I’ve been thinking a lot about whether its more beneficial to learn a single language really, really well, or to learn several languages to a reasonable degree of fluency. This is a question that people who enjoy foreign languages struggle with — myself included — and also a question to which there is no “correct” answer.
Pareto’s Principle, an argument for studying many languages
Pareto’s Principle, better known as the 80-20 Rule, is the observation that 20% of the input tends to control 80% of the output. Examples include the distribution of wealth (20% of people control 80% of an area’s wealth), sales performance (20% of customers make 80% of purchases), etc. The exact percentages don’t matter so much (it could be 70-30, or 88-12, or what have you) but the general principle holds true in a wide variety of situations.
For languages, this means that a relatively small percentage of words, phrases, and structures account for the large majority of spoken and written content. This is observably true — there are thousands and thousands of characters in Chinese, but a single character — 的 — accounts for about 4% of all written Chinese, and the 150 most common characters account for 50% of all written Chinese. That’s not to say that knowing some characters is the same as being able to read Chinese, but all things being equal if you only know 150 characters you’ll get the most bang for your buck by knowing those first most common 150, rather than some other set.
If this principle holds up, then learning five languages to 80% of native proficiency should be about the same amount of work as learning a single language to 100% of native proficiency (5 × 20% == 1 × 100%).
How useful is 80% proficiency?
The argument against this is basically that a single sharp knife is more useful than five dull ones. In cutlery that is certainly true, but languages?
At 80% proficiency, you’ll almost certainly be able to handle day to day life in the language, which is probably enough for most people. However, you’ll be missing the cultural depth that that extra 20% will give you. Books discussion complex topics will be inaccessible, as will discussions between educated native speakers about those topics. Near-modern literature (think Shakespeare for English, or 红楼梦 for Chinese) will be inaccessible as well. Much humor will be nearly indecipherable. In short, though you’ll be able to survive in the language without much difficulty, you won’t really be able to live in it.
You call that a knife?
I’ve bounced back and forth on this question, but I’ve finally settled on the “single really sharp knife” approach as being right for me. I live in China, and plumbing the depths of Chinese is going to do me a lot more good than skimming along the surface of a series of languages (even other related languages like Japanese and Korean). There’s no doubt that I’m well past the point of diminishing returns for Chinese, but still the returns are worth the effort put in to obtain them. Until that’s no longer true, I’m going to stick with Chinese.
I can think of a number of situations in which this wouldn’t be the right choice. What do you think? Would you rather get really good at a single language, or pretty good at several? I’m very open to dissenting opinions on this.
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- Interview with Kelly McGuire
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
I tend to agree with you. English is my second language, I don’t live in an English speaking country and my proficiency is far beyond the 80%, but there is still so much to learn – from nursery rhymes to literature, the differences between American and British English, cultural things, vocabulary, expressions, and…. grammar. I still make those stupid foreigner mistakes.
At one point I had the intention to learn several languages up to the 80% level, but I put that intention on the back burner. I still think that it’s important to reach a holiday-level if you go to a new country though – the point where you can order food, ask for directions and be polite. But I simply do not have the time to improve my English and one or more other languages and all the other things I’d like to do.
I’m pretty much dead-set on getting a couple to 80%. While having 100% proficiency with Chinese would be nice if i wanted to do classical literature studies, having 80% of Mandain and 80% Spanish would be drastically more useful in communicating with people.
I’m into language as a tool of communication, more with regular people than with Shakespeare.
This is a really interesting idea, and one that I too have struggled with. I’m an American living in the heartland, so language is for all intensive purposes, 100% homogeneous around here. There are definitely accents (for instance, I can easily tell if somebody is from northeast Ohio versus northern West Virginia). I’ve always had an intense interest in bettering my language ability though, and I’ve invested a lot of informal time and energy into increasing my understanding of English. For instance, I find it hard to not inquire when somebody uses an idiom I don’t understand.
As I learn Chinese, it makes me really frustrated to be confined to the 80%, and I think I would side with you that although 80% is probably the most effective per time input, I just can’t be satisfied with that level of understanding. In English I thrive on word play, double-meanings, intentional mispronunciations, etc. etc. I can’t imagine surrendering myself to never reaching a high level of Chinese fluency.
I’ve talked this over with my best friend, and he and I have come to the conclusion that unless I studied in China for many, many years I don’t even have a chance at catching up to my English ability. If only I’d grown up in Europe!
By the way it looks like you defined it, 80% proficiency means having 20% of the vocabulary of a normal native speaker. If that’s the case, I’d much rather have 100% in one foreign language than 80% in five. Mediocrity isn’t really rewarded that well. Being just capable of getting around in five languages might be nice for a tour guide or something, but I don’t think it would lead to the same sorts of friendships, career opportunities or general life opportunities as being truly bilingual would.
On the other hand, once you get up to about half the vocabulary of an average native speaker, it’s very likely that it will be a big enough part of your life that continued improvement in the language will be self sustaining, even if you shift your study focus to a new language.
I suppose what I meant was more “20% of a native speaker’s linguistic abilities.” Like, being able to handle the most common 20% of tasks that you need language for in your daily life.
I would agree that just 20% of a native speaker’s vocabulary wouldn’t be that great. How I wrote it was confusing though.
80% is rather low for my tastes…like if i only knew enough chinese characters to be able to read 80% of the characters on a page of a book, i wouldn’t be able to read. In that case, i’d rather work up to 98% or something, so that i’m able to read more comfortably.
I think my measurements are more based on certain minimum goals, similar to how various people define “fluency”. In each language that i hope to learn really well, i intend to put in enough effort to pass the “airplane test”, ie reading a standard novel in that language in the time that it takes to go on a trans-oceanic plane ride (say ~9hrs or so), and to enjoy it
This is quite a high standard i think, so for some languages i’d be happy with a much lower standard of being able to converse comfortably about a variety of topics with someone in a coffee shop. Without being able to do that, i just find myself stuck in the same old conversations over and over again, and it gets frustrating. But at this coffeeshop level, i may not know all the idioms or cultural references, but at least i’ll be able to communicate well and that can be very satisfying without having the need to be perfect.
Count me as one vote that’s definitely against the 80% goal. Doviende et al explain it well above, but not understanding 1/5 of the stuff around you basically means you’re dysfunctional in the language. 100% is probably also pretty unrealistic thanks to the joy of diminishing returns, but 95%+ can certainly be hit.
I’ve been itching for years to take on Korean, Russian, Arabic, etc., but I feel that some of the languages that I purport to speak need to be moved closer to (or deeper into) the 95%+ range before I can happily move on to something new.
Just from experience, I’ve had 80% work our pretty well for me. It’s let me haver conversations in languages I don’t otherwise care to perfect and meet people I wouldn’t have otherwise. My Chinese is far below the 80% mark, but I just had a rather nice conversations with a Chinese woman on a recent flight for which the Chinese was adequate. And I was able to help her interact with the non-Chinese-speaking cabin crew who otherwise wouldn’t have been able to communicate with her.
I’ve had similar encounters with Arabic and Wu, the latter again being well below 80%. I don’t think I’d be willing to give those types of encounters up, just to be able to read 红楼梦 with ease.
Though you’ve focused on the Shakespeare/红楼梦 part, the real deal breaker for me is comedy. Deep down, I just want to be able to half-listen to a Zhao Benshan skit while doing something else and still be able to laugh at the jokes.
i think 红楼梦 is decades closer than comedy will ever be for me. that’s fine though. there’s plenty of american comedy i just don’t get.
Basic Chinese efficiency would not include ANY 成语 and probably very few 俚语, not to mention not knowing the difference between literary Chinese and spoken Chinese, so I really wonder just how much efficiency one needs in a language to get by in daily life. In Chinese, although you may never be able to discuss literature, certainly 成语 and 俚语 are so important. I think 80% efficiency in Chinese is different than 80% efficiency in other languages. If you are a Westerner, French, Spanish, and German are much easier than Chinese because we have a shared culture, so 80% is 80%. But for a Westerner to learn Chinese, I think 80% suddenly becomes 65%!