Created: 16/03/2025 - Last updated: 21/09/2025
I've been learning Finnish for years and recently went back to learning Japanese, and started to learn Mandarin Chinese. I had to organize myself a bit better to juggle all three languages, and this is what this page is about!
Created: 16/03/2025 ∙ Last updated: 21/09/2025 ∙ Version #3 ∙ Used successfully for 6 months
Reminder to myself:
Schedule:
Just like listing the goals and reasons for learning new languages is important, I thought listing why I've decided to learn several languages at the same time could also be interesting for future reference.
I love languages, and I love to learn languages. I'm native in French, fluent in English, and have a conversational level in Finnish (~B1), so I have a bit of experience with learning languages and I very much enjoy it! But while I still have a long way to go until I reach fluency in Finnish, I've been itching to learn more languages, so I've decided - why not!
Yes, it will mean that I'll learn them slower than if I focused on one language at a time, but life is short, and I'm impatient! I've also noticed when I first tried it a few years ago that learning several languages at once can motivate me to learn each of them more, maybe because I can constantly switch it up instead of banging my head on one specific language and getting bored of it? Finally, although of course the ideal goal would be to become fluent in all those languages, the main goal for Japanese and Chinese (at time of writing) is to just have fun! This is my hobby, and I don't want to think about it in terms of productivity, so I'll be taking the slow and fun road.
In summary, my reasons as of march 2025 are:
Related articles: Finnish learning resources & Finnish immersion resources.
Related articles: Japanese learning resources & Japanese immersion resources.
Related articles: Mandarin learning resources & Mandarin immersion resources.
Despite missing most of my goals in Finnish, I think I did quite well, but that my goals were a bit too ambitious. I studied 100 pages of my textbook and did all the exercises, I learnt quite a bit of vocabulary, and I did read a bit here and there. I also watched regular TV shows dubbed in Finnish, mostly without subtitles! I'm also very proud I did two YKI tests out of three! When I tried the intermediate level, it really depressed me, so I then switched to the beginner level in order to actually be able to do it, and it went much better!
My main obstacle was finding good immersion material, as I wasn't very motivated to watch any Finnish show. I love Moomins, but it's not the most exciting thing to watch either. This got better when I started watching American shows dubbed in Finnish (such as Jentry Chau vs. The Underworld and Arcane). I did slack off when it came to reading, but that was mostly me forgetting about it. Recently I got a few extra books in Finnish from the library and have had the motivation to read them! Finally, I had 30 minutes of "translating songs" in my schedule, but I only did it once or twice, as I found it tedious and frustrating between the slang and the fancy vocabulary...
First of all, I'll have to lower most of the goals I missed. So it will be 2 textbook chapters (instead of 4), 100 words instead of 250, and one book/comic to read. Hopefully I'll go above those goals, but I prefer to have lower goals that I'll be able to reach, rather than much too higher ones. I'm also removing the "translating songs" activity from my schedule, and replacing it with more reading (30 minutes twice per week, instead of once per week). I will keep the YKI test goal as is, I'll probably continue doing the beginner level for now, unless I want to really challenge myself and try out the intermediate level again!
I'm amazed that I managed all my Japanese goals! Wow! The number of kanjis is especially amazing, I had a hard time estimating how many I could learn, and clearly I underestimated it! Genki was quite smooth to work through (I had just started chapter 4 when this period ended), and so were the other goals. I even started reading simple texts and listening to simple podcasts and videos, whereas I hadn't planned on having a sufficient level for that yet!
Not too many obstacles, to be honest. I sometimes had to pause learning new terms and only do reviews for a few days when I was very tired, but this nice balance worked for me.
I will keep most of the goals as is, but I will add a little bit of reading goals (10 minutes twice a week).
I had much more motivation to learn Mandarin than I thought, as indicated by the fact that the only goal I missed was to keep it casual! I spent quite a bit of time learning the basics, and hopefully that will help me as I progress further. And I started to read simple texts as well!
The biggest obstacle I have when learning Mandarin is finding good learning resources... and I'm still not happy with what I'm using three months later! The HSK textbook is pretty slow, so I feel like I don't learn much. And when thinking about the great apps that exist to learn Japanese kanjis (Renshuu, Wanikani...), even paid apps to learn hanzis really can't compare, which makes me incredibly frustrated. I feel like my learning is unecessarily slowed down by the struggle with the material, and I also spent a lot of time jumping from app to app hoping to find something better...
Because my first Mandarin goals were so low, I'll basically have to up them all: add some textbook chapters and vocabulary goals, for instance. I'm also adding some reading goals, like I have in Japanese, as I found this pretty useful!
I'm really surprised - happily surprised - that I managed to keep up this schedule for 3 whole months! When I started it, I didn't even think that I would last 3 days, and then the weeks started trickling in and I just couldn't believe my eyes! I've done my vocabulary / character apps almost every day (only skipped 2 days in total), wrote my small sentences every single Sunday, and managed to do my one hour of textbook studying very regularly! I've also managed to watch & listen to a lot of things in my target languages - to the point where I basically haven't watched or listened to anything in the languages I'm fluent in during the last 3 months! I've been feeling quite comfortable with this level of intensity, and I intend to continue it for the foreseable future.
Despite a very weak learning period in Finnish, I'm happy and proud I still managed to do my flashcards consistently, and even read a full manga in Finnish! I continued to watch TV shows in Finnish regularly, although I did occasionally use subtitles to help motivate me. And maybe the best of all: I started Chinese classes which are taught in Finnish, and understand very well because the teacher isn't native, so it's a great exercise!
Because I was very tired this summer, it's been hard to study consistenly, and in the beginning of Chapter 4 of Suomen Mestari 2 I got really stuck in the vocabulary part... I realized that I had misunderstood some words before (eg. thinking a mental obstable was actually a physical fence), so I got a bit scared to make more mistakes and tried to ask for translations from my wife, which ended up delaying things so much because she wasn't usually available when I wanted to learn. Because of being busy and tired I also kept forgetting about the YKI tests...
I think the lower goals would be pretty good if I was in a better condition, so I will keep them as is for now and will see next period if I actually need to change them. Hopefully the next period will be better!
Same as Finnish, I was happy I was able to keep up the flashcards and the immersion!
Tiredness made learning from my textbook difficult. I also ran out of the Genki vocabulary schedule on Renshuu and took my sweet time before realizing I could start a side vocabulary schedule so I wasn't able to meet my vocabulary goal.
I will lower my vocabulary goal to 150 to match the kanjis as I'm now only using Renshuu to learn vocab. I will lower the number of chapters to 2 instead of 3.
Although my learning materials aren't amazing, I've changed apps and textbooks and am much happier with them now! I've learn vocabulary and hanzi consistently, and best of all: I even started to take Chinese classes! I also started dabbling in Chinese social media...
Apart from the tiredness making me miss lessons, the quality of the learning materials still isn't amazing.
I'll merge the hanzis and vocabulary goals as for now I learn both from an Anki deck which doesn't differetiate, and I might also lower the textbook goals.
I'm very proud to still be learning my 3 languages 6 months later! Wow!! This summer I was really tired, then I got sick, and then I was even more tired... so it was very hard for me to study textbooks regularly. Despite this, I managed to maintain my flashcards and my immersion resources, wrote my sentences most Sundays (skipped two), and even came up with new small things such as a hand written diary I write in occasionally, following more Japanese-speaking people on Mastodon and starting to check out Chinese social media - as well as starting Chinese classes! In conclusion, despite feeling pretty down at my lack of achievements, it's not all bad so I'll try to not feel too discouraged. I hope I will have a bit more energy the incoming season to continue learning!