How to effectively organize learning two foreign languages?

[Artsvi]

Torsten,

Probably this kind of topics might had been discussed in your forums previously…
I would like to know your and may be some other member’s opinions concerning to following:
How is it effective to organize English language studying/improvement with parallel studying other foreign languages (for instance German)?
Let me just clarify the situation.
I have been studying English for many years and using it in my professional work. I have a certain vocabulary stock though I feel that there is lots of space for expanding it as well for improving my grammatical skills.
Meantime recently I had started to learn German. Generally I had found that my knowledge of English language is very supportive while learning German. As non-native English speaker even I had tried to learn German in English in hope to keep English very active…?
However sometimes I am feeling that really I need to deal with two languages in more efficient and professionally recommended way.
At this stage I am not caring with fact that similar words in German I am mostly pronouncing like as English words. I hope that during time it would be solved…
I mean may be it is better to separate German from English at all? Let’s say one week for English another one for German or something like that… Do you know some advanced practical methods?
Is there known scientifically approved contraindication for simultaneously studying foreign languages keeping in mind that the levels are different ore one of language’s more and less is appropriated…?
I had heard that it is not advised to start learning two foreign languages simultaneously from very beginning.

Sorry for grammatical mistakes.

Thanks in advance
Looking foreword to hear from you.
Best wishes
Artsvi

[Jamie (K)]

Artsvi, in my personal opinion, as a pathological polyglot, the time you consciously work on a language is not the whole time your brain spends practicing it. I think your brain practices for several hours after you put the books or recordings down. If you pay attention to the thoughts streaming through your head after you study, you'll start to notice this. That's why I think people learning two languages need to separate them with a time buffer. It doesn't have to be a week, but a day would be enough.

Don't get into the habit of pronouncing German like English, or you'll never get out of the habit later. If you need good recorded material for German pronunciation and fluency, look here: http://fsi-language-courses.org

[Artsvi]

Dear Jamie,

Many thanks for your prompt reply and kind advise. It looks very impressive and helpful.
Actually I had noticed that after studying languages (several hours or even a few days later) my brain indeed is trying to subconsciously reproduce recently learnt new words, phrases, texts and etc. Probably this happened with learning any subject not only language.

I would separate them with a time buffer.

In respect for a second part of your message it seems that perhaps I was not correctly expressed that I don’t care about German pronunciation in the beginning stage. In fact I am trying to care but I am feeling that sometimes my English is trying to dominate over German. Now I am inclining to think that this may be partially was conditioned with fact that I had tried to combine both.
In any cases I fully share your point of view that it is true: that never get out of the habit later. I felt the approval of this truth since some words in English (fortunately not exceeding a few dozens) that I had initially learnt with a wrong pronunciation seems very hard to change…
In this respect I am sure that my used sources of German are not be counted as a reason for my pronunciation mistakes.
Anyway I am fully thankful to you for your sent link and hope to use it as well.

Regards,
Artsvi

[SkiIucK]

I second Jamie's opinion. I can even back it up with my personal experience.
Sometimes I preoccupy myself with more than four languages at a time and at the end I catch myself not knowing anything. So you'd better stick with the time gap advice.

[Artsvi]

Thanks.
It looks very impressive to learn more than four languages… but actually it seems a very hard task…
I would prefer to spend that time for learning one or max two languages (if it is not necessity) in order to have at least one fluently.
I see your point of view but I think that in any cases even you felt that not knowing anything at that moment but perhaps you may definitely found later that you had already learned something or at least a bit.
Cheers,
Artsvi

[Hvitdrage]

Although learning a new language can be scary and a bit difficult in the beginning, it doesn't have to be. People have been learning to speak new languages for thousands of years, and many have been learning to speak several at the same time.

I found a site that can help you with learning and improving your language skills and at the same time make it easy. Let me know how it works for you.

http://foreignlanguagesmadeeasy.fastprofitpages.com/?id=hvitdrage

Learning languages only takes some time and effort