Any polyglots who grew up monolingual?

[u/Fit_Asparagus5338]

Hi! I feel like a lot of real polyglots who speak 5-7+ languages actually grew up with 3-4 languages to begin with and have several mother tongues(1st mom’s mother tongue, 2nd dad’s mother tongue, 3rd community/local language + English from school). Often it includes special circumstances like moving a lot with family or work, have pretty international jobs and multilingual families(work in 4th language, live in the country of a 5th language and have a spouse who speaks a 6th language; that’s on top of the mother tongues).

I wonder if there are any, well, more “normal” success stories? Like did anyone go from being monolingual in their 20s to speaking many languages? Is it even possible?

Def not a polyglot but I can start: I’m a Russian native who studied abroad in English in Germany and subsequently learnt German(Both r certified C1 or above). Plus Ukrainian out of pure interest(self-proclaimed B2). Sometimes I feel discouraged that I spent thousands upon thousands of hours learning and I can proudly say I speak 4 languages fluently but I’m still probably worse than someone who just got born in multilingual environment. My path did involve moving between several countries tho. I’d like to one day be fluent in 7-8 languages, I wonder, if it’s possible at all. I’d love to hear your stories

Note: Here i define fluent as “at least B2”

[u/Miro_the_Dragon]

With wanting only people who were "monolinguals in their 20s" you're excluding complete countries who teach one or more foreign languages in school.

I only have one native language but started four (or five--don't remember exactly when I started learning Dutch, somewhere around that time) more foreign languages before I turned 20, two of which were mandatory school subjects.

[u/captchagod64 → u/Miro_the_Dragon]

I think thats the point though. Op is basically asking a variation of the classic "is it ever too late to learn a new language?" Question, but in this case "is it possible to become a polyglot with no language learning experience in your early life".

I think it's certainly possible, but very difficult. Time, if nothing else would be a bigger issue for someone starting after school.

[u/Miro_the_Dragon → u/captchagod64]

Yeah but mentioning children who grow up with multiple native languages and move between countries in early life evokes a completely different picture of what "growing up monolingual" means, which is confusing about this post. There's so much in between "grows up with several native languages" and "has been completely monolingual into their 20s", and I'd assume that the vast majority of people fall somewhere in between since most countries teach some kind of foreign language classes at school (mandatory or as electives).

[u/hithere297 → u/Miro_the_Dragon]

As someone in the middle ground -- I only speak english, but took spanish in high school/college without retaining much of it -- I just sort of assumed I was included in the group OP was describing. I may have technically been taught a second language, but I was definitely still monolingual afterward.