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How many languages do you speak?

 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center Post Reply
wharrgarbl
Newbie
United States
Joined 5852 days ago
27 posts - 36 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 1 of 6
24 November 2008 at 8:18pm | IP Logged 
I apologize if this is asked a lot, but I didn't see it anywhere on the first page so I thought I'd ask.

I only ask this because I want to learn a lot of languages, and I don't know if it's even possible to learn as many as I want to learn.  English is my native language, and I'm currently learning Spanish in school (second year). I also want to learn the following languages at some point in my life:

Arabic
Dutch
Esperanto
German
Hindi
Italian
Portuguese
Russian
Spanish
Swedish

Is it even possible to learn 10 languages in addition to your native one? Does anyone here speak that many?

Obviously I don't want to be fluent in all of them, but I'd like to be able to communicate in them fairly well.

Thanks for all your help in advance.
1 person has voted this message useful



FrancescoP
Octoglot
Senior Member
Italy
Joined 5958 days ago
169 posts - 258 votes 
Speaks: Italian*, French, English, German, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian, Norwegian
Studies: Georgian, Japanese, Croatian, Greek

 
 Message 2 of 6
25 November 2008 at 2:42am | IP Logged 
Your plan sounds absolutely feasible to me. It's surely possible to master up to 20 languages in a lifetime, there are dozens of examples, but it takes uncommon dedication, regular efforts and discipline. Before you set out on your journey, however, it might be useful to familiarize yourself with the indeterminacy of the expression "to speak a language" (source of endless debates here and elsewhere): polyglots are hair-splitting fellows and know that language learning is a matter of endless degrees. It's nothing like a binary code: I don't speak a language / I speak a language. Browse some of the older posts, it will help you focus what you really want and what you're looking for. There are problems and implications one doesn't usually perceive at first. I swear it will be useful.

As for your plans, here's why I consider it possible (to a degree):

Italian, Portuguese and Esperanto share a lot of features with Spanish, so it won't be difficult to acquire them later on, as long as you pay a religious attention to differences and subtleties (I hate it when Americans speak Italian with Spanish grammar, as if it was all the same). Do consider adding French: a lot of excellent learning materials are published in that language. You don't want to miss out on the wonderful resources for Russian and Arabic those lovely frog-eaters have published. Sometimes they're much better than their English counterparts.

German and Dutch are very similar: here, too, differences are paramount, but both languages have so much in common it will be like learning a language and a half (almost). Swedish will come almost naturally after you've mastered German. It will take additional work, but there won't be technical difficulties.

Now for the real problems. I don't know about Hindi (mea maxima culpa), but Russian and Arabic are tough, real tough. Consider 4/5 years of regular work for each, at least. I'm not kidding, it takes a week to learn how to order a meal, and a lifetime to appreciate classics in the original.

Your list sounds excellent, as it's well-balanced and made up of languages it would be a pity not to know, but it lacks something on the asian side. Have you considered adding Mandarin or Japanese? That would round up things a bit, and provide new challenges after all that boring indoeuropean grammar...

All in all, I think you can do it in 10/15 years, provided you "work out" regularly. I speak of basic fluency, of course, because it really takes a lifetime to achieve perfection in a foreign language. You're in for great frustrations and wonderful satisfactions. Good luck




1 person has voted this message useful



wharrgarbl
Newbie
United States
Joined 5852 days ago
27 posts - 36 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 3 of 6
25 November 2008 at 4:53pm | IP Logged 
FrancescoP wrote:
Your plan sounds absolutely feasible to me. It's surely possible to master up to 20 languages in a lifetime, there are dozens of examples, but it takes uncommon dedication, regular efforts and discipline. Before you set out on your journey, however, it might be useful to familiarize yourself with the indeterminacy of the expression "to speak a language" (source of endless debates here and elsewhere): polyglots are hair-splitting fellows and know that language learning is a matter of endless degrees. It's nothing like a binary code: I don't speak a language / I speak a language. Browse some of the older posts, it will help you focus what you really want and what you're looking for. There are problems and implications one doesn't usually perceive at first. I swear it will be useful.

As for your plans, here's why I consider it possible (to a degree):

Italian, Portuguese and Esperanto share a lot of features with Spanish, so it won't be difficult to acquire them later on, as long as you pay a religious attention to differences and subtleties (I hate it when Americans speak Italian with Spanish grammar, as if it was all the same). Do consider adding French: a lot of excellent learning materials are published in that language. You don't want to miss out on the wonderful resources for Russian and Arabic those lovely frog-eaters have published. Sometimes they're much better than their English counterparts.

German and Dutch are very similar: here, too, differences are paramount, but both languages have so much in common it will be like learning a language and a half (almost). Swedish will come almost naturally after you've mastered German. It will take additional work, but there won't be technical difficulties.

Now for the real problems. I don't know about Hindi (mea maxima culpa), but Russian and Arabic are tough, real tough. Consider 4/5 years of regular work for each, at least. I'm not kidding, it takes a week to learn how to order a meal, and a lifetime to appreciate classics in the original.

Your list sounds excellent, as it's well-balanced and made up of languages it would be a pity not to know, but it lacks something on the asian side. Have you considered adding Mandarin or Japanese? That would round up things a bit, and provide new challenges after all that boring indoeuropean grammar...

All in all, I think you can do it in 10/15 years, provided you "work out" regularly. I speak of basic fluency, of course, because it really takes a lifetime to achieve perfection in a foreign language. You're in for great frustrations and wonderful satisfactions. Good luck





Wow, thanks for your long and helpful post!

Yeah, basic fluency is all I'm trying for, I think.

And 10-15 years should be fine, I'm only 16 right now.

As for Asian languages, I'm not sure if I'd want to try those. The writing seems so complicated, and they're so far from all other languages that I think I'd have trouble with them. I dunno though.

I think I'm going to try Esperanto first, because apparently it's 100% regular and can be learned in a few months, or less. That should help me build my confidence so I can work on more difficult languages.

Again, thank you so much for your post. It really helped.
1 person has voted this message useful



JohnnyR
Groupie
United Kingdom
how-to-learn-any-lan
Joined 5853 days ago
47 posts - 47 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Portuguese, Japanese

 
 Message 4 of 6
28 November 2008 at 10:29am | IP Logged 
Hi wharrgarbl,

I've been learning Japanese and the language is far less of a problem to pick up than its reputation would lead you to believe. I have always found it to be very logical and consistent with its sentence structures and wording, if you ever decide you may like to try it then if i can help you in any way please let me know.

As for portuguese this is a language im really enjoying learning and with English as a base you will already know far more Portuguese than you realise, i don't mean that the words will be the same but for large groups of words you make adaptions to them and all of a sudden you have a big new list of verbs just by applying a certain rule.

Again, if you'd ever like any help with something in relation to these languages let me know...even if its just 'did you ever try this series of tapes/books and are they any good?'

Good luck.
1 person has voted this message useful



Alkeides
Senior Member
Bhutan
Joined 6156 days ago
636 posts - 644 votes 

 
 Message 6 of 6
29 November 2008 at 10:12am | IP Logged 
namida wrote:
FrancescoP wrote:
I'm not kidding, it takes a week to learn how to order a meal, and a lifetime to appreciate classics in the original.


You must be joking. How long is "lifetime"?


furyou_gaijin has an appropriate answer to this:

furyou_gaijin wrote:
And what is wrong with becoming a fluent... well, if not a speaker then a reader is less than a year?! Some people don't have a lifetime to dedicate to this pursuit.



1 person has voted this message useful



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