[D] The Ten Language Challenge

Hey guys, Juicebox here. About 4 months ago, I started what I call the ten language challenge, and I was wondering if any of you guys might be interested in trying it

The ten language challenge really is quite simple - learn 10 languages, and read/speak/comprehend/write them all fluently before you die.

I think this is the type of ultimate brain challenge that I've been looking for - plus, knowing 10 languages can be quite useful ^_^

I grew up speaking both Mandarin and English - but I almost forgot Mandarin at one point. In 8th grade, I started speaking Spanish, and have reached a point where I could get my point across, but I was still missing a lot. Four months ago, I started Korean - but without classes and time, I haven't made a lot of progress

In the fall though, that should all change, as I'm going to sign up for a Korean class ^_^

Four months ago, I thought about how many languages I wanted to learn - and I decided that 10 might be a good number. I realize that it may be impossible to learn them all, but I really, really want to at least try.

The 10 are:

1. English (learned...basically)
2. Mandarin (I know the elementary stuff...but larger phrases need work and I suck at reading/writing)
3. Spanish (need to become more fluent and retain)
4. Korean (need to learn)
5. Japanese (need to learn)
6. Latin? (I feel like this would be useful with learning Western Languages)*
7. French (need to learn)
8. German (need to learn)
9. Italian* (need to learn)
10. Taiwanese (can comprehend, cannot speak)

The starred ones basically I'm not sure about; I may swap those out later, but that's my list

10 languages sound a bit crazy - I figure I'm going to undershoot, but the farther I aim, the farther I'll go, right?

I'm only 18 - I have quite a bit of time, and I figure if I look at a bit of everything each day...

I've noticed that learning the second language is probably the most difficult, but doing it at such a young age has made it easy for me. The third language becomes easy, and each progressive language becomes much easier. The problem is retention - how does one drill so many words into your head?

The way I do it is by writing it, but as one is doing so, say it all out loud. And at different times of the day, I think in different languages. Also, watch a lot of soap operas, they help ^_^. I even watch the TeSL sometimes just to listen to Chinese :D

If you are to take this challenge, what I'm curious to know is, what 10 would you choose?
Do you think you can do it?
If you had any pointers, what would they be?
Any little tricks to learning languages?
Any products you'd recommend, like Rosetta Stone?
Have any of you embarked on a similar journey?
Do you think I'm crazy? ;]

I'd love to hear your guys's thoughts on this.

And then you know what happened all of a sudden?

IrOnKaL United States. June 27 2012 02:17. Posts 337

Profile #

My goal is to just become fluent in a second language. I've tried a few but I have been flaky with all of them. Three years of french, 2 years of korean currently. I almost forgot all of french besides the very basics. I learn fast but also forget fast if I take any breaks T.T

EDIT: Good luck with Japanese though...I have a friend who has been taking classes for 5 years and he still has a hard time watching anime, dramas etc.

Last edit: 2012-06-27 02:21:08

Hopeless1der Canada. June 27 2012 02:23. Posts 2216

Profile Blog #

I've tried learning French, Mandarin and Japanese using Pimsleur's. They work as an introductory source but if you don't have a way to actually use the language every day, you'll probably lose it fairly quickly. Find friends who are fluent is probably the best thing to reinforce what you know.

In general, french spanish and italian should be similar enough that learning one makes it much easier to learn the others. The problem would become the languages blending together from lack of use in your brain.

Learning Techniques:
I 'borrowed' a label maker from work and created translations of all kinds of stuff, stuck them around my house and office and proceeded to try to talk to myself during the day (under my breath so people didn't think i was batshit crazy) using a language other than English.

Finding TV shows with optional captions are great training as well. I'm told Korean soaps are really good because they are easy to follow.

Using french dubs of your favourite movies might be good if you know the original dialogue almost by heart.

Final thought: Holy crap 10 is alot. I'm settling for 5 personally.

Haato Mexico. June 27 2012 02:24. Posts 55

Profile #

Well you could go for the obvious easy choices with the romance tongues because they are all ridiculously similar(spanish, portuguese and italian come to mind). As a translator I have also thought about learning more than these three.
Spanish (mother tongue)
English (taught since elementary)
German (3 years in)

The thing is languages are very deep and you can always get better (unless you're John Keats of course).

What do you intend to do with them? Most translators usually translate into their mother tongue so maybe you could do more reasearch on topics you like and cultures that you could enjoy knowing, that way learning won't be such a hassle.

I started learning Portuguese at a school but soon gave up on that, it was way too similar to spanish and it just felt like learning little quirks and equivalences instead of a whole new language. Their history and culture were great, I loved their racial mixing and hybrids that came out of it.

You're not crazy but it will surely test your will and perseverance so you'll feel crazy at some point.

My teacher recommends reading out loud for atleast 2 minutes every day, sounds easy but it surely helps.

I will probably not shoot for 10, deepening on German and maybe learning Russian is surely enough to keep me entertained. I look forward to translating engineering stuff in those languages.

Buena suerte!

death is easy, comedy is hard

Chronos. United States. June 27 2012 02:28. Posts 705

Profile #

One thing I'd recomend is to change the language of any game you play. On my PSP I play a lot of Monster Hunter when I'm out, and everytime you start it up it asks what language you want to play it in. So I tried Spanish once after having about 2-3 years education (and more to come), and it really helps.

Just seeing the same things in Spanish so many times helps me retain it, and just thinking about another language that much does wonders since I would only really have to worry about it in the classroom previously.

rkffhk June 27 2012 02:30. Posts 366

Profile Blog #

On June 27 2012 02:09 XDJuicebox wrote:
op

I already did this many years ago.

Worth it. 100%

Give me a PM with a language and I'll give you a site or book or whatever to use.

Last edit: 2012-06-27 02:31:10

"Did not realize gold was such an important threshold for people, I guess I honestly take it for granted that if people practice / invest enough time into this game then they would make diamond in no time." ~Caihead

sCCrooked Korea (South). June 27 2012 02:30. Posts 1068

Profile Blog #

Its an interesting challenge I'd heard about from a professor 8 or so years ago. However the version I heard of was 10 languages before you were 30 years old.

Personally, I've already tasked myself with 8 before I'm 30 and that's proving difficult enough. I do believe its perfectly possible. My family has many workers within the government and 6 of them are translators for diplomats. You need 26 languages fluent before you can get that kind of work.

My progress is as follows:

1)English (learned)
2)Spanish (retaining more complex vocabulary needs work)
3)Korean (Can read/write but I still make frequent grammatical errors)
4)Japanese (Can read/write but I still need to expand my vocab and I only know 6,000 Joyo-Kanji characters)
5)Russian (Basic learning stages)
6)Portuguese (Basic learning stages possibly slightly more advanced due to extensive Spanish knowledge)
7)Gaelic (Basic learning stages)
8)German (Basic learning stages)
9)Mandarin (Basic learning stages except in reading since I know some kanji characters)
10)MSA Arabic (Basic learning stages)

Knowing languages has made visiting the world much easier. I may replace one of my options with a more useful or easier language later. Any visits to other countries that speak the languages you know become instantly more appealing to you just because you do not have to worry about that barrier existing.

Learning the second and third languages for me were the most difficult. The reason for this is I chose 2 languages on purpose who had completely different rules from my first language. I know English and Spanish have Latin roots in their origin and all follow a similar structure. The arrangement of Spanish sentences is very different from English and got me used to different arrangements not becoming a problem when understanding the sentence as a whole. The Asian languages on the other hand are off a completely different tree and don't follow the same rules of European langauges at all.

My reasoning for making it harder on myself at the beginning is that it makes other languages easier to learn. Really any from any tree can be used as your first step. I chose Spanish because in America, Spanish-speakers are very common nowadays so I was able to find practice. That knowledge will greatly influence and ease my learning of other European languages. Korean was my original language as an infant/toddler so learning that was a bit more personal in my choice in reasoning. Learning in that tree also helped Japanese progress and eventually will have a large impact on my Madarin Chinese studies as well.

A few pointers is to never stop practicing them. Even if its just watching some videos to hear it or reading a page or two just to look at the language every day. If you stop practicing, you slip back VERY quickly and its much harder to re-learn than to forget. Use them, or lose them basically.

Software can be helpful, but I found Rosetta Stone was actually not amongst my favorites. Its a good way to be immersed, sure, but it involves a lot of guess-work on the learner's part and I found it rather unfavorable. I used a mix of software for visual stimuli when I was at home, combined with books for vocabulary and verbal practice by literally traveling to the environment itself. When I learned Spanish, I frequented Mexico and Peru. When I learned Korean, I simply visited where my ancestral roots in Korea were. Japan was learned by living in Yokohama City before the natural disasters. I know some can't afford to "just go there", but it really is THE quickest way because its all around you. Its in your face which forces you to practice and learn constantly. There's really no substitute for that sort of instant creation of need for the knowledge and understanding.

I've been on this 10-language mission since I was 15 and I don't plan on giving it up. I might not make it by the time I'm 30, but I'll be close enough for my tastes. Maybe giving myself until the end of my life is a much more relaxing deadline, but I work better under pressure. Good luck on your quest, it has shaped my life greatly since I began this journey almost 10 years ago.

Follow the yellow brick road and you'll find whoever is f*cking with you.

XDJuicebox United States. June 27 2012 02:41. Posts 480

Profile Blog #

Haha before I'm 30 sounds fun too...

Pimsleur's seems interesting, I'll give it a go. I have friends all over the world, that's another reason why I started this challenge ^_^

Gracias!

I use my Facebook in Spanish :D

Twenty six languages?!? That's crazy! I'm actually a Math Major...

Arabic seems like an interesting option...I opted not to do it due to the fact that it seemed to be so different from the two language groups that I chose from (European and Asian)
My first two languages were like polar opposite :D Grammar doesn't seem to be an issue for me to be honest, it's more the retention of vocabulary...
Good luck to you too!! :D:D

And then you know what happened all of a sudden?

pQylling Denmark. June 27 2012 02:41. Posts 138

Profile Blog #

I wish we could just agree on one language and one language only, i despise that people refuse to learn the most popular business language in the world because of "tradition".

jdseemoreglass United States. June 27 2012 02:45. Posts 3773

Profile Blog #

My goal in life is to spend as much time as possible with the people I love and to do as little work as possible. After being in the military and deploying to other countries, I guess you could say I really learned what my priorities in life are: time and relationships.

Last edit: 2012-06-27 02:47:17

"If you want this forum to be full of half-baked philosophy discussions between pompous faggots like yourself forever, stay the course captain vanilla" - FakeSteve[TPR], 2006

DwmC_Foefen Belgium. June 27 2012 02:51. Posts 2138

Profile Blog #

Why no dutch? Son I am dissapoint.

Dandel Ion Austria. June 27 2012 03:02. Posts 5714

Profile #

My tip for anyone trying that:
Do NOT, EVER learn two similar languages at the same time, you will confuse them. I promise.
If you want to learn more simultaniously, learn Mandarin while learing Spanish, etc.

Learning a language in itself is actually relatively easy, compared to keeping up with it.
I learned French, but I can barely form proper grammar anymore, because I never needed the language, and also didn't try to keep up with it at all.
For a language you have learned, constantly read books, watch movies (option to combine audio and subtitles in different languages to maximize usefulness), write texts, whatever...

But if you don't have any practical uses for the languge (like your job, gf, regular holiday there, ...) 10 is too much to keep up with by books/movies imo.

The apple's gone, but there's always the core

sVnteen Germany. June 27 2012 03:14. Posts 2160

Profile #

i speak german, english,french and spanish

i'm not that good at french and spanish but if i wanted to learn any more langauges it would be portuguese, mandarin and russian

MY LIFE STARTS NOW ♥

Xiphos Canada. June 27 2012 03:20. Posts 5732

Profile Blog #

I speak English, Mandarin and French but I have been getting resources of leaning Spanish (should be easy) and Japanese (I think that as long as I am able to understand the basic stuff, all I need is to feed myself animes and practice along with the characters).

2012 - Remember of the Fallen Heroes and Command the way to your victory.

Recognizable Netherlands. June 27 2012 03:22. Posts 1348

Profile Blog #

Speaking latin isn't being taught anymore, there are like only a few hundred people in the whole world who can. I also don't know how learning to translate/write latin whatever is going to improve learning new(western) languages, but I haven't really tried learning another language after learning to translate Latin. I could probably learn German or French in a month(already know the basics) if I really tried but I don't really enjoying learning languages all that much. I'm just going to leave it at Dutch and English

GenesisX Canada. June 27 2012 03:30. Posts 3961

Profile Blog #

I would not take this challenge lol... 10 languages is really crazy. If you actually make it, I commend you.
BUT, if I would do the challenge:
1) English (know it pretty much)
2) Mandarin Chinese (parent's mother tongue, but I'm very bad)
3) French (mandatory to take it in Canada. Fun to speak, but I'm need to polish it off. Passable but still bad)
I don't know, but would like to learn the rest:
4 - 10) Korean, Japanese, Taiwanese, Spanish, Canto, and two others... I like asian languages

133 221 333 123 111

TheKwas Iceland. June 27 2012 03:36. Posts 344

Profile Blog #

I've always kinda been annoyed by people insisting who insist they speak 4+ languages. Often, their definition of "I can speak language X" is really "I can make my way through a children's book, but heaven forbid I try to watch a movie in that language and understand what's being said at all times".

This isn't always the case when the other languages you learn are almost dialects of each other (Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian are extremely similar, lets just admit it. Going from Spanish to Portuguese takes maybe 1/15th of the time and practice it takes going from Korean to English, or Arabic to Chinese all other things equal). However, as a general rule, if the person can't name an actual stage of learning ability that they are at (high beginner, mid-intermediate, high-advance, etc), but say they are "fluent" or "can speak" language number 5, they're probably pretty bad at that language (no higher than mid-intermediate is an almost sure-bet).

To get really good at a language, you need to be surrounded by it and constantly be re-enforcing your vocabulary and language skills (including even your mother tongue, think about how bad some native speakers write English and have trouble using a vocabulary more diverse than what you see on Trailer Park Boys). In other words, you need to "live" a language. That simply isn't possible for 10 languages. By the time you start working on your 8th language, your 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th languages will be deteriorating faster than you learn the 8th language. I say 4 languages is the most you should strive for if you actually want to be good because there's roughly the amount of languages you can practically use (or 'live in") within the course of a day or two. Learning more than that just causes your past languages to deactivate (mostly deteriorate).

Instead of trying to learn 10 languages, I would pick a few that mean the most for you (due to people you know, arts/entertainment you enjoy, places you want to live in, etc), and actually get GOOD at them.

biology]major United States. June 27 2012 03:37. Posts 612

Profile #

the thing is you are just going to forget most of the language if you are not actively using it or hearing it. The way we are taught at schools is an example of how we spend many years learning and cannot fully use the language and forget it soon after. The best way to approach this is to LIVE the languages, meaning culture/place.

Question.?

FliedLice Germany. June 27 2012 03:40. Posts 6475

Profile Blog #

good skill toi have, especially since I'm working at a hotel... but I can't really channel the motivation to do that, so 2 languages have to be enough

German (grew up/live in germany)
and English (father's irish/learned at school)
started learning Latin at school but was too lazy, didn't learn much and couldn't keep up with the pace of the class, quit it as soon as I could (nearly had to repeat a year at school because of it ._.)

never even had french or spanish at school

"I don't really understand why someone would focus so much on what they don't like, instead of putting their energy toward what they enjoy. Music is not politics. It is meant to be listened to and felt, there is no point talking it to death."

Kickboxer Slovenia. June 27 2012 03:41. Posts 1040

Profile #

I'm a linguist by profession though I am only fluent in 3 languages as they seem to do the job.

My personal opinion is that 90% of learning a language lies in everyday conversation.

My advice is to start watching content in the language of your choice. Like korean sc2 commentary for example. Your brain will figure the basic structure and essential vocabulary on its own. Then add easy reading and progress towards conversation with a fluent person, then simply keep up the conversation.

As someone who has both learned and taught university level linguistics I think the traditional theory-based aproach to absorbing language is more or less terrible. Throw a peniless man on the streets of Paris and he'll be speaking French in no time