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

I  was fortunate that my family moved to the United States for 2 years  when I was in Elementary School. So I became fluent in English at only 7  - 8 years old. We moved back to Germany and I was fortunate again that  my school offered me to learn  even 4 languages: English, Latin, French  and Ancient Greek. In the 9th grade I spent a month in a host family in  the Provence in France where I spoke only French with all the family  members. Before my baccalaureate my parents allowed me to attend a  language school for pupils in Bournemouth in Great Britain for 2 weeks  with a stay in a host  family again.  So I graduated from school  speaking 3 languages: German, English and French. After school my choice  was to study at university. As a Law student I chose learning Dutch at  university, which became my favorite language in life. In the semester  holidays I took part in youth camps in the Netherlands and I was the  only foreigner in these “under 25 years” groups. This was very language  intensive. Later  I discovered “Leidse Onderwijs Instellingen” which  offered qualification courses in Dutch by letter correspondence such as  “Orienteringsfase Rechten” and “Basiscursus Italiaans” which I attended.  My Law studies failed, I didn’t graduate. After some menial jobs I went  to university again studying Romance Philology (Spanish, Italian,  French and Pedagogics) without graduating as well.  My languages  Turkish, Danish and Norwegian Bokmal I learned at the adult education  centre (“Volkshochschule”) in Germany. Esperanto I learned by private  lessons and by letter correspondence courses via The Netherlands and the  United Kingdom. I needed to get professional diplomas to be able to  find qualified work.  So I attended evening courses in business English  and obtained two Business English qualifications.  I found work as an  office clerk doing legal translations Dutch - German and Business  correspondence in Dutch!

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

My  language philosophy is: “Language learning is my lifetime project and  my aim is to keep all my selected languages active in usage!” I  certainly don’t want to learn language B and forget language A! Sitting  in the public library studying with a textbook  is one thing but  integrating all kinds of language usage into my daily life such as  speaking (for example on Skype), reading (for example a magazine in  Norwegian), writing (letters to my penfriends in different foreign  languages) and listening (for example to a You Tube chess course spoken  in Spanish) is equally important. At some point I took the decision to  abandon Turkish, because my grammar and vocabulary knowledge was only  passive and I couldn’t find buddies online to activate the language.

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

I  think keeping 9 languages active in usage and working on maintaining /  improving  their levels requires enough of my attention so I will rather  not start studying any new language from scratch.

4. So let’s be honest, what’s the sexiest language?

I don’t find languages sexy, but enormously fascinating! No language is boring, each of them has its own beauty.

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

Languages  open many doors, it’s a quite philosophical question. Your horizon is  not limited to your own native culture. The internet is a miracle for me  as a “home polyglot”! I have access to foreign media. I have Skypies  with whom I can communicate  in language tandems. I can for example  experience my hobbies astronomy and chess in different languages. On  Skype we talk about the geography and weather of different countries.  You can find like minded friends through Skype contacts or traditional  letter correspondence.

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?

I  have read that more and more smaller languages are dying and every  single  language which dies out makes me sad. It’s like with climate  change, if we do nothing, the worst case will occur. So language  politics should preserve the variety of all languages, document the  languages, explore the languages scientifically. Publish good  dictionaries! It’s a very broad topic, but the last thing that I will  lose, is my hope. HYPIA is excellent for creating more awareness for the  value of all individual languages.

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

You  cannot study too many languages at once. Choose one, two or three  languages and stick to them for a long time. If you learn language A and  then forget language A and then learn  language B and then forget  language B, you have done something wrong. You should strive to maintain  what you have learned.