Natural born linguists: what drives multi-language speakers? (Martin Williams, The Guardian)

Get out there and chat to native speakers if you want to learn a language, a group of multilingual speakers tell Martin Williams.

Speaking up for languages: Richard Simcott founded the Polyglot Conference to bring linguists together. Photograph: Polyglot Conference. Polyglot Conference.

Susanna Zaraysky, 36, speaks seven languages and has lived in nine different countries. With Russian as her first language, she now lives in California.

Being multilingual is fundamental to who I am because I think in different languages. My mind starts a thought in one language, then finds a particular word in another language that fits exactly what I am thinking and then may switch to a third language by the end of the paragraph.

What makes a language attractive – its sound, national identity or familiarity? (Matthew Jenkin, The Guardian)

The allure of a language may have more to do with perceptions of that country’s status and social values than its actual sound.

‘I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my horse,’ Roman emperor Charles V delcared. Photograph: Alamy.

Je t’aime, ti amo, te quiero mucho! Sounds nice doesn’t it? If you swoon over sweet nothings whispered in French, Italian or Spanish, you’re not alone. But while learning to speak a language famed for its romance may increase your sex appeal, the reason for your preference of one vernacular over another may have little to do with how the sounds roll off the tip of your tongue.