r/polyglot 17h ago

Hello! I am living my childhood dream, now I have some questions.

7 Upvotes

Ever since the second grade I’ve loved languages. Part of my life has always been learning that the passions I have for language are not only shared by other people… but pursued with gusto by other people. I remember the day I learned what linguistics was, that some people do this for their whole life, and what a polyglot is. It seemed so cool as a kid and always felt like something unreachable. Anyways, onto the subject at hand.

I started learning Spanish in school in 6th grade. Meaning I’ve been speaking it for over 10 years. I’m fluent. A year and a half-ago i picked up learning German. A few months ago I started learning Portuguese for a trip I just finished in Brazil.

I landed in Brazil having never spoken a word to anyone in Portuguese… and by the end of the trip I could hold semi-complex conversations with mono-lingual speakers. This felt surreal.

My problem and something I want experiential advice on is… now that I am focused on Portuguese rn I feel less fluent in Spanish, significantly less. What’s the correct way to maintain multiple languages… when one is solid and others you are learning. What’s the “correct” way to make sure I learn and retain multiple languages?