Third Language Acquisition Techniques.

Background Information: I'm a 24 year old American who has lived in Latin America for a year and speaks English natively, and Spanish fluently. I majored in Computer Science and Spanish in college and am now living in South Korea.

Korean is not related to either language that I currently know and I have been attempting to teach myself Korean using a combination of English and Spanish vocabulary and grammar... Essentially I use whatever "makes more sense" or use Computer Science shorthand for ease of comprehension.

My question: Are there any recommendations regarding third language acquisition? Should I use a combination of both languages to "aid" in the process? Or, would this serve to confuse me more?

Andrew

I had a Swedish teacher who used to say it's easier to learn a foreign language when using your own native language... I don't know if that holds any scientific value or not.

I wouldn't use Spanish to acquire Korean unless you have very good texts for this. Penton Overseas offers Korean Vocabulary at two levels now, I think. That would be about 5,000 words if you don't mind listening to it in the background in additon to using a text.

I think you should ask Professor Arguelles about this one. Please look up
"How to learn any Language" and "Arguelles". I'm not a die-hard fan of the professor, but I think he could certainly give you some ideas.

I am learning a little Korean, but I find it to be a difficult culture, so that probably impacts the time I spend on the languqage.

Caveat: Penton overseas uses female speakers for some of the target languages (good for the ladies, but maybe not the best pitch model for men. The English is usually done with a male voice.)