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by tomp 5084 days ago
No, but I don't care. There are some languages that are similar to languages I already know (e.g. Russian to Slovene, or Danish to English and German), some are different (Chinese, Arabic), so they will inevitably take a long time... But I'm not motivated by knowing languages, that is not my goal, learning languages is more important.

In any case, I don't think that the amount of time spent learning matters much, immersion is what is really important. If I ever go somewhere where I'm forced to speak a language for 2 weeks or so, I will learn much more than 6 months studying alone.
1 comments
mathattack 5082 days ago
Immersion is the right path. But wouldn't be better to spend each of the next 12 years in a different country (feasible if you're a top programmer) rather than swapping every month?

Again, if you're a prodigy it can work.

Or is this all a parallel to learning technical languages?

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tomp 5082 days ago
It would be better, if my goal was to know these languages. But, as I've said, I don't much care about that. Learning languages is an intellectually stimulating, past-time activity. If I learn something, great. If I don't, also great.

Also, I don't like planning too far ahead. Usually, I draw the limit at about 1 month, so 12 years is a very very long period of time.

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