Does Learning Multiple Languages Increase The Risk Of Language Learning Fatigue?

Learning one language is certainly tough and this only increases when you try and learn any more on top.

The reality is that you will increase your risk of suffering language learning fatigue if you are studying more than one language and you also increase your chances of suffering from total burn out.

It can be very easy to do too much and exhaust yourself and you will need to pay close attention to what your body is telling you to make sure you don’t push yourself too far.  

You Are Going To Run Low On Energy Studying More Than One Language

It shouldn’t really be a surprise that studying more than one language is going to use up more energy.

Learning fatigue can basically be boiled down to just running low on energy. If you study hard and use up all your mental resources, you are going to become fatigued and of course this is much more likely when you are learning more than one language. 

(You can read more about – What Are The Symptoms Of Language Learning Fatigue?)

You Are Doing Double The Workload, So The Risk Is Higher

When you study more than one language, you are basically doubling the workload. It doesn’t matter what language you are learning, they all require a lot of work to reach a good level. You have to cover a lot of topics and you need to remember a lot of things for each language to reach this level. 

How you reach this end goal will make a difference to how easily you get fatigued. If you want to split the workload equally and study the same amount each day, then this will put you at a much higher risk of fatigue.

Lets you say you want to learn 10 new words for each language every day, well that is actually 20 words all together, so you can see how that is just a lot more work and how that is going to more easily tire you out. 

This is why people often stagger their languages, or at least focus on one a lot more than other. Learning 10 words for one language and then maybe only 1 new word for the other language may be more sensible, even if it means one languages progress is a lot slower than the other …but at least you will not drain yourself so quickly by staggering things like this.  

You Will Be Studying For Longer

If you are studying more than one language it is much more likely you will be studying for longer than someone who is only learning one.

You are studying more languages, so it makes sense that you will need to spend more time in general studying and is again why people stagger the languages they are learning, so they can avoid this happening.

Trying to spend 1 hour on each language, will of course mean you end up having to spend 2 hours a day in total, which is going to fatigue you a lot more than if you where only studying for one language at a time.

The longer you study, the more tired you will get, so multiple languages will bring a higher risk of fatigue.  

You Will Be Trying To Learn Multiple Concepts At Once

Personally I would say the biggest problem is the fact that if you learn multiple languages, you need to learn multiple concepts and this can be extremely draining for your brain and can cause fatigue very quickly.

Let’s say you want to learn about the past tense in one language, and then you also do that for the second language too, that’s a lot of information to take in.

Even if you did something like learn about the past tense in one language and learn about some other grammar point in the other languages …that’s still two different concepts you need to process in your mind, which can quickly overwhelm you.

This is going to be tough and you will find you can quickly reach fatigue by doing this. I keep saying it, but this is exactly why people stagger the languages and focus on one at a time. It’s not that we can’t learn two at the same time; it’s just that it’s much more stressful and demanding and we can just end up getting fatigued and making no progress.  

You Will Have Less Time For Breaks

I guess this depends on how well you plan things, but there is a potential that you will have less time for breaks if you are studying multiple languages. You may find that you stop studying one language, only to turn around and immediately start on the other one.

Avoiding breaks is only going to enable your fatigue to start sooner.

There are only so many hours in a day and trying to learn a second language will take time away from other things you may need to be doing. This means you may find that you are taking fewer or even just shorter breaks, and this can therefore increase your risk of becoming fatigued. 

(You can read more about – Is It Necessary To Take Breaks While Learning A Language To Avoid Learning Fatigue?)

Burnout Is Much More Likely

As the risk of suffering from language learning fatigue is much higher when you learn multiple language, it also means you are at a much higher risk of suffering from burn out.

All those days of being fatigued can quickly add up and become a real problem and this is why you need to be careful when learning more than one language. You can easily do too much each day, as you are spreading your effort across a number of different languages. Every now and again this is fine, but if it is every day, you will end up waking up one day and just be totally ruined.

Constant fatigue is not good for you, you need time to rest and recover from it, otherwise you will just burn out and when this happens, you will get nothing done.

You might think it is worth the risk and push through, but when you get burnt out, you are not going to be able to do anything.

Try and avoid the fatigue as much as you can and the burn out will be much less likely. 

Conclusion

Hopefully now you can see that your chances of suffering both fatigue and burn out increase a lot when you decide to learn more than one language.

This is exactly why people learn one language at a time. It’s tough work, so why try and double that struggle.

Take your time and you will reach all your goals. I know you want to learn many languages right now, but trying to rush will just get you nowhere.

Go slow and you will avoid the fatigue and you will make progress 

(You can read more about – What Are The Pros and Cons Of Learning Two Languages At The Same Time?)