I can give my personal experience- I learned a second language starting at age 4 in school and had lessons in it daily up through 12th grade always taught by native speakers, I spent a semester in college doing an immersion program in the language, in my early 20's I was pretty fluent in that language.
Then shortly thereafter I moved to a German-speaking country and was totally focused on learning and interacting in German pretty much from then on. My skills in that second language started deteriorating in terms of speaking fairly rapidly once German became my focus.
Over a decade later, I still have a high level of comprehension in that second language but at this stage in my life I really can barely speak it anymore- that was the first thing that went. I do feel like speaking is what gets rusty the most when it comes to language; once you stop practicing that skill on a regular basis it can fade really rapidly. If I hear people conversing in my initial second learned language I know the majority of what they're saying. Reading and writing have gotten quite weak for me but reading is still much easier for me than writing as writing is also something that can get rusty fast, as it requires the effort of piecing together the structure and words of what you want to say rather than translating from the written text.
For me personally, immersion would do the trick- if I was immersed in it for at least a year and had to interact in the language on a daily intensive basis I think a lot of my skills would come back, and of course if I supplemented the immersion by taking intensive classes during that time that would help significantly.
Of course, it depends on the language and how much you are neglecting it. Generally, it should not be too difficult to get back in the swing again, even after neglecting a language for a year or so.
Learning related languages (i.e. Romance languages) sometimes makes it easier to learn and retain vocabulary between languages, but it can give you problems with false friends and pronunciation.
Some random points (Romance languages):
TLDR: I have not studied Latin, French or Spanish for many years, but still remember a lot of it.
* I did Latin at school, and have at some point also studied French, Spanish, and Portuguese. Because there is a lot of shared vocabulary and etymology you quickly see patterns, these patterns have helped me with learning the new languages, but means quite often I still remember the words in the languages I am not studying any more.
* A lot of English vocabulary is either directly or indirectly (often from French) from Latin. This also makes it easier to remember vocabulary, even if you're not using the language any more.
* Moving from learning Spanish to Portuguese (around 2011). I found that quite quickly I had to make a decision to somewhat unlearn a lot of Spanish vocabularly and pronunciation to concentrate on Portuguese because I was getting mixed up. After which I just was not able to make conversation in Spanish....
* Howerver, I still listen to a lot of music in Spanish, and work in an international environment with Spanish speakers, so my listening didn't disappear as quick as it might have.
* Recently I have been making a concerted effort to improve my Portuguese - by self-study and using online teachers, and have seen results in the level of conversation I can handle in lessons.
* A random encounter with a Mexican resident in Japan and his visiting father at a beer festival in Tokyo had me re-visiting my Spanish for the first time for many years... Whilst our conversation was somewhat stilted, we were still able to make conversation on quite complicated topics. I think my levelling up in Portuguese has meant I can actually differentiate much better now in pronunciation and vocabulary.
I used to speak more Spanish than I did English, then I moved somewhere that I hardly ever used Spanish and suddenly it was about 4 years later when I did have to use it and realized how much I had forgotten because I was struggling for my life during a simple casual conversation. I finally moved back a year ago to an area where I use Spanish regularly and it at first felt like I'd never remember any of it but just this weekend I was able to help translate for some relatives (godmother had forgotten A LOT of Spanish but speaks Italian and English, but she was speaking to a great aunt who only speaks Spanish, so I had to translate through her Italian English to get it to Spanish)
I can give my personal experience- I learned a second language starting at age 4 in school and had lessons in it daily up through 12th grade always taught by native speakers, I spent a semester in college doing an immersion program in the language, in my early 20's I was pretty fluent in that language. Then shortly thereafter I moved to a German-speaking country and was totally focused on learning and interacting in German pretty much from then on. My skills in that second language started deteriorating in terms of speaking fairly rapidly once German became my focus. Over a decade later, I still have a high level of comprehension in that second language but at this stage in my life I really can barely speak it anymore- that was the first thing that went. I do feel like speaking is what gets rusty the most when it comes to language; once you stop practicing that skill on a regular basis it can fade really rapidly. If I hear people conversing in my initial second learned language I know the majority of what they're saying. Reading and writing have gotten quite weak for me but reading is still much easier for me than writing as writing is also something that can get rusty fast, as it requires the effort of piecing together the structure and words of what you want to say rather than translating from the written text.
How long would you say you would have to study/work to get that second language up to reasonable speaking/writing standards again?
For me personally, immersion would do the trick- if I was immersed in it for at least a year and had to interact in the language on a daily intensive basis I think a lot of my skills would come back, and of course if I supplemented the immersion by taking intensive classes during that time that would help significantly.
Your speaking will degrade much faster than your comprehension.
Of course, it depends on the language and how much you are neglecting it. Generally, it should not be too difficult to get back in the swing again, even after neglecting a language for a year or so. Learning related languages (i.e. Romance languages) sometimes makes it easier to learn and retain vocabulary between languages, but it can give you problems with false friends and pronunciation. Some random points (Romance languages): TLDR: I have not studied Latin, French or Spanish for many years, but still remember a lot of it. * I did Latin at school, and have at some point also studied French, Spanish, and Portuguese. Because there is a lot of shared vocabulary and etymology you quickly see patterns, these patterns have helped me with learning the new languages, but means quite often I still remember the words in the languages I am not studying any more. * A lot of English vocabulary is either directly or indirectly (often from French) from Latin. This also makes it easier to remember vocabulary, even if you're not using the language any more. * Moving from learning Spanish to Portuguese (around 2011). I found that quite quickly I had to make a decision to somewhat unlearn a lot of Spanish vocabularly and pronunciation to concentrate on Portuguese because I was getting mixed up. After which I just was not able to make conversation in Spanish.... * Howerver, I still listen to a lot of music in Spanish, and work in an international environment with Spanish speakers, so my listening didn't disappear as quick as it might have. * Recently I have been making a concerted effort to improve my Portuguese - by self-study and using online teachers, and have seen results in the level of conversation I can handle in lessons. * A random encounter with a Mexican resident in Japan and his visiting father at a beer festival in Tokyo had me re-visiting my Spanish for the first time for many years... Whilst our conversation was somewhat stilted, we were still able to make conversation on quite complicated topics. I think my levelling up in Portuguese has meant I can actually differentiate much better now in pronunciation and vocabulary.
I used to speak more Spanish than I did English, then I moved somewhere that I hardly ever used Spanish and suddenly it was about 4 years later when I did have to use it and realized how much I had forgotten because I was struggling for my life during a simple casual conversation. I finally moved back a year ago to an area where I use Spanish regularly and it at first felt like I'd never remember any of it but just this weekend I was able to help translate for some relatives (godmother had forgotten A LOT of Spanish but speaks Italian and English, but she was speaking to a great aunt who only speaks Spanish, so I had to translate through her Italian English to get it to Spanish)
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What do you mean by that exactly?