#tim doner

Well, I don’t know much about him, though I remember watching his video speaking 20+ languages, and I watched his TEDx talk. So, for the sake of this question and because I got curious, I read a couple articles about him and rewatched his talk so I could give a better opinion about him.

First of all I think that being fluent in the language he himself say he is, which are 6 (Arabic, Persian, French, German, Mandarin Chinese and Modern Hebrew), isn’t impossible or crazy. It is impressive but if you’ve had it for a hobby for years, well, of course you can do it. Still impressive though.

However, I am a little skeptical about him speaking a huge amount of other languages. It is true he doesn’t call himself fluent or even that conversational in all of them, so to me he just has some knowledge and understanding in most of them, and maybe better skills in speaking or understanding a bit more in some.

I guess some people may believe he learned some languages like Arabic too fast. Well, I know I was able to go from A0 to A1 in almost 2 months, and from A1 to A2 in the same time. It’s not the same as Arabic, and I already had some knowledge in French that was in the back of my head from my first years of high school. And yes being Spanish can help. But still, I think it’s impressive but totally possible.

I have to point out though, that you can never know the level a person has in a language just because they say they are fluent, or they are intermediate and things like that. There are tons of definitions for “fluent”, and people call can “intermediate” different things. So nobody really knows how much he really knows in the other languages he doesn’t consider himself that good at, I guess.

That being said, I like his attitude and how he talks about languages in general. I also think his intentions are good and he truly loves what he does. He is in fact getting into linguistics because he likes the field, which kind of goes in hand with his curiosity about learning many different languages, in my opinion. Also, I like how he includes the use of methods like using mnemonics.

And just a little touch about pronunciation and how he stated he has, sort of and easy time with it. I understand that, to be honest. I’m not claiming I’m perfect but I have realized that I seem to pick up pronunciation patterns easier and faster than the people around me. My teachers usually compliment me (again, it’s not my ego talking 😅) because my “accent” or pronunciation are good, fast. In fact, I was never called to read in French class in high school because my teacher thought I didn’t need that practice because I could already read without pronunciation mistakes. That seriously broke my heart because I loved doing it hahaha

Tim Doner, TEDXTEEN

“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. if you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.” - Nelson Mandela

Language is an ordinary thing because we use it on a regular basis yet it’s extraordinary at the same time because of its elaborative growth from its roots. The continuous development and creativity of each and every language are what makes it difficult for an individual to learn it wholly without leaving anything out. Hence, language is infinite.

MY FRIEND GOES TO HARVARD UNIVERSITY and I was casually creeping on her facebook page and looked at her friends AND SHE’S FRIENDS WITH TIMOTHY DONER AND THIS IS NOT A DRILL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!