In this post I'm going to talk about why I usually don't suggest studying more than one foreign language at once to people. Mainly, this is because learning a new language will involve you to train thinking in a new model (i.e. language); anyone who is proficient in a second language will tell you that they do not translate in their heads; rather, they know how to reproduce the correct patterns and see the world in terms of a particular model.

More practical tips can be found on my language learning page.

The Cost of Decision Making

Suppose you are studying two languages: Esperanto and Klingon. ¹

At any point in the day, you might want to practice making up some utterances in your target language. A decision point comes up! Which language should I practice?

You then proceed to waste time and energy dabbling between your two languages, not getting anywhere.

A solution: Organized Time

The best solution I've found to the above problem is to divide up what things you're going to practice into different "modes" or "contexts".

For example, you might only use Esperanto on your desktop computer using the Firefox browser. You can change this browser's default language, bookmark a handful of sites, etc. Once you are proficient enough, you can also get some friends to agree to only use Esperanto in a group chat.

Above is a kind of "spatial" separation. But you can divide by time as well. Suppose all of your Esperanto-studying friends are up, awake, and chatty around 4-8 PM PST. Well, you can say that during the hours of 4-8 PM, you try your best to think, read, write, etc. using Esperanto.

Organization Allows You to Outsource Decision Making

Good organization means you take care of decision making ahead of time. That way, you don't waste time dilly-dallying around and you can focus on your primary task at hand.

More Applications

Dividing up your time to avoid decision making means less getting bored and more easily foreseeable "endpoints" for painful tasks. It likewise means you get to look forward to new activities throughout the day.

Working Out

Working out with some friends, we set up a number of "stations". Lift weights here, do some cardio there, etc. You do a couple minutes at each station, then you rotate. This way, you can keep exercising (and hence keep heart rate up) while working out a lot of different muscles.

The idea here is similar to what is being described above, but it is set on an accelerated schedule (time frame of minutes instead of hours of organization).

Practicing Art, Music, etc.

What would I do if I wanted to become a much better visual artist? There are a number of activities I could do, including:

• Realistic still life drawing: practicing observing reality
• Technical know/how tooling: e.g. shortcut keys on my digital setup, making particular effects with a (physical) graphite pencil
• Working on products
• Theory/reading: studying writings of accomplished artists; watching YouTube training

To become better at art, I would do this. Before work, from 8:30-8:50 AM, make a still life drawing on anything—no inspiration is needed, I just have to pick something in my immediate environment. Then I can concentrate on one thing inspired by the previous day's study—e.g. concentrate on using relatively few, but well-defined lines of varying thickness to convey form. I would then do my day job (9 AM – 5 PM). From 5-6 PM I could then go look up some training materials, try out some new buttons, etc. Here I might be working on my "main" platform (e.g. digital painting, 3D software, oil painting, etc.) rather than the morning sketching which is mostly done for convenience without a "full setup". I could then go do some other stuff. From around 8 PM to 9:30 PM I could work on whatever (big) project(s) I have. Then from 9:30 PM to 9:45 PM I could read some theory to think about before falling asleep.

Applying a similar approach to any other activity that is a learned skill will allow you to improve.