Are There Secret Tips To Help Me Learn More Than One Language?

No! If you are a person who is deeply interested in how languages work, and in learning to speak them, then it will be a natural curiosity for you to think about moving on to another language before you are done with the first.

Language lovers have a natural curiosity about different languages, but you need to decide whether you wish to speak one language (to start with) fluently, or you just want to pick up a little bit of a number of languages. You must be aware, however, that the second choice can lead to you being fairly bad at any of the languages that you chose!

You need to make a decision at the beginning. Are you wanting and willing to put in the time and effort that it takes to become fluent in a particular language? If so, set some targets. Allocate a certain number of hours per week for studying this language ONLY.

You can make the choice of whether you want to become completely fluent, or to be able to hold a fairly straightforward conversation. But do just focus on that one language until you reach the point that you are happy with. This is the point that you can move on to language number two.

If you go for a relatively easy language, which would be one similar to your mother tongue, it will still take you hundreds of hours to be able to speak it correctly, even with the best teaching methods and an above average intellect. You may be tempted to get sidetracked and have a little look at one or two other languages, but don’t be fooled into thinking that you will able to pick up a bit from all of them; all you’ll do is confuse yourself.

If your heart is set on learning a little bit of a few languages, then you need to find a method to optimise your learning potential.

Once you have started with your first language, Spanish for example, make a promise to yourself that you will stick to that until you are at the level you want. You can go out and buy a grammar book for German, or French, but this is simply to satisfy your natural curiosity. You can even do a couple of lessons for fun, but be clear in your own mind; you are simply doing it for entertainment and to see what German sounds like.

Don’t get over excited and finish a whole book of german lessons when you are still only halfway through the Spanish course!

So no, generally speaking, learning two languages at the same time is usually not a good idea.