I’m writing this post to ask people who know more than 2 languages… or those who are learning their first foreign language how they got past the beginning stages.
Every time I start to play with a new language I get this massive feeling of discouragement mainly because I’ve come so for in my first foreign language, Japanese. In some ways it makes me feel really good about how far I’ve come in Japanese, but other times It reminds me of the pain of starting a new language and knowing almost nothing in comparison. I want to become a polyglot but when I look at a new language I feel like I just don’t have time with my science studies and Japanese studies to take on a new language. This is very frustrating.
In a perfect world, I would get paid to just learn languages and translate part of the day. I’ve almost come to the end of my bachelors degree in Biology and I have to spend a certain amount of time maintaining science knowledge and getting ready for a possible career in science.
So back at the topic at hand. I”m asking this because I’ve forgotten. How do you mentally cope with getting past the beginning stages in a new language? I feel like I never really experienced this acutely because I was listening to Japanese since i was like 13 by watching subbed anime and randomly playing with beginners lessons before I really got started learning the language seriously at the age of 22 or so. By this I mean I think I remember already having the “melody” of the language in me by the time I started.
Thanks f0r any comments.
4 comments
Comments feed for this article
August 6, 2011 at 12:16 am
Kanjiguy
What languages are you thinking about studying next?
August 6, 2011 at 12:29 am
amassing words
Korean, Mandarin, German, or Dutch.
August 6, 2011 at 12:35 am
Kanjiguy
You could try laddering, where you use Japanese to learn Korean for example (or Mandarin).
August 6, 2011 at 12:54 pm
diogovk (@diogovk)
If you try a language that has a lot of similarities with some language that you already know, and you’ll be good in no time.
For instance, my native language is portuguese, so if I wanted to learn spanish, which is quite similar, it would take only about 6 months.
Now Japanese on the other hand, I study for more than 3 years and still have problems in some situations.
So, if you want to be a polyglot soon, I you recommend going on an “easy language” or similar language.
For me, I’m native portuguese speaking, then I learn enlgish, which is not so similar, but not so different, then I learn italian, which is quite similar to portuguese(not as similar as spanish though), and it incorporates some word in english like “computer” for instance. And learning italian was a lot faster than learning english.
Then I went up to the big challage which was Japanese which also has english katakana words.
And after I’m good enough in Japanese, I plan to do a brush up in italian, and then I plan to study spanish.
So I will talk a lot of languages, but it will be not so difficult, because of the similarities between them.