Does anyone find it difficult to learn two languages at once?

[oonter]

I've always been teaching myself Japanese. But this semester I'm taking Spanish class. I stopped learning Japanese just so not to confuse the two. I remember the first week of class I always wanted to answer the professor with "Hai" instead of "Si"

 

[Zirdante]

Currently I'm studying English, Swedish, Arabic and self studying Japanese. Yes it can get very confusing. I have the same problem as you, the languages start to overlap each other, and in Swedish class I sometimes subconsciously switch some words if I need to answer quickly.

Like 'Jag' turns into 'watashi' and I'm like "oops I meant Jag" and stuff like that.

 

[xshock]

I don't think it should make a difference. If you're only learning 2. I would keep doing it.

 

[Shineko]

In my own personal experience, there should be no problems with learning two different languages at the same time. The only thing that could become problematic is to start to learn them exactly at the same time, so one should wait at least until one has gotten the basic grammar in one language before starting to learn the next one.

There might be some problems mixing up the grammar or words, but I would not worry about that, you just need to be more careful when using words or writing.

 

[Tomii515]

Honestly, I don't think it's hard. I'm learning French, Japanese, and Korea, currently. I usually start and stop learning languages frequently. I was learning 12 at once before.

 

[oonter]

Honestly, I don't think it's hard. I'm learning French, Japanese, and Korea, currently. I usually start and stop learning languages frequently. I was learning 12 at once before.

Whoa..wai..what? 12 at once? I must ask, out of curiosity. What languages were learning? Were you taught or self-taught? Were you learning them on the same level? Was it formal or informal?

 

[Skullcrushergurl]

Same here. Japanese and Spanish is easy because they have the same sounds but a also took french while I was studying Japanese and German all at once. It'll be alright. Now I'm studying Japanese, Chinese and whatever else comes my way.

 

[lonesoullost3]

Honestly, I don't think it's hard. I'm learning French, Japanese, and Korea, currently. I usually start and stop learning languages frequently. I was learning 12 at once before.

12 at once... at the age of 14 (or younger)? I must say I sort of doubt this statement... And learning a language does not mean learning greetings and salutations and saying "that's that." (All of this assuming you're not some child prodigy who should rightly be in a university).

In any case, I've studied Japanese and Nepali simultaneously, as well as Chinese and Japanese simultaneously. The overlaps I had was Japanese creeping into my Nepali when I first started learning, yet not in vocabulary, but in grammatical construction. That eventually phased out by the end of my first semester. For Chinese though, interestingly the opposite was happening where my Chinese was coming out when I was reading Japanese aloud (note this was first year Chinese and advanced Japanese). So it all depends.

That being said, if one language wants to pop into your mind while learning another simultaneously, I look at that as a sign that the normative learning you have undergone (that is to say to you are no longer saying 'I (in your native tongue)=watashi', but rather are starting to envision the concept of "I" as watashi (not the word). Some theories on second language acquisition support this type of language development theory, but it is not universally accepted. In any case, I suppose that was a bit of an aside.

 

[oonter]

Thanks everyone for your replies. Lucky for me though, the semester is ending in 2 weeks. So, going back to Japanese now shouldn't even be a problem.

If anything, I should be learning Korean and Chinese. I'm an African-American living in a part of New York City (Queens) that is predominantly Korean and Chinese. So, this would only make sense. Plus, I bet it would shock some of my neighbors if I learned more than just "Hi/Bye/how are you?"

 

[Tomii515]

Whoa..wai..what? 12 at once? I must ask, out of curiosity. What languages were learning? Were you taught or self-taught? Were you learning them on the same level? Was it formal or informal?

they were:

Japanese, Korean, French, Vietnamese, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, Polish, Spanish, Norwegian, Swedish, and icelandic.

eventually i dropped spanish, ussian, and swedish
then norwegian and polish
then chinese
then vietnamese

and sorta kinda korean. im still learning it, i just havent studied in a while but i plan to become fluent in it some day

french is the only one i was taught in school.


depending on how much i liked each one, thats how much more i learning. if the language had differences between formal and informal, then id learn both.

12 at once... at the age of 14 (or younger)? I must say I sort of doubt this statement... And learning a language does not mean learning greetings and salutations and saying "that's that." (All of this assuming you're not some child prodigy who should rightly be in a university).

I learned more than just greetings. I learned vocab, grammer, etc etc. Some i learne dmore than others. Language is just my thing, and this stuff, to me, is fun and it comes easy, and when things are hard to understand, i like it. i dont remember any russian besides how to read it, hardly any swedish, but other than that, i know some of the others. And just because languages are my things, doesnt mean school in general is. I'm mostly in honors classes, but i dont get the best grades. although, in my third year of french, i have a 98.

 

[lilyofthevalley]

Is it really difficult? I am trying to decide if I can study Swedish as well as Japanese next year.

 

[Kirakira1232]

Right now I'm learning both Chinese and Japanese and its been OK so far. Although yeah I'm an intermediate Japanese learner and a beginner at Mandarin. Mandarin shares quite a few characters with Japanese Kanji and more often than not they share quite similar meanings. Pronunciation and grammar of course is completely different. Japanese have all sorts of verb conjugations and is subject, object, verb whereas Mandarin has no verb conjugations (they use adverbs instead) and the base sentence structure is Subject, Verb, Object.

It can get somewhat confusing at times if I'm looking at a Chinese character and a Japanese pronunciation might accidentally slip. 先生 for example is "sensei" in Japanese and has the meaning of teacher whereas in chinese its pronounced "Xian1sheng" and means more along the lines of Sir or Mr.

So yeah while sometimes I got a little confused at the starts (esspecially when it came to numbers) it doesnt affect me as much now I have a better grasp of Mandarin grammer rules.

 

[JMoon]

It does get confusing...I have been listening to sooo much Japanese that I am sometimes replacing my English with Japanese words.

I am about to get back into Spanish while continuing to learn Japanese. There is a free Spanish group at my local library, so I figured it's a good opportunity.

I took Spanish in Jr High and Highschool, so I know it pretty well. I really need to refresh my memory.

 

[Akimoto]

Skip Swedish! If you learn Norwegian you can understand Sweden, Denmark & Norwegians!
If you learn more than 1 language i would recommend that you do not study them at the same time (day)! I study Japanese, Spanish & Chinese (in that order!) and will travel to China to learn Chinese within 3 months. After that i will travel to South America Chile to learn spanish from my family! (After then i will continue learning Japanese and actually go there!)