Maintance.

[Lumbering Ox]

This is more a question for future Brian, not present Brian.

 

Once someone gets good at a language [C1 C2 level/advanced] how much time would one need to maintain it.

I've seen one discussion that suggests half an hour a day but the same person claims that at a C1 or C2 level one doesn't lose the language which I know to be false. Even people who were unilingual for their first 20+ years can see their skills erode. So I am not so sure.

 

I am also guessing that the time would change for say an English speaker trying to preserve French, vs Hindi vs something like Chinese or Japanese.

[dtcamero]

i think it depends on a few things. not trying to study another foreign language makes it much easier... since your brain isn't quite as occupied. also time reading is I think more effective than time spent watching tv...but both are differently useful.

i try to watch an hour of tv and read 5-10 pages of japanese per day, at the minimum. after 2 years I have probably dropped a little bit from my peak skill level, but then plateau'd off.

talking with japanese friends feels rusty for the first 5 minutes and then I get loosened up and things flow with little difficulty.

[wulfgar]

 

 

I've seen one discussion that suggests half an hour a day but the same person claims that at a C1 or C2 level one doesn't lose the language which I know to be false.

 

Can I assume you're talking about this discussion? 

If you've truly reached C1/C2, there aren't many reasons for "maintaining" imo. Sure, your skills will erode, but extremely slowly. You're going through the effort to learn a killer language like Mandarin (I assume), right? So I can't imagine you'd leave it alone enough to require maintenance. 

[Lumbering Ox]

Yeah, that's the thread.

 

I am considering Mandarin or Japanese, about a hundred hours into the later but thinking of making the switch.

 

However at some point no matter which I learn I think I'd like to try the other or maybe something else.

 

I don't know how people can maintain 6 or so languages at a high level without going a little something something unless they don't work and do nothing but language.

 

Hell my father spent his first 20 years as a unilingal French person in the middle of nowhere. By the time he hit his 50's having worked in English and married a unilingual Newfie he noticed degradation in his French. He is back on track at the age of 83 when a bit over 10 years ago he moved to a more bilingual place.

[McKennon]

I studied German at the University a half century ago, and got to the level where I could read most things in the language, although I had little opportunity to speak it.

 

Since then I have read a novel in German about every other year. That has sufficed to keep me at the same level as when I stopped formal study in 1966, but I have not improved much.