Identity encompasses an individual’s emotions and beliefs about others who are part of the same social group (Blažević, Rončević, & Šepić, 2007) and language is one of the key features of the person’s identity. This is particularly true of minority language speakers whose mother tongue is different than the language of their environment. Thus, their minority language connects them with their minority group and the culture of their country of origin. Moreover, the knowledge of their minority language aids their foreign language learning as it is known that the knowledge of the hereditary language in combination with the language of the environment highly influences the development of metalinguistic awareness which is beneficial for learning a foreign language (Jessner, 2008). The aim of this study was to investigate multiple language usage and foreign language learning in three large minority groups in Croatia: Albanian, Czech and Hungarian. We focused on their motivation, attitudes and emotions towards the languages they speak, as well as their efforts in maintaining their hereditary language. We were very much interested in learning whether their knowledge of their minority language has somehow facilitated their foreign language learning process. We investigated five participants per minority group (N=15) who kept a semi-structured diary for four weeks that included following topics: the speakers’ sociolinguistic background, their multiple language usage, motivation to use their languages, attitudes and emotions towards languages, future plans concerning their minority language usage and their foreign language learning experience. The results show that the participants are more confident in using their second language but are extremely motivated in using and developing their hereditary language. They tend to express their emotions in their minority language and are willing to improve the language skills of their language. While learning a foreign language, they connected it with their mother tongue and achieved positive transfer of mainly lexical and phonetic features. The main conclusion of the study is that foreign language teachers should encourage their minority pupils to connect the knowledge of their hereditary language with the foreign language in order to maintain their minority language and continuously develop their metalinguistic awareness to help them learn new languages.