Would you trade speaking your L1 for 10 other languages?

Hi Raquel!


Yes, I wouldn't mind - I make an abstraction of the emotional-tie (family) and work-need because I think everyone answering this question will be confronted by the same issue and say no.


1) Italian - always loved that language but gave up learning it as it is too close to Spanish for my liking (I started getting confused).
2) Norwegian - love the singing sound of this language
3) Dutch - love the sound of that language
4) Greek - for the challenge of a different alphabet, but also because I very much like the sound of this language.
5) German - for the challenge (I already speak it a little but never managed to reach a decent level)
6) Hebrew - for the challenge
7) Japanese - for the challenge
8) Chinese - for the challenge
9) Swahili - for an exotic and different language
10) Hindi- for the challenge and an exotic and different language

Note that I did not include the 2 other languages (English and Spanish) I already speak fluently as I assume in your question I'd only trade my mother tongue, not the other ones I speak.

Well, like Raquel, I couldn't trade my mother tongue because that would mean not being able to speak with pretty much anyone in my family (only my siblings know some English, but that's about it), and I couldn't work, because teaching Spanish is what I do for a living, but anyway, these are my top 10:

(1) German (I already know some, so why not becoming a more fluent speaker?)
(2) French (so that I can also teach it to my daughter and have play dates with my French-speaking friends)
(3) Russian (my nephew was born there, so it'd be cool to visit the country with him to learn about his roots and actually being able to communicate in Russian)
(4) Chinese (the language of the future!)
(5) Swahili (I think it'd be pretty cool to know a language from every continent, and Swahili is one of the most well-known languages in Africa)
(6) Korean (just to see if I can get into the K-pop craziness)
(7) Quechua (looks like a pretty fascinating language)
(8) Arabic (as you can see, I love languages with a different calligraphy/alphabet)
(9) Italian (probably I'd get it confused with Spanish all the time, but oh well...)
(10) Basque (I spend a whole month in Bilbao every year)

Wish I could speak them all, in addition to English and Spanish!