This article is Part 5 of the 5 part series on learning a language (click any of the following for “Part 1: Why it is never too late”, “Part 2: Myths of language learning” , “Part 3: Routine for the complete beginner”, “Part 4: The routine for the intermediate level”, “Part 5: Advanced routine and learning another”, and the companion piece and review of the LingQ language application here.)
I started my language learning journey in October of 2016. By January 2019 I was using the target language in an advanced capacity. A lot of this was done without having access to native speakers in the target language. A lot of this was done using the application, LingQ. The next language was even easier. I achieved conversational fluency in 6 months.
The bench mark for an advanced level is when you can catch about 95% of everything you hear on an audio clip for the first time. You’ve now made much of the language implicit. Radio, television, and movies are all enjoyable and accessible (thanks to the internet). Depending on the language, you may not have access to speakers daily. Therefore, the most important thing will be maintenance.
Maintenance is the key!
Maintenance can be 10 minutes a day. I suggest reading out loud for 1-2 minutes (to keep those muscles in tune) and then listening to the news on whatever medium you prefer for about 10 minutes. Podcasts make this a breeze; you can find just about anything online in any language. When you are in an advanced stage of language learning, you will find that with little effort your strength in the language will actually increase. The key is maintenance, and maintenance can be done daily and passively.
Walking to work? Stuck in traffic? Doing the dishes? There’s no bad time to be sprucing up. A few minutes a day keeps the dust away.
I spent a lot of time obsessing and worrying that I would lose my gains. So long as you’re doing a little work each day (even a few minutes) you’ll be working those neural networks and staying sharp for those spontaneous encounters.
Uploading and personalizing your material using LingQ
This feature is pretty ground breaking. For beginners, it can be tough to get your head around the fact that you can personalize your language journey in any way you see fit. However, intermediate and advanced learners should be utilizing this feature of LingQ as much as they can.
It is worth saying again that I do NOT have any affiliation with LingQ. They have just done the best job of utilizing Krashen’s Input Hypothesis (which I discuss in Part 2). It is all about Comprehensible Input (“i+1“). Once you get to the intermediate and advanced level you can really bite off juicy material. I discuss the app in more detail here.
Uploading your own material is easy. I like to find material that I would read anyway in English. You can upload the pdf and the app will automatically cut up the book into segments. In theory, you could do this with an audio clip as well, but it can be impractical and tedious. Even LingQ suggests just reading on the application while utilizing the audio file from applications like Audible. For more information on how to import material, check out this forum by LingQ on the subject.
At this stage you can be really ambitious. I suggest reading more complex material to continually expand your vocabulary.
Learning a second language (L2) can assist learning a third (L3)
No surprise here. When you learn one, it becomes easier to learn another. The relatively little time allotted to maintenance for L2 at this level is conducive to learning L3. The biggest advantage is strategy. A lot of the doubt that you had learning L2 will have dissipated. You won’t be plagued by the Affective Filter (which I discuss in Part 3) that hinders your ability to learn through negative emotions and insecurities. You’ll know you can succeed and you will have the requisite confidence that is so key in such a communicative skill.
As you learn languages, you are able to transfer acquired knowledge from one to the next
Another big advantage is language transfer. Language transfer is the application of features or rules that you have in one language to another. This is called Positive Language transfer; Positive Language transfer allows you to more readily rely on familiar sounds, words, and grammatical categories. However, you will undoubtedly encounter Negative Language transfer, which are erroneous lexical or structural connections between the languages. Faux Amis, or fake friends, have gotten me into a little trouble learning Spanish. This is when a word, for example “Actual” in Spanish, actually means “Current” in english.
Because of some of the advantages of using L2 to learn L3, I suggest that your L3 be in a similar language type. For instance, Spanish and French have 75% lexical similarity. It was for this reason that I decided to use French to learn Spanish (a technique called laddering).
Conclusion
There you have it, a few suggestions for those at the advanced level of a language, or for those looking to tack on another. There truly is nothing more satisfying than learning a language and communicating effectively with someone in their native tongue. It can be quite addicting, so why stop with one!
Thank you for checking out this language learning series! Hopefully there will be more to come.
Al holds a Juris Doctorate from the University of Ottawa, and a Bachelor of Arts Double Major in Linguistics & Political Studies from the University of Manitoba. He is currently working in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Al has a passion for language, meditation, health, travelling, business and tech. Al is one of the co-founders of ThoughtNotion. You can connect with him on his personal site or on LinkedIn.
