Learning more than one language at the same time

Hello everyone!

Well, this topic is discussed by a lot of polyglots and language lovers. My opinion is clear, I say yes! Study it if you want! So… You can find in our community some people saying, it is impossible, it is not a good thing, or, you can, but not with languages from one same family, or, not with languages from different families.

I asked this question for an expert and he gave me gold. My guest is the hyper (and awesome) Polyglot TIM KEELEY.

When we started to talk, he said me one thing that I will never forget:

“You cannot learn more than one language at the same time if you put this limit to yourself. ”

Do you realize how amazing it is? He is right! If you say you can, you can, if you believe you cannot, so you cannot!

Then he spoke to me in all the languages that I thought, really, even Chinese, Japanese, Russian, and the list goes on… So, I asked: Did you study more than one at the same time? He said, yes, of course. (Like a natural thing.)

Then I asked: Tim, but, to learn from the same family at once? He said… You just need to train yourself… For me, it helps me… I like to study this way, I just need to see the differences and I understand the other language.

How to avoid mixing the languages?

My favorite part. I asked him about it… He told me: I just cannot! Because for me it is not an analytical process, you need to feel the language in your heart, and if you feel ( and use your limbic  system) so you will not mix, because you have different feelings for these two languages.  So… let’s Tim take the word.

Written by Tim Keeleey: 

English is my mother tongue and Japanese is the language I have spoken the most (yes, even more than English when counting total hours of speech).

At this point in time, I have used more than ten languages for studying content courses at university as well as lecturing and/or doing research in international management (Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, Thai, Polish, Chinese, French, German, Russian, Vietnamese, and Indonesian).

In terms of general conversation, I can function in more than twenty languages (add Afrikaans, Italian, Korean, Greek, Lao, Malay, Serbo-Croatian, Norwegian, Dutch, Nepali, and Hindi).

In terms of basic comprehension I can get by in more than thirty languages; for example getting the gist of a radio broadcast or written text or the ability to communicate due to acquired proficiency in cognate languages (add Danish, Swedish, Czech, Bosnian, Ukrainian, Belorussian, Slovak, Slovene, Bulgarian, Catalan, Galician, Romanian, and Cantonese).

Finally, there are languages that I have studied at some point in the past and/or am working on now (Hungarian, Hebrew, Farsi, Arabic, Zulu, Xhosa, and Swahili).

Giving an exact number of languages is difficult for any polyglot since there is always disagreement concerning the definition of languages versus dialects, different degrees of ability in various domains, and various degrees of dormant ability at any given moment that can be re-activated.

I realize the number of languages listed above may seem daunting. However, a number of factors must be kept in mind. Learning your first foreign language as an adult is the most challenging. It requires getting comfortable thinking in another language and creating your first additional linguistic (and hopefully cultural) identity.

As the number of languages one can function in increases so does the ability to take advantage of what might be called the multilingual factor, or the M-factor as discussed by Herdina and Jessner (2002).

The more languages you learn the more you learn about the most effective way for you to learn (metacognitive knowledge). There is no one perfect way; it must be customized to fit your own unique set of psychological and cognitive characteristics.

The more you transform yourself from being a creature of habit within the limits of the cultures and languages you know, the more you can become free to explore new perspectives and modes of expression.

The more languages you know, the more cognate languages (similar languages such as Spanish and Portuguese) appear as low-hanging fruit ready to be picked and consumed.

The more you exercise your brain through additional language acquisition the stronger it gets in relation to the acquisition process through actual structural changes in the brain itself.

This assertion is strongly supported by research on neuroplasticity related to additional language learning. For example, Li, Legault, and Litcofsky (2014) demonstrated that second language experience-induced brain changes, including increased gray matter density and white matter integrity, can be found in children, young adults, and the elderly. Additionally it can occur rapidly with short-term language learning or training.

Africa! Place of amazing languages!

This time I am here to share with you all, some interesting points of the languages spoken in Africa.

But… Patrick… Do you speak these languages? No. So, do you study it and have knowledge about it? No. That’s why I had to ask for help and here is an Expert!

Khady Ndoye 

She is a language lover like all of us and if you didn’t know her, do it now, visit her site because it is amazing!

Well, Most part of people are learning languages like German, French, Spanish, Italian, some people preffer Asian languages, like Japanese or Chinese (Mandarin or Cantonese) but if you, like me, love to discover other cultures and challenge yourself in a language entirely different, you should pay more attention to these languages.

I asked Khady for a top 10 African languages (most spoken) and Below you check the list:

Wolof:

• More than 20 millions native speakers
• Spoken in Senegal, Gambia and Mauritania
• Learn it here

Yoruba language:

• , more than 30 millions speakers
• Spoken in Niger, Benin, Nigeria
• Learn it here!

Xhosa:

• 7 million speakers,
• Spoken in Cape Town mostly
• Learn it here

Swahili:

• 150 million speakers
• Spoken in some parts of Southeast Africa, including Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
• Learn it here

Malagasy:

• 20 millions speakers
• Spoken in Madagascar, Comores and Mayotte
• Learn it here

Serer language:

• 3 millions speakers
• Spoken in Senegal and Gambia
• Learn it here

Sudanese Arabic:

• 17 millions speakers
• Spoken in Sudan
  similiar pronunciation to Saudi Arabic
• Learn it here

Lingala:

• 12 millions speakers
• Spoken in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and a large part of the Republic of the Congo, Angola and the Central African Republic
• Learn here

Mendé language:

• 1.5 millions speakers
• Spoken in Sierra Leone
• Learn it here

Tamazith ( Berber language):

• Spoken in Morroco and Algeria
• Learn it here

Check the interview with Khady!

The language learning process and the best educational system of the world.

There is no news when we think people need motivation to learn… In case of Children, they need to be motivated, and, there is a lot of people that agree with the fact that Kids learns languages in a more easy way, right?

Today, I am here to expose to you all how the language learning process works on the country with the best educational system of the world….

First of all, this place is Finland.

And why is that? Well, according to a lot of researches, this country always appear between the first five places, and major times, in first. Well, the research of Pearson institute says that Finland give teacher a high value on society, and it is very hard to become a teacher in Finland, they need a Master or Doctor Degree and a hard process to get in.

All the points of education are important, since cooking until dancing and arts, not just math and reading, and Finnish children are very well with these things too! There is an excellent way to look for the priorities on the education of children.

You should search for more about it.

What about language learning?

First, there are a lot of possibilities of foreign language in School for children. People are Ok about to speak Swedish AND Finnish. Amazing, don’t you think? Stats shows that most common languages studied in this place are: English, German, French, Russian, and Spanish (Plus Swedish, of course). Stats shows too that: Finland are above the media of the continent for knowledge of foreign languages. 70% of people are TRIlingual, 47% can speak three foreign languages and 23% can speak more!

My experience:

When I met a Finnish girl, I saw how amazing it is. She could speak a lot of languages and study a lot of more! (plus the fact that Finnish grammar is a very hard one!) But… she acts like it is normal. When I call her a polyglot, she reacts like: What? No, it is just common. Hahaha I simply started to love this culture, and I invited my Friend Emilia, from Finland, to talk about her experience with language learning while a Finnish high school student.

Ladies and gentlemen: Emilia speaking:

Hi world! Haha. My name is Emilia, I’m 16 years old and as it was already told: I come from Finland. I’m on my first year of high school. First of all I want to thank Patrick for this opportunity and all the support you have given me. Thank you. Also to keep you guys on track I’m studying English, German, Swedish and Chinese at school and Japanese by myself. Also in few weeks I will begin my studies of Russian.

So, about language learning in Finland. To make sure that all of you reading this could understand better what I’m talking about, I’m briefly going to explain you the school system of Finland.

We start going to school when we’re 7 years old. We have a nine-year compulsory comprehensive school, which consists of elementary school (grades 1-6) and middle school (grades 7-9). After that you are able to choose from a vocational school and a high school which are not compulsory and last for about three years. After that there’s tertiary education which is divided into university and polytechnic.

My own experience is that the first foreign language I started learning was English. Most kids in Finland start learning English as their first foreign language in 3rd grade. That means I’ve been learning English for 7 years. Also when I was in elementary school it was an option in my home town that you could start learning German in 4th grade. It’s not an option anymore so my German teacher in middle school told us we’re like dinosaurs. I chose to learn German because my dad was telling me that I would need it in the future but also because I was interested in it myself. I haven’t ever regretted my decision on that.

Some of us in Finland start learning Swedish as an option in elementary school, but for most of us Swedish learning starts in 7th grade and it’s not optional. So I began learning Swedish at that time. I fell in love with the language. When I started high school I changed my level on learning Swedish from B-level to A-level, which means I’m studying it on the level as if I had started learning it in elementary school. Many other students did that too.

About a year ago I took my first course of Japanese in my home town’s adult education centre. I had studied it by myself before but I thought that taking courses of it wouldn’t be a bad idea at all. At the adult education centre there’s many languages to choose from, such as Spanish, Italian, French and Estonian. In the beginning of this year I took the second course of Japanese. Unfortunately, this fall there wasn’t a fitting course for me to keep learning Japanese at the adult education centre but I will keep an eye on that in the beginning of 2016 and keep learning it by myself until then.

Back to the school again, I did not start a new language in middle school. In 8rd grade in Finland you are able to start a new language, such as German, French or Russian, depending on the town you live in. In high school you’re again able to choose from those three languages. I chose Russian and I’m really looking forward to it.

So how am I studying Chinese, if it’s not in high school or the adult education centre? Actually, I study it at my town’s “adult high school”. This year they started teaching Spanish, Chinese and Latin there. Portuguese and Italian have also been options to choose from. The classes are in the evening after my day in high school ends and I get high school courses out of it. I chose to learn Chinese because I was inspired by my friend from China and I have really fallen in love with Chinese.

I hope this gave you at least a some kind of idea about language learning in Finland even though I mostly wrote this based on my experience.

Näkemisiin!

Oh, Kurwa! Reflection about bad words in Polish. Is it really possible to translate?

First of all, it is not an article about bad words. To find a list of bad words you can try on Google, I am pretty sure you will find it.

My question is: Is really possible to translate things from another language? Well, some kind of things are easy… Like, Hallo in German can be associated with Hola in Spanish… But think with me… What if I say to you the Portuguese word: Janela? What does it mean? Window? Sure. Right? Maybe… Janela comes from Janua, wich means, a small door. Window comes from old norse, vindr and auga. wind and eye. They have exactly the same meaning? I am not sure.

So, let’s take a look on the Polish language and some bad words?

Bad words?

Yes. Just keep your mind open and think with me. Let’s see the word Kurwa!

Oh! Kurwa! I can use it like: Oh, it is amazing! but what will happen if I put Kurwa on a translator like Google? For G translator, Kurwa means prostitute. Simple? No!

One Polish friend of mine once told me if you call a woman Kurwa! It is a terrible way to offend her! It is not a simple bad word, it is very offensive! So, you can use the same word for an amazing thing and to a heavy offense against a woman. How to translate that? End? Not even close.

Let’s go for more examples derivating this word.

wkurwiony – to use with some angry person.  Nakurwiony – to use when someone is drunk.   pokurwiony – meaning  insane. 

Or, you can use: jest KUREWSKO zimno. (did you see the word Kurwa again?) Well, this time we are just saying something like: It is f*cking cold!

So, it is a very rich word, don’t you think? Actualy, just saying Kurwa in different tones can change completly the meaning (it’s not a tonal language? Ok, but tones are very important in all languages)

With just one word you can go very very far in Polish. But the interesting point is… if you take a lot of Polish words and put in a translator, they will show you always: F*ck, F*cking and variations of it, but in fact, there are a lot of other meanings! It is a little confusing but also one of the most beautiful parts of languages, if we didn’t have this plurality, we could use just a dictionary to learn!

The truth is to learn a new language you need to think in ethnolinguistic. Each country has an unique way to express your culture with words, and sometimes is very hard to translate things, that’s why I think that it is completly important to jump inside a culture when learning a new language.

So, where this word came from?

If you take a look, Kurwa had the meaning of chicken and was used to name prostitutes. so, aparently, it has the worst meaning in the origin, remember the words from my friend? one heavy way to offend a girl, or could meaning simple a mature woman, from kourūs  but, if you look carefully, this same word with this bad meaning is used like a not so heavy expression, like I said on Oh, Kurwa!

So, to learn a new language is not simple just translate words to reach new meanings. If you want to really learn, just get in touch with other cultures. As I always say, Culture comes first and to learn the language is just a consequence.

Polyglot club: A great Idea! (with Vittoria Diachenko from Polyglotclub Ukraina)

Hi everyone!

Today I am here to talk about a very cool topic! Do you know any polyglot club?

This time I invited my friend Vittoria Diachenko from Polyglotclub Ukraina to talk with me about it and you can check the interview, in Russian/English here:

It is not secret that for me, the most effective way to learn a language is comunicating with people without care about mistakes, so, it’s inevitable that I found this idea of a club full of Polyglots a brilliant thing!

Language is a tool! You need to use it to comunicate with people! The key is comunication!

What about your city? Is there a polyglot club? If no, so, start one!

But: Patrick, why did you do it with a Ukranian person if your are Brazilian? haha, well, I said it before, my first experience with language partners was with an Ukranian lady, and I started to love this country and culture a lot since then.

So, if you want to know more about the club:

Polyglotclub Ukraina