[BipolarBob]

No, I can’t.

[ArtDodger]

As a music teacher, I see people learn several instruments at once. Same part of the brain as for language learning, I am told.

[dfwgator]

If the two languages are similar, absolutely. There are a lot of parallels between Spanish and French.

[Innovative]

No reason why not.

Many in Europe grow up learning and speaking multiple languages.

[King Moonracer]

Like Java and Python?

[Yaelle]

Children do it all the time. The pathways are slightly different so while their dendritic trees branch in multiple directions, speech itself comes slower and improves slower, but in the end they are fully bilingual. Worth it if the situation is right.

[dinodino]

Yes, of course. What a stupid question.

[Gay State Conservative]

I read a piece years ago (1970s IIRC) in Scientific American Magazine on language acquisition.The among the basic claims was that healthy human brains are language sponges (my term) when a person is young but changes occur in the brain at about the time of puberty that change that dramatically.

[SamAdams76]

Why can’t everybody just learn to speak English? This would make things much more convenient for me.

[dfwgator]

Actually on Duolingo, I’m up to my fourth language.

I started with Spanish, French, then Polish and now learning German.

I hope to do Russian next, and my background in Polish will help there.

My goal is to be fluent in all of those languages in five years. I try to spend an hour every day on it.

Learning new skills is good for keeping your brain active, and some studies indicate it helps against acquiring dementia or Alzheimer’s.

[lee martell]

Does Body Language count?

[Songcraft]

Christian ministerial candidates often work vigorously, in a formidable effort to simultaneously learn biblical Hebrew and biblical Greek.

[bigbob]

C and C++

[GingisK]

C/C++ and Python.

[Still Thinking]

Obviously. Toddlers do it all the time.

[sparklite2]

I can’t. My brain works more on calculation (algebra) than on rote memory (geometry). Things can be figured out, but foreign words are not usually ‘linkable.’

[TXnMA]

To me, learning languages is not as difficult as switching between them. In addition to my native English, I studied Spanish all through school -- and was pretty good at it.

Then we spent three years in Japan, studied Japanese and used it frequently (including avoiding hotels and staying in traditional Japanese inns out in the boondocks, where no one spoke English).

But, when we returned to the States, switching back to Spanish -- even tasks as simple as offering an old, tottering Señora a seat on the bus -- was embarrassingly difficult, without starting in Japanese ...and translating myself into Spanish...

Weird brain, I guess...
TXnMA
 

[aspasia]

Great way for an adult to learn language is to teach it to 3-6 year old children. They’ll remind you what you forget.

[Albion Wilde]

In my experience with learning three romance languages, they need to be dissimilar. Otherwise, the stronger of the most similar ones will tend to “erase” the weaker one.

[AppyPappy]

I learned PHP and Perl at the same time