How to Learn Two Languages at Once
It’s possible to learn two languages at once, but it’s important to follow some general guidelines in order to avoid holding back progress in both.
The two most important things to consider are the stages at which you’re learning the two languages, and the similarity of the two languages you’re wanting to learn.
If you’re starting out with two new languages, you’ll need to study them actively for at least a few months. If you’re at the earlier stages of the process in two languages, and thus having to do some active study in both, you have to factor in how much spare time you have. If you’re going to struggle to find the time for both, there’s a chance your progress in both will suffer, and you may enjoy it less through the worry of finding time.
I therefore think it’s ideal to actively study one language at a time. I tried to fit Spanish and German around the first semester of my final year of university and a job, and my progress in German suffered, to the point where I decided it would be better to just pick it up another time. It will depend on how much free time you have available though, and if you think you could actively study two at once, go for it.
It’s important to ensure the two languages aren’t closely related. If you’ve already reached the stage of just passively immersing in French, starting to actively study Italian will be fine, and will actually prove easier because of its similarity to French. However, if you’re having to actively study two closely related languages at once, you’re bound to get confused. If you’re starting out with both languages from the same point, you’ll have a much easier time going with French and Russian, or French and Arabic, or French and Lingala, and so on.
You should try to create a distinction between the two languages you’re learning. Aside from the two approaches mentioned above, another way is to allocate set times of the day for each. For instance, you could associate Chinese with the morning, and French with the evening.
In summary, it’s probably ideal to actively study one language, whilst passively immersing in a language for which you’ve already finished the active part of the process. However, if you are going to actively study them simultaneously, it will likely be a lot less confusing if the two are from different language families.
This is not to say you shouldn’t go about learning two languages that are closely related. If you focus on one, and get yourself to a decent level - perhaps close to fluency - you can then use it to learn the other, similar language. For example, this could be done with Korean and Japanese. Both languages have similar grammar, and it can seem notoriously complex for English speakers. However, Korean has a far simpler writing system than Japanese, so if you were wanting to learn both, you could start with Korean. The alphabet takes anywhere between a few hours and a few days to learn, and you could then focus on immersion, practice, and active study.
Once you’ve reached fluency, or certainly once you feel comfortable with the grammar, you could start learning Japanese. You’d still have the complex writing system to learn, but the grammar will seem a breeze as a result of its similarity to that of Korean.
This also applies to similarities in vocabulary. Immersing in a language that is similar to one you already know is much easier, as you’ll find from the outset that your reading comprehension is a lot higher than it would be when starting an unrelated language. I was lucky enough to learn French almost by accident, but then found learning other languages, and especially other Romance languages, relatively straightforward. I used French resources to learn Spanish, Catalan, and Italian, and Spanish resources to learn Portuguese. Not only did this help to maintain and improve my French and Spanish, but it also made the process even quicker.
A final thing worth mentioning is that you can compromise. During the final year of university, I spent enough time on Portuguese and Italian to be able to read them fluently, but had to move on to other things before I could get my listening ability to a decent level. At the time, it was more important I was able to read them for dissertation research, and so I was happy to come back to them a year later to improve. Sometimes you can learn a language for a shorter period of time, knowing you’ll come back to it to improve in the future.
As ever, the most important thing is to structure your approach in a way you’ll enjoy.
Original Image
Bandar Sunway, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia by SK Yeong on Unsplash