This is a truly impressive multi-lingual achievement by a British-German–Luxembourgian journalist reporter called Philip Crowther.
Apparently he speaks fluently in six languages: French, Spanish, Portuguese, English, German, and Luxembourgish.
He was born in Luxembourg to a British father and German mother. At home, his father always spoke English and his mother answered in German.
He explained that he learned to speak Luxembourgish with his friends, and learned French very early, at school. In college, he added Spanish and Portuguese.
Growing up in Luxembourg, he said that young people there usually speak four languages, including French and English, taught from the age of 10 and 12 respectively. “Most of us speak four languages perfectly by the time we finish school.”
From the age of 14, he started to learn Spanish and became fluent when he moved to Barcelona at 20. The following year, upon entering a university in London, he decided that it would be a good idea to learn Portuguese. He graduated in Hispanic Studies from King’s College London.
Having studied and lived in Spain, Paris and England for extended periods and this has of course helped learning with immersion. Though it didn’t all go smoothly for the him: “For me, French was the most frustrating because it was the first language learned outside the home and with a grammar that isn’t very logical.”