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how can you learnmany languages and at the same time keep up with other stuff?

how can you learn italian, english, spanish, french, german and at the same time keep up with school and house cleaning and still have a social life ?
Reply 1
Original post by Nick.kkk
how can you learn italian, english, spanish, french, german and at the same time keep up with school and house cleaning and still have a social life ?

You just prioritise different ones at different times, and find ways to passively include them in your life - I never have more than 3 languages in active learning mode, the rest just go on maintenance mode for a while until I can come back to them. I watch films with the subtitles in other languages to pick up conversational vocab, read books in other languages, listen to music, educational podcasts, foreign YouTubers etc.

It's important to see them as long term projects, and set short term goals that work around your commitments at that time. It's very easy to maintain a language with passive engagement (see above), so if you're at a time where school is extra busy or you have more commitments for whatever reason, you can just put them on the backburner for a bit :smile:
The key is doing a little bit a day, or whenever you're free, whether it's before you go to bed or on the bus going somewhere, you can utilise your free time. If you're really struggling for time then maybe cut down how many you're learning to maximum 2/3. I've been learning Czech, Japanese and Belarusian for about a year now by doing a little bit every day.
Reply 3
Original post by Interea
You just prioritise different ones at different times, and find ways to passively include them in your life - I never have more than 3 languages in active learning mode, the rest just go on maintenance mode for a while until I can come back to them. I watch films with the subtitles in other languages to pick up conversational vocab, read books in other languages, listen to music, educational podcasts, foreign YouTubers etc.

It's important to see them as long term projects, and set short term goals that work around your commitments at that time. It's very easy to maintain a language with passive engagement (see above), so if you're at a time where school is extra busy or you have more commitments for whatever reason, you can just put them on the backburner for a bit :smile:

Well, with all honesty I am more fluent in Italian than in any other language I am studying. This is followed by English - which I am close to being fluent in - Spanish - a bit far from English, but mainly because I don't have many people to speak it with - French - far from Spanish also but because of the same reason mentioned for Spanish and because I stopped learning it for 2 years or so - German - let's just say I am beginner on that. So if by "active learning" you intend looking up vocabs, grammar videos and books, then English, Spanish, French and German are the ones I am "actively learning".
Reply 4
Original post by astraeako
The key is doing a little bit a day, or whenever you're free, whether it's before you go to bed or on the bus going somewhere, you can utilise your free time. If you're really struggling for time then maybe cut down how many you're learning to maximum 2/3. I've been learning Czech, Japanese and Belarusian for about a year now by doing a little bit every day.

The problem is that I cannot cut down on the numbers of languages for many reasons. I will state 2:
1. I have a Belgian passport, meaning at least 2 from French, German and Dutch is a must.
2. My whole family are polyglots, and they expect me to learn many languages, because they say it helps a lot in your career, in building connections,... In short, they have that sense of pride you will only see in Italian or African culture.
3. I was born in Italy before coming to the UK and learning English and keeping up my Italian is another must, so that when I don't know a word in English I can guess it through my knowledge about other romance languages that I know like Italian, Latin, French and Spanish.
Reply 5
Original post by Nick.kkk
Well, with all honesty I am more fluent in Italian than in any other language I am studying. This is followed by English - which I am close to being fluent in - Spanish - a bit far from English, but mainly because I don't have many people to speak it with - French - far from Spanish also but because of the same reason mentioned for Spanish and because I stopped learning it for 2 years or so - German - let's just say I am beginner on that. So if by "active learning" you intend looking up vocabs, grammar videos and books, then English, Spanish, French and German are the ones I am "actively learning".

Yeah so "active learning" I class as the ones I sit down and do grammar exercises, make notes, practise writing characters, learn new vocab etc. "Maintenance mode" are the ones that I'll read the news in the morning in or review old vocab during gaps between lessons or read a book/watch a film in if they're my higher level ones - I'm not actively trying to put new information into my brain, but I'm trying to keep using what I do know so I don't lose it.
Hi, I'm learning all of those plus a few more. What worked for me is making a little bit of progress every day with all of them, but then having 'bursts' of learning a single language, in which I really focus on making progress in one language. This means that I do eventually improve in all of my languages.

A little bit every day though is key. I'd recommend using Duolingo to start, and doing 1-3 exercises of each language per day
You have to learn each language one by one as it is unrealistic to learn more than 2 languages at once. You could maybe learn 2 at once but most people struggle with this and your languages won't be as good in 2 months as one of them if you only focussed on that one alone in 2 months. I speak 4 languages and what I do is learn one language to a good degree then learn the other. It goes without saying that it's crucial that you practise them everyday :smile:

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