"I speak 30 languages", means: I speak one language to a C1 level and two languages to a B1 level and I know how to say "How are you?" in 27 languages with a foreign accent so deep you can barely understand me.
@@caramelapple5562 A1: Absolute Beginner A2: "i might take this serious" B1: early intermediate B2: the infinite intermediate plateau C1: advanced/fluent/native-ish C2: native++ aka the people who enjoy science, literature and legal stuff
As a spanish speaker, I like how in spanish you didn't sound fluent at all but in Portuguese and Italian you totally sounded like a native spanish speaker imitating italian and brasilian accents
i speak spanish and portugese sounds like if someone spoke spanish got their memory wiped then got into a coma due to that then tried to speak it again (this isnt ment to be a insult)
@@TheExpertProcrastinatorno , its sounds like if you spoke a mix of Spanish with russian accent and open your mouth the less possible to say words ( no se por que lo he escrito en inglés , yo también hablo español hahah)
@@ItsAsparageese I feel like this often comes from how you're treated by other speakers of your first language rather than English speakers and it's hard to gain confidence - at least that's my experience as a German. English teachers in school can be quite ciritcal (depending on grade and school) and you could speak perfect English but have a slight German accent and other Germans will tell you "how can you not speak English, did you not go to school, blah blah blah". I'm confident in my English now but I also used to put that at the end of comments when I had never interacted with a native English speaker irl and basically only knew criticism for my language skills (even though they were always decent for the amount of time I'd been learning).
@@user-es7ui5mc1m That makes so much sense. I'm sorry to hear the learning environment for it can be so critical! Hadn't thought about that variable at all. Seems like it works, though, since people who learn English tend to speak it far better than native English speakers tend to end up speaking other languages XD
Tbh his spanish pronuntiation improved a lot when he spoke it in an italian accent. He legit sounded like an native spanish speaker trying to sound italian
To be serious for a second, what really fucks me off about these 'polyglots' is not the amount of languages they've learnt but the lack of honesty about how many they've forgotten. It's a skill like playing an instrument or a sport. You have to practise or you get rusty and forget things. To keep a language up and not forget it you need to use it every day. How the hell can you practise 20 languages every day?
Yep, I'm a native Arabic speaker, and after speaking English for so long, I tend to forget some Arabic words. It's like handwriting too, I write better and faster in English now than I do Arabic, let alone 5+ other languages
i dont see the goal, too. i learned english because its useful but why do i wanna learn arabic or any other language to challenge myself for no purpose whatsoever?, otherwise its just blantly a waste of time
The worst thing is that these “RU-vid polyglots” who claim they can speak 17 languages fluently encourage the myth that mastering a language is EASY. It’s NOT. Very few people COMPLETELY master one or more languages, and it takes constant practice to not forget other languages you know. I speak three languages and I STILL occasionally make mistakes when speaking them, including in my NATIVE one, lol. Respect for real polyglots ✌️
Nobody speaks any language perfectly. It’s basically impossible to be fluent in more than 7 languages because to maintain proficiency you need at least half an hour of genuine conversation a day. 4 hours of just talking is not possible without special circumstances (another commenter said their dad was basically the head of UN translation, and he only knew 6).
"including in my NATIVE one" I second that. I went to the UK to study and sometimes I joke that instead of mastering English, my second language, I now speak no language fluently because I make mistakes in mine. At first I was frankly ecstatic because I thought it meant I was becoming bilingual, but then it becomes really frustrating when you have to look up a word in the dictionary because you can't remember how to say it in your mothertongue, and when you get corrected by your own friends because you say words from your second language in your native one without realizing it...with the accent of your mothertongue (and confidently at that !).
He does speak Spanish. Which causes me to be kind of impressed that he was able to speak Spanish that bad. And I guess he wasn't able to suppress it in "Italian".
Same, from Guangzhou and I laugh every time I see a video by that xiaomanyc guy, he's some American that speaks Chinese and while he's kinda fluent he acts like he is the master, it's hilarious but also dangerous since he misleads a lot of people
@@MatthewBHoth one tip to learn Chinese (any language really), is to like watch Chinese shows with English subtitles, so you know what it means, it also helps to have someone you know who knows Chinese teach it to you! Cheers! - some overseas Chinese
@@MatthewBHoth learn the 4 tones, and nail them when you learn each word. then string phrases/sentences together, making sure you get the tones correct. (native mandarin speaker here)
As a pole I am genuinely impressed by your polish speaking skills. I have to admit that I haven’t seen a foreigner speaking so fluent polish in a long time.
I cannot understand Polish spelling, tho I noticed that there are some pretty words in Polish like zestaw / skała / rekąw / motyl / bitwa / dziennik / błąd / wieża / lekarstwo / głupi / egzamin / srebro / zwariowany / sąd / kierunek / biznes etc, so I am learning the pretty words and use them in Slovene - by the way, is the letter ł / Ł in Polish pronounced like an U sound and is the letter ą / Ą pronounced with an extra N sound?
By the way, my current levels are... - upper intermediate level in Old Norse / Icelandic / German - writer level in English + native speaker level in Spanish - upper advanced level in Dutch + advanced level in Norwegian - intermediate level in Swedish / Portuguese / French / Italian / Welsh - beginner level in Breton / Hungarian / Gothic / Latin / Faroese / Galician / Danish / Slovene - total beginner in Cornish / Manx / Irish / Scottish Gaelic / Aranese / Elfdalian / Gallo / Limburgish / Occitan / Luxembourgish / Catalan / Urkers / Hunsrik / East Norse / Ruhrpöttisch / Alemannic / Ripuarian / Swiss German / Pälzische Deutsch / Austrian German / Waddisch / Palatine German / Westföälsk Sassisk / Austro-Bavarian / PlatDeitsch / Greenlandic Norse / Friulian / Pretarolo / Sardinian / Neapolitan / Sicilian / Venetian / Esperanto / Walloon / Ladin / Guernsey / Norn / Burgundian / Sognamål / West Frisian / North Frisian / East Frisian / Yiddish / Afrikaans / Finnish / Latvian / Estonian etc (and the other languages based on Dutch / German / Norwegian / Italian / French that are referred to as ‘dialects’ but are usually a different language with different spelling etc) (I highly recommend learning Dutch / Icelandic + Norse + Faroese / Norwegian as they are so magical, as pretty / refined / poetic as English - all other Germanic and the other pretty languages on my list are also gorgeous, so they are all a great option!)
Very few ppl know more than two or three languages fluently, most of them are only fluent in English and the first language they were made to learn and sometimes in Spanish or Italian or French or German (usually one of these four) and in most others they only know a few phrases and the most used words maybe, which does not equal knowing the language lol, one must know at least 10.000 base words automatically to be native speaker level - one can tell that they only learn the basics and the words they use the most in conversation by the ns they tell to others, lol they always tell viewers to only learn the words they use the most, that they can become fluent in 6 months etc, which is total bs and it has nada to do with actual fluency, so what they refer to as ‘conversational fluency’ isn’t true native speaker level fluency, but, I am the exact opposite, I am learning every word that I can find in every target language, and I am already very close to advanced level (upper intermediate) in Icelandic / Norse / German and advanced level in Norwegian and upper intermediate level in Dutch and mid intermediate in Swedish / Portuguese / French / Italian and intermediate in Welsh, and it takes a lot of watching and rewatching tons of vocab videos with hundreds and thousands of words and memorizing lots of lyrics and watching all sorts of videos with subs and also using Google translate a lot etc to really learn the languages permanently and automatically, so it takes at least two or three years to reach native speaker level fluency in some of these pretty and easy languages that I am learning!
One of these 'polyglots' went to a shop, where the shopkeeper was speaking my native language. After the initial bs sentences, like 'I have friends who speak your language' and 'I've been studying this language for 6 months' the lady replied and said how nice this is. Then she asked something and the guy didn't answer her, but kept saying some completely unrelated things. She then politely asked something else in a very basic way and the guy yet again didn't answer her question, but said something unrelated bs. She became uncomfortable with the situation and wanted to cut it short, but the guy kept going on and butchered my language even further. I commend if someone learns languages, it really helps breaking barriers, but please stop pretending your skills are incredible, when in reality all you do is just memorize a few sentences in different languages. It's nice and all that, but it doesn't make you a polyglot.
This reminds of how Wouter speaks languages. He hardly has a conversation and is instead just speaking paragraphs at people without ever considering their input.
It's like the opposite of me. Usually I'll say my Spanish isn't very good and won't even try to speak it but if someone speaks Spanish to me I can *usually* understand if they're not speaking super fast
The most mind-blowing thing I've learned while learning a second language is that on the continuum of proficiency, anybody ahead of you sounds like they have fantastic fluency, accent, and vocabulary and anyone behind you sounds obviously off. So like... If you don't speak a language, you have absolutely no basis for evaluating how well some dude trying to sell you some course speaks whatever language he wants to teach you.
I would say it's more that you can recognize some levels above and below you accurately, but cannot really distinguish levels way above you. Also it matters a lot if you are hearing only few selected phrases or if you are listening to multiple conversations. For example, I don't know Japanese above A1 level (I'm not A1 either), but I can recognize that Dogen (a youtuber), but after listening to multiple video I can reasonably say that he speaks at least decent Japanese (it helps that he does comedic skits of people at different level of Japanese pronunciation, so you can get a feel of the difference between American pronunciation or a more proper one.).
@@Serena-or7sl I'd like to learn Japanese but I'm frightened by it. How harder it is compared to English (assuming that English is not your first language)? Do you think it would be feasible by studying just an hour a day? Also, can you do an hour of Japanese per day or it'll make you crazy?
@@rijjhb9467 I took Japanese in high school and it's very difficult. It's kinda nice because pronunciation is 100% consistent, but you also have to learn the script which can be really challenging. Especially when you start to get into kanji as there are literally thousands of kanji characters. Add in the fact that Japanese has several levels of formality depending on who you're talking to that will change how you say things and it can get really overwhelming. Granted, I only took it for 2 terms to fulfill my language requirement so I didn't get too deep into it, but even at the basic level it's tough. Learning to read/write in Japanese was by far the hardest part for me though
Wow, your Polish was impeccable. I'm impressed. As a Polish native speaker I can totally attest his accent is indistinguishable from that of native speakers.
I'm a Hungarian who can't speak polish at all, and only talked once with a polish person... in English. But the two country is close enough so yeah I can say he is fluent
So accurate, I once argued the same thing in a “polyglot” channel and all hell broke loose. Imagine me, being a Portuguese native, having someone telling me that the guy was talking Portuguese and that I did not know anything about it.
had a similar situation happen to me with a delusional American. We (about 6 native Irish commenters) kept on telling him that calling our language "gaelic" is incorrect, it's an umbrella term used for grouping gaeilge and other similar languages such as welsh etc. After about 50 replies the guy said he seen it on Wikipedia and still fully believes he's right, even though all of us grew up in Irish speaking parts lmfao. He never backed down.
@@siesaw1 This is so funny because I remember reading that exact thread. I don't think I replied at all but it stuck with me because of the second hand embarrassment
@@layelee Honestly I don't remember which exactly, but I don't think the stubborn American guy in the comments was the one who made the video, just a random defender of the guy. If I had to guess, was probably xiaonyc but could be any number of similar copycat channels.
Loved this. As someone that speaks Spanish and worked reaaaally hard to get good at it, I found myself feeling really demotivated by videos of 'I learned 34302 languages in 10 seconds'. Also I found that actually being genuinely immersed in a language and culture was really emotionally taxing (not being able to make friends, not feeling like I had a personality or myself), and that was already being at like a B2, C1 level! But according to these polyglots they're connecting with everyone everywhere!
It's ok to be demotivated once in a while, as long as you remember your objective is different from them. I learned German seriously for 4 years now, but my first super beginner (a1.1) course was 25 years ago. I'm at B1/B2 level, but still finds it hard to start talking spontaneously. I admire those fast learner, but it's my choice to learn it slow so that I can have meaningful conversations with native speakers.
I've been studying English since primary school, I still haven't grasped all of the intricacies of the language even though I use it pretty much daily on the internet. There's so much culture and intricacy in how a language is used that it's always going to be a very long journey to mastering it, I'm also going to be taking a certification test this weekend, I've never taken an official language test before so I'm excited to finally have a reference point to compare myself to once I get the results :P
Also on the topic of connecting with people, I think you hit the nail right on the head, thing with actually learning languages is connecting with people it can be quite hard to achieve because there's usually both a cultural barrier and a language barrier. What I learned over time on the internet is not being fluent in the language you're communicating in usually just ends up resulting in a superficial relationship with whoever you're talking to. Words and language is how we deliver emotions to one another, if I can't do that with the language i'm learning then I wouldn't even bother in the first place
@@Lunamana First of all your English is amazing! Using idoms like "hit the nail on the head" can be really hard to do and always a good sign of a high level in any language (because it's not just studying but experience). And good luck on your certification, I'm sure you'll surprise yourself with the results! I actually am not interested (at least right now) in learning another language for exactly the reason you said. I feel extremely comfortable in Spanish now, have amazing friends, and a wonderful partner. It took so long to feel so comfortable though, that I couldn't jump into another language without also feeling exhausted haha.
I am apparently conversationally fluent in French. I’ve studied it for almost 7 years and went abroad. But I still can’t understand music or most shows because I need the context clues in a conversation and the ability to ask follow up questions. I can always get there with someone but it’s not pretty. I don’t like to say I’m fluent because I’m still so far from a native speaker. I still don’t like to put it down on a resume because I feel like I still have so far to go, even though I could figure out what someone was saying and probably somewhat easily have a someone disjointed but effective conversation with someone. I shudder at the idea of proclaiming a language you know nothing in
Programming languages are way easier though. If you know at least 2 or 3 - you can figure out others rather fast. Actual languages might get easier, but not as much.
@@TheKarabanera Funny you would mention that. My girlfriend is a polyglot and allways says how it does in fact get easier to learn more languages if you already know a few, especially if they are from the same language family. So if you already know 2 languages from a region chances are a 3rd will be relatively easy to learn. Of course there are exceotions with some regional languages being completely different from their neighbors. But even in completely different languages is apparently gets easier as your brain not only learns the language, but also learns to learn languages. As in it gets better remembering vocabulary and picking up gramatical rules. Not speaking from personal experience, I can only speak english and german fluently, with a bit of duolingo level of japanese.
I'm Polish and the point you were making about ancient philosophies while speaking fluent Polish was extremely thought provoking. I would love to see more of you speaking Polish
2:15 I’m so emotional to hear somebody else speak my native language. It’s actually not that well known, which is why people often don’t think it exists, but what he mentions here has poetic beauty that is untranslatable into any other language.
As someone who learned Albanian and lived in Albania for a year and a half, the funny thing is that there is actually a well understood gesture language. One time I saw two older gentlemen have an entire conversation across a crowded plaza exclusively in gestures, and the thing that surprised me more than the fact that they were able to do that was that I completely understood what they were saying to each other.
i'm currently starting my third language (native in english, advanced in spanish, beginner in hebrew) and i think something that's woefully overlooked, especially in the usamerican context, is that being born into a family that only speaks english in places like the united states is both a blessing and a curse. you largely don't need to struggle to learn the hegemonic language/lingua franca (obviously this is complex for minoritized dialects like aave and appalachian dialects), but it's also _incredibly_ difficult to learn another language, at least compared to being born into a country where knowing two or three languages is standard
As an outsider to this issue, I'm wondering if one of the major factors isn't the widely accepted normalcy of being monolingual in conversations, too. Also... I'm under the impression that Spanish is the most taught language in the US? The reasoning probably being that that is the most widely known language other than English? But, I don't think that's how it works. To really develop advanced language skills, you have to be immersed in the language, and use it often. How many Americans would know someone who actively strikes non-superficial conversation with them in Spanisch on a regular basis? The point where we, in other parts of the world, take English from a school subject to a skill is the point where we use it. To access tons of information on the internet, to read books or at least articles, to play games that came only in English. It needs this pull, this drive, of the things that exist in that language and that you want to have.
@@stillnotstill ah thank you! growing up in appalachia, this is something i've experienced first hand. i have friends who were forced to take classes specifically designed to train the local dialect out of them, and don't get me started how relentlessly students who use aave at home are criticized if their code switching isn't perfect. there's an entirely different set of grammar rules, phonemes, etc. that is just as valid as standard usamerican english, and yet bc of classism, racism, etc. those dialects are deemed less intelligent, less "civilized," and therefore less desirable
בהצלחה! And you're absolutely right about context being overlooked. If your parents, or even one parent, are immigrants, then you're bilingual from birth. And if you don't live in an English-speaking country, you'd start learning English pretty early because it's the Lingua Franca. And if your neighbouring countries aren't very distant (meaning your country isn't as big as the US) and use a different language, your exposure to foreign languages is further increased.
I’m going to be honest, as a Spaniard myself, the “Spanish with Italian accent” sounded much more like actual Spanish (indeed a very decent Spanish) than the other one
Something similar happened when a friend of mine tried to do a French accent while speaking Arabic - he ended up with a flawless Moroccan Arabic accent pretty much identical to Moroccan bilingual people.
That joke is soooo tired and overused. It's also not very accurate, but I wouldn't care about that if it were funny. After 10,000 repetitions, it just isn't that funny anymore. My 2-year old granddaughter thinks the same thing is funny only about 20 times; it would be nice if the internet would get tired of things at least as fast as a 2-year old...is that too much to ask? I guess it is.
B1 level Swedish learner here; you’ve given me my hope back that was stolen by these polyglot channels who made me feel dumb for taking 2 years of on-and-off learning to get to this point. Tack så mycket; jag älskar dina videor.
Actually I have a question: Can you be, hypothetically, B1.5 in a language? Or is that nonsense? These last few months, I haven’t known whether to say I’m B1 or B2 now, so I still say B1 to play it safe.
It depends on similarity between the languages. If someone has mastered Spanish, it will be much easier to master Italian. If the languages are totally different it will require a LOT of time to master, for example English and Chinese. If we really want to master a language it will take years. I am not believing someone can master a language in very short time.
Thank you very much, I'm learning Chinese and at the beginning I was looking for RU-vidrs who told about their experience but I always found very young people saying that they spoke like a thousand languages fluently and that they learned in 3 months each. I must admit that it makes you feel very stupid to see the great progress that people "can make" in months, but in many cases it is not true (not in all cases, obviously), so I appreciate these types of videos that help us to be more critical with the content we see♡
My father used to be chief interpreter of the United Nations and during his entire career they only had one single interpreter who was genuinely fluent in 6 languages. He was a Cambridge graduate and incredibly valuable for conferences because he could jump in for others. The entry requirement to be a UN interpreter is fluency in 3 of these languages (English, Spanish, Arabic, Russian, French) with the exception being Chinese where you only need to be fluent in English and Chinese. So it is absolutely confirmed bullshit that an average person can easily be fluent in 4 languages, let alone 6 or more.
I would like to disagree using myself as an example. I studied by myself and became fluent in 5 languages. I believe studying languages is extremely easy though. Italian, Spanish, French and Romanian. After you learn one fluently, you will be able to easily learn the other 3. The structure is almost always the same and the words change a bit from language to language but are not that different. Feliz, fericit, felice.What is actually hard is learning languages with completely different structures: Italian-Chinese-English for example.
@@hodidebb197 Definitely agree. Any slavic language for example is a walk in the park if you already know one, and the same can be said about turkic languages. It's learning a language with different genealogy that is truly challenging, and that's why the UN has that requirement
You're hyper exagerating, 10 languages in 1 month is beyond impossible but being completely fluent in 4 languages could even be considered "easy" however consider that the translators you're talking about don't simply speak those languages but have advanced translation and comprehension skills
As a native Russian speaker, I couldn't agree more with your statement, about the global geopolitical challenges, climate change and poverty. Your Russian is just perfect, no accent whatsoever, great job!
"climate change" is the most ambiguous propaganda term in history. It's not just a joke, but an insuilt to the intelligence of mankind, which apparently is deserving.
This is pure gold. I work in an industry that includes selling foreign language learning material. I'm so sick and tired of those who tout things like "fluent in 3 months!", and publish things terribly riddled with mistakes. Thank you for this video. Imma share it in all da places 😂
my recently downloaded hello chinese app just sent me a notifcation that i can be fluent in just 3 months with 10 minutes a day! lol, im studying more time than that per 3 days now.
I bought into the whole ‘fluent in 3 months’ ‘language hacking horseshit’… I speak Italian now as a second language, and it has taken me 5-6 years, my partner is Italian, we go and visit her family regularly, I also study. There are no shortcuts.
Having studied foreign languages a traditional way in school, I would say there are many "shortcuts" in language learning and there are certainly long, dead end streets, as well. I've learned a lot from Benny and other polyglots on RU-vid and it HAS helped me learn much faster and more efficiently. Taking charge of my learning journey instead of being dependent on a course or teacher to teach me what they think I should know has allowed me to learn how to communicate what's important to me in my target language, which then motivates me to keep going. The point of Fluent in 3 months is not actual fluency in three months but to get people having short conversations in their target language as soon as possible. All true polyglots talk about the hours they spend each week studying, practicing and maintaining their languages.
@@rashidah9307 as a mono lingual English speaker, I’ve just started my attempt to be a polyglot, but my goal is to learn 4 languages in 15 years plus AUSLAN, Australian sign Language. The idea of fluent in a few months just seems absolutely ridiculous to me. I’m starting with Indonesian because it’s the only foreign language in a Roman script where I know several people closely who are native speakers to be able to practice with, on top of doing 45 minutes a day of Duolingo and then doing formal language classes.
@@Mrsquiggley that's great! I've heard that Indonesian is a great language to learn for English speakers because of the shared script and (if I'm remembering correctly) not overly complicated grammar. Best wishes to you! I'm learning Levantine Arabic. It's not so similar to English but I'm highly motivated and I have many Arab friends who don't speak much English. I've made great progress in 1.5 years, and I'm excited about where I'll be a year from now!
As a Mexican American whose family is from Chichimecan Zacatecas that is a speaker of a Constructed langauge (based out of DF) called Classical Nahuatl( a language that nobody actually spoke).. I whole wholeheartedly agree. I was going to start my Classical Nahuatl channel too but both you smarks saved me effort tambien.
I'm not a native Polish speaker. In fact, I know about five words of Polish in total and don't understand its grammar or phonology at all. I am in effect totally monolingual but I pretend to understand French because I did five years of mandatory french in school. However, I think it's amazing that you know Polish so well. Love from Poland!!!! 🇲🇨🇲🇨🇲🇨
This is very accurate, and yes, youtube is full of shit because it's a business. This applies to almost everything and is not limited to languages at all. But I once met a german girl who spoke 5 languages. Maybe not the most fluent, but good enough to have a conversation with everyone in the room of the hostel in their own language and make herself understood and understand them. That was very impressive. Unfortunately, she was dedicated to the CDU and was starting in politics.
nah i know french and i can tell that learning spanish will be a pain in the butt. grammar is a mix between english/german and french but most of the vocab is barely recognizable. maybe italian would be easier.
I confirm this. After a month in poland environment you start literally "think" in polish as it is your native language. I'm ukrainan. Probably it works this well only when you're ukrainian or belorussian.
As a Spanish speaker aka Neutral Brazilian Portugese or Informal Italian.. French and Portugese are literally same lagnague .. French just sounds more .. like if you mixed the Lion King with a drunk Portugese making Poland noises. I'm just kidding, French is not even a romance langauge. It's Celto-Germanic version of pig latin none of us ; Romanian, Espanol, Italiano and Portugese can understand a go* **am word that French is saying.. 'Weegh wee pa po po pa pe jeh surrendeghhhhhrr(*weird french noises) .. blanq flag.'
one time, my SIL had over a boy who pretended he was fluent in French. I began speaking to him in French. He, straight-faced, replied with absolute gibberish. He wasn't around for long. Funny enough she is now dating a completely different guy who also speaks pretend French. Moral of the story is if ur gonna lie abt knowing a language pick one most ppl won't know. You will run into someone who will figure you out. lmao
Years ago, I got caught up in the idea of trying to become a huge polyglot, and had aspirations of becoming one myself. I spread myself thin over so many languages that it really started to hurt my progress in the languages I cared about, or actively used. Eventually after completely burning myself out, I stuck to just 2: Japanese, which I'd been actively interested in since my teens, and was easily the one I'd consistently remained the most proficient with, and Dutch, the language of the place I live in now. As my language study become more focused, I really started to notice how deep these languages really go, and I'd come to realize that there was no possible way I'd be able to know and retain this depth for 5 to 10 other languages. When I talked with people in those languages I'd find myself in topics of discussion that would open me up to entirely new vocabulary, including words that had no translation to English at all. I will often still refuse to call myself fluent, because despite actually having a romantic partner with whom I communicate exclusively in Japanese, I recognize that there are still a lot of things I don't know. To bring this back to the topic of RU-vid Polyglots, I've started to realize how surface-level their proclaimed language skills actually are. Whenever I see videos of these people in unscripted settings, such as talking to people on the streets ect, their conversations rarely go past surface level self-introductions, and when I hear Japanese in particular, I really notice just how unnatural they actually talk. I do find it a little concerning, because for anyone who is passionate about learning another language or culture, these polyglot flexes can lead people into feeling like their one or two languages aren't good enough, like they did for me, and then possibly try to sell a solution with apps or services.
Something YT polyglots will do to seem better in languages than they actually are is to fling around the word "fluent/fluency". I have the same mindset as you: I am a native speaker in English, I attended Hebrew school growing up, I studied Spanish for 15 years, AND I have also been living in France with my French boyfriend for 6 years now. I can hold a conversation in 4 different languages (my Hebrew isn't great anymore, but I can get my point across). Despite that, I still believe that the only language I'm fluent in is English... Not because I suck in the others, but because fluency is more than just "speak the language gud". I've seen proof of some polyglots throwing around the word "fluent" inaccurately. I saw a video just the other day of a supposed polyglot talking about celebrities who are multilingual and frequently said "(Celebrity) is fluent in (language)" then they inserted a clip where that celebrity is speaking that language and somehow manages to make 10 grammatical errors in a single sentence, as well as having a terrible accent. "Bone jor. Geem apple John" is not fluency. Merely saying a word or sentence is not fluency. Another thing: unless you have a lot of free time and spare cash, being a fluent polyglot of more than 3 languages is flatout unobtainable for 99% of people. No matter how much you study, your language skills will always be limited until you immerse yourself. Unless you plan to live in a country for every language, being a polyglot is impossible... And even then, I think people don't realise just how much your language skills deteriorate when you don't use that language regularly. You would have to constantly cycle through living in those 10 countries, constantly moving between them. I use English a fair bit daily: the internet is obviously predominantly in English and I still have my English speaking friends and family. Despite that, the fact that that isn't the language I'm hearing day in and day out has meant that I have started to make more mistakes than when I lived in an English-speaking country. Sorry for the long comment, but the only thing that pisses me off more than ignorance is when people exploit, feed into, and profit off of ignorance. Also, I know you didn't mention this but I absolutely hate Duolingo with a burning passion. It is literally the worst language learning tool in existence. Duolingo can go suck an egg.
@@madeleine61509 This! And on the other hand, let me give you a reality check: no one gives a fuck. Speak/learn the languages that you like and love and that's it. You don't have to "impress" anybody, do it for yourself.
Wholeheartedly agree with you and @Mad Dog. "Fluent/fluency" is overused a lot. For a language that isn't your native tongue, fluency is a lifelong goal to work towards.
I agree with you. Watching a few of those videos made me question my language studying ability a lot. Though I think i have enough people in real life to compare to who are really amazing imo. I can understand how easily the gratification comes when you tell people about studying languages. I've been studying Japanese and I took Chinese lessons last Semester, considering it more of a hobby of mine. My level in Japanese is alright and I'm still a beginner in Chinese (not planning to reach "native-fluency"-Level either), but many people who don't study languages themselves or who struggled with this in school think that I am really amazing to be able to do this. They can't judge my actual fluency level, so they think I must be some kind of genius. I personally feel a bit bothered by that as I don't want people to expect anything great of me and I just want to do this for fun, but I can imagine some people to really like this attention.
I'd rather be able to communicate effectively and articulately on a variety of topics in 3 languages than be able to ask where the bathroom is and talk about my family in 15 languages.
In all seriousness, Duolingo helped me get to intermediate German. I was able to hold a conversation with this one German dude who kept correcting me because my sentences don’t sound completely natural, but he said he could understand me fine, so I was still pretty happy.
An intermediate level is something I could believe. Duolingo is a good tool, but it's no substitute for conversation. It would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to become fluent through Duolingo alone.
@@bea7823 Oh, it's very effective for learning like any resource, actually more than many traditional resources for dummies like me, but emersion is what helps develope fluency. Fluency and knowledge are not 1 to 1 correlatives.
As a fellow brazilian who somehow learned english and spanish at a very young age, it really messes up my head. Sometimes i'm speaking english but then i confuse myself and i say some spanish word, then i'm talking in portuguese and i do a 180° and now i accidentally speak spanish. It messes my head a lot, the way you can speak so many languages like this amazes me, not because thats unique, but because it seems you dont get confused.
As a native German speaker I'm honestly blown away by your German skills! You should be really proud of yourself! And I know you didn't speak any German in this video but I can just tell by how many languages you already pretend to know that your pseudo-German gibberish you learned from that one Charlie Chaplin movie must be impeccable as well! Keep it up!
Once I recorded random words in English, played it backwards, it sounded so Russian it was uncanny. It meant nothing of course, but the sound was there
I think people always forget how essential of a word Polish "no" is. (I don't mean "nie", I mean literally "no", which can mean "yes", or a comma, or indignation, or a lot of different thongs especially if you add some more words to it, honorary mention of "No kurwa no" which is appropriate when your personally duck-taped fiat 126p still doesn't start).
This is hilarious. My friend who has learned a lot of Korean since moving to South Korean and marrying a Korean, pointed this out about these RU-vid polyglots to me a few years ago. I recently had a coworker claiming to speak a language I know a little of and everything that came out of his mouth was both nonsense and pronounced incorrectly at that. Those who speak other languages fluently or even partially don’t need to brag, they just do it and use it as a tool to get work done. Language is a means not an end.
It's ok to have this as a hobby. Not everyone thinks that learning languages proves that a person is smart. I know enough about it to know that it has very little to do with intelligence. But I do appreciate that someone interested in language learning is more likely to be intelligent than someone who, e.g., would rather memorize Nascar statistics. Anyway, both are hobbies. And we like to talk about our hobbies. If someone's fragile ego is triggered by me talking about my language hobby, they've just shown me a little bit about their own insecurities. Funny... when I got my doctorate degree, we had a whole ceremony celebrating it, and even changed the way people say my name in formal settings. But I'm supposed to stay quiet about my language hobby? Not logical. Do you also get offended when people play musical instruments? Similar learning/ training experience with that hobby. Shaming intellectual endeavors is a "dumbing down of society" practice that I will never agree with.
I don’t understand the relationship between our comments. I do know a few folks with doctorates pretty closely all of whom have different levels of success with languages. Do you find that it is hard to have a good conversation about subjects you know deeply like your area of study because the knowledge of your conversation partners is too low or they have too little interest to allow time to build an accurate mental model? I’ve come across this from the other end when I try to pick the brains of professionals in a field I have only a rudimentary knowledge of. I’ll put a model I’ve developed to see if I have understood to ideas correctly and they don’t respond to correct it. I’ve also had times where my understanding has been corrected and it has often included lots of details and implications I couldn’t foresee, so I am eternally grateful. The bragging coworker had taken maybe one or two college classes in the language. As far as I can tell, the language is not an ongoing hobby or passion. It’s NASCAR as it is an initialism for National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing. For something that looks so _boring_ to the casual eye, it actually goes really deep in regards to the technology and strategy used. EDIT: I just checked your channel and your playlist suggests you may be an INFJ. Very interesting. You might enjoy the channel _Your Never Sleeping Beauty_ which is the writings of an older INFJ who has invested a lot time into understanding the challenges and possibilities of the type.
I think language can absolutely be an end in and of itself. Even if you're not all that interested in linguistics, if you like to read it is nice to be able to read works in the language they were originally written in. The beauty of many literary works comes in large parts from the manipulation of language in very particular, subtle ways. If utility were your only goal, you could simply read a translation and glean essentially the same information from it. But translations often fail to capture the experience created by the language.
I now speak 34 languages with a mindblowingly native-like accent after watching this video! Might try this RU-vid thing and scam the shit out of innocently motivated and good natured people for every single last penny they have. Thanks Language Simp!
In South Africa many people say they can speak 7 languages (and technically we can). But what they fail to tell you is that many of our languages are so insanely closely related that if you can speak one african language you can probably converse in 4 of them (tswana and sotho are the exact same thing. It’s like saying american and british rather than english.). People simply cannot speak many languages. I personally speak only 2, and have many friends who speak 3 or 4. But you will never move in circles where you need more, because the cultures just become too different.
The Indonesian one caught me off guard. It is embarrassingly accurate... Our people are easily impressed by the smallest thing foreigners do. I think, that seems like a bad thing now, because it makes us look like we're easily get fooled. Making it easier for the people who wants to take an advantage of it. I grew tired of the kind of contents that are chasing for clout by inserting 'anything related to Indonesia' to it, to be honest. But at the same time, there are people that enjoy those contents.
@@Punyulada Those that are familiar with the English language and the internet may be. But I am still baffled by how many Indonesian people being impressed by the clickbait bule at TikTok.
@@96KN_ I think it has to do with how Westerners used to be seen in the past in East Asian countries: kind of admired, but also really self-centered and unwilling to learn the most basic vocabulary, so when older people see Westerners speaking a sentence or two, they're either incredibly impressed or just pleasantly surprised.
Yesss ,and I can assure you we ,Indians are same too ,even if you just mention the word India , you'll literally see the comments are flooded with Indians 😆
@@Punyulada i'm not sure about which age range you referred to as 'younger folk', but if what you mean is young teenager, i disagree. in my opinion, the most targeted audience for bules who chase clout is young children (elementary and secondary school). it's either that or BOOMERS older teenagers and young adults seem not to care as much tho, because bules getting fluent in indonesian are getting more common (at least on the internet) just added my two cents there. sorry if i misinterpreted your comment
heres your problem youu are actually trying to learn the language youtube polyglots are not. change what fleuncy means and go order russian food in russian and claim fleuncy like every other youtube polyglot
@@MakotoOPT The problem with "change what fluency means" is that there are varying levels of fluency, and people cannot seem to agree what "fluency" really means. There is no one definition of fluent.
@@Words-of-encouragement.-. I feel like B2 and higher is when someone can claim fluency in a language. I understand what you mean, but I get annoyed when these creators basically imply that being able to only say "hello how are you" or being able to order your food in your target language is a form of fluency when they cannot continue a conversation that they aren't pacing themselves they cant talk about anything outside of a couple interest. I would not say someone is fluent in English if they can only talk about the weather or ask me how I am doing. I would label them as fluent if they can understand about 80% of what I am saying and they can communicate how they feel about 80% of the time accurately. People say the placement tests mean nothing but having taken those tests there is absolutely no way you could bullshit passing B2 and above. and it tests everything. And lastly the ability to learn in a language is when I will describe someone as fluent which is usually the B level (independent learner). Because its okay to not know jargon or how to talk about chemistry in your target language but can you learn it. Are you fluent enough to keep up with someone talking about it. Fluency has always meant that but Americans trying to do party tricks kinda fucked with the meaning to mean "I can say hi how are you I love languages" in 40 languages. Also I am not attacking you because I know what you mean by fluency having different meanings. I just dislike shady "youtube polyglots"
@@MakotoOPT No worries. I understand where you are coming from. I don't feel attacked at all, and I too, dislike shady RU-vid polyglots. I understand the level you are referring to with your definition of fluency, and I don't necessarily disagree with it. For me personally I would agree that if someone can learn a topic like chemistry in a language they are certainly "fluent" in it. However, conversational fluency is another topic. I like Olly Richards Idea of the "pub test" for that. The idea is that if you can go grab a drink, sit down at a pub and have a full conversation (beyond surface level bs) with a buddy and no one needs to slow down or cater their language for you...that's a pretty good indication of conversational fluency. That's essentially the goal I intend to reach with most of the languages I want to learn.
Duolingo is a pretty good first step, especially because it is free, and it has goofy mechanisms to trick you into practicing a little bit every day. It’s not the best, and it definitely can’t teach you a lot, but it is a good way to get started, especially if you’re stuck somewhere without the ability to learn from somebody who really speaks the language.
Another fact is that the less they say they study, the less likely they are able to speak that language; whereas the ones that are honest and tell you how many months / hours it really took to get that good at X language, the better they are at said language. It’s like of the ones that say less are trying to sell you something like being fluent in 3 months. It’s just not gonna happen
@@Jess-737 Most western people that learn Mandarin have a whole career planned out for themselves that doesn't include youtube or tiktok. And even then if it doesn't work out they usually become a teacher.
I only speak Canadian, but I know enough about American that I could tell your accent was nearly perfect. And the French was equally a language you spoke.
There are a great many languages spoken throughout Canada but it has two official languages: French and English. So what, pray tell, is this 'Canadian' you claim to speak?
As a native Indonesian speaker, I ( A gigachad) declare that you are fluent at this language and I am in tears with 5 box of tissue. You are a fellow Gigachad, my friend.
I plan to learn Indonesian. Actually, I plan to upload a video of me trying to speak Indonesian, before I learn the langguage (to later compare me as a noob versus me as a gigachad). Then again, I don't want to be a chad, since Chad dries up.
This. This is the kind of content that I like. My mannnnnn XD As an English tutor myself, I can very much relate. Those big company saying "fluent in a month" Is such a fckn bullshit and what makes me as an english tutor freelancer getting stomped on. But hey, I know we can't play victim. That's why I still doing this just because of my love to watch my student's growth :'))))))
As an Italian guy I feel the urge to admit that its’s admirable how you perfectly replicated every Italian accent and dialect in these few wise words, while getting your point across Dante’s poetry and offering your view on the imperial phase of ancient Rome civilisation. Stunning performance 🤌🏻
I took an Italian class in college that I got an A in and I totally understood what you’re pointing out. It was beautiful. As talented as I am, I forgot how to say “ow, I hurt my arm patting myself on the back.” In Italian.
@@Thatsme849 OP didn't listen to the words, it's the gestures. Italian is a sign language, the sounds don't actually matter. If you turned of sound for the entire world, Italians would be the last to notice because nothing would happen to their ability to understand each other. Source: trust me bro, I speak zero Italian but Italians will back me up.
@@ZenoDovahkiin : A very few italians actually speak while doing plenty of hand gestures,it's just a stupid stereotype that became widespread in the US because most of the immigrants who arrived there came from southern Italy,where locals burrowed this ancient custom from the greeks and from other mediterranean people.
@@Seageass01nah fam that's bullshit we do talk with our hands it's not just a stereotype, shit I was living in Paris last year and spotted an Italian at the end of the road just by how much he was using his hands, poi sincero molto meglio che con le mani rigide lungo i fianchi come dei soldatini della minchiazza
I spent a month in Italy and I employed this method pretty well. I thought, "Oh I'll just read signs and I'll be able to read them just fine." Joke was on me, there were lots of places without very much signage (I'm looking at you, Rome Airport).
Yeah I used this method to talk to my grandpa, although I guess the first full sentence in his dialect I learned was “Nun mi parli Spagnuol, I mang capisc nent Spagnuol!” Still, it more or less worked-the random hand gestures help a lot!
Yeah, our gesture aren't coded and precise or descending from thousand of years where we didn't have the exact same language so gesture helped us understanding better each other, we are just crazy 👍
But he's not old enough to have studied Polish for decades. . . Does he ever tell his real language learning story or are all his videos comic relief and sarcasm?
Everyone's making stupid sarcastic jokes in the comments thinking this was a meme video. But hidden beneath the biting commentary is a truly impressive feat here. The fact that this clear French native is speaking ABSOLUTELY FLAWLESS American English, with such supreme attention to detail, is blowing my mind. He literally sounds like he doesn't live on frog legs and body odor.
If viewers were honest in the comments section: "I'm going to post this overused joke to get likes and attention in a desperate attempt at filling the void in my narcissistic personality."
@@Jarblyy There are so many ways to do that. For example, you could be a climate change denier. It would send the implicit message that you know better about climate science than most specialists all around the globe. If somebody starts talking to you about math equations involved in climate modeling, just pretend that you have to go and don't talk to the person ever again.
I speak fluent portuguese and spanish and I often see how these “super polyglots” sucks at those languages, specially portuguese. It’s just ridiculous. If you know at least 2 or 3 languages, You can see how basic their knowledge is, not fluent at all. You forgot to mention one important point though, sometimes they talk to random people on the street, but never let them talk too much because they need to monopolize the conversation in a certain direction or, otherwise, everyone will notice how much limited is their vocabulary 🤷🏼♀️
@@vladivanov5500 Ugh I cant stand that guy, hes so cringe. He just yells a few unnaturally used phrases at tourists who look so uncomfortable and are obviously trying to flee as fast as they can. And the worst part is that he seems to really be basking in the deluded fake glory of his false assumtions that they think he looks cool and smart.
The sentences they use are super easy to pick up on. The people they speak to are just being polite. Some literally just ask basics like "whats your name". I enjoy ones who are actually conversational in the languages.
I have a degree in linguistics and I can honestly say I speak less than one language perfectly. I’m trying to learn others, but damn, it’s so easy to get out of your depth if the conversation doesn’t go totally as scripted. That’s where the magic of editing comes in!
I’m a linguistics major and someone once said that asking a linguist how many languages they speak is like asking a doctor how many diseases they have, and I love that
It's not even editing, most conversations when you meet someone for the first time always proceed in almost exactly the same way. Where are you from? How long have you been learning the language? etc etc
Linguistics degree holder her with teaching certifications. I speak fluent Spanish, and I am maybe an A2 level at best in German. My Spanish is not anywhere near perfect. I'd give myself a C1. I haven been studying Spanish for over 2 years now (not including the years I took in high school and college), have a Spanish speaking girlfriend, and live in SW Florida which is full of Spanish speaking citizens that don't speak English. Learning a language and mastering it takes SOOOOO long. Even with my years of study, my Latino surroundings, and living with a Latina, I can't watch a Spanish show or video without not knowing at least one or two words.
Thank you for pointing this shit out. As a linguist and translator, it makes me so fucking mad whenever I come across people like this. The humblebragging with these people is unbelievable.
@@redmarble5624 I was reading your comment and saw Lindie Botes.. i was like.. She's actually a good one. But its ridicolous now... white boy or lack man speaks ancient dead langauge from 2000 years to villagers in some random far a55 place.. to make them feel at home.
@@hydrargyruschaldaecus2572 i feel very cringe at seeing people believe it and inspire them to do the same. But then remember the dead itnernet theorys.. It's not real portugal ball, they are just bots , nobody is that dumb... * Goes outside and sees lack man trying to speak Mandarin to a Cantonese girl. Weiss boi speaking to a Oaxacan[zapotec] farm worker in Classical Nahuatl (invented langauge never spoken by anybody but in thearters).. *** Agh!! .. They are that dumb.
LMAO calling out many of those "20 language" polyglots out here. It's specially sad when you acually know the language and It's so obvious It's a couple of memorized frases. Happens a lot with japanese, "watashi wa bla bla desu, yeah next language".
Albanian sign language.....it's a lost art!😂 In all seriousness, as a linguist, I have to echo what others have said. There are many language families where the languages are extremely close to one another; learn just one well, and you can learn the others relatively quickly (Slavic, Turkic, Algonquian, and Polynesian are just a few of these families). It's not impossible, but it does take time. That said, I completely agree with your assessment of many of these polyglot videos. Just memorizing a few common phrases.
