Breaking the language barrier | Tim Doner | TEDxTeen 2014

Tim Doner is a senior at the Dalton School in New York City who has studied over 20 languages. His interest started at the age of 13, after several years of French and Latin, when he began learning Hebrew and soon moved on to more obscure tongues such as Pashto, Ojibwe and Swahili. As he describes it, his goal is not to achieve fluency in each, but rather to learn about foreign history and culture through the medium of language. He spends much of his time perfecting his linguistic skills in different neighborhoods around the city, and to date his Youtube channel has received over 3 million hits. Tim has been interviewed (in English, Mandarin, Arabic and Farsi, among others) for media outlets such as The New York Times, BBC, The Today Show, Reuters and The Economist. He is starting his freshman year at Harvard next year and plans to study linguistics.

[arthurmorgan]

*He is fluent in Italian hand movement*

[diegoquintanaCL]

Well not only does he speak 20 languages, he's also a great public speaker!

[alongcat]

"Knowing a language is a lot more than knowing a couple words out of the dictionary". Well said Tim.

[matitecoloratebaneswitch]

"You can translate words easily, but you can't quite translate meaning." - Tim Doner, 2014.

[esraahk]

"you cant translate meaning" this is true

[marloveskitties]

I speak Finnish, English, Tagalog and Japanese fluently right now. He's a huge inspiration to me. I'm aspiring to be like him. Right now I'm 13, so I got a looong way ahead of me.

[onim]

"they told me to do a little kid with a lisp but i wanted to do darth vader with a french accent"

this guy is fucking golden

[saraelizabethcasillaslopez]

I'M LEARNING ENGLISH AND I COULD UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING WITHOUT SUBTITLE. I LOVED HIM :)
GREETINGS FROM MEXICO

[ruispuuro]

Language is everything. It is a mindset. Just like the guy said. When i speak english i loosen up and become a more relaxed fellow, a fun guy. When i speak my mother tongue (finnish) i try to be rational and efficient. When i speak swedish i become more scandinavian, perhaps friendlier and less serious. When i speak german i try to follow the etiquette closely and be very polite.

[essisuomalainen]

Tim Doner is bae
He's handsome, intelligent, kinda witty and he likes languages
it's a shame he's three years older than me and lives across the globe

[aseelal-bokhari]

Omggg! My mother tongue is Arabic, and his Arabic was on point.
And his speech was truly inspiring, as well as humorous. I truly enjoyed it.

[JURIGOLDFINGER]

I am from germany and his german was 👌

[cjwoderstruck]

His last line is very true: You can translate words, but you can't translate meaning.

[meandsam]

I had a chance to meet him and he's so friendly :) he inspired me so much

[pethaudiddorol]

every english-speaking monolingual needs to see this

[octolearn]

I'm the same age as this guy and when I first discovered him 4 years ago, instead of getting disappointed in myself and feeling useless like some people here in the comment section, I got inspired. He showed me a possibility which I took to action and now I'm tackling my 4th language so far. I'm not as proficient as him but becoming fluent as fluent can be in 6 languages is my goal for now. It's best to compete with yourself and get better than your previous self from the day before. Don't compare yourself with 1 or 2 exceptional people and get discouraged.

[gusjohnnson]

I know a guy who knows like 18 languages.



Java, C, C++, C#, Python, Ruby....

[zahrayari]

As an Iranian, I dare to say his persian accent is beautiful 😍

[KrimsKramsKiste]

I WAS DRINKING WATER WHEN HE SAID ECONOMY, INDEPENDENCE AND DOWNFALL AND I CHOKED HOLY DANG HOW SMOOTH

[arwenbarrett]

Mom: hey there watcha watching?

me: oh nothing it's fine *runs upstairs to my room and starts violently learning icelandic*