The Hyperpolyglot Project

To start with I'd like to explain exactly what this project is and where the idea for it came from.

I was surfing the internet a few weeks ago, looking for something to distract me from studying for finals , when I came across a blog called Fluent In Three Months. Since I have nothing planned for the summer (today till mid-August) I thought I would challenge myself with the start of what I'm calling the Hyperpolyglot Project.

According to wikipedia (and yes I do know it's not the most reliable of sources) Richard Hudson, professor emeritus of linguistics at University College London, first coined the term "hyperpolyglot" for a person who can speak twelve or more languages fluently.

So the goal of The Hyperpolyglot  Project is to become fluent in at least 12 languages. Now, without some kind of a deadline I think the project would be too easy so I'm making the due date my 30th birthday. To give you some perspective, I'm coming up on my 24th birthday within the month which gives me just over 6 years to finish.

As of today the only language I speak fully fluently is English. However, in the first few years of life I lived in Germany and as such am conversationally fluent in German. What I mean by that is that I don't really have an accent so I'm very easy to understand, but my vocabulary never really grew past that of a 5 year old. So while I can hold a conversation with anyone over average everyday things, I get lost when any sort of technical vocabulary comes into play.

For the purpose of this blog fluent will mean being able to talk about business in that language. Whenever possible I'm going to to use standardized tests to mark my progress, in particular the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages). I'm a big fan of Europe in general so a good number of the languages I'll be learning will come from there but I'll also learn a couple from Asia.

The current tentative list of languages I plan to speak fluently in six years is:

1. English
2. German
3. French
4. Italian
5. Spanish
6. Mandarin Chinese
7. Japanese
8. Arabic
9. Russian
10. Cantonese Chinese
11. Irish Gaelic
12. Danish

Of course since the list is tentative I might change my mind about a couple of the languages but I'm also not going to follow the order listed above or stick to mastering one language at a time. Since life has a tendency of getting in the way of the internet I can't promise daily updates but I'll do my best to post something every week to keep everyone out there following along aware of what I'm working on and how it's going.

Wish me luck!