I wanted to ask a stewardess to give me an orange juice in English because nobody on that flight would speak German nor Japanese my English was completely blocked. Somehow the "main storage" of the brain only allows for two "code pages" i.e. languages to be present at the same time.

[sabrinasambo]

I'm Italian and I studied Japanese, living in Japan for one year. When I came back to Italy for a few weeks I kept answering very basic questions in Japanese (like saying はい instead of sí and もちろん instead of certo) Of course after a while it did not happen so much, since I was not surrounded by Japanese anymore. But I kept using it for work. After a couple of years I started learning Spanish, and guess what? When some word would not come up in Spanish (during lessons, mainly) I had the Japanese term coming up instead. Not English, that is my best foreign language. Maybe it was because of the phonological similarities between Japanese and Spanish, who knows... Anyway I find it really hard to maintain the level of previously learned languages. I had never thought of using your method, I will give it a try! Thanks!

[marcello]

Many thanks for these helpful tips! When I was at university I used to write on a notebook sets of words and phrases for different usages in different languages. My idea was to learn many languages related to a similar language branch, in order to have less difficulties with the grammar, but after a while I started noticing some confusion, so I decided to learn languages from different families (like Hebrew and Japanese) at the same time and the results improved.

[NaturalLanguageLearning]

When I was working at the Spanish Embassy in Berlin I was learning German, Russian, Romanian and Italian at the same time. German by using it at work, reading a lot and socialising.
Romanian by daily reading and listening to Assimil, talking to neighbours and later listening to history podcasts.
Russian by daily reading and listening to Assimil and talking to neighbours.

Italian by hanging out with Italians and listening to history podcasts.
It's all a matter of good habits and time management.

[LotusReal]

Been learning Mandarin, Thai, Korean & Japanese with tutors for each and about an hour a day for each. Seems perfectly doable for me but I’m rich, less resources you have I imagine the more difficult it becomes, especially for HSK Books or TTIMK books.

[thetightwadhomesteader]

Ive been learning italian on the side. Im mainly learning spainsh, but i like to switch over to italian when i get bored (ive been playing around with german too). Its very a similar language so how i keep it separate is translate spainsh words into italian, that way i reinforce spainsh while learning a different language. Learning it that way helps me keep the 2 separate....or at least it works for me.

[CarlsLingoKingdom]

Thanks for mentioning the "skill" of language switching. I think that's something I need to practice more as I'm learning 3 languages simultaneously.

[MmeZinzin]

I did not manage to learn Spanish and Italian at the same time. So I quit Spanish and being fluent in French learning Italian became very easy. Then I started Arabic and was afraid of forgetting French and Italian, but since I had a very good level in both languages I could easily dig it out again. Starting Hebrew after Arabic was actually easier since they are closer than i thought but still different enough to not mix them up :-)

[gwynnmccallan]

I Would love a language learning routine. I'm completely new to learning a second language and feeling overwhelmed. The last time I tried to learn was 35 years ago in high school. It took me 4 years to get through 2 years of beginner French. Yes, I had to repeat each class because I failed the first time. I guess I'm a slow learner. Just hearing your strategy of narrating your day was eye opening for me. It would never have occurred to me to do that.

[fatimahmakgatho]

Your ability to language swop is amazing

[EmrahUncu]

I was going to ask the very same question in your previous videos but I didn't. Glad you made this video.