Polyglots ー interesting facts from the forum of linguists | iLike

Polyglots ー interesting facts from the forum of linguists

How many languages do you need to know to consider yourself a polyglot? How unique are these people? How does their brain work? How long does this hobby take? To answer these questions, we are ready to give some interesting facts.

Fact one: a polyglot can be considered a person who has mastered 3 or more foreign languages. At the same time, the term “hyper-polyglot” is used to designate a person who has studied more than 6 languages.

Of the most widely spoken languages in the world, Chinese, Japanese and Arabic are considered the most difficult to learn. On average, 2.2 thousand academic hours are spent on their study, and half as much on Russian.

The absolute record holder in the number of languages studied is the German Emil Krebs. He mastered more than a hundred languages, while scientists estimated that on average it took Krebs about 4 hours a day. Enviable perseverance!

Among the famous personalities, Lev Tolstoy, who spoke 15 languages, Alexander Griboyedov, who spoke 9 languages, as well as Nikola Tesla, by the way, belonged to hyperpoliglots.

One of the common difficulties for polyglots is the sudden use of words from other languages in the middle of an utterance.

Polyglots do not possess any phenomenal memory from birth. Their abilities are the result of long and hard training in memorization.

We will consider this good news, because it means that every participant of our language learning forum can achieve such results! And how many languages have you mastered?