Is becoming a polyglot difficult?

[Mr Rayon]

Is it hard to become one? Would it be easy if you constantly travelled overseas to different countries?

I'm interested in learning Mandarin, Arabic and pretty much the other major languages spoken in Asia (e.g. Russian, Japanese, Korean). I am already conversational in Indonesian. Though I learnt Indonesian by accident while living in Indonesia while I was younger. I have no interest in Indonesian and I think it more of as an extension of English due to the large similarities. I also have no interest in learning European languages as these are all predominantly similar to English and less interesting as well.

 

I am considering learning Mandarin next year, maybe at university as part of a student exchange or study abroad program. If I do, anyone got any recommendations of how I should behave or act/do to get the maximum benefit from my experience? Would spending a year in China as opposed to 6 months lead to any big differences in terms of fluency in Mandarin?

Edited December 18, 2010 by Voltman

[mytechuniverse]

I doubt it would be easy, even if you travel often. I believe polyglots must be fluent and proficient in many languages, which requires hard study. It is difficult to become proficient in a language through osmosis. Think about English class; you have to take it even if you are a native. The same concept applies, and this means that simply traveling a lot won't make you a polyglot. However, if you truly enjoy languages, then being a polyglot can be great for finding jobs. Many jobs are always in need of employees who are multilingual. I myself speak Spanish fairly well, but that took quite a bit of study to accomplish.

[Marat]

There is one key to learning a foreign language well which they never tell you in language class: If you get a girlfriend/boyfriend who speaks only the language you are trying to learn, and the two of you live together for sex months or so, that is amazingly effective in promoting your knowledge of that language. When everything from your emotional life to the management of the joint apartment and the shared finances depends on how well you can say "You keep telling me that guy is your brother but why doesn't he look anything like you?" clearly in her native language, then you have a very special motivation to learn it well.

 

The Austrian-American movie director Billy Wilder said the same thing, by the way, and his English was unaccented and almost perfect.

[Mr Rayon]

There is one key to learning a foreign language well which they never tell you in language class: If you get a girlfriend/boyfriend who speaks only the language you are trying to learn, and the two of you live together for sex months or so, that is amazingly effective in promoting your knowledge of that language. When everything from your emotional life to the management of the joint apartment and the shared finances depends on how well you can say "You keep telling me that guy is your brother but why doesn't he look anything like you?" clearly in her native language, then you have a very special motivation to learn it well.

 

Hahaha, Marat you're sending me subliminal messages; above you said sex months instead of six months!

But yeah, I see your point. Personally, I think I'd prefer to marry a foreigner than a native speaker so that I can actually have legitimate reasons to travel overseas and such. It would make me a more culturally rich person and also less prone to cultural bias, racism and prejudice which in my opinion are all ugly things.

[HAL9000]

In my opinion it is really hard to become a polyglot unless you actually study languages (e.g. at a university) for your future profession(...or you are one of those hal9000-type machines stuffed with all the knowledge of the world). Even then it is usually a tough task to keep the knowledge of all the languages you study at the same level of fluency, i.e. to be no less fluent than you are in your mother tongue.

 

I see myself as an example of someone, who speaks three languages (including my mother tongue) but does not have full command of any of them. In fact, my knowledge of the mother tongue has deteriorated dramatically ever since I left the country where it is spoken.

 

But that is a price we have to pay if we wish to establish a really global community with a fully new means of communication, which is "multilined" and not fixed on one single language environment.

Edited December 18, 2010 by HAL9000

[Mr Rayon]

Of particular relevance, Emil Krebs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_Krebs) managed to reach fluency in 68 languages. And I think he was already fluent in 12 when he started university. Pretty remarkable especially at a time when there was no internet or extensive migration between countries like we have now.

[Marat]

There is also an interesting phenomenon that people whose native language is grammatically extremely complex, like Russian, always seem to have an easier time mastering languages whose grammar is simpler, while those who start off with a native language having very little visible grammatical structure, such as English, have a harder time learning a new language. Thus if you go down the complexity gradient, starting out with a native knowledge of Russian, then learning German, then English, and then Spanish, you will progress much further in becoming a polyglot than by proceeding in the opposite direction.