Why I HATE the term POLYGLOT and you should too 

I’m a hyperpolyglot gigachad alpha male

I once claimed to speak Spanish when I was at a B2 level and was accused of lying, I also once claimed to not speak French when I was at an A2 level and was accused of lying then as well, “speaking” a language can be extremely ambiguous so I mostly dont bother with that terminology at all anymore lol

RU-vid and Twitter ruined the word “polyglot” for me. No matter how many more languages I learn, I will probably still just tell people I’m a language lover.

Fun fact: “speaking” a language is only half the battle. You also have to be able to understand what that lady who lives on a mountaintop in Guatemala is trying to tell you. And you make an excellent point about languages not being discrete entities. My dad once told me a story about how in the 1950s, he returned home to New York after an extended trip to German & French speaking Europe. Hours after disembarking, he was sitting with his aunts as they discussed making new curtains for their living room. He said, “I couldn’t follow the conversation at all, and they were speaking English!” So for sure, the subject matter is a major factor!

Yes make that video about how to pretend to be a polyglot

I also feel like this fascination with "polyglots" is primarily an American/Western European thing. In most African countries there are millions of people that speak four or more languages due to the vast amount of ethnic groups that exist. For example, my parents speak Wolof, Mandinka, French, and English, but they don't see it as anything mind blowing or even impressive. That's just how you had to survive in a country where you had to learn the colonial language, the language of the major ethnic group, your own ethnic language, and English for obvious reasons.

You are a breath of fresh air. Finally someone I can watch talk about languages without getting annoyed or feeling cringe. Thank you for being real and genuine about what it means to "know a language."

I'm an Italian native speaker, I began learning English when I was six. At around 15, while learning (how to badly translate from) Latin and Ancient Greek at school for five years, I started studying Finnish on my own because I hated myself that much. I went on to study it in university, along with Russian and English, and took also a little introductory course of Slovak, which basically meant for me to speak Russian with a different accent. Incidentally, I had to take a two week course of Estonian, where I also got an OFFICIAL B2 language certificate (to this day, the only word I can say in Estonian is "libahund", werewolf, and I'm 100% sure that's not how you spell it). I moved to the Netherlands two years ago, started taking private lessons right away to learn the language and I still tell my clients they can only pay with cash when they really can only pay with their card. I recently learnt the Tibetan alphabet and stopped right there because it really isn't worth the struggle, to be honest. By internet standards: hypermegapolyglot on steroids. In reality: unrequited linguaphile.

I respect your humility and actual respect for other languages and cultures rather than just seeing them as quests to be conquered before moving on to the next.

LOVE this video. I can confirm as a linguist too I do get "how many languages do you speak" a lot and I get annoyed not only because it reduces language experience into a binary (the implication that you either speak the language or you don't) and a non-cultural, non-political thing, but also because by asking me this question right after learning that I'm a linguist sometimes they're assuming that being monolingual is the default. It's not. Most societies in the world are multilingual. Most people grow up using/exposed to more than one language and they NEED to be multilingual in order to navigate their lives. I speak Cantonese because I grew up in a Cantonese-speaking area, but not as well as Mandarin because it's the official and dominant language in my country where minority languages and dialects are culturally and politically oppressed. Behind every language that I speak/sign there is a unique context where I acquired it and use it, and you can't really separate language ability from personal language history.

Linguaphile is definitely more like it for me - getting to what I'd call fluency in any of my non-native languages hasn't happened yet because I've simply not had the motivation. I do as much as is enjoyable for me, then I stop and move on. People around me like to say that I 'speak 4 languages' but that's laughably untrue, even with languages I've learnt for years - I'm conversational in French and British Sign Language, and as long as I'm with people who are very forgiving of mistakes I could probably have a conversation in Mandarin, but... that's the limit of my abilities. Not quite monolingual, but definitely no polyglot!

One of the most bothersome questions to be asked as a language learner is "so, how many languages do you speak?" There's just no way to give an accurate answer without talking your interlocutor's ear off.

I speak six languages and learned them over the course of 46 years. I have native fluency in English-Spanish, speak French, Portuguese and American Sign Language fluently and can also speak Italian which is my newest language. I've been a professional interpreter for 30 years and picked up languages during different decades of my life. I took a year of German in school and studied a few other languages but I don't count them at all. Languages are a lifestyle and you have to have many experiences in the languages to truly know them intimately and this takes time. English was my first language, then I learned Spanish because my uncle married a Mexican woman when I was ten and I chose to become bilingual-bicultural. It became my life. I then learned French in High School and continued studying it for years. I grew up with Deaf friends and learned ASL and eventually interpreted Sign Language. When I was 28 years old, I met some Brazilians while interpreting Spanish, ended up living with them for 2 years and learned Portuguese. Years later I started to delve more deeply into the language because so many of my students were from Brasil and I decided to work on my mastery of all aspects of the language. In the last few years I have been studying Italian. Many of these polyglots who claim to speak 20 or more languages (or even a few languages) don't actually have a high level of fluency in more than one language. I have no desire for quantity. My desire is to continually attain higher and higher levels of fluency in the languages I have learned thus far. I know how to attain high levels of fluency in languages instead of learning enough to fool some people.

Watching polyglots inspired me and convinced me to try learn a lot of languages, but after learning a lot of bits and pieces about several languages I realised focussing on one or two second languages, especially the ones I'd be most likely to use, and doing those really well was much better than claiming to speak several.

I completely get this! I studied linguistics to undergrad level, but spent 10 years hanging around people doing at MA and above, so my discussions got pretty deep. Whenever I tell people that, they ask me "how many languages do you speak?", and I simultaneously try to explain that a) the concept of speaking a language is not clearly defined, b)linguistics isn't learning languages and c) I speak 3.54 languages, and none but my native English is an integer thereof. People usually stop listening after point a. There's also another point I'd make, in that there are different types of fluency - in a different sense than you talked about here. I'm an English teacher as well as language learner, and in both arenas I view fluency more like the skill of being able to keep talking and use phrases without needed to think too hard about it. When a student is able to talk to me freely with basic vocabulary and limited syntactic accuracy, but nonetheless make themselves understood, they're clearly not fluent in the sense that most people would use the word, but to me, that's an important milestone, because I can build on that skill and help them expand in the areas they need, whereas teaching them to just speak and stop thinking so hard about speaking is a much harder task. Similarly, I feel the same way with my own languages. I studied French throughout my childhood, took two years of tuition at university, and I can, with effort, understand news broadcasts, movies, conversations and so on in French. My vocabulary is reasonably large and I understand all the grammar (even if I forget it in use sometimes). However, it always takes me time to engage the French part of my brain when I need it. On the other hand, I have lived in Chinese speaking countries for six years, and while my Chinese is very poor in objective terms, what little I know I can access quickly and without thought, because I've had to use it constantly, day in day out. By most people's metric, I'm more fluent in French than in Mandarin, but by the same standards I judge my student's fluency, it's the reverse. As to the other languages I "speak", I know very basic Japanese, a tiny amount of Greek, and a limited amount of German. For me, what's very interesting is how much I can understand of languages related to ones I know fairly well. I can listen to Scots speakers and, through exposure to the vocabulary differences, understand a decent amount. I can read Spanish, and if I spend enough time watching Spanish speaking on television, I can follow the conversation up to a point - all from knowledge of French (though IRL, Spanish confounds me, so there is a definite bias there towards the more comprehensible language in media). So how do I identify? Mostly monolingual, with the skills to adapt as needed. I'm really not interested in the language olympics, I just love finding out how different languages do things. What languages I've learned at more than a passing level I've done through necessity or happenstance (even French - it was the only language available at my little town school, mandatory to study until 16, and I was quite good at it, so I took it higher).

I don't think polyglot is in itself a bad term because not all polyglots are polyglot RU-vidrs, and cringey ones at that, lol. I don't let bad associations ruin a term for me. Even though people love using "Jew" as an insult in some contexts, I am still a Jew. and I'm proud of it. I'll always be proud of being a polyglot because it's something I've worked for, and have for over 10 years. I never had it in mind to "become a polyglot", it was just a happy accident. But now that I technically am one, I'm not going to let Xiaomanyc or Ikenna ruin that for me :)

Great video! Learning a language should be about wanting to be able to talk to new people and getting to know their culture, not about being able to say "I speak X languages"

I love your term "linguaphile" since it's more realistic and let's face it; even to learn one single language at a time demands huge commitment, motivation and great exposure. Having fun while learning a language is not the same as being proficient in such. Great video!

Thanks for introducing the word linguaphile - never felt at home with the word polyglot. Feels like a title you have to earn, whereas I just want to do my own thing without being held to a particular standard. It's sort of that impostor-syndrome feeling you get when I say "I'm learning Korean" to my colleague in the lift, and he goes "oh so you understand what all those Korean dramas are saying..." and then I regret having ever shared that part of myself.

I remember back in the 70s I became friends with a Persian girl and her family. She was working hard to learn English. She asked me how she would know when she really knew English well. My answer to her was, "When people quit telling you how well you speak English." She kind of got a little taken back by that and I said, "Well, nobody tells me how well I speak English." A lot of times foreigners, when someone says something in their language, especially if it's not one of the more commonly taught ones in high school, like Spanish or French will compliment you on how "fluent" you are in their language. Just take it with a grain of salt and thank them. You know that you aren't fluent, and they know you're not.

It kills me because in my country a lot of people speak 4-5 languages easily and don’t even know it, when asked we need a minute to list them and figure out how many it is lol

I have a couple thoughts from this video. 1. My initial push to want to learn languages partially came from watching these "I speak 12 languages" types. I became fascinated with the idea that I too could be just like that. Of course I grew up in a city with a large Hispanic minority and many of my friends came from Hispanic families. I really wanted to speak Spanish to communicate with them more effectively. The drive to learn more has partially been driven by people who weren't always honest about their abilities. They'd present themselves as being fluent, yet would get called out for not being as fluent as they claim in a certain language. There's also the fact I fell victim to the idea that these languages were quests to be conquered. They require cultural knowledge and people to make the journey memorable. I'm probably never going to learn luxembourgish, not because I wouldn't want to, but simply because it is very difficult for me to fully appreciate everything a language like that has to offer. You can't just pick up a dictionary, learn a few grammar rules, and be on your way. The language has to become a part of who you are, not just some cheap party trick you use to impress your friends. 2. I used to consider myself bilingual in both Spanish and English. I majored in Spanish and spent 10 years learning in high school and college. I even lived in spain during my study abroad trip 3 years ago. Since then, my abilities have atrophied quite a bit. Even when I was "bilingual", I relied heavily on dictionaries to help me find words to use. I can still hold a conversation pretty well, but I hesitate to call myself fluent in the language. I would actually like to take some advanced classes again to get myself back up to speed.

I absolutely love how you explained this stuff. I've also never wanted to call myself a "polyglot". Linguaphile seems more fitting, indeed. I speak Dutch (mother tongue), English (C1), a bit of French, a bit of Italian, a bit of German, a tiny bit of Swahili, a tiny bit of Scottish Gaelic and I can sort of understand Spanish due to me having studied Italian for 3 years at university.

While the internet has made learning a language easier than ever, it has also lead to the most misunderstandings of what it takes to actually do so for many. Nice job summing all that up. BTW, you should make that video where you pretend to be a polyglot; I'd watch it. Plus, if it goes big you could spread some of this information to those who would otherwise be fooled by videos like that lol

I label myself a "linguistics nerd" My interest is less in *speaking* languages, and more in the art of how they are formed/interact with each other. Im bilingual (English and ASL), and I would love to learn more, but the cultural element of language is honestly the part that gets to me. I so want to see that fake polyglot video though!

I totally agree. I lived in China for eleven years and speak fluent Chinese and have rarely met anyone that speaks it as good as me, let alone better, but I am starting to feel like reaching a native level is an unattainable and unrealistic goal for someone that didn't grow up there. Rather, I should focus on enjoying the journey.

I really appreciate this video. I'm currently learning German which is only my second language and I find the onslaught of "Polyglots" exhausting and feel that it actively discourages people from learning another language. When a false sense of ease is portrayed I think it makes the average language learner feel that they're falling short in some way because they're unable to pick another language up as quickly as the so-called "Polyglots."

What I seldom heard discussed by “polyglots” is that each language is fundamentally distinct, and you can never learn to truly speak another from the mindset of your current language. For example, I’m a non-Māori native English speaker from Aotearoa learning Māori, an Austronesian language which works in an entirely different way and comes from a country that, due to colonisation, has come to quite often ignore it and the unique way it shares knowledge. As a Tangata Tiriti New Zealander I would never be so bold to claim that I was fluent even if I met such (English-language) criteria, as I think this is disrespectful; it’s not my language. In fact, why would I ever be so incredibly rude to boast about my capability in a language all New Zealanders _should_ speak? Learning a language is a lifetime effort; in fact, I often feel as if I’m still learning English. I’ve found time and again my biggest mistakes in Māori come when I try to write something that makes sense in English in Māori. Everything must be carefully rewritten from a Māori language and Māori knowledge point of view, to capture its beautiful nuances, tikanga, mātauranga, and the mana and mauri itself. And I am not going to attempt to translate those last words, because, well, they _just can’t_ be. And isn’t that what makes a language beautiful? No language is like an exact duplicate of the one you already speak with just the sounds changed slightly. They communicate ideas in complete different ways, and are all equal. You are completely right to point out the bizarre obsession of simplifying languages, and the sheer objectification of cultures that comes with it.

love this so much. I used to feel this pressure to learn more languages and I now know it's because I wanted to be impressive for speaking more than two languages. I speak two languages fluently and understand my parents language on let's say a medium level but I don't speak it that well. I now realise there's really no rush to learn more languages, because it takes time to understand nuances, cultural norms etc. Thank you for providing a nuanced, honest take!

Totally agree with all your points!! There are so many nuances in language learning, to take into consideration with the "number," where are your parents from? Where have you lived before, how much foreign language education/exposure did you get, etc? And LEVEL of language learning ability can not be quantified ultimately, as much as everyone wants to. A1 or B2, an A2 person sometimes can speak better than the B2 person, cuz they put in the speaking time more rather than writing and reading, etc. And getting cultural references, understanding dialect, idioms, you can express yourself perfectly in an informal situation, but politics are lost on you, where do we draw the line? Essentially, everyone draws the line for themselves and this is where we start to run into issues in the online language world. I like to consider myself a language enthusiast. Native English speaker, lived in Germany for 3 years, so I speak German, and now I've been living in France the past 2.5 years, so I speak French. Both to a high level but definitely not fluent. I'm finally trying to attack learning a language while not living in the country... Polish... and Polish is already intimidating as it is. Ahaha.

I love how you address the issue straight to the point. I enjoy learning languages because it allows me to connect and understand different people and cultures on their level, and get information and nuances not available in translations. Having grown up in Slovenia, almost everyone around me speaks at least 3 languages fluently, so knowing a few foreign languages was no big deal until I moved to Australia. By the age of 18 I was fluent in 5 languages, and now I'd say I "speak" 11 languages if we mean being able to read/write, hold most conversations, consume news and entertainment, etc. There are more I can get by in, ask for directions, say a few words and phrases, often what some online "polyglots" consider "speaking", and there are languages I have a passive understanding of but can't respond in that language. I've never met or seen any person of English-speaking background who speaks Slovene, Croatian, Bosnian or Serbian without making very crude grammatical mistakes a native speaker would never make, even though there are a lot of "polyglots" who claim to speak one of those languages. In regards, to Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian/Montenegrin, former Yugoslavians joke they're able to speak 4 languages, however I would only endorse it if they know all the differences between the 4 mutually intelligible standards. Most of them only know 1 standard because they never put an effort into learning another but have a complete passive understanding of it. I know 3 of them, and whilst I can't speak proper Montenegrin, I understand pretty much all of it. Nonetheless, I count them as 1 language as the standards are too similar. I understand pretty much everything in Macedonian, listening and reading, as I speak Serbian and Bulgarian, but I would respond either in Serbian or Bulgarian. We can still hold a conversation. Same goes for Azerbaijani - I have no trouble speaking with Azerbaijanis or reading Azerbaijani literature and publications, even the ones from Iran that had no formal education in the language, and they understand my Turkish. Being able to speak Malay I can understand Indonesian, but only the formal variant, as colloquial Indonesian is too different. I wouldn't say I speak Azerbaijani or Indonesian, even though I can read and understand the language. So it really is a good question what defines speaking a language?

100% agree. I won’t say names but there are a few that are straight up obnoxious and disrespectful.. The obnoxious RU-vid polyglot kinda you discuss here is like the equivalent of people who photoshop all of their photos and then try to rope people into buying their fitness program.

I love your sense of humour and your critical, cut-the-crap approach! Your channel is a gem and I'm happy I've found it. And yes, I'm adding this comment to help the YT algorithm to recommend it to another linguaphiles so you can monetise it and buy yourself a good microphone :)

I find that a good measure of the mastery of a language is the ability to make puns in it. They oftentimes necessitate a good understanding of the langage itself and the culture. If you can make your interlocutor laugh about something in their language you've probably mastered it well enough. I'd also love a fake polyglot video. It takes one of them speaking one of your languages to realize how shallow their understanding of it is.

Thank you for introducing me to the word Linguaphile! I HATE the word polyglot. It comes with so much competitiveness, arrogance and treats languages as qualitative. I grew up in a trilingual household and learned two other languages in school. As a kid I used to be insecure that I "only knew" 5 languages because of polyglots. But the more I focused on "getting" more languages, the worse I became at the ones that I was already learning. I've learned to throw away that selfish need to check off languages off of a list, and instead develop and honor my existing knowledge. Languages are too beautiful and nuanced to half-ass!

Linguaphile definitely feels more up my alley. I'm a linguistics student. I like language, I like learning their linguistics properties or historical development, but near the end of my high school years I realized that I wasn't particularly obsessed with a single language. I was fascinated with Japanese, but I realized quickly I wasn't that interested in the country's literature, culture or history. I got taught Latin and Ancient Greek in school (the Netherlands), and I loved both subjects a lot, but the one thing that I was really good at, and went almost naturally for me, was translating these texts with the help of a small grammar guide and a dictionary. I was able to quickly categorize concepts, see correlations between grammar concepts and words (seeing how some words developed in the Indo-European languages I knew) and I was able to apply those concepts to the other languages I was taught in school (French, German, English and Dutch). But then again, although I thought the mythology was cool, and although I thought Cicero's texts about law and politics, or Plato's texts about philosophy were really interesting, I never felt the same pull as when I for example had to dissect a complicated 5 line sentence into clauses and analyse it's verb forms. Or to find figures of speech and style in these texts. Stupidly enough, I wasn't brave enough at first to take the leap to study linguistics, and I spent a year doing civil engineering instead (being pushed by my mathematics grades and career prospects). But even there I quickly realized: I love analysing things, I love finding patterns. So I switched to linguistics. Linguistics is like the mathematics and physics of language in my opinion. It's a lot of theory, a lot of proofing and testing hypotheses. It is the hidden core that holds the rules and laws for all languages in the world. But different from the sciences, where these laws are what rule the world, I feel that linguistics is the other way around (my language philosophy, this is a debated topic of course). Languages rule linguistics but in order to understand language we take a top down approach and find the laws and theories and trim and adjust them so that eventually they are faultless. That is what I love about linguistics, and when I realized this, I knew that I wasn't on a journey to learn all languages in the world, or even to be fluent in more than 5. It was then that I realized that I wanted to know why languages works the way it does, and why it holds the power over me to write 5 paragraphs casually in a youtube comment about it while using it. I love learning languages, not in order to be fluent in them, but in order to tap a bit more into that wonderful mystery that I slowly start to grasp better and better.

So true about the Chinese. Merely saying, "thank you" to a waitress who knows nothing about your language ability for pouring a cup of tea for you can result in you nearly blushing from the heaps of praise they may give you for your speaking skills. It's not limited to language however: I've also been nearly given standing ovations for being able to pick up and use chopsticks.

Totally agree with this view. I often see one youtuber in particular who constantly receives praise for speaking one or a few phrases of a language and passing themselves off as someone who is fluent in many languages. While they may not ever say they are fluent, the acceptance of this praise without the humility is hard for me to listen to.

I know that I am about 8 months late; however, I do want to say a few things here, and hopefully you will see them! First off, I want to say that I love your perspective on this. Language IS beautiful and one of the many benefits of learning a language is to be able to communicate with a new group of people (therefore, learning their culture is hugely beneficial so that you further understand the language because you'll understand whys and hows within the language's structure). Hebrew has a great representation of the culture within the language (as I am sure you are fully aware; it is a difficult language to learn if you don't want to learn the culture with it). Secondly, I want to express my humble opinion that you don't HAVE to learn a language's culture in order to be conversational in a language; it is not always important. For example, (I may be a bit biased because I love his videos, but) XiaomaNYC just enjoys learning languages because of the exposure to new grammars, vocabularies, and ultimately, new challenges. To say he's insensitive to the cultures behind the languages is a bit unfair in my opinion, especially since he learns most of his languages in order to surprise the native speakers and learn things about them...but while speaking their language (that is why he eats whatever people's food in most of his videos). However, I do understand what you mean and I do respect your viewpoint. Third, I would like to confront the "competitive polyglot community" and how they use it for "monetary gain." You are absolutely 100% right. MOST of them are really just out there trying to take advantage of people. Just because THEY can "speak" 25 languages does not mean that anyone can, and it certainly does not mean that anyone can learn a language in 3 months, especially at a fluent level. However, like you said, there are influencers out there within the community that really do just want to help people learn languages. I think Olly Richards is a great example of this. However, in conclusion to this way-bigger-than-I-expected-it-to-be paragraph, I want to say that I do not think that dividing the language community into polyglots vs. linguaphiles is going to help anything. In fact, it may be a way to show your fanbase, but I do not think it would be good for anything else. I daresay that it is rare to find a polyglot that is NOT also a linguaphile. I believe that I fully understand your motives behind this, but it just does not sit well with me that "and you should too" is in the name of your video. The term polyglot is exactly that: just a term. It refers to a person that can speak multiple languages (specifically more than three; hyperpolyglot refers to more than twelve). It does not necessarily mean that they learn languages just to impress people (although there are those out there), it does not necessarily mean that they have an unhealthy obsession and only learn the languages just for the sake of learning languages (although there are those out there), and it does not necessarily mean that they do it for monetary gain (again, there are those out there). It just means that they can speak more than three languages. Your point still applies: to what extent can they speak these languages? This is where I believe the divide should be. Those that intentionally learn languages at a minimal level to claim it, then move on to the next, should definitely be separate from those that want to be able to speak a language at a native speaker level, fluent level, or even conversational level. If someone can only speak the language for a few specific tasks, I personally would not give them credit for speaking the language; however, there are people out there that would (possibly XiaomaNYC himself). There is definitely a difference, but I do not think that the terms polyglot and linguaphile are suitable opposites to distinguish between these two types of polyglots. In conclusion (for real this time), I challenge you to compose two words that distinguish between the two. P.S. - I absolutely love your channel! I love the educational and inspirational content that you make, and I definitely hope that you somehow maintain the inspiration to create such content. I understand how difficult it can be at times to make videos like you do. Please do not take this comment as negative criticism or as an insult to your video and/or channel; I am simply stating my opinion overall. I plan on starting a language channel here on RU-vid (yet another within the community, I know), so maybe a collaboration is within our futures! We shall see what the future brings. Have a great day/night/morning/evening/afternoon/random-time-that-you-read-this-comment!

I have mad respect for anyone who stays humble about their abilities, talks realistically about their passion, and attempts to keep their community a more inclusive and healthy place. Thanks for the video, would definitely love to see you a mock "fake polyglot video"! Currently trying to learn German here, wish me luck!

I don´t care for labels, to be honest. Just be honest about what your abilities actually are and then use whatever label you want and let people refer to you as they like. Labels make things more complicated than they really need to be.

Nice video, I like to be extremely fluent in the languages I learn (English and Swahili) rather than knowing many languages poorly. Because of my cultural understanding, people think I'm a native speaker, not because of my vocabulary or grammar. Yes make the video you suggested.

Okay. This is the second video of yours I'm come across and I really admire your sensibility and obvious intelligence. Subscribing. Also, you're very handsome.

I never liked the term “polyglot” just how I hate the term “cultured.” It has a sense of exclusivity, only for a certain social class or people who are privilege to opportunity to travel, live , and study somewhere else, and has an element of “phoniness” to it. I mean who is to say, that the person who spent years learning the language, country, and culture isn’t more “cultured” than the person who goes to a country, doesn’t speak the language and doesn’t have a clue about the culture. They just eat a bunch of food, do a bunch of activities, and post pictures online to receive praise, compliments, and envy from family, friends, and strangers online!

Yea, some people flex about the languages they speak while most people see how nuanced and difficult it is when it comes to learning multiple languages and trying to retain the languages. you made good points about the term polyglots and i think i resonate with that too. sometimes i ask myself do i really know or speak the languages i speak? im always hesitant when people ask me how many do i speak. it's weird and awkward to quantify and give accurate answers to a seemingly simple question. also recently i began thinking about the diff languages i learnt and how similar they are based on geographical, historical and sociological variables. Sometimes words from very different languages are very similar to each other and i find that fascinating. im not a linguist but you come off to me as the type of guy who could tell me all about that. for once in a long time im grateful that the yt algorithm actually gave me something cool on my feed

Excellent! I was getting a bit annoyed with "polyglot" RU-vid. Once you start down a language learning path, it's not too long before you run into video after video of absurd claims and cheap course hocking. Your seemingly simple self-identification change from "polyglot" to "linguaphile" is super important. Polyglotism (yesh!) sets a moving goal post which can never be settled and endlessly argued about, i.e. the "arms race" you referred to. Linguaphile gets to the heart of the matter in an elegant and simple manner: a person who loves languages. Yes, I'm a linguaphile and loving it! I couldn't hit subscribe fast enough! Thank you!

I like the term "polyglot" and even aspire(d?) to be one so I was curious about this video. I am so glad I watched it. I love the term, "linguaphile". I'll have to use that from now on XD. The thing about wanting to be a successful" polyglot is that I have never felt adequate enough to properly call myself one. Heck, English is my first language and I am not even satisfied entirely with it. So, removing this pressure to reach some unobtainable goal materialized out of the word "polyglot" has shifted some things for me in the best way. Thank you!

I guess for the most part I see it as a non-issue. Polyglot, multilingual, linguaphile...whatever floats your boat. Different strokes for different folks. To not sound like a complete hippie, I guess if you really wanted to break "linguaphile" down in an analytical fashion, one limitation would be that it excludes people who do speak several languages but do not share your (and my) enjoyment of them. People for whom there's no "phile" to their "lingua". Adults shuffled around from country to country for work, their children, etc. You could imagine a number of scenarios where people end up speaking a number of different languages to some degree of proficiency without necessarily caring all that much about it, and perhaps only reluctantly learning them. Another limitation is that "linguaphile" does not necessarily imply a plurality of languages. It could just as well cover the most snobbish, xenophobic, prescriptivist old fart in the Académie française who has no interest whatsoever in anything other than an idealised form of French as it could someone who enjoys learning a plurality of languages. So, depending on how you see yourself, there might be an issue in scope in that the term would include some people you don't relate to at all and exclude some people you might relate to. All of that being said, I do agree with the observation that there is a tendency to try to outcompete each other and that that has to some extent tainted the term "polyglot". I'm less convinced that any kind of linguistic engineering will remedy that. edit: I'd add that you can also observe people trying to outcompete each other in a single foreign language. The online Japanese learning community is notoriously bad for that. So that issue of competition isn't limited to a numbers game; it's also taken root with learners of a single language.

Just found your channel and you're really speaking my language (lol) I speak five languages and I hate to call myself a polyglot as well. You hit the nail on the head of being able to talk, not speak-- and not understanding the culture. I live in Japan after growing up in Brazil and Puerto Rico. Japan is the mecca of foreigners pretending they're fluent and people being too nice to tell them their Japanese is shit. It's a huge struggle every day and I'm so frustrated by so many I know who just gave up studying because they're calling themselves "fluent" after being able to order at a convenience store. Anyway, looking forward to your videos :) New fan

I identify as a polyglot because it sounds cool. I speak Filipino, English, Portuguese, and Spanish. I left almost all of the online, polyglot groups I'd been a part of two years ago. It helped me enjoy language learning better.

This is a great point! I usually do use the term polyglot just for convenience since people kinda know what it means, but I always make a point to distinguish between languages I speak "fluently" (by which I mean competent at an advanced academic/professional level), "conversationally" (can handle most topics fine but don't ask me to get into religion, politics, literature, etc.), ones where I know only the most basic formalities and say basic verbs and that kind of thing, and ones that I read reasonably competently but can't speak practically at all. I think it's super important that we be realistic about our real proficiency and don't feed the stereotype that languages can be picked up rapidly by superhumans and nobody else.

This is so cool! I love languages and how they work and how complex they are, I am not fluent in anything but English. I've thought before I have to be fluent in some other language to prove how much I love language but this is awesome! I love all languages, I can read Greek, I know random Hebrew words, I can read and understand Italian easily, same with Spanish, and I don't speak any Arabic or mandarin but I love knowing stuff about it. Ahhhh I'm glad to see someone who has the same view.

I usually say language enthusiast! Though I also never know how to respond when someone asks me how many languages I speak. I've studied French for half my life and can speak it fairly well (about B2), and I've studied Spanish, Italian, and German to about the A2 level, so I might say I speak 2 languages, though even that would be a stretch if someone asked me to articulate a complex idea in French. Then there are the languages that I've studied sporadically over the years in bursts of curiosity (Greek, Mandarin, Arabic, Japanese), but that has not resulted in any level of fluency in them, just an idea of how they work and some greetings/phrases. I have a goal to learn the 6 languages of the UN by the end of my life to some level of conversational ability, but that's something I'm allowing myself a lifetime to accomplish. I don't usually exist in the polyglot ecosystem on youtube (unless you count Paul from LangFocus whose language profiles I still find endlessly entertaining). I am impressed by the people who describe themselves as polyglots and have learned some helpful tips from their videos, but in general I'm just a hobbyist and don't have the organizational skills or motivation to learn languages as methodically and intensively as they usually recommend. Typically, I just try to maintain a relaxed relationship to my language learning so as to not burn myself out and lose interest (which I am wont to do with hobbies I push too hard in). Sooo yes, not a polyglot, no desire to be a polyglot, just a hobbyist and enthusiast.

I'm a hyper polyglot giga chad and I can speak languages that you wold never think that they exist

I'm a fiinn and speak Finnish fluently. When I was in school I was taught English, Swedish and German as foreign languages, even though Swedish was the second domestic language. The German was there because most of books in finnish unis were German when I went to school. When I started to study in an uni most of those books were replaced with English ones. All through this the television's foreign programs were mostly English (Monty Python anyone) and as I was hooked both on computers and SF, so I was also reading lots of English. Fast forward to 90's and I'm working internationally in telecommunications and everybody is speaking English. Even in Nordic meetings the danes & skånish people said that no-one can understand their native speak so they spoke English. Once I stumbled on a dutch newspaper and realised that I could read it. Between English, Swedish and German I had the vocabulary.

Hey! Love this label instead of polyglot. I'm a native-level English, Mandarin and Cantonese speaker. Passively I can comprehend virtually 100% of any type of media (written or spoken) in these three standard langs and many of their dialects (even Classical Chinese!). I've taught English and Chinese professionally. I majored in Japanese in uni, passed JLPT N1, went on exchange in Japan for 12 months and never went back. I still read Japanese material from time to time, mostly novels, manga and news. I learned French throughout childhood because of the official bilingual policy in Canada, but I didn't actually know the language until I was 20 when I moved to Quebec in order to acquire it. In a year I reached advanced fluency (in the Quebecois accent too!), passed DALF-C1 and now teach French as a second language. I started learning Korean consciously as a foreign language at age 13 listening to songs and watching TV shows. I passed TOPIK 6 and trained as a literary translator from Korean to English. Now I translate literature from various languages. I lived in Kazakhstan for 3 years to learn Kazakh but picked up Russian along the way. These are the two I'm actively working on improving. Russian I'm at B1 and Kazakh A2.

Great video. I hate being asked how many languages I speak. The response and how you describe yourself can depend on who you're talking to. Most people around me don't speak a second language outside of education so I would list the languages I can have a conversation in as the languages I speak but I'm happy to grade myself or clarify that I'm only fluent in English etc. if they have an interest in languages. There is an expectation that your goal in a language is to be fluent but if you really just want to say hello in 50 languages - go for it. Being honest and sticking to our own goals and interests is important.

I'm legit just a bilingual bloke. I can speak and write (with equally as many spelling errors in each language) German and English on a C2 level(native speaker-ish) . Getting there was no quick endeavour. German is my mother tongue ...so let's say I've been speaking it for about 25 years and English was the first foreign language I learned in school but It wasn't until I was 15 that I really started using the language in my day to day live to a more complex extend and even then it took me some time to handle all the the grammatical and phonetical nuances. To get where I am now I had to keep failing and correcting myself until the correct sentence structures became second nature to me . I am currently learning French and that brings with it an entirely new set of obstacles to be overcome. None the less I am very glad to have become as fluent in english as I did. Because if I hadn't ,then some of the most interesting conversations of my life might have never happened .

I appreciate your take on this. It’s very refreshing, and I’d put it in the same idea (but opposite delivery) of Language Simp’s channel. His channel is entirely satire to sort of make fun of what we’re seeing on RU-vid regarding languages, which is refreshing as well. It’s nice to see that you are willing to admit that it’s kind of just a hard tooting of your own horn to say Polyglot. I, too, love the idea of knowing bits of languages, because they all have different things they offer to me. I look forward to digging through your channel to see more takes!😄

I totally agree with you.. I was thinking the same about the term "POLYGLOT"

I’m a linguophile for sure, I also studied linguistics (and literature) but specifically Spanish in uni, and I have also learned bits of more than 10 languages. For me it’s the joy of seeing the world through different lenses and learning to pronounce them, it’s like going back to be a kid and make many mistakes until boom! You can say it! And write it, and understand it! The beauty of small steps. May be silly, but my multilingual playlist has so many languages I don’t understand, but the variety in sounds (linguistically speaking) it’s my happiness ^^ Ok, I should stop 🤣 Really liked your approach!

I love this. I'm turned off by language-learning RU-vid in general, but this hit the spot. I'm native in English, and speak Chinese and Spanish. Mandarin's really taught me what a long journey language-learning really can be. I can have full friendships in it, see a doctor, have sex, read children's novels (dictionary in hand), watch TV (although I rarely do), and discuss regional politics in Mandarin. Do I feel like I'm good enough? Aaaagggggh, noooooo. Despite all that I'm only studying for an intermediate test in it, probably due to the relatively short time I've spent in Mandarin class(?). The really rich vein of literature is still untapped as well, and a very long-term goal for me. However, I was discussing with a friend how despite all that, now I feel like I have the "feeling" of Chinese, which has taken sooo long to achieve. Even then, especially when writing, I can hear the awkwardness of my phrasing at times, as I lack the economy of native speakers. Spanish? I learned it in high school with an incredible teacher. I know I could study hard for 6 months, and be reading/speaking/writing all at a higher level than my Chinese, but with so much less cultural fluency. Huh, this video and my comment have made me wonder. I used to want to learn a new language every 5 years, and have been frustrated I've been stuck on Mandarin for so long. That's been primarily because I've lived in China/Taiwan for the past 6 years! However, depth of learning is so effin' cool. Maybe I don't need to speak 8 languages or whatever, but really learn what I know well, and learn new ones if they're useful to my work (hello Korean).

I’m happy more people are talking about this and bringing the convo about language learning back down to earth.

Technically, being polyglot means you’re fluent in more than 1 language. The actual question here is : what is fluency and where do we draw the line? And I think it goes as far as questioning if you can consider yourself as fluent in your native language because I think it’s wrong to consider anybody who always lived in their native language as necessarily good in their language (or more competent that a non-native who deeply studied the language for example). I found a lot of people on the Internet who didn't know how to speak proper French or English by constantly making mistakes despite being supposedly “good” in their language due to the fact their were natives. I consider myself fluent in both French and English but even though I've learned Japanese for quite a few years in total and I can understand day-to-day sentences, I don't consider myself as fluent in this language and I'm sure I'm not. I would gladly call myself a polyglot who knows 3 languages though.

YES! Finally an HONEST video of being multilingual. I like to say I am multilingual, but I basically am trilingual, with Finnish, English and German (and Swedish, but it comes out stutteringly and I have to think about what I say before I say it). I can speak English as well as my native tongue, maybe even better cuz my native tongue is freaking Finnish lol, but German is close second after English. I majored in Korean in uni, but I am really bad at it, i understand very little and can speak even less. Spanish and Italian I understand somewhat, Swedish is better now after I lived in Denmark, which I also somewhat understand if people speak slowly and encunciate haha. I cannot pronounce Danish still and I can only say basic things, but it is better than what I knew when I moved to Denmark.

I can read a newspaper article in four languages effortlessly (English, Tamil, Hindu, French) and manage in two more (Malayalam and Sanskrit). But I wouldn't dream of calling myself a polyglot. As you said it is commercial interest that is driving most of these people. They upload variations of the same video for years.

Thanks for sharing this video. I think you raise some good points. I'm always a bit doubtful when I see someone on youtube claiming to know 5 or more languages. I would say I confidently speak just 2 languages. English, my first, and Spanish, specifically Latin American Spanish, as I've been living solidly in Chile for the last 4 years and visiting since 2011. I think it takes years of actually living in the country to not only learn the rules and pronunciation but also learn all the jokes, stories, history etc of a particular place. Even after so long speaking Spanish, I have to admit to really only being comfortable with Chilean Spanish. Colloquial Spanish from Venezuela, Cuba, etc can be really hard for me, and European Spanish is still super challenging (spoken, not written). So when people say they speak Spanish, that's a pretty narrow definition. Spanish, like English, has huge regional differences in terms of vocab and pronunciation.

beta polyglot: languagejones chad polyglot: languagesimp

The chief problem is that speaking/not speaking is a binary, you either speak a language or you don't, whereas in reality languages and language in general is so multifaceted and so heavily context dependent that the binary split simply does not work.

i see the term "polyglot" as simulataneous systematic language learning without obtaining native-level proficiency. they sacrifice the opportunity of understanding many aspects of a language (and culture) truly and fully by prioritising and focusing on the number or quantity of languages. this is instead of focusing on knowing a familiar one even better based on what limited time resources they have. but, i also would hesitate in refering to the term that ends in "-phile" because of some association with "love" and fetishes, so would seek a different term instead. lol and i vaguely remember there being a distinction between multilingual versus polyglot. if i recall, multilingual has a more in-depth understanding and fluency than a polyglot. whereas a polyglot infers more languages with a shallower understanding. but also, the superficial definition of mulilingual could also mean merely saying something in multiple languages, but could be misleading on their depth of said languages. when i think of polyglot i somehow think of someone who mastered some sort of language matrix trick like a star trek universal translator with flash cards. they may know how to say it but not really live in the words to say it more instinctually. edit: also it seems that there is more ego, narcisicm or bragging on the number of languages by polyglot culture and how people may respond when they show off their skills. it becomes a numbers game. you can see this on many countless youtube videos there are on foreigners "shocked" by how well white guys speak their language so fluently.

I'm an enthusiastic amateur that has been interested in language and linguistics for over 30 years. I just came across your channel and find your content a breath of fresh air. Thank you :)

7:08 I consider myself bilingual. I'm native french and learned english through school and mostly by reading and listening to english content for more than a decade. I count the languages in which I'm able to understand 99+% of what is said in most situations, even for very technical subjects, because that's what matters to me. I don't really care if I don't pronounce stuff perfectly when speaking, or if the way I phrase my sentences isn't really how a native would do it, as long as I can get my point across that's good enough for me. I also know some spanish because that's the 2nd foreign language I picked in school, and I know enough to be able to buy stuff all in spanish. Actually just happened last week that a spanish couple were buying stuff in my neighbourhood's grocery store and where looking for the milk, and I was able to understand that's what they were looking because they were talking in spanish to each other about that. And I could tell them "la leche está aquí", it's very simple stuff, but I guess that's still something. And I've been learning mandarin for 4 month, so I'm still a beginner here. So yeah, if right now someone asks me how many languages I speak, I'll answer 2, french and english, because the other 2 don't fit my standart of "understanding everything I hear". My answer might be different in a few years when I'll be better at mandarin and might study more spanish again, but that's mine right now.

Yes! Thank you! People don't understand why I can never answer with a number when faced with the question "so how many languages do you speak" . Some people prefer trying reaching an academic level in one language which is harder than learning the "basic" in 3 other languages. Both are good but should not be compared in an arbitrary metric of "a number of languages". BTW this logic should also extend to "ancient/dead languages" ( e.g. Knowing 5 hieroglyphs and 5 grammar rules is different to fluently reading a papyrus in hieraric.)

7:13 That was a nice joke, but yes, I am Swiss and I like (learning) languages. Of course the word "polyglot" impresses a lot and until recently I haven't even counted the languages I have learnt or am learning to some degree. I don't even know why one should use a specific word like polyglot, multilingual or linguaphile for that matter. Just say "I like languages" or "I like learning languages" instead of "I AM something" :)

I'm always terribly cautious when clicking on videos of self-proclaimed polyglots because of what you mentioned here. It tends to centralize around people who are a tad too confident about their skills and who tend to oversell how incredibly easy and fast one could learn a full new language. I like to use multilingual for that reason, as I feel like it is less attached to this negative association I have with polyglots. More often, though, I'd simply say I know on different levels a few languages, or I simply wouldn't mention it unless there is any reason for it. Also, I love you using linguaphile! I wouldn't use that so much for myself, as I'm not as much interested in learning languages (with some exceptions), as learning a way to explore a country's culture more organically. I love learning languages not for the sake of it, but for how different my experience with people speaking those languages will be.

La gente que afirma hablar varios idiomas debe grabar los videos en esos idiomas. (Like if you speak Spanish).

Thanks for your honesty! I'm native English, but I speak//read a reasonable amount of French. I never wanted to learn any other language (1 honestly was overwhelming enough). But I became interested in Irish culture, songs dance folklore the like, and I wanted to know what they were saying...but I definitely do not say I can fluently speak it. I also started learning ASL because my son has hearing loss, and it's opened my eyes up to how just a little bit of ASL can make so much a difference in the life someone who has hearing loss and speaks ASL.* But I honestly cannot imagine taking on any more languages!!!

2:52 *IS ME* when someone asks if I'm fluent and I rattle off a list of things I can and can't do. I passed B2 in French as well. It's the one I really claim as is my default when not thinking in English. I've started Spanish during the pandemic and I'm probably a high A2 but I get so much for free from French that it makes me want to downgrade my estimation. I'm not as put off by the polyglots because I'm in on the joke. That their accent may be really bad or they are living on the predictable phrases and their responses: 1. Where did you learn ______? I learned it ______. 2. Have you been to _______? Yes/No_____ 3. Is your family _____? No___ 4. In general, I avoid the words fluency and polyglot and prefer to talk about how I can consume and participate in the culture.

The most reasoned discussion of polyglottism I've heard.

your content is very refreshing and reassuring. even though french is my native language i wouldn't say i'm fluent because i learn new words and expressions everyday and there are so many accents and dialects i have yet to fully understand. the youtube "polyglot" community seems to treat languages as a checklist and learning as something that ends once you can say you speak it confidently. i think we're all as humans perpetually learning and that involves languages. i express my deepest feelings the best when i write poems in korean, but having a full conversation in korean would make me so stressed out and i'd make tons of mistakes. i feel like i can express myself formally the best in spanish but my casual speech and knowledge of slang is really lacking. the language i use the most is english but i don't feel satisfied with how imprecise it is, and the precision one is able to achieve whilst writing in arabic is something i am seeking as i'm learning this language. french is the language i speak when i go outside and what ties me to my childhood and family as the first ever language i was exposed to, but i feel like a baby everytime i ask someone for the meaning of a proverbial expression which i took literally or the many times when i don't understand someone's tone. all of these languages complete each other and i am in a constant pursuit of understanding and being understood- so studying languages is incredibly fulfilling and helpful but the more i learn the more i want to go even deeper.

There are some people in the polyglot community with good self study tips, which were helpful to me years ago but I've hardly paid attention to most of them in years. The thing about how we use a language is so vital too, for me I literally majored in Spanish in college but have never actually been to a Spanish-speaking country so I can read academic history and do basic US customer service interactions but I'm trash at actually socializing. Meanwhile I've lived in Korea for years so I'm quite good at socializing in Korean, parsing my electric bill, skimming instruction manuals, understanding the local accents of my region, but still struggle to read children's books without constant reference to a dictionary. And meanwhile people are still the most impressed by my phrasebook Mandarin or my ability to sort of read French? It's weird.

Thank you. Every time, I tell people I learned THAT many languages, they assume I also speak them very well, which I don't. But I LOVE that after a year of Doulingo Russian, I can make some words, that my Russian coworkers understand. I love to polish up my Mandarin after my Mandarin trauma 15 years ago. I'm not a polyglot, as the skill level is constantly changing. But I do consider myself a language enthusiast.

Thank you for this refreshingly honest and more down-to-earth perspective on language learning. Not sure what else to call this polyglot poser frenzy, and its repercussions on those who put faith in their claims, other than "polyglotitis." I'll be a happy user of "linguaphile" from this point onward.

After watching this video, I can say that I definitely believe I am a linguaphile. And if being a polyglot means being able to speak many lnaguages, let's say, 4 or so, then I perhaps was already a polyglot even before actually learning languages since I already speak 5 languages (definitely not 100% fluent though) while growing up. Right?

Yay! I can and do pray in Hebrew, too. Apart from that, I'm not really multilingual, unfortunately. This video is very much to the point and offers a healthy perspective! Thank you!

This is an interesting conversation, I did observe quite a few things in my time in the "polyglot community" in my teenhood. I agree the so-called "polyglot community" is rife with scams and obsession. I used to be caught up in that myself. For a long time I considered myself an "aspiring polyglot", because I have the goal to speak at least 7 other languages and travel the world before I leave this earth, but perhaps I should change this to "linguaphile". A lot of people either want to learn as many languages as possible or want to learn their top 5-10 favorite languages, but spend a lot of time looking for inspiration or studying general stuff rather than taking the time to study what will benefit them most. Would I be considered a polyglot? Not really, even in the most loose sense of the word I'm barely bilingual (Native English but a good understanding of Spanish). Do I want to be a polyglot? Also absolutely, it's a goal I have. Would I be considered a linguaphile? Even though I'm not very fluent in many languages, yes. Language students need cultural fluency in addition to linguistic fluency. People forget this. I'm studying Arabic right now, and it requires me to understand Arab and Islamic culture to fully comprehend. And if I were to pick up Japanese again, I have an advantage in understanding some of the culture. A lot of people can be linguistically fluent without being culturally fluent. This is why to an extent, absolute fluency is a myth really. Culture is more dynamic and evolves quicker than language, although language plays catch-up quickly. Most of the "RU-vid Polyglots", you may notice, are usually English or Spanish speakers that can pick up the Romance and Germanic languages quickly because of similar cultures and grammar, and they might have Russian, Japanese or Chinese under their belt too because those are the most accessible "exotic" languages. The few polyglots/linguaphiles who speak Arabic, Hebrew, Greek or the agglutinative languages, really almost any other language, either speak those languages natively, have a job/life situation requiring fluency in the language or are deeply fascinated with some aspect of the language. I've seen a lot of videos where people talk about how they had to give up on non-Indo-European languages because it was "harder than they expected", when really they had difficulty with cultural fluency or studied the linguistics ineffectively. (Usually this language is Japanese or Finnish.) Also I'd love to see a video on how to fake speaking multiple languages! Even though I know that they are usually fake or overexaggerated, I love watching people show off language skills because hearing the same voice using different phonotactics and intonations is interesting to me, which is why I try to watch quality "speak multiple language" videos. I kind of considered doing one myself but I'm not that great at it and I kind of want to see if I can "catch" some people too.

True, so many people only know the mere basics like introducing themselves and they already count that as a language they fully “speak”. I fully speak dutch, English and Spanish. What mean by that, is that I can fully participate in almost every topic in those languages.

This is a great nuanced perspective. I am going to embrace the term linguaphile because I am definitely not a polyglot, but am fascinated with language in general. Thank you! 🙏😃🙏

This is the best video on this topic I've seen. You're not out to bash or take a moral high-horse stance, but rather, offer your views in a respectful manner, subtley calling out the worst offenders and not coming at anyones life. Love it!

Personally I identify as a "language learner". Too many things get in the way or crop up for me to achieve basic conversational fluency in any given language - I was doing well in French, but started dating someone who speaks a low-resource language, so I've been throwing myself at that over the past 7 years. I feel like I'm almost A2, maybe... Decent grasp of grammar, but lacking the right vocabulary to express myself very well. Once I graduate from uni and have more free time, I want to take myself from "language learner" to "wannabe polyglot". I fully agree with everything said in the video, but I ignore the toxic content culture in regards to definitions of words. To me, "multilingual" is someone who speaks multiple languages at native/c2 level, such as children who grew up in mixed language families or had a language like English used at school but others at home. "Polyglot" is someone who learned multiple languages to conversational fluency (which might be shite compared to native, but they would be able to talk to natives at or beyond phrasebook level). This is where I aspire to be, because I love talking to people and want to have more chances to have conversations with people and learn their culture. Linguaphile is like "language learner" but more academic - instead of taking new Duolingo courses for funsies, you're also studying facts and aren't necessarily interested in being conversational. Basically, for me the word implies the background or intent, so "leisurely aspiring polyglot" makes the most sense as it implies taking my time and becoming conversational once I have time to spend on it.

Much respect. Love the mentality.

THANK YOU. From a similar perspective, I loathe the question "how many instruments do you play?" That depends so much. What do you consider "play?" People's obsession with turning something beautiful and fun into a parlor trick is troublesome. Not everything is a competition or a numbers game. I appreciate your take on this so much.

The truth is, the world is full of people who can speak multiple languages. They have a use for them, whereas we, in the USA, don't really need them. I lived in Europe for 9 years, and found that most Germans born since WWII spoke English. Additionally, most living close to the French/Belgium/Luxemburg borders could get around in French fairly well. Most Swiss people can speak 2 languages at a minimum because they have 4 official languages IIRC. English isn't one of them, but most speak it. During many trips to the Netherlands, I never met a Nederlaender who could not speak English (and German in a life or death situation). Many Italians in the Sud Tirol region prefer to speak German over Italian. A good many people raised in the Soviet Union could speak 3 or more languages fairly fluently (their native tongue, mandatory Russian, and a good many quietly learned English as a silent protest against having to learn Russian in school). I learned to speak German well enough to travel and have basic conversations. My measure of proficiency was when Germans actually responded to my bad German in German, rather than replying in English. I can make it through polite greetings, thank someone for their assistance, and ask if there is anyone around who might be able to speak English in a half dozen or so languages. This doesn't make me a polyglot by any means, but works very well as a tourist. But the true polyglots are the sort who might amaze you. There were large department stores in Germany and France where the clerks wore flags of the countries whose languages they spoke. Some minimum wage type workers were fluent in 4 or more languages. Then there were the carnival workers at the various theme parks, similarly fluent in many languages. A number of us who've watched the hyperglot channels have sort of figured out the conversations are pretty scripted, but that doesn't mean there are not true polyglots out there.

First of all, this is the second video of you I watched and I love the factual and fun style. I myself identify as binational (as in literally two passports) and bilingual, but multiethnic descent. My wife is an immigrant and also multiethnic, so our kid is hyper-multiethnic ;) and bilingual - we actually speak three languages at home. I often come across as a fake polyglot because I dabbled in a lot of languages and hang around a lot with immigrants, but I only speak my two original languages fluently and my wife's native language semi-fluently (B1, now starting a B2 course), plus some A1-A2 in a bunch of other languages.

"Conversational" is a decent term to use. I'm a native speaker of English and I consider myself "conversationally fluent" in Spanish. History or philosophy textbooks in Spanish might be a bit too challenging to read efficiently. Another term I use is "I can get around town in [language]" and my two of those are Mandarin and Vietnamese, while basically? being conversational? It does depend on who I'm talking to, and what it's about. I almost made it through a whole haircut in Vietnamese a month ago just talking about what family we had, if we had girlfriends, gonna get married, etc. That was a conversation, though. I think that makes me conversational. But not conversationally fluent, like Spanish, where I feel I could express anything about myself/how I feel about any subject. I took a year off from living in Asia and my boss in WA state was so impressed by what I put on my resume, he always told everyone "JON SPEAKS FOUR LANGUAGES, FLUENTLY!" (that's not what I put) and I always had to kind of "haha no no no"...I did check guests in in Mandarin a couple of times at that hotel job ("swimming pool" became "swim place"). But compared to the average American who can count to ten in Spanish and say Hola and Gracias, I mean, yeah, I think I can pretty flatly just say "I speak four languages." Not to put down my countrymen and our educational system's lack of emphasis on foreign language learning.

Ich danke dir. Du sprichst mir aus dem Herzen.

I was raised from birth to almost 3 in an exclusive French-speaking home by my aunt (mom’s sister) who was multi-lingual English, French, Romanian Italian, German, Spanish! Auntie was married to a Parisiene whose mother/inlaw was Belgique & almost exclusively Spoke French! Went back home to my mom dad & older brother when we all 4 moved to Japan. Dad was In the Air Force & we travelled. In Japan my family spoke English & mom spoke French with me (from the same multilingual home as my aunt)! We had Japanese native speaker mothers helper who only spoke to us in Japanese! Mom had another kid while in Japan -(another brother) so if I wanted to talk to a female it was likely to be in Japanese (we lived in town- not on the base for 2/3 years there!). By 6 years old we moved to Syracuse & I went to be interviewed to attend my first school & I spoke sentence strings including a few French a few Japanese & a few English words! Oh plus my family is Jewish & my parents were teaching children’s Hebrew school when we moved into the base from the village! So I occasionally threw in a random Hebrew word I was exposed to! Early on I dreamt in French! The school in Syracuse made me wait a year to start- while my family only spoke to me in English & had me watch only English TV! In middle & High School I studied Latin & could also receptively understand Italian TV- like News or Soccer Games! In 12th grade I added French class & became immediately flooded with perfectly accented French & conversed fluently with our teacher! I recall large amounts of spoken Japanese! I learned Medical Spanish from my hospital patients (I am a nurse & nurse midwife!) I claim English fluency! I learnt some conversational Korean & Farsi & Mandarin from friends & Yiddish from pregnant patients! Oh I learnt Swedish for a year living in Stockholm & working in the Serafima Laseretet & Suder Shukhuset! I only picked up a bit of Polish after a summer there as a student as I hated my time there & could get by on my French! I actually studied German in my PhD program but dropped out as I disliked the professor intensely! (A NAZI?) What do you think? Getl Kasper

Your technical knowledge of linguistics is impressive, and you explain things in a simple enough manner that I can understand most of what you're saying. I tried French in secondary school, and all the grammar sentence structure was too much. I didn't even like learning about English grammar, as talking without knowing about sentence structure seemed fine for me. I watched another video of yours were you described the way native speakers are usually described as speaking too quickly, and that they shorten phrases. You described a way of learning how to do that, but it seemed very difficult to me. Lastly, people with advanced degrees - especially in more technical fields - tend to have above average to high IQ's, which enables them to learn things quicker, and at much deeper levels. For example, Oppenheimer, the WWII physicist, is reputed to have learned Dutch in six weeks, so he could deliver a lecture about physics in that language.

I feel like this too. I'm so glad to hear you express it.

Absolutely love this take. This is much more honest about the realities of learning multiple languages, especially as an adult, and being honest about it does more to encourage others in their own journey than most of the stuff that just naturally makes people feel less than.