I am wanting to learn several new languages, is this possible?
At this moment I only speak American English
I have a passion for studying other languages and I am seeking assistance in which direction I should go in.
Over the course of 5-7 years I would like to learn beginner - novice in these languages
1.) Swedish 2.) French 3.) Italian 4.) Spanish 5.) German 6.) Russian
Now I know that it will take great determination to learn just one, but I want to be able to hold a conversation with all of those languages and maybe master atleast 3 or 4 by 10 years or so
Any help?
Sciman2010-07-25T13:05:04Z
Favorite Answer
Good luck with your endeavours.
I am a native English speaker. I learned Irish in school for 12 years and taught through Irish for a few years. I learnt a little French, and taught a beginners French course. I studied German for many years (see below), and taught it from time to time.
Your dream may be possible with hard work. Being young helps - preferably under 6 years of age!!! French, Italian and Spanish are based on Latin. Learning each one could partly interfere with learning another. I cannot say anything worthwhile about Swedish or Russian, except that Russian has a different alphabet.
I have studied German for many years, and am still learning it. It took me about 16 years to be happy with my fluency in speaking it. This was very, very satisfying to me.
Unlike French, German seemed difficult at the start but never got more difficult. French began seeming easy, but suddenly seemed to become VERY difficult for word order of advanced sentences.
General advice on vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. Learn many verbs, especially irregular verbs. Always learn the genders and plurals of nouns if they have them. The more vocabulary you know, the easier it becomes to learn more, based on what you already know. Use Mnemonics if you like, to learn words, especially nouns. Harry Lorayne explained mnemonic techniques best. Perhaps you might draw mind maps to encapsulate points of grammar. I haven't done that yet, but I may do. Sources are: Internet, and Tony Buzan.
Long words are very easy many languages using Greek and Latin roots (Peter Ustinov mentioned that years ago, on TV.) e.g. in English: spectroheliograph (colours, sun, draw(ing)) (A graph produced by an instrument that plots the strength of various colours (frequencies) of sunlight.
In pronouncing a foreign language you should aim to be very brave and prepared to make a fool of youself. Saying "la jeune fille" in French is (arguably) a sissyish thing to do, and you must purse your lips like one goldfish kissing another. It is also very easy to say.
I have come across people who have succeeded much better than me. One man is a lecturer in languages and he has reasonable success in a new language in about 3 or 6 months, by living in the country where the language is spoken.
Another, younger man is just gifted and speaks French, Italian and amazing good English.
A third person was a Catholic monk, and spoke about 13 languages.
The actor and comedian David Ustinov spoke many languages. (I did not know him personally.)
I suspect that for anyone, the first second language should be attempted as soon as possible.
I began German, only as an adult , and found that there were only a small number of sounds that had to be conquered. I made mistakes in pronunciation, partly by not believing in myself enough. In French and German, I found that it is vital to roll or scratch many r's.
Some foreigners speaking English do not learn to pronounce vowels properly, because they are concentrating so much on the consonants.
Believe what the books tell you about pronunciation. They have been written by experts and enthusiasts.
Think of a language as a sport: Could you learn how to play basketball, softball, soccer, and tennis all at the same time? Sure, you could learn them all and probably play them decently with enough practice. But could you master them all so expertly that you could play them at a college level? Much harder. What about at the pro level? Almost impossible. You need to focus on one. So the answer depends on how far along you want to get with your language learning. If you want to learn the basics of several languages and be able to speak phrases that will come up in many situations, then it is realistic to learn several languages at once. But if you want to get really deep into a language, read books from cover to cover without needing a translator, and speak like a native when having long, meaningful conversations, then that is a commitment that will require you to be exclusive to one language, or maybe two if you put in a ton of time and effort. Hope this helps!
My mother tongue is Croatian, I speak German fluently and I can speak English (I don't know how good). I also want to learn Spanish, French and Russian as good and as soon as possible, but I have no foreknowledge at all... It is possible to learn new languages, but I don't know how hard it'll be, nor how long it'll take... Some guy named Ioannis Ikonomou speaks 32 languages fluently, if he was able to learn so many languages, normal people should be able to learn a few :)
Maybe you should start learning one language, and when mastered the basics start learning the second one and so on... That's my plan :) Good luck
yes it is very possible. the human tounge was meant to speak many different languages.just make sure you know the roots of each launguage . such as spainish itailan and french are in the romance root like english there fore they would be easier to learn. but german and russian are harder.