Too many languages?

[xiaojiang216]

Hi everyone,

I'm in high school... and they only offer French, Spanish, and Latin as languages in my school. I must pass 2 classes, I think, of language to graduate. I've been taking Spanish since like 7th grade, and I'm in 10th now... But at the same time, I've been studying Mandarin for 3 years. But since they do not offer that, I'm studying with a Yale professor. I would like to study abroad in college, and I want to take up Cantonese also. Will this be too much for me? I really just want to focus on just Mandarin and Cantonese, but then again I'm in an advanced Spanish course... I'm in between a rock and a hard place!

Is there such thing as too many languages to learn at the same time? I'm sure there are many cunning linguists here that think it's no problem, but I was wondering what everyone thinks.

Thank you all verrrrrrrrrrry much!

[artichoke]

I went to school with a girl whose mother was Japanese, father was Swedish, she studied Spanish and French at an English speaking school ... at age 13 she spoke 5 language fluently and could read and write fluently in all of them.

I'm sure you'll cope just fine if you have the interest and motivation to work at keeping all of them current.

[in_lab]

Artichoke, she learned to speak Spanish fluently simply by attending elementary school? Must have been boarding school. When I was in elementary school, we had Spanish class for about an hour a month. We had Latin class a little more regularly, but it was actually just "mythology storytime" and we didn't really learn any latin.

xiaojiang, I'm not warning against studying too many languages, but there are other interesting subjects, like music, electronics, etc.

[wushijiao]

I took Russian and Spanish in high school, with no problems. In fact, I think learning how the grammar works became clearer to me than it would have been otherwise because I was doing it in two different languages. Also, the two languages aren't very close linguistically, so I never got them confused.

In college, I tried to take Chinese (as a hobby) at the same time as Spanish. This didn't work out simply because Chinese was 1/3 of my schedule.

In any case, I'd suggest sticking with Spanish while doing Mandarin at the same time. I think Cantonese might be a bit too much, and I doubt it would be too difficult to learn Cantonese if you had a solid base in Mandarin and had the right language environment (ie. living in Guangdong). Of course, you must ask, "why do I want to learn Cantonese?" If you love HK films, or have some Cantonese-speaking friends or family, then maybe you could strongly think about sticking with Cantonese as well. One's plan for learning a language should include one's motivation for learning it. But, I think there is no denying the fact that Mandarin is more useful, generally speaking.

There is also the question of how many languages can one person learn (to semi-fluency)? I don't know. For the average person, one or two. For some people who are fairly smart and curious about languages, maybe three. But, I have rarely met people who are fluent (let's define that as being able to understand TV, radio programs, and do work in an office or academic setting) in more than three languages.

One exception is my friend who is a native trilingual in Spanish, Italian and English. He lived in Israel (thus, decent Hebrew). He was a Chinese major in college and also speaks decent Cantonese. He also can do fairly well in Portugese (due to a former lover) and a bit of French. But he has a tremendous linguistic awareness, with three L1's to draw from. He is also very smart, and one of the most outgoing people I've ever met. So he constantly "produces language" when he learns, rather than just studying textbooks, or whatever. But, I think these types of people are extremely rare. However, if you are one of them xiaojiang, go for it!

[nipponman]

The last pope (not benedict) was said to be fluent in I think 12 languages. The man who translated the Kama Sutra into English was fluent in, I think, 20 languages.(Of course he's dead now).

[trusmis]

It's not a problem of "brain space" but time. If you have the free time to do it, I can assure that as human you are able. It also depend on your aims. Maybe you prefer to know a little of a lot of languages or maybe you prefer master a language, then move to the next one.

I

[Undermost Salamander]

the only real limit should be imposed by you.

that is, if you're finding it difficult to keep up with your studies in all the languages, or if you find you're getting confused, cut down. otherwise, fill your boots.

I'd caution against studying mandarin and cantonese concurrently (though not strongly). my friend was studying mandarin and japanese last school year, and he found that it was very difficult to remember which language he'd learned a character in--and therefore the correct pronunciation. but again, it really depends on your abilities and your focus. for example, I'm nearly hopeless with characters no matter what, so I focus more on the oral language which is harder to confuse.

also: if you have graduation requirements to fulfil, those should be your top priority.

[tluroc76]

Although it isn't too difficult to be fluent (read, write, speak) in several languages, not everyone is cut out to be a linguist. Often we (Chinese) are thought to be math wiz, not all of us are.

If you find studying a new language challenging and it doesn't deter you from wanting to learn it, you will have much better chance of succeeding it. If repeating, memorizing the sentence structure makes you tired, you know then it's not your bag.

All I'm saying is to do whatever interests you. Give your 100% commitment and don't quit because of a few obstacles. One big drawback is that if you don't use it often, you are bound to forget it. I studied Japanese on my own, learned the kata and hira-kana, tenses, sentence structure and grammar. I was able to carry a simple conversation in Japanese until I was transferred to a new job where there was zero Japanese speaking colleagues.

[Lu]

In high school, I studied English, German, French, Latin and Greek (and Dutch of course). When I graduated, I was fluent in English and German, had pretty good French, could translate Latin without much trouble and Greek with some more trouble and a big dictionary. (And my Dutch hadn't suffered from any of this.) I also studied Esperanto for a little while, but I didn't have enough self-discipline to keep that up.

So I say, go for it. If it doesn't work out you can always give one up.

[sailorphyn]

wushujiao - your assessment seems a little depressing! i think people can learn to speak an indefinite number of languages - it really just depends on having the right language environment and motivation (i.e., learn language X if you want to eat, get around, survive).. i think if you spent your moving every 3-4 years to completely different countries with completely different languages, you could speak a dozen or so languages reasonably well over a lifetime. some people think that knowing 3 or 4 or 5 languages is especially exceptional or impressive. it is if you are the average american, but certainly not if, for example, you're from continental europe. my boyfriend, purely by virtue of life experience and a little bit of pluck, speaks german, french, and english all fluently and also speaks reasonably good italian and spanish - i'm incredibly jealous, but that's par for the course in a lot of places. of course, if you stay in an english language environment your whole life and try and learn languages by studying books, taking classes, and finding language exchange partners then no, i don't think learning more than one or two foreign languages is realistic..

[johnmck]

In France students tend to learn a lot of languages. One day at work an engineer just out of school said something to me that I did not understand (I'm English and my French was "so so" at the time). When I asked for a grammatical explaination he said that the tense he used in French did not exist in English so he gave me an example in German. When I pointed out that my German was at basic survival level (i.e. I can order beer) he gave me an example in Latin:shock:

How many languages you can learn at one time depends upon ability, time and above all interest. I would guess the best people to help you answer this question are your teachers, they know you, your ability and how much workload the rest of your courses will give you.

[wushijiao]

wushujiao - your assessment seems a little depressing!

Sorry!

my boyfriend, purely by virtue of life experience and a little bit of pluck, speaks german, french, and english all fluently and also speaks reasonably good italian and spanish

This is certainly impressive, and I'm jealous as well. But, this reminds me of one of my co-workers. She's a native Romanian. Her English is flawless. Her German is flawless. Her French is great, and her Italian is coversational, if a bit limited, but still not bad. However, she has started to learn Chinese, and in spite of tremendous linguistic aptitude, and a fairly decent learning environmnet, her progress has not been nearly as quick as the other languages.

The reason (in my opinion)? Language families. When asking how many languages can a person learn, I think it is crucial to assess the linguistic foundation to languages have in common. For example, I have been to both Brazil and Portugal. Since I know Spanish, I ould understand quite a bit of Portuguese, especially written. I feel (perhaps wrongly) that if I were to live in Brazil, with my background knowledge of Spanish and English, and with my strong work ethic, I could probably learn Portuguese to a decent level within six month to a year.

I think this same thing could apply to Russians who go to the Ukraine wanting to know Ukrainian. Or Italians wanting to go to Spain. But, I've been also thinking of sometime down the road, trying to learn Arabic or Turkish. I'd estimate that these languages would take me probably 3-5 years to get to the level that I'd reckon I could get to in Portuguese, simply because the languages I already know give me almost no advatages in those said languages.

So, when I hear that a European can speak, say, Dutch, German, English, and French. I am impressed. Clearly, that still takes a lot of hard work. But it's not the same as learning Russian, Chinese, Hindi, and Arabic, for example.

Clearly, language environment makes a world of difference. Still, from research that I've read (and I can't remember where), most people (not including language dorks) only learn a language if they have to or are forced to do so, unfortunately. The Swiss example might bare this out. People are becoming less prone to learn German, Italian or French as third languages, and instead just use English as medium of communication.

[carlo]

Actual exposure and the need to communicate are the two single most important factors, IMHO. Even though as an Italian speaker I can pick up Spanish vocabulary grammar etc. very easily, still I learned Chinese much more successfully than I ever did Spanish, because I never had anyone to speak Spanish with. Even children in bilingual families don't learn what they don't need.

[wrbt]

http://www.spidra.com/fazah.html

When police in Rio picked up an illegal alien babbling in an apparently unintelligible tongue they turned to Ziad Fazah, reckoned to be the world's greatest linguist. "I soon realized he was from Afghanistan and spoke a dialect called Hazaras," the 40 year-old Lebanese immigrant said. Through Fazah's help, the man was able to explain how he had been tortured by the Russians and was able to get asylum here. Fazah, who has been living in Brazil for 21 years, is fluent in 56 languages, winning him a mention in the Brazilian edition of the "Guinness World Book of Records" as the world's greatest living polyglot.

(...)

Two years ago Fazah came to international attention when he had his abilities tested on a televised program in Spain. "They brought in people from Mongolia, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand," said Fazah, whose business cards proclaim the fact that he "reads, writes and speaks 54 languages fluently." (Since printing the cards he has picked up two more languages.) He also participated in a program in Greece, where he was tested in Hungarian, Czech, Korean, Chinese and Japanese.

[Lugubert]

I'd name Mr. Fazah not a linguist (he might be that as well, of course) but a polyglot. Being fluent in 56 languages isn't half bad. But look here for a guy (now deceased) who translated from 80, and a few other superpolyglots.

Erik Gunnemark, quoted as an author in the first post, is fluent in some 24 languages, and giving him a month to prepare, he can choose between 26 more in which he will be comfortable. Gunnemark is/was a friend of Czerniawski, Juutilainen, Kenrick and Nurmekund mentioned on the proz site.

According to Gunnemark, you should know at least 10 languages to earn the label "polyglot". Personally I translate professionally from six languages, and when I am more comfortable with Chinese, I'll claim the label (or would someone reading 10 be something else?)

[atitarev]

To Wushijiao

So, when I hear that a European can speak, say, Dutch, German, English, and French. I am impressed. Clearly, that still takes a lot of hard work. But it's not the same as learning Russian, Chinese, Hindi, and Arabic, for example.

You may have bad experience with Russian but it belongs to European group of languages still and has a lot of European roots, besides there are many borrowings. Being a phonetical language, it's not so hard to master when learning in the country. A year or two of exposure is enough, trust me. The grammar becomes natural when hear it used even if it's a complex one like Russian.

I find it very difficult to learn both Chinese and Japanese simultaneously but keep trying to match words and characters that are similar, that way I increase my vocabulary in both or at least keep it.

[HashiriKata]

You may have bad experience with Russian but it belongs to European group of languages still and has a lot of European roots, besides there are many borrowings. Being a phonetical language, it's not so hard to master when learning in the country. A year or two of exposure is enough, trust me.

Absolutely! I think any Westerner who has had a reasonable degree of success with learning Japanese or Chinese would find Russian just child's play (I don't use it now but I'm speaking from experience ).

[irishbob]

i dont think there's any limit to the amount of languages you can learn, it just depends if you have the devotion and motivation to do so. Like all irish people i learned English, Irish (gaelic) and French in school, then when i went to college i started German, Dutch and Mandarin aswell. I would say im more or less fluent in English, Irish, French and German and then i could understand most Dutch and Italian (because of an ex-lover), although my Mandarin is still basic.

But i think anyone could learn these and more if they wanted to, its all about motivating yourself to do the study (and practising helps aswell of course! )

[wushijiao]

Actually, atitarev, I had a fairly good experience with Russian! At one time, I was pretty good at Russian grammar. I also had a Ukrainian friend in high school, and we used to have some simple conversations in Russian. Unfortunately, in American colleges, languages generally take up a huge part of one’s schedule. If I had wanted to continue with Russian, I would have had to make it about 1/3 of my schedule, which would have necessitated attending at least one more year of college to graduate, which would have cost at least another $10,000. I figured I could have used that money to live in Russia, which as you said, would have been much more conducive to learning Russian.

When I wrote “Russian, Chinese, Hindi, and Arabic” I was simply trying to choose some languages in which knowing one would give you almost no advantage in learning the other because they belong to different language families. For example, as a native English speaker, trying to understand the news in Spanish is relatively easy because many of the words related to law and politics in English of their origins in either Latin or French. In contrast, as a native speaker of English, besides place names and a few tech-related loan words, trying to understand the news in Chinese is relatively difficult because almost all Chinese vocabulary is unrelated to English. In other words, if we had a contest between two people who were equally intelligent, talented, and diligent, and we asked them to each learn 5 languages to a reasonable standard of proficiency, and person A has to learn French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Catalan, while person B has to learn Japanese, Swahili, Welsh, Navaho, and German, who will win? I know who I would bet on.

Another example is my former colleague from Romania, who was a brilliant woman. She was 100% fluent in Romanian, French, English, and German, but also was fairly proficient in Italian and Russian. And yet, her Chinese never really got past a beginners level in her stay in China. Part of that could just be due to a lack of motivation, but part of it is due to the fact that learning Chinese is just a whole different ballgame.

[atitarev]

I see now, Wushijiao. I agree with you.

Thanks, HashiriKata. I can see there are a few former Russian learners here

I just want to add that Russian for native Chinese feels several times harder than English. They just get very confused about missing strict word order and relying mainly on grammatical endings. This puts off native English speakers as well but to a lesser extent. Having said that I know a lot of Chinese speaking fluently or in reasonable Russian thanks to their efforts and/or time spent in Russia.

Reaching a conversational level of Japanese (let's ignore reading/writing skills) is easier for a Westerner, IMHO with good exposure and good teachers. I went to both classes and while Chinese learners were still struggling a lot with tones when speaking and comprehension when listening, Japanese learners play games when they have to speak pretty fast, although Japanese is not an easy one, the pronunciation is quite simple and picking up what is said is much easier if you know the vocabulary used.

I get frustrated when I have trouble even understanding the Chinese text I read, translated and listened to before (a while ago) and know all individual words but I enjoy the challenge, although I don't have real motivation.