Learning two different languages at once...?

Question

I am about to start studying French and would also like to include another language in my degree. Is it difficult to learn two languages at once? Does it make a difference if one is a european language (e.g. French) and the other is an asian language (e.g. Mandarin Chinese or Japanese) - does this make it easier than studying 2 european languages at once? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

Answer 1

I have to say that learning one language is hard enough but when you put in a second one ,no matter how related they are, it would get 2 times difficult ,so of course you divide the time you would spend with one language (like most people do)
and practically you make half progress with a language and half with another ,things go pretty slow and boring this way .Furthermore as you advance you'll see that dividing your time between the two will not be as easy as it was before.
So it could be easier if you just picked one language ,because you will be more confident knowing that you can complete it ,and having nothing else to interfere along the beautiful journey that is language learning

Answer 2

I think that when you learn two languages at once there's always the risk you'll get them mixed up, but that's significantly less if the languages are really different (like french and chinese)

I did french and german together for a while and i had no problems, but now im learning french and spanish together i do have to make sure i think in the right language first sometimes.

Then again, i don't have much experience of starting to learn 2 languages at exactly the same time, because there was 1 year's difference for the german, and now 3 years' difference for spanish, so it might be different if u start at the same time.

Hope this helps xXx

Answer 3

It has been my experience that the more potential for confusion in the languages, the more difficult the learning experience when studying two languages at once. For example, trying to learn Spanish and Portuguese at the same time would lead to a lot of confusion because of similar sounding words that have different connotations.

Learning a European language simultaneously with a Asian language should be easier, but will still require a great deal of work.

This, of course, is different for different people, so your mileage may vary.

Answer 4

I studied French and German in high school and had no problems keeping them seperated in my mind.

If you're about to begin French and don't know how well you'll do in terms of learning a new language, it's probably best to stick to a language that's similar to French, like another Romance language, or any language based on the modern Latin alphabet.

Many Asian languages are rated by the UN as having very difficult learning curves, so I'd recommend learning one of those if it's one of your must-accomplish goals and if you have the drive to learn them. But learning a more advanced language like Japanese on top of something simpler like French might become very challenging early on.

So... That's my two cents. Stick with simple if they're going to be your first non-native languages, maybe go for more advanced if you already have experience learning languages outside of your mother tongue.

Answer 5

It will be much easier if you study two european languages and even two latin languages like french and lets say spanish or italian, because the grater the differences between the languages the harder it will be for you to learn them at the same time. Specially if there are differences in structure like for example english is SVO whereas arabic is VSO; therefore there will be negative interference when using one of these languages..

Answer 6

When learning two languages it for me is harder to think in french then think in english and translate to german. You have to be able to think in the language you are learning and switch when you need to. I do no know about Mandarin or Japanese but to learn russian is a complete and different accent than say french or german. I s it possible for you to audit another language while taking one of your choice and if you so choose you can then take the dual languaes, it isn't for everyone. Also try learning sign language, it is a valuable tool.

Answer 7

I believe if you learn two languages on opposite site of the spectrum like French and Mandarin the it is very achievable because no confusion can occur. If you were learning French and Occitan then there would be great risk of confusing the two languages since they are in the same sub-branch of the romance branch.

Answer 8

i prefer learning an asian language too
learn somewhat like indian or srilankan, it would be simple in grammer and writing. please provide your purpose of learning