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Gaw, you feel wonky today. What the hell happened?!
Oh my life! Oh, I don't know if I'm gonna

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survive this video. Hey! So, today, I want
to address a little thing that is kind of,

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er, annoying. But it's also a little bit confusing.
And it's annoying because it's confusing,

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and it's confusing because it's annoying,
and it's just....it's a vicious cycle really.

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Today I want to try and answer the question
what is a polyglot? A polyglot is something

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that I..It's a word I'd never really heard
of to be honest until recently in the past...5

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years let's say. And so the fact that I hadn't
heard of this word means that a lot of other

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people also hadn't heard of this word and
also still haven't heard of this word. But

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this word, 'polyglot', is now being used more
and more and more within the sort of online

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language learning community and I feel like
for some people, it kind of is, erm, scary,

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because the think "Oh my goodness! I'm not,
I don't speak seventeen languages. Maybe I

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do speak seventeen languages and I don't speak
them to C2 level that means I'm not a polyglot,

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that means I can't go to these events that
have the word 'polyglot' in the title. Oh,

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what a disaster!". But I just want to say
to those people that it's totally ok. See

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the thing is about the word polyglot - there
is no strict definition. Like, if I, if I...where's

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my phone? Let's do this right now. Ok, let's
see, what is a polyglot? Let's check and see

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what the old er, search engine extraordinaire
that begins with a 'G' says. "Are you trilingual?

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Are you monolingual, bilingual, trilingual,
multilingual or a polyglot?" See, there you

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go multilingual and polyglot are being used
separately even though technically 'poly'

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means multiple, like many, like a polyglot,
polyglot, a poly- , polygon! That's a shape

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with many sides, right? And then 'glot' is
language. Kind of like in the term, one of

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my favourites, 'glottal stop'. But-ter! So,
it just means multiple languages. Ok. So it's

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not 4, 5, 6, 7, 17, 52, 103. It's not to A1,
to A2, to B1, to C2, blah blah, to C2. There

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is no clear definition of what it takes to
call yourself a polyglot. Now I actually filmed

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a video, erm, a few months back before I went
to the Polyglot Gathering this year in May

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in Berlin. And I filmed this video and I never
actually edited it. In this video, basically,

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I was of the opinion that, you know, there
is no clear definition, let's all calm down,

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let's not worry about specifically what a
polyglot is. I actually kind of ended it by

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saying that at the same time, I feel like
it's saying "Yes! I am a, er, I'm the best

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footballer you'll ever find". It's something,
there was some kind of arrogance there I felt

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so I would never have called myself a polyglot.
And then I went to the Polyglot Gathering

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in Berlin. I know it's ironic the name 'polyglot'
and I said I wasn't blah, blah, blah! But

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I went there and I went to one talk with Richard
Simcott, who I'm sure you've heard of if you're

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watching this video, and he outlined that
for him, the definition is changing and a

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polyglot is someone, for him, who actively
goes forward and learns languages for no particular

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reason, just for the pure love of language
and the love of learning language and the

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love of communicating with people via different
languages. And I thought this was so beautiful.

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It's so open, it's so accepting. There is
no definition, there is no specific number,

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specific requirement that you have to, erm,
achieve, that you have to attain before you

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can say, yeah I'm a polyglot. And before you
can say, yeah, I'm going to go to the Polyglot

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Gathering or the Polyglot Conference. No!
If you love language and I'm telling you this,

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like, from the heart 'cause the battery's
about to die! If you love language and you

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actively learn languages and you enjoy that
process, and you have no limit to what you

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want to do and how many languages you want
to learn, then you are a polyglot. And I think

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that that is now becoming the widely accepted
definition. And it's something that I myself

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would, err, would like to believe. I would
love, I want, for me, this is the new definition

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of what a polyglot is. I hope that cleared
something up. What do you think? Do you agree

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with this definition? I've very much taken
this definition that I use myself from Richard

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Simcott so thank you to Richard for, err,
for sharing his opinion on this in Berlin.

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It really helped me personally to kind of
get a bigger, much broader perspective of

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this word, and that's what I want to share
with you today. But do you agree? Is this

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your opinion? Let me know in the comments
below. I'd love to get chatting with you about

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this and to know if you think "no, it should
be this set number of languages or it should

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be a set level" or, whatever you think, please
just share in the comments, I'd love to hear

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some opinions on this. And as usual, if you
enjoyed, please subscribe. I hope you enjoyed

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this video, I hope you found it useful and
I hope that it will inspire you to use the

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word polyglot more confidently, more comfortably,
and to perhaps even attend a polyglot event.

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This isn't like a sponsored video of any of
those events! I've been to two events myself,

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one Polyglot Gathering and one Polyglot Conference
in the past year, and I loved them both. The

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atmosphere is incredible, there's no competition,
there's no, err, like peacocking, if you like,

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of you know, "Well, actually my badge says
err, I speak 52 languages, so, you know, come

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at me!" There's none of that. It's just really
friendly, really warm, really open, and just

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to share some time with people who share that
same passion for language learning as you

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do is a real gem and it's something that I
think if you're watching this video, you should

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probably take advantage of. Ok, thank you.