> A lot of this centers around what proficiency means. This is very true and this is what bothers me when reading about these supposed polyglots/hyperglots. As

> A lot of this centers around what proficiency means. This is very true and this is what bothers me when reading about these supposed polyglots/hyperglots. As a Portuguese speaker, I get Spanish "for free" as in I'm able to read Spanish, follow a Mexican soap opera on TV, and stumble through an order at a Mexican restaurant. Does that mean I can add Spanish to the list of languages that I speak? > IMO, basic proficiency is simply the ability to communicate unaided with effort on both parties. Which really only takes the language skills of ~5-7 year old native child. A 5-7 year old child with normal language development will be fluent, as in mastery of the grammar. There's no comparison between an adult who can get by in a language and a native speaker. For example, a child who is a native speaker of a language with grammatical gender will never mess up gender agreement whereas an adult learner might struggle mightily with that.