Plurilingualism is a term used to discuss situations in which a person has communicative abilities in more than one language. In contrast, a multilingual area might have multiple languages that are used, but individual speakers may still be monolingual. While a person may be said to be plurilingual, this distinction between the two terms makes the most sense when discussing locations and speaker communities. Colloquially, people do use the term "multilingual" to address the idea of speaking more than language, but "plurilingual" is usually considered a more precise term.

In general, most people see plurilingualism to be more appealing than multilingualism. When speakers of different languages can communicate, they are often more likely to interact and form a strong society together. Linguistic divisions can be very powerful and can make people inclined to remain in highly isolated cultural groups even when living in close proximity. Encouraging linguistic exchange between different cultural groups can ease tense intercultural relations.
The way in which plurilingual contexts develop varies, but usually involves contact between more than one culture. In some cases, however, bilingualism may be standard for an area and the bilingual community may have its own distinct culture. Linguistic competence is usually accompanied by cultural competence, because effective communication involves more than just words. This is sometimes called pluricultural competence.