Learning Multiple Languages at once.

[Was_]

Im taking Spanish I at my school; and I study German in every spare moment I get.
I've caught myself mixing the two more than once.
Especially on my spanish papers, Ive caught myself more than once trying to write in German.
I didnt even figure it was possible to get these two mixed up, they're so different!

Any advice on keeping different languages straight in your head when you are learning more than one at once?

[Joao_Paulo]

Hello, Was_!

Well, I'm no specialist in this topic, but I can say a few words based on my experiences.

Are you a beginner in both German and Spanish?

I believe mixing languages usually happen when you are at a starting level.

Spanish and Italian are very similar languages... and started having Italian classes on Saturday mornings and Spanish classes on Saturday afternoons. At that point I had quite a good background in Spanish and never really mixed those two.

I stopped studying and practicing Italian a long time ago, but I've become fluent in Spanish, so... I can basically say that I know what Spanish is and what Italian is.

Now, when I was at a beginner stage in both German and French, sometimes when I started speaking French and then tried to switch to German, the words kept coming in French!! Now, it doesn't happen anymore.

So, I believe (again, it's my opinion... based on my experiences!!!) mixing is quite common when you don't have enough knowledge in both languages. After you are not such a newbie/beginner anymore, you start differentiating them.

[Joao_Paulo]

One more thing...

I believe what can you help you differentiate two similar languages is:

• Get those words that confuse you and put them side by side, make a table, compare and you will be able to learn them correctly.

[Was_]

Danke!

I actually know more German than Spanish, But yes, im a beginner in both.
My Spanish teacher isnt too happy about me learining German; she thinks it isnt good to do two at once, and so on... I think she's wrong. It'll just take a little extra effort.

Thanks again for the tips.

[Kare]

It depends I guess. A friend of mine mixed French and Italien pretty regularly. But she also said that she wouldn't want to have it any other way, because it helped her recognize words that had the same root or share the same gramatical concept.

[Was_]

It depends I guess. A friend of mine mixed French and Italien pretty regularly. But she also said that she wouldn't want to have it any other way, because it helped her recognize words that had the same root or share the same gramatical concept.

Well ot definitley doesent help for anything when you miss questions on your spanish tests for having written in another language..

But I guess its good to find a silver lining?

[criskubli]

I'm very happy with me and this site, helping me learn my third language.
I've seen how easy it is learning Deutsch. The words are very similar to english, and the grammatical construction is very similar to spanish.
The funny thing is, every time I see a word like Heinous (words in english), I tend to say "High-nous", when it is actually pronounced "Hey-nous". The ei has been very influential in my pronunciation. Sometimes, I even laugh.
I am only a newbie still.

[TalkativeTree]

I actually thought I might have made this thread myself ! I'm taking German and Spanish at my university to finish up my language requirement, but I want to eventually learn both of the languages. I've been focusing a lot more on German than Spanish, but I know exactly what you're talking about, especially since I have the classes back to back. One of the things that I've started doing is mentally prepare myself and purposefully shift my mind from one to the other. It works decently when going from Spanish to German, but since I'm more dominant in German, I find it interfering more with my Spanish. Of course, I think that's because it's on a very basic level, where my German is only kind of very basic haha.

[JackG]

It happens all the time to me as well. Sometimes I think English and write German but from my point of view there aren't too many similarities between spanish and german to mix them up.

[robertiscool123]

I was just going to post a topic on this, untill I stumbled on your thread.
I am also, learning spanish and german. and i'm constantly mixing up spanish words with german words, instead of writing yo trabajo(i work), i wrote yo arbeite( i(in spanish) and arbeite=to work, in German 0_0.
i've been studying spanish for 1 school year now, and i have been studying german fur zwei monats.
so yeahh..