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

My passion for languages began at a very young age. I was around 4 years old when I started to understand the concept of foreign languages being spoken outside of my country. The first foreign language I started to learn, excluding my native Italian and Friulian, was of course English. It soon became my favourite subject at school and made me realise that I wanted to pursue a career in the linguistic field.

At around 9–10 years old, while I was on holiday, I discovered German, and it was love at first sight. Since I had to pick a second foreign language at school, I had no doubts about choosing German, whose harsher sounds I found fascinating. I focused on German during high school and came to the conclusion that I would move to Germany to start my Bachelor’s in Translation Studies there.

After graduating, my career shifted, and I got the opportunity to move to Belgium. That’s when I started to learn French, more out of necessity than curiosity, but I still managed to obtain a decent level, though not as high as my other languages.

In Brussels, I met who would later become my husband, a Spanish guy from Valencia. I must admit that I had never considered studying Spanish before, simply because it looked way too easy as an Italian. On the other hand, I had some solid knowledge thanks to Latin music, which I loved dancing to. Long story short, I decided to get proficient in Spanish, and within three months, I was able to prepare for my C2 exam, which I passed successfully.

In parallel, I started learning Catalan/Valencian, since this was also my boyfriend’s mother tongue and the language he actually spoke at home with family and friends. It was really important for him that I could join the conversations, so I bought some grammar books and did intensive training on my own.

Finally, I have always been fascinated by Dutch, but being so close to German, I was afraid of getting confused during my university years, and I did not want to risk any mix-ups. However, once I was done with my studies, I took advantage of Belgium’s bilingualism to start studying Dutch (or Flemish), reaching a very high comprehension and a good conversational level.

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

I wish I had more time to dedicate to Dutch since I feel I could reach full proficiency if I spent more time practicing, especially the oral production.

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

Having studied ancient Greek for 5 years, I would love to keep learning modern Greek and build on my knowledge since it’s a fascinating language.

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

It’s hard to say because all of them mean something or have meant something important in my life. German was my first true love, even though it has now been replaced by Dutch, which is more of a novelty. Spanish has a sentimental meaning but I don’t find it very elegant. French is the only language I speak that I do not find compelling at all. As I said before, Greek amazes me for its logic and deepness.

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

Of course being able to understand people, music, movies in so many different languages opens up a whole world of possibilities that monolingual people do not have. I would say my biggest pleasure is finding out connections or links between languages, or discovering etymologies and constructions that just make sense.

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?

Yes, I believe many languages and dialects will disappear, with globalization and the prevalence of one or another lingua franca speeding up the process. Luckily, even endangered languages nowadays are being studied and at least formally preserved, even if less and less people will speak it in the future.

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

I would recommend everyone to pick a language that has any sort of meaning to them and start studying it. The most amazing thing is not noticing how much you have progressed on a daily basis, but waking up one day and realizing you have made some huge improvements just by dedicating some time every day to the language.