How many languages can a person learn in their lifetime?

[Serpent]

interviews with polyglots who can speak dozens of languages with varying degrees of proficiency (conducted by Erik V. Gunnemark and Dmitri L. Spivak) reveal that the number of languages they believe they know "fluently, deeply and completely" tends to be 7 ± 2.

"fluently, deeply and completely" is certainly above B2 though - but I would assume the list includes one's native language(s). Sorry, haven't watched the video.

I voted for 50-100. I've never aimed to speak that many languages myself - in fact I started most languages I want(ed) to learn before I was 20.

BTW I was shocked when I read the words "Professor Argüelles could speak quite a few" Seems like I haven't missed any bad news.

[DaveBee]

In the video posted by Peterhof Mr Kazakov mentions the observed limit being linked to working memory (7 +/-2).

It would be interesting to know if polyglots use less active vocabulary in their native language. If working memory is the limit (all languages being active simultaneously) then presumably the shades of meaning vocabulary options in any one language would be diminished.

[PeterMollenburg]

Maybe the most impressive multi-language demonstration video I've seen is this one with Emanuele Marini speaking 16 languages at the Polyglot Conference in Budapest in 2013.

Great to see all these (mostly) European languages. It would be nice to see a few asian languages in the mix too.

Very glad I watched that video. Very inspiring. Thanks for sharing leosmith!

[Henkkles]

My guess is that you could pass 50-100 B2-level language tests in your life, but actual active prowess on that level in like 12 at a time, on stimulants.

[LinguaPony]

That video with Emanuele Marini talking to other polyglots at the Conference is one of my favourites, and I have watched it I don't know how many times. But here is another one I love even more - firstly because it's the first polyglot video I ever watched (my husband found it for me ) and secondly because it's completely spontaneous and not prearranged.



These two language prodigies haven't been to any conferences yet, AFAIK, but it doesn't make their achievements less impressive.

[jeff_lindqvist]

Thanks for sharing! I haven't seen this video before (nor any of the polyglots).

[Xenops]

BTW I was shocked when I read the words "Professor Argüelles could speak quite a few" Seems like I haven't missed any bad news.

Sorry! That's not what I meant. I suppose because we haven't heard news from him one way or another, I put his ability in the past tense. I had even tried to send him a fan-email through the Emirates university he works for, but alas to no avail.

[dampingwire]

This analysis is (perhaps deliberately?) completely devoid of any time required to maintain languages, which, if taken into consideration, would reduce this calculated final number massively.

I didn't consider maintenance at all. But since I've only allocated 40 hours of study time per week, I expect that our hypothetical super-polyglot
could spend his or her remaining 40 waking hours per week in maintenance

Personally I would love to be able to speak a dozen or so languages to B2, but beyond that I think I would actually like to use them for something. I can imagine language study as a hobby, but once it reaches 40 hours per week, every week, every year for life, I think it's crossed some kind of boundary that I, for one, wouldn't want to cross.

But if you want to, you can knock off 20% to allow for maintenance.

[tarvos]

I think a dozen or so languages to B2 is pretty doable (case in point: yours truly). More than twenty seems possible, if a lot of these languages are related to each other. But 20 of them including Japanese, Hungarian, Arabic, Mandarin, Vietnamese and Swahili seems like a pretty hard thing to do.

Nearly all of my language originate in one of three families, with the exception of Mandarin and Esperanto (which I count as Romance anyway). So yeah. And I don't speak any of the others to a high enough level with the slight exception of Modern Greek.

[PeterMollenburg]

I think most of us here are also assuming the person X,Y or Z with our hypothetical individuals doesn't have to work and is therefore financially free? I tell you what, if I had my time over again I would do it COMPLETELY differently with regards to finances and I'd be spending many more hours a day now, i.e. at this point in my life, on language learning, rather than acting my part as a robot in the mass human-robot machine, a.k.a. the matrix (of human distraction and enslavement).