taking multiple language courses

[Whistler]

http://theboard.byu.edu/questions/74581/

I feel so sorry for this person. Learning one language is hard enough, but trying to learn more than one (especially at a beginner level) is just going to make them both harder. I would suggest this person drop one of the language courses.

[Dragon Lady]

Amen. I took Chinese and Spanish 101 the same semester. It was ridiculous. Oddly, Chinese was way easier for me. When I'd be doing exercises on the chalkboard for Spanish I'd find myself writing the traditional characters instead of Spanish.

I'm still not sure if it's because Chinese was just easier for me, or if it was because I had an awful Spanish teacher… Dear BYU-I, just because someone can speak Spanish and can teach math doesn't make them a good Spanish teacher.

[Katya]

I feel so sorry for this person. Learning one language is hard enough, but trying to learn more than one (especially at a beginner level) is just going to make them both harder. I would suggest this person drop one of the language courses.

No joke. Someone told me once before college never to start two languages at the same time, and I consider it very sage advice. And even when I was doing beginner level classes in one language along with advanced French classes, I still had cross-language interference (and in very unexpected ways).

[Digit]

Does not apply to babies

[Giovanni Schwartz]

I never even took two language classes at the same time, but I still sometimes can only think of the Chinese word/grammar when I try to speak Spanish.

[vorpal blade]

Does not apply to babies

Didn't read the whole article, but I've understood for a long time that our language learning abilities decrease as we get older.

One of the ways children learn to be multi-lingual without the difficulties of mixing up the languages is to learn to associate speaking a particular language with a particular person. If you have a French maid, an Italian driver, a German tutor, a Spanish cook, and a Norwegian ski instructor it is easier to keep the languages straight.

[Digit]

I've read in books about memory that the brain can store many associations relating to different senses when attempting to encode something into memory. Using your vocal cords to say the word goes to one part, hearing it said goes to another, using your hand to write it goes to another, seeing the word goes to another. I wonder if after building up a very established habit of some discrete physical gesture, like curling up the toes of your left foot while practicing language A and curling up the toes of your right foot while practicing language B over a long period of time, you could then when curling up your left toes, be less likely to accidentally use language B while using language A.

[Emiliana]

I once took French and ancient Greek in the same semester. One thing I did to keep them separate in my mind is that I always write English in print, French in cursive, and Greek in, well, Greek characters. That encoded both visual and tactile differences.

[Katya]

Does not apply to babies

Except that bilingual babies start talking later than monolingual babies (presumably because it takes longer for them to mentally sort out both language systems before they start to produce words). They catch up, though.

[Whistler]

yes. Babies also have the disadvantage of not being able to understand grammatical explanations of why speaking a certain way is wrong, so they often are just wrong a lot, but thankfully this doesn't seem to impede their learning.

[Portia]

Does not apply to babies :)

Didn't read the whole article, but I've understood for a long time that our language learning abilities decrease as we get older.

One of the ways children learn to be multi-lingual without the difficulties of mixing up the languages is to learn to associate speaking a particular language with a particular person. If you have a French maid, an Italian driver, a German tutor, a Spanish cook, and a Norwegian ski instructor it is easier to keep the languages straight.

D***, my nice-to-haves list just got wayyy longer, Vorps.