I am an ardent reader of blogs in all shapes and sizes. Yesterday I caught up with Reinhard’s latest article: “How many languages can one learn?” Well worth a read!
Here is his blog: Alleray's blog
I too enjoyed Reinhard’s blog post. Although I’m usually a one language at a time man, the temptation is strong and it might get the better of me in the short-term.
My person question is: “Is it possible to learn one language?” To that, I must answer no. No matter how much I like a particular language, I simply love seeing/hearing different things.
There is this Moses guy who learns a different language after every two weeks but the definition of learning a language varies from person to person. laoshu505000 - YouTube
I even had a short conversation with him in my native language URDU over the phone. I called him from Pakistan. Yes, he has a knack for learning languages given enough exposure or enviornment he wil pick up a target language quickly however knowing a handful phrases is not equal to learning a language. Therefore, I will not list it in my profile unless or until I’m not fluent yet at a decent level.
I prefer to focus on one language while occasionally refreshing my akills in another. I could not start two at the same time.
why, such a rush? Is there any a instance where one urgently needs to learn two or more languages at a time? Not that many surely.
Now I know a friend who had Spanish Relatives coming to stay with them for a month. So she started picking up Spanish, as a good gesture. This being a time where her English, Danish, and German exams were due in the same time.
It did not workout 
she did get good grades though.
I have tried taken on 3 languages at a time, it did not take long before I realized it was too many to take on. So 2 were set on hold, and I kept moving on with my Swedish. Oh and all this was in the time of my English study.
I think, it is our fascination of something new and different that leads us, to strafe from our language learning that we currently are a midsts in. So we need to resist this urge of our own vanity. Because the thing to remember is; being proficient in A language, is much more rewarding than being only A beginner in many.
"hope you cached that last part, 
i prefer learn one by one too…
Laddering might be a good compromise.
Klettur, for me it’s not about needing to rush. It’s that I’m just so intensely interested in languages. I bet I would get good graded for my languages - but I’m not going to school and my own way of testing myself is by what I read and listen to. I don’t seek any other way. hehe
It’s commonly said that someone interested in many languages can only become a beginner in them. I don’t think this is necessarily true. My Dutch is definitely intermediate, even though I’ve never studied a single language at a time. There’s just no evident of the ‘Jack of all trades’ being the rule here. In fact, those who approach it right, often reach a very high level of proficiency. For Yiddish (studying now), German, Afrikaans, and Frisian, I’m not going to need to put such massive efforts into. I’ll learn those much quicker now. I’ve already witnessed this with Yiddish. My French is that of a beginner, but after only a few months of learning it on the side, it’s exactly where I expect it to be. (Probably at a better level than many learners who even study it alone…)
For a language addict, there is no compromise. 
No rush here either. I’ve always been dabbling; be it languages, music, martial arts… As long as I feel I’m progressing (or even just having a lot of fun), nobody can stop me.
The “Jack of all trades (and master of none)” is a myth. Just as Imyirtseshem says, the right approach can do wonders. Some language combinations just let it happen, just like some combinations of musical instruments are helpful if you want to learn a third. There are some alpine skiers who are fairly successful in slalom, giant slalom, super G and downhill - not despite the “cross-training” but rather because of it.
Its time to face it @Imyrtsehem “you have an amazing brain” not many people can joggle that many languages in the air without having things coming crashing down.
Now if we assume this thread is titled “How many languages can you learn from zero knowledge”
Now i know you can improve yourself at the the same time in many languages I’m been doing that for the last year, But not while starting out with completely new languages. You really think you can? isn’t this the time where one should be the most focused and occupied with the language, at its very beginning. It does not seem to me, to be enough mental capacity, to be able to take on many languages at a time, at least not for your average Joe.
I would have to say that there’s nothing special about me at all. Hard work is the only way I get anywhere with languages. Maybe most people aren’t interested, knowledgeable enough on how to do it or have enough time, among other possible factors. The fact is that I have many hours each day in which to do this, deep interest, many resources and have done a lot of experimenting with techniques and pacing. That’s something which always improves too. In 10 years, I’ll look back at now and think that I was learning incredibly slow and haphazardly. (That’s how I see myself a few years back…hehe).
“How many languages can you learn from zero knowledge?”
Well, this would depend on various factors of course. I wouldn’t try to learn Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese from scratch at the same starting point. I think that the more diverse, the easier it gets (so long as the other factors I mentioned above are met - motivation, resources, time and technique). I’m guessing that I could start 3 at a time.
Maybe there is some validity in what you say about focusing on the one language intensely at the beginning, but I find that the pace slows down soon anyway. So, I start off with a decent pace, but I don’t worry about becoming super fluent quickly, I just take it easy. The knowledge just builds up over time.
I could study 10 languages at a time and juggle it just perfectly, but my progress wouldn’t be quite enough in any of them to justify this. Perhaps, one day, I’ll try this out. It might work for me one day.
This is all just my experience, don’t forget that. Not making any recommendations at all.
I’ve been collecting languages, knowledge about languages and real language skills, all my life, it seems. In school I had to deal with 3 languages, so why not try learning a few more, I thought. I loved travelling, went to England at age 12 for the first time, to Hungary when I was 14, I knew about the advantages of being able to use a foreign language, even in a limited way. And I got to love the feeling of starting a new language, learning a new way of thinking and also the ways in which languages could express things in different or very similar ways. Even at university, where I studied English and French, I could not leave other languages alone. For very practical reasons I had to focus on 2 languages that I was going to teach in high school/college, but I always found my linguistic interests hard to control.
Now, with so many interesting languages available on LingQ, I have found that I can only improve my language skills if I focus on one language at a time. My ultimate goal is to be as comfortable in Russian as I’m in French, but since I’m not studying at university, I neither have the pressure nor the motivation to work as hard as it would be necessary to achieve that level. So I’m content with the progress I have already made (maybe from a good Beginner 2 to Intermediate 2 level) over almost four years.
Whenever I have learned other languages (Swedish, Spanish), I drifted away from Russian and progress came to a standstill. I don’t want to risk this happening again. So whatever other language or languages I’m studying, they will have slower progress. Still, I could not do without learning other languages. The funny thing is that I keep finding words that have obviously come into Russian from other languages (Arabic, Turkish, German, French) or I find similar patterns in other languages. Maybe it’s the “language instinct” that is very strong in some people or some “bug” or something else. There’s endless variation in languages like in people in general, it’s a game I have always liked to play.
Thanks very much for sharing your experiences, Alleray. Glad that you chose to share it with us here.
I must say that I have been having conversations with Reinhard in Czech lately and he is now able to have basic conversations and understand me and express himself
Foreigners have usually problems with the Czech pronunciation and accent…even after many years living here, their accent is not so good…but Reinhard’s accent is quite good
People like him, Steve and other succesfull learners make me motivated
His lovely Austrian accent no doubt helps alleray to have a good accent in Czech (or could it be that his tutor helps?).
his tutor has not helped him with the Czech accent Yeah, his Austrian accent could help him
Gosh, there’s so much here I can relate to! I started learning German when I was ten, after moving there, but I loved it so much and had never experienced anything like it before that I wanted to explore the “linguistic landscape” a little more So I started studying French with grammar books, used Rosetta Stone, had a tutor at one point…unfortunately, I didn’t have many German/European friends, since I went to American school and was shy, so my German didn’t take off the way I’d like it to have…since then, I’ve done Spanish, Russian, a little Japanese, and now even Chinese at school. It’s neat to experience all these languages on a basic level, but then I find myself hearing people speak in a language I reeeeaaaally love (Russian, German, French) and wish I’d focused on one language at a time. I read on a language blog once that one sharp knife is better than a few dull ones 
So I totally am there where Imyirtseshem is in that aspect–like so many languages, love hearing and reading them that it’s difficult for me to make serious progress in any. After six years though, I’d say I’m getting closer to being fluent in German, and I think I could get to a high intermediate level in my other languages in a short time as well (excluding the Asian ones^^). I’m so excited that within a short time, I’ll be able to say with confidence, “I’m bilingual in German”!
Gosh, there’s so much here I can relate to! I started learning German when I was ten, after moving there, but I loved it so much and had never experienced anything like it before that I wanted to explore the “linguistic landscape” a little more So I started studying French with grammar books, used Rosetta Stone, had a tutor at one point…unfortunately, I didn’t have many German/European friends, since I went to American school and was shy, so my German didn’t take off the way I’d like it to have…since then, I’ve done Spanish, Russian, a little Japanese, and now even Chinese at school. It’s neat to experience all these languages on a basic level, but then I find myself hearing people speak in a language I reeeeaaaally love (Russian, German, French) and wish I’d focused on one language at a time. I read on a language blog once that one sharp knife is better than a few dull ones So I totally am there where Imyirtseshem is in that aspect–like so many languages, love hearing and reading them that it’s difficult for me to make serious progress in any. After six years though, I’d say I’m getting closer to being fluent in German, and I think I could get to a high intermediate level in my other languages in a short time as well (excluding the Asian ones^^). I’m so excited that within a short time, I’ll be able to say with confidence, “I’m bilingual in German”!
I think all depends about your goal.
My goal with english is definitely fluency.
German : I want to present my ideas,not necessarily delve in the language.
Italian : is very similare with portuguese so I don’t have difficult to learn.
French : just have a intermediate level, speak , read , understand.
Czech : I want to know about the culture maybe make friends.
Polish : I wish visit this beautiful pleace and be able to comunicate with the people.
Dutch : I want to see with my eyes the thousands of bicycles and share experiences.
first of all I choose 2 language. one more easy, for example italian and more difficult for example german.