Well, with his parents pushing him like that, it's hardly surprising. He wasn't allowed to be a child, which is a form of emotional neglect, which is traumatic. And studies have shown that gifted people are more negatively affected by toxic environments, which is probably why giftedness and complex PTSD are positively correlated...
Honestly colleges, especially world-renowned colleges, should refuse admission to anyone under 16 and strongly discourage parents from getting their kids college ready before then. Nobody needs to go to college more than two years early.
Most gifted people don't go a degree - they don't fit in with universities. Maybe they see them for what they are, a farce. we should close down all universities and replace them with job training. Imagine the efficiency!
He wrote it to be so boring, that it would literally put you to sleep. It's like a 1200 page meme on insomnia that only a niche audience will appreciate. Its hilarious
Smart he was not, because a commie ain't smart no matter how intellectual they are. There's a huge difference in being booksmart and having common sense or an actual functioning worldview.
Don't forget, people love to claim language skills. I've met several people who claimed to be able to speak different languages because they could say a phrase or two. One guy, Jerry, claimed he spoke French because he had been living in Canada for six months, and when a guy fluent in French showed up Jerry got real quiet real quick, haha. That was a good day.....
Yeah, I think this is the problem with most of the self-proclaimed polyglots - even many of the famous ones on TH-cam. Unless they can show CEFR credentials its hard to take them seriously. What happens most of the time is that they become fluent in a couple of languages then learn some beginner stuff in ten others and suddenly they think they are polyglots because they can say hi in Chinese.
Yes. I have an ex sister in law who claims to speak German because she took a couple of semesters of it in high school. She is not even conversational let alone fluent.
What do you call someone who speaks 3 languages? - Trilingual What do you call someone who speaks 2 languages? - Bilingual What do you call someone who speaks 1 language? - American
@@willworkswood3215 It's actually "también" and you should not capitalize "español". I don't recommend you to mix languages that way, at least wait until the next sentence to switch up.
over 10 years ago took a class with a a language teacher who spoke 46 languages and could read / write but not speak 14 more he probably knows more by know since hes still alive.
That's super cool. I think for some people the way languages work just "clicks." Plus they obviously know the style of learning that best suits them so they end up just ridiculously impressive.
In the mid-90's I met a Waiter in Turkey that spoke: English Spanish German Turkish Kurdish Arabic at least well enough to converse with the patrons of the diner we ate at. I heard him speak the top 4 of those myself.
I met a Turkish woman who spoke flawless English. I asked how long she had been in the US - six months. I didn’t believe her until I looked at her passport.
@@procopiusaugustus6231 foreign diplomats take 1200 hours to learn Turkish. Turkish and English are completely unrelated outside of a few loanwords (sandviç for sandwich, or we took their word yoghurt). Assuming it takes them as long to learn English, that's 200 hours a month, assuming she started from scatch, which sge likely didn't. Now, 200 hours a month is 50 hours a week. If you get around ten hours of exposure a day and spend even 3 or 4 hours a day hard-ass studying, I see it as pretty feasible.
Where I live (in Southern California) I stunned Turks that even though I don't understand their tongue; I heard their slight French accents. I explained that I spent time in Quebec with Haïq/Hayk-Canadians (Armenians). They were nice enough to speak to me in English. Both the 🇺🇸 and the 🇨🇦 sides.
"If you speak 3 you're an over achiever and everyone hates you" *Wow that hit home!!* I speak 6 (English, Afrikaans, Portuguese, Mandarin and learning French and Arabic). I've heard some "friends" say I just do it for attention. If I was a musician or an athlete I'd be praised for my records and not labelled as an attention seeker.
may I ask why not spanish yet? its one of the more popular languages. if I were to learn that many I would learn the more important ones first am I wrong?
@@jorritvanderkooi939 Dutch and Afrikaans are intelligible with each other. So learning Dutch wouldn't be much of a challenge, more like learning a dialect
The only thing not surprising about learning new languages is the amount of hard work and time required to become fluent in any of them. Most languages have 100,000+ words. You'll find a large variety in terms of alphabets, speech patterns such as phonetic and tonal languages, sentence structure, exceptions to established rules within the language, pronouns, verb conjugations, and a myriad of other variances. Even if you can pick up the grammatical rules with ease (highly doubtful) you still need to memorize a roughly 1,500-2,000 words per language to have at least an intermediate level of fluency. There is a reason the vast majority of polyglots don't have official credentials to establish their fluency in each language they claim to speak.
My professors at university told me I had a talent for learning languages because I was not 'married' to English. I studied Russian/Mandarin/Arabic, and later added Spanish (having had 3 years of Latin in High School). My son, who is fond of all things Japanese, tried for 4 years to learn the language. However, he aced his SAT in English, and could never seem to get comfortable in a truly foreign language (Latin was fairly easy for him). In studying Structural Anthropology, I learned that the language one learns as a child can give a person a slightly different version of reality from children brought up in other languages (especially concerning the nature of time). So perhaps polyglots are those best able to unshackle their minds from the 'limitations' of their mother tongue, and able to perceive reality in many different ways simultaneously. Reminds me of how Bach must have perceived his world....
As a comfort to anyone who finds it difficult to learn a second language, let alone more, I once heard that the ability was a function of training and brain architecture rather than intellect. As such, it was said of the diplomat Mr Bowering that “He was able to speak over two hundred languages yet was never heard to articulate a sensible thought in any of them...”
He just said it differently is all. It was just the idea saying to a lady when chatting her up about being "many tongued" that he used instead. Means roughly the same ;~)
It's not actually that hard, you could literally whistle every single word in English, however unless people have practiced to they won't really understand it.
There's nothing ironic about that. It's a coincidence, one of the most clear cut examples I have ever seen. It's a little interesting however, that on a video discussing where the limit of "knowing" a language should or could be drawn, you make such a big mistake in (I assume) your first or second language. As did the 72 people that up-voted your comment. Humorous
My dad traveled in his youth. Said learning a language is simple go there get a girlfriend in a month you got it. He spoke Danish Chek Greek Italian Turkish and profanity. You knew it was dad's bed time when having a few as he'd roll 3 or 4 together in a sentence an wait for a answer oblivious to the fact. Love you pops see you in a bit.
In many countries it is normal to speak 3 languages. Local language, English and a foreign language. And in countries with several local languages, additional languages are common. For example: Frisian, Dutch, English and German.
I feel like the lives of most child prodigies are often doomed to be mediocre and/or tragic in the end. To become a genius something's got to give. Everything has an opportunity cost.
Many child prodigies are in the autism spectrum and that often leads to many problems in their lives. Autistic person can be a very talented at something but at the same time may lack basic skills that are needed with living a 'normal' life.
children need a balance in their lives, male female perspectives, fun and work ones, and so on. his parents took him year one and made him study work and behave to parade around, he never or rarely interacted with other children or got to be a kid himself. the more you get off a good rounded balanced upbringing for a child the worst things will generally go off the rails. turned this poor kid into a fucking communist because his parents mentally abused him in essence, they were trying to build a prodigy at the expense of their child and his life and love. they forced that choice upon him because children have limited agency. experiment or not they should have been able to recognize.
My first language is English, and my grammar sucks. I forget my French over summer, and I am currently trying to learn Tgallic so I can flirt with a girl.
I was horrible at French in school. I just wasn't good at retaining. One of my sisters definitely has the knack, though. Besides English and French, she studied Russian at university, took a night class to learn Latin "for fun", taught herself Spanish and Italian, and is currently teaching herself German. Yeah... she's the genius in the family
@Les Brown @TerryMacKay French proved difficult to learn for me in school. I took a Spanish class in university and wasn't very good at it too. But, then I learned Japanese. What I've found from my own experience and researching language learning is that there are two keys to success in learning a new language: 1) Really wanting to learn the language. (Why I never learned French? I didn't care to.) 2 ) Using the language. (Why I never learned Spanish? I only used it in class.) I eventually learned Japanese because I wanted to learn it for myself, and I use it every day. I don't think it really takes genius or anything of the sort as there are areas on Earth where everybody is multilingual. It just takes time, effort, commitment, and interest/desire. If you want to learn a language for yourself you can be successful at it without much skill/talent, but it will take time and commitment.
@@LiamNI May be true in the touristy areas, but here in rural Spain I found French to be the language I had in common with my first few friends. (I'm British.)
Those parents are absolutely horrid. Imagine having a kid just to prove your theories of learning right. How disgusting. The fact he didn’t off both of them is purely mercy on his part, coz he definitely could have gotten away with it. Alice from Luther anyone?
There is a not uncommon belief that as long is a child is physically cared for, how it is raised is up to the parents. The are effectively property to be used as will.
Just a complete lack of empathy. Like yes it's your child and how you raise him is up to you, to a point anyway, but basic human decency and concern for your kids wellbeing have to be totally absent to see your own child as nothing more than a test subject. Absolute narcissists the both of them.
My Spanish teacher in Secondary school, who was an Italian immigrant, spoke 14 languages. My maternal grandparents emigrated from Lithuania, paternal France. They passed down exactly 0 of those mother tongues to their children. My mum cannot speak Lithuanian, nor could my dad speak French. It’s honestly cruel. If you have the GIFT of knowing more than one language, TEACH it to your children. I know exactly 0 Spanish parents who don’t teach their child Spanish and English at the SAME TIME so their child grows up fully bilingual.
My favorite multilingual story is from 1 of my coworkers from when I worked retail in college. He was talking to a couple in English and the couple decided to discuss amongst themselves in Spanish. One of them said something that was wrong about the item and he interjected in Spanish correcting them. They then swapped over to French and he responded to their comment about it being rude of him to 'eavesdrop' on their conversation that was taking place 3 feet away from him (his response was just an apology for any perceived rudeness).
I have an unabridged dictionary that is far more entertaining than Atlas Shrugged. Oh the plot twists! Something as complicated as a cat only gets a few sentences of definition but an over used simple word like "the", gets several paragraphs of explanation.
I'm pretty libertarian in my views and since that book is so highly recommended by libertarians I decided to give it a read. Biggest waist of time I've ever experienced. Not only will it bore you to tears, there is not a single likable character in the book, including the protagonists.
Yeah, I love him. Luca is an actual polyglot who is basically fluent in 10 languages, but there are so many phonies who speak 2 or 3 fluently and have a couple of phrases memorized in 20 different languages
I used to work with a woman when I was in high school who was a polyglot she spoke English, several other European languages, Hindi, and many local Indian dialects. She could read an write in many of them to. She was a wonderful woman to work with. I haven’t seen her in over 15 years, but I still think about her often.
Ehh, not to be a pendant, but speaking many languages does not make a linguist. A polyglot for sure, but linguistics is by definition an academic science about language, not just speaking them.
I remember this commercial for a Nintendo DS game whenever I hear the word 'polyglot'- Interviewer: Are you a polyglot? Applicant: (many rushing thoughts) I only have one wife, sir, but I'm open to more
Whenever I hear of people who claim they can speak like 4 or more different languages I tend to question just _how well_ they can speak all of them. What is the minimum number of vocabulary needed in order to qualify your claim? And how often do you find yourself using the wrong word from a different language than the the one that you're trying to converse in? I assume this can happen quite often.
I would think being able to carry on a simple conversation is minimum. I speak 3 fluently (not the same as perfectly) and have a decent knowledge of two more. I know words and phrases in others, like Italian and Japanese, but have no business claiming to "speak" or "know" them. As for using words from the wrong language, I speak Spanish fluently and manage in Portuguese and French. On one hand Spanish helps a lot in learning the other two, but I do find myself interjecting a Spanish word or literally translating a Spanish phrase and getting puzzled looks.
Same. I consider myself bilingual (English and French) because I can enjoy media and my conduct daily life in those languages. I can read spanish okayish and understand basic Japanese phrases and common kanji, but I can't conduct my life in either or fully grasp a work of media without assistance. I get really skeptical when I hear people say "I know 6 languages" or whatever because knowing the theoreticals of a language and actually experiencing the world through it are different. I'm learning Vietnamese right now and I understand the principals of its grammar and other features, but I'm not able to see the world through the language yet, and when I get there I'll consider it one of my languages. But maybe I just suck at acquiring languages, idk. If I know vocabulary and grammar rules for a language I still don't feel like I can actually use it as a language instead a collection of facts
I think it depends on where that person is from. There are people who are from cities and countries that are intersections of many nations and therefore they actually use all four languages they speak regularly and they have a need for them. It's not just an academic pursuit where they might get rusty or not have as much working knowledge as they think they do. As for using the wrong word. I actually think that happens more commonly in related languages versus the number of languages. The first second language I learned, aside from Spanish which I grew up with and I am terrible Spanglish speaking child, was German. German is relatively easy for English speakers and I was happy when I chose it in college. My mistake was thinking that adding Dutch would be even easier and allow me to watch my favorite soap without subtitles, I also really liked the sound of it (so deep), all I did though was give myself a headache. To this day I question vocabulary I used to be very confident in and I never became fluent in Dutch. Doesn't help my bff moved away who is a native German speaker.
My oldest daughter can speak, write & understand seven languages. She is a speech pathologist. The interesting thing about this is that she dreams in these different languages.
They certainly do need to be allowed to be children! But they also need to be challenged. When I was in K12 education, I wasn't challenged. I ended up chronically bored and got into lots of trouble because of it. I wish I had been in a stimulating environment rather than intellectually stunted in an effort to give me a "normal" childhood. Now, as a college senior applying to PhD programs, I have no idea how to learn because I was never given anything difficult enough to force me to learn how.
@@discogoth yeah, I've known a few people who weren't challenged enough either and ended up getting in trouble out of boredom. Unfortunately I feel like in most cases, smart kids either are pushed way too hard or not nearly enough...
@@DoctorX17 Most traditional societies saw smart kids as a threat, and the worst cases of smartness were sent off to be abused by men in funny clothes and forced to memorise meaningless drivel by the yard. Once the cleverness had been beaten down, they could make themselves useful to the rich, e.g. by counting their money for them. Families were usually able to control cleverness in girls, but some of them had to be sent to convents and later boarding schools. There was a sea-change in Western countries in the 19th century, when the Chinese system of exams for mandarins was adapted to select clever boys (and later girls) for the new technical jobs and professions, and instead there was a new moral panic about "mental deficiency," which had been recognised before only in extreme cases. If you look at the correspondence columns of Mensa, there are still many accounts of kids being pulled down and humiliated for being smart, or told, "It's not good for a girl to be clever," whereas sporting or musical gifts are seen as things to be fostered.
I noticed the former head of the UN, Kofi Annan, didn't wear a headset when several languages at the UN was being spoken. He did put it on a few times though, but didn't wear it long.
I speak American English. I can read and understand spoken French, but cannot speak it. I had a very stranger experience about 12 years ago. I was alone in a service garage waiting room when a young man came in, and began speaking to an older woman on a cell phone. She was loud enough that I was able to hear both sides of the conversation clearly. The woman wanted the young man to stop at several stores in town and pick up various items. He didn't want to do her shopping, and tried to come up with excuses, which she did not accept. They argued. It got heated. She pulled rank on him, and he finally agreed to pick up a few items, but not all. I found the whole thing very funny, and giggled. He looked at me and shrugged. Finally, his car was ready, and he ended the call and left - steaming. After he left, I realized that the entire conversation had been in Russian, and I had understood the entire thing, clear as a bell, every word, every detail, as if it had been in English. Blew my mind.
"A whistle can travel upto two miles..." that would be very handy in my area, they would be able to gossip a lot quicker....if their dentures didn't fall out while they were doing it.
Here's a list of languages I am able to read and understand: - English - Tagalog - Indonesian - German - Greek - Hindi - Italian - Polish - Japanese - Norwegian - Korean - Dutch - Cebuano - Ukrainian - Spanish - Chinese - Ilocano - Turkish - Esperanto - Tok Pisin - Arabic (a bit)
Speaking 3 languages, I found work in a hotel front desk for a while. It was great meeting people from all over the globe. I had a co-worker there who spoke 6. I was jealous. One day, a guest came in who spoke around 10 or more. I was mindblown.
My grandma was a polyglot and I guess my grandpa was a hyper-polyglot :) it was fun growing up hearing them converse with each other in multiple languages so that we grandkids could not follow along.
The key question should really be, "how fluent do you need to be to be considered fluent?". How well do all these polyglots actually speak their 50 languages? Being able to hold a basic conversation is very nice, it helps a great deal when you travel, it can solve some sticky situations too. But is that enough?
Canary islands have a whistling language that's dying out. I forget the name of it, off hand right now. I saw a youtube video on it a few years ago, there are several places in the world that there is a whistling language.
My teacher told us about one of his friends, he spoke Trigrini, Somalian, Arabic, English, Serbian and Swedish. He moved from Eritrea to Sweden where he became friends with a bunch of Serbs.
Sooo...with Italian, English and French under my belt, I'm an overachiever and everyone hates me? What if I told you that I'm also very much interested in sign language and that I'm going to take a German language class? ... I'll show myself out.🤣
German is Swedish with some extra weirdness IMO. Go for it, Brina F! I speak Swedish, English, German, Japanese and Spanish in addition to my native Finnish and studied Latin and French in school. Now I'm learning Chinese. I must be an overachiever! X-)
I find this really fascinating because my father is actually hyper polyglot. He speaks eight languages fluently but knows a total of 15. He reads and writes in 4 (English, Hebrew, German, and Yiddish) his first language is Hungarian. I have watched him actively learn a language and I am going to say that it is fascinating!
I took 6 languages at once. Started 4 in highschool. One was after school.Never felt special about it, I have a brain like a filing cabinet, which keeps me from mixing them up. However I wish I had used them. I met my husband before I graduated college, got pregnant and decided that international work and constant travel would not be in my family's best interest. So I went back and got my Accounting B.S. then my master's of Prof Accountancy. I have 3 B.A. degrees in Spanish, French and German but there was no degree at my school for Chinese, Japanese and Russian (Just 2 years of classes). Oh..and I took Latin also lol. And minored in Environmental Science. Crazy!! My husband passed and my son grew up so maybe there is still a chance to make use of them. 🤔
“If you speak 3 you’re an overachiever and everyone hates you” as a bilingual Swedish girl who had to endure foreign language classes with British students I can only say “YEP”
It would be great if you made a video that's really about polyglottism. It's really fascinating how the polyglot community has grown through the internet. There's an annual polyglot conference. And there are many interesting living polyglots you could focus on. This video was nice, but really went off topic.
"If you speak 3 languages, you are an over achivever and everyone hates you." If Simon was where I'm from, he couldn't even graduate from elementary school.
Same lol it was mandatory to learn English, Arabic, French, Mandarine, Bengali in my Elementary school. And then you could also know Urdu, Hindi and Farsi from out of school experience (tv, radio, socializing, etc.). Latin, Greek and German are something that you may pick up during studies in Highschool or higher. I studied all of those languages and learnt Japanese (a little in highschool and more when took some classes in college), also Polish (from some friends during high school). There was a whistle language I knew that many people knew from that region as well, but I suck at whistling, so I used to be able to understand but couldn’t whistle it. I also did learn basic sign language a while back as well. Sadly, I forgot most of those languages nowadays because I don’t really use any of these language outside of English. Hell, sometimes I feel like I forget English as well. Lol Math could be a language I suppose, it has its own structure and symbols.
My advisor in grad school, Keith Hitchins, would have to be a contender. He's a Balkan historian who later developed an interest in Central Asia. He was borderline notorious for speaking (or at least reading) most of the East European languages (Romanian, Serbian, Polish, Czech, Russian, etc.) as well as most of the Western languages (I casually conversed with him in German and French), and he had a working knowledge of several Central Asian languages (such as Kazakh and Tajik). There aren't many people who have done meaningful work in as many languages as Keith Hitchins.
No, we didn't. Like with anything else in life, it was through automatic induction and we stumbled upon it by accident. We never developed or invented anything. Watch Jacque Fresco, and you'll see how we can't reason.
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My brother-in-law is Han Chinese, was born and raised in British Hong Kong until age 13, when he attended a British boarding school, and then briefly lived in the States as a foreign exchange student (when he met my sister). He's conversationally fluent in: four dialects of Chinese, all three major living Latin dialects/languages (Italian, Spanish, Portuguese), and also French, German, Flemish, Turkish, Thai, Japanese, English, and Welsh, and can also read in Russian and Greek, but considers his spoken fluency in those "remedial, at best."
You should do a video on the Piraha language! Communication via whistle, hum, or spoken word. No sense of mood, tense, or number, and defies everything Chomsky laid out that makes a language a language.
I knew a theologian who spoke 16, though he was very modest and said he was really only fluent in 6, by his own definition. Having 5 to 10 thousand words is generally near fluent and fluency comes from spending actual time with native speakers. This guy was fluent in Koine Greek, Hebrew, Latin...all ancient languages. Arabic, Russian, German, Spanish, french were some of his others but he was an American English native.
Have a cousin that speaks 18 languages. Born in 29 Palms, Ca. Was a translator for the navy, Japanese was one of his best. But Gaelic & Old Gaelic (can read, write and has published 3 books on it) is his specialty.
I love language and culture. I'd love to hear what you guys speak/know. I speak English and ASL (American Sign Language) fluently. I know Spanish conversationally (but I'm not comfortable calling myself fluent). I am learning Japanese and Shuwa (Japanese sign language) right now, although Shuwa is unfortunately not considered a language by Japan. While taking classes for my associate's degree, I had a number of classes with this guy who was 17. At the time, he was fluent in English, German, Japanese, ASL, Korean, Braille, and Spanish. He also knew Russian and Chinese very well. We would test him by having him translate random sentences into these languages right in front of us. Then we google translated them to make sure he was accurate. It was crazy how good he was at remembering languages. I think he is going to Gallaudet University now. I know he wants to be an interpreter for people who are both deaf and blind.
I don’t know much languages but i speak English and i am learning latin although i am no where near a fluent speaker of latin and i can just do conversations. I also speak some german but i stopped learning it for latin. Its my goal to speak 3 languages in life those people in the video make it look easy…….
The art to being a Polyglot is to get back to basics, and learn to pictorially first then adding different vocabularies to them... So you are able to speak more languages. Indeed, once you are able to forget about what a language is, and let your brain just do it, you find learning other languages easier. On the whistling language, sailors used to communicate by whistling; when not on a ship they would help with stage work, doing the rigging... It's why it's bad luck to whistle in a theatre, if your whistling sent a confusing message to a Rigger you might find a light or weight on your head!!
What about Charles Berlitz? He was raised in a family where every family member and servant spoke to him from childhood in a different language. At one point he claimed he could speak 70 languages, and could learn a new language at will. His theory was that once the brain was set up to handle multiple languages, learning another was pretty simple, just a matter of learning the grammar rules and vocabulary, which was easy for a brain trained to do it.
My niece (8 years old) has dual mother-tongues of English and Greek (speaks fluently, reads and writes them at a grade 6 level), speaks/reads/writes French at a grade 4 level, and is learning Spanish "because it's fun!" Crazy kid.
My understanding is that there are 54 different ethnic groups in China, therefore I would suppose 54 different languages. When I hear someone say that they speak Chinese I assume they mean Mandarin.
Fascinating re: the 'whistling' language... thx! Surprised we didn't include the famous 19th century explorer, Sir Richard Francis Burton, who spoke 29 different European, Asian and African languages. And apparently fluently enough to argue the finer points of theology with local Imams and Brahmins, as well as translate the 'Arabian Nights' and the 'Kama Sutra' from their original Arabic and Hindu _dialects._
Sir Richard Francis Burton spoke 29 languages and an unknown but large number of dialects...he spoke both Hindu and Arabic so well he could and often did pass for a native.
WHAT!?! No mention of James Joyce? He worked for Berlitz and was said to speak 80 languages. What's more, he wrote his magnum opus, Finnegans Wake, by making interlingual puns in 40 languages! What's even more fascinating is that he used these to recreate the speech of everyday Dublin. Listen to his beautiful Anna Livia Plurabelle excerpt online,
6:06 Prodigal: _adjective_ : "spending money or resources freely and recklessly; wastefully extravagant." Prodigious _adjective_ : "remarkably or impressively great in extent, size, or degree. " Precocious _adjective_ : "(of behavior or ability) indicative of early development."
Prodigal can also mean "having on a lavish scale" (cf. OED) - such as prodigal talent. Granted, "prodigal son" is associated with a spendthrift and the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Also "having on a lavish scale" sonhood doesn't make much sense.
I know english as I am born and raised in the USA and my parents tongue, Punjabi, from which I can also understand neighboring Indian languages such as Hindi, dorgi, and pahari. I guess the perk of keeping Indian heritage is that you can speak many languages
I am a retired recovery specialist from the military I still speak 38 languages and 250 dialects. I keep up with them through my talking to my friends around the world.
Anyone can learn multiple languages if their parents exposes them very early. We are designed to learn a language/languages and the earlier the better. Some of us were lucky to grow up in multiple language environment. Music also helps open up the brain to languages. Overall, parents should expose (not necessarily train) their children to songs sun in different languages and hopefully a regular few different spoken languages around, focusing on one or two languages, or three but all this will set them up for later learning by providing expanded brain and ear. I have perfect pitch because of three languages around me and lots of music from all around the world.
I speak German, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, and my native Midwest American dialect of English. I can read them and communicate in them. A little Iraqi and Egyptian dialects of Arabic. So I qualify as a polyglot. If you include programming languages and syntax dialects, I know over 20. Each language becomes easier to learn once you learn the commonalities of patterns.
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When I heard he got into Harvard at 9 I thought "He's going to be horribly depressed for the rest of his life, isn't he?". I guess I was right
Well, with his parents pushing him like that, it's hardly surprising. He wasn't allowed to be a child, which is a form of emotional neglect, which is traumatic. And studies have shown that gifted people are more negatively affected by toxic environments, which is probably why giftedness and complex PTSD are positively correlated...
PhiendishPhlox i was a gifted kid and have c-ptsd now as an adult so unfortunately you’re right 😂
You have to wonder why anyone would pressure a kid that much.
Honestly colleges, especially world-renowned colleges, should refuse admission to anyone under 16 and strongly discourage parents from getting their kids college ready before then. Nobody needs to go to college more than two years early.
Most gifted people don't go a degree - they don't fit in with universities. Maybe they see them for what they are, a farce. we should close down all universities and replace them with job training. Imagine the efficiency!
So....... raising a kid without letting the child develop as a person doesn't end well.....suuurrrppprrriiissseeeee.....
Poor guy..
Just comment is hilarious yes so good amazing very nice just in case you're wondering big boy
this started off learning about the most languages, then turned into the story of William.
"So how many languages did he speak? I forgot what we were making a video about." Greatness Simon and staff 😅
Thought the same. Got very confused. Was going to send this to my polyglot coworker. Decided not to when it went off the rails.
Exactly
read "the animate and the inanimate" by him it is an amazing read.
Sidis was smart, but he had all the literary flair of an instruction manual for a hammer.
He wrote it to be so boring, that it would literally put you to sleep. It's like a 1200 page meme on insomnia that only a niche audience will appreciate. Its hilarious
No, its just the smarter you are, the more curiosity you have. He found what he said perfectly reasonable.
Idk I was kinda interested in knowing why that transfer slip was different than normal. Maybe I should read the book
S.d..
Sssz
Smart he was not, because a commie ain't smart no matter how intellectual they are. There's a huge difference in being booksmart and having common sense or an actual functioning worldview.
Don't forget, people love to claim language skills.
I've met several people who claimed to be able to speak different languages because they could say a phrase or two. One guy, Jerry, claimed he spoke French because he had been living in Canada for six months, and when a guy fluent in French showed up Jerry got real quiet real quick, haha. That was a good day.....
Yeah, I think this is the problem with most of the self-proclaimed polyglots - even many of the famous ones on TH-cam. Unless they can show CEFR credentials its hard to take them seriously. What happens most of the time is that they become fluent in a couple of languages then learn some beginner stuff in ten others and suddenly they think they are polyglots because they can say hi in Chinese.
Yes. I have an ex sister in law who claims to speak German because she took a couple of semesters of it in high school. She is not even conversational let alone fluent.
What do you call someone who speaks 3 languages?
- Trilingual
What do you call someone who speaks 2 languages?
- Bilingual
What do you call someone who speaks 1 language?
- American
Ignoring England and France, eh?
Oooohhhhh!!!!!! 😂😂😂😂
Hey! I'm an American! I speak English y hablo Español tambien.😃
@@willworkswood3215 It's actually "también" and you should not capitalize "español". I don't recommend you to mix languages that way, at least wait until the next sentence to switch up.
That's us. Underacheievers
I have a friend that learned 8... in a year. He got a job a “linguist” for the US military. I think he still is, but lives a life very “off the grid.”
Do you know what languages he speaks? PS ask him if there's anymore vacancies please :-)
Chantelle S some... European Spanish, German, Mandarin, Japanese, Russian, French, Italian... after that IDK.
over 10 years ago took a class with a a language teacher who spoke 46 languages and could read / write but not speak 14 more he probably knows more by know since hes still alive.
That's super cool. I think for some people the way languages work just "clicks." Plus they obviously know the style of learning that best suits them so they end up just ridiculously impressive.
Why no mention of Carlos Amaral Freire?
In the mid-90's I met a Waiter in Turkey that spoke:
English
Spanish
German
Turkish
Kurdish
Arabic
at least well enough to converse with the patrons of the diner we ate at. I heard him speak the top 4 of those myself.
That's awesome!
Which Kurdish?
I met a Turkish woman who spoke flawless English. I asked how long she had been in the US - six months. I didn’t believe her until I looked at her passport.
@@procopiusaugustus6231 foreign diplomats take 1200 hours to learn Turkish. Turkish and English are completely unrelated outside of a few loanwords (sandviç for sandwich, or we took their word yoghurt). Assuming it takes them as long to learn English, that's 200 hours a month, assuming she started from scatch, which sge likely didn't. Now, 200 hours a month is 50 hours a week. If you get around ten hours of exposure a day and spend even 3 or 4 hours a day hard-ass studying, I see it as pretty feasible.
Where I live (in Southern California) I stunned Turks that even though I don't understand their tongue; I heard their slight French accents. I explained that I spent time in Quebec with Haïq/Hayk-Canadians (Armenians). They were nice enough to speak to me in English. Both the 🇺🇸 and the 🇨🇦 sides.
"If you speak 3 you're an over achiever and everyone hates you" *Wow that hit home!!* I speak 6 (English, Afrikaans, Portuguese, Mandarin and learning French and Arabic). I've heard some "friends" say I just do it for attention. If I was a musician or an athlete I'd be praised for my records and not labelled as an attention seeker.
I think that is awesome
Said someone who had to post their achievements online.
may I ask why not spanish yet? its one of the more popular languages. if I were to learn that many I would learn the more important ones first am I wrong?
I think Dutch could be easy for you, and by extension Frisian and German, as you know Afrikaans
@@jorritvanderkooi939 Dutch and Afrikaans are intelligible with each other. So learning Dutch wouldn't be much of a challenge, more like learning a dialect
This is insane.
Just yesterday I wondered about this topic, then started to look it up. I said out loud, “I wish Simon would do this.”
Thanks.
pigeonhole principle
Imagine this episode being sponsored by skillshare or duolingo XD
Duolingo is absolutely useless for learning languages
A missed opportunity
@@Daniel-ri2dy that's like saying learning to count is useless for being proficient in calculus. Are you sure about that?
Or Babble.
Duolingo is a really basic introduction to a language you might want to learn. And it’s kind of fun, I don’t expect to come anywhere near fluent
They made a boy genius and when he became too smart they tried to throw him in prison...
Youd be surprised how many languages you'll be able to learn when you understand how languages work in and of themselves. It's pretty cool.
@mufodao matt vs japan
The only thing not surprising about learning new languages is the amount of hard work and time required to become fluent in any of them. Most languages have 100,000+ words. You'll find a large variety in terms of alphabets, speech patterns such as phonetic and tonal languages, sentence structure, exceptions to established rules within the language, pronouns, verb conjugations, and a myriad of other variances. Even if you can pick up the grammatical rules with ease (highly doubtful) you still need to memorize a roughly 1,500-2,000 words per language to have at least an intermediate level of fluency. There is a reason the vast majority of polyglots don't have official credentials to establish their fluency in each language they claim to speak.
@@staypositive4358 yes
Carlos Amaral Freire is possibly the one who speaks or spoke the most languages. He studied over a hundred.
@@RogerRamos1993 Brasileiro
”if you speak three (languages) you’re an overachiever” laughs in europe.
He lives in Prague. Just so you know.
Yeah, I live Sweden and we learn 3 languages in school, most people people forget one later on tho.
Emil Andreasson Here we learn German, English and I had french but french was a waste of time and noone remembers any of it
**laughs in South African**
Couchmann941 lol why was French a waste of time? Lol
My professors at university told me I had a talent for learning languages because I was not 'married' to English. I studied Russian/Mandarin/Arabic, and later added Spanish (having had 3 years of Latin in High School). My son, who is fond of all things Japanese, tried for 4 years to learn the language. However, he aced his SAT in English, and could never seem to get comfortable in a truly foreign language (Latin was fairly easy for him).
In studying Structural Anthropology, I learned that the language one learns as a child can give a person a slightly different version of reality from children brought up in other languages (especially concerning the nature of time). So perhaps polyglots are those best able to unshackle their minds from the 'limitations' of their mother tongue, and able to perceive reality in many different ways simultaneously. Reminds me of how Bach must have perceived his world....
As a comfort to anyone who finds it difficult to learn a second language, let alone more, I once heard that the ability was a function of training and brain architecture rather than intellect. As such, it was said of the diplomat Mr Bowering that “He was able to speak over two hundred languages yet was never heard to articulate a sensible thought in any of them...”
"I forgot what we were talking about..."
Me too Simon. Still cool facts though!
Totally missed the chance for a “cunning linguist” joke with the whole “many tongued” thing at the beginning.
Bruh ☠️
Is that where the word comes from??
He just said it differently is all. It was just the idea saying to a lady when chatting her up about being "many tongued" that he used instead. Means roughly the same ;~)
😂😂
Talented tongue
He danced around it by ending the sentence with "advanced linguist" instead, to avoid anyone getting their knickers in a bunch.
I'm trying to imagine someone angrily whistling at me when I step on his foot.
That'd be hilarious to witness. Lol
Wow. Swear Whistler. 😆
: D thats great
It's not actually that hard, you could literally whistle every single word in English, however unless people have practiced to they won't really understand it.
@Mike Spencer if it's modern day dentures that ruins your teeth well yes, if it's olden day dentures, then no.
Ahh the irony of Mr Whistler talking about the whistling language.
Irony? Seems you're still working on learning your first language.
Yeah I was surprised he passed on that joke opportunity
There's nothing ironic about that. It's a coincidence, one of the most clear cut examples I have ever seen.
It's a little interesting however, that on a video discussing where the limit of "knowing" a language should or could be drawn, you make such a big mistake in (I assume) your first or second language. As did the 72 people that up-voted your comment. Humorous
Ironic, not. Cobaltic, maybe.
Hey kids, we found the pedant who decided to lecture me on word meanings instead of just appreciating a simple joke! Woohoo!
I speak two languages English and American English.
I understand both, but I can only speak American English. Sort of... Allegedly.
English is actually three languages wearing a trench coat so you speak six.
I speak English, Español, und Deutsch
I speak British English, American English, Australian English
I speak English, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and a little old norse.
“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.”
- Ludwig Wittgenstein
He limited it further by ruling many things "offside" which remained important to him, but which he would not talk (and think?) about.
My dad traveled in his youth. Said learning a language is simple go there get a girlfriend in a month you got it. He spoke Danish Chek Greek Italian Turkish and profanity. You knew it was dad's bed time when having a few as he'd roll 3 or 4 together in a sentence an wait for a answer oblivious to the fact. Love you pops see you in a bit.
"it's easy, just get a girlfriend"
Oh boy
In many countries it is normal to speak 3 languages.
Local language, English and a foreign language.
And in countries with several local languages, additional languages are common. For example: Frisian, Dutch, English and German.
Hi Holland I am from Saudi Arabia
Plus in Italy, the local dialact that may be a language by its own
Yeah, met a dude from Central Africa ~ I forget which country but near Ivory Coast ~ he spoke 7 distinct languages.
@@izzojoseph2 ... Among the indigenous people of South America, speaking 3 or 4 other distinct languages is not rare.
In Serbia additional languages is 14.
I feel like the lives of most child prodigies are often doomed to be mediocre and/or tragic in the end. To become a genius something's got to give. Everything has an opportunity cost.
Nah it’s because when the world is stupid you don’t really fit in anywhere and can’t relate to most idiots.
Many child prodigies are in the autism spectrum and that often leads to many problems in their lives. Autistic person can be a very talented at something but at the same time may lack basic skills that are needed with living a 'normal' life.
Source? Life's not a zero-sum game. You can be born a genius; no sacrifice required. No opportunity cost required (cause life isn't an economy).
children need a balance in their lives, male female perspectives, fun and work ones, and so on.
his parents took him year one and made him study work and behave to parade around, he never or rarely interacted with other children or got to be a kid himself.
the more you get off a good rounded balanced upbringing for a child the worst things will generally go off the rails.
turned this poor kid into a fucking communist because his parents mentally abused him in essence, they were trying to build a prodigy at the expense of their child and his life and love. they forced that choice upon him because children have limited agency. experiment or not they should have been able to recognize.
What was the opportunity cost of having a poop this morning?
I wish I could speak more languages and was decent at learning them
Sonó bambino, heh Italian is funni
My first language is English, and my grammar sucks. I forget my French over summer, and I am currently trying to learn Tgallic so I can flirt with a girl.
I was horrible at French in school. I just wasn't good at retaining. One of my sisters definitely has the knack, though. Besides English and French, she studied Russian at university, took a night class to learn Latin "for fun", taught herself Spanish and Italian, and is currently teaching herself German. Yeah... she's the genius in the family
@Les Brown @TerryMacKay French proved difficult to learn for me in school. I took a Spanish class in university and wasn't very good at it too. But, then I learned Japanese.
What I've found from my own experience and researching language learning is that there are two keys to success in learning a new language:
1) Really wanting to learn the language. (Why I never learned French? I didn't care to.)
2 ) Using the language. (Why I never learned Spanish? I only used it in class.)
I eventually learned Japanese because I wanted to learn it for myself, and I use it every day. I don't think it really takes genius or anything of the sort as there are areas on Earth where everybody is multilingual. It just takes time, effort, commitment, and interest/desire. If you want to learn a language for yourself you can be successful at it without much skill/talent, but it will take time and commitment.
The answer is TPRS. Comprehensible input is a great way to learn languages. Look up Stephen Krashen if you wanna know more about language acquisition.
speaking more than 2 languages is the norm in northern europe.
Yeah, cos your second language is usually English, the same as the rest of the world.....
@@LiamNI May be true in the touristy areas, but here in rural Spain I found French to be the language I had in common with my first few friends. (I'm British.)
Liam NIre unless you’re in the US or UK
yeah like pretty much the rest of the world
@@mariposahorribilis Up to the 80/90s French was taught at school before English, that's why many adults can speak decent French but not English.
Those parents are absolutely horrid. Imagine having a kid just to prove your theories of learning right. How disgusting. The fact he didn’t off both of them is purely mercy on his part, coz he definitely could have gotten away with it.
Alice from Luther anyone?
I like all the ignorance where this coming from :D
There is a not uncommon belief that as long is a child is physically cared for, how it is raised is up to the parents. The are effectively property to be used as will.
Just a complete lack of empathy. Like yes it's your child and how you raise him is up to you, to a point anyway, but basic human decency and concern for your kids wellbeing have to be totally absent to see your own child as nothing more than a test subject. Absolute narcissists the both of them.
@@tckgkljgfl7958 what ignorance? 😐
My Spanish teacher in Secondary school, who was an Italian immigrant, spoke 14 languages.
My maternal grandparents emigrated from Lithuania, paternal France.
They passed down exactly 0 of those mother tongues to their children. My mum cannot speak Lithuanian, nor could my dad speak French.
It’s honestly cruel. If you have the GIFT of knowing more than one language, TEACH it to your children.
I know exactly 0 Spanish parents who don’t teach their child Spanish and English at the SAME TIME so their child grows up fully bilingual.
My favorite multilingual story is from 1 of my coworkers from when I worked retail in college. He was talking to a couple in English and the couple decided to discuss amongst themselves in Spanish. One of them said something that was wrong about the item and he interjected in Spanish correcting them. They then swapped over to French and he responded to their comment about it being rude of him to 'eavesdrop' on their conversation that was taking place 3 feet away from him (his response was just an apology for any perceived rudeness).
Three languages - overachiever?
Laughs in European, specifically in Swiss and Belgian.
And Luxembourg
And Serbia.
"The most boring book ever written", I assume this was before Atlas Shrugged was published.
Sera, I have never understood the continued fascination with Atlas Shrugged or the Fountainhead. And I have read all kinds of fascinating tomes.
I have an unabridged dictionary that is far more entertaining than Atlas Shrugged. Oh the plot twists! Something as complicated as a cat only gets a few sentences of definition but an over used simple word like "the", gets several paragraphs of explanation.
When I finished ‘Atlas Shrugged,’ my first reaction was: ‘that was a lot of word!’
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
I'm pretty libertarian in my views and since that book is so highly recommended by libertarians I decided to give it a read. Biggest waist of time I've ever experienced. Not only will it bore you to tears, there is not a single likable character in the book, including the protagonists.
Same day this came out, Luca Lamperillo made his 100k subscribers. He speaks about 10 languages fluently.
Yeah, I love him. Luca is an actual polyglot who is basically fluent in 10 languages, but there are so many phonies who speak 2 or 3 fluently and have a couple of phrases memorized in 20 different languages
You do have to kind of wonder how killer Simon is at Trivia night at the local watering hole?
I used to work with a woman when I was in high school who was a polyglot she spoke English, several other European languages, Hindi, and many local Indian dialects. She could read an write in many of them to. She was a wonderful woman to work with. I haven’t seen her in over 15 years, but I still think about her often.
Pick up line, Advanced linguist? That was the PERFECT place for cunning linguist!
😂
out------->
Ehh, not to be a pendant, but speaking many languages does not make a linguist. A polyglot for sure, but linguistics is by definition an academic science about language, not just speaking them.
👍🤣
ree
I remember this commercial for a Nintendo DS game whenever I hear the word 'polyglot'-
Interviewer: Are you a polyglot?
Applicant: (many rushing thoughts) I only have one wife, sir, but I'm open to more
didn't get it
Whenever I hear of people who claim they can speak like 4 or more different languages I tend to question just _how well_ they can speak all of them. What is the minimum number of vocabulary needed in order to qualify your claim? And how often do you find yourself using the wrong word from a different language than the the one that you're trying to converse in? I assume this can happen quite often.
I would think being able to carry on a simple conversation is minimum. I speak 3 fluently (not the same as perfectly) and have a decent knowledge of two more. I know words and phrases in others, like Italian and Japanese, but have no business claiming to "speak" or "know" them. As for using words from the wrong language, I speak Spanish fluently and manage in Portuguese and French. On one hand Spanish helps a lot in learning the other two, but I do find myself interjecting a Spanish word or literally translating a Spanish phrase and getting puzzled looks.
Same. I consider myself bilingual (English and French) because I can enjoy media and my conduct daily life in those languages. I can read spanish okayish and understand basic Japanese phrases and common kanji, but I can't conduct my life in either or fully grasp a work of media without assistance. I get really skeptical when I hear people say "I know 6 languages" or whatever because knowing the theoreticals of a language and actually experiencing the world through it are different.
I'm learning Vietnamese right now and I understand the principals of its grammar and other features, but I'm not able to see the world through the language yet, and when I get there I'll consider it one of my languages. But maybe I just suck at acquiring languages, idk. If I know vocabulary and grammar rules for a language I still don't feel like I can actually use it as a language instead a collection of facts
*cries in "unable to speak Ukrainian cuz he always uses Russian words that don't exist in the Ukrainian language"*
we should talk about speaking languages as a spectrum, and not as binary values of "yes or no"
I think it depends on where that person is from. There are people who are from cities and countries that are intersections of many nations and therefore they actually use all four languages they speak regularly and they have a need for them. It's not just an academic pursuit where they might get rusty or not have as much working knowledge as they think they do.
As for using the wrong word. I actually think that happens more commonly in related languages versus the number of languages. The first second language I learned, aside from Spanish which I grew up with and I am terrible Spanglish speaking child, was German. German is relatively easy for English speakers and I was happy when I chose it in college. My mistake was thinking that adding Dutch would be even easier and allow me to watch my favorite soap without subtitles, I also really liked the sound of it (so deep), all I did though was give myself a headache. To this day I question vocabulary I used to be very confident in and I never became fluent in Dutch. Doesn't help my bff moved away who is a native German speaker.
laoshu50500: Enters the chat
He was the first one who came to mind. He’s amazing!
Came here looking for this comment. Around 50 if I remember right. Amazing.
Yup he was the first person I thought of when I came across this video
ree
Laoshu " time to level up "
My oldest daughter can speak, write & understand seven languages. She is a speech pathologist. The interesting thing about this is that she dreams in these different languages.
Child geniuses need to be allowed to be CHILDREN
Also, what is that mug?
It's an Enron mug a Business Blaze subscriber sent him because he jokes about it in a video.
@@CrisMind huzzah for knowledge! I thought it might have been Enron, but wasn't sure, lol
They certainly do need to be allowed to be children! But they also need to be challenged. When I was in K12 education, I wasn't challenged. I ended up chronically bored and got into lots of trouble because of it. I wish I had been in a stimulating environment rather than intellectually stunted in an effort to give me a "normal" childhood. Now, as a college senior applying to PhD programs, I have no idea how to learn because I was never given anything difficult enough to force me to learn how.
@@discogoth yeah, I've known a few people who weren't challenged enough either and ended up getting in trouble out of boredom. Unfortunately I feel like in most cases, smart kids either are pushed way too hard or not nearly enough...
@@DoctorX17 Most traditional societies saw smart kids as a threat, and the worst cases of smartness were sent off to be abused by men in funny clothes and forced to memorise meaningless drivel by the yard. Once the cleverness had been beaten down, they could make themselves useful to the rich, e.g. by counting their money for them.
Families were usually able to control cleverness in girls, but some of them had to be sent to convents and later boarding schools.
There was a sea-change in Western countries in the 19th century, when the Chinese system of exams for mandarins was adapted to select clever boys (and later girls) for the new technical jobs and professions, and instead there was a new moral panic about "mental deficiency," which had been recognised before only in extreme cases.
If you look at the correspondence columns of Mensa, there are still many accounts of kids being pulled down and humiliated for being smart, or told, "It's not good for a girl to be clever," whereas sporting or musical gifts are seen as things to be fostered.
10 year old cousin: “I know 4 languages”
Me: “And I know how to use google translate which makes me fluent if every language”
Try using google translate to hold a meaningful conversation.
@@staypositive4358 its hard ill tell you that
I noticed the former head of the UN, Kofi Annan, didn't wear a headset when several languages at the UN was being spoken. He did put it on a few times though, but didn't wear it long.
I speak American English. I can read and understand spoken French, but cannot speak it. I had a very stranger experience about 12 years ago. I was alone in a service garage waiting room when a young man came in, and began speaking to an older woman on a cell phone. She was loud enough that I was able to hear both sides of the conversation clearly. The woman wanted the young man to stop at several stores in town and pick up various items. He didn't want to do her shopping, and tried to come up with excuses, which she did not accept. They argued. It got heated. She pulled rank on him, and he finally agreed to pick up a few items, but not all. I found the whole thing very funny, and giggled. He looked at me and shrugged. Finally, his car was ready, and he ended the call and left - steaming.
After he left, I realized that the entire conversation had been in Russian, and I had understood the entire thing, clear as a bell, every word, every detail, as if it had been in English. Blew my mind.
"A whistle can travel upto two miles..." that would be very handy in my area, they would be able to gossip a lot quicker....if their dentures didn't fall out while they were doing it.
Yodeling was used for the same reason..the distance it could be heard
theres also an extinct whistle language thats utterly fascinating i beleive theres a recording somewhere around of the last fluent speaker
Here's a list of languages I am able to read and understand:
- English
- Tagalog
- Indonesian
- German
- Greek
- Hindi
- Italian
- Polish
- Japanese
- Norwegian
- Korean
- Dutch
- Cebuano
- Ukrainian
- Spanish
- Chinese
- Ilocano
- Turkish
- Esperanto
- Tok Pisin
- Arabic (a bit)
That was the longest "i I don't know" i ever heard....allegedly
Speaking 3 languages, I found work in a hotel front desk for a while. It was great meeting people from all over the globe.
I had a co-worker there who spoke 6. I was jealous. One day, a guest came in who spoke around 10 or more. I was mindblown.
My grandma was a polyglot and I guess my grandpa was a hyper-polyglot :)
it was fun growing up hearing them converse with each other in multiple languages so that we grandkids could not follow along.
The key question should really be, "how fluent do you need to be to be considered fluent?".
How well do all these polyglots actually speak their 50 languages? Being able to hold a basic conversation is very nice, it helps a great deal when you travel, it can solve some sticky situations too. But is that enough?
Hot college women visiting the Canary Islands for spring break: "Quit whistling at me!"
What
Canary islands have a whistling language that's dying out. I forget the name of it, off hand right now. I saw a youtube video on it a few years ago, there are several places in the world that there is a whistling language.
If those women only knew the true meaning of those those whistles...
Kylez McGee did you watch this video?
I got that reference!
My teacher told us about one of his friends, he spoke Trigrini, Somalian, Arabic, English, Serbian and Swedish. He moved from Eritrea to Sweden where he became friends with a bunch of Serbs.
Sooo...with Italian, English and French under my belt, I'm an overachiever and everyone hates me?
What if I told you that I'm also very much interested in sign language and that I'm going to take a German language class?
...
I'll show myself out.🤣
German is English minus French, with extra weirdness.
German is Swedish with some extra weirdness IMO. Go for it, Brina F!
I speak Swedish, English, German, Japanese and Spanish in addition to my native Finnish and studied Latin and French in school. Now I'm learning Chinese. I must be an overachiever! X-)
You’re right, everyone does hate you
@@Sea-zu4bj 🤷♀️
@@innahaapa1314 you are truly an awful person 🤣
I find this really fascinating because my father is actually hyper polyglot. He speaks eight languages fluently but knows a total of 15. He reads and writes in 4 (English, Hebrew, German, and Yiddish) his first language is Hungarian. I have watched him actively learn a language and I am going to say that it is fascinating!
"if you speak 3 languages, you're an over achiever" laughs in Indian
I took 6 languages at once. Started 4 in highschool. One was after school.Never felt special about it, I have a brain like a filing cabinet, which keeps me from mixing them up. However I wish I had used them. I met my husband before I graduated college, got pregnant and decided that international work and constant travel would not be in my family's best interest. So I went back and got my Accounting B.S. then my master's of Prof Accountancy. I have 3 B.A. degrees in Spanish, French and German but there was no degree at my school for Chinese, Japanese and Russian (Just 2 years of classes). Oh..and I took Latin also lol. And minored in Environmental Science. Crazy!! My husband passed and my son grew up so maybe there is still a chance to make use of them. 🤔
Hi Alex, what's your HSK level? 😊
“If you speak 3 you’re an overachiever and everyone hates you” as a bilingual Swedish girl who had to endure foreign language classes with British students I can only say “YEP”
Language and Programming Channel which languages do you know?
well in england we teach it pretty badly cuz the government doesn’t prioritise language learning.
It would be great if you made a video that's really about polyglottism. It's really fascinating how the polyglot community has grown through the internet. There's an annual polyglot conference. And there are many interesting living polyglots you could focus on. This video was nice, but really went off topic.
"If you speak 3 languages, you are an over achivever and everyone hates you." If Simon was where I'm from, he couldn't even graduate from elementary school.
Holland?
I also just thought about the entirety of Europe... Idk dude we all speak our native language, english and learn at least one more in school.
India?
Same lol it was mandatory to learn English, Arabic, French, Mandarine, Bengali in my Elementary school. And then you could also know Urdu, Hindi and Farsi from out of school experience (tv, radio, socializing, etc.). Latin, Greek and German are something that you may pick up during studies in Highschool or higher. I studied all of those languages and learnt Japanese (a little in highschool and more when took some classes in college), also Polish (from some friends during high school). There was a whistle language I knew that many people knew from that region as well, but I suck at whistling, so I used to be able to understand but couldn’t whistle it. I also did learn basic sign language a while back as well. Sadly, I forgot most of those languages nowadays because I don’t really use any of these language outside of English. Hell, sometimes I feel like I forget English as well. Lol
Math could be a language I suppose, it has its own structure and symbols.
My advisor in grad school, Keith Hitchins, would have to be a contender. He's a Balkan historian who later developed an interest in Central Asia. He was borderline notorious for speaking (or at least reading) most of the East European languages (Romanian, Serbian, Polish, Czech, Russian, etc.) as well as most of the Western languages (I casually conversed with him in German and French), and he had a working knowledge of several Central Asian languages (such as Kazakh and Tajik). There aren't many people who have done meaningful work in as many languages as Keith Hitchins.
“I personally believe we developed language because of our deep inner need to complain.”
― Jane Wagner
* Laughs in EmpLemon
No, we didn't. Like with anything else in life, it was through automatic induction and we stumbled upon it by accident. We never developed or invented anything. Watch Jacque Fresco, and you'll see how we can't reason.
My brother-in-law is Han Chinese, was born and raised in British Hong Kong until age 13, when he attended a British boarding school, and then briefly lived in the States as a foreign exchange student (when he met my sister). He's conversationally fluent in: four dialects of Chinese, all three major living Latin dialects/languages (Italian, Spanish, Portuguese), and also French, German, Flemish, Turkish, Thai, Japanese, English, and Welsh, and can also read in Russian and Greek, but considers his spoken fluency in those "remedial, at best."
There's no such Chinese dialects, Chinese is not a language
Bartemius "Barty" Crouch SR.? 200+ languages, including Mermish, Gobbledegook and Troll. LOL! :)
You should do a video on the Piraha language! Communication via whistle, hum, or spoken word. No sense of mood, tense, or number, and defies everything Chomsky laid out that makes a language a language.
I learned and forgot 3 languages.
I could speak French, then forgot it
Then Spanish
Then Italian
Y planeas reaprenderlos?
@@ksspeedblindfoldedsolving843 ~ if you asked if I plan on studying again, no.
Well, maybe Italian.
Otherwise, really, I forgot all the languages.
Currently the record is held by a R. Stone, multi linguistics professor of Cambridge University who set the record back in 1992.
My mom when she gets angry.
I knew a theologian who spoke 16, though he was very modest and said he was really only fluent in 6, by his own definition. Having 5 to 10 thousand words is generally near fluent and fluency comes from spending actual time with native speakers. This guy was fluent in Koine Greek, Hebrew, Latin...all ancient languages. Arabic, Russian, German, Spanish, french were some of his others but he was an American English native.
Have a cousin that speaks 18 languages. Born in 29 Palms, Ca. Was a translator for the navy, Japanese was one of his best. But Gaelic & Old Gaelic (can read, write and has published 3 books on it) is his specialty.
I love language and culture. I'd love to hear what you guys speak/know. I speak English and ASL (American Sign Language) fluently. I know Spanish conversationally (but I'm not comfortable calling myself fluent). I am learning Japanese and Shuwa (Japanese sign language) right now, although Shuwa is unfortunately not considered a language by Japan. While taking classes for my associate's degree, I had a number of classes with this guy who was 17. At the time, he was fluent in English, German, Japanese, ASL, Korean, Braille, and Spanish. He also knew Russian and Chinese very well. We would test him by having him translate random sentences into these languages right in front of us. Then we google translated them to make sure he was accurate. It was crazy how good he was at remembering languages. I think he is going to Gallaudet University now. I know he wants to be an interpreter for people who are both deaf and blind.
I don’t know much languages but i speak English and i am learning latin although i am no where near a fluent speaker of latin and i can just do conversations. I also speak some german but i stopped learning it for latin. Its my goal to speak 3 languages in life those people in the video make it look easy…….
The art to being a Polyglot is to get back to basics, and learn to pictorially first then adding different vocabularies to them... So you are able to speak more languages.
Indeed, once you are able to forget about what a language is, and let your brain just do it, you find learning other languages easier.
On the whistling language, sailors used to communicate by whistling; when not on a ship they would help with stage work, doing the rigging... It's why it's bad luck to whistle in a theatre, if your whistling sent a confusing message to a Rigger you might find a light or weight on your head!!
None of this makes any sense.
What about Charles Berlitz? He was raised in a family where every family member and servant spoke to him from childhood in a different language. At one point he claimed he could speak 70 languages, and could learn a new language at will. His theory was that once the brain was set up to handle multiple languages, learning another was pretty simple, just a matter of learning the grammar rules and vocabulary, which was easy for a brain trained to do it.
Weird. You try to learn Mandarin, Russian, Spanish, and Vietnamese on TH-cam, and this is what the algorithm recommends you. 😅
My niece (8 years old) has dual mother-tongues of English and Greek (speaks fluently, reads and writes them at a grade 6 level), speaks/reads/writes French at a grade 4 level, and is learning Spanish "because it's fun!" Crazy kid.
What Chinese Chinese isn't a language are we talking mandarin or Cantonese?
WU TANG🦇🥋
My understanding is that there are 54 different ethnic groups in China, therefore I would suppose 54 different languages. When I hear someone say that they speak Chinese I assume they mean Mandarin.
@@celiabrickell2500There're 302 languages in China, if ethnic divides language, then there're 302 ethnic in China.
Fascinating re: the 'whistling' language... thx! Surprised we didn't include the famous 19th century explorer, Sir Richard Francis Burton, who spoke 29 different European, Asian and African languages. And apparently fluently enough to argue the finer points of theology with local Imams and Brahmins, as well as translate the 'Arabian Nights' and the 'Kama Sutra' from their original Arabic and Hindu _dialects._
10:45 - "Wait, this isn't Biographics?"
Sir Richard Francis Burton spoke 29 languages and an unknown but large number of dialects...he spoke both Hindu and Arabic so well he could and often did pass for a native.
Generally, people learn as many languages as they need to.
I've always been under the impression 7 is the limit a person can retain.
Would like to know where Simon would rank in the greatest narrators of all time.
Yes !
#1 of course!
#1 He can do something as serious as the channels Biographics and Geographics. He can also do things like Business Blaze.
Right behind David Attenborough and Morgan Freeman.
#69!!
....sorry, I'm a 44yo chick with a 12yo brain. 😁
WHAT!?! No mention of James Joyce? He worked for Berlitz and was said to speak 80 languages. What's more, he wrote his magnum opus, Finnegans Wake, by making interlingual puns in 40 languages! What's even more fascinating is that he used these to recreate the speech of everyday Dublin. Listen to his beautiful Anna Livia Plurabelle excerpt online,
6:06
Prodigal: _adjective_ : "spending money or resources freely and recklessly; wastefully extravagant."
Prodigious _adjective_ : "remarkably or impressively great in extent, size, or degree.
"
Precocious _adjective_ : "(of behavior or ability) indicative of early development."
Prodigal can also mean "having on a lavish scale" (cf. OED) - such as prodigal talent. Granted, "prodigal son" is associated with a spendthrift and the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Also "having on a lavish scale" sonhood doesn't make much sense.
Simmon, you should definitely learn the whistling language on the count of your last name. Great video as always, it was greatly informative.
Why do ppl comment before watching the video
I want to respond to this, but it's hard with the video playing in the background. :)
Because they are normies who constantly use old memes
6:05
I think you meant "prodigious" son.
"Prodigal" has a different meaning entirely.
Learned the most useful 2. English and Spanish. I'm a cunning linguist.
I know english as I am born and raised in the USA and my parents tongue, Punjabi, from which I can also understand neighboring Indian languages such as Hindi, dorgi, and pahari. I guess the perk of keeping Indian heritage is that you can speak many languages
You should make a video on the explorer Richard Francis Burton - he spoke only 24 languages but did much more in his life.....
Today I Found Out Simon schedules his videos to go public at 4:20 bc he's an absolute memer xP
I can't decide if your videos are more entertaining, or more informative. Seriously, wonderful stuff, and this was a particularly good episode!
I speak 4 💁🏻♀️ .. and i thought i was cool XD
I worked with a man who could speak five languages. He spoke Spanish (his native tongue), English, French, Portuguese, and Mandarin Chinese.
Whew first view
*First view?... **_whoopty freaking doo..._*
*_Here goes a cookie and medal for you!_*
I am a retired recovery specialist from the military I still speak 38 languages and 250 dialects. I keep up with them through my talking to my friends around the world.
11 minutes ago wow
Anyone can learn multiple languages if their parents exposes them very early. We are designed to learn a language/languages and the earlier the better. Some of us were lucky to grow up in multiple language environment. Music also helps open up the brain to languages.
Overall, parents should expose (not necessarily train) their children to songs sun in different languages and hopefully a regular few different spoken languages around, focusing on one or two languages, or three but all this will set them up for later learning by providing expanded brain and ear.
I have perfect pitch because of three languages around me and lots of music from all around the world.
That's the other problem with keeping up with who speaks the most languages, people are constantly learning.
I speak German, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, and my native Midwest American dialect of English. I can read them and communicate in them.
A little Iraqi and Egyptian dialects of Arabic.
So I qualify as a polyglot. If you include programming languages and syntax dialects, I know over 20.
Each language becomes easier to learn once you learn the commonalities of patterns.
Prepare to feel unaccomplished
You mentioned that there are dialects which may count as different languages, so I would like to present: Atlanta, Georgia vs Brooklyn, New York. 🙂