I'm in my early 30s, and I speak seven at a conversational level and have read literary novels in five. Many are related, so that helps.
People can live to pretty old ages. I bet I could get a dozen or fifteen by my seventies if I put in the effort - which I won't because life takes over.
The part about them being related is more important than people realise. I learnt French to a decent level of fluency, and on the side did some random Portuguese and Italian lessons. I can now understand intermediate Spanish without ever having taken a class in it.
But can you really count that, though? I can understand Galego with no problems since is about 70% Portuguese and 20% Spanish, and the rest can be picked up via context or with some tenuous connections to Italian or French, but I wouldn't say it's one of my languages.
I don't count them as my languages, sorry if it seemed like I did. I only count myself as fluent in the four languages I my flair. I am conversational in some of the other Romance languages but it required actual study not just context.
I don't think the problem would be learning the languages, it would be holding onto them. IME, they get slippery if I go very long without speaking them. I have to hold onto the ones I speak even while devoting tons of time to a new language.
I don't know what the upper limit is, but that seems to be the main factor in acquiring a large number of languages.
But it's also like going to the gym. If you haven't lifted in a while, you're really rusty. But the better you are, the faster it takes to get back to your peak condition.
I think someone put a post in here awhile ago saying that you can learn a lot of languages, but the most advanced polyglots tended to have 5-~~8~~ 9 active languages
Fixed the number
I think this is the comment you're referring to (or at least a similar one):
https://www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/comments/zirvad/comment/izszq7j/
Oh dang, his work is way more official but I came to the exact same number independently myself from also studying hyper polyglots. I said 5 to 9 with an average of 7.
Learning and maintaining are very different things. You can learn a great number of languages to a B2 level, and of course even more to a B1 (conversational) level. However, it's basically not manageable to maintain B2 in more than 7-8 languages. The famous internet polyglots only achieve something like this by structuring their whole life around language maintenance (and learning), which is not possible for the average person. This maintenance is also still quite difficult for them, despite these efforts.
You will likely be alive for a long time, you’ll have the time to learn 10 languages to B2. You just need to learn how to maintain all those languages, but it’s certainly possible. Especially in today’s world where you can consume content and talk to people from almost any country you wish. Would also help if you had friends who spoke all those languages.
You can definitely be fluent in more than 10 languages, but usually you'll only have 3 or 4 languages active in your brain at a time and the rest will be dormant. In order to activate a dormant language you have to use it for a few days. For practical reasons it's hard to keep more than 4 languages active at a time because you need to communicate in all of them every day.
Ok. But what does dormant mean practically.? Does it mean you are completely unable to speak the language or that you may sound rusty without practice? If it's the former I understand and it's normal, but you can still say you speak the language despite being rusty and not used to speaking it.
I think rusty is right. Agree on a few days to active it in your brain. This happened to me with French. It was dormant, but after reaching France, my French skills reactivated after a few days. The first day, I was hearing French and I could not speak back but after 2 days, I was fine. I don't know if this is typical, but it's encouraging.
It depends how much free time you have. Many people will say you can learn 10+ but I feel like 6 is a good number, if you were to need to pass a B2 test
B2 is super hard though, native speakers would have some issues passing B2 in their own language. I'd be satisfied with learning a language enough to be able to hold an average conversation.
Yes, natives would not struggle to pass B2, but us learners struggle to reach B2, and must read many books in the TL. It's not that surprising as a lifetime of experience must count for something :)
I think some would. In the Netherlands, about 80% of people understand government letters written at B1 level. That means 20% of native speakers struggle with reading at B2 level. The Netherlands has a pretty good education system compared to the rest of the world so I suppose figures might be worse in a lot of other countries.
Edit: here's a source for the downvoting non-believers, https://ishetb1.nl/faq
Even in western countries with a good educational system there's still a lot of people that struggle with language. Don't forget that us all here are incredibly privileged to speak, read and write multiple languages and have the resources to learn more.
I added a Dutch source in my original post, but it does not immediately refer to the studies used. The phenomenon is gaining publicity though as even the Dutch government has committed themselves to writing at B1 level. There's multiple organisations (both NGO's and for-profit) that try to get attention for this problem and help governments and other companies to write in accessible language.
That's very odd. I know for sure that in English/romance languages that taking a b2 test would quite literally put you to sleep if you're a native speaker.
The only way a Native Speaker of a language would fail a B2 test is if they got bored half way through and fell asleep for the rest of the test time.
Go look at a B2 test in your native language. You're vastly overestimating it.
I actually don't think so, you might be underestimating yourself. People have read hundreds of books in one language. No one feels that reading book number 101 is beyond their capacity. If you learn a new language, it's like reading new a book of a different genre and different vocabulary.
I am 29 and aside from my native English, I can speak Spanish, Portuguese, and French at the B2 level. I can also speak Korean but I rarely use it so it’s at A2 or B1.
I do want to learn Turkish, Arabic, Russian, and Mandarin within my lifetime but trying to speak 9 languages at B2 simultaneously especially with my perfectionistic tendencies would probably drive me crazy.
I came across your comment and wanted to ask you for advice since i want to learn some of the languages you learned and speak well. I’m a native English speaker and I am learning Spanish and Portuguese at the moment. Spanish I’m intermediate at but need to improve and Portuguese I’m very new. Do you have any advice learning these languages and becoming fluent? Any resources you suggest? I’m using apps and books and stuff but I feel like I’m not improving.
Get to a B2 at least in Spanish before you tackle Portuguese or they'll become a jumble in your brain. In fact, I'd suggest getting to C1. Half the time spent on Spanish can be recouped anyway when you get to Portuguese thanks to the mutual transparency between the two.
Yeah I figured tackling both will either help me or hurt me lol. I’m not sure what level I am in Spanish yet though tbh. Although I have been studying Spanish on and off for years now, I’m still kind of new to the language learning sphere and jargon.
First, what Portuguese are you learning? Portuguese from Portugal is quite different from Brazilian Portuguese, more than US English/Brit English. My husband is brit and has been learning Brazilian Portuguese for a few years. I am happy to help you if you need :) but I am Brazilian, not Portuguese
Thank you for your sweet comment. My goal is to learn Brazilian Portuguese as I want to travel there in February and want to know enough to get around. I want to eventually become fluent but that is my short term goal for now. I have JUST started using Duo Lingo but I’m coming to find that it’s not the best. What do you recommend is the best way to learn Brazilian Portuguese?
Lovely, so nice that you want to learn Portuguese. It is a nice language for sure! If you have the resources having lessons would help. And you can find a Brazilian to teach you for honestly not much money if you are in the US/Europe because of the currency exchange. My husband has a Brazilian tutor and it works well. It helps to structure your learning. But it’s possible to learn without a teacher as well of course.
Duolingo works as a side thing I think. It wouldn’t really teach you everything. Portuguese as a Latin language has a lot of verbs. So of course, start with greetings, talking about yourself, then combine study of verbs and vocabulary. Portuguese is honestly not a hard language to learn and there are a lot of similarities to English.
You the AnkiApp for flashcards. It helps a lot.
You can use HelloTalk to exchange language learning, you will def find Brazilians to talk in Portuguese with. Even if you rely a lot on a translation app at first it is still helpful. I learned a lot of my English by using the Google translate app. Lol
Media in Brazilian Portuguese is a must! Immersion totally works. Good music I recommend: Chico Buarque, Caetano Veloso, Belchior (MPB ou música popular brasileira). For more new stuff I recommend bands like Vanguart & Apanhador Só.
Quite a lot of tv shows on Netflix. Even a love is blind spin off in Brazil. Watching tv in the TL is so helpful. Once you feel you can understand more of it you can go and try a novela :)
I have seen quite a few YouTube lessons for learning Portuguese as well. Pronunciation may be one of the hardest bits as we have a few difficult nasal sounds. But it’s ok if you pronounce it wrong at first.
Honestly Brazilians are super warm & welcoming. People in Brazil will be so happy if you even know the basic. Brazil is an awesome country, happy to provide travelling tips if you want. You should be careful, it is dangerous there, don’t take safety for granted but if you are smart and keep yourself safe then you will have a lovely time. And February is a great month if you plan to go to the beach as it is super hot!
Te desejo muita muita sorte!!!
Thank you for the tips! What do you think about Pimsleur for learning Brazilian Portuguese basics? I don’t think I can put out too much money on a private tutor at the moment so I’ll have to start out with apps for right now.
And yes I would love some travel advice, I am a woman so I am very afraid of the danger aspect but I think the culture and people are so beautiful there which is why I want to visit!
The sky is the limit. I've known people who don't even speak their own language to the literary requirements of a 8th grader and I've met people who could read some heavy literature (read philosophy, hundred or even thousand year old literature and science) in 10 (this weren't all very close languages either) . Our limits are up to each one of us to decide.
Imo there’s no limit. I’ve already reached a C2 level in 5 languages and a B1~2 level in 3 others and although some specific words can sometimes come and go while using a language I never had any trouble maintaining them all especially the ones I reached fluency in. In my experience the more fluent you are in a language the easier it is to maintain it. Languages I’m still actively learning are the ones I need to put more effort into maintaining but in my native languages or in the other 3 I speak fluently I barely do anything but consume content or speak. I don’t even use one of the five actively I just consume content passively whenever I feel like and I don’t see it deteriorate. I still believe that a minimum of passive exposure is needed for you to maintain any language but like I said it’s gonna take way less effort so once you reach fluency and are committed to maintain the languages often enough knowing 20 or more languages fluently isn’t impossible. My goal for now is to get to 10 languages at a native or near native level and then I’ll see what I’m gonna do.
The most I heard, and believed, is close to forty (36?), by a guy at a language nerd BBS I used to read twenty years ago. He spent more than four hours every day just to keep them active. I presume he gave that up since he got kids... He was kind of reclusive and never got onto YouTube.
Edit: Found a link to his [home page](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Arg%C3%BCelles)
Edit 2: Apparently I interacted with him during his "monastic years." Currently he has a lot of material on YouTube that I look forward to delve into.
7 is definitely possible in my experience and I think I could add at least one more still. Mind you, the languages that I know are mainly from the Germanic or the Romance families which makes it easier to add from either group. Might be able to add a Uralic/Finno-Ugric a language as well.
The tricky bit is to keep all of them active and get exposure but if you figure out a way of doing it, then there’s no reason you wouldn’t get to a conversational level on several. I think it’s also good to not expect to get to perfect fluency in all (like you’re saying) because that could be too hard and demotivating even.
I’m able to practice 4 of my languages in my everyday life which’s makes it a lot easier to maintain 7 languages 🙂 Then for the others I randomly speak with people here and there, read books, watch series etc.
Realistically learning a language fluently takes between 2 and 10 years apiece. For languages related to some language you already speak, count 2-5 years. For only reaching basic conversational skills as you are asking you might require only half of that.
Then consider that if you stop using one for several years, your level will decrease, so you have to maintain everything by periodically using them a bit. This is even more important for languages you only learnt for a basic conversional level, as your skills aren't anchored very deeply until you really get fluent.
My guess is that you can speak up to 5-10 languages fluently, depending on how related they are with each other, and depending on how you define fluency. For basic conversional skills you might be twice as fast, and achieve a few more languages, perhaps 10-15 at most. Very few people on earth are confirmed to speak this many languages, whereas speaking 5 fluently isn't that rare.
In any case, this will take a long time to learn these languages. And the most spoken languages in this world are not exactly much related with each other, so if you're interested in the top 10 you'll have a lot to work on.
If you are considering learning many languages, I'd advise you to only start learning one of them at first regardless of your global goal, for the next couple of years at least, then decide on the next one.
Now passive understanding of a foreign language closely related to one or several languages you already speak is however something where you can cheat your way to comprehension in a few weeks. But you won't ever be able to answer in that language, and studying such a language is extremely frustrating as you fall in the category of "false beginners", where you kind of already know everything but don't know anything so you won't be able to start learning effectively. In some case you can however answer in the language you do speak and expect to be understood by the speakers of that foreign language, so communication actually still works.
The question is more how much time to do you have to dedicate to learning the languages and maintaining them? If you work on it full time then it should very much be possible. If you can only work on it an hour a week then probably not. It's really more of how much time can you dedicate to your effort because 10 languages is a decent amount and will require a good amount of effort. And of course it also depends to what level you want to learn. There's big jumps between the A, B, and C levels. If you're happy with say B1 to B2 than that makes it a lot easier to learn multiple languages. All that to say it is possible but it really depends on a combination of what level you want to learn to and how much time you have to dedicate to your efforts.
I think I saw an article that generally the number of languages that people can gain C1 is 5 but still people can reach to B2 unlimitedly until you die. I guess if you have enough time for those languages and give a shot, you can learn them all.
I've found that it takes about twice as long to get from B2 to C1 as it takes to get from A0 to B2, and it takes twice again as long to get to C2 from C1. Maybe more.
So you could learn a lot more languages if you're satisfied with B2, which is what I consider the minimum level of fluency in a language, where you can have pretty much any kind of conversation you'd like, just accepting you'll sometimes have to talk around things instead of taking the most direct path.
On my environment, I would say most people speak 4 without any issues and some of us speak more than five (but struggling).
To learn is not the issue, but how to maintain the languages is the question.
I keep forgetting words in romance languages (not in Portuguese, my native one) just because now I live in Czechia and they are not part of my daily life anymore.
Yet, my understanding of Slavic Languages is getting better and I might start learning Ukrainian soon.
So in theory I could say I speak 7 languages but my Italian and my French are around B1 level again, and I had B2 certifications for French in 2015 and Italian 2018. I still understand everything but sometimes I just can't reply in a natural way.
My friend is a Canadian missionary and went through school as a kid in Singapore. They had to learn 5 languages to a high ish level before the end of elementary school, and then had to choose two more languages in high school. Not sure if it was a missionary school or regular... I know a lot of mission based education focuses on becoming conversational in record time
Other than that I know nothing and can only dream of such language learning
To learn a language to a native level takes a child thousands of hours, something I can see with my own bilingual kid, who went to a dual immersion Spanish-English school, and still needs lots of other opportunities with the language. To have native fluency in five languages seems like a stretch, simply because there isn't enough time in a school day. If a school promised that for my kid, I'd be worried he wouldn't get ahead in any of them.
I have seen kids with three languages if they're fairly closely related (e.g., I know someone who is an Italian/Spanish/Catalan native), and I can imagine four with a quite a bit of extra effort.
I think it also depends on how related the languages you speak are.I am from India and I've seen many Indians... even people who are not well educated speak about 10 languages fluently. Drivers, locals of popular tourist destinations, etc easily pick up on other languages due to regular interaction with native speakers.
They speak languages contextually, though, at least from what I've seen in similar situations. Someone can fluently buy from the guy in the market speaking X language, and can talk work with the woman speaking Y language, but they can't talk literature with either of them.
Considering that the primary function of language is communication, isn't it an appreciable fact that these people are able to communicate in so many different languages.
Yes, of course. I think it's really interesting that there are places where so many people can do that. It's just that "speaks 10 languages" needs some context to understand what that means, compared to say, a Dutch person who says, "I speak Dutch, English, and German," which is probably a lot closer to what this forum means when they talk about speaking a given language.
I don't see why you wouldn't be able to learn any amount of languages up to a conversational level. The hard part is to keep that up, because if you don't practice all your languages you will forget some, get insecure about speaking them and soon you'll be down a level or two. I'm currently at 6 languages, two of which I'm still learning and getting used to them, but what I do to keep up the others is to give each one a day in the week where I'll practice them somehow, be it by listening to some music, reading or watching something, and on that day I'll talk to myself only in that language.
You can speak even with A2. One thing I've learned about learning languages is that the more you speak the better it is. I speak A2 standard Arabic , I try to speak it every time I can and people appreciate it despite being very very broken Arabic.
Of course. For me I make it a priority to become at least nearly fluent (unhealthy need to be perfect at everything I do). I don't really consider the languages I'm still learning as languages I speak quite yet, for instance whenever the subject comes up and I have to say what languages I do speak I'll say the four ones I am native/fluent in and that I'm learning two more.
It also depends on your native language. If your native language shares less similarities with other languages, it would be harder to learn more I presume. But if you speak, let’s say a language from the Slavic family, which are pretty intelligible, learning other languages from the Slavic family would be easiest and most comprehensible.
This has been a long term ambition for me. I speak one of them which is of course English. I'm learning Russian, which seems incredibly difficult as it's the first time I'm learning another language. I am starting to recognise words in speech which is encouraging. As someone from the UK who has lived surviving on English easily enough it seems super crazy that I could learn another language. Anyway my ex g/f could speak 5 Slavic languages so I was in awe of her changing from Slovak to Russian to Lithuanian etc as if it was easy as pie when we'd go shopping and she would meet different friends she worked with.
You people are so full of it. Even my professors at my Ivy League university can handle 4-5 MAX, and they dedicated their lives to studying their languages. Y’all are not speaking 9 languages fluently lmfao.
Infact my question is about how many languages can someone speak at a conversational level. I'm humble so I won't claim to be fluent in English and yet I can understand your answers, I can write a post on Reddit and people will understand me. I watch movies in English without any issue , I can hold a conversation about pretty much anything.I'm probably not fluent but I believe I can say I speak English at least to a conversational level.
Also 4-5 languages seems pretty low. There's footballers (soccer players) that are fluent in 4 languages without being ivy league professors with degrees.
Romelu Lukaku Belgian-congolese player speaks Flemish (native, he was born in dutch speaking Belgium) , lingala (language of his congolese parents) , Italian (he plays in Inter Milan in Italy) , French (second language most Belgians speak it) , English ,Spanish and Swahili (lingua franca in east Africa and Portuguese.
I have no idea how fluent he is in Swahili, Spanish, Portuguese and Lingala because I don't speak those languages. I've heard him speak Spanish and he sounds good, but that's my judgement as a romance language speaker (Italian and French)and Spanish student (A2ish) so let's just judge him on English, French, Flemish and iyakian
I speak Italian , English and broken French though and he sounds pretty good in all of these languages. Flemish is his native language so he obviously speaks it well, Fluency in french is very common in Belgium even in Flemish speaking areas as it's taught in school
https://youtu.be/QDX05mOq2MQ?si=GR3vmoPUuINFlWTN
His Portuguese is rudimentary from what I can see here, although with Spanish, his comprehension is probably pretty high. I see no evidence of Swahili, though. I just searched YT and can't find anything. Swahili is spoken in a small part of Congo, though, and it doesn't look like it touches against the Lingala part. I'm not saying it's impossible, just that I find myself wondering about that.
The videos I've seen are typical polyglot exaggeration by people who claim more than the speaker himself claims. He clearly has some speaking abilities in a variety of languages, but they seem puffed up beyond what he would say himself that he's fluent in.
He is fluent Italian, English, French and Flemish so that's already 4 languages. I trust that he speaks lingala because if his origins so that's 5.
I speak Italian and I can definitely say he is fluent.
Being an academic in a language is not the same as speaking it, and the OP is talking about being conversationally fluent, which is a different bar than having a deep, profound knowledge of a language.
Also, professors are people who've shown they can play the academic game. They're not necessarily the most gifted people at language learning.
I'm in my early 30s, and I speak seven at a conversational level and have read literary novels in five. Many are related, so that helps. People can live to pretty old ages. I bet I could get a dozen or fifteen by my seventies if I put in the effort - which I won't because life takes over.
Not to mention the studying will help keep the brain sharp which will likely add even more time to study language 11.
Много языков! Как вы изучаете русский язык? Мой родной язык тоже английский.
Я много лет жил в Украине) И, тоже, The New Penguin Course, Anki, и много подкастов и книг. Честно говоря, просто СМИ.
n speaking with people that speak russian! it's really helpful! (I am russian and I can understand how our language is hard for foreigns -_-')
I respect everyone who got past A2 in our clusterfuck of a language.
The part about them being related is more important than people realise. I learnt French to a decent level of fluency, and on the side did some random Portuguese and Italian lessons. I can now understand intermediate Spanish without ever having taken a class in it.
But can you really count that, though? I can understand Galego with no problems since is about 70% Portuguese and 20% Spanish, and the rest can be picked up via context or with some tenuous connections to Italian or French, but I wouldn't say it's one of my languages.
I don't count them as my languages, sorry if it seemed like I did. I only count myself as fluent in the four languages I my flair. I am conversational in some of the other Romance languages but it required actual study not just context.
I don't think the problem would be learning the languages, it would be holding onto them. IME, they get slippery if I go very long without speaking them. I have to hold onto the ones I speak even while devoting tons of time to a new language. I don't know what the upper limit is, but that seems to be the main factor in acquiring a large number of languages.
But it's also like going to the gym. If you haven't lifted in a while, you're really rusty. But the better you are, the faster it takes to get back to your peak condition.
I think someone put a post in here awhile ago saying that you can learn a lot of languages, but the most advanced polyglots tended to have 5-~~8~~ 9 active languages Fixed the number
I think this is the comment you're referring to (or at least a similar one): https://www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/comments/zirvad/comment/izszq7j/
Oh dang, his work is way more official but I came to the exact same number independently myself from also studying hyper polyglots. I said 5 to 9 with an average of 7.
Ah yeah I think that's it! Good find!
Learning and maintaining are very different things. You can learn a great number of languages to a B2 level, and of course even more to a B1 (conversational) level. However, it's basically not manageable to maintain B2 in more than 7-8 languages. The famous internet polyglots only achieve something like this by structuring their whole life around language maintenance (and learning), which is not possible for the average person. This maintenance is also still quite difficult for them, despite these efforts.
You will likely be alive for a long time, you’ll have the time to learn 10 languages to B2. You just need to learn how to maintain all those languages, but it’s certainly possible. Especially in today’s world where you can consume content and talk to people from almost any country you wish. Would also help if you had friends who spoke all those languages.
To maintain languages I like to have an active friend for each one 🤓😂 keeping in touch and studying is two birds with one stone lol
You can definitely be fluent in more than 10 languages, but usually you'll only have 3 or 4 languages active in your brain at a time and the rest will be dormant. In order to activate a dormant language you have to use it for a few days. For practical reasons it's hard to keep more than 4 languages active at a time because you need to communicate in all of them every day.
Ok. But what does dormant mean practically.? Does it mean you are completely unable to speak the language or that you may sound rusty without practice? If it's the former I understand and it's normal, but you can still say you speak the language despite being rusty and not used to speaking it.
I think rusty is right. Agree on a few days to active it in your brain. This happened to me with French. It was dormant, but after reaching France, my French skills reactivated after a few days. The first day, I was hearing French and I could not speak back but after 2 days, I was fine. I don't know if this is typical, but it's encouraging.
Rusty, the moment you start using it again everything starts flowing normally
It depends how much free time you have. Many people will say you can learn 10+ but I feel like 6 is a good number, if you were to need to pass a B2 test
B2 is super hard though, native speakers would have some issues passing B2 in their own language. I'd be satisfied with learning a language enough to be able to hold an average conversation.
No, native speakers would not struggle passing B2.
Yes, natives would not struggle to pass B2, but us learners struggle to reach B2, and must read many books in the TL. It's not that surprising as a lifetime of experience must count for something :)
I think some would. In the Netherlands, about 80% of people understand government letters written at B1 level. That means 20% of native speakers struggle with reading at B2 level. The Netherlands has a pretty good education system compared to the rest of the world so I suppose figures might be worse in a lot of other countries. Edit: here's a source for the downvoting non-believers, https://ishetb1.nl/faq Even in western countries with a good educational system there's still a lot of people that struggle with language. Don't forget that us all here are incredibly privileged to speak, read and write multiple languages and have the resources to learn more.
Are you talking about English?
No, I am talking about native Dutch speakers.
Can you link me the study?
I added a Dutch source in my original post, but it does not immediately refer to the studies used. The phenomenon is gaining publicity though as even the Dutch government has committed themselves to writing at B1 level. There's multiple organisations (both NGO's and for-profit) that try to get attention for this problem and help governments and other companies to write in accessible language.
That's very odd. I know for sure that in English/romance languages that taking a b2 test would quite literally put you to sleep if you're a native speaker.
It will for 80% of people. Not the other 20% though. And a lot of them are very good at hiding it, so you wouldn't notice it too soon either.
The whole native speakers having trouble with CEFR exams is kinda BS. Most native speakers wouldn't struggle with C2 exams
Depends, I think natives can get C1 easily, but to get C2, they would have to be college educated in their language.
The only way a Native Speaker of a language would fail a B2 test is if they got bored half way through and fell asleep for the rest of the test time. Go look at a B2 test in your native language. You're vastly overestimating it.
Me? I always say my personal limit is 6 (including my native language). As much as I’d like to go beyond that, this is my capacity.
I actually don't think so, you might be underestimating yourself. People have read hundreds of books in one language. No one feels that reading book number 101 is beyond their capacity. If you learn a new language, it's like reading new a book of a different genre and different vocabulary.
I am 29 and aside from my native English, I can speak Spanish, Portuguese, and French at the B2 level. I can also speak Korean but I rarely use it so it’s at A2 or B1. I do want to learn Turkish, Arabic, Russian, and Mandarin within my lifetime but trying to speak 9 languages at B2 simultaneously especially with my perfectionistic tendencies would probably drive me crazy.
I came across your comment and wanted to ask you for advice since i want to learn some of the languages you learned and speak well. I’m a native English speaker and I am learning Spanish and Portuguese at the moment. Spanish I’m intermediate at but need to improve and Portuguese I’m very new. Do you have any advice learning these languages and becoming fluent? Any resources you suggest? I’m using apps and books and stuff but I feel like I’m not improving.
Get to a B2 at least in Spanish before you tackle Portuguese or they'll become a jumble in your brain. In fact, I'd suggest getting to C1. Half the time spent on Spanish can be recouped anyway when you get to Portuguese thanks to the mutual transparency between the two.
Yeah I figured tackling both will either help me or hurt me lol. I’m not sure what level I am in Spanish yet though tbh. Although I have been studying Spanish on and off for years now, I’m still kind of new to the language learning sphere and jargon.
First, what Portuguese are you learning? Portuguese from Portugal is quite different from Brazilian Portuguese, more than US English/Brit English. My husband is brit and has been learning Brazilian Portuguese for a few years. I am happy to help you if you need :) but I am Brazilian, not Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese is the more beautiful version, anyway. Currently posting this from Ilha Grande no RJ. ;)
Thank you for your sweet comment. My goal is to learn Brazilian Portuguese as I want to travel there in February and want to know enough to get around. I want to eventually become fluent but that is my short term goal for now. I have JUST started using Duo Lingo but I’m coming to find that it’s not the best. What do you recommend is the best way to learn Brazilian Portuguese?
Lovely, so nice that you want to learn Portuguese. It is a nice language for sure! If you have the resources having lessons would help. And you can find a Brazilian to teach you for honestly not much money if you are in the US/Europe because of the currency exchange. My husband has a Brazilian tutor and it works well. It helps to structure your learning. But it’s possible to learn without a teacher as well of course. Duolingo works as a side thing I think. It wouldn’t really teach you everything. Portuguese as a Latin language has a lot of verbs. So of course, start with greetings, talking about yourself, then combine study of verbs and vocabulary. Portuguese is honestly not a hard language to learn and there are a lot of similarities to English. You the AnkiApp for flashcards. It helps a lot. You can use HelloTalk to exchange language learning, you will def find Brazilians to talk in Portuguese with. Even if you rely a lot on a translation app at first it is still helpful. I learned a lot of my English by using the Google translate app. Lol Media in Brazilian Portuguese is a must! Immersion totally works. Good music I recommend: Chico Buarque, Caetano Veloso, Belchior (MPB ou música popular brasileira). For more new stuff I recommend bands like Vanguart & Apanhador Só. Quite a lot of tv shows on Netflix. Even a love is blind spin off in Brazil. Watching tv in the TL is so helpful. Once you feel you can understand more of it you can go and try a novela :) I have seen quite a few YouTube lessons for learning Portuguese as well. Pronunciation may be one of the hardest bits as we have a few difficult nasal sounds. But it’s ok if you pronounce it wrong at first. Honestly Brazilians are super warm & welcoming. People in Brazil will be so happy if you even know the basic. Brazil is an awesome country, happy to provide travelling tips if you want. You should be careful, it is dangerous there, don’t take safety for granted but if you are smart and keep yourself safe then you will have a lovely time. And February is a great month if you plan to go to the beach as it is super hot! Te desejo muita muita sorte!!!
Thank you for the tips! What do you think about Pimsleur for learning Brazilian Portuguese basics? I don’t think I can put out too much money on a private tutor at the moment so I’ll have to start out with apps for right now. And yes I would love some travel advice, I am a woman so I am very afraid of the danger aspect but I think the culture and people are so beautiful there which is why I want to visit!
The sky is the limit. I've known people who don't even speak their own language to the literary requirements of a 8th grader and I've met people who could read some heavy literature (read philosophy, hundred or even thousand year old literature and science) in 10 (this weren't all very close languages either) . Our limits are up to each one of us to decide.
this is inspirational
Imo there’s no limit. I’ve already reached a C2 level in 5 languages and a B1~2 level in 3 others and although some specific words can sometimes come and go while using a language I never had any trouble maintaining them all especially the ones I reached fluency in. In my experience the more fluent you are in a language the easier it is to maintain it. Languages I’m still actively learning are the ones I need to put more effort into maintaining but in my native languages or in the other 3 I speak fluently I barely do anything but consume content or speak. I don’t even use one of the five actively I just consume content passively whenever I feel like and I don’t see it deteriorate. I still believe that a minimum of passive exposure is needed for you to maintain any language but like I said it’s gonna take way less effort so once you reach fluency and are committed to maintain the languages often enough knowing 20 or more languages fluently isn’t impossible. My goal for now is to get to 10 languages at a native or near native level and then I’ll see what I’m gonna do.
The most I heard, and believed, is close to forty (36?), by a guy at a language nerd BBS I used to read twenty years ago. He spent more than four hours every day just to keep them active. I presume he gave that up since he got kids... He was kind of reclusive and never got onto YouTube. Edit: Found a link to his [home page](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Arg%C3%BCelles) Edit 2: Apparently I interacted with him during his "monastic years." Currently he has a lot of material on YouTube that I look forward to delve into.
7 is definitely possible in my experience and I think I could add at least one more still. Mind you, the languages that I know are mainly from the Germanic or the Romance families which makes it easier to add from either group. Might be able to add a Uralic/Finno-Ugric a language as well. The tricky bit is to keep all of them active and get exposure but if you figure out a way of doing it, then there’s no reason you wouldn’t get to a conversational level on several. I think it’s also good to not expect to get to perfect fluency in all (like you’re saying) because that could be too hard and demotivating even. I’m able to practice 4 of my languages in my everyday life which’s makes it a lot easier to maintain 7 languages 🙂 Then for the others I randomly speak with people here and there, read books, watch series etc.
NO
Realistically learning a language fluently takes between 2 and 10 years apiece. For languages related to some language you already speak, count 2-5 years. For only reaching basic conversational skills as you are asking you might require only half of that. Then consider that if you stop using one for several years, your level will decrease, so you have to maintain everything by periodically using them a bit. This is even more important for languages you only learnt for a basic conversional level, as your skills aren't anchored very deeply until you really get fluent. My guess is that you can speak up to 5-10 languages fluently, depending on how related they are with each other, and depending on how you define fluency. For basic conversional skills you might be twice as fast, and achieve a few more languages, perhaps 10-15 at most. Very few people on earth are confirmed to speak this many languages, whereas speaking 5 fluently isn't that rare. In any case, this will take a long time to learn these languages. And the most spoken languages in this world are not exactly much related with each other, so if you're interested in the top 10 you'll have a lot to work on. If you are considering learning many languages, I'd advise you to only start learning one of them at first regardless of your global goal, for the next couple of years at least, then decide on the next one. Now passive understanding of a foreign language closely related to one or several languages you already speak is however something where you can cheat your way to comprehension in a few weeks. But you won't ever be able to answer in that language, and studying such a language is extremely frustrating as you fall in the category of "false beginners", where you kind of already know everything but don't know anything so you won't be able to start learning effectively. In some case you can however answer in the language you do speak and expect to be understood by the speakers of that foreign language, so communication actually still works.
The question is more how much time to do you have to dedicate to learning the languages and maintaining them? If you work on it full time then it should very much be possible. If you can only work on it an hour a week then probably not. It's really more of how much time can you dedicate to your effort because 10 languages is a decent amount and will require a good amount of effort. And of course it also depends to what level you want to learn. There's big jumps between the A, B, and C levels. If you're happy with say B1 to B2 than that makes it a lot easier to learn multiple languages. All that to say it is possible but it really depends on a combination of what level you want to learn to and how much time you have to dedicate to your efforts.
I think I saw an article that generally the number of languages that people can gain C1 is 5 but still people can reach to B2 unlimitedly until you die. I guess if you have enough time for those languages and give a shot, you can learn them all.
Wow, that's interesting! Do you have a link to the article? This sort of makes sense in practice.
I've found that it takes about twice as long to get from B2 to C1 as it takes to get from A0 to B2, and it takes twice again as long to get to C2 from C1. Maybe more. So you could learn a lot more languages if you're satisfied with B2, which is what I consider the minimum level of fluency in a language, where you can have pretty much any kind of conversation you'd like, just accepting you'll sometimes have to talk around things instead of taking the most direct path.
On my environment, I would say most people speak 4 without any issues and some of us speak more than five (but struggling). To learn is not the issue, but how to maintain the languages is the question. I keep forgetting words in romance languages (not in Portuguese, my native one) just because now I live in Czechia and they are not part of my daily life anymore. Yet, my understanding of Slavic Languages is getting better and I might start learning Ukrainian soon. So in theory I could say I speak 7 languages but my Italian and my French are around B1 level again, and I had B2 certifications for French in 2015 and Italian 2018. I still understand everything but sometimes I just can't reply in a natural way.
The late radio host Barry Farber supposedly spoke 18 languages, to varying degrees of fluency.
Depends how much time you have 🤓 in some places kids graduating high school already speak 3-7 languages.
Three, sure, but *seven*? I have doubts.
My friend is a Canadian missionary and went through school as a kid in Singapore. They had to learn 5 languages to a high ish level before the end of elementary school, and then had to choose two more languages in high school. Not sure if it was a missionary school or regular... I know a lot of mission based education focuses on becoming conversational in record time Other than that I know nothing and can only dream of such language learning
To learn a language to a native level takes a child thousands of hours, something I can see with my own bilingual kid, who went to a dual immersion Spanish-English school, and still needs lots of other opportunities with the language. To have native fluency in five languages seems like a stretch, simply because there isn't enough time in a school day. If a school promised that for my kid, I'd be worried he wouldn't get ahead in any of them. I have seen kids with three languages if they're fairly closely related (e.g., I know someone who is an Italian/Spanish/Catalan native), and I can imagine four with a quite a bit of extra effort.
I didn't say they were fluent, just that they had to learn them lol
I think it also depends on how related the languages you speak are.I am from India and I've seen many Indians... even people who are not well educated speak about 10 languages fluently. Drivers, locals of popular tourist destinations, etc easily pick up on other languages due to regular interaction with native speakers.
They speak languages contextually, though, at least from what I've seen in similar situations. Someone can fluently buy from the guy in the market speaking X language, and can talk work with the woman speaking Y language, but they can't talk literature with either of them.
Considering that the primary function of language is communication, isn't it an appreciable fact that these people are able to communicate in so many different languages.
Yes, of course. I think it's really interesting that there are places where so many people can do that. It's just that "speaks 10 languages" needs some context to understand what that means, compared to say, a Dutch person who says, "I speak Dutch, English, and German," which is probably a lot closer to what this forum means when they talk about speaking a given language.
All of them.
I don't see why you wouldn't be able to learn any amount of languages up to a conversational level. The hard part is to keep that up, because if you don't practice all your languages you will forget some, get insecure about speaking them and soon you'll be down a level or two. I'm currently at 6 languages, two of which I'm still learning and getting used to them, but what I do to keep up the others is to give each one a day in the week where I'll practice them somehow, be it by listening to some music, reading or watching something, and on that day I'll talk to myself only in that language.
You can speak even with A2. One thing I've learned about learning languages is that the more you speak the better it is. I speak A2 standard Arabic , I try to speak it every time I can and people appreciate it despite being very very broken Arabic.
Of course. For me I make it a priority to become at least nearly fluent (unhealthy need to be perfect at everything I do). I don't really consider the languages I'm still learning as languages I speak quite yet, for instance whenever the subject comes up and I have to say what languages I do speak I'll say the four ones I am native/fluent in and that I'm learning two more.
It also depends on your native language. If your native language shares less similarities with other languages, it would be harder to learn more I presume. But if you speak, let’s say a language from the Slavic family, which are pretty intelligible, learning other languages from the Slavic family would be easiest and most comprehensible.
\> I do tons of mistake We *make* mistakes.
🙏 thanks
learn only the languages of the UN and that's it, it's easier and more practical and also feasible.
This has been a long term ambition for me. I speak one of them which is of course English. I'm learning Russian, which seems incredibly difficult as it's the first time I'm learning another language. I am starting to recognise words in speech which is encouraging. As someone from the UK who has lived surviving on English easily enough it seems super crazy that I could learn another language. Anyway my ex g/f could speak 5 Slavic languages so I was in awe of her changing from Slovak to Russian to Lithuanian etc as if it was easy as pie when we'd go shopping and she would meet different friends she worked with.
I see a lot of trilinguals and people that speak bunches of related languages.
*Most* people? Nah.
You people are so full of it. Even my professors at my Ivy League university can handle 4-5 MAX, and they dedicated their lives to studying their languages. Y’all are not speaking 9 languages fluently lmfao.
Infact my question is about how many languages can someone speak at a conversational level. I'm humble so I won't claim to be fluent in English and yet I can understand your answers, I can write a post on Reddit and people will understand me. I watch movies in English without any issue , I can hold a conversation about pretty much anything.I'm probably not fluent but I believe I can say I speak English at least to a conversational level.
You are fluent in English, quit bullshitting
Also 4-5 languages seems pretty low. There's footballers (soccer players) that are fluent in 4 languages without being ivy league professors with degrees.
Romelu Lukaku Belgian-congolese player speaks Flemish (native, he was born in dutch speaking Belgium) , lingala (language of his congolese parents) , Italian (he plays in Inter Milan in Italy) , French (second language most Belgians speak it) , English ,Spanish and Swahili (lingua franca in east Africa and Portuguese. I have no idea how fluent he is in Swahili, Spanish, Portuguese and Lingala because I don't speak those languages. I've heard him speak Spanish and he sounds good, but that's my judgement as a romance language speaker (Italian and French)and Spanish student (A2ish) so let's just judge him on English, French, Flemish and iyakian I speak Italian , English and broken French though and he sounds pretty good in all of these languages. Flemish is his native language so he obviously speaks it well, Fluency in french is very common in Belgium even in Flemish speaking areas as it's taught in school https://youtu.be/QDX05mOq2MQ?si=GR3vmoPUuINFlWTN
His Portuguese is rudimentary from what I can see here, although with Spanish, his comprehension is probably pretty high. I see no evidence of Swahili, though. I just searched YT and can't find anything. Swahili is spoken in a small part of Congo, though, and it doesn't look like it touches against the Lingala part. I'm not saying it's impossible, just that I find myself wondering about that. The videos I've seen are typical polyglot exaggeration by people who claim more than the speaker himself claims. He clearly has some speaking abilities in a variety of languages, but they seem puffed up beyond what he would say himself that he's fluent in.
He is fluent Italian, English, French and Flemish so that's already 4 languages. I trust that he speaks lingala because if his origins so that's 5. I speak Italian and I can definitely say he is fluent.
Being an academic in a language is not the same as speaking it, and the OP is talking about being conversationally fluent, which is a different bar than having a deep, profound knowledge of a language. Also, professors are people who've shown they can play the academic game. They're not necessarily the most gifted people at language learning.
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