The article about laddering is very true. I am a Peace Corps volunteer living in an African francophone (French speaking) country. I am learning the African language in French, and I notice both languages go much faster when it’s done this way verses learning the African language in English (my native tongue). I think it’s very important that the two languages you are learning are at different levels; one needs to be at least a comfortable intermediate level. A bonus of laddering is that if your base language isn’t very strong, you’ll not only NOT forget any of it (which is a problem when learning multiple languages), but laddering provides a great support for the base lang.

My best advice for language learning is exactly the main point of this website: immersion. When you have no choice or outlet, the language will come. Language learning can be very intimidating (especially for Americans) but it really is all in our heads. To learn multiple languages fluently is not a miracle or just something you read about online. The proof is in the hundreds of thousands of Peace Corps volunteers who can converse in a foreign language in two months and are fluent within two years.

My question:
Anyone who’s learned multiple languages at once, do you feel that your progress was slower because of it? I’m wondering if spending equal time on two languages means both will move at a slower pace than if i put all my efforts into one language (which seems like common sense, but seeing everyones comments about laddering, it seems like learning two using the laddering system wouldn’t slow things down all that much?). Sure, laddering works much better than learning two languages NOT laddering, but does it slow down progress compared to learning just one?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCpO-66lwRI&feature=channel_page

I have been learning Japanese for a little bit, but I can’t help but be almost equally interested in Chinese (mandarin).

My studies have kind of suffered because I tend to dwell between the two, but as you mentioned I think I need to, SOMEHOW, go with one for now and THEN move onto the other one……sigh, that’s NOT going to be easy xD

Anyway, I wanted to ask you how you’re Chinese is coming along? Having heard all your experiences and success in Japanese, I am curious as to how your Chinese studies/learning exp. compared to Japanese.

Thank You and again keep up the great work!

Cheers

Thanks!

I have a question about learning 2 languages at one. I went to Korea for a month and now I’m trying to learn it at the moment using your methods, I can already read Hanguel 한글, and I am also trying to learn Japanese at the same time. The RTK book doesn’t come until later this week.
So my question would be, would it be advisable to start doing my sentences for Korean all while learning the Kanji from RTK, and then when I finish learning all of the Kanji and Kana, start using Korean as the base language or Japanese? or could I use English for both?

Is this the only solution though? I guess the problem is that learning another language becomes a slightly more tedious task, having to think in two foreign languages simultaneously. Right now I’m learning Japanese in English (English being my mother tongue), but find French popping up occasionally when I speak. Really annoying…

From my personal experience with Mandarin, I’d say its tones that screw people up, but that’s not to suggest they’re actually that difficult. The problem is that people don’t expect them, think their “weird” so lack confidence that they will learn them, don’t know how to approach them and don’t have realistic expectations about how long it will take to learn them.

To learn tones you need to do a lot of listening; as with all language study, there’s a lot of people who don’t appreciate the need to actually *do* the homework. With Mandarin, listening is very important – you need to give your brain a chance to realise it needs to start paying attention to aspects of speech its usually ignored (unless you’re coming from another tonal language). Its possible your brain has actually put effort into ignoring it, to cancel out the effects of regional dialect so it can figure out what the word is.

It took about a year for me to start tuning into tones, and that was with 2 hours lessons a week and probably about 2-3 hours listening a week in my own time. If I was starting now, I’d get some Mandarin podcast burned to cd and put it in my radio alarm, watch a lot more Mandarin TV/film, and just try to increase my exposure to it as much as possible. People give up before they get to that stage, because nobody tells them how long it will take, or gives them confidence that it can be achieved.

Secondly, there’s speaking it. You have to accept that to speak Mandarin, its probably more akin to singing. I heard so many people try to “speak” Mandarin, I found it hard to take seriously in the end. They just didn’t get it – which is a shame because I know some of them really wanted to. You’ve got to sing it. Let go, do it in private – you *will* feel self conscious. Start SLOWLY – you have to slow things down massively to get to grips with articulating sounds in a different way. Only when the tones are coming out right should you speed it up. Everyone wants to have learned their basics yesterday, so they speak, or try to tone too quick, and “Hi its great to meet you” comes out as “You! Very fat please postbox” or something random like that. Saves embarassment, FAILS as communication.

To sum it up, if you’re going to learn Mandarin, just give yourself a goddamned break. Don’t expect to tune in for a year or so, but know that if you put the time in you will.

I understand that Chinese and Japanese differ, but they share kanji. What about languages that are entirely unrelated (at least, apparently)? For instance, can one use Japanese as a base language from which to learn french?

Thanks again for the great website and congratulations on the “book launch”.

Do one. Then the other. I know it’s a tough choice, but you’ll be grateful later.

First of all, Khatzumoto, I honestly do believe you are a living legend. I have been studying Japanese since elementary school, through middle/high school and two years at university, and after all that time I think sadly I can still only call myself upper intermediate in speaking, and lower intermediate/totally **** at reading/writing.

HOWEVER, all that changed when I discovered your site a few months ago. I am now powering through Remembering The Kanji, and I’m just itching to get onto the 10,000 sentences. And (no offence), it’s not actually those two tools which have made the real difference…..it’s that I had completely forgotten to ENJOY studying Japanese (my university teachers contributed to that a lot). Suddenly, i’m having fun again and learning much more.

In fact, I was so worn out by my futile efforts in Japanese, that about 4 months ago I decided to take a break, and try something new. I went to Taiwan for 3 months to learn Chinese. It was fantastic. And to all the sceptics: LEARNING CHINESE IS NOT DIFFICULT. Seriously. In many ways I believe it’s easier than Japanese. The grammar is far simpler (no excessive verb conjugating); and the Chinese Characters tend to only have one yomikata, making them a thousand times easier to remember. As for pronunciation and tones, certainly Chinese phonetics are much harder than Japanese for a native-English speaker to get their tongue around. BUT, after about two weeks intensively studying the tones and phonemes of Chinese, I know them like the back of my hand. And in the scheme of things, two weeks is a VERY short time. After that, if you can pronounce Chinese, the rest is easy! Jia you!

Now I’m in Japan for 3 months, and am attempting an almost full-time AJATT approach to Japanese study, while keeping up a bit of Chinese as well. Your laddering method sounds great, but I still don’t think my Japanese is quite ready for use in learning Chinese (given i’ve still not finished RTK, nor started the 10,000 sentences). Do you think if I continue both my Chinese and Japanese study for now using English as the base language for both, that I will get confused? I want to try laddering, but until my Japanese is good enough, should I ditch Chinese and wait? Or just continue with English for both?

Physical stores are located at
http://www.kinokuniya.co.jp/english/contents/network04.html (outside Japan)
http://www.kinokuniya.co.jp/english/contents/network02.html (in Japan)
I’d recommend visiting a store if you can: their web page is terrible. (Maybe the Japanese version is better?)