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So about two years ago,

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I was featured in
a New York Times article called,

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"Adventures of a teenage polyglot,"

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which featured my passion
for learning foreign languages,

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this peculiar hobby that I had.

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And at first I thought it was great.

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I loved the fact that language learning
was getting more attention.

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I loved the fact that it wouldn't always

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seem like an isolating hobby

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that was suddenly putting me into contact
with people all around the world.

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And as I spent more time
in the media spotlight,

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the focus of my story began to shift.

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So whereas I've always been interested
in talking about the why and the how,

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why I was learning foreign languages,
how I did it,

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instead, it turned into a bit of a circus,

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in which media shows wanted
to sensationalize my story.

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So it would go a little something like this,

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"Hello, I'm here today with
17-year-old Timothy Doner

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who's fluent in 20 languages.

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Oh, I'm sorry.

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He actually can insult you in 25 languages

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and he's fluent in another ten.

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Tim, how about you tell our audience
Good morning

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and thank you for watching in Muslim?"

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(Laughter)

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"Er... Arabic."

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(In Arabic)

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"Great Tim. Now can we get you

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to introduce yourself and say

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I'm fluent in 23 languages in German."

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"It's not really true. But..."

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"No, no, just tell the audience."

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(In German)

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"Perfect. Now how about

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a tongue twister in Chinese?

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(Laughter)

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"Well, we could talk about Chinese,

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you know, a lot more Americans
are learning Chinese these days,

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and I think there's 
a lot of value in that."

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"No, no, no. 
Just give us a tongue twister."

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(Laughter)

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(In Chinese)

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This guy! Tim, how about

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another tongue twister in Chinese?"

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"I will prefer not to, but you know

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we could talk about China.

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There's a lot you can gain
by learning a language.

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"Oh Tim, I'm sorry,
That's all the time we have."

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(Laughter)


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(Applause)

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"Now why don't you to tell our audience

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Goodbye in Turkish

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and we will be over here."

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"You know we haven't talk
about anything substantive."

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"But Turkish please."


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(In Turkish)

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"How about that kid, right,

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wonder if he gets any girls...

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(Laughter)

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"Now stay with us because up next,

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a skateboarding bulldog
in a bathing suit."

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(Laughter)

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(Applause)

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So, as funny as that was,

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it highlighted two pretty major problems


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in the way my story was covered.

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On a personal level,

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I felt that language learning was now 
becoming like a bit of a task, almost.

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It felt like something that was suddenly...
had to be rigidly organized.

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Something that had to be 
compartmentalized, rationalized,

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expressed in a concrete number.

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I speak X languages.


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I know Y languages.

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As opposed to what I'd always done,

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which was just learning languages
for the fun of it.

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Learning to communicate with people,


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learning about foreign cultures.

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And on a bigger level, it's cheapened
what it meant to speak a language,

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or to know a language.

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Now if I can impart you
with anything today at TEDxTeen,

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it's that knowing a language

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is a lot more than knowing
a couple of words out of a dictionary.

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It's a lot more that being able


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to ask someone where the bathroom is,

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or telling them the time of day.

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But, I'm getting ahead of myself.

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So for those of you who aren't
familiar with my story,

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maybe a lot of you here
don't know what the word polyglot is,

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and it's a pretty weird one.

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I started here.

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So this little tot is me, circa 2001,

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and this is the beginning of
my language learning journey.

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I actually was a child actor 


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before I'd learned any languages.

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And I always had a little bit of a gift
for accent.

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So I'm going to auditions
for radio commercials,

97
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or for TV commercials,

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and I'd do an Austin Powers impression.

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I'm not going to do one now.

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(Laughter)

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Or maybe I would do 


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Apu from the Simpsons.

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In fact there was actually 
one time an audition

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which I was asked to leave,

105
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because they told me to speak


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like a little kid with a lisp,

107
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and I wanted to do
Darth Vader in a French accent.

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(Laughter)

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But, that taught me the basics of

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of how to breakdown sound.

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How to pick up a foreign accent,


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or foreign speech patterns,

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and really live with it.

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Now fast forward a little bit,

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I'm now in about third grade,

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and I've just started French
for the first time.

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But six months into a year,


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into even two years later,

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I can't converse with anybody.

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French is just another subject in school,

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and even though I can tell you words 


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for elbow, knee bone, shoelace.

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I couldn't really have
a fluent conversation with anybody.

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Fast forward a little bit more.

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In seventh grade, I started Latin.

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So Latin of course is a dead language,

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and in learning Latin, you really learn

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how to breakdown language,

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to see language as a system

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with rules, and as a bit of a puzzle.

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So that was great,

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but I still didn't feel
like language was for me.

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So, forward a little bit more.

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About 13,


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and I've been interested in learning more 


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about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,

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I started studying Hebrew.

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Now, I had no way of doing it.

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I had no idea 
what I was supposed to be doing,

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so I listen to a lot of Rap music.

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I memorize lyrics, 
I'd spit them back out,

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and I would just try to chat
with native speakers,

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once a week, once a month,

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and I've got that incrementally,


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I started to understand a lot more.

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Now I didn't sound like a native speaker,

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I couldn't speak very articulately and

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I certainly didn't know the grammar.

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but I had done what I'd never 
managed to do in school,

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which was to pick up 
the basics of a language

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all on my own.

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Forward a little bit more.

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I started taking Arabic when I was 14 


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in a summer program going into 9th grade.

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This is summer of 2010.

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After a month I found 
that I could read and write

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without a problem.

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I'd learned the basics 
of the formal language

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and one of its major dialects.

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And it turned me onto the fact that I 
could really pursue languages as a hobby.

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So, it finally came to March 24th 2011.

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So I've pretty vicious insomnia,

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and as I was studying more languages


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using grammar books or watching TV shows,

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and let's say Arabic or Hebrew,
became one way of focusing my time.

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So on that night, while I was 
awake till some ungodly hour,

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I recorded myself speaking Arabic
into my computer screen,

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subtitled it,

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and I uploaded it to YouTube

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under the title, "Tim speaks Arabic."

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(In Arabic)

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Next day I did the same thing,

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(In Hebrew)

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Tim speaks Hebrew.

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And the comments, when I trickled in,
were fantastic.

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I got things like,


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"Wow, I've never seen
an American speak Arabic before."

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(Laughter)

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You blame them?

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In addition to that I got things like,

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"Wow, maybe you should 
fix your vowels here."

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Or "maybe this word 
is pronounced this way."

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So suddenly language learning had gone


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from the solitary pages of a book,

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or my computer screen,

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into the wide world.

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After that I was hooked.

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I had a community of speakers
to interact with,

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and essentially had a teacher 
or conversation partners

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for any language that I wanted to do.

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So I'll show you a quick montage of that.

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Video: [in Arabic] I started studying 
Arabic roughly, 6 months ago

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This started... one, two, three, four...

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maybe four days ago.

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I actually feel that reading and writing
are easier in Arabic

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I certainly find Ojibwe difficult!

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but I came home the day before yesterday

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How is my pronunciation?
Thanks so much!

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Have a great day. Goodbye!

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00:08:24,014 --> 00:08:28,754
(Applause)

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00:08:28,754 --> 00:08:29,909
That became my way

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of reaching out to the world.

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But as I was learning all these languages,


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I faced a number of obstacles.

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00:08:34,203 --> 00:08:36,055
So number one,
I had no idea how to teach myself.

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00:08:36,055 --> 00:08:38,248
In fact, I'm sure many of you
if you were told

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00:08:38,248 --> 00:08:39,890
you have to learn Pashto by next month,


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00:08:39,890 --> 00:08:41,315
you wouldn't know what to do.

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00:08:41,355 --> 00:08:42,914
So I experimented.

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00:08:44,254 --> 00:08:45,618
Here's one thing.

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00:08:45,618 --> 00:08:48,604
So in my Latin class, I read about
something that Cicero described,

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00:08:48,605 --> 00:08:50,520
called, "Method of Loci."

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00:08:50,520 --> 00:08:51,762
technically Locurum.

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00:08:51,762 --> 00:08:55,244
But it's a technique 
in which you take mnemonics.

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00:08:55,244 --> 00:08:56,455
So let's say you want to learn 


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00:08:56,455 --> 00:08:58,018
10 vocabulary words on a list.

217
00:08:58,018 --> 00:08:59,142
You take each of those words and

218
00:08:59,142 --> 00:09:00,504
instead of memorizing them in blocks.

219
00:09:00,504 --> 00:09:02,418
you integrate them
into your spatial memory.

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00:09:02,418 --> 00:09:04,035
So here's what I mean.

221
00:09:04,035 --> 00:09:05,763
This spot right here is Union Square.

222
00:09:05,763 --> 00:09:06,763
It's a place I go every day.

223
00:09:06,763 --> 00:09:07,650
If I close my eyes


224
00:09:07,650 --> 00:09:10,169
I can imagine it very, very vividly

225
00:09:10,169 --> 00:09:12,743
So I imagine myself 
walking down Union Square,

226
00:09:12,743 --> 00:09:15,013
and in each spot in my mind
that has resonance,

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00:09:15,013 --> 00:09:17,256
I associate it with a vocab word.

228
00:09:19,076 --> 00:09:20,280
I'll show you right now.

229
00:09:20,280 --> 00:09:21,926
I'm walking down Park Avenue,


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00:09:21,926 --> 00:09:23,472
and in Japanese "to walk" is "iku"

231
00:09:23,472 --> 00:09:25,520
I go a little bit further, turn right,

232
00:09:25,520 --> 00:09:27,772
sit on the stairs where I can "Suwaru".

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00:09:27,772 --> 00:09:30,026
Directly north of there
is a statue George Washington

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00:09:30,026 --> 00:09:31,350
which I used to think was a fountain,

235
00:09:31,350 --> 00:09:33,230
so that's "nomu", "to drink".

236
00:09:33,230 --> 00:09:35,785
Right next, 
there's a tree that you can "Kiru", "cut".

237
00:09:35,785 --> 00:09:37,264
If you want to go north 
for Barnes & Noble,

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00:09:37,264 --> 00:09:39,041
you can "Yomu", "to read".

239
00:09:39,041 --> 00:09:41,520
Or if I'm hungry and I want to go
to my favorite Falafel place,

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00:09:41,520 --> 00:09:45,480
I can go one block west of there,
so I can "Taberu", "to eat".

241
00:09:45,480 --> 00:09:46,529
I missed one.

242
00:09:46,529 --> 00:09:48,817
Alright. So 8 out of 10!
Not bad!

243
00:09:49,516 --> 00:09:51,216
So I found that most of the time


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00:09:51,216 --> 00:09:53,359
by experimenting with methods like these,

245
00:09:53,359 --> 00:09:55,850
it made language learning
a much more interactive experience.

246
00:09:55,861 --> 00:09:57,794
It made it something that 
I can remember much better.

247
00:09:57,794 --> 00:09:59,255
and I had a lot of fun with.

248
00:09:59,255 --> 00:10:00,626
Maybe that's not for you.


249
00:10:00,626 --> 00:10:01,806
Here's another one.

250
00:10:02,746 --> 00:10:03,971
So a lot of people often ask me,

251
00:10:03,971 --> 00:10:05,757
if you're studying so many languages
at the same time,

252
00:10:05,757 --> 00:10:07,047
how do you not confuse them?

253
00:10:07,047 --> 00:10:08,544
Or how do you learn
so many vocabulary words?

254
00:10:08,544 --> 00:10:09,946
In Spanish I learn a word for table 


255
00:10:09,946 --> 00:10:11,678
and the word for book 
goes out the other ear.

256
00:10:12,190 --> 00:10:14,040
What I do is I embrace those.

257
00:10:14,040 --> 00:10:15,689
So for example,

258
00:10:16,289 --> 00:10:18,040
take these three words in Indonesian.

259
00:10:18,040 --> 00:10:20,244
These were actually among 
the first 50 words that I learned.

260
00:10:20,244 --> 00:10:21,768
"Kepala", "Kabar", "Kantor".

261
00:10:21,768 --> 00:10:23,749
Lexically there're unrelated to each other.

262
00:10:23,749 --> 00:10:24,771
"Kepala" is a head.

263
00:10:24,771 --> 00:10:25,773
"Kabar" is news.

264
00:10:25,773 --> 00:10:27,256
"Kantor" is an office.

265
00:10:27,256 --> 00:10:30,267
But they all sound similar "K", "A". 
Right?

266
00:10:30,267 --> 00:10:31,282
So what I would do,

267
00:10:31,282 --> 00:10:34,756
is I would memorize vocab
in batches of sounds that were similar.

268
00:10:34,756 --> 00:10:36,511
So if I hear the word "Kepala"
in Indonesian,

269
00:10:36,511 --> 00:10:38,763
I automatically think 
the words "Kebar" and "Kentor".

270
00:10:38,763 --> 00:10:41,510
Same in Arabic, "Iktissad", 
"Istiklal", "Sokot".

271
00:10:41,510 --> 00:10:42,759
These three words are unrelated.

272
00:10:42,759 --> 00:10:45,242
One is economy,
one is independence, one is downfall.

273
00:10:45,242 --> 00:10:47,272
But if I hear one, it triggers...
(Laughter)

274
00:10:47,272 --> 00:10:51,262
(Laughter)

275
00:10:51,262 --> 00:10:52,774
it triggers the rest.

276
00:10:53,494 --> 00:10:54,536
Same thing in Hebrew.

277
00:10:54,536 --> 00:10:56,011
(In Hebrew)

278
00:10:56,011 --> 00:10:58,516
Even that those are 
return, remember and to shine.

279
00:10:58,516 --> 00:11:01,006
Or in Farsi in which they are related.

280
00:11:01,006 --> 00:11:02,291
So for me if I hear the word "Pedar",

281
00:11:02,291 --> 00:11:03,270
which means father,

282
00:11:03,270 --> 00:11:04,659
I automatically think in the words,

283
00:11:04,659 --> 00:11:06,513
"Mada", "Barodar", "Dokhtar".

284
00:11:06,513 --> 00:11:08,509
Mother, brother, daughter.

285
00:11:08,509 --> 00:11:10,268
So again this is one method,

286
00:11:10,268 --> 00:11:13,014
and I'm not saying this will 
make you fluent in a language,

287
00:11:13,014 --> 00:11:14,086
but it has been one of my ways 


288
00:11:14,086 --> 00:11:15,865
of overcoming those obstacles.

289
00:11:16,715 --> 00:11:17,917
So you may be wondering,


290
00:11:18,657 --> 00:11:20,089
what's the point in doing this?

291
00:11:20,859 --> 00:11:22,932
Why learn Pashto or Ojibwe


292
00:11:22,932 --> 00:11:24,344
when you live in New York?

293
00:11:24,344 --> 00:11:26,529
And there's a point to that.

294
00:11:27,165 --> 00:11:28,942
In fact, 
I've lived in New York my entire life,

295
00:11:28,942 --> 00:11:31,257
and I'm always blown away
by the number of languages

296
00:11:31,257 --> 00:11:32,534
you can hear on a given day.

297
00:11:32,534 --> 00:11:35,777
Walking at a street,
I see billboards in Chinese or in Spanish.

298
00:11:35,777 --> 00:11:39,042
I see Russian bookstores,
Indian restaurants, Turkish bath houses.

299
00:11:39,042 --> 00:11:41,230
Yet for all that linguistic diversity,

300
00:11:41,230 --> 00:11:42,838
mainstream American culture 


301
00:11:42,838 --> 00:11:44,856
remains decidedly monolingual.

302
00:11:44,856 --> 00:11:46,054
And if you don't think that's true,

303
00:11:46,054 --> 00:11:49,515
look at the reactions
to Coca-Cola Super Bowl video.

304
00:11:51,015 --> 00:11:55,264
So as I started to play around more
with language learning,

305
00:11:55,264 --> 00:11:56,428
I found that I had my own community


306
00:11:56,428 --> 00:11:57,592
of learners here in New York.

307
00:11:57,592 --> 00:11:58,758
I'd go to outer boroughs,

308
00:11:58,758 --> 00:12:01,782
and for lack of a better word,
embarrass myself.

309
00:12:01,782 --> 00:12:03,501
I try to talk to people all day,

310
00:12:03,501 --> 00:12:05,081
get their views on things,


311
00:12:05,081 --> 00:12:06,661
and use my new found language skills.

312
00:12:06,661 --> 00:12:09,479
Video: (In Russian) What's your name?
- Natan.

313
00:12:09,479 --> 00:12:10,938
Natan.
- Good day.

314
00:12:10,938 --> 00:12:11,984
What's your name?

315
00:12:11,984 --> 00:12:13,770
I'm Tim.

316
00:12:14,150 --> 00:12:15,611
Pleased to meet you.

317
00:12:15,611 --> 00:12:17,099
Pleased to meet you.

318
00:12:17,099 --> 00:12:18,187
Where are you from?

319
00:12:18,367 --> 00:12:20,135
(In Urdu) This book is written by

320
00:12:20,135 --> 00:12:22,251
Qudratullah Shanab himself.

321
00:12:23,735 --> 00:12:24,905
What is 'nawist'?

322
00:12:25,625 --> 00:12:28,795
It means the writer has written...

323
00:12:31,375 --> 00:12:32,766
Oh okay, Khod-Nawist (self-write).

324
00:12:32,766 --> 00:12:34,248
From khod-nevashtan in Persian!

325
00:12:34,248 --> 00:12:36,239
So maybe you have to use a lot of English,

326
00:12:36,239 --> 00:12:37,440
maybe you're not really


327
00:12:37,440 --> 00:12:39,276
that particular interesting when you talk,

328
00:12:39,276 --> 00:12:40,211
but the point is you're getting out there 


329
00:12:40,211 --> 00:12:41,582
and you're getting exposure.

330
00:12:41,582 --> 00:12:42,758
So I don't speak Urdu that well,


331
00:12:42,758 --> 00:12:44,489
it was kind of an awkward conversation,

332
00:12:44,489 --> 00:12:47,737
but just from that,
I've learned a new word: "Khod-Nawist".

333
00:12:47,877 --> 00:12:49,637
I'm not going to forget it now.

334
00:12:50,257 --> 00:12:52,840
So moving on, you may wonder again 


335
00:12:52,840 --> 00:12:55,173
what's the point in doing this?

336
00:12:55,173 --> 00:12:56,912
And I try to explain to people a lot

337
00:12:56,912 --> 00:12:58,494
what my various motivations are,

338
00:12:58,494 --> 00:13:00,741
but I often feel that this quote 
from Nelson Mandela

339
00:13:00,741 --> 00:13:02,281
is the best expression of that.

340
00:13:02,281 --> 00:13:04,062
"If you talk to a man
in a language he understands,

341
00:13:04,062 --> 00:13:05,509
that goes to his head.

342
00:13:05,509 --> 00:13:08,785
If you talk to him in his language
that goes to his heart."

343
00:13:08,785 --> 00:13:10,476
So as I began to see,

344
00:13:10,476 --> 00:13:12,357
there's an enormous connection 


345
00:13:12,357 --> 00:13:13,938
between language and culture,

346
00:13:13,938 --> 00:13:15,520
language and thought.

347
00:13:15,520 --> 00:13:19,015
And quite honestly
if you want to learn Persian for example,

348
00:13:19,015 --> 00:13:21,051
you pick up a dictionary, you say,
"I know how to say 'thank you',

349
00:13:21,051 --> 00:13:22,521
I know how to say 'how much is this?',

350
00:13:22,521 --> 00:13:23,643
and I know how to say 'goodbye'.

351
00:13:23,643 --> 00:13:24,963
Oh, I speak Persian."

352
00:13:25,353 --> 00:13:28,265
Probably not, let's see actually.

353
00:13:28,265 --> 00:13:30,762
In fact, if you want to buy something
in a Persian bookstore,

354
00:13:30,762 --> 00:13:32,757
you might ask someone 'how much is this?'.

355
00:13:32,757 --> 00:13:35,013
Generally, he will tell you this:

356
00:13:35,013 --> 00:13:36,223
"Ghabeli nadaareh."

357
00:13:36,223 --> 00:13:38,256
Which means, 'it's worthless'.

358
00:13:38,256 --> 00:13:39,775
(Laughter)

359
00:13:39,775 --> 00:13:42,780
So in fact this is an ingrained 
cultural practice called, "Taaraf",

360
00:13:42,780 --> 00:13:44,749
in which two people having a conversation,

361
00:13:44,749 --> 00:13:47,220
both try to behave
more humble than the other.

362
00:13:47,220 --> 00:13:48,274
So if I go to buy a book,

363
00:13:48,274 --> 00:13:50,506
it's rude for that person to tell me
'it's five bucks'.

364
00:13:50,506 --> 00:13:52,263
He has to say "it's worthless, please.

365
00:13:52,263 --> 00:13:54,227
You're so good-looking,
you're so talented,

366
00:13:54,227 --> 00:13:55,486
you're whatever.


367
00:13:55,486 --> 00:13:56,745
(Laughter)

368
00:13:56,745 --> 00:13:58,004
Take it for free,
I'm so humble, take it for free."

369
00:13:58,004 --> 00:14:00,767
(Laughter)

370
00:14:00,767 --> 00:14:04,276
Or you might find something 
like this phrase:

371
00:14:04,276 --> 00:14:05,782
if you want to thank somebody,

372
00:14:05,782 --> 00:14:07,489
if you want to show your gratitude
towards them,

373
00:14:07,489 --> 00:14:08,770
or say 'nice to meet you',

374
00:14:08,770 --> 00:14:10,510
I could say, "Well, 
I know how to say 'thank you' in Farsi.

375
00:14:10,510 --> 00:14:12,025
I speak Farsi."

376
00:14:12,025 --> 00:14:13,225
Maybe not though.

377
00:14:13,225 --> 00:14:15,506
In fact I've often heard this phrase
when I talk with Iranians,

378
00:14:15,506 --> 00:14:16,962
"Ghorbanet beram."

379
00:14:16,962 --> 00:14:18,480
Which literally means,

380
00:14:18,480 --> 00:14:22,770
"May I sacrifice my life for you."
(Laughter)

381
00:14:22,770 --> 00:14:24,771
So again, it's poetic,

382
00:14:24,771 --> 00:14:26,723
you might call it melodramatic.

383
00:14:27,833 --> 00:14:31,598
but this is something you really
have to understand the culture to get.

384
00:14:32,536 --> 00:14:34,263
I don't want to exona-size this,

385
00:14:34,263 --> 00:14:36,256
because, think about it, 
we have this in English all the time.

386
00:14:36,256 --> 00:14:37,766
If you ask somebody 'how are you?',

387
00:14:37,766 --> 00:14:39,271
what you're expecting to hear?

388
00:14:39,271 --> 00:14:40,269
'I'm fine'.

389
00:14:40,269 --> 00:14:41,735
If you tell me anything else,
I'm not interested.

390
00:14:41,735 --> 00:14:42,756
(Laughter)

391
00:14:42,756 --> 00:14:43,775
But we do it anyway.

392
00:14:43,775 --> 00:14:44,767
We say 'bless you',

393
00:14:44,767 --> 00:14:47,060
even though that has no real
religious connotations now,

394
00:14:47,060 --> 00:14:48,263
when people sneeze

395
00:14:48,263 --> 00:14:52,510
Right? So,

396
00:14:52,510 --> 00:14:54,123
it's interesting we think about the fact


397
00:14:54,123 --> 00:14:55,533
that most linguists believe

398
00:14:55,533 --> 00:14:58,501
language doesn't inherently 
affect the way you think.

399
00:14:58,501 --> 00:15:01,234
Right. There's no language
that will make you a math genius.

400
00:15:01,234 --> 00:15:02,903
There's no language that will make


401
00:15:02,903 --> 00:15:05,299
logic problems impossible to understand.

402
00:15:05,299 --> 00:15:08,034
But there's a real tie 
between language and culture.

403
00:15:08,034 --> 00:15:09,308
There're so much language can tell you


404
00:15:09,308 --> 00:15:11,604
about one culture's mindset.

405
00:15:11,604 --> 00:15:13,079
And in fact on planet Earth,

406
00:15:13,079 --> 00:15:16,228
every two weeks, another language dies.

407
00:15:16,228 --> 00:15:17,750
No more people are speaking it.

408
00:15:17,750 --> 00:15:19,774
Because of war, because of famine,

409
00:15:19,774 --> 00:15:21,730
oftentimes just because of assimilation.

410
00:15:21,730 --> 00:15:23,763
Maybe it easier for me 
not to speak my village language

411
00:15:23,763 --> 00:15:26,245
but to speak, Arabic let's say.

412
00:15:26,245 --> 00:15:28,763
Or maybe I'm from a tribe in the Amazon,

413
00:15:28,763 --> 00:15:30,070
my habitat is cut down

414
00:15:30,070 --> 00:15:32,519
and it just makes more sense for me
to learn Portuguese

415
00:15:32,519 --> 00:15:34,034
and lose my culture.

416
00:15:34,764 --> 00:15:35,774
So think about that.

417
00:15:35,774 --> 00:15:38,264
Two months from today is April 1st.

418
00:15:38,264 --> 00:15:39,769
For many of you that day maybe stressful


419
00:15:39,769 --> 00:15:41,274
because you have a paper due,

420
00:15:41,274 --> 00:15:42,780
or the rent is due.

421
00:15:42,780 --> 00:15:44,265
But for two groups of people
around the world,

422
00:15:44,265 --> 00:15:47,050
for two cultures that means 
the death of their language.

423
00:15:47,050 --> 00:15:49,745
The death of their mythology, 
their history, their folklore.

424
00:15:49,745 --> 00:15:51,775
Their understanding of the world.

425
00:15:51,775 --> 00:15:54,504
Now again, you, 
brushing up on your Spanish,

426
00:15:54,504 --> 00:15:56,496
going to Japanese class,

427
00:15:56,496 --> 00:15:58,788
is not going to stop language death.

428
00:15:59,228 --> 00:16:02,770
But what is does do,
is begin to open up your mind to the idea

429
00:16:02,770 --> 00:16:05,517
that language in its sense, in essence,

430
00:16:05,517 --> 00:16:08,743
represents a cultural world view.

431
00:16:08,743 --> 00:16:11,490
And if I can impart you
with anything today at TEDxTeen,

432
00:16:11,490 --> 00:16:13,003
it's this:

433
00:16:13,003 --> 00:16:14,983
you can translate words easily

434
00:16:14,983 --> 00:16:17,377
but you can't quite translate meaning.

435
00:16:17,377 --> 00:16:18,382
Thank you.

436
00:16:18,382 --> 00:16:22,279
(Cheers)