It’s been six years since I attended the polyglot conference for the first time. It was a refreshing experience. I listened to groups of people vividly discussing the subject of language difficulty; praising novels they had just read in the original (and sometimes extinct) languages; scribbling in the air in a writing script I had never heard about before. I got hooked.
In the end, no matter how many languages one speaks, anyone remotely passionate about languages is welcomed at the conference. I hope to participate in it once again.
In these six years I have met many polyglots. A few of them became my friends. Through countless discussions and observations I amassed a few common characteristics which will apply to all polyglots.
I might disappoint you, but there’s no one golden specific learning method that one could classify Polyglots. In practice there are polyglots who learn by:
- listening to the radio/podcasts/audiobooks
- watching videos/tv
- reading books/comic books
- translating stuff
- using textbooks/dictionaries
- attending language courses
- moving to the target country
- trying to interact with native speakers of the target language…
