3 ms·

I remember once reading an interview with a supposed hyperpolyglot, in which he revealed that he spent nearly all of his time (8+ hours/day) reviewing flashcard

I remember once reading an interview with a supposed hyperpolyglot, in which he revealed that he spent nearly all of his time (8+ hours/day) reviewing flashcards. I guess it's possible, if you really like doing flash cards. These popular narratives about "hyperpolyglots" tend to have really naive views about what "fluency" in a language means. It's probably feasible to have rudimentary knowledge of many languages, but there are large practical limits as to how sophisticated your competence can be unless you're using that language regularly to communicate in a variety of domains.

Uberphallus 11y ago
When I met one of those I felt like I just received a license to say I speak 5 languages. The 1st: my mother tongue. The 2nd: I'm native-level, studied all my life, use it everyday. The 3rd: I'm somewhere between advanced-survival and fluent-colloquial depending on my BAC; spoken in the country I live in so I don't put that much effort. The 4th: just basic knowledge but really closely related to the 1st, so communication is fluent even if I'm making up words and abusing the rules of grammar. The 5th: I study it every day since over a year, I speak retarded and understand correctly pronounced simple phrases 60% of the time. Can survive in the countries where it's spoken and it's a nice perk with people; they become surprisingly friendly because very few people speak the language other than natives.