According to a Press Association article, a 10 year old British school boy has mastered ten languages, and is working on his eleventh. He grew up speaking Hindi and English, learnt Spanish, Italian, German and French at school, and has taught himself Thai, Swahili, Mandarin and Polish using CDs and DVDs, as part of a programme called the Junior Language Challenge. His next language is Luganda, one of the major languages of Uganda.
He is quoted as saying:
“Learning these languages is my favourite part of school, along with music. Learning Swahili was probably one of the biggest challenges I’ve faced and Mandarin Chinese was hard, too.”
A related article in The Hindu quotes the Deputy Headmaster of his schools as saying that “Arpan is a language genius, a natural when it comes to listening to an exact pronunciation and repeating it perfectly”.
His ambition is to become a surgeon and to work in various countries, which is one reason why he’s learnt the languages.
