Benefits Of Learning Related Languages | Polyglot Language Learning Tips

[@Diotallevi73]

The user who disliked this video probably is sad that you didn't do a quick bookshelf tour yet ;-)

[@solea59]

Hello Robin. I have an analogy to describe this method. I'm attempting Portuguese and italian now, I'm about B1 or B2 in spanish. There are three stepladders. I am on all three ladders, I'm halfway on the spanish and I turn and pass a package ( which contains advice) to the second me then my second me, passes it to the third me . In this manner each is helping the other. I find it works for me. The same short and useful phrases in all three languages !

[@tetianashcherbina75]

I would like to here about your experience learning 3 languages at the same time. I do the same right now with Chinese (recovering advanced level), Korean (trying to reach pre-intermediate level), Japanese (elementary). Finding the bonds between these 3 languages is really interesting and helps a lot to save time. But also feels sometimes frustrating because of the thought you’re trying to be more.

[@mariakudimova]

I'd love to hear your perspective on learning similar languages simultaneously. I've heard that learning Spanish and Portugues at the same time is not a good idea, however, I find it beneficial. Because, as you've stated in the video, it is really interesting to compare the structures of the two languages. And sometimes, while speaking, Spanish helps me correctly speak Portugues. For example, when I want to say "solo" in Portugues I immediately remember that there is no such word and I need to say "só".

[@Vitoriadls]

Estudar português e espanhol ao mesmo tempo pode ser bem confuso. Mas isso depende do quão bem você lida com os idiomas. I'm Brazilian, and I currently study Spanish, and it can be very confusing sometimes. I often wondered if some word I was saying was really Spanish or just "Portunhol". The only solution to that was studying harder, 'cause then I know that I'm not making things up. And having somebody correct me was also essential.

[@bunnyteeth365]

I guess this will solve my dilemma with Icelandic. I enjoyed studying it, but I could never find enough comprehensible input. Maybe by studying more popular and easy Scandinavian languages I can improve my comprehension.

[@SilentJaguar68]

I took highschool French. I loved the class, and had a great teacher, but I didn't get to a very high level with it. After graduating, I started learning Romanian, because I worked with a lot of Romanians. French helped a bit when starting out, but I had to quickly ditch French because I kept getting them confused. Fast forward 2 years of absolute grinding in Romanian, and I actually have a pretty good speaking level, and comprehension, so it was a success! My 3rd year of Uni, I had found out there was a french club on campus, so I tried attending those for fun. I found I couldn't speak it very well and kept using Romanian grammar structures 🤣. I then tried learning Russian, but I didn't get to a super high level with that (still working on it). I then got into Brazilian portuguese, have been grinding that for about 5 months now. And I haven't really touched Romanian in a while. But the other day I turned on KZbin and checked out a few Romanian KZbinrs I follow, and like you said, my comprehension had skyrocketed! I even checked a KZbinr with a more difficult accent that I could never understand before and I could hear and understand his words and accent! It's awesome! But yes, I believe that you do need a solid intermediate level for this to work like this.))

[@Vitoriadls]

That's so interesting! Can you tell me which Romanian youtubers do you watch? I really wanna learn the language. Btw, eu sou brasileira! Bom trabalho no seu português 😊 estou aqui caso precise de ajuda

[@RicardoSilvaTripcall]

I think that is why Romanian and Brazilian Portuguese have very similar phonemes, I speak Brazilian Portuguese, and every time I hear someone speaking Romanian it sounds like a Brazilian speaking gibberish ... it is really weird, it sounds like something that I could understand, but I can't ...

[@SilentJaguar68]

@@Vitoriadls yeah sure! I have a few KZbinrs that I listen to. Kasia Theodora Katy Black (has Moldovan accent) Jamila Cuisine Retetele Mihaelei PacPacMania (channel of short films) Zaiafet (facts and interesting things) MihaiAlexandruHash Bromânia Andrei Xmas There's a few other more popular ones too, but those should get you started !

[@baphometic8767]

the idea that you shouldn't learn similar languages at the same time is a load of nonsense. read the loom of language. learning spanish, portuguese, italian and french simultaneously is not as crazy as it seems. also, if you already know one, you can learn another through them. that's what i'm doing; i'm b2 in portuguese, learning french through that.

[@jensburghardt4100]

I completely agree. When you start speaking it happens that you confuse a word or two from time to time but that's only until you get used to speaking them. At least for me. I don't do any exercises and I also like to read about comparative and historical linguistics and I believe it helps but wouldn't even be necessary. I also like to read the same topics in several languages. Like a Wikipedia article in Portuguese and the same in Spanish. I haven't done that much with the same books in translation but with books about the same topics.

[@graemep7729]

This idea with learning languages at the same time is that it is not beneficial when languages that aren’t related- Such as Mandarin and Russian. In this context, you essentially slow down the learning of both languages and many people argue one should just focus solely on each language at a time to learn faster in the long term. But, definitely, learning languages that are related have a strong compounding effect where the knowledge is reinforced from the close proximity of all the languages. So go for it! Eventually your brain will separate the languages and it won’t be an issue!

[@baphometic8767]

@@graemep7729 I agree, but unfortunately it's a common theme to hear "if you're going to learn more than 1 language at the same time, study languages that aren't closely related." if you google studying more than 1 languages, you'll get a ton of articles saying "don't learn french and spanish together, learn french and chinese instead." so much misinformation! the truth is, as english speakers, we have a great advantage in becoming polyglots in the west european language branch. you can learn french, portuguese, spanish, and italian in close proximity as well as german, dutch, swedish, and norwegian

[@cuchicheo88]

I haven't "studied" Japanese since 2007, but my *comprehension* of the language has dramatically *improved* in the years since, I think because I really internalized particles and because most of the languages I have learned, since (Sanskrit, Mongolian, Malayalam), have had an SOV sentence structure and other weird superficial structural similarities (for instance, Malayalam handles the here/there/where distinction in a way that *almost* directly parallels Japanese). Because Japanese was my basis for picking up these other grammatical structures, it really cemented my connections to Japanese grammar.

[@elisabethrichard]

I definitely agree with the first point. I took Norwegian at university because it was mandatory in my Swedish course, but I resented it, and I only did the minimum amount of work needed to pass and then ditched Norwegian entirely. A few years later, my Swedish had been improving steadily, and I started watching the Norwegian TV show Occupied on a French channel. I watched the first season in Norwegian with French subtitles, but the French TV channel didn't have the second season yet and I was eager to find out what was going to happen, so I went to a Norwegian channel to watch it, even though I didn't think I could make it without subtitles. Well I was surprised to find out I could absolutely understand Norwegian without subtitles, which was pretty cool indeed! Also, I never ever studied Spanish. But since I'm intermediate in Portuguese and my native language is French, I actually really understand a lot of things in both spoken and written Spanish. Unfortunately that trick doesn't seem to work with Italian for me!

[@successcollege4283]

Thank you for good tips. I mainly focus on French these days. I hopely expect that my Spanish get improved as you experienced on the path to French learning. Inspirational video! 감사합니다. Success College/ Simon Park

[@petra1995]

I learned French academically (and privately) to a "high B2" or perhaps even within the reach of C1. And then I plunged into Spanish all on my own. It was like having a cheat sheet. As soon as I had learned the basic vocabulary I was able to start understanding native content so fast it made my head spin.

Petra狐 How are you doing with Spanish now? I have been learning French for the last year and I wanted to know how easy would be Spanish or Italian once I attain upper intermediate. Theoretically I know it would be easier but I wanted to hear other people opinions.

[@petra1995]

@ I haven't studied as hard for the past 10-11 months. But I'd still say I'm a solid conversational B1 and probably B2 in reception. I just started a university course in Spanish to sort out some things I never bothered to learn properly haha I notice I'm very clearly more conversational than all the people I've so far been paired with in Zoom breakout sessions. I'd say it's good to have a solid level of French before starting. I had a very solid level of French and for a while I was practically incapable of speaking it because all that came out was Spanish. But I sorted it out by adding more French to my routine. I still sometimes mess things up because of Spanish influence. But I think it's a fair price to pay for another language.

[@petra1995]

@ Oh that wasn't the question. Yeah as I said. The "everyday" extremely frequent vocab is mostly different. But the "more technical" words are largely the same. So as soon as I had learned the most basic words well then suddenly (with a very small amount of practice) I could understand KZbin videos and podcasts. I vividly remember watching a video early on that was NOT directed towards learners. It was a Latin American woman in Germany making a video comparing what it's like to date German vs Latino men. I understood basically all of it, iirc. Although I'm also very good at picking up things based on context since Spanish was my forth L2. Or L5, if you will.

Petra狐 Thanks for the info. I am mostly curious because Croatian is my native language, so I am curious to see whether for example Russian would be a better option in the future (since it’s a Slavic language) or Spanish because it’s much more popular and widespread (similar to French). I won’t start any time soon, I will wait to solidify my French in the next 1-2 years (my gf is French though) before tackling another one.

[@petra1995]

@ I think that's a solid plan. Either Russian or Spanish could be useful, so it's really up to you :)

[@tonguesinc.8233]

I also started with Spanish. Was lucky to have a lot of immersion in my work environment for a year, picked up French later, and was much more methodical in my approach and delved deep into the grammar and intricacies of the language and now speak it better than I do Spanish. Those two I both got up to B2/C1 range, and now I focus on Portuguese and I've been studying for a cumulative maybe 5 months, and I'm already comfortable maintaining convo with people on italki and even watching Coisa Mais Linda without subtitles, which is weird because I don't even feel that comfortable in French or Spanish. Portuguese is my favorite though, and I plan on spending a few months in Brazil. Also plan to learn Italian in maybe a couple years from now because you gotta catch 'em all!

[@christopheradrien6829]

When looking for Russian music I accidentally stumbled upon a Ukrainian pop song. I'm not studying it but was surprised at how much I could understand. Although it wasn't a lot that I could understand, it's good to know that I would have a headstart

[@c0n574nz0]

I agree, my French comprehension improved after mastering my Italian.!

[@fryrish7749]

Norwegian and Danish at the same time: They sound so different that there isn't interference when speaking. When reading it can take a moment for my brain to figure out which way to subvocalize since on paper they look very similar. Russian and Ukrainian are both newer to me and there is interference, but it is slowly receding as they become more distinct from each other.

[@RonaldMcPaul]

I had one similarly surprising experience with listening to tonal languages. I was in Tibet, freezing, with 3 more days on my 2 month visa and a ticket to the beaches of Thailand booked to comply. I merely for one night picked up a Thai app to learn the basics and at this point my Chinese was pretty conversational or let's say 'get by plus' but my Thai was nonexistent. I knew Thai was also a tonal language but I didn't know the tone profile, only that it had perhaps even more tones than Mandarin Chinese, so I listened very intently for what I could pick up. In my head I was trying to mentally auditorily capture the precise melody as if a musical note rather than just remember what tone it was because I had no idea, I assumed a high and a low and a flat or something but really I didn't have any certainty. Anyhow, as you might of have guessed by now as I'm hiking through grassy plains listening to Chinese Pod Intermediate level dialogues I got a very strong impression that I was hearing Mandarin symbols more distinctly and that the tones were more obvious. The really bizarre thing about this was how short the apparent effect was, both in how long it took to create, just a single night of an absolute beginner low production value Thai app, and in how short it laster. Maybe it went away, maybe I just got used to it, and perhaps a good night of sleep in the cold Tibetan air with a mat heater and the blankets from all three beds in the room!

[@emmanuelivan5911]

Yeah That's happens a lot with related languages I'm a Portuguese native speaker and by being native in Portuguese I thought Spanish was going to be a piece of cake....well... It didn't turn out the way I wanted it to be.. I was confusing words and I was speaking a lot of portunish LoL So I ditched it for now... On the other hand I started learning french and it's crazy How much I can understand even though I'm really basic ( even though I had french in school.. I started taking it seriously now) it varies from people to people

[@Gabriel-ds6ru]

Eu também sou um falante de Português aprendendo Espanhol, a coisa boa de ser um falante de Português que está aprendendo Espanhol é que quando eu não sei como dizer algo em Espanhol eu digo em Português e eles quase sempre me intendem kkkkkkkkkkk

[@emmanuelivan5911]

@@Gabriel-ds6ru hahahaha vrdd o portunhol nos ajuda em muitas situações rsrsrs de onde vc é?

[@anduril2695]

Learning Portuguese and Esperanto after Spanish really helped in acquiring the new languages and reinforcing the old one. Compare that to Chinese, which I've been learning for literally years and I still struggle with it and don't understand a lot. Stark difference

[@a.r.4707]

I'm learning Serbian and I've noticed that while my Serbian gets better also my Russian comprehension improves at the same time especially the written text since they pronounce in Russian a bit differently some words compared to the written text. I think that the reason is the shared vocabulary or at least very similar words, although there are some false friends which mean different things in those languages. Still knowing one helps you with the other one in case you would like to learn either one.

[@roots_and_ruin]

I don't know multiple languages, but since I am learning French I realised I can read Spanish to some small degree fairly easily. Quite a strange thing when it first happens!

[@RonaldMcPaul]

I'm learning Mandarin after Spanish and French AND IT DOES NOTHING TO HELP ME!!! Edit: Whereas French was almost magically natural to where it felt like could always guess as to whether a word would either be an English or Spanish word and it always seemed like to was one of the two.

[@anduril2695]

Word

[@tetianashcherbina75]

Mandarin has nothing to do with French and Spanish. Mandarin is from another language family

[@solea59]

I forgot to add that I won't be put off by other peoples negative responses, if it works for you then go for it. It's your life !

[@aleksandrad7955]

Not surprise there regard to the topic at least not for me. Hope you visit again my part of the world! Happy language learning anywhere and anyhow!

[@a.r.4707]

Aleksandra D: At which part of the world you are living if I may ask? Just curious.

[@aleksandrauricic746]

@@a.r.4707 I refer to Robins visit to Novi Sad, Serbia. I live in the Balkans.

[@a.r.4707]

@@aleksandrauricic746 Oh right. Novi sad is quite nice city, I have been there and generally Vojvodina is nice.

[@young2k15]

J'espere qu'il fait la meme chose pour moi quand je commence d'apprendre Espagnol. Mon comprehension en francais est presque au niveau c1. Ma capabilite de parler est toujours b2. Je vais prendre deux mois pour l'ameliorer et quoi qu'il arrive, je vais commencer d'apprendre espagnole en septembre.

[@trentintampa9328]

Bonne chance avec Espagnol. Je l'aime. Buenas suerte con español. Lo amo.

[@raffcummins]

Very interesting insight, to scared to learn Italian atm because I'm scared it will hinder my Spanish waiting I'm till around a solid c1

[@ibo5634]

If your theory is true then your comprehension of a language closely related to your native one (which you actively use) should be increasing. So, uhm, how is your Dutch?