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

I always loved languages, I started learning English when I was in primary school, and during high school I got the chance to learn more languages (Latin and Spanish). When I started my bachelor’s, I decided to spend my semester break in Spain to study Spanish. To my surprise, I enjoyed this so much that I decided to pursue a degree in Applied Linguistics. Luckily, my university offered a program to study 3 languages at the same time, which was in my case English, Spanish and Portuguese. To improve my Portuguese, I studied for a year in Lisbon, where I also learned French. During the pandemic, I used my free time at home to study more languages like Russian, Bahasa and Swedish, even though I wouldn’t call myself fluent in these. Later, I pursued my master’s degree in Mexico and wrote my thesis in Spanish. Languages are still my passion and I continue learning them every single day, adding more every now and then.

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

Bahasa and Russian. Both beautiful languages and different from what I am used to.

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

There are so many languages, that it is hard to decide which language to learn next. However, I would love to get into Icelandic or Farsi.

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

Italian.

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

Connecting with other people on a deeper level and understanding the culture and history of the people through languages (etymology helps here ;) )

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 would love to say it is not possible, however, many languages are dying already since many languages only have a few speakers left.

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

Make mistakes - that’s how you learn. I know, it is easier said than done, but try to speak as much as you can with natives and watch videos or read books in the languages you learn. Also, try to study daily for a bit rather than studying in big chunks every now and then.