The Polyglot Community / Conlangers / General Language Learning Autism - Attention seekers that barely speak the languages they claim, pretentious language creators, grifters shilling language learning scams and more!

[Lieutenant Rasczak]

Feedback is appreciated, this is my first real thread I wrote by myself.

Wait, so after almost a full decade on the farms, you haven't wrote a single fucking thread on your own? Other than that revelation, good OP and very interesting subject.

 

[Fialovy]

Wait, so after almost a full decade on the farms, you haven't wrote a single fucking thread on your own? Other than that revelation, good OP and very interesting subject.

Thank you so much! I did coauthor the Darrick Dishaw thread, but that JustinRPG thread was mostly redone by a different person since that was before OPs were required and threads were literally "lol look at this fag" I guess I just didn't really have anything I wanted to write about.

I will add some grifting examples and also see if I can do some digging on Twitter.

 

[Lucille Bluth]

I'm really surprised at the amount of people who grift off polyglotism and also are connected to asians. Perhaps that's where the grift is. Speaking Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian and English could be much easier, sharing the latin root. Speaking of a true and honest badass polyglot.

Honestly, I never got the fascination with polyglots because I thought many countries had people who could speak multiple languages. Usually the countries official language(s) + language(s) of neighbouring countries + English.

Theoretically, language learning for an English speaker shouldn't be that hard if they stay within Indo-European languages. Especially within the Germanic and perhaps the Romance branches. But I did notice all the questionable internet "personalities" who claim to speak like 20+ languages while shilling out something.

 

[lolcow yoghurt]

I have learnt 53 languages at 3. Follow me on Patreon to discover my special methods.

 

[Donezel Washington]

This is the guy he's responding to: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNXc1cnxTubD9XonPU7wi-w

 

[6thRanger]

I knew someone like this in college. He claimed he spoke 18 languages. One day he met someone who was a native speaker of an uncommon language he said he spoke. He was completely embarrassed and mocked, then had a 10 minute public meltdown as his entire persona as "language guy" crumbled. Surely there must be videos of these people having meltdowns, being called out or completely embarrassing themselves? I think that's where the milk is.

Solid start to an OP though. Maybe add some less famous people who are more likely to hilariously embarrass themselves in public?

 

[Fialovy]

You can disrespect me, but don't you DARE disrespect whamen

This is the guy he's responding to: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNXc1cnxTubD9XonPU7wi-w

I will add this to the OP since I have mentioned that Exposing Polyglot Scammers guy as an honorable mention since he is also a minor lolcow in of himself just due to the bizarreness of his videos and the way he says so much yet says so little at the same times. I might even make a little section on him.

I also looked on TikTok and I found this chick called PurpleHaze who claims to know six languages and counting. She talks about the "Disney method" of learning languages by watching nothing but Disney movies (no actual books or studying grammar or anything like that?). It reminds me of those people who claim they can get fluent in Japanese from watching anime alone as well as another method that she claims you can get fluent in a few weeks.

Her TikTok isn't completely focused on languages, her things seems more to be more being a lulsoquirky kind of girl. I should add some shorter stuff to the OP probably.

Also, I found this:

 

[Pee Cola]

It's interesting (but probably not that surprising) that there's a whole genre of these videos, but I don't get the appeal.

The Algorithm recommended a Xiaomanyc video to me once, which was amusing enough, but if you've seen one video of a weedy white dude speaking rehearsed lines in Chinese to try and freak out people in Chinatown, you've probably seen them all.

Unless we find out one of them has a Duolingo owl fursona, grooms kids from around the world on Discord in their native languages and/or vomits out spicy takes on Twitter in at least 5 languages, I'm not sure how many of them are lolcows. Could be a slow burning thread.

The OP is still a great primer on this weird subculture, though.

 

[DumbDude42]

i dont really understand why they do it? do they make it up just to have something to brag about, is that all there is to it?

 

[Manul Otocolobus]

Most people only need to learn how to say "Hello." "Goodbye" "How much does that cost?" "Where is the bathroom" "Where is the hospital, I am dying" and "Where is the consulate or embassy?" and as many swear words as they can easily memorize.

 

[Fialovy]

Geez, I have found a lot of drama and stuff about the "Exposing Fake Polyglot Youtubers" guy. There is a lot of stuff surrounding him now that I am looking into him more. Tomorrow I will try and make a section all about him and the drama he stirs since he has gotten a lot of replies from people and all of his videos are very unhinged. I wouldn't be surprised if he has some form of schizophrenia.

His name is Sam apparently (I don't know his last name) and what is ironic is that he claims in his profile to speak 3 languages including all of the Scandinavian languages and can speak with people from all of Scandinavia and all Arabic countries. Pot calling the kettle black much?

This might be what we are looking for to make the thread more interesting.

I have to go to bed though, will do this all tomorrow

 

[Anal birth]

I've watched a decent amount of Xiaoma, and while I can kinda see you point, I largely find it pretty harmless. He seems to make people happy when they hear him speaking Yoruba to them or something. I get that he only has a superficial understanding of it but I don't think he pretends to have anything more, except for Mandarin, which he is clearly proficient in.

I'm quite happy to be corrected and am, more than anything, neutral on the matter, but I just wonder if this is kind of a live and let live situation.

 

[I am vomit]

Most people only need to learn how to say "Hello." "Goodbye" "How much does that cost?" "Where is the bathroom" "Where is the hospital, I am dying" and "Where is the consulate or embassy?" and as many swear words as they can easily memorize.

Wait that doesn't make me a master of thirty different languages including the clicks and whistles the africans use?

 

[Super Saiyan Hitler]

Honestly, I never got the fascination with polyglots because I thought many countries had people who could speak multiple languages. Usually the countries official language(s) + language(s) of neighbouring countries + English.

Theoretically, language learning for an English speaker shouldn't be that hard if they stay within Indo-European languages. Especially within the Germanic and perhaps the Romance branches. But I did notice all the questionable internet "personalities" who claim to speak like 20+ languages while shilling out something.

English is so ubiquitous nowadays that it's uncommon to learn other languages. Even people who speak languages that are mutually intelligible often switch to English because they are insecure about their ability to speak clearly and decipher the other language. Historical minorities are the only exception, but they are vulnerable because their children move to the cities and get assimilated into the majority culture, which itself is probably being ruined by Americanization.

Being multilingual/polyglot definitely makes you stand out in today's world. Most people don't even attempt to learn another language voluntarily. The modern Youtube polyglot phenomenon exists because multilingualism is uncommon and viewers are hoping that they can take a shortcut to get there themselves.

 

[Chicken Picnic]

i dont really understand why they do it? do they make it up just to have something to brag about, is that all there is to it?

views, polyglot gets those sweet clickbait views

also the ones like ikenna trying to make money out of it

nice OP though! as a retard whos been trying to learn a second language i see a lot of these people around on youtube when trying to find legit recourses. It's easy to get sucked in, but in the end you just have to accept theres no quick way to learning anything, especially if you're from a country that is pretty much just native english speaking.

within the japanese learning community there was drama semi recently with Matt vs Japan, who can legitimately speak japanese and is pretty popular with people for his methods
until he suddenly decided to release a super special course that costed $100s of dollars claiming it would get you fluent, which was bizarre as all his previous methods his whole youtube was built around were completely free. Kinda depressing, cause I liked the guy and his stuff helped me and a lot of people I know who are also learning use his methods, but this whole recent shit makes me not trust him as much

I say "his methods" but a lot of it is just taking ideas from other people and passing it off as his own ideas but still, a lot of people I know learn japanese exclusively via the refold method. Of course, they have a patreon and they also sell flashcard packs for different languages for like $20 claiming they're all you need for fluency. Whilst they may be helpful, you can absolutely get this kind of content for free.

 

[Beautiful Border]

I wonder how many of these grifters try to use little tricks in definition to inflate the number of languages they claim to speak. For example, being able to speak Serbo-Croatian but categorising it separately as Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin, so you can claim to speak four foreign languages when you only actually speak one.

 

[Your NSA Handler]

To be a faggot from 20 years ago: This thread is relevant to my interests.

Also, I found this:

View attachment 3522327

This is the worst thing I have ever seen.

 

[Fialovy]

In the process of making a section on Sam aka Exposing Fake Polyglot Scammers since he is really nuts himself. I do wish I could find more information on him though.

I might see if I can find anything about the conlang community too. I will say though, while Esperanto is pretty autistic due to the nature of what it is based around, it is mostly pretty sane for the most part, especially the more fluent you get with it, the more you can filter out some of the not so good people. It is really only the "komencanto" that are really the issue, but usually they just either get their act together or give up.

 

[Zdzislaw Beksinski]

I wonder how many of these grifters try to use little tricks in definition to inflate the number of languages they claim to speak. For example, being able to speak Serbo-Croatian but categorising it separately as Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin, so you can claim to speak four foreign languages when you only actually speak one.

That's not at all uncommon, you see it happening quite often with more fragmented languages such as German and Italian, where people will count something like German and Swiss German, or diachronic variations like Middle German and current German, as different languages.

 

[Suburban Bastard]

Pretty good informational OP, but it's lacking reasons this is actually funny. I mean, I think the idea of someone lying about speaking a lot of languages and getting caught would be pretty funny, but there's not really any of that here.

I remember watching a video of a guy that went on a live show claiming he could speak 20 languages or something, and they exposed him for being a fraud by inviting like 10 native speakers from around the world. I can't for the life of me find it, but I'm almost certain it was in spanish.