Hiroko, this is a link to the youtube channel of a japanese polyglot UnclePolyglot - YouTube
@Harry
Wow! Thank you for letting me know about him.
Now I am quite relieved to know that at least we have one Japanese polyglot.
cherry,
Yes, he is a Japanese polyglot. I left a comment on his Youtube video several months ago. He is crazy about language learning.
Take a look his Japanese blog.
http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/gaikokugo_daisuki_ojisan
soo… he knows japanese, mandarin, french, and english? it’s awesome he knows these languages of course but why all the fuss? are nihonjin that know 3-4 languages really that rare?
“Even if he or she is really polyglot, ordinary people cannot know if it is true or not because they usually understand only one or two languages. If you see he or she does not speak or write very well in one language that you know very well, you doubt that he or she is a successful polyglot.”
I agree, but that’s because I suspect we hold the bar too high for them. Even bilinguals are rarely perfect bilinguals.
I have known a few Japanese polyglots-if being trilingual is the minimal requirement. Some people think “four” is the requirement.
Well, westerners usually get freaked out when they see Kanji
Maybe Japanese people also freak out when they see our alphabet…
just joking
"Even bilinguals are rarely perfect bilinguals. "
here I’d beg to differ - really depends on the country. for instance in Ukraine most know Ukrainian and Russian just by default. In some african countries it’s normal to know 4-5 languages.
"Well, westerners usually get freaked out when they see Kanji "
true that! Though now that I know several hundred of em even those that I don’t know no longer induce fear in me since often I can see familiar primitives in em.
“Maybe Japanese people also freak out when they see our alphabet…”
mm they learn Romanji in school so probably not, however Cyrillic I think would do the job 
you are serious ? men speak 30 languages lol well good luck but I don’t understand why you want absoluly speak 30 languages perfectly because they languages speak in the word in general
- English
- Spanish
- Portugues
and they other languages just in the country so good luck and have fun
Nobuo san, Thank you very much for sharing a Japanese polyglot’s blog. He explains on his blog many interesting approach for learning French.
Here is his blog.
ttp://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/gaikokugo_daisuki_ojisan
approach–>>approaches (I think…)
But, I don’t completely agree with his approach, especially reading dictionaries, etc. I don’t like to read all pages of Robert Dictionary.
My official language-related lifetime goal is to learn all the official languages of the European continent at least at a basic level.
Hungarian interpreter Kató Lomb could easily work with 16 languages and had a lower knowledge in many more languages.
Italian Cardinal Mezzofanti, who lived in the 16th or 17th century (I can’t remember right now), had learnt to speak dozens of languages without ever travelling abroad.
Many other famous people could learn many languages easily, such as Marco Polo.
So, I don’t think it is impossible to learn 30 or more languages: it depends on several factors as it has already been said.
Here are two links about Kató Lomb:
TESL-EJ 12.1 -- Reducing Listening Test Anxiety Through Various Forms of Listening Support< (from this site you can download the pdf version of her book “Polyglot” for free)
and here is the biography of Cardinal Mezzofanti, if you are interested (I have only started to read it, it’s very boring if compared to Lomb’s book):
I find it a bit strange if a person who speaks maybe 3-4 languages says that he/she wants to learn 30 languages. The serious strategy would be first to learn 29 languages and then say: Now I want to learn one more. As a polyglot you can only plan in the next language you want to learn, Steve can confirm that. I never planned to learn many languages, I only have learned one after the other - and as a result it added up. An important factor in the whole game is to maintain the skills of your languages - the more languages you speak - the more work it becomes. The amount of such work you cannot estimate when you only have learned your first languages. Fasulye
I see what you mean, Fasulye. Of course, one cannot think it is possible to learn 30 languages all of a sudden and it is important to focus on the language(s) you are currently learning before thinking of the next ones. However, I also think one can have a long-term goal, and learning many languages is one. Sure, when you know only few languages, you cannot know how much effort will be needed to learn many more. Anyway, I hope I will reach my goal, or at least get close to it!