Is it possible to learn 2 languages at the same time?

Question

For the past 9 months, I've been learning French at Alliance Francaise de Washington. Two nights a week, two hours per class, and it's been excellent. Top-notch instruction.

Now that I've clawed my way into the beginning intermediate levels, I'm getting restless and hoping to add further to my language repertoire. My teacher told me it's too confusing to learn another Romance language at the same time as French, but that I might be able to absorb a totally unrelated language, though it still wouldn't be easy.

So now I'm thinking of perhaps taking Chinese, German, or Arabic in addition to French. German seems like a good bet, since the Goethe Institut seems like a good place to learn, but maybe there's other places, too, where I could learn Chinese or Arabic.

Does anyone else have any experience with this? Has anyone managed to successfully learn 2 languages at the same time? What are the pitfalls and opportunities involved?

THANKS!!

Answer 1

It's possible to learn 2 languages at the same time.

As for me, I've been learning Japanese for some time and near the lower intermediate level. I'm also learning Russian at the moment.

I choose Russian, because Japanese and Russian because both languages aren't related at all (unlike Korean and Japanese. Grammar and sentence pattern nearly similar). Fine by me though.

Answer 2

i tried it once but it got all mixed up... so i postponed one of them and continued with one for some time..

Answer 3

Yes: I studied French, Spanish and Latin simultaneously at school, and French, Spanish, Italian and Swedish simultaneously at University. The pitfalls are only those which you would normally expect when you undertake multiple study subjects - i.e. you work harder - but the benefits are both obvious and manifold.

Answer 4

yes I'm studying english (I'm italian), spanish, latin and greek at the same time

Answer 5

yea sure u can learn 2 languages at the same time...btw, i speak arabic [[mother tongue]] nd its knwn universly tht arabic is the hardest language in history...gd luck:D

Answer 6

I don't see any issues.  

Answer 7

Yes, I'm learning 3 now. Btw, you won't get mixed up either as most people say.