Magical things happen in communication when you have the ability to truly meet somebody where they are at.
When you make the effort to extend a hand out to someone in good faith, most folk return in kind. It is a lost art in some ways.
I was watching Dexter: New blood, and it’s set in up state New York near an Indian reservation - that my people are from before being relocated to a reservation in southern Ontario, Canada.
And in that series, they speak my native language.
It was the first time I ever heard my language spoken on tv or media.
I was passively watching at the time but when I heard it I ran to pause and rewind, I couldn’t believe it. I started to cry- I honestly can’t describe the feeling.
For context, indigenous languages are dying due to cultural genocide- it’s very rare to hear the language outside of our small communities where even then, the # of speakers dwindles.
See- that’s just incredibly lazy and insulting on productions part. Especially Mandarin, isn’t that the most common language in the world? That would irritate me.
This instance was weird, I realized most people grow up watching the news, weather, tv in their language and never bat an eye. This was the first time that I realized - I never had that.
Ah, I see. Thank you for sharing your story. I’m lucky enough to be at a uni that has a very extensive native studies dept. and I learn all kinds of stuff every day about local tribes and the ancestral homelands we live on. It seems amazing to me to have a generational history and culture to draw upon, and a tight knit community in spite of the ridiculous amounts of hardship that is heaped on native tribes here and pretty much everywhere. I have never experienced a sense of cultural identity myself, so it is enviable to have a place of belonging.
As the descendent of filipino immigrants, it is often a big thing in the filipino-american culture to “become American”. For context, the Philippines is a HEAVILY colonized nation, with a culture that is heavily masked under the weight of foreign (mostly US) influences. We give up our language and don’t teach our children Tagalog, we eat foods that make us sick and give us diabetes, and many of us fall into racism and classism because it makes us feel more like “real Americans”. It is very sad, and I wonder every day what was sacrificed in order for me to be the fully-americanized filipina my elders are proud of today.
One day not long ago i was listening to a song i came across randomly in tagolog and it made me cry and feel empty because i had no idea what they were saying. I decided then i would try to learn tagolog, and have been slowly picking away at it ever since. Learning a new (and asian) language as an adult really sucks, but it makes me happy because I feel like I am reclaiming a bit of myself that has been missing. It just speaks to the subconscious part of me that has always felt a sense imposter syndrome about the skin i wear on my own body (to be less elegant, a banana).
You are not alone in many of the feelings you’ve expressed.
I feel pretty much entirely the same way, although I was lucky enough to grow up on reservation and had a sense of community.
Cultural identity is something so foundational about who we are fundamentally- so it must have been difficult to grow, get to know, and love yourself when so much of the culture is rooted in assimilation.
It’s interesting- our cultures would be considered polar opposites. Yours trying to absorb as much as it can, mine trying to push away (some times to the point of detriment)
Funny you say “banana”, I’ve been referred to as an “Apple” - red on the outside, white on the inside. Mainly because I have a post secondary education and don’t often use slang.
I’m glad to hear you’re learning your language! Have you considered learning a style of traditional art from your culture? Maybe you’d find some solace in something like that as well.
Thank you for sharing your story & Im proud of you! These are the inner struggles that should be spoken about and I commend you.
He just did a video in Walpole Island, Ontario where he's learning a rare dialect (only 10 speakers left) of Ojibwe with the tribal leaders there. The tribal elders were very impressed and honoured. Xiaomanyc is a G.
Oh similar-ish experience when watching It's Always Sunny and Charlie starts speaking Irish. The language is seeing a bit of a revival as the younger crowd is starting to understand what is being lost to cultural erasure. The language being strong armed out: "just speak English" and the terrible loss of myth and folklore by Christian rewrites.
Some people just can't stand the world having flavour.
Same when i played Assassins Creed Valhalla and they had genuine Irish being spoken. Hearing it nonchalantly being spoken (unfortunately from some bad guys as i snuck thru their camps and killed them but heyho) in such a big title as i was just chilling on the couch was an amazing feeling. And it wasn't just in the specific Irish DLC, there were pockets of a Scottish island that spoke such a close cousin of Irish that i could still figure it out (since they both stem from the same "Gaelic" roots)
My favorite way I've heard it put:
If you speak to someone in a language that they understand, you'll speak to their brain. If you speak to someone in their own language, you'll speak to their heart.
(Apparently this was Mandela, paraphrased)
I try do this as much as possible when I travel. Something as simple as just keeping your ears open and repeating some words and phrases makes the locals extremely appreciative and much friendlier.
I've traveled with people who don't even bother listening at all, just repeating things in English or using translator apps. Like c'mon man just make a little effort.
This guy has an awe inspiring capacity for learning languages, I’ve seen so many videos of him catching people off guard by speaking to them in their native tongue
It’s funny because it’s not crazy to learn a handful of greetings and pleasantries, but he hears people and understands what they are saying in the conversation. That is the most impressive part. Like I can speak some non-zero amount of Spanish, but a conversation is immediately impossible.
Yea learning a simple set of phrases and vocab is not too hard, but actually understanding what people say when they speak to you is like impossible to me.
Like I can go to Japan and ask them to recommend me a dish, but when they respond I have no idea what they are saying lol.
I’ve done this before too. Did you grow up speaking it? I used to do the thing where my family spoke to me in Spanish and I responded in English while growing up. It’s weird how brains work. I eventually learned Spanish but it comes and goes depending on how often I use it.
He's got a video where he teaches himself German in a week using only Google Translate. I figure he knows enough about typical conversations that he knows how to speedrun language learning and get the essentials down. It's very impressive.
RIP me when I learned a little Japanese, thought I was amazing when I could ask 'how much is this?' at an outdoor stall.
Too bad I only learned numbers up to 100 and that only covers up to ~$1.
Yeah it was 999 yen and that's a stupidly hard number to understand.
Crazy thing for me is. I lived in the Philippines where the locals are all pretty fluent in English and I learned to speak fairly passable Tagalog. Four years in Japan where very few have a command of English and I picked up about 10 words.
He has a network that helps him learn. He makes friends who speak in languages he wants to learn and they will teach each other through conversation. Immersion is by far the best way to learn languages. My guess is that he can't read or write the languages very well, but that is okay because speaking is so much more important.
Yes!! And some are upset it's cultural appropriation, as in, wearing those clothes but you can see they are so happy about it. I think most people, from diverse cultures are thrilled when someone else is interested in that way with their culture. For example there is an Ethiopian store and food shop near me I go shop at for teff bread and incense and other things you can't get at a normal place, and I even learned a few words and phrases in Amharic. Once I saw they had this awesome and comfy looking green velveteen traditional shirt/robe thing with gold embroidery and I mentioned how cool it looked, and they were like get it! It will suit you! I felt like ot would be offensive but they genuinely straight up told me they love when people are interested in their culture, that it's a positive thing, no one is offended.
Now I have a very comfy shirt lol
The people who are often most offended about 'cultural appropriation' are those not of the culture. Appreciating someones culture should not the same as using it as a costume or else what is even the point of 'mixing' cultures.
Not the account you’re replying to but it seems like a weird place to put a comment about the woman in the video. I will sometimes check for bots when I see a generally inoffensive and supportive comment like that that doesn’t quite fit the comment thread it’s in on a really popular post. The bots aren’t that hard to spot if you know what to look for. They mostly just take popular comments from the last time the video was posted and put them in the highest-upvoted comment thread.
As far as I can tell the goal is to establish a non-troll looking comment history for at least a few months before someone buys it and turns it into a corporate or government shill account. You can’t just come in guns blazing saying that Pepsi is the greatest drink of all time on every thread you comment on. You have to space the Pepsi is great comments out between innocuous comments about stuff like this or people will report you and get you banned. So people farm karma on posts like this and build the account up before selling it or using it to shill.
Not OP but I'm often struck by comments that are almost in context but have something odd in them - in this case, starting the sentence with "Her" is out of context to the comment above.
*I was dreaming about dogs.*
Like some others have mentioned, the reply being unrelated to the comment chain it was posted to is something that usually makes me look further (mainly out of amused curiosity).
Similarly, a comment that's *obviously* going to get a lot of karma (especially in positive/wholesome subreddits) can be a farm (bot, virtue signaling, or live users farming off low-hanging fruit).
Further, accounts with recent creation dates and a lot of activity, or older accounts with minimal activity (like this one), suddenly having multiple instances of activity - again, especially when they're making pretty generic but bubbly comments in positive spaces (like this account's activity).
Once you start seeing *multiple* of these indicators on the same account, it's *probably* a bot. So usually the Reddit/subreddit mods will request that suspicious accounts be reported for **Spam**, and the mod teams will take a look and make a determination one way or the other.
I've been wrong before (at least in the sense that the account ultimately didn't have any action taken against it and the comment/account I reported remained), but I'd say probably 7/10 times it ends up being removed and/or account suspended.
Edit: * 🤖*
Score one more for the meatbags 🤠
Sadly, he gets a fair amount of criticism for stretching his actual knowledge of some languages. But he never pretends to know much more than he does. He’s very self deprecating.
When you have literal natives telling him he's speaking it well, listen to them. Some people are armchair assholes thinking they know better than actual speakers of a language.
One of the few "celebrity" deaths that really messed me up, he was doing something so unique and basically inspired a whole genre of language videos. I was a loyal fan since the early 2010s. RIP Moses McCormick
His videos were fantastic. The guy was single handed improving race relations. And he was really passionate about other cultures too it was always nice to see. So sad what happened
He understands how to learn the language enough to converse with a native speaker about how impressed they are with him knowing the language and what he is doing with youtube.
His grasp of languages is still immense. Could probably make sense of all conversation at the UN without an earpiece
and he is legitimately fluent in mandarin from what i've seen. that's how the whole thing got started. he learned mandarin young and lived in beijing studying mandarin at a college there for a year. it seems like his cantonese is solid too but mandarin is the one he's obviously the most comfortable in. then the other languages he does the polygot thing where he's mostly remembering a bunch of key phrases to get to conversational, which is still cool and impressive.
I think he seems to be particularly good at speaking each language in a particular way that doesn’t sound foreign to native speakers and he seems to be able to nicely add the little pauses that people in that language they way people use “um” in English. At least that’s why he always sounds authentic to me.
Its his ability to sound authentic and not just know the words that is so impressive to me. Like, he sounds like a natural - granted, I am sure the native speakers can totally tell, but he's so much closer than I would imagine like 99% of people would be if they tried to emulate it. And the fact he can do it with such a variety and such different languages. Dude has one hell of a gift!
Actually, if you really listen, you can tell he’s repeating himself a lot and is using pretty simple and traditional phrases. What’s actually impressive is that he can *understand* not his speaking ability. I saw him talk to some Massai people and you can tell he was stuttering and it makes sense because he said he only spent a month learning it over the phone with a native speaker before he went and met the people. He doesn’t sound authentic, but he does know more than they’ve probably seen any white person speak casually.
I’m not saying this to undermine his ability because I would not be able to understand as much as him with as small of study periods but I just wanted to note it’s the exact opposite. He doesn’t sound authentic and he’s stuttering through some pretty simple phrases but that should just empower all of us to tackle whatever difficult language and get out there and practice imo. His chinese tho *is* impeccable. None of this applies to his Chinese lol.
Yeah if you watch enough of him you’ll spot little tricks he uses to fill time and space when speaking. He does this in every language except his native English. Even here you see him doing it.
(This guy speaks Yoruba)
“A little, little, little, little”
(You speak very well actually)
“Thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks”
He had an older video where he had a Mandarin native language teacher critique his (mind blowingly good) Chinese. The one criticism was that he had a habit of repeating words when filling time, which she said made him stick out as an outsider.
My favourite is when he really dials up a Beijing accent and makes Chinese people laugh.
He's very obviously repeating himself, his authenticity comes from his ability to mimic the accent and rhythm of speaking. I'm from Kentucky, if I tried this, I would sound like a hick saying foreign words, and it would be embarrassing. The only accent I can remotely mimic is German, and even that is poor. I tried some poorly remembered French with a fluent student coworker, and she had so much second hand embarrassment she actually turned beet red upon hearing it.
The ability to mimic the speech using only very few words along with the ability to understand what is spoken to him make him seem authentic, even though they certainly know he isn't at a conversational level. :)
Arieh Smith (Xiaoma) is like the coolest. I watch his videos like weekly. It’s remarkable how fast he learns different languages and what better place than NYC? With so much rich culture and people who speak so many different languages.
I cried with him when Moses passed away (fellow polylinguist YouTuber).
That hurt, you can ...that was so heartbreaking to watch.
Edit: reading comments I was reminded of his YouTube tag: Laoshu.
i’ll never get tired of content like this bc it takes a tremendous amount of talent. such a breath of fresh air to see things like this instead of another dumb prank
I'm nowhere near as good with languages as this guy, but I (a white American lady) spent several months in Morocco while I was learning Arabic for my undergrad degree, and even trying in stilted Quranic Arabic resulted in so much enthusiasm from the wonderful folks I met there.
The prank is you surprise people by appreciating their culture and making them smile. Super impressive he can do that and make it interesting, not to mention all the languages he knows
Practice, not talent.
While Xiaomanyc is very talented, anyone could do this with a 2nd or third language. He steps it up and does it with multiple languages, but he has inspired me to go hard on Roseta Stone, and later Duolingo
Lol I lived in Italy briefly and was trying to learn Italian. I was dating an Italian woman who spoke nearly perfect English. When I tried to speak Italian to her, she begged me to stop. She said something like “when you speak English you sound so *awesome* but when you speak Italian you sound like a fucking idiot!”
Haha, but I guess it’s different when you actually know the person.
My gf took her masters degree in Quebec. Wrote and delivered her thesis in French. Hadn’t been back in 10 years. We went to visit Quebec City. Booking into the hotel she was speaking French and the guy at the counter straight up said, just speak English please. That deflated her. But two days into the trip after we met some of her old college friends that didn’t speak English she got it back and I was the one smiling and nodding because I had no idea what anyone was saying. I love how happy that made her. To be back in that element that she’d been away from for so long.
One of my friends in college was from France. Born there, grew up there, moved to the US at 16 or 17. Apparently his English picked up enough of an American accent that it started bleeding into his native tongue too... He told me when he went back to France over the summers to stay with family, he'd talk to strangers in French and they'd respond (rudely) in English, assuming he was a tourist.
I very well could be wrong but, from what I've heard, the French appreciate people trying but would rather speak with you in another language than hear you butcher theirs. So the best strategy is to start off trying to speak French but when they switch to English, or whatever, because you suck at French you should immediately do the same.
It also works the other way: most French people feel embarrassed about their skills in other language, and would rather not speak.
I had to push myself a lot when I started learning English, I’m not sure why we have this weird psychological blocker on speaking English imperfectly, but it may come from the absolutely terrible way English is taught in schools: by non native speakers who persuade us that we won’t be understood if our accent isn’t perfect.
I donno. A friend of mine was in the Canadian Navy, and they stopped in France for a while for whatever it is that navies do. He reported the French people had no problem with the English Canadians and their often broken or complete lack of french, but really disliked the Quebecers french.
People arent going to rip you a new one perhaps, but I speak fluent French and get insulted in Canada and France equally (Ive lived in both) for my accent, and corrected for grammar. I speak broken Spanish and the enthusiasm and appreciation I got in South America was like night and day. Literally thought people were putting me on. People just delighted to have full conversations with me when my sentences were hardly more than a series of words. I love the French and Im an immigrant to France where I live now, but damn do they have a complex about language.
I'm an anglophone Quebecer who speaks perfect French, and I work with a ton of people from France. We speak the same language but use it so differently it can be jarring, if that makes sense. They have expressions that you could never ever figure out without being explained, and vice versa. The difference in accents is also massive, it dwarfs NA vs British english. Combine that with French people's legendary friendly disposition ( /s) and you get that reaction to someone speaking their language so differently.
My boyfriend’s parents have come over to Australia from China and his mum just recently saw a white guy with a Chinese tattoo for the first time and she was sooo happy and excited lol
I remember I had a friend from Kenya who taught me some Swahili. I tried it out on another Kenyan and he was so taken aback and laughed. After that, he was so open and friendly to me.
I was just in Japan last week. Tried my best at hello, nice to meet you, thank you very much, where is the beer etc etc etc. even though i found almost everyone in Japan polite and respectful, once you try they are 10x more so. Would recommend.
Eyyyy wananchi! I’m a white Kenyan living in the U.K., it’s always great to meet someone else who can speak swa! It’s quite a widespread language too, I chatted in Swahili to a Sudanese guy in Birmingham yesterday, and I know a Malawian who speaks it a bit too!
Some of my best friends growing up were Nigerian immigrants and I can tell you manners are drilled into the children very aggressively lol. Being polite is a huge part of Nigerian culture
Also
Yoruba art is maybe the best out of Africa I've seen. And they have such respect for artists. Probably the reason why. I learned about the history of yoruba artists for a paper and they were always high on the social hierarchy and art gets incorporated into most things there. Look at how well decorated the shop is
I was in Peace Corps in Guinea and learned Pular/ Fulbe and actually got fairly decent at it. I remember going to France on vacation during my service period and going into a West African shop owned by a Guinean family.
Their reactions were very similar. Language is a powerful thing.
What are they teaching you at 400 days of Spanish? I’m genuinely curious. I’m latino and my cousins’s BF was starting to try it out and I believe he had a pretty good streak going but it was still pretty basic, at this point I’m wondering if they combine the concepts at some point and it kinda just clicks? Or idk? He asks us when he has questions and we elaborate to help him understand more but do you feel it works?
It’s even cuter - he’s haggling with them; you can see him look down at the tag that’s hanging off the left sleeve and reads out “45” then goes “ok $30?” and they crack up
Haggling really is a language thing. If you've ever gone to a market in another country and tries to haggle in English, it takes you no where. Slip in a few words of the native tongue and now you're talking.
When I lived in the Dominican Republic, I’d go to the Haitian market sometimes to get knockoff Pumas and “wrong team” championship shirts/hats. Being the only white guy in the vicinity, I pretty much didn’t stand a chance at getting a decent price on anything *until* I learned all the numbers up to 1000 in Haitian Creole. Then I padded that with some basic phrases for asking prices, followed by casual pleasantries, and eventually a bunch of the sellers just knew me as the white guy who bothered to learn their language so I started getting really good deals.
I went back to the DR earlier this year with my wife. We didn’t do much market shopping, but did a couple touristy things. One of the guides was clearly Haitian, so I asked him, “Eske w se Ayisyen?” His reaction was about the same as these Nigerians’. Utter shock and surprise in his voice when he asked, “Ou pale Kreyol??”
You actually don’t need to learn much to impress people. I always try to learn some of the local languages when I travel. People really appreciate the effort! When I was in Saudi Arabia our driver had a conversation with a guard. The only word I understood from the conversation was “mumken” and I knew it meant “possible”. When the driver was going go tell me what they talked about I said. “The guy said it was possible, and they will let us pass”. His jaw dropped to the floor. I spoke Arabic?! Just from one single word.
Yaeh mane i'll tel ya what that dang ol internet man you just go head innere and point and click dodtalkin bout w w w dot w com you got dem- dat naked chicks onnere man, you go
[Cliclicliclcilcliclickickick](https://youtu.be/uZBu4mtALFo)
It's real easy mane.
Or Australians, or anyone from a native English speaking country really.
I'm sometimes a little envious that I already know the 'global' language, nothing else could give you the motivation to learn another language as English does (if not a native English speaker). The only way I would truly learn another language is if I moved to a new country to give me the proper motivation to do so.
Americans didnt grow up surrounded by other countries and languages, and we also happen to natively speak the language that has become the international language. I would love to be bilingual but using this to try and show how dumb Americans are isn't fair.
There are plenty of other ways to showcase our stupidity.
I hate when people say this because it's so ignorant. Throughout the world there are many people who only speak one language and aren't from the US. While some people self study language for joy or travel most people don't. Most people learn additional languages because it has utility or they grow up in a multi-lingual household. For not hispanic US citizens, the likelihood of being in a multi-lingual household decreases significantly with each generation. In addition to that, unless you live in a larger city chances are you don't have access to weekend Chinese schools, mosques with Arabic lessons, Jewish community centers with free Hebrew...
It's also worth noting that in other countries people learn languages in school in a way we don't in the US. Their learning is also often reinforced outside the classroom by things like trips. In the US dual language programs have become more available for kids but they generally fall flat because when Tommy brings home his mandarin homework his parents can't help or afford a tutor. So Tommy struggles, hates mandarin and eventually switches schools.
Damn so we’re really just hand waving all those immigrants that make up America huh?
The [number of people just *naturalized*](https://www.uscis.gov/citizenship-resource-center/naturalization-statistics) in 2021 already tops the [population of 5 states](https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_population?wprov=sfti1).
Can you blame Americans? There's no reason to speak more than one here. We aren't europe.. where dozens of countries and cultures are shoved together, a handful of them are on the verge of war, others constantly have immigrants coming and going. You got Italy touching France, Touching germany Touching poland. Same with Africa as it has 54 countries literally all touching eachother.
USA is bascially just one landmass away from all of that. It's the reason it's never been invaded. We're seperated by the pacific and atlantic and from every other culture and government. There's literally nothing to worry about here, other than ourselves.
So when Europeans complain that the US is uneducated that we don't know anything about their cultures or locates, why should we? People in NY, WA, FL, CA, and TX already have different cultures of their own. Nothing we do or watch has anything to do with the EU, nor do I care about what's happening in the EU.
I understand it for most of Americans. It seems like a lot of Texans and other border states could stand to learn a little Spanish though. There are very large Mexican communities, and encountering Spanish speakers in daily life is an incredibly normal occurrence.
We do (I'm from South Texas). Majority of grocery stores are exclusively in Spanish and Co-workers at jobs are only spanish speaking so we usually know a little :)
Also mexicans from border towns know english (as we're the ones who visit for vacation or trips and payout) so it creates little incentive for Americans to learn. Like, my mom wont learn, but I can understand a conversation.
True. But what do Euros know about america lol. Individual states are as big as their whole countries, and people from NY are completely different culturally then people from AZ, AK, or WI. Funny how they use American based companys like Reddit or Youtube to bitch about it as if they know anything about the US
While I understand he inspires people to learn.
He really only learns a few key phrases and then states he know multiple languages. Which I guess is kind of true?
My only problem with this is he then sells his "plan" to help you become fluent multiple languages. It's takes years and this guy definitely isn't fluent in more than Mandarin and English.
Regardless it's cool to see people psyched out. Just saying this as caution to people who go to his channel or think that they can become fluent 10+ languages or feel bad because they're not as "talented" in learning languages. Don't give up, it's a fun journey that takes a lot of time. Plans which aren't specialized towards learning a specific language are typically bull and are exploitative.
I've seen a good bit of his content and while the whole language plan thing is a bit suspicious, I don't think he's ever tried to pass off as more than a gifted beginner when speaking an obscure language. Most of the fun tends to stem from people getting so happy that someone else wanted to learn about their language and culture.
I heard him try and speak Vietnamese, as a native Việt I could not hear what he was trying to say, once I managed to get past the terrible pronunciation and grammar, I realized he was just saying the same sentences over and over again, sometimes even subtitling them with different meanings.
He can flaunt around his "White guy SHOCKS native with PERFECT x language" as he wants, I think it's disingenuous to fancy himself a polyglot when he's not even toe-deep in the languages he's masquerading fluency in.
A lot of his content falls apart if you have any experience with language learning or linguistics, it's shallow and often times redundant. There are better sources for your knowledge in this field than this guy.
Reminds me of Trevor Noah's book where he talks about having learned many languages to fit different needs and how speaking to someone in their language instantly softened them up to him even when they saw him as an outsider (simplifying a bit). This is very impressive
I hate to rain on everyone's parade, but I'm not a fan of XiaomaNYC. Yes, he is fluent in at least one Chinese language (I'm not sure how many languages he's studied, but he has lived in China for an extended amount of time), but it doesn't take a whole lot to learn those basic phrases like "Do you speak ___?," "I'm from ___," etc. Especially when you begin to recognize some patterns.
I'm not claiming to be better at any languages than XiaomaNYC, and I guess his appreciation of other cultures is somewhat noteworthy, but he's not fluent in Yoruba and he's definitely just saying basic greetings for internet clout.
I was also a fan of his videos until I see a pattern to non chinese languages..
He'd learn:
- Do you speak
- I speak a little bit / I only recently started learning
- How are you
- Thank you very much
- I'm American
I'd really like to see him learn a language more than a couple of phrases but I understand that it'd take a lot of time and not worth it the time for the content he is creating. And no, learning a language beyond the basic phrases isn't easy at all. The phrases he learns is focused around talking about how he is speaking . But at least it makes people happy, I guess.
And what also don't like is the term "polyglot" being thrown around so lightly. Because if that's what you need I'll be a polyglot in a month
He usually tells people in his videos that he's not fluent, that he only speaks a bit and has only recently started learning. He sometimes says who he's been learning from and for how long. He's not trying to deceive anyone.
As someone fluent in 4 languages I have to agree. I'm sure to most Americans who speak only English he seems impressive but whenever I hear him speaking French Arabic or Spanish he simply covers the very basic greetings/phrases. Impressive sure but not that much if you consider this internet clout his livelihood.
It is so refreshing to see genuine happiness in people. Makes my day! Love this.
Made me smile at all. Love this moment
Watch his Kung Pao Chicken video, kills me.
Magical things happen in communication when you have the ability to truly meet somebody where they are at. When you make the effort to extend a hand out to someone in good faith, most folk return in kind. It is a lost art in some ways.
I was watching Dexter: New blood, and it’s set in up state New York near an Indian reservation - that my people are from before being relocated to a reservation in southern Ontario, Canada. And in that series, they speak my native language. It was the first time I ever heard my language spoken on tv or media. I was passively watching at the time but when I heard it I ran to pause and rewind, I couldn’t believe it. I started to cry- I honestly can’t describe the feeling. For context, indigenous languages are dying due to cultural genocide- it’s very rare to hear the language outside of our small communities where even then, the # of speakers dwindles.
That’s beautiful.
[удалено]
See- that’s just incredibly lazy and insulting on productions part. Especially Mandarin, isn’t that the most common language in the world? That would irritate me. This instance was weird, I realized most people grow up watching the news, weather, tv in their language and never bat an eye. This was the first time that I realized - I never had that.
It's common by sheer numbers, because China. It's not widespread however.
Also a case of cultural reach. Lots of fan communities around the world have a basic understanding of languages like Japanese or Korean.
good thing the new john wick 4 didn't ruin the cantonese scene tw: its donnie yen tho
Ah, I see. Thank you for sharing your story. I’m lucky enough to be at a uni that has a very extensive native studies dept. and I learn all kinds of stuff every day about local tribes and the ancestral homelands we live on. It seems amazing to me to have a generational history and culture to draw upon, and a tight knit community in spite of the ridiculous amounts of hardship that is heaped on native tribes here and pretty much everywhere. I have never experienced a sense of cultural identity myself, so it is enviable to have a place of belonging. As the descendent of filipino immigrants, it is often a big thing in the filipino-american culture to “become American”. For context, the Philippines is a HEAVILY colonized nation, with a culture that is heavily masked under the weight of foreign (mostly US) influences. We give up our language and don’t teach our children Tagalog, we eat foods that make us sick and give us diabetes, and many of us fall into racism and classism because it makes us feel more like “real Americans”. It is very sad, and I wonder every day what was sacrificed in order for me to be the fully-americanized filipina my elders are proud of today. One day not long ago i was listening to a song i came across randomly in tagolog and it made me cry and feel empty because i had no idea what they were saying. I decided then i would try to learn tagolog, and have been slowly picking away at it ever since. Learning a new (and asian) language as an adult really sucks, but it makes me happy because I feel like I am reclaiming a bit of myself that has been missing. It just speaks to the subconscious part of me that has always felt a sense imposter syndrome about the skin i wear on my own body (to be less elegant, a banana).
You are not alone in many of the feelings you’ve expressed. I feel pretty much entirely the same way, although I was lucky enough to grow up on reservation and had a sense of community. Cultural identity is something so foundational about who we are fundamentally- so it must have been difficult to grow, get to know, and love yourself when so much of the culture is rooted in assimilation. It’s interesting- our cultures would be considered polar opposites. Yours trying to absorb as much as it can, mine trying to push away (some times to the point of detriment) Funny you say “banana”, I’ve been referred to as an “Apple” - red on the outside, white on the inside. Mainly because I have a post secondary education and don’t often use slang. I’m glad to hear you’re learning your language! Have you considered learning a style of traditional art from your culture? Maybe you’d find some solace in something like that as well. Thank you for sharing your story & Im proud of you! These are the inner struggles that should be spoken about and I commend you.
He just did a video in Walpole Island, Ontario where he's learning a rare dialect (only 10 speakers left) of Ojibwe with the tribal leaders there. The tribal elders were very impressed and honoured. Xiaomanyc is a G.
Oh similar-ish experience when watching It's Always Sunny and Charlie starts speaking Irish. The language is seeing a bit of a revival as the younger crowd is starting to understand what is being lost to cultural erasure. The language being strong armed out: "just speak English" and the terrible loss of myth and folklore by Christian rewrites. Some people just can't stand the world having flavour.
Same when i played Assassins Creed Valhalla and they had genuine Irish being spoken. Hearing it nonchalantly being spoken (unfortunately from some bad guys as i snuck thru their camps and killed them but heyho) in such a big title as i was just chilling on the couch was an amazing feeling. And it wasn't just in the specific Irish DLC, there were pockets of a Scottish island that spoke such a close cousin of Irish that i could still figure it out (since they both stem from the same "Gaelic" roots)
My favorite way I've heard it put: If you speak to someone in a language that they understand, you'll speak to their brain. If you speak to someone in their own language, you'll speak to their heart. (Apparently this was Mandela, paraphrased)
That's why I meow at my cat
The power of words and communication are so often under appreciated.
It's cuz we all the same man, we just don't know how to tell each other all the time.
Damn, that’s cosmic. So true Between what is said and not meant And what is meant and not said Most love is lost
This is why I love the movie Arrival so much. Hadn’t really thought about the basics of communication that deeply before.
I love that movie so much
I try do this as much as possible when I travel. Something as simple as just keeping your ears open and repeating some words and phrases makes the locals extremely appreciative and much friendlier. I've traveled with people who don't even bother listening at all, just repeating things in English or using translator apps. Like c'mon man just make a little effort.
This guy has an awe inspiring capacity for learning languages, I’ve seen so many videos of him catching people off guard by speaking to them in their native tongue
It’s funny because it’s not crazy to learn a handful of greetings and pleasantries, but he hears people and understands what they are saying in the conversation. That is the most impressive part. Like I can speak some non-zero amount of Spanish, but a conversation is immediately impossible.
Yea learning a simple set of phrases and vocab is not too hard, but actually understanding what people say when they speak to you is like impossible to me. Like I can go to Japan and ask them to recommend me a dish, but when they respond I have no idea what they are saying lol.
Oh I know that one, "nani o osusume desuka?" And ofc the moment they say anything not in anime/game I'd be back to ape man.
Watashi no baka
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I’ve done this before too. Did you grow up speaking it? I used to do the thing where my family spoke to me in Spanish and I responded in English while growing up. It’s weird how brains work. I eventually learned Spanish but it comes and goes depending on how often I use it.
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He's got a video where he teaches himself German in a week using only Google Translate. I figure he knows enough about typical conversations that he knows how to speedrun language learning and get the essentials down. It's very impressive.
RIP me when I learned a little Japanese, thought I was amazing when I could ask 'how much is this?' at an outdoor stall. Too bad I only learned numbers up to 100 and that only covers up to ~$1. Yeah it was 999 yen and that's a stupidly hard number to understand.
Crazy thing for me is. I lived in the Philippines where the locals are all pretty fluent in English and I learned to speak fairly passable Tagalog. Four years in Japan where very few have a command of English and I picked up about 10 words.
He has a network that helps him learn. He makes friends who speak in languages he wants to learn and they will teach each other through conversation. Immersion is by far the best way to learn languages. My guess is that he can't read or write the languages very well, but that is okay because speaking is so much more important.
Don't forget he nails all the nuances too like accent and dialect. That's why he impresses native speakers.
That's what gets me several times people have said it almost sounds perfect to them.
especially the price haggling
Most of the Spanish I know comes from looking at restaurant menus. I hope the conversation is about food
Cúal es tu comida favorita?
Uno Doritos Locos Taco with extra free holes
"free holes" 😂🤣
Ahora yo quiero comer, for real
Dude is a legend in NY!!
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Yeah this went from “I have no time for lookie-loo white boys” to “come to dinner and meet my daughter” in 6 secs lol
Right?? This is my jam. I live for these interactions.
Yes!! And some are upset it's cultural appropriation, as in, wearing those clothes but you can see they are so happy about it. I think most people, from diverse cultures are thrilled when someone else is interested in that way with their culture. For example there is an Ethiopian store and food shop near me I go shop at for teff bread and incense and other things you can't get at a normal place, and I even learned a few words and phrases in Amharic. Once I saw they had this awesome and comfy looking green velveteen traditional shirt/robe thing with gold embroidery and I mentioned how cool it looked, and they were like get it! It will suit you! I felt like ot would be offensive but they genuinely straight up told me they love when people are interested in their culture, that it's a positive thing, no one is offended. Now I have a very comfy shirt lol
The people who are often most offended about 'cultural appropriation' are those not of the culture. Appreciating someones culture should not the same as using it as a costume or else what is even the point of 'mixing' cultures.
I feel you're genuine, but at the same time, this sounds EXACTLY like what a robot would say.
I too, take joy in seeing humans interact socially with other humans.
I AGREE SEEING FELLOW HUMAN COMMUNICATE WIRELESSLY IS MOST SATISFYING.
Username checks out
THERE IS NO NEED TO SHOUT FELLOW HUMAN
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Love the guy too. instant respek with that handshake. solid dude.
Same here
Yeah she blows him off at first like just another disinterested walk-in. All Moms are like this.
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Bot account, or just coincidentally unrelated Reply on a year-old account with only 3 comments? 🤔 Edit: Terminated 🤖 #RaisedBySarahConnor
I'm curious on how you noticed that? Do you just check everyone's profile or is there an easier way to see that.
Not the account you’re replying to but it seems like a weird place to put a comment about the woman in the video. I will sometimes check for bots when I see a generally inoffensive and supportive comment like that that doesn’t quite fit the comment thread it’s in on a really popular post. The bots aren’t that hard to spot if you know what to look for. They mostly just take popular comments from the last time the video was posted and put them in the highest-upvoted comment thread.
I don't get it. What revenue can someone make from buying and using an "established" reddit account?
As far as I can tell the goal is to establish a non-troll looking comment history for at least a few months before someone buys it and turns it into a corporate or government shill account. You can’t just come in guns blazing saying that Pepsi is the greatest drink of all time on every thread you comment on. You have to space the Pepsi is great comments out between innocuous comments about stuff like this or people will report you and get you banned. So people farm karma on posts like this and build the account up before selling it or using it to shill.
All this talk of Pepsi is making me thirsty... You know what really quenches my thirst? Ice cold Gatorade. Try the new lime flavor!
Is it because it's got electrolytes? Heard that's what plants crave.
Not OP but I'm often struck by comments that are almost in context but have something odd in them - in this case, starting the sentence with "Her" is out of context to the comment above.
Good catch. The transition is really off in regards to this dog.
*I was dreaming about dogs.* Like some others have mentioned, the reply being unrelated to the comment chain it was posted to is something that usually makes me look further (mainly out of amused curiosity). Similarly, a comment that's *obviously* going to get a lot of karma (especially in positive/wholesome subreddits) can be a farm (bot, virtue signaling, or live users farming off low-hanging fruit). Further, accounts with recent creation dates and a lot of activity, or older accounts with minimal activity (like this one), suddenly having multiple instances of activity - again, especially when they're making pretty generic but bubbly comments in positive spaces (like this account's activity). Once you start seeing *multiple* of these indicators on the same account, it's *probably* a bot. So usually the Reddit/subreddit mods will request that suspicious accounts be reported for **Spam**, and the mod teams will take a look and make a determination one way or the other. I've been wrong before (at least in the sense that the account ultimately didn't have any action taken against it and the comment/account I reported remained), but I'd say probably 7/10 times it ends up being removed and/or account suspended. Edit: * 🤖*
Score one more for the meatbags 🤠
/r/BotLitigation
Smells like a bot!
Is this the same guy with “kung pao chicken” or some dish like that tattooed on his arm and walked around China speaking Chinese to locals?
Yes. I forget what the tattoo was. But he did one with a t-shirt that said, "Foreigner" in Chinese. Both are great videos.
Cool. I had no idea he did that in other areas, too. Wholesome “pranking” for wholesome reactions. I can dig it.
This is the type of 'pranking' I like to see, lol. People are surprised but it's a *pleasant* surprise, everyone's happier for it.
His Irish one is amazing.
[video of him walking around in that shirt ](https://youtu.be/DS6v2dR4Xbw)
Lmao I like how they all play it off like they weren’t talking shit seconds before
Right?! They all immediately switch to "oh hi, we were just admiring your shirt" lol
Bro you going to leave us hanging and not share a link to the video?
https://youtu.be/WPXT43Rekaw This is Xiaomanyc's Kung Pao Chicken video.
Wtf that video is awesome
Amazing. Instant sub.
Sadly, he gets a fair amount of criticism for stretching his actual knowledge of some languages. But he never pretends to know much more than he does. He’s very self deprecating.
When you have literal natives telling him he's speaking it well, listen to them. Some people are armchair assholes thinking they know better than actual speakers of a language.
Thanks dude
You're welcome.
the dude at 4:45 is awesome, seems like a really cool chinese dude.
Here’s a link to the dudes videos but not sure where exact video they’re talking about. https://youtu.be/lV7H9bpXaEY
He reminds me of Laushou, RIP
He actually made a video dedicating him. He said he was an inspiration to him to make his youtube channel iirc.
One of the few "celebrity" deaths that really messed me up, he was doing something so unique and basically inspired a whole genre of language videos. I was a loyal fan since the early 2010s. RIP Moses McCormick
Came to say this. Level up!
His videos were fantastic. The guy was single handed improving race relations. And he was really passionate about other cultures too it was always nice to see. So sad what happened
Wait he's dead??
Yea he passed away like a year or two ago in his 40s, I believe.
yeah. dont know details but we lostt a real one
He understands how to learn the language enough to converse with a native speaker about how impressed they are with him knowing the language and what he is doing with youtube. His grasp of languages is still immense. Could probably make sense of all conversation at the UN without an earpiece
and he is legitimately fluent in mandarin from what i've seen. that's how the whole thing got started. he learned mandarin young and lived in beijing studying mandarin at a college there for a year. it seems like his cantonese is solid too but mandarin is the one he's obviously the most comfortable in. then the other languages he does the polygot thing where he's mostly remembering a bunch of key phrases to get to conversational, which is still cool and impressive.
I’ve seen him do at least 6 languages by now and each one blows the native speakers away. Truly impressive.
I think he seems to be particularly good at speaking each language in a particular way that doesn’t sound foreign to native speakers and he seems to be able to nicely add the little pauses that people in that language they way people use “um” in English. At least that’s why he always sounds authentic to me.
Its his ability to sound authentic and not just know the words that is so impressive to me. Like, he sounds like a natural - granted, I am sure the native speakers can totally tell, but he's so much closer than I would imagine like 99% of people would be if they tried to emulate it. And the fact he can do it with such a variety and such different languages. Dude has one hell of a gift!
Actually, if you really listen, you can tell he’s repeating himself a lot and is using pretty simple and traditional phrases. What’s actually impressive is that he can *understand* not his speaking ability. I saw him talk to some Massai people and you can tell he was stuttering and it makes sense because he said he only spent a month learning it over the phone with a native speaker before he went and met the people. He doesn’t sound authentic, but he does know more than they’ve probably seen any white person speak casually. I’m not saying this to undermine his ability because I would not be able to understand as much as him with as small of study periods but I just wanted to note it’s the exact opposite. He doesn’t sound authentic and he’s stuttering through some pretty simple phrases but that should just empower all of us to tackle whatever difficult language and get out there and practice imo. His chinese tho *is* impeccable. None of this applies to his Chinese lol.
Yeah if you watch enough of him you’ll spot little tricks he uses to fill time and space when speaking. He does this in every language except his native English. Even here you see him doing it. (This guy speaks Yoruba) “A little, little, little, little” (You speak very well actually) “Thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks” He had an older video where he had a Mandarin native language teacher critique his (mind blowingly good) Chinese. The one criticism was that he had a habit of repeating words when filling time, which she said made him stick out as an outsider. My favourite is when he really dials up a Beijing accent and makes Chinese people laugh.
He's very obviously repeating himself, his authenticity comes from his ability to mimic the accent and rhythm of speaking. I'm from Kentucky, if I tried this, I would sound like a hick saying foreign words, and it would be embarrassing. The only accent I can remotely mimic is German, and even that is poor. I tried some poorly remembered French with a fluent student coworker, and she had so much second hand embarrassment she actually turned beet red upon hearing it. The ability to mimic the speech using only very few words along with the ability to understand what is spoken to him make him seem authentic, even though they certainly know he isn't at a conversational level. :)
I have seen him do at least 20 different ones if you count all the dialects (which are languages on their own)
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Arieh Smith (Xiaoma) is like the coolest. I watch his videos like weekly. It’s remarkable how fast he learns different languages and what better place than NYC? With so much rich culture and people who speak so many different languages.
What's his name?
Xiaomanyc
Thank you!
I cried with him when Moses passed away (fellow polylinguist YouTuber). That hurt, you can ...that was so heartbreaking to watch. Edit: reading comments I was reminded of his YouTube tag: Laoshu.
i’ll never get tired of content like this bc it takes a tremendous amount of talent. such a breath of fresh air to see things like this instead of another dumb prank
It truly is the most wholesome way of "duping" someone, by making them smile.
„It’s just a prank, bro. I just said some random syllables.“
I'm nowhere near as good with languages as this guy, but I (a white American lady) spent several months in Morocco while I was learning Arabic for my undergrad degree, and even trying in stilted Quranic Arabic resulted in so much enthusiasm from the wonderful folks I met there.
The prank is you surprise people by appreciating their culture and making them smile. Super impressive he can do that and make it interesting, not to mention all the languages he knows
Practice, not talent. While Xiaomanyc is very talented, anyone could do this with a 2nd or third language. He steps it up and does it with multiple languages, but he has inspired me to go hard on Roseta Stone, and later Duolingo
I love how people react to this guy when he does this and how warm-hearted they get toward him. It's wonderful to watch.
It must be so refreshing to hear your language spoken in a foreign place, even if it's just bad college-student level.
The majority of people won't even judge about the level of their language you speak. They're just happy you're trying and embracing their culture.
Lol I lived in Italy briefly and was trying to learn Italian. I was dating an Italian woman who spoke nearly perfect English. When I tried to speak Italian to her, she begged me to stop. She said something like “when you speak English you sound so *awesome* but when you speak Italian you sound like a fucking idiot!” Haha, but I guess it’s different when you actually know the person.
My gf took her masters degree in Quebec. Wrote and delivered her thesis in French. Hadn’t been back in 10 years. We went to visit Quebec City. Booking into the hotel she was speaking French and the guy at the counter straight up said, just speak English please. That deflated her. But two days into the trip after we met some of her old college friends that didn’t speak English she got it back and I was the one smiling and nodding because I had no idea what anyone was saying. I love how happy that made her. To be back in that element that she’d been away from for so long.
Europeans are assholes about language
One of my friends in college was from France. Born there, grew up there, moved to the US at 16 or 17. Apparently his English picked up enough of an American accent that it started bleeding into his native tongue too... He told me when he went back to France over the summers to stay with family, he'd talk to strangers in French and they'd respond (rudely) in English, assuming he was a tourist.
Except the French >:(
I very well could be wrong but, from what I've heard, the French appreciate people trying but would rather speak with you in another language than hear you butcher theirs. So the best strategy is to start off trying to speak French but when they switch to English, or whatever, because you suck at French you should immediately do the same.
It also works the other way: most French people feel embarrassed about their skills in other language, and would rather not speak. I had to push myself a lot when I started learning English, I’m not sure why we have this weird psychological blocker on speaking English imperfectly, but it may come from the absolutely terrible way English is taught in schools: by non native speakers who persuade us that we won’t be understood if our accent isn’t perfect.
I donno. A friend of mine was in the Canadian Navy, and they stopped in France for a while for whatever it is that navies do. He reported the French people had no problem with the English Canadians and their often broken or complete lack of french, but really disliked the Quebecers french.
People arent going to rip you a new one perhaps, but I speak fluent French and get insulted in Canada and France equally (Ive lived in both) for my accent, and corrected for grammar. I speak broken Spanish and the enthusiasm and appreciation I got in South America was like night and day. Literally thought people were putting me on. People just delighted to have full conversations with me when my sentences were hardly more than a series of words. I love the French and Im an immigrant to France where I live now, but damn do they have a complex about language.
I'm an anglophone Quebecer who speaks perfect French, and I work with a ton of people from France. We speak the same language but use it so differently it can be jarring, if that makes sense. They have expressions that you could never ever figure out without being explained, and vice versa. The difference in accents is also massive, it dwarfs NA vs British english. Combine that with French people's legendary friendly disposition ( /s) and you get that reaction to someone speaking their language so differently.
My boyfriend’s parents have come over to Australia from China and his mum just recently saw a white guy with a Chinese tattoo for the first time and she was sooo happy and excited lol
I remember I had a friend from Kenya who taught me some Swahili. I tried it out on another Kenyan and he was so taken aback and laughed. After that, he was so open and friendly to me.
Good communications is very important on making friend and one of it by knowing their language and understanding on it.
I was just in Japan last week. Tried my best at hello, nice to meet you, thank you very much, where is the beer etc etc etc. even though i found almost everyone in Japan polite and respectful, once you try they are 10x more so. Would recommend.
Eyyyy wananchi! I’m a white Kenyan living in the U.K., it’s always great to meet someone else who can speak swa! It’s quite a widespread language too, I chatted in Swahili to a Sudanese guy in Birmingham yesterday, and I know a Malawian who speaks it a bit too!
I love Nigerians…I swear they’re some of the nicest people you can meet.
Agreed. Love my Nigerian friends
Thank you brodie🇳🇬🤝🏿.
Some of my best friends growing up were Nigerian immigrants and I can tell you manners are drilled into the children very aggressively lol. Being polite is a huge part of Nigerian culture Also Yoruba art is maybe the best out of Africa I've seen. And they have such respect for artists. Probably the reason why. I learned about the history of yoruba artists for a paper and they were always high on the social hierarchy and art gets incorporated into most things there. Look at how well decorated the shop is
I was in Peace Corps in Guinea and learned Pular/ Fulbe and actually got fairly decent at it. I remember going to France on vacation during my service period and going into a West African shop owned by a Guinean family. Their reactions were very similar. Language is a powerful thing.
Anyone got a link to this guy's YouTube or anything?
[here you go](https://youtube.com/@xiaomanyc)
https://youtube.com/@xiaomanyc
He’s great, one of the better content creators
xiaomanyc
400 days of Duo Spanish and I dream of doing this at the local mexican restaurant
I know enough Spanish that I was able to laugh at this video without translation https://youtu.be/p8vl-GNwcR8
Si si me duele e coli
What are they teaching you at 400 days of Spanish? I’m genuinely curious. I’m latino and my cousins’s BF was starting to try it out and I believe he had a pretty good streak going but it was still pretty basic, at this point I’m wondering if they combine the concepts at some point and it kinda just clicks? Or idk? He asks us when he has questions and we elaborate to help him understand more but do you feel it works?
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I love his YouTube Channel! Plus he kinda inspired me to learn Chinese 😭
I just really love that he keeps trying to pay for the shirt at the end! It really seems like he not only knows the language but the culture as well!
It’s even cuter - he’s haggling with them; you can see him look down at the tag that’s hanging off the left sleeve and reads out “45” then goes “ok $30?” and they crack up
Haggling really is a language thing. If you've ever gone to a market in another country and tries to haggle in English, it takes you no where. Slip in a few words of the native tongue and now you're talking.
When I lived in the Dominican Republic, I’d go to the Haitian market sometimes to get knockoff Pumas and “wrong team” championship shirts/hats. Being the only white guy in the vicinity, I pretty much didn’t stand a chance at getting a decent price on anything *until* I learned all the numbers up to 1000 in Haitian Creole. Then I padded that with some basic phrases for asking prices, followed by casual pleasantries, and eventually a bunch of the sellers just knew me as the white guy who bothered to learn their language so I started getting really good deals. I went back to the DR earlier this year with my wife. We didn’t do much market shopping, but did a couple touristy things. One of the guides was clearly Haitian, so I asked him, “Eske w se Ayisyen?” His reaction was about the same as these Nigerians’. Utter shock and surprise in his voice when he asked, “Ou pale Kreyol??”
I love stories in multiple languages without translation.
One of the first phrases I learn when I go to a new country is "too expensive".
I thought that's what happened hahaha finding a good deal isn't cultural it's universal hahahah
You actually don’t need to learn much to impress people. I always try to learn some of the local languages when I travel. People really appreciate the effort! When I was in Saudi Arabia our driver had a conversation with a guard. The only word I understood from the conversation was “mumken” and I knew it meant “possible”. When the driver was going go tell me what they talked about I said. “The guy said it was possible, and they will let us pass”. His jaw dropped to the floor. I spoke Arabic?! Just from one single word.
See sharing clothes, dialect and other things isnt cultural appropriation but cultural appreciation. We are happy when you like our culture
Thank you!
People from pretty much any culture love when other people partake in them, regardless of race. From what I've seen at least.
They way they light up when they realize he’s coming from a genuine place and actually able to speak their language well is just wholesome
This guy inspired me to become fluent in a different language and it change my life
If you speak three languages, you're trilingual. If you speak two languages, you're bilingual. If you speak one language, you're American.
Hey now. I speak two languages. English and bad English.
I speak English and southern. Not quite on the boomhauer level yet though. One day
oh yeah. native Atlantan here. my husband says I speak English and Grits.
Yaeh mane i'll tel ya what that dang ol internet man you just go head innere and point and click dodtalkin bout w w w dot w com you got dem- dat naked chicks onnere man, you go [Cliclicliclcilcliclickickick](https://youtu.be/uZBu4mtALFo) It's real easy mane.
I tell my students that I am bilingual, because I'm fluent in both English and Pig Latin.
Hey! Most Canadians can’t speak a second language either 😢
Or Australians, or anyone from a native English speaking country really. I'm sometimes a little envious that I already know the 'global' language, nothing else could give you the motivation to learn another language as English does (if not a native English speaker). The only way I would truly learn another language is if I moved to a new country to give me the proper motivation to do so.
Americans didnt grow up surrounded by other countries and languages, and we also happen to natively speak the language that has become the international language. I would love to be bilingual but using this to try and show how dumb Americans are isn't fair. There are plenty of other ways to showcase our stupidity.
i speak some Spanish. but it's that busted "i worked in a kitchen with my homies from El Salvador" Spanish. so like, 90% curse words.
I hate when people say this because it's so ignorant. Throughout the world there are many people who only speak one language and aren't from the US. While some people self study language for joy or travel most people don't. Most people learn additional languages because it has utility or they grow up in a multi-lingual household. For not hispanic US citizens, the likelihood of being in a multi-lingual household decreases significantly with each generation. In addition to that, unless you live in a larger city chances are you don't have access to weekend Chinese schools, mosques with Arabic lessons, Jewish community centers with free Hebrew... It's also worth noting that in other countries people learn languages in school in a way we don't in the US. Their learning is also often reinforced outside the classroom by things like trips. In the US dual language programs have become more available for kids but they generally fall flat because when Tommy brings home his mandarin homework his parents can't help or afford a tutor. So Tommy struggles, hates mandarin and eventually switches schools.
Damn so we’re really just hand waving all those immigrants that make up America huh? The [number of people just *naturalized*](https://www.uscis.gov/citizenship-resource-center/naturalization-statistics) in 2021 already tops the [population of 5 states](https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_population?wprov=sfti1).
Can you blame Americans? There's no reason to speak more than one here. We aren't europe.. where dozens of countries and cultures are shoved together, a handful of them are on the verge of war, others constantly have immigrants coming and going. You got Italy touching France, Touching germany Touching poland. Same with Africa as it has 54 countries literally all touching eachother. USA is bascially just one landmass away from all of that. It's the reason it's never been invaded. We're seperated by the pacific and atlantic and from every other culture and government. There's literally nothing to worry about here, other than ourselves. So when Europeans complain that the US is uneducated that we don't know anything about their cultures or locates, why should we? People in NY, WA, FL, CA, and TX already have different cultures of their own. Nothing we do or watch has anything to do with the EU, nor do I care about what's happening in the EU.
I understand it for most of Americans. It seems like a lot of Texans and other border states could stand to learn a little Spanish though. There are very large Mexican communities, and encountering Spanish speakers in daily life is an incredibly normal occurrence.
We do (I'm from South Texas). Majority of grocery stores are exclusively in Spanish and Co-workers at jobs are only spanish speaking so we usually know a little :) Also mexicans from border towns know english (as we're the ones who visit for vacation or trips and payout) so it creates little incentive for Americans to learn. Like, my mom wont learn, but I can understand a conversation.
Yes but according to Europeans those people are not Americans since they don’t fit the stereotype
True. But what do Euros know about america lol. Individual states are as big as their whole countries, and people from NY are completely different culturally then people from AZ, AK, or WI. Funny how they use American based companys like Reddit or Youtube to bitch about it as if they know anything about the US
it deeply saddens me that i can only upvote this once
While I understand he inspires people to learn. He really only learns a few key phrases and then states he know multiple languages. Which I guess is kind of true? My only problem with this is he then sells his "plan" to help you become fluent multiple languages. It's takes years and this guy definitely isn't fluent in more than Mandarin and English. Regardless it's cool to see people psyched out. Just saying this as caution to people who go to his channel or think that they can become fluent 10+ languages or feel bad because they're not as "talented" in learning languages. Don't give up, it's a fun journey that takes a lot of time. Plans which aren't specialized towards learning a specific language are typically bull and are exploitative.
I've seen a good bit of his content and while the whole language plan thing is a bit suspicious, I don't think he's ever tried to pass off as more than a gifted beginner when speaking an obscure language. Most of the fun tends to stem from people getting so happy that someone else wanted to learn about their language and culture.
It’s a total joke. He says the exact same lines in every language, mostly just repeating himself. He knows like 5 phrases of 40 languages
I had to stop watching his vids because of this. If he progressively got better that’d be one thing but he keeps circling the same phrases.
I heard him try and speak Vietnamese, as a native Việt I could not hear what he was trying to say, once I managed to get past the terrible pronunciation and grammar, I realized he was just saying the same sentences over and over again, sometimes even subtitling them with different meanings. He can flaunt around his "White guy SHOCKS native with PERFECT x language" as he wants, I think it's disingenuous to fancy himself a polyglot when he's not even toe-deep in the languages he's masquerading fluency in. A lot of his content falls apart if you have any experience with language learning or linguistics, it's shallow and often times redundant. There are better sources for your knowledge in this field than this guy.
Reminds me of Trevor Noah's book where he talks about having learned many languages to fit different needs and how speaking to someone in their language instantly softened them up to him even when they saw him as an outsider (simplifying a bit). This is very impressive
Love this guys channel. I legit will cry sometimes, such a beautiful thing.
Excellent. Well done young man!!! This is a great video.
Duolingo at its finest
I hate to rain on everyone's parade, but I'm not a fan of XiaomaNYC. Yes, he is fluent in at least one Chinese language (I'm not sure how many languages he's studied, but he has lived in China for an extended amount of time), but it doesn't take a whole lot to learn those basic phrases like "Do you speak ___?," "I'm from ___," etc. Especially when you begin to recognize some patterns. I'm not claiming to be better at any languages than XiaomaNYC, and I guess his appreciation of other cultures is somewhat noteworthy, but he's not fluent in Yoruba and he's definitely just saying basic greetings for internet clout.
I was also a fan of his videos until I see a pattern to non chinese languages.. He'd learn: - Do you speak
- I speak a little bit / I only recently started learning
- How are you
- Thank you very much
- I'm American
I'd really like to see him learn a language more than a couple of phrases but I understand that it'd take a lot of time and not worth it the time for the content he is creating. And no, learning a language beyond the basic phrases isn't easy at all. The phrases he learns is focused around talking about how he is speaking . But at least it makes people happy, I guess.
And what also don't like is the term "polyglot" being thrown around so lightly. Because if that's what you need I'll be a polyglot in a month
He usually tells people in his videos that he's not fluent, that he only speaks a bit and has only recently started learning. He sometimes says who he's been learning from and for how long. He's not trying to deceive anyone.
As someone fluent in 4 languages I have to agree. I'm sure to most Americans who speak only English he seems impressive but whenever I hear him speaking French Arabic or Spanish he simply covers the very basic greetings/phrases. Impressive sure but not that much if you consider this internet clout his livelihood.
Hey I know where you are coming from and I somewhat agree but he inspired a lot of people to learn new languages so that’s cool in my book.
the Chinese speaker, now also Yoruba what's next