Christmas colors cheeeck! Okokokokok,
I ate today. I look very good. It's giving Squilliam.
I feel like this looks like brown, it's red I swear.
Mm.
People flipped out in the comments like two videos ago when I said I was studying 6 languages in 2021, like:
how are you gonna study all those languages at the same time? My brain just can't do it!!
Yes you can! Yes, I promise you you can.
And I did say in the video that I'm not studying them all at the same time, I'm kind of blocking them out.
But either way it's worth chatting about and it's worth giving you guys the explain-- explainment--
explication? Explanation! Augh!
This is a perfect time to do it, I've been getting requests for this video for a vewy, vewy, vewy long time.
But I thought it was just too basic, I was like euugghh other people have made this video before. BUT;
I'VE never made this video before. I have a different take on things. I have a unique mind.
Anyways, without further ado let's get right into the video!
So the first thing I think you should evaluate before studying multiple languages at the same time is the families
of the specific languages. I personally never study languages from the same family at the same time,
I've never studied Spanish & Portuguese at the same time and I still confuse them constantly.
So I'm imagining if I ever studied them at the same time, my brain would just KO.
It would be a really interesting process, I'm not saying it's not worth it, I'm just saying that there's
probably gonna be a lot of overlap just depending on how close the languages are.
And it might take you a longer time to get progress in those languages because of the confusion.
And this is not a blanket statement, because not all languages in the same family are always
very similar. There could be differences in vocabulary but similarities in grammar,
things like that. But please take it at your discretion,
do an evaluation and be real with yourself, like is this too hard?
Maybe talk to other people in the language community if you're on social media.
If you know certain people that have studied those certain languages together before,
see what worked for them and what didn't, what was their experience.
So definitely depend on other people, depend on empirical evidence.
So whether that's social media, if you go to public forums or things like that.
Wait, do you guys want some ASMR? [sip, gulp, AAAHH] I'm so sorry.
And yeah, the next thing I was going to say is you need to evaluate the different levels.
So if you're starting two languages from zero for example,
it's gonna be kinda difficult, and I'm gonna explain why.
Ok, languages, when you start them, I feel like they're newborn babies.
They need a lot of your attention and they need a lot of your undivided attention.
So if you're giving that new language energy
to multiple languages, I feel like you're going to be spread very thin
and I feel like you might get burnout and feel a lot of, like,
demotivation right at the beginning, and that's not good.
However, let's say you have a B2 in Finnish and you say "Okay, I wanna start learning some Spanish."
That's an effective dynamic I feel like because you're already comfortable in one and you can spend
that new language energy on just one language. It's a really interesting dynamic in terms of
motivation because you have this newfound excitement and motivation,
from the new language, and then you have the comfort and confidence of the language that you already had a higher level in, so
they can have a good effect on each other, and I really, really think that
in my language learning, the most effective stretches I've had in my language learning
were when I learned languages from different levels and tried to,, you know,, balance them with each other.
I feel like that's science, is that science?
And the last thing I think you should consider before studying multiple languages is the spaces and the roles that the languages are going to occupy in your life.
So for example with Spanish and American sign language,
those were like academic languages for me this semester because I have
three minors, two of them are Spanish and American Sign Language.
So I study them at school, the material is provided for me,
and it kind of has a whole different feeling than a self-study language.
So for this semester, I was studying German at home and it was kind of like my escape.
When my other languages were annoying me, when my professors were annoying me.
And it's interesting because I wasn't facing burnout because they were occupying, like,
you know, different spaces in my life. I didn't feel
so much overlap. I think you're seeing the trend that we want these to be as separate and as different as we can get them.
At least in my experience. And I really enjoyed that this semester because it was like "Okay, I'm gonna crush all week,
with Spanish & sign language, and I'm gonna have some lofty German study throughout the weekend.
To kind of give me that security back in my hobby language learning.
And it felt really cool, I really liked that dynamic.
And this can come in all different forms, so maybe you have a partner that you speak a different language with,
maybe it's a work language, maybe it's a hobby language, maybe it's a school language you study.
there's a lot of different options, so if you can get languages that occupy different spaces and different fields in your life,
that can be really effective. It can be a really useful tool.
And moving on, something I've found really useful when studying multiple languages at a time is
developing different practices for them. So if you're doing the exact same routine
for multiple languages, I feel like there is a very high likelihood of burnout.
And like I said, we need to differentiate them as much as we can, so like
that you have a lesser likelihood of burnout, a lesser likelihood of confusion, a lesser likelihood of getting into a rut.
So maybe your flow for Spanish is like, flash cards in the morning with breakfast,
then you do some app study for 30 minutes. Then,
later when you're studying Greek (I dunno), you listen to a song and study the lyrics
for an hour, then you go listen to a podcast episode.
You know, you may be using different formats, different resources, and you're kind of just
finding different ways to study the language that don't coincide so much.
It's all about mixing media, so if we're talking podcasts, if we're talking TV,
if we're talking flash cards or language apps, and it's about using them for different things. So maybe
you're practicing more reading in one and more listening in the other.
You-- I think you're picking up what I'm putting down.
Just do not have the exact same routine for multiple languages, I do not think that is going to fare very well.
And now lastly to talk about the time aspect. I feel like
in general it can feel pretty chaotic sometimes to
study multiple languages at the same time, and I feel like
the maximum you should be doing is 1 language/day. I feel like if you do multiple
languages in a day, that might be a little confusing.
So if you have Hungarian on Mondays, if you have Thai on Tuesdays, if you have
French on Wednesdays, I dunno. I feel like you should devote one language per day.
I personally do not do that, I know people that have done that and it's been successful
for them, I just wanna present all the options to you guys.
So I've heard some people do it day by day, some people do it week by week. I did this briefly last year in October
when I was studying Dutch, German, and French at the same time.
For me personally it didn't work so much because I've discovered that blocking for at least 1 month at a time works for me.
But I encourage you to try different things, so maybe try a whole week where you switch day by day.
Then maybe you do a couple weeks where you switch out week by week.
And then if those don't work for you you can try for a month,
maybe multiple months at a time.
I've grown to like doing a month at a time because I can really develop
more of a foundation with the language, I think that's really beneficial.
Something that I'm trying for 2021 is doing a main language-backburner language approach.
If you don't know what 'backburner' means in English, it just means not a priority.
So like on a stove, here are the front burners, here are the backburners.
So I have 6 languages for 2021, but while I dabble in the first three languages in the first three months,
I plan to be studying the languages that I'm already proficient in in the background, so maybe like 2 days a week.
So yeah, not everything has to be completely equally split, like
obviously the languages I have a higher level in aren't a priority because
I'm already comfortable in them, as you know.
So I will be reporting on how that works as soon as I get into 2021.
So I feel like this has been an educational video with a lot of information,
if you need to go back and watch it again, I do not blame you.
I talk very fast. If you have any questions about learning multiple languages at a time, you
can leave me a comment below. I am always, always, always responding to comments.
And if you wanna see me study multiple languages in real time, you can go follow me on Twitter, that's
e-l-y-s-s-e-d-a-v-e-g-a.
And yeah! That is it for today, I wish everyone very happy holidays,
If you don't celebrate, that's cool too. Take care, bye-bye.