Speak the World: Expert Advice for Polyglot Success

5 min readApr 24, 2024

When I tell people that I am a polyglot, they often feel mystified. Many have asked me how to become a polyglot and what tips I have for them to start mastering languages.

I started learning languages as a child, and while I am not a savant or genius in languages, I have developed a few strategies that make the language learning journey fun and efficient.

Here are some of my tips so you can also enter the world of being a polyglot.

What Is a Polyglot?

A polyglot (or multilingualism) is someone who speaks several (3–5) languages with great fluency.

If you speak two languages, you are called a bilingual speaker. And if you speak 6+ languages fluently, you’re considered to be a hyperpolyglot.

Polyglots have mastered the languages they speak AND the best methods to learn a new language.

We have found unique approaches to language learning that exceed the basic guidance of a language textbook.

Why Do You Want to Become a Polyglot?

Being a polyglot isn’t just about adding a fancy title to your résumé (though that’s impressive and super cool, too).

Rather, it’s about loving languages, diverse cultures, and unique expressions in the way people communicate. The love isn’t in how many languages you speak, but rather in being able to speak to different people in their own language with ease.

If you’re still sure you want to become a polyglot, I’ve got the best tips right here.

7 Tips to Become a Polyglot

These tips will help you learn any language, whether it’s spoken by millions of people or a few. You can also customize these to suit your unique language-learning journey.

1. Clear Goal Setting

Start with a goal when you tackle a new language.

Just like if you go to the gym and plan on losing 5 pounds in the first month, you can set yourself a language goal like being able to order famous Turkish food at the local Turkish restaurant in your neighborhood.

The goal isn’t to speak Turkish fluently in a week. Instead, it’s to master a small unit of the language, use it, get comfortable with it, and move to the next unit. Soon, you will speak most parts of the chosen language fluently.

2. Choose Your Words with Care

Languages are made of thousands, if not millions, of words.

These words may not always be useful in daily conversation. Unless you are planning on studying at a Turkish university, you probably don’t have to master academic words in Turkish — yet.

Stick to useful words and expand on those as you learn. Your brain will assign importance (helping you remember better) when specific words are useful to you and get used daily (such as greetings, names of foods and things, colors, or song lyrics).

3. Change Your Mind About Mistakes

Language boo-boos happen.

Don’t break your head or heart when you mispronounce something in a language you are learning. Everybody does it.

The trick is to see a mistake as a learning opportunity. So if you accidentally insult the Italian girl you wanted to ask out because you said something wrong in Italian, it’s not the end.

Most native speakers appreciate when someone tries to learn their language, and they’re happy to help you.

4. Use Technology to Help You Learn

Technology is fabulous. You can learn so much with the host of language apps and videos available online. Why not learn about language too?

I often brush up my language skills with Duolingo, Mondly, and Babble. Each of these apps have a unique approach to different languages, which can really help you practice and perfect your new language adventures.

Language videos and podcasts are a great way to listen to native speakers, and you can also look up an online tutor to help you work on pronunciation and grammar.

5. Practice, Practice, and Practice More

The first time you rode a bike, you probably crashed into the gate at the bottom of your driveway, right?

But by getting back on and trying again and again, you slowly learned to keep your balance, paddle, and steer until you could ride that bike like the wind.

All it took was practice.

The same applies to learning new languages.

When you practice it daily, singing to songs in the language you are learning, speaking to native speakers, and practicing words every chance you get, you will soon be cruising along.

6. Love What You Learn

When you are motivated to learn, you find a wonderful energy that will make you practice a lesson at 4 a.m. because you’ve got meetings all day.

That motivation is how you show up to practice the language when the going gets tough.

Find a reason to learn the language you are looking into.

Whether it’s for work purposes or because you have begun dating someone who’s Spanish or Japanese — the reason why you are learning a new language needs to be good enough to sustain you.

7. There’s No Finish Line

Let’s face it, many people want to learn a language and be awarded some mysterious title that they have “mastered” that language.

But languages are living things, and they change. Within each language, there are also dialects that bring unique and more modern ways of phrasing things.

It’s a living and evolving phenomenon, and you’re a part of it when you are learning.

Learning a language isn’t a finish line. It’s a journey, a road, and a lifelong commitment. When you cultivate this approach, you will love the process of learning, and it will no longer feel like a chore.

Final Language Secrets

Setting language learning as your goal is a worthy ideal, and it brings intense enjoyment when you let yourself focus on the process and not on some idealized notion of being a language master.

With the tips and techniques I use, you can also develop a solid language foundation and achieve all your language goals.

Remember to embrace immersive learning, let yourself experience language as a living thing and develop a love for the expressions and sounds of the languages you choose to learn.

Become a language lover, a polyglot, and the world will open to you!