What it feels like to be a Hyperpolyglot... (30+ Languages?)

[@TFMarciniak]

I am not a polyglot, but I do love languages. So here is the cool thing that happened to me. I work at a propane filling station, many of our customers are speakers of Spanish, I communicate really well with them, some speak Portuguese and French not so good with them but we communicate. One day I was quite busy with customers, and I had to let everyone know their order in which I would fill them and where to put their tanks. One gentleman as I started to instruct him immediately said "No speak English", so I went to Spanish, no result, then French, he brought his fingers together indicating just a little bit, then out of the blue I said "вы говорите по-русски?" His eyes lit up and a big smile appeared on his face and then he didn't stop talking. This was my first time using Russian with another person so I know I spoke poorly, but he was very happy, gave me hugs etc. For me this was way cool to make someone so happy with just some simple words in their own language.

[@inthedms82]

Thomas Marciniak II nelson Mandela said it best. Speak to someone in a language they understand and they will speak with their head but their mother tongue and they will speak with their heart

[@skipinkoreaable]

Lovely story. I have a similar one. I have had very little use for my schoolboy French but I did once bump into a couple of older gentlemen late at night on a deserted street in the city. Their English was non-existent and they had come over just for the Rugby World Cup. They were lost and hadn't been able to ask anybody the way to their hotel that night. Believe me they were over the moon when I told them in bad French how to get home!

[@abhinavchauhan7864]

How You didn't understand at first he is russian?

[@JulienTeyteau]

Being able to read newspapers and watch videos in other languages is like discovering the world as if you were born in another place. While watching your video, a thought crossed my mind : if I hadn't learn English, I wouldn't even be able to understand what you're saying. It's priceless. For now, I know French, English, Deutsch, Italiano, a bit of japanese, and I'm starting Mandarin ;-) I love learning a new language, even if I'm not good at it. It's always better than just your own.

[@LearnUkrainianWithRoman]

The point is at what level to speak a language. Knowing 30 languages at an intermediate level is one thing, but knowing a language at level in order to understand local jokes and be able to reply to them is a totally another thing. That is the problem that comes out occasionally in my mind. Currently I am more focused on the languages I have a strong need at: Chinese, Português and Spanish. The point is that I need to speak these languages really good, desirably with no accent, and even after living for 3 years in Brazil I still cant make it. Really good video.

[@taehan_]

Learn Ukrainian With Roman É muito difícil entender nosso povo, cara. As piadas geralmente são bem pensadas e caso você não tenha vivido por décadas no pais vc n entende bem as piadas

[@LiborSupcik]

Why would you need to pass for a native in those tongues?

[@Geo-st4jv]

Try AJATT, basically turn your world into that language like listening to native audio alot of time and look up words and learn them in sentence context

[@NomoreBS2004]

But Richard does speak those languages at almost native levels..

[@rodrigovilela3253]

fica tranquilo, nem brasileiro fala português direito.

[@estherandherlittleworld7821]

I learn french,german,italian and russian. I'm brazilian so I speak portuguese. I'd like to learn many many more languages cause it makes me really happy when I'm speaking a different language it's a great feeling! :)

[@SirusStarTV]

Привет Privet(Hello in russian) nice to see that more people choose russian as language to learn.

[@albertomurilloocallaghan2163]

crazy that you don't speak Spanish, after all it's very close to Portuguese.

[@estherandherlittleworld7821]

Gerydome Привет. Yeah it's hard but it's a beautiful language I love it. I love russian literature even though it will take a lot of time for me to be able to read a book in russian.

[@estherandherlittleworld7821]

Alberto Murillo Yeah. It's I can understand it well and I know some vocab but I can't say I speak it cause it's like portuguese mixed with spanish :))

[@taehan_]

Wie viel deutsch kannst du? btw I'm also from Brazil.

[@nendoakuma7451]

No way I'll ever learn 20-30 languages, although it would be nice if I can learn 5-6 before I die.

[@elijahreynolds1875]

Yay!

[@Bonniebelle_00__]

If he can do I can do anything also

[@katyarom]

It was really interesting, thank you! I wouldn't like to be a hyperpolyglot, but it's great that such people as Richard live on our planet. He's a real hero because shows by his own example that there's almost no limits to people's abilities. It was nice to hear that now you feel a little bit what is like to be Russian,Jan :) It's what I like about learning languages: it enriches people's understanding of other cultures and makes them more tolerant towards each other. By the way, I feel the same way about German.

[@RobertHeslop]

I did that when was flying to Dubai with Emirates, I just looked quickly at the language of the cabin crew person and tried to say little things to them in their language, at Dubai airport I ordered coffee in Arabic (very basic though) then my second Emirates flight then off the plane in Tokyo I was speaking Japanese with immigration. Same when I went on holiday to Seoul, used some basic Korean and went back to Japan then went to Beijing and used Mandarin then went back home to the UK.

[@RobertHeslop]

Then you also should look up Lee Morrow, Ophelia Vert and Lindseydoeslanguages - they're all British too and we all make language related content mostly ^^

[@RobertHeslop]

De rien! ^^

[@RobertHeslop]

나도! ^^ og jeg studerer en lite norsk også

[@breadyegg]

30+ languages. Hears dog barking. Understands it. Corrects its grammar.

[@StormyOne1]

Well since everyone's sharing . I'm a native speaker of English and speak Japanese, Cantonese , Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian. A bit of Turkish polish Kazakh and French also

[@vortexosumania5404]

At the start I though you were going to start speaking to the dog lol

[@stefanreichenberger5091]

What was the question again? I'm a German native speaker and I speak 4 foreign languages relatively well (English, Spanish, French and Portuguese). At the moment I'm studying Russian, Czech and Ukrainian. My next priorities are Polish and Italian. At some point I also want to learn Arabic and Farsi.

[@marcosantonio9987]

Hey dude did you ever come to Brazil (since you speak Portuguese)?

[@stefanreichenberger5091]

Sim, visitei o Brasil duas vezes. A primeira vez estive pra a minha tesis de diploma (em 1998/1999, em Mato Grosso). A a segunda vez (em 2005/2006) estive de ferias: Visitei Mato Grosso do Sul, Paraná, Rio Grande do Sul e Santa Catarina.

[@marcosantonio9987]

Que legal cara... Parece que você gostou muito do Brasil então. Seu português parece também ser perfeito, então provavelmente você ficou muitos anos por aqui aqui. Você não foi para os dois estados mais famosos (São Paulo e Rio de Janeiro)? Na próximo deveria passar por aqui em São Paulo. xD

[@stefanreichenberger5091]

Eu gostei muito do Brasil, mas no total só estive ali 10 semanas. Sei que só conheço uma pequena parte do Brasil.

[@marcosantonio9987]

Tranquilo!! Sempre que quiser voltar será muito bem vindo!

[@ppoint432]

That's an awesome yet super rare experience to go through. Thanks for sharing it. Also you and Richard are an amazing human beings. xD

[@littlerocket853]

Привет, Ян! Я полностью разделяю твои взгляды на то, что означает быть полиглотом и для чего нужно (или не нужно) знать много языков! Рада за тебя, что ты смог почувствовать себя русским. (Я русская, я из Москвы, и мне нравится смотреть твой канал.)

[@virusvirus5477]

Hmm.😑😑😑 так✅👍😒😑😑😑

[@carpediem6568]

That's a perfect answer as to why learn a language. For most of us, learning one or two is more than enough. I've been told each language gets easier.

[@seren48725]

You should have made a video about Richard and you going out that day. It would have been interesting to watch it! I only speak English, Spanish and Serbian(my native language). I'm trying to improve my Russian now. My aim is to reach advanced levels in all of these languages. At some point, I would like to start with Chinese Mandarin. I'm quite interested in languages, maybe obsessed a bit. 😂 Keep up with the good work!

[@polyglotdreams]

It takes time for sure, I have been studying diligently languages traveling the world for 48 years so more than 30 is quite understandable.

[@rattanaphonth9575]

Hello, I’m Thai. Now I’m learning 5 foreign languages (English, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, Russian and French). I’ve been living and studying(ohhh.. I hate English tenses grammar!!!) in Moscow for 2 year. Here I can practice all languages. I have a lot of friends from China, Africa (speak French), from Central and South America (speak Spanish) and of course, from Russia. So that’s a huge benefit to learn foreign languages. ¡Hola! Soy de Tailandia. Ahora yo estoy estudiando cinco idiomas extranjeros (inglés, español, chino mandarín, ruso y francés). Yo vivo y estudio en Moscú por dos años (No.. no odio gramática española). Aquí puedo practicar todos los idiomas. Tengo muchos amigos desde China, desde África (hablan francés), desde países hispanos americanos, y por supuesto, desde Rusia. Así que es grande beneficio para aprender idiomas extranjeros.

[@Acrillian]

Its one thing to have a smattering or intermediate knowledge of the languages its a whole different story to know each language very well let alone perfectly.I know 2 foreign languages but my second one is no where near as good as my first one

[@kycalc764]

Very interesting video mate! Pretty inspiring

[@jitidias3592]

Great video, Jan!

[@anonyme7079]

Those places you guys filmed in Brussels .. I was just there today chilling with my friends 😂 it's weird to get home , open your phone and see it again 🇧🇪🇧🇪🇧🇪 bonne soirée à vous hein ;)

[@emmiebb05]

Right now im 13 years old and I speak 5 languages English, Dutch, French, German and Korean.

[@virusvirus5477]

Ja 🧐

[@Nothingtodo751]

Look! Sir, First and foremost, I'm really so proud of you, i always look on you as a role model. You mean me a lot that's because you are encouraging people around the world to move on and keep going and never give up. I am an Egyptian guy, fresh graduated from faculty of Education Department of English and i used to listen much more to native speakers and how they form the sentences fluently. So, let me ask you something, what if i told you that i've got about 99% from your speech without subtitles, how would you see that. I mean how to assess my listennig skill through what i've mentioned. Your assessment means me a lot and i really need your assessment to get a better job. I am really a challenge seeker and i always dream gaining experience. It’s so necessary to contact you sir ASAP. I need to send you English clips i'm speaking in to assess my spoken language as well. So please, your help will make me on the nine cloud. Your prompt reply is highly appreciated. Regards, Muhammad.

[@languagenick3172]

I experienced the same with Richard being at just 1 place for 1 hour with him and he was able to use around 15 languages.. of course we spoke multiple languages to each other as well. This guy is just amazing!

[@yoshi31713]

That doggy is ready to accept the challenge! 😂

[@rubyvampiredean.]

From Vietnamese love🥰🥰 Eternal love😇😇

[@rinatennouji5988]

Hello! I can speak 🇮🇩🇰🇷🇮🇱🇲🇳🇹🇭🇻🇳🇹🇷🇺🇦🇵🇹🇸🇦🇵🇱🇯🇵🇮🇹🇭🇰🇩🇪🇪🇸🇨🇳🇫🇷🇬🇧🇭🇷🇳🇱🇷🇺🇮🇳🇸🇪.

[@alessiomarin1218]

Your English is excellent.

[@Mario-zl9el]

My only problem is that I'm learning 10+ langs simultaneously

[@rachaelhuthsteiner4132]

you are so handsome, intellectual and sophisticated. My dream man!

[@rubyvampiredean.]

Accurate! Human on the Earth adore Him, including me. Handsome and brilliant🥰🥰🤩🤩

[@catherinechua23]

I personally enjoy how I can amazed and shock people by the amount of language I can speak by helping to translate or interpret into another languages. (I work in customer service and I have to translate from English to either Chinese, Korean or Japanese). And I just started to learn Malay and sign language :)

[@bills1967]

My native language is English. My parents are from Somalia so I also heard Somali at home but I never spoke it fluently, I am probably A1 in it. My father also speaks Italian since Somalia was an Italian colony. So in the summer of 2016 I took a 3 month course in Italy. So my Italian is about an A2-B1 level. I studied French for 3 years but the more I learned Italian the more I would forget my french, If I were to refresh it in 2 weeks I would say I am in an A2 level. Right now I am studying german so let see how that goes.

[@lodroid]

Я часто не понимаю английский в мемах, но Вашу речь понимаю практически полностью, оказывается мой английский не так плох ps Вы очень красивы

[@maxiapalucci2511]

I'm 13 , a native English speaker, and I speak a lot of Italian, Chinese and some Spanish

[@spegnagmaglorious3590]

I speak English and a little Spanish. So. That's about it.

[@spegnagmaglorious3590]

frida barber thank you, I like to think so

[@RyszardPoster27]

I'm a native Polish language speaker. I also speak a sufficient level of English, currently learning Japanese pretty intensely, and I know some German from school. Depending on how you would describe speaking a language I speak either 1 (i.e. English) or 3 foreign languages. In the coming years I plan to learn some Mandarin.

[@deepdarkmidnight]

For people who are crazy passionate for languages, it's great to being able to speak so many. But for people like me, who find their passion in Science and Engineering, languages at the end are just tools. Currently I'm focused on becoming fluent in my third language and I don't intend to learn a 4th one unless I have to.

[@matthewnash4953]

I agree really, being a polyglot is no different to any hobby. Albeit a useful one, it is very time consuming and I doubt the veracity of polyglots who claim to speak "fluently". It takes a lot of exposure to be able to truly understand a language and its culture, so I'd rather speak a few languages *fluently* instead of speaking many at a simple level.

[@janisstrods4404]

matthew nash there is a good quote by a hungarian interpreter and translator that goes "language is the only thing worth knowing even poorly", i see it as not just a mere tool, language is closely connected to its culture and the way the natives think, and understanding that expands a person's outlook on the world. This is my take on it.

[@JohnSmith-no8bb]

Here what matters is the definition of "knowing" a language. I myself can utter phrases in at least 20 languages, but that does not mean I "know" them. I am only functional in 3 languages, those are the languages in which I can fully understand things like the news, slang, blogs, read literature, virtually anything and because of that they are useful to me

[@elijahreynolds1875]

Since everyone else is telling what they speak: I only know my native language right now but I am starting to study languages that interest me. One day I want to know 40 language! I am fascinated by culture and the different sounds and different writings of other languages.

[@carolyngracemarie]

I’m curious about the mental state of a hyperpolyglot. Don’t their minds run a mile a minute, constantly noisy with the words of many languages? I study Spanish and Mandarin. I’ve studied Spanish much longer though and I notice at night time I will have these “mind reels” of Spanish, random phrases that come into my head at random times before I sleep.. if that happens being bilingual, I can’t imagine how it would be when you know several languages.

[@thunderstar7116]

Carolyn Grace Marie it's the same to me. I'm a native Spanish speaker and I speak English too. Before I started to learn French, I almost have no problem, maybe some dreams in English and stuff like that. But recently I started to learn French and oh god it's so crazy! A veces estoy hablando con alguien y cuando me pregunta algo la respuesta me sale automáticamente en Inglés antes de que me dé cuenta y vuelva al español. Por la noche cuando empiezo a quedar me dormido; you know, in the border of consiousness and unconsciousness; I start to have some kind of flashbacks in French, and I feel like someone is talking to me in a strange mixture of this three lenguages hahahaha 😂 Oh... And I forget to say that I'm also learning Latin in university, so..... Hahahahaha

[@carolyngracemarie]

Alexander Tapiero hahahaha yo entiendo mucho!! Empecé a estudiar coreano también. Soon enough there will be quite a few random spurs of languages in my head hahahaha

[@chicoti3]

Carolyn Grace Marie Ohhh don't even get me started. I speak Portuguese, English and German, not to mention some Japanese on the side. If only you could read minds, I guarantee you would be lost in mine. It's such an otherworldly mess in terms of language that sometimes I don't even realize that I thinking in Portuglish, Genglish or even Jerman (WWII enthusiasts would love that last one).

[@ManForToday]

Personally, I would rather speak a few languages all at C1+ than to speak 10-20 and they all range from A2 - B2. Of course, its nice to know more languages at any level and perhaps very useful in the future, but I think only a professional polyglot, as it were, could speak tens of languages at a really high level. Richard, Olly, Luca, Lucas, Felix etc. I would say that it's more than just an interest at that point. There's definitely some element of natural talent there. How significant is it? Who knows, but I'd still say its there.

[@tomilan6001]

time motivation persistance interesting material and long memory

[@andrefelipe2643]

I love language learning as well

[@JustLIkerapunzel]

Well I think many polyglots thou take their talent a bit too much for granted. EVERYONE has to put in a lot of effort to learn many languages and a good approach. BUT just like with music or sport people with talent who put in th work will progress much faster than those who only work hard but also don‘t have talent for it. As I am soon to be fluent in Chinese besides English and German I start to become better at it but I am for sure the opposite of a talent. I have a bit of a hearingbprobelm so EVEN MY OWN MOTHERTONGUE took me longer. sentences STARED only at 3 and proper communication only once I started reading in school, plus being put into extra classes with foreigners I guess is a solid base to asume not everyone is gifted with learning languages. Anyhow I will tackle french as my next language once my Mandarin is good and I am confident to improve it much faster as ai used to have it in school and will keep adding more languages. But really 20-30 ones is not on a scale that is possible just with effort alone

[@jakobauger6805]

My name is Jacob. I'm sixteen. I've been trying to learn a foreign (or actually a domestic language) for about two years now, yet I might only have A1 or A2 level in the language I'm learning. I'm incredibly frustrated. I have no money. How do I go from beginner to intermediate? I can't find any good material for the language I want to learn. There's the very, very basics and then there's the pro stuff which is too difficult to learn from.

[@emv...]

גיאכ כרבאכ Use Apps, not so expensive, but often high quality, try Duolingo/Memrise and other ones, they will help

[@stolfjr]

Hugues Baudrillart is one of the best hyperpolyglots, speaking 26 languages almost fluently in all of them

[@Benj-p5w]

Learn Ukrainian With Roman you are completely right, In front of this polyglotism, most people are impressed the same way a child is drawing something on a paper and offering it to someone else...no one will say anything nasty about it.. The truth is that if you say you speak fluently a language it means everybody around is legitimately supposed to taking it for granted...buying stuff in restaurant in 100 fdifferent languages is one thing and everybody will smile at it, however being in a steering committee of a multimillion company is another thing and guys around will be mercyless.

[@Son_of_aesthetics]

Your face just reminds me of kingsman bro! Great vid btw👍

[@LanguageBoost01]

I will take that as a compliment :) Jan

[@dackmont]

Your experience of learning a language and thereby gaining some of the perspective of its native speakers is fascinating (and sounds consistent with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis). Have you found that other polyglots report similar experiences?

[@emojimovie2788]

I like to study languages, but I know most of them poorly.

[@italianwithkati]

Why don't you focus on one language only then? So you can say "I speak fluent Italian" rather than poorly.

[@elijahreynolds1875]

It is okay Hora! Just keep study and practice, and you will be speaking well I promise!

[@alihasnainshah7673]

I love all Languages but can't can't speak.... When the foriegners speak their native language i really become crazy to know what they are saying that i cannot understand.......

[@yuna2500]

I can't even call 30 languages and there are people who can speak 30+ languages lmao

[@KenTheAzularMen]

Hey Jan, leer jij je talen via een cursus of door contact te hebben met buitenlandse mensen? Gr, Ken

[@vinissues4634]

Carlos Freire entered the chat

[@relaxwhc]

Just play all languages on Duolingo, is it that hard?

[@samuelmalych9930]

hahaha my favorite comment yet, good job smart ass :D

[@bills1967]

What is Felix’s KZbin channel? I watched his videos a while back but not in a while.

[@ЕркеЕрнис]

I know Russian English Turkish. My mother tongue 's kazakh.

[@SirusStarTV]

Привет, Hello, Selam.

[@lakersrull]

Great video very very inspirational, lol and here i am learning Chinese, hopefully i can get to that stage of having that feeling you were talking about

[@laudemara.b.1736]

Esse é um país muito frio nota-se isso...😬😬😬

[@hankmoody6543]

it is just me or that was matt damon speaking !!

[@mariconsciencia139]

I don't wanna speak this a bunch of languages only 5-6 idk

[@tropica9238]

Yo hablo español

[@jeffreyd508]

Still trying to grasp why people want to learn so many languages. People, we only have limited minutes on Earth. . Most people love the benefit of having already learned a language, but very few willl say that the process was enjoyable. Lets kick the ballistics here for a minute. Theres not much to enjoy in learning (and later maintaining) a language......frustration, embarrassment, cost, time spent that could be spent doing something enjoyable etc. . If youre a waiter in Oklamhoma City with no plans to live in Romania, and youre studying Romanian, wtf you wasting those precious minutes in your life doing something so unenjoyable? Get out here and live!! . You going to Spain for a few years? Learn Spanish.

[@ashawn203]

I think normally the people who want to learn so many languages are people who actually do somewhat enjoy the process. If you don't, and you have no need for the language, it's true, you might as well spend your time doing something else.

[@irenel.7851]

Learning languages can be very useful to read books and articles in their original language, without need of translations. Translations can often be very deceptive.

[@mep6302]

Jefrey D what's your problem? Let people live their lives! If they want to study many languages, it's their decision, not yours.

[@aphreyy]

That's because polyglots know how to make the process enjoyable

[@perseoeridano4182]

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

[@Ozyress]

My native language is Russian, I was born in Soviet Union and lived almost all my life in Belarus. But the same language does not help me to understan those crazy Russians :)

[@micha5876]

А Ты размауляеш на велми прыгажай беларускай мове?

[@Benj-p5w]

and no dude in the vid: you ARE bragging, dont turn around it , it is fake modesty

[@stefanreichenberger5091]

Richard Francis Burton claimed that he spoke 45 languages.

[@maisilva5966]

Ridiculous lmao