My secondary goal is to be able to speak these languages. When I have a basic reading comprehension in these languages I will begin keeping a multilingual video blog to practice speech.
My approach in each of these languages:
French and German: as second and third languages, I will need to double check my grammar when I write anything. I would not say I’m fluent, but I might call myself advanced in French, and Intermediate in German. I can speak, read and understand with much greater ease in French than in German. My French grammar needs touching up, and my German vocabulary needs expansion.
Italian and Spanish: each of these languages I have good exposure to. Much that I learned about them also stuck because of their similarity to French and to each other. I will have a head start in the spoken aspect of this language because of this. When I look at these languages now, I recognise where the nouns and verbs are, as well as adjectives prepositions and articles. I believe I can read in these languages intelligibly, even if I don’t know what some of the words mean. I think there is so much in common between French, English, Spanish and Italian that I will pick up on these languages quickly through a comparative study.
Portuguese and Latin: These are the other 2 Latin languages on my list. I have almost no book knowledge or exposure to these languages. I am aware that Latin grammar is considered complex, but I am also aware that many of its forms have been passed down here and there into the other languages I am learning. The same can be said of the vocabulary. So I hope with some study, I will be able to create a working framework for reading Latin, as well as shore up my understanding of the grammatical principles it has lent to the other languages I’m learning. With Portuguese, I have been told that it resembles other Latin languages on paper, but pronunciation is quite different. This will likely mean that I will learn to read it easily enough alongside Spanish and the other languages, but that I will be behind in learning to speak it.
Dutch, Danish and Swedish: Rounding out the other languages I have little familiarity with are these Germanic languages. My impression of Dutch is that it is right in between English and German linguistically, just as it is geographically. They are all part of the West Germanic sub-family. Danish and Swedish are from the Norse sub-family. For these two I will be working completely from scratch in pronunciation, and have no idea what I will encounter grammatically!
