On Becoming A Polyglot

Pretty much of you already know that I am currently learning French (if not, then now you know it). Without meaning to dishearten anyone to learn this language, it is indeed a difficult language to master. Partly because it's a bit different from English, but mostly because it's really hard to practice it in Singapore.

It's indeed easier to practice English and Mandarin in Singapore. And because of that, most people when I started learning French asked me as to why I don't learn Mandarin. Well simply because I don't like Mandarin (at least for the time being). And then why French? Simply because it's a very sexy language. Despite those simple answers, people are having difficulties to accept them and still insisting that I should learn Mandarin instead.

Imagine that you're an Indonesian who lives in Singapore and you speak Mandarin. The reaction from other people would be good, but not that surprising because there are a lot of Mandarin speakers in Singapore. Now, imagine that you're an Indonesian who lives in Singapore and you speak French. Boom! The impact is so great that everybody will be very surprised and astonished. It's really a huge deal that you can speak French, a language that sounds as cool as it is mesmerizing. That ought to do it!

I have decided to become a polyglot, that is someone who speaks many languages. My lifetime goal of language speaking is to be fluent in 7 languages before I die. But how can one define "fluency" anyway? It's a very relative and subjective term. For that reason, there are levels outlined by Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) which is used widely. So based on this framework, I would say that my English is at C1 level. Note C2 level is not exactly native speaker level, but at best near-native speaker.

So my short-term goal for now is to be fluent in French (B2 level) and Italian (at least B1 level) before I turn 25, which will be in March 2012. So that's about 14 months from now. I think this is a realistic goal, not too short and not too long. And I have just officially started learning Italian a month ago by commencing the Italian lessons in the Rosetta Stone software that I always use to learn French.

Now let's get to the list of the 7 languages I talked about:

1. Indonesian. I already speak Indonesian as my native tongue.
2. English. I have been learning and speaking English since I was 13 years old.
3. French. This is what I am learning now.
4. Italian. This has the same root as French and have fairly easier pronunciations for Indonesian tongues. I just started learning this.
5. Spanish. This has the same root as French and Italian, so after being fluent of them it should be relatively easier to learn Spanish.
6. Russian. Now this is a difficult language to learn, not to mention it uses different alphabet from the Latin alphabet.
7. Still an open slot. I will decide later when reaching this stage. Who knows, it might be Swahili or Arab.