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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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and 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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(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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(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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(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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(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,

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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)

101
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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
like a little kid with a lisp,

106
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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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(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: (Arabic) I started studying 
Arabic roughly, 6 months ago.

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(Indonesian)
This started... one, two, three, four...

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maybe four days ago.

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(Hebrew) I actually feel

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that reading and writing
are easier in Arabic

196
00:08:06,624 --> 00:08:10,261
(Ojibwe)
I certainly find Ojibwe difficult!

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(Swahili) But I came home
the day before yesterday.

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(Pashto) How is my pronunciation?
Thanks so much!

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Have a great day. Goodbye!

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(Applause)

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Tim Doner: 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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So number one,
I had no idea how to teach myself.

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In fact, I'm sure many of you
if you were told

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00:08:39,768 --> 00:08:41,700
you have to learn Pashto by next month,


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00:08:41,700 --> 00:08:43,185
you wouldn't know what to do.

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00:08:43,185 --> 00:08:44,254
So I experimented.

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Here's one thing.

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00:08:45,618 --> 00:08:48,864
So in my Latin class, I read about
something that Cicero described,

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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 --> 00:08:56,805
So let's say you want to learn 


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00:08:56,805 --> 00:08:58,328
10 vocabulary words on a list.

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00:08:58,328 --> 00:08:59,912
You take each of those words and

218
00:08:59,912 --> 00:09:01,744
instead of memorizing them in blocks.

219
00:09:01,744 --> 00:09:04,068
you integrate them
into your spatial memory.

220
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So here's what I mean.

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00:09:05,165 --> 00:09:06,513
This is Union Square.

222
00:09:06,513 --> 00:09:08,003
It's a place I go every day.

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00:09:08,003 --> 00:09:09,200
If I close my eyes


224
00:09:09,200 --> 00:09:11,079
I can imagine it very, very vividly

225
00:09:11,079 --> 00:09:13,343
So I imagine myself 
walking down Union Square,

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00:09:13,343 --> 00:09:15,663
and in each spot in my mind
that has resonance,

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00:09:15,663 --> 00:09:18,376
I associate it with a vocab word.

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

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


230
00:09:21,926 --> 00:09:23,632
and in Japanese "to walk" is "iku"

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00:09:23,632 --> 00:09:25,520
I go a little bit further, turn right,

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

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00:09:27,772 --> 00:09:30,276
Directly north of there
is a statue George Washington

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00:09:30,276 --> 00:09:32,170
which I used to think was a fountain,

235
00:09:32,170 --> 00:09:33,750
so that's "nomu", "to drink".

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00:09:33,750 --> 00:09:36,385
Right next,
there's a tree that you can "Kiru", "cut".

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00:09:36,385 --> 00:09:38,434
If you want to go north
for Barnes & Noble,

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00:09:38,434 --> 00:09:39,851
you can "Yomu", "to read".

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00:09:39,851 --> 00:09:42,860
Or if I'm hungry and I want to go
to my favorite Falafel place,

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00:09:42,860 --> 00:09:45,870
I can go one block west of there,
so I can "Taberu", "to eat".

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00:09:45,870 --> 00:09:46,849
I missed one.

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00:09:46,849 --> 00:09:49,377
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 --> 00:09:56,290
it made language learning
a much more interactive experience.

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00:09:56,290 --> 00:09:58,844
It made it something
that I can remember much better.

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00:09:58,844 --> 00:10:00,415
and I had a lot of fun with.

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00:10:00,415 --> 00:10:01,626
Maybe that's not for you.


249
00:10:01,626 --> 00:10:02,746
Here's another one.

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00:10:02,746 --> 00:10:04,381
So a lot of people often ask me,

251
00:10:04,381 --> 00:10:06,977
if you're studying so many languages
at the same time,

252
00:10:06,977 --> 00:10:08,417
how do you not confuse them?

253
00:10:08,417 --> 00:10:10,664
Or how do you learn
so many vocabulary words?

254
00:10:10,664 --> 00:10:12,416
In Spanish I learn a word for table 


255
00:10:12,416 --> 00:10:14,630
and the word for book
goes out the other ear.

256
00:10:14,630 --> 00:10:16,020
What I do is I embrace those.

257
00:10:16,020 --> 00:10:17,519
So for example,

258
00:10:17,519 --> 00:10:19,320
take these three words in Indonesian.

259
00:10:19,320 --> 00:10:22,274
These were actually among 
the first 50 words that I learned.

260
00:10:22,274 --> 00:10:23,688
"Kepala", "Kabar", "Kantor".

261
00:10:23,688 --> 00:10:25,699
Lexically there're unrelated
to each other.

262
00:10:25,699 --> 00:10:28,501
"Kepala" is a head. "Kabar" is news.
"Kantor" is an office.

263
00:10:28,501 --> 00:10:30,667
But they all sound similar "K", "A". 
Right?

264
00:10:30,667 --> 00:10:31,842
So what I would do,

265
00:10:31,842 --> 00:10:35,066
is I would memorize vocab
in batches of sounds that were similar.

266
00:10:35,066 --> 00:10:37,291
So if I hear the word "Kepala"
in Indonesian,

267
00:10:37,291 --> 00:10:39,923
I automatically think 
the words "Kebar" and "Kentor".

268
00:10:39,923 --> 00:10:42,310
Same in Arabic, "Iktissad", 
"Istiklal", "Sokot".

269
00:10:42,310 --> 00:10:43,899
These three words are unrelated.

270
00:10:43,899 --> 00:10:46,382
One is economy,
one is independence, one is downfall.

271
00:10:46,382 --> 00:10:48,652
But if I hear one, it triggers...
(Laughter)

272
00:10:48,652 --> 00:10:51,262
(Laughter)

273
00:10:51,262 --> 00:10:52,774
it triggers the rest.

274
00:10:53,494 --> 00:10:54,536
Same thing in Hebrew.

275
00:10:54,536 --> 00:10:56,011
(Hebrew)

276
00:10:56,011 --> 00:10:58,516
Even that those are 
return, remember and to shine.

277
00:10:58,516 --> 00:11:01,006
Or in Farsi in which they are related.

278
00:11:01,006 --> 00:11:02,891
So for me if I hear the word "Pedar",

279
00:11:02,891 --> 00:11:03,970
which means father,

280
00:11:03,970 --> 00:11:05,689
I automatically think in the words,

281
00:11:05,689 --> 00:11:07,263
"Mada", "Barodar", "Dokhtar".

282
00:11:07,263 --> 00:11:08,509
Mother, brother, daughter.

283
00:11:08,509 --> 00:11:10,268
So again this is one method,

284
00:11:10,268 --> 00:11:13,304
and I'm not saying this will 
make you fluent in a language,

285
00:11:13,304 --> 00:11:14,896
but it has been one of my ways 


286
00:11:14,896 --> 00:11:16,845
of overcoming those obstacles.

287
00:11:16,845 --> 00:11:18,697
So you may be wondering,


288
00:11:18,697 --> 00:11:20,909
what's the point in doing this?

289
00:11:20,909 --> 00:11:22,932
Why learn Pashto or Ojibwe


290
00:11:22,932 --> 00:11:24,344
when you live in New York?

291
00:11:24,344 --> 00:11:26,529
And there's a point to that.

292
00:11:27,165 --> 00:11:29,512
In fact,
I've lived in New York my entire life,

293
00:11:29,512 --> 00:11:32,027
and I'm always blown away
by the number of languages

294
00:11:32,027 --> 00:11:34,094
you can hear on a given day.

295
00:11:34,094 --> 00:11:37,217
Walking at a street,
I see billboards in Chinese or in Spanish.

296
00:11:37,217 --> 00:11:40,362
I see Russian bookstores,
Indian restaurants, Turkish bath houses.

297
00:11:40,362 --> 00:11:42,220
Yet for all that linguistic diversity,

298
00:11:42,220 --> 00:11:43,748
mainstream American culture 


299
00:11:43,748 --> 00:11:45,366
remains decidedly monolingual.

300
00:11:45,366 --> 00:11:47,174
And if you don't think that's true,

301
00:11:47,174 --> 00:11:49,925
look at the reactions
to Coca-Cola Super Bowl video.

302
00:11:51,015 --> 00:11:55,264
So as I started to play around more
with language learning,

303
00:11:55,264 --> 00:11:57,048
I found that I had my own community


304
00:11:57,048 --> 00:11:58,502
of learners here in New York.

305
00:11:58,502 --> 00:12:00,068
I'd go to outer boroughs,

306
00:12:00,068 --> 00:12:02,462
and for lack of a better word,
embarrass myself.

307
00:12:02,462 --> 00:12:04,121
I try to talk to people all day,

308
00:12:04,121 --> 00:12:05,461
get their views on things,


309
00:12:05,461 --> 00:12:07,361
and use my new found language skills.

310
00:12:07,361 --> 00:12:09,719
Video: (Russian) What's your name?
- Natan.

311
00:12:09,719 --> 00:12:10,938
Natan.
- Good day.

312
00:12:10,938 --> 00:12:11,984
What's your name?

313
00:12:11,984 --> 00:12:13,770
I'm Tim.

314
00:12:14,150 --> 00:12:15,611
Pleased to meet you.

315
00:12:15,611 --> 00:12:17,099
Pleased to meet you.

316
00:12:17,099 --> 00:12:18,387
Where are you from?

317
00:12:18,387 --> 00:12:20,135
(Urdu) This book is written by

318
00:12:20,135 --> 00:12:22,251
Qudratullah Shanab himself.

319
00:12:23,735 --> 00:12:25,655
What is 'nawist'?

320
00:12:25,655 --> 00:12:28,795
It means the writer has written...

321
00:12:31,282 --> 00:12:33,036
Oh okay, Khod-Nawist (self-write).

322
00:12:33,036 --> 00:12:34,728
From khod-nevashtan in Persian!

323
00:12:34,728 --> 00:12:36,909
TD: So maybe you have to use
a lot of English,

324
00:12:36,909 --> 00:12:38,250
maybe you're not really


325
00:12:38,250 --> 00:12:40,336
that particularly interesting
when you talk,

326
00:12:40,336 --> 00:12:42,381
but the point is you're getting out there 


327
00:12:42,381 --> 00:12:43,822
and you're getting exposure.

328
00:12:43,822 --> 00:12:45,438
So I don't speak Urdu that well,


329
00:12:45,438 --> 00:12:47,379
it was kind of an awkward conversation,

330
00:12:47,379 --> 00:12:50,407
but just from that,
I've learned a new word: "Khod-Nawist".

331
00:12:50,407 --> 00:12:51,977
I'm not going to forget it now.

332
00:12:51,977 --> 00:12:53,740
So moving on, you may wonder again 


333
00:12:53,740 --> 00:12:55,513
what's the point in doing this?

334
00:12:55,513 --> 00:12:57,342
And I try to explain to people a lot

335
00:12:57,342 --> 00:12:58,994
what my various motivations are,

336
00:12:58,994 --> 00:13:01,491
but I often feel that this quote
from Nelson Mandela

337
00:13:01,491 --> 00:13:03,101
is the best expression of that.

338
00:13:03,101 --> 00:13:05,532
"If you talk to a man
in a language he understands,

339
00:13:05,532 --> 00:13:07,159
that goes to his head.

340
00:13:07,159 --> 00:13:10,005
If you talk to him in his language
that goes to his heart."

341
00:13:10,005 --> 00:13:11,256
So as I began to see,

342
00:13:11,256 --> 00:13:12,717
there's an enormous connection 


343
00:13:12,717 --> 00:13:14,158
between language and culture,

344
00:13:14,158 --> 00:13:15,520
language and thought.

345
00:13:15,520 --> 00:13:19,015
And quite honestly
if you want to learn Persian for example,

346
00:13:19,015 --> 00:13:22,221
you pick up a dictionary, you say,
"I know how to say 'thank you',

347
00:13:22,221 --> 00:13:24,091
I know how to say 'how much is this?',

348
00:13:24,091 --> 00:13:25,573
and I know how to say 'goodbye'.

349
00:13:25,573 --> 00:13:27,313
Oh, I speak Persian."

350
00:13:27,313 --> 00:13:29,015
Probably not, let's see actually.

351
00:13:29,015 --> 00:13:32,022
In fact, if you want to buy something
in a Persian bookstore,

352
00:13:32,022 --> 00:13:34,067
you might ask someone 'how much is this?'.

353
00:13:34,067 --> 00:13:35,733
Generally, he will tell you this:

354
00:13:35,733 --> 00:13:37,013
"Ghabeli nadaareh."

355
00:13:37,013 --> 00:13:38,596
Which means, 'it's worthless'.

356
00:13:38,596 --> 00:13:39,775
(Laughter)

357
00:13:39,775 --> 00:13:43,150
So in fact this is an ingrained
cultural practice called, "Taaraf",

358
00:13:43,150 --> 00:13:45,389
in which two people having a conversation,

359
00:13:45,389 --> 00:13:47,760
both try to behave
more humble than the other.

360
00:13:47,760 --> 00:13:49,264
So if I go to buy a book,

361
00:13:49,264 --> 00:13:51,906
it's rude for that person to tell me
'it's five bucks'.

362
00:13:51,906 --> 00:13:53,853
He has to say "it's worthless, please.

363
00:13:53,853 --> 00:13:55,917
You're so good-looking,
you're so talented,

364
00:13:55,917 --> 00:13:56,745
(Laughter)

365
00:13:56,745 --> 00:13:59,224
Take it for free,
I'm so humble, take it for free."

366
00:13:59,224 --> 00:14:00,767
(Laughter)

367
00:14:00,767 --> 00:14:04,276
Or you might find something
like this phrase:

368
00:14:04,276 --> 00:14:05,752
if you want to thank somebody,

369
00:14:05,752 --> 00:14:08,029
if you want to show your gratitude
towards them,

370
00:14:08,029 --> 00:14:09,370
or say 'nice to meet you',

371
00:14:09,370 --> 00:14:12,230
I could say, "Well,
I know how to say 'thank you' in Farsi.

372
00:14:12,230 --> 00:14:13,735
I speak Farsi."
Maybe not though.

373
00:14:13,735 --> 00:14:16,776
In fact I've often heard this phrase
when I talk with Iranians,

374
00:14:16,776 --> 00:14:17,852
"Ghorbanet beram."

375
00:14:17,852 --> 00:14:18,910
Which literally means,

376
00:14:18,910 --> 00:14:22,770
"May I sacrifice my life for you."
(Laughter)

377
00:14:22,770 --> 00:14:24,771
So again, it's poetic,

378
00:14:24,771 --> 00:14:26,723
you might call it melodramatic.

379
00:14:27,833 --> 00:14:31,598
but this is something you really
have to understand the culture to get.

380
00:14:32,536 --> 00:14:34,263
I don't want to exona-size this,

381
00:14:34,263 --> 00:14:37,266
because, think about it,
we have this in English all the time.

382
00:14:37,266 --> 00:14:39,006
If you ask somebody 'how are you?',

383
00:14:39,006 --> 00:14:40,451
what you're expecting to hear?

384
00:14:40,451 --> 00:14:41,209
'I'm fine'.

385
00:14:41,209 --> 00:14:43,535
If you tell me anything else,
I'm not interested.

386
00:14:43,535 --> 00:14:44,896
(Laughter)

387
00:14:44,896 --> 00:14:46,035
But we do it anyway.

388
00:14:46,035 --> 00:14:47,217
We say 'bless you',

389
00:14:47,217 --> 00:14:49,870
even though that has no real
religious connotations now,

390
00:14:49,870 --> 00:14:51,527
when people sneeze, right?

391
00:14:51,527 --> 00:14:54,123
So, it's interesting we think
about the fact

392
00:14:54,123 --> 00:14:55,533
that most linguists believe

393
00:14:55,533 --> 00:14:58,501
language doesn't inherently
affect the way you think.

394
00:14:58,501 --> 00:15:01,444
Right. There's no language
that will make you a math genius.

395
00:15:01,444 --> 00:15:03,152
There's no language that will make


396
00:15:03,152 --> 00:15:05,563
logic problems impossible to understand.

397
00:15:05,563 --> 00:15:08,034
But there's a real tie
between language and culture.

398
00:15:08,034 --> 00:15:09,868
There're so much language can tell you


399
00:15:09,868 --> 00:15:11,604
about one culture's mindset.

400
00:15:11,604 --> 00:15:13,079
And in fact on planet Earth,

401
00:15:13,079 --> 00:15:16,228
every two weeks, another language dies.

402
00:15:16,228 --> 00:15:17,750
No more people are speaking it.

403
00:15:17,750 --> 00:15:19,774
Because of war, because of famine,

404
00:15:19,774 --> 00:15:21,730
oftentimes just because of assimilation.

405
00:15:21,730 --> 00:15:24,483
Maybe it easier for me
not to speak my village language

406
00:15:24,483 --> 00:15:26,245
but to speak, Arabic let's say.

407
00:15:26,245 --> 00:15:28,763
Or maybe I'm from a tribe in the Amazon,

408
00:15:28,763 --> 00:15:30,070
my habitat is cut down

409
00:15:30,070 --> 00:15:32,819
and it just makes more sense for me
to learn Portuguese

410
00:15:32,819 --> 00:15:34,874
and lose my culture.

411
00:15:34,874 --> 00:15:36,064
So think about that.

412
00:15:36,064 --> 00:15:38,264
Two months from today is April 1st.

413
00:15:38,264 --> 00:15:40,349
For many of you that day maybe stressful


414
00:15:40,349 --> 00:15:41,864
because you have a paper due,

415
00:15:41,864 --> 00:15:42,780
or the rent is due.

416
00:15:42,780 --> 00:15:45,105
But for two groups of people
around the world,

417
00:15:45,105 --> 00:15:47,860
for two cultures that means
the death of their language.

418
00:15:47,860 --> 00:15:50,745
The death of their mythology,
their history, their folklore.

419
00:15:50,745 --> 00:15:52,495
Their understanding of the world.

420
00:15:52,495 --> 00:15:54,684
Now again, you,
brushing up on your Spanish,

421
00:15:54,684 --> 00:15:56,496
going to Japanese class,

422
00:15:56,496 --> 00:15:58,788
is not going to stop language death.

423
00:15:59,228 --> 00:16:02,770
But what is does do,
is begin to open up your mind to the idea

424
00:16:02,770 --> 00:16:05,517
that language in its sense, in essence,

425
00:16:05,517 --> 00:16:08,743
represents a cultural world view.

426
00:16:08,743 --> 00:16:11,490
And if I can impart you
with anything today at TEDxTeen,

427
00:16:11,490 --> 00:16:13,003
it's this:

428
00:16:13,003 --> 00:16:14,983
you can translate words easily

429
00:16:14,983 --> 00:16:17,377
but you can't quite translate meaning.

430
00:16:17,377 --> 00:16:18,382
Thank you.

431
00:16:18,382 --> 00:16:19,858
(Cheers)