The CRAZIEST stories from my time at Rosetta Stone in Grand Central Terminal New York City

I spent almost 5 years working in a hallway in Grand Central Terminal in NYC for a language learning software company, trying to become a HYPERPOLYGLOT. The company was great , and my colleagues were wonderful, but Grand Central is insanity. These are my stories.

[cliffenyprize]

I haven't seen a storytime video this great since 2038, keep it up!

[geraltofrivia]

"Breakfast to everyone" is how you greet someone in East Allemania.

[SanjayMerchant]

As someone who did occasionally busk in Graybar Passage around 2009, I apologize for however many times you had to hear me sing "Ah, mes amis."

[The_Lord_Of_Confusion]

the time travel guy story is quite funny, I have to use that line sometimes to see what happens

[anidnmeno]

"seeking satisfaction through self gratification" i love it

[nqldaro]

Fun video :) Did you notice if the time traveler had any discernable accent? Curious if English sound changes in the parallel timeline evolved the same as in ours.

[sjoerdglaser]

You've probably already heard this before. But 'breakfast for everybody' in Dutch is more like 'ontbijt VOOR iedereen' instead of NAAR. With 'voor' it's more like 'to' as in: 'bring breakbast to everybody'. While 'voor' is more like a wish. As in a round of beer in a pub 'beers for everyone!'

[Ledturbeaux]

I walked past this kiosk everyday for years

[JCtheMusicMan_]

Awesome tales! As an unemployed jazz musician and hobby linguist who wished I had a PhD in linguistics, I am thoroughly entertained and educated by your videos!

[GroovingPict]

how did Wallace Shawn react to that? like, you quote his undoubtedly most famous line to him, and he goes something like "hah, yeah, good one, so you recognised me huh", and you go "what on earth are you talking about?"... must have been confusing :p

[AaronQuitta]

Cool video! Would you be willing to do a video going over your thesis at some point?

[davekaiser]

Best wacky language story:

On an overnight train to nowhere in Russia, a Russian man, completely shitfaced, jams a hunting knife onto the table in our room, so that the knife is quivering back n forth, then says “let me tell you about my wife…and her lover.”

[empresagabriel]

Amazing stories. It's crazy how life happens and stories unfold unexpectedly at a daily pace.

[jazzygiraffe]

It's so cool you've been a jazz musician at some point because I've really been enjoying your videos and have been quite fascinated with language learning for a while now but am planning on studying jazz music at university :)

[hodelhophopp]

Please do talk about the story in Rome with the mafiosi

[hybrismc]

....alright, more stories please. Any stories.

[bigscarysteve]

I'm not sure what Rosetta Stone was doing in Grand Central Station. Were you providing on-the-spot translation services? Or were you simply trying to sell the software?
I saw a free trial of Rosetta Stone somewhere--a very long time ago. From what I saw, it looked to me as if it were simply a mnemonic system that someone had come up with and decided to use for language learning specifically, when it probably could have been used for anything. I wasn't particularly impressed with that, so I never bought it. It seems to me that Rosetta Stone's success has more to do with aggressive marketing than with the actual success of the program. Then again, I don't like Pimsleur either. In fact, I'm not really happy with any approach to language learning that I've ever been presented with. I try to come up with my own, since that seems to work better for me than anything anybody else comes up with.

[Thermobyte]

It could be a time traveler. Alternatively however, that's a great bit to pull on unsuspecting strangers.

[topilinkala]

We are all time travellers. My speed is 1s/1s forward most of the time. You know it speeds up when you move faster. Acceleration speeds it up also.

[paulwalther]

You've gotten me thinking of trying out my lifetime subscription I've been ignoring for years.

*edit*
Alright. The iPhone app still feels like a lazy port from the PC version. It’s much better on the iPad or PC but it is confusing why they didn’t revise the phone app to compete with Duolingo etc.