How many languages should a child learn?

Several, even up to six, and ideally from early childhood. What a child learns early becomes as natural to it as its mother tongue.

Many parents worry about overburdening a child with several languages. This worry is usually unfounded. The earlier a child meets languages, the easier they come. A child can learn several languages side by side, even up to six, if it hears them from the very beginning.

Not every language has to come from the parents. A child can learn one language at home, another from relatives or carers, and more at nursery and school. What matters is that the child comes into contact with them freely and naturally.

This ease fades with age. Until about the age of twelve, all of these languages can become true mother tongues. Languages learned later can still be spoken well, but in a different way. One thinks first in one’s mother tongue and then translates in one’s head. The words do not grow from within but have to be searched for with effort. Someone who learns many languages as a child, by contrast, will later speak them as if they were part of themselves.

The Holy Qur’an sees the diversity of languages as a sign of God, not as a barrier. God Himself has spoken to people in their own language, as the second verse above shows. Whoever speaks other people’s languages can understand them better and meet them more easily. That is why it is worthwhile for parents to open this door for their children early.