I have been practicing learning a language on Duolingo daily for almost two years.
I love Duolingo and the way it instantly became a daily habit for me so easily and naturally. It feels like a good use of time spent on my phone, vs. doom-scrolling or getting sucked into watching way too many reels or TikToks in a row.
At first, I focused on learning Spanish – a language I’ve wanted to learn for years. I loved learning Spanish and focused solely on it for well over a year. But then, part of me started feeling bored and wanted to switch over to French.
French is a language I spoke quite well in high school and even early college, until I stopped taking it and practicing the skill. Our trip to Paris in 2018 proved that I’m more than a little rusty and in need of a French language refresh!
So, a few months ago, I switched my daily Duolingo practice from Spanish over to French. I was thrilled with how quickly my high school French vocabulary and language skills came back to me. I started progressing really quickly with Duolingo French and thoroughly enjoyed it! But, oddly, over time I found myself missing Spanish.
I wondered if I could learn them both simultaneously, or if it might break my brain. I figured there’s only one way to find out, so I decided to switch languages on Duolingo yet again. That’s when I realized that I really messed up!
You see, when I dropped Spanish to focus on French, I lost almost ALL the Spanish I had learned over the course of a year. Spanish seems completely foreign to me again now. When I am working on vocabulary, the French word pops into my mind now instead of the Spanish word. I messed up all my great progress on Spanish!
It appears that it’s just too difficult for my adult brain to learn two new languages at once. I know that young children can do this without too much difficulty, but at my advanced age, it does not seem doable. So now, I’m in the tough situation of needing to choose between French and Spanish.
Do I choose French, which I’m considerably better at due to taking it in school for almost eight years? My Duolingo French score is a 35 and going up pretty quickly. I could be at language mastery in French a lot faster than I could in Spanish.
Or, do I choose Spanish, in an attempt to regain some of the language skills I had built up in 2023-24 and prevent any further loss of Spanish vocabulary and knowledge? My Duolingo Spanish score is a 31 after working hard at it daily for over a year. My score goes up more slowly in Spanish, but it does progress and I could reach language mastery in Spanish if I kept at it.
My original plan was to keep going at one language until I reach the next milestone in Duolingo’s language scores, then switch back until I hit a milestone in the other language, and so on. But now I know that switching to French really hurt my Spanish learning, so I’m not sure that’s the best approach.
Have you ever tried to learn two languages at once – and if so, what worked for you? I think I’m going to keep going with Spanish for now and try to regain what I lost during my time away from it focusing on French. I can tell that my French language skills aren’t going anywhere, since I spent so many years studying it in my youth.
If you have any tips for learning two new languages at once, I’m all ears in the comments below or over on Facebook or Instagram!
After writing this post, I found this advice from Duolingo which really helped a lot. Looks like my dream of becoming trilingual may still be happening!
