Vaughn Smith on Life as a Hyperpolyglot

Hi, CWT listeners. I'd like to share an opportunity with you. When's the last time you wrote someone a thank you letter? Well, the Crazy Good Turns podcast recently opened a recognition program where you can send someone a thank you letter and a $50 gift card at no cost to you. Crazy Good Turns believes in recognizing people who who do generous things for others. Founded by former Home Depot CEO Frank Blake, the Crazy Good Turns podcast is a show for people who want to hear stories about good deeds. I've appeared on their podcast in the past. To send your $50 thank you, go to crazygoodturns.org/thankyou. That's crazygoodturns.org/thankyou. Conversations with Tyler is produced by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, bridging the gap between academic ideas and real-world problems. Learn more at mercatus.org. For a full transcript of every conversation enhanced with helpful links, visit conversationswithtyler.com. Hello everyone, and welcome back to Conversations with Tyler. Today I am honored to be here with Vaughn Smith, who is a hyperpolyglot, and he lives in nearby Maryland. Vaughn, welcome.

Thank you.

How many different languages do you dream in?

Dream? Let's see, I think I've had dreams in about 10 languages or so.

And what would those be?

Recently I was dreaming in Czech. I think I had some Latvian words sprinkled in there. I dream in Nahuatl, Spanish, Russian, English, of course, some others. I can't exactly remember. It might've been a long time ago. Slovak. I have dreamed in Slovak. I was speaking to somebody in Slovak in my dream, of course. And that's about all I can remember right now.

And to varying degrees, how many languages would you think you have at least a beginner's grasp of?

At least a beginner's grasp of?

Yes.

That would be about 36 or so.

And fluent in?

Fluent in about 8.

About 8. What's your history with being a hyperpolyglot? Did you wake up one morning and you're 5 years old and you just start learning other languages, or you realized in school you were good at this, or how did this happen?

Slowly a realization, you know, I grew up bilingual when I was very young because my mother—

English and Spanish.

English and Spanish, yeah. My mother would take us to Mexico and learn Spanish there, come back. So as far as I remember being bilingual, and then I think when I was about, let's say 11, I took an interest in learning French. And when I was about 13, in school, started learning German just on my own.

And this was not directed by the school. You just did it.

No, it was not directed by the school. So it started with my mother having material in French, my mother's fascination herself with the French language.

And did they make you take language classes in school? Was that a form of torture or you enjoyed it or?

No, no one made me take any classes. I didn't take any classes. I simply just started out of my own interest.

And was there this moment in your life where you think, well, I'm going to do this as a thing, or just you kept on going and here you are, you know, dreaming and speaking however many languages?

When I was about 15, leaving Alice Steele Junior High School, going to Wilson, that's when I decided, okay, I want to do this. I want to learn more languages. And this is going to be my thing. This is going to be something that I'm good at. I can see that I can learn it pretty quickly. My peers are telling me, wow, I've got good pronunciation. I can memorize the words, the vocabulary pretty fast. So that was the turning point.

Which languages of those you know, do you think are best for expressions of humor?

Expressions of humor. Definitely Spanish, Russian, to a degree Finnish. I think those three.

What makes Spanish and Russian good for humor?

Spanish, what we are from, particularly the Mexican Spanish variety that we speak, which is from, uh, Orizaba, Veracruz state. It's a very vulgar and a very colloquial Spanish and every other sentence that anybody says on a regular daily basis is either some sort of insult or a pun on something, a metaphor, and it's a very rich language in that sense.

And Russian?

Russian, so as like the Russian friends that I learned from are also very witty and they enjoy, you know, telling jokes all the time.

Mucha, what makes Nahuatl such a beautiful language?

Nahuatl is, I think it's just the sound, the way it flows. It's a very quickly spoken language, and when I'm listening to it, when I speak it, it's just kind of puts me in the place. And the place where it's spoken is a very beautiful, lush, mountainous, natural, bucolic place. And I've never spoken Nahuatl that associates with someplace boring. There's nothing boring about it. And the people are very friendly when they speak the Nahuatl language. And I think those things kind of like give me the picture of Nahuatl being beautiful.

It also has this very rich civilization behind it, which is not in every way still there today, but unlike a lot of languages spoken only by, say, 2 million people, it was language of an empire, right?

Absolutely.

Could you say something for us in Nahuatl?

Senoyoliknitl, Yetxantiné, Awilisapan, Ipansé, Achitzin, Altepetl, Itoka, San Rafael Delgado, Noso, San Juan del Río.

And Nahuatl varies a lot from village to village. How do you decide which one to learn?

I learned the one that was closest to me, the variation.

Physically closest to you?

Well, when I talk about this, you know, I'm sorry, let me back up a little bit. So I forget to mention that for a part of each year, I live in Mexico in Orizaba. That's my home.

Yes.

Mother's hometown, and just south of the city, about like a 10-15 minute bus ride, is the village of Rafael Delgado. That's where everybody speaks it on the street.

That's—

they speak mostly Nahuatl, and then Spanish is secondary to them. So that would be— that's the proximity that gives me that, plus the fact that it's a distant cousin of mine who is a professor of the Nahuatl language who taught me.

And do you try to study written Nahuatl? That's hard to do, right? There just isn't that much, or? You just speak it and that's it.

Now, when you say written Nahuatl, you're talking about the phonology that's the Latin characters?

That the Spaniards imposed on Nahuatl in varying forms, you know, after the conquest.

That's not difficult for me at all, no.

So you could read something in Nahuatl?

I could write it perfectly, yes.

Yeah, okay, great.

As far as the actual words that I know, if there's some new word, I might have to find out. But usually, if I go by pronunciation, then I can write pretty much anything.

Do you think it's more fundamental to your learning the written form of the language or the spoken? Spoken. Spoken.

Spoken.

And then you move to figuring out how to read it.

Yes.

Do you feel you think different thoughts in different languages?

Yes, I do.

And how does that operate?

I don't know. I think when I get angry, somebody cuts me off or something, I'll curse out in Slovak. And I think that the reason for that is because when I lived with Dušan and Tanya Pavelkovi, They were the people from Slovakia, Eastern Slovaks, vyhodniarya, that's what we call them. Eastern Slovaks are known for their aggressive demeanor, just hot-blooded people, and they're always cursing and swearing, and when they get upset, they always have something to say, which is pretty nasty. And I picked up on this a lot because I spent every day working with these people, and it pretty much picked up as a habit. I'm driving, someone cuts me off, it's like, I don't want to say it because, you know, they would be bad words. Прысахом по ХУ, like, "I swear to God," that sort of thing. And that's just like a lighter version of what they say, but ТОБИНЯРОБЫЛАНИ ПОСЛАНЮХИУ. Just like it stuck with me over the years. So that would be one of the examples. Yeah. Feelings of little fits of rage here and there. They come out in Slovak a lot. Even if I'm in Mexico, I'll say it.

Yeah. Now, when I hear Russian, and Russian is a language spoken in my home, though not by me, it often sounds to me like the people are angry. When you speak Russian, do you sound more like you're angry?

When I speak Russian, you know, I tell people this when I'm teaching them Russian or tutoring Russian, Russian is a loud language. Just taking into consideration the majority of the people that I've met that speak Russian, it's always loud. It's like, it's twice the energy output when someone's speaking Russian, even if you're just at a table at the house.

Yep. Do you read much historical linguistics or you just focus on learning languages?

I focus on learning languages and periodically I'll delve into the history of linguistics. One of my favorite books is one that was sent to me by Niule Skripskaite. She's a Lithuanian and she sent me a book called The History of the Lithuanian Language. And it's a very fascinating read. I haven't read the whole thing from front to back, but I'll read little chapters here and there when I have some free time and I look into it. And it goes into the older Baltic variants that were much closer to, well, I guess what people consider Sanskrit, for example, some of the loanwords from Old Norse and other interesting little facts of how the words are put together.

So something like Chomsky on structural linguistics. Do you have an opinion on that?

I have not read the book.

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis?

I'm not familiar with it.

Do you think the Romance languages are in fact better for romance?

No.

What's the best language for romance and why?

I don't think about it that way. What's the best language for romance? I guess any language has a capacity of being romantic. If you're thinking about romantic feelings of, you know, couples getting in love, that sort of thing.

Yeah.

No, I've even— Finnish is more romantic to me than, than say Portuguese.

That's amazing. And what makes Finnish so romantic relative to Portuguese?

Well, I had a girlfriend who taught me Finnish.

Ah, that will do it. Yeah. Which kinds of languages are hardest for you to learn?

What kinds of languages?

Like, would it be tonal, agglutinative, you know, click languages, or?

I think, you know, when I study a language, grammar is super important to me. So I think it's always like, I don't have a problem with pronunciation. I can learn different writing scripts. That's fine. So I think the two biggest challenges here for me would be something that's a very complicated grammar. For example, Estonian or Finnish. Hungarian and Lithuanian, I think to me are grammatically very challenging. And as far as orthography and writing systems, certainly Chinese symbols, Chinese characters, Mandarin characters would prove difficult because there's a lot more to memorize.

What do you think has been for you the hardest language to learn?

The hardest language for me to learn, I would say Hungarian.

And what makes Hungarian so hard?

Several noun cases and a very rich vocabulary, very large vocabulary, and a lot more words are in regular use to say specific things more so than say any of the Germanic languages. An opposite of that would be, for example, Norwegian was super easy. You just have one little word. It doesn't change. It doesn't inflect. The verb, the person of the verb is the same and no matter who is it that does it, there's simply the infinitive form. There's the past participle. And then there's the present, which you'd simply put the letter R after the vowel of the infinitive. And that's, you know, grammatically, just giving an example of how easy it is for me to learn Norwegian grammar. Everything is difficult about Hungarian. As the case is knowing what case, the singular, the plural form. The verb changes when the recipient of the verb, if it's in the first person verb, it changes when the recipient is in the second person singular. "Seret nelek" instead of "seret nek," for example. "Seret nelek," "I like you," or "Seret nek," "I like." And these little nuances and all these exceptions to rules and irregularities that make the language grammar very difficult.

Do you ever learn languages through music?

Yes, I can say that.

By singing, by listening to songs, or how do you do it? Translating lyrics, listening?

Listening. I started with when I was back at Wilson High School, I met Sergei Kuznetsov and he loved music and he gave me these tapes. This is the early '90s, everybody used cassette tapes. He gave me these cassette tapes with bands like Kino Krematory, Nautilus Pampilius, Russian bands. And from there I would listen and already some of the words I could recognize, you know, little words here and there, but then I started putting it together. If I listened to the songs, if I knew about 50% of the vocabulary of a sentence, I could figure out the rest of it. And I could guess some of the words, uh, or at least bracket down the possible meanings of certain words and later find out, oh, okay, it was this or it was that. It meant this. And certainly a lot of. Other music that I get from Czech and Slovak, I decipher it the same way.

How do you think about your own memory? Do you feel you have a good memory for all things or just languages or the variance of your memory is high or what's your own model of that?

I have a good memory for languages certainly, but also for numbers, words, directions, how to get places, good land navigation. As far as things that are difficult for me to remember, it's difficult for me to remember I find it sometimes schedule memory. For example, someone would say, hey, Vaughn, at 7 o'clock on Saturday, do this. And the time would come around. I'm not thinking about it. It's simply, that's an attention span thing. It's not like the recollection, but it's simply not catching something at the time when it was scheduled. Now, of course, I have a calendar. I put everything in the calendar, so it's not a problem. But that was a difficulty for me prior to that.

I have a good memory for economic arguments, but I have a very poor episodic memory. That is, I don't remember episodes from my life very well. And it's hard for me to tell stories from them. Does that sound familiar to you at all?

Not really, no.

So you have good episodic memory.

I have good episodic memory.

Yes, that's good. The other hyperpolyglots, I mean, do you know them? You're like, what's up with them? Or just like you read about them once and that's it.

I'll see some here and there. Uh, I met Richard Simcott via Skype. So I've met him, spoken with him. That was while the Washington Post article was being written.

And are they fun? Like, are those the people you hang out with or they're just another group of people.

Well, Richard Simcott, I've never hung out with him in person, but I really enjoyed the conversation and I made plans to meet with him in Mexico in October for the Polyglot Conference that he is hosting. But other than that, I have not met polyglots that know more than, say, 8 languages or so. And the ones that I do that know some languages, we have a meeting that we do every Sunday, the District Language Exchange, and it happens at different places typically on Sundays at about 5:00 PM. We used to meet at Meridian Hill Park on 16th Street. Northwest DC, we'll meet at places such as Dacha Biergarten. And when I'll meet with someone, it's really fun to just skip from language to language. And we're just kind of like, yeah, we're practicing. We're impressing all these other people that are standing around us looking at us. And it's always fun to just put, okay, I know this one too. And we'll jump from this to that. Yeah. Not people that I hang out with on a daily basis. I don't have a close friend that's a polyglot, nor do I have a close friend that regularly that would speak more than 5 languages.

How many hyperpolyglots do you think there are?

I don't— I have no idea.

But we know what, a few hundred? A thousand at least.

A thousand at least. A thousand at least. That's what I would imagine.

And is it your intuition that everyone who has that skill learns it and does it, or is there some expanse of people out there who could do it but somehow have never been attuned to it?

I agree with that second possibility. There are people that are simply— they have the capacity, but they just don't live in a place where they're exposed to other languages, and they might not. Participate in active language learning to the degree that I have or that other hyperpolyglots have. They might use superior memory capabilities for other things.

How does language retention differ from language acquisition, or is it just the same?

It's—

Do you have to maintain languages or they just stick with you?

So I'll give an example. Recently, I think it was 2 weeks ago, I was in front of the Bulgarian embassy and it was a Saturday that the European Union embassies were having their open house and we were going from embassy to embassy. I went to the Latvian embassy, had a pretty good conversation, and I realized I had not spoken Latvian for more than 15 years, but I was still able to converse.

Yeah.

Some of the words, they're there, but it might take me some time to think about the words. Like, okay, well, that word is "saldaiums" or "jautaiums." Little simple words like that. Actually, those are poor examples because those are words that I know too well, but "izveicināt," they would just come slowly. It's just a matter of just putting myself in the place of the language. And it's kind of like a slow computer rebooting information, bring it to the forefront so that it's ready for use. Bulgarian was the same thing. I was in front of the Bulgarian embassy and then someone comes up and I had not spoken Bulgarian for about 10 years or so. And here I am having a conversation in Bulgarian again, but it was a lot faster than, for example, the Latvian conversation for the Latvian embassy. So in answer to that, I don't have a problem memorizing the words that I've studied well, but some of them, if I'm learning new words, then of course I have to come back to it repetitively to actually commit them to long-term memory.

You mean some technique of spaced repetition?

Yes.

Could you say something in Latvian for us?

For example, "Man liekas kaschurin lisliehtu sara un vel kas pītsāle.

Vārbūt velak spītsāle, nezinu." Now you're an atypical case, but do you have views on how we should teach languages to other people? Better?

How to teach language to other people better? Don't cram so much vocabulary into one little session. Mix it up, some writing, some reading, but a lot of listening. People learn by listening. Humans grow up listening, doing nothing but listening, and that's how they acquire language. That should be reflected in teaching methods.

If you think of your own acquisitions, so for most individuals, it's relatively easy to learn a new language without an accent also. At a young age and it gets progressively harder. Do you think that applies to you or not really?

I think that it got a little bit more difficult, but not by much.

But not by much. Are you willing to tell us how old you are?

Yes, 46.

46. And you just think that will keep on going for some while still and you can just keep on learning?

Yeah.

And do you have particular aspirations such as, well, I want to learn otomi or, you know, whatever the next thing is, or it just happens?

Otomi, it's pretty interesting that you say that because that's one of the ones I would like to learn somehow.

Oh, good.

Yeah.

And why Otomi?

Otomi, because that is spoken also in the state of Veracruz. I've had some contact with some Otomi speakers, but I never really sat down with them to learn anything, but I have literature and music that is written in Otomi. It looks very beautiful.

Otomi probably is dying out, or don't you think so?

Dying out as far as the state of indigenous languages in Mexico, it's pretty, it's pretty much the same. It's like, well, there's fewer and fewer speakers every year because the youngsters are not willing or they're just for some reason sticking to Spanish instead of their own indigenous language or they're learning English instead. As far as actual numbers, I'm not exactly certain, but I know that many indigenous communities are putting efforts into preserving their languages.

Do you worry much about language loss as an issue?

Absolutely.

And is there anything we can do?

Yes, absolutely. There are different methods I see. One, for example, when I'm in Orizaba, Mexico, the professor— two of them, there are two professors, Armando Alonso Limón, Miguel Torre. They're both related. One is an uncle and one is nephew. The two, pretty much the fluent go-to people of the town. They just know all the vocabulary, the words for every plant and animal pretty much as far as memory can go. And they are actively thinking of ways, efforts that they can continue to teach the language. They teach at bilingual schools, so the kids go to the school, they're learning Spanish, they're learning Nahuatl at the same time. And he speaks to them in náhuatl as much as he can. So, looking at these methods, you know, when I started to learn it, the náhuatl language, about 25 years ago, I arrived at Armando's house with a pen and a book to start writing things down, and then I realized when I went into his house that about 6 other kids had come also with pens and books to do the same thing. I think that when the kids saw that an outsider, even though I'm half Mexican, to them I'm an outsider, I look like an American, I don't speak 100% native Spanish like a typical everyday Mexican there because I don't live there all the time. So for them to see an outsider, someone coming from the United States, even though I spent my childhood in Mexico, I'm looked at as pretty much a gringo. And here is this American coming and he wants to learn our language. Well, wow. That's all of a sudden they realized, okay, well, our people want to learn our language. Our language has value. And I see that when I, it's kind of like I'll take interest in a language that's not spoken by very many people. And when I do, and I'll have sometimes my my niece will be with me and she'll want to learn some words too. And we have this really friendly approach. Hey, I'd like to learn some of these words. What does this mean? Just really just kind of gives them a sort of reminder. It's an uplift. This language that we know, it's spoken by very few people and this culture of ours is very valuable. People see it and they appreciate it.

Linguistic issues aside, how do you feel rural Mexico is doing now?

Rural Mexico, rural Mexico struggles economically. Absolutely that much there. So many different ideas how to put it all together. Their land is sort of being taken away and used for commercial reasons. They're being exploited. They're laughed at when they come to the city and they get a lot of discrimination, especially from the young kids. They'll go to school and they'll be made fun of because they're indigenous. That would be like indigenous people from rural areas all over Mexico. Yeah, I think when I see the people, they seem very happy and they're smiling and they're going about their business, but I think there's, there's an underlying sort of melancholy and this sort of like this feeling of being second class. They don't say it directly, but I can sense it.

Mm-hmm. And if you could change one thing in the parts of rural Mexico you're familiar with, other than just more resources in every way, what would that be?

If I could change it? Well, certainly set up schools, prioritize the language, and make it so that rural people see themselves the way city people or urbans see themselves and they live. That same amount of pride, that value, that self-worth. Needs to be brought up.

Oh, do you think more people should leave rural Mexico or fewer should leave?

Leave rural Mexico.

For the cities, not for the US, but just move to Mexico City, move to Guadalajara, Veracruz, wherever.

That's really not for me to say. People, they, they move for economic reasons or something. They need to find a job here or there, or they just need work. No, I think that there's an importance to the rural way of life. That's for every place, even in the United States, a lot so in Mexico too. And I think that it's just more resources. A better economic stance, just an economic foundation for rural areas. People need to stay where they are. They move away from the rural areas and the rural areas are missing something already.

What's your favorite food in rural Mexico?

My favorite in rural Mexico, it would be barbacoa.

Yeah. It's amazing when they put it under the earth overnight. It's incredible. It's the best barbecue in the world, I think.

I've seen it done.

Yeah.

Mole, of course.

But that means many things. I mean, which mole?

Mole, the one that is made in Orizaba is like the mixture of like the chocolate base and all the nuts and oil and the various kinds of pepper and seeds. When they say mole, they only mean that one thing. It's that brown sauce. And it's usually served with turkey.

Yeah.

You'll put turkey in there. It's really good. So I like, and that's very rural. That and the barbacoa. As far as other things, like they'll probably just like roast a chicken, but that's not especially a rural thing that could be done anywhere, but. I just happen to, you know, enjoy a rural barbecue here and there.

The part of Mexico I used to go to in Guerrero, mole would mean a sauce with pepitas and maybe white onion and herbs, but nothing like chocolate, nuts, not at all like Pueblan, Puebla or Oaxacan mole.

No, that's very different. Okay. I'm not familiar with that variety of mole in that case.

And very, very hot. Sometimes almost impossible for me to eat. And Oaxacan mole is not really spicy, right? Yeah.

No, but the thing is, mole is actually the Nahuatl word for sauce.

Yeah.

That's all it means.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's striking to me. There's a whole bunch of Nahuatl words in English, like tomato, coyote, right?

Coyote, chocolate.

Yeah. Your abilities with language learning, what is it exactly that you think makes you special with those abilities? Is it memory or dedication or some combination of qualities or?

I think a combination of those memory, the dedication, and the love of language.

And the love of language. Yes. So it's just super fun for you.

It's very fun for me.

And it will just always be fun.

It'll always be fun.

Yeah.

It'll always be rewarding. Up and down the street, I'll be at the grocery store, people are speaking, they'll sing something in Lithuanian or like they're looking for something in Russian, they don't know where to find it. I'll point it out and say, oh, okay, cool. And so I just help somebody. Maybe there are some people that don't speak English very well, so I'm always there to lend a hand. And that's always rewarding.

Duolingo apps, are they good? Do you use them?

I use the Duolingo app to learn Welsh.

Welsh.

Yes, it has been very useful to me, although it's very slow-paced for me.

Welsh is hard. How is your Welsh?

I can speak Welsh. I can have a basic conversation in Welsh.

And what is Welsh?

Dwi'n scharad tipyn bachogym rheignaur.

That sounds good. What do you think of tutors, you know, online tutors on services such as Italki?

I am not familiar with those at all.

But you can use a Zoom call or Skype and just talk to someone around the world. You might have to pay them. But they'll talk to you for as long as you want in their language.

I think the tutoring, you know, for someone who cannot go to the country, cannot be immersed, I think that would be a very valuable tool. Certainly.

Thinking of your own life, if you were to go back to your like 12 or 16-year-old self and tell that person something, advice, whatever, what would it be?

Keep at it.

Keep at it. But you did keep at it, right? So that's not what you needed to hear.

Not necessarily because I wasted time in doing other stupid things. So I think a better word would be stop doing the stupid stuff and focus on this.

Yeah. And you were a kind of roadie for a punk rock band?

That's right.

Was that a smart thing or a stupid thing?

No, to me that was not a stupid thing. No, that is—

sounds like fun. What was the band?

The Goons. The Goons. Yes. I drove the van. I was pretty much a designated driver for about a year. It was, I think it was 2000.

Yeah.

Yes.

And that was traveling in the US.

They might have traveled somewhere in the US, but when I went, pretty much took them from DC to New York, Hartford, Connecticut, and all those shows. We'd stay with Gabby of Molotov Cocktail in Manhattan or, uh, stay some places in Hartford, Connecticut. We'd see Boiling Man and other shows and a lot of other bands would come and play together at the same shows.

And that's still what you like best in music is punk?

I think it's in my formative years what I listened to the most, punk and hardcore. So yeah, that's like my go-to music.

Yeah. Great.

Yeah.

What's the story of how you ended up in your current job as carpet cleaner?

Oh, it's my brother's business.

So you work for your brother?

Yes.

Does being a carpet cleaner make it easier to learn languages because your mind is not full, say, in the way it would be if you were a lawyer that you have to worry about memorizing parts of the law and you're just free to focus on language or that doesn't matter?

No, there's nothing rewarding about carpet cleaning that's conducive to learning languages at all. I think my most rewarding job was just the caretaker at the grounds of the Central East European Art Foundation because that's where I was speaking language all the time, every day. It's where I learned to speak Czech fluently, where I learned to speak Slovak fluently. It's where I brushed up on my Bulgarian, Romanian, and Serbian as well. I would speak those languages because I worked with people from those areas. As far as carpet cleaning, maybe I'll have a customer or I've had a customer who speaks Latvian, a customer who speaks Finnish, a Norwegian customer. I had a customer, the same customer, I think 3 times or so, a woman from Ireland that speaks Irish Gaelic. And she was very surprised, you know.

Oh, I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah. How good is your Irish Gaelic?

It's about as good as my Welsh, you know.

Yeah. And how do they react when you just speak to them?

Wow. They get this look of— they're just taken aback. It's like, what? With Gaelic?

Yeah. And what do you tell them?

What do I tell them? I tell them, at that time, it's like I've been learning Irish for about like 10 years. I'll say, "Hie is een stereo a casa carpeta, hej Kjell." You know, "Would you like to come down and have a look at the carpet?" You know, stuff like that. Little sentences here and there. Not much of a, like a standard conversation and getting into details, but just some like, uh, simple sentences.

What's the hardest stain to get out of a carpet?

The hardest stain to get out of the carpet, I would say wood stain, Kool-Aid, dyes.

Kool-Aid, really? I'm surprised. Yeah.

It's all just dye. I don't, they might've changed the formula, so it's not as permanent of a color, but Like colors, colored dyes, that sort of thing. Nearly impossible. The purpose of dye is to stain. That's what it was designed for. So if you've stained the carpet, the dye did its job and there's no reversing it because it's that good of a dye.

Yeah. Would it make sense for you to work as a translator or do you think being interested in so many languages is in some way inconsistent with that?

I would be interested in working as a translator, yes.

For the languages you know best.

For the languages I know best, I would say, yeah.

Do you still put time into learning those even better, or it's more like, I want to do Otomi next?

I'm always switching it out. I'm always going from book to book. So no, certainly there's much more to learn. And even the languages that I speak more or less fluently, I'm still learning specific words. I don't know the words for makeup in a lot of those languages because it's never a subject that I had spoke about. Scientific terms, being able to speak about chemistry, physics, that's also kind of important. That's something I want to learn to to do in areas that I can explore to improve languages that I know.

Are you keen to do an interlude where you just speak a few languages for us?

Yes, I could.

Okay, shall we try Vietnamese?

Vietnamese? Anoiting Vietnam phai khong. Just like a simple question, like, do you speak Vietnamese? But my Vietnamese is just, it's super elementary. It's really not enough to have a conversation.

How about Dutch?

Dutch? Yeah, Nederlands connect well. Spreek je. Ik het een friend. Aus Groningen, heißt halt im Norden, und ich heiße Bram Staal. Und wir Freunde wurden nach 3 Jahren, und ich habe mit uns in Silver Spring vor einem halben Sommer gewohnt.

Finnish?

Do you speak Sinhalese? Sinhalese? Like simple, again, like Vietnamese, it's just very simple.

Portuguese.

Oh, perhaps Patinda, I know that one. Today is Thursday. Portuguese. Todos os dias depois da escola saímos todos juntos só para desfrutar a cidade. Então é após isso que eu posso falar português.

And you know both Portugal Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese?

Mostly Brazilian Portuguese. I would not know how to specifically imitate the accent of Portugal Portuguese because I don't have enough exposure to it.

And even in English, can you speak different ways? So could you speak the way a Scottish person would speak, or that just doesn't count?

I don't know, like a Scottish person, like I suppose I was— I met someone who's talking about the color green. She was talking about the color green the whole time. I'm just kind of like mimicking her accent, but yeah, I really like the way the Scottish English sounds. As far as other dialects, I spend a lot of time on the bayou and the water come through the house. That's all the people talk about is the water come through the house and yeah.

How much do you travel in terms of going to these places?

Last time I was in New Orleans was in 2007. That was post-Katrina, 2006 and then 2007. And I think that was it for Louisiana, but I spent a good 2 weeks there with a Nia League family just outside of Chalmette, Chalmette, Louisiana. And as far as other places, my father used to have this pilgrimage where we would travel all across the US and go visit my grandparents who lived in Santa Rosa, California. It's in Sonoma County, about an hour north of the Bay Area. And on the way, we'd stop at different places, explore Lewis and Clark National Park, for example, in Montana, the Badlands in South Dakota, or we'd stop somewhere in Kentucky. And the accents, they change from place to place. Some of them are a lot deeper than others. What especially stood out to me was the English spoken in rural Kentucky, the southern tips of Indiana and Illinois, and then going into Missouri, just those rural areas. It's, ah, it's very different. There might be some super old style of speaking, a much deeper accent than what I would typically hear in the middle of West Virginia, for example.

But say, do you want to go to the Netherlands so you can hear Dutch for 2 weeks?

Oh, certainly. Yeah.

But you don't have the chance to, or like, is it part of your program or you, you think you will, you hope you will, or you have, or—

I hope I will just, um, looking for other employment, you know, post-COVID work got pretty slow and I started doing like 5 different jobs. I had 5 part-time jobs and, uh, solely I've been doing away with those because work's getting a little bit busy, but I'm not in a financial scenario where I could do that very easily now.

Mm-hmm. And is there a country where you think, well, that's where I want to go? If you had a number 1 choice.

A number one choice to go and live for a month, two months? Finland.

Finland. Yes. And what interests you about Finland in addition to Finnish?

The Lapland, the northern climate, the lakes and the nature, and that people say it mimics Minnesota. Of course, I'm familiar with Minnesota and the kummenäjärvi, you know, just like hundreds of lakes all over the place. Being able to go north and see the Northern Lights, the reindeer, the flora and fauna of the country. And visiting friends.

It's one of the very best countries for architecture, I think.

Yes.

And oddly for Russian food. Russian food in Finland is much better than Russian food in Russia, which is generally not that good.

Tosi milenki intoista. That's pretty interesting.

Yeah. Well, the ingredients are better. It's more of a market economy. This is all pre-sanctions, of course.

Yes.

I've only been to Finland once, but I really quite liked it. I want to go back. I was only in Helsinki, but I thought it was quite an underrated city.

Yeah, that's what I hear from other people as well. It's a place I got to go and visit.

And there are just no hassles to being there. I mean, not an issue for you, but you can just speak English to people if you want, right?

Of course. Of course.

What's your favorite movie?

Favorite movie? The Thing. The original The Thing.

The original The Thing. What do you think of the remake?

The remake was— they made a prequel to it. Is it not exactly a remake? Or no, actually there is an original The Thing that's prior to the current one.

The James Arness, and then there's what, the 1982 one?

The 1982 one is the one that, that's my favorite.

That's excellent. I think that the earlier one is also good though.

Mm-hmm.

It's scary only by, say, 1950s standards, but if you can get yourself into that mindset, it's quite a good movie.

Yeah. That's the key to enjoying a film from different areas, getting yourself into the mindset.

That's right.

I'm glad that you mentioned that.

Yeah. And a lot of people can't do that. It's not unrelated to linguistic issues. It's like you have to crack the cultural code of some era.

Yes. That's very true.

And most remakes of movies are much worse, but with The Thing, it wasn't worse. They understood what was good about the original, but still improved on it. Yes.

Yeah.

Is it like the horror element or the science fiction element that draws you more to The Thing?

Uh, I think it's a combination of both. I do like science fiction as long as it's not too far-fetched and it's like, come on, this doesn't make sense, but certainly fathomable in what goes on in The Thing. And, uh, I really liked the creepy aspect of it, not knowing that someone's infected before the person's infected. That mystery is kind of like a surprise later. It's, oh, this person was one of them this whole time. And that's what really brings out that scary element.

What are the open tabs on your browser right now?

Open tabs on my browser? I don't—

Language learning? They're in different languages or just that's all up in your head?

That's just all up in my head. Tabs on my browser. Would you, I guess, like the phone browser, just things that I've been looking up.

You know, like I have an open browser tab, the Washington Post article about you, because that's what I'm working on, for instance.

No, I just don't keep open tabs like that.

Yeah. I have a lot of open tabs at the moment about other hyperpolyglots because I read up on them to talk with you.

Yes. That's a good example, but I don't really keep the open tabs in that manner. I'm more of an old-fashioned person. I carry books around with me. I read books.

Yeah. Yeah.

Paper books. They're in my car. I have 10 or so books in there, but open tabs on my browser. I think maybe I'd see like the YouTube. I'm trying to put more YouTube channels up. So it's something that I'm looking into.

So you might reopen your YouTube channel.

It's active, but I want to upload more videos. So I, yes, I'm going to upload more videos on the YouTube channel.

How many videos are on it now?

Probably only 3. There were more and I took some of them off because I simply didn't like the quality of them.

Some of those were open tabs on my browser until I finished listening to them last night. And what's your goal with the YouTube channel?

Promote language, talk more about language, give lessons in languages here and there, give some cultural advice along with it. Have little snippets of conversations with other people and just giving an example, "Hey, this can be done. This is something that's not impossible. If you want to visit this country, here are some important words and phrases to know." Things such as of this manner. And also I'd like to focus on indigenous language as well, Nahuatl and other languages that are found throughout the North American continent.

Being a hyperpolyglot, what do you think would be something other than the languages themselves, but something that you've learned that the rest of the world should know better than they do?

Language is a key to someone's culture, to someone's world, even if you do not happen to be in that person's country at that time. It's very sacred and it's very private for some people. Not everyone will be very open to immediately speaking to you in their own language, but the majority of the people that I approach or I'll ask about, they have this very pleasant sort of reaction to it. And then when you get into learning the language, you start to think in a different way. You realize every language works differently. It makes people think differently and there's the nuances of how the words work when you put them together. But then when you learn the language, you realize there's, there's more to it. There's like a, there's a soul to the language. It's like you're starting to become this new miniature other person version of yourself when you use that language. And it comes with the native speaker's sense of home, sense of belonging, sense of identity. Language is identity for many people. And it's much more than just mimicking words. It's knowing what phrases to use, being sensitive to another language speaker's cultural needs, and you find out that it's like you're going into a different world.

Recent immigrants aside, as you know, most Americans speak only American English. Do you foresee that changing in the future? Do you think they will find persuasive what to me are quite significant reasons to learn other languages, but most people don't do it. Don't even really try very hard.

Mm, no. When you say most people don't try really hard, are you saying—

In America. Europe can be different, other parts of the world different.

Okay.

But if you're not connected to the language through your parents or where you were born, some people learn Spanish, fewer yet learn French, tiny number try Chinese. Not much happens here, right?

No.

And is that going to change?

Yes and no. I think that in places where it's a requirement to know a second language in order to get a job somewhere, of course, a lot of people are going to seek that out. I've noticed a difference between the generations. Me being in my early 20s, mid-20s, I met people from Louisville, Kentucky, or from some other city in Indiana that are learning Russian. And that really was not so much the case when my father was, was in his 20s. People was like, no, it's— there was an immigration, people, Italians would come to the house. They'd get a place. They'd just speak English. It's like, no, it's American. It's time to be American. We need to forget Italian. It's just English, English, English. And I see this sentiment repeated when I meet others. Like, I'll go to New York and I'll see Italians and they're like a generation older than myself. And they'll say, no, when, when my parents came from Italy, they spoke only English because they wanted us to learn only English. There is already a big difference between the 1950s, 1940s, 1950s, and that time would be at, I'd say, the 1990s, where it's like, no, globalization is happening. There's more business. There's more incentive to learn another language. They're teaching foreign language in high school. They're starting to come up with immersion schools where the kids are— they're taught bilingually, starting with even kindergarten or first grade. So I see that trend. That's already a very big difference there. Will it continue? Yes, I think it will continue more as you have more immigration, you have much more trade, open markets between nations, and certainly there is the potential for the increase of interest in language learning, especially in the urban areas or like You know, people looking for IT, lawyers, jobs such as these, this kind of employment, or it's all white-collar work, then yeah. But as far as— there's still always going to be that population that is not exposed to it. They'll just simply continue with English only, and that will continue as it is.

What do you think of media coverage of hyperpolyglots? Is it accurate, off-base, fair, balanced, or—

I really haven't seen enough media coverage.

But there's an article about you. Probably you read it, right? Yes. Did it capture the essence of you or?

I think it's a very well put together story. It was a little bit different from what I expected because it, I thought that the story was going to concentrate on just me being a polyglot in languages and such, but no, it was more just like an overall sort of like the way the story was told was very pleasant surprise. I would say a very beautifully written piece. It was just a lot larger than I thought it would be and just kind of like a very nicely put together story, but I haven't seen other articles on other hyperpolyglots or polyglots that give me any sort of comparison.

How do people in Mexico respond differently to you being a hyperpolyglot than people in America? Are they more shocked or they just take it in stride?

I think it's a toss-up. It's all of them. I have some people that are very shocked. There's people that just take it in stride. If I'm in Mexico City, I think that's where I get the most surprise. Or if I am in any of the touristy areas where there are hostels, You know, I could go to Orizaba, I could go to the south to the village and say, "Oh, I know all these languages." Oh, it's like kind of like they get this wide-eyed sort of look on their face and they would think, "Oh wow, that's pretty impressive." But then that's the end of it. In contrast to that, I'll be in the city of Oaxaca where you have visitors from all over the world come through and I'm at the hostel and I'm speaking Irish Gaelic. Funny enough, the most instances where I speak Irish Gaelic are in Oaxaca because you get a lot of people from Ireland. They'll go to Mexico instead of going to the US and a lot of them speak Gaelic. And so they'll hear me I'll speak Russian, I'll turn around and speak Czech to someone. I've met people from Poland, from Serbia, from Croatia. And then when I'm switching from language to language, then the Mexicans themselves, they really see it happening. It's a live show. And number one, and number two, the Mexicans in Oaxaca, they're in a place where they're surrounded by languages and it's like in their face. It's like, okay, there are these many languages. There isn't just only French, German, English. Spanish.

But there's Mixtec, there's Zapotec, Nahuatl. Yeah. Must be 15 languages in Oaxaca.

In Oaxaca, I think there are, yes. I think that's about right, 15.

Yeah.

Yes. So when I'm talking about the Mexicans living in Oaxaca that are there, they just kind of look at these European languages and they think, okay, well, that's what like a real language is. They still have this prejudicial sort of like a downplay on their own indigenous languages. The linguistic diversity in the state of Oaxaca is phenomenal. And the language is different one from the other, much more so than the Germanic languages amongst themselves, for example, or the Romance languages. That's very easily overlooked by the majority of the urban population of Mexico.

Where do you still want to see in Mexico?

I would like to see El Camino del Cobre, take that train ride.

Yeah. I've never done that. I've been to Chihuahua, but I didn't have time. So that's on my list as well. Yeah, definitely go there.

I want to explore more of Chiapas. I want to meet up with my friend Juan, who periodically teaches me. He gives me a little lessons in Tzotzil and spend more time in San Cristóbal de las Casas.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that's, there's just a place I would like to spend some more time in and see the north of Mexico as well.

Central America or Central America?

I would like to see, I've been to Belize already, but I would like to go back. Of course, I would like to go to Guatemala.

There are countries where I cannot understand the people speaking English and Northern Scotland sometimes counts as that. Do you have that issue or you just hear through it somehow?

You know, it's interesting. I think that recently—

The Caribbean also can be hard for me when people speak English. Yes, it is English, but maybe I understand a third of it.

Yeah. I've met people from the Caribbean that I couldn't tell if they were speaking English or a very heavy accent English, or it was like a Creole or a mix. Yeah.

They'll blend the two. Yeah.

They were saying, uh, stay ya instead of stay. He gon' stay ya. You know, like really just sort of very altered speech, but I could tell the base words were English or at least part of it was. The conversation that I heard on the bus, I could make out what they were saying, but not live. I listened to the whole sentence, put it together, and it's like, "Oh, that's what she said." To give an example with Scottish English, I know that how the islands, the land kind of breaks up the further north you go. It's my idea that the further north you go, the more distant the accent is and the more difficult it is to understand.

Have you ever studied Singlish, the Singaporean? It used to be slang and a dialect, and now it's almost becoming a language.

I don't know of it, no.

Very hard for me to understand. How about Indian English, Hinglish? Is that the future of English?

Is that the future of English? Well, it's the present of English in India, that's for certain.

Sure. Yeah. But say 80 years from now, as possibly our birth rates fall, Indian birth rates are falling as well. But what will English be, do you think? Most of the speakers won't be North Americans, right? It's already the case.

Oh, I suppose each variant of English word is spoken, well, sort of just kind of like what's going by the natural law of language. It'll change, but I don't see it becoming a big mush just yet where it's all uniform. English used to be uniform and it went into the direction where now there are many different variations of English, many different accents. So I don't see it coming back together. As long as there are different areas where English is spoken, it'll keep evolving in its own natural direction.

If you meet a young person who has polyglot talent and they ask you for advice, what do you tell them?

Advice on what? Advice on learning or—

Just they'll say, well, you've done it.

Okay.

Let's say, you know, I'm 18, I'm a polyglot or potential polyglot. I see I have this talent. What is it I should know? You would just say stick with it.

Stick with it. I'm assuming that if this person's a polyglot, he already has, he or she already has developed a system for himself or herself. As to the most effective way to learn. So I don't need to give this person any learning advice.

So the systems are different in your view.

They could be different, but as long as if someone's a polyglot, that means that that person came up with a system that was effective for himself or herself.

For them, yeah.

Yes. So I wouldn't give any linguistic advice. I would say, probably ask them like, what is it you want to do? I would concentrate on have that person maybe focus on very useful language, at least one, at least one very useful language that would give that person an an advantage in academia. You know, for example, learn Russian, learn Spanish, one of these big languages. Chinese, right?

Yeah.

Mandarin Chinese, French.

And last question, in young people, if they show some inclination, do you think you can spot polyglot talent? And if so, what is it you look for that a person might become someone like you, or they might stop at like a mere 7 languages and just call it a day?

Children that I've met that have special abilities, some of them being autistic, I would spend a few minutes each meeting Showing them something, quizzing them. Some of these kids were very inclined to, they're like a math genius, or they were good at science or good at physics. And I'd ask them about, okay, why is tungsten used as a filament in a bulb, for example? Most of the time it was like with scientific quizzing. And then I would go, okay, after that, I would test them with language. Like, can you memorize this word? What's this called? I'd start with English, of course. Point out 10 different things. What are these called? And then I'd say, "Do you know any Spanish?" I'll test them in Spanish or I'll test them in something else. Sometimes a lot of these are children of my friends and my friends knowing me, they would like their children to learn Spanish, Portuguese, whatever it is that they think is useful for their child to learn. So I would go in and test them. And some of them actually, they do, they pick up very quickly on the words. And I think that part of it is the fact that they're young. They're still at this age where they can absorb language very quickly. But after that, I would speak to my friends who are the kids' parents and say, "Hey, this is a good way to go about it. Do this." I've met customers that they speak German, but they only speak English to their kid. And I'd say, hey, teach your child your language. And they'll say, oh, really? It's like, why is this carpet cleaner telling them? And I would tell them, look, it's important. Teach your child your language. Speak to her in only German. Don't worry. She will learn. There's plenty of English all around. There will be no problem with her learning English. Some older people worry that if they teach their own language to their kids, it'll somehow replace English. They won't learn English at all. That's simply not realistic because we live in a country where English is spoken.

Von Smith, a real pleasure. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

Thanks for listening to Conversations with Tyler. You can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. If you like this podcast, please consider giving us a rating and leaving a review. This helps other listeners find the show. On Twitter, I'm @TylerCowen, and the show is @CowenConversations. Convoz. Until next time, please keep listening and learning.