<p>Hello everyone on CC,
So my question for all of you who have decided to read my post is: How many languages are too much? As of now I'm a senior in high school contemplating what colleges I should apply too (more like whoever will accept me Haha). During the course of high school I've studied French for four years, Spanish for two (however, the program here is a tad atrocious) and German for one year. Languages are my passion and my goal for life is to become as fluent as possible in many languages. But back to the point of this post. When I go to college I would really like to continue with French and maybe German and pick up on a few more (I would really love to learn Chinese, Arabic, Russian and Hindi). So what do you think would be too much for college? In a perfect world I'd like to have classes in all of them but I think that would be a bit of an overkill... So what do you think? Just btw, I kinda pick up on languages really quickly.</p>
<p>The limiting factor, which you would have no way of appreciating from your current position in high school, will be that you’ll need to meet general education requirements, math and writing requirements, requirements for your major, etc.</p>
<p>But until you know where you’re going to college, and how many requirements you may be able to fulfill with high-school courses, AP scores, placement testing, etc., you can’t possibly know how much of your life all that other stuff is going to take up.</p>
<p>So, don’t even try to answer this question now, because you won’t be able to come up with an answer you can have confidence in. Wait until you’re in college.</p>
<p>Remember picking up European languages is vastly different than the languages you want to study, I’d suggest focusing on one because if you think you can become truly proficient Chinese, Arabic, and Hindi all at once you are really fooling yourself.</p>
<p>You could major in linguistics and take as many of your classes in as many languages as possible, rather than trying to major in a certain language.</p>
<p>I took 3 years of Latin and 4 years of Spanish in HS. I then went on to take a year of upper level Latin in college. The fact that I had two languages in HS down when going into college was an advantage. It will not hurt you whatsoever unless you let them hurt your GPA. Make sure you complete enough math, science and english courses too though.</p>
<p>I took three years of French, have studied Arabic all my life, can speak Urdu and Hindi (linguistically same, different script) and am in my first semester of Mandarin Chinese. </p>
<p>I used this to my advantage when applying at colleges, even though I’m not majoring in any language, bilingual teaching or linguistics. Colleges want to see diversity and someone with skills in language, especially since so many people detest language courses.</p>
<p>Learning “too many languages” shouldn’t be a problem in itself; just make sure that you show colleges that you have interests beyond that. Basically, diversify yourself.</p>