How many languages can a person learn in their lifetime?

[leosmith]

I saw this question asked recently, and was curious what you think. For the purpose of this poll, I'm actually asking how many languages a person could reach the ability to converse at a B2 level or better in, concurrently. By this definition, someone who can speak 10 languages should be able to speak them at the B2 level or better one after the other.

Edited poll title, and allowed people to change their vote.

[Xenops]

We know that Professor Arguelles could speak quite a few, and there's other polyglots from history that could speak many. I would think that reaching a B2 level in 20-30 languages is more obtainable than reaching 10-20 to the C2 level, or perhaps reaching B2 in 30 is the equivalent of 10 to C2 level.

[dampingwire]

Give or take 1000 hours per language (accounting for personal study time too) at 40 hours per week, that's two languages per year. Starting at 18 (you're in school before then!) and "retiring" at 70 that gives you 52 years.

So 104 languages if you make a full time career out of it.

I can't find any claims that anyone has ever reached three digits: Mezzofanti knew 39, Ziad Fazah claims 59, Kenneth Hale had "over 50". Are there any higher claims?

[Ani]

So in the title you say "a person" and then you say

For the purpose of this poll, I'm actually asking how many languages you can reach the ability to converse at a B2 level or better in, concurrently.

. So that seems like we should answer this poll with what we think are our personal capabilities in this lifetime? Your poll options are too large to be very useful because like 98% percent of people reading this will be under 20 and the next 1.999% will be in the second category.

Of course if you are trying to measure self esteem.. I'm sure you'll get votes a lot higher than have been demonstrated realistic.

[dampingwire]

So in the title you say "a person" and then you say

For the purpose of this poll, I'm actually asking how many languages you can reach the ability to converse at a B2 level or better in, concurrently.

. So that seems like we should answer this poll with what we think are our personal capabilities in this lifetime?

If you read "you" as "one" then I think that's what the poll is asking: "how many languages do you think it is possible for a person to learn".

[aaleks]

For me the best case scenario would be to learn three languages to a B2 or better (in all skills): English, French, German. But a more realistic scenario is a B2 receptive/passive, i.e. reading and listening, in French and German, and maybe not as realistic as desired to learn English to a C2 level. This doesn't mean that there are no other languages I'm interested in, but I try to be realistic.

If "you" means "one" my answer to the poll will be the same - less than 20. IMO people who learned more than 20 languages are an exception (actually those who learn 10-15-20 are an exception as well).

edit: typos

[rdearman]

I know a fellow who knew 5 languages before he was 18. He lived near the border of France & Italy, he spoke French, Italian, English, German, Spanish. I think his mother was German & Father Spanish. Learned English in school and French & Italian from locals. So, assuming he continued on learning at 1-2 languages a year he could have learned at least 5 more to a high level. His English was flawless, and easy C2.

[LinguaPony]

Bella Devyatkina speaks 8 languages at the age of 5. At 4 she could speak 7 languages: Russian, English, French, German, Spanish, Chinese and Arabic, and then she also learnt Italian. At this rate she can be quite good by the time she is 40. Probably even better than Sauerwein with his 75 languages.

But being so much older than Bella, I have to set much less ambitious goals for myself. 8 languages by 2027, with four of them at C2 and the rest at C1 would be a success.

[DangerDave2010]

I guess I can only learn a small number of languages, before I lose interest in language learning.

[iguanamon]

I've probably reached my personal limit for high level languages. It takes a lot of effort and sacrifice to keep them at a high level. Leosmith has written before about B2 being the "sweet-spot" for languages in that a language at this level doesn't need to be studied but merely maintained. It also takes less time and effort aiming for B2 to get most of the same benefits that a learner acquires by advancing to C levels at much greater cost to time and effort. I can't fault his logic. He's on to something here as it relates to quantity over quality.

If I learn any more languages, I think B2 may/should be the logical stopping point for me... but I'm not logical... if I were, I would have never learned Djudeo-espanyol/Ladino. It's a double-edged sword. I know that learning a language to B2 is enough, but I also know what C levels will do for me. That being said, there is indeed such a thing as good enough, as Leosmith has proven. He's more well rounded in languages than I am. It is a rare polyglot who has over a half a dozen languages at C2 or even C1.