Meeting Teenage Polyglot Tim Doner in New York

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I traveled to New York to meet Tim Doner. Tim is probably the youngest person in the world who has the ability to speak over 20 languages. He might not be fluent in all of them but he speaks very comfortably in French, Arabic, German, Farsi, Hebrew, Chinese and a few more. In this video we talk about how he learns languages and also short conversations in Dutch/French, German and Mandarin Chinese. Enjoy!

[SpeakingFluently]

Great video, Jan!  Lovely to see you and Tim together in NYC.  :)

[shimashr]

I speak Farsi, and I'd love to meet him someday, he's such an inspiration to me, he literally made me wanna learn Spanish and I'm learning since

[elenarichards]

Tim Doner is such an inspirational guy, I'd love to meet him

[Lestry]

Tim is one of the biggest inspiration for me, so nice to see a new video.

[oleanderpink]

What is interesting is how fast he builds up vocabulary. That usually takes time and experience.

[fim]

Fantastic editing work Jan - my favourite video with Tim! All you are missing is an external mic to keep background noise down and it's as good as TV quality!

Best polyglot interview series yet!

[AngelGarcia-kjes]

Grâce à Tim j'ai découvert une passion, les langues, malgré que j'en parle 8, pas 20 comme lui (espagnol, français, allemand, catalan, russe, italien, grec et anglais)

[thesandman]

I would still like to know what Tim's level of all those languages is (see my other comments Re levels and fluency in the comments to his TED talks speech). Has he taken any tests? Has he passed them (the ones he's taken)? What level did they place him to? Does anyone know?
From what I can judge (e.g. from German in this video), Tim has a great ability to imitate foreign accents. Which is definitely of a great advantage in foreign language learning. But that's not all. Other categories in foreign language learning would be vocabulary, idiomatic expressions, writing essays, listening comprehension etc. 
Well, his German does sound fließend (fluent), but it's still talking about everyday stuff only: "Before I went to Germany, I learned from textbooks, I rented a flat in Berlin, I went to a course" etc. 
It's pretty amazing if he can say something like that in 20+ language, sure. But I'd still like to know at what level his overall knowledge in a certain language would put him. It's quite impossible to judge from a few sentences. 

[tierfeio]

i owe too much to Tim Donner!  i came across to indonesian and and many materials i use because of him!  in that video he speaks 20 languages i liked to pause and write down the name of the books he uses and i´ve bought!!   this guy is my inspiration!!!

[beardan]

This young bloke has done really well. My language learning is less impressive but I am fluent in counting to 10 in 5 languages and picked up Spanish cause my kids love to watch Dora the Explorer. 

[BobHendriksMusic]

People like this, and especially the spread of people like this through media, are great for the world. Tim
And you for uploading this video are helping advance interest and therefore knowledge in the world. All of us that wish to learn another language in order to communicate with more people are more than inspired by this man.

[robertojuarezsoto]

great interview with Tim this young man is a Genius to be able to speak over 23 languages!!! im 61yrs and it has taking me a life time to learn italiano, french, and portugués in addittion to my native spanish and English ill retire next year and im taking Germán, arabic,andrussian hopefully learn them since i dont hace to work no more

[juliánito]

Wow it's really cool that you both could converse in Chinese, I'm always surprised by people who have romance languages as their mother tongue to be able to converse so fluently in Chinese as it's a totally different language in writing and pronounciation. Great job :)

[litniydosch]

Really interesting and professionally-done! 

[nicholashethersay]

This video is brilliant.:) And that book store!:D looks like heaven to me. If anyone can point me to a store like that in london i be greatful. Where i live tey have very small language sections which i think is a shame. Thanks for the encouragment i look foward to more videos :D

[moncha]

You are one of the coolest guys I've found on youtube!

[slmxoxo]

Nice video. It's nice to get an update on Tim since he doesn't make many videos.

[PassionforDreaming]

I would love to meet Tim or any of the other huge polyglots. I speak 4 languages (English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese) but I'm also studying Korean

[jaderleal]

You should have another interview with Tim! It'd be awesome, Jan!

[HobbyLinguist]

I like how you don't overestimate his ability like most reports seem to do. It must be horrible for him to be accused of being a fraud because people falsely report a higher ability than he claims. By the way, in the last shot, I wanted to tell you to turn right around and not forget your camera! ^^