How many languages can you speak

Презентация была опубликована 7 лет назад пользователемВиктория Говорова

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Презентация на тему: » How many languages can you speak 1.Совершенствование навыков изучающего чтения 2. Закрепление навыков произношения 3.Развитие навыков устной речи.» — Транскрипт:

1 How many languages can you speak 1. Совершенствование навыков изучающего чтения 2. Закрепление навыков произношения 3. Развитие навыков устной речи

2 Exercise 48 page 45 Doctor community Doctor community Dramatist building Dramatist building Decoration discussion Decoration discussion Creativity enjoyment Creativity enjoyment Writer ending Writer ending Communication foreigner Communication foreigner Scientist independence Scientist independence Celebration happening Celebration happening Advertisement meaning Advertisement meaning Ambulance population Ambulance population

3 Translate from Russian into English Важно изучать иностранные языки в наше время. Важно изучать иностранные языки в наше время. Можешь ли ты говорить на французском языке? Можешь ли ты говорить на французском языке? Хочешь ли ты быть успешным в изучении английского языка? Хочешь ли ты быть успешным в изучении английского языка? Иногда очень трудно изучать языки. Иногда очень трудно изучать языки. Испанский язык – это второй для меня язык. Испанский язык – это второй для меня язык. Это было успешное представление. Это было успешное представление. Они всегда достигают своей цели в учебе. Они всегда достигают своей цели в учебе.

4 Learn the new poem Up, down, up, down Up, down, up, down Which is the way Which is the way To London town? To London town? Where? Where? Where? Where? Up in the air, Up in the air, Close your eyes – Close your eyes – And you are there! And you are there!

5 Exercise page F 2. T 3. F 4. F 5. T 6. T

6 Exercise 54 page 47 The knowledge of foreign languages is so important in our time to Communicate with people all over the world Communicate with people all over the world Study at foreign universities abroad Study at foreign universities abroad travel travel get good job get good job do business do business

7 Exercise 54 page 47 A person to be successful in learning foreign languages should be PersistentHardworking Interested in it

8 Homework Учебник стр.58 упр. 20 Учебник стр.58 упр. 20 Рабочая тетрадь стр. 37 упр.4 Рабочая тетрадь стр. 37 упр.4

How Many Languages Can you Learn?

How Do you Label People who Speak Many Languages?

A person who is fluent in one language is referred to as a monolingual. Forty percent of the population falls in this category. Those who can speak two languages are bilingual, and they make up 43 percent of the people. Thirteen percent are trilingual, and they can speak three languages fluently. Multilingual is fluent in more than four languages, and they are only 3% of the entire population.

Some people can speak more than five languages, and they are known as polyglots. They are less than one percent of the population. Hyperpolyglots are fluent in more than 12 languages, and they are sporadic to find. It means that there are people who speak more than 12 languages in the world.

One Person Can Speak Many Languages

Currently, there is only one living human being who speaks 59 languages. Ziad Fazah is the person who knows the most languages in the world. He was born in Liberia but later moved to Lebanon. His record of 59 languages still stands, although some polyglots in the past might have surpassed his record.

How Many Languages Does the Average Person Speak?

An average person can speak two to four languages in a lifetime. However, human brains work differently, and an average person’s brain can handle a maximum of four languages. It takes one year to learn the basics of a language for an average person. However, it requires persistence and frequent interaction with the language to master it.

How Many Languages Can a Person Learn?

Since an average person can learn four languages, what about polyglots and hyperpolyglots? Unfortunately, there is no definite answer to this question because the desire and motivation to learn different languages differ. However, with the right motivation, a person can learn as many languages as possible.

Sir John Bowring, a Hong Kong governor in the 19th century, was said to know more than 200 languages. He was also fluent in 100 languages. In history, he is the polyglot who knows most languages. It is an example that shows human beings are not limited to the number of languages they can learn.

What Is the Key to Learning Many Languages?

As mentioned earlier, the motivation and purpose of learning create successful polyglots. Some people learn to fit in various careers, and some learn to travel the world. Inspiration and purpose can drive you to be a master of diverse languages.

The most successful career that relates to being a polyglot is translation services. Due to globalization, the demand for language translation services is high. A person who knows more than six languages can handle different clients conveniently. Those who are conversant with more than 12 languages have an added advantage in the industry.

Can you Get Confused by Different Languages?

It depends on the ability and motivation of a person. Some individuals can learn many languages without getting confused. However, learning similar languages can also create confusion. For instance, Spanish, French, and Italian are almost identical in some aspects. They may confuse you! The mix-up is, however, lost after getting deep into the languages.

Tips for Learning Many Languages

If you want to learn many languages, get the purpose and motivations right. It is also advisable to learn two or three languages at the same time. It saves your time, and it also broadens your vocabulary. You should also choose your preferred method of learning and do not rush the learning process.

Benefits of Learning Multiple Languages at the Same Time

Learning multiple languages at the same time helps you understand the similarity and differences between languages. It also enables you to avoid getting bored. Learning more than one language is so much more exciting! The process of learning becomes more enjoyable, and anyway, being multilingual has many cognitive benefits. Learning multiple languages at the same time also increases brain size, and it contributes to brain growth.

Do you Have a Limit?

The answer is yes. You should not learn more than four languages at the same time. Learning five languages creates overload and confusion. It is also advisable to learn similar languages at the same time.

Methods you Can Use to Learn Different Languages

You have many ways to learn foreign languages. Some people use video and audiotapes; others use films, music, books, newspapers, and magazines. Regardless of the method, translation services can guide you. Document translation services help you translate a document in a resourceful way.

Challenges When Learning Many Languages

Time management is the main challenge. People do not find time to learn different languages. Lack of consistency is also a severe encounter. People get bored on the way, especially if the languages taken are complex. Lack of proper goals makes it hard to learn many languages.

How to Overcome the Challenges

It would be best if you created a learning schedule that runs throughout the learning session. For example, if you want to learn a language in 12 weeks, you should create a plan for the 12 weeks. You should start with simple and related languages and finalize with the challenging ones. Your routine should also be in line with your personal life to create balance.

It is also essential to always stay focused on your goals. Your goals usually force you to continue learning when it gets complicated. For instance, if you want to feature in language translation services, the desire should keep you going. It would help if you also made the language learning process fun to avoid tediousness.

If you want to learn many languages, start today. There are many certified translation services out there, so you do not have a reason to give up. Translation services ensure that you understand your preferred language in the most convenient way possible.

How Many Languages Do You Speak?

I’m often asked, how many languages do you speak? I think many polyglots are asked this question and it’s a difficult question to answer because we can have varying degrees of knowledge of languages. Some languages we can just speak right away. If you ask me to say something in my stronger languages I can just start speaking. Not a problem. But then I have other languages where I have a fair amount of knowledge, but I can’t just turn them on. So let me go through I would say the first dozen languages where I can speak now. Obviously, English, French and I’m going to go in a declining order of proficiency, so English and then French.

When I say speak, typically the languages that I can speak the best and the most confidently are the languages that I have spoken the most. Even though I’m a great proponent of input-based learning to build up your capability in a language, in order to speak it well you have to have lots of opportunity for real, meaningful conversations. So, obviously, I have had that in French, I have had it in Japanese, I have had it in Mandarin Chinese, I have had it in Spanish, but less. Most of my practice using the language was when I used to hitchhike in Spain in the mid sixties, hours and hours and hours sitting with truck drivers and other people who picked me up. Recently, I have had far less opportunity to speak Spanish.

https://www.lingq.com/

Then probably comes Swedish because I did a lot of traveling in Sweden doing business and German, but both of those languages are languages that I speak less well than the first group, simply because I don’t have as big a vocabulary. I haven’t done as much reading and listening in them and I make more mistakes. I can converse comfortably, but with more mistakes.

Then comes probably Italian. I have traveled to Italy and so I can speak that language. Then probably Cantonese and then comes Portuguese, which is very similar to Spanish. It’s almost like Spanish spoken with a few different words and different pronunciation. I’ve had less opportunity to speak it, some while in Brazil, some while in Portugal, but really not that much. So with my Portuguese I don’t feel as confident. It ends up being a conscious effort to convert my Spanish into Portuguese and I don’t feel so comfortable speaking it.

Next comes Russian where I have had a lot of input, lots of listening and reading, some opportunity to speak. I was in Russia briefly, for a week or 12 day, back seven or eight years ago. More recently I was in Ukraine, particularly in Kiev and Eastern Ukraine, and I was speaking Russian most of the time. I can turn it on. With mistakes, but I can turn it on.

It’s the same with Ukrainian now, which I learned after Russian. I was, in fact, on television in Ukraine in Kiev, prime-time television speaking both Russian and Ukrainian. I understand the languages well. I speak Russian. I understand Russian much better, but I understand them both comfortably and I can speak albeit with mistakes.

So that takes me, I believe, unless I’ve forgotten a language in there, up to about 12 that I can say I speak comfortably. These are the languages that I speak. Next comes a group of languages where I have hardly had any practice speaking, but I have a fair degree of understanding. These are languages that I would say I know, but I don’t speak.

Korean is say next, right? According to LingQ, I have 40,000 words that I know in Korean. When I was in Seoul and I gathered with a group of people there we had dinner and I was speaking Korean, but I haven’t spoken much Korean. I’ve had a few isolated online conversations. I’ve worked at it quite a bit, but I don’t feel comfortable in saying that I speak it. Although superficially it can sound as if I speak it, it wouldn’t take me more than a couple of to get, I believe, in a Korean environment to get my Korean up to the level where I could comfortably say I speak it.

Then I’d go Czech, Polish and Slovak that are related languages. Here again, I understand them, a lot of them anyway. Given an opportunity to be in that environment, I could elevate them to the level of languages that I speak, but I don’t like to say I speak them. I like to say I know them. I know of them. I’m acquainted with them, but I can’t say that I comfortably speak them.

So the first 12 are the ones that I speak. The next four are ones that I think I could, I’m close to being able to say I speak, but I’m not quite there yet because I haven’t had enough speaking experiences. Then come the languages that I have been working on more recently.

First of all, Romanian and Greek that I put a fair amount of concentrated effort into for a few months before going to those countries. Of course, Romanian is much easier than Greek because so much vocabulary is similar to Italian. Some of it is similar to Slavic languages, about 20% of it. It’s written in the Latin alphabet. I’ve found that even after two months of a lot of input-based learning and some online tutoring, I was able to communicate in Romania. Greek, I spent eight months at it. It’s a different writing system, there are fewer sort of freebie vocabulary items, but I was able to communicate comfortably while I was on the Island of Crete.

In both those languages, if confronted today by someone speaking Romanian or Greek, I wouldn’t be able to say much, if anything at all. So those are certainly not languages that I speak, but those are languages that I have invested in. If I were to go back to them, go back to some of the material I’ve been using to learn and start speaking I could, again, raise the level, but they’re certainly not languages that I can claim to speak.

Now come my last three languages, Arabic, Persian and Turkish. There my level is that they are no longer unfamiliar to me, I know how they work. I have in Persian 2,500 words, in Arabic 8,000 words, in Turkish 6,000 words. In some ways Persian is the easiest of the three because the structure is so similar to European languages, but of course the writing system is a bit of an obstacle.

Those are languages that I will be working on, all three of them, over the next year or so to gradually improve my level. Will they ever reach the level of the first 12? I don’t think so, unless I spend a lot of time in Turkey, in Iran or in an Arabic-speaking country. The problem with Arabic again is that I’m studying traditional Arabic and there’s no country where that’s the national language. Who knows? Maybe I’ll spend some time in Lebanon and learn Levantine Arabic or in Jordan or somewhere.

So there you have it. It’s a summary of the 12 languages that I can say that I speak, four languages that I could elevate to the level of languages that I speak but I just consider them languages that I know, two languages that I learned over a short period of time which are at a lower level of development and then the final three. So the total is 21, but only 12 of them can I genuinely say that I speak.

How Many Languages Can One Person Speak?

written by
Benny Lewis

Did you know there’s no Guinness World Record holder for “most number of languages spoken”?

Why this omission? The answer lies in the curious story of a Liberian-born language teacher, Zlad Youssef Fazah, and a Chilean TV chat show, Viva el lunes.

In 1973, Fazah was living in Brazil, which at the time was under a military dictatorship. Soldiers knocked on his door and demanded that he go with them.

“I felt sick with fear,” Fazah later recalled. “I thought I was being arrested as a spy.”

Fazah was interrogated for being a spy, even though he was just a humble language teacher. The soldiers had picked him up on the orders of the CIA. His interrogators wanted to know why a young man from the Middle East spoke Chinese and Russian. They asked: Who was he working for? Was he a Russian spy?

“I wasn’t working for anyone, not in their sense,” Fazah says. “I was just really good at languages.”

“My language skills have not always brought good things,” he adds.
Until 1998, Fazah held the Guinness World Record for speaking 58 languages. That was until he appeared on Viva el lunes.

On the night of the show, the host surprises Fazah with a language test, with audience members (diplomats brought in from different embassies) asking him questions in various languages. When it comes to the questions in Finnish, Russian and Mandarin, Fazah looks visibly anxious. He asks that the questions be repeated more slowly. Then he asks that they be repeated again. With some questions, he stutters an answer. With others, he fails to answer at all. By the end of the show, the audience start to boo him.

Zlad Youssef Fazah on the Chilean TV chat show, Viva el lunes.

Nowadays, the Guinness Book of World Records no longer awards a place to the person who can speak the most languages. This is likely due to general confusion on the definition of fluency – and how difficult it is to test the claims of polyglots.

A few years ago, polyglot blogger Ryan Boothe gave Fazah the right of reply to his appearance on Viva el lunes. After a telephone interview with Fazah, Boothe wrote:

Before [Fazah] went on that Chilean program the producers had told him that he would simply be interviewed and not tested. He went to the studio finding that they had brought diplomats from many different countries that were going to test him in their native languages. A lack of preparation, nerves and jetlag got the better of Ziad and he responded incorrectly to a few of their questions. To this day he wishes he would have walked off the set instead of going on live TV..

The video on YouTube was edited to only show the incorrect responses and not the many correct responses that [Fazah] gave.

The controversy surrounding Fazah begs the question: How many languages is it possible for one person to speak?

Who Holds the Record For the Most Languages Spoken?

There are plenty of examples of people through history who have claimed to have held command over a staggering amount of languages.

German diplomat Emil Krebs (1867-1930) made it his life’s quest to learn every language in the world. He reportedly spoke 65 languages and had a special and rather unique interest in translating the phrase “kiss my ass”, which he managed to do in 40 languages. His brain was examined by German neuroscientists in 2002, who reported it was different to other brains.

Sir John Bowring (1792-1872), the 4th Governor of Hong Kong was allegedly able to speak in over 100 languages. However, there exists no determinable proof of this claim, apart from reports from those who knew him that he held a lifelong passion for the study of language.

The most impressive living example of a hyperpolyglot is probably Alexander Arguelles, who has studied and to some degree understands around 50 languages. Alexander caught the language bug at university when he began studying German. From then on, he devoted himself to learning as many languages as he could in his lifetime. He notes that the further he goes with his learning, the easier languages come to him. When he first started learning Swedish he was able to hold a complex conversation within three weeks. Yet, he considers this an early stage of learning a language, with much work left to go.

” Climbing the mountain – achieving native fluency – is always going to take years.” – Alexander Arguelles

What Does it Mean to Be Fluent?

At which stage of language learning can we consider a person to be fluent? Is it when they can competently hold a conversation, or not until they can converse in far more complicated topics? Do we need tangible proof for each language these individual’s claim to speak, such as a CEFRL diploma?

I believe the idea of fluency comes down to the individual. For me, it was being able to speak confidently, with few hesitations or mistakes – aiming for about a 90-95% level of “perfection”, and for use specifically in common social situations. This “upper intermediate” level of B2 on the CEFR scale, is what most people think of when they imagine using their languageВ – it’s effectivelyВ social equivalencyВ to your native language, with allowance for an accent and a few minor slips.

What you can do at the C levels is more for professional situations, and while I’ve achieved this myself in some languages enough to work as an engineer or translator, this is actually overkill for the vast majority of people, who want to live their normal (non-technical) lives through the language. The way we use the language the majority of our time interacting with people is fluency to me, and anything beyond that is “mastery”.

While having a C2 diploma in Spanish is great, I honestly haven’t usedВ masteryВ level Spanish much since I stopped working in engineering and translation, but I continue to useВ fluentВ level Spanish regularlyВ in social settings. The same goes for my C2 French, and my C1 German.

The way I’ve worked towards fluency has involved putting down the textbooks and learning to speak from day one until I reach upper-beginner (A2) to lower-intermediate (B1), and then to hit the books and get more formal lessons, to “tidy up” what I have until I have a more solid command of the language. It’s a method I’ve used for every single language I’ve learned and the one I credit the most to my success.

How many languages?

My answer isВ alwaysВ that it depends on how you define “speak”, and thenВ I give a quick definition of my understanding of fluency and say that based on that I speak 7 languages, but I can get by in a bunch more.

Zlad’s unfortunate experience is always in the back of my mind whenever I’m being interviewed on TV or radio, which is why IВ try to watch my words whenever possible. I would almost always insist on being interviewed in just one language (and am happy to do that in non-English languages, as I was in Spanish and IrishВ and a few other languages on theВ radio), since that is the only useful language for anyone listening.

It’s not really a question that does well either way on media.

First, it’s too easy to exaggerate your skills in a short spot and make people think you can do what you truly can’t. I’ve never felt embarrassed or booed off stage, but I did actually feel genuinely terrible after one interview when the direction it went in was such that I said a random phrase in Quechua that I still remembered. I realized too late that we had gone in a direction such that the conclusion of the interview was “you’re a very impressive man, Benny Lewis!”

I hated it – I had wanted to make an impression on inspiring some listeners to dive into their own language projects, that it’s easier than they think, and that they aren’t too old, and instead I had just been a easily forgotten little spot between channel hopping. This to me is genuinely the worst interview I’ve ever done and to this day I still feel guilty about it.

CEFRL certificates are probably the best way to “prove” that you speak a language, but it doesn’t make for good TV or radio to follow along with someone in silence (apart from the listening comprehension and oral exam) for 3+ hours, then wait 2 months until a certificate comes in the mail рџ™‚ I can’t see that ever working on prime time TV…

But then it’s also bad the other way, and someone who genuinelyВ canВ speak multiple languages could get totally embarrassed, as we’ve seen.

How would I do in a live test?

The worst that’s happened to me so far is that I’ve been put on the spot to translate random words on live radio. I actually have Zlad to thank for his “worst case scenario” experience being in the back of my mind, and to downplay my skills whenever possible and have a way more useful goal on media. A TV show may invite me to entertain their audience and boost their ratings, but I don’t care about that. For me it’s a platform to inspire new learners, not to impress people flicking between stations, who’ll forget it in 5 minutes.

Luckily, thanks to plenty of experience now, I am very confident in interviews and can change the direction it’s going in, even though I’m the interviewee. When I got asked once to translate “caterpillar” into all my languages (seriously?), I said quite honestly that I’m here to inspire beginners to consider learning a language themselves, not to try to impress people.В Rather than play along, I told them honestlyВ that I would fail that test miserably, since I’m not a walking dictionary and blurting out random words in completely different languages is not a skill I possess.В

To avoid any awkwardness, I quickly changed directionВ and gave a tip for how anyone listeningВ couldВ learn foreign words like caterpillar, citingВ oruga as an exampleВ in Spanish, and gave a quick mnemonic suggestion. From here I could segway into my best encouragement for people who may think they have a bad memory, or are too old.

Inspiring learners was why I was on the air after all, and with usually just 3 minutes to do it, I stop silly questions in their tracks and turn them into opportunities to be useful to anyone listening 😉

However, there are many other individuals who employ the use of other methods with inspiring results, in the language learning world.

Let’s take a look at a collection of polyglots from around the globe – their stories, what inspired them to take up language learning and what you can learn from them.

Richard Simcott: The Multilingual Ambassador with a Language Addiction

“Language carries the culture of the country that uses it and when you internalise it, it becomes a part of you too.” – Richard Simcott

Richard Simcott’s fascination with languages started as a child. At school he began studying languages and there started an addiction that he knows will continue on for the rest of his life.

Richard has studied more than 40 languages over the years and can speak in over 16 (English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Latvian, Russian, Macedonian, Norwegian, Swedish, Chinese and Ladino, to name a few!). His love of learning languages has led him to be named the ‘Multilingual Ambassador’ for the Goethe Institut, as well as founding the Polyglot Conference. He is also raising his daughter to be multilingual – regularly speaking to her in English, French, German and Spanish.

Richard makes a point to study languages every day, anywhere from a single hour, up to eight. He also likes to visit a country with native speakers of whichever language he may be learning at the time, as he believes immersion is a key factor in making things stick.

Richard notes that his greatest struggle with language learning is time. Along with juggling his day to day responsibilities of parenthood, work and university study, he feels there never will be enough time to learn all he wants in life, but he will continue on with his language learning until his body can no longer take it.

Susanna Zaraysky: “Language is Like Music”

“For me, the key to learning is being able to listen – paying attention to patterns, the fluctuations of speech and the emphasis in the words. I listen to foreign languages as though they are songs – and that’s how I remember words and the melody of speech.” – Susanna Zaraysky

Susanna Zaraysky began learning languages from an early age. Her family left the Soviet Union when she was three, immigrating to the United States, where she was forced to learn English quickly. She went on to study nine other languages (French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Serbo-Croatian, Ladino, Hebrew, Arabic and Hungarian) and has travelled to over 50 countries.

She notes that while vocabulary and grammar are essential factors to language learning, it is important to supplement your studies with accompanying resources that make learning fun. She believes using TV, radio, music and film as additions to your language lessons reinforces the basic cornerstones of what you are already having to learn.

Susanna in particular cites music as being a key part of her language learning, saying it’s the perfect way to improve your accent, pronunciation, timing and grammar. Above all, she believes that the most important part of learning language is how it makes you feel. She states that she has a different way of expressing herself, depending on which of her languages she is speaking, a side effect of being a polyglot that enriches her life.

Alex Rawlings: Britain’s Most Multilingual Student

“Languages are an asset for whatever you want to do in life. They open your mind to worlds you never knew were there. They introduce you to amazing people that you might otherwise have just walked by.” – Alex Rawlings

In 2012, a competition was held across the UK to discover Britain’s most multilingual student. Alex Rawlings, age 20, tested for fluency in 11 different languages (English, Greek, German, Danish, Russian, Hebrew, Catalan, Italian, French, Afrikaans and Spanish), before taking out the coveted title.

Since graduating from Oxford, he has been leading the nomadic lifestyle (much like myself), travelling and living across Europe as he adds more languages to his arsenal, such as Hungarian and Serbian. He now teaches languages and both attends and runs polyglot events.

Alex has succeeded in learning languages largely because he discovered a way that worked for him. He notes that most people who study languages in an academic setting don’t really learn them – they are taught them. Once you’ve finished the subject pass or fail, you’ll probably forget whatever it was you’ve learned for the rest of your life.

To gain any kind of success in learning languages, Alex had to find a way that worked for him. Immersion has been a key factor in his success. His first language was Greek, which he began learning due to his heritage – growing up with a Greek mother. As a keen traveller, he’s happily travelled to and spent time in countries, which have languages of interest to him.

Now that he has figured out a way of language learning that suits him, he is able to apply this method to go on to become fluent in others, as he proved when he moved to Budapest to learn Hungarian.

I onced asked Alex how he manages to compartmentalise his languages, to not mix them up when speaking and keep them fresh in his memory. He said that as he is a visual person, he pictures his languages as having something to do with weather – Russian in his head is cold and Spanish makes him think of the beach. Focusing on these images helps him stick to whichever language he is speaking at the time.

Luca Lampariello: Languages Cannot Be Taught – They Can Only Be Learned

“I’m constantly exploring in the languages I’ve learned through the written word, and this exploration helps me to connect the dots.” – Lucas Lampariello

Italy is a country that is infamous for being monolingual – yet Luca Lampariello has managed to reach a high level in ten languages (Italian, English, French, German, Spanish, Swedish, Russian, Dutch, Portuguese and Mandarin Chinese), studying many of them while living in his home country.

His breakthrough in language learning came at the age of 10, when his mother hired an American tutor who guided him through the English language, rather than just teaching it. He found that he had the greatest success through reading and being OK with making mistakes – taking up the ultimate challenge of completing Steven King’s novel “It” in English, despite his learning level at the time (and age!).

He found that although reading helped build his vocabulary, it went a step further in helping his comprehension by putting words it into context.

The One Characteristic All Polyglots Share

From all the polyglots mentioned above, one thing becomes abundantly clear. Each individual, through trial and error, found a method of language learning that worked for them. They then continued to apply this method again and again as they went on to learn multiple languages.

If you want to be successful in language learning, you will need to do the same.

Experiment. Don’t be scared to try new approaches, if you find others don’t work as well for you. You’ll soon discover the way that works best. And from there… who knows how many languages you could learn? The sky’s the limit.

Benny Lewis

Founder, Fluent in 3 Months

Fun-loving Irish guy, full-time globe trotter and international bestselling author. Benny believes the best approach to language learning is to speak from day one.

Speaks: Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Esperanto, Mandarin Chinese, American Sign Language, Dutch, Irish

How many languages can you speak?

Just like the title says, how many languages can you speak? Actually fluent in, not counting bits and pieces. 1,2,3 or more? Post which ones if you want.

I myself am only fluent in one. 🙁 Hopefully before I die I can make it two or more. lol. I want to learn czech and german (I’m 25% of each) and maybe one more. 😀 I know a little czech, only like touristy phrases though, such as; where is ___? can I have ___? how much is ____? how are you? Stuff like that.

Anyway, post up! 😀

Answers and Replies

I speak only 1. But I went to school with a good friend that spoke 6:

English
French
Spanish
Arabic (2 dialects)
Japanese

I can speak most dialects of English.. that’s at least 4 languages!

I’m Australian but I speak American-English with a hint of British-English. None of this «G’day Mate! ho’ya doin’?» «Ya! good mate! Yah!» «Hows tee misses?» «Shes doin’ alright aye! No worries dere mate!» «Mate! We gotta catch-up. Hava XXXX. We shoulda tak’ tee old Commondore for a spin». Poor representation. I know. Sorry but it is fair worse than that.

That is hands down a language on its own.

I can also speak a substantial amount of German. I have had 2 attempts at learning French but failed on both occasions. I endeavour, after graduation, to move to a Scandinavian country. So we can say two for now and another potential future prospect.

The question is actually slightly ambiguous since it depends on what you mean by «fluent».

When I moved to England 4 years ago I THOUGHT I was fluent in English; but having to deal with estate agents, set up a bank account, home insurance etc proved me wrong.
I quickly realized that there were plenty of words/expressions that I did now understand that are actually quite common in the «everyday» English (I e.g. did not know what a current account was); I also realized that there is huge difference between being able to understand what the actors in a Hollywood movie are saying and being able to understand someone sitting in a call-centre in northern Scotland. It took me a couple of years to reach a point where I felt comfortable talking to e.g. my bank over the phone.

I should point out that I’ve never had any problems at work, most of my English colleagues speak «Oxbridge» English which is easy to understand; and as long as the conversation centred around physics I was OK (I did my PhD in a very international group, so even when I was working in Sweden I spoke English most of the time while at work).

That’s a different language
Estate agent (=Realtor) to English

Benefits From: Contains a feature you may expect to be the bare minimum for the extraordinary price you are paying.
Example: «Benefits from roof, floors, walls».

Bijou: Would suit contortionist with growth hormone deficiency.

Borders: Loose term signifying that a property is sufficiently close to a desirable area to ensure the burglars who live next door to you will travel to work.
Example: «Fidel Castro’s house is situated in the highly desirable Bahamas Borders area».

Characterful: A neat disguise for old and falling down.

Compact: See Bijou, then divide by two.

Convenient For: A deceptive term with two possible definitions depending on the object of the phrase:
Eg «Convenient For A40» means your garden doubles as the hard shoulder
Whereas «Convenient For local amenities» means you can run to the shops. If you are Paula Radcliffe.

Four bedrooms: Three bedrooms and a cupboard.

In Need of Modernisation: In need of demolition.

Internal Viewing Recommended: Looks awful on the outside.

Mature Garden: The local AZ marks your garden as Terra Incognita.

Original Features: Water tank still contains cholera bacterium.

Priced to Sell: Please, oh go on please.

Studio: You can wash the dishes, watch the telly, and answer the front door without getting up from the toilet.

That’s okay, it’s just as much a difference in understanding American English as it is being able to understand someone sitting in a call center in India.

Being a typical American, I’m only fluent in English. I can manage well enough though with switching around consonants and vowels at the end of words and sticking some extra vowels into the middle of words, and replacing z’s with s’s, and for that matter, switching my zees to zeds, to be fluent in Canadian and British English as well. It takes a little refreshing of my memory, but when speaking with someone who only knows British English, I can remember to use the other words for things too. like calling the elevator a lift, and fries chips and chips crisps, etc. I still get befuddled a bit by Australian English.

OK polyphones, can anyone identify this language?

La edzon mi ne konas, sed mi ofte vidas lian edzinon.

Better yet, translate it.

OK polyphones, can anyone identify this language?

La edzon mi ne konas, sed mi ofte vidas lian edzinon.

Better yet, translate it.

That rather depends on what you count as speaking a language. About 3-5.

Plus smatterings of other languages.

im a malaysian with chinese heritage

I have been thinking about how much good it would do for language diversity if everyone would learn at least one majority and one minority language in addition to whatever language they are already fluent in.

The reason I say two is because people tend to select languages on the basis of the number of speakers globally. If everyone would only choose to learn languages that already have large numbers of speakers, how would minority languages ever gain speakers except through parent-children transfers and those who have some specific reason to focus on a particular minority language?

Ideally, there also needs to be a global effort to integrate language communities so that individuals can practice multiple languages in the same city. Such integration should ideally happen in all sizes and types of cities to avoid the risk of some cities becoming magnets for monolingualism and xenophobia, where people feel that they are being «outnumbered» by multilinguals in other areas.

Multilingualism shouldn’t be a choice, it should be standard. Language is acquired through exposure and practice, so the only reason why anyone in the world avoids learning any language is because they, for one reason or another, escape or are excluded from social situations where they would be exposed and expected to practice multiple language in everyday situations on a regular basis.