The 37 Language Project began in December 2008. A young man named Keith Brooks, who has always been fascinated with languages and the world around him decided to embark on a process of reviewing 37 languages to find the one perfect for him. If learning a new tongue had “taste-testing,” this would be it.
Some call it silly while others think it’s refreshing. Some may even be confused by the entire project altogether. In whatever case, sit back, relax and enjoy the linguistic ride.
In his own words …
The languages Keith is reviewing are:
1. Romanian
2. Macedonian
3. Spanish*
4. Vietnamese
5. Norwegian
6. Bulgarian
7. Slovenian
8. Malagasy
9. Japanese*
10. Moldavian
11. Hindi
12. Finnish
13. Azeri
14. Arabic
15. Czech
16. Albanian
17. Cambodian
18. Serbian
19. Chinese
20. Xhosa
21. Portuguese
22. Armenian
23. Korean
24. Croatian
25. Afrikaans
26. Greek
27. Swedish
28. French*
29. Thai
30. Turkish
31. Dutch
32. Hebrew
33. Danish
34. Filipino
35. Polish
36. Lao
37. Catalan
*I have already tried to study several languages, like Spanish and Japanese, so in these cases, Part One will be a review.
Hi Keith, I do a podcast on languages. Maybe we could do a short interview on your project? You can contact me at language@pri.org
Patrick Cox
Here’s the podcast:
http://www.theworld.org/language
And on iTunes:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=279833390
I wish you had picked Basque. Bascos say that learning the language makes you Basques. Its got an interesting history and heritage plus Bascoland is pretty nice.
Ongi Etorri,
-Jeff
Hi Keith,
How did you choose 37 lanugages, is it for instance the 37 that google etc provide their standard services in?
let us know!
Hi Keith,
I heard your interview on NPR which was quite interesting.
I am someone who loves languages very much and has a nack for learning them. Currently I speak fluently, French, German, English, Spanish, Italian, Hebrew and Russian, and am in the process of learning Chinese. I would like to know if you actually speak 37 languages or are more of a linguist in the sense that you analyze language.
Do you have an accent when you speak them? or do you even care if you do? How importaant is the grammar to you? I ask this because I learn languages like a bird. At the same time I hate poor grammar. Go figure…
Keith,
The best way to learn languages is to talk to folks. If you are interested in talking and conversing with someone on eastern armenian dialect, let me know.
Edmond
Hi Keith,
One language you should really consider is the international language Esperanto.
Here is an article about it in Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto
In fact there is an Wikipedia in Esperanto. It is spoken by 2 to 5 million people worldwide in about 250 countries.
Esperanto is easy to learn and it is totally regular.
Please check it out.
Rich Duke
Keith,
I don’t know if you’re taking suggestions for languages, but I’d like to suggest Bambara or Bamanankan, a language nearly identical with Diula (or Jula) and thus understood throughout almost all of West Africa. It’s a tonal language that’s easy and fun to learn, with many little emphatic and other particles. In terms of “rich vocabulary,” Bambara is easy to cobble together and often results in highly poetic compound nouns, as in yirisuma, “tree coolness,” for “shade;” in funny Bamanized French words, like “mobili” for “automobile;” and in scattered Arabic phrases and names, “insh’allah” and “alhamdillalahi” being common utterances.”
I don’t know that you’ll find many Bamana speakers in Louisville (I’m from there), but you might be surprised! I know you would also enjoy learning about the fascinating history and culture of the Bamabara-speaking regions, most notably Mali.
There’s quite a thorough textbook by Charles Bird in English. More resources are out there in French. Think about it, especially if you don’t have any other African or Niger-Congo languages on your list!
Best,
Becky
Hi again, Keith. I am sure you know the work of Stephen Krashen on acquiring and learning “second languages”: http://www.sdkrashen.com/SL_Acquisition_and_Learning/index.html
Several years ago, I found myself in the former SSR of Georgia. I was there as a grad student, planning to study Georgian language at Tbilisi University. I was injured in a hot water accident very early on, and spent the first two months of my time there pretty much confined in my host family’s apartment with an elderly grandmother and two small children, ages 5 and 3, who only spoke Georgian. When I finally had recovered enough to venture out, I started to attend classes. By then, however, thanks to Bebo (Grandma) and my two little friends, I was already comprehending a great deal and speaking enough to get by. And when the highly complex Georgian verbal system was presented to me by my instructor, I understood it very easily, more like it “fell into place” because I’d spent weeks and weeks fully immersed in the “target” language. If I had known Russian, for example, I don’t think I would have acquired Georgian as readily. I think it also helped that long before traveling to Georgia, I had been listening to Georgian music and had learned to sing some Georgian folk songs without having a clue as to what the lyrics meant. You can imagine my delight in finally, slowly understanding what the words meant, not to mention how badly I had misconstrued them! What fun!
Well, all this to say that Krashen’s “natural” or immersion approach that focuses on language “acquisition” first is probably an excellent way to go because it follows the natural pathways of human language development (through play and other activities that require limited cortical involvement).
Good luck to you!
Patricia
I had a different experience in Georgia – married to a Georgian man, around his family, yet I couldn’t learn Georgian (and I always thought I was good at it).
One aspect of Krashen’s hypothesis is that “Comprehensible Input” is necessary to acquiring a language – language that is somewhat understandable to the learner. I wonder if being around children, the Georgian you received was modified enough for you to understand the meaning. Or that Bebo was used to speaking to children, so she used modified, easier language. In my case, the relatives never modified their speech; they would use long, complicated sentences, and never simplify their language with me so that it was comprehensible. I discuss this with my SLA students – don’t assume that being dumped into the language is enough for acquisition to take place – the learner still has to get comprehensible input – or, as I always tell them, “Why you can’t learn English simply by watching CNN.”
And you are completely correct about knowing Russian being a serious roadblock to learning Georgian.
On “The World” you mentioned Norwegian as a leading contender. Let me second the motion. Norwegian offers an accessible surface (close relation to English, fairly simple morphology–at least in Bokmål) and under that, endless depths. There are two official written norms, and historically, even more varieties (as well as official spelling reforms). There are countless dialects, each with a strong flavor of its locale, unique words and expressions, etc. Astounding claims have even been made for the size of Norwegian’s vocabulary. Whether these are true or not, it is certain that tracing etymologies will reveal many fruitful connections to English that are overlooked by those who concentrate on Latin and French roots. Finally, if you get deep enough into this language, you will want to visit the country, and then you will be able to enjoy a gorgeous, peaceful, uncrowded place with extremely varied landscapes.
I agree with Rich Duke about Esperanto. Even if it doesn’t make the cut of the 37 languages, it would be very interesting to see how it would stack up under Keith’s criteria. The entire concept of the international language is that people shouldn’t have to learn a multitude of languages to communicate all over the world.
Hi Keith,
I really like the idea of “rapid dating” languages, to taste a little bit of them, I´m really delighted to read your blog.
Keep it up and good luck! 
Cisa
Thank you so much Cisa! I’m delighted you’re reading it!
Keith,
Hi. You have no idea how envious I am of what you’ve been able to do on this project. I have a zillion questions and unfortunately, you don’t appear to have a public email address, so….
1)How much of your successes with these languages is understanding their mechanics? Does knowing your alveolar frics from your rhotacized vowels really help you?
2) How much do you retain from these brief expeditions? And does vocabulary ever run together in your brain?
3) What would make a language unknowable to you? Are there any languages that just don’t click with your otherwise-language-oriented brain? Icelandic, for example, I understand is hideously difficult for americans to learn.
4) Have you found that your aptitude for picking up languages declining as you get older? And what do you think people can do to remain avid linguists throughout their lives?
Thanks… and much continued success?
Hi Marty,
First, I apologize for the late reply! Thank you so much for all the kind comments, I really appreciate them. And please don’t be envious, I invite anyone to participate with their feedback!
As for your questions:
1) The mechanical aspects of the language give me a sense of how the language sounds. This aspect, however, is mostly included for the sake of those reading the blog who happen to be linguists. I could exclude it, but I think highlighting them shows the distinctions between my native language (English) and the language being sampled.
2) I retain surprisingly a lot, given that I go through the languages pretty quickly. I review posts every chance I get. Also, vocabulary doesn’t tend to run together for me, however regional histories do. This is because a lot of the regions in which the languages are spoken have similar or shared histories (e.g., Romania and Moldova).
3) I don’t think a language can be truly unknowable unless it is spoken by an isolated group of people and resources are restricted or unavailable. I think anyone can learn a language, depending on his or her level of devotion and immersion.
As far as a “click” factor, orthography and phonetics play a key role for me. For example, I loved listening to Hindi, but Devanagari script is very difficult for Americans to learn. This is subjective, however, and varies from person to person.
4) Unfortunately, yes, but I think my memory is fuzzy in general. Again, I think constant immersion and finding new, interesting ways of incorporating linguistics or general language learning in your own life can help.
Very interesting reading.
When are you planning to make your decision?
Hi Jim! Thank you so much for reading! I probably won’t make my decision until several months from now. There are still several thing I might go-over again and review before I actually “pick” the winning language.
Would you consider going beyond 37 languages to find the ‘one’? There are so many lesser spoken languages, like classical Asian languages, minority languages or indigenous ones.
Al,
Perhaps — I picked languages from regions I wanted to possibly live in, so that excluded quite a few choices. But we’ll see what happens as I progress through the project!
Hello Keith,
First of all, good luck on your journey and thanks for providing an interesting read! How do you find time for all that?
Let me now express a bit of regret that you hadn’t chosen a broader palette of languages, with 37 choices you could have had a much more diverse selection.
If I were you I’d avoid such close pairs like Afrikaans/Dutch, Azerbaijani/Turkish, Croatian/Serbian Moldovan/Romanian on my list – that’s almost cheating
Anyway, that’s your selection done according to your criteria, and I really shouldn’t be grumpy about it (only it would be even more interesting to read what you make of, say, Greenlandic, instead of going through Serbo-Croat twice). Special thanks for Malagassy and I can’t wait for Xhosa.
Hi peterlin,
I definitely agree. I wish I had looked a little more closely before selecting a few of the languages. There were quite a few I had not heard of that were selected randomly; as I’ve gone through the project I’ve had “duplicates” of sorts, which I didn’t realize would occur. But it has definitely been rewarding to learn about the regions in which these languages are spoken. Not only is it a linguistics lesson, but an exercise in geography and history.
I can’t wait for Xhosa either!
Hi,
I am currently working at a company called lang-8, where it offers online service (free of charge) for people who like to learn languages other than their mother tongues and it also allows users to write journal entries which can be corrected by someone who is a native in that language that you write your entry; meaning you can write your entries in any languages you want. It is like everyone helps each other by correcting each others’ journal entry and so everyone learns! Maybe you would be interested in trying it out and taking a look? I also think it might be interesting for your readers as well, but of course, that’s up to you=)
Please let me know if you have any questions! You can email me at rex@lang-8.com and the website address is http://lang-8.com/
Cheers,
Rex
Hi Keith!
I was wondering whether you have thought about giving a try to Hungarian?? 
I would be really curious what do you think about it!
I really like your farewell letters to the languages you don´t want to study more seriously.
Have a nice weekend
Cathy
Hi Cathy,
Hungarian is on the list! I can’t wait to review it, it’s nothing like the languages that surround it!
Thank you for reading and I’m glad you enjoy the letters!
what an amazing coincidence to hear about a fellow louisvillian who loves languages through world in words! actually i’m living in japan now, but i still call louisville home…
i can totally relate to your stories of studying from a young age– at age 5 i was begging my parents to let me take extracurricular foreign language lessons, and i remember being totally torn because all 3 languages were offered at the same time so i couldn’t learn them all!
anyway, my main reason for writing is because i have fallen in love with hungarian recently, and was wanting to suggest you give it a try. the grammar should be complex enough to keep you interested, and personally i think the spoken language sounds absolutely gorgeous! i’d especially suggest listening to the lyrics of the musician akos…
well, good luck in your studies. looking forward to your final choice!
Love the site. Links are great. (Looks like an organized version of my own delicious links) Whatever language you choose, arrange to go live in that country (if possible) and see how the languages changes even further as it comes to life. I’d love to read that blog too!
Thank you very much for reading my blog, your feedback means a lot to me! What is your del.icio.us name? Mine is amicablekeith and I have added some links from the blog, but I’m behind (there are so many!). And I definitely plan on keep up with the blog after I select one, that will be equally as exciting!
Dude, you site is so awesome. Great project. I studied French in high school, did a semester of Italian my freshman year in college, and recently finished up about two years of Chinese. I’m glad of the latter because of its influence on Japanese and Korea, in case I want to venture down those roads. After listening to some Pimsleur on Swahili, I decided to take Arabic, which I started last week at UCLA as it is the best doorway to many others, and apparently was used (the grammar I believe?) to revitalize modern Hebrew.
Are you a student, you working, etc? besides all the language acq. I also found that its important in language learning to have some deep motivation for a particular language. For instance, I flaked on Italian bc I had no motivation past watching an occasional Italian film (the bicycle thief is pretty cool). I was dating a Chinese girl so there was emphasis there, and also I enjoyed the challenge. Arabic, well, I have many friends that speak it, and I listen to alot of middle eastern music (after I spent 6 mos through the ME last year).
The post before me from Patricia Constantinian about Georgian is spot on…its good to immerse yourself, however I remember during my travels that most people WANT to speak English to you, making the opportunity somewhat slim.
Also, if you haven’t checked out http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/ this guy Tim Ferris has a whole system for breaking down languages in about an hour which I’m sure you’d find enjoyable.
Hit me back at my blog, or add me on twitter.com/iamrphy
Ciao, for now.
Hi Raphael,
First thank you so much for the kind words! I never studied languages in college, but I’ve always looked at them growing up. This project, among many things, is a revival of an interest I always had. As far as a motivation for learning a language, I sort of had that with Spanish, as I had a lot of Hispanic friends in school and Japanese (because I, was, at one point, an anime nerd). And then French because I love French films. So it’s a bit of a departure searching for a language first, although I definitely wouldn’t have it any other way!
I’m a regular working fellow, in Web design. I decided to do the project because I made it my goal to be fluent in at least one other language (and I was tired of Spanish), so I looked at Norwegian. But then I wondered about the other languages I would have been missing out on, so I decided to write about it. My co-worker prodded me a bit, but I never thought people would actually want to read this, let alone use it as a guide. I am very humbled and hope it continues to serve as a resource!
Hello,
Perhaps give Irish a try. It’s having a bit of a revival and there is an Irish Language TV station. TG4.
Here’s a clip of Sinead O’Connor singing in Irish.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxRj-ejoJaM
O
My name is Menaka and I work at bab.la (http://bab.la), an interactive language portal. I came across your website and found it very interesting.
bab.la is a language portal offering free online dictionaries, vocabulary trainers, quizzes, games and a language forum. The dictionaries in 15 languages include thousands of colloquial expressions as well as very specific terms and words. bab.la users can add translations, create quizzes and build their own vocabulary lists and share all of these with their friends.
Your website already includes an impressive resource directory. We feel that bab.la with our user-generated content could be a great addition and a useful tool for your users. You could also download our widget for free from here: http://bab.la/tools-plugins.php
This widget will help your users translate any word from one language to another at the click of a button.
You can either link to our website http://bab.la/ or you can link to each of the dictionaries directly; for example English-Hindi http://en.bab.la/dictionary/english-hindi/
If you have any questions or are interested in learning more about bab.la please do not hesitate to contact me.
Kind regards,
Hello,
I just visited your site and it’s AMAZING! Thank you so much for telling me about it, I will definitely link to it from my blog!
-Keith
Hi Keith!
Congratulations on your perseverence in seeking a knowledge of languages and the world around, which “shapes” them.I am sure you will find the one which you can use as the most expressive for you. I am very old, a grandmother, teaching French to her young grandchildren,but I too, am fascinated by the music and richness of those I have learned. Ever since my first French lesson, at least 70 years ago, I have been impelled by the same desire to study that tongue and to teach its beauty as an Art form and for its own sake. Nevertheless, I have also learned Classics – Latin and Greek, Spanish, Italian and German, each to a high degree.
Do continue with your research. You will be greatly enriched in your own being.
Good luck,
Mrs. Jeanette Pope
Hi Mrs. Pope,
Wow, I am very humbled and honored to have you read my blog! Your story really touches me, as I think it’s one of the most endearing I’ve received on the blog. Your depth is inspiring and I admire you for teaching your grandchildren something you treasure so much — I hope to pass on my love of this as well!
It’s so amazing how my blog has been able to reach to so many people, not just language learners, but everyone. It is one of the rewards I never expected but am joyous to receive, it really moves me!
Hi Keith,
I love your site and I was just reading your latest post (about being lost in Paris). I actually live in the 16th arrondisment myself. Have been here 3 months and my French is coming on nicely.
Anyway, I have an idea which I thought would be nice for your blog.
For each language you review, you could embed some basic phrases or notes. You could do this with my FREE program, MLN Player. This link shows you how your phrases/notes would look in your blog:
http://www.mylanguagenotebook.com/view_project_2.aspx?projectID=51&lang=Language&sitetype=37languages&content=notes/observations
It is very easy to make your own notes (with audio) and embed them in your blog and it is totally FREE.
You can embed any of the projects already on the MLN website or you could make your own lessons and embed them.
Hope it is useful for you,
Jim