A person who is fluent in one language can easily speak and write in that same language. Many people are fluent in ten or more languages, but very few have become fluent in more than 20.
Perhaps the greatest expert in learning languages in history was Giuseppi Caspar, who was born in Italy in the 18th century. Caspar was a carpenter, who later became a priest and then a cardinal, taking the name of Cardinal Mezzofanti.
No one knows for sure how many languages Cardinal Mezzofanti could speak, but there were probably more than 30. Some think he could speak 53 languages perfectly, and that he could understand most of what was spoken in more than 100 different languages.
The language that gave him the most work was Chinese - it took four months to learn it!
Although Mezzofanti could speak the languages of dozens of nations, he never set foot outside Italy in his entire life.
.
