Learning and Maintaining 10+ Languages

Beautiful pic Leo.  

I started this project today to help me stabilize these 10 languages. From the video description "This is the first of what I hope will be many log entries. The final goal is to speak all my languages "well", and to be able to switch between them somewhat seamlessly. I also hope these will help get me over my camera shyness. These are unplanned, unrehearsed, one take...you get the picture. I want to be spontaneous, so this is the best way imo. Anyway, this is the first one so I struggled. I got stopped cold when I tried to switch to Russian, so I only spoke Korean, Japanese, Mandarin, Thai, Spanish, French and English. This video gives me lots of room to improve, haha."

Your Spanish sounds really good. Just wow!!!!!

Ari wrote:

Your Spanish sounds really good. Just wow!!!!!

Thank you!  

leosmith"s 112618 log

"Ok, today I started out with Swahili and Russian so I wouldn't forget them. I spoke all 10 languages, but my Swahili was almost non-existent, and my Tagalog was really weak. The other thing that I need to improve on is content. I kept repeating the same simple, boring stuff. But it was a good effort over all :)"

Wow! Superb!

Charlyn wrote:

Wag kang makalimot sa Tagalog Leo! lol :smile:

I promise not to. I will study it for 3 months in Thailand, then spend 2 month in the Philippines. After that I should be in really good shape.

Ok Leo. I believe you will be too!  

OMG - I forgot Japanese today  

(edit - I mean I accidentally omitted it; I didn't get tongue-tied when trying to speak it or something.)

"I used a list to remember my languages, so I got all 10, but I think I'm going to stop doing Swahili. I clearly can't speak the language, so it's a waste of time to try to recall it on video. I'll add it back after I start studying it again (May-ish)."

This is amazibg and inspiring. That is a lot to learn and keep up with. I commend you on your dedication. Learning one language is hard enough let alone 10. Kudos to you!

TaylorFabio wrote:

This is amazibg and inspiring. That is a lot to learn and keep up with. I commend you on your dedication. Learning one language is hard enough let alone 10. Kudos to you!

Thanks  

Maintaining conversational level on 3 makes my brain hurt 

Stabilizing your ten languages?

I just might return to your log every now and then.

Someone else also is doing something to stabilize some languages.

His approach differs from yours. Because you decided to stick to exactly ten of them, at least for now.

But the underlying principle doesn't differ that much. He also aims to strenghten the Language Brain Pathways.

SGP wrote:

Someone else also is doing something to stabilize some languages.

You've got me curious now. Does this person's avatar remind one of the Count of Monte Cristo before the prison escape?

Wow - it’s been 2 years since I’ve written an entry, so here’s an update. Although I didn’t follow all the way through with my original plan above of doing spurts of several months in each languages, I was able to partially reach my goal. The good news is that I now speak all my languages at a level that I’m happy with, and I’m able to use them instantly on demand. The bad news is that I’m still studying them more frequently than I’d like to. 

If you’ll recall, I want to be able to maintain the level that I now enjoy by studying a single language every other day. I study 9 languages, so the period between languages would be 9 X 2 = 18 days. I have been experimenting with the period as mentioned this post of mine in language-learners:

wrote:

I'm maintaining 9 languages, all of which I believe are B2/C1. Some are better than others, and thus require less maintenance. I study Spanish/Thai once every 24 days, Japanese/Mandarin/Russian/French 12 days, Korean/Swahili 6 days, and Tagalog once every 2 days (mainly because I'm also writing a textbook for that language tbh).

Because of my time consuming writing activities, I'm not "learning" any new languages, so I'm experimenting with the optimal period for each language. How do I know when the period is too short? I struggle having an impromptu conversation in that language, and sometimes experience interference.

I'll relate an experience I had with Swahili. I learned the language 20 years ago to a B1 level, then dropped it completely for 17 years. Last December I relearned it for 3 months, with techniques I'd acquired since dropping it, to prepare for a trip to Tanzania, and reached a low B2 level. Tagalog, my newest language, suffered really bad in the mean time; terrible interferrence from Swahili. After coming home from Tanzania, I put Tagalog on a 2 day schedule and Swahili on a 12 day schedule. Tagalog recovered in about a month. 6 months later, Swahili was in pretty bad shape, so I switched it with Tagalog. After only 2 sessions, Swahili was fine again and started to interfere with my Tagalog once more. So I put Swahili on 6 days, and Tagalog 2. I'm fortunate enough to have the flexibility of changing my schedule to optimize these right now.

What do I do in my maintenance sessions? Conversation, reading some text that also has audio, watching part of a movie/TV show. I write (scriptorium) in my languages that have different scripts. With my weaker languages I may also study grammar, write an essay, etc. I typically spend 2-3 hours total.

The chart shows the current period vs the goal. Although it doesn’t look too bad, my goal is to study 3.5 times/week, but the current periods above require me to study 9 times/week! On the plus side, I’m doing it and it’s working fine because I’m stuck at home now. Also, as those who follow me know, the total hours I spend studying per week, 18 to 27, is a light load for me. I still have a goal, though, of studying only 10 hrs/week, because I will be able to maintain that even during my most extensive travels. Reaching that goal will ensure that I have all 10 languages where I want them to be for the rest of my life. It’s my dream.

And there’s more good news. I have messed around with the learning periods to ensure that no language deteriorates, and the combination above works really well for me. But actually, I feel there is a very gradual improvement going on in most if not all of my languages. The most noticeable of these has been French. Here is a note that I sent to a friend last week:

wrote:

I told my last French teacher that my French sucks because I stopped studying it daily only one year after starting it. I've been saying this out of habit and realized that it wasn't true as soon as it escaped my mouth. This was at the beginning of our conversation, and she said "No way. Your French is great. It's at least C1 if not C2 up to this point." I said that's because we hadn't talked for long, and we continued to talk. At the end of the lesson she told me she thought my level was at a very minimum B2 but probably better. Now I'm regretting not having started my remaining European languages earlier, since they take so little effort to improve in.

The remaining European languages that I’m talking about are Portuguese, German and Italian. I am very tempted to start Portuguese now, because I have the time. But I will likely wait until I have finished the final re-write of Tagalog Lite (my Tagalog Grammar book). Here is a note I wrote to my proofreader about the book:

wrote:

I finished the first re-write, but decided to create a word frequency list for colloquial Tagalog using the 110 six-minute conversations I have on this site and do a final rewrite based on it. The list is back from my freelancer and being tweaked by me now, so I should start the final rewrite shortly.

I spent a huge amount of time on the first rewrite (500+). I’m guessing the final rewrite will take at least 300hrs, and then it will be time to go through review/editing, do all the new audio recordings, flashcards, etc., which will probably double that time. It’s a big job, and if I don’t do it now it may escape from me.

However, I may compromise. After getting into a rhythm writing the book, I may feel that I can afford spending 2-3hrs a day studying Portuguese. I may need to reduce the maintenance on my other languages to pull it off; that remains to be seen.

I’ve gained a few pounds lately, which have made my pants a bit tight, so I’ve decided to get proactive and do a fast today. I realize that’s tmi, but it’s a segue to me deciding to do an entry since I cleared my schedule for the fast and don’t know what else to do with myself.

I’ve made an adjustment to the time between study sessions for Tagalog and Korean. I’m setting them both to three days. This is a minor relaxation for Tagalog, which I am doing very well in, but a big tightening for Korean. I’m not getting worse in Korean, but my desire to improve more quickly in this language has increased recently.

I’ve noticed that, in my weaker languages especially, how satisfied I am with the conversation is very dependent on the teacher. For most languages, less than 10% of my tutors just don’t get the relaxed conversation sessions I like to have. This is for many reasons – they want to use their teaching skills; they don’t want to hear their language butchered; they like to lecture; etc. But for Korean, my dissatisfaction rate is much higher (maybe 1 in 3), and the teachers are fine. The problem is clearly mine, and as usual, it’s mostly me not remembering or recognizing vocabulary. When I’m doing an intense study spurt, I remember the words, but they have been slipping away more than I’d like when I’m on a relaxed schedule.

The other problem is my Korean listening. Unlike all my other languages except for Mandarin, having years of experience with the language in and of itself doesn’t appear to improve my listening by much, if any. So the dissatisfying conversations and poor listening skills have prompted this change.

Three days is the shortest period I can afford to give it at this point. This is because I am still rewriting Tagalog Lite, and I feel I need to keep a high awareness in that language. So I am only willing to increase Tagalog to three days, which allows me to go to three for Korean.

Regarding Tagalog Lite – I finished thoroughly reviewing the frequency list, and realized that it will take more than the 300 hrs I estimated. I’m thinking 500+. But it’s ok, because I’m planning to do my traveling in November this year, covid restrictions permitting, which gives me plenty of time to finish.  

I've been very busy with the changes to the site and the 3rd draft of Tagalog Lite lately, so I haven't been in the mood to update this log. But all is well. 

To facilitate getting the book done, I changed to a schedule of language learning every morning for 24 days, then 7 days off. So roughly one week off per month. This worked really well for me. The one week off did not seem to damage my progress, but in fact allowed my brain to consolidate that 24 day spurt. In addition, after 3 cycles I finished the draft. Now the book is in editing.

So I have a lot of time on my hands. After climbing the walls and even toying with the idea of trying to travel during the pandemic for something to do, I finally decided to start Portuguese. So I needed resources.

If you will recall, I always start a language with learning the alphabet and pronunciation together. Unfortunately, I could not find exactly what I need to do this. But the good news is, I have decided to create a Portuguese pronunciation tool, and share it with everyone. It will be in the same format of the one I did for Tagalog, have text similar to this one, with Brazilian Portuguese, Sao Paulo accent, TTS.

I’ve been studying Portuguese for three weeks already. I just completed lesson 20 of Pimsleur today. Here are the resources I’ve settled on using so far.

•       Language Crush Brazilian Portuguese Pronunciation Guide
•       Pimsleur
•       Language Crush Portuguese Tutors
•      Language Crush Brazilian Portuguese Conversations
•      Easy Languages Brazilian Portuguese Interviews
•      Teach Yourself Brazilian Portuguese
•      Modern Brazilian Portuguese Grammar
•      Netflix
•      Youtube
•      Anki
•      Online dictionaries

Things are going smoothly, at least compared to other languages. The first item on the list, the pronunciation guide, I mentioned in the previous post, and after several trial-and-errors, finally put it together.

Normally I go through all three levels of Pimsleur. There are actually five available for Brazilian, but I’m seriously thinking about stopping after level 1 (30 lessons). Pimsleur is much cheaper these days ($20/month), and it’s great for pronunciation and getting a foothold in a language. But they always simplify things and often talk in ways that are different from the way I ultimately end up talking. Imo, it’s definitely worth doing for a truly difficult language, but this will probably end up being the easiest language I ever learn (unless I decide to learn Esperanto in the future).

So what am I going to do instead of Pimsleur? Start conversation really early. Tomorrow,  after only three weeks of study, I will have my first conversation lesson. I have already scheduled one lesson a day for a whole week. After that, I plan on taking them two of every three days. I’ll do what I always do – try to converse, write down the stuff I don’t know how to say, and the stuff I hear but don’t understand, try to memorize it before the next lesson, and load it in Anki.  

I just finished reading the first LC Brazilian conversation, a series which I am still having created, but should finish with in less than a month. It was really easy for a first passage – I knew 85% of the words. But I forced myself to read it slowly and pronounce everything correctly out loud. Getting used to the pronunciation is going to take time, but now is the time to do it. It took me about an hour to read a six minute conversation; I could probably read it in less than 15 minutes if I wasn’t worried about pronunciation.

I will probably import the subs for the Easy Languages Brazilian Portuguese Interviews into the reading tool after that. I think they are a little easier and a less dense than LC Conversations, but they are natural conversations, and there are over 50 of them, so it seems like a good next step.

I will try to quickly complete the Teach Yourself course, as a way to quickly get my arms around the grammar. Unfortunately, there is no Michel Thomas for Brazilian, only European.

The Modern Brazilian Portuguese Grammar is a hard core, serious grammar. I plan to continue using it as a reference; it really isn’t designed as a course. I probably won’t ever work my way through it, for example.

The other resources, Netflix, Youtube, Anki and dictionaries are self explanatory. The internet is very convenient for learning languages.