
The Mystery of People Who Speak Dozens of Languages - jeffreyrogers
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/09/03/the-mystery-of-people-who-speak-dozens-of-languages
======
wallflower
For those who were not born with the linguistic equivalent of a "silver spoon
in the mouth", which is immersion and exposure to several languages in early
childhood, learning another language is achievable. No need to be a polyglot
(6 languages) or hyperglot (11 languages). It just takes time and effort. Just
throw away all concept of deadlines for progress and fluency and enjoy the
failure and process. Ignore all "fluent in X time" charlatans, there is no
magic process for the standard "I took Spanish for 4 years in school" adult
language learner. Just get started.

I have heard some people carry on conversations in two or three languages
simultaneously, and I am in awe of Mezzofanti.

> "On one occasion, Pope Gregory XVI (1765-1846), a friend of Mezzofanti,
> arranged for dozens of international students to surprise him. When the
> signal was given, the students knelt before Mezzofanti and then rose
> quickly, talking to him 'each in his own tongue, with such an abundance of
> words and such a volubility of tone, that, in the jargon of dialects, it was
> almost impossible to hear, much less to understand them.' Mezzofanti didn't
> flinch but 'took them up singly, and replied to each in his own language.'
> The pope declared the cardinal to be victorious. Mezzofanti could not be
> bested."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mezzofanti](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mezzofanti)

~~~
jlg23
> I have heard some people carry on conversations in two or three languages
> simultaneously, and I am in awe of Mezzofanti.

This is the norm here in Morocco: Lots of people speak a Berber dialect as
their primary language, followed by Arab and French (both compulsory in
education). Not only are most able to participate in 3 communications in their
3 languages, they also practice code-switching a lot - it's not uncommon to
have all 3 languages in a single sentence.

> Just throw away all concept of deadlines for progress and fluency and enjoy
> the failure and process.

The second part is, IMHO, the most important: Fail, fail, fail - and laugh
about it. One does walk away from "talks", both parties laughing and
"agreeing", with both parties being aware that communication failed
completely.

~~~
pmoriarty
_" Fail, fail, fail - and laugh about it."_

One not only needs a tolerance for failure, but a tolerance for humiliation.
Some native speakers will treat people with a poor grasp of their language as
if they were children or idiots.

I've definitely acquired a lot more empathy for people who struggle with
English once I tried my own rudimentary language skills in other countries.
These people who have difficulty putting together a few words in English might
actually be far more intelligent and educated than the native speakers they're
trying to communicate with, yet they're often looked down upon.

------
natmaka
Why, in such a context, a language is counted just as any another one?
Mastering a small set of very different languages (let's say Chinese Mandarin,
Arabic, and Hungarian) seems far more impressive to me than mastering more
languages all pertaining to the same family (let's say 20 Romance languages).

In France during a gig in the linguists' world I heard that Claude Hagège, a
local authority, has a fair command of 80 languages. WP EN credits him with
"about 50"
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Hag%C3%A8ge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Hag%C3%A8ge)

~~~
beeforpork
Every time there is an anecdote of someone speaking so many languages, there
is no evidence on Youtube or anywhere else. I mean spontaeous fluency, not
reading a story or telling two jokes. Like in this case, he speaks only French
fluently on Youtube.

Now, for example, Martina Hingis, a former tennis player for those who are too
young or too nerdy to know, speaks five languages according to Wikipedia.
Well, she actually has interviews on Youtube showing impressive fluency in
English, German, Swiss German, French, and Czech. I am absolutely fascinated
by this.

~~~
davidgay
Well for Martina Hingis that's not too surprising:

\- Czech parents (and lived there till ~7) \- moved to (German-part of)
Switzerland: the local language is Swiss German, but school is in German
(i.e., everyone speaks both of those) \- everyone in Switzerland is taught one
of the other official languages, usually German in the non-German speaking
areas, and French in the German speaking areas (fluency will vary, but for
instance I had 7 years of German by the end of high school) \- everyone learns
English these days ;)

I would expect that most children who moved to German-speaking Switzerland at
a youngish age would be fluent in at least 4 languages...

~~~
pjmlp
Yet many end up speaking in English between themselves, because they don't
bother to continue learning the other canton languages after the compulsory
period.

It is ironic that I know better French than some Swiss German and Swiss
Italian friends, and better German than some Swiss Romande friends.

------
ACS_Solver
Some totally anecdotal points.

It seems like it's far easier with early exposure to languages. I speak six
languages, and don't find languages too difficult, which I attribute largely
to having grown up speaking two languages from two different language
families, and being exposed to a third one fairly early. Thanks to that, it's
completely natural to me that ideas are expressed differently in different
languages. When I encounter people who speak/write a foreign language poorly,
it usually looks like they think of a sentence in their own language, and then
replace the words individually with words in their target language. It's not
so much a difference of skill level as it is a difference in the basic way of
thinking.

I've also watched some videos along the lines of "see me speak 10 languages",
and those are almost always less impressive than the title. They usually show
a person fluent in 3-5 languages, and then saying introductory basic things in
the others. That's very respectable and I don't want to play that down, but
it's also not "wow, s/he's fluent in 10 languages!" like people might think
from the title.

One more thing that keeps me wondering is the practical limit of how many
languages you can maintain. Personally, with six languages, I already feel I'm
pushing it. I use four languages in day-to-day life. If I don't read/speak
either of my other two for a while, I feel my skills deteriorating. Personally
it seems like maintaining seven languages would take a deliberate,
considerable time investment, and more than that wouldn't work.

~~~
Izkata
> It seems like it's far easier with early exposure to languages. I speak six
> languages, and don't find languages too difficult, which I attribute largely
> to having grown up speaking two languages from two different language
> families, and being exposed to a third one fairly early.

I think it's more along the lines of: Your first/native language isn't a
problem, your second language is difficult, and with each beyond that it
becomes easier to change how you think to fit the next language. It's just,
being exposed young breaks that second-language hurdle early enough you don't
really remember it being extra difficult.

I'm not fluent in anything besides English (though know a small bit of Spanish
and Japanese), so take that above with a grain of salt. But the difficulty
curve seems similar to programing languages, where the more you learn, the
more you recognize underlying concepts across languages, making further ones
easier to understand.

~~~
ACS_Solver
> Your first/native language isn't a problem, your second language is
> difficult

I don't think so - I rather think this is exactly what early exposure gets
around. Growing up with two languages, you understand and speak two even
before understanding concepts like language learning, or there being more than
those two languages. The second language isn't difficult at all, it's just the
same as your native language. Or it's like having two native languages. But
there's no second-language hurdle in that case (though it moves to the third
one).

------
emodendroket
I have seen a lot of people who claim to be masters of a gazillion languages
on YouTube or whatever but if I watch them in a language I know their skills
are much more elementary than advertised. So I'm kind of skeptical here.

~~~
bunderbunder
So, this is one thing I like about Gabirel Wyner -- in his book, "Fluent
Forever", he's got a section in the first chapter where he talks about how he
defines fluency, and he fairly openly acknowledges that he personally sets a
very low bar. It's basically just being able to engage in small talk without
too much hesitation, with no expectations placed on developing a large
vocabulary, or mastering every verb tense, or any of that.

I suspect that's what's happening with a lot of people who cultivate a
reputation as hyper-polyglots: When they say "fluent", they mean, "about on
par with a 4-year-old, only more literate". When everyone else hears fluent,
they think they mean, "masters of the language".

(edit: I pick 4 years old because that's about on par with the benchmark Wyner
is using - in his book, he seems to be using 1,500 words as the benchmark for
a working vocabulary. I believe that's about average for a native English-
speaking 4-year-old.)

~~~
misiti3780
I didn't really get that from his book -- I thought he was saying you pick the
top 1500 words (actually I think its 600 in his book) and learn how to
pronounce / spell / and memorize them using Anki, and then start speaking with
someone on iTalki etc and go from there. I have used this method to learn
Italian and now I am doing it with French. I think the method works. Fluency
is a loaded term in my opinion - from this article it seems to be defined as
C1/C2, but in reality you can get by with a lot less, you need a handful for
verbs and a large amount of nouns

~~~
oh_sigh
I have learned basic conversational german and spanish by doing just that -
basically just drilling 2000 of the most common words in the language into my
brain with complete disregard for any grammar, conjugations, etc. Then, I
spend some time learning common conjugations, sentence structure, etc, and
then I start talking with people where I can.

I've had much better luck with this system than with what I was forced to use
in school to learn French, which was basically slowly build up all of the
skills at once(learn a little grammar, a few words, at a time).

~~~
misiti3780
I agree, the few things I think are really valuable in that book are the
following

* learn pronunciation/spelling first

* learn the top words using images and space repetition

* study every single day

I think this method is by far superior to anything taught in high schools in
the US, which is very sad given a large portion of our population speaks
Spanish and I think they could change the curriculum a bit an a lot more
students would leave school bi-lingual

------
projectramo
It gets easier with each one.

I think the secret is to expose the person to multiple languages at a very
early age.

Its like having kids: the first is an impossible leap, the second is much
harder than anticipated, the third gets easier and after the fourth its just a
big mass.

~~~
soperj
>Its like having kids

I have 2 kids. Everyone I've spoke to who has 3 or more has said that the jump
from 2 to 3 is as big as the jump from 0 to 1.

~~~
poulsbohemian
I have three kids. When I am working one on one or even one on two, it's
noticeably easier than when I have all three with me and am trying to assist
them all with their needs. You play zone defense rather than man on man and as
a result you are always stretched a little thin.

~~~
sowbug
Ages matter. If the oldest can help out, it scales better.

But all pretense of democratic rule must be jettisoned once the kids outnumber
the parents.

~~~
poulsbohemian
I agree, and watching larger families in my community (where my three kids is
a "small" family), it's obvious that older siblings take a significant role in
helping the younger. That said, the demeanor of kids matters a lot, as my
oldest (teenager) is significantly more of a challenge than my other two. She
by herself takes more energy than the other two combined.

------
jameskegel
I've always admired these people, and secretly suspected that people who speak
more than a few languages have a superlinguist genetic trait that makes them
more likely to pick up a new dialect or language. The common denominator seems
to be the rapid introduction of new languages at a very young age.

------
paulpauper
_Some four hundred respondents provided information about their gender and
their orientation, among other personal details, including their I.Q.s (which
were above average). Nearly half spoke at least seven languages, and seventeen
qualified as hyperpolyglots. The distillation of this research, “Babel No
More,” published in 2012, is an essential reference book—in its way, an
ethnography of what Erard calls a “neural tribe.”_

The answer is IQ. I knew that before even reading the article. Same for speed
reading, memorization, etc. anything that is cognitive has a large IQ
component. I dunno why it's so hard for researchers to get this. Instead we
hook subjects to machines to look for brain patterns or we try to look for any
other explanation besides the most obvious one, IQ.

~~~
monetus
I don't think IQ tests are precise because intelligence is an abstract
concept. It makes sense that they are searching for something corporeal and
consistent.

------
mitchtbaum
This languages teacher has good info about practicing dozens of languages:
[https://www.youtube.com/user/laoshu505000](https://www.youtube.com/user/laoshu505000)

------
malpighien
Though you would say Amoureux des langues and not de langues in French.

------
kazinator
Speak and understand dozens of languages at what level?

Could they understand a complex news story about economics and finance in all
those languages? Read a novel? Write an essay on a complex topic?

I'm skeptical.

You could be mistaken as a native in six languages if you just make small talk
with a perfect accent and intonation.

Someone who really knows a language has a (passive) vocabulary of some 25,000
words. A proper hyperpolyglot should have 11X then, once per each language.
Yeah, sure!

~~~
bunderbunder
> Could they understand a complex news story about economics and finance in
> all those languages? Read a novel? Write an essay on a complex topic?

Those skills can't even be assumed in native speakers.

For example: [https://nces.ed.gov/naal/](https://nces.ed.gov/naal/)

~~~
kazinator
They can be assumed in high IQ native speakers, though.

These hyperpolyglots are supposed to be high IQ.

If you have a high IQ, but look like a low IQ illiterate in a dozen additional
languages, then I'm afraid you're a phonyglot. This is because there are ideas
that you can think but cannot say in those non-native languages; and if
someone else were to say those things for you, you wouldn't understand what
they are saying.

------
pluc
I believe this applies to programming as well. One programming language is
about equivalent in terms of mental effort to learn as a new language -
actually they're called languages too. There are polyglots in our world today,
who know C, C++, Java and C# as well as French, English and whatever else, who
I think deserve as much accolades as those linguistic hyperpolyglots.

~~~
funkaster
Not at all. Learning a new programming language (let's say being able to
"converse" in a new programming language) is not even close to the difficulty
of being able to converse in a new human language. I know (I've coded
professionally) C, C++, C#, JavaScript, typescript, Ruby, python, scheme. I
can read and understand Rust, any c-like language, Scala, brainfuck and many
others. I could confidently say that I could understand pretty much any
programming language.

On the other hand I can speak Spanish, English. I can "converse" in French
(formally studied), Portuguese and some Italian. I'm learning Mandarin right
now. I studied Latin for several years. Human languages are so much harder
because (among many other factors) their grammars are so much complicated,
also languages evolve in time. Computer languages they are all very similar
and their grammars and orders of magnitude more simple (they have to be in
order to fulfill their goal of being mapped to instructions on a Turing
Machine). I could confidently say that no matter how much I try, I probably
would not understand any human language unless I dedicated a non-trivial
amount of time and effort to learn it. And that just for getting to a
colloquial level of dialogue. If I ever wanted to be productive professionally
reading/writing it would be way more hard.

~~~
astrodust
That's probably because in computer languages we invent our own dialects as
the core is pretty feeble: "Jane get ball, ball is red. Red ball goes down
hill." So that becomes "getBall()", "dropBall()" and so on where with a heavy
helping of English, or whatever human language you prefer, you can slather on
top a lot of semantic meaning that isn't there otherwise.

If you only had to learn basic grammar and fifty words you could be fluent in
a hundred languages in a month.

------
fbn79
I'm a web developer. I'm forced to write code in dozens of languages.

------
aloisdg
Glad to see that Esperanto count as living language.

~~~
BillChapman
Of course Esperanto is a living language.How could anyone doubt that.

------
m1573rp34130dy
the basic skill of language is a conservative function... if you are aware of
linguistic rules [grammer syntax], you are aware of the "algorithm" and
variations of said algorithm...next is the strings [words] and the variable
type [accent , timbre, pause etc.] how many languages do you speak?[rhet], how
many high level source versions do you know/speak? BASIC, LISP, APL, ASM are
all very old digital languages that the ancients speak, and i remember my
first TI sinclair 1000 and the basic source code, it was a hurdle but also a
nucleus of concepts, it was shockingly easy to learn additional coding
languages compared to the first one, and going further i believe this
contributed to the ease, and desire of learning how a computer/object code
device actually operates, then i learned ASM and hex macros, and the need/use
for compilers and libraries, i was 11 by the time i was designing digital
circuits...."the whole point being, spoken languages utilize the same
underlying mechanisms"... if your daily dealing involve symbols , abstracts
and translation of these to relay concepts you are primed to learn a "new
language" easily... mathematics, schematics, stoichiometry, feynman diagrams,
are all languages, as well as english french spanish etc.. Sooo..."how many
languages do you speak"?...

