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inthewaytoamultilinguallife · 1 year

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Any tips on how to deal with learning multiple languages and forgetfulness? Like M’s really wants to learn as many languages as he can, but is afraid of ending up forgetting some of them in the way, he knows that a lot of people have this fear

Forgetting a language is, as you said, a very common fear indeed. I’m actually surprised that, given that, is not more talked about or discussed. There are many tips, blogs, and YouTube channels dedicated to learning a language, but very little on how to maintain it.

To be honest with you, this is also one of my fear. Languages in general, and knowing quite a few of them (compared to what is the norm in my country) was always important to me. And so I spend a lot of time trying to find the perfect solution to never forgetting my languages, finding very little help from others.

Somewhere along the way, I found that the only way *I* could prevent this from happening *to me*, was by using each language every day. The easiest way to forget a language is to never or almost never using it, so one of the best thing you could do is actually use the language as much as you can.

However, as I soon found out, this is really hard, especially with a lot of languages. You have to keep track of all of them, plus actually manage to get all of them into your daily routine and do it in an organized way. And you have to do all of that without using one more than the other, too. It’s, putting it easily, messy, disorganized, and frustrating. But, hard does not mean impossible. And so i made a few rules for myself:

Include each language in your routine.

I find it is easier to include them in a routine you already have, and not making a new one around the languages you want to maintain.

So, the first step to maintaining a language would be to write down your routine. Everything that you do, including getting up, and brushing your teeth. Write down as well all your hobbies and things you do for fun in your free time. Do you read? use tumblr? watch tv or series? Do you do crochet or sew plushies? write it all down. If each day has a different routine, write the different routine for each day.

Then, identify which activity or hobby requires or uses languages. Most of them do, i bet, even if you don’t think so at first. For example, when i first started doing this, i was still in high school and having physical education/ gym class. We mostly just ran and ran. Not much to do with language, right? Except that after thinking about it a little, i realized i always mentally counted my steps as i ran, or started making a mental list of all the things i needed to do later. That involves language, since you have to resort to choosing a language to do all that thinking on. In my case, it was Spanish, my mother tongue.

And here is where the 3rd step comes in: Change the language you use in each activity. For example, following my example with my gym class, I identified an activity that -in my case- required a language: counting and planning my routine for that day while running. The next step to follow would be identifying the language you use the most when doing said activity and change it. In my case, as i said, it was my mother tongue, spanish. I changed the counting part to French, because i wanted to memorize better the numbers, and the planning to Portuguese.

Do this for as many activities as you think you need. And as i said before, it is better -or maybe just easier- to change the language of an activity that you already do, than adding a new activity to your routine. This will help you actually remember that you have to do said activity and to keep consistency with both the activity and the language changing. It will also help you keep organized and not overuse one language over the others

If you need help visualizing this, some activities I have changed the language i do them in are: reading books, watching films and series, researching and reading something for school, talking to friends, thinking, counting, reading and watching tutorials for sewing or crochet, going to conferences, writing in my journal, watching videos in youtube, daydreaming, using the configuration section of several apps, doing quick searches on google, swearing, keeping track of my hearing loss, learning new skills, writing random things down, singing, looking up a definition of a word regardless of its language, talking aloud to myself, adding little notes on my drawings, planning my routine, going to class, labelling things at home, making lists for shopping, talking to my pets etc

Include new little doable ways to use the language you want to learn/remember.

Ok, i know i said it was easier to just change the language of an activity that you already do than adding another one to your routine. I still stand for it, especially if you have problems remembering things. But it is not bad considering adding a few small activities or habits. For example, you can start counting the steps you take in a pair of stairs or when walking, or counting the trees you go by when on the bus. You can start singing when making breakfast, and pay attention to the lyrics, or you can start watching/reading the news while you have breakfast. You can start journaling or writing in your drawings, you can join new apps or start playing video games. You can start a new blog or learn to sew, or making lists or whatever.

My only rule for this is to start little by little and stick to doable activities. If you try to add many things to your routine AND change the language you do them in, it’s very likely you will end up overwhelmed and give up. Start low, changing things little by little. Once a thing has become part of your daily routine, add another one.

Some things I’ve added to my routine, for example, have been going to conferences and talks related to my university career (linguistics), as well as assisting to classes and workshops that were given by visiting professors from afar. They were given in either English, portuguese or uruguayan sign language. They are not, of course, part of my daily routine, but i keep an eye on when they are making a new one, and make sure to always go.

I’ve also made sure to make friends and keep in touch with most of my university’s exchange students, and we talk in their native language, which makes up for perfect practice. I also always make a point of going to any Deaf event or activity that is free, as well as making as many Deaf friends as i can. However, there is no need to jump right all in and go join a local language group or start taking university classes in your target language in day one. I've over a decade of experience in this and have already made my way up.

Designate days and times for each language.

Learning each language whenever you feel like it will create more trouble for you, make the forgetting worse, and make you feel overwhelmed and frustrated. A way to counter this is via a good structural learning routine. You can designate specific days to languages even if you don’t take language classes and even if you use all the languages each day.

What designating a day to a language means is just basically that, in that day, you will focus more in that language. Mondays are Sundays are for studying French, and Tuesday and Thursday for learning English grammar, etc, for example. You can even adapt this given your routine: for example, in my case Monday, Wednesday and Saturday are uruguayan sign language days, because my sign language classes are Mondays and Wednesday, and Saturdays are when most Deaf events take place.

Assigning times will help you even if you struggle at keeping routines, too. It’s like assigning days, but instead of whole days, you make it times of the day. Instead of using or learning a language during the entire day, you can do it only in the morning, and in the afternoon you can switch to another language. All you have to do is keep that order as much as you can without switching them up. This will help keep the languages more separated in your mind and help you not mix their grammars and rules and pronunciation etc

Try avoiding learning languages that are too similar at the same time.

You can, of course, do just that, but it will probably cause much more trouble for you than learning several languages at the same time already does. If you do take up two or more languages that are too similar, try taking the second language when you already know some of the others. For example, i did study portuguese and french together, but i was already an A2 level in portuguese when i took up french. And while i was studying English thought all that time too, English was sufficiently different that i didn't struggle with it

In general, take up another language only when you already know some of the other. A2 or B1 of the cfer level chart are both good levels to start at.

But also, you don't have to learn all the languages at the same time. You don't have to even be learning two languages at the same time. I feel like nowadays this is a thing many of us need to be remained of, alongside with "take your time learning a language". There is a huge push from society and many polyglots blogs and channels to learn a whole language in months and to learn 3 or 4 at the same time, but believe me: many of those people? don't really know as much as they say they do. Many can barely talk in the languages they claim fluency on. But regardless of that, you will learn more if you take your time learning. You will also enjoy it way more this way, and just have a more less anxious and depressed life if you take your time.

Take my word as someone that has been learning minimum two languages at the same time since they were 10yo, and reached the 4 languages at the same time by the time they were 18yo. I'm 20 now, and only actively learning 1 language, and i could cry from how much better it is this way. Just. take your time. enjoy the journey and don't try to fast speed it.

If you forgot to keep the routine ...well, then now is the best time to do it

If for some reason you forget to go to a class or to sit down and study on your own when you were supposed to do it, PLEASE, don't give yourself shit for it. Do the studying right there when you remembered. Or the next time you are supposed to, if you have/want to keep your routine. And if you end up forgetting so many classes or studying sections that you end up forgetting some (or even all!) of what you had learned... just pick up the language as soon as you can and go on. Even if it has been weeks, months, whole years. Don't think too much about it and keep studying, keep using the language. Start again as slow as you need to, but start again.

Even a little is better than nothing, and late is better than never

DO NOT FORGET TO USE YOUR MOTHER TONGUE.

Believe me, you are most at risk of dong this than you think when you are managing so many languages at once. Always use your mother tongue. Don’t just use the languages you are learning or have learned. Find little ways to include your mother tongue in your routine and/or chose a designated day of the week for using it. For example, there was a time where during each Saturday i will purposely look up Uruguayans shows and films and songs to watch and listen to to keep close to my own dialect. Try and do something like that for yours too

#hope anything of this is helpful #i only have my own experience learning many languages at once and trying not to go forgetting what i had learned to go by #if anyone wants to add feel free to do so #there are sections in bold cause my dyslexia is acting up and it helps me with long texts #if there are any sections or phrases that are hard to understand be it bc of wording grammar or spelling mistakes let me know #and i will re write it or explain what i meant to say #(you all have no idea how many times i misspelled language here lmao #and in how many different ways #there was one that started with a g #and another one that had three g's lol #for someone whose life is so centred around languages i really hate writing down that word lol)

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