How To Maintain Your Multilingual Language Skills?

Plurilinguals are individuals who have acquired two or more languages and are able to function with them at a native level. That is to say that at least within one language skill --speaking, or writing, for example-- they operate as others do in their first (or only) language.

If you are bilingual or multilingual, you should consider yourself blessed. It is a gift, and you are right to want to maintain it well.

Here are 2 advantages to being plurilingual:

1. Bilinguals and Plurilinguals Are Better Language Learners (generalizing from this article)

Strategic Processing in Grammar Learning: Do Multilinguals Use More Strategies? http://www.multilingual-matters.net/ijm/004/ijm0040241.htm

Multilinguals appear to become better at learning additional languages the more languages they know, and in particular, to be faster at learning grammar.

2. Plurilingual Skills are Marketable

The Valuation of Plurilingual Competences in an Open European Labour Market http://www.multilingual-matters.net/ijm/004/ijm0040262.htm

"Our results suggest that high plurilingual competences have a positive impact on the probability to be active in the labour market for men as well as for women and the same competences also have an impact on wages, at least for men." (Unfortunately, the world is not a perfect place...yet.)

Background Information

Regarding the issue of "feeling language blocked", I'd like to first provide some background information, concerning 3 issues:

• a) First vs. second language acquisition
• b) Cognitive retrieval
• c) Code switching

Acquiring First and Second Languages

It is currently widely accepted that most first language functions are processed in the brain's left hemisphere. However, there is also evidence that language acquired late, relative to the first, is stored and managed in the right hemisphere. http://fredshannon.blogspot.com/2005/07/first-and-second-language-acquisition.html

"Second language learners were found to use their right hemisphere more than first language learners. Obler (1981) and Genesee (1982) found that individuals, who acquire their second language late relative to their first language, use their right brain more. Researchers also observed more right hemisphere activity in the brain during the early stages of second language acquisition (Brown 1994, p. 55)".

The term "plurilinguals" emphasizes the level of performance achieved, without specifying at what stage the languages were learned.

For example, while I acquired my first 2 languages more or less simultaneously between birth and age 3, I learned my third language at college age. Nevertheless, an oral proficiency test I took about 10 years after college ranked my third language at a level of "near-native proficiency." That is to say that when I spoke, only someone with native speaker abilities might have occasionally detected something foreign in my speech.

It's possible then, that my first two languages are stored in the left hemisphere of my brain, while the third is mostly in the right half; nevertheless, my abilities in all 3 languages are at a similar level.

Cognitive Retrieval

When we retrieve a lexical item, we send our search engine on the lookout for this word. Th brain's default setting is to go seeking in the left hemisphere first, and to follow any personal additions that may be integrated into our default commands thereafter.

As the abstract of this article Age Effects on the Neural Correlates of Episodic Retrieval: Increased Cortical Recruitment with Matched Performance http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/17/11/2491 explains, our mental retrieval system appears to become less efficient with age. Although the specific age groups studied is not mentioned in the summary, we know from experience that in healthy individuals this deterioration tends to be a gradual process.

Code Switching

"Code-switching is a term in linguistics referring to using more than one language or dialect in conversation. Bilinguals, who can speak at least two languages fluently, have the ability to use elements of both languages when conversing with another bilingual. What is said is syntactically and phonologically appropriate; that means that even if words from another language are included into the sentence, they will be adapted to the grammatical rules of the first language. Code-switching can occur between sentences (inter sentential) or within a single sentence (intrasentential). Code-switching is now considered to be a normal and natural product of interaction between the bilingual (or multilingual) speaker's languages." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching

Slight lags in retrieving a "forgotten" word is a common phenomenon even if you have only one language to deal with. With multilinguals, it is a familiar occurrence as well.

When this lag is prolonged and you "give up the search", you may find yourself with no language at all, as you described it. The lag has become a block. Please know that this is NOT uncommon. It happens to me incessantly, and is an ongoing concern when I am with my multilingual friends.

1. One reason might be related to the allocation of items from your various languages in the right vs. the left hemisphere. The so-called division of labor between the hemispheres is not so simple or precise. Other things may affect it as well, such as reliance on visual memory, or the type of association algorithm you use to conjure up a specific word.
2. As noted above, age may be a factor contributing to the prolonging of lags into blocks.
3. Another factor related to memory and retrieval is frequency of use.

How do we learn new words in our first language? By practicing them and integrating them into our everyday vocabulary. If we use a word infrequently we are apt to have a hard time remembering it at the right moment.

If it's true for language learning, it's doubly true for maintaining language. It's simple, the more you use and practice your additional language(s), the greater your chances of lessening the frequency of lags or blocks.

I have one more theory regarding the causes behind the lags.

This is related to code switching, described above. Just like a mental block can be caused by emotional tension, a language block can also be grounded in emotional discomfort, if one is accustomed to switch between languages but is in a context that prohibits this. In other words, you are used to switching, but knowing it is inappropriate you catch yourself, but your flow of thought is interrupted, and you are no longer able to complete it coherently.

In this case too, the best remedy is to practice using one language consistently. As this becomes a habit, the chances of stumbling are reduced. Just like practicing, this requires a conscious effort.

"Those language learners motivated to keep their first and second languages may very well maintain [them], although to do so will likely involve continuous study, or regular use of both" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_attrition

Therefore, as a former teacher of ESL and other languages, my advice to you is PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE your language abilities. Watch TV, talk to friends, write letters, emails, hubs, stories, invent and imagine dialogues and conversations, and, of course, read as much as you can in the languages you want to keep alive. The more you "exercise" and practice a language, the more your brain is accustomed to following the same retrieval paths, and the fewer the blocks and lags.

The feeling of coming up empty that you described is particularly common among students learning a third language. They often find themselves unwittingly inserting words or phrases from their second language into ideas they are struggling to express in the new language. As soon as they realize they have retrieved from the wrong source they are left feeling blank, unable to complete the thought, as if standing at the brink of a chasm with nothing to hold on to.