zompist bboard

Kind of an L&L quickie.

I've heard two different arguments in language learning. They are roughly this:

1) It's easier to learn a language when you already know a language that it's very similar to. (I.e. Spanish / Italian, Dutch / German)

2) It's easier to learn a language that isn't (very) similar to what you already know. (I.e. Spanish / English, German / French)

The justification on #1 is that you'll have a strong base to start from, instead of having to learn everything from scratch. I.e. if you already know Dutch "de vrouw", then German's "die Frau" isn't such a leap. And that goes for grammatical structures as well.

The justification on #2 seems to be a negative spin on that: that similar languages might end up confusing one another, while not-so-similar languages don't. I.e. you're less likely to mentally confuse "Frau" with "senora" than you are with "vrouw". You're less likely to say "havo a gato" (horrible Spanglish) than "I habe ein Kat" (horrible Deutschlish), because the mental "tracks" or folders in your head, keep dissimilar languages more separate.

So... those polyglots out there, what do you think? I only speak two languages, English and Dutch, so I don't have much of a base of comparison regarding similar/dissimilar languages.

I've actually heard a slightly argument when it comes to languages that are "too similar": It's harder to master them due to interference. Everyone seems to agree that they're easier in the initial stages.

Personally I think that is bunk. Getting to the advanced stages of language learning is always hard. It's hard even in your native language: No matter how educated you are, there are always more nuances to learn (and new ones being created all the time). It's not any easier with dissimilar languages, and these are also harder at the outset, so clearly similar languages are easier.

Jashan wrote:2) It's easier to learn a language that isn't (very) similar to what you already know. (I.e. Spanish / English, German / French)

I never really understood the "too similar" argument. Even in the initial stages of language learning, I never had any trouble from interference. Other than that, I think linguoboy sums it up best, mastering any language is hard, it just might be slightly quicker to master some when there is large amount of vocabulary and grammatical structures that are shared.

What I've heard is that it's easier to learn languages similar to ones you know - but that if you're learning two languages at the same time, it's best that they're dissimilar (because at that stage it's easier to become confused)

Salmoneus wrote:What I've heard is that it's easier to learn languages similar to ones you know - but that if you're learning two languages at the same time, it's best that they're dissimilar (because at that stage it's easier to become confused)

I find this difficult to resist, however. Very often, when I learn a new word or usage in one language I'm learning, I want to check to see if it's the same or different in related languages. I actually find this a valuable way of preventing confusion down the road.

This'll be interesting for me to see how Spanish and Catalan remain separate from each other. I can read both fairly well, Spanish more than Catalan, but my brain can tell the difference. My brain seems to switch between "modes" of each languages, so if I'm thinking in a Spanish mode then reading or hearing Catalan might seem a bit "garbled" because I'm looking for certain sounds and spellings that aren't apearing, and vice versa.

They're very similar, and my understanding of one helps me understand the other, but my brain seems to make a distinction between the two, despite their similarities.

Having said that, my Spanish inteferes with my English even though the latter is my native language; the other day I was talking about crayfish and fell into saying crangfish (crang being Catalan for crayfish (not sure if that's how it's spelt)). Probably at some point I might find Catalan and Spanish intefering with one another, but I don't think enough to completely confuse me.

treegod wrote:Having said that, my Spanish inteferes with my English even though the latter is my native language; the other day I was talking about crayfish and fell into saying crangfish (crang being Catalan for crayfish (not sure if that's how it's spelt)). Probably at some point I might find Catalan and Spanish intefering with one another, but I don't think enough to completely confuse me.

Cranc. (And unless you specified cranc de riu, I'd think you meant "crab" rather than "crawfish".)

Cranc, that makes more sense, thanks. I think I've heard "cranc" without "de riu" in referring to crayfish, but that's only because the context made it clear what we were talking about. I didn't realise it also meant crab.

I also don't know about that #2. I can at least say from experience that total dissimilarity is no bar to major confusion. Learning German for four years went great in high school; then I took Japanese for one year in college and it totally destroyed my German. Suddenly I was pronouncing German words I had known perfectly well with phones belonging to Japanese, misusing German prepositions as though they were postpositions, and other random interferences. Once I substituted a Japanese noun in for a German one, while still getting the German gender right; I remember this because we got a good laugh out of it.

Radius Solis wrote:I also don't know about that #2. I can at least say from experience that total dissimilarity is no bar to major confusion. Learning German for four years went great in high school; then I took Japanese for one year in college and it totally destroyed my German. Suddenly I was pronouncing German words I had known perfectly well with phones belonging to Japanese, misusing German prepositions as though they were postpositions, and other random interferences. Once I substituted a Japanese noun in for a German one, while still getting the German gender right; I remember this because we got a good laugh out of it.

+1! Although my experience is a shade different: currently, if I try to produce any German at all, I have to concentrate very very hard, otherwise I just start speaking Arabic... It's as if I only have one "language being learned" spot. (I don't have any similar problems with Slovene or English, for example, which I'm probably beginning to get equally proficient in - even if English will never be my "native" language).

Cathbad wrote: It's as if I only have one "language being learned" spot.

Yes, this. That was going to be my second paragraph but then I didn't feel like writing it. But I had that feeling a lot when I was learning Japanese: like there was room for only two languages in my head, English and Foreign, and I could switch easily between the two, but not so easily between subtypes of Foreign.

Radius Solis wrote:

Cathbad wrote: It's as if I only have one "language being learned" spot.

Yes, this. That was going to be my second paragraph but then I didn't feel like writing it. But I had that feeling a lot when I was learning Japanese: like there was room for only two languages in my head, English and Foreign, and I could switch easily between the two, but not so easily between subtypes of Foreign.

I've noticed that with myself, as well. I used to, long ago, be fairly conversational in French. I lost it, but I could still do basic French. Then once I learned Dutch, my brain seemed to say, "If it's not English, it's Dutch." Even if I consciously was trying to produce French, it'd end up being Dutch, or Dutchified in some way. Ex. sticking verbs at the end ("Je vais ma mere visiter") or lexical substitutions ("Je ne l'ai pas vu maar...") and assorted other annoyances.

Funny, I was going to post the exact same thing but didn't have time. Now when I try to speak French, the instant I can't recall a French word, the Japanese one tries to jump in. My brain also only has two slots, it seems.

Hmm. I don't think I have this English vs. Foreign slot thing. English definitely has its own slot, but then all the other languages get their own slot too or something. I don't really get any interference between them, though occasionally if I'm stuck for a word it might come through in the wrong language, but I've always noticed it before it got out of my mouth. And I've never had accent-interference - that just seems bizarre to me.

clawgrip wrote:Funny, I was going to post the exact same thing but didn't have time. Now when I try to speak French, the instant I can't recall a French word, the Japanese one tries to jump in. My brain also only has two slots, it seems.

Ditto. When I started learning Japanese, Japanese took over my Foreign slot from Spanish. I never learned to speak Arabic at all, even though I could read basic material, because Japanese was taking up that slot and Japanese words would come out in Arabic sentences.

Shihali wrote:

clawgrip wrote:Funny, I was going to post the exact same thing but didn't have time. Now when I try to speak French, the instant I can't recall a French word, the Japanese one tries to jump in. My brain also only has two slots, it seems.

Ditto. When I started learning Japanese, Japanese took over my Foreign slot from Spanish. I never learned to speak Arabic at all, even though I could read basic material, because Japanese was taking up that slot and Japanese words would come out in Arabic sentences.

Just for the record, I definitely think it's possible for me to go beyond 3 in the number of languages I can speak, but only once a sufficient fluency level (plateau?) has been achieved for the "learning slot" to be freed up again.

That's why I'm dreading having to take Turkish as well this autumn...

I guess I can weigh in with my experience:

I started learning German when I was 8, and I'm pretty advanced at it (although not perfect by any means, I still make grammar errors all the time!), and Mandarin when I 16. Neither of those really interfered with the other at all, only so much as wanting to say e.g. a German word while speaking Mandarin just because it came more naturally to me or something. I didn't really get English and German confused, possibly because I was still young enough or something. Mandarin was (and still is) so difficult for me. It's not the writing system, it's the syntax and semantics that kills me, things that, surprise surprise, I don't have an advantage for since I don't speak a related language.

But then I took an Intro Afrikaans course when I studied abroad in Cape Town. Obviously Afrikaans is quite similar to both English and German...and I found it incredibly easy to learn, grammar-wise. Spelling-wise, not so much, but that's not totally important when you're in Afrikaans 101. I also had issues with pronunciation because I couldn't really say /r/ in words (I can say it in isolation, but putting it in a word is so hard!), so I ended up using the uvular R...and my Afrikaans was strangely non-rhotic just because it sounded more natural to me. I should note that one of my friends who speaks German natively was also in the class, but struggled a bit more than I did. I had a theory that it's because I already learned many of the grammar points (how verbs shift to the end of the sentence when using modals, the ge- prefix in the present perfect, etc.) from learning German as a second language, vs. learning it as a first language. But I did get a very good grade in the class, because it was easy to pick up based on my language background.


tl;dr version: So yeah, final verdict for me- I would say it's easier to learn 2 related languages than 2 totally different languages.

Chibi wrote:tl;dr version: So yeah, final verdict for me- I would say it's easier to learn 2 related languages than 2 totally different languages.

Cf, I guess, how easy I find Maltese, since I speak well a Romance and a Semitic language, both of which Maltese is similar to.

Astraios wrote:Hmm. I don't think I have this English vs. Foreign slot thing.

When you put it like this, it becomes clearer why people come up with #2 in the first place: it's most often monolinguals that say it I find and, as monolinguals, just see everything in terms of *my language* (understandable) and *foreign* (not understandable) and expect that other people would have the same categorisation.

Just as a data point, I've never had trouble keeping languages separate. It's easy enough to keep Russian / French / Quechua / Mandarin apart, but I don't have trouble with Spanish / Portuguese / French / Italian either.

Another mere anecdote. The only similar languages I've ever tried to learn were Korean/Japanese, and English/Dutch. Korean and Japanese aren't that similar, but I do occasionally get vocab mixed up for a fraction of a second when trying to recall a word. No such problems for Dutch, though my proficiency is very low in Dutch to begin with.

zompist wrote:Just as a data point, I've never had trouble keeping languages separate. It's easy enough to keep Russian / French / Quechua / Mandarin apart, but I don't have trouble with Spanish / Portuguese / French / Italian either.

I don't know but it might have to do with how frequently you use the languages. I use English and Japanese a lot, every day, so I think Japanese sort of dominates the foreign language section of my brain. If I had a third language I used as much as Japanese, I'm guessing Japanese would interfere much less.

Yea, if a language is too similar you do get problems.
I have to repress my Catalan when writing anything in advanced Spanish or then it just ends up horrible. And I can understand Occitan perfectly but I can't speak a word...

~Lyra

zompist wrote:Just as a data point, I've never had trouble keeping languages separate. It's easy enough to keep Russian / French / Quechua / Mandarin apart, but I don't have trouble with Spanish / Portuguese / French / Italian either.

I'd like to second this, and most of my languages are of the same sub-family of Indo-European. Occasionally, I have trouble in producing Italian vocabulary when I actually want Spanish, but that I believe is because I essentially learnt Spanish through the medium of Italian.

From my experience, knowing a similar language both helps and confuses. Knowing Latin helped me a lot when I started to learn Italian and Spanish, and knowing Russian helped me lot when I started learning Polish. But I must say I admire those who say they can keep similar languages from mixing - my Polish is heavily influenced by my Russian, especially if I haven't spoken Polish for a longer period (i.e. most of the time). OTOH, I only rarely have interferences from dissimilar languages - there was a short period when I had some Dutch lexical interferences in Polish (don't know why), but that didn't last long. (NB: I probably have substantial interferences from my native German in all languages I speak, indepenent of whether they're similar to German or not.)