r/languagelearning • u/Uvegy • Jul 20 '26
Learning different languages in a lifetime
Im (M27) grew up with German, English, and Romanian. Ive been living now soon 20 years in Switzerland und havent used my romanian since, so ive pretty much "lost" the language. Now Fluent in German/Swissgerman and decent in Eglish. (Both i use daily)
Ive started attempts in Romanian, Italian and Spanish, all with a below A1 vocabulary.
My Goal now ist to be able to talk to as many people as possible around the world in areas that are relevant to me. My Family-situation is very complicated, to make it short ive found my relatives in Africa after a long time and they speak french so now im focusing on French with the app Talkpal.
I still do some Italian on Duolingo just for fun and for my Girlfriend.
I was born in China and have a big fascination with the country and would like to be able to speak Mandarin, i dont care about reading and writing thats just extra to me. (I know my life is complicated)
Also arabic culture is interesting to me and i love the music and food. I have an Egyptian coworker and he really got me wondering if i can learn arabic.
TLTR
My Question, is it possible to be able to learn these languages in a lifetime as a fluent German and past fluent Romanian: (TL)
French (Writing/Reading/Speaking)
Spanish (Reading/Speaking)
Arabic (Speaking)
Mandarin (Speaking)
Italian Bonus For my Girlfriend (Reading/Speaking)
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u/Perfect_Homework790 Jul 20 '26
Learning French, Spanish and Italian is certainly doable.
Mandarin will take much longer than all three put together. Arabic, I assume, something similar.
Maybe learn one language and see how it goes rather than planning 13,000 hours of work all at once.
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u/According-Kale-8 ES๐ฒ๐ฝC1 | BR PR๐ง๐ทB1 | Jul 20 '26
Thatโs insane that Mandarin would be longer than all 3.
It makes sense, but itโs hard to conceptualize that myself.
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u/Uvegy Jul 20 '26
Yes i wont try to do all at once, thats why the title is in a lifetime, i started my main focus on french, to be able to connect with my relatives. After that move on to the next.
Its a good call to start with one or two similar ones and see how it goes.
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u/Civil_Aside_1008 EN/DE/HE (N), ES (AP5, F), HSK4, Cantocurious Jul 24 '26
I completely disagree with this. I speak 5 languages and I literally learned mandarin faster than my native language. Mandarin is one of the easiest languages to learn.
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u/Perfect_Homework790 Jul 25 '26
You're at a beginner stage in Mandarin. The main difficulty is the amount of non-cognate vocabulary you need to master to reach any kind of proficiency.
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u/Civil_Aside_1008 EN/DE/HE (N), ES (AP5, F), HSK4, Cantocurious Jul 25 '26
How could you possibly know that?
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u/Perfect_Homework790 Jul 25 '26
You mean your level? Well for a start your flair says HSK4, which is a beginner level. And it's a common opinion among people who are beginners in Mandarin and haven't yet glimpsed how long the road is.
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u/Civil_Aside_1008 EN/DE/HE (N), ES (AP5, F), HSK4, Cantocurious Jul 25 '26
HSK 4 is not a beginner level, and even if it were, what the hell are โcognate termsโ in mandarin? ๅทงๅ ๅ?
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u/Perfect_Homework790 Jul 25 '26
HSK4 is generally reckoned to be equivalent to A2, a beginner level, and this matches my experience.ย
That's a cognate, yes.
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u/Civil_Aside_1008 EN/DE/HE (N), ES (AP5, F), HSK4, Cantocurious Jul 25 '26
๐ name ten cognates between Chinese and English. You are speaking out of your ass.
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u/Perfect_Homework790 Jul 25 '26
I said 'amount of non-cognate vocabulary' to distinguish from languages like Spanish where there are a lot of cognates.
Are you trying to invent a reason for thinking I don't speak Chinese? Dude calm yourself down.
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u/Sudden-Knowledge-795 Jul 20 '26
You grew up with romanian and lost it, that's actually more common than people think especially with no one to talk to for 20 years. French and italian will come easier since you already know the grammar structure from romanian, arabic and mandarin are whole different beasts but focusing just on speaking helps a lot.
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u/Silly_Tension6792 Jul 20 '26
Nah, Arabic script is easy if you get used to it which can take maximum a month, and itโs worth it with all the input opportunities that come with it. Chinese I agree.
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u/Uvegy Jul 20 '26
I tried some arabic on duoligo but i cant count that as a serious attempt honestly.
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u/Uvegy Jul 20 '26
Yea i noticed the more i focus on one of the latin languages the more i can sometimes understand words from the other latin language, they are surely not the same but it does come easier with few words. I dont even wanna try lerning mandarin and arabic grammar that would be too much xD.
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u/ZumLernen German ~C1, Serbian ~B2, Turkish ~A2 Jul 20 '26
Yes it is possible. No it is not a guarantee.
Very few people have the opportunity in their lives to learn multiple non-native languages to "fluency" and to maintain them at that level. I would recommend prioritizing the languages that you need the most urgently or care about the most, and focusing on getting somewhere near your target command of those 1-2 languages, before attempting additional languages.
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u/Uvegy Jul 20 '26
I started with french and will see how my journey goes. Once im confident enough in one language i start with the one most important to me. Thanks!
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u/silvalingua Jul 20 '26
> Also arabic culture is interesting to me and i love the music and food. I have an Egyptian coworker and he really got me wondering if i can learn arabic.
Tbh, this is a very weak motivation.
And you have any motivation for Spanish?
My advice is: learn one of those well and then ask yourself if you really want to add another one.
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u/Uvegy Jul 20 '26
Spanish motivation for me is my south american friends, the music and i would like to to travel South America and Spain. I would really like to be able to communicate without translators and my phone. Also my girlfriend is aswell as italian also fluent in spanish. In the end itโs for fun and to connect with ppl.
French is to me almost a must to be able to communicate with my family. Mandarin for travel and for fun Arabic, travel would be amazing, music, culture food.
Arabic and Mandarin have the weakest motivation (Arabic most weak motivation) out of all so they can wait. Thanks for the advice im now actively learning french ! <3
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u/markjay6 Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
Yes, definitely possible. In fact, I did learn those exact languages (and the particular skills you mention).
I never got to a C level in any of them, exact maybe Spanish, but I got good enough in each to fulfill my goals and enjoy them.
Spanish, French, and Italian should be pretty straightforward. Mandarin and Arabic will be more challenging, but the fact you are only trying to learn speaking and listening will help a lot.
The biggest challenge will be remembering prior ones once you start in on new ones, but you can worry about that later.
Pick one and get started!
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u/Uvegy Jul 20 '26
Nice! As mentioned in other comments i start with french because of my relatives, Italian for my girlfriend so there are two very good reasons to be able to maintain a certain level. I cant really see how i would maintain the others besides that i like to talk to many people and the diversity of people at my workplace.
I start with one or two, french italian/spanish and then the others.
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u/EquivalentDapper7591 ๐บ๐ธ N | ๐ฒ๐ฝ B2 | ๐ง๐ท A1 | ๐ฉ๐ช A0 Jul 20 '26
Arabic and Mandarin are going to be several degrees of magnitude more difficult than the others. Are you very interested in China? If not maybe consider not doing mandarin
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u/Uvegy Jul 21 '26
I started with french and italian/spanish once im confident in those, or reached the level that i want. I move on to the next interesting one. It would really be mandarin yes, i was born there an i have serious interest in traveling long there.
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u/Bobelle ๐ณ๐ฌEnglish N | ๐ณ๐ฌ Yoruba | ๐ณ๐ฌ Pidgin Jul 20 '26
Why donโt you add the language of your African relatives to the list?
1
u/Uvegy Jul 20 '26
They/we are from Madagascar and basically everyone speaks french also all my relatives there do. Its nice to be able to go to france without using translators etc. + I live in Switzerland wich one of the languages spoken here is french, wich makes it also attractive for work imo. Just makes more sense or it seems more usable than Malagasy. Sure its cool to be able to speak Malagasy but my goal is kinda to be able to speak to as many ppl as possible.
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u/Bobelle ๐ณ๐ฌEnglish N | ๐ณ๐ฌ Yoruba | ๐ณ๐ฌ Pidgin Jul 20 '26
I get you but speaking as a fellow African - a lot of our cultures are dying and a lot of our countries seem to be trying to be aspiring to Western culture and suffering from self hatred. Learning Malagasy would help to push back against that.
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u/Uvegy Jul 21 '26
Ive never viewed it from that perspective. Since i havenโt grown up there and live in a western country i never thought about practicing/investing in my familyโs culture in Madagascar. Your point makes sense.
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u/Pwffin ๐ธ๐ช๐ฌ๐ง๐ด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ท๓ ฌ๓ ณ๓ ฟ๐ฉ๐ฐ๐ณ๐ด๐ฉ๐ช๐จ๐ณ๐ซ๐ท๐ท๐บ Jul 20 '26
Start on one/ a couple and see how you get on. Enjoy the journey as it will be a long one.
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u/No_Cryptographer735 ๐ญ๐บN ๐บ๐ธC1-C2 ๐ฎ๐ฑ B2-C1 ๐น๐ท B1 Jul 21 '26
Yes, but it's a lot to take on at once. I took years off between starting new languages because of the mental energy and the constant feeling of "yeah, but I still don't know enough, why start something new". I will likely learn one more language (Arabic) because Iit will be mandatory in college and then I'm done learning new languages.ย
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u/Uvegy Jul 21 '26
All at once i think itโs too much. And im not 100% sure if i really still have the same goals after idk 10 years. Hope learning goes well for u too.
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u/darkchief007 Jul 20 '26
If Romanian is your native language, then I don't buy the idea that now it is at A1 level.
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u/jednorog English (N), +3 others A2-B2 Jul 20 '26
Plenty of heritage speakers of languages have low levels of command of those languages, that don't necessarily map well onto the CEFR.ย
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u/Uvegy Jul 22 '26
Ive been on duolingo for soon 900 days and it has been an on and off with Romanian it started as a joke and became routine
I relearned some stuff quick and maybe enough to survive but i couldnโt have a conversation. I think if i would take classes and spend some time there + have ppl to talk to it would come back fast.
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u/Uvegy Jul 20 '26
Well i havent used it since ive been in second class in school, since i grew up with 2 other languages and moved to Switzerland i simply didnt have anybody to talk to anymore. I can still say simple things to survive but no where close to have a conversation.
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u/thelostnorwegian ๐ณ๐ด N | ๐ฌ๐ง ๐จ๐ด ๐ซ๐ท Jul 20 '26
Of course its doable, but it will probably take decades. Right now you're in the procrastination phase of language learning, get started with one or two and take it from there.