Learning multiples languages takes a lot of time. But there ARE ways to save time. Check out my video "8 ways polyglots learn languages fast" 👉🏼 ua-cam.com/video/PE_eolTGTTA/v-deo.html
I hate when people say "Omg you speak three languages, you are so smart/talented". I just reply and say "It actually takes many years and a lot of hard work to learn a language well". They usually get awkward or go quiet, but it is the truth. Imagine people who speak over 5 languages. I also hate when I pronounce things on a menu correctly and English speakers don't understand it...so annoying. 😂🙈
YES. Or for example, "what is this language thing" "Oh so this language doesn't really work that way." "Oh well that's weird they should just do it the English way" Like as if English or whatever their native language is, is the objective normal.
I hate it when they ask me to translate something I actually understand, but simply can't find the 'appropriate' words in the language I have to translate.
@@diegoescobar4268 it makes me want to say: SO YOU SPEAK NATIVE FRENCH TO CRITICIZE MY FRENCH, DON'T YOU? Its funny the fact its always someone who doesnt speak any of your target language
Also when you stop in the middle of the sentence, because the "stairs" is feminine in three languages, in two others it's masculine, in one more it's neutral, in another there is no word for that and in some others it's only in plural and you forgot which one is correct for the language you are.speaking at the moment but you remember that it's an offensive word if you use it with a wrong article
My real problem is when people think you're a "real time translator" just because you know both languages, so they watch a movie, a video and want you to translate it as it's showing up...
Translating is so hard though! Especially if the word order in both languages is different. To me, it's easier to translate German to Dutch than English to Dutch, even though my English is way better, just because the word order in German and Dutch is pretty similar.
@@Roozyj True !! The whole grammar structure change between some languages and it can really be hard. People think it’s easy for us because they think we just translate everything in our heard but we dont (I mean most of us dont)
Also some things are almost untranslatable, or just very, very difficult to "get the meaning across". Especially with unstandartised languages/dialects, who often have words where you'd need a whole sentence to translate them. For example, in my language/dialect there is a verb for "heating a slaughtered pig in water and scrubbing it to get the bristles off."
@@valentinmitterbauer4196 absolutely true !! So many idioms are totally untranslatable. Still trying to explain english native speaker why «pooping a clock » means make a big deal of something in my language 😂.
Great video. Monolinguals do have a hard time understanding that there are different levels of fluency, they see language as black or white while polyglots understand that there are numerous shades of grey in language acquisition.
So true! It’s so hard to feel confident enough to say “I am fluent in second language” the whole process of constantly learning new words as an adult makes one feel inadequate or like an impostor.
I was told that I had a *texan* accent of all things when I spoke english to a Japanese guy. I'm also german. But I guess that counts as a compliment...
@Unknown Username I really wouldn't generalize that. I think it depends on things like how often you have to switch between languages and if you use them in parallel instead of replacing one. Say if you actively have to translate in both directions I can't imagine that it would be detrimental to either language. Cheers.
Oh my, my, my! This happens to me aaallll the time with UA-cam videos or articles. I can't remember in what language the contents was, so I can share it once the subject pops into a conversation 😱🤣🤣🤣
Yes. Or recommend a video or an article or a tweet, so you start to google it again by the possible title, but you realize you don't really remember in which language you saw it, so you're never gonna find it again :P (unless in the huge ocean of browsing history).
Yes! So true! And sometimes, when I think of a book, sentences of the book pop up perfectly translated to another language in my head, so I'm like: wait, did I read that book in that language??? And it confuses the heck out of me.
The identity crisis was so relatable. When I got back to the states after being in Korea I kept bowing/felt the need to bow and I know 100% that everyone was definitely confused and judging me
@@laumay7364 haha , I got something similar . We usually bow when we leave the training mats in bjj , and one day I found myself bowing when I was leaving work 🤣
I lived in Germany 5 years before returning to the US. I still use my utensils German style, and I’ve been back over 30 years, lol. Ive given up worrying what others think while I’m using my knife to scoop food on my fork. 😂
People are accusing polyglots of being obsessed with the word "polyglots" while they are so obsessed with the word "fluent". Just because we don't know some words doesn't mean that we are not fluent. Because I learn words in my native language every year. I learned more than 5 words in my native language within the past 3 months, and I still find it difficult to translate (and understand) songs in my native language, so it doesn't mean that it's not my native language and the only language I have been speaking for more than 15 years. People need to stop accusing others of not being fluent because of some small mistakes and focus on their own language learning journey. If somebody criticizes the language ability of a person who is using the language comfortably in day today life, the only definition for this is, "jealousy" what else can it be?
Yeah. I remember smn asked me about my fluency in English and I said I was fluent in it. So then he asked me what his name sounded like in English. I didn't know it. And he told me that then I wasn't fluent in English. Fuck you Arthur. I remember your fuckin' name since that day, thank you for your comment! A person who knew 1 language only (his motherlanguage) while I speak 4.
In real life most people simply appreciate someone making an effort to communicate in another language. Most of the time. There are always exceptions: Once I tried renting an apartment in Italy and the landlord sneered at me because after three weeks (!) of learning Italian I should have been better. C'mon, give me a break. But more often then not the UA-cam comment section can turn out to be a cesspit of language snobbery: People trying to ignore what you wrote by latching on to some grammatical error - all the while ignoring the fact that the foreigners are making an effort to communicate in _their_ language. Can be funny. Have a great day!
When I was an exchange student in Canada during high school, I (as a non-native English speaker) was flabbergasted to find there was a game called "Balderdash" where one participant reads a word off a card and the others need to explain what it is. In my language the only words this makes sense for are technical terms. In English there are so incredibly many words that completely competent native speakers don't know... not, I would like to stress, because they are illiterate but because English has got such a huge vocabulary.
I'm only now learning my third language but this is so relatable lmaoo, especially the part of forgetting words in your own language. De verdad que no quiero presumir, es que estoy medio tonta:´)
@@jooshozzono7249 No se trata de "olvidar tu lengua materna" sino que simplemente se trata de tener dificultad en recordar ciertas palabras de manera momentánea; no que estas "se olviden" por completo, sino que simplemente a veces se tiene dificultad en recordarlas. En psicolingüística se conoce como el fenómeno de "la punta de la lengua" (or the tip of the tongue phenomenon), que es la sensación de tener la palabra en la punta de la lengua y no poder recordarla en el momento. Todas las personas presentan este fenómeno, pero es mucho más común en personas con un nivel alto en idiomas extranjeros (sean bilingües, trilingües o políglotas) que en monolingües o personas con un bajo nivel en idiomas extranjeros. Es completamente normal y no significa que estés "olvidando tu lengua materna", ya que solo es algo que ocurre en el momento y después se pueden recordar sin problema. Personalmente me sucede con mucha frecuencia. Por ejemplo, recuerdo que recientemente olvidé palabras tan simples como "cabaña" y "colaboración", entre otras, y minutos después las recordé. Es inevitable y a algunos nos sucede con más frecuencia que a otros... Y puede llegar a ser bastante frustrante.
@@Alexander-qf5qh No solo eso, con el uso del inglés como lengua estandarizadas en las áreas profesionales y científicas hay veces que aprenderemos directamente en inglés sin correlacionarlas a nuestra lengua materna. Esto puede pasar bastante en el mundo de la informática por ejemplo. Algunas palabras son faciles de traducir al inglés por qué tienen una raíz en el latín y una morfología simple, ejemplo "Compilador = Compiler". Pero ""Hash", "Fork", "Splice", "Repo", "Stream", "Buffer" entre otros son términos que aunque conozco perfectamente en inglés, tendría que pensar un buen rato antes de traducir al español en mitad de una frase, o bien, usar el anglicismo
Or when they ask you to interpret a song they heard.. “ah what have you been doing with your time if you can’t tell me what this song is saying?” Sorry I haven’t been practicing my interpretation skills. Then having to explain that there is a difference between being conversationally fluent, being at a level that you can be an interpreter and also that interpretation and translation are two different professions.
I remember my grandma asking me for a translation of a French song, and I was like "Grandma, I just took three classes", and she kept insisting, and there's not excuse on her age, she's young for being a grandmother, so she was just more ignorant about it, I love her but really, people assuming that when you speak a language, suddenly it's like magic and you know all the words on their perspective
Haha. Reminds of when I am talking about something English in French and I have to pronounce the English things with a French accent, such Harry Potter. I remind myself that the other person won't understand if I pronounce it like in English, even though I feel daft!
@@storylearning En Espanol suena muy muy prepotente decir las palabras con el acento original/correcto, excepto tal vez en algunos lugares de latinoamerica. Asi que uno acaba diciendo las cosas con el acento espanolizado para no parecer engreido. Excepto si eres del pais extranjero, pero en ese casi simplemente te miraran raro.
I do it all the time too as a matter of course. I try to hide that I'm multilingual because a lot of people don't find it relatable, though they're usually polite about it. Kind of like how if one (like me) isn't super rich, we would find it off putting if the person constantly showed off their riches or constantly referred to the fact. Better to be "one of the guys" than "that guy" in this case, so I like to think.
@@chcomes Concuerdo con esto. Gracias a Dios crecí hablando español e inglés por ser un hijo de mexicanos que nació y creció en Estados Unidos. No hablo casi nada de francés pero había estudiado la pronunciación, y una vez una amiga mencionó a París, y yo inconscientemente dije, "Ah, Parí," con la pronunciación correcta, y luego luego vi que un amigo guatemalteco hizo una cara que me dio entender que eso le había parecido medio pretencioso o creído. Sí que me dio pena, así que mejor ahora lo escondo para no caer tan mal. Además, ¿por qué mecionarlo si ellos ni lo hablan? ¿Acaso estoy buscando que me digan que qué chido? Un idioma es para comunicarse, y aunque quisiera tener la oportunidad de practicar mi italiano, no tiene usar usarlo con quien no lo entiende. Mejor hablar de algo que todos conocemos y apreciamos, así todos ganamos. 👍😁
@@chcomes En serio? En todos los lugares que he vivido es fifty fifty los que usan el acento original y los que no, el único lugar que he visitado y todos usaban acento español fueron España y Argentina, claro, una ciudad por país de 5 o 6 países (solo viviendo unos 6 meses, peor aun) no dice mucho del panorama verdadero por el tamaño de la muestra así que probablemente estoy equivocado pero tenía la idea de que lo opuesto era la realidad. Ahora que lo pienso, esto solo aplica en inglés, en cualquier otro idioma estoy de acuerdo, nunca lo había pensado.
Mixing and forgetting words in my native language is always driving me ccrazy, especially when i speak with people who doesnt speak any aditional languages. It feel like my brain is one big chaotic smootie of words xD
It's all fun and games until the 4 languages I speak some of start finding their ways into each other. "La bona ofesejo estas очень importante para el trabajo." This sentence is a portmanteau of Esperanto, Russian, and Spanish.
As a polyglot I can deal with all of these but I absolutely despite people testing you out: say something......... Then they ll judge you, while they did not even put 1 minute of effort to learn any language. You only have right to judge yourself !
I liked the bit about when they insist on speaking English. When I was in Germany I had trouble getting people to speak to me in German. When they found out I was American they would only speak to me in English. It got to the point that I was yelling at people "I can already speak English, speak to me in German"
Germans be doing that for real. It happened to me a lot at the beginning too. It was so crazy because, I was living in Germany and could speak german, but had no one to speak to. I literally had to travel for 1h30mins by train on sundays to go to a language learner's gathering, where we could practice our german together.
When you want to improve your German by speaking with native German speakers, but _they_ want to improve their English by speaking with you, a native English speaker. I’ve heard that that’s a common problem for anglophones.
Just pretend you don't know English and you actually come from a village where you've never really spoken UK/USA/Australian English but just a weird dialect 🤣
French is one of the languages I least like speaking (too much stress to make all the sounds, guess I'm not a fan of using my nose and what not), but this cracked me up. Thanks!
I once tried buying a jar of maraschino cherries, pronouncing maraschino ("maraskino") correctly, but was earnestly corrected by the shop assistant: "marashino" (this took place in Germany where "sch" is pronounced like the english "sh")
Don't forget the "Is that even a language ?!" when you tell them you speak a language they didn't know existed. I'm from Luxembourg and speak 5 languages, yet the only thing people have to say about that is: "Say something in Luxemburgish !". My go-to phrase generally is "I hate being asked to say something in another language." with a smile. They will be none the wiser 😁
I hate it that after the third language, the terminology from the previous language you learnt pops up in your brain when you are speaking. If happened to me with English as I was learning French and now with French as I am learning German. The strangest thing is that your native language never seems to interfere.
i have had the same or a similar experience while learning japanese and korean lmao, (well i wouldn't call it "learning" since i was not actively trying to learn the language?) so I was learning japanese (i still am) and i learn mainly through watching shows etc but once in a while when i go off and binge on some korean shows for like a week or a month and come back to japanese it feels like my head is filled w korean words and it has pushed all the japanese outta my head when i try to form a sentence, like i can still understand japanese but when i try to remember some vocab i remember the korean word for it instead 😅
I feel like it's because you're telling your brain you want to say something in this language specifically, but your brain just gets that you want to say it in a foreign language so it gives you the one you've mastered and/or used most recently. But not your native one because you asked for a foreign one. XD
Then there's speaking the wrong language to the wrong person. Happens especially when switching around too much. And also, being the defacto translator everywhere
Hehe this. :-) I was with three friends; one knew Greek, Turkish and English. His wife knew Greek and English. The other knew only Turkish. So there was this running translation to the “out” people. My brain was fried anyway, and at one point I was translating what the Turkish guy had just said, to the Greek and English speaking wife. She started grinning bigger and bigger, till I realized that I’d been translating from Turkish to Turkish for her. But not just repeating, I was actually paraphrasing what the Turkish guy was saying, for her benefit. 😜
Love when someone speaks Portuguese 🥰 Btw, one of the things that I enjoy is talking to other polyglots (or people that are bilingual) in more than one language - and one thing that's annoying is not being sure about the pronunciation/usage of loanwords (or if they even are loanwords or I'm just mixing different languages).
#8: Sometimes when I wanted to practice my Spanish (I am conversational fluent) while traveling in South America, people would change to English, especially in hotels or other touristic places. As a French native language speaker, I would often tell people French was my first language and I did not speak English (not true). They would then change back to Spanish! :)
And now imagine this, but every sentence most French people say in English. In Germany they announce the new Spiderman, in France the new Speedermaan. Paul Taylor ("Pol teloor") will tell you all about this.
@@ThePixel1983 there's also words were the meanings changed like:basket=basketball/basketball hoop/sneakers,parking=parking lot,footing=jogging,jogging=joggers pants,pressing=dry cleaning,etc...
@@lucaswebdev Then again, I come from the country where you use your handy to phone a friend to drive over in his oldtimer to watch a movie on your beamer 😅
my god that ordering from the menu thing is so accurate! people feel like it's pretentious but it just feels wrong to butcher food names like i've committed a language crime because you know that's not how you read that.
The thing about forgetting words in your native language used to be a huge problem for me. I have not lived in my native country of Sweden since 2011 and I tend to mix Norwegian words or just forgetting the words in Swedish all the time because I only use them when I actually visit my family.
Also so what language do you think or dream in ? Well, actually it depends on the surrounding and the interaction and what I spoke recently the most ... Them: 0_0
or them: what language do you think in? count in? must be your native language haha cause your native language most definitely comes to you the easiest haha right? me: weEeEeEellllll……..
@@mandarina4157 Your comment is soooooo relatable. When I'm thinking or talking to myself (yes, I do that), I do it in english, sometimes in spanish, others in italian, others in portuguese, and other times I just mix it all up on my mind and totally understand it.
Very fun video! I had the problem with forgetting words in my native language since childhood. But now, when studying Japanese and Spanish as 4th and 5th languages, it gets more funny. I've also been asked to say something in Japanese sometimes, but it's really hard to choose what to say. And all this bowing in Japanese. I just watched dramas, but also tend to bow or nod when saying something in Japanese. Each language a bit changes your personality.
from what i know, which isnt a lot (please ignore my profile picture here, i know theres a difference between anime and real life) theres a lot of bowing and nodding in japan and depending on how you do it it means something different
People often are just like "you are just good with languages, it is easy for you". Yes, maybe but I still invest more than 30 hours per week, watch series only in other languages etc. to be on that level. Like it is hard and takes a lot of effort.
But that's not really unique to languages. People do that to all kinds of talents. "Oh, he's a born athlete." - No, he's been training hard since he was 10, that's why he won the Gold medal. "She has such a perfect vocie." - No, she's training with vocal coaches since her junior year, that's why she's a world renowned opera singer. etc. etc.
Loved the video!!!! I hate that people don't understand when I use words in other languages, or when it might take me several awkward seconds to remember a specific word and when I ask for help like, "what is this called" people give me the stare as if I'm flexing. Speaking with monolinguals (who don't know me enough to know I'm not showing off) is really exhausting. Sometimes, I swear, my brain hurts when trying to recall a word. I'm most comfortable when I'm talking to my polyglot friends that know at least 3 or 4 of my most dominant languages and we can code switch at will.
Sounds like I’m lucky to live in Norway where my second language (English) is almost everyone else’s second language as well, and learning a third language is common enough to be nothing out of the ordinary. Maybe if I learned a less common language than the ones usually offered in school I would get that reaction, but I’m not so sure I would.
If you told someone you're fluent and they ask you to translate an unknown word, tell them you don't know every words like they don't know what an advanced word of their language means
So true 😂 the ''language test" and those moments of forgetting words in my own/native language are soo familiar haha But mixing words in idiomas diferentes while speaking without realizing that parece a good subject to think about 🤔
I am learning Korean at the moment and sometimes when I don’t know the answer I can only think in French because I know I shouldn’t be speaking English 🤣
This happened to me when I went to Mexico, I'd been studying Spanish for years, but I studied French before that and it was like my brain panicked and I couldn't even think of basic things like "your welcome" - "de nada" I'd say "je vous en prie" LOL
OMG YES!!! My native language is Spanish, but I studied French.. I've been studying Korean for 3 years and everytime my brain forgets something in Korean I start thinking in French...
i can relate to number 9 quite a bit😂. there have been endless times when i come back from the bookstore sith a pile of language books on languages ive never thought about learning. only around 25% of the books are ever read
I hate when people assume I learn Mandarin for business opportunities, they just don't seem to get that I am interested in the language for fun and because it's a language that simply fascinates me 😂 Like honestly it's so sad that they only see languages as a tool when it's so much more!
I get this all the time! Why do you learn Korean? It’s so useless. And it kinda is, given my current occupation. But I like to ask them how meaningfully they spend their free time 😏
I'm not even polyglot yet, only bilingual, working on learning my third language, but I love to study and research languages and see contents from other languages, and one thing I find immensely funny is when you realise that a word in one language originated in another language, but lost the meaning completely. For example, my first language is Portuguese, and though I'm not fluent, I frequently research french, and I noticed some of our words come from french. For example garçon, here it's a waiter, but it comes from the french word for boy; there's also rendezvous, which is a meeting or appointment in french, here is a slang for a giant mess, and I find those differences really curious.
I found this channel recently and I'm so happy for being able to watch and enjoy the great content you create. You inspired me to learn everyday, keep going!
Great video! ^^ i'd add a couple more: 1. using false friends or wrong words because they mean something else in another language. 2. messing up the structure/grammar of one language because it's the grammar of another language xD 3. When someone tells you to translate a word or what something means. You know what it means but you can't find the word you're supposed to translate it to. It's just easier to use a translator than make your brain go in circles. Those happened to me too many times. xD
Maybe so, but it depends on the way they do it. And where the conversation takes place. If it's in the US, then they can just walk anywhere and practice their English so hopefully they could at least speak to you in Spanish or whatever for a sec. I live in Chile so here, it makes a little more sense because they can't just walk anywhere and speak English.
@@CRAWPvideos I would say, the language of the country is important. If somebody is a foreigner or a migrant and is trying to speak the local/official language, then speak it with them, since, they are the ones trying and supposed to adapt. They come to discover the country or to stay and they need to learn more + they need the skills. It will not help them for their studies or socialisation to speak only their native language. They are supposed to leave with more knowledge of the people and culture they are visiting or fully and rapidly integrate (be able to fill in forms etc.) The only reason you should be speaking their native language is: they are showing no interest or they are REALLY struggling and kind of begging you to do that. Also, some people really have a crisis and feel so bad abroad, miss the food, their people etc. and anything that can remind them of that experience can help soothe the discomfort. So that's when the native language can help as a transition and bring a little "home" feeling, so they don't totally isolate and become fully depressed or also abandon their project and run back home. 2nd context is language school. Well, if the person is there to learn the language of the country (you meet them there, while your learning another language) or they tell you that's what they're doing, their goal is pretty clear. Why speak their native language? They are there to learn a foreign language, so. Some of them travel the whole globe to have some opportunity in another country, to be able to get a job or to study, also just to join a language school... all that to have people speak their native language to them? I would say, priority goes to: migrant, foreigner, learner. We should be speaking their target language in accordance with the context = country they have to integrate in and are already in. Language school they are visiting etc. They are the ones wanting/supposed to/expected to learn.
@@g-li yes, exactly! I fully agree. I wish more people thought like you you. Here in Chile, people always try to speak to me in English even to the point where it is annoying, because I am trying to work on my Spanish day in day out.
@@CRAWPvideos I know, I so empathise with you. One can never guess my native language when I learn a new one and fortunately my native language is not English 😬, so if your accent doesn't give you away and in case you can speak another language very well (so a third one), just say you can't speak English. Plainly 🤷🏽♀️ And if you ever get caught (for example, third language is Italian but there's a native speaker who could detect you're not one of them), then be honest: I don't disclose my native language, because everyone speaks English to me. Be sad and stuff, people will not bear you a grudge, they will understand and show empathy. I wish you the best of luck.
OMG! that scene with the books, that is totally me. Last time I went to a book store with my brother, I told him to stop me if I try to buy more foreign language books and sure enough with in the hour he caught me in the foreign language novel area. My excuse was that I was just looking. He didn't believe it.
The worst is when a polyglots talk to another polyglots from another country in another country. I had to fight my brain sooo much. My friend insisted on using French since it's my native language but my brain was like "no-o missy. This friend is korean so use either korean or english. In the mean time french will remain unavailable". It was exhausting.
The books shown in the skit at 4:17 are Olly Richard's Short Stories series. Just to save anyone else the pain of screenshotting and trying to decipher the Author and Title.
@@jumanaa7375 the blue spined books added at the end are Short Stories for Beginners. The yellow spined books at the start are Short Stories for Intermediate Learners. Both sets are by Olly Richards.
the silence where your conscience is screaming at you in one language because you just forgot another word, again, but you're in the middle of a conversation with someone so you try to gain time and think about the word but then you give up and either hope the person knows what the word in the language you remember means, or change topic or make yourself look even dumber by trying to explain the thing with other words and it all results in a mess
Or that moment you remember the one word you're searching for in three different languages but not in the language you're currently using in your conversation T-T
A very good interpretation of some little problems when somebody is knowing/speaking multiple languages on daily basis. Myself from Romania , fairly knowing Slavic languages, romance ones,spent a year in Soumi, living in France and watching almost only English speaking shows I do stumble especially when tired on this issues. And I do have a dozen of books on how to learn easy whatever language, but to be honest I only get to the half because of the nonsense conversions. Languages are like muscles , they need training to perform. And with age we become more rigid .My best wishes Olly!
How could someone not to like this?..Thumbs up for the hole video and its content. P.S: Congratulations for your Brazilian Portuguese accent! It's really good!
I'm learning several languages but I don't want to be called a polyglot. I don't want any sort of vanity to interfere with the pleasure of learning languages at my own pace. This is not a race and I don't want to impress anybody.
My parents keep asking me to translate official documents from English to my native language. Now, I speak English much better as I live and work in an English speaking country. The issue is that despite the other one being my native language, I don't know the "official document language" for it! That does not make me any less fluent in it! Ask a child to explain a university seminar to you and you won't get far. Doesn't mean a child isn't fluent in their language. *This* is the key to learning languages and understanding fluency.
Also: translation requires a certain degree of “connection” between your vocabularies in the source and target language, and once you reach a high enough level of fluency your vocabularies tend to diverge because you learn new words entirely within the context of your second language without ever learning what the equivalent in your native language is.
I am almost trilingual and I am still studying other languages on the side. Forgetting words is a constant problem and I’m sure is going to happen in the future as I learn. The identity crisis is real for me as traveled different places lol
I literally love this film! I'm not a polyglot but I can speak fluently in Polish, English and German and I'm also going to learn a little bit of Spanish. I can understand every single problem that was mentioned in this video.
So true! And number 8 gets even funnier when your native language is not English, but they insist on speaking English with you because you're a foreigner ;).
3:19 It happened to me, I forgot the word "chives" but I knew it in Mandarin. Luckily I was ordering in a Mandarin speaking restaurant in Canada so I just said "Can I get uhh ummmm 韭菜水饺“， haha
Eight languages is a bit uncommon, but the world is full of hundreds of millions of people who speak four or five, and billions who speak two or three. It's common for even the poorest people in Africa to speak several languages. Most people in India speak their regional language, plus some Hindi, plus some English. In northern Canada, the wilderness Northwest Territory has eight official languages. Among my Metis ancestors, speaking seven languages was expected of successful and respected people, while most people spoke four or five. Monolingualism is largely the product of more recent, highly homogenized and populous countries that enforced obedient uniformity in their populations. I once had a monolingual friend who told me that he "didn't know anyone who spoke another language" other than me. I immediately listed seven of our mutual friends who clearly did. Somehow, this hadn't registered on him even after years of knowing these people.
This is about to get a ton more relatable as I casually start perusing short story books in every language I can conceivably stumble my way through...I somehow didn't know about those.
Haha I loved it , it's completely true ! Part 2 would be cool! And sth that happens to me very often is that I tend to dream in foreign language,it's normal but sometimes before sleeping, many random thoughts in foreign languages come to my mind and I swear I hate that! Cause most of the time it just doesn't lemme sleep .
I think people insisting on English do this because they think English is more comfortable to you, or because that person is learning English and as much as you want to speak his language he wants to practice his English.
I find it so rude when people start speaking in English to me when I speak to them in any languages I speak. It makes me feel like my abilities aren't good enough when clearly theyy can understand every single word I'm saying!
I agree completely. Some just want to practice their English, but sometimes, I think they actually think they're being polite, but it does feel like an insult. I once asked a woman in Dutch for the nearest supermarket - she just replied in English as if I'd asked her in English. I was so taken aback (it's happened before and since but never so obviously somehow), and didn't know what to say, so I just looked at her in surprise. She then repeated the instruction in German! I still remember that as the rudest encounter ever.
@@phil2854 hmm perhaps she's not a Dutch but German instead? 🤔 Well actually if she's Dutch, it's not surprising at all 😅,, Dutch people are like that when we speak Dutch to them.
@@johannfer7073 I'm pretty certain she was Dutch - her German was good, but she wasn't a native speaker. Fortunately, not all Dutch people are like that - surprisingly, I find younger people more willing to answer in Dutch. Also most women - it's usually older men (though not all) who want to talk English (or German).
When they speak to me in english, I just continue with my target language. Fact is, one of us will stop at some point but it definitely will not be me haha
the last one is legit a problem for me, like, some languages I don't really know what to say like? AM I fluent? I can have a normal conversation in German but I can't really understand that much in my literature classes, so, AM I fluent? or with Spanish, where I understand pretty much everything but still get some words mixed up with Portuguese (my 1st lang), so, AM I fluent? I can almost have some conversations in Chinese Mandarim, so, at what point do I considerer myself fluent? Sometimes I tell myself I'm fluent in a specific language but I'm definetely not confident enought to tell other people that I'm fluent in that language, idk, it's just really really really confusing )I am kinda really interested in that "short stories" collection though lol
Don't stress yourself, as long as you're happy with what you can use and apply there's no need for any language proficiency labels. Keep in mind that learning languages isn't for others but it's for you in the first place ☺ and if they really want to know how "fluent" You are, tell them to judge that themselves 😂
You know you're fluent in a target language when you remember a conversation you've had, yet you're not sure whether it was in your target or in your native language )))
I only speak four languages, but some of the stuff is so relatable. For example I forget often words on German and then go with the English word in hope people understand. My friends do but my relatives not. Also when try to order a menu that has a French name. Sometimes people are like what has this person just said. A bit annoying tbh. That even happens sometimes when I say pommes frites instead of pommes. Other people are more like one time "pommes" and you get a strange feeling about it. And yeah that other people think you are a genius or somewhat special happens even when you only speak four languages. It's not like I can speak every language on the same level or have never made mistakes before
I speak 5 languages fluent and in 4 other languages im "everyday" fluent. And there are some more that I know a bit of basics. So... I get the struggle xD
My biggest problem so far was, that people don't understand that even though you can be fluent in one dialect of a language you still can have big trouble understanding another dialect. Especially when it's not your first language. In German I pretty much understand everybody besides the Swiss, but I once traveled the UK. In the south around London it was all fine but when I was in the highlands I barely understood a single sentence. Same in Spain and Madrid.
That misconception isn’t as common in Norway for two reasons: almost everyone speaks at least two languages, and some Norwegian dialects are so different that they can be mutually unintelligible unless the speakers make an effort to use more “standard” Norwegian.
I'm not a polyglot by any means (wish I were!) but I can relate to several of these... Forgetting words in my native language, defining "fluency", or suddenly jumping from one language to another without noticing I did so - or at least until I realise people are looking at me like I've grown two heads XD
I usually start gesturing romantically and say "Chausée déformée! Cédez le passage! Vous n'avez pas la priorité!". Proof that anything can be made to sound romantic in French.
Number 9. I bought 27 books in 11 languages at a used book fair on the first day of the NSW floods last year. Getting them to the car was interesting...
My mother was bilingual, Finnish and Danish. So wherever there was a delegation from ANY Scandinavian country visiting our little community she was fetched to translate, although it wasn't even her job. Sometimes she had to translate several long days: when she got tired she would repeat what the speaker said in the same language and not understand why everyone would just stare at her. I don't know about others but I had all sorts of quirks with my language ability when my brain was switching from speaking almost exclusively Finnish to speaking only English. There were times when I didn't know a common word in EITHER language! When I was studying I had to learn to name body parts in 4 languages and plants in three. I could ever recall them in one language, not two two or three, at a time after the exam, without any control what that language would be. Also, when I went to visit Finland the first time after emigrating, I struggled remembering numbers - but after the trip I always did anything number related in Finnish, for about 25 years!
Ok the "insist on English" is the exact same thing for the Spanish guy. Like he's trying to speak your language and you insist on speaking his. Its what he does too. The situation is perfectly symmetrical and probably pisses off most
The situation isn't actually symmetrical because it all depends on what country they're in. In the case of the video, they're in Spain and still the other guy insist on speaking English. The situation would be symmetrical if they were both in a foreign country (Japan, for example)
@@thefish3103 The situation absolutely is symmetrical, whether your in the other person's country or not. The same thing is happening. Additionally, in many places there seems to be an expectation that someone from a country of another language will speak that language.
As a person who studies and speaks Korean, I related to his little head bobs in the identity crisis so much. Because I try to surround myself as much as I can with the future as well as the language you end up kind of picking up these small things haha
I'm in very bad point since when I was moving from Poland to Germany, when I was not learned German good yet, but used every day, and almost lost my English. So now I don't have any of them in a good level
#4 general problem, i guess, cuz i'm either. Whenever I wanna say something in English, I can't control and add some Chinese words. But i never believe that i'm a polyglot, cuz I've just studied English and Mandarin for 6 months and i haven't catched up with fluency. I could well do practise many time now and in the future in which i can improve speaking skill myself. Thanks for your sharing and useful video.
Yes, that's probably also one of these things monoglots can't understand. I'm fully fluent in reading Italian, but speaking is quite a different matter. It's normal though. I took a few language courses when I was at uni some decades ago, and then I wondered at the "speech activation" courses. Now I know precisely why they exist.
@@mquietsch6736 I don't consider myself a polyglot with speaking just two languages :) But the third one is interesting... I can understand what is being said, I can even watch a movie or the news without subs... but when it comes to speaking, I have the hardest time to even produce a normal sentence. I could ask for directions... but no way I could make conversation. It''s interesting.
thats me with my 3rd language tbh, had to learn it in school for 10 years of my life so i can read and write in it on a native level but when it comes to speaking in it i have a hard time forming sentences, which i assume has to do w me spending very less time speaking in that language but compared to that i can speak my fourth language way more easily (tho it isn't perfect) bc when i moved to a different place i had to actually speak in it to communicate w the locals but i can't read in it very quickly since I didn't have the chance to really practice reading in it so i think it just need more practice thats all ps: personally i firmly believe that understanding =/= speaking, bc you can understand a language perfectly and still not be able to form a sentence in it when it comes to speaking
@@S.Y.S.64738 it just means you need to speak the language more or practices out loud. The mouth and tongue needs to move and get used to speaking the language
I used to date an Irish girl when I lived in England. She could speak very good French and taught German for her job. Quite often when I was a bit too tired to speak English, I would switch to French, which is my mother tongue. Our conversation would be a mix of the two languages, which in restaurants would get waiters a bit puzzled. What's very strange is that when I was quoting previous conversations, I could never remember what language I had spoken in.
I live in Thailand and I’m trying to speak Thai here, with friends I speak English and Spanish. So the last time I called my mom, two times I forgot Polish words. Fortunately my mom speaks German so I could just help her to understand me by adding two german words into our conversation in Polish
I used to get asked to "go on then, say something in French". I learnt that the best thing to do was to recite Article 1 du Code de Commerce. "Sont reputes commercants ceux qui font des actes de commerce etc etc...". That usually shut them up.
I'm slowly becoming a polyglot so it's nice to watch such videos as yours to not feel so weird about "I can't help it but try something new" (I'm Polish, fluent in normal, political and my profession situations in English, know quite a lot in French and German, bit of Latin, Japanese and Chinese, got some Russian, but I still have a troubles in other languages beyond English and my father tongue)
To add to the list, sometimes I say "Da" ('yes' in Russian) when trying to say "Oui" ('yes' in French), or "ee" ('and' in Russian) when trying to say "eh" ('and' in French). And neither of those are my native tongue (intermediate French and beginner Russian). I think this phenomenon is due to my particular set of circumstances-I lived in Kyrgyzstan for a year and (after being back in the US for a while), moved to France, where I've been for the past 8 months. Sometimes Armenian gets in the mix (in any of the other 3 languages i "know"), bc it's my other native language. (besides English). These are all quite rare so I think I'm safe in thinking that I'm not brain-damaged (not toooo much anyway).
Yes! I speak German but instead of Ja and Nein I say Da and Nyet. Because I lived in Moscow for a while and it's permanently altered my German for some reason
Did anyone of you guys who speak 2nd or 3rd language notice your fluency fluctuating time to time or person to person? I personally experience that and was never able to pin point why. Sometimes my train of thought is in full throttle and I can go on speaking without any fillers while sometimes I struggle to weave a simple sentence.
It’s perfectly normal to be more fluent in some contexts than in others. Like, perhaps you can discuss music completely fluently, but if you have to talk about boats you’re a lot less fluent all of a sudden.
OMG I can totally relate with the "sayings" used in different languages. Sometimes there's a saying in english or korean that encapsules the meaning of what I want to express more strongly, but people around me just speak spanish, so they don't understand, and I just stand there, saying nothing at all haha Also, I forget words in every language all the time, it's frustrating but funny.
There is an old joke about Christian missionaries evangelizing an isolated tribe in Africa. First they translated "Our Father" prayer in their language. There was a problem with the idiom "give us today our daily bread", and the missionaries had to explain this phrase many times. They described the form of a loaf of bread with their hands. Many years later other missionaries came to the village, but were shocked when they heard people praying "give us today our daily poop". What happened was the fact that bread was unknown food to the tribe, and they used cow dung for heating. They misunderstood the gesture describing a loaf of bread for a cake of cow dung. In reality, rice is used as a metaphor for food or eating in many Asian languages in a similar way as bread is used in most European languages. Idioms can't be translated literally to other languages, as they are often very different.
Very funny video and well done! I'm just starting my third lanuage so I hope I'll experience more of these situations as I continue :) The 'are you fluent' one is already a regular struggle.
Darn, your Spanish is really good tho, like for real, this is not the typical "You speak Spanish very well for a native" but like, you speak Spanish with a more convincing accent than me and I'm a native speaker!! The way you aspirate your s is on point, you clearly have put a lot of effort into your pronunciation! Congrats!
I believe all of the things you brought up has happened to me. When I hadn't spoken my native language for years, I began to stutter when moving back to my home country.
I hate this 'fluent' thing. Like some people think there is a magical point when you understand everything, and before that you know nothing. There are language levels for a reason.
I know 5 languages by default and growing up I was always reprimanded for speaking all 5 languages in one sentence. today it's just plain fun to know these languages and now I'm acquiring Portuguese. Out of these 5 languages English is what I use when I write blogs and the language I use to best express myself so my personal journals are all in English, but I can comfortably understand and speak Filipino, Hokkien, and Cebuano so I consider myself fluent in those languages. Mandarin is a difficult one even if I studied it in school for 13 years but I can understand at a B2 level and am able to express myself in simple words.
Learning multiples languages takes a lot of time. But there ARE ways to save time. Check out my video "8 ways polyglots learn languages fast" 👉🏼 ua-cam.com/video/PE_eolTGTTA/v-deo.html
The video is so true lol
I hate when people say "Omg you speak three languages, you are so smart/talented". I just reply and say "It actually takes many years and a lot of hard work to learn a language well". They usually get awkward or go quiet, but it is the truth. Imagine people who speak over 5 languages. I also hate when I pronounce things on a menu correctly and English speakers don't understand it...so annoying. 😂🙈
The hardest one so far: explain to a monoglot friend that even though there is a direct translation, the concept is different.
YES. Or for example, "what is this language thing"
"Oh so this language doesn't really work that way."
"Oh well that's weird they should just do it the English way"
Like as if English or whatever their native language is, is the objective normal.
I work in translating, and that hit so hard :')
Aspiring Polyglot, don't quite understand what you mean... Like Schadenfreude vs Sadism?
usually I just say 'things get lost in translation'
I had this trouble recently with one of my collegues for the word "sassy" in english xD that's frustraaaatiing !
I hate it when they ask me to translate something I actually understand, but simply can't find the 'appropriate' words in the language I have to translate.
"So you dont actually speak the language..."
@@matheuspeixoto8689 yeah, I hate it when they say that...
@@diegoescobar4268 it makes me want to say: SO YOU SPEAK NATIVE FRENCH TO CRITICIZE MY FRENCH, DON'T YOU?
Its funny the fact its always someone who doesnt speak any of your target language
Ikr
I can't even retell what was said seconds ago in my native language, what do they expect me to say when the video is in foreign language..
Also when you stop in the middle of the sentence, because the "stairs" is feminine in three languages, in two others it's masculine, in one more it's neutral, in another there is no word for that and in some others it's only in plural and you forgot which one is correct for the language you are.speaking at the moment but you remember that it's an offensive word if you use it with a wrong article
love this
That was awfully specific
haha I'm not that level of "polyglotism" (... yet?) 😂
@Greylynx More precisely, please!
"Stairs" are offensive? In which language?
My real problem is when people think you're a "real time translator" just because you know both languages, so they watch a movie, a video and want you to translate it as it's showing up...
Relatable ! Also : People just assume the only job we wanna and can do is being a translator.
I love languages. But I really hate translating.
Translating is so hard though! Especially if the word order in both languages is different. To me, it's easier to translate German to Dutch than English to Dutch, even though my English is way better, just because the word order in German and Dutch is pretty similar.
@@Roozyj True !! The whole grammar structure change between some languages and it can really be hard. People think it’s easy for us because they think we just translate everything in our heard but we dont (I mean most of us dont)
Also some things are almost untranslatable, or just very, very difficult to "get the meaning across". Especially with unstandartised languages/dialects, who often have words where you'd need a whole sentence to translate them. For example, in my language/dialect there is a verb for "heating a slaughtered pig in water and scrubbing it to get the bristles off."
@@valentinmitterbauer4196 absolutely true !! So many idioms are totally untranslatable.
Still trying to explain english native speaker why «pooping a clock » means make a big deal of something in my language 😂.
Great video. Monolinguals do have a hard time understanding that there are different levels of fluency, they see language as black or white while polyglots understand that there are numerous shades of grey in language acquisition.
well said!
I was bilingual since birth so I always had the sense of having shades of grey from the get-go
So... you're fluent or what?
So true! It’s so hard to feel confident enough to say “I am fluent in second language” the whole process of constantly learning new words as an adult makes one feel inadequate or like an impostor.
@@storylearning Why are some people born talented to be polyglots? 🤔
My first identity crisis: When I was accused of a Japanese accent in my English when booking a table in Honolulu. I'm German.
So komisch 😂
Yan!
I was told that I had a *texan* accent of all things when I spoke english to a Japanese guy. I'm also german.
But I guess that counts as a compliment...
Same when an english speaker told me i had a russian accent speaking english while being french and spanish @-@
someone said I have a british accent when i speak mandarin, I'm brazilian
I never thought I'd forget so much English when learning other languages it's utterly bizarre.
@Unknown Username nice
@Unknown Username Not at all true. People can be "A+" in multiple languages.
Igen! Velem is többször megtörtént
It's even worse when language you learning has more... convenient word for a thing and you just trying your best to mimic it in your language
@Unknown Username I really wouldn't generalize that. I think it depends on things like how often you have to switch between languages and if you use them in parallel instead of replacing one. Say if you actively have to translate in both directions I can't imagine that it would be detrimental to either language.
Cheers.
One more: when you want to lend people your books, but you can't even remember in which language you have them.
Oh my, my, my!
This happens to me aaallll the time with UA-cam videos or articles. I can't remember in what language the contents was, so I can share it once the subject pops into a conversation 😱🤣🤣🤣
Yes. Or recommend a video or an article or a tweet, so you start to google it again by the possible title, but you realize you don't really remember in which language you saw it, so you're never gonna find it again :P (unless in the huge ocean of browsing history).
@@kinga6606
Aaaaaaall the tiiiiime 😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣
Yes! So true! And sometimes, when I think of a book, sentences of the book pop up perfectly translated to another language in my head, so I'm like: wait, did I read that book in that language??? And it confuses the heck out of me.
@@maleineperle1770 🤭
The identity crisis was so relatable. When I got back to the states after being in Korea I kept bowing/felt the need to bow and I know 100% that everyone was definitely confused and judging me
I accidentally bowed to a guy in a salsa club after having been in judo classes for so many years. I’m sure he was confused, 😅
@Абдульзефир that’s an interesting perspective. I never knew that was a thing people liked to do
I was raised in Okinawa, Japan, and I have yet to grow out of the bowing(or head dipping, pending on situation)
@@laumay7364 haha , I got something similar . We usually bow when we leave the training mats in bjj , and one day I found myself bowing when I was leaving work 🤣
I lived in Germany 5 years before returning to the US. I still use my utensils German style, and I’ve been back over 30 years, lol.
Ive given up worrying what others think while I’m using my knife to scoop food on my fork. 😂
People are accusing polyglots of being obsessed with the word "polyglots" while they are so obsessed with the word "fluent". Just because we don't know some words doesn't mean that we are not fluent. Because I learn words in my native language every year. I learned more than 5 words in my native language within the past 3 months, and I still find it difficult to translate (and understand) songs in my native language, so it doesn't mean that it's not my native language and the only language I have been speaking for more than 15 years. People need to stop accusing others of not being fluent because of some small mistakes and focus on their own language learning journey. If somebody criticizes the language ability of a person who is using the language comfortably in day today life, the only definition for this is, "jealousy" what else can it be?
Moreover, if you are a heavy reader of books, then you will be learning like 10 - 20 new words a month.
Yeah. I remember smn asked me about my fluency in English and I said I was fluent in it. So then he asked me what his name sounded like in English. I didn't know it. And he told me that then I wasn't fluent in English.
Fuck you Arthur. I remember your fuckin' name since that day, thank you for your comment! A person who knew 1 language only (his motherlanguage) while I speak 4.
In real life most people simply appreciate someone making an effort to communicate in another language. Most of the time.
There are always exceptions: Once I tried renting an apartment in Italy and the landlord sneered at me because after three weeks (!) of learning Italian I should have been better. C'mon, give me a break.
But more often then not the UA-cam comment section can turn out to be a cesspit of language snobbery:
People trying to ignore what you wrote by latching on to some grammatical error - all the while ignoring the fact that the foreigners are making an effort to communicate in _their_ language. Can be funny.
Have a great day!
@@j.m.w.5064 look that was just my opinion if you like it
then you like it im. not judging you do you
When I was an exchange student in Canada during high school, I (as a non-native English speaker) was flabbergasted to find there was a game called "Balderdash" where one participant reads a word off a card and the others need to explain what it is. In my language the only words this makes sense for are technical terms. In English there are so incredibly many words that completely competent native speakers don't know... not, I would like to stress, because they are illiterate but because English has got such a huge vocabulary.
I'm only now learning my third language but this is so relatable lmaoo, especially the part of forgetting words in your own language. De verdad que no quiero presumir, es que estoy medio tonta:´)
Cool :)
Lee libros en tu propio idioma, así no olvidarás tu lengua materna uwu
@@jooshozzono7249 No se trata de "olvidar tu lengua materna" sino que simplemente se trata de tener dificultad en recordar ciertas palabras de manera momentánea; no que estas "se olviden" por completo, sino que simplemente a veces se tiene dificultad en recordarlas. En psicolingüística se conoce como el fenómeno de "la punta de la lengua" (or the tip of the tongue phenomenon), que es la sensación de tener la palabra en la punta de la lengua y no poder recordarla en el momento. Todas las personas presentan este fenómeno, pero es mucho más común en personas con un nivel alto en idiomas extranjeros (sean bilingües, trilingües o políglotas) que en monolingües o personas con un bajo nivel en idiomas extranjeros. Es completamente normal y no significa que estés "olvidando tu lengua materna", ya que solo es algo que ocurre en el momento y después se pueden recordar sin problema.
Personalmente me sucede con mucha frecuencia. Por ejemplo, recuerdo que recientemente olvidé palabras tan simples como "cabaña" y "colaboración", entre otras, y minutos después las recordé.
Es inevitable y a algunos nos sucede con más frecuencia que a otros... Y puede llegar a ser bastante frustrante.
@@Alexander-qf5qh No solo eso, con el uso del inglés como lengua estandarizadas en las áreas profesionales y científicas hay veces que aprenderemos directamente en inglés sin correlacionarlas a nuestra lengua materna. Esto puede pasar bastante en el mundo de la informática por ejemplo. Algunas palabras son faciles de traducir al inglés por qué tienen una raíz en el latín y una morfología simple, ejemplo "Compilador = Compiler". Pero ""Hash", "Fork", "Splice", "Repo", "Stream", "Buffer" entre otros son términos que aunque conozco perfectamente en inglés, tendría que pensar un buen rato antes de traducir al español en mitad de una frase, o bien, usar el anglicismo
noo chica tranqui, que ami tambien me pasa:V
Saludos desde Puerto Rico✌❤
Or when they ask you to interpret a song they heard.. “ah what have you been doing with your time if you can’t tell me what this song is saying?” Sorry I haven’t been practicing my interpretation skills. Then having to explain that there is a difference between being conversationally fluent, being at a level that you can be an interpreter and also that interpretation and translation are two different professions.
Sometimes I can't even understand songs in my native language 😅
yeah and also songs tend to have metaphors and stuff, they're not stories with a plot you can just briefly summarize
Let's also be fair: polyglots can be caught rapid and embarrass ourselves too. It's not always the by-standers problem.
But mostly it is
I remember my grandma asking me for a translation of a French song, and I was like "Grandma, I just took three classes", and she kept insisting, and there's not excuse on her age, she's young for being a grandmother, so she was just more ignorant about it, I love her but really, people assuming that when you speak a language, suddenly it's like magic and you know all the words on their perspective
THIS!!!! Just because you know multiple languages doesn't mean you can interpret. Like everything else, it is a skill that has to be developed.
Haha. Reminds of when I am talking about something English in French and I have to pronounce the English things with a French accent, such Harry Potter.
I remind myself that the other person won't understand if I pronounce it like in English, even though I feel daft!
It’s such a weird an uncomfortable feeling!
@@storylearning En Espanol suena muy muy prepotente decir las palabras con el acento original/correcto, excepto tal vez en algunos lugares de latinoamerica. Asi que uno acaba diciendo las cosas con el acento espanolizado para no parecer engreido. Excepto si eres del pais extranjero, pero en ese casi simplemente te miraran raro.
I do it all the time too as a matter of course. I try to hide that I'm multilingual because a lot of people don't find it relatable, though they're usually polite about it. Kind of like how if one (like me) isn't super rich, we would find it off putting if the person constantly showed off their riches or constantly referred to the fact. Better to be "one of the guys" than "that guy" in this case, so I like to think.
@@chcomes Concuerdo con esto. Gracias a Dios crecí hablando español e inglés por ser un hijo de mexicanos que nació y creció en Estados Unidos. No hablo casi nada de francés pero había estudiado la pronunciación, y una vez una amiga mencionó a París, y yo inconscientemente dije, "Ah, Parí," con la pronunciación correcta, y luego luego vi que un amigo guatemalteco hizo una cara que me dio entender que eso le había parecido medio pretencioso o creído. Sí que me dio pena, así que mejor ahora lo escondo para no caer tan mal. Además, ¿por qué mecionarlo si ellos ni lo hablan? ¿Acaso estoy buscando que me digan que qué chido? Un idioma es para comunicarse, y aunque quisiera tener la oportunidad de practicar mi italiano, no tiene usar usarlo con quien no lo entiende. Mejor hablar de algo que todos conocemos y apreciamos, así todos ganamos. 👍😁
@@chcomes En serio? En todos los lugares que he vivido es fifty fifty los que usan el acento original y los que no, el único lugar que he visitado y todos usaban acento español fueron España y Argentina, claro, una ciudad por país de 5 o 6 países (solo viviendo unos 6 meses, peor aun) no dice mucho del panorama verdadero por el tamaño de la muestra así que probablemente estoy equivocado pero tenía la idea de que lo opuesto era la realidad.
Ahora que lo pienso, esto solo aplica en inglés, en cualquier otro idioma estoy de acuerdo, nunca lo había pensado.
Mixing and forgetting words in my native language is always driving me ccrazy, especially when i speak with people who doesnt speak any aditional languages. It feel like my brain is one big chaotic smootie of words xD
It's all fun and games until the 4 languages I speak some of start finding their ways into each other.
"La bona ofesejo estas очень importante para el trabajo."
This sentence is a portmanteau of Esperanto, Russian, and Spanish.
When you proceed to mix up several languages in a sentence and then the people around you look at you as if you're mental ._.
Someone: Oh you speak Russian fluently? So speak to me in Russian
Me: Begins to speak
Someone: Ok stop, I don't understand anything
Да это так.
I can see that happening
If that Someone is a Russian than you have a problem :D
@@Methodius7 XD
Or: that sounds so weird/ugly!
"Say something in every language you know"
Something
Quelque chose
Qualcosa
Algo
Etwas
I see what you did there 😂
Något
Eitthvað
Jotakin
何か
något
Good one
iets
Hahahha I love it! "You've been learning Spanish for 10+ years? Say something then."
....hola?
And they’re like “OMG YOU ARE SO FLUENT WOOAHH”. Haha.
@@louisronan5903 🤣🤣🤣🤣
"Say something else, say something else!"
And suddenly you've forgotten an entire language 😂
I like to say "Que quieres que te diga?" What do you want me to say?
As a polyglot I can deal with all of these but I absolutely despite people testing you out: say something......... Then they ll judge you, while they did not even put 1 minute of effort to learn any language. You only have right to judge yourself !
True words!
They generally don't judge me they just ask me what did I just say because they don't speak it so it's just really stupid
Well said 👏
I liked the bit about when they insist on speaking English. When I was in Germany I had trouble getting people to speak to me in German. When they found out I was American they would only speak to me in English. It got to the point that I was yelling at people "I can already speak English, speak to me in German"
Germans be doing that for real. It happened to me a lot at the beginning too. It was so crazy because, I was living in Germany and could speak german, but had no one to speak to. I literally had to travel for 1h30mins by train on sundays to go to a language learner's gathering, where we could practice our german together.
Im not even a native English speaker and they did the some to me until I just said I don't speak English just go ahead with German.
As a German, I'd say most people probably either do it to be polite or to practice their own English. Sorry about that, haha.
When you want to improve your German by speaking with native German speakers, but _they_ want to improve their English by speaking with you, a native English speaker. I’ve heard that that’s a common problem for anglophones.
Just pretend you don't know English and you actually come from a village where you've never really spoken UK/USA/Australian English but just a weird dialect 🤣
I never like saying I speak another language until I can with near native fluency... but I'm a raging perfectionist.
Aaaaaa,
same O_O
One time I tried to pronounce “hollandaise” correctly at at a restaurant, and the waitress respectfully corrected me saying: “hole-on-THESE.” 😂
French is one of the languages I least like speaking (too much stress to make all the sounds, guess I'm not a fan of using my nose and what not), but this cracked me up. Thanks!
I once tried buying a jar of maraschino cherries, pronouncing maraschino ("maraskino") correctly, but was earnestly corrected by the shop assistant: "marashino" (this took place in Germany where "sch" is pronounced like the english "sh")
The strugle with tortilla XD in polish it is read with double L (not as in mexico) also Curaçao
Same 🤣🤣🤣
Don't forget the "Is that even a language ?!" when you tell them you speak a language they didn't know existed. I'm from Luxembourg and speak 5 languages, yet the only thing people have to say about that is: "Say something in Luxemburgish !". My go-to phrase generally is "I hate being asked to say something in another language." with a smile. They will be none the wiser 😁
Olly, I saw what is written in your shirt "I was born a genius but education ruined me" and now I'm wondering where can I find this shirt too? haha
In a small shop in the south of Spain
@@storylearning jolín v: tendré que buscar por internet v,:
@@storylearning Is it Andalucia you're talking about? Malaga by any chance?
I hate it that after the third language, the terminology from the previous language you learnt pops up in your brain when you are speaking. If happened to me with English as I was learning French and now with French as I am learning German. The strangest thing is that your native language never seems to interfere.
i have had the same or a similar experience while learning japanese and korean lmao, (well i wouldn't call it "learning" since i was not actively trying to learn the language?) so I was learning japanese (i still am) and i learn mainly through watching shows etc but once in a while when i go off and binge on some korean shows for like a week or a month and come back to japanese it feels like my head is filled w korean words and it has pushed all the japanese outta my head when i try to form a sentence, like i can still understand japanese but when i try to remember some vocab i remember the korean word for it instead 😅
I feel like it's because you're telling your brain you want to say something in this language specifically, but your brain just gets that you want to say it in a foreign language so it gives you the one you've mastered and/or used most recently. But not your native one because you asked for a foreign one. XD
so true!
One time I accidentally asked someone "you name what?" And I think that sums it up pretty nicely.
Then there's speaking the wrong language to the wrong person. Happens especially when switching around too much. And also, being the defacto translator everywhere
But also so rewarding when they answer in the same language you're speaking to them!
That's soooo true!
Yeah 💯 true
Hehe this. :-) I was with three friends; one knew Greek, Turkish and English. His wife knew Greek and English. The other knew only Turkish. So there was this running translation to the “out” people. My brain was fried anyway, and at one point I was translating what the Turkish guy had just said, to the Greek and English speaking wife. She started grinning bigger and bigger, till I realized that I’d been translating from Turkish to Turkish for her. But not just repeating, I was actually paraphrasing what the Turkish guy was saying, for her benefit. 😜
Love when someone speaks Portuguese 🥰
Btw, one of the things that I enjoy is talking to other polyglots (or people that are bilingual) in more than one language - and one thing that's annoying is not being sure about the pronunciation/usage of loanwords (or if they even are loanwords or I'm just mixing different languages).
#8: Sometimes when I wanted to practice my Spanish (I am conversational fluent) while traveling in South America, people would change to English, especially in hotels or other touristic places. As a French native language speaker, I would often tell people French was my first language and I did not speak English (not true). They would then change back to Spanish! :)
Ahaha! You're a smart one! I'm going to use this trick next time 🤫
Others: switch back to Spanish.
Me, knowing French: starts speaking French 😅
It's true: I speak 3 languages and sometimes it is easier to say something in another language.
True man
And they watch at you like : the f did you just said
This is why languages change and words are "borrowed" from other languages.
As someone who knows French, hearing the English speaker misprounce the French on the menu was painful. 😖
OMG! Me imagino.
And now imagine this, but every sentence most French people say in English. In Germany they announce the new Spiderman, in France the new Speedermaan. Paul Taylor ("Pol teloor") will tell you all about this.
@@ThePixel1983 there's also words were the meanings changed like:basket=basketball/basketball hoop/sneakers,parking=parking lot,footing=jogging,jogging=joggers pants,pressing=dry cleaning,etc...
@@lucaswebdev I know, I walk by a "Pressing" (pressinge 😉) shop almost every day.
@@lucaswebdev Then again, I come from the country where you use your handy to phone a friend to drive over in his oldtimer to watch a movie on your beamer 😅
my god that ordering from the menu thing is so accurate! people feel like it's pretentious but it just feels wrong to butcher food names like i've committed a language crime because you know that's not how you read that.
The thing about forgetting words in your native language used to be a huge problem for me. I have not lived in my native country of Sweden since 2011 and I tend to mix Norwegian words or just forgetting the words in Swedish all the time because I only use them when I actually visit my family.
Also so what language do you think or dream in ? Well, actually it depends on the surrounding and the interaction and what I spoke recently the most ... Them: 0_0
or
them: what language do you think in? count in? must be your native language haha cause your native language most definitely comes to you the easiest haha right?
me: weEeEeEellllll……..
@@mandarina4157 Your comment is soooooo relatable. When I'm thinking or talking to myself (yes, I do that), I do it in english, sometimes in spanish, others in italian, others in portuguese, and other times I just mix it all up on my mind and totally understand it.
After 6 months of language immersion I remembered both hearing and reading Japanese in my dreams; I seen kanji and people spoke not in English.
Very fun video!
I had the problem with forgetting words in my native language since childhood.
But now, when studying Japanese and Spanish as 4th and 5th languages, it gets more funny.
I've also been asked to say something in Japanese sometimes, but it's really hard to choose what to say. And all this bowing in Japanese. I just watched dramas, but also tend to bow or nod when saying something in Japanese.
Each language a bit changes your personality.
Thanks for sharing!
Just say: これはペンです
I saw someone say to just say: 何を言わせたいんだ? (What do you want me to say?)
What I am getting from this is, you can speak Japanese by not saying anything.
Its call body language
Silent disapproval.
That's pretty much how Japanese works, yeah.
from what i know, which isnt a lot (please ignore my profile picture here, i know theres a difference between anime and real life) theres a lot of bowing and nodding in japan and depending on how you do it it means something different
Well, he's saying something, he's saying はい, that means "yes" and is pronunced "hai", but often shortened in "ha"
People often are just like "you are just good with languages, it is easy for you". Yes, maybe but I still invest more than 30 hours per week, watch series only in other languages etc. to be on that level. Like it is hard and takes a lot of effort.
Hearing “oh you must be talented, you must have good genes” or something honestly devaluates the effort one puts into their skills, I get that
But that's not really unique to languages. People do that to all kinds of talents.
"Oh, he's a born athlete." - No, he's been training hard since he was 10, that's why he won the Gold medal.
"She has such a perfect vocie." - No, she's training with vocal coaches since her junior year, that's why she's a world renowned opera singer.
etc. etc.
Also when people ask you to translate a meme/song, but well, it is not… the most family-friendly thing to say…
SI JAJAJAJAJ
Oh you want me to translate that one cow meme to French for your second removed cousin or what ever?
@@jinolin9062 I used to vibe a lot to that song until I found out about the lyrics
Loved the video!!!! I hate that people don't understand when I use words in other languages, or when it might take me several awkward seconds to remember a specific word and when I ask for help like, "what is this called" people give me the stare as if I'm flexing. Speaking with monolinguals (who don't know me enough to know I'm not showing off) is really exhausting. Sometimes, I swear, my brain hurts when trying to recall a word. I'm most comfortable when I'm talking to my polyglot friends that know at least 3 or 4 of my most dominant languages and we can code switch at will.
Sounds like I’m lucky to live in Norway where my second language (English) is almost everyone else’s second language as well, and learning a third language is common enough to be nothing out of the ordinary. Maybe if I learned a less common language than the ones usually offered in school I would get that reaction, but I’m not so sure I would.
If you told someone you're fluent and they ask you to translate an unknown word, tell them you don't know every words like they don't know what an advanced word of their language means
So true 😂 the ''language test" and those moments of forgetting words in my own/native language are soo familiar haha But mixing words in idiomas diferentes while speaking without realizing that parece a good subject to think about 🤔
Parfait, simply perfetto.
totaaal, like i dont even realize que cambie languages lmaooo
Hahahahah sim, tipo I switch all of the sudden e nem percebo 🤣🤣🤣
It just comes naturally especialmente que hindi mo alam yung palabra na kailangan mo y por supuesto, you'll find another word in another lengua
I felt tenté pero nka sta cair nesta
I am learning Korean at the moment and sometimes when I don’t know the answer I can only think in French because I know I shouldn’t be speaking English 🤣
me mixing up english, french, and latin and creating a completely new language in front of someone
@@stinkyjoe4720 this, this right here sir-
This happened to me when I went to Mexico, I'd been studying Spanish for years, but I studied French before that and it was like my brain panicked and I couldn't even think of basic things like "your welcome" - "de nada" I'd say "je vous en prie" LOL
Oh my goddd i'm French too and i learn Korean too such a coincidence x))
OMG YES!!! My native language is Spanish, but I studied French.. I've been studying Korean for 3 years and everytime my brain forgets something in Korean I start thinking in French...
i can relate to number 9 quite a bit😂. there have been endless times when i come back from the bookstore sith a pile of language books on languages ive never thought about learning. only around 25% of the books are ever read
Great video! So true! 👍🏻
But one common question is missing:
"Why do you study this language, wouldn't X be much more useful?"
I hate when people assume I learn Mandarin for business opportunities, they just don't seem to get that I am interested in the language for fun and because it's a language that simply fascinates me 😂 Like honestly it's so sad that they only see languages as a tool when it's so much more!
I get this all the time! Why do you learn Korean? It’s so useless. And it kinda is, given my current occupation. But I like to ask them how meaningfully they spend their free time 😏
I'm not even polyglot yet, only bilingual, working on learning my third language, but I love to study and research languages and see contents from other languages, and one thing I find immensely funny is when you realise that a word in one language originated in another language, but lost the meaning completely.
For example, my first language is Portuguese, and though I'm not fluent, I frequently research french, and I noticed some of our words come from french. For example garçon, here it's a waiter, but it comes from the french word for boy; there's also rendezvous, which is a meeting or appointment in french, here is a slang for a giant mess, and I find those differences really curious.
I found this channel recently and I'm so happy for being able to watch and enjoy the great content you create. You inspired me to learn everyday, keep going!
Awesome! Thank you!
Great video! ^^
i'd add a couple more:
1. using false friends or wrong words because they mean something else in another language.
2. messing up the structure/grammar of one language because it's the grammar of another language xD
3. When someone tells you to translate a word or what something means. You know what it means but you can't find the word you're supposed to translate it to. It's just easier to use a translator than make your brain go in circles.
Those happened to me too many times. xD
#8 isn't always aggressive, sometimes people just want to speak with a native speaker, because they lack this experience.
Very true. It’s just someone wanting to take an opportunity to practice.
Maybe so, but it depends on the way they do it. And where the conversation takes place. If it's in the US, then they can just walk anywhere and practice their English so hopefully they could at least speak to you in Spanish or whatever for a sec. I live in Chile so here, it makes a little more sense because they can't just walk anywhere and speak English.
@@CRAWPvideos
I would say, the language of the country is important.
If somebody is a foreigner or a migrant and is trying to speak the local/official language, then speak it with them, since, they are the ones trying and supposed to adapt.
They come to discover the country or to stay and they need to learn more + they need the skills.
It will not help them for their studies or socialisation to speak only their native language.
They are supposed to leave with more knowledge of the people and culture they are visiting or fully and rapidly integrate (be able to fill in forms etc.)
The only reason you should be speaking their native language is:
they are showing no interest or they are REALLY struggling and kind of begging you to do that.
Also, some people really have a crisis and feel so bad abroad, miss the food, their people etc. and anything that can remind them of that experience can help soothe the discomfort.
So that's when the native language can help as a transition and bring a little "home" feeling, so they don't totally isolate and become fully depressed or also abandon their project and run back home.
2nd context is language school.
Well, if the person is there to learn the language of the country (you meet them there, while your learning another language) or they tell you that's what they're doing, their goal is pretty clear.
Why speak their native language?
They are there to learn a foreign language, so. Some of them travel the whole globe to have some opportunity in another country, to be able to get a job or to study, also just to join a language school... all that to have people speak their native language to them?
I would say, priority goes to: migrant, foreigner, learner.
We should be speaking their target language in accordance with the context = country they have to integrate in and are already in.
Language school they are visiting etc.
They are the ones wanting/supposed to/expected to learn.
@@g-li yes, exactly! I fully agree. I wish more people thought like you you. Here in Chile, people always try to speak to me in English even to the point where it is annoying, because I am trying to work on my Spanish day in day out.
@@CRAWPvideos
I know, I so empathise with you.
One can never guess my native language when I learn a new one and fortunately my native language is not English 😬, so if your accent doesn't give you away and in case you can speak another language very well (so a third one), just say you can't speak English. Plainly 🤷🏽♀️
And if you ever get caught (for example, third language is Italian but there's a native speaker who could detect you're not one of them), then be honest: I don't disclose my native language, because everyone speaks English to me. Be sad and stuff, people will not bear you a grudge, they will understand and show empathy.
I wish you the best of luck.
I just watched the first five seconds I was already loving it. Great video! New subscriber :)
OMG! that scene with the books, that is totally me. Last time I went to a book store with my brother, I told him to stop me if I try to buy more foreign language books and sure enough with in the hour he caught me in the foreign language novel area. My excuse was that I was just looking. He didn't believe it.
The worst is when a polyglots talk to another polyglots from another country in another country. I had to fight my brain sooo much. My friend insisted on using French since it's my native language but my brain was like "no-o missy. This friend is korean so use either korean or english. In the mean time french will remain unavailable". It was exhausting.
lmao the pain
The books shown in the skit at 4:17 are Olly Richard's Short Stories series.
Just to save anyone else the pain of screenshotting and trying to decipher the Author and Title.
The ones with the yellow binding are the short stories...but what about the other ones?
@@jumanaa7375 the blue spined books added at the end are Short Stories for Beginners. The yellow spined books at the start are Short Stories for Intermediate Learners. Both sets are by Olly Richards.
the silence where your conscience is screaming at you in one language because you just forgot another word, again, but you're in the middle of a conversation with someone so you try to gain time and think about the word but then you give up and either hope the person knows what the word in the language you remember means, or change topic or make yourself look even dumber by trying to explain the thing with other words and it all results in a mess
Or that moment you remember the one word you're searching for in three different languages but not in the language you're currently using in your conversation T-T
"So you're fluent or what?" LOL
A very good interpretation of some little problems when somebody is knowing/speaking multiple languages on daily basis. Myself from Romania , fairly knowing Slavic languages, romance ones,spent a year in Soumi, living in France and watching almost only English speaking shows I do stumble especially when tired on this issues. And I do have a dozen of books on how to learn easy whatever language, but to be honest I only get to the half because of the nonsense conversions. Languages are like muscles , they need training to perform. And with age we become more rigid .My best wishes Olly!
I ALWAYS CANT HELP MYSELF LOL, ive experienced so many of these, especially the "say something in every language"
How could someone not to like this?..Thumbs up for the hole video and its content. P.S: Congratulations for your Brazilian Portuguese accent! It's really good!
I'm learning several languages but I don't want to be called a polyglot. I don't want any sort of vanity to interfere with the pleasure of learning languages at my own pace. This is not a race and I don't want to impress anybody.
Well said!
Seems unusual to me, since I see that many people learn languages exactly with this purpose 👀
Yes, me too, I don’t like polyglots saying they need a purpose to learn. The pleasure of learning a new one can be enough.
I'm with you; I even don't like how the word sounds, to be honest
Agree with all that you said I also learn 3-4 languages but not to impress someone just for myself :) and I have fun while learning them 😁
My parents keep asking me to translate official documents from English to my native language. Now, I speak English much better as I live and work in an English speaking country. The issue is that despite the other one being my native language, I don't know the "official document language" for it! That does not make me any less fluent in it! Ask a child to explain a university seminar to you and you won't get far. Doesn't mean a child isn't fluent in their language. *This* is the key to learning languages and understanding fluency.
Also: translation requires a certain degree of “connection” between your vocabularies in the source and target language, and once you reach a high enough level of fluency your vocabularies tend to diverge because you learn new words entirely within the context of your second language without ever learning what the equivalent in your native language is.
I am almost trilingual and I am still studying other languages on the side. Forgetting words is a constant problem and I’m sure is going to happen in the future as I learn. The identity crisis is real for me as traveled different places lol
I literally love this film! I'm not a polyglot but I can speak fluently in Polish, English and German and I'm also going to learn a little bit of Spanish. I can understand every single problem that was mentioned in this video.
Exactly the same lmao
La verdad que es impresionante que sepas tantos idiomas. Me encanta!
So true! And number 8 gets even funnier when your native language is not English, but they insist on speaking English with you because you're a foreigner ;).
3:19
It happened to me, I forgot the word "chives" but I knew it in Mandarin. Luckily I was ordering in a Mandarin speaking restaurant in Canada so I just said "Can I get uhh ummmm 韭菜水饺“， haha
Eight languages is a bit uncommon, but the world is full of hundreds of millions of people who speak four or five, and billions who speak two or three. It's common for even the poorest people in Africa to speak several languages. Most people in India speak their regional language, plus some Hindi, plus some English. In northern Canada, the wilderness Northwest Territory has eight official languages. Among my Metis ancestors, speaking seven languages was expected of successful and respected people, while most people spoke four or five. Monolingualism is largely the product of more recent, highly homogenized and populous countries that enforced obedient uniformity in their populations. I once had a monolingual friend who told me that he "didn't know anyone who spoke another language" other than me. I immediately listed seven of our mutual friends who clearly did. Somehow, this hadn't registered on him even after years of knowing these people.
The pain when you're at a [insert language/country] restaurant with your friends who don't speak said language and pronounce it all weirdly
As a Russian speaker in a non Russian speaking country, I internally cringe when I hear people saying Russian names.
This is about to get a ton more relatable as I casually start perusing short story books in every language I can conceivably stumble my way through...I somehow didn't know about those.
Haha I loved it , it's completely true ! Part 2 would be cool! And sth that happens to me very often is that I tend to dream in foreign language,it's normal but sometimes before sleeping, many random thoughts in foreign languages come to my mind and I swear I hate that! Cause most of the time it just doesn't lemme sleep .
I think people insisting on English do this because they think English is more comfortable to you, or because that person is learning English and as much as you want to speak his language he wants to practice his English.
I find it so rude when people start speaking in English to me when I speak to them in any languages I speak. It makes me feel like my abilities aren't good enough when clearly theyy can understand every single word I'm saying!
I agree completely. Some just want to practice their English, but sometimes, I think they actually think they're being polite, but it does feel like an insult. I once asked a woman in Dutch for the nearest supermarket - she just replied in English as if I'd asked her in English. I was so taken aback (it's happened before and since but never so obviously somehow), and didn't know what to say, so I just looked at her in surprise. She then repeated the instruction in German! I still remember that as the rudest encounter ever.
@@phil2854 hmm perhaps she's not a Dutch but German instead? 🤔
Well actually if she's Dutch, it's not surprising at all 😅,, Dutch people are like that when we speak Dutch to them.
@@johannfer7073 I'm pretty certain she was Dutch - her German was good, but she wasn't a native speaker. Fortunately, not all Dutch people are like that - surprisingly, I find younger people more willing to answer in Dutch. Also most women - it's usually older men (though not all) who want to talk English (or German).
@@phil2854 oh I see,
When they speak to me in english, I just continue with my target language. Fact is, one of us will stop at some point but it definitely will not be me haha
the last one is legit a problem for me, like, some languages I don't really know what to say like? AM I fluent? I can have a normal conversation in German but I can't really understand that much in my literature classes, so, AM I fluent? or with Spanish, where I understand pretty much everything but still get some words mixed up with Portuguese (my 1st lang), so, AM I fluent? I can almost have some conversations in Chinese Mandarim, so, at what point do I considerer myself fluent? Sometimes I tell myself I'm fluent in a specific language but I'm definetely not confident enought to tell other people that I'm fluent in that language, idk, it's just really really really confusing
)I am kinda really interested in that "short stories" collection though lol
Don't stress yourself, as long as you're happy with what you can use and apply there's no need for any language proficiency labels. Keep in mind that learning languages isn't for others but it's for you in the first place ☺ and if they really want to know how "fluent" You are, tell them to judge that themselves 😂
I have literally experienced all of this!! Tú español es fantástico. 日本語も上手ですよ。você fala muito bem o português!
日本語上手
@Natsu tsuu なつ つ으
Because the brain picks the easiest words to say or to transition to so you would combine the different languages in one sentence
@@ADeeSHUPA 你是中国人吗? 僕は日本人ですけど中国のmeme思い出して🤣
saya berbicara bahasa indonesia sedikit dan bahasa Inggris
@@tallspoon0224 Are You from 大日本帝國
You know you're fluent in a target language when you remember a conversation you've had, yet you're not sure whether it was in your target or in your native language )))
Then it means I am fluent in english
Hello Olly, your best language learning video ever!
I only speak four languages, but some of the stuff is so relatable. For example I forget often words on German and then go with the English word in hope people understand. My friends do but my relatives not. Also when try to order a menu that has a French name. Sometimes people are like what has this person just said. A bit annoying tbh. That even happens sometimes when I say pommes frites instead of pommes. Other people are more like one time "pommes" and you get a strange feeling about it. And yeah that other people think you are a genius or somewhat special happens even when you only speak four languages. It's not like I can speak every language on the same level or have never made mistakes before
I speak 5 languages fluent and in 4 other languages im "everyday" fluent. And there are some more that I know a bit of basics. So... I get the struggle xD
My biggest problem so far was, that people don't understand that even though you can be fluent in one dialect of a language you still can have big trouble understanding another dialect. Especially when it's not your first language.
In German I pretty much understand everybody besides the Swiss, but I once traveled the UK. In the south around London it was all fine but when I was in the highlands I barely understood a single sentence. Same in Spain and Madrid.
That misconception isn’t as common in Norway for two reasons: almost everyone speaks at least two languages, and some Norwegian dialects are so different that they can be mutually unintelligible unless the speakers make an effort to use more “standard” Norwegian.
O abacaxi e o abacate me pegaram de surpresa kkkk
I'm not a polyglot by any means (wish I were!) but I can relate to several of these... Forgetting words in my native language, defining "fluency", or suddenly jumping from one language to another without noticing I did so - or at least until I realise people are looking at me like I've grown two heads XD
Vidéo très drôle Olly ! J'ai beaucoup aimé. Whenever someone asks me to say something in French, I say "quelque chose"! HAHAHA
Ooh good one!
Haha i do that too.
😂vous êtes intelligente
Say something else in French!
autre chose
I usually start gesturing romantically and say "Chausée déformée! Cédez le passage! Vous n'avez pas la priorité!". Proof that anything can be made to sound romantic in French.
Number 9.
I bought 27 books in 11 languages at a used book fair on the first day of the NSW floods last year. Getting them to the car was interesting...
My mother was bilingual, Finnish and Danish. So wherever there was a delegation from ANY Scandinavian country visiting our little community she was fetched to translate, although it wasn't even her job. Sometimes she had to translate several long days: when she got tired she would repeat what the speaker said in the same language and not understand why everyone would just stare at her.
I don't know about others but I had all sorts of quirks with my language ability when my brain was switching from speaking almost exclusively Finnish to speaking only English. There were times when I didn't know a common word in EITHER language! When I was studying I had to learn to name body parts in 4 languages and plants in three. I could ever recall them in one language, not two two or three, at a time after the exam, without any control what that language would be. Also, when I went to visit Finland the first time after emigrating, I struggled remembering numbers - but after the trip I always did anything number related in Finnish, for about 25 years!
The things I do as a polyglot is to watch the same episode in every language I know except for my native native language 😅
Ok the "insist on English" is the exact same thing for the Spanish guy. Like he's trying to speak your language and you insist on speaking his. Its what he does too. The situation is perfectly symmetrical and probably pisses off most
The situation isn't actually symmetrical because it all depends on what country they're in. In the case of the video, they're in Spain and still the other guy insist on speaking English. The situation would be symmetrical if they were both in a foreign country (Japan, for example)
@@thefish3103 The situation absolutely is symmetrical, whether your in the other person's country or not. The same thing is happening. Additionally, in many places there seems to be an expectation that someone from a country of another language will speak that language.
As a person who studies and speaks Korean, I related to his little head bobs in the identity crisis so much. Because I try to surround myself as much as I can with the future as well as the language you end up kind of picking up these small things haha
I'm in very bad point since when I was moving from Poland to Germany, when I was not learned German good yet, but used every day, and almost lost my English. So now I don't have any of them in a good level
#4 general problem, i guess, cuz i'm either. Whenever I wanna say something in English, I can't control and add some Chinese words. But i never believe that i'm a polyglot, cuz I've just studied English and Mandarin for 6 months and i haven't catched up with fluency. I could well do practise many time now and in the future in which i can improve speaking skill myself. Thanks for your sharing and useful video.
I speak two different languages. Plus there's one I can fully understand (both in word and writing), but can't actually speak... that's so weird.
Yes, that's probably also one of these things monoglots can't understand. I'm fully fluent in reading Italian, but speaking is quite a different matter. It's normal though. I took a few language courses when I was at uni some decades ago, and then I wondered at the "speech activation" courses. Now I know precisely why they exist.
@@mquietsch6736 I don't consider myself a polyglot with speaking just two languages :) But the third one is interesting... I can understand what is being said, I can even watch a movie or the news without subs... but when it comes to speaking, I have the hardest time to even produce a normal sentence. I could ask for directions... but no way I could make conversation. It''s interesting.
thats me with my 3rd language tbh, had to learn it in school for 10 years of my life so i can read and write in it on a native level but when it comes to speaking in it i have a hard time forming sentences, which i assume has to do w me spending very less time speaking in that language but compared to that i can speak my fourth language way more easily (tho it isn't perfect) bc when i moved to a different place i had to actually speak in it to communicate w the locals but i can't read in it very quickly since I didn't have the chance to really practice reading in it
so i think it just need more practice thats all
ps: personally i firmly believe that understanding =/= speaking, bc you can understand a language perfectly and still not be able to form a sentence in it when it comes to speaking
@@S.Y.S.64738 it just means you need to speak the language more or practices out loud. The mouth and tongue needs to move and get used to speaking the language
I used to date an Irish girl when I lived in England. She could speak very good French and taught German for her job. Quite often when I was a bit too tired to speak English, I would switch to French, which is my mother tongue. Our conversation would be a mix of the two languages, which in restaurants would get waiters a bit puzzled. What's very strange is that when I was quoting previous conversations, I could never remember what language I had spoken in.
The "identity crisis" was very funny. Whenever I come back from Japan I accidentally do that too for a while...
I live in Thailand and I’m trying to speak Thai here, with friends I speak English and Spanish. So the last time I called my mom, two times I forgot Polish words. Fortunately my mom speaks German so I could just help her to understand me by adding two german words into our conversation in Polish
I used to get asked to "go on then, say something in French". I learnt that the best thing to do was to recite Article 1 du Code de Commerce. "Sont reputes commercants ceux qui font des actes de commerce etc etc...". That usually shut them up.
Thank you , I had the same problem!
I'm slowly becoming a polyglot so it's nice to watch such videos as yours to not feel so weird about "I can't help it but try something new"
(I'm Polish, fluent in normal, political and my profession situations in English, know quite a lot in French and German, bit of Latin, Japanese and Chinese, got some Russian, but I still have a troubles in other languages beyond English and my father tongue)
To add to the list, sometimes I say "Da" ('yes' in Russian) when trying to say "Oui" ('yes' in French), or "ee" ('and' in Russian) when trying to say "eh" ('and' in French). And neither of those are my native tongue (intermediate French and beginner Russian). I think this phenomenon is due to my particular set of circumstances-I lived in Kyrgyzstan for a year and (after being back in the US for a while), moved to France, where I've been for the past 8 months. Sometimes Armenian gets in the mix (in any of the other 3 languages i "know"), bc it's my other native language. (besides English). These are all quite rare so I think I'm safe in thinking that I'm not brain-damaged (not toooo much anyway).
Yes! I speak German but instead of Ja and Nein I say Da and Nyet. Because I lived in Moscow for a while and it's permanently altered my German for some reason
in every language i learn, i still default ‘because’ to ‘parce que’ even when it’s not french!
@@Yashodhan1917 I kinda pissed off a German doing that. I don't particularly study German but can understand 2/3rds of it spoken.
@@news_internationale2035 random German, who cares
Did anyone of you guys who speak 2nd or 3rd language notice your fluency fluctuating time to time or person to person?
I personally experience that and was never able to pin point why. Sometimes my train of thought is in full throttle and I can go on speaking without any fillers while sometimes I struggle to weave a simple sentence.
It’s perfectly normal to be more fluent in some contexts than in others. Like, perhaps you can discuss music completely fluently, but if you have to talk about boats you’re a lot less fluent all of a sudden.
OMG I can totally relate with the "sayings" used in different languages. Sometimes there's a saying in english or korean that encapsules the meaning of what I want to express more strongly, but people around me just speak spanish, so they don't understand, and I just stand there, saying nothing at all haha Also, I forget words in every language all the time, it's frustrating but funny.
There is an old joke about Christian missionaries evangelizing an isolated tribe in Africa. First they translated "Our Father" prayer in their language. There was a problem with the idiom "give us today our daily bread", and the missionaries had to explain this phrase many times. They described the form of a loaf of bread with their hands. Many years later other missionaries came to the village, but were shocked when they heard people praying "give us today our daily poop". What happened was the fact that bread was unknown food to the tribe, and they used cow dung for heating. They misunderstood the gesture describing a loaf of bread for a cake of cow dung.
In reality, rice is used as a metaphor for food or eating in many Asian languages in a similar way as bread is used in most European languages. Idioms can't be translated literally to other languages, as they are often very different.
Very funny video and well done! I'm just starting my third lanuage so I hope I'll experience more of these situations as I continue :) The 'are you fluent' one is already a regular struggle.
Darn, your Spanish is really good tho, like for real, this is not the typical "You speak Spanish very well for a native" but like, you speak Spanish with a more convincing accent than me and I'm a native speaker!! The way you aspirate your s is on point, you clearly have put a lot of effort into your pronunciation! Congrats!
Thank you! 😃
I believe all of the things you brought up has happened to me. When I hadn't spoken my native language for years, I began to stutter when moving back to my home country.
I hate this 'fluent' thing. Like some people think there is a magical point when you understand everything, and before that you know nothing.
There are language levels for a reason.
I know 5 languages by default and growing up I was always reprimanded for speaking all 5 languages in one sentence. today it's just plain fun to know these languages and now I'm acquiring Portuguese. Out of these 5 languages English is what I use when I write blogs and the language I use to best express myself so my personal journals are all in English, but I can comfortably understand and speak Filipino, Hokkien, and Cebuano so I consider myself fluent in those languages. Mandarin is a difficult one even if I studied it in school for 13 years but I can understand at a B2 level and am able to express myself in simple words.