Learn to speak many languages

2 hours on each language over the week. It’s an achievable daily goal – 1 hour per day + 1 extra session fitted in somewhere depending on the shape of the week.

In the future when I’ve ironed out some other schedule issues successfully in my working day I’d really like to up that to 1.5 hours per day. Giving me 3 hours per language per week.

.5 Michel Thomas
.5 reading
.5 Shortcut to Spanish / BBC Ma France / German CDs

That should give me a good rounded learning structure.

I’d like to organize some language evenings this summer with various friends who talk these languages to practice my shaky sentence structure and vocab.

I’ve made time this week to do my two per day. 1 hour of each – half hour learning with Michel Thomas and half hour of reading. By Thursday I was feeling out of sorts and grumpy at how much effort i seem to put in for very little result.

TODAY IT’S ALL DIFERENT!

I feel like I’m really beginning to progress. My french reading zoomed through one and a half pages. My spanish reading I kept understanding whole sentences without looking up a single word. I understood the lessons better too.

I can see that using this method I’ll progress quickly and that is what I get a kick from – seeing real improvement in my understanding. That’s what spurs me forward. With this much input I can’t fail to improve at an exciting rate.

I’m going to promise to stick with it for 1 month and then tweak any bit of this learning schedule that needs it at the end.

This week I finished my Michel Thomas French 8CD course. It’s taken almost exactly two years to the day. Far far too long. I guess that’s the trouble with attempting three languages at once. A much slower learning curve. All the more reason to try for the two hours a day rather than just the one I seem to manage at the moment.

However, way way back when I began I promised that when I finished this goal I’d treat myself to a years subscription (abonnement) to French Vogue. I’d totally forgotten until today – so instead of reading my French reading book today I tackled the French Vogue web site and learned all kinds of new words including the rather useful ROYAUME-UNI (United Kingdom). I navigated credit card questions and security info about encrypted online banking details successfully and made my purchase.

It was really interesting to have a purpose to my reading. I’m looking forward to all kinds of doors opening to me when I can read several languages. Not to mention the online shopping opportunities!

I feel thoroughly chuffed with myself for both finishing the CDs and placing the order. I can’t wait for my first French Vogue to pop through the door.

Over the last 3 weeks I’ve been struggling to keep to 3 languages a day. I seem to progress with one in particular and then resent leaving it for a language which this week is being more tricksy.

The varied learning patterns are a big step forward – but I don’t quite have the perfect balance yet.

From today I’m going to try a new approach. 2 hours per day but only with 2 languages. I’ll try to keep the two hours to separate times of the day to help give my mind a clean break. The hour will consist of 30mins with Michel Thomas and 30mins reading. Doing this for three days will give me 2 hours of study on each language and keep it quite varied. Hopefully I should progress strongly enough to keep me really keen.

I’m trying to apply TR’s theory of how to succeed:

Try
Assess
Re-try differently
Assess
Re-try differently

etc… until you are totally fabulously successful! :)

It’s certainly helping better than trudging along getting cross with myself up for not working harder or being more disciplined.

well i’m in the prcess of learning German
but i also would like to learn:

Greek
italian
Danish
Japanese would be nice

and as much as i hate french and spanish i would like to learn to speak them fluently

It takes a bit of getting used to – and I often have to run through an answer in several languages now before hitting on the right word – but it’s the best approach I’ve tried yet.

Some days I don’t manage all three but the push is there and I’m usually learning two languages a day at least. Can you imagine how different my language skills will be by the end of the year!

doing a little of all three languages is definitely the way forward this year. Varying the learning is the way to keep me interested.

My long term plans are firming up too. Concentrate on the 3 languages I’m learning now (unless a friend goes to Egypt to work – in which case bring the Arabic plans forward).

When I’ve achieved a good level of French, German and Spanish – add in Arabic and an Indian language such as Urdu or Gujarati. When I have those 5 to a good standard I get a treat – Ancient Greek and Hieroglyphs.

All a long way off, but very encouraging to know where I’m heading.

It’s been interesting…
It’s far more difficult doing two languages. I often find that although I’m very keen on the Spanish first thing in the morning – the French is more of a drag. I’d rather do another – varied Spanish lesson later in the day than a similar French one. Also it’s tougher to progress because words from either language keep floating to the surface of my brain un-bidden and it takes longer to create a sentence in either language completely.

All that said – it’s so obvious that this is the way to progress. I have improved so much this week on both languages that it’s worth the struggle. Keeping all the languages in mind each day is the only way I’m going to achieve this goal. So this means I have to find a way of adding the German in there too.

Perhaps the key is to vary the learning technique. For example:

Week 1: Read Spanish, Michel Thomas French, verb games German
Week 2: MT Spanish, verb games French, read German
Week 3: verb games Spanish, read French, MT German

The only difficulty with that is that I progress fastest with the Michel Thomas method and I’m very impatient. I would hate to feel I was dragging my feet with any half hour I put in to learning. I’m going to stick with the two languages this week – then try moving up to the three next week and assess the situation again.

For the whole of this month I’ve been really getting back into my languages. I set myself half an hour each day to work on Spanish – which is currently very achievable. The result is that I’m enjoying the easy goal so much I often end up doing and hour or two of assorted lessons throughout the day. I’m progressing fast and enjoying it so much.

However – I do want to learn more than just Spanish. My challenge now is to find a way of adding the other two in to my week and keeping the goal this enjoyable. I know I have a bad habit of overloading myself and I want to avoid it this time.

I think this week I’ll try the following:
Spanish 1/2 hr each day (the primary focus)
French 1/2 hr each day (if there’s time)
Then I can drop back onto the extra Spanish lessons if I’m feeling extra fired up.

I’ll assess this at the end of the week and see how it’s worked for me.

If this is really such a huge life goal for me then one and a half or two hours a day is not so unrealistic. Can you just imagine how much I’d improve if I studied each language for all those hours each year? It’s a very inspiring thought.

My meagre smattering of Spanish was lots of fun. Everyone I tried it out on was very sweet and smiley and I think my attempts were appreciated. I can’t wait to go back with a better grasp of the language next time.
At various points over the weekend my boyfriend and I marvelled that we now know 3 or 4 different languages for some phrases and words. Two years ago we didn’t have the confidence to introduce ourselves in broken school French.
I’m a long way from actually speaking a second language — let alone 3rd or 4th; but I really feel that I’m heading in the right direction after this weekend.
It’s very exciting.