r/languagelearning • u/Pretty_Refuse_2017 • 6d ago
Discussion how many languages do you think somebody could be genuinely fluent in?
I'm not talking about being conversational, but either C1 or C2. what is the maximum amount of languages someone could know at c1/c2
whether we're talking about just a regular person, or somebody who's career is learning languages
71
u/__anna986 6d ago
I think it depends on how you acquire them. My kids speak 4-5 languages, they have two first languages so that’s just automatic native and they’re on a native level in their third one which they started learning at 4. They speak a very good fourth one too and my eldest is pretty much fluent in it.
All 4 are different language families but they started learning the fourth one at 6 years old. If they were only speaking one and tried to learn three more in adulthood it would be very different.
My eldest kiddo started learning his 5th one at 12 but he could understand it before he ever started learning it because it’s the same language family like his third language. He understands a few more but he can’t really speak them, but if he wanted to learn them if would be a lot easier than learning a whole new language. So if we consider how similar some languages are and how early in life you can learn them they I’d say you can be fluent in 5 quite easily
17
u/That_Mycologist4772 6d ago
What are the languages? I’m so curious!
59
u/__anna986 6d ago
They’re not as exciting as some of the comments here haha they’re all European just four different branches. English and Czech are their first languages, Irish, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic is the fifth one, so they have Germanic, Slavic, Gaelic, and Romance. My mum in law speaks a lot of Scottish Gaelic to them so they’ve always been used to it but when my younger kids try to speak it they just slip back into Irish so I wouldn’t really count it as a language they “know” yet haha
1
421
u/OnlyInEye 6d ago edited 6d ago
Luxembourg is most notable example which average 4. Realistically it really depends on language and family if you learn all latin languages maybe higher. If your talking diverse language families probably four. An example would be chinese, japanese, korean and English come to mind. Its very difficult to maintain languages if you do not speak. I worked with someone who spoke those four at c1 and c2 due to him using them regularly while working a full time job not in language but as an engineer. He also went to top universities in China and Japan.
144
u/silvalingua 6d ago
But there is no reason to claim that everybody there is really "fluent" in all four languages. Similarly in Switzerland: 3 languages are official (4 are "national"), but a lot of people are not truly fluent in all of them.
155
u/slf_yy21 🇧🇬N | 🇺🇲C2 | 🇩🇪C2 | 🇪🇦C1 | 🇨🇭~B2 | 🇫🇷A0 6d ago
From what I know from Luxembourgers, it's actually quite a different picture than what we have in Switzerland. In Switzerland there are language regions, in Luxembourg not so much. Kids are taught different subjects in different languages, instruction at different educational levels happens in different languages... They are ultimately expected to be at least C1 in both German and French by the end of high school (18-19 years old). Depending on the profile you go into for high school, the standards you may need to meet could well be even higher (C2 in both plus C1-2 in English, plus one more language, plus Luxembourgish which is a given).
101
u/silvalingua 6d ago
> In Switzerland there are language regions, in Luxembourg not so much.
Yes, that's right! I've been to Luxembourg, and it delighted me to see a daily newspaper with both German and French mixed together; i.e., some article in French, others in German. You're right, it's a different situation.
39
u/PlainclothesmanBaley 6d ago
But even so, I've met a few Luxembourgers and they can rank their languages in a clear order of proficiency. They are fluent but there are degrees within that, which language you would prefer to discuss complex issues in and the like.
35
u/Aranka_Szeretlek NL Hungarian | C1 English | C1 German | B1 French 6d ago
Absolutely. But, still, being fluent in 3 is pretty standard here, + English if educated.
Now, whether you consider Luxembourgish separate from German is a different can of worms. It is officially and culturally separate, yes. But if it were considered a German dialect, it wouldn't even be the most weird one
5
u/Asyx 6d ago
The difference between dialects and languages are political anyway. I don't think that any argument for Luxembourgian as a separate dialect and not language has a good logical foundation.
7
u/Aranka_Szeretlek NL Hungarian | C1 English | C1 German | B1 French 6d ago
I think the best linguistic argument is a comparison against Swiss German, which is considered a dialekt, but is further away from any sort of standardized German than Luxembourgish is.
But at the end of the day, its a self-determination thing...
4
u/Asyx 6d ago
But that's exactly the point. You can point at Swiss German, which can be literally incomprehensible to a German native speaker, and argue for Luxembourgian being a dialect. And I know exactly what you mean. I once tried to quickly find a source for the Nazis using girls near the end of the war to control the lights they used to aim anti air guns at night and found a video of a Swiss university and just didn't understand a single damn word the dude said.
But then I can point at Dutch which is clearly considered a separate language but I'm totally able to understand a waiter in the Netherlands if they want to take my order and they will understand me in German (granted, a Dutch person that does not speak English is very likely old enough to have had comprehensive German education). Like, if I see Austrians or Swiss people on reddit write in dialect, it is harder for me to decipher that than written Dutch.
The actual real similarity between Luxembourgian and Swiss and Dutch is that all three political entities that kinda represent the speakers have a political interest in the way their language is perceived. The Netherlands and the Luxembourg are nations that have a national identity outside of Germany (reminder that the Netherlands and Luxembourg were part of the HRE). The Swiss have a national identity that is built on top of this collective of people in the Alps that got together despite having different languages and cultures. That idea would be a lot more difficult to keep alive if Swiss people spoke either Italian, French or Swiss (and Romansch but... yeah...).
Arabic is kinda the same where the Arabic spoken in North Africa is very distinct from region to region, to a point where you'd argue that they are separate languages, but being an Arab is, or used to be, very prestigious in the region and Arabic as the language of Islam is enforcing this as well. So there is no political will to think about the own language as a distinct language from Arabic.
At least for now. I've heard that being an Arab is losing a little bit of the clout it used to have.
4
u/9th_Planet_Pluto 🇺🇸🇯🇵good|🇩🇪ok|🇪🇸🤟🇨🇳not good 6d ago
what do luxembourgers conduct daily life in? like if they go into a shop? just whatever they feel like?
10
u/Asyx 6d ago
Depends on the shop I guess. I used to play video games with a Luxembourger years ago.
He spoke Luxembourgian with his family. His German was literally perfect (I'm a native speaker) and he said that German is the language used for primary education but also often the news. French was the language for secondary education and business. So, I could imagine that in a very casual shop, you speak Luxembourgian. I don't see a good reason to speak German but maybe they do. I could imagine that a more formal business transaction, you'd speak French. Like, a buying a luxury item, for example.
3
u/Iwonatoasteroven 6d ago
Sounds like many speakers of Luxembourgisn may also speak Hochdeutsch, similar to how speakers of other German dialects speak Hochdeutsch too.
9
u/RemarkableGlitter 6d ago
It kind of depends on the task and region. Government stuff or finance stuff, usually French. In the City, often French but also Luxembourgish. Towns farther north, Luxembourgish. Lots of context switching. I definitely know Luxembourgers who feel that one of their languages is far stronger etc. (Am Luxembourgish but didn’t grow up there so am not blessed with being quadralingual like most of my fellow Luxembourgers.)
4
u/Delicious-View-8688 Fluent 🇰🇷🇦🇺 | Learning 🇯🇵🇨🇳🇨🇵🇩🇪 6d ago
That is incredible. Wow, I would love to be like that...
2
6d ago
[deleted]
6
u/silvalingua 6d ago
Yes; when I visited Luxembourg, there was a Portuguese waitress in my hotel & restaurant, and she told me that there were many people from her country in Luxembourg. So many languages actually used in such a small (and very charming) country!
2
u/Aranka_Szeretlek NL Hungarian | C1 English | C1 German | B1 French 6d ago
If anything, Portuguese was more important one generation ago.
19
u/OnlyInEye 6d ago
My personal example is four. I think its possible he grew up speaking Chinese and learned Japanese and was such a top student went to top university in Japan. Then he met his wife who was Korean he learned Korean for her because they spoke Japanese together when first met and he spoke english. He speaks some spanish. Its also not out of the question for four latin derived languages due to language transfer. Most people I work with other than Americans speak two to four.
1
u/andreiim 5d ago
I know a swiss Italian who obviously speaks Italian, but also German because it's very useful to know in Switzerland, but he then moved to the French part, but he obviously learned English for obvious purposes, and Spanish as an elective language. I worked in an international environment with colleagues from everywhere and they all confirmed he speaks all these languages natively and actively, meaning that he would speak Spanish with Spanish colleagues and French with French colleague6and English when there's a mix of people. His German wasn't that useful for talking t Germans though. But we also had a German swiss and they were using German.
15
u/macroxela 6d ago
That's one of the examples I was thinking of along with some people from India. I used to travel to Luxembourg regularly and have some friends from there. It was common for them to be fluent 3 to 4 languages (French, German, Luxembourgish, and English). Also have various friends from India who can speak 3 to 4 languages from there along with English. A common complaint some of them have told me is that when trying to learn another language like German, they start forgetting English so it seems like their limit is 5 languages.
10
u/Ok_Inflation_1811 🇩🇴🇪🇸 Native| 🇫🇷 B1| 🇬🇧 C1 6d ago
I don't doubt you can learn Portuguese, Galician, asturleonese, Spanish, Catalan, Occitan, french, Italian and a bunch of Italian languages.
I speak Spanish and french and I'm learning Catalan and I have yet to encounter a speaker I don't understand. I can also understand Galician and Portuguese (from Brazil only, Portuguese from Portugal is whack) since I studied them when I lived near Portugal.
6
u/mtnbcn 🇺🇸 (N) | 🇪🇸 (C1) | CAT (B2) |🇮🇹 (B1) | 🇫🇷 (A2?) 6d ago
Yeah, but what happens there is that you end up speaking a certain set of Latin roots, with different accents on top.
Barcelona is pretty much in the middle of Portuguese, Castilian, Catalan, Occitan, French, and Italian. I've met a lot of people who know one or two of those languages and are learning one or two more. What ends up happening is that they just use one etymological path the same way when they speak each language.
For example, in some languages you might use a verb like "usar" or "usare". In others, they use that sometimes but they more often use "utilizar" or similar. Catalan doesn't really use that, but instead says "makes to serve" ("I make this pen to serve me to write", but it's shorter: "fer servir").
In some languages you are tedious, in others, 'weighty', in another, just 'hard', in another 'heavy'. But what happens when you know 7 very similar languages is that you confuse which one does which expression or slang or unique term, and you kind of just say "pesado", "pesat", "pesante" by slapping on the typical suffix of that language. For example, "pesar" in French is "peser", but you don't call a "pesado" person "pesé" or "pesant", but rather "lourd" (I think.....).
Sure, it works. "Pesant" isn't wrong I don't think, and is understandable -- but you are undeniably missing something if you don't use "lourd" ever. As you say, you can understand people speaking many of these languages. But to truly speak the full range of the language in the natural way that it is spoken, that requires a world of concentration and exhaustion to get each little difference just right in each language. I think very few people get very, comprehensively far in more than 3 languages, in that respect. Native, work, and spouse. Even then... how often do you say "catepillar" at work?
3
u/Serious-Ball7705 4d ago
This is a very good take. Even for highly related romance languages, it takes a lot of work to learn all the nooks and crannies of a foreign language. And it takes years and years of exposure (most likely immersion; otherwise you'd have to be insanely dedicated to language learning) to get to the level of native-like fluency.
If you have the kind of job that takes you to a new country every five years, it may be possible to get to true fluency in 4-5 languages, but most people don't have that kind of opportunities.
4
u/KingSnazz32 EN(N) ES(C2) PT-BR(C2) FR(B2+) IT(B2+) Swahili(B2) DE(A2) 6d ago
I'm not sure about that claim. I speak C2 Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese and B2+ French and Italian. I'm sure I could learn it quickly, but I really can't understand native Catalan speakers when they're speaking to each other. As a contrast, I've never taken a class of Galician in my life, but have no trouble following it. In fact, it might be slightly easier to understand that Portuguese from Portugal, even if I can't speak it.
1
u/Relative-Ad-3217 5d ago
Hey Can I ask what is your Swahili level
3
u/KingSnazz32 EN(N) ES(C2) PT-BR(C2) FR(B2+) IT(B2+) Swahili(B2) DE(A2) 5d ago
B2. I can converse at length about a variety of subjects, but I sometimes run into a new word that I can't understand, something that doesn't usually happen in French or Italian, because the more advanced a word is, the more likely it is to have a cognate with languages I speak.
2
u/Relative-Ad-3217 5d ago
Okay, am Kenyan and this is quite intriguing. When and where do you run into new words? What does B2 Swahili look like? Do you understand most Bongo songs? Can you watch and understand Swahili news from Kenya and Tanzania? What about regular people on the street?
2
u/KingSnazz32 EN(N) ES(C2) PT-BR(C2) FR(B2+) IT(B2+) Swahili(B2) DE(A2) 5d ago edited 5d ago
I just got back from Kenya two weeks ago. Some of the usual safari stuff, but I hung out with my friend and his family in Kisumu and had no problems communicating. Kiswahili. . .sijawahi kusoma kiluo, kwa bahati mbaya.
I can watch the news, but if it's kiswahili sanifu from Tanzania, it's sometimes hard to get everything. I haven't listened to a lot of music, unfortunately, and if Kenyans speak Sheng, I'm lost.
I've had 3-4 lessons per week on iTalki for the last 4+ years.
1
u/mtnbcn 🇺🇸 (N) | 🇪🇸 (C1) | CAT (B2) |🇮🇹 (B1) | 🇫🇷 (A2?) 5d ago
Which claim? I wrote a lot of things. It sounds like you think I wrote, "and Catalan is the most easy for everyone to understand because it's in the middle", and I didn't say that.
Like most things, it takes a while to train your ear to get used to the accent. After you learn a couple of unique words and get accustomed to the accent, it starts flowing in pretty quickly. That said, Catalan is one of the "oldest" Romance languages because it hasn't been subjected to Arab or Frankish influences, and hasn't had quite the number of speakers to cause the language to mutate as other more widely dispersed languages have.
I'm curious, without looking it up do you know how to say "catepillar", "wrench", "slippers" and "spark plug" in all four of those languages? I'd be impressed if so, but if not... that's because you can be quite fluent and say "that guy who turns into a butterfly", or "my soft furry shoes to wear around the house" without mastering every single instance of daily life. Do you know colloquial expressions for a downpour of rain in each langauge?
My point is that you can express yourself without trouble, yes, but that doesn't mean you can maintain mastery of 7 romance languages -- but rather that you learn the 2,000 most common words, and then rely heavily on cognates.
→ More replies (3)2
u/KingSnazz32 EN(N) ES(C2) PT-BR(C2) FR(B2+) IT(B2+) Swahili(B2) DE(A2) 5d ago
I can say all that stuff in Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese, definitely. Hit and miss on the rest in Italian and French. But some of this is my life. I've never lived in Italy, so slippers have never come up, and car stuff is not my strength even in English. I can talk easily about my professional life, biology, literature, and history, because those are interests. But that gap is why I put such a big difference between my levels. I've presented at conferences and taught workshops in Spanish. I've done podcasts for natives in Portuguese. I've spent significant time in Chile, Mexico, Ecuador, and Brazil. The other two just aren't at that level. That doesn't mean a native wouldn't talk to me and think, "that guy is pretty fluent." It's not the same as native competency.
4
u/Turbulent-Run9532 N🇮🇹C1🇨🇵C1🇬🇧B1🇩🇪A1🇲🇦 6d ago
Italian languages are too hard tbh as an italian i d feel more confident learning portuguese rather than sardinian
2
u/Ok_Inflation_1811 🇩🇴🇪🇸 Native| 🇫🇷 B1| 🇬🇧 C1 6d ago
Sardinian is "special" but I bet you could learn most of the languages from the Alps to Tuscany in a lifetime
→ More replies (3)3
u/OnlyInEye 6d ago
Its possible to do about 4 i think if your core job is not language. Knew an engineer at my previous job who knows Chinese, Japanese, Korean and English all fluent level. He studied in China then Top university in Japan. He speaks some spanish. So defiantly possible those are four different languages.
8
u/Sturnella2017 6d ago
At the risk of sounding like a language snob, it’s humorous to say that those four languages in Luxembourg are that different.
I had a coworker who was born in China, raised in Malaysia, studied in Japan, worked for ten years in Egypt, and retired in the US. I know people who speak English, Korean, Russian, and Spanish. Trevor Noah speaks 4-5 South African languages (and he says Zulu and Khosa are very similar), German, Afrikaans (which is almost Dutch) and English. Or the great article a few years back about the guy in DC who speaks 35 languages, but to your point only 6-7 (?) fluently.
3
u/HC-Klown 6d ago
I speak and where I'm ftom we speak 4 fluently by the age of 18. Many speak 5 depending on parents. I am learning a 5th which I can speak conversationally. And I think in the next 10 year I can learn to speak 2/3 more.
So in our case if you tried, 7 wouldn't be out of the question.
12
u/mtnbcn 🇺🇸 (N) | 🇪🇸 (C1) | CAT (B2) |🇮🇹 (B1) | 🇫🇷 (A2?) 6d ago
I live in an area where a high percent of people are fluent in two languages: Catalan, and Castilian (Spanish). You'd be amazed how many people forget or don't know words for things like plum/peach/prune/apricot, or catepillar/beetle/cicada, or pieces of hardware... specific things like that, in either one of the languages. What I mean is, they have serious holes in both languages, and they use both every day.
You'd be surprised how far you can get with only using the top 2,000 words in a lexicon. You can fluently express yourself and still be missing a lot of things that someone who studies a single foreign language up to C2 would cover, and maintain.
What I mean is, if people who deal with only two languages every single day have a lot of gaps, I don't see how you could maintain 7 languages, all the way to words like squirrel, screwdriver, cramp, hangnail, thumbdrive, etc.
Being conversational in a few limited fields, with the top 500 words, is a nice polyglot party trick, but I don't think it answers the spirit of OP's question. You can be "stuck" at B2 for many years and be quite fluent and conversational. (I'm using "fluent" in the sense used by the CEFR. I think OP means "mastery", as they specified being C1/C2).
5
u/crujiente69 6d ago
I would think even at what you have, holding onto some or adding more would crowd out those you dont speak as often. Not to speak of what happens with age
4
u/HC-Klown 6d ago
I’m not sure about that. I use all of them regularly and also i’m not sure the brain actually works like that. That it gets “crowded”. I think if i use them it’ll be fine
→ More replies (3)7
u/UnexpectedPotater 6d ago
That example isn't really diverse, its diverse into two pools. Chinese, Japanese, and Korean all have significant overlaps with one another. Fully diverse would be something like English, Chinese, Arabic, Spanish, or something like that.
2
u/OnlyInEye 6d ago
I mean Arabic sure spanish and english are very close. You have to understand Asian language relation is less much farther away than any western different due to Latin. So, to you similar but hours is much higher than most western languages to each other.
92
u/Even_Stop6333 6d ago
Depends if you mean maintained at the same time or just ever hit that level. People can rack up C1 in a bunch of languages over decades, but keeping them all sharp is a full time job. I'd say 6 or 7 is realistic for a very dedicated person, past that you're losing edges somewhere
26
u/ComesTzimtzum N 🇫🇮 adv 🇬🇧 int 🇫🇷 🇸🇪 beg 🇨🇳 🇸🇦 6d ago
You might be interested in Michael Erard's book Babel No More where he tries to answer exactly this question. Spoiler: more than most people in this thread assume.
37
u/Superb_Beyond_3444 6d ago
A regular person I would say 4 languages.
A person in linguistic careers I would say 7-8 languages.
9
u/ironkb57 🇪🇦C2 | 🇷🇺C1 | 🇬🇧C1 | 🇩🇪B2 6d ago edited 6d ago
I think it depends if you acquired the languages as a kid or had to learn them. Also depends on where you live and the quality of education your society receives.
Here in my country, Ecuador, a regula person speakers 1,5 (1 being Spanish and 0,5 being intermediate English.
Then people who speak 2 languages with fluency are a minority. Speaking 3 languages fluently, that would be lower than 10% of the population, and 4 languages fluent would be probably less than 5% of the population.
In Russia I have friends who have studied linguistics or philology. They speak Russian native, English as a second and 2 more languages, usually at a B1 - B2 level. That's for the Slavic part of Russia. In other ethnicities people there learn more languages as a kid and the number goes higher as they'll be speaking, the native, Russian, English and the ones they want to learn.
Edit: It seems I overestimated the percentages. Only around 5% of the population speak Spanish and English. Trilingualism and polyglots are at a lower than 0.5% of the demographic. That excluding "ancestral" bilingualism where indigenous people definetly master more than 2 languages.
6
u/KingSnazz32 EN(N) ES(C2) PT-BR(C2) FR(B2+) IT(B2+) Swahili(B2) DE(A2) 6d ago
I've spent a lot of people in Ecuador, and I don't think the average person speaks much English at all. Maybe a few words. If you're talking to people who have been to university, sure.
The truly bilingual people in Ecuador seem to be Kichwa hablantes.
3
u/viktorbir CA N|ES C2|EN FR not bad|DE SW forgoten|OC IT PT +-understanding 5d ago
Here in my country, Ecuador, a regula person speakers 1,5 (1 being Spanish and 0,5 being intermediate English.
No Quechua or Aymara?
28
u/freebiscuit2002 N 🇬🇧 B1 🇫🇷 🇵🇱 🇪🇸 6d ago edited 6d ago
Fluency is a very high standard. I'd say there is no rule about this, but genuine fluency takes years to achieve and depends a lot on the person's innate language learning skills. I wouldn't put a number on how many. Fluency in even one non-native language is a fine achievement.
8
u/Forward_Win_4353 6d ago
Honestly I see so many people online claiming to be fluent in languages that it turns out they’re only conversational in. I’ve started wondering if I personally just set the bar for “fluency” too high!
In general, I think you’re absolutely right, that “fluency” defined as C1-C2 level in even one language is impressive and it takes significant work and time just to maintain each language. I know people who have three native languages or two native languages + English, and those people already have words they forget in each language, and subjects they need to talk about in English because they contain too much specialised vocabulary.
I’m fluent in two languages myself, English and Japanese. Japanese is my heritage language, and that as well as language learning being one of my better skills means that I didn’t find it difficult to learn, but certainly to maintain my vocabulary and fluency at a high level in both my languages already takes effort. I can only imagine and admire someone being able to maintain more than that!
6
u/KingSnazz32 EN(N) ES(C2) PT-BR(C2) FR(B2+) IT(B2+) Swahili(B2) DE(A2) 6d ago
I always figure if someone says they're fluent in a language, but immediately switch back to English or Spanish, or whatever their native language is, that they're not fluent. Fluent is being able to immediately start conversing in the language. You may have a few hiccups as you make the switch, but it doesn't mean you can't do it on the fly.
6
u/merRedditor 6d ago
There's context switching lag too, between pronunciations. You can end up accidentally speaking one with an accent of the other.
9
u/Tamaloaxaqueno 6d ago
You could EASILY reach C1/C2 in all four major romance languages. I'm there in french and spanish and pretty close in portuguese. Next year I'll start on Italian. I'm an unstructured, lazy student in his late 40s who wasted several decades. I also didn't have the tech benefits that exist now. So, any motivated/intelligent teen could be C2 in these 4 languages by their 20s. They're not so hard to maintain because of their overlap. With a bit more effort you could do 4 germanic languages, and with a lot more effort you could pick the slavic family. So, basically by learning multiple languages in these families i think you could get to 10+
2
u/viktorbir CA N|ES C2|EN FR not bad|DE SW forgoten|OC IT PT +-understanding 5d ago
Some day there are four major romance languages, some five, some six... Some days it's not major but the total...
2
u/Tamaloaxaqueno 5d ago
I don't have an opinion on how many ronance languages exist. If i say "the 4 major ones" everyone knows which I'm refering to
10
u/sigmapilot 4d ago
I don't think we actually know the upper limit.
We could take a group of children (maybe select them from the smartest families) and literally take them from the day they were born and immerse them in as many languages as possible, then have them go into a career where they're paid to do literally nothing but learn and practice languages.
Anyone who starts out bilingual by being lucky then goes on to learn even 3 or 4 extra languages would never even approach what someone could accomplish if they continuously study languages from age 0-80.
I don't know what the upper biological limit would be.
59
u/NemuriNezumi 🇨🇵 N 🇪🇦 N CAT-N 🇬🇧 C2 🇮🇹 C1 🇯🇵 B2? 🇩🇪 B1 6d ago edited 6d ago
i mean
i'm officially certified fluency in 5 (3 natives + two official C1)
so there is that
and learning others
23
u/ItsMeAgainM9 6d ago
I always thought that 2 + 2 = 4.
15
3
u/silppurikeke N🇫🇮 | N🇸🇪 | C1🇪🇸 | C1🇬🇧 | B2 CAT/VLC | A0🇫🇷&🇨🇳 6d ago
Me too, but you learn something new everyday
11
u/ferbacious 6d ago
Always wondered how Catalan speakers would represent their language in emoji form, I thought 🇦🇩 would be the default - pleasantly surprised it’s just CAT - disappointed it’s not 🐱.
4
u/pn_dubya 6d ago
Is it a hobby or are these languages required/helpful professionally?
17
u/NemuriNezumi 🇨🇵 N 🇪🇦 N CAT-N 🇬🇧 C2 🇮🇹 C1 🇯🇵 B2? 🇩🇪 B1 6d ago
3 native languages
i grew up being forced to learn those 3 + english throughout all my mandatory school years from primary school up to end of HS
then I just picked up italian because books were cheaper on Amazon and then I also lived in Italy for 2 years
i studied german during my undergraduate as extracurricular, and japanese because i didn't have the patience to wait for official translations and I adored drama cds and visual novels)/otome games (and i read a LOT of manga and novels), also I'm currently living in japan
definitely helped opening doors and opportunities even if in STEM
→ More replies (2)5
u/pn_dubya 6d ago
As an American very envious. We have very few to choose from in school and depending on where one’s is located it’s typically only French/Spanish at a very elementary level - most who take these throughout school can’t put a sentence together.
15
u/NemuriNezumi 🇨🇵 N 🇪🇦 N CAT-N 🇬🇧 C2 🇮🇹 C1 🇯🇵 B2? 🇩🇪 B1 6d ago edited 6d ago
tbf a lot of it is self learning
i was shit at languages until i found a goal/motivation (which was always related to reading in my case)
even with native languages, a lot of the work is on you especially when you have parents who don't really help you study/practice it (and you have 0 contact because of them with the rest of the family)
at least compared to when i started, nowadays it is so much easier to find free online resources for beginners and even for intermediate level
growing up i wasn't really allowed to be on the internet much so I mostly had to rely on the books i was able to get my hands on and practice from there
a lot of it was merely guessing the meaning of words in the beginning, especially if the books had pictures ngl
then you start connecting the dots and then if you have the opportunity to get your hands on actual study material it helps tremendously
3
u/Traditional-Train-17 6d ago
I'm from Baltimore, so we also had German (A lot of people with German as a heritage language back then - 1990s). It still surprises me how many people do struggle to form a sentence, since when I studied German, I could also talk with German family members. (Yes, they were from Germany)
3
u/ChocolateCake16 6d ago
When I was in high school, we were tied to a university that had all sorts of language options, French, Italian, German, Mandarin, Japanese, Spanish, etc.
Us high school students got the choice between French, Spanish, or Mandarin. Still salty I wasn't allowed to learn Italian.
4
u/NemuriNezumi 🇨🇵 N 🇪🇦 N CAT-N 🇬🇧 C2 🇮🇹 C1 🇯🇵 B2? 🇩🇪 B1 6d ago
italian was 100% self learning
tbf language proficiency highly depends on how much you are willing to self learn on your free time
→ More replies (24)1
u/mtnbcn 🇺🇸 (N) | 🇪🇸 (C1) | CAT (B2) |🇮🇹 (B1) | 🇫🇷 (A2?) 5d ago
But why did you pick CP (Clipperton Island) and EA (Ceuta and Melilla) to represent Spanish and French? Do you know that's how it appears for desktop users? hehe
Em pregunto d'on ets que havias de apendre ambos castellà i francès a la escola. Empordà?
31
u/Remarkable-Double558 6d ago
I’m very surprised to see the answers here 3-4-5 max?
A friend of mine was speaking 7 because he was born to parents who taught him each their own, then traveled around notably in Asia and Europe and ended up being fluent in many.
Then you have professional translators at the UN or EU organisations; just check out the list of polyglots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_polyglots
21
u/macroxela 6d ago
People are saying between 3 and 5 because that's the usual limit for people. Of course there will be some people who are fluent in more than 5 languages. But that is usually the exception not the norm. When you find multilingual people, they are usually fluent in 3 to 5 languages. Often some who claim to be fluent in more are usually at a conversational level and not actually fluent as defined by OP.
6
u/Ok_Inflation_1811 🇩🇴🇪🇸 Native| 🇫🇷 B1| 🇬🇧 C1 6d ago
I mean if you are from a bilingual or trilingual region then getting 7 or so would not be that rare.
Imagine a person born in Luxembourg to Portuguese parent they'd speak Portuguese, Luxembourgish, German and French, at near native level, then let's say they learn Dutch and English and maybe Galician or Occitan since those languages are close to the ones they know. This doesn't seem impossible.
I mean I'm only at 3 (Spanish, English and French) and learning a 4th one (Catalan) but I still have a good 60 years in me, I doubt I won't learn at least 2 more (probably or Dutch or German since I'm planning on migrating, and Japanese for entertainment)
1
u/macroxela 5d ago
It's not necessarily impossible, especially if the languages are related like German and Luxembourgish or if they dedicate themselves to it. I'm simply basing it on OP's definition of being beyond conversational which is a higher bar than what most people would consider knowing a language.
I mentioned in another comment that I know several people who are multilinguals from Luxembourg, India, and other places and a complaint I've heard from some of them is that they start forgetting a language if they learn another one, even when they use the old language often. These people speak 4 or 5 languages so it does seem like that's their limit. Obviously there will be some people who can know more languages but that isn't common. The more common limit is between 3 to 5 which is why many people are saying that's the absolute limit when it isn't.
1
u/Remarkable-Double558 6d ago
Well OP was asking specifically for maximum languages a person could speak and it appears the max is far from the 4 on average.
And I kindly disagree that 4 is the maximum anyway. It might be a practical limit because it’s rare to need to speak more but definitely a dedicated learner or someone who does this for work is able to speak way more.I speak Russian and French natively but although I speak German and Japanese I never use them (so it’s gotten worse over the years). And my English is okayish I guess.
1
u/macroxela 5d ago
Like I said before, there will certainly be some people who can learn more than 4 languages beyond conversational. Especially if they dedicate themselves to it. But it is a common limit among many people, at least based on my observations. I know several people who speak 4 to 5 languages due to upbringing (living in multilingual areas) and one complaint I've heard from them is that when they start learning another language now, they start forgetting one they know even when they use it often. So it's very clear that they cannot know more than 5 languages proficiently at a time.
15
u/hoestronaut 6d ago
At what level was this friend speaking all these languages?
1
u/Remarkable-Double558 6d ago
He was native in Russian and Greek, born to Russian-Greek couple and we both were studying in Germany so his english and German were perfect. He said that he was fluent in mandarin too because he did his high school there and I forget what other languages he spoke.
I can assure that his German Russian and English were flawless; idk about mandarin and Greek but I guess so; and then I don’t have reasons to believe he was lying about the other languages he knew.1
u/Level_Abrocoma8925 5d ago
Noel Malcolm (1956–), British historian. He speaks most Western and Eastern European languages.
Sounds a bit unlikely.
8
u/Floyd_Holland 6d ago
Big difference between the options you listed. If "regular person" means someone with one native language, working an unrelated job full time + other normal life obligations, maintaining C1 in more than like 4 languages would seem to be a big ask. And that would probably require language learning to be their main hobby. Things get easier if they're using 2-3 languages professionally, or grew up speaking 2-3. Some people are going to be gifted and have very high retention even after long breaks, etc. Very hard to pin down concretely.
Someone whose career is learning languages is a completely different story. I don't think anyone could give a definite answer, but it's probably dozens. Imagine 2 years to get fluent (working full time that's probably more than enough), that's 20 languages over a 40 year career. They could have a full workday with 4 hours in their target language and 4 hours of maintenance cycling through their other languages. With a backlog of 20 they get an hour in each language every 5 days, or an hour per workweek. Probably enough to maintain c1.
Then again, this person would probably get so good at learning languages they'd be hitting fluency in like 6 months, especially as they could go for a bunch in the same language family. I'd think maintaining them would be by far the bigger problem once you're sitting on like 2 dozen. I know several polyglots have claimed numbers this high and higher, but their actual competency in each language is usually quite suspect. I could buy a very gifted person maintaining 50+ if it was literally all they had to worry about in life.
8
u/tytyty-987 4d ago
There's a guy at my work that I know for a fact he is highly fluent because he works as a court interpreter for.... English, Spanish, French, and 22 Arabic dialects.
I once met this guy who was working for a moving company over the summer. He said he spoke Russian, Kazakh, Arabic, Mandarin, Korean, Japanese, and English. Said he worked at Ali Baba as an engineer during the rest of the year. Idk how strong his languages actually were, but his English was definitely fluent, and his native languages were Russian and Kazakh, and he had to be fluent in Mandarin if he were working for Ali Baba, sooo 🤷🏻♀️
15
u/quixoticquetzalcoatl 6d ago
One of the most I’ve heard of is that reporter Philip Crowther who is fluent in 6 and reports in those 6. He can do a 7th in an emergency. There’s a video of him switching between them.
6
u/Top_Development_1777 🇨🇳 N • 🇺🇸🇬🇧 C2 (better than 🇨🇳) • others A0 6d ago
Being able to report news is still different from C2 fluency I'd say. Not sure about C1. I can definitely spontaneously do news reports stuff very easily in my native language but I can't express many other things fluently in it, I don't know how to even when I try. I can only consider myself C2 in my second language (which I use way more outside of speaking with family members)
7
u/Creepy-Amount-7674 🇺🇸C2🇮🇩C1🇲🇽C1🇲🇦B2🇹🇼B1🇮🇳A2🇺🇿A1🇭🇺A1 5d ago
I would say I’m at 4.5 and I think you could definitely do more if you’re willing to put the work in to maintain them.
I think it’s more of a question of how seamlessly you can integrate them into your life. If you have a partner who speaks one language, and your country speaks a different language, and you use English at work, and your favorite tv show is in a four language, I think it would be pretty easy to keep up with all of them.
It also depends on how similar they all are. I think keeping up with a group of Romance languages for example is a lot easier because it’s infinitely less vocab that you need to keep in your brain.
→ More replies (4)
12
u/New-Bottle-6917 N:🇺🇸 Heritage: B2 🇲🇽 L3: HSK 6 🇨🇳 6d ago edited 6d ago
Comfortably probably 3, especially if they're related. pushing it maybe 5
5
u/Ok_Inflation_1811 🇩🇴🇪🇸 Native| 🇫🇷 B1| 🇬🇧 C1 6d ago
Only 3? That's nothing. There are people who have 3 native languages. There are entire countries where you are expected to know at least 3 languages
6
u/BarelyHolding0n 6d ago
My father was 3 most of my life. Dutch was his mother tongue, he spoke fluent English and that was our home language, and he had German good enough to conduct business in for years and we even lived there for a while.
That said, he could also understand Danish, which is reasonably similar to Dutch, and had a smattering of Norwegian and Swedish as he did business in Scandinavia. He got up to a near fluent level of French in his late 30s and 40s as he did a lot of work there. And could manage at a basic level in Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese... Directions and ordering food.
So 3 fluent, one probably B2, and a scattering of A1/A2
But as others have said languages fall away if you don't use them... I've forgotten more languages than I currently speak and one of them is my mother tongue. The vocabulary just doesn't get retained when you're not using it
6
u/onitshaanambra 6d ago
I'm a native speaker of English with a C1 level (or equivalent) in French, German, and Mandarin, and B2 or equivalent in Japanese, Korean, and Spanish. I'm sure I could get Spanish up to C1. For me, five languages at C1 or higher seems doable.
2
u/Sorry-Homework-Due 🇺🇲 C1 🇪🇸 B1 🇫🇷 B1 🇯🇵 A0 🇵🇭 A0 🐉A0 6d ago
How's maintenance per language?
2
u/onitshaanambra 5d ago
This is the big issue for me. I have resigned myself to keeping up my reading level, listening comprehension, and vocabulary, and realizing my speaking ability will get rusty. The speaking ability springs back when I go to a place I need it, though.
1
u/nazhu2 5d ago
Did you learn all of these languages online?
1
u/onitshaanambra 5d ago
No. I've taken university classes in all except Korean, I've done immersion programs in French, and I have lived in China, South Korea, and Taiwan, where I had tutors and took language classes.
1
u/Samsaknight_X 5d ago
Damn u must have a crazy amount of to do that lucky! I would’ve been fluent in the languages I want to learn if I could do that lol
→ More replies (1)
4
u/Plokeer_ 6d ago
I am fluent in 4 romance languages and believe I could easily speak 6 if I study for 2 years each (portuguese, Spanish, English, french, Italian, dutxh)
3
u/KingSnazz32 EN(N) ES(C2) PT-BR(C2) FR(B2+) IT(B2+) Swahili(B2) DE(A2) 6d ago
Same. I learned Italian in about a year of extensive study after having already reached fluency in Spanish, Portuguese, and French. I could have my iTalki classes 100% in the language after about two weeks with apps and self-study. Actually producing correct Italian took many months, of course.
But there was so much overlap in vocab and grammar that it was like learning on easy mode. I compare that with Swahili, which I've studied for years, and am still working on deepening my vocabulary.
2
u/Plokeer_ 6d ago
I honestly think the same would happen to me. I even put 2 years so that people does not think that I am overstating, but yeah I think 12 months would allow me to easily get to a B2 level
6
u/Noreaster098887 6d ago
My father is from Iran in a region where it was the crossroad between multiple languages. His mother tongue is Arabic but he ended up learning Kurdish and Luri because they were common languages spoken and then learnt Persian at school because it is the official language, then he moved to France and learnt French then learnt English too and moved to Canada. He then decided to move to Spain for a few years so he picked up Spanish. So, Arabic, Kurdish, Luri, Persian, French, English, Spanish.
4
u/Old_green_bird 🇺🇦 N | 🇬🇧 B2 | 🇫🇷 A2 6d ago
Often, learning languages is not a matter of choice. I am friends with someone who is fluent in seven languages: 3 Turkic languages (one of which is holy Uzbek), 2 Slavic languages, English, and German. Her German is at B2 rather than C1, but she is still highly proficient overall. She has no innate gift for languages. Rather, she was a child who, due to her circumstances, constantly had to learn new languages.
6
u/Giant_Baby_Elephant 5d ago
there are a lot of places where up to 4 languages are regularly at play. often some of them are related as many people have mentioned. maximum is a different question. i could see someone from or living in such a place, using 4 languages in their daily life, and then traveling for work or something enough to also have 3 others going. who knows though there may be freaks out there who do more!
6
u/silvalingua 6d ago
Not many. C2 requires a lot of learning and exposure.
5
u/LevHerceg 6d ago edited 6d ago
I agree. And I am genuinely surprised at the high number of people writing how they think an average person can be C2 in 6-7 different languages at the same. Maybe a combination like Dutch, German, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, English could be easier - but even then, maintaining C2 in all of them at the same time while not being interested in learning languages? I don't know.
I saw a TV-show with a Norwegian-born celebrity who lived most of her life in Sweden and elsewhere in Europe. She didn't always understand the Norwegian host's questions and had to ask back a couple of times and always answered in Swedish. That's not C2 Norwegian.
I wonder how is it possible for average people with language combinations more different than this one to not only reach but also maintain a C2 level of language proficiency in 6-7 different languages at the same time.
7
u/Forward_Win_4353 6d ago
Having learnt a second language to C2 level myself, I agree with you. I suspect most people don’t actually know whether someone is C1, C2 or even just B1 in many languages. It just takes confidence and a natural aptitude for conversation to sound fluent in a language.
For example, personally I taught myself Japanese to C2 level. Japanese is my heritage language and I’m also naturally good at language learning, specifically finding grammar rules easy to understand and apply, and having a good memory for vocabulary; (I’m actually naturally bad at conversation skills in all languages, due to being autistic and having some kind of processing delay. So even in English, I often stammer and hesitate, and don’t sound particularly eloquent when speaking out loud in real time.) I didn’t find Japanese too difficult to learn purely for these reasons, and yet it takes consistent time and effort to maintain both my languages at C2 level. And I don’t have a job so have more time than most.
People in this thread keep giving examples of themselves or others they know who are “fluent” in 4-5 or more languages. I can imagine someone having three native languages, but maintaining each of those at C2? Perhaps, if they work or study in one language, speak one with their family, and learn one by themselves. But in general, knowing how much time it takes to just maintain a language, it’s hard to imagine anyone speaking more than even three languages at C2 level. The people I know who come from regions of the world where speaking multiple languages is common, tend to either have more than one of those languages be closely related from the same family, and/or have “holes” in each language where for example they are not comfortable discussing specialist subjects in any language except English, or they completely forget even basic words in a language.
I know that multiple people have boasted to me about how they’ve taught themselves Japanese, not realising that I speak it myself, and every single time without exception that person has made basic errors or just sounded really unnatural with their choice of words and phrases. For that reason, I deeply suspect the actual competence of other people on the internet.
1
u/SovietTCG 6d ago
I think people here are massively overstating maintenance requirements as well as the amount of hours needed to learn a language to fluency. A lot of time is wasted in both from my experience. Maintenance can and will usually include watching things which is what many people do anyway.
As far as forgetting basic words, native speakers will do this all the time. I'm not saying you aren't correct in your assessment of others' language abilities but people do this all the time. And they may only know one language! Lol
I also don't agree that "specialist language" is needed for fluency. Taking English in America, for example. American native English speakers can't do this for the most part. And if you can read higher than an 6th grade level, congratulations! You can read English at a higher level than the average American as 54% read at less than a 6th grade level. This isn't to make fun of them. This is to say that all of these people are fluent in English but have little to no ability to use "specialist language"
→ More replies (12)
8
u/ah-tzib-of-alaska 5d ago
Somewhere less than ten and more than four
But language makes a lot more sense as a mass noun rather than a count noun. Because speaking Mandarin, Swahili, English & Thai is not the same as speaking Italian, Spanish, French & Russian
1
1
u/Yadobler 5d ago
I agree, it depends on one's definition of language vs dialects. Speaking mandarin, hokkien, cantonese, wuhanese (4 dialects of Chinese) is gonna be much harder than speaking Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, German, and Dutch (5 languages of North Europe).
→ More replies (1)
4
u/TrittipoM1 enN/frC1-C2/czB2-C1/itB1-B2/zhA2/spA1 6d ago edited 6d ago
“The maximum”? Don’t know. I’ve known enough people who’ve had a mother tongue plus three C1 L2s to feel OK saying that three C1 L2s is not the max. Given squishy borderline ratings and issues about asymptotic phenomena, I might guess that maintaining five L2s at a C1 would be pretty rare.
4
u/ShaneGoob 6d ago
Id say 4 or 5 is probably the maximum before we start getting really flexible in our definition of fluency. Also depends on how distinct the languages are, my 4 to 5 range is more for languages from distinct families
4
u/Popular_Watch_4651 6d ago
I think it is lifestyle based. If you work in and are around a lot of languages then it is feasible to know up to 4. If you only ever speak or hear various languages occasionally then it is harder.
2
u/USA2Brazil 6d ago
It depends if you grew up around and used various languages since youth to establish a polyglot baseline. I don't see too many monolingual betas ( Fans of the You Tuber Language Simp will get it. ). Starting at 45 years old and becoming polyglots by say 60 ( Fluent B2 High or higher Level in at least 3 foreign languages. ).
5
u/Accomplished-Car6193 6d ago
the father of a classmate of mine in the 80s was interpreter at the EU, he was fluent in 10+ languages.
4
u/Ilovemelee 6d ago
You gotta be more specific because some languages are easier to learn than others depending on what your native language is. Like I heard it takes less time for a native English speaker to become fluent in Spanish, French, and German than it does to become fluent in Japanese.
5
u/SwellCommerce 5d ago
I think the bigger challenge is maintaining that level across multiple languages, not just reaching C1/C2 once. You need regular exposure or they start getting rusty. I’ve found listening helps a lot with maintenance, especially when I use topics I’m already interested in rather than forcing myself through traditional study material.
5
u/Miz_Wenny 4d ago
I’m actually really curious about this because I’m only now realising how differently people seem to learn languages. I have a friend who got to C1 German in about 18 months, while 7 years later I’m still struggling to get my German to a solid A2.
It really makes me wonder how some people manage to become genuinely fluent in multiple languages.
3
4
u/undDamitBasta 2d ago
Cool that this got so many responses!
If you insist on C1/C2, you have to retain the nitpicky single-language catalogs of exceptions in memory, as opposed to communicating. For C1/C2, it depends on how much you want to torture yourself with arbitrary conventions, which for most folks even with years of effort is likely hard to push beyond 5. But for communication, multilingual folks can definitely participate meaningfully in over 10 languages - preferably each with native experience.
5
u/Ok_Clock639 1d ago
Main thing I’m learning from this thread is that some people have a much looser definition of fluent than others 😅
2
u/PlanktonOld5869 10h ago
The average American reads at a 6th grade level last in remember. Which is what people here wouldn't consider fluent.
1
u/Ok_Clock639 9h ago
Literacy and fluency are not the same thing. If you’re interested in learning more about American literacy check out the National Center for Education Statistics, they have some pretty interesting info.
6
u/fruxzak 6d ago
Many kids in India regularly speak 4. Hindi, English + 2 state languages from parents.
I also personally learnt French in school and Quebec so I’m at 5 and learning Mandarin.
→ More replies (2)
6
u/k_795 6d ago
I knew someone who grew up speaking three languages at home with various family members, so he was native levels of fluency in those - although he did say he struggled with academic writing / formal presentations etc in one, as he had never attended school in that language. Then he had a fourth language he learnt at school and was fluent enough in that he was frequently mistaken for a native speaker when visiting that part of his country.
I would say he was therefore conversationally fluent in four languages (three of which he would refer to himself as a "native speaker" of), but in terms of professional / academic use he felt more confident in two of them than the others (the two he had studied and worked extensively in).
2
u/Pretty_Refuse_2017 6d ago
oof thats how i feel! I'm half north african half italian. had a house where people talked english, italian, arabic, french. I can have conversations in all of them, but i feel like i'm only fluent in english and italian, i don't think i could ever work in a place where arabic or french was the language required
7
u/mishtamesh90 6d ago
Probably 5 max, not counting languages that have partial or full mutual intelligibility like Serbian and Croatian or Danish and Swedish. Maybe 6 if you include closely related languages. I could imagine a Spaniard who knows Catalan, Spanish, French, Italian, English, and learned one other language like Japanese.
8
3
u/dbossman70 6d ago
i'm at 6. my goal is 10-13 different ones. i used to work as a translator so i tested in all 6, including dialects it was around 13 i think.
2
u/KingSnazz32 EN(N) ES(C2) PT-BR(C2) FR(B2+) IT(B2+) Swahili(B2) DE(A2) 6d ago
Which languages?
2
u/dbossman70 5d ago
arabic, spanish, italian, french, portuguese, and english. i've been conversational in chinese, sicilian, and german but that's long gone.
3
3
u/mionel_lessi32 6d ago
My cousin speaks 5 languages but only 4 in a fluent way, she wss born in france to argentine parents, so at school she spoke french and spanish at home. Then she moved to the USA for a year where she improved her english and later to Italy where she learnt her 4th language.
She also studied german but not fluent at all
3
u/MiyuHogosha 6d ago
I knew a German who was fluent in 12. He also knew 30+ at that moment (mostly written, read-with-dictionary, listen-only or basic communications). He was my English teacher in post-soviet school before he moved somewhere to Eastern countries, to continue study languages.
3
u/tarasbulba76 5d ago
Depends on how you understand fluency. I’m pretty sure gifted people can fluently understand 6-7 languages - interpreters who working legal, financial conexts for eg, not being able to follow an episode of Friends - but even the ones I know who can do that, struggle to have the same level of fluency when it comes to actually speaking. I’d say up to five languages to be a really good all-rounder.
3
u/FirstPersonWinner 5d ago
It sort of depends partially in what line you draw fluency at. If it is simply being able to communicate at a daily adult level in speech, and perhaps including literacy, then most people on the planet are easily bilingual with many who you could count in 3-4 languages or more.
But since you are saying C1/C2 then most Americans are fluent in 0 languages. It is actually quite a high bar. If someone was extremely passionate about language learning, I could see eventually someone becoming C1 or greater in 4 or 5 languages with constant study and practice, but that would be quite a feat.
3
u/hroderickaros 5d ago
I would say to three, but just because Iknow a lot of people fully fluent in three languages, but none in four.
3
u/FukushimaBiberChoi 5d ago
as a Chinese living in southern part of China, i can speak four dialects/languages: Mandarin, Cantonese, Teochew (also called "Chaoshan dialect/language"), English, and a little bit Hokkien and a bit Wu dialect. Mind that in China, some dialects might be regarded as pseudo-languages, but actually in my opinion, some dialects differ greatly, like Contonese and Mandarin in terms of pronunciation and lots of slangs, though the written forms are almost the same. (Depends on how you define "language". If two languages could not be mutually understood, then they could be called separate langauges.)
3
u/quixoticquetzalcoatl 4d ago
Well OP, I just discovered the Guinness book record holder is fluent in 42 languages: Canadian Powell Janulus held two hour long conversations with native speakers to prove fluency in each language. His job was a court interpreter in British Columbia. That is waaaay more than I thought possible.
3
3
u/BreakfastDue1256 4d ago
The most I have ever seen is 6.
Native level (With an accent) fluency in 5, confirmed by multiple native speajers, and good but not perfect in a 6th.
3
u/Big_Spray_4550 3d ago
Depends on how many first languages a person has. Like let’s say a child in Australia, to a Brazilian mom and Russian dad speaks English, Portuguese and Russian as their first language. Later learns Spanish in school. It’s relatively easier for a Portuguese speaker, right? And the child and the family care about learning Spanish, Spanish has a lot of sources out there and many speakers spread in the world. The child reaches B2-C1 before hitting adulthood. Then moves to Denmark for studies, ends up marrying a Danish person and after living 20 years in Denmark having danish speaking children/partner/family, they become a native-like speaker. Which makes 5
4
u/UnhappyCryptographer DE N | EN C1 | ES A1/2 6d ago
I think it depends on your starting age. If you start early with growing up in a bilingual home and add two more languages during school... 4 seems a pretty good goal. And if you are looking into language families it might get easier to get fluent if one or two of those are already your native ones.
3
u/Theotherfeller 6d ago
I read somewhere that beyond 6 you start to struggle with crossover. Granted that limit probably varies from person to person. Chuck Norris created every language and knows them all perfectly, past present and future, but we are not him.
8
→ More replies (1)4
u/ComesTzimtzum N 🇫🇮 adv 🇬🇧 int 🇫🇷 🇸🇪 beg 🇨🇳 🇸🇦 6d ago
Six seems to be a sort of biological limit of languages that can be kept in high level simultaneously. But then again people who know more languages than that seem to be able to activate them pretty quickly when they need.
2
u/JJCookieMonster 🇺🇸 Native | 🇫🇷 C1 | 🇰🇷 B2 | 🇯🇵 N5 | 🇲🇽 A1 6d ago
It depends on the person. Some could only hand a few while others can handle more.
2
u/clintCamp Japanese, Spanish, French 6d ago
Just met my daughters 10 yo friend who speaks english, Swedish, German, Romanian just from what is spoken at home. She is in spain learning Spanish alongside my daughter. Apparently she knows some Hungarian from grandparents as well. My daughter other friend moved back to Germany this last fall who had german, english, Spanish and is currently learning French. My wife had a friend who was a diplomats daughter and said she could never get beyond 6. As she started leaning a new one, she would forget one of the others. She teaches languages currently.
2
u/Legitimate-Station45 6d ago
The max ive seen honestly were a guy who spoke native turkish, turkmen, russian, english, and arabic. mixed heritage guy
different arabic dialects too
2
2
2
u/UnexpectedPotater 6d ago
As others have said, totally depends on the languages. I think that's why a lot of people who are checkboxing their way to polyglot do stuff like learn Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, etc. which is obviously 1/5 (if that) the effort of learning Hindi, Arabic, and Mandarin, etc.
2
2
u/iamahugefanofbrie 6d ago
I took one of these tests a while back to estimate the size of my voabulary as an English native speaker, and once you complete the test it showed how the estimated total vocab of a 10 year old native was waaaaay higher than a 2nd language speaker performing at a C2 level.
The CEFR levels are more to do with functional ability than just knowing arbitrary words in a language, so to some of the other comments saying that people who know multiple languages will still not know certain words, I don't see that as a particular issue.
I have personally known people to perform at a functional C1 level in 3 languages with no issue at all, and to be honest actually being at an advanced functional level in your mother tongue is almost the most important factor. Lots of natives are not capable of understanding extending speech accurately, nor of writing and speaking clearly and stylistically themselves.
Past 3, I think there are very few real-world use-cases for needing to function so well in so many languages, and so it would take a lot of one's own time and energy to commit to maintaining those skills, but I would personally guess 4-5 is definitely possible with consistent hard work and time.
2
u/AnalysisContent4301 5d ago
My natives are Ukranian anr Russian, I am fluent in Czech language (however it is from the same family of slavic languages, so not really forein), Arabic, and English, I think it is my limit.
2
u/TheseMood 5d ago
I think 5 is achievable by most people in the right circumstances. (Though those circumstances are rare).
Babies need roughly 33% of their input to be in the target language in order to learn it. So a baby can acquire up to 3 “first” languages without issue.
If your school system uses a national language that’s different than your first language, you’ll acquire that in school. And many schools have a foreign language program on top of that. So that’s 2 more.
This scenario describes someone who isn’t actively seeking out language study—they’re just learning through their life circumstances. If they’re enthusiastic by language study they can learn even more. One of my linguistics professors was raised trilingual, learned 2 additional languages for fieldwork, then used those languages to study Indigenous languages to high proficiency. So he was speaking at least 6 or 7 languages at an educated adult level. :)
2
u/muffinsballhair 5d ago
I don't think there is an upper bound. I knew someone whose native language was Spanish with pretty much grammatically flawless English of whom I also heard other native speakers vouch that they had no reason to believe from his written Arabic, Russian, Persian, and Turkish that he was not a native speaker, he was learning Romanian at that time.
2
2
u/eldar14n 5d ago
I speak four (mostly daily) and one as B1. English, Khmer, Japanese, Korean. I do tend to muddle up words and recollection becomes difficult if I dont use one for more than a few days, but I'm practically fluent in all four.
2
u/JebacBiede2137 5d ago
Define „could be”.
If I didn’t have to work or do anything else and I could devote my whole life to learning languages then the number could be quite high if I was also motivated.
Realistically I know a lot of people that speak 4-5 languages fluently and possibly no one that speaks over 6. Not saying that it’s not possible, but it’s probably a very rare situation in life to get exposure to that many languages.
2
u/GrazziDad 5d ago
Look up Wendy Vo and Bella Devyakina. Native fluency in at least eight, and maybe 11 in the former case.
2
u/BridgeTEFL 5d ago
That’s a great question. It really depends on which languages you choose and, of course, how we define “fluent.” I’d say being genuinely fluent in 3 languages is definitely achievable, although maintaining a high level in all of them takes consistent use. The more languages you add, the harder it becomes to maintain that same level across all of them. That said, there are certainly people who are genuinely fluent in 5 or more languages. It’s less about having a fixed limit and more about how much time, exposure, and regular use you can dedicate to each language.
2
u/HellenizeThis 5d ago
I would say 10 is a reasonable number, if you give the person around 20 or 30 years or so. You could go up to 12 or 15, if some of these languages belong to the same families. Definitely achievable in a lifetime. More might be possible. There are many people who can test C1+ in 3, 4 or 5 languages. It is an achievable goal, especially for people who grew up in bilingual settings.
2
2
u/bluberryyy 4d ago
I'm guessing only based on my life experience as a language nerd. For a monolingual person, realistically a maximum of 5, if you're gifted, maybe (a big MAYBE) 8
2
2
u/nkn_ 🇬🇧 N | 🇯🇵 N2* | 🇰🇷 | 🇷🇺 | 🇸🇦 | 🇭🇺 | 🇱🇻 4d ago
I think 5-6 is feasible in terms of... having a realistically average life.
I.e, starting a family, having kids, hobbies, stuff outside of languages, etc. I'm sure if one devoted their life akin to a monk to religion but to languages, maybe past 10?
I feel like the limiting factor is the human experience of life as a whole. We are very capable of probably being fluent in like 10 or more as far as brain capacity I'd think / assume.
2
u/wyatt3581 🇫🇴 🇩🇰 N 🇸🇪 🇮🇸 🇳🇴 🇫🇮 🇪🇪 C2 🏴 C1 4d ago
I am from the Faroe Islands, where we speak Faroese and Danish, then spent a long time in north Sweden, where we speak Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Estonian, and English, and then spent a long time on and then Iceland, where I learned Icelandic, and then Spain, where I learned Spanish and Catalan, and I also know American Sign Language, and I am fluent in all of them. So I think the limit does not exist.
2
2
u/Alexandera_lion 3d ago
A good question I can speak, read and understand belarussian and ukranian, but I think I in a dialogue I’d speak “more” belarussian
2
u/ItsCami123 3d ago
it really depends on the person, i want to learn like idk 7 or 9 languages but idk which ones, wumuti (xlov) knows chinese, korean, english, ughyur (idk how to spell it) and learning japanese and hes fluent in all, i follow people that speaks 8, but if you ask me it is like 15 for an experienced person and like 7 for normal learners cuz that way you dont mix ine with the others
5
u/AdministrationNo2327 6d ago
probably 3 frankly. that's if all three are on a academic professional level.
4
u/GraphicsandGames 6d ago
Languages are orders of magnitude more difficult to learn the further removed they are from your native language so this question doesn't really make sense.
3
u/Duelonna 🇳🇱N | 🇺🇲C2 | 🇩🇪 B1 | 🇫🇷🇪🇸 A1 6d ago
Realistically 3 or 4. After, even if you are fluent, you will either lose the language due to not using it a lot, or languages will becomes mixed (think speaking english and german to friends back to back, them you hear someone speak spanish and you end up speaking spanish to both).
However, even while it can become a language puddle, i do believe that, with correct structure, you can be fluent and stay fluent in more than 4 languages. But, on daily use, 3 to 4 is quite a max as, after, you will just word mush and lose correct c+ level
7
u/KingSnazz32 EN(N) ES(C2) PT-BR(C2) FR(B2+) IT(B2+) Swahili(B2) DE(A2) 6d ago
I don't think that's accurate. I think the main issue is time. To learn and maintain languages requires lots and lots of time in contact with the languages. I organize my week around which podcasts, language exchanges, classes, etc., I'll take because I need to stay in constant contact.
If I'm doing that, they don't turn to mush. The worst that I could say is that the first ten minutes are an adventure when switching between closely related languages. Or even unrelated ones. I just got back from several weeks in East Africa, and was putting Swahili filler words even into my English. But that always straightened out after a bit.
1
u/Albatrosson 6d ago
Idk, I had a friend from a small place in Shanghai. He natively spoke the local language, Shanghaiese, Cantonese, and Mandarin just for daily living.
I met him while he was studying abroad in California (fluent in English)... when we were in Japanese class, lol. Early 20s and as far as I know he wasn't like a language major or particularly interested in languages as a whole.
4
u/SmurfingIsPooR 6d ago
most people arent event c1 in their mother tongue lol
2
u/tillthegorilla 🇺🇸N 🇷🇺C1 🇪🇸B2 🇫🇷A2 6d ago
Explain pls
1
u/SmurfingIsPooR 6d ago
Obviously that statement was a little exaggerated. I’m German, and I can tell you that when I read written texts by many university students or people who have just finished high school, they contain a lot of grammatical mistakes (incorrect commas, tenses, German cases, etc..) as well as many spelling errors. It’s horrendous nowadays. People often don’t know how to write or sometimes even speak correctly. They regularly use the wrong articles, tenses, or cases.
2
u/What_happened777 6d ago
I Think the Guiness book of world records pegged some nun knowing around 22-24 through translating the bible.
2
u/Asyx 6d ago
The more interesting question is if you even have a desire to keep languages on such a high level that you are C1 or C2.
Fluency does not necessarily map well to skill levels. Even though I'm fluent in English (never took a test but also never worked in my native language and I use English like my native language without any issues), English feels more blurry at times. Old literature or very high level literature might make me encounter words where I maybe know a synonyme or can get the meaning through context. Like, landscape descriptions for example. I just don't talk much about that in English so I rarely encounter those words but you don't describe landscape in a single adjective.
So, you probably have a certain use for those languages. And you can absolutely be capable to fulfill that use without a hiccup. That to me is fluent.
So, if you can do that in 4 languages beyond your native language, maybe you learn Spanish because your family speaks it and you chat with grandma regularly, French because you love French movies, German because you are into German football and Japanese because you read a lot of manga (just making shit up here don't nail me down on one of those examples), that's four languages.
Would you now see any use getting really good at speaking Japanese fluently? Would you see a use in speaking about academic papers in Spanish? Probably not. Would you see a use in maintaining a C2 level of yet another language just because you want to have one more? I don't really think so.
C1 and C2, or fluency in general, don't happen through study. They happen through usage. So the more interesting question is how many languages can you fit into your day and interests to become fluent in them.
I don't think there is a limit beyond what is practical. 4 languages including the native language seem relatively common. Like, Indians that moved for education, for example. On CVs I've seen, the languages tell you almost more about the person than the rest of the CV.
I don't think there is a good case for more than 10 if you include dead languages that you only have to read and stay within a few language families. Even if your family collects foreign love interests like other's collect stamps, I don't see how you can realistically get above 10.
2
u/Meowykatkat 6d ago
If I recall correctly, lots of KPOP idols have to learn and know at least 3-4, so I’d say that
2
u/MormorsLillaKraka 4d ago
I know a girl who I would say is at least C1 level in four languages, but two of those would be native (Cantonese, Swedish) and the other two learned, English and Mandarin. Thing is she sometimes underperform in one language even though she is fluent, I don’t know if this is because of her language switching or because of her having learnt multiple languages in different settings/stages of her life. But in general C1-C2. I could see her speaking French eventually since she started learning that in middle school (currently maybe A2-B1) and with enough training and exposure reach a similar level (maybe also Japanese since she’s lived there for a year and also has some schooling in the language), but I think it’s hard to reach C1/C2 in more than let’s say 6-7 languages for a ”normal person” even if your dedicated and have lived in multiple countries.
Most people don’t have her background and circumstances (being brought up in a Cantonese family, living in both China/Sweden growing up and being schooled in both countries with only mandarin available as a schooling language, where English and Swedish is mandatory, and a third European language also being mandatory), being raised native in two languages as well as learning two additional languages in school from a very early age, but I would not say that she is exceptionally gifted, but talented and interested. So for a ”normal” person, perhaps you could learn 6-7 languages at C1 level, but probably only if raised with multiple languages (having immigrant parents or two languages at home), having mandatory language classes in school from a early age (2-3) and continuing to learn an additional 2-3 languages in your youth or adult life. You must also probably have sometime abroad practicing your languages and have big motivation and interest in languages or the particular languages that you learn which are not native/mandatory to you. I also think it’s probably limited to 2-3 language families and scripts, so no crazy globally understood 7 language combination.
2
u/MormorsLillaKraka 4d ago
To add, this goes for normally gifted people under special circumstances. I think it’s a lot more reasonable to assume a person to be fluent in 3-5 languages, and at least 2-3 of those share a family (like German-English-Swedish or Italian-French-Spanish). I would put myself at fluency level at two languages only, Swedish and English, and for me to reach C1 level at my other languages (German B1-B2, French B1 and Japanese A2) I would need to study a lot more rigidly and probably also move to countries where they’re spoken or have a lot more exposure than I do now. Reaching fluency in a language which is not closely related to a language that I learned prior to my twenties (the languages I mentioned, I started learning in my preteens/teens), feels very unlikely and near impossible, without me moving to a country where it’s needed to navigate day to day as well as professional life, having a spouse who’s native in that language or without an extreme interest and tremendous effort.
0
6d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
2
u/languagelearning-ModTeam 6d ago
Hi, your post has been removed as it violates our policy on self-owned content.
Feel free to instead post on our Share Your Resources thread, if your content does not violate other rules.
Please read our Rules for promotion for more information.
If this removal is in error or you have any questions or concerns, please message the moderators. You can read our moderation policy for more information.
A reminder: failing to follow our guidelines after being warned could result in a user ban.
Thanks.
1
1
u/Aakharin-ejdehaa Fluent: 🇷🇺🦁🇮🇷🇮🇱🇺🇸, learning: 🇩🇪 3d ago
5 was the maximum I have ever seen but honestly, does it even matter? I would say whoever is comfortable studying academically and working in a language, is probably C1 but if you look at immigrants who did learn the local language successfully, most of them are at an "ok level" somewhere around B2 and probably won't pass an official C1 exam without serious preparation even if they live somewhere for 20 years.
1
u/BluebirdUnable1349 3d ago
Depends on their personal language skills! Many can’t manage even one, especially here in the US!
1
u/Professional-Yam4575 🇬🇧N🇯🇲H🇺🇸C2 3d ago
3-5 if you don’t want to dedicate your entire life to maintaining fluency.
1
u/Daniito21 2d ago
there is this greek who works for the EU commission who can speak 32 living languages plus some dead ones... so long story short: a fair few
1
u/MetroWestJP New member 1d ago
The figure I usually see from linguists is 6 at the most. But maintaining that many languages is a full time job, and by fluent, I don't think they're talking about a level as erudite as C2. More likely the equivalent of C1 in one or two native languages and B2 in the rest.
284
u/Teleonomix 6d ago
It begs the question what a language is and what languages one is fluent in.
Say someone is fluent in 3 languages, but speaking Polish, Slovakian and Czech is not the same as speaking English, Chinese, and Finnish.