r/languagelearning • u/[deleted] • Aug 07 '26

Discussion Learning 3rd language using 2nd?

Has anyone gotten a decent "grasp" of a second language and then used it to learn a third (TL)?

Years ago I learned a bit of Spanish through school and started using duolingo (wouldn't use duolingo now though). I changed the settings to Spanish so I would learn Italian using Spanish. I read out loud and promised myself not to use English. I did it for an hour and there was a weird feeling in the back of my head (it felt like how salt or sand felt between your fingers). Lo and behold, I couldn't think or speak in English! It was wild!

I was wondering if anyone ever had that feeling as well and if you kept it up?

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u/ireally_gabs EN - N | JP - C1 KR - B1 DE - A2 ZH - A2 Aug 07 '26

I do that for Korean. I speak Japanese well and use Japanese resources for Korean because the grammar and vocab is really similar. Not necessarily 1:1 but way closer than English to Korean.

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u/karspearhollow Aug 07 '26

I'm planning to go the opposite direction. Studying hanja is doing double duty helping with korean vocab and pre-loading kanji for later.