1. What’s your story? How did you get into all these languages?

As a child and especially as a teenager, I had many doubts about my future profession, but I always aimed to be a polyglot, even though I thought this goal was meant to be achieved quite late in my career, after I finished my main training. It looked like something really distant, and step by step I ended up as a polyglot.

I was raised in Salvador, Brazil, a city that developed itself through a special mix of cultures, but is also almost monolingual nowadays. It means I’m a typical Brazilian regarding my language background: I was raised speaking Portuguese by a Portuguese-speaking family, who’s been Brazilian for many generations. However, I think curiosity is a great part of Brazilian personality, and that’s why I began my navigation through languages.

First, I started learning English when I was nine, as my parents thought it was important for my education and I discovered English as a really fun language. Then I also had the opportunity to start German classes when I was twelve, through a project (“Schulen: Partner der Zukunft”) in which my school participated. I’ve had English classes for seven years and German classes for three, and these languages showed me the amount of opportunities that could come with language learning. I won two scholarships to study in Germany (from Goethe Institut in 2011 and DAAD in 2019), and these experiences were important to my following plans, as I really started to value international environments.

Some years later, in 2021, I started to learn Spanish because I decided to emigrate to continue my training in Spain. Spanish is a language I really wanted to learn since I was a child, and at the end of the same year I got a DELE C1 diploma.

French and Italian came later, during a time I worked as a general doctor in Brazil while waiting for my diploma to be recognized in Spain. I became a student from Master Academy, which belongs to a HYPIA member (the fantastic Patrick Lencastre), and in this school I could (and I still can) practice weekly the languages I’ve been studying. I started both of them for no particular reason: I think they’re beautiful languages and they would be one more tool to communicate with people. Finally, I decided to specialize in Ophthalmology in Barcelona, and that’s why nowadays I’ve been studying Catalan, the newest member of the family. It’s a language that helps me to connect with locals and to be more welcoming to my patients.

2. Which language(s) do you wish you could spend more time practising?

I always aimed to use languages in my everyday life and I’m happy to realize that’s true nowadays, as I work mainly in Spanish and Catalan, but English, French and Portuguese are also useful. However, it’s quite hard to switch among all of them because having a good medical vocabulary in seven languages is hard. So, I wish I had more time to speak Italian in some other contexts, because it’s a language I really want to develop.

3. What are some languages you’d like to learn in the future?

Honestly I don’t have any concrete plans. I really love practicing and there’s a lot to learn about the languages I’m already able to speak. However, I don’t rule out any language.

4. So let’s be honest, which language has the most charm for you?

Brazilian Portuguese! The more I learn about other languages, the more I fall in love with mine. One of my favorite things about being a polyglot is the possibility to present my culture. Emigrating made me appreciate the Brazilian cultural production even more and everything we love to create. My favorite thing about Brazilian Portuguese is its sonority. We’re deeply passionate about our music too.

5. What’s the greatest pleasure you get from speaking so many languages?

Listening to good stories. Being a polyglot multiplies the opportunities to laugh!

6. Some people say the world is really just going to have a few languages left in a 100 years, do you think this is really true?

Nothing is permanent: nationalities, borders, languages. However, I hope the effort a lot of people put into preserving their languages pays off, and the vast majority of them remains.

7. What is your message to young (and not so young) people out there who are interested in studying multiple languages?

Be proud of your path of learning and don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Speaking can be learned only through speaking, so start as early as you can! Don’t ever be ashamed of having an accent, because it’s a sign of bravery and passion. Having an accent usually means you started a language as an adult, and that’s the way people become polyglots. Don’t forget the beauty in it.