How can some people speak many different languages, how do they learn them and how do they become fluent?

The key answer to this -total language immersion.

People who can be “diagnosed” as polyglots live through their languages their entire life.  When people ask me where and how I learned “all those languages” and whether I get them confused I hesitate to find a concrete answer;

I did certainly study some of them with external help and guidance, but the level achieved under these circumstances was never anywhere near to the level of language fluency I have achieved by self study. And this is the core skill we try to encourage at London Language Studio: we help our students to develop the skills of independent learning.

I genuinely believe in this way of learning. It worked with me and many other people I know.  And it works with our students; this is what we do at the Studio and what makes our way of teaching so efficient. It is very much about passing on a very good experience; HOW to REALLY learn a language.

I studied Russian for 8 years and German for 5, age 6 to 15, but not much is left; I learned these through the traditional methods: textbooks, thousands of exercises, vocabulary tests, exams. Overwhelming, boring. Despite that, it worked a little; I can understand both languages quite well and could speak if I had to, but it would not feel effortless.

I learned Italian and English on my own and studied Spanish and Greek at university, but again, only achieved a high level of fluency once I had completely immersed myself into these, regardless on any particular lessons or guidance. I learned to think in the language and about the language.

When I mastered my own way of learning,  I then started understanding French without any particular effort (a couple of lessons), just by being exposed to French speakers; I already knew what to look for, and could teach my self.

So how did I do that.
I don’t really know how and when I became fluent or how long it took; all I know is when I was learning a language I was always completely immersed. Learning it all the time, day and night, non stop. I put all my efforts into it, and all my free time. Eventually I would dream about it or in it. I would look around me and try to describe everything I could see, or talk in the language to myself. I was projecting having dialogues with particular people and was translating those dialogues. I had a little dictionary on me wherever I  went or whatever I did, and was always trying to put together sentences as I would do during the day in my own language.

I noticed the more languages I knew the easier it was to understand and learn another one, and the less time it took.

To summarise- in my opinion what most matters and what helps in achieving a rapid progress is definitely an intense immersion and the ability to think for your self; trying to think in the language at all times, no matter what you do during the day. I try to translate everything I see around me (this builds my vocabulary), I try to describe it, or explain it (practice my ability to use the vocab in sentences) and I generally expose myself to the language as much as I can, by listening to news, music, people. It is not important to understand it immediately; but to listen, and then, slowly, to hear…