Motivation is the key. And determination. Learning a language is hard and takes a lot of work and a lot of time (even for those who are “good at languages”). In fact, I think a big part of being “good at languages” is having the perseverance to put in the time and the work. I am perceived by my peers as being “good at languages” but it sure doesn’t feel that way to me when I’m slogging through my Japanese grammar.
Basically, it remains to be seen whether this particular 14-year-old’s interest in learning lots of languages is sufficient to carry her through the less-rewarding phases of learning, especially in the absence of external motivation. For some few people with a strong interest in languages and language, it is. And I wish her the best of luck and would not wish to discourage her in the slightest. I think that even if she gives up after a while and moves on to something else, the exposure to various languages will be of benefit to her.
As for whether it is confusing to learn several languages simultaneously, I think the answer is no, not at all. In secondary school I studied Spanish, French, German and Irish, and never had a single case where studying one language made it harder to learn another. Rather the contrary.
The only issue with the multiple-language scenario is that time is a limited resource - not just for studying languages but for all the other things she may wish to do. The more languages she is studying, the less time she will be able to devote to each.
I know it was just an example, but in fact someone who can read Asahi Shimbun (or any Japanese newspaper) has reached a very advanced level after many years of study.
I just think it’s funny when I sometimes hear people say “I only want to learn enough Japanese to understand basic conversation, and read the newspaper…”
Yiaiks! You tell me! If you can read a Japanese newspaper, you have some SERIOUS Japanese proficiency!
Especially if it is the “Asahi Shimbun” – not many people know that the “Asahi Shimbun” uses a set of characters that includes quite a few non-standard simplifications (ostensibly because the standard characters were hard to print in smaller sizes).
Don’t get me started when you stumble upon a weird combination of kanji that you can’t find in any dictionary, and at the end it transpires that it was a fucking name… :smack:
Or reading a technical paper and finding out that the author has put together something like 7 kanjis one after the other in order to express some particular concept, none of the possible subsets of kanji appear as separate words, and you have to go character by character getting the meaning of each separate kanji and trying to combine that into something that makes sense. And even after an hour of that, you can’t be sure of what the guy meant.
Asking your lab colleagues doesn’t help. They are not exactly in the same field as the author, and have as much idea as yourself of what he meant :smack: :smack:
Sure, but it sounds like her community is okay, if her school has at least French and Chinese. The hallmarks of a low interest in languages in an area is if the high schools teach Spanish and… Spanish II.
Hey! There are only 2000 kanji! :dubious:
It was the third non-English newspaper I can think of.
Okay fine, and Aftenposten could be 3 or 4. And now that I think of it umm… Jyllands-Posten.
There are people who are gifted with languages. I’ve met some people (belonging to an association for people learning foreign languages) who were studying several at the same time, plus looking into others superficially out of curiosity.
We can’t know if the OP’s daughter will have the talent and dedication required to learn several languages. If she’s really motivated, why wouldn’t she try? Maybe she’ll succeed, maybe she’ll give up. But I don’t think confusion is going to be an issue.
Language learning styles are very personal. In my opinion, there are two types of language learner. One, comprising maybe 10% of learners, are natural language learners. They can set about on a course of study and come out with a decent command of any language. I had a friend like this who entered his two years of Peace Corps service speaking five languages, and came out speaking ten and writing dictionaries for two of them.
The other 90% of us, myself included, can only really gain meaningful proficiency by actually using it in practical situations. If you throw basically anyone into an immersion situation, they will eventually learn what they need to get through life. These people, however, are never going to get much out of classroom studies or poring over grammar books. Language is a tool of communication, and for most people the only way to learn how to use a tool is to actually use it. Otherwise, it’s like trying to learn how to use a computer by reading a book- you may pick up some useful stuff, but for the most part you will need to get your hands on it for it to stick. One year of classroom study is worth about a couple weeks of immersion, in my experience. It’s just not an efficient way for most people to learn.
I have no idea what type your daughter is. If she is the first, hats off to her! If she is the second, my advice is to learn whatever language you are most likely to be able to use in practical situations (in the US, this is probably Spanish) first, and then to move on to harder languages that they will have the opportunity to use during travel, in a professional context, etc… In general your third language is easier than your second, your your fourth easier than your third. I speak four languages, but it’s been a long slog to get there.
Clearly. I’m one of those people who learned a half-dozen languages for fun. But taking classes is not the way, I believe. I learned German by reading Ingarden’s own translation from his Polish to German of Der Streit (a 1200 page book). Latin and Greek for fun and (?) profit (?) and Italian just to get by. French from my my grandparents but had to learn it again basically to learn proper spelling and words of odd things like names of weird plants and stuff (thanks Flaubert and Huysmans!).
I still think it’s ridiculous to take a bunch of classes in diverse languages – it takes a long time to be competent in a language beyond basic conversational stuff. Do I know Somali? No, not by a damned sight, but I can still say howdy and what’s up and stuff – that stuff you just pick up.
The trouble IMHO with ambitious younger people is they try to drink from the ocean thinking it’s a teacup. Different for people who want into linguistics – sure, learn morphology and stuff and it’s fine and instructive. No point really to studying something formally for no real gain.
I’m confused, those two “styles” seem to consist of “immersion learning fast” and “immersion learning not so fast”.
The two language-learning styles I’ve encountered are rote-based and logic-based. I’m the second; traditional teaching styles (and, no matter what they claim, 99% or pre-written courses) are based on the first. The logic-based style makes heavy use of comparative grammar, common roots etc; the rote-based style starts from the premise that students don’t know any grammar and/or any grammar they know is irrelevant, and that they must learn their new language without any recourse to previously-acquired knowledge.
I think it is more about outcomes than method. Everyone can learn a language because they need to it to communicate in a concrete way. There percentage of people who can successfully learn a language (well enough to use it reliably to achieve real tasks- in other words, more than it takes to do workbook exercises or skim newspapers) in the abstract- through books or classroom study- is much smaller.
But the “point” of being conscious of learning styles is that they work best with matched with the, well, matching teaching style. Drop me with a traditional language teacher and what I achieve is:
getting bored shitless,
spending most of the class thinking “didn’t we do this already?”
learning the grammar the first time it’s explained,
while leaving my vocabulary hollow.
Drop me with a non-traditional teacher and I get this* level of English (in nine months, but I’d previously spent 5 years being bored and not learning enough to buy the ingredients for a meal), or enough French to be able to do most everyday tasks without making the French look horrified (nine months, only 3 previous months of non-training and that back in toddlerhood with a sadist who assumed I already spoke French).
It’s the same with the stuff I teach, or the documents I write: my intended audience tends to be “hand thinkers” from Operations who like things explained in one diagram if possible, in as little time as possible and let’s try doing it as soon as possible; there are other groups who look at a process map and glaze over (give them words - hello, Supply Chain! - these generally prefer not to start doing anything until they’re sure they got it) or who would like a table of everything (Finance - even more in the ‘let’s have everything down before we start’ camp). The fact that these three tend to coexist in any manufacturing company is the reason why so many process documents need to have the information in triplicate: diagram, explanation and table.
No, I’m not exaggerating. While my vocabulary has increased after the first year of Micaela’s teaching, that first year put me at maybe 96% of my current proficiency.