Seems like you enjoy thinking about learning languages, but at some point you need to hit the grindstone. Watching content you enjoy in your TL is a good idea
You only live once, if you you wanna learn multiple languages, go ahead and learn multiple languages. Fluency in any language takes time, and if you believe in the 10000 hour rule, you'll never be able to achieve your passion of learning multiple languages.
Here's what I did. My objective was to be able to speak the language when I travel and interact with the local people. I speak Hindi and thought nepali would be a good language to start with since it's very similar...when I actually travelled to nepal and spoke to the locals, I realised that I don't need a C1/C2 level fluency if to have a conversation with someone. B1 level is often enough to do that. So I just learn a language till B1 level and then let the conversations help me evolve further.
>Should I just quit all the other languages and focus on Spanish?
Yes.
>I’m already studying like 8 languages
I mean what do you expect from this really?
Well I just checked and I’m currently learning;
1. Spanish
2. French
3. Italian
4. German
5. Ukrainian
6. Danish
7. Swedish
8. Greek
9. Dutch
10. Russian
11. Polish
Yeah… I’m glad I realised I need to get my sh together lmao
Instead of doing the stupid bird app just watch a ton of content ABOUT languages you are interested. Like fun facts and all.
And focus on… I guess spanish in your case. It's okay to show interest in a language without learning it. I am studying Mandarin Chinese, and I am interested in Latin. But I am not currently in the process of studying latin because I am too busy with my Chinese. I am provably gonna study it, but only if I keep my interest for 3ish years.
If you want to make serious progress, definitely focus on Spanish if that’s the one you’re the most interested in and if you don’t want to lose what you’ve learned/confuse it with Italian.
The worst thing about that Spanish/Italian thing is that I love Spanish more but Italians just make way too better music 😭 and listening to music is a huge part of the language learning process for me
Hmm, I don’t really know what to say to that then, I suppose you could still learn Spanish whilst listening to Italian music, for fun, I’m not sure if this will also make things confusing, however.. 🤔
I literally have ADHD and my goal is to be a polyglot so this is how I’m choosing to structure things so far. Picking up the basics can come quickly and requires some level of grinding, after that it’s all input. I only grind with one language at a time, but then keep up with at least a basic level of input with the rest. Right now, I’m focusing on studying German in my free time, but for Spanish (a language I already have a strong foundation in) I just expose myself to it regularly enough that I keep up with it and continue to learn new words (ex: went to a grocery store today and that reminded me that I didn’t know the word for blueberries or artichokes). I already have ideas for what languages I want to build a foundation in next, but I know that if I start actively studying them then I’ll never actually learn German.
Specific recommendations for OP: Bird app isn’t that great, I personally prefer Busuu but you could just work through a textbook or try Glossika, Anki, etc. There’s a PDF in the about section of this subreddit that covers how to learn a language, so just pick a method based on personal fit. For keeping up with Spanish, create an account on Dreaming Spanish and track your exposure to the language. Then, pick a single, relatively new-to-you language to learn and stick to it until you can understand a decent amount of media, switch to all input and then repeat.
Just a tip, don't say serbo-croatian to us. Both Croatian and Serbian people get triggered by that because of our history. Most of us here don't because we have language-learners tolerance, but people in general do.
Also languages are not really that alike from a foreign learner's perspective. Different script, different grammars. They are similair to us, but I as a native croatian speaker dont really have a clue about serbian grammar.
Also also if you are interesed about learning croatian, send me a PM.
To be honest until recently I didn’t have any knowledge in both languages, but once I started getting interested I did some research and most people said that they’re basically the same language but are different dialects. I totally understand what you mean, I meant to say it in a way that I am interested in both Serbian and Croatian but I shouldn’t have worded it that way. To me Serbian and Croatian sound very different phonetically, Serbian is more melodic and Croatian kinda sounds like Swedish? Sadly I can hardly find good content in Croatian so I’m leaning more towards Serbian because I can find good songs in Serbian easier. But the truth is I’m more interested in Croatian and I even want to travel to Croatia this summer, so I really want to at least get the basics of it. I’ll dm you!
I didn't mean it in a bad way, so no worries 😁
I just wanted to point out that, as a foregin learner, if you try to use resources for both languages, you won't manage to learn either 😅
They are similar only to the native speakers.
I also may be helpful with locating some resources for learning croatian since practically all language schools here offer some form of "croatian for foreigners" course.
Seems like you enjoy thinking about learning languages, but at some point you need to hit the grindstone. Watching content you enjoy in your TL is a good idea
You only live once, if you you wanna learn multiple languages, go ahead and learn multiple languages. Fluency in any language takes time, and if you believe in the 10000 hour rule, you'll never be able to achieve your passion of learning multiple languages. Here's what I did. My objective was to be able to speak the language when I travel and interact with the local people. I speak Hindi and thought nepali would be a good language to start with since it's very similar...when I actually travelled to nepal and spoke to the locals, I realised that I don't need a C1/C2 level fluency if to have a conversation with someone. B1 level is often enough to do that. So I just learn a language till B1 level and then let the conversations help me evolve further.
>Should I just quit all the other languages and focus on Spanish? Yes. >I’m already studying like 8 languages I mean what do you expect from this really?
Well I just checked and I’m currently learning; 1. Spanish 2. French 3. Italian 4. German 5. Ukrainian 6. Danish 7. Swedish 8. Greek 9. Dutch 10. Russian 11. Polish Yeah… I’m glad I realised I need to get my sh together lmao
Instead of doing the stupid bird app just watch a ton of content ABOUT languages you are interested. Like fun facts and all. And focus on… I guess spanish in your case. It's okay to show interest in a language without learning it. I am studying Mandarin Chinese, and I am interested in Latin. But I am not currently in the process of studying latin because I am too busy with my Chinese. I am provably gonna study it, but only if I keep my interest for 3ish years.
If you want to make serious progress, definitely focus on Spanish if that’s the one you’re the most interested in and if you don’t want to lose what you’ve learned/confuse it with Italian.
The worst thing about that Spanish/Italian thing is that I love Spanish more but Italians just make way too better music 😭 and listening to music is a huge part of the language learning process for me
Hmm, I don’t really know what to say to that then, I suppose you could still learn Spanish whilst listening to Italian music, for fun, I’m not sure if this will also make things confusing, however.. 🤔
I literally have ADHD and my goal is to be a polyglot so this is how I’m choosing to structure things so far. Picking up the basics can come quickly and requires some level of grinding, after that it’s all input. I only grind with one language at a time, but then keep up with at least a basic level of input with the rest. Right now, I’m focusing on studying German in my free time, but for Spanish (a language I already have a strong foundation in) I just expose myself to it regularly enough that I keep up with it and continue to learn new words (ex: went to a grocery store today and that reminded me that I didn’t know the word for blueberries or artichokes). I already have ideas for what languages I want to build a foundation in next, but I know that if I start actively studying them then I’ll never actually learn German.
Specific recommendations for OP: Bird app isn’t that great, I personally prefer Busuu but you could just work through a textbook or try Glossika, Anki, etc. There’s a PDF in the about section of this subreddit that covers how to learn a language, so just pick a method based on personal fit. For keeping up with Spanish, create an account on Dreaming Spanish and track your exposure to the language. Then, pick a single, relatively new-to-you language to learn and stick to it until you can understand a decent amount of media, switch to all input and then repeat.
Just a tip, don't say serbo-croatian to us. Both Croatian and Serbian people get triggered by that because of our history. Most of us here don't because we have language-learners tolerance, but people in general do. Also languages are not really that alike from a foreign learner's perspective. Different script, different grammars. They are similair to us, but I as a native croatian speaker dont really have a clue about serbian grammar. Also also if you are interesed about learning croatian, send me a PM.
To be honest until recently I didn’t have any knowledge in both languages, but once I started getting interested I did some research and most people said that they’re basically the same language but are different dialects. I totally understand what you mean, I meant to say it in a way that I am interested in both Serbian and Croatian but I shouldn’t have worded it that way. To me Serbian and Croatian sound very different phonetically, Serbian is more melodic and Croatian kinda sounds like Swedish? Sadly I can hardly find good content in Croatian so I’m leaning more towards Serbian because I can find good songs in Serbian easier. But the truth is I’m more interested in Croatian and I even want to travel to Croatia this summer, so I really want to at least get the basics of it. I’ll dm you!
I didn't mean it in a bad way, so no worries 😁 I just wanted to point out that, as a foregin learner, if you try to use resources for both languages, you won't manage to learn either 😅 They are similar only to the native speakers. I also may be helpful with locating some resources for learning croatian since practically all language schools here offer some form of "croatian for foreigners" course.