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4/10/2015 Why I taught myself 20 languages — and what I learned about myself | ideas.ted.com
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IDEAS.TED.COMEXPLORE IDEAS WORTH SPREADING, EVERY WEEKDAY
04/09/2015
WHY I TAUGHT MYSELF
20 LANGUAGES — AND
WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT
MYSELF IN THE
PROCESS
SEARCH
4/10/2015 Why I taught myself 20 languages — and what I learned about myself | ideas.ted.com
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Timothy Doner
During the past few years, I’ve beenreferred to in the media as “The World’sYoungest Hyperpolyglot” — a word thatsounds like a rare illness. In a way it is: itdescribes someone who speaks aparticularly large number of foreignlanguages, someone whose all-consumingpassion for words and systems can leadthem to spend many long hours alone witha grammar book.
But while it’s true that I can speak in 20different languages, including English, ittook me a while to understand that there’smore to language than bartering overkebabs in Arabic or ordering from a menuin Hindi. Fluency is another craftaltogether.
I began my language education at agethirteen. I became interested in the MiddleEast and started studying Hebrew on myown. For reasons I still don’t quiteunderstand, I was soon hooked on theIsraeli funk group Hadag Nachash, andwould listen to the same album every singlemorning. At the end of a month, I hadmemorized about twenty of their songs byheart — even though I had no clue whatthey meant. But once I learned thetranslations it was almost as if I haddownloaded a dictionary into my head; Inow knew several hundred Hebrew words
PROCESS
4/10/2015 Why I taught myself 20 languages — and what I learned about myself | ideas.ted.com
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now knew several hundred Hebrew wordsand phrases — and I’d never had to open atextbook.
I decided to experiment. I spent hourswalking around my New York Cityneighborhood, visiting Israeli cafés toeavesdrop on people’s conversations.Sometimes, I would even get up the courageto introduce myself, rearranging all of thesong lyrics in my head into new, awkwardand occasionally correct sentences. As itturned out, I was on to something.
I moved on to Arabic, which I’d study everymorning by reading news headlines with a
IF THE STANDARD OFSPEAKING A LANGUAGE
IS TO KNOW EVERYWORD — TO FEEL
EQUALLY AT HOMEDEBATING NUCLEAR
FISSION ANDCLASSICAL MUSIC— THEN HARDLY
ANYONE IS FLUENT INTHEIR OWN NATIVE
TONGUES.
4/10/2015 Why I taught myself 20 languages — and what I learned about myself | ideas.ted.com
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dictionary and by talking to street vendors.After that it was Persian, then Russian, thenMandarin … and about fifteen others. On anaverage day, I’d Skype with friends inFrench and Turkish, listen to Hindi popmusic for an hour and eat dinner with aGreek or Latin book on my lap. Languagebecame an obsession, one that I pursued insummer classes, school, web forums andlanguage meet-ups around the city.
By March of 2012, media outlets such as theBBC and The New York Times featuredstories about me, “The Teen Who Speaks 20Languages!” For a while, it was a fantasy; itmade what many thought of as a bizarrehobby seem (almost) mainstream, and gaveme a perfect opportunity to promotelanguage learning.
After a while, though, my media “moments”felt more like gruesome chores thanopportunities to spread the word. Mostnews shows were interested only in the“dancing bear” act (“You wanna learn moreabout the Middle East? Cool… Say ‘you’rewatching Channel 2’ in Arabic!”) Aslighthearted as that might have been, it leftme with an uncomfortably personal lessonin modern media: when the goal is simplyto get the viewers’ attention, the realimportance of a story often gets lost intranslation.
When I was beginning to discoverlanguages, I had a romanticized view ofwords like “speak” and “fluency”. But then Irealized that you can be nominally fluent ina language and still struggle to understand
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a language and still struggle to understandparts of it. English is my first language, butwhat I really spoke was a hybrid of teenageslang and Manhattan-ese. When I listen tomy father, a lawyer, talk to other lawyers,his words sound as foreign to me asFinnish. I certainly couldn’t readShakespeare without a dictionary, and I’dbe equally helpless in a room withJamaicans or Cajuns. Yet all of us “speakEnglish.”
My linguistics teacher, a native of Poland,speaks better English than I do and seemsright at home peppering his speech withterms like “epenthetic schwa” and“voiceless alveolar stops”. Yet the other day,it came up that he’d never heard the word“tethered”. Does that mean he doesn’t“speak” English? If the standard of speakinga language is to know every word — to feelequally at home debating nuclear fissionand classical music — then hardly anyone isfluent in their own native tongues.
Reducing someone to the number oflanguages he or she speaks trivializes theimmense power that language imparts.After all, language is the living testament toa culture’s history and world view, not ashiny trophy to be dusted off for someone’sself-aggrandizement.
Language is a complex tapestry of trade,conquest and culture to which we each addour own unique piece — whether that be aShakespearean sonnet or “Lol bae g2g ttyl.”As my time in the media spotlight made merealize, saying you “speak” a language canmean a lot of different things: it can mean
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mean a lot of different things: it can meanmemorizing verb charts, knowing the slang,even passing for a native. But while I’vecome to realize I’ll never be fluent in 20languages, I’ve also understood thatlanguage is about being able to conversewith people, to see beyond culturalboundaries and find a shared humanity.And that’s a lesson well worth learning.
Watch Breaking the language barrier,Timothy Doner’s talk at TEDxTeen 2014.Featured illustration by Dawn Kim/TED.
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Author Details
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ABOUT TIMOTHY DONER
Timothy Doner is a Harvardfreshman who receivednotoriety for studying morethan 20 languages. He spendsmuch of his time attempting toperfect his linguistic skills indifferent neighborhoods of NewYork City; his Youtube channel,PolyglotPal, has received morethan 5 million hits. He spoke atTEDxTeen in 2014.
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