Would you like to learn every language in the world?

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Would you like to learn every language in the world?

heck no. thats a whole lot of small talk.

I'd rather just be telepathic with one or two languages

Mmm, I think there's other things I'd rather do.

I would like to know every language in the world. It would take a long time to actually learn them though.

Yeah, several lifetimes at least. There are over 7000 languages in the world currently, and the world's best polyglots have only learned around 50 fluently in a lifetime.

Um, not a bad idea, but I'd rather stick with about a dozen - let's say 10 of the most popular and a couple of rare languages just for fun.

I used to want to learn 13 different languages, but now I have no interest in learning foreign languages.

It would have been an impractical and immensely time consuming way to impress people, especially for someone like myself who does not travel outside of the country much.

I used to learn languages just for the challenge, but I quickly forgot them, and I like what I learn to have more long term use value.

There are several languages that I wouldn't mind learning, but, to be honest, I don't have enough interest in most of the languages of the world to take the initiative to learn them.

I'll be fluent in at least 10 languages by the end of my life. I love them.

If you really have an ability with them you can go farther than that. When I was a kid I wanted to learn 5 or something like that by the time I was 25 and thought that was plenty to shoot for but I learned 7 with little effort. It speeds up as you go. If you're really good, make it 10 by the time you're 30 and then go for five more in your thirties. The reason for scaling back in your 30s would just be that your main priority at that point probably won't be studying and you might have other things demanding your time.

Anyway, you can do it!

Many of them are African tribal languages that aren't written or read (which I'm pretty sure you know already), so it would be more than an arduous task to immerse yourself into the language. I find reading and writing helpful when learning another language; right now, I'm working on my third (Japanese.)

But to answer the OP, no. I want to know maybe 8-12 by the end of my life, however.

Same.

True, I'm learning Basque pretty quickly. But still I'm only fluent in English, and there aren't that many languages I want to learn. 13 years seems like a looong time for me, so I'll just find out as time goes by.

What languages do you speak? All the ones I want to learn are mostly very different from each other (Basque, Latin, Scottish Gaelic, Georgian, Latvian, Mongolian, etc.), so it's not nearly as easy as learning the biggest 4 Romance languages, which share a ton of vocabulary. For probably all of them I'll have to learn an entirely new lexicon, so it's a lot more work.


Exactly, a majority of the worlds languages aren't even written. Reading and writing is very helpful for me too, since I don't get a chance to speak Basque (especially Latin ) with people frequently. The only tribal language I'd want to learn, if any, would be Pirahã.

Immersion as an adult is much more difficult than as a baby, but it can be done if you are determined enough. I think doing field work on an endangered language would be awesome, although not for me.

all languages have their high points. if i had more brainpower, i'd like to become fluent in french only because i love them and their cultures. polynesian and madagascarian french are especially pretty. i'm a francophile sans faculties. esperanto looked mightily interesting when i saw william shatner speaking it prettily, in a movie he did ages ago called "incubus." and since my mother was japanese, i really feel bad about not being smart enough to learn it [according to my mother and my elementary school teachers who told my mother to speak only english around me 'cause i was too slow to handle learning both languages fluently]. japanese is most interesting also, because like the french, i love japanese culture and language as well. interestingly enough, the japanese and the french also cannot seem to get enough of each other, they have a mutual appreciation society going on there between 'em.

That would be too stressful.