<p>I know a few foreign languages: Mandarin, German, Portuguese, and a bit of French and Spanish. The ones I speak, or spoke, well (the first three) are the ones I learned in country and/or living day-to-day with native speakers. This is a much more efficient way to learn a language, of course.</p>
<p>If you are in high school or college, I would really suggest against starting several different languages at once as part of official courses. The opportunity cost is way to high. Learning languages is an exercise in rote, basic learning. I don't see how classes at the basic levels would be that impressive to colleges or grad schools beyond perhaps one language. You would be much better off even loading language CDs on your IPOD and getting Rosetta Stone or other tapes for any additional languages you want to learn beyond one. If your goal is simply to learn languages, this will be a more effective way to do so anyway.</p>
<p>Even better would be to spend a summer in a country such as Guatamela or Spain or Taiwan or China or wherever for the other languages you want to learn. AND THAT would be more impressive for a college or grad school.</p>
<p>Now to your original question: learning two or more languages at once. I can switch between two foreign languages, but for me, really concentrating on one at a time is what put the neural pathways in place to begin to speak without reserve and speak well. I am at best above average at languages, not a sponge like some of my friends who can hear something once and repeat it. A Chinese woman on the street asked me for directions the other day and I started speaking Chinese with Portuguese interspersed. I had to concentrate and slow down to just speak Chinese. Most people apparently are like this -- i.e., one secondary language functions as the primary reserve. The primary reserve will come out if you try to speak other languages which you use less. But in my case, I do spend half my day speaking Portuguese.</p>
<p>Just a thought. You may have better processing capabilities. And in any case, unless you really expose yourself to tapes or people or are simply spectacular with languages, you're not going to get very far even with one language that quickly. So, you could also argue, why not more than one?</p>
<p>Oh, the final thing: of course, the more you learn the easier it becomes.</p>