Not realized, yet hopefully by the end of 2021
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Iâm not a polyglot yet, but for the longest time I didnât even consider myself bilingual. Bilingual, that means you speak two languages fluently, right? Well, my English isnât fluent, so Iâm not bilingual⊠Until I saw a meme about being multilingual and I related so much! Thatâs when I realised I shouldnât be so tough on myself and that even if youâre not fluent in a language, it still counts as long as you can express yourself without too much effort. I speak three languages now 
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I first came across the word âpolyglotâ towards the end of 2018. Curious to know what it meant, I went to check it up in the dictionary : (adj) able to speak or write several languages. Born in a multilingual family, my native languages are Korean, Chinese and Taiwanese. Iâve learnt English, Malay and Indonesian to a âfluentâ level at that time and I was conversational in Vietnamese, Cantonese and Japanese then too, So I thought to myself, âI am a Polyglot!â
However, as the year goes by, I began to think about the real meaning of a polyglot. I feel that to be considered a polyglot, one must be able to communicate without much difficulty in at least more than 8~9 languages. I am currently âfluentâ in 6 languages and learning 5 other languages.
So do I consider myself as a polyglot? Technically speaking, yes according to the dictionary meaning. However, personally I would consider myself as multilingual instead. Iâll probably have to wait till my B level languages (Vietnamese and Cantonese) to become more âfluentâ, or at least reach C1 to call myself a polyglot.
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You even though are considered a Hyperpolyglot.
I wouldnât consider myself a Hyperpolyglot because I am only fluent in 6 languages and the rest are just at a conversational level at the moment
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When I defied everyone who doubted at my progress in learning Russian. But thanks to a monolingual Russian lady who I met in Russia in 2017 who actually changed my learning curve to an exponential curve.
Since then I was known within my circle as âThe Polyglotâ!
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I had always called myself an âaspiring polyglotâ as not to take a label I didnât truly merit. However, as the definition is so variable and I use at least 3 languages in my daily activities, while working on improving others, Iâve become more comfortable with calling myself a polyglot, and itâs just simpler that way. My view is that if you are genuinely interacting with multiple languages in your daily life, you can call yourself a polyglot.
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I like that. I will use that to refer to myself.
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I didnât know the term polyglot until I was invited to join a weekly polyglot meetup. I was like soooo what do you do there exactly? 
And then it clicked that people who spoke multiple languages are actually polyglots. This is when I figured out I probably was one, too.
But the mastery of language in its entirety is quite impossible that I am not sure we can even call anyone a polyglot, especially when we are talking about live languages, to which new terms and expressions are added every day.
Zeina
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You are just too modest. If you arenât a polyglot then we donât find many polyglots here in this conference. Your list of languages is very impressive. But of course, the label âpolyglotâ isnât the most important thing, rather your love of learning languages. And there is always room for improvement, you are right.
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For me a polyglot has to keep his / her language levels active. This is my defenition of a (hyper-) polyglot. See my interview on HYPIA on this topic. I was already in my thirties when I went to university again with the aim to learn new languages and maintaining the levels later on. In Germany when I was younger more the expression âSprachgenieâ was used instead of âPolyglotâ. But I cannot remember that anybody referred to my using such expressions, when I was under 30 years old.
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I second the notion!
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Indeed, us (Hyperpolyglots) we have to do juggling with languages. Imagine to have a dozen of balls, one for each language. You speak a language, you pick a ball. But you have to keep juggling the remaining balls with only one hand. Then, you change languages. You begin again to make juggling the balls with both hands but you have then to pick another different ball with the other hand and keep making juggling with the remaining balls with the other hand⊠I love it! I love to be a Hyperpolyglot!
And by the way I also obtained my major degree (Journalism) in my thirties! (when I was 38; now I have 42)
This is interesting that you obtained your university diploma of Journalism âlateâ. I obtained my first professional diploma âBĂŒrokauffrauâ at age 39, at that age other office employees already have 20 years of work experience.
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Und ich habe jetzt gerade (mit 55) noch ein Studium abgeschlossen. Ich arbeite als muttersprachliche Lektorin in Ungarn, und dann kam ein Gesetz raus, dass man ein Staatsexamen braucht, wenn man in Ungarn an einer Schule unterrichten will. Aber ich finde es gut, wenn man sein Gehirn auch spÀter noch anstrengt. Das Studium hat richtig Spaà gemacht, auch wenn ich es nicht freiwillig begonnen habe.
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Da spricht auch nichts dagegen im höheren Alter noch BerufsabschlĂŒsse abzulegen. Ich habe mit 46 Jahren noch die IHK - PrĂŒfung zur Fremdsprachenkorrespondentin bestanden. Aber ich hatte auch im fortgeschrittenen Alter kaum Berufserfahrung und wenn die Arbeitgeber jĂŒngere Leute mit 20 oder noch mehr Jahren relevanter Berufserfahrung einstellen können, dann tun sie das. Nach dem Abitur wollte ich studieren, das weiĂ man ja vorher nicht dass es spĂ€ter GrĂŒnde geben wird, diese StudiengĂ€nge nicht zu beenden.
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This is interesting. I only know until recently, because in where I am from - Hong Kong, people âusuallyâ âknowâ three languages - so most people believe anyway, but in truth, the majority of people do two badly and one well depending on oneâs educational/academic achievement.
Weirdly, since I became an adult, left Hong Kong, wrote a book in Chinese, and moved around for a few times, I pushed the two Hong Kongâs non-native languages higher than my fellow Hong Kongers. Then I started to learn Japanese to a conversational/able to read a simple friction level. Now Iâm living in a Scandinavian country learning a Scandinavian language.
Until then, I started to believe that I could potentially be called a polyglot. I guess the most important defining moment is when I can confidently say that I have three languages super solid as in I can work professionally and write at a very high level.
For the rest, as long as they are at a conversational and able to watch tv level, I would say they count as a language. Then over 4 languages count as polyglot??? Maybe Iâm just making it convenient for myself now⊠sorry everyone⊠haha
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Love these responses, such an interesting question!
Recently Iâve been thinking and conversing a lot on just this - and Iâm with @Savanna - thereâs a difference for me between âknowing a bunch of languages wellâ and âbeing/self-identifying as a polyglot.â
I am one of those ones who took to traditional grammar-focused ways of learning languages pretty well, so I doubled up (which sadly means âmore than the normâ in the US) in languages throughout my schooling, and peers and teachers called me âgifted at languages.â I was passionate about language, but more on the linguistics side - which fits with my heavy focus on math and physics through college.
When my language learning really exploded and when I started self-identifying as a polyglot was when I noticed I was pretty much dedicating all my leisure time to languages in some way. I placed out of language in college and saw classroom instruction in them as a waste of time and course slots, but then I returned to them in a big way with learning and teaching online and intense summer study (Iâm a schoolteacher) after graduating.
The identity vs. âlanguage collectingâ piece is big for me . I sort of shrugged it off and felt alternately like a circus act or shy when people introduced me as the genius language kid who was âfluent inâ X number of languages. Now that I have many friendships with people who donât share English as a mother tongue, I self-identify as a polyglot. I donât feel I have different personalities in my different languages - but I do have different lived experiences in each of them. When I really feel like a language is core to me is when I can create and perform in it and when I âfeelâ in it - for example, if Iâm having an anxiety spiral, itâs at least a sign of acquiring the langauge deeply if my beating myself up is in Latin!
This was already a long answer (to a deep question, thank you!) - but I wrote up my âpolyglot biographyâ in detail here:
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When I was travelling through Europe!! I thought ~Hey I donât need the google translator, Iâm speaking and writing all by my own and people understand me!
Sometimes we donât trust in our knowledge⊠thatâs sad!
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@PinAngel this is exactly how I feel also, both with being a language enthusiast who yearns to be a polyglot, but I havenât reached a level with my languages where I can claim that title. And also with not being able to drop languages that are presenting opportunities in my life.
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