I Hate This
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- čas přidán 12. 01. 2024
- If there is one thing that pisses me off...is this.
#metatron #languages #angry
Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language (in other words, gain the ability to be aware of language and to understand it), as well as to produce and use words and sentences to communicate.
Language acquisition involves structures, rules, and representation. The capacity to use language successfully requires one to acquire a range of tools including phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and an extensive vocabulary. Language can be vocalized as in speech, or manual as in sign.[1] Human language capacity is represented in the brain. Even though human language capacity is finite, one can say and understand an infinite number of sentences, which is based on a syntactic principle called recursion. Evidence suggests that every individual has three recursive mechanisms that allow sentences to go indeterminately. These three mechanisms are: relativization, complementation and coordination.[2]
There are two main guiding principles in first-language acquisition: speech perception always precedes speech production, and the gradually evolving system by which a child learns a language is built up one step at a time, beginning with the distinction between individual phonemes.[3]
Linguists who are interested in child language acquisition have for many years questioned how language is acquired. Lidz et al. state "The question of how these structures are acquired, then, is more properly understood as the question of how a learner takes the surface forms in the input and converts them into abstract linguistic rules and representations."[4]
Language acquisition usually refers to first-language acquisition, which studies infants' acquisition of their native language, whether that be spoken language or signed language,[1] though it can also refer to bilingual first language acquisition (BFLA), which refers to an infant's simultaneous acquisition of two native languages.[5][6][7][8][9][10][11] This is distinguished from second-language acquisition, which deals with the acquisition (in both children and adults) of additional languages. In addition to speech, reading and writing a language with an entirely different script compounds the complexities of true foreign language literacy. Language acquisition is one of the quintessential human traits
Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population.[1][2] More than half of all Europeans claim to speak at least one language other than their mother tongue;[3] but many read and write in one language. Multilingualism is advantageous for people wanting to participate in trade, globalization and cultural openness.[4] Owing to the ease of access to information facilitated by the Internet, individuals' exposure to multiple languages has become increasingly possible. People who speak several languages are also called polyglots.[5]
Multilingual speakers have acquired and maintained at least one language during childhood, the so-called first language (L1). The first language (sometimes also referred to as the mother tongue) is usually acquired without formal education, by mechanisms about which scholars disagree.[6] Children acquiring two languages natively from these early years are called simultaneous bilinguals. It is common for young simultaneous bilinguals to be more proficient in one language than the other.[7]
People who speak more than one language have been reported to be better at language learning when compared to monolinguals.[8]
Multilingualism in computing can be considered part of a continuum between internationalization and localization. Due to the status of English in computing, software development nearly always uses it (but not in the case of non-English-based programming languages). Some commercial software is initially available in an English version, and multilingual versions, if any, may be produced as alternative options based on the English original.
There’s a well famous “polyglot” out there who does go outside wearing a sign that says he’s able to speak 20+ languages and challenges people to speak a language he does not speak. I’ve seen him speaking the languages that I can speak very well and oh dear how awful he is. You can say whatever you want to him, he will always come back with his set of memorised sentences and throw them back at your face…as a result the conversation he has with people doesn’t make any sense.
Dutch guy? I remember he was talking to a bald guy and they were speaking Spanish at one point and the bald guy said "en Mexico es muy calor mucho calor" which isn't correctly said and even pronounced the x in 'Mexico' wrong. But this famous polyglot you're talking about responded with "tú eres muy guapo tambien" because I guess he thought 'calor' can mean the slang term 'hot' in English 😂 even if that were the case the response still wouldn't have made sense.. although I will say that the bald guy in general according to comments I've read is overall better in most of the other languages than the CZcamsr you're talking about himself and I do agree
Wouter somethingorother
Yep.
lol
@@aqmarmazhar6736I am sure He was German
Praying for your mum, Raffa. Dont feel you have to put out videos, if you took 3 months off we'd all still be here for you.
Appreciate that but making content keeps me busy which in this current situation acts as a therapy for me
@@metatronacademy Hey, weird time to ask ig but what do you think of Luca Lampariello's video on his failure to learn Japanese? Do you think it's worth making a video on?
"White guy SHOCKS Japanese/Chinese/etc." videos are so annoying, like sandpaper on nerves. You never see "Yellow guy causes British people's heads to literally implode by speaking British!" Though, if there was a Japanese or Chinese CZcamsr who wanted to do a parody video, "Yellow guy goes to Europe, and the locals are unable to comprehend how a person who looks different can make the sounds of their language, causing them to slip into comas!!!!!!", I would find it amusing.
If I told a Chinese fellow how surprising it was to see he spoke English so well, I would probably be called a racist. You're never gonna see a video like that now.
Absolutely - as an ESOL teacher, I am sometimes asked, "how long will it take me to learn to speak English really well?" I always reply, "how long did it take you to learn your own language?"
I'm 2 years into Mandarin, and I still feel very very stupid 😅But thank you for calling out the bullshit!
Same here with me in Japanese. But it is still fun!
Even making a serious attempt to learn another language should be celebrated imo not stupid ❤
Don't worry too much. Chinese takes years. It's a F.S.I rating 5 language. The hardest along with Arabic, Japanese, and Korean. 2200 hours. 1,100 days at 2 hours a day. 6 years, 1 hour a day but realistically 5 years minimum. Enjoy the ride, don't worry about fluency. It'll seek up on you.
With enuf effort you can learn to speak Japanese fluently within a year,.. to read and write within 2... if you're serious about it, that is. Intensity is the key to learning anything well and as fast as possible.
As a fellow Mandarin learner I feel this so much XD
One thing with learning a foreign language:
A little bit goes a long a long way. On the other hand, speaking a language properly takes years.
Exactly! Even with our own native language. It takes many years to be excellent at it.
I remember watching a video of a polyglot speaking with a native speaker, the native replied and when the polyglot responded again they said something completely different to what the native speaker said. It was as though they just blurted out any sentence they could remember.
this is how I speak my native language XD
Such dishonesty reflects poorly on their character, but the bigger problem is that they deceive others as well.
Yes, they think it's just normal to exaggerate and mislead. Crazy!
Absolutely right... I can say I speak 4 languages fluently ( Portuguese, Spanish, French, and English): I'm portuguese, my grand mother was spanish and she spoke to me in spanish since I can remember. I went to Lisbon's French School (Lycée Français Charles Lepierre) when I was 4, studied architecture in Paris for 7 years, and I used to spend my summer holydays in Southern England. I also travelled a lot with my parents. Besides, I have quite an acute hearing , so it makes pronunciation skills quite easier. I also understand Italian and german quite well... but I would never dare say I speak Italian or german, nor dare speak any of those languages in a conversation... I can make myself understood but that's all... You really need a GOOD TEACHER, TIME and PRACTICE plus READING to master any language. Happy 2024 Metatron!!!
Facts. My first language is Spanish and my English is close to native. I spent four years learning French and quit in 2022, now I'm currently studying Japanese (it's been almost five years now). I can actually communicate pretty well to a certain extent with Portuguese speakers (even if I don't actually speak much Portuguese). I've always and still consider myself a bilingual nevertheless.
Gracias por su respuesta. Felices Fiestas ahun, espero!@@philswiftreligioussect9619
Thank you for addressing this up. I, myself, have fallen into this trap of "learning x in x days/months" and it made me feel so bad about myself. "He learned Italian in 6 months, and he's so good at it. Why can't I do the same?" I thought. I was so obsessed to the point of trying to achieve so much in so little time. And, as expected, I have given up on learning Italian. Because I thought, "well, shit. I can't do this. I'm just not good enough for this. It's impossible."
People like Xiaoma, Ikenna, and that Couter Corduwener clown who claims to speak 29 languages, are setting unrealistic expectations for the people who might be interested in language learning. All because it's more profitable and attracts views and clout. Which translates to money. They're deceiving people, who don't have any knowledge regarding language learning, into the false belief that they are "geniuses and Einsteins" when it comes to language learning.
Well, that "learn a language in X months" thing is only plausable if the person is an ambassador who literally gets paid for spending every awake hour on learning every single day so they could be sent out to that specific country. And even then the time length will be different from person to person.
But otherwise, it's impossibly
Start with a similar language to your mother language and in the middle road to your aimed language.
For example, if you want to learn German, if you're a romance speaker, English is the first to go.
@@tovarishcheleonora8542 Even with the scenario you've provided, it's still pretty much impossible to do. Since what government officials learn is very specific, and their vocabulary is somehow "limited." However, even if a person could literally spend every second of his time during a 6 - 12 months period, they wouldn't be able to achieve the so-called "fluency" these CZcams "polyglots" promise.
@@maxstirner6143 It all depends on your goals and what you want to achieve. But yeah, you're right.
I, myself, am learning German through English, which isn't my first language. However, my English background helps me a lot with German. As both German and English come from the same language family, Germanic-Languages. Thus, making my progress in German reasonably easier with English's Help.
I think that the "white guy amazes..." type videos started as reactions to Laoshu's content who had similar clickbait titles. Xiaoma definitely misleads as to proficiency because I spoke with the owners of an Indian restaurant featured in one of his videos and they told me that the video was heavily edited, used fixed phrases he had memorized, he asked for help, made lots of mistakes, etc. and that the final CZcams video made his fluency look much better than it was.
I'm surprised that Raffa didn't mention certain CZcamsrs who walk around Amsterdam and other European cities and claim to speak languages if they can mumble a few sentences together. They clearly claim to speak languages that they don't.
Yes, I just wrote almost same thing. Xiao Ma imitated Laoshu5050 content and took it to another level of gimmicks but with excellent production quality.
As my favourite fake polyglot once wrote: "Ich spreche und schreibe: Französisch, englisch, italienisch, spanisch, griechisch, lateinisch, hebräisch, rumänisch, arabisch 6 Dialekte, persisch, kurdisch 2 Dialekte, chinesisch 2 Dialekte, malayisch, Namaqua, einige Sunda-Idiome, Suaheli, Hindostanisch, türkisch und die Indianersprachen der Sioux, Apachen, Komantschen, Snakes, Uthas, Kiowas nebst dem Ketschumany 3 südamerikanische Dialekte. Lappländisch will ich nicht mitzählen." (Karl May)
He even had the modesty to mention that he would not count the Lappish language among his skills, so this is a list of the languages he really should have felt confident in.
Damn I like your videos. I feel so much better now knowing it takes time. I remember your video from years ago with the Italian v Sicilian. You then said in sicilian "I saw you in the street and you didn't say hello! Johnny! Non ti posso perdonari"
As someone who really enjoys learning languages, and is currently working on learning Japanese, I 100% agree with you. Years ago, I started tutoring people in Spanish after I studied Spanish myself for a couple of years, I got to the point where I could enjoy media, read books, talk to people about most things, as with any language, there are still things that I don’t know or things that I messed up… But I’ve had students watch a CZcams video from somebody who learned Spanish for like a month maybe two, and this student is just starting out, and they think that this guy has gotten fluent in 60 days or whatever. And then, when I listen to it, the language is actually quite bad, but the student judges themselves against this unrealistic expectation, which can take a lot of motivation away whether the student is intrinsically, motivated or extrinsically motivated because it sets up false expectations. Loving languages is great, being courageous enough to use them even when you’re bad at them is probably an asset and a long-term, but setting yourself up like your fluid at all when you’re not is just hurting everyone.
Rasengan!
@@koschmx so it must be just us snobby Europeans who cringe at his performances. Got it.
@@koschmx I'm gonna be honest. You're the snob. You are the very person you are complaining about.
@@koschmx dude, he’s actually one of the people that Metatron doesn’t have this problem with, he’s acknowledged in other videos that what he’s doing is different. Also, his mandarin skills are on point so… I don’t really get your point. For example, one of the key differences that he acknowledged in a different video was the fact that. Xiaoma does the videos about endangered languages, that’s Marlie different. Also, if you actually paid attention to the video, he started out by saying that this trend does rope people in who actually do know languages well.
But in the off chance, you’re one of those people that just wants to be mad anyway, have a good day because I won’t be responding
@@koschmx I said, in other videos he’s mentioned that xiaoma is doing something different. Hahahaha thanks dude
please make a video exposing them.
Ok I will
@@metatronacademy Thanks I and hope you and your family are doing well.
I completely agree with you about the "waw" thumbnails you're describing. I absolutely despise thumbnails like that.
pisses me off too. I'm so glad you're talking about this. I've been trying to learn Czech for 2 years. I cannot see any progress and I live in Czech. I feel like an idiot. I'm not nearly fluent. Although my understanding of what people say slightly improved, nothing else has. At this point I gave up. I started improving my Italian instead.
My mom is Czech and I told her I thought about learning it after learning how to speak Italian (happening slowly but surely) which is my dad’s tongue. She told me the grammar can be very hard for a non-speaker. She learned English through soap operas, so maybe Czech dramas could help? :0
@@sweethistortea One thing is the more of a language you learn, the more you know what you're missing. I've always found that US guys who claim to speak good Spanish don't. If you understand what people are saying in Czech, it's good. Stats I've seen say around ten years to be near native fluent.
@@RebeccaOre Would you say it's more or less difficult than Russian? It seems like normally people make it out to be more difficult, but that may just be because so many fewer people are learning Czech and thus there are fewer success stories than with Russian.
@@sweethistortea Hi, thank you for reply and dobrý den to your mum and buongiorno to your dad. Italian is of course a Latin language and Czech is a Slavic language. There is zero correspondence between Italian words and Czech words. Italian mano, Czech ruka. So the grammar is the least of my concern at present. I probably need to repeat every single word 500 times to retain it. Many Czech words sound similar, but mean totally different things (spát zpivat, jíst jít). Pronunciation is impossible for a non-Slav like myself (Romanian is supposed to have Slavic influence, but the pronunciation is totally different and the only common words with Czech are bogat - bohat and glas - hlas we don't use glas often btw, we use voce much more often, which is identical to Italian). All content in TV here is dubbed, there are no subtitles, so Czech dramas are quite useless to me. On top of it, when I try to speak with people they often say they cannot understand me and I know sometimes they do, they just can't stand my accent or my grammar and the fact that I'm not from around. There's also a lot of that going on here as well, as people in central Europe are less used to or tolerant of foreigners. I had a teacher for 1 year and she started talking to me after about half a year and couldn't understand how is it possible that I didn't understand her and could not reply. Most teachers here are used to Slavic learners like Ukraineans, who get it quickly and have no patience with non-Slavs. My kid has been in school here for the past 2,5 years and he can speak almost perfectly, but he started age 4. He's still making mistakes, however, so he needs the help of the assistant time to time at school. Mostly, these are comprehension mistakes. In comparizon, Italian is like a breeze. I have no plan to live in Italy, btw, I'm just learning for fun. Plus this summer I'm getting Italian neighbours and I thought speaking Italian might come handy. I don't know if I want to continue living in Czech as there are other issues with life here. I'll make a decision this summer, but most likely I'll return to Ro.
@@samfann1768 It is a lot more difficult than Russian. My mum learnt Russian in school and was very good at it. She tried learning a bit of Czech when she visited us and found it harder and absolutely illogical and counterintuitive. I frankly find it almost as difficult as Mandarin (I used to live in China and although I didn't want to learn Chinese, I learnt a few expressions to get by)
Based on the thumbnail I thought you were going to rant about Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 lol
Fact: people fall for clickbait titles and thumbnails.
I just clicked on your video because I know your channel, otherwise I never would.
There's a girl who lives in Japan since she was born (her parents are from UK) and blew my mind how good she is in both Japanese and English. Her name is Jazmine Ross.
Found out the Norman Language still exists in parts of Normandy and the Channel Islands would love to see a video on it.
What irritates me (as an American) is when my fellow countrymen or women see someone sing in a language not their own and claim linguistic fluency for that singer. Singing in a language is not the same as conversing in it but too many Americans don't know the difference because so few of them have even studied a language. At 70 I decided to learn a language and am studying Brazilian Portuguese. Do I expect I will ever be fluent? Not really. I don't see a scenario where I travel to Brazil. But I love languages and finally realized that contrary to my youth, the internet is a wonderful tool to learn and practice a language. It was not available when I grew up even though I loved languages. There were few tools available to me. I just wish my fellow Americans understood a bit more about truly learning a language different than their own.
Yes! I am a young man who loves memorizing songs in various languages, English, French, Latin, even conlangs like elvish. You have no need to know a language to learn songs in it - listen to a song a lot, and know the correct sounds (probably have lyrics) it’s not hard :)
Olá! Então, já conseguiu aprender o suficiente para entender conversas básicas?
In 1970s/1980s a czech singer was very popular in Germany and often appeared in german TV music shows. He one time noted: I now sing in german for ...Years, but I needed ...Years to understand what I sing.
@@brittakriep2938 yes!
Reminds me of when Peyton Parrish said he was singing in Old Norse, and the comments were commending him on how he learned the language. Meanwhile people like me were cringing at those comments because his basic pronunciation wasn’t even correct.
I would love to see the outtakes from such videos. Or perhaps better yet, 'Aftermath' videos, where the allegedly-amazed native speakers are asked for their opinions of the cocky foreigner's fluency.
Language learning takes time, but if you learn a related language from the same family it takes less time. I studied italian for like 6 months than I walked to Italy and spoke. Not fluent, not good but abastanza bene, good enough for most situations. Now my italian is old and rusty because I hardly use it, but I was far away from learning years. My mothertongue is german. They are both indoeuropean languages, so it was relatively easy. Every day like 10-15 minutes at least, sometimes almost an hour. for months. I spoke to a priest from India in German and asked him how long did he study. He said 8 weeks intensive language course, where he stuidied like 8 hours a day. He was pretty good, I could hear it´s not his mothertongue but still.
Been self learning German for a few years. A few months ago in EPCOT I was able to order food in German and carry on some basic chit chat. The waitress was thrilled. I also know some Spanish and was able to help two guys who only spoke Spanish, order their food and beers in German. I learned more about both in those few minutes than in a year of apps and BS youtube lessons. Nothing beats real practice. I need more! I agree with all of your points on bogus channels. And like you said, it opens up a whole new world being able to communicate in someone else’s language.
Me too 😡 I hate people showing off their skills on a show of video platforms, for the fact that they have a freedom to do whatever it takes, to make it and always do fake it. These langua-influencers aren’t teaching nothing than, “Bulllshit at its finest.”
Could not agree more on your point of views. Thank you 🙏 ❤
It's *SEXIST!!!* to use the term "bullsh*t" when she cows go poop, too.
And, it's also *SPECIESIST!!!* because non-bovine animals also expel digestion remnants through their anal orifice.
In the future, instead of saying "bullsh*t", everyone should please say "Non-gender-specific non-species-specific animal excrement".
And instead of using "BS", please use "NSNSAE".
Thank you for your cooperation.
🐮"Mooooo!"
Share your luxuriant hair with your friend Luke Ranieri, m'boy😆
In my early 30's, I began waiting tables in the diners of New York City, and there was a language barrier with the buspeople. They came from Mexico, and didn't speak much English, if any. Because we had to work together, I took my two years of Spanish from junior high school, found out that the grammar hadn't changed in 20 years, and went to work on vocabulary, studying every night when I got home. I reached a decent level of conversation in a few years, and kept learning from there, always asking them questions about Spanish in Spanish, and they were more than willing to explain things to me. In a sense, it was immersion, and I didn't even need a passport. The Greeks I worked for, however, were not as helpful in my efforts to learn Greek, probably because they didn't want me to understand their conversations with each other.
This kind of content drives me nuts! I can pick out the gist of german and french, and I'm proud of myself for picking out bits of korean and mandarin and welsh. I can read german kinda(ish) and korean..
One of my favourite interactions was with an Italian couple asking for something (I can't remember what, it was about 15 years ago) in Geneva 3:01 and we managed a jumbled wierdass hybrid of english/french/german to communicate. It was so much fun.
Whilst I can get the gist of things, I seriously can not believe these people who are fluent to speak in a week. I can understand but to shift how your brain interprets things and to move your mouth to make foreign sounds fluently just doesn't sit right.
I've always been pretty happy with myself for being able to understand the Kinder Surprise instructions in the two languages I've learned plus the gist of most of the other languages that use the latin alphabet. I have to admit I'm impressed by your inclusion of Welsh because I tried following along with some subtitled interviews in Welsh once and when I tried to place any of the words themselves I felt like my ears were having a stroke and zero meaning was being received by my brain.
You are preaching to the choir Meratron. Keep it up my brother.
Hey man… my thesis is on the relationship between human and programming languages and my opening section is “hello” and “hello world” in several different languages. I love your channel, don’t come for me 😂
Finally someone who really speaks the truth. Actually I always wanted to do this i.e expose these so called polyglots. I am multilingual but my mastery varies from one language to another. Language learning is a never ending learning process. Even if you speak a language well but you have to master its registers, nuances and cultural background.
I really enjoyed this video.
I'm glad you talk about that, it needs to be talked about more so people realize that language learning is a journey, and you should just enjoy it without worrying about how long it will be 🙂
I've been learning Finnish for eight years. It's considered one of the hardest languages for English speakers. I still don't feel like I'm fluent because I still have trouble with the spoken language and my conversational skills are lacking due to not living there and not having any chance to practice. I've also been learning German on and off since I was 15, and I feel the same about my German skills. I absolutely agree that those videos can be really discouraging to people who have never learned a language before and don't know how hard it can be, especially for someone like me who struggles with perfectionism. You're one of the good ones, in my opinion.
I feel very much the same about my Japanese, so I can relate. At least I can go to a conversation class once a week. For you that probably is not available, since Finnish is not popular. 'Kukaan ei ole seppä syntyessään' goes the old proverb and it still holds true: It takes practice. If there is anything I can do to help you, please, don't hesitate. It would be a pleasure.
We remember....
20% of what we read
30% of what we hear
40% of what we see
50% of what we say
60% of what we do
90% of what we hear,see,say and do. --- Accelerated learning method.
I draw memory maps, listen to Classical music at low volume while listening to dialogues.
Don't start with simple sentences and grammar as this suggests it's going to get harder which is counter productive. I have a friend who speaks, Korean,Chinese, English and Greek. She told me she starts course books in the middle chapters and works backwards from there. It's all the same. I hope this helps a little.👍
I'm learning Welsh but I don't live in Wales. Through the day I think in Welsh.I get my coffee in the morning and say hello in Welsh. The guy behind the counter laughs and probably thinks I'm mad, but I'm acting out as thought I'm in Wales.I see the bus and I think, rhaid i mi ddal y bws. It might be wrong but I'm integrating daily living with my language and not just at my desk o'r classroom. Language is spatial and kinetic as it is linked with your environment in a way that is hard to understand,but it is known in indigenous cultures that when they go back to a location they remember. Also carry a Dictaphone or recorder and if you observe something,speak into your recorder even in a pidgeon form of your target language.
I tried to articulate exactly this argument on one of those white-person-stuns-the-Asians channels, and no one in the comments could even register what I meant. They just insisted that a white person speaking an Asian language on any level was pure sorcery.
I ignored Xiaoma's videos for a long time. When I did humor them, I was surprised that he (and others like him) specifically targeted a situation and a conversation they could have within that limited situation, as an excuse to try out as many languages as possible. On some level, I get that. I know I won't have a reason to be good at a language, but I have plenty of curiosity to play around in several languages. I even find that it's easier for me to get farther along in the ones I'm most familiar with if I have another or two to rotate studying. Whatever makes the process fun. But yeah, the click-baitiness and the "influencer" aspect is unappealing, especially if they advertise "fluency" or "polyglot". I'll never use those words. I just like learning general language structures and comparing.
Ciao! You've no idea how happy I am that I found your channel! Keep up the good work! Best regards from Romania.
I only speak English fluently. I can say "I love you" in English, Spanish, French, Italian, Latin, German, Icelandic, Cherokee, swahili, mandarin, Finnish, scots, Irish, Scottish gaelic, Syrian Arabic, and sign language. I would never say that I can speak all of these languages. I know a single phrase.
I grew up around Spanish speakers so I understand quite a bit, but I don't speak it proficiently.
I took French and sign language in high school and mandarin in college, but I'm not proficient.
Though my mandarin teacher told me that my tones were perfect...too perfect. He told me it sounds like I'm delivering a formal speech, not like a regular conversation.
I'm currently trying to learn German. I actually find it easier than any of the other languages I have tried to learn.
Thank so much for your honesty. I have been trying to speak Italian for more than 4 years and I don't get it.
I thought that I was not too talented even though I speak and write Spanish, French, Portuguese. In Russian I am level B2 I think. But Italian for some reason I can not get in it, and I love the language and culture. So listening to you on this video is a great encouragement. Thank you, God bless you.
Don't blame yourself too much, perfect italian grammar is hard and even many native italians also fuck it up all the time.
For me it is the words 'perfect' and 'amazes' in those titles that turns my stomach. It is quite possibly a cultural thing, but calling oneself perfect comes of as conceited or ridiculous depending on how good the person is.
If they made videos more like 'X surprises people by speaking their native language' I might watch them. I wonder if there are any made here in Finland, because we are pleasantly surprised when foreigners make the effort of learning Finnish. It does not need to be 'perfect' or even fluent to be appreciated, genuine effort is plenty enough.
I don't know, I think it's just decency not to describe yourself and your proficiency as something they aren't. And even then, calling oneself a "polyglot" already feels quite pretentious to me even when it's technically true.
I don't mean anything anti American, but a huge proportion of English youtube is just a TV for American boomers and teenagers. Those creators know their audience
Thank you so much
I have always been both amazed but skeptical. At school I was 'reasonable' at both French and German. So much so that, and this is how old I am, there used to be schools programmes for language learning. I was fortunate enough to get picked to be a junior presenter for French. I had filmed working situations where I would buy things in a shop blah blah, but my French was more than reasonable. I also lived and worked in Germany for two years, my German was ok. I could say want I wanted, friends would laugh at my definite regional accent - they loved it, I even dreamed in German, but my then boyfriend used to laugh at my mistakes, of which there were many. I cannot express how amazed I was at these people. How the hell could they learn a language, with all the local complexity in two weeks. How thick was I still struggling with making something agree? It's such a con. Learning a language is a total commitment. Learning how to order a beer in Hungarian is a memory trick
Egy póhar lengyel sört, kérek!
I've heard people (usually English speakers) who know 10 words (pronounced incorrectly) in a given language say that they can "speak" that language. It's a joke.
I’ve met people who simply speak English louder and insist they are fluent in the other language.
@@philipdavis7521 🤣🤣🤣
The one thing I've learned well from language learning is that it takes a lot of hard work over a long period of time. I have a lot of respect for real language learners. Its sad that people who put in a fraction of the work are stealing views over people with real talent.
I'm not as annoyed as you are by the people you named in the video but Wouter Corduwener really grinds my gears.
He claims to speak so many languages (though admittedly on varying levels) his level in most languages are so shit.
Given I am not qualified to judge most of the languages he speaks, I am already annoyed from the few I can speak aswell.
His German is not that bad, given that he is dutch so I could ignore this one.
His Japanese however is really shit, saw a video of his with an encounter between "two polyglots" and he could not uphold the conversation with the other white guy that was trying to speak japanese with him..... Thus he moved on to the next language as his resources were empty for that language.
Even his chinese, I don't really know much and have an extremely basic knowledge of this language but even then I feel like I could speak it better than him.
From these 3 languages I am very doubtful the other languages are on any meaningful level except maybe French.
Really annoys me seeing his street content where he repeats the 5 lines he knows in every language and claim to speak the language accordingly.
What he does is kinda impressive, but not nearly as impressive as it is made out to be. These "polyglot" videos are mostly social engineering, deceptive editing, and just getting a lot of easily impressed people on camera. People confuse making yourself understood within limited topics with actually speaking that language. It's not as hard as it seems.
The thing you'll notice about those videos is that they never give much room for the native speaker to actually speak much. They need to dominate the conversation and pour their trained sentences and ask questions, because if they get too many questions themselves they'll be left stumped or just mess up everything.
I can see how their pretense would be nauseating now. There is a distasteful shamelessness about it.
Don't quit.
That's the most important advice here.
I started learning French some 40+ years ago. I got a basic level (which served me well when I was stationed in Europe), and didn't really pursue it further until just a few (8 or so) years ago. I have been halfhazardly taking classes through the local Alliance Francaise, and am just now hitting a low B1.
But it's not a _race_! I don't get a prize for learning faster than (nor better than) someone else. My goal is to be able to better communicate in French next year than I could this year, and that is an achievable target!
I am taking up German again (classes through our local German-American club) after 40 years of non-use. I still remember a few words (also from my low A1 level of 40 years ago), but I've only been at it a month - still, next year I am sure my German - whatever level it is at - will be better than it is now.
Could I do it faster? Sure - but I have other things going on in my life - work, other social activities, watching TV with my wife, whatever - I see no reason to abandon everything else to be more better in a shorter time than otherwise.
I have always loved languages, I have studied (on my own and in classes) several other - all of which I know a couple of words or phrases of, and none of which I have used in a real conversation with a native speaker (except spanish - which I may start to revisit in a couple of years). And I will probably continue to take the odd class or try a bit of self-study with a bunch of other languages as catch my interest - but I won't pretend to 'speak' them in any meaningful sense! At least, not until I have actually been under fire - the second important point: it's not about _speaking_, anyone can mimic canned phrases; it's about _communication_ - being able to exchange ideas and information.
A deeper knowledge of a language allows a deeper level of communication with someone who speaks that language but not your native language. And there really is no bottom to that depth - languages constantly grow, change, merge, and you will never know any language 'completely', not even your own (there are times when I cannot understand what a younger person says - in English - at all).
So - I like abandoning the term 'polyglot' a la Language Jones and, instead, adopt the term 'linguaphile' (which, probably should be glossaphile, but there is a long history of mixing Latin and Greek roots for English usage and LJ brought up the term...)
It was a guy from Japan who said that he couldn't count how many times tourists had basically told him to go to hell by trying to say something in Japanese but totally messing it up.
Thank you for this video. Learning languages is just so hard. I'm sure like in every other fields there are geniuses, but I doubt all the people making that sort of videos are such in reality. Even after years of learning a language you would still make mistakes, discover new words or expressions, get confused by an accent, or mispronounce some words... It's even more the case with languages that are far from your native language, which take twice or thrice the time to learn.
Those videos are kind of an insult to people's passion, patience, and effort to actually learn a language. They can also drag down the motivation of new leaners.
Hey love your language videos. Could you do more videos on Sicilian. I want to learn it but there isn’t many resources to
Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard.
Hai ragione, poi dipende da che obiettivo si ha. Se basta sapere un po' della lingua del luogo per viaggiare, sapere quelle 10-20-30 frasi predefinite è più che sufficiente. Ma se uno dice di parlare le lingue, deve parlarle almeno ad un buon livello, capendone almeno il 90% e potendo rispondere correttamente nel 90% dei casi.
I started and finished Latin in Duo Lingo. Speaking Romanian and French, I found the voice recordings hilarious. They may be fluent, but their pronunciation screams American! It's not the same as Metatron's rant, but the fact that I sound more fluent than people trying to teach the language makes me laugh.
Hands on my heart: I highly agree with you because I only learn a language to dig deeper in foreign cultures and to be able to communicate with others. It’s annoying how desperate these videos try to impress a stupid audience and polish their ego, there 09:07 you have pointed out perfectly! 👏
Pretty good sound Metatron. What mic do you use?
I'm glad you had the part about the 'foreigner shocks local person' youtubers. I utterly despise those videos.
I’m gonna need to hear your thoughts on Xiaoma’s Neapolitan video.
Metatron should just be considered a bullshit callout channel which is personally why i waych your stuff as you do it reliably and consitently the only time i felt you kinda failed at that was the turin linen video and even then i would consider it as a way to keep your video ballanced
Anyways love your vids metatron keep calling out bs in your subjects of experience its a treat
You made a video about the difficulty of learning languages and said that it depends on your native language. You're right. It does. This will affect how fast one can learn languages. If one individual learns a language faster it might be because their native language is similar.
I came here for that C&C RA1/2 background thumbnail.
When/where is that?
Totally agree. I've experienced few things nicer than on my first trip to Brazil, seeing Brazilians react in surprise and appreciation at my objectively pretty rough Portuguese, which I learned the hard way (from my Brazilian-born wife, LOL, residing in the USA). That is one of life's joys, and so much better than pseudo-polyglot parlor tricks.
and I am fed up with these "learn a language in three months", "best tool to learn a language" all these language gurus who pretend to know THE secret of language acquisition. What you need is time, paper and a pen and then read learn read learn.
3yrs studying Turkish and I’m not able to have a complex conversation yet 😢
But I’m not a student anymore, I work full-time and I accepted the fact that I cannot dedicate as much time as I’d like to Turkish. Is it gonna take more time? Yes, for sure. Does it really matter? It doesn’t. I appreciate the journey, not just the destination ❤
I had even commented a bit about this in another video without seeing this one, and it said exactly everything I think and was going to comment. In my opinion, it's more impressive when someone speaks three languages fluently than when someone speaks 15 languages at a Duolingo level. These TikTok CZcamsrs are the worst; you can clearly see that they're not fluent when you study a language. You can see that they're indeed using memorized phrases; they have to think before speaking, and in 500 videos, their vocabulary is limited in all of them.
They succeed for two reasons: people don't understand the language they're speaking, so they genuinely believe they speak well, and secondly, people have such a low standard that they claim the person speaks perfectly as a form of encouragement or gratitude.
All the videos I've seen of these people speaking Portuguese or Italian, and others reacting as if it's perfect, show that these guys are all fakes, far from any perfection, using canned phrases and limited pronunciation. Which would be fine if they were just regular people, but they're not; they're people who claim to speak 500 languages perfectly.
Hi! Love your videos. Could you please explain a bit more why or how different "pronunciations" of Latin came to be? I'm from Croatia and when we learn Latin we don't have (English) "ch" sound. Rcently I watched "Carmina Burana" by symphonic orchestra from Koeln and they sound the same as we are taught. Do you have any thoughts on that?
My wife is a native mandarin/cantonese/hakka speaker and a certified interpreter. But she's been speaking english here in Australia so long she sometimes confesses that she's forgotten some chinese words. Thanks to 3 years of mandarin at university and 2 years in China, plus years with my wife, I used to be able to speak semi-fluent mandarin, but my character reading was better. Havent been in China for years and I cant watch chinese movies anymore because they speak too fast and I cant pick up enough characters to keep up.
I admit that I like learning a few words from various languages, but I never say that I am fluent. I use this tactic as comical icebreaker. If you meet brasilians, just say "Goooooooool! Do Brasil!" and they will instantly be your friends.
You can easily learn one or two phrases in order to impress others, but you need to invest a lot of time to reach a good level.
I never get recommended these types of channels. I don't know whether I should feel happy or sad.
Hear, hear! Excellent video. Thank you. As a new language learner, it is frustrating to see these clickbait videos while I am still learning to order in a restaurant.
I've seen those exact thumbnails you're talking about, e.g "CLUELESS white guy orders food in PERFECT Chinese!" That kind of clickbaiting really cheapens language learning as a hobby imo, almost reducing it to some kind of parlor trick to "ooh" and "ahh" the normies. So very fake, and I always click "Not Interested" when I see those pop up. Say no to clickbait, folks!
For me, one of the hardest things is maintaining a decent level of the language. I was born to immigrant parents, so I speak the local language plus the language of my parents. In addition, i speak English. I try to maintain them as I can, by reading books in all the languages, watching movies etc.
At one point on life I reached a decent level of communication in French. However, I didn't really use the French for a few years now, so I forgot a lot of it. I cant imagine how hard it is maintaining 5 or 7 languages.
I only watch Xiaoma so :3
oh Oriental Pearl too!!
those two are really good language youtubers, and there's alot of smiles!
I'm a native English speaker. I took 4 years of Spanish in HS but never really leaned it. A few years later I moved to Central America and had to learn Spanish well. I just kept getting better and better. I tell people I have the vocab of a middle schooler. Now 50 yrs later I'm living and learning Italian. I thought it would be easy... it's not. The basics in regards to syntax and grammar rules make it easy in one respect and although the vocab is similar the usage is very different in most situations. 😅It's like my mind is wired for Spanish so when speaking Italian much of what I say comes out as Spanish so I'm frustrated as hell.
I was quite fluent in Spanish, but during the lockdown decided to learn Italian. Now my Italian is nearly fluent, but it is so hard to recall Spanish words and I unconsciously apply Italian grammar. 2024 is the year I get my brain organized so I can jump between the two! (We’ll see…)
It might be wired into your D.N.A. I had mine done and found no Welsh in my D.N.A. I enjoy learning Welsh but it's a struggle. I dabbled in Irish and could remember more than Welsh. Is that because of my Ulster/Scotts D.N.A? Maybe?
Research should be done in this area. I also picked up Russian easier than Welsh. 1.8% D.N.A. It doesn't mean people can only learn languages from there D.N.A but it may be easier. 🤷
🤘🇮🇪🇺🇸🤘your channels are 🔥.... bless you and your family from Washington State USA👍
I'm with you and not just about language but any and all sorts of click baiting so if anything it makes me LESS likely to watch a video even when it's of my interest.
I've been wanting to learn new languages but never actually found a good way of going about doing so.
I often talk to Oriental Pearl, not as much as I use too because she is married and also busy with work and YT but she is a nice person, but she puts her self down too much.
She belongs in the group of fake polyglots that he is talking about.
@@sweiland75 he just says she isn't a fake stupid.
Also I know her and I know she studies all those languages.
As I Japanese speakers my self able to chat with Japanese at bars and hang out with Japanese people I also know that her Japanese is a professional level.
You seem like a troll.
I'm still reasoning if it's really a good thing to learn multiple languages or not.
Without concernings about how to apply each one of them with their cultural background, I still trying to figure it out if it is really a good thing learn multiple languages, maybe even if I'll never ever have the chance to have a conversation in such languages.
I'm Italian, I speak Italian and Furlan, then also a bit of English, but english as I've already experienced, is a language that gives me no advantages in my daily life.
Maybe I should learn Latin... But again it will not give me any advantages. I don't think I'll ever travel around the world, moreover now that I'm becoming old and older... So my chances to travel without having health troubles is reducing day by day. Not like I have any necessity to travel, of course.
Surely this is an argument that have more interest for those who actually have the need to travel around the world. And still I'm not sure if it's strictly necessary learn more languages than the mere English to just communicate.
Sad from the cultural point of view, but realistic on the material plan.
The advantages may not reveal themselves until you start. I started Irish Gaeilge which you would think is totally useless if you don't live in Ireland. Four days after starting I'm at the bus stop and four girls from Ireland stood near me. I could hear their Irish brogue and said to them, fáilte, tá sé fuir inniu. ( Welcome, it's a bit cold today). They understood straight away. A week later I met a family from Galway Ireland. Spoke a but of the lingo to them and they responsed. If you build it they will come.😊
@@gandolfthorstefn1780 yes, I know it can be really helpful, but for those who are going to travel around the world.
Mine is different case.
Learning another language gives you access to that culture, even if you stay in your own country your whole life. That is in my view the largest benefit.
I have always been curious as to which languages have the most slang terms that make them hard to speak competently in a social setting. Or are they all this way? I have suspected English is bad because there appears to be a competition to add more terms daily so that even native speakers can not keep up. BTW, I was taught French in school, but being Canadian, no french person from the continent understands us as Quebec french and European french are not remotely the same.
Italian was my first real success. After that I started learning more challenging languages. I became entwined in the language learning community and subscribed to a prominent CZcamsr with a book to sell.
It too me about 6 years to be able to reach conversational level in Serbo-Croatian including writing in Cyrillic.
I think a lot of these people don’t have real jobs so they can dedicate 25/7 to language learning.
Anyways, I work and have a life, but I was told that 6 years was too long and I “did it wrong”
But you did it! 👍
I love languages. I have adhd, which has made it difficult for me to focus on just one language. I like to pick up a bunch of phrases from different languages but struggle to pick one and become fluent. I irritate myself, but I'm not one of those who pretend to be a polyglot. I admit I only know words and phrases from different languages.
If there is anyone out there who has struggled with this issue and has some tips, I'd really appreciate it😊
Same here. I don't really have any amazing tips but setting small goals for yourself can definitely help. You could also try Beeminder, which literally punishes you (by taking your money) if you don't reach your goals.
Thanks for telling the truth. I do dislike when these gurus tell you that you can reach a C2 level in a couple of weeks or months. It takes a lot of time, effort, motivation and even money if you go to a language school.
Of course Language Simp is not a fake polyglot.
He's attractive to every woman and man on the planet!
I couldn't agree more. It's impossible to learn such difficult languages like Japanese, Korean or Chinese and be fluent in 3 months (hate the advertisements of this kind). You_just_can't.
As for videos - I like Dougen - he has a very satirical approach to Japanese but unlike many polyglot videos, he freaking speaks Japanese all the time. The second person that I like to watch is... Ignacy z Japonii - a Japanese guy, who speaks fluent Polish - and I can assess this as a native. He only focuses on Polish but man - he does this well. He even uses words like "zadupie" (middle of nowhere) which is incredibly slang term, not used in textbooks because it's a tad vulgar.
It always surprised me that YT polyglots are rarely (if ever) heard speaking the languages they claim to learn/speak.
Yeah this has been bugging me for years. As someone who has pretty decent Mandarin, I get people complimenting my language ability all the time, but they are really just being polite. The last thing I would want to do is put a camera on them and try to monetize their kindness while inflating my own ego. That being said, there are a couple things that I find to be impressive/inspiring.
The first is people who learned as an adult but have no foreign accent and are assumed to be native speakers in phone conversations.
The second is people who can handwrite as well as or better than native speakers.
yeah ..i feel like most of the "good" reaction polyglots actually might be decent in 1-2 more languages besides english... thats it...
I think its much worse that some claim to study for like 2 weeks... and have videos a year ago with the same claim...
It just put a wrong expectation for new language learner and might discourage them... learning a language takes a really long time... its a big commitment..
I used to work in language schools, all absolute cowboys! One of the longest established schools with several branches, was euphemistically named English Fast. They were successful in that they made a profit, so there’s a lot of money to be made with these promises.
The dunning Krueger joke was incredible. I am hoping the people you're dogging on latch on to that, lol
6:42 the "Nihongo jouzu" is strong with some of these polycrocks 🤣
American SHOCKS Proto-Indo-Europeans by speaking their language!
Tell me about it, Metatron.
"A little learning is a dangerous thing."
One just have to accept and understand that learning a language to fluency takes several years, and that is if you dedicate time every day and listen to (as one guy said it) "thousands and thousands of hours" of the language in question. Certainly if it's different from your own language. Five years, if you're dedicated, and if you're job- and family less and can immerse all day, effectively, then a year or maybe two quicker. There's no six months fix for this. Not to mention six weeks.. that's just fantasy. What can be done in that time is mastering enough Berlitz phrases so that you can order something in a restaurant or do simple hotel stuff. Been there, done that.
Fun fact:
A dictionary doesn't tell us what what a word itself means, it tells us what we mean when we say the word.
It doesn't tell us what a word says, but what we mean with the word.
Just like the word carrot, nobody knows what the word itself means, we only know that it refers to a particular type of vegetable.
Of many words we've got the etymology, but still people use words differently to their original meaning a lot.
But then that's also what makes language fun. But also sometimes hell, when someone just won't understand what you are saying, and interprets the words you said completely differently.
Getting so frustrated with my Thai. The vocabulary is just not sticking why, three hours of private tuition a week using mixed sources and additional reading in my spare time why wont it stick.
I'm a native of Portuguese speaker (BR) and I started studying Italian like... two weeks ago; I can already understand 90% of what I hear in the mainstream, certainly because it's another romanic language, so there are many similarities, but I recognize that it will take years for me to adapt properly... I don't know where the confidence of these youtubers who claim to become fluent in another language in such a short time comes from 🤔
I'm also Brazilian and been learning German for the past 5 years and just recently I've started grasping day-to-day conversations and regular phrases. I stand there and look at 3 different genders and I'm like: Nope! My Latin ass can't comprehend this lol
@@Riingwraith Alemão certamente é uma aventura para nós latinos, mas o estudo é muito gratificante, meus parabéns por continuar na jornada! Não desista.
@@luiz_henriqve Obrigado pelas palavras de incentivo! E realmente, é uma grande aventura aprender essa língua. A relutância dos germânicos em face ao Império Romano 2 mil anos atrás, certamente dificultaram as coisas para nós latinos que querem aprender o idioma hahaha
I can’t say for other languages, but your English is excellent. You don’t sound American, but if you said you were English, I wouldn’t even question it. I wish when I was younger I was more willing to learn Italian
I don't speak any Japanese but when Metatron mentioned the cultural aspect of not accepting a compliment even I immediately pictured the little hand waving gesture that should be used while saying the equivalent of "no, no, I'm not very good". I don't even watch anime and wouldn't say I have any knowledge of Japanese culture outside of do not wear your shoes indoors. Still I don't know how anyone could study the language to become fluent in the different honourific titles, which I find super elaborate, and not notice that gesture.
"lovers of self".
My prayers are with you and yours Meta, may he grant you and your family strength, comfort and healing, God Bless...
Part of learning a language is learning how the native people think. You can learn grammar and vocabulary, but culture immersion is needed to really understand.
I believe saying words or phrases in any language is valuable. There is a separation with functional speaking/fluency versus using random/non-conversational speech. People have different ideas of fluency. Exaggerations happen when people strive for popularity.
interesting as usual. Actually, for learners of Italian, in addition to Italy and the Italian-speaking areas of Switzerland, for those with ecclesiastical connections, there is also the Vatican City, but I think they will have find sleeping accommodation in Italy, and for those who are interested in mini-states, the Republic of San Marino. 😏
I personally hate those clips of the White guy ordering Mexican food using heavily Mexican Spanish and then all the Brown skin Mexicans look shocked.... ummm like Spanish was originally a European Language and there's still plenty of Mexicans with European features.
Example Jorge Ramos has blue eyes and Guillermo del Toro is a Ginger.
I can go to German Town in Nicaragua right now and they all speak Spanish.
It's really not a phenomenon.