Teen Speaks Over 20 Languages
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.พ. 2025
- Prodigy hyper-polyglot Tim Doner has been teaching himself languages since he was 13. He now speaks nearly 20 languages! Join Tim on a cultural tour of New York unlike any you've ever heard!
See more of Tim: / polyglotpal
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I'm 17 and I'm just sitting here eating my oreos.
you sir are amazing. I'm barely bilingual
Currently I can speak English (my native language is Russian), German, Mandarin. Studying Swedish and Japanese, soon going to pick up Arabic and Spanish. Thanks for inspiration, Tim!
He's no prodigy. He's just dedicated.
He says it himself.
they could have coloured most of the map if he speaks spanish
Im kinda jealous
Wasn't surprised when I realised he was left-handed too. 4:17
I don't think this kid realizes the type of careers he could get into. . .
That's fantastic!! I need to learn another language!!
I hope this kid grows up to become Daniel from Stargate SG1
Awesome! i know three languages and was trying to choose between Japanese and Korean maybe i should learn both!
I speak Pashto, Urdu, Hindi and English. I understand some Arabic and I am learning Spanish. And I am here thinking that I speak a lot of languages!
Omg so what if he doesn't know Spanish, he speaks 20 other languages!! He could learn Spanish in a day if he wanted to, relax guys.
What impresses me the most about him is his humility. He is willing to ask anyone for clarification, even during this video. Well done, sir! :D I only have half the languages he does, and I'm much older!
I can speak five languages: Filipino, Chinese, Japanese, English, Indonesian (and little bit malaysian). Too bad no one supports me and often times I'm just self studying. I only rely on available resources - internet for example. I don't have money to afford formal education about languages. But by the way, this guy is really awesome. If he's going to speak filipino, primarily the tagalog, the grammar has a resemblance with Indonesian and Malaysian so it's not that hard to learn.
His voice changes depending on the language he's speaking lol
really inspired meee:) thanks fellow
huh,i didnt know my language (greek) was dead haha :P i guess he means ancient greek but i wouldnt call it dead people never stopped using it the language never died,it just involved we are taught ancient greek at school(kinda) so a lot of greeks can either read or speak ancient greek or they can do both
before i watched this video i read the title, and i was 100% sure he coudn't speak dutch ''yet''. en ja hoor, ik had gelijk ;))
OMG he's watching Psycho-Pass to study Japanese xD
おいおい、サイコパスじゃないか（笑）
他在看【心靈判官】學日文啊！
애니메 PSYCHO-PASS를 보고 일본어를 공부하고 있어요!
Está vendo o anime PSYCHO-PASS estudar Japonês!
...yep that's all I got T_T
I'm FIlipino but I grew up in HK and I speak English, Tagalog, Cantonese and Mandarin fluently. The fun thing about knowing different languages is that I can think of a phrase in a language and translate it around when I'm doing a composition for school.
he should run for secretary of state
Being dedicated is a huge part of being a prodigy.
Thnkr: Prodigies, Restoring hope for the human race.
I have watched so much anime i have watched over the years and i cant speak Japanese. SMH
Show me a prodigy that isn't "dedicated". Pure dedication might account for being fluent in 3 languages at age 17...but 20? That is exceptional ability. Don't see how his dedication makes him not exceptional.
Wtf this guy speaks Dutch? I speak Dutch as well and I don't understand the language sometimes. It is awesome that he speaks a language that about twenty million people speak.
omg i just know Persian ,Arabic and English. i wanna learn more
good luck Tim
this kid is going to work for the CIA
I've got so much respect for this guy.
I'm a Turkish girl who lives in The Netherlands and I can speak English fluently. So I could help him, but he's to far from here :P. I was learning Japanese, Korean and Arabic (in my own time), but because of college I didn't had the time for it. This guy gives me the feeling to start learning these languages again, and I'm gonna do that :D.
Thank you Tim :)
I only know, English, Portuguese, and Spanish. What an amazing 'talent'!! :)
i speak english and turkish and i must say his turkish is pretty impressive for someone who speaks an additional 19 languages
This video is great! It's inspiring. I want to learn Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, Shona and ASL :)
In Denmark it's common to speak 2-3 languages fluently and understand even more, but this is damn beautiful. 20 languages... Unbelievable
this man doesnt need subtitles watching anime dubbed in japanese seriously cool and with games that are exclusive for example in japan where the final fantasy series are in japanese
ummm.....does he have something against the Spanish language?
But... Greek isn't dead.
oh he didn't learn spanish >
I have loved learning languages too, but as I keep getting older and more busy, I can't find time to continue studying :( So far, I know Spanish and English at high levels, but French is getting up there. I know introductory sign language and German. I need to work on those and Arabic as well as begin on Mandarin.
How does he not speak Spanish.... one of the most spoken languages in the world. But he knows some random African language..
I understand the way you learn with TV because that is the way I learned English. I'm from Serbia and I can speak fluid English because when I was a kid Disney Channel and Jetix didn't have serbian subtitles so I had to make myself understand.
his English is incredible. :)
He can speak my language!!!
OMG he is amazing!! It makes me so inspired to keep learning French! I live in Australia and it is very similar to the US in the way that we are only raised learning English. My school never had a full second language course for students, there was one option, but I never really had an interest as a teen. But I'm taking up learning french as a hobby now :-)
What no Korean? Hahaha! 20 languages, I can barely speak three! I'm amazed!
Pashto is an Indo-European language, not a semitic language, it's insulting that in the thumbnail of this video Pashto is depicted with an arabic alphabet, where actually its original alphabet is similar to those of Punjabi and Hindi. It's a sensitive topic because the indo-european populations of middle eastern countries are being heavily persecuted and forcefully assimilated by muslim-arab regimes, be more aware of that next time.
he has no problem playing games with many language support
I've been teaching myself Japanese for a while, and I find that what is actually difficult is not learning vocabulary, more the sentence structures and how different they are.
Wait. Greek isnt dead.
Two things immediately stand out about this amazing young man. He's left handed and he speaks English at an extremely rapid rate. This tells me his brain is wired differently than most people's brains.
No spanish or portuguese? that's a whole continent with only two languages
Good job man ;)
Glad you picked up Farsi!
man this guy motivates me even more to learn more languages! thank you!
This young man is so motivating. I'm living in Korea now and desperate to learn Hangul. I love the quote he mentioned from Nelson Mandela: "When you talk to a man in his second language, you talk to his brain. When you talk to a man in his first language, you speak to his heart." Tim is the kind of president America needs; he'd be someone who can connect with hearts of people all over the world.
His french is excellent. Bravo jeune homme, continuez votre beau travail!
I used to think it's abnormal that I'm interested in 15+ languages and usually all I do in my free-time is learning languages but now I feel normal again hahah It must be hard to keep all of them at the same level, I tend to forget even easy English words
I'm learning English in NE who is from Japan. I respect u so much!! Actually I was thinking about studying other language, but my English is still poor so I just focus the English that's why I gave it up. However I changed mind that I will try some language soon!! Your presence gave me courage. Thank you!
日本語も頑張ってください！！
there was a great point there - learning languages is like learning its cultures -- exactly my point. Good for you and best wishes on new ones!
You can try learning croatian on serbian because if you learn one you also learn the former language of ex Yugoslavia.
Of all the THNKR prodigies, this is the one I envy most!!
He doesn't speak spanish!!???
you kick ass tim! 완전 멋저!
The funny thing about this kid is, he's not a genius. He just has an interest and he studies in a REALLY useful and helpful way (I can definitely vouch for watching lots of TV and immersing yourself in the conversation of a country). Plus he has a great memory. It says he can speak 20, but my guess is that he's FLUENT in 3-4 maximum. Which is incredibly impressive, don't get me wrong, but not impossible. Which means there's hope for the rest of us ;)
Wow. ^_^ that's exactly how I feel about learning a language! I took Japanese at school for the last 2 years (I'm 16 now) and this summer I'm learning Romanian. And at school next year I'm taking manadrin Chinese and Russian. (Russian isn't offered at school so I'm learning that on my own) ^_^ I wish someone had told me a lot sooner how FUN it was to learn languages!
This is just amazing! I admire such talent. I can barely get myself to speak two!
If you were to learn Spanish, you would cover a lot more of the world, which would be the coolest thing ever. But I understand that he probably learns the languages with the history that he's interested in.
and of course he is left-handed :)
I natively speak finnsh and I learned englsih at a young age, I studied japanese as a hobby and learned it, now I'm 21 and picking SPANISH as a hobby. Spanish seems very easy.
I whole heartedly agree that new languages open up so many new things about people and cultures that it's more than worth it to learn more and mroe languages. :)
He would make a great peace maker.
I meet and chat with a lot of people around the world thru a few game and social sites. Being a house bound old person..I spend a lot of time on the internet.
One thing that always amazes me is how folks from so many fantastic foreign countries speak to me in English...and THEN apologise for their "bad english"!!
To which I respond that I cannot speak anything but English and I am amazed at their hard work and that they had absolutely nothing to apologise for, they were perfectly fine!
Wow he is amazing! U know what? I'm going to start learning Spanish soon in my junior year and practice some Italian and Japanese at home by myself.
mantenere apprendimento della lingua italiana di romanticismo
Fabulous.I can speak Mandarin,Teochew,Cantonese,English.And now im learning Thai quite well.Next semester, i'll learn Japanese.Then,i'll learn French or Spanish.And,that's enough,i think.I love learning language,i wanna learn many kinds of languages,but I don't think i'll survive if i do so,in my country.Whatever,it's cheerful!
I know Polish from my parents, Norwegian because I live in Norway and English from school. I am starting in mini-high after the summer, then I'm going to learn German. I am planning to learn Portugeuse, Spanish and French too so I can travel in Latin-America and such.
i currently speak arabic hebrew and english at a very high level (my mother language is arabic) and im truying to learn russian and romanian
i just wanted to help you out a bit because in the end you said in hebrew "אתם מסתכלים thnkr" and it is not correct
מסתכלים is used to say looking but to say watching you have to say צופים
so the sentence is " אתם צופים ב thnkr""
hope i helped you out :)
thumbs up so he could see
i love what this guy is truying to do and i admire his work
This is awesome. I've been learning German for about 2 years now in school, but even then I couldn't compare with him in his Hebrew or anything. It's inspirational! I love learning it, though I definitely wish I was better at actually speaking it and communicating vs. just being able to write and read it. But this motivates me to practice speaking it much more! Language learning is so much fun!
this is what i want to do but now i only know English and a little bit of Russian
U live in the u.s and from all them languages you know you dont know the one that is more useful to you...spanish!!! just saying
I am amazed at the breath of his knowledge, besides studying the language he studies the culture as well. That's the only way to learn anything. Smart, smart kid with a bright future. I hope he becomes a diplomat!
I'm 17 and I can speak seven languages.. I'm getting there!!!!!!! :D
I love Tim. He is awesome. Such a smart dude.
I'm really impressed, amazing job!
this guy would make a good spy
Wow, what a dude, quite cool. I'm trying to learn arabic as I am half palestian, and I am very astonished about his pronounciation in arabic! Wow!
marry me.
tienes razón, algo a tener en cuenta es que formas idiomáticas, no son tantas, si aprendes inglés, muchas formas escandinavas serán similares (alemán por ejemplo) aunque, si él sabe francés e italiano, no le costará aprender español o portugues, de hecho seguramente lo entiende :)
es por ese motivo que a hispanohablantes se les dificulta lenguas germánicas, y no tanto las romances...
I know only english :( and I am learning arabic
Holy moly....that was amazing man.....unbelievable....
wow amazing you learned Farsi(Persian) as well?
Really hard language ...
He is truly inspiring.. I'm curious to see how very linguistically diverse he will be in years to come!
He is an inspiration. I'm trying to learn german by myself but it's a pain.
Fantastic! This guy is my Hero!
Yes, I noticed - he is indeed left-handed like a lot of creatives! What a great young man . . .
People like Tim can bring the world much closer together, good luck to him!
wow that was awesome, this guy is an inspiration to me, i personally speak Kurdish, English and Arabic (in Arabic i'm not fluent), but its only in English i can read and write, in the other two i can only speak it.
This inspires me to practice the one language (French) I learned at school. It's not 20, but whatever :P
I am currently learning French. I want to eventually be fluent. On top of my school work I listen to podcasts in French and I also have a workbook my French teacher gave me that I plan to work on during the summer. After French I want to learn either Portuguese because the economy is thriving in Brazil right now, or Italian just because it's similar to French. I think my brain is wired for language honestly.
i speak English,French,German,Portuguese and spanish
الشرق الأوسط .. ما شاء الله تبارك الرحمن
He's going to be that guy they hire when we need to learn languages created by Aliens
This guy is amazing