This is not to brag, it’s just to show you it’s not impossible to know many different languages.
I teach four languages a week. English, French, German and Dutch. In many cases I have to explain things in Slovak during my lessons. Some of my students are Czech. I understand Czech about as well as I understand Slovak, though I do not speak Czech (I would if I were to spend a few months in Prague for example).
I regularly check the news in Russian, Spanish and Slovenian.
I can’t speak Spanish, but I have no trouble reading it.
The same is true for Italian, but for some reason I am not drawn to Italian, so I do not actively read Italian.
What helps with Roman languages is the fact that I had an obsession with Latin when I was a teenager.
I actively use 5 languages almost on a daily basis.
What I do to maintain my fluency is reading the same books in many different languages.
In the picture you see a copy of one of my favorite books: Bright lights, big city. It’s the French version. I have read it in German and English as well. If I can find I will read it in Czech or Spanish or Russian or Slovenian.
I don’t read books in Dutch, well, not often anyway, but I do read some articles in Dutch for my students.
I can read Serbo-Croatian and have been able to have conversations with people about the war in Yugoslavia in Bosnian.
I can sort of read Danish and Swedish newspapers, though it takes a lot of focus.
I would like to warn people that when people claim they are completely fluent in five or more languages they are probably bullshitting you.
I would say my life has always been about languages.
I remember being six years old and being magnetically drawn to tourists and trying to figure out what they were saying.
So I never believe people who claim they are totally fluent in many (more than 5) languages. It’s possible, but it takes a lot of effort to maintain fluency.
For example I used to be fluent in Slovenian, but I haven’t spoken the language in ten years. So naturally I lost my fluency.
Given that my life and my job are all about languages I would say it’s nearly impossible to maintain complete fluency in ten languages (this used to be my goal).
There are things you can do, if you have a lot of motivation and time, but it will be a huge challenge.
I have tried gaining fluency in other languages than the ones mentioned above, but – in part because I do have other hobbies than learning languages – I have given up on that.
Bottom line: yes, you can become a polyglot, but let nobody fool you into thinking it’s going to be easy.
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Thank you, William, for pointing this out: it is not magic, nor rocket science, but hard work and persistence. I find that my French and Spanish are easy to keep up by merely watching shows in those languages from Europe, but my Turkish has been more challenging for me, as it is harder to want to use my relaxing time to keep up that language, which still requires looking up the odd word or two, for me, as well as much more concentration. So, I feel like I’ve been lazy, but too tired to do much better for the moment. Being tied to an English speaking readership also makes it more difficult for me, for the time being, but I do plan to review some of my favorite shows, like El Ministerio del Tiempo, Sihirli Annem, and Lupin, shortly. My Greek is not yet ready for TV, but I must thank you, William, for inspiring me to get back to it.
Best regards,
-Shira
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