Learning multiple languages at the same time | General discussion | Forum
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12:00
August 5, 2012
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Hey everyone!
I've been a ninja on the forums over the past few months since I bought Benny's Fi3M guide and I've decided to now post as I want to ask a question to those who already speak multiple languages.
As I was reading the guide, I had to stop at the motivation part as that is where I realised I didn't really have a lot of motivation for anything let alone language. Then during and after my pregnancy I had motivation but absolutely no energy >.<
Now my little one's 3 months old and I've been forcing myself out on a regular basis, it's about time I get chatting to people again.
So here's my "dilemma" as it were. I currently live in France and engaged to a German. He wants to encourage me to start learning German so that in the eventuality we move to Germany, I wouldn't struggle to make new friends there and even give myself better job prospects. However I need to know and speak enough French to comfortably handle all the paperwork that's been flowing my way since the birth of our daughter and there are a LOT of terms that even my French friends don't know or understand!
With French, I've had basic lessons from school but no such basics with German. I know a lot of you have learned different languages and already speak multiple – but is it realistic for me to learn two at the same time? And what tips do you have to try and not get too boggled down.
For me I need to mentally prepare myself in not getting lost before I can give myself a language goal so any advice would be appreciated 
Learning: 
15:52
May 27, 2012
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Hello,
If you live in France, you will learn the language quite naturally, as general ressources are mostly in France (unfortunately…)
Where do you live actually?
And for the German, I think it could be quite natural too if your husband has patience to teach you
(as I do for French with a friend)
So were is the dilemma ?!
Good luck for the French papers, it's true that is not always easy even for natives….
Fabrice
04:09
June 29, 2011
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I think two languages at the same time might be difficult for two reasons: 1. mixing up new concepts between the two languages (if you start both at a beginner level; I don't think it's a problem if you're only a beginner in one of them), and 2. the time and energy each one takes. But it depends on the person, obviously.
I will tell you my experience anyway, for what it's worth: I was in a similar situation, having newly moved to Germany. My partner was (is) Norwegian and I wanted to learn both German and Norwegian. I tried briefly to do both, but I quickly found out that I couldn't do it, because I just didn't have enough time and mental energy to progress as quickly as I wanted/needed to in German while still learning Norwegian. So I dropped Norwegian for about a year and learned German. Then I started working on both at the same time again (beginner Norwegian, intermediate German) and that was ok but progress was slow because, obviously, one language takes time away from the other. Last month I decided that I really want to give my Norwegian a boost so at the moment I'm doing Norwegian only until Christmas (apart from my normal daily life which mostly takes place in German).
So that's how it worked out for me, but really, you can just try it one way and if it doesn't work for you, try another way. That's basically what I did--just changed my whole language-learning plan whenever the current one wasn't working for me anymore.
When you've decided, you can start up a "mission" log in the forum so we can encourage you!
p.s. congrats on the birth of your daughter
Fluent:
Learning:
10:08
August 5, 2012
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Thanks for the replies so far.
I live in Versailles, not too far away from Paris. I moved over here roughly over 3 years ago for my job. Interestingly, the job is a multicultural pot and possibly a polygot's dream environment as there are many nationalities working there. The thing is though, it is not a French company and the main language of communication is strictly English. A lot of the employees that have moved here have not and generally do not integrate themselves and thus you will find people who've worked here for 5+ years and still don't speak a word of French!
I wanted to break away from this as I was getting annoyed of not being able to handle the simplest things for myself; arranging a plumber/electricion, being able to talk to the propriétaire when looking at apartments, conversing with the sellers at the marker about the best season for fruits/veg or being able to ask for tips when cooking meats bought from the boucherie etc.
When dealing with social security, the tax office and CAF – I always had a friend translating as these things can be difficult for a beginner to dive right into and they speak so fast (I think it's a Parisian thing) that by the time I recognised a word and translated it in my head for myself, the conversation had already moved on!
I did have a period where I got my head stuck into just speaking French for one day a week at work, however, what put me off, was my boss who, with all good intentions, would not only speak really fast back to me, but also try to break down the words and teach me the grammatical side of why sentences are structured this way. So a quick 5 minute conversation would end up being a 45minute lecture and it can be quite off putting as my goal was only just for me to speak more! What did help though was repetition of a sentence I had planned to use and a very basic understanding of each word meant. I will never forget "pourez vous faire une copie de mes clés s'il vous plaît" for a long time
With the German language, I've followed Benny's advice and bought myself a phrase book. I plan to use it with my fiancée and our German friends. With the few German words and phrases I've picked up, I feel like I'm in the deep end of the water with no basic swimming skills to be able to keep my head above the water It's not something I can make a conversation with – although funnily enough I can make random words like "ErdbeereBär" and "ErdbeereBärchen" :p Leo.org is a very useful dictionary!
PS. Thanks cangirl She's going to have a much better headstart in life with having English, German and French while she grows up.
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