Plurilingualism is a situation wherein a person who has competence in more than one language can switch between languages – from one language to another and vice versa – according to the circumstances at hand for the purpose of coping with a social matter. There is a distinction between plurilingualism and multilingualism. Multilingualism

Multilingualism

Multilingualism is the act of using, or promoting the use of, multiple languages, either by an individual speaker or by a community of speakers. Multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. Multilingualism is becoming a social phenomenon governed by the needs of...

, on the other hand, is connected to situations wherein multiple languages exist side-by-side in a society but are utilized separately. Plurilingualism is derived from bilingualism. A consequence of plurilingualism is pluricultural competence. In general, persons who are identified as plurilinguals had had contact with foreign languages through educational institutions, however the education system plays only a small role in the linguistic competence of these individuals.