How to balance two languages

[BeatleMania]

nvm.

[gordalopez]

Sorry, Stepnanie, I don't understand your question, but it sounds like you have a lot on your plate!

[awtl]

The advice I have heard is that it is best to stick with learning one language at a time so as not to get confused and also because you will make better progress that way. If the languages are very different, then it can sometimes work, though. What languages are you considering learning at the same time?

There is a site dedicated to language learning. They have a forum of very dedicated language learners. You may find some useful information there: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/index.html

I hope that this helps.

[In The Great White North]

I'm not sure where the idea that one can only learn one language at a time comes from. Maybe if you're learning by immersion and moving to the target country?

Dd had three last year (Latin 1, French 3 and German 4) and had no more problems switching from one to another than from math to chemistry. Waldorf schools all start two foreign languages in 1st grade. Most, if not all, European countries require more than one foreign language.

[Ester Maria]

I'm not sure where the idea that one can only learn one language at a time comes from. Maybe if you're learning by immersion and moving to the target country?

Dd had three last year (Latin 1, French 3 and German 4) and had no more problems switching from one to another than from math to chemistry. Waldorf schools all start two foreign languages in 1st grade. Most, if not all, European countries require more than one foreign language.
I actually totally agree with that principle (unless we're talking about small children and immersion). :p I think you're misunderstanding it, or I'm the one that's misunderstanding it.

The point, how I understand it, is NOT not to study multiple languages at the time - but to allow a period of intense focus in the initial stage of learning to a single language, and to add other ones only past an average intermediate stage. Something like, don't START two languages at the same time, rather than don't LEARN two languages at the same time. And while there certainly are schools which do start two languages at once, or add two languages in the same year, the scheme is actually usually made the way it does allow some "break" time, a year at least, between adding languages, if they plan on teaching multiple ones: so you get something like French in 1st grade, then they add English in 2nd, Latin in 5th, Greek in 7th and German in 8th, rather than starting ALL they plan to teach in the first grade.

I do know of plenty examples of people who started two, or even more, languages the same year - but keep in mind that the school pace is rather innocent in the first few years of studying anyway, so it doesn't make much difference whether you start both French and English in 1st, or you add English in 2nd or 3rd... by high school, all three possibilities will lead to pretty much the same outcome.
But in high school and beyond, studies are more focused and more intense, I think it pays off more to focus on one to get a solid grounding, and then add another one, then start both at the same time and progress more slowly in both. But that's, of course, only one possible way of looking at it.