🔤 A first thought about learning a new language i.e. becoming a polyglot | Polyglot ABC

There are different thoughts and ideas about learning a new language or how to become a polyglot, here is one of mine…

*DO* learn multiple new languages at the same time!

(and learn how to go about learning multiple new languages at the same time, starting from "🔤  Learning a new language - Step 1 to becoming a polyglot")


I have noticed quite a few comments on message boards and Facebook groups of people giving the advice to stick to learning one new language at a time, grasping one new language before moving on to learning a next new language. All of them of course citing reasons from their own experiences. Most cited reason is that of negative transfer in new language learning i.e. 'mixing words up' and falling back to grammar rules of your own native language. Well, guess what… you'll ALWAYS have the risk of mixing up words and falling back to your native language, whether you're learning 1, 2 or 10 new languages. Your base language, the native language you grew up with, will always be a dominating language. That, by itself, should not be a reason to stick to just 1 new language at a time.

Another noticeable reason given, is that these commenters had tried 2 or 3 new languages at the same time and noticed that learning that amount of new languages wasn't working out for them. However… they all automatically scaled DOWN the amount of new languages they were learning, instead of scaling UP the amount of new languages to be learning. Though it might sound counter-intuitive to try learning MORE new languages when you're already experiencing trouble with learning just a few new languages, it is actually a well known* phenomenon that the GREATER the challenge, the greater the GAIN.
(* some explanation on this at the end of this article)


Even if you DO notice difficulties while learning a modest amount of new languages at the same time, say 2 or 3, I would urge you to actually try scaling up to learning 5 or 6 new languages first ("🔤  Learning multiple new languages simultaneously, and not just one at a time (polyglot or not)"),  BEFORE  giving up on extensively learning new languages and scaling down the amount of new languages you're learning.

The takeaway from this: "First try learning MORE new languages simultaneously instead of less new languages at a time. You just might be surprised by your new language learning capabilities!"

Share *your* (new) language learning/polyglot experience in the comments section below:
- Have you tried learning multiple new languages simultaneously before (How many new languages)?
- Have you tried scaling UP to learning more new languages at the same time?

Feel free to become a new language learning/polyglot friend on Facebook: Genaro van der Werff

* The 'greater challenge, greater gain' phenomenon is known from, and applied in, fields ranging from 'Education' and 'Psychology', to 'Physical training'.
Though there are quite some scientific papers on the matter to be found, I'll keep to just a few illustrative references here, for the sake of brevity (feel free to follow the scientific references in those articles to get a deeper insight into the principal/phenomenon)

- Challenging games help students learn: An empirical study on engagement, flow and immersion in game-based learning - Researchgate.net publication PDF (Education)
- Flow (section on challenge) - Wikipedia article (Psychology)
- Progressive overload - Wikipedia article (Physical training)

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