I like the strident, confrontational, nakedly insulting energy in this article. Most of the people that would feel insulted reading it deserve it. Bravo.
Thank you and I concur! There's a time and place to be civil, but when dealing with lying narcissists, I think being childish and confrontational is absolutely fair game.
Absolutely. I think we’ve been conditioned to be non confrontational for reasons to numerous to name here but it’s not our natural state. I really like Psalms, Proverbs and other wisdom books of the Bible, and it’s a lot of commentary on how stupid, lazy and arrogant people are. It’s reads incredibly confrontational. Yea, there’s a time for the unvarnished truth and phrased in a corrective tone. Totally agree. That’s present in spades in this article. It’s fact that being bilingual is the minimal operating standard, and that’s coming from someone who isn’t bilingual. I know I’m fat and dumb (American). I plan to correct it one day. It’s in confronting the dumb in yourself that’s the path to betterment, and, if that’s the path I’m subjecting everyone else to that same level excoriation. If you don’t like it, there’s the door, kindly exit stage left.
I wouldn't be so hard on yourself about being monolingual. Usually when people are multi-lingual they have some practical reason to know another language. Native English speakers in North America usually don't have a need.
"I also can’t stand his approach. He just ambushes people in public, and in half the videos, the people clearly look like they don’t want to be talked to or are just humoring Yuji to be polite."
This. It's exploiting people's natural politeness which is a societal good but a fragile thing and should not be disturbed without good cause. As I've gotten older, I'm much more comfortable when a stranger accosts me just holding up a hand, saying "Not interested." and walking away.
Word! Because I'm a masochist, I've subjected myself to dozens of his videos, in about half the people keep walking and clearly don't want to a random person shoving a microphone in their face and asking "Where are you from?". Furthermore, whether they say "Iraq" or "Ukraine" his response is always to say where are you from once more in respective language, then say "I am studying language X", but that's essentially it. Knowing two phrases does not mean you are A) studying the language or B) a polyglot who speaks said language.
Thank you for writing this. Ive always hated youtube langauge niggas with a passion. You may be the first person ive seen who hates them as much as i do. I'm fluently trilingual and yet i literally never mention it irl because I'm not a faggot. Whenever I hear these dudes "speak" Italian or French it's always shockingly bad.
Well, for some, speaking directly into a camera projects a sense of authority on a given topic or subject, even if the individuals in question have nothing in their experiential toolbelt to warrant that feeling. It’s wild that people can produce multi-hour length videos that amount to nothing more than empty calories, extensions of extrapolations made by other, far more informed peoples or experts.
dude, xiaomanyc can speak chinese, yes, a bit higher than conversational level. his vocabulary isn’t bad and i guess he puts some time into learning dialects for videos.
dude. his pronunciation is so bad though. like so damn bad. it’s possible to understand him, so it’s not gibberish, but it’s goddamn obvious it’s a some whitey speaking.
MIND BLOWN!!! = the cashier speaks to him with a little more enthusiasm than typical
hahaha I wish there was a separate series of videos of the cashiers and waiters giving interviews of what it was like getting their minds blown by this cracker.
Seeing those videos of other 20 somethings knowing 10x languages while I’m taking my time learning one was dampening my motivation. I’m relatively gullible when consuming online content so your transparency exposing these posers is much appreciated! Loved the tone, super entertaining!
Poetically written. In all its seriousness (which I agree with) this was also a hilarious read. As a Bangladeshi who speaks three languages and lives in London, people always find it mind blowing that I speak these languages. It's not that deep for me. I'm also reminded of a blog I used to run many many years ago writing poetry and reviewing literature. An American once called me out and left me hate because I couldn't spell. I'd been spelling realised (like so) and not as "realized" - the American equivalent, and other such examples. I couldn't even be bothered to reply to it because of the absolute ignorance and superiority complex. Fuck them.
Yeah, some of the comments on this post are bizarrely hostile. I’m finding this increasingly disturbing recently, nobody ever disagrees mildly, they hate you passionately over tiny things. I think humanity is fucked.
I agree with your assessment, I am fluent in English which I learned after years of practice both alone and by imposition of my school as well as the consumption of media in English, Portuguese(mother language) and Spanish(traveled through south and Central America a lot just ended up learning it by years of practice) and I can SPEAK but not write or read in Japanese, I learned Japanese because of the judo classes I did ever since I was a kid(the instructor only spoke Japanese and the class was majority Japanese speakers and hence I just had to brute force learning it), and hence every single one of these languages took me years of observation and active practice to learn, this year I have decided to learn German as well and subscribed to a course in one of the local university’s languages department, I hope that in 3 years I may be fluent in the language.
Becoming good at anything at all takes time effort and practice, this is true for any skill or proficiency lads!
Beautifully said! Language learning, like learning a craft or a musical instrument, is unfathomably time consuming. Imagine a "polyglot" musician who could only play two guitar riffs, one drum beat, and only knew two piano chords. Sure, maybe he plays them very confidently, but I wouldn't call him a musician.
Mind you, it's a pretty good con. That being said, there are polyglots and even hyperpolyglots who can converse in 10 or more languages carrying on conversations with complex thoughts. Such as Emil Krebs German diplomat who could converse fluently in over 60 languages. Richard Simcott, and a couple others. They've showcased their talents. These you tubers though aren't it.
I found the article's tone interesting. It doesn't have the academic feeling of criticizing something slapping someone's face with a white glove, but rather just kicking the teeth in.
As a white person myself, even from a mixed background in Brazil, where racism and such is disguised as a more political and rooted way, I find we are constantly being put to shame, rightly so. I'm so over these dumb Youtubers and Tick Tockers. Only white people would weaponize talent, effort or skills to make a spectacle for the masses.
What I hate about this content is how the only take-away is, “(targeted) people are too stupid to realize how smart white people actually are”, or, “look at me! Look at me!”
It’s just showing off but, like, showing off what? My mom is from China. She speaks English. Where’s her thousands of followers?
Exactly. I was recently reading a short story by the Chinese American author Ken Liu. The protagonist is Chinese American (born in China) and always gets really confused when people tell him "Your English is so good." and never knows how to respond to that.
I quit my job and traveled to Ecuador to be with my partner in early 2018. I knew a couple basic phrases, but no more than that. I couldn’t even give the taxi driver directions from the grocery store to our house. I was completely reliant on Google translate and whatever I could remember. Instinctively, I knew I needed to continue to immerse myself all the way into the language, so as my ears began to recognize more vocabulary and my mouth learned how to speak that vocabulary, I finally began the journey from the point where language stoped being noise and became communication. It was brilliant! I could finally give clear directions to the taxistas. Now, seven years later of Duolingo, private tutoring, a year of teaching English to Spanish-speaking kids in a Spanish-speaking school, marrying my Colombian wife, and still being surrounded by Spanish in my día cotidiano, I finally have an understanding of what “fluency” might mean. I’m constantly learning complex verb tenses and more vocabulary because it’s fun to learn.
Learning Spanish from zero absolutely did not happen in 24 hours for me. It’s been a long and very rewarding process that I will maintain for the rest of my life I hope. Thanks to Duolingo, I’m also brushing up on my high school French and testing the waters of Turkish. One challenge I’ve given myself just for giggles is learning French in Spanish. It’s turned my language brain inside out, and I’m loving it. Thank you for this article. New sub here!
Thank you for reading and sharing your story! Getting immersed in the culture/moving to a new country it definitely one of the ways to make fluency possible. You nailed it, though, one cannot go from zero to fluency in 24 hours.
Yes it is absolutely impossible to attain anything near “fluency” in 24 hours! My current level of “fluency” wouldn’t be nearly what it is today without the full school year of teaching. Only a couple of the teachers in the school could speak good enough English to translate for the director if she needed to communicate with me. It was a blessing in disguise that she didn’t speak much English because I was encouraged to speak only in Spanish. By the end of my experience at the school, I was much closer to being able to understand her native Spanish, and she was mostly understanding my [much-improved] broken Spanish.
I like the strident, confrontational, nakedly insulting energy in this article. Most of the people that would feel insulted reading it deserve it. Bravo.
Thank you and I concur! There's a time and place to be civil, but when dealing with lying narcissists, I think being childish and confrontational is absolutely fair game.
Absolutely. I think we’ve been conditioned to be non confrontational for reasons to numerous to name here but it’s not our natural state. I really like Psalms, Proverbs and other wisdom books of the Bible, and it’s a lot of commentary on how stupid, lazy and arrogant people are. It’s reads incredibly confrontational. Yea, there’s a time for the unvarnished truth and phrased in a corrective tone. Totally agree. That’s present in spades in this article. It’s fact that being bilingual is the minimal operating standard, and that’s coming from someone who isn’t bilingual. I know I’m fat and dumb (American). I plan to correct it one day. It’s in confronting the dumb in yourself that’s the path to betterment, and, if that’s the path I’m subjecting everyone else to that same level excoriation. If you don’t like it, there’s the door, kindly exit stage left.
I wouldn't be so hard on yourself about being monolingual. Usually when people are multi-lingual they have some practical reason to know another language. Native English speakers in North America usually don't have a need.
Spanish might be handy in America.
Well said. I'm something of an incredibly dumb myself, so it's all good,
This anglophone monoglot with three bilingual daughters is very comfortably dumb
We can kick it then.
You’re not retarded. I know because I never see you at the monthly meetings.
I’m supposed to attend I just get lost every single time.
"I also can’t stand his approach. He just ambushes people in public, and in half the videos, the people clearly look like they don’t want to be talked to or are just humoring Yuji to be polite."
This. It's exploiting people's natural politeness which is a societal good but a fragile thing and should not be disturbed without good cause. As I've gotten older, I'm much more comfortable when a stranger accosts me just holding up a hand, saying "Not interested." and walking away.
Word! Because I'm a masochist, I've subjected myself to dozens of his videos, in about half the people keep walking and clearly don't want to a random person shoving a microphone in their face and asking "Where are you from?". Furthermore, whether they say "Iraq" or "Ukraine" his response is always to say where are you from once more in respective language, then say "I am studying language X", but that's essentially it. Knowing two phrases does not mean you are A) studying the language or B) a polyglot who speaks said language.
Thank you for writing this. Ive always hated youtube langauge niggas with a passion. You may be the first person ive seen who hates them as much as i do. I'm fluently trilingual and yet i literally never mention it irl because I'm not a faggot. Whenever I hear these dudes "speak" Italian or French it's always shockingly bad.
So you're telling me you haven't gone around shocking any minimum wage workers today??
Feels like most of Youtube is people learning just enough about something to talk about it for as long as they need the video to be.
Well, for some, speaking directly into a camera projects a sense of authority on a given topic or subject, even if the individuals in question have nothing in their experiential toolbelt to warrant that feeling. It’s wild that people can produce multi-hour length videos that amount to nothing more than empty calories, extensions of extrapolations made by other, far more informed peoples or experts.
It requires an excess of narcissism.
Truth.
dude, xiaomanyc can speak chinese, yes, a bit higher than conversational level. his vocabulary isn’t bad and i guess he puts some time into learning dialects for videos.
dude. his pronunciation is so bad though. like so damn bad. it’s possible to understand him, so it’s not gibberish, but it’s goddamn obvious it’s a some whitey speaking.
MIND BLOWN!!! = the cashier speaks to him with a little more enthusiasm than typical
hahaha I wish there was a separate series of videos of the cashiers and waiters giving interviews of what it was like getting their minds blown by this cracker.
Glotslop
As an American with 1 language, I took a little hit here, but great article.
I loved this line:
"I aint hating on the motherfucker for being handsome, I agree, goodlooking people are superior to ugly people . . . "
Thank you for reading!
Seeing those videos of other 20 somethings knowing 10x languages while I’m taking my time learning one was dampening my motivation. I’m relatively gullible when consuming online content so your transparency exposing these posers is much appreciated! Loved the tone, super entertaining!
Never let those clowns make you feel down ever again!
Poetically written. In all its seriousness (which I agree with) this was also a hilarious read. As a Bangladeshi who speaks three languages and lives in London, people always find it mind blowing that I speak these languages. It's not that deep for me. I'm also reminded of a blog I used to run many many years ago writing poetry and reviewing literature. An American once called me out and left me hate because I couldn't spell. I'd been spelling realised (like so) and not as "realized" - the American equivalent, and other such examples. I couldn't even be bothered to reply to it because of the absolute ignorance and superiority complex. Fuck them.
Thanks for reading and the kind comments. I'm starting to get hate comments of my own. I'll wear it like a badge of honor.
Yeah, some of the comments on this post are bizarrely hostile. I’m finding this increasingly disturbing recently, nobody ever disagrees mildly, they hate you passionately over tiny things. I think humanity is fucked.
We really are.
I agree with your assessment, I am fluent in English which I learned after years of practice both alone and by imposition of my school as well as the consumption of media in English, Portuguese(mother language) and Spanish(traveled through south and Central America a lot just ended up learning it by years of practice) and I can SPEAK but not write or read in Japanese, I learned Japanese because of the judo classes I did ever since I was a kid(the instructor only spoke Japanese and the class was majority Japanese speakers and hence I just had to brute force learning it), and hence every single one of these languages took me years of observation and active practice to learn, this year I have decided to learn German as well and subscribed to a course in one of the local university’s languages department, I hope that in 3 years I may be fluent in the language.
Becoming good at anything at all takes time effort and practice, this is true for any skill or proficiency lads!
Beautifully said! Language learning, like learning a craft or a musical instrument, is unfathomably time consuming. Imagine a "polyglot" musician who could only play two guitar riffs, one drum beat, and only knew two piano chords. Sure, maybe he plays them very confidently, but I wouldn't call him a musician.
Mind you, it's a pretty good con. That being said, there are polyglots and even hyperpolyglots who can converse in 10 or more languages carrying on conversations with complex thoughts. Such as Emil Krebs German diplomat who could converse fluently in over 60 languages. Richard Simcott, and a couple others. They've showcased their talents. These you tubers though aren't it.
Thanks for dropping those names, will look into them!
I found the article's tone interesting. It doesn't have the academic feeling of criticizing something slapping someone's face with a white glove, but rather just kicking the teeth in.
As a white person myself, even from a mixed background in Brazil, where racism and such is disguised as a more political and rooted way, I find we are constantly being put to shame, rightly so. I'm so over these dumb Youtubers and Tick Tockers. Only white people would weaponize talent, effort or skills to make a spectacle for the masses.
Beautifully said.
What I hate about this content is how the only take-away is, “(targeted) people are too stupid to realize how smart white people actually are”, or, “look at me! Look at me!”
It’s just showing off but, like, showing off what? My mom is from China. She speaks English. Where’s her thousands of followers?
Exactly. I was recently reading a short story by the Chinese American author Ken Liu. The protagonist is Chinese American (born in China) and always gets really confused when people tell him "Your English is so good." and never knows how to respond to that.
Давид, я хочу быть гига чад полиглотом. Как я могу это сделать? Большое спасибо
А вы готовы принять ислам?
Всегда готов. Как пионер
Что ислам? Боец ММА?
I quit my job and traveled to Ecuador to be with my partner in early 2018. I knew a couple basic phrases, but no more than that. I couldn’t even give the taxi driver directions from the grocery store to our house. I was completely reliant on Google translate and whatever I could remember. Instinctively, I knew I needed to continue to immerse myself all the way into the language, so as my ears began to recognize more vocabulary and my mouth learned how to speak that vocabulary, I finally began the journey from the point where language stoped being noise and became communication. It was brilliant! I could finally give clear directions to the taxistas. Now, seven years later of Duolingo, private tutoring, a year of teaching English to Spanish-speaking kids in a Spanish-speaking school, marrying my Colombian wife, and still being surrounded by Spanish in my día cotidiano, I finally have an understanding of what “fluency” might mean. I’m constantly learning complex verb tenses and more vocabulary because it’s fun to learn.
Learning Spanish from zero absolutely did not happen in 24 hours for me. It’s been a long and very rewarding process that I will maintain for the rest of my life I hope. Thanks to Duolingo, I’m also brushing up on my high school French and testing the waters of Turkish. One challenge I’ve given myself just for giggles is learning French in Spanish. It’s turned my language brain inside out, and I’m loving it. Thank you for this article. New sub here!
Thank you for reading and sharing your story! Getting immersed in the culture/moving to a new country it definitely one of the ways to make fluency possible. You nailed it, though, one cannot go from zero to fluency in 24 hours.
Yes it is absolutely impossible to attain anything near “fluency” in 24 hours! My current level of “fluency” wouldn’t be nearly what it is today without the full school year of teaching. Only a couple of the teachers in the school could speak good enough English to translate for the director if she needed to communicate with me. It was a blessing in disguise that she didn’t speak much English because I was encouraged to speak only in Spanish. By the end of my experience at the school, I was much closer to being able to understand her native Spanish, and she was mostly understanding my [much-improved] broken Spanish.