17-year-old speaks 20 languages.

[Hygro]

Yeah, but who speaks Bulgarian. Coolness factor x10

My friend does. She learned it in her 20s.

Because it requires much more work than simply reading a book in the language to gain and maintain proficiency in that language. I put in 1.5-2 hours per language every single day. For German it's more like 4-5 when you include time spent reading and watching media in German. I still have trouble with it.

Done deal. That's it. All I needed to read. The asshats in my classes insist they barely study and I've been suspecting dishonesty. Though most of the best Dutch studenten already learned German so those particular kids are probably legit. I'm terrible with formally learning languages but I'm also terrible at studying that much when it feels like such a waste of time compared to just going. It's not a catch-22 so much as a slow process

You don't think about it with your mother language because you probably speak for at least 5-6 hours every day in that language. Moreover your internal monologue is conditioned to be primarily done in your mother language so you're essentially talking to yourself for 24 hours a day every day from a very young age in that language. And add on top of that the fact that, no matter how much proficiency you gain in however many languages, counting and numbers will always be done in your first language. So you literally never leave that first language.

Misschien, maar niet van één tot tien of zo. But some words will get replaced. I speak Dutch in my head almost exclusively for 2 words if there's a pause in my monologue: maar and ook.


Time to up my study hours though for real.

 

[BirraImperial]

I also sort of understand a bit of Dutch, although only written because it is similar to German and I lived right next to the border to the Nederlands and Belgium.

 

[Tahuti]

Misschien, maar niet van één tot tien of zo. But some words will get replaced. I speak Dutch in my head almost exclusively for 2 words if there's a pause in my monologue: maar and ook.

Some words simply do not have a translation to your mother language. My Dutch is interspersed with German words such as 'überhaupt' because Dutch doesn't really have a word for it. Actually, German words are used by speakers of almost any language since no language has a richer vocabulary than German, with the possibly exception of English. Even then, German is ruthlessy precise in describing things.

 

[H4run]

i only know english, russian, german, java, python, and matlab

you mean Java from Indonesian Javanese tribe? can you really speak Javanese? that's interesting, I wonder if you learn it in Suriname.

 

[Tahuti]

you mean Java from Indonesian Javanese tribe? can you really speak Javanese? that's interesting, I wonder if you learn it in Suriname.

Considering he mentions it alongside Python and Matlab, that's not really likely so much.

 

[H4run]

Considering he mentions it alongside Python and Matlab, that's not really likely so much.

why I don't realize it what he mean is programming language

 

[peter grimes]

Portuguese speakers can understand Spanish speakers if they speak slowly, but Spanish speakers apparently can't understand Portuguese speakers at all.

In my limited experience the Spaniards can't understand Portuguese because they choose not to, not because the language or pronunciation is so different.

 

[Phrossack]

Yeah, but who speaks Bulgarian. Coolness factor x10

Just remembered that this girl I hang out with does, but she's a native speaker. They're out there, all right.