Obrigado for your awesome job.

Great stuff here. This has always been fascinating to me and I have attempted several languages in my life. I can read Ancient Greek pretty well but would definitely like to improve my skills and transition into reading and speaking modern Greek. Any tips on just reading in another language especially one no longer spoken.

Thanks. Great site!

ありがとうございます!

It’s true that French is “surprisingly similar to Italian”; the reason why French (as well as English) keeps strange mediæval spellings is obviously to allow Italians to read the language!

I was wondering the last time i saw your, i saw a little link about how get an internet job as free lance translator, by now i speak fluently: Spanish, English, Esperanto, and in intermediate level in French and Portuguese which i want to develop them more.

I like to read your post, because i’m learning to learn, and im wondering if i can do the same you do.!

I am. And I found your advices very useful (as usually do)
For me the most important was that one shouldn’t be afraid to start communicating in a language since this is the point in learning languages. Sounds easy, but still, it took me a little time to convince myself and “force” myself communicating in Spanish (currently learning). Although I’m still hesitating how should I go about it properly. I understand the meaning of “fluency” and “fluent”, but I want to speak Spanish as correctly as it is possible. Just communicating fluently and with full of mistakes is not good enough for me. But this is just my opinion. I totally understand your point of view. And I know that “practice makes perfect”, so I shouldn’t worry about mistakes.:D
By the way, my goal is to be a polyglot, so just keep posting useful tipps

I know that my language level in German is definitely not enough. I’m thinking of doing a 6 month stint in Germany to hopefully polish up my German towards the end of next year albeit not to C2 level yet. I know that it takes years and years before I can even think of applying for the EMCI course. An additional note to make is that I don’t speak enough EU languages to meet the minimum requirement as of yet.

Code switching is doing what one of your Brazillian friends does, switching between languages and thinking and expressing yourself in that language itself. E.g. Speaking in French then changing to English immediately without hesitation and loss of language quality.

I speak English, Malay and a Chinese dialect from South China (it’s quite different to Mandarin). I grew up in Malaysia and most people there speak at least 2 if not 3 languages; English, Malay, one of the Chinese dialects or Standard Mandarin, and/or Tamil (an Indian language from the south of India). I would consider myself a polyglot just by chance of birth location (under your genetic heritage heading) I have had full access to and the need to speak these languages. I think that the most powerful motivation is either the real need to use the language or the perceived need to use it that fuels one’s motivation.

I feel that languages come quite easily to me because of my background. The 3 languages that I have been exposed to when I was young were from 3 totally different family trees and my brain is used to it not expecting the same language structure in each language I encounter. I normally throw myself into the deep end. I used to read German news articles when I started and flicked through other German websites as well to expose myself to how it’s used in real life.

Some of your polygot suggestions are quite good, especially the practising one. I feel that in order to improve or learn any language constant use with proper form will definitely help. I would like to add that if someone would like fluent knowledge of the language that they’re learning, the best and most productive way is through immersion in the country itself. Your tips such as not speaking your native tongue and trying to meet more locals are much more important than even attending formal lessons. You learn so much more organically by attempting to speak to locals; be it their mannerisms, their way of thinking, their choice of words, their intonation etc. You can never learn this through books.

Bis später!