Aloha everyone!
I’m back from my swimabout in the big blue yonder, and so my first port of call is to check in and reassure everyone that I didn’t drown at sea or get carried off by a lonely manatee… As “lolo” (Ha: crazy) as it may sound, I feel like a large part of me has been missing during my absence from the language blogging community, and I’m delighted to be back again on virtual home soil!
I’ve finally found a small studio apartment on the oceanfront, just a stone’s throw from Waikiki beach, and have officially “survived” (*wink*) my first tsunami this weekend! The workload has been crazy, as I arrived a month later than planned with my wife due to visa complications, and am still trying to catch up and work my way around all the floating red tape.
I’m currently teaching English academic writing at the University of Hawai’i this semester, and will be unleashed on some poor unfortunate souls next semester, when I start teaching some actual SLA courses. Whatever’s left of my time after teaching duties is then divided over the several graduate courses I’m taking in preparation for the long and winding road to PhD.
I’ve only met one other Brit on the island so far, and am mainly surrounded by Japanese speakers and stores. A lot of locals also speak Pidgin (Hawai’i Creole English) outside the tourist areas, which I’ve started to learn and is a lot of fun.
Apart from my bashful attempts at Russian conversation here and there, and joining a German language group at the university, I seem to have completely dropped the gauntlet in my language studies over the last couple of months. SO…it’s time to make amends and put this unforgivable oversight right! Let the games commence…
I will be starting up a new project this week [actually, I’ve restarted this in August now, so if you want to skip all the warm-up preliminaries, feel free to jump here] that hopefully fits in and around my work hours and studies, putting a hold on some of my other past projects for the time being (but still dropping in from time to time in these logs to update on any significant hop, skip or jump in progress and play with my language maps). My “big kahuna” goal right now instead is to consolidate all my efforts into one crazy language adventure in 2013 and beyond. This will be my focus:
Learn 10 languages simultaneously by trying to study each one at least 15 minutes a day! (Mon-Fri)
Here’s the lineup of languages in order of my initial estimated reading level (according to CEFR guidelines):
- German (B2+, high intermediate)
- French (B2, high intermediate)
- Spanish (B1+, high intermediate)
- Russian (B1+, low intermediate)
- Swedish (A2+, high beginner)
- Latin (A1+, low beginner)
- Irish (A1+, low beginner)
- Japanese (A1, low beginner)
- Ancient Egyptian (A1, low beginner)
- Hawaiian (A0, complete beginner)
As you can see, there’s a good variety of starting levels here, ranging from complete beginner through to high intermediate, and hopefully there’s also enough variety across language difficulty levels and language families to keep my mind from wandering too much as well.
And here are some of the questions I’d like to try and answer through my new blog that keep popping up on this forum like happy august mushrooms:
- Can I study more than one language at a time without falling prey to language interference? How about some of the more closely related languages in my list?
- Is it possible to study a language consistently over a longer period of time with heavy work/study commitments?
- How much progress can I make and what level will I reach after a year, if I study a mere 15 minutes a day (i.e. little but often)?
- How can I stay motivated and not burn out over the long run?
- Is there a positive synergistic effect that comes from studying several languages at once?
Mahalo for dropping by and surfing to the end,
Teango
Edit on 15th August, 2013:
After a couple of failed attempts that didn’t really get started (largely due to heavy work commitments and illness), I’ve chosen to rethink this noble project again. However instead of falling back to fewer languages or a kinder schedule, I’ve decided to up the stakes and say “Impossible? Hell no, let’s go for it!” instead, and return to my original idea of learning 10 languages at the same time.
I’ve also decided to extend each session to 15 minutes, as this is a more honest appraisal of the time it really takes to set up my resources for each language, review vocabulary from previous sessions, and engage in new study. Hence the change from “10 Minutes” to “15 Minutes” in the title for this thread.
Finally, I’ve put Hawaiian Pidgin and Jamaican Patois on the back burner for now. I really enjoy listening to creole languages and find most of them relatively easy to understand, and that’s good enough for me right now. I’ll still watch Jamaican films and listen to Hawaii’s “Liddo Bitta Tita” and “Bradajo” from time to time, and maybe look up a few words in my “Pidgin to Da Max” book too, but that’s as far as it goes. Well, with 10 second languages now, I’ve got to draw a line somewhere (lol).
Edit on 24th March, 2013:
I’ve decided to combine my studies in Hawaiian and Pidgin into the one study period, alternating between the two languages every week. Pidgin is largely situational and closely linked with being a local born and bred native of the island, whilst the chances of running into any native speaking Hawaiians are almost second to none. So my goal here is not so much to reach any level of fluency in these languages, but to learn enough of these languages to gain a clearer understanding and empathy for Hawaiian culture and to integrate better into the community here.
Edit on 1st January 2013:
After an initial trial period leading up to the new year, I quickly came to the conclusion that it’s impossible for me to fit in 10 languages a day AND AT THE SAME TIME i) work as a graduate teacher for 30 hours a week, ii) study at least 30 hours on top of all this for several graduate level courses, iii) secure additional funding to keep a roof over my wife and I’s head whilst juggling all the perrenial red tape, and finally iv) prepare for my PhD and publish journal papers along the way. If I stretched myself any thinner, I’d resemble a glass noodle right now! So with this in mind, and some modicum of sanity still prevailing, I’m going to try and study 7 core languages instead of 10 each working day, and have amended my introduction above accordingly.
Read Full Post »
Travels with Teango 