Levelling Up With Moses Mccormick (laoshu505000): Part 2
right yeah because if you come up to
Vancouver there's no shortage of people
speaking all kinds of different
languages we could get into a cab if we
hail a cab
there's a 50% chance the drivers Punjabi
and a 50% is Irani now I've been
learning Persian so I can handle it
oh okay
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how many me gonna so and of course the
Chinese there's no shortage of China oh
yes you guys have been Cantonese I heard
that make uber to can't walk not just
can't sneeze but the someone told me
that the poppy I forgot the number
it was a crazy number for population
yeah he's gotta be yeah I mean I would
think that in in Vancouver's got to be
35% okay yeah and that's all happened
within the last 20 or 30 years and it
used to be mostly people from Hong Kong
so it was heavy to Cantonese but now I
think its majority in American mainland
China as well as Taiwanese origin people
but there's lots of everything
certainly I saw the Filipino flag I
wanna oh yeah tagalog we can find it
almost much everything and we can do
pretty much anything like the only
language is that I haven't really cover
or dam what have you done Ukrainian I
haven't done in Ukrainian yet yeah I did
I learned Ukrainian I went to your grain
a great country not always about that
house if you compare that to Russian how
would like how well okay Ukrainian is
kind of between Russian and polish so
the vocabulary is more similar to polish
but certainly the writing system and and
perhaps the grammar is more similar to
Russian it's not very difficult if
you're a Russian speaker at first you
listen to Ukrainian you know as a
Russian speaker and I I felt I should be
able to understand this language but I
don't really quite understand it but
then if you put some effort into
learning the words then yeah and
this is slightly different but but I was
you know the interesting thing is that
that Russian in terms of vocabulary is
the outlier the vocabulary is closer
between polish Czech Ukrainian and
Russian vocabulary is somewhat different
but the grammar is very very similar
okay and yeah and it's a nice country
good food and they unfortunately they
have a real problem right now but I
think their new president is good and
and certainly the it was a great time
what it is but everywhere oh yeah what
are your current like what languages are
you doing now like what are your current
active languages okay so I initially
thought I would go after three so again
going by regions right so I got my East
Asian thing which is you know Chinese
Mandarin Cantonese Japanese Korean to
some extent and of course I got my
Western European languages Romance
languages you know Spanish French
Italian so what so I decided Middle East
like I don't know enough about all okay
so I decided to go after first I went
after Arabic and then I said well I got
the writing system but there's so many
Iranians here involve Hoover so I should
learn purged and and then my wife was
watching a Turkish soap operas that's
why I started Turkish but I dropped the
Turkish for now because it's just too
much for me to do them all at the same
time Turkish is is you know way more
difficult but because it's written in
the Latin alphabet is easier and whereas
reading for me like even though I kind
of know what the writing system is in
fact it takes a long time I don't know
how you handle all these different
writing systems because the brain you
know you can theoretically know
something but you actually I find you
got to do it yeah much before it starts
to feel come on yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
you're right so so right now it's
basically Persian in Arabic I'm just
working on the two of them I get
podcasts off the internet I have the
people in one person an Iranian gal who
is actually traveling in India and
and a woman in Jordan and they
transcribed them for me and I listened
to the podcast understand about 20% and
then I go through the text on link and
save words of phrases and I'm just yeah
so on okay so you know in that era
beginning so which one of those well
because I I believe that Farsi for you
shouldn't be a problem with your
Japanese background because the grammar
is the same but what do you think is
more Farsi Farsi is not no Farsi is
Turkish in terms of the structure is
more similar to Japanese but Farsi is an
indo-european language so it's very
similar to other European languages the
word order I mean nothing there is very
strange
whereas Arabic is yes finger because
trying and Turkish Turkish is stranger
yeah but what do you learning fine
what's which form of Arabic are you
learning full power just
yep well Standard Arabic I gather
there's a difference between foot sign
and Standard Arabic whatever you want to
call it this is Arabic they're modern
okay yeah because if I get on to
al-jazeera or transman cat you know or
anywhere where they have Arabic you know
podcast political discussions whatever
it's all in standard air okay whether
the person is from Sudan from Algeria
from Lebanon they speak the standard
Arabic I recognize that if I were to go
on visit Lebanon or Egypt I'd have to
spend some time working on that form of
the language but right now I'm focused
on that when it comes because you know
if you like the spirit people I found
that to be a bit difficult to try to
level up using modern it then when you
talk with them using the modern then
they'll say well oh you make some come
and say you sound like my teacher or
they'll laugh and they and a lot of
times they don't respond back and when
they do respond back it's in their
respective dilate you know so right but
but you know I was in Montreal and a lot
of taxi drivers are Lebanese and they
did not respond in standard Arabic on
the other hand there's a coffee shop in
Vancouver where I can speak to them as
standard
Arabic and my wife and I were in Morocco
and taxi drivers restaurant owners they
were happy to speak to me in Standard
Arabic even though we could have spoken
in French all that is you know right
very common there but they would humor
me they were very nice I like it when
people you were me you know not like
that Chinese guy who was giving oh man
that was video that's he's the only
person in all of the videos that look of
yours he was the only guy who wasn't not
yes in that really not so much you know
I I like to make you so when I have like
a really uncomfortable situation I think
it's good for the court of viewers to
because they may I have a similar
situation and they may get discouraged
and say oh I don't want to do this
anymore
this is this how the people act but they
need to see I tell people that but you
can't really expect every situation to
be positive but I will say 98% of the
time when you speak with people you show
them that you want to learn our language
they're gonna be very very happy and
they're gonna be open and they're gonna
be willing to practice with you that
situation with that Chinese guy that was
really something that rarely happens
like I had but but I think I had two bad
experiences with Chinese right and I've
been doing I've been doing languages for
20 years so I mean but you have you have
like not everyone can do what you do
like you have a you know it just bounces
off you and you come back with a chuckle
and I mean not everyone can do it right
so you have a very good personality for
do you come in with a chuckle before
you've even said anything you've already
created a bit of a positive happy mood
and stuff not everyone can do that and I
think some people would be would get
uptight if people were annoyed or and he
was just a jerk he claims that he spoke
Yiddish he didn't speak Yiddish and that
mean that the challenge you and you
spoke to him in Russian says I thought
Russian then he told you your Chinese
was no good like he was just yeah yeah I
didn't I didn't take him seriously
because I have too much experience and
you know I mean my Chinese right perfect
but you know hey no and I think that's
another thing that I always mention you
as an example like like I had a
discussion with a guy in Japanese who is
all about pitch accent in Japanese and
pursuing sort of the nth degree of
perfection in Japanese and I said fine
like if that's what you want to do
that's fine but that's not the only
approach one can have to language
learning and so and I always point to
you said here's a guy he's dabbled in
Estonian in Khmer I think he did some
mom at some point yeah it's what Hayley
like it's such a so he a sampled like
imagine you went to a buffet dinner and
you sampled a little bit of everything
that was that the date in it I mean
that's you can also just grab a steak
and sit down and eat the state but I
think and I'm the same way like I have
20 languages I would say that you know
maybe a handful I speak well and then it
just you know it's you know it gets
worse from there on and I can't claim to
speak but but I went to Greece and I
spoke Greek and I went to Romania and I
spoke Romanian
and if he came at me now and Greek or
Romanian I don't think I'd be able to
handle it but but so what I had
experienced I discovered I discovered a
little bit about Greek culture and a
little bit about I mean I tried getting
to me but I didn't get very far but so I
think that's a tremendous thing to do
and and you can't expect if a person I
don't know how many languages you're up
to now but you can't expect that a
person who does 50 languages is gonna be
equally good in all of them yeah that's
not realistic it's not really this is
you know it's just I tell people you
know people ask me all the time will you
I see that you're doing all these
language at the same time but I will
always tell people if they're trying to
get to a really high level language like
you know c1 or c2 you can't do right
five or six language at the same time
you have to really focus on that
language itself because that language is
gonna require your full attention you
know I always tell people always tell
people that
so it really all depends on the person
it depends on their goals or what they
want to do like me I love I love the new
experience you know I love the new
experience and new interaction with
people so I don't expect myself
to learn all those languages to a crazy
high level so I said I'm going say look
I'm happy with a one I'm happy with a -
I'm not gonna spend all this time trying
to get to like a c1 or whatever you know
so I said realistic goals for myself but
I tell people all the time I tell them
you need to make sure that you know set
your goals I should said what you want
out of this language why are you
studying this language and if it's gonna
be a really high level like that you
can't unfortunately you can't do
multiple I mean you can but the problem
is gonna the problem you're gonna have
is the attention you know you you over
here doing this and then you can say
okay I'll do this first time in the over
here you can't really do that when
you're trying to get a language to a
high level you have to really focus on
that language you know so it really all
depends I tell people that all the time
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