Learning Two Languages At Once - And General Tips For Practicing Any Pair Of Skills
Takeaway Points:
Learning two languages at once is not generally recommended - but at the same time, it’s hard to learn a second language without continuing to practice the one you learned previously.
I believe that learning two languages at once is certainly possible, but you need to take the right approach to ensure you succeed. Here are the tips I’ve been using.
Currently, I am in the process of learning two languages at once.
This is something that I’m deeply interested in, largely because I’m an impatient person. I’ve got tentative plans for language learning mapped out through 2030, which is both a blessing and a curse - on the one hand, I’m glad to have a long term strategy and plan in place, and on the other, I’m impatient to get there sooner. That means that I’m always eyeing the calendar and wondering whether this is the month that I’m ready to move onto the next step. The first few steps of learning any language are always the most interesting and exciting, and it’s the “sticking around for the long term” part that’s hard.
My goal for 2020 was to get to a decent working proficiency in Danish, which I finished a bit early. My goal for 2021 is to relearn French - I learned French in school as a teen and studied abroad in France during university, but then spent 10 years not touching it in the slightest.
This has put me in a position where I realize that I’m still doing a bit of both languages at once. I’ve still got plenty of Danish friends I interact with on Twitter on a regular basis, and I’ve still got plenty of Danish language flashcards that I review each day. So, it’s hard to avoid mixing the two up a bit in the process.
I feel like dual language learning is a topic that is often maligned, with language learners reminding you frequently that it’s best to focus on one thing at a time, rather than half-assing two things. I myself argue about the importance of focusing your attention and not getting divided between too many pursuits in a lot of my other writing - something that I struggle with quite a bit myself!
So I wanted to set out some of the guidelines I’ve followed in the process of dual language learning, in order to ensure that I get the best possible results - some of this is based on my own experience, some of it based on my knowledge of skill acquisition, and some of it based on research I’ve done on the topic.
My rules:
1. Train both languages each day
This one is pretty simple - continue to train both of your languages on a daily basis. This is good for the same reasons that training a single language daily is important - because it keeps things fresh in your memory, and prevents your language knowledge from starting to decay. Constantly tagging back and forth between your two languages on a weekly basis just gives you more time to get out of practice.
I use flashcards for both Danish and French, and am careful to hit both sets each day. This helps keep me in the rhythm, and makes it easy to build on past practice to improve.
2. Try to use significantly different languages
I’ve already broken this rule a little bit, in that while French and Danish are very different languages, certain aspects of them both feel very “similar” to me. They also share some vocabulary, which can get confusing when trying to sort things out in my head.
Naturally, when you train two languages that are very different (for example, Chinese and Spanish), it’s a lot easier to keep them apart, mentally, and that means less interference in your mind when you go grasping at words and stumbling for meanings.
3. Separate your languages in the day
In fact, try to separate your languages as much as possible! This is for all the same reasons as point 2 above - you don’t want your languages to clash in your head and bleed into each other, because this is a negative effect that you have to unlearn later.
This can mean studying one language in the morning and another in the evening, or having different learning environments (for example, one trained while going for a walk, and one trained at home), or virtually anything else you can do to create different mental associations with the languages.
I train Danish in the mornings and French in the evenings, and this enables me to keep them apart as much as possible in my head.
4. Focus on one primary language
While I’m still learning Danish at the moment, I’m keeping it in more of a maintenance focus, and my primary language for the year is French - I think this distinction helps a lot.
When I do my language learning each day, I have a “baseline” amount of practice - doing a little bit of reading to expand my vocabulary a bit, and doing a set number of flashcards to practice that vocabulary and keep it fresh. I do this for both Danish and French, and it takes about 30-60 minutes depending on how energized and focused I am that day.
However, whenever I have excess time and energy, I want to dedicate that to speeding up the process - so when that happens, French is the language that gets all my extra energy by default. This means that while both languages get the same level of baseline practice, French tends to get 2-3x the amount of total practice each day, because that’s the language I’m focusing on.
Having this distinction makes it easy to focus on reading longer texts in my target language, and build up mental momentum with a longer, more dedicated training period. It also simply helps to have a known, dedicated direction to be able to pour all my extra energy, rather than worrying about dividing up my time evenly or figuring out an optimal alternating cadence.
In general, I practice Danish mostly early in the morning, and then French is the language that I study more throughout the day - during breaks, in my free time after work, and so on. If I ever have extra time throughout that day, that’s where my effort goes.
5. Use language peaking to focus on the most specifically relevant language skill
This is a bit more speculative, because it’s based on my own experiences, and to a certain extent, on the way that exercise works in terms of skill acquisition.
In exercise, we have the concept of “peaking” or “special preparedness” compared to what is often called “off season” or “general preparedness”. When it comes to a sport, special preparedness is used to refer to the most specific qualities needed to excel in a specific sport, while general preparedness refers to general health/fitness, including the qualities that are less directly necessary for a sport.
For example, a powerlifter wants to be as strong as possible to win at competitions, which is their version of special preparedness. However, when they are not competing, they also want to focus on general preparedness - in this case, building muscle mass and maintaining cardiovascular fitness - because in the long term, these qualities still contribute to overall strength. When they get closer to competing, however, they need to stop focusing on training these general qualities, and instead focus on the special qualities as much as possible. This way, when they do compete, they will show up to competition ready to perform their best.
The training of a competitive powerlifter is dictated by the current time in their competitive cycle - when far away from a competition, build general fitness and strength together - when close to a competition, stop training general fitness at all, and focus exclusively on strength. This type of training is known as “peaking” because it is based on the concept of honing and refining the general fitness that you already have.
I take the same mental approach when it comes to learning languages, or any skill. If the demands of me are not super high, then it makes sense to continue generally learning two languages simultaneously, and focusing on simply getting in the practice needed to expand my vocabulary and skill within both languages.
However, if for some reason I was aware that I would need to make greater use of one of these languages - for example, taking a trip to France or Denmark, then I would plan accordingly and “peak” my training. In this case, this would mean that prior to such a trip, I would completely halt practice on the other language in order to exclusively focus on training the language I would actually need - and in this way, be maximally prepared and confident to use it during the trip. There would be far less risk of worrying about interference from the other language, because I would have had a decent span of time to “forget” it a little bit by focusing on the one I need.
Wrapping it up
Learning two languages at once is certainly possible - after all, most of us are able to learn more than one subject at once in school, or when taking on a new job and getting accustomed to new responsibilities. Plenty of people succeed at dieting and exercising at the same time, even though these are very different skills!
However, when attempting this process, languages are a sticky topic due to their complexity, and should be approached with the right mindset and set of tools in order to minimize interference and maximize retention, thus ensuring that you learn both languages as quickly and efficiently as possible.
About Adam Fisher
Adam is an experienced fitness coach and blogger who's been blogging and coaching since 2012, and lifting since 2006. He's written for numerous major health publications, including Personal Trainer Development Center, T-Nation, Bodybuilding.com, Fitocracy, and Juggernaut Training Systems.
During that time he has coached hundreds of individuals of all levels of fitness, including competitive powerlifters and older exercisers regaining the strength to walk up a flight of stairs. His own training revolves around bodybuilding and powerlifting, in which he’s competed.
Adam writes about fitness, health, science, philosophy, personal finance, self-improvement, productivity, the good life, and everything else that interests him. When he's not writing or lifting, he's usually hanging out with his cats or feeding his video game addiction.
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