What do you do if you want to learn multiple languages at the same time?

In the realm of second language acquisition, it is important to consider the context in which you wish to build your competence in a language. Very rarely is somebody going to begin to learn a langauge by opening up a book and starting from page one. If you are going to be travelling for a business trip, you need to begin with business cultural practices and business-specific langauge. If you are travelling to a country, you want to begin learning phrases that will help you the moment you step foot out of the airplane and into the streets. Do not worry about grammar or perfection. Worry about beginning to communicate and do not be afraid to make mistakes!

If the selected language(s) is widely used worldwide and that’s the reason I like to acquire it, I will choose to live for sometime among the people who speak it natively and by doing so I will be exposed to a living tool of communication and the actual content may be different from the language one can find in textbooks and classrooms.

It is important to note that age plays a role in the acquisition of languages. Children tend to acquire languages more quickly and easier compared to adults. Nevertheless, there are various ways one can attempt to acquire a language at an adult stage. There are different technologies that have been designed to learn new languages and these are available in the linguistic labs. It is, however, crucial also to get immersed into the community that uses the language as their primary language in order to practice your developing language skills.

Learn the shortcuts. The struggle we commonly have to learn the second one can - and must - be avoided in order to gain time and memorize vocabulary, structures and practices.

Stay on it! It is important to practice and/or study your target languages every day, if only for a couple of minutes. Furthermore, it can really help to focus on the similarities between your target languages - that way it will be much easier to memorise certain concepts.

Completely agreed to this point. Planning, like a map, shows what you need to do in each step of your language learning process.

In my experience, if depends on what language one is learning - Romance languages do not take a lot of planning to learn - they require more analysis and practice!

I do agree that quality is a lot more important than quantity. There is a 90-90-1 rule. It goes like this: Spend the 1st 90 minutes of your everyday for 90 days to focus on a priority project. If I were to study two or more languages, I would spend the first 90 mins of my day for the language that is more urgent or more difficult to learn. I would squeeze the second language in a different time of the day. If I see the improvement after 90 days, I may swap the language learning order.

It is so easy when taking on the learning a new language to make it solitary endeavour. Sure it is great to have textbooks, phrase books, and grammar guides as reference and refining materials, but it is imperative to use technology to your advantage to connect with actual people who can be a conversation partner and to engage with texts (both written and spoken) in the target language. Langauge exists in the realm world and you need to view learning a language like learning any other skill. If you want to learn to cook, you start cooking. If you want to learn a language, start speaking and communicating with others.

Selecting the proper resources for language learning can help language learners as much as the useless resources can waste language learners' time.

If it is going to be a self study plan, we'd better ask some experts, get help from AI to introduce the best sources. There are YouTube channels on every language to watch, practice and learn. There are textbooks to buy and study. And there arr applications to find a speaking partner. However, if we are not a self-study kind of person we can join language courses or have a tutor to illuminate thr road. Or at least a language mentor to show us the road map.

I would rather call it self discipline. Not only de we need to be organized regarding the separate notebooks or folders for each language, but we also have to be mentally organized by allocating separate hours to learn each language and not deviating from our language study schedule.

Long-term language learning needs reviewing what you have already learned. A psychological and scientific evidence supports this view.

I've always asked my students to talk and talk with themselves and their friends who know the language they're learning. Communication is the ultimate goal of learning a language and it is the most useful way of language learning too.

This is essential, even when learning other new skills. Your brain needs downtime to integrate new information so, do a little bit a few days a week. Just like going to the gym, your need to give your brain rest days. You'll likely notice that speaking, writing, vocabulary improve right after those short breaks!

If you start starting to learn a language in adulthood remember that you are now learning a new language through the lens of your native language. There is rarely a one-to-one correspondence between morphosyntax of two languages (even highly related ones). To avoid always trying to translate to and from your native language, again, focus on communicating and getting your point across. As you build your communicative self-esteem you can then begin to refine elements such as grammar and building more advanced vocabulary.

Interest is the nerve of all achievements. I have been learning languages since 2003. So would like to express my opinion: As for hobby, One can start learning multiple languages at the same time . That's possible. It's like gardening. Better to stick for mutually intellectual languages like .... Only European/Only Oriental etc. One European and One Oriental language learning at same time might be Herculean Task . As for Learning language for Professional aspects..... Learn only one language from beginning to MA level . Don't ever stop untill you have reached minimum B2 level. To sum up , differentiate the target... hobby/ Professional purpose of learning languages. Happy Learning 😀