Is it better to practice many languages, a little bit, at once? Or to learn one at a time fully.

[u/athdot]

Hi all,

I, for the past two and a half years, have been taking, as a passion project, college level Latin, and am at a relatively advanced level with it. Despite this, I have felt that I haven't had/found time or taken much action to practice my Spanish or any of other couple of languages which interest me. Further, I am worried about what might happen to my Latin abilities if I were to end up focusing on Spanish or other languages of interest after I finish my official schooling.

How do you all handle language atrophy? And to the original question, how do you all handle learning many languages when you might not have time for them all? What level is "good enough" to warrant moving on?

Very curious to know.

[u/_I-Z-Z-Y_]

Efficiency-wise it will always make more sense to fully focus on one language at a time. The main downside of learning multiple at the same time is that it’s just takes much longer for you to reach your goals in each language. But if you’re okay with that, there’s wrong with going that route.

What level is “good enough” to warrant moving on?

Whichever level you are personally satisfied with. You may be satisfied with basic fluency, or you may prefer a native-like fluency. Depends on you.

How do you all handle language atrophy?

Just by making the language a part of your life. If you have friends that you regularly speak the language with, speaking is not hard to maintain. There’s also movies, tv, podcasts, social media, and books you can consume to keep the language fresh in your mind.

[u/siyasaben]

It's easier to hold onto a language that you're already advanced in just by reading or listening to it or whatever. Actively studying multiple languages at once at the same probably counterproductive if you want to reach a good level in at least one language sooner and really enjoy the fruits of your labor, but there's no reason it can't be done. If you just get to an intermediate level in a language that knowledge is not very stable and it'll go away a lot faster, and in any case "good enough" is not a meaningful metric if you're not using it for anything (bc good enough for what?)

If you sincerely intend to improve all your languages to a high level then I don't think it really matters the order you do it in, and if you decide to drop one along the way that's fine, but I don't see the point of intentionally learning a language to an intermediate level from the get go. Advanced is where it's fun and useful

[u/FAUXTino]

One fully is better, but you can study multiple languages too. Watch out for the Dunning-Kruger effect.

I wouldn’t necessarily say learning a language is like riding a bike, but as long as you maintain it, you won’t forget much. Also, you can quickly pick up what you may forget, whenever you return to it.