Tim Doner’s Language Method

(Adapted from: http://languagefan.com/timdoner/, Christopher Huff April 17, 2014)

Tim used to be a child actor, called upon to imitate accents in commercials.

As “the world’s youngest polyglot,” Tim Doner has the attention of many language learners and admirers who want to know how he achieved what he has.

A polyglot is a person who learns and uses five or more languages. Tim can speak 23 languages!

He was born in New York in 1995 and when he was 17 he published his first youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/polyglotpal

What is his secret? Is he a genius? Tim Doner’s language-learning method includes several ideas:

Imitation
First, Tim is very entertaining when he speaks another language. Tim used to be a child actor, he likes to imitate accents. Doing this helps him to improve his pronunciation.

Vocabulary and Grammar.

Tim loves lists of vocabulary. He uses several flashcards applications and games to help him memorise the new words. He can learn new vocabulary with pictures.

In addition, when he learns a new vocabulary item, he learns two more that sound similar.

Finally, grammar is important, too. Tim says if you’re just aiming to travel abroad and be like a tourist, grammar is unnecessary. But for him, grammar is a formula into which different vocabulary can fit.

Music, TV and Exposure

Tim mentions the importance of exposure. “All it takes” for a good accent, he recommends, “is a lot of dedication and practice and listening.”, for example in songs and films.

Tim cites the following benefits of watching TV in another language:

You will hear a native rate of speech,
often a more colloquial register,
which trains you to comprehend more
while having fun!

But don’t limit yourself to TV, Tim says, just make sure of one thing: “it has to be constant, 24/7 exposure. Anything on the Internet, YouTube bloggers, newspapers, music, whatever comes to mind…”

Motivation

Finally, Tim has a great motivation to study languages beacuse he is also interested in history, political science, and cultural diversity of languages.

In the end, Tim sums up his motivation with a quote from Nelson Mandela: “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart”

THE FULL LIST OF 23 LANGUAGES

English

French
Hausa

Wolof
Russian German

Yiddish

Hebrew
Mandarin

Turkish
Indonesian

Dutch

Swahili
Hindi

Ojibwe
Persian

Croatian

Spanish

Arabic

Pashto
Farsi

Italian

Other famous polyglots.

· Luís Figo, retired footballer. He is fluent in five languages: Portuguese, Spanish, English, Italian and French.

· Clarence Seedorf, retired footballer and former manager of A.C. Milan. Seedorf speaks six languages fluently:Dutch, English Italian,Portuguese, Spanish and Surinamese.

· Viggo Mortensen, Danish actor. He speaks fluent English, Danish, and Spanish, is conversational in French and Italian, and understands Norwegian and Swedish. and also has some knowledge of Catalan.

· Ramona Irgolic, singer, songwriter, world traveler and model. As she has a good ear, Ramona taught herself several languages. She is fluent in English, German, Slovenian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian and Croatian. She is currently learning Serbian, Indonesian,Sundanese ,Malay, Dutch and understands Russian, Czech, Slovak, Polish among some more.

Questions:

What is a polyglot?

How many languages can Tim speak?

What are the 4 points of his method? Make a summary.

Do you consider him a genius? Why?

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