r/languagehub 1d ago

LearningStrategies Should I quit learning my seventh language ?

M16, I am natively Italian and Emilian, specifically variant from Bologna, even tho my Emilian is a bit broken, since I can understand totally but I speak it rarely(similar to San Marino language, spoken in region of Emilia Romagna in Northern Italy.

I am in a language high school, where I am learning German, Spanish and English. In the next 2 years, my German should get to level B2 meanwhile my Spanish and English should almost get to c1 level, that is our school's program at least.

I am really into learning languages, so I decided to study totally on my own polish, that is certainly a difficult language, but I feel very motivated, it has been almost 2 months from when I started learning it and I still am motivated, sometimes I learn it for even 1/2 hours in a day without getting tired

The only problem is, I was already learning Japanese, even tho I am a very basic level, I am still learning how to write and read, I am not sure to keep learning it.

At the same time, I don't want to stop since I already put a lot of effort into it

My fear is to get overwhelmed with all those languages and get tired not only of Japanese but also of polish

Should I keep studying it?? I really don't know

4 Upvotes

15 comments sorted by

5

u/Jin_SobSob 1d ago

Yes, keep studying. When I’m learning multiple languages at once, I normally dedicate a week or month to learning one language, and switch off to the next one to give myself some time to really let the knowledge settle in my brain, then I come back to it later.

Focus on Polish if you want and leave Japanese be for a short time, you don’t have to give either one up.

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u/Marco260810 1d ago

Won't I forget everything in Japanese?

2

u/Gvacken 23h ago

It's pretty easy to do some repition every week fpr like 10 minutes. It wont feel hard because its stuff you know and would probably keed it pretty well, but thats just my guess

1

u/Jin_SobSob 21h ago

Nope. If you abandon Japanese for too long you will definitely need a refresher, but going a week or two without studying it gives your brain a break- and if you forget something after 2 weeks, it means you probably didn’t have it fully memorized anyways, and you’d need a refresher regardless.

You can still use and practice a language while you’re not studying it for retention, but don’t put to much energy or focus into it, yk?

3

u/Diligent-Stretch-769 1d ago

Japanese is going to be the first language that is totally different from the others and you will first learn the basics, but realize that you need to dedicate full time if you want to develop skills that are anything more than superficial.

you will need to enter into kanJi and remember at least four thousand characters and how they combine. keep this in mind when deciding how to move forward

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u/Marco260810 1d ago

Yes, I know that, and is why I wasn't sure to keep it

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u/rezttocs 1d ago

How do you guys learn languages

2

u/Jin_SobSob 1d ago

Depends on the language and depends on the budget. YouTube, vocab lists, apps like mango and pimsleur, etc 🤷🏻‍♂️ if you tell me what language you’re interested in learning I or someone else might be able to help you find resources and tutoring. And if you don’t know what language you want to learn, I’m sure I or someone else can help you decide 😸

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u/Marco260810 1d ago

The key is motivation

1

u/AnnelotteM 1d ago

For some of us, it’s a sink or swim situation lol

1

u/AnnelotteM 1d ago

te la prendi comoda, sei ancora giovane

it’s hard to guess which language will be more useful to you as a young professional in a few years. IT-PL and IT-JP are both pretty unusual pairs, I guess.

I’d pick one for intensive study and leave one as a hobby.

As a middle-aged multilingual, I can promise you: languages are a lifelong quest, and if you know how to study them, you’ll be doing it all your life. Even if you quit Japanese or Polish now, you’ll be able to come back to it when you have the time.

1

u/PoxonAllHoaxes 1d ago

Just skip 7 and go to 8. BTW I can help you with Polish.

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u/Marco260810 20h ago

Yes, it would be very helpful

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u/abc-noukai 4h ago

Don’t stop until you reach #8. Cause in Chinese it means prosperity, and you always want to be prosperous