Richard Simcott

Richard Simcott (born 1977 (age 36)) is a British polyglot who lives in Skopje, North Macedonia. He speaks 16 languages fluently. HarperCollins referred to him as "One of the most multilingual people from the United Kingdom". Besides the languages that he exhibits fluency in, he has also actively studied more than 50 languages at some point in his career.

Background
Originally from Chester, Simcott's first language was English. He began learning French at a young age, and since he grew up near the England–Wales border, he learnt Welsh as well. After his father remarried to a Thai woman, he started to learn Thai during his teenage years after visiting Thailand. Since that time he has learned a range of languages including Turkish, Polish, Hebrew, Chinese, Icelandic, Macedonian ,Esperanto and Maltese. Simcott has worked with languages in the UK diplomatic service, he has been a production manager for Emoderation as well as being the languages director for Polpea. He has also hosted a range of Polyglot conferences internationally, and is the current head of the Polyglot Conference. He was interviewed by 16×9 for a short television programme about polyglots. Simcott runs his own blog Speaking Fluently and has published a book on French Short Stories. In 2015, the Goethe Institut named him Ambassador for Multilingualism.

Language abilities
On his profile on Linkedin, he states he has native level command in English, and speaks French, German, Spanish, Dutch and Macedonian. He can speak about 30 languages in total to some degree. Simcott continues to study languages in a university environment, which differs from other polyglots.