How many languages can you maintain at a high level?

I am brazilian and have C2 English, C1 French, Spanish and German (going onto C2), C1 Dutch and A2 Russian (going on to 1) end Italian. Wishing to go further.

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@Weltbummler78 What do you teach/research? That sounds like the path I’m trying to head in (just submitted my first Ph.D. application recently and working on another now).

I work on biomaterials for biomedical applications, which is a topic of research in many countries, including those where people speak the languages which I am interested in :slight_smile:

Hey @Ron,

While my Languages aren’t all C level, I find that I can keep 3-5 active at a time with less effort, on top of my job and family. There are some studies suggesting 6 really is the cap in a multilingual environment before a person must consciously put more energy into keeping more languages active. I would recommend reading “Babel No More”, which does look at this question some.

Personally, I only have about 3 languages integrated into my life on a regular basis, so keeping 5 active takes work, and one of those is usually a lower level language that I am focusing on. Having said that, when a language is at a higher level, it takes less effort to keep it active or to reactivate it. But the truth is you only hace so much time in the day.

The idea is that ~6 makes sense when you look at those who grow up in multilingual environments but aren’t language enthusiasts. There success comes from the environment itself, and you have to really start shifting your active life, just like you are already doing, to keep bringing those languages into your life. This is a common theme with some of the hyperpolyglots where you find they are focused in the languages spoken around them in their community (@polyglotconference is a good example in Skopje). When the language you want to learn just isn’t spoken around you, you need to be realistic that maybe that ~6 langs might just be ~4-5 to compensate for all the extra effort you have to put into it. (Unless you have the time to really focus on more at a time, but with other demands on life that becomes hard)

At least, that’s been my experience.

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Just since you’re bringing up iTalki… I have had no issues at all with Japanese tutors being reliable and I figured it was the fact that was paying that helped this along. But I’m at a B2 level and I can carry on a good conversation. My Korean iTalki tutor seems to show up for lessons only 50% of the time though. I think its because my beginner Korean means more work for her? I’ve had this issue with Spanish in the past too which also was beginner level. Maybe I need to flatter my tutors so they will show up for lessons :laughing:

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I think it depends on your target language. If you’re learning Chinese finding language partners is easy. When I was learning Japanese I felt the same way as you about doing a language exchange. But really if your skills are weak they’ll just end up speaking more English and being happy about it probably. But maybe another reason to get a good tutor.

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What I try to do, even though it is sometimes difficult to be consistent with it, is to focus on 2 languages per day, one stronger and one weaker one. Ideally, I spend half an hour to an hour studying the weaker language in the morning, and then carry some flash cards in that language around with me during the day that I revise whenever I have a moment. A vocab app like Memrise or Anki fulfil the same purpose, but always in the language of the day. And I talk to myself or my cat in that language. And in the evening I read something or watch a film in the stronger language of the day where it is not so much about learning loads of new words but about maintaining what I know. I also try to have regular language exchanges, chat groups and/or lessons in as many languages as I can fit in. And when I learn a new language, I try to spend half an hour with it every day, either in the morning or at lunchtime.

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@PaulW i’ve never thought about them just being able to get more English time. :exploding_head: that’s a win win. Thanks that helps a lot

Short and somewhat vague answer, from my experience, is half a dozen. Depends on definition of a high level of course.

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Yeah. Chances are quite good they’ll be happy for the extra English practice. If their English isn’t up to it you’ll probably be able to tell and they’ll end it after 10 minutes or so. One problem is that a lot of people learning English get a little selfish or maybe speak to a lot of beginners and end up expecting exchanges to be mostly English. But that’s another problem for later.