Consider learning a new language to be challenging? Follow in the footsteps of Powell Janulus, who is the world record holder for learning 42 languages.

The hometown of Powell Janulus is Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He grew up hearing a lot of Slavic languages. His Lithuanian father spoke at least four languages, while his Polish mother spoke six. At the age of 18, he was proficient in thirteen languages.

At the University of British Columbia, he studied Asian Studies and made an effort to learn Mandarin. He admitted to having trouble with the academic teaching approach in an interview. He developed an interest in the process of language acquisition and how youngsters pick up languages so quickly.

He started creating his rapid language learning system in his early twenties. He started working as a court translator in his 30s and was compensated for translating into each language. He made an effort to study two or three languages a year because they increased his income at work. He was certified as a court translator in 28 languages by the British Columbia Provincial Court.

He claimed that after that, he developed an interest in linguistic variants and was able to pick up related languages like Portuguese and Spanish fast. He became proficient in less widely spoken languages like Tibetan, Romani, Inuit, and Swahili in his forties. Later in life, he established the Geneva Language Institute, a language school in Vancouver.

World Fluency Record Holder

In 1985, Powell became the world fluency record holder, setting a new record for verbal fluency in 42 languages. He had to take a two-hour conversational fluency exam with a native speaker of each language he was using at the time to qualify. This testing was conducted over a period of one month. According to Powell, he has studied at least 80 languages overall and believes he is proficient in 64 of them.

During an interview, Powell stated that he was employed by the late John Candy to assist him with speaking Punjabi for the film Who's Harry Crumb? During his appearance on The Tonight Show, talk show host Johnny Carson asked Janulus to be tested by speakers of 48 different languages.

The languages Powell is said to speak include Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, Romanian, German, Dutch, Frisian, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Czech, Serbian, Slovak, Slovene, Kashubian, Lusatian, Wendish, Belarusian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu, Armenian, Sinhalese, Tibetan, Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Croatian, Greek, Turkish, Kurdish, Finnish, Korean, and Persian.

English, which is his first language, and the numerous other languages he speaks to some degree are not on this list.

Is it difficult to learn a new language? I sincerely hope that this Powell Janulus story will inspire you to pick up a new language.