Later in life, I took to the habit of learning languages by myself: Spanish in the early twenties, Italian after emigrating to Sardinia at the age of 27, Portuguese at 33 during a three-month trip to Brazil. That put the modern language count at 6. In between or thereafter, whenever there was the perspective of travel, I studied the basic grammar of other languages: Swedish, Dutch, Modern Greek, Turkish, Sardinian, Farsi (Iranian), Swahili, Hebrew, Hindi. Don't worry! With the exception of Sardinian and Kabyle, I have never spoken any of these languages and hardly remember a single word of them. But one of the consequences of repeated exposure.
