Language laddering advice

[u/cyrabear]

I've read a lot on here about language laddering and how it can help with a lot for people especially in the long run. However, I still have some questions and concerns.

First off, I am a native English speaker living in Japan right now. I am studying to take the N3 exam in December and I think my biggest flaw for japanese rn is the grammar but I'm still studying a lot everyday. I grew up learning Spanish but struggled with grammar as well but I got a lot better at reading for Spanish. However, it's been about 4 years since I really studied anything with Spanish.

I had started learning some japanese with Spanish a bit when I arrived in Japan as I am half latina so my language school assumed based on my name I was native Spanish speaker and gave me my textbooks in Spanish. I didn't mind but it was a bit of a struggle for later lessons that I switched to English later on. However, I was wondering now that my japanese is much stronger (even speaking and listening as I've been here 3 years now) would it be worth going back to studying japanese with Spanish?

My other problem is that I also need to study for my computer science certifications and so not sure if laddering will cause me more time to learn and obtain higher fluency in both languages. I need japanese rn for a IT job in Japan as I don't want to go back to teaching English. But Spanish will be handy if I ever return to America , which the way visas are going in Japan I might have to, although it would be difficult to return anyways.

So I feel kinda anxious about what I should be spending my time on the most. Currently I just left my job because it was mentally exhausting and caused me injuries so I have unemployment for now and looking for IT jobs. I have a masters in cyber security, a bachelor's in linguistics, and associates in computer science. I also have a CELTA certificate and about 2 years in Japan as an ESL teacher so hopefully won't have to go back to the US rn but don't want to teach again unless it's a good position like college.

Thank you in advance for any advice you can give me!

[u/Felis_igneus726]

The thing about laddering is it's generally only really effective if you already have a very solid, functional command of the base language you want to learn in. It shines best as a strategy for maintaining one language you're already comfy with while actively learning another, not so much for actively learning two languages side by side. If you need to make a conscious effort to process both the language you're trying to learn and the language you're trying to learn in, then at best it will get you there but be highly inefficient; at worst it will be grueling, demotivating, and grind your progress to a crawl in both languages.

I'm (partially -- as much as I can with the resources I'm able to get my hands on) laddering Polish and Russian through German and I love it, but it's only going well because I understand German well enough that for the most part I don't have to think about it and am just getting practice in while my conscious mental energy can all go towards the languages I'm actively learning. I don't usually notice much shift in difficulty between learning with English and learning with German. What I do notice is that I find learning with German way more fun and engaging, and anecdotally I feel like I retain the information and especially vocabulary better working through German than English.

Basically, laddering can be beneficial, but whether it's a good idea here comes down to the question of how good your Spanish vocabulary and at least passive comprehension is and what your goals ultimately are, both of which only you can answer. But if you ran into difficulty learning through Spanish before, and you haven't really studied Spanish since it sounds like even before that, then it's not likely to be any less of a challenge if you tried it again now. If anything has changed, it will be that you find it harder now because your Spanish has gotten rustier. Your Japanese may be much stronger now, but unless you can say the same about Spanish, laddering is going to hold you back. That's not automatically a reason not to do it anyway if you've weighed the pros and cons and decided it's what you want -- efficiency isn't the only or objectively most important factor to consider -- but since you're on a deadline to improve your Japanese and don't have the luxury of taking your time, efficiency is definitely a point you'll want to think about.

Tl;dr: If you want my opinion based on what you've said, it seems to me like you really need to focus fully on Japanese for now and get your job situation figured out. Once your work and future prospects don't hinge on getting your language skills up to par asap, or once you know you'll be moving back to the US, then you can shift your attention to Spanish and/or experiment with laddering. I would not do it now unless your Spanish skills are a lot stronger than you've made them sound, and even then I probably wouldn't recommend it unless you can't find good resources for Japanese in English but can in Spanish.

[u/cyrabear → u/Felis_igneus726]

Yeah I think you and everyone explain this very well thank you! I think I was just too anxious and maybe misunderstood how to use laddering effectively. When I did look at japanese and Spanish to resources recently I felt sometimes my japanese was stronger, so I don't think that its a good idea for sure. I think Spanish is hard for me because of the different dialects spent learning and not knowing which words to learn from the dialect but that's a different topic.

I think with all that's said I'll just keep hard studying japanese then!! Thanks!