In theory, children can learn an unlimited number of languages. However, in reality, experts recommend that a child should spend approximately 20% to 30% of their waking hours on attaining conversation fluency in any language. As such, the maximum number of languages your child should be learning at a time is three.
If you're a non-native speaker, teaching your child 2 or 3 new languages is absolutely possible (yes, really!) but you need to give them enough exposure to the native tongue too.
If a child does not have enough exposure to the target language, they cannot become fluent. Therefore by adding too many languages at once, you risk not having enough exposure to each of them. This could mean your child can speak 3, 4, 5 or even 6 languages, but is not actually fluent in one of them.
First things first: Children do not get confused by being exposed to several languages. There is also no limit on how many languages children can “handle”. There are several places in the world where people speak four or more languages as a standard and children in those communities have no problem in learning them.
My own daughters were very different in their language development: one very early, the other a later talker, but both grew up to fluently speak the family languages. To sum it up, three languages are not too much for your little girl – and there are millions of trilingual children in the world to prove the case.
In theory, children can learn an unlimited number of languages. However, in reality, experts recommend that a child should spend approximately 20% to 30% of their waking hours on attaining conversation fluency in any language. As such, the maximum number of languages your child should be learning at a time is three.
Many children in the world grow up with three languages. For example, because their parents both speak a different language and they learn a third language at school. Or because they speak one language at home and go to a bilingual school where they learn two new languages.
Keep in mind that multilingual children seem to develop speech with a bit of delay if you compare them with monolingual children, but a bit of delay is worth if he'll be fluent from birth in 3 languages!
The rule of thumb is that about 30% of a child's waking hours needs to be spent in a language to obtain conversational fluency, so, realistically, you're looking at a max of three languages. Once you have those three languages at a decent level, it would make sense to add another one.
1 in 20 people say they can speak 3 languages fluently (5%). Whilst 1.4% say they can fluently speak 4 languages. And 0.1% say they're able to speak 5 or more languages fluently!
Less than one percent of people worldwide are proficient in many languages. If someone is fluent in more than five languages, the person is called a polyglot.
While there is no precise number of languages that qualifies a person for the label, five tends to be a common benchmark. Those who have mastered 10 or more languages are called hyperpolyglots, a much rarer distinction. “I don't think polyglots are so special,” says Zaraysky.
Some people can speak more than five languages, and they are known as polyglots. They are less than one percent of the population. Hyperpolyglots are fluent in more than 12 languages, and they are sporadic to find. It means that there are people who speak more than 12 languages in the world.
Yes, it is possible to learn many languages at once! I've been doing it for many years, and this year, I'm tackling 12 languages. There are many methods you can use to learn more than one language at once. Here are some of my best recommendations.
Children can learn to use more than one language. They can learn languages at home, at school, or in the community. Some children can use multiple languages easily. Sometimes they know one language better than others.
Definitely, as long as you: Learn closely related languages. Invest a good amount of time. Don't expect full professional fluency (C2 in the CEFR framework level), but rather something closer to B2 level (which is a step above “conversational” but a step below “I could be a professor or lawyer in this language”
In conclusion, while people who start learning as children may come to learn phonology and grammar better, adults are fully able to learn a second language well into their retirement years. Research has shown that learning language later in life has benefits for the brain and memory.
You can learn a new language at any age
Being outside of the ideal age range to learn a language fluently doesn't mean it's pointless to try. Many people are able to learn completely new languages when they're well into adulthood.
No matter how old you are, you're never too old to learn a new language. However, because your brain's ability to adapt and change decreases over time, you'll probably have to practice more.
Some estimates put the total of the world's trilingual speakers at just over 1 billion people. That's 13% of everyone on Earth! Being bilingual (speaking two languages) is much more common, though still somewhat rare within English-speaking countries.
“It's just that you run out of time, because your ability to learn starts dropping at around 17 or 18 years old.” Those who start a few years after age 10 may still become quite good at a language, the paper notes, but are unlikely to reach total fluency.
It is because of the brain's elasticity and rapid neural formation that babies and young children are able to learn languages at a faster rate. This is sometimes referred to as the “critical period”.
Brains of bilingual kids are different to other children. Research on the brain shows that the brain of a child who speaks a second language has cognitive enhancements. In fact in one study, brain scans showed that people who spoke only one language had to work harder to focus on a single word.
When you can speak three languages, you can access more job opportunities both in your home country and abroad, as some employers might hire you based on your language skills. For instance, a German corporation might hire you to act as a liaison between their company and a certain provincial government.
Bilingualism causes language delay. FALSE. While a bilingual child's vocabulary in each individual language may be smaller than average, his total vocabulary (from both languages) will be at least the same size as a monolingual child (10, 15).