Singapore – A Singaporean woman’s fascination with languages began with a Tibetan copy of “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” purchased online in 2021, and has since blossomed into fluency in over a dozen languages. Loy Xing-Yi, 18, is a hyperpolyglot who speaks and studies languages as a way to connect with different communities and preserve cultural heritage.
A Journey Through Languages
Ms. Loy’s linguistic journey started when she bought the Tibetan translation of the popular novel on Taobao. Determined to understand her purchase, she utilized YouTube and Chinese video-sharing platforms Douyin and Bilibili to learn the Tibetan alphabet. Each page of the book took her between two weeks and a month to decipher.
Reading translated editions of “Harry Potter” is her preferred method for learning new languages. “I like to read Harry Potter in a new language, because I know the plot very well, and it just so happens that it is published in a lot of languages, so it helps me better contextualise all the vocabulary or the grammar,” she said.
Fluent in Over a Dozen Languages
Ms. Loy is currently fluent in English, Mandarin, French, Japanese, Spanish and Korean, as well as Italian, Portuguese, German, Tagalog, Bahasa Indonesia, Tibetan and Tujia – the language of a minority ethnic group in China.
She describes her approach to language learning as opportunistic. “I don’t really go out of my way to look for new languages to learn,” she said. “The opportunity pops up, and I feel like I have to take it, because it’s such a good chance for me to get to know this new community and to speak this new language.”
A History of Academic Pursuits
Ms. Loy’s desire for challenge extends beyond languages. While at Raffles Girls’ School, she self-studied and sat the International A levels in geography and sociology, despite not being required to take O levels as part of the Integrated Programme (IP).
Choosing to deviate from the typical IP path to Raffles Institution, she applied for and received the SJI International Local Merit Scholarship to attend St Joseph’s Institution International (SJII). “I wanted to prove to myself that I could take that leap of faith,” she said.
She graduated from SJII in 2025 with a perfect International Baccalaureate score of 45 out of 45 and plans to study linguistics at a university in the US.
Early Exposure and Cultural Preservation
Ms. Loy’s exposure to foreign languages began in kindergarten, where she was taught English, Chinese, and Japanese. Growing up near Bukit Timah, she observed French expatriate children and felt motivated to learn their language after being unable to play with them.
She continued to expand her linguistic repertoire, picking up Korean, Italian, and Portuguese during the COVID-19 pandemic. A childhood experience of being unable to help a tourist speaking a foreign language sparked her interest in Italian.
Ms. Loy is also dedicated to preserving less-spoken languages. After meeting a Tujia teacher at a conference in 2022, she began learning the language and working on conservation projects, recognizing the challenge of preserving an oral language without a written form.
Promoting Literacy and Cultural Identity
Ms. Loy believes that every generation should have the right to decide which aspects of their culture to preserve. She started an initiative in 2024, Project FantaSEA, to increase English literacy among students in South-east Asia using local myths and folk tales. Supported by a National Youth Council grant, the project has reached over 2,500 students in Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines.
She emphasizes the importance of knowing one’s own cultural stories, recalling learning the Singaporean legend of Redhill much later in her childhood than the tale of Snow White. Ms. Loy also expressed concern about the potential loss of cultural practices and the importance of preserving Singlish as a unique marker of Singaporean identity.
Ms. Loy is particularly interested in how language shapes society, citing examples like the reclamation of slurs and their potential to reshape societal beliefs.
Correction note: An earlier version of the story said that Ms Loy attained an IB score of 44 instead of 45. This has been corrected.
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