This is one of the most common questions I get from beginner language learners and non-language learners. It makes sense to ask because it goes against everyone’s first experience with languages. Most people learn some language in high school – maybe Spanish or French in the USA – and struggle so much. When I say I am learning nearly a dozen languages, it’s natural to wonder how that is possible. If the average person struggles with 1 foreign language, who can do multiple? Because of this, I get the question I hate – can you learn multiple languages at once?
The problem is that we need to define every part of the question because it’s really complex. I cannot say “yes,” and I cannot say “no.” We need to have a very nuanced conversation. Let’s take a look at every word to answer the question: can you learn multiple languages at once?
“learn” – what does it mean to learn?
The “learn” part of the question is a matter of what you do in order to learn. What you do to learn depends on your goals. I’ve written a whole article on the topic that I recommend, but simply said, there are many ways to learn a language.
Some people could have to goal of passing a language exam in order to apply to a Japanese university. In this case, those language goals will center around reading articles and analyzing them and around grammar textbooks.
There are some people whose goal is to to communicate with their nonna (grandmother) in Italian. For those people, learning should focus around lots of listening to conversational Italian and lots of conversation practice.
If you just want to take part in Columbian culture, your learning will just look like analyzing and parsing enjoyable Columbian content.
That being said, in order to learn multiple languages at once, your goals need to fit each other well. It’s going to be tough to learn 10 languages at once if their goals all are focused on passing tests. Not only will it be hard to find time, but you’re very likely to burn out on all languages if you have such an intensive routine for all those languages.
However, it is totally reasonable if one language is your “hardcore” study language, and the goals of three other languages is to just parse native-level content.
Is analyzing shows and movies not learning a language. If you said no, you only define language learning as taking a language course with an accompanying textbook. This is such a narrow view on what “learning” is.
There are many levels of intensity when it comes to “learning.”
“multiple” – how many do you want at once?
The “multiple” part of the question focuses on number. Do you mean 2 or do you mean 20?
The number will depend on your time. If you have a full-time job. It becomes harder to get to numbers like 6, 7, 8, etc. If you are a linguistic student, it is totally within reason to learn that same number.
The basic fact is that the more language you learn, the less quality time you have for each. That doesn’t mean you’re not learning; it just means your results will not be the same as someone dedicating 40 hours per week on one language.
It’s pretty logical; we only have 24 hours in a day, and you cannot exceed that.
Your life is your life, so you are free to add as many as you want. However, the more you add, the slower your progress will be in each. You can do many, but you will spread yourself thin with each one.
“languages” – how close are your languages?
When you say multiple “languages,” we have to define what a language is. In reality, that’s harder than we think. In English, it’s hard to notice this because our closest relatives are either too distant or too remote.
For speakers of languages like Norwegian or Serbian, this feeling is more familiar. Sometimes there are languages across an international border who you can understand almost perfectly despite being classified as another language. On the opposite end of the spectrum, an American English speaker who has never been exposed to an Irish accent might have trouble understanding someone from rural Ireland despite speaking the same language.
To one person, they might see it as a regional accent, but to another, it’s an entirely different language. One of my favorite quotes is:
A language is a dialect with an army and navy.
Max Weinreich
Because languages are very fluid, it does not take much effort to understand something that officially is another language. Would you consider getting used to an Australian accent learning a language?
If, as we established, languages have weak borders, learning a new one might be incredibly easy depending on your native language or other learned languages.
If you are a native Spanish speaker, it might take much little effort to learn Castilian that you could become a master in weeks or months.
As it relates to the original question, the arbitrary borders between languages will greatly affect the ease of learning a new language. Adding a few extra languages could be easy work – depending on where you’re coming from and where you’re going.
“at once” – what is your routine like?
When we get to “at once” in this question, this too needs a definition. Obviously, we are not talking about having multiple language books open at the same time. Therefore, we must be talking about some sort of routine of switching. The question implies you divide your time, but what is that division exactly? It cannot be every minute on the too frequent end, but it cannot be every 5 years on the too rare end.
Do you plan to switch every hour? What about every day? This will depend on person to person and each routine will have its own strengths and weaknesses.
In general, there is some moment of transition your brain needs. It’s very tough to switch communication styles within the same conversation. The issue that many bilingual people experience is languages are compartmentalized in their minds, so the “French box” won’t open fully until you’ve closed the “German box” in your mind.
A lot of immigrants find it hard to communicate when returning to the homeland for the first few hours or days. After a few days of staying immersed in the culture, their thoughts and sentences come out much more naturally.
As a language leaner, the experience is the same on a micro scale. If I just told you “speak Turkish” right now, the words might not come out so naturally for a few minutes. This is why I always try to warm-up before every language lesson. I try to not listen to any English or speak any English if I have a lesson within a half hour.
Because of this “language inertia,” you need to plan your language switching well. Some people like dedicating one language to one day. Personally, I don’t like this method because I have a variety of media in different language I want to listen to or watch in one day. Limiting myself to one language per day feels too restrictive.
The method I like is to freely switch between languages depending on the task, but not mixing. For example, I can watch a Turkish show after I played a game in French, but I cannot multi-task in multiple non-native languages. This is the limit I set myself. As such, this is very similar to a school schedule, where one subject is the focus for 30 – 60 minutes, and when it’s done, you don’t return.
As it relates to the question “can you learn multiple languages at once,” you can. It is possible to mix languages as your please. However, you always need to fight against “language inertia,” which is natural when you compartmentalize languages in your mind.
“can you” – is it possible?
The central question is “can you.”
My answer is “yes, it is possible.”
However, we are discussing possibility – not definitiveness. It is not guaranteed that you will be able to learn multiple languages at once.
There are a lot of things to balance: your goals, the number of languages, the proximity of languages, and your frequency. All of these factors together will determine whether you can successfully improve your skills in your target languages.
It’s easy to say you have a good routine and choose similar languages. If you don’t have proper goals, you will fail.
If you have great goals and you have a manageable number of languages, you could be tripped up by a bad routine where you only don’t give languages the appropriate amount of time.
There are a lot of parts to this question, but my simple answer is: “yes, you can, but there are a lot of things you need to balance.”
If you want to see how I am managing this balance, you can see my language journey on my YouTube channel.
This website is also a great resource for language learners who want to balance many languages, so check out a few other useful blogs.
I wish you luck in your learning and hope your languages are natural and fluid!
