Learning a new language is one of the best choices you can make in life. Aside from becoming conversant in a second language, it does great things for your brain. But can you really do it — learn two or more languages at once? The answer is yes, but there are some things to keep in mind. We can all aspire to become polyglots, but we can’t just jump in without a plan and expect results in a few months or a year. It’s entirely possible, but it depends on your strategy, your expectations, and your daily routine. In this post, I’ll walk you through some advantages, a few caveats to watch out for, and some advice from someone who’s currently learning three languages at once.
The upside
While it takes effort, juggling multiple languages at once breaks the monotony of pouring 100% of your energy into just one. In short, you’re never bored. From my own experience, it also builds your confidence in your ability to learn once you actually put your mind to it. How does that happen? Every time you spot a repeatable pattern in one of your languages, you get a little dopamine hit that leaves you excited to learn more. On top of that, exposing yourself to multiple linguistic systems sharpens your overall language awareness, which pays off later whenever you need to pick up a new one. And, well, it’s just pretty darn cool to be able to say you speak X number of languages — as long as X is bigger than zero.
The downside
Now for the less exciting part, starting with the doubled timeline. If you have, say, one hour a day to study, that hour gets split across however many languages you’re learning. Logically, it’ll take twice as long to reach a given level in one language as it would if you’d put all your effort into just that one. Another issue is language interference. I see this constantly with my students who study English and French at the same time — instead of “yes,” “oui” comes out first. This tends to happen with words your brain reaches for automatically — short, high-frequency ones — because the two languages are competing for the same “first response” slot. One last issue worth mentioning is cognitive overload. Taking on multiple languages at once is no walk in the park.
Why it’s still worth it
I know that disadvantages paragraph sounds discouraging, but hear me out. I’m currently learning Japanese, Hindi, and French, and I’ve reached the point where I can watch a movie in any of the three without needing the subtitles. The exact percentage depends on the language and a few other factors, but I can follow upward of 80% of the spoken dialogue in a movie or TV episode. Interference tends to show up more when you’re learning two languages from the same family — English and French, for instance. In my case, though, I learned English first, so French hasn’t been an issue at all. If anything, my English is helping me learn French rather than getting in its way.
The timeline issue is the big one. I’ve been learning Japanese and Hindi for three years now, and French for two. I’m happy with my progress, but I’m not yet at the point where I can move between the languages freely. Two or three years might sound like a lot, but everything above is manageable if you’ve got the one tool that makes the rest optional: motivation. Intrinsic motivation especially is your x-caliber sword.
In practice, that just means giving your most-alert hour of the day to whichever language is weakest, and letting the other two ride on lighter review — five minutes of vocab review, a song, an episode with the subtitles on. You don’t need to split your time evenly across all three to keep making progress on all three.
That’s where I’ll leave it for now. Let me know in the comments what problems you’ve run into learning languages, and what solutions have actually worked for you. And if you’ve got any questions for me, drop them below. Take care.