100% true. My spoken french & english have gone down a lot over the past few years. Yet my understanding has *not* gone down whatsoever. The way I see it, what happens is that what you've acquired stays acquired; but your active vocabulary might decay, and your mouth muscles slowly stop being used to moving in the ways the specific language has them move.

Completely true, happened to me also when I started focusing more on learning Chinese But it's much easier to get it back and still worth learning a new language so I'm happy

I'm glad other people in the comments have this happen with their NL too, I thought I was going crazy...

This happens even to your native language whenever you take your main focus on a second language more than your first though of course this is the case of someone keeping themselves in that second language for some time, keeping themselves in that other culture. There's been cases of people forgetting most to completely of their native language after adapting to this new language once they've hit a point of near native to native level understanding; of course this process is much slower for your first language. I was a hyperlexic child so my case is very much different; hyperlexia is practically the opposite of dyslexia for anyone uninformed, the challenges from having hyperlexia are different. My reading in general tends to far surpass my listening even in my native language.

I can speak Portuguese, Spanish (my native language) and English, now that I'm learning Chinese my Portuguese and Spanish ability has decreased, it's kinda crazy.

My English I getting worse and my native language too, I'm forgetting words all the time and formulating sentences is getting harder. I think I'll read a least one book a year in my NL lmao

I try to make sure to at least watch an episode from a show or listen to a podcast, even if I'm really busy that day, just to make sure to maintain my level. I'll also continue to read books, watch shows, movies, and listen to audiobooks I already know really well and love. Then it never feels like I forget all that much if I don't actively study.

Glad you mentioned this, it's indeed a very real thing, and a reason I never begrudge polyglots who know many languages. ^^' Noticed this for some time with my native language of Afrikaans, actually. It's my mother tongue, I hear it and speak it on a daily basis, but it's worse than my English because I don't give a damn about improving it. But of course once one knows a language to a very high level, as you confirmed with your Japanese, you can never, ever forget it. The foundation is permanent. One can get rusty, for sure, but it'd be much easier to reclaim a memory rather than to have to form an entirely new synapse.

If you don't use it, you lose it.

Languages this, acquisition that… Drop the skincare routine!!! 😩💀 love the content though!

hey man, another interesting video. In your first few years of Japanese, how much time were you putting in for active listening/ anki/ reading per day? I've seen your 3 year update, but did u make a 6 or 12 month update? Also, do you think this phenomenon could happen with your native language if you stopped using it? Thanks

This literally also happens in your native language. Try isolating yourself for a week or two without talking to anyone or really hearing anything in your native language (or at all). When you begin talking with people again, you'll notice you use a lot less fluent speech for the first day or so. You'll obviously still be understandable, but might have "tip of your tongue" moments a lot or stutter a bit. It all comes back to you though since you were just a little rusty. It's a lot like speaking when you haven't had much sleep, comprehensive, but not as colorful as normal. On a similar note, this is why polyglots often have words "on the tip of their tongue" more in every language they speak compared to those who are only mono or bilingual.

Do you know of any Japanese counterparts on KZfaq to Jeff Chan, Gabriel Varga, etc? (Martial arts technique stuff.)

I definitely agree with this. A little separate but I find when I'm tired I speak like total crap no matter what. But, when I'm tipsy or drunk everything just flows. 😆

It’s my dream to be trilingual and this phenomenon is disheartening sometimes haha. I’ve been grinding away at Japanese for almost 3 years and my Korean ability has gone down by like 50%. I’m moving to Japan soon so maybe things will change.