Not to be rude, but "Palerma" means a stupid, clueless and bit rude person, in Brazil (in São Paulo state at least). I don't know why that is, but I think italian immigrants don't like to be confused with Sicilians, and they particularly dislike people from Palermo - "mala carne". The association with mafia types and xenophobia also lead to italians and sicilians alike being called "carcamanos" - the thieves, conartists and bickering types. This xenophobic sentiment is almost gone now, but it was quite common during the mass migration and the conflicts that inevitably happened during that era.
Yeah, I thought that guy was gonna make everything up but turns out he’s just a dude who’s semi decent at languages and not afraid to put himself out there
Say what you will about Xiaoma, but what he's doing in this video is pretty damn inspirational to me. Most language learners are terrified of putting themselves out there and making mistakes in front of natives, but he shows us that there's not much to be afraid of. You make some mistakes, you look kind of silly, then you move on. It's a fantastic way to learn. I think if he would just drop the clickbait titles/thumbnails, and call his videos something like, "how to practice a new language without fear," he would be much more accepted within the language learning community.
Keep at it. It took me about four months of Duolingo to be comfortable speaking Spanish at all. What changed wasn't the time I put into it.. It was the planned trip to South America for my brother's wedding. Connecting flight in Panama was a trial by fire for me. My brother wasn't there to bail me out and I had to navigate getting myself dinner and then getting onto my next plane. I successfully failed in begging a food vendor into selling me an empanada after closing, and was able to get airport security to tell me I wasn't allowed to smoke in the airport, and I wasn't allowed to step outside to smoke if I wanted to come back in. A miserable experience? Sure. But I made my flight without getting locked up abroad. I built up my courage enough that when I finally landed in Ecuador, I didn't rely on my brother to translate. I just struggled through 😂
@@baronmeduseI used Do not recommend-function for the reason that I thought the content was muck, because of those titles. I don't think I'm the only person who does that, there's just too much crap being pushed.
This is why I have mixed feelings about Xiaomanyc, on the one hand he does clickbaity stuff and I think gives some of the wrong impression & expectations about language learning and I think has some turn-offs for his videos. But, there are times where he's just showing you don't need to be great with a language, you can make mistakes, you can mess up but it's fine just get out there and speak it, because you will still be able to vibe with people and they aren't going to be offended because you get some leeway, I did it in Vietnam when I thanked an older woman in an inappropriate way, she found it hilarious but her daughter was going "no no no, not like that". Admittedly, I was still too scared to properly use it. But he also showcases some languages people never heard of or have not considered learning and shows it's something a random dude from New York can learn and I think the emphasis should be that these languages are accessible. I would really love "how to practice a new language without fear" and "this is how I find these obscure languages to be accessible" to be the greater emphases of his videos rather than, "white guy surprises restaurant owner with Swahili" and the video being a restaurant owner being like "wow, he speaks Swahili, your Swahili is great", even if he keeps the shitty clickbait titles.
@@sae2705 Swahili, when it comes to pronunciation, isn't a demanding language. It has some grammatical things, uncommon to the English speaker, but when it comes to a basic conversation you can learn it in a day.
That's so true! And how emotional he got with his language being spoken... I loved it. Now I'm noticing do to this video Sicilian is really similar to Spanish in some ways... Inclusively more than Italian... I'm really impressed. 🫡
29:14 Unrelated to the topic of of the video, but I love the writing on the wall of the shop! It says: "You can't buy happiness but you can always buy a GELATO and it's pretty much the same thing".
Question, is the writing in standard Italian or Sicilian? I’m a native Spanish speaker so I was able to read and understand it fully. From watching this video I’ve noticed I find it much easier to understand spoken Sicilian than standard Italian
@@SmokeyChipOatley That's standard italian. As a spanish speaker you might be able to understand many dialects better than standard italian because they have drawn a bit from spanish from the times of the council of Italy.
@@KateikyoshiDX - Depends on the kanji. If it's in romanji, hiragana or katakana it's the easiest. A lot of kanji makes sense when characters are combined. Sometimes you can understand the meaning, without knowing the pronunciation. Such as deatta (come across, encounter). It groups to depart and meeting together. So that makes sense. Or mori (forest). Groups 3 trees together. You could get the idea of it.
@@arealgoodguy I meant pure vocal input from natives. It is a mess sometimes. It is much easier to speak on the basic level with basic grammar than to listen to the native full speed speech. 森 example is too basic. There are not that many cases like this if any at all. Look at this word for example 磁石. Idk how 磁 makes sense. Idk how 尋 from 尋常 makes sense. Idk how 賛 from 賛成 makes sense. The list is infinite. You are better off focusing on a kanji's radical and some key parts to distinguish from other kanjis with the same radical. No logic here, just a trained eye. No need to disassemble the kanji and try making sense out of it, it is a waste of time
@@KateikyoshiDX True. But japanese is one of the easiest languages to listen to. They speak in moras, even if they do it quickly, it is still easy to catch the moras in their speech. Atleast in more common japanese like standard and kansaiben. I don't know what it sounds like elsewhere.
I love how positive and respectful you are in you commentary videos! Xiaoma gets a lot of hate, people love to point out all the flaws instead of focusing on the things that he acctually gets right. Good job! And very cool to hear Sicilian!
He gets the hate because he lies. In some of the smaller languages he makes it seem like he knows them better than he does. It's the misrepresentation of what he actually knows that is the problem.
@@anlingitalia I haven't seen that many Xiaoma videos, no more than 10 certainly, but I don't think I've seen him say or even imply this. Unless I'm just missing it I would only assume this accusation comes from people assuming more than he asserts via his titles, which, like any other YT video, is generally clickbait.
Of all these UA-cam polyglots I like Xiaoma the most. Even if his "fluency" is often an overestimation, he is still pretty inspirative for people interested in learning.
I'm a Filipino, and I love Sicilian language, I have an interest to learn Sicilian since when I was a college student. Now, I'm learning the Palermitan variety, but I'm also interested to learn other varieties of Sicilian language.
Ari focuses mostly on learning practical phrases and words more than going into the more traditional grammatical and vocabulary methods. This allows him to spend 3-5 weeks working on a language and then put it into practice. In fact there is nothing wrong with that, it in fact mimics exactly how people naturally learn languages as a children. One of the keys is that he has to immerse himself and challenge himself fully. The less surrounded by a language and the less authentic speakers you interact with, the slower the learning will be.
My girlfriend's mom some years ago asked a family member that's from Sicily, to talk to her because she understood Italian (we're Portuguese), and she was stunned after hearing Sicilian and not understanding a single word. 😅
I've been to Sicily earlier this year and I fell in love. My mom's family is from Messina region. It was a fantastic experience. Unfortunately there's not much material online to learn Sicilian.
It's probably best to first learn Italian, if you learn Italian you can use everywhere and then you learn the regional language you like most, and you will learn it in Italian.
you can't find anything online because Sicilian is too broad a term: the Palermo language is different from Catania or Messina (my favorite). just like wanting to learn UK accents. but which one? Cockney, Geordie, Scouse? it's a bit like that
I love the reactions, it reminds me of the times when people have tried speaking my native language and are (usually) less than accurate. But we can always appreciate someone who is trying to actually learn. 🖤
This guy isn’t a polyglot by any means, and I think where people have problems with him is that he kind of blurs the lines a bit. His channel is more or less a travel, food, and culture series with a niche for focusing on the languages of the groups and places he visits. Due to the nature of his show, his audience is very broad. On one hand, you have more serious language learners getting angry saying that he’s misleading and claiming to be something by he’s not. On the other hand you have novice language learners and/or the rest of his audience who thinks he’s a linguistic savant. I watch his content for what it is and I enjoy it quite a bit. I think there are far worse examples of self-proclaimed polyglots on the platform.
Yes, i speak Mandarin and watched one of his videos. He'll say the most simple sentence in Mandarin, then the English translation will be long and convoluted. making it seem like what he's saying was an extremely complex, vibrant sentence but it'll be directly translated to "i like" and there are edits where he obviously didnt understand. It is quite annoying, but to sell his channel he needs to pretend his skill is better than it is. Nobody wants to watch a channel of a white guy learning Chinese, they wanna see someone fluent. So he pretends his level is much higher than it is
@@douggieharrison6913 Yeah, I've noticed that too. I can't speak for his Mandarin at all, first because I know nothing about Mandarin, and second because I know Mandarin is his most studied language. But I've caught on to the same thing you have in his other videos where he spends maybe a few weeks to a month learning some sort of Celtic, indigenous American, or other obscure language and I've thought "there's no way he's putting together sentences this eloquently".
I watched his episode where he supposedly spoke French with Cajuns in the southern US. He was surprisingly not very good at it. I was surprised because French is way closer to English than most languages he claims to speak. He capitalizes on the fact that strangers only say one of maybe a dozen things to someone they don’t know. (Where are you from? Why are you here? How long you here? Etc). This is easy to memorize. Even so in the video I watched, an old man asked him what he was looking for in the shop and he responded “I’m from New York”. The way he spoke the language was muddled and broken. Far from fluent. His videos are still fun to watch, but don’t believe it when the locals are being nice by praising his “skill”.
Video's like this is why I think people like Language Jones are too harsh on him. This basically him posting an attempt at learning a language with a lot of mistakes/fails. There are language UA-camrs who would never do this.
that Language Jones seems to have a chip on his shoulder, constantly going on about his PhD. Every man and his dog has a PhD these days, even me. It really doesn't mean all that much. For most native English speakers, language learning is mainly just a bit of fun, not an absolute necessity. Yep, some make serious money while doing it on social media and maybe sell a dodgy product or service here and there, but that's still not the end of the world.
@ba8898 No, not everyone has a PhD and I can understand why people like Language Jones are kinda harsh on false marketing. Many want to learn well, so we shouldn't waste their time or money.
@@drunkpekka4284 I don't think the Xiaoma is really doing that much false marketing. He's constantly saying in his "American tourist speaks X language in X country" videos that he doesn't know much and he's just learning. The titles are often clickbaity, because that's how youtube fkn works, but the videos themselves always show him making mistakes and clearly struggling because he's only spent a couple of weeks learning the basics needed to go and be a tourist for a few days. His philosophy is clearly that to truly learn a language you have to go immerse yourself in it, forcing yourself to interact with people in it. The only language he claims to be fluent in is Mandarin, because he spent at least a year, (I think a few but don't quote me on that) studying in Beijing, but even then he's very upfront on his limit compared to native speakers.
My wife and I were in a Greek restaurant and the cook came out of the back and told us we were doing it wrong. He then explained how we should pour the sauce on the dish before eating it.
I asked my Ecuadorian wife about this word. She is from Guayaquil, it isn’t anything in her knowledge. Lest people think “all Spanish is the same”. Slang is the bane of my existence with learning Spanish.
@@andrewsmith9174 Then there's Chilean Spanish which may as well be its own language. I was in the Canaries and they had hardcoded subtitles for some Chilean TV programme, wasn't sure if it was a Canarian TV channel or a mainland one though, as I understand the Canarian dialect is like Cuban Spanish.
It's interesting because I remember the word "Pistiare" from an old video of yours, from a few years ago, where you demonstrated the differences between Italian and Sicilian as they are separate languages (so I got the impression that it was the common word for "to eat" because you presented it alongside "mangiare" without further explanation, except for playing a stereotypical character with a heavy accent... lol) and recently, when I got to see XIAOMA's video when it came up, I immediately thought, what would you say about that scene? And here you are responding and clarifying the whole mystery behind this word. Totally cool! :)
Yes, the mixing of the food is weird. Also in Portugal. And yes, it is also about the (proper) food experience. I feel a lot of people from the USA haven´t got a clue about that, concerning they have short lunches without wine and eat and drink on the go.
Most Americans only have around a week to explore when we travel, so we focus on trying as much of the food as possible. Rather than limit ourselves to a handful of specific meals during the trip, we will snack and try many foods as we come across them. We aren't going to sit there and mix a bite of veal with fish, but we will get an order of both and eat them independently of each other if we want to try them both.
I remember when he tried to speak my language, it was far from perfect, but the effort itself is commendable considering that it's not a popular language for learners. We greatly appreciate it when others try to learn our dear language.
Interstingly, Colin Farrell in the Penguin pronounces words like "work" as "woik", a similar change you hear when you say "mal carne" as "caine"....I thought it was some New York aka Gotham pronunciation thing but he's a mafioso for probably a Sicilian family,so could there be a connection I wander.
Its an new york accent, but a very very heavy one. Not everyone speaks like that. Of course it depends on the educational level and area. I love that accent though.
14:33 when you're proud of your cooking, you want people to taste it as it is, as you made it, like how you eat pickled ginger to clean your palate after a piece of sushi, so you can taste everything, not some weird amalgamation of several things at the same time.
Most Americans only have around a week to explore when we travel, so we focus on trying as much of the food as possible. Rather than limit ourselves to a handful of specific meals during the trip, we will snack and try many foods as we come across them. We aren't going to sit there and mix a bite of veal with fish, but we will get an order of both and eat them independently of each other if we want to try them both.
Curious thing about adding an "i" to some words. They do that a lot in some areas of the Dominican Republic! They will say "caine" for "carne" like in Palermo. It is usually done to replace and R. You should check out the Spanish of the RD. Is it just a curiosity or was it due to an influence. A lot of Italian came to the Caribbean in the late 1800's. My mother's family in Cuba was originally from Venice last name Marin.
I love how Sicilians say "octopus water" for what you deem to be inferior coffee just like how many of us Québécois call fake maple syrup "utility-pole syrup" (sirop de poteau). I'm sure there are similar terms in other languages for inferior versions of staples of their own cuisine, I'm curious to learn some of them now.
@@karin-jaelstenelo674 Power pole, telephone pole, I think it goes by many names in English. I like "utility pole" cuz it sounds more multi-purpose and therefore feels like a better translation for "poteau".
My family originally comes from Sicily, and I’ve always wanted to learn Sicilian over Italian for that purpose, but the resources for it is very difficult to find. Personally, as an American whose family has been here for 3 generations, my family only faintly speaks other than English, and it’s always Italian when it is.
Well, at least he's trying and that's already more than most. I've heard his French and while it was very basic I still think that's great that he's trying to learn a language (even if basic stuff) and try it out with actual people. I think the guy is fluent in Mandarin which is already amazing. The only way not to make a fool of yourself is not doing anything. I respect that he's trying.
One of the most important lessons people have to learn when learning any language is that mistakes teach you the fastest. Don't try to be perfect if you make mistakes you learn things faster. You learn slower when you don't bother to try to speak it at all.
That's why it's d*мв what metatron said about a crusade against Fake polyglots. I do find a lot of issues with Xiaoma's ego and lies but the main objective is to connect with people.
@@verisimilitudeteller Yeah I mean Xioma isn't an example of someone who wants to connect with people, he only cares about likes. Other polyglots however, do try to make of this community a good place for language learners. Like Steve Kaufmann, who's a box of wisdom.
Wow so i speak quite some french and brasilian portuguese, and sicilian sounds so recognisable, and the rythms and expressiveness of the letters you use sound so similar to brasilian portuguese! amazing
Doesn't make him a polyglot, though. Just makes him an attention craving guy, who learned a couple of phrases and tries to impress natives and his watchers.
@@marikothecheetah9342 What would you consider as a polyglot though? If let's say he speaks 4 languages well, 7 languages decently, and the rest are just introductory, would that qualify him as one as not? Does he need to be spotless and accentless in every languages he speaks for him to be considered as one?
@@zeroyuki92 very general rule for me: 5 languages on at least B2, preferably C1 level. Everything else - it's a multilanguage learner. Not speaker - learner.
would love to see a video on calabrese vs sicilian someday!! (particularly vibo valentia dialects but yeah). the dialects get more and more particular even within each village, it's crazy.
Interesting, the exact same hypercorrection phenomenon happens here in southern Marches. It's always tsambë, tsappë, tsucchërë etc. but everyone goes for the voiced z in Italian.
My family is from Palermo, so a while back I took an interest in the language. After tumbling down the rabbit hole of Italian languages, dialects, local variations, and so forth; all I can say is that Western Sicilian doesn't sound a thing like Italian to my ear. It seems a lot faster and uses more Greek and Arabic sounding words than the Latin-based standard Italian. I despair of ever speaking Palermo dialect, or even figuring out how to spell what I'm hearing, but my consolation is that everybody has to learn English anyway. So there's that.
What materials do you recommend for people who want to study Sicilian? My grandmother spoke just about every dialect of Italian that there is and she said her favorite was Sicilian probably because she was Sicilian herself. But she said it's because it sounds better to her it's a more beautiful sounding language.
It's literally impossible your grandma spoke every "dialects". First, most are actual languages and they are not dialect of Italian but they are languages that come straight from Latin. So it's already wrong what you said. Each language then has its own dialects and there are hundreds of them. I am sure that your grandma didn't speak Occitan, Francoprovencal nor Piedmontese (languages of my region), not to mention Griko, Friulan, Sardinian, Arbereshe, Veneto, Lumbard and so on...
@marty8895 you are being way too literal. She was able to communicate with quite a number of Italian dialects because she owned a pastry shop in the 1940s and 50s and people from all parts of Italy would come in to buy pastries and she was able to communicate with them. I dare say you don't speak all dialects of English do you? But you do comprehend most correct there are people in Ireland I'm quite sure that speaking English whom you wouldn't understand or from the Appalachian Trail in the US who speak English but with such a thick accent and with such vocabulary not commonly found in English. I'm from Chicago I have a lot of things I say that people may not understand. But that wouldn't mean that you don't understand English correct or most of the dialects of English bottom line is you're being very trollish
@@verisimilitudeteller Given that you're not Italian you might not know it but the "Italian dialects" are not comparable to the dialects of English. Irish, Scottish, Australian and so on are just English with different accents and some different words here and there. The "Italian dialects" as you call them are actually different languages. A Sicilian CANNOT understand a Piedmontese when they speak Piedmontese language. Piedmontese is very similar to French, same with Francoprovencal and Occitan. Those customers were definitely not speaking a "dialect" but they were probably speaking Italian with a regional accent which everyone can understand. I CANNOT understand Sicilian language for example. I speak Italian fluently and a bit of my regional language, Piedmontese. When I speak Piedmontese no other Italian can understand me except those from my region and those from the region of Lombardy at certain degrees because their dialect is fairly similar to ours. Forget that your Sicilian grandma could even catch a word. That's why we all speak Italian today because it was impossible for us to understand eachother otherwise. We needed a common language that everyone could comprehend. This is very apparent during WW1 when soldiers from each region of Italy were taught Italian so that they could understand the orders coming from the generals who were educated enough to know italian. Another historical fact, after WW2 many people could still only speak their regional dialect so on TV there were programs that taught Italian to Italian people. The word "dialect" has been given to those languages to promote the Italian language itself so that people taught that their dialect were inferior and not worthy enough to be spoken. Especially during Fascism speaking "dialect" was so frowned upon that even many cities names were changed into Italian because some sounded too foreign. Like the city of OULX that turned into Ulzio. Today many cities, not all, are again called with their original language name. But what Fascism taught is still there though. Indeed there are still people today that when you speak your regional language think you're an educated peasant. When we Italian meet another Italian from another region we immediately switched to a more proper standard Italian and we avoid speaking dialect so people can understand us better and was like that in the 40s and 50s as well.
@marty8895 were you born an appositional cunt or did you have to work on it? You have no idea who you're fucking with so do me a favor and fuck right off.
I'd love to visit Sicily some day! I live close to Piemonte and Aosta and I sometimes get down to Liguria and Tuscany, but I know very little about the south. I once spent a few days in Puglia (with a night on the outskirts of Naples on the way back), but that's my only experience of the mezzogiorno.
Metatron's face around 5 mins kills me. The look of astonishment on Metatron, like he's not sure what to think of it how Xiaoma speaks sicilian (broken?) but also amazed at it. Had me in tears! 🤣 This video I can already tell will be a banger! ❤️
Espresso is the normal coffee. You can ask for: "Un caffé lungo", if you like. It's less concentrated. I mean there are differences in italy between the regions. But not when it comes to certain things, mostly regarding food and beverages. And coffee is certainly such a thing.
Except that a "Caffé lungo" is even stronger than a normal espresso coffee. It is not less concentrated, you have more caffeine in it because you will extract it from the powder, not diluted at all. If you want a lighter coffee you must ask for a "Americano coffee".
Hey he owned up to it so no problem really. This would be like if he went to my home town and tried speaking Doric Scots haha (and that would be almost impossible for anyone who's used a lot of English but didn't grow up there).
14:35 - I would almost say it’s more like to not disrespect the food. As well as not disrespecting the experience of the food. It’s kind of like saying: Yes you have the freedom to do what you want, but please remember that farmers put time and effort into this, animals died for this, people worked to prepare this for you; so really they all want you to respect all of that by simply maximizing your own enjoyment of it as a sign for that work. Happiness’s is the reward, so don’t take away the only reward for doing it.
I used to work in a border town in Texas and there was this little old guy no one could understand very easily. I overheard him one day speaking a mix of Italian, Spanish, and something else I couldn't quite understand to someone who only spoke English. We called this guy Bambino because he never told us his name. I never got the full story but he was originally from Palermo and I would speak to him in Italian. He told me his mum had a restaurant in Palermo and he gave me the exact address of the place. I moved away a few years ago so no idea how he's doing now.
One thing I will say about Xiaoma is that he does have a certain level of humility - displayed here where he openly shares his humiliation at attempting a language with less than stellar results. A good video of his to watch is when he takes on the task of learning to speak Cree and then shares his results with the elders a group of Cree in Alaska. Indigenous languages in America were outlawed for decades by the government with children being taken out of the homes and raised as ‘white men’ to drill their traditions out of them. It’s only been recently that they have been able to openly speak and teach their language to the young (think last 50 years give or take a decade), so Xiaoma making this attempt and then publicizing it to draw more attention to the Cree nation and language is a step towards helping further foster the language learning among younger members of the nation.
The languages were never "outlawed". That's total nonsense. There was a POLICY of English only in Indian boarding schools and Foster care. I have tribal members in my family who went through this👍
@@bintjbeil7892 you can't deny that these policies had ill intent behind them, though...they were used to turn indigenous children into christian boys and to pretty much try to erase indian culture from the next generation. they also did not refrain from physical abuse to achieve this goal, so maybe consider that in this particular instance it might be justified calling these white men bad.
@@tbishop4961 the policy was set in place by the Indian Affairs Commissioner and the exact terminology was that the teaching of the languages be Banned. And any instructors who did not comply with this be banned from the reservations. Started with Misson schools, continued with Government established schools. It wasn’t until 1990 that a federal law was put into place to officially protect and support Native languages.
That whole not mixing meat with fish thing is a weird Italian thing, I've had arguments with Italian friends of mine about this whole thing. In Spain, we have a whole section of our gastronomy called "Mar y Monte" (Sea and Mountain), where the entire point is the art of mixing seafood flavors with meats. So maybe Xiaoma was onto something there.
It seems to me that in Spain meat and fish are equally consumed everywhere, while in Italy some regional cuisines only use meat as their main protein (Abruzzo, Tuscany) while fish is more restricted to people the culture of which is strongly tied to the sea (Liguria, Sicily). So I guess that the origin of the ‘taboo’ about mixing meat and fish is that by chance there are very few Italian dishes who contain both (hence we are not used to the combination of the two). Also, it's interesting that while fish was once considered a poor people's food, today it's the exact opposite (at least here).
I know a girl who went to Sicily to learn italian, came back to show us how good her italian was after one year. She was speaking sicilian and she thought it was italian. XD
I'm a Xiaoma fan. A lot of people give him a hard time. He does better than 98% of tourists in any language that he attempts. He's not a self admitted polyglot gigachad 😁 He entertains the people in the video and the people watching the video. Give him a break.
I dunno. I watched his Indonesian video because he went to a food bazaar that I also go to and I know some of the people there. My Indonesian isn't very good, but his made my teeth hurt. Key fact is that they answered him in English, something Indonesians never do if you make even a half-hearted attempt at their language.
Agreed, he also basically shows that there is truly no excuse not to learn a language, it doesn't have to be stressful at all. He's able to learn very uncommon languages in a short period of time and then interact with the native speakers, and they always seem to enjoy it. It's very positive, imho.
@@geckofeet Lol. Indonesian is the easiest language in the world. Even the dumbest person can learn this with ease. No tense, no gender, no case, nothing. Just learn words and put them together. That's it. (The same goes for Malay.) If you see a westerner speaking Indonesian/Malay fluently, don't be like "Wow!! This is so amazing." Just STFU.
what are you smoking dude? He fucking added polyglot on his description. His videos basically just cramming some basic words in some language less popular for foreigner, then go to native speakers to get praised. In certain angle he basically farmed some less learned language as content, to earn money. True, people would get happy seeing some foreigner learning their language, but he never learned it on deeper level to understand people, only to make videos to impress people. Crappy-ass if you ask me.
Me, taking out Gracula religiosa - he can do it after a week as well. Also your friend on the phone - whaaat aaa proooolooongeeed prooonunciaaatiooon. - I love it.
My comment after watching the language simp video & starting this one: "It is interesting when you teech us a bit more about the language in question, Italian, [or Sicilian in this video]."
At the end of the”performance anxiety,” I’m terrified to actually speak to a Spanish speaker, there is SO much I don’t know! I know it’s the right way to learn, but I always feel like I need to know a little more.
I kind of think most upperclass travels a lot and have a lot of contact with pepole from other places. So they use the language most pepole understand. If you live a area where nobody goes with out a reason.it can be a rural area or a rough area. you can use a local dialect.
I don't get all the hate in comments. He tries, he does not claim he is fluid and some people really love it when he tries to speak their language. He also did some videos about dying languages and you can clearly see that those few people left speaking the language, really appreciate that some is trying it and bringing some attention to those languages.
People take issue with the clickbaity titles, but yeah, he never pretends to be fluent (unless he is, like with Mandarin Chinese), and it's clear if you watch any of his video when he stumbles and has to repeat himself several times, there is no attempt to hide it. I'm not especially a fan of the titles myself, but it's UA-cam economics, so I don't give him much flak for it. Metatron and many other do the same btw.
"I like to eat it with a *granita*." Me: I don't know what a granita is. [little piece of granite? grenadine bread?? grenade pastry with explosive filling???]
![American reacts to Posts That Prove American's Think That Only They Exist [part 2]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/KZ_wRzra8yo/mqdefault.jpg)
Link to the original video
ua-cam.com/video/hYUidZTQ1xw/v-deo.html
In Romanian culture you double kiss because Judas kissed Jesus once on the cheek. Is it the same in Palermo?
sicilian mafia
This charlatan is a complete fraud ! How dare you sully the Holy name of Metatron... you fake POS !!!
Not to be rude, but "Palerma" means a stupid, clueless and bit rude person, in Brazil (in São Paulo state at least). I don't know why that is, but I think italian immigrants don't like to be confused with Sicilians, and they particularly dislike people from Palermo - "mala carne". The association with mafia types and xenophobia also lead to italians and sicilians alike being called "carcamanos" - the thieves, conartists and bickering types. This xenophobic sentiment is almost gone now, but it was quite common during the mass migration and the conflicts that inevitably happened during that era.
lol siculo sei ah? XD
This ended up being way more positive than I thought. 😅
it’s not every day that a foreigner would go out of their way to learn your language.
The actual experience was actually very very positive, everyone was very nice.
Yeah, I thought that guy was gonna make everything up but turns out he’s just a dude who’s semi decent at languages and not afraid to put himself out there
An Italian expressing strong opinions on food. That’s never happened before
😂😂😂
You mean Metatron was expressing strong opinions? Pfft. You've seen nothing, he was being kind.
@@riukrobu My comment was sarcasm
@@jeffslote9671 Mine wasn't instead! (It was)
We're passionate because we're right
Say what you will about Xiaoma, but what he's doing in this video is pretty damn inspirational to me. Most language learners are terrified of putting themselves out there and making mistakes in front of natives, but he shows us that there's not much to be afraid of. You make some mistakes, you look kind of silly, then you move on. It's a fantastic way to learn. I think if he would just drop the clickbait titles/thumbnails, and call his videos something like, "how to practice a new language without fear," he would be much more accepted within the language learning community.
Unfortunately those titles just seem to get more views. Though agree they're annoying.
Keep at it. It took me about four months of Duolingo to be comfortable speaking Spanish at all. What changed wasn't the time I put into it.. It was the planned trip to South America for my brother's wedding. Connecting flight in Panama was a trial by fire for me. My brother wasn't there to bail me out and I had to navigate getting myself dinner and then getting onto my next plane. I successfully failed in begging a food vendor into selling me an empanada after closing, and was able to get airport security to tell me I wasn't allowed to smoke in the airport, and I wasn't allowed to step outside to smoke if I wanted to come back in.
A miserable experience? Sure. But I made my flight without getting locked up abroad. I built up my courage enough that when I finally landed in Ecuador, I didn't rely on my brother to translate. I just struggled through 😂
@@baronmeduseI used Do not recommend-function for the reason that I thought the content was muck, because of those titles. I don't think I'm the only person who does that, there's just too much crap being pushed.
This is why I have mixed feelings about Xiaomanyc, on the one hand he does clickbaity stuff and I think gives some of the wrong impression & expectations about language learning and I think has some turn-offs for his videos.
But, there are times where he's just showing you don't need to be great with a language, you can make mistakes, you can mess up but it's fine just get out there and speak it, because you will still be able to vibe with people and they aren't going to be offended because you get some leeway, I did it in Vietnam when I thanked an older woman in an inappropriate way, she found it hilarious but her daughter was going "no no no, not like that". Admittedly, I was still too scared to properly use it.
But he also showcases some languages people never heard of or have not considered learning and shows it's something a random dude from New York can learn and I think the emphasis should be that these languages are accessible. I would really love "how to practice a new language without fear" and "this is how I find these obscure languages to be accessible" to be the greater emphases of his videos rather than, "white guy surprises restaurant owner with Swahili" and the video being a restaurant owner being like "wow, he speaks Swahili, your Swahili is great", even if he keeps the shitty clickbait titles.
@@sae2705 Swahili, when it comes to pronunciation, isn't a demanding language. It has some grammatical things, uncommon to the English speaker, but when it comes to a basic conversation you can learn it in a day.
I loved hearing you speak your native language. You should do an entire video about it!
That's so true! And how emotional he got with his language being spoken... I loved it. Now I'm noticing do to this video Sicilian is really similar to Spanish in some ways... Inclusively more than Italian... I'm really impressed. 🫡
@@joshuagrenald2046 English : week
Spanish: semana
Sicilian: semana
😁 spanish cuchara (spoon)
Sicilian : cucchiara (pronounce "kukiara")
Spanish "mujer"(wife)
Sicilian "mugghieri"
😁😁
29:14 Unrelated to the topic of of the video, but I love the writing on the wall of the shop! It says: "You can't buy happiness but you can always buy a GELATO and it's pretty much the same thing".
😂😂
Question, is the writing in standard Italian or Sicilian? I’m a native Spanish speaker so I was able to read and understand it fully. From watching this video I’ve noticed I find it much easier to understand spoken Sicilian than standard Italian
@@SmokeyChipOatley That's standard italian. As a spanish speaker you might be able to understand many dialects better than standard italian because they have drawn a bit from spanish from the times of the council of Italy.
It's clear that he doesn't know how to say most things, but I'm really impressed that he is able to understand most things other people say to him
Input is a lot easier than output.
@@arealgoodguysay that to japanese learners
@@KateikyoshiDX - Depends on the kanji. If it's in romanji, hiragana or katakana it's the easiest. A lot of kanji makes sense when characters are combined. Sometimes you can understand the meaning, without knowing the pronunciation. Such as deatta (come across, encounter). It groups to depart and meeting together. So that makes sense. Or mori (forest). Groups 3 trees together. You could get the idea of it.
@@arealgoodguy I meant pure vocal input from natives. It is a mess sometimes. It is much easier to speak on the basic level with basic grammar than to listen to the native full speed speech.
森 example is too basic. There are not that many cases like this if any at all. Look at this word for example 磁石. Idk how 磁 makes sense. Idk how 尋 from 尋常 makes sense. Idk how 賛 from 賛成 makes sense. The list is infinite. You are better off focusing on a kanji's radical and some key parts to distinguish from other kanjis with the same radical. No logic here, just a trained eye. No need to disassemble the kanji and try making sense out of it, it is a waste of time
@@KateikyoshiDX True.
But japanese is one of the easiest languages to listen to. They speak in moras, even if they do it quickly, it is still easy to catch the moras in their speech. Atleast in more common japanese like standard and kansaiben. I don't know what it sounds like elsewhere.
I love how positive and respectful you are in you commentary videos! Xiaoma gets a lot of hate, people love to point out all the flaws instead of focusing on the things that he acctually gets right. Good job!
And very cool to hear Sicilian!
Because in many videos, he claims to be perfect. People without language knowledge actually believe him...
None of these people would try to learn a language as quickly and put themselves out there to make mistakes in front of native speakers.
He gets the hate because he lies. In some of the smaller languages he makes it seem like he knows them better than he does. It's the misrepresentation of what he actually knows that is the problem.
@@anlingitalia I haven't seen that many Xiaoma videos, no more than 10 certainly, but I don't think I've seen him say or even imply this. Unless I'm just missing it I would only assume this accusation comes from people assuming more than he asserts via his titles, which, like any other YT video, is generally clickbait.
@@jeremias-serus他一直反反复复地说他的中文多么多么完美。实际上他口音很重，语法经常一塌糊涂，都不如我😂😂😂然后我中文肯定不完美。
Che bello sentirti parlare in italiano non l’avevo mai sentito prima!
Era la tua “primera” volta, come direbbe Xiaoma 😂
Of all these UA-cam polyglots I like Xiaoma the most. Even if his "fluency" is often an overestimation, he is still pretty inspirative for people interested in learning.
Fun to watch this. I just booked a trip to Palermo in March a few days ago...
I'm a Filipino, and I love Sicilian language, I have an interest to learn Sicilian since when I was a college student. Now, I'm learning the Palermitan variety, but I'm also interested to learn other varieties of Sicilian language.
Wow, you gotta be one of one.
Ari focuses mostly on learning practical phrases and words more than going into the more traditional grammatical and vocabulary methods. This allows him to spend 3-5 weeks working on a language and then put it into practice. In fact there is nothing wrong with that, it in fact mimics exactly how people naturally learn languages as a children. One of the keys is that he has to immerse himself and challenge himself fully. The less surrounded by a language and the less authentic speakers you interact with, the slower the learning will be.
Minchia ma che canale ho scoperto,sei un grande mo fra!Saluti dalla provincia di Ragusa ❤👋🏻
Estou amando o conteúdo de linguistica recente, Metatron! Abraços do Brasil!
My girlfriend's mom some years ago asked a family member that's from Sicily, to talk to her because she understood Italian (we're Portuguese), and she was stunned after hearing Sicilian and not understanding a single word. 😅
I've been to Sicily earlier this year and I fell in love. My mom's family is from Messina region. It was a fantastic experience. Unfortunately there's not much material online to learn Sicilian.
Google translate has a Sicilian option now probably best to just translate Italian songs into Sicilian then Sicilian to english
It's probably best to first learn Italian, if you learn Italian you can use everywhere and then you learn the regional language you like most, and you will learn it in Italian.
you can't find anything online because Sicilian is too broad a term: the Palermo language is different from Catania or Messina (my favorite).
just like wanting to learn UK accents. but which one? Cockney, Geordie, Scouse? it's a bit like that
Your friend sounds like fun, great relationship you guys have!
man octopus water has me laughing too
I love the reactions, it reminds me of the times when people have tried speaking my native language and are (usually) less than accurate. But we can always appreciate someone who is trying to actually learn. 🖤
Way better than someone who yells "Learn English" like it's the standard
This guy isn’t a polyglot by any means, and I think where people have problems with him is that he kind of blurs the lines a bit. His channel is more or less a travel, food, and culture series with a niche for focusing on the languages of the groups and places he visits. Due to the nature of his show, his audience is very broad.
On one hand, you have more serious language learners getting angry saying that he’s misleading and claiming to be something by he’s not. On the other hand you have novice language learners and/or the rest of his audience who thinks he’s a linguistic savant.
I watch his content for what it is and I enjoy it quite a bit. I think there are far worse examples of self-proclaimed polyglots on the platform.
Yes, i speak Mandarin and watched one of his videos. He'll say the most simple sentence in Mandarin, then the English translation will be long and convoluted. making it seem like what he's saying was an extremely complex, vibrant sentence but it'll be directly translated to "i like" and there are edits where he obviously didnt understand.
It is quite annoying, but to sell his channel he needs to pretend his skill is better than it is. Nobody wants to watch a channel of a white guy learning Chinese, they wanna see someone fluent. So he pretends his level is much higher than it is
@@douggieharrison6913 Yeah, I've noticed that too. I can't speak for his Mandarin at all, first because I know nothing about Mandarin, and second because I know Mandarin is his most studied language.
But I've caught on to the same thing you have in his other videos where he spends maybe a few weeks to a month learning some sort of Celtic, indigenous American, or other obscure language and I've thought "there's no way he's putting together sentences this eloquently".
I watched his episode where he supposedly spoke French with Cajuns in the southern US. He was surprisingly not very good at it. I was surprised because French is way closer to English than most languages he claims to speak. He capitalizes on the fact that strangers only say one of maybe a dozen things to someone they don’t know. (Where are you from? Why are you here? How long you here? Etc). This is easy to memorize. Even so in the video I watched, an old man asked him what he was looking for in the shop and he responded “I’m from New York”. The way he spoke the language was muddled and broken. Far from fluent. His videos are still fun to watch, but don’t believe it when the locals are being nice by praising his “skill”.
Video's like this is why I think people like Language Jones are too harsh on him. This basically him posting an attempt at learning a language with a lot of mistakes/fails. There are language UA-camrs who would never do this.
that Language Jones seems to have a chip on his shoulder, constantly going on about his PhD. Every man and his dog has a PhD these days, even me. It really doesn't mean all that much. For most native English speakers, language learning is mainly just a bit of fun, not an absolute necessity. Yep, some make serious money while doing it on social media and maybe sell a dodgy product or service here and there, but that's still not the end of the world.
@ba8898 No, not everyone has a PhD and I can understand why people like Language Jones are kinda harsh on false marketing. Many want to learn well, so we shouldn't waste their time or money.
Xiaoma is not attempting to learn these languages. He learns a few phrases for ordering food and small talk with vendors.
@@drunkpekka4284 that was a hyperbolic statement, not that literally *everyone* has a PhD
@@drunkpekka4284 I don't think the Xiaoma is really doing that much false marketing. He's constantly saying in his "American tourist speaks X language in X country" videos that he doesn't know much and he's just learning. The titles are often clickbaity, because that's how youtube fkn works, but the videos themselves always show him making mistakes and clearly struggling because he's only spent a couple of weeks learning the basics needed to go and be a tourist for a few days. His philosophy is clearly that to truly learn a language you have to go immerse yourself in it, forcing yourself to interact with people in it. The only language he claims to be fluent in is Mandarin, because he spent at least a year, (I think a few but don't quote me on that) studying in Beijing, but even then he's very upfront on his limit compared to native speakers.
My wife and I were in a Greek restaurant and the cook came out of the back and told us we were doing it wrong. He then explained how we should pour the sauce on the dish before eating it.
He did you a favour, you'd miss half the flavour otherwise.
He takes pride in his work. If someone does it in a light heart and not too seriously I appreciate it.
Believe me, there ARE objectively correct and incorrect ways to eat something, especially traditional food. He did you a favor.
I wish I could go to Italy. Seems like a beautiful place. Would love to learn Italian too.
Pistiar in México city slang is to drink alcoholic beverages
Almost the same...in Sicily it means to party, to eat and drink ...
I asked my Ecuadorian wife about this word. She is from Guayaquil, it isn’t anything in her knowledge. Lest people think “all Spanish is the same”. Slang is the bane of my existence with learning Spanish.
@@andrewsmith9174 Then there's Chilean Spanish which may as well be its own language. I was in the Canaries and they had hardcoded subtitles for some Chilean TV programme, wasn't sure if it was a Canarian TV channel or a mainland one though, as I understand the Canarian dialect is like Cuban Spanish.
‘Pissed ‘ere’ is English slang for drink alcoholic beverages in a particular establishment
Fantastic video, you were very kind to XIAOMA
It's interesting because I remember the word "Pistiare" from an old video of yours, from a few years ago, where you demonstrated the differences between Italian and Sicilian as they are separate languages (so I got the impression that it was the common word for "to eat" because you presented it alongside "mangiare" without further explanation, except for playing a stereotypical character with a heavy accent... lol) and recently, when I got to see XIAOMA's video when it came up, I immediately thought, what would you say about that scene? And here you are responding and clarifying the whole mystery behind this word. Totally cool! :)
My joke is that Canolo entered English as Canoli becuse it's hard to eat only one
Like broccoli. Can't stop eating them
From hwat I gathered similiar diffrence between words for eating but in polish would be "wpierdolić coś" for pistiare and "zjeść coś" for mantiare.
Palermo seems like a cool place with lovely people!
Grande Metatron! Ottimo video come sempre
Yes, the mixing of the food is weird. Also in Portugal. And yes, it is also about the (proper) food experience. I feel a lot of people from the USA haven´t got a clue about that, concerning they have short lunches without wine and eat and drink on the go.
Most Americans only have around a week to explore when we travel, so we focus on trying as much of the food as possible. Rather than limit ourselves to a handful of specific meals during the trip, we will snack and try many foods as we come across them. We aren't going to sit there and mix a bite of veal with fish, but we will get an order of both and eat them independently of each other if we want to try them both.
I remember when he tried to speak my language, it was far from perfect, but the effort itself is commendable considering that it's not a popular language for learners. We greatly appreciate it when others try to learn our dear language.
In Portugal, we do also use "nico" for referring to "just a little of" 😅 that's interesting.
And "água tingida" (dyed water) for referring to American Coffee. 😅
Interstingly, Colin Farrell in the Penguin pronounces words like "work" as "woik", a similar change you hear when you say "mal carne" as "caine"....I thought it was some New York aka Gotham pronunciation thing but he's a mafioso for probably a Sicilian family,so could there be a connection I wander.
I caught that as well. Probably where the NY accent came from.
Its an new york accent, but a very very heavy one. Not everyone speaks like that. Of course it depends on the educational level and area. I love that accent though.
Bro you should do more videos speaking in Sicilian, sounds so cool
ahaha we've been waiting for this one, sooo much lol
14:33 when you're proud of your cooking, you want people to taste it as it is, as you made it, like how you eat pickled ginger to clean your palate after a piece of sushi, so you can taste everything, not some weird amalgamation of several things at the same time.
Most Americans only have around a week to explore when we travel, so we focus on trying as much of the food as possible. Rather than limit ourselves to a handful of specific meals during the trip, we will snack and try many foods as we come across them. We aren't going to sit there and mix a bite of veal with fish, but we will get an order of both and eat them independently of each other if we want to try them both.
I’m really enjoying learning about your culture metatron
Curious thing about adding an "i" to some words. They do that a lot in some areas of the Dominican Republic! They will say "caine" for "carne" like in Palermo. It is usually done to replace and R. You should check out the Spanish of the RD. Is it just a curiosity or was it due to an influence. A lot of Italian came to the Caribbean in the late 1800's. My mother's family in Cuba was originally from Venice last name Marin.
I love how Sicilians say "octopus water" for what you deem to be inferior coffee just like how many of us Québécois call fake maple syrup "utility-pole syrup" (sirop de poteau).
I'm sure there are similar terms in other languages for inferior versions of staples of their own cuisine, I'm curious to learn some of them now.
What's a utility pole lol
@@karin-jaelstenelo674 Power pole, telephone pole, I think it goes by many names in English. I like "utility pole" cuz it sounds more multi-purpose and therefore feels like a better translation for "poteau".
My family originally comes from Sicily, and I’ve always wanted to learn Sicilian over Italian for that purpose, but the resources for it is very difficult to find. Personally, as an American whose family has been here for 3 generations, my family only faintly speaks other than English, and it’s always Italian when it is.
Raffaello grazie di tutti i tuoi video educativi, pedanti nel modo più edificante e meraviglioso!
Un collega dell’ONientale
Well, at least he's trying and that's already more than most. I've heard his French and while it was very basic I still think that's great that he's trying to learn a language (even if basic stuff) and try it out with actual people.
I think the guy is fluent in Mandarin which is already amazing.
The only way not to make a fool of yourself is not doing anything. I respect that he's trying.
One of the most important lessons people have to learn when learning any language is that mistakes teach you the fastest. Don't try to be perfect if you make mistakes you learn things faster.
You learn slower when you don't bother to try to speak it at all.
That's why it's d*мв what metatron said about a crusade against Fake polyglots. I do find a lot of issues with Xiaoma's ego and lies but the main objective is to connect with people.
@zahleer the thing is a lot of these polyglots aren't trying to connect with people they're just trying to get views.
@@verisimilitudeteller Yeah I mean Xioma isn't an example of someone who wants to connect with people, he only cares about likes. Other polyglots however, do try to make of this community a good place for language learners. Like Steve Kaufmann, who's a box of wisdom.
xiaoma has a audiographic/photographic memory
Wow so i speak quite some french and brasilian portuguese, and sicilian sounds so recognisable, and the rythms and expressiveness of the letters you use sound so similar to brasilian portuguese! amazing
I'm a welsh speaker and it was so funny to see xiaoma say some gibberish, only to have subtitles that say something completely different
I enjoy his videos, he attempts to interact with native speakers unlike most "polyglots"
Doesn't make him a polyglot, though. Just makes him an attention craving guy, who learned a couple of phrases and tries to impress natives and his watchers.
@marikothecheetah9342 Maybe. It's still more than most.
@@Soshikix I'm always entertained how little people need to be impressed. Xiaoma is one of such cases.
@@marikothecheetah9342 What would you consider as a polyglot though? If let's say he speaks 4 languages well, 7 languages decently, and the rest are just introductory, would that qualify him as one as not? Does he need to be spotless and accentless in every languages he speaks for him to be considered as one?
@@zeroyuki92 very general rule for me: 5 languages on at least B2, preferably C1 level. Everything else - it's a multilanguage learner. Not speaker - learner.
I would love more videos on sicily and your life, there !
would love to see a video on calabrese vs sicilian someday!! (particularly vibo valentia dialects but yeah). the dialects get more and more particular even within each village, it's crazy.
Amazing video
In Sardinian also, we say "su tzuccuru"
Interesting, the exact same hypercorrection phenomenon happens here in southern Marches. It's always tsambë, tsappë, tsucchërë etc. but everyone goes for the voiced z in Italian.
My family is from Palermo, so a while back I took an interest in the language. After tumbling down the rabbit hole of Italian languages, dialects, local variations, and so forth; all I can say is that Western Sicilian doesn't sound a thing like Italian to my ear. It seems a lot faster and uses more Greek and Arabic sounding words than the Latin-based standard Italian.
I despair of ever speaking Palermo dialect, or even figuring out how to spell what I'm hearing, but my consolation is that everybody has to learn English anyway.
So there's that.
What materials do you recommend for people who want to study Sicilian?
My grandmother spoke just about every dialect of Italian that there is and she said her favorite was Sicilian probably because she was Sicilian herself. But she said it's because it sounds better to her it's a more beautiful sounding language.
It's literally impossible your grandma spoke every "dialects".
First, most are actual languages and they are not dialect of Italian but they are languages that come straight from Latin. So it's already wrong what you said. Each language then has its own dialects and there are hundreds of them.
I am sure that your grandma didn't speak Occitan, Francoprovencal nor Piedmontese (languages of my region), not to mention Griko, Friulan, Sardinian, Arbereshe, Veneto, Lumbard and so on...
@marty8895 you are being way too literal. She was able to communicate with quite a number of Italian dialects because she owned a pastry shop in the 1940s and 50s and people from all parts of Italy would come in to buy pastries and she was able to communicate with them. I dare say you don't speak all dialects of English do you? But you do comprehend most correct there are people in Ireland I'm quite sure that speaking English whom you wouldn't understand or from the Appalachian Trail in the US who speak English but with such a thick accent and with such vocabulary not commonly found in English. I'm from Chicago I have a lot of things I say that people may not understand. But that wouldn't mean that you don't understand English correct or most of the dialects of English bottom line is you're being very trollish
@@verisimilitudeteller Given that you're not Italian you might not know it but the "Italian dialects" are not comparable to the dialects of English. Irish, Scottish, Australian and so on are just English with different accents and some different words here and there. The "Italian dialects" as you call them are actually different languages. A Sicilian CANNOT understand a Piedmontese when they speak Piedmontese language. Piedmontese is very similar to French, same with Francoprovencal and Occitan.
Those customers were definitely not speaking a "dialect" but they were probably speaking Italian with a regional accent which everyone can understand. I CANNOT understand Sicilian language for example. I speak Italian fluently and a bit of my regional language, Piedmontese. When I speak Piedmontese no other Italian can understand me except those from my region and those from the region of Lombardy at certain degrees because their dialect is fairly similar to ours. Forget that your Sicilian grandma could even catch a word.
That's why we all speak Italian today because it was impossible for us to understand eachother otherwise. We needed a common language that everyone could comprehend. This is very apparent during WW1 when soldiers from each region of Italy were taught Italian so that they could understand the orders coming from the generals who were educated enough to know italian.
Another historical fact, after WW2 many people could still only speak their regional dialect so on TV there were programs that taught Italian to Italian people.
The word "dialect" has been given to those languages to promote the Italian language itself so that people taught that their dialect were inferior and not worthy enough to be spoken. Especially during Fascism speaking "dialect" was so frowned upon that even many cities names were changed into Italian because some sounded too foreign. Like the city of OULX that turned into Ulzio. Today many cities, not all, are again called with their original language name. But what Fascism taught is still there though. Indeed there are still people today that when you speak your regional language think you're an educated peasant.
When we Italian meet another Italian from another region we immediately switched to a more proper standard Italian and we avoid speaking dialect so people can understand us better and was like that in the 40s and 50s as well.
@marty8895 were you born an appositional cunt or did you have to work on it? You have no idea who you're fucking with so do me a favor and fuck right off.
I'd love to visit Sicily some day! I live close to Piemonte and Aosta and I sometimes get down to Liguria and Tuscany, but I know very little about the south. I once spent a few days in Puglia (with a night on the outskirts of Naples on the way back), but that's my only experience of the mezzogiorno.
Metatron's face around 5 mins kills me. The look of astonishment on Metatron, like he's not sure what to think of it how Xiaoma speaks sicilian (broken?) but also amazed at it. Had me in tears! 🤣 This video I can already tell will be a banger! ❤️
Espresso is the normal coffee. You can ask for: "Un caffé lungo", if you like. It's less concentrated. I mean there are differences in italy between the regions. But not when it comes to certain things, mostly regarding food and beverages. And coffee is certainly such a thing.
Except that a "Caffé lungo" is even stronger than a normal espresso coffee. It is not less concentrated, you have more caffeine in it because you will extract it from the powder, not diluted at all. If you want a lighter coffee you must ask for a "Americano coffee".
It’s really interesting f I am seeing a lot of catalan wlrs (or similar) in Sicilian:
Mica = a little
Remena= to mix.
Really fun.
We say nico/a not mica, Catalano is a common surname in Sicily for a reason.
why do I get the strange notion that "pistiari" may be vulgar because its also the word to use for "oral" 6x rather than "mangiari" ?
Hey he owned up to it so no problem really. This would be like if he went to my home town and tried speaking Doric Scots haha (and that would be almost impossible for anyone who's used a lot of English but didn't grow up there).
5:11 The guy calling someone, to say: ”I have the ”package” here.”, with the word
”package” in quotation marks, gives me major drug dealer vibes 😅.
That was indeed the joke.
@@PaulRausch Paul. Comu si???
Ho bisogno di più idee per promuovere il siciliano all'università del Michigan di nuovo. Grazi assai pir l'aiutu quattru anni fa
@@PaulRausch OK. That explains it. 💡
I know the guy who accompanied a vlogger, he is Paul Rausch, from Cademia Siciliana, he's actually my friend.
Yeah, Paul's great. This (along with many of Metatron's videos) is great exposure for Sicilian.
Interesting! Thanks!
XiaomaNYC at a coffee shop: Estoy desde Mexico. Como eres? Me puede comer una cafe?
14:35 - I would almost say it’s more like to not disrespect the food. As well as not disrespecting the experience of the food.
It’s kind of like saying: Yes you have the freedom to do what you want, but please remember that farmers put time and effort into this, animals died for this, people worked to prepare this for you; so really they all want you to respect all of that by simply maximizing your own enjoyment of it as a sign for that work.
Happiness’s is the reward, so don’t take away the only reward for doing it.
we had an american friend over and taught him real dirty bavarian, so much fun
I have to say Palermo looks awesome and the people are so friendly and warm hearted.
I used to work in a border town in Texas and there was this little old guy no one could understand very easily. I overheard him one day speaking a mix of Italian, Spanish, and something else I couldn't quite understand to someone who only spoke English. We called this guy Bambino because he never told us his name. I never got the full story but he was originally from Palermo and I would speak to him in Italian. He told me his mum had a restaurant in Palermo and he gave me the exact address of the place. I moved away a few years ago so no idea how he's doing now.
One thing I will say about Xiaoma is that he does have a certain level of humility - displayed here where he openly shares his humiliation at attempting a language with less than stellar results. A good video of his to watch is when he takes on the task of learning to speak Cree and then shares his results with the elders a group of Cree in Alaska. Indigenous languages in America were outlawed for decades by the government with children being taken out of the homes and raised as ‘white men’ to drill their traditions out of them. It’s only been recently that they have been able to openly speak and teach their language to the young (think last 50 years give or take a decade), so Xiaoma making this attempt and then publicizing it to draw more attention to the Cree nation and language is a step towards helping further foster the language learning among younger members of the nation.
The languages were never "outlawed". That's total nonsense. There was a POLICY of English only in Indian boarding schools and Foster care. I have tribal members in my family who went through this👍
That happened in Canada, not sure if that was the case for gringoland.
@@tbishop4961 gotta love it when people don't back up their claims and blame the "bad white man", which is even more racist
@@bintjbeil7892 you can't deny that these policies had ill intent behind them, though...they were used to turn indigenous children into christian boys and to pretty much try to erase indian culture from the next generation. they also did not refrain from physical abuse to achieve this goal, so maybe consider that in this particular instance it might be justified calling these white men bad.
@@tbishop4961 the policy was set in place by the Indian Affairs Commissioner and the exact terminology was that the teaching of the languages be Banned. And any instructors who did not comply with this be banned from the reservations. Started with Misson schools, continued with Government established schools. It wasn’t until 1990 that a federal law was put into place to officially protect and support Native languages.
That whole not mixing meat with fish thing is a weird Italian thing, I've had arguments with Italian friends of mine about this whole thing. In Spain, we have a whole section of our gastronomy called "Mar y Monte" (Sea and Mountain), where the entire point is the art of mixing seafood flavors with meats. So maybe Xiaoma was onto something there.
We have "mare e monti" in Italy too, but it's usually fish/shellfish (mare=sea) with mushrooms (monti=mountains), no meat. 😄
Man I'm greek and that just seems wrong 😂, we typically don't do this either, it's one or the other
@@pablogats4627 If done well it's delicious. If done wrong it's disgusting. It really is a fine line.
@@lellab.8179 Crayfish and chicken go very well together, if done right. You should probably give it a try some time.
It seems to me that in Spain meat and fish are equally consumed everywhere, while in Italy some regional cuisines only use meat as their main protein (Abruzzo, Tuscany) while fish is more restricted to people the culture of which is strongly tied to the sea (Liguria, Sicily). So I guess that the origin of the ‘taboo’ about mixing meat and fish is that by chance there are very few Italian dishes who contain both (hence we are not used to the combination of the two).
Also, it's interesting that while fish was once considered a poor people's food, today it's the exact opposite (at least here).
This was really fun to watch 😂
He's no Language Simp, not Gigachad, and not adored by every woman... and man on the planet.
You should react to "African Romance: searching for traces of a lost Latin language" by NativLang
This makes me want to watch Xiaoma videos 👍
I know a girl who went to Sicily to learn italian, came back to show us how good her italian was after one year. She was speaking sicilian and she thought it was italian. XD
Still impressive =p
I'm a Xiaoma fan. A lot of people give him a hard time. He does better than 98% of tourists in any language that he attempts. He's not a self admitted polyglot gigachad 😁 He entertains the people in the video and the people watching the video. Give him a break.
I dunno. I watched his Indonesian video because he went to a food bazaar that I also go to and I know some of the people there. My Indonesian isn't very good, but his made my teeth hurt. Key fact is that they answered him in English, something Indonesians never do if you make even a half-hearted attempt at their language.
Agreed, he also basically shows that there is truly no excuse not to learn a language, it doesn't have to be stressful at all. He's able to learn very uncommon languages in a short period of time and then interact with the native speakers, and they always seem to enjoy it. It's very positive, imho.
@@geckofeet
Lol. Indonesian is the easiest language in the world.
Even the dumbest person can learn this with ease.
No tense, no gender, no case, nothing.
Just learn words and put them together. That's it.
(The same goes for Malay.)
If you see a westerner speaking Indonesian/Malay fluently, don't be like "Wow!! This is so amazing."
Just STFU.
@@geckofeetiyaa bahasa indonesia dia jelek. Dia bahkan tidak tau arti sambal pas mesen makanan wkwk
what are you smoking dude?
He fucking added polyglot on his description. His videos basically just cramming some basic words in some language less popular for foreigner, then go to native speakers to get praised. In certain angle he basically farmed some less learned language as content, to earn money.
True, people would get happy seeing some foreigner learning their language, but he never learned it on deeper level to understand people, only to make videos to impress people. Crappy-ass if you ask me.
Me, taking out Gracula religiosa - he can do it after a week as well.
Also your friend on the phone - whaaat aaa proooolooongeeed prooonunciaaatiooon. - I love it.
Com vc explicando achei parecido com espanhol da pra entender quase tudo. isso que falo PT_Br
My comment after watching the language simp video & starting this one: "It is interesting when you teech us a bit more about the language in question, Italian, [or Sicilian in this video]."
Is 'pistiari' like 'essen vs fressen' in german?
That's probably pretty close but 'fressen' wouldn't be connected to thugs.
Lol what kind of lens is he using?
im a simple man - i see metatron post a sicilianu video and i watch :)
Nice, muito bom ver você rachando o bico (rindo muito) kkkk
Hi Metatron, are you familiar with the Korean language?
14:44...what's funny, I noticed the same thing in Japan as well.
You, so you're a citizen of Panormus? Good.
Unironically McD fries dipped in the soft serve ice cream is damn good.
As an American I just want to say that I love Italians love and emotion towards food!
At the end of the”performance anxiety,” I’m terrified to actually speak to a Spanish speaker, there is SO much I don’t know! I know it’s the right way to learn, but I always feel like I need to know a little more.
The guy with Xiaoma looks like from Palma di Montechiaro/Gela/Caltanissetta. Source: Im not from Palermo but Agrigento area :D
pistare is making me thing like "to choke down something"
Metatrons Chinese pronunciation is surprisingly good.
I kind of think most upperclass travels a lot and have a lot of contact with pepole from other places. So they use the language most pepole understand. If you live a area where nobody goes with out a reason.it can be a rural area or a rough area. you can use a local dialect.
This guy is what I like. 😂😂😂😂
I will do this in other places. I will say I'm Brazilian. 😂😂😂
I don't get all the hate in comments. He tries, he does not claim he is fluid and some people really love it when he tries to speak their language. He also did some videos about dying languages and you can clearly see that those few people left speaking the language, really appreciate that some is trying it and bringing some attention to those languages.
People get pissed at anyone being successful at anything.
People take issue with the clickbaity titles, but yeah, he never pretends to be fluent (unless he is, like with Mandarin Chinese), and it's clear if you watch any of his video when he stumbles and has to repeat himself several times, there is no attempt to hide it. I'm not especially a fan of the titles myself, but it's UA-cam economics, so I don't give him much flak for it. Metatron and many other do the same btw.
"I like to eat it with a *granita*."
Me: I don't know what a granita is. [little piece of granite? grenadine bread?? grenade pastry with explosive filling???]
When you and ur friend spoke Sicilian on the phone it kinda sounded like Brazilian Portuguese to me
Is there standard italian 🇮🇹 and dilects
"Niga is one of my favorite words." Mine too, Metatron, mine too.
I love this