Taking Classes in Multiple Languages: My Experience and Advice

Now that I have been keeping up with this blog for over three months, I decided that I would write a more personal blog post of what it has been liking taking advanced level courses in 4 different languages. I wanted to share my current schedule, so that I could inspire others to do so, showing that even busy, tired college students can successfully reach a high fluency and level in more than just one language. As a disclaimer, I had already taken 3 languages at once for 3 years in high-school, so it was not as hard of a transition for me as it could have been if had I not done so.

From 9:30-10:20 am, I have Russian 102, which helps me wake up in the morning. Since Russian is by far the most difficult language that I have ever studied, I love having it first thing in the morning five days a week. I have noticed that I have made leaps and bounds in terms of progress with Russian this semester. We have already reviewed all 6 cases and have slowly, but surely been hearing less and less English in the classroom. 

Since our professor is a teaching assistant from Russia, we have been able to gain a lot of insight about Russian culture, Russian norms, and about the Russian mindset. Our professor has been very patient with us when making mistakes, but expects that we put the work in in order to do well in the class. This has pushed me out of my comfort zone, making me want to truly understand what we have already learned and what we are learning in class. I love the emphasis that she has on speaking, especially because that is the skill that is most important to master when you are a beginner.

From 11:30-12:45 pm, I have Italian 231 on Mondays and on Wednesdays. The Italian course that I am currently taking is a writing-intensive course, but has also been vocabulary-intensive. We have already watched La Meglio Gioventù (a six-hour long Italian film) in clips and have had to memorize up over 100 words a week. I can now comfortably use idiomatic expressions, and more technical vocabulary when speaking and writing. Our class is also a hundred percent immersion, which has kept me in an Italian versus an English mindset, helping me not only to feel, but also to talk like an Italian. 

What has been most helpful about this course is the fact that we have learned a lot of idiomatic expressions and vocabulary that you cannot find in a textbook. We have learned how Italians truly think, feel, and speak, instead of only learning the grammatically correct way of speaking it. We have started mastering colloquial language and can more comfortably talk about historical and cultural events that happened in Italy, as well as talk about abstract and difficult material. From 3-4 pm on Mondays, we have an Italian lab, which has helped us review grammatical concepts from last semester, while expanding and deepening our knowledge about Italian grammar.

From 1:30-2:45 pm, I have French 246: Introduction to Francophone Cultures. Since I did not have the opportunity to take a French course last semester, I decided that I would communicate with a French professor and ask her if I could skip a few levels of French in order to take this course. After taking the placement exam, I found out that I could take this course, as long as I had the permission from the professor and got an override. Despite the fact that I did not take several courses that are required for the major and for the minor, I do not have any regrets taking the last 200 level French course offered at my college. 

I went from struggling writing 10 perfectly grammatically correct sentences in AP French as a senior in high-school to being able to write 7 pages of an analytical paper about colonialism in French. In this course, we have already watched over 5 films, have read 3 novels from three different countries, have had 3 presentations, but, most importantly, I have learned how to think critically, how to think outside of the box, and how to elaborately write about historical events in a language other than my other tongue. Another way of thinking about what I have been able to accomplish so far is that I no longer have to stop and think about every grammatical point in my head: I now know how to think in French and can easily switch into that mindset when writing, reading, speaking, and listening to my professor talk about controversial, yet important historical and cultural events in Francophone-speaking countries.

Lastly, from 1:30-2:45 pm on Tuesdays and on Thursdays, I have Spanish 295: Introduction to Latino Studies. This course has been extremely rewarding and has been the most personal course that I have taken so far. Before this semester, I had not had the opportunity to take a course taught completely in Spanish since fifth grade. I had not realized how much I missed having a native Spanish instructor and having to read and speak with others in my mother tongue. I am beyond blessed that I am in this course, because it has allowed me to meet several other students whose mother tongue is also Spanish, as well as students who are passionate about Spanish and Spanish-speaking countries. 

We have already talked about Hispanics in the United States and have extensively talked about Mexican-Americans, Puerto Rican-Americans, and Cuban-Americans in the American context. We have read 3 novels, have presented, and have had intellectual discussions and conversations about these topics. I have also been able to rekindle my love for my own culture, as well as learn about others who have similar, yet completely distinct experiences from my own. I have also been able to strengthen my sense of worth and my identity by taking this course.

Now that I have shared my experience taking 4 intellectually challenging courses, those who are currently taking, or who are planning on taking courses in more than one language (whether that be courses in your mother tongue(s), or in foreign languages), I have already written a post that gives you several tips on how to successfully learn multiple languages at once. Feel free to read my post titled “How to Learn Multiple Languages At Once” if you want to gain some words of wisdom about what I have personally noticed works and what does not when approaching language-learning.

The most important piece of advice that I can give you is to not let what others tell you that you cannot do get in the way. Besides my parents, I have had many people tell me that it would not be feasible or healthy for me to take courses in more than two languages, but have never let that affect me. Instead, I have surrounded myself with positive influences and with supportive friends and family members who are there for me no matter what. I try to be as involved in all of the language departments of which I am a part and have many international friends. There truly is no secret formula. The only secret is perseverance. Passion. Never giving up and following your dreams and never letting anyone, or anything, get in the way from achieving your goals.

Using Google Translate for Language Learning

As many of you know, I am currently a college student who is hoping to study three languages at the college level, which is a huge undertaking. There are times in which I wonder whether or not I will be able to understand a passage well, or read an entire novel in a foreign language without stumbling across too many unknown words. Thankfully, Google has a feature called Google Translate that has helped me make this transition much smoother and easier.

Before I explain how I specifically use Google Translate, I want to mention that it is by no means an application on which you should always rely. It will not always give you correct translations and sometimes creates more communication barriers and confusion than it will help you. On that note, if you keep this in mind and know how to use it wisely, it can be very useful throughout your language-learning journey. In my experience, Google Translate has been most accurate in Romance languages, specifically in Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese, and has been very inaccurate in German. In most cases, when I use it for Russian, I can get an overall gist of what a paragraph or sentences mean.

How exactly do I use Google Translate to help me learn languages? This semester, I have used it to look up individual words, idiomatic expressions, and to type up full sentences to try and decipher overall meanings. If you need to look up words, it will give you most translations of them in bold, along with their synonyms. If you are wise and look at all of the words below the bolded words, you can easily tell which translation is the one that conveys the meaning closest to the word of you which you are thinking. Keep in my that online dictionaries that are made in the countries of your target languages will most likely be more accurate; however, Google Translate will help you in this regard most of the time.

Not all idiomatic expressions will be translated with this application, but most of the commonly used, everyday expressions will be translated correctly (I can testify to this because I am a native Spanish speaker, and have been impressed by its ability to provide you with correct translations of expressions that cannot and should not be directly translated from one language to another). Using Google Translate to translate full sentences or paragraphs can get messy, but it is possible. This semester, I have already had to translate many sentences from French, Italian, and Russian to English, and have found it a lifesaver. I often use this application to double-check the general meanings of sections of readings and to make sure that I am understanding the majority of what I read, as opposed to guessing and solely relying on my memory for comprehension.

Another important question to ask is: When do you know when you can trust Google Translate as opposed to when it causes you more harm than good? Generally speaking, you should have a good enough grasp on a language to know what sounds and is grammatically correct. Whenever I am in doubt, I type a sentence on Google in quotes to verify if it exists and if it used in my target language. For example, if I want to know how to say “thank you for your help” in Spanish, Google Translate translates it as “gracias por tu ayuda.” If you type up “gracias por tu ayuda” in quotes, many results will show up on Google in a matter of seconds, which confirms that it is correctly translated. If you know that a translation is incorrect, or is far from the actual translation by simply reading the translation that it provides, try looking up individual words or phrases by using trusted online language dictionaries, or by using the above method.

After reading this post, I hope that you learned how to effectively use a free application that Google provides for anyone who owns a computer, or a cellphone. Do not forget to download the application onto your phone if you think that you will need it, or benefit from it.