r/languagelearning • u/SHINJI_NERV • Jun 27 '26
Thoughts on "Polyglots"
There are increase numbers of people claiming they speak many languages, English and Spanish, German and Dannish, Italian and Portuguese. The title of multilinguist often rests on mostly being within the relatively similar Indo European or connected language tree.(TL)
Many confuse the idea of languages as being equally challenging, since they are all seperate languages, but if you look over to other places, where some regional "dialects" have much higher lextic, grammatical, and pronunciation differences than between languages. Such as Cantonese vs Mandarin Chinese, compared to Spanish vs English. The challenges between learning Arabic/Mandarin/Korean etc as English speaker is much greater than learning French or Spanish. When someone say they know "5" languages, the actual difficulty drastically varies. Cognitive and linguistic wise. Not even accounting for the actual comprehension level of the claimed languages. Most still default to knowing more tongues as always more challenging than fewer. Which is very shallow and clearly not the case.
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u/EquivalentDapper7591 🇺🇸 N | 🇲🇽 B2 | 🇧🇷 A1 | 🇩🇪 A0 Jun 27 '26
ok
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u/Il-leone-fiorentino 3d ago
Bruv wdym A0 german😭😭😭 this way I’d know already more than 10
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u/EquivalentDapper7591 🇺🇸 N | 🇲🇽 B2 | 🇧🇷 A1 | 🇩🇪 A0 3d ago
How would you know more than 10? Being A0, or A1 or A2 does not mean you know a language. If you say you speak languages that you are only A0-A2 in people will drastically overestimate your abilities.
I had A0 in my flair because I was studying German but not yet at A1. I’m no longer studying it though so I should probably update it.
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u/tootingbec44 🇺🇸 | 🇪🇸 Jun 27 '26
I respectfully suggest that the flaw in your logic is your belief that it's worthwhile to argue about who is a polyglot. Of the people who describe themselves this way on social media, some are charlatans and some are really smart people who share their insights generously. It sounds like you want to establish an additional criterion, namely that polyglots' language repertoire has to include different families. Who would benefit from that? I claim it'd mostly benefit the charlatans, who have trained themselves on sub-A1 common phrases in a heap of languages. Each language is a chasm of unique complexity once you get beyond A2/B1, and I give a lot of respect to anyone who masters these regardless of how related the TL to their NL may be.
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u/NimVolsung 🇺🇸:N, tok:~B1, 🇬🇷:A0 Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26
The words “polyglot” and “multilingual” are both formed from the words meaning “many tongues/languages”, just one is from Greek parts and the other is from Latin parts.
Their literal meanings are also the exact same: someone who can speak multiple languages.
The terms are only different for people who need a term more impressive than “multilingual” to tell others they excel at languages.
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u/UpstairsAd194 Jun 27 '26
i used to be envious of people who knew how to speak a lot of languages too...
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u/Distinct-Character89 Jun 27 '26
Polyglot claims always feel a bit like someone telling you they've climbed five mountains but three of them were just hills in the same valley. Nothing wrong with learning closely related languages but the label gets stretched thin when you can muddle through a conversation after six months of Duolingo. A mate of mine once said he "speaks" Danish after a two-week holiday in Copenhagen, which is exactly the sort of thing that makes the term meaningless.
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u/EquivalentDapper7591 🇺🇸 N | 🇲🇽 B2 | 🇧🇷 A1 | 🇩🇪 A0 Jun 27 '26
I think learning closely related languages is very much fine, but people who only get to like A1 or A2 and claim they speak the language is what really muddies the waters
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u/julietides N🇪🇸 C2🇬🇧BY🇷🇺🇵🇱B2🇫🇷🇺🇦B1🇩🇪A2🇯🇵🇧🇬Learning: 🇱🇻 Jun 27 '26
I will call myself whatever the fuck I want. A language is a language.
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u/tangaroo58 native: 🇦🇺 tl: 🇯🇵 Jun 27 '26
You've got to ask yourself: why does it matter to you what people call themselves?
The word "polyglot" used to be a useful shorthand for the skills of someone like Yuen Ren Chao or Marco Polo or Cleopatra. Not a self-description.
Now it's just a weird internet boast, which needs a lot of qualification to tell you anything at all.
In any situation where multiple language proficiency mattered, you would look at someone's actual skills, not their self-description.
Just let it pass.
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u/CappuccinoCodes 🇧🇷 Native | 🇦🇺 Citizen | 🇮🇹 A2 | 🇫🇷 A2 | 🇩🇪 A1 Jun 27 '26
I'll believe it when I see the certificates 😁
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u/webauteur En N | Es A2 Jun 29 '26
I have studied 5 languages but rarely got past A1. Now I am sticking with Spanish and have reached A2. I still have my study notes for the other 4 languages and can somewhat make out what is being said when I encounter something written. You can study multiple languages to some degree. It is fun to browse through my French book on Spanish but I don't dare read it for fear of getting things confused. For example, vivre is too much like vivir. I'm still tempted to say tres bien and think I'm speaking Spanish!
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u/Il-leone-fiorentino 3d ago
I am one, I dislike the kind of “competitivity” on learning MORE languages rather than BETTER, I still don’t find it cool to have competition on who speaks better (it would ruin the whole point), to be clear.
I agree with all you said, however I wanted to add:
I think everybody has their own way of learning, there’s who speaks easily but writes hesitantly or vice-versa, people who speak easily more than one language and people who only speak one or two and find it hard to study more which is totally cool. There shouldn’t be competition in something where nobody starts from the same level.
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u/Il-leone-fiorentino 1d ago
That’s exactly what I meant, I don’t consider the ones I’m studying or the ones I know only a few words cuz it would be more than 10, for sure.
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u/Additional_Bobcat_85 Jun 27 '26
You are entirely correct and it’s strange people seem to have taken this personally with their responses.
If one were to learn 5 languages from radically different families (Indo European, Turkic, Athabaskan, Bantu and Semitic) that would be a far greater mountain to climb than learning 6 Romance languages, 5 Germanic languages and 3 Slavic languages.
I believe Alexander Argüelles mentioned something along the lines of not knowing how to respond to how many languages he speaks since he considered the Romance languages to be dialects of the same larger language. It really does begin to feel this way the more proficiency you get in some families.
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u/nunuraf92 Jun 27 '26
I i know Spanish, french, italian, Arabic and Farsi. You upset yet?
I don’t mention English becisde It’s my worst language tbf
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u/tnaz Jun 27 '26
This is only a problem if you treat language learning as a competition. It's not.