People say you get worse at your language every day you go without speaking it, but I think it depends
I've always hear that every day you go without speaking a language, you get worse at it. It's logical — this is basically how memory works. The more you study, the better you learn. Long periods of not studying mean forgetting.
But here's the thing — I've had completely different experiences learning languages.
For instance, I learned Spanish for around 7 years. Most of it school years, but I also lived with native speakers for six months. By the end, I was pretty good at Spanish. I could hold my own in one on one conversations with clear speakers, though I still couldn't follow group conversations, or people who spoke fast or with heavy accents. I was nowhere near native speaker level, but I didn't feel like I was "learning" Spanish anymore so much as using it.
Then I ended up not using Spanish at all for like 4 years. I go on an international trip and find myself surrounded by Spanish speakers. And here's the weird thing: in the month I was there, my Spnaish improved far faster than it had in say, a month of time I spent living with Spanish speakers 4 years before. All of a sudden, I could follow group conversations. I could understand people with all different accents.
So as far as I can tell, the 4 year pause didn't hurt. If anything, it helped.
Today, I'm learning a different TL. I studied for two years, and then more or less stopped. For the last six months or so, I have continued to watch Youtube videos in my TL every day or two, usually for five minutes or so. Have the odd conversation in it every few months.
So in theory, I should be getting worse at my TL. But I think I'm getting better, or at least staying stable. I understood a group conversation for the first time after I stopped studying, and I had a fairly long and elaborate conversation with someone in my TL a month ago.
So I'm wondering if this assumption that you automatically get worse at languages each day you don't speak them isn't the whole story. I even wonder if pauses could help with language learning, since as far as I can tell, that's what happened with me.
Now, I'm talking about two languages I was pretty good at when I stopped. I don't think that would would for languages where I was earlier in the process. In fact, it didn't — I gave up a TL after getting to a low/intermediate level, and I just got worse at it as time went on, today only remember pieces.
What do you think? Have any of you had experiences like this?
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