Tag: accelerated learning

How many languages should we learn at once? How many pieces of the jigsaw do you need? Image by Gary Fleischer on freeimages.com.

How Many Languages Should You Learn At Once? [Spoiler: it’s up to you!]

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Every so often there is a ripple in the polyglot ocean, and that old, bebarnacled behemoth “how many languages should you learn at once?” rises to the surface again. A couple of social media posts on that perennial debate caught my eye recently, with passionate punters in both camps.

The conundrum is this: do we concentrate on a single language project at a time, maximising our efforts to progress more quickly and efficiently? Or do we indulge our love of languages, learning several at a time, aiming for the same goals but over a longer period of time?

Spoiler: there is no single, right answer to that question, however much the pundits claim!

Guilt-busting

The accepted wisdom currently seems to have swung in favour of “resist the temptation” when it comes to multiple languages. Narrow focus is the key to success. Now, I must admit to a pang of guilt every time I hear this nugget. As much as many, many of my polyglot friends, I am guilty of full-on Aladdin’s Cave mode. I am a veritable magpie with shiny new languages. If I really want to reach fluency quickly, so the recommendation goes, then I should probably drop a few for now.

Although concrete advice like this errs on the prescriptive side, it does mean well. And as a guideline for the goal-oriented learner, it is sound, too. If your language journey has a very well-defined, practical purpose, such as preparing to live in another country, or pass an exam, it is certainly the safe path to travel.

But are utility and economy of time really the alpha and omega of language learning for pleasure?

The explorer approach

The danger of prescriptive advice is that it selects a single path out of many – black or white, right or wrong. It is exclusive. Specifically, it sets up the end result as the only meaningful objective.

The reality of language learning is much more nuanced. The point for many of us is in the process, as well as the result.

Does a multilanguage process slow down progress compared to a one-at-a-time approach? In terms of pure mileage covered, it stands to reason, yes. But in other ways, not so much. It depends on what you are measuring the progress of. Chiefly, learning multiple tongues simultaneously takes some beating as a big picture approach to developing a deep understanding of language.

I like to view all my language projects as part of this much larger whole. What I learn in one helps carry the others along, too. Most obviously, this yields dividends when studying quite closely related languages, such as German, Icelandic and Norwegian. In this case, it is less about how many languages you learn, and more about which ones. Learning within this group helps to develop a keen instinct for the shared history, shape and feel of Germanic languages.

But even zooming out to more distant leaves on the tree, we can deepen our understanding of language at another level of abstraction. You develop a feel for what language, in a much more general sense, is trying to do, how humans perform communication. In particular, you start to see recurring patterns in how information is coded across very disparate groups.

What is a subject, and how is it given precedence in the sentence? How does language encode time and space, and what commonalities are there between far-flung groups? How are individuals and collectives represented in different ways by different languages?

All these question relate to how human beings package up and present information to carry out specific social functions. Studying a plethora, rather than just one at a time, opens the eyes of learners to the human jungle in glorious technicolour.


Incidentally, the ‘big picture’ argument for polyglot learning has a lot in common with the ideal of the polymath ‘all-rounder’.

Incremental and cumulative

Perhaps, too, we are asking the wrong question when making a choice between quick and slow learning. The most generally applicable piece of advice is simply this: make your learning incremental and cumulative, whatever the speed. Just keep building. And fast is not always fantastic.

This more ambling, strolling path to fluency reminds me of Dawkin’s explanation for the slow evolutionary development of eyes. As he explains, the eye did not simply flash into existence, fully formed. Instead, it evolved over aeons, from an initial small cluster of photosensitive cells on an early life-form, to the complex organ we see in so many incarnations today. At each stage, what was to become the eye was still useful and functional, even though it lacked the finesse of its current form.

Slow language learning is the same. Even if it takes longer to reach high-functioning fluency, the interim skills are nonetheless useful at every step. Just like evolution, language progress is incremental and cumulative, at whatever speed you take it.

A joy, not a chore

We should also remember what brings us to languages in the first place: the sheer joy of it. Too much rigidity can take the edge off any pleasure and turn it into a chore, and this is no exception. Of course, regularity and habit are crucial to ensuring progress. But we should be careful not to deny the place of flexibility in our passion, too.

For instance, I completed my first 30 Day Language Challenge in October. I tackled that one in Polish, and am now into November’s event using Icelandic as my challenge language. The daily speaking topics give me some structure and focus, but I maintain the freedom to use a different language in each challenge.

That’s a great compromise for me and fellow shiny-object fiends. We all have times when we are drawn more to one language than another, and that is absolutely fine. Basing our routines around short, sharp, fixed-term projects like the 30-Day Challenge gives us the best of both worlds: variety and structure.

What’s more, there is nothing to stop you switching modes with the ebb and flow of your own life. Sometimes an exam or a foreign trip will require a change in gear. Stay flexible; what is right for you now may not be in a month’s time.

How many languages? You decide.

I personally strive not to view my learning as a race against time. Nor as a sprint, or even a jog. I prefer it to be a glide, giving me the leisure to take in as much of the view as possible.

But this is not a personal manifesto. What works for me may well not work for you. But it is a friendly nudge to listen to what you want, rather than worry about the many shoulds and shouldn’ts whooshing past us on social media.

Joy should never be prescriptive. Although the booming edict ‘Learn But One Language At A Time’ is well-meant advice, the peer pressure it carries, coming from the mouths of experts, is powerful. One size never fits all. We are a rainbow of different circumstances. Consider at your leisure and select the answer that suits you.

A lecture hall - which learning styles reign here? Photo by Gokhan Okur on FreeImages

A Tale of Two Learning Styles : Accelerated Input vs. Restraint and Repetition

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Learning styles are like fine wines – there’s one for every taste, occasion or whim. And this week, I had the chance to return to a mode and pace that enthusiastic, independent learners sometimes miss out on.

On Wednesday, I started Scottish Gaelic classes at the University of Edinburgh. Gaelic is one of Scotland’s three official languages, and an introduction was long overdue (although I’ve picked up plenty of Doric!). Judging by the first class, it will be a really fun and rewarding experience. But as a language enthusiast, learning with others represented a gear-shift to a different pace, too.

Instead of the familiar, accelerated pace of lone language cramming, it was the measured, slow-but-sure approach of learning in a large class.

House rules

Now, I deliberately avoided learning any Gaelic beforehand, as I believe it is important to have the shared experience of learning with my classmates. And a second rule: I will also resist any extracurricular extras in Gaelic, to make sure I follow the plan. (Not wanting to look like a swot may also lie partly behind these decisions!)

But changing gear shed some light on the great benefits of a more restrained, gradual, cumulative learning approach. And we can replicate those benefits as lone learners outside the classroom, too.

Language learning, fast and slow

If you are a language learning enthusiast, you are probably well acquainted with what we might call the ‘classic polyglot mode‘. Course books, target language media and authentic texts are joyful things to soak up, to savour, to devour. It really is a kind of accelerated input method as we race through, learning at breakneck speed.

Now, this is an absolutely valid method (and the one I find myself most naturally slipping into as a perennial dabbler). What’s more, accelerated learning has strong evidence to back it up as an effective choice in a jungle of learning styles and approaches. For instance, in one study of maths students, subjects performed better on tests after an intensive course, as opposed to a longer pathway. Meanwhile, extreme learners like Tim Ferriss have almost turned rapid language learning into a sport.

Learning fast can be fun, exhilarating and yield great results under the right conditions.

Turning down the temperature

The other method is probably the one most familiar to us from our school days. Mixed ability groups work through carefully planned material, week by week. Here, the teacher controls the pace. Due to the mixed abilities within a large group, it can be a more pedestrian approach, to be sure. Characteristically, it features repeated exposure to a small set of material at a time.

Here, the key advantages are expert modelling by the teacher, and heavily repeated input.

Compared to accelerated, individual learning styles, the restrained, intensely focused classroom situation gives learners ample time to perfect a skill before moving on. In this semi-immersive environment, especially if the teacher uses a lot of target language, exposure to learning material is very high.

Conversely, as rapid crammers, the repeat-practise-learn cycle is reversed. When we move through a language quickly, we agree a sort of contract with ourselves, promising to drill the material in situ, on location, when we ultimately throw ourselves into a target language environment. In the classroom, it is practise, practise, practise before we consider it learnt.

To make a building analogy, accelerated learning builds high, and reinforces later. The traditional classroom secures each storey to the max before moving on.

The benefits of repetitive modelling

As eager as we might be to dial up the speed, there is plenty of research supporting the effectiveness of prolonged, repeated modelling. For example, using neuroimaging techniques, it is possible to see mental pathways strengthening through repetitive work, as this study demonstrates. Repetition “induces neuroplasticity” – it actually changes your brain.

Functionally, that means that new skills stick. This EFL classroom study notes that students “benefited from the opportunity to recycle communicative content as they repeated complex tasks“.

Additionally, there are further advantageous effects replicating the sentence modelling of mass sentence techniques. Children in this classroom study actively produced particular sentence structures more readily after repetitive exposure. This “sentence frame” effect gradually builds a library of mental models a speaker can confidently draw upon at a snap.

Common sense, perhaps. But a reminder that language learning is a marathon, not a sprint.

Building slow learning into your fast routine

Of course, there is no need to wind down all of your learning to a snail’s pace, or put a brake on the things you love. But there are ways to introduce a little slow into your routine. Slow learning does have a nice ring to it, admittedly. A little like slow food, it is all about considering the object of interest as something wholesome, worth taking time over.

So here are a few ideas for grafting this ethos onto your more usual accelerated route.

Focused speaking

If you have regular conversation sessions with a tutor on iTalki, try selecting a very narrow topic for just a part of that lesson. Use a mind-mapping technique like the brain dump to  collate a pool of vocabulary, and talk, talk, talk it out with your tutor for 5-10 minutes.

For added effect, arrange with your tutor to return to the same topic over the course of consecutive sessions. Discounting boredom, you should become really good at speaking about it whenever the occasion arises!

Peer teaching / sharing

Teaching others is a wonderful way to recycle and revise material, not least because it also slows you down and allows you to repeat familiar material out loud. ‘Teaching’ need not mean anything formal – simply sharing your latest words and phrases with (hopefully, vaguely interested) family or friends will do.

Setting your pace

Alternatively, you can take your foot off the pedal by carefully planning your learning with productivity tools like Evernote or Wunderlist. If you feel you are rushing through a course book too quickly, devise a learning plan that allocates a whole week (or more) to a single chapter. And, importantly: don’t deviate. I find calendarised plans and tick lists some of the simplest but most effective tools for pacing my learning.

Recycling beginners’ resources

Finally, spare a thought for your old, forgotten resources. Revisit them regularly, and revel in your improving abilities. You probably know the material so well now that you can do the exercises in your sleep!

Learning styles : a best of both worlds approach

Becoming a classroom student again taught me the common sense I had long forgotten: the more you practise, the better you get. Never fear, you can of course still steam through your languages at a rate of knots. Gradual and fast ‘n’ furious learning styles are not mutually exclusive. And there is no greater joy for the polyglot than consuming courses!

But, now and again, give your brain the time to form new pathways through good old repetition and rote.

It is built to do so.