There is something going on inside my mind right now and I don’t like it. Basically I can just about see the breakthrough with my German learning. When i listen in on German conversations i can identify lots of words and can work out the meaning, even if the details still escape me. This I am very pleased with.
My problem lies in when I think back to 18 months ago, infact, 9 months ago and I remember the struggle and the frustration when attempting to listen and wondering when it would start to make sense. When all these blue words appeared on screen and it was just a jumble of letters that made no sense to me.
Now I haven’t yet decided what my next language will be, probably Spanish, but I’m interested in seeing what new languages come to LingQ. Yet I can’t help but feel somewhat depressed about starting over again, not knowing anything at all, the months of hard slog where nothing makes sense. Where i listen to content over and over and my brain just can’t fathom out anything.
I know i can do it… I have proved to myself that I can learn a language, but does anyone else or has anyone else had this feeling of… dread… about starting a new language from scratch again?
I hope I make sense here, and I don’t want to come across like it’s been a chore. Just it is something that is going round in my head at the moment.
No, I’ve never felt that feeling. I enjoy picking up new language…perhaps too much. I never study only one at a time. Simultaneous language study is the way for me.
Yes, it is inevitable that you will need to invest a lot of time again for each language, depending on how much similarities there are with languages you already know. However, you know that if you know a few thousand words you will be able to understand things. You are sure that once you mastered one language you will be able to master another one. I started studying portuguese, which I can reasonable understand know, and started almost three other languages after that at the same time. Swedish, spanish and italian. I sometimes feel guilty if I do not pay attention enough to one or more of them, but it does not matter. I study a few times a week any of the languages which I feel interested in. I know that over time, may be only in one year’s time, the fog will clear up, but you will notice the progress little by little. Good luck! There is no pressure to achieve whatsoever in a certain time. Just enjoy.
The other question you might be asking yourself is whether you are yet happy with your level in German or not. In either case, if you are now in a position to be able to follow authentic content (e.g. radio, articles, books), you can actually enjoy it much more and just do it for fun (if you want). So if you start with a new language, whenever you feel like it’s too much work not enough play, you can switch to more pleasurable listening / reading in German.
Apparently your brain is trained by learning German so learning another language should be easier. I think I have read this idea in Steve’s book but I don’t know exactly where.
I am not satisfied yet. I can’t understand when people mumble or talk too fast but when people speak to me directly it’s pretty clear. I would put my listening skills at intermediate 2 level. Tv is easier as i can lip read but radio is still a bit too far.
@ Makacenko
Yeh i don’t doubt that i can do it again, or do it faster (especially if i choose Spanish as it’s pretty simple in relation to German) but It can be daunting knowing that i have to go through the boring 1-1000 word acquisition again. Re learning words for simple everyday objects that I know in 2 other languages.
I put this idea to the test today. I dabbled in a bit of French at LingQ and i found it easier to hear where one word ends and the next began, even if i didn’t know what the words were at first.
I never study only one at a time. Simultaneous language study is the way for me.