How realistic is it to learn 10 foreign languages.? Considering learning more inorder to get a better career!?

Question

I am 37 years old. I know how to speak some Spanish, French, German. I have learned Swedish and current learning German and Turkish. All the language I will know come from the Roman Alphabet.

Other ones I am considering are Italian, Azeri or Turkmen,Romanian,Dutch, or maybe Javanese or Slovak.

I tried to learn Russian, Vietnamese and Arabic but the alphabet is too hard to understand!

Answer 1

I think it's very realistic, depending on the way your mind works.  I am 16 and I am learning German (four years worth in school), Chinese (two years in school), I took one year of French in school and I am learning Russian as well as Polish and brushing up on a little Hebrew on my own.  If you retain the grammatical aspects easily and are able to keep the intricacies of each language separate within your mind, I believe it will be perfectly realistic.

I would recommend Italian for you if you already know Spanish. They are quite similar and Italian is a beautiful language (my grandfather speaks it and I myself am planning to add it to my repertoire).

Answer 2

Good for you, the more the better with languages.  It makes it easier to make connections with routes in different languages if you know more.  It gets easier the more you know and I think it is good to know as many languages as possible.  Out of the ones you are thinking of learning, Italian and Dutch are more necessary for a better career.  

Answer 3

WOW! That would be pretty interesting to learn 10 different languages! I say go for it! if you really go for it, and study hard, I think you could learn maybe six or seven. I probably wouldn't do them all at once, though. ;) (I once said a sentence, 1/2 Japanese, 1/2 Spanish!)

Think of the complexity of the languages that you're learning, how much you want to learn of each language, and the time you have available to learn what you want to learn. 10 languages maybe a bit much, but you can do anything, and anything is possible if you really strive for it.

Good luck!

Answer 4

Hello,

Well much depends on how you want to define fluency. It took me 11 years of English to be able to pass high school and university exams.

Another language like Spanish or French takes 3 years to have great intelligent conversation but 7 years or more before you can give a great oration in the history of the culture and defend yourself in a court of law, not to mention understanding figures of speech, jokes, witticisms, play on words etc.

I would rather learn a second or third language really well and take them to the highest limits than spend 70 years learning 10 or more in a half  a ssed manner. That said, I know there is the odd linguistic genius like that 19th century fellow who discovered Troy but like 10 year olds who can do calculus, they are far and few between. I might add I have seen people tested out in public when they claimed to be linguistic in 10 or more languages and this much I can tell you when they were challenged by native speakers... they did not fare well at all.

Cheers,

Michael Kelly

Answer 5

Why are you asking us ?

Go for it!

Here are links for learning Romanian.

The second one is constantly updated.

Answer 6

It is possible, but unlikely,  You know your limits, but as others have suggested knowing to speak fluent bulgarian will get you much further than tid bits of 100 languages, so figure out how many you can learn fully, and the best combination so that you can maximize the benefits of having learned the previous language (which is to say, Italian Spanish Portuguese and French are much better paired than French, Japanese, Hebrew and Russian, because of their similarities.  Again, if you must must must, try to stick within two or three language groups, Romance and Germanic for example.

Answer 7

I think it's very doable.  I imagine that being equally good at all of them would be difficult.

Sites like LiveMocha.com and Skype make it easier.

In our times, I guess it's easy even in the US to make multilingual activities part of our everyday routine - VOIP has made international calls less costly.

Plus you can use Yahoo Answers, Wiki or Yahoo groups in multiple languages to get lots of practice.

Answer 8

What do you mean when you say learn? Because some people learn how to meet someone, some people learn how to make basic business transactions, and then some people learn the new language enough to get the jokes.

You really can what you want to if you stick to it and you love it, but I think it is unrealistic to fully learn 10 foreign languages. It takes at least 3-4 years of studying daily for hours and watching TV shows and reading everything you can get your hands on to really get the hang of a language. You'll be popping out your dentures at night before you're done learning 10 languages. (Though if you love what you do, there is no end).

I'd say don't waste your time even getting conversational in a language just to hike up the number of languages on your job app. Pick the world's 2-3 business languages and learn those well. Choose from: Spanish, French, and Chinese (Mandarin). Or Arabic and Japanese. Don't let the alphabets or character sets scare you because they are phonetic gems in themselves. Quality, not quantity man.