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
At what level of spanish are you nowadays? Im curious, lmao. I am a native spanish speaker, and whenever anyone speaks spanish anywhere on the internet I'm like "OMGOMG ITS HAPPENING".
Languages become a lot more fun when you enjoy the process of learning them rather than trying to "complete" them as quick as possible. I blame the toxic videos on UA-cam where people say bs like they learned Italian in a week or Japanese in a month. Spoiler: It's impossible. Maybe you can hold a conversation, or order a coffee, but I doubt you can enter a hospital and explain to the doctor you have pneumonia and ask for a proper way to treat it. (I had to do this in Japan and got a reality check when the doctor started pulling up with an endless amount of medical terms I've never heard of before). I wrote this before I watched the video, I see now that I brought up a lot of the same points, but still valid.
I mean if you’re saying your level of proficiency, it’s not a lie. I think though that most people expect people to say they speak a language when they’re at C1-C2 level. But although I’m native in 2 languages and you can judge my proficiency in English, I hesitate to say I can speak the 2 languages I don’t use for a while in any moment. Rn I speak English, but I can’t trust myself to speak Spanish or Japanese, because not using those languages for a long while makes me forget how to speak them, and I need ~1 month of exposure to regain that ability. I’m not sure how other multilingual people can be master of all the languages they speak at any given moment 😅
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.
I love that as well, I don’t see the purpose of learning other languages if there’s no purpose without engaging in the culture such as it’s literature, history, and so on
That's very true. I've been a fan of different cultures since I was a kid, and I was born in a multiethnic country, so it is only natural for me to appreciate the different cultures we have in this world. I never understood these who compete and brag about knowing a huge amount of languages. Some learn obscure languages just for their difficulty and nothing else. I've definitely felt a pressure to learn as much and as fast as possible.
you have got straight to the point... the most precious thing about learning a language, is being able to connect with the natives of that language... being part of their lives and letting them being part of yours... what you could have never done if you didn't speak the language right.. Be friends in a thousand languages is the focous.. not pretending to speak 20+ languages to scare people on the street with a fkn camera.. good video quality material can be done with poliglotia.. but the algorithms are set to worship the useless and nonsense
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.
In Europe knowing 2 languages (local and English) is obvious standard. Knowing 3 languages is nice, but not impressive. Four is impressive and above that is shocking
Yeah, but the difference is that they learn it as children. And that is not really difficult. But to learn several languages as an adult, THAT is difficult. So of course it's a thing for us Western Europeans! My students (coming from Syria, Afghanistan and other countries) always are in awe when I tell them how many languages I've learned.
i feel like it is based on what area you live in knowing 0 languages would be shocking (in a bad way) knowing 1 language is mandatory everywhere knowing 2 languages is almost standard amongst every country that isn't english-based knowing 3 is nice in europe, but as rzszcz said, not too impressive. maybe it includes other countries that have 2 standard language that isn't english knowing 4 or more can be impressive, in certain contexts it also kinda depends on your background wouldn't you say that "i've been studying french, spanish, and chinese for 10 years" is more impressive than "i grew up knowing 4 languages"?
UA-cam 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.
Is "polyglot" like a new word that has just now become popular in English through youtube? Because now I'm seeing a looot of videos discussing the term, mostly as if it's something bad. In Spanish we've had that word since forever, so I don't get what all the fuss is about. In Spanish "políglota" is simply a word that describes a text that's presented in various languages, or a person who speaks various languages. Its a simple, descriptive word, no controversy around it. No big discussions over what is the minimum of languages or level of fluency required for something or someone to qualify as "políglota" or anything like that (although generally we would only use it for 3 languages and above, because the words "bilingüe" and "trilingüe" are very common). The main difference I see is that "políglota" is an adjective in Spanish, while in English you seem to use it mostly as a noun... e.g. "una mujer versátil y políglota" = "a versatile and polyglot woman". So, someone IS polyglot, not A polyglot. Maybe it's that nominalization what gives it an elitist nuance.
@@LaughterCigar same thing in portuguese, when someone say that's is "poliglota" we understand that this person speaks +4 languages, but in English it seems something deeper idk why
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!
I by accident picked up a Quebec accent speaking English a few years back only being there a few days despite me speaking French without a Quebec accent.
I’d disagree about the “you have to understand the lady from the mountaintop” because then I wouldn’t officially be able to speak German, even though I am German and can even imitate certain accents :D Usually native speakers can adapt to a certain level to make you understand what they talk about 😊
@@hairnetart if she's adapting so you can understand her, then you can understand her. ☺ I maintain that if you do not understand what someone is telling you, you are not fluent. Understanding is at least as important as speaking.
There are plenty of ladies living on mountains in Guatemala whose Spanish is not at all native level. I'm not sure but there may still be a few who barely speak it or perhaps speak it not much better than me. I haven't gone as far off the beaten path in Guatemala as I have in Mexico but it's easy to find people there for whom Spanish is their L2. I've personally acted as an interpreter between native English speakers and native English speakers before. I was in Vancouver over 20 years ago and somebody, I think it was a couple, had extremely strong Scottish accents that I could understand quite well but everybody else apparently could barely understand a word of. I'd never even been to the UK and had no Scottish friends or family. I did have Scottish DNA so maybe it was magic. I've also met a couple of people from Belfast once that I couldn't understand a word of, so my talent didn't translate.
@@ellenlehrman9299 Just to clarify... If you don't comfortably understand every single speaker of every single version/dialect/variety of a language, with their individual quirks and all, then that means you don't "speak" said language? Gotcha. Whelp. By that definition no one, anywhere, speaks any languages at all. Natively or secondarily.
Definitely check out Language Simp. He makes videos parodying stereotypical UA-cam polyglots and stuff and it's really funny ua-cam.com/video/7L9Uia16zjA/v-deo.html
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."
This makes a lot of sense. I feel like many polyglots just treat the languages as another number on their "Learned" language list. They settle at a degree of "fluency" where they could have a basic conversation and impress beginners/those who don't speak the language, but wouldn't hold up after a few days or a topic they weren't prepared for in that country or language. I myself have not reached fluency in the languages I have studied, but I feel like this is a better term. I love languages, linguistics, and everything about languages. I am studying Korean because I lived there, got attached to the culture, learned the history of the language, etc. I love not only learning the language, but learning about the language and everything that goes with it.
beside those who lie about their ability to make money or just to brag. Those who learn the language have all the right to be proud of their ability. If they enjoy the process of "languages jumping" who are you to criticize them? You have your preference and so do other people. There is no "this is the better way". We learn for ourself not for other, do what make you happy. Don't gate keep language.
@@thaoremchan9234 I never criticized anyone, said any way was a "better way", or gatekept anything. I stated my own feelings and preferences. Before you jump on the defensive from people stating harmless opinions online, worry about yourself. YOU cant gatekeep how people feel or what they say
@@lovelypandamom Oh I definitely know what you mean. I lived in Korea for 2 years growing up due to my father being in the military. I fell in love with korean dramas and kpop, but I never reached fluency in korean. Right now I am focusing on learning dutch, but one day I want to completely learn korean and visit again. Korean is very difficult. I wish you the best on your journey
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.
@RobTi when I was learning Spanish and teaching English in the DR i had a Finnish neighbor who spoke Spanish and English, we had great conversations and her breakdowns on how Finnish concepts were spoken used to blow my young mind LOL. I miss that old lady
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.
Seeing as you have a lot of experience, where would you suggest one to start? I know only English but there's several languages I'm interested in and it's just really confusing where to start
@@daddykarlmarx6183 There's no best language to study. I'd take a deep think about the things you like and the people you want to be around and answer that question yourself.
@@sarraceniafell that isn't what I'm saying at all, I'm asking them how they would suggest learning a language as it's difficult to know where to start
@@daddykarlmarx6183 Personally I would start with that language’s alphabet and go over and over that before I even start learning phrases or words.Another thing, don’t gloss over resources made for children. Some people watch a film with subtitles, then with the subtitles of that language and finally none at all. Reading a book in front of you while the audio of that book is playing will be useful, think of small children being read too that’s how they learn their language. I also think it would be useful to find audio that has a transcript. Listen to it and try and write down what they are saying. Once you’ve done as much as you can do, look at the transcript. This exercise will improve your comprehension, give you an opportunity to put your spelling to the test and maybe learn new words.Also this will also help you practice getting a rough idea of what they are saying when you have a long way to go in terms of fluency. I hope what I have written makes sense and good luck with your learning.
@@daddykarlmarx6183 Would encourage you to identify a topic you're familiar with or passionate about, say sports or history or food etc. Then, go watch a video in your target language and see how much you can comprehend. SO, comprehension should be your initial goal and NOT being able to speak in your target language. Only bothered to pick up Spanish because of European football ( soccer to Americans). After a certain point, watch TEDTalk videos on UA-cam in your target language about your favorite topics as well. Then, move on to a simple phrase book and documentary or TV shows to grasp the actual grammar and vocabulary. One useful thing I did was to listen to audiobooks in my target language. So, I'm familiar with Animal Farm right? So I have the English text out and the audiobook reads the corresponding parts in Spanish. Hope that helps somewhat.
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!
Linguaphile is me. I use various languages I dabbled in to break the ice. But at the end of the day, I'm not going to risk any important communications in a language I'm worse at than the person I'm talking to. That's suicide. I wouldn't mind having a chat and an easy going conversation in a different tongue. But every single language has some features that unfailingly trip up new language learners. And currently, the cost/benefit ratio still favours investing more in English with a little bit invested in various other tongues to round the picture.
I feel same. My native languages are Polish and German. Later I learned French and English and I have tried to be fluent and to speak like a native, but it is really hard and I didn't make it.
This exactly what happens to me. I can speak Spanish and English fluently, but that's it. I can kinda get around with Japanese, Mandarin and French, but I'm nowhere near fluency.
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 like the expression "linguistics nerd"! I am not focus in speaking either. I am Brazilian and my native language is Brazilian Portuguese. I can read and understand a native in English, French, Spanish and Italian. I can speak in English and French in a basic level. Nowadays I am studying Kazakh, Russian and Mandarin. Each word I learn, each story I can read about their cultures made me very happy. 😁😄 Hug from Brazil!
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).
Me gustó todo lo que escribiste...aunque, ahora me siento un poco avergonzada de en el fondo sí querer sentirme parte de la comunidad políglota. Tal vez podríamos cambiar el nombre 😊 algo como Amantes de los idiomas, algo más vago. Y por supuesto, sin competencias, solo ese sentimiento compartido hacia los idiomas. 💜
I'd like to know more about your a) point. How is not clearly defined? On the other hand, I just agree with you. And regarding "Español Transparente" don't feel sad, do it for you not to impress other.
@@pasteurv12 that's the problem. Wanting to become a polyglot and not being able to focus on anything longer than a tweet. Your man there made a couple of interesting points, if you feel like climbing the evolution ladder high enough to follow them 🤣🤣
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!
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"
Yup. The reason I like to learn new languages is to dive into the culture and learn their perspective. (Also to be able to go to the country and try all the food!)
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 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.
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.
No there realy is a way. Like Doc Jones said. Just compair it to your native languege and be honest. Like he said Compaired to his english, he speaks 2 languages.
If I’m being honest C2: 1 (English, aka my native language) C1: none B2: none B1: none A2: 1 (Japanese, I’m learning it mainly to be able to sing in the language) A1: 2 (German, Swedish, I might move to Sweden at some point, so I might as well learn it now, German because I kinda want to visit Germany a few times in my life)
@@purpleplays69420 Oh, I guess if whoever you're talking to is familiar with CEFR this is definitely the best way to go about explaining things! Here's if I'm being honest: C2: 1 (English; native language) C1: 1 (Korean; use it daily with my wife and in-laws) B2: 1 (Japanese; used to live there and have a chronic anime addiction) A2: none A1: 1 (French; high school languages sure don't stick around for long if you don't use them) Good luck with your Japanese! Singing is a wonderful way to learn and practice a language:)
@@iznogood3147 I do not know ANY language as well as my native language but that does not mean at all I do not know other languages. Here I am commenting in a video in english for example. I do nit consider myself a polyglot neither a language lover because I am not. But as in my country is not common to know almost anything other than Spanish I still consider that saying “I know 4 languages” is pretty accurate
For me there is only one benchmark - or I'm able to think with relative ease in this language about everyday stuffs or I'm not. If not, I do not dare to say that I know if or speak it, even if I regonize some vocabulary and grammatic forms. I'm learning Danish now, I regognize a lot of words and basic phrases, I understand some grammar, probably I could pass as A1 or A2, BUT I'm not able to have organic internal monolog in it, I'm still basicly translate between english-danish (or polish-danish) in my mind. so by my own standards I'm not speaking it.
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
Honestly I'm not sure how much easier it is as I want to learn a second language and every person uses different books and techniques and many look down on language learning services and text books so I'm pretty lost tbh lol
@@daddykarlmarx6183 don't worry about that too much, those are just ways to get you started with a language and they work differently on different people. Most of the learning happens with practice. If you don't have access to speak the language with someone you won't advance much, unless you're purpose is only to be able to read it.
This video from language simp is a parody of stereotypical UA-cam polyglots (his entire channel is that tho tbh) ua-cam.com/video/7L9Uia16zjA/v-deo.html
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.
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.
GOSH YOUR COMMENT. This describes me exactly. The amount of times I've told people that my university major in Japanese and they go "OH SO YOU CAN UNDERSTAND ANIME ????". No, I can't. In fact, I often struggle to understand native speakers when they talk. I enjoy studying it though, and would really appreciate just being able to study my Japanese without having expectations (admittedly, unintentionally) placed on me. Also, not everyone who studies/speaks Japanese watches anime. I respect it, it's definitely a cool part of Japanese culture. I've tried to get into watching it before, but you know what? It's just not for me. It's not my thing. So to me, my understanding of anime is as irrelevant a benchmark in my own journey to "fluency" (whatever that is) as being able to work as a mechanical engineer.
@@speaking_of_languages As soon as you mention that you study Japanese, people start mentioning anime! I’m actually not into amime at all. I listen to Jrock, though and I love the music even if I don’t understand every single word without a translation.
@@Maki-00 Yeah, exactly. I actually got into Japanese because I wanted to understand non-pop culture aspects of Japanese culture, make Japanese friends, and travel to Japan. It would be nice if people asked us what our actual interests are that got us into the language.
I don't think polyglot is in itself a bad term because not all polyglots are polyglot UA-camrs, 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 :)
I like languages and I'm pretty proud of knowing three and learning a fourth. Becoming a polyglot is dumb little metric which is simply fun to achieve, in the same way steam achiements are. I'm proud of both and like talking about it, but nothing more than that to me. Nothing wrong with it imo. But he has a good point about the profit incentive though.
100% agree. I won’t say names but there are a few that are straight up obnoxious and disrespectful.. The obnoxious UA-cam 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 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.
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.
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 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 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."
I live in Germany and I get so irritated when I hear these so called polyglots showing off when they speak German. It’s so obvious they have memorized some very basic conversational German but almost always make pronounciation and grammar mistakes. To be truly fluent you have to be exposed to a language before the age of 16, everything else is just a giant effort. Schöne Grüße aus Deutschland 🇩🇪 mach’s gut ✌️
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!
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?
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.
Although a big part of my life I was dealing with languages learning, languages teaching and translating, this is the first time that I see somebody touched upon the subject of "polyglots". My native language is Russian, I majored in English and German and now I am learning Spanish. And for the first time in my "linguistic" life I started thinking about what it really takes to have a good command of the foreign language. Trying to recollect the process of getting more and more advanced in English in a way that listening to Russian I could type the same in English at high speed, I think that it came to me not because of learning fragments of all the intricacies. All five years that I was in college my parents were paying to the American woman who turned out to live in Russia just for two hours a week of speaking with her on everything that came to her or my mind. Wishing to reach this level of mastering Spanish, I am trying to write a textbook for myself. Without having any practice that I had in English. I am doing this empirically, thinking about my brain activity. Will all these pieces start associating with each other? Will one day somebody will ask me the question re my language ability: "Do you speak Russian as well as English?"
Very true about the nuances that have lead a person to acquire particular language. For you Polish is intimidating, for me Polish was actually number one on the hitparade of easy languages. Being native Slovak, you get to understand Czech basically for free (speaking correctly is a different story), so Polish is the next closest language that actually has to be learned. I once even got a question "Do you actually need to study Polish?" - just because my local dialect is somewhat similar to it. Yes you do, because of immense amount of false friends, haha. That is a different challenge when studying similar languages. You think you understand 100%, but you may be 100% wrong. Just try to order fresh bread in Slovak language in Poland and you get back a weird look in the person's face, why the hell is he asking for old bread :-D
Thank you for making this, it's exactly why I've always been uncomfortable with the word "polyglot". I speak only two languages fluently: English and my native Russian. I can only think in those two languages, though I usually default to English. It actually screwed with my native language abilities a bit. I can make structural or vocabulary mistakes in Russian sometimes *because* I speak English. So what does it even mean to "speak a language fluently", or "like a native speaker", let alone "speak a language"? Then there are languages that I can read and understand. Sometimes I also have a pretty good listening comprehension, like with Polish, Ukrainian, or Spanish, and can form sentences with semi-correct grammar when I need to. Sometimes all I can do is read and translate pretty well, like with French, because I had to do a lot of translation in the uni, but I would never say that I speak or know French. And sometimes, when I'm in the active phase of studying, I'll be way more comfortable actually *speaking*, like now with Hebrew. Even though I understand Polish better than Hebrew, I will probably have a harder time activating it from my memory to form sentences and stuff I learn languages because I like them. Because I want to know more about people who speak them (I took up Spanish for the sole reason of having Latino friends), and because I want to see what kind of person I can become in a different language. There's no check mark or scoreboard there, it's all just very... fluent (badum-tss)
I've found that at least for me, being able to understand a language due to mutual intelligibility makes it harder to speak it in the intermediate phase. My hypothesis is that our brains rely on knowledge of our native language (say Russian) to understand the mutually intelligible one (Polish), and because of that they resist actually training that language. If my brain knows that if it hears a random word from Polish, it will probably understand it, why would it waste time learning that word? So yeah, suffered through my own fair share of frustration because of that. But I guess that works only with very intelligible, but relatively distant languages. Because as a Russian speaker, I've always found Ukrainian pretty intuitive, often being able to guess what the Ukrainian version of the word is before ever hearing it. Though, thinking about it, knowing old church russian probably helped a lot. Guess there are bright sides to growing up in a cult after all :)
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
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.
In fact, you can't even "translate" English into other Germanic languages to 100% and vice versa. A native English speaker will never have a 100% German or Swedish mindset.
This perfectly captures the mindset ive only seen in other multicultural or multilingual settings like the short story/movie Arrival. Learning a language in its proper context and culture and history changes who you are, your view of the world, your view of society and what societies you can interact with. You can’t pick up languages like rocks and put them in your pocket; it’s more like dipping your hand into different pools of dye, the deeper you go the more you get colored and changed, and if you try many pools you will turn out different than when you started. That is the joy of languages, they unlock worlds.
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 am a translator doing mostly technical texts, and I use three languages on a daily basis. But I don't call myself a polyglot, because I never find myself in them as proficient as I dream I would be (even in my native tongue). I like the term "linguaphile" though. I have dictionaries and grammar books for around 20 (maybe 30) languages in my library. I know I have more than 100 dictionaries (not for 100 languages), and sometimes I find myself taking a look at grammatical structure of a language I am not even interested in learning, or passing time with a dictionary of an irrelevant language only to find interesting and relevant bits of cultural pearls. Every language is the product of thousands of years of human interaction and adventure. It's interesting to see how we and other people have come to see things differently. But I don't understand the motivation for "polyglotting". Learning a language is a big time investment. It takes at least 1000 hours of hard work to become fluent in a language. One can learn many useful and "impressive" things in thousands of hours. Time is money. Better use it wisely.
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 UA-cam 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!😄
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
yeah like i think the average person from western or central africa, indonesia, india or pakistan would find it *interesting* maybe but for a monolingual american it is absolutely mind-bending there is also the hollywood trope of showing a character as smart because they can list the 55 glotillion languages that they speak, which i think entrenches this confusion about who can and can't speak multiple languages
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.
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.
I feel the same way. I used to have a large list of languages I wanted to undertake learning, but I realized if I focused on too many, I wouldn't have enough time to hone my skills in a language so that I could sound more like a native speaker. Now, I'm just focusing on honing my Mandarin skills. 🙂
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!
Excellent! I was getting a bit annoyed with "polyglot" UA-cam. 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 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 UA-cam (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.
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.
it is interesting that you refer to it as "filipino" instead of tagalog. as you likely know there are over 170 dialects and languages in the philippines. i am unaware of whether calling the language "filipino" is generally accepted now because aside from tagalog there are other completely different languages in the country as well. and in theory a filipino may not know tagalog well but another language better instead.
@@iblackfeathers I grew up speaking Tagalog, but we had Filipino classes at school. Technically, I speak Tagalog, but I find it easier to call it Filipino since they're mostly the same. Foreigners tend to mispronounce Tagalog as well.
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 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.
Nah, it’s not that easy. If you don’t share a similar sense of humour with your interlocutor most of your puns/jokes will fail regardless of your language skills.
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.
What a fantastic video. You've hit the nail on the head perfectly for me. I will use the word linguaphile from now on. I nodded my head all the way through this. To answer your questions I've learned about 14 languages over the years but I too am evasive about how many I 'speak' because some of them I learned well, some only to a beginner's level and many I haven't even tried to speak in about 10 years. Do you notice how many of the professional polyglots telling you how to become fluent in a billion languages seem to have no other job or family responsibilities, by the way? It's easy to talk about how you spend so many hours learning (sorry, acquiring) a language when you don't have a job to go to and kids to look after. I have a degree in Russian, a language I use every day and the language I feel most confident in for all situations. Next is French and then Spanish. Both about C1. My latest language is Romanian. I started learning it five years ago when I retired and absolutely love it. Which brings me to the last point. When I was younger I loved learning languages just because the language fascinated me. Now looking back and realising how long I spent learning languages I never actually used I have made the conscious decision to only spent time on languages I have a definite reason to learn and know I will use. I started Romanian because I made some Romanian friends at work who took me on a trip to Romania to meet friends and family and I fell in love with the place and the people.
> Do you notice how many of the professional polyglots telling you how to become fluent in a billion languages seem to have no other job or family responsibilities, by the way? My favorite was the guy who learned French in 2 or 3 months, but did so with an 8-10h a day schedule of study that effectively requires some form of neurodivergence to even contemplate, and of course also requires 8-10h of free time a day. I love your last point -- you only know in hindsight what was going to be an enormous part of your life!
Ohhh I'm glad you want to learn Romanian! 😁 it's a very overlooked language, even though it is part of the romance languages that most people are attracted to. I hope you have a great time learning it... or that it doesn't have too many hard parts.
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.
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.
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
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 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.
Oh my gosh, this is so true. Back then in my first years of learning English, I used to try to practice my English by speaking it to the natives I found around my town. And upon speaking with them, they would compliment my English, and said "you speak English well" or "your English is good", though we're only talking about some basic stuff (using the most basic vocabularies you could think of). I mean, of course the first-two times I heard it, I was flattered. I mean, I put a lot of effort into the acquisition of it. So it'd be natural to have that feeling as a response. That is, I was so proud of myself because I felt like I've managed to master it. But as time goes by, and I got more matured, I realized that they're just saying it to be nice to me. I knew my English is not that impressive back then because well, I was still at a basic level (it was my first years of learning it). And even after years of learning it now, I wouldn't dare say I'm fluent in it because every day I'm still finding new things to learn. I can speak fairly well, but not as fluent as the natives. Now I interpret these phrases, "you speak English well" or "your English is good" to mean → thank you for your effort for learning my/our language, I/we appreciate your effort, but you still have a lot of room for improvement. Keep trying/improving!
@@anainesgonzalez8868while i'd rather agree with the commenters above yours, i'll also concur that it's also a lot based on context if the other person is also a language learner, they first get introduced to you as a foreigner, you don't look like most of your target-language speakers or have multiple languages in common, the compliment will come much quicker to them in my experience it is still a good rule of thumb, like i've gotten a few compliments that my french is really good, especially from a brit, when i know my french isn't really good and i know my english is, because i never learnt it in any native english speaker community and never went to britain
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.
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.
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.
Love this video and Language Simps parodies. Really devastating how there’s such a culture of conquering many non colonial languages (in thsi polyglot space). Many languages who’s culture may be confused by or disagree with that very idea. Way to miss the point everyone….. Move forward with reciprocity and respect rather than collecting languages like Pokémon cards shall we?
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’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!
That's a nice attitude. Just be in the joy of it. Appreciation. Fun. Humility. And yes, it's nice to be able to get along with a few phrases in another country. Not a competition, but a courtesy and a practicality.
I love this. I'm turned off by language-learning UA-cam 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 believe there are already a few videos breaking down the methods of some of the other youtube "polyglots." and it's basic statistics, they know the environment they are going into and train themselves on the most common phrases they'll encounter, thus seeming conversationally fluent. I believe LaoShu talked about this in one of his former videos. And if they are up front about it, it can still be greatly entertaining.
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.
It did not even occur to me that I was erasing the sort of "workman polyglots" you suggest -- the people who speak a bunch of languages but don't love or like it...it's just a job. Good point!
Well, those people aren't linguaphiles. They are multilingual. It is ok for these words to mean different things. Every definition excludes things. That's what they are for.
Wow i just discovered your channel. As someone who has worked incredibly hard to learn 3 languages after living in their countries and still isn't comfortable saying "i speak xx", you GET IT. PREACH!!!
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.
So, the less likely one's audience will challenge you to speak the language you claim to be fluent in, the more likely one will claim fluency in a given language. i.e. thinking hey, no one here speaks Mandarin, so I can claim I "know" Mandarin and am fluent in it, and try to impress them.
"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.
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.
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.
The most important thing about language is, how do you use it? Too often it's used as a way to flex. What it's intended to be used for is to *communicate.*
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" :)
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!
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 :)
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.
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?
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!!!
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 "UA-cam 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.
As a chinois living in a bilingual canton in Switzerland, the Swiss reference got me cracked up. Love your videos. I agree with your take on this subject. My French is somewhat enough to get me around after living here for four years, and French school assessments kinda put me on the higher B1 level (which may sound like a slow progress compared to those “I learnt a new language in 6 months” videos, but I’m quite proud of it considering that I don’t go to any classes), but I often feel the frustration of not being able to find the words and grammar I want for the situations. And I don’t and won’t consider myself “speaking” French until some day when I get questions from locals like “oh did you grow up here” or “did you live here for a long time”. That said, I’m still quite motivated to actually become a polyglot one day.
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.
Bonjour, je considére comme bilingue aussi. Ma langue maternelle est néederlandais, mais quand j'avais 8 ans je peux parler anglais. Maintenant je suis en train d'apprendre l'allemand et le français depuis 3 ans. En fait j'ai deux (ou trois) langues maternelles mais ils sont passif.
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.)
I like your linguaphile/polyglot distinction. Speaking, writing, reading and hearing are 4 different skills, and each person has a different level in each skill, in each language. I am fluent in English. I understand (spoken or written) Spanish at an advanced level, French at high intermediate level, Chinese at low intermediate level, and Japanese at advanced beginner level. I can write each one (at my level), but not speak. I have dabbled in several other languages (learned the alphabet, know some basic grammar, know about the culture). Thanks for the word "linguaphile" --"glot" never fit.
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.
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.
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.
The scale of fluency I follow is, translating better than Google translate means you are a beginner, knowing what caused that error to happen means you are intermediate, convincing a native speaker that your parents were native speakers is when you are fluent. Native speaker doesn't feel surprized when you talk to them is when you can count yourself as a native speaker. Most of the "yt polyglots" are not even beginners in this case as a lot of them are no better than Google translate in terms of their language skills.
Holy cow man, this spoke to my soul. I enjoy those videos a lot, but it's definitely spiraled as the genre has grown on popularity. But your answer to the question of "how many languages do you speak?" was so succinct, I'm coping it
I mean the word "polyglot" doesn't make much sense outside a frigidly monolingual culture. somehow all these crafted words feel artificial and hoaky to me. why can't you just say something like "I study languages as a hobby" or "my hobby is languages".
In this video, you are conveying the message much better. It is good to demystify the notion of speaking multiple languages. While it's not impossible to be a polyglot, it's just not sustainable unless a person is fully immersed in all those languages consistently and capable of maintaining a certain level of communication with native speakers of each language. You made that very clear, and thanks for that. In this world of rapid monetization, everyone tries to generate "engagement," whether positive or negative, toxic or kind...Keep loyal to your purpose - always ethical and kind. Viewers will recognize and appreciate this sincerity, and they will gravitate towards your content. I recall making a comment in a previous video of yours where I critiqued the way you defined certain languages, rather than focusing on the polies :-) Take care
Such a great video and thank you for putting this together. I am a native English speaker, I have a BA in Spanish, and I am preparing to take the DELF B2 for French. I love languages but have decided to focus on perfecting the most commonly spoken languages in the world one at a time and earning a B2 level diploma from their respective institutions before telling people that I speak them.
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.
Really like this take! Thanks for your work! I'm in a funny position of being born and raised speaking Mandarin, and then losing the majority of the language due to assimilation into Australian life and culture. But deep down, I still feel connected to those roots of my mother tongue. There's no obvious effect on the way I speak today, but once in a while I like to blame my brain hiccups on it, haha!
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.
I’m a hyperpolyglot gigachad alpha male
I know. I've seen your videos. Just watching them has made me twice the man I was. I learned fluent Navajo from you just by looking into your eyes.
professional crackhead
OMG, I know you! Love your videos bro.
yes you are
And you're attractive to all women
...
and men on the planet
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
At what level of spanish are you nowadays? Im curious, lmao. I am a native spanish speaker, and whenever anyone speaks spanish anywhere on the internet I'm like "OMGOMG ITS HAPPENING".
@@hikki3523 yo diría que lo hablo a un nivel C1 mas o menos , pero muy debil ya que estoy un poco desentrenada jaja
@@bmwii13 Ahhh, ya veo. Bueno, genial saberlo!
Languages become a lot more fun when you enjoy the process of learning them rather than trying to "complete" them as quick as possible. I blame the toxic videos on UA-cam where people say bs like they learned Italian in a week or Japanese in a month. Spoiler: It's impossible. Maybe you can hold a conversation, or order a coffee, but I doubt you can enter a hospital and explain to the doctor you have pneumonia and ask for a proper way to treat it. (I had to do this in Japan and got a reality check when the doctor started pulling up with an endless amount of medical terms I've never heard of before).
I wrote this before I watched the video, I see now that I brought up a lot of the same points, but still valid.
I mean if you’re saying your level of proficiency, it’s not a lie. I think though that most people expect people to say they speak a language when they’re at C1-C2 level. But although I’m native in 2 languages and you can judge my proficiency in English, I hesitate to say I can speak the 2 languages I don’t use for a while in any moment. Rn I speak English, but I can’t trust myself to speak Spanish or Japanese, because not using those languages for a long while makes me forget how to speak them, and I need ~1 month of exposure to regain that ability. I’m not sure how other multilingual people can be master of all the languages they speak at any given moment 😅
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.
Me gusta este comentario 😊
I love that as well, I don’t see the purpose of learning other languages if there’s no purpose without engaging in the culture such as it’s literature, history, and so on
COMPLETAMENTE DE ACUERDO
That's very true. I've been a fan of different cultures since I was a kid, and I was born in a multiethnic country, so it is only natural for me to appreciate the different cultures we have in this world.
I never understood these who compete and brag about knowing a huge amount of languages. Some learn obscure languages just for their difficulty and nothing else.
I've definitely felt a pressure to learn as much and as fast as possible.
you have got straight to the point... the most precious thing about learning a language, is being able to connect with the natives of that language... being part of their lives and letting them being part of yours... what you could have never done if you didn't speak the language right..
Be friends in a thousand languages is the focous.. not pretending to speak 20+ languages to scare people on the street with a fkn camera..
good video quality material can be done with poliglotia.. but the algorithms are set to worship the useless and nonsense
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.
In Europe knowing 2 languages (local and English) is obvious standard. Knowing 3 languages is nice, but not impressive. Four is impressive and above that is shocking
I am 18 and during my whole school I habe been learning as obligatory subjects Polish (obviously), English (from kindergarten), French and German
Yeah, but the difference is that they learn it as children. And that is not really difficult. But to learn several languages as an adult, THAT is difficult. So of course it's a thing for us Western Europeans! My students (coming from Syria, Afghanistan and other countries) always are in awe when I tell them how many languages I've learned.
i feel like it is based on what area you live in
knowing 0 languages would be shocking (in a bad way)
knowing 1 language is mandatory everywhere
knowing 2 languages is almost standard amongst every country that isn't english-based
knowing 3 is nice in europe, but as rzszcz said, not too impressive. maybe it includes other countries that have 2 standard language that isn't english
knowing 4 or more can be impressive, in certain contexts
it also kinda depends on your background
wouldn't you say that "i've been studying french, spanish, and chinese for 10 years" is more impressive than "i grew up knowing 4 languages"?
Western Europe is multilingual
UA-cam 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.
I like it. “Polyglot” to me has always screamed “look at me” even if not intended that way.
@@jordandthornburg What you think of the term "polymath" then?It's a "specialist jack-of-all-trades" in short, like Leonardo Da Vinci.
@@5sencia761 I think it’s fine, I just wouldn’t call myself that. Let’s others praise you and not your own mouth.
Is "polyglot" like a new word that has just now become popular in English through youtube? Because now I'm seeing a looot of videos discussing the term, mostly as if it's something bad. In Spanish we've had that word since forever, so I don't get what all the fuss is about.
In Spanish "políglota" is simply a word that describes a text that's presented in various languages, or a person who speaks various languages. Its a simple, descriptive word, no controversy around it. No big discussions over what is the minimum of languages or level of fluency required for something or someone to qualify as "políglota" or anything like that (although generally we would only use it for 3 languages and above, because the words "bilingüe" and "trilingüe" are very common).
The main difference I see is that "políglota" is an adjective in Spanish, while in English you seem to use it mostly as a noun... e.g. "una mujer versátil y políglota" = "a versatile and polyglot woman". So, someone IS polyglot, not A polyglot. Maybe it's that nominalization what gives it an elitist nuance.
@@LaughterCigar same thing in portuguese, when someone say that's is "poliglota" we understand that this person speaks +4 languages, but in English it seems something deeper idk why
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!
I by accident picked up a Quebec accent speaking English a few years back only being there a few days despite me speaking French without a Quebec accent.
I’d disagree about the “you have to understand the lady from the mountaintop” because then I wouldn’t officially be able to speak German, even though I am German and can even imitate certain accents :D
Usually native speakers can adapt to a certain level to make you understand what they talk about 😊
@@hairnetart if she's adapting so you can understand her, then you can understand her. ☺ I maintain that if you do not understand what someone is telling you, you are not fluent. Understanding is at least as important as speaking.
There are plenty of ladies living on mountains in Guatemala whose Spanish is not at all native level. I'm not sure but there may still be a few who barely speak it or perhaps speak it not much better than me. I haven't gone as far off the beaten path in Guatemala as I have in Mexico but it's easy to find people there for whom Spanish is their L2.
I've personally acted as an interpreter between native English speakers and native English speakers before. I was in Vancouver over 20 years ago and somebody, I think it was a couple, had extremely strong Scottish accents that I could understand quite well but everybody else apparently could barely understand a word of. I'd never even been to the UK and had no Scottish friends or family. I did have Scottish DNA so maybe it was magic. I've also met a couple of people from Belfast once that I couldn't understand a word of, so my talent didn't translate.
@@ellenlehrman9299 Just to clarify... If you don't comfortably understand every single speaker of every single version/dialect/variety of a language, with their individual quirks and all, then that means you don't "speak" said language? Gotcha.
Whelp. By that definition no one, anywhere, speaks any languages at all. Natively or secondarily.
Yes make that video about how to pretend to be a polyglot
I never knew this was a choice but now i don't think i can live without it.
ikrrr
Definitely check out Language Simp. He makes videos parodying stereotypical UA-cam polyglots and stuff and it's really funny
ua-cam.com/video/7L9Uia16zjA/v-deo.html
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."
🎉🎉🎉
He is definately a down to Earth, cool dude.
This makes a lot of sense. I feel like many polyglots just treat the languages as another number on their "Learned" language list. They settle at a degree of "fluency" where they could have a basic conversation and impress beginners/those who don't speak the language, but wouldn't hold up after a few days or a topic they weren't prepared for in that country or language.
I myself have not reached fluency in the languages I have studied, but I feel like this is a better term. I love languages, linguistics, and everything about languages. I am studying Korean because I lived there, got attached to the culture, learned the history of the language, etc. I love not only learning the language, but learning about the language and everything that goes with it.
beside those who lie about their ability to make money or just to brag. Those who learn the language have all the right to be proud of their ability. If they enjoy the process of "languages jumping" who are you to criticize them? You have your preference and so do other people. There is no "this is the better way". We learn for ourself not for other, do what make you happy. Don't gate keep language.
@@thaoremchan9234 I never criticized anyone, said any way was a "better way", or gatekept anything. I stated my own feelings and preferences. Before you jump on the defensive from people stating harmless opinions online, worry about yourself. YOU cant gatekeep how people feel or what they say
@@lovelypandamom Oh I definitely know what you mean. I lived in Korea for 2 years growing up due to my father being in the military. I fell in love with korean dramas and kpop, but I never reached fluency in korean. Right now I am focusing on learning dutch, but one day I want to completely learn korean and visit again.
Korean is very difficult. I wish you the best on your journey
Yes, I noticed those poyglots always say some easiest sentences and often out of context, and that's it
수고하세요!!
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 am Finnish and I felt your pain when you said you chose to study it. My condolences, haha.
@@RobTi lol whats wrong with finnish?
Thoroughly enjoyed this story
@@kimaya.3563 10000 case declantions i guess😅
@RobTi when I was learning Spanish and teaching English in the DR i had a Finnish neighbor who spoke Spanish and English, we had great conversations and her breakdowns on how Finnish concepts were spoken used to blow my young mind LOL. I miss that old lady
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.
Seeing as you have a lot of experience, where would you suggest one to start? I know only English but there's several languages I'm interested in and it's just really confusing where to start
@@daddykarlmarx6183 There's no best language to study. I'd take a deep think about the things you like and the people you want to be around and answer that question yourself.
@@sarraceniafell that isn't what I'm saying at all, I'm asking them how they would suggest learning a language as it's difficult to know where to start
@@daddykarlmarx6183 Personally I would start with that language’s alphabet and go over and over that before I even start learning phrases or words.Another thing, don’t gloss over resources made for children. Some people watch a film with subtitles, then with the subtitles of that language and finally none at all. Reading a book in front of you while the audio of that book is playing will be useful, think of small children being read too that’s how they learn their language. I also think it would be useful to find audio that has a transcript. Listen to it and try and write down what they are saying. Once you’ve done as much as you can do, look at the transcript. This exercise will improve your comprehension, give you an opportunity to put your spelling to the test and maybe learn new words.Also this will also help you practice getting a rough idea of what they are saying when you have a long way to go in terms of fluency. I hope what I have written makes sense and good luck with your learning.
@@daddykarlmarx6183 Would encourage you to identify a topic you're familiar with or passionate about, say sports or history or food etc.
Then, go watch a video in your target language and see how much you can comprehend. SO, comprehension should be your initial goal and NOT being able to speak in your target language.
Only bothered to pick up Spanish because of European football ( soccer to Americans). After a certain point, watch TEDTalk videos on UA-cam in your target language about your favorite topics as well. Then, move on to a simple phrase book and documentary or TV shows to grasp the actual grammar and vocabulary.
One useful thing I did was to listen to audiobooks in my target language. So, I'm familiar with Animal Farm right? So I have the English text out and the audiobook reads the corresponding parts in Spanish.
Hope that helps somewhat.
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!
@@femme_fatalist plz do that sounds fun! I’m native English and have dabbled in Spanish a bit of German , but have always wanted to go further
Linguaphile is me. I use various languages I dabbled in to break the ice. But at the end of the day, I'm not going to risk any important communications in a language I'm worse at than the person I'm talking to. That's suicide. I wouldn't mind having a chat and an easy going conversation in a different tongue. But every single language has some features that unfailingly trip up new language learners. And currently, the cost/benefit ratio still favours investing more in English with a little bit invested in various other tongues to round the picture.
Converstional is how I describe myself with languages as well.
I feel same. My native languages are Polish and German. Later I learned French and English and I have tried to be fluent and to speak like a native, but it is really hard and I didn't make it.
This exactly what happens to me. I can speak Spanish and English fluently, but that's it. I can kinda get around with Japanese, Mandarin and French, but I'm nowhere near fluency.
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 like the expression "linguistics nerd"! I am not focus in speaking either. I am Brazilian and my native language is Brazilian Portuguese. I can read and understand a native in English, French, Spanish and Italian. I can speak in English and French in a basic level. Nowadays I am studying Kazakh, Russian and Mandarin. Each word I learn, each story I can read about their cultures made me very happy. 😁😄 Hug from Brazil!
@@stellamont
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).
Me gustó todo lo que escribiste...aunque, ahora me siento un poco avergonzada de en el fondo sí querer sentirme parte de la comunidad políglota. Tal vez podríamos cambiar el nombre 😊 algo como Amantes de los idiomas, algo más vago. Y por supuesto, sin competencias, solo ese sentimiento compartido hacia los idiomas. 💜
Great analysis. Some topics just cannot be simplified
Sorry, I stopped reading at point 'a'
I'd like to know more about your a) point. How is not clearly defined? On the other hand, I just agree with you. And regarding "Español Transparente" don't feel sad, do it for you not to impress other.
@@pasteurv12 that's the problem. Wanting to become a polyglot and not being able to focus on anything longer than a tweet. Your man there made a couple of interesting points, if you feel like climbing the evolution ladder high enough to follow them 🤣🤣
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!
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"
👍❤ 100%
Yup. The reason I like to learn new languages is to dive into the culture and learn their perspective. (Also to be able to go to the country and try all the food!)
Learning a language should be about whatever the learner wants it to be about. I'm sick and tired of all this gatekeeping.
It is difficult to define what a language is, does anybody can?
@@MS-nt4xe hear, hear!
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 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.
既然很多学英语的人都可以达到，我想并不是不可能的。加油～
@@boyizheng6913 谢谢！我在努力！慢慢来吧！
ni hao
I've seen foreigners speaking Chinese close to a native level. It's definitely achievable and if that's your goal, go for it!
@@melaniesyx 我觉得除了大山和在中国长大的都有很厉害的口音和少知道很多古语等等。
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.
No there realy is a way. Like Doc Jones said. Just compair it to your native languege and be honest. Like he said Compaired to his english, he speaks 2 languages.
If I’m being honest
C2: 1 (English, aka my native language)
C1: none
B2: none
B1: none
A2: 1 (Japanese, I’m learning it mainly to be able to sing in the language)
A1: 2 (German, Swedish, I might move to Sweden at some point, so I might as well learn it now, German because I kinda want to visit Germany a few times in my life)
@@purpleplays69420 Oh, I guess if whoever you're talking to is familiar with CEFR this is definitely the best way to go about explaining things! Here's if I'm being honest:
C2: 1 (English; native language)
C1: 1 (Korean; use it daily with my wife and in-laws)
B2: 1 (Japanese; used to live there and have a chronic anime addiction)
A2: none
A1: 1 (French; high school languages sure don't stick around for long if you don't use them)
Good luck with your Japanese! Singing is a wonderful way to learn and practice a language:)
@@iznogood3147 I do not know ANY language as well as my native language but that does not mean at all I do not know other languages. Here I am commenting in a video in english for example. I do nit consider myself a polyglot neither a language lover because I am not. But as in my country is not common to know almost anything other than Spanish I still consider that saying “I know 4 languages” is pretty accurate
For me there is only one benchmark - or I'm able to think with relative ease in this language about everyday stuffs or I'm not. If not, I do not dare to say that I know if or speak it, even if I regonize some vocabulary and grammatic forms. I'm learning Danish now, I regognize a lot of words and basic phrases, I understand some grammar, probably I could pass as A1 or A2, BUT I'm not able to have organic internal monolog in it, I'm still basicly translate between english-danish (or polish-danish) in my mind. so by my own standards I'm not speaking it.
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
It might take a while, but there's definitely enough interest that it's in the works!
Honestly I'm not sure how much easier it is as I want to learn a second language and every person uses different books and techniques and many look down on language learning services and text books so I'm pretty lost tbh lol
@@daddykarlmarx6183 don't worry about that too much, those are just ways to get you started with a language and they work differently on different people. Most of the learning happens with practice. If you don't have access to speak the language with someone you won't advance much, unless you're purpose is only to be able to read it.
This video from language simp is a parody of stereotypical UA-cam polyglots (his entire channel is that tho tbh)
ua-cam.com/video/7L9Uia16zjA/v-deo.html
Watch Language Simp. He satires all the polyglot youtubers.
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.
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.
GOSH YOUR COMMENT. This describes me exactly. The amount of times I've told people that my university major in Japanese and they go "OH SO YOU CAN UNDERSTAND ANIME ????". No, I can't. In fact, I often struggle to understand native speakers when they talk. I enjoy studying it though, and would really appreciate just being able to study my Japanese without having expectations (admittedly, unintentionally) placed on me.
Also, not everyone who studies/speaks Japanese watches anime. I respect it, it's definitely a cool part of Japanese culture. I've tried to get into watching it before, but you know what? It's just not for me. It's not my thing. So to me, my understanding of anime is as irrelevant a benchmark in my own journey to "fluency" (whatever that is) as being able to work as a mechanical engineer.
@@speaking_of_languages As soon as you mention that you study Japanese, people start mentioning anime! I’m actually not into amime at all. I listen to Jrock, though and I love the music even if I don’t understand every single word without a translation.
SAME!
I literally avoid mentioning that I’m learning Korean to anyone I’m not already close with.
@@Maki-00 Yeah, exactly. I actually got into Japanese because I wanted to understand non-pop culture aspects of Japanese culture, make Japanese friends, and travel to Japan. It would be nice if people asked us what our actual interests are that got us into the language.
I don't think polyglot is in itself a bad term because not all polyglots are polyglot UA-camrs, 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 :)
I like languages and I'm pretty proud of knowing three and learning a fourth. Becoming a polyglot is dumb little metric which is simply fun to achieve, in the same way steam achiements are. I'm proud of both and like talking about it, but nothing more than that to me. Nothing wrong with it imo.
But he has a good point about the profit incentive though.
100% agree. I won’t say names but there are a few that are straight up obnoxious and disrespectful.. The obnoxious UA-cam 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.
No need to name them - we pretty much know who they are.
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.
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.
oh man that was so cool to read! thanks for sharing :)
I feel like I just read a great essay... Thank you man, I find myself in those lines as a linguistics nerd
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 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.
Lol, I think I know who that person is.
@@BeyondChemistry who is that person, i'm curious since i don't know who that would be
@@smalls5001 "Wouter" maybe
@@VictorRuan285 he says he is only fluent in 5 languages so het kan 'm niet zijn
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."
I live in Germany and I get so irritated when I hear these so called polyglots showing off when they speak German. It’s so obvious they have memorized some very basic conversational German but almost always make pronounciation and grammar mistakes. To be truly fluent you have to be exposed to a language before the age of 16, everything else is just a giant effort. Schöne Grüße aus Deutschland 🇩🇪 mach’s gut ✌️
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!
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?
Which 11 languages can you speak? I am just curious...
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.
Although a big part of my life I was dealing with languages learning, languages teaching and translating, this is the first time that I see somebody touched upon the subject of "polyglots". My native language is Russian, I majored in English and German and now I am learning Spanish. And for the first time in my "linguistic" life I started thinking about what it really takes to have a good command of the foreign language. Trying to recollect the process of getting more and more advanced in English in a way that listening to Russian I could type the same in English at high speed, I think that it came to me not because of learning fragments of all the intricacies. All five years that I was in college my parents were paying to the American woman who turned out to live in Russia just for two hours a week of speaking with her on everything that came to her or my mind. Wishing to reach this level of mastering Spanish, I am trying to write a textbook for myself. Without having any practice that I had in English. I am doing this empirically, thinking about my brain activity. Will all these pieces start associating with each other? Will one day somebody will ask me the question re my language ability: "Do you speak Russian as well as English?"
Very true about the nuances that have lead a person to acquire particular language. For you Polish is intimidating, for me Polish was actually number one on the hitparade of easy languages. Being native Slovak, you get to understand Czech basically for free (speaking correctly is a different story), so Polish is the next closest language that actually has to be learned. I once even got a question "Do you actually need to study Polish?" - just because my local dialect is somewhat similar to it. Yes you do, because of immense amount of false friends, haha. That is a different challenge when studying similar languages. You think you understand 100%, but you may be 100% wrong. Just try to order fresh bread in Slovak language in Poland and you get back a weird look in the person's face, why the hell is he asking for old bread :-D
I'm a hyper polyglot giga chad and I can speak languages that you wold never think that they exist
Idk why, but "giga Chad" is so funny to me lol. Charity for the first time yesterday and I just busted out laughing
Thank you for making this, it's exactly why I've always been uncomfortable with the word "polyglot". I speak only two languages fluently: English and my native Russian. I can only think in those two languages, though I usually default to English. It actually screwed with my native language abilities a bit. I can make structural or vocabulary mistakes in Russian sometimes *because* I speak English. So what does it even mean to "speak a language fluently", or "like a native speaker", let alone "speak a language"?
Then there are languages that I can read and understand. Sometimes I also have a pretty good listening comprehension, like with Polish, Ukrainian, or Spanish, and can form sentences with semi-correct grammar when I need to. Sometimes all I can do is read and translate pretty well, like with French, because I had to do a lot of translation in the uni, but I would never say that I speak or know French. And sometimes, when I'm in the active phase of studying, I'll be way more comfortable actually *speaking*, like now with Hebrew. Even though I understand Polish better than Hebrew, I will probably have a harder time activating it from my memory to form sentences and stuff
I learn languages because I like them. Because I want to know more about people who speak them (I took up Spanish for the sole reason of having Latino friends), and because I want to see what kind of person I can become in a different language. There's no check mark or scoreboard there, it's all just very... fluent (badum-tss)
I've found that at least for me, being able to understand a language due to mutual intelligibility makes it harder to speak it in the intermediate phase. My hypothesis is that our brains rely on knowledge of our native language (say Russian) to understand the mutually intelligible one (Polish), and because of that they resist actually training that language.
If my brain knows that if it hears a random word from Polish, it will probably understand it, why would it waste time learning that word?
So yeah, suffered through my own fair share of frustration because of that.
But I guess that works only with very intelligible, but relatively distant languages.
Because as a Russian speaker, I've always found Ukrainian pretty intuitive, often being able to guess what the Ukrainian version of the word is before ever hearing it. Though, thinking about it, knowing old church russian probably helped a lot. Guess there are bright sides to growing up in a cult after all :)
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
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.
In fact, you can't even "translate" English into other Germanic languages to 100% and vice versa. A native English speaker will never have a 100% German or Swedish mindset.
Where do you learn? I wanna learn too
@@thesharkormoriantm274 I’m learning at school :)
Ok thanks. Do you know some app or online class or something?
This perfectly captures the mindset ive only seen in other multicultural or multilingual settings like the short story/movie Arrival. Learning a language in its proper context and culture and history changes who you are, your view of the world, your view of society and what societies you can interact with. You can’t pick up languages like rocks and put them in your pocket; it’s more like dipping your hand into different pools of dye, the deeper you go the more you get colored and changed, and if you try many pools you will turn out different than when you started. That is the joy of languages, they unlock worlds.
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 :)
Hopefully the mic in my "Top 10 fake Polyglot tricks" video is up to standard! After this video I bought a Røde!
I am a translator doing mostly technical texts, and I use three languages on a daily basis. But I don't call myself a polyglot, because I never find myself in them as proficient as I dream I would be (even in my native tongue). I like the term "linguaphile" though. I have dictionaries and grammar books for around 20 (maybe 30) languages in my library. I know I have more than 100 dictionaries (not for 100 languages), and sometimes I find myself taking a look at grammatical structure of a language I am not even interested in learning, or passing time with a dictionary of an irrelevant language only to find interesting and relevant bits of cultural pearls. Every language is the product of thousands of years of human interaction and adventure. It's interesting to see how we and other people have come to see things differently. But I don't understand the motivation for "polyglotting". Learning a language is a big time investment. It takes at least 1000 hours of hard work to become fluent in a language. One can learn many useful and "impressive" things in thousands of hours. Time is money. Better use it wisely.
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 UA-cam 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!😄
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
Where do you live?
@@wesleygama447 luxembourg
@@blanco7726 I live nearby and I also have that
yeah like i think the average person from western or central africa, indonesia, india or pakistan would find it *interesting* maybe but for a monolingual american it is absolutely mind-bending
there is also the hollywood trope of showing a character as smart because they can list the 55 glotillion languages that they speak, which i think entrenches this confusion about who can and can't speak multiple languages
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.
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.
I feel the same way. I used to have a large list of languages I wanted to undertake learning, but I realized if I focused on too many, I wouldn't have enough time to hone my skills in a language so that I could sound more like a native speaker. Now, I'm just focusing on honing my Mandarin skills. 🙂
@@cecilhouseknecht3143 Yea for sure . You could spend your whole life continuing to learn only Mandarin. Keep up the work !
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!
Excellent! I was getting a bit annoyed with "polyglot" UA-cam. 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 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 UA-cam (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!
Ich drück' dir die Daumen!! 😄
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.
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.
it is interesting that you refer to it as "filipino" instead of tagalog. as you likely know there are over 170 dialects and languages in the philippines.
i am unaware of whether calling the language "filipino" is generally accepted now because aside from tagalog there are other completely different languages in the country as well. and in theory a filipino may not know tagalog well but another language better instead.
@@iblackfeathers Tagalog is the mother language of Filipino.
@@iblackfeathers I grew up speaking Tagalog, but we had Filipino classes at school. Technically, I speak Tagalog, but I find it easier to call it Filipino since they're mostly the same. Foreigners tend to mispronounce Tagalog as well.
@@umcarafilipino Don't foreigners pronounce Filipino differently from how you would as well?
@@zoushuu They usually get it right. I don't really bother with how they pronounce the vowels. It's better than hearing "tag a log".
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 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.
Nah, it’s not that easy. If you don’t share a similar sense of humour with your interlocutor most of your puns/jokes will fail regardless of your language skills.
It’s pretty easy to make puns,
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.
What a fantastic video. You've hit the nail on the head perfectly for me. I will use the word linguaphile from now on. I nodded my head all the way through this.
To answer your questions I've learned about 14 languages over the years but I too am evasive about how many I 'speak' because some of them I learned well, some only to a beginner's level and many I haven't even tried to speak in about 10 years. Do you notice how many of the professional polyglots telling you how to become fluent in a billion languages seem to have no other job or family responsibilities, by the way? It's easy to talk about how you spend so many hours learning (sorry, acquiring) a language when you don't have a job to go to and kids to look after.
I have a degree in Russian, a language I use every day and the language I feel most confident in for all situations. Next is French and then Spanish. Both about C1. My latest language is Romanian. I started learning it five years ago when I retired and absolutely love it. Which brings me to the last point. When I was younger I loved learning languages just because the language fascinated me. Now looking back and realising how long I spent learning languages I never actually used I have made the conscious decision to only spent time on languages I have a definite reason to learn and know I will use. I started Romanian because I made some Romanian friends at work who took me on a trip to Romania to meet friends and family and I fell in love with the place and the people.
> Do you notice how many of the professional polyglots telling you how to become fluent in a billion languages seem to have no other job or family responsibilities, by the way?
My favorite was the guy who learned French in 2 or 3 months, but did so with an 8-10h a day schedule of study that effectively requires some form of neurodivergence to even contemplate, and of course also requires 8-10h of free time a day.
I love your last point -- you only know in hindsight what was going to be an enormous part of your life!
Ohhh I'm glad you want to learn Romanian! 😁 it's a very overlooked language, even though it is part of the romance languages that most people are attracted to. I hope you have a great time learning it... or that it doesn't have too many hard parts.
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.
My record was saying 哎哟！
oy vey
Nobody does that
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.
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
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 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.
Oh my gosh, this is so true. Back then in my first years of learning English, I used to try to practice my English by speaking it to the natives I found around my town. And upon speaking with them, they would compliment my English, and said "you speak English well" or "your English is good", though we're only talking about some basic stuff (using the most basic vocabularies you could think of). I mean, of course the first-two times I heard it, I was flattered. I mean, I put a lot of effort into the acquisition of it. So it'd be natural to have that feeling as a response. That is, I was so proud of myself because I felt like I've managed to master it. But as time goes by, and I got more matured, I realized that they're just saying it to be nice to me. I knew my English is not that impressive back then because well, I was still at a basic level (it was my first years of learning it). And even after years of learning it now, I wouldn't dare say I'm fluent in it because every day I'm still finding new things to learn. I can speak fairly well, but not as fluent as the natives.
Now I interpret these phrases, "you speak English well" or "your English is good" to mean → thank you for your effort for learning my/our language, I/we appreciate your effort, but you still have a lot of room for improvement. Keep trying/improving!
Oh yeah, its very wise to interpret it as "you are doing a good job learning." Never thought of it that way
I do not agree with this. It depends on the culture of the person complimenting
@@anainesgonzalez8868while i'd rather agree with the commenters above yours, i'll also concur that it's also a lot based on context
if the other person is also a language learner, they first get introduced to you as a foreigner, you don't look like most of your target-language speakers or have multiple languages in common, the compliment will come much quicker to them
in my experience it is still a good rule of thumb, like i've gotten a few compliments that my french is really good, especially from a brit, when i know my french isn't really good and i know my english is, because i never learnt it in any native english speaker community and never went to britain
@@curiousdiver Yeah, it means something like "You are on the right track". It's an encouragement.
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.
that's interesting! do you still remember any french or japanese?
Привет 👋 Как успехи в изучении языков сейчас? Я тоже говорю на этих языках кроме казахского)
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.
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.
Love this video and Language Simps parodies. Really devastating how there’s such a culture of conquering many non colonial languages (in thsi polyglot space). Many languages who’s culture may be confused by or disagree with that very idea. Way to miss the point everyone…..
Move forward with reciprocity and respect rather than collecting languages like Pokémon cards shall we?
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 .
Du sind sehr de maakten Hör
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!
That's a nice attitude. Just be in the joy of it. Appreciation. Fun. Humility. And yes, it's nice to be able to get along with a few phrases in another country. Not a competition, but a courtesy and a practicality.
I love this. I'm turned off by language-learning UA-cam 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 believe there are already a few videos breaking down the methods of some of the other youtube "polyglots." and it's basic statistics, they know the environment they are going into and train themselves on the most common phrases they'll encounter, thus seeming conversationally fluent. I believe LaoShu talked about this in one of his former videos. And if they are up front about it, it can still be greatly entertaining.
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.
It did not even occur to me that I was erasing the sort of "workman polyglots" you suggest -- the people who speak a bunch of languages but don't love or like it...it's just a job. Good point!
Well, those people aren't linguaphiles. They are multilingual. It is ok for these words to mean different things.
Every definition excludes things. That's what they are for.
Wow i just discovered your channel. As someone who has worked incredibly hard to learn 3 languages after living in their countries and still isn't comfortable saying "i speak xx", you GET IT. PREACH!!!
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.
So, the less likely one's audience will challenge you to speak the language you claim to be fluent in, the more likely one will claim fluency in a given language. i.e. thinking hey, no one here speaks Mandarin, so I can claim I "know" Mandarin and am fluent in it, and try to impress them.
"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.
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.
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.
I totally agree with you.. I was thinking the same about the term "POLYGLOT"
The most important thing about language is, how do you use it? Too often it's used as a way to flex. What it's intended to be used for is to *communicate.*
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" :)
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!
beta polyglot: languagejones
chad polyglot: languagesimp
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 :)
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.
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?
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!!!
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 "UA-cam 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.
As a chinois living in a bilingual canton in Switzerland, the Swiss reference got me cracked up. Love your videos. I agree with your take on this subject. My French is somewhat enough to get me around after living here for four years, and French school assessments kinda put me on the higher B1 level (which may sound like a slow progress compared to those “I learnt a new language in 6 months” videos, but I’m quite proud of it considering that I don’t go to any classes), but I often feel the frustration of not being able to find the words and grammar I want for the situations. And I don’t and won’t consider myself “speaking” French until some day when I get questions from locals like “oh did you grow up here” or “did you live here for a long time”. That said, I’m still quite motivated to actually become a polyglot one day.
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.
Bonjour, je considére comme bilingue aussi. Ma langue maternelle est néederlandais, mais quand j'avais 8 ans je peux parler anglais. Maintenant je suis en train d'apprendre l'allemand et le français depuis 3 ans. En fait j'ai deux (ou trois) langues maternelles mais ils sont passif.
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.)
La gente que afirma hablar varios idiomas debe grabar los videos en esos idiomas.
(Like if you speak Spanish).
No afirmaría que hablo español, pero entiendo todos de tu coment, incluso antes presioné "translate to English" jaja
@@NoEggCraig Sigue estudiando. Tarde o temprano, vas a contar con la habilidad de hablar bien el castellano.
I like your linguaphile/polyglot distinction. Speaking, writing, reading and hearing are 4 different skills, and each person has a different level in each skill, in each language. I am fluent in English. I understand (spoken or written) Spanish at an advanced level, French at high intermediate level, Chinese at low intermediate level, and Japanese at advanced beginner level. I can write each one (at my level), but not speak. I have dabbled in several other languages (learned the alphabet, know some basic grammar, know about the culture). Thanks for the word "linguaphile" --"glot" never fit.
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.
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.
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.
I’m happy more people are talking about this and bringing the convo about language learning back down to earth.
The scale of fluency I follow is, translating better than Google translate means you are a beginner, knowing what caused that error to happen means you are intermediate, convincing a native speaker that your parents were native speakers is when you are fluent. Native speaker doesn't feel surprized when you talk to them is when you can count yourself as a native speaker.
Most of the "yt polyglots" are not even beginners in this case as a lot of them are no better than Google translate in terms of their language skills.
Holy cow man, this spoke to my soul. I enjoy those videos a lot, but it's definitely spiraled as the genre has grown on popularity. But your answer to the question of "how many languages do you speak?" was so succinct, I'm coping it
I mean the word "polyglot" doesn't make much sense outside a frigidly monolingual culture. somehow all these crafted words feel artificial and hoaky to me. why can't you just say something like "I study languages as a hobby" or "my hobby is languages".
I love that reframing as a normal thing that one does, and not as an identity.
In this video, you are conveying the message much better. It is good to demystify the notion of speaking multiple languages. While it's not impossible to be a polyglot, it's just not sustainable unless a person is fully immersed in all those languages consistently and capable of maintaining a certain level of communication with native speakers of each language. You made that very clear, and thanks for that. In this world of rapid monetization, everyone tries to generate "engagement," whether positive or negative, toxic or kind...Keep loyal to your purpose - always ethical and kind. Viewers will recognize and appreciate this sincerity, and they will gravitate towards your content. I recall making a comment in a previous video of yours where I critiqued the way you defined certain languages, rather than focusing on the polies :-) Take care
Such a great video and thank you for putting this together. I am a native English speaker, I have a BA in Spanish, and I am preparing to take the DELF B2 for French. I love languages but have decided to focus on perfecting the most commonly spoken languages in the world one at a time and earning a B2 level diploma from their respective institutions before telling people that I speak them.
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.
Really like this take! Thanks for your work!
I'm in a funny position of being born and raised speaking Mandarin, and then losing the majority of the language due to assimilation into Australian life and culture. But deep down, I still feel connected to those roots of my mother tongue.
There's no obvious effect on the way I speak today, but once in a while I like to blame my brain hiccups on it, haha!
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.