Just Polyglots Know!

Just polyglots know that learning languages like drugs ! You can not stop

Not every addiction is harmful. Learning languages is an addiction to something that is a natural elixir which enhances our powers of perception, our understanding of the human condition, makes us new friends from different worlds, transports us across borders and back in time, and yet is good for our physical and mental being. Did I leave anything out?

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And big investment of time

Of course no you are the best

I should say that your videos is very motivating…I translated your videos in my language …And when I show them to my friends who want to learn English they become very motivated to learn languages…
Thank you sir

It always makes me happy to hear that.

I agree that learning languages can be addictive and makes you happy. However, the problem is that if you are addicted to something, your behavior tends to be reckless. You might lose a “sense of balance”. Aspiring for too much happiness might result in desperation. Sometimes it is difficult to decide on how many languages to learn and how to allocate your precious time to each language. I imagine that many polyglots are worrying about this problem all the time.


My native language is Japanese. When I was twelve years old, I began studying English at junior-high school. When I entered university, I took German as the second foreign language, which every student was required to study at the first and second year regardless of their majors. My first foreign language was English. The list of the foreign languages included English, German, French, and Chinese. I don’t know if other languages such as Spanish and Russian were included in the list.

While I was an undergraduate student, I studied German very hard because it was necessary to be good at not less than two foreign languages in order to enter graduate school. I was addicted to learning German for several years. I was fortunate that I encountered a good German teacher. When I was a graduate student, I did not study the German language very hard, although I bought several books written by German sociologists.

Sometimes I happened to think that I should study French in order to read books written by French sociologists such as Emile Dulkheim. But it did not materialized. I felt that the verb transformation table was for me too complicated to memorize.

I retired a few years ago at the middle of my 60s. I have enough time to learn foreign languages, but I am still experiencing difficulty in writing English, not to mention speaking English. A while ago, I restarted learning German, which I had almost forgotten. But it stopped after a year passed. At the moment, I neither read German books nor listen to German language programs on TV. I thought I should concentrate my effort on learning English, which I began studying at school no less than fifty-five years ago.

Perhaps, I am a little envious of the brilliant ability of polyglots. Be ambitious at your own risk!

I agree with you in some points.But any polyglot should refresh the languages by speaking and writing.So any polyglot is not fluent at all the languages…He or she is fluent at an active language.And remember sir that fluency does not mean perfection.I hope you success