AMAZING! 13 year old polyglot speaks 20 languages

[Kraut]

AMAZING! 13 year old polyglot speaks 20 languages

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFrkkqjPodc

Wouter Corduwener

This polyglot speaks most languages better than me.

[tarvos]

She's better than he is.

[Kraut]

She's better than he is.

It seems unrehearsed and he is flabbergasted and admits it.

[Querneus]

Judging from the comments, it appears she's rather bad at most of her languages. She makes many mistakes in her Spanish, but at least in this language I see her holding her ground find and getting meaning across well. Her accent is in fact some mix of Mexican and Venezuelan with... I guess some clearly pronounced vowels learned from her other languages. Her intonation is not native-like, but it isn't English-like either (unlike Wouter's, who uses a very English-y intonation).

Her Mandarin is basically relexified English, and she often gets tones wrong. I find it interesting she confuses Mandarin 的 de and the Spanish preposition "de" 'of, from':

(2:33) 我有朋友 de 中国是和台湾。 wǒ yǒu péngyǒu de zhōngguó shi he tāiwan
word-for-word: "I have friend(s) from China (be) and Taiwan"

The correct pronunciation of "Taiwan" is Táiwān, and this literal translation from English just doesn't work. A couple correct ways of saying it in Mandarin (among others) would be:

我有朋友从中国和台湾来。 wǒ yǒu péngyǒu cóng zhōngguó hé táiwān lái
word-for-word: "I have friend(s) from China and Taiwan come"

我有中国人朋友和台湾人朋友。wǒ yǒu zhōngguórén péngyǒu hé táiwānrén péngyǒu
word-for-word: "I have China-person friend(s) and Taiwan-person friend(s)"



I don't mean to attack her linguistic skills in particular or anything. It's just what it is. A child who's spent some time with tutors or classes and has learned a few things, but otherwise has not spent an amount of time in countries where other languages are spoken, except maybe Spanish and Japanese...? Maybe she can take what she has begun further in later years. I don't know whether she claims to speak all these languages well, or to just speak them, or whether she understands what it is to claim that at all; the claim may be Wouter's.

At any rate, the video is pretty amusing. Really, the one and only thing that irked me a little bit is how much she just brags about having friends here and there throughout the video. Although it might not even be bragging... Not sure.

She's better than he is.

I'd say he's better at Spanish and Mandarin than she is actually, although he definitely has less confidence than she does, his accent is not as good as hers in Spanish, and his Mandarin is also too literally translated from English. He seemingly encounters a vocab gap in his Spanish mid-video, "to order (food)", making up for it by saying:

(1:10) ¿...tú eres la persona que por ejemplo puede hablar en el restaurante cuando necesita un agua [sic] o una hamburguesa?
'Are you the person that, for example, can speak at a restaurant when he needs a [sic] water or a hamburger?' (i.e. "when he needs to order (-/the/his food)")

...which is fine in my books really. Although I wonder what language or dialect of English Wouter's L1 is that he says, and later on writes, "a water", meaning presumably "a glass of water"... I'm not familiar with this usage, and checking a few reference dictionaries it is often absent, but interestingly English Wiktionary currently includes it without a dialectal tag ("Just a water, please").

[chove]

I think Wouter is a native Dutch speaker?

[Axon]

Although I wonder what language or dialect of English Wouter's L1 is that he says, and later on writes, "a water", meaning presumably "a glass of water"... I'm not familiar with this usage, and checking a few reference dictionaries it is often absent, but interestingly English Wiktionary currently includes it without a dialectal tag ("Just a water, please").

This is normal in my dialect of California English, referring to ordering a glass of water at a restaurant or getting a single prepackaged bottle of water. It would sound a bit odd for me referring to tap or filtered water in a reusable bottle or plastic cup with lid and straw, though I guess it could work. It certainly would sound unnatural to say "a water" and mean a tiny paper cup or a huge jug for home use.

I believe Wouter's L1 is Dutch, not English.

[Arnaud]

Their French isn't amazing.
13 years old polyglot speaks 19 languages.

[tarvos]

The Finnish isn't amazing either, but so what

[tungemål]

That was fun. She obviously has a special talent. Don't be so critical of her; she is only 13. And remember, she might read this thread, and could potentially become a member of the forum.

[tarvos]

She'll get there if she wants to.

I think Wouter is a native Dutch speaker?

He is, and it shows.