jenny was you don’t go to status car see
I told us y’all hi my name is singer I
mom said that Ricki polyglot now what
kinda job title is there right
it means basically I’m famous for
speaking lots of different languages I
give lectures I write books and I make
TV appearances so what does my day job
look like I go to a TV studio and I
guess we’re saying hey speak French
speak French
from our ears to the different face and
alike so actually you stop would they be
like come on please speak Italian –
java.security so the FTC Pacific we come
we had Chilean to Jeremy and this job I
started out my users on the education
refugee as many of you know Asian
education system is very efficient for
those people who feel it
I didn’t I like to shake things up by
asking too many questions and challenge
the teachers authorities and we all know
what we do with those keys around here
so I left Korea in search of better
schools and my journey to me first to
the US and then to France and in this
journey I picked a French English
Italian and another really German and
Chinese and I had a little passion for
education a little love affair with
Arabic and out of the way and this gave
me a perspective into learning and what
I have to call the Great East Asian
language crisis that I’m here to speak
to you about today my life was fatally
that of an ordinary language
2013 when a producer of a popular
entertainment talk show called me and
said hey wanna come as a guest on my TV
show still to this day I am told
understand what she was thinking because
after all what a language they’re doing
on a TV show
intended for real celebrities like
actors and singers but her just control
back because I was number one trending
Avon neighbor calm which is Korea’s
Google for 36 hours straight and my life
changed I started searching for the
reason that people watch me that day and
why I keep getting called back to other
shows and I think it has something to do
with the fact that in East Asia English
is the subject that most students hate
the most
so when they see me come on TV shows
with a bright smile on my face and
talking different languages kids are
wondering hey that guy’s seen something
that I’m not saying what is it so I’m
gonna share with you how I visualize
this I’m sure many of you here love to
travel overseas and to people who’s been
to many different countries the prospect
of being stuck in one country on rest of
your life was to seem like a torture so
imagine a universe in which human beings
are drawn across 87,000 different mental
planet and I will too since the womb and
this makes me the most famous traveler
in Korea it is an international scope
all of you speak multiple languages but
even by our world languages we’re all
beginners our entire lives the problem
is that most people are content to stay
on one predator entire life and never
travel outside those people were more
fortunate to go to work or study
overseas or have parents
two different cultures they might live
on two different planets people who are
really intellectually adventures might
go to three or four or five planets but
almost nobody has been to go that far
and from is limited experience from this
incredibly restrictive vantage point
people feel like they’re every right to
make judgments about what’s right and
wrong what’s good and bad what a
beautiful anomaly not just for
themselves but for the rest of the
humanity and I think this arrogance
underlies a lot of the problems we see
on TV today whether it’s religious
extremism if we sort of national mission
or for the record for realization and I
think right kind of language learning
can be a cure for these problems now I
didn’t mean to suggest that we are not
spend enough time or money on language
learning
I don’t know contrary if you’re from
China or Japan or Korea Badnaam we know
that in each of these countries language
learning is a multi-billion dollar
industry I started learning English when
I was five years old I didn’t speak any
real English entails 14 what I actually
went to us only thing I knew how to say
the most East Asians know how to say is
we must be using the same textbooks
right he’s these days case study man
earlier the experimenter to me four
years old often to the detriment today
that we were deep knowledge of their own
language or literary traditions so
what’s not working why are we dancing
100 million Asian students who read
newspapers in four or five different
languages to get a more balanced
perspective about what’s going on in the
world and then jump straight into
international forums to discuss how to
make the world a better place because
with the amount of money and time we’re
spending on energy study that’s what we
should be saying I think the problem is
that East Asian language education
establishment has taken the purpose of
learning a foreign language and turned
it upside down see the purpose of
language learning internet is whether
it’s your mother your mother language or
foreign language should be to break down
barriers between people and cultures
instead in East Asia we have turned
English into a social barrier as you
know most non-western societies were
very close to service for very long time
so the ability to travel overseas was
reserved for people for very wealthy and
very powerful so certain Navy black
conversation or navy black idiom became
a mark of the upper class you mix that
with a little brain tissue of a
post-colonial integrity complex and you
get a situation in which parent teachers
and students alike are chasing after the
English as a mark of social prestige and
not as a tool for community community
and this is wrecking havoc on our
students I see the negative impact every
day I’ll travel to New York or Paris
I received a cancer and I just see my
home countrymen Korean people
backpacking through the street when
they’re by themselves they are perfectly
fine communicators they buy things like
orange illogic they make friend no
problem but mother you know they are
watching her moment that they know that
somebody from their own country is
looking at them your English
completely shut down you know what it’s
because that guy knows he’s being judged
if he speaks the fluently the other guys
have to be like oh the guys showing off
he’s a douchebag I’m not gonna hang out
with that case if he doesn’t speak well
enough he’s gonna be like hey that guy’s
educated even study nothing school I can
hang out back so either way you lose so
the carrot cakes the only thing that’s
available which is the path of silence
can you blame this guy sometimes I get
invited to judge a school English debate
competition so validation and I’m
dismayed to see and after six seven
years of artists study high school
student express themselves in a last
float way than another to school kitchen
why because elementary school kids when
they don’t understand something have no
qualms about raising their hand and
going hey I didn’t get it come again
when I asked okay this in the same
situation keeps 30 stammering and if I
I’m in consultation with this kid and
say what are you trying to say he wanted
to say something absolutely ridiculous
like what the opponent is 2011 is beyond
and I say what you want I don’t
understand
and he says well I’m being judged by you
so I want to show you who the world and
the world’s grammar that I learned so
you know give me more point and I said
well I would say I don’t understand
does that make me look stupid and he
says well either producing you’re the
no wonder students hate us now they hate
you so much that larger student I talked
to look forward to the day when they
don’t have to learn any foreign language
at all they always talk about the advent
of the great artificial intelligence
translation machine the age when they
don’t have to speak any foreign
languages but I shudder at the thought
because there’s no greater testimony to
incredible diversity of a human mind
then the consternation of languages out
there when in English is somebody says
he got wind of something it means he
sense that something’s about to happen
or something’s going on in Korean when
you say somebody has to win it means
that person has fallen in love with
somebody he or she shouldn’t usually
somebody that’s not their husband or
wife you know up there in China if you
can see I’m looking at the width and the
right to say I’m taking the landscape
see the same a funeral car little wing
has been harnessed by three different
cultural imagination to express three
different poetic realities then it is
contained within them they’ll always
shine that civilization tells what they
so an object for the first time when
this reinforced
belching smoke could train arrived in
Asia from Europe for the first time what
in each Asian countries decide to call
them the Japanese olestra
cars that travel it wrote Koreans cook
so Akita
Karthik belches are small the Chinese
are quota a cart that has fire in them
see sometimes when you cleared even
deeply into words you see the incredible
unity over human imagination
for example the Chinese character Tao
which needs to compare shows a car
being driven by more than one enemy the
Latinate English world juxtaposed as
edit word route nooks which means to
yoke namely attach a animals to a court
to agricultural people living ten
thousand miles away
both felt that the concept of comparison
was best encapsulated in the experience
of driving a car driven by two angles of
unequal strength this is kind of
workings of a human mind that will need
knowledge of more than one language can
reveal and this is why any great human
progress in knowledge has been
accomplished by people who straddle two
different cultures ever fluent in more
than one language for example hi moms
who travel to Sri Lanka and copied
manuscript in Pali on banana leaves or
Japanese and Korean Confucian scholars
for studying text in ancient Chinese
lineage songs European scientists were
poring over testing Arabic about
astrology and astronomy for those of us
sitting here today if nothing regional
and global issues in English language
that mostly not our own C language is a
creative act each about taking your
thought and taking your feeling and
giving it for in sound and and in this
creativity person up from music or
painting and like any creative act it
should be a joyous one but what we’re
doing is we are taking this joy and
we’re smashing the most important lesson
of our language came from an actor
friend of mine who speaks no other
language than Korean so he was born and
raised in Korea I studied a little bit
of English in school can’t fake it like
most of the people who are in this
situation and he kept a phone call from
his director saying hey kid with good
news next
in the US and this guy panics does is a
smoker and the first thing that hit is –
I do speak English when I go to the US
how am I gonna get my packs of
cigarettes she rushes to a bookstore and
he buys one of these books you know what
these books are 1,000 sentences you must
have in order to survive your first trip
to America I’m guilty of writing one so
this guy looked up it sprays a perfect
jewel of a sentence
may I please buy a pack of cigarettes at
the store please world of Jane Austen
nobody on sale right so this kind of
memorizing sentence he ruminated in the
opening over and over again so afraid
forget it
finally arrives at a u.s. convenience
store I need to believe to see an
American right in front of them he’s a
native speaker
this guy can’t make mistakes I’m gonna
do joke what he does and say exactly
what he says this American guy
confidently walks up to the counter
looks at the employee straight in the
eye and says marble and conversation see
this story really also deep profound
over language that language is
instinctual it is something that almost
flames into being when two people look
at it to look at each other in the eye
with intention of opening up and it is
need to open up another human being that
should form the basis of any linguistic
exploration or language teaching I read
in a Chinese newspaper that there are
400 million Chinese students studying
English right now most of it is being
wasted in official training like the one
I have now I give some coordination and
every hour that total students English
studies are not making the world a
better place we as a community are
losing 570 life
time’s worth of human creativity and joy
of life it is what I’m calling the great
East Asian language crisis we each
costing us lifetimes and nifty and this
is why it’s the responsibility of all of
us seven year today people who are
fortunate enough to have an
international education people are
curious enough to seek out knowledge
about other cultures and people
different from ourselves too important
enthusiasm to people rugby because the
world is be more closely needed together
and if the next generation is that
equipped to talk to people who are
vastly different themselves with the
respect that is due to human diversity
we are all doomed but if we can teach
everybody to talk across those barriers
and work together there is no difficulty
that they will not be able to overcome
thank you very much
[Applause] [Music]
I told us y’all hi my name is singer I
mom said that Ricki polyglot now what
kinda job title is there right
it means basically I’m famous for
speaking lots of different languages I
give lectures I write books and I make
TV appearances so what does my day job
look like I go to a TV studio and I
guess we’re saying hey speak French
speak French
from our ears to the different face and
alike so actually you stop would they be
like come on please speak Italian –
java.security so the FTC Pacific we come
we had Chilean to Jeremy and this job I
started out my users on the education
refugee as many of you know Asian
education system is very efficient for
those people who feel it
I didn’t I like to shake things up by
asking too many questions and challenge
the teachers authorities and we all know
what we do with those keys around here
so I left Korea in search of better
schools and my journey to me first to
the US and then to France and in this
journey I picked a French English
Italian and another really German and
Chinese and I had a little passion for
education a little love affair with
Arabic and out of the way and this gave
me a perspective into learning and what
I have to call the Great East Asian
language crisis that I’m here to speak
to you about today my life was fatally
that of an ordinary language
2013 when a producer of a popular
entertainment talk show called me and
said hey wanna come as a guest on my TV
show still to this day I am told
understand what she was thinking because
after all what a language they’re doing
on a TV show
intended for real celebrities like
actors and singers but her just control
back because I was number one trending
Avon neighbor calm which is Korea’s
Google for 36 hours straight and my life
changed I started searching for the
reason that people watch me that day and
why I keep getting called back to other
shows and I think it has something to do
with the fact that in East Asia English
is the subject that most students hate
the most
so when they see me come on TV shows
with a bright smile on my face and
talking different languages kids are
wondering hey that guy’s seen something
that I’m not saying what is it so I’m
gonna share with you how I visualize
this I’m sure many of you here love to
travel overseas and to people who’s been
to many different countries the prospect
of being stuck in one country on rest of
your life was to seem like a torture so
imagine a universe in which human beings
are drawn across 87,000 different mental
planet and I will too since the womb and
this makes me the most famous traveler
in Korea it is an international scope
all of you speak multiple languages but
even by our world languages we’re all
beginners our entire lives the problem
is that most people are content to stay
on one predator entire life and never
travel outside those people were more
fortunate to go to work or study
overseas or have parents
two different cultures they might live
on two different planets people who are
really intellectually adventures might
go to three or four or five planets but
almost nobody has been to go that far
and from is limited experience from this
incredibly restrictive vantage point
people feel like they’re every right to
make judgments about what’s right and
wrong what’s good and bad what a
beautiful anomaly not just for
themselves but for the rest of the
humanity and I think this arrogance
underlies a lot of the problems we see
on TV today whether it’s religious
extremism if we sort of national mission
or for the record for realization and I
think right kind of language learning
can be a cure for these problems now I
didn’t mean to suggest that we are not
spend enough time or money on language
learning
I don’t know contrary if you’re from
China or Japan or Korea Badnaam we know
that in each of these countries language
learning is a multi-billion dollar
industry I started learning English when
I was five years old I didn’t speak any
real English entails 14 what I actually
went to us only thing I knew how to say
the most East Asians know how to say is
we must be using the same textbooks
right he’s these days case study man
earlier the experimenter to me four
years old often to the detriment today
that we were deep knowledge of their own
language or literary traditions so
what’s not working why are we dancing
100 million Asian students who read
newspapers in four or five different
languages to get a more balanced
perspective about what’s going on in the
world and then jump straight into
international forums to discuss how to
make the world a better place because
with the amount of money and time we’re
spending on energy study that’s what we
should be saying I think the problem is
that East Asian language education
establishment has taken the purpose of
learning a foreign language and turned
it upside down see the purpose of
language learning internet is whether
it’s your mother your mother language or
foreign language should be to break down
barriers between people and cultures
instead in East Asia we have turned
English into a social barrier as you
know most non-western societies were
very close to service for very long time
so the ability to travel overseas was
reserved for people for very wealthy and
very powerful so certain Navy black
conversation or navy black idiom became
a mark of the upper class you mix that
with a little brain tissue of a
post-colonial integrity complex and you
get a situation in which parent teachers
and students alike are chasing after the
English as a mark of social prestige and
not as a tool for community community
and this is wrecking havoc on our
students I see the negative impact every
day I’ll travel to New York or Paris
I received a cancer and I just see my
home countrymen Korean people
backpacking through the street when
they’re by themselves they are perfectly
fine communicators they buy things like
orange illogic they make friend no
problem but mother you know they are
watching her moment that they know that
somebody from their own country is
looking at them your English
completely shut down you know what it’s
because that guy knows he’s being judged
if he speaks the fluently the other guys
have to be like oh the guys showing off
he’s a douchebag I’m not gonna hang out
with that case if he doesn’t speak well
enough he’s gonna be like hey that guy’s
educated even study nothing school I can
hang out back so either way you lose so
the carrot cakes the only thing that’s
available which is the path of silence
can you blame this guy sometimes I get
invited to judge a school English debate
competition so validation and I’m
dismayed to see and after six seven
years of artists study high school
student express themselves in a last
float way than another to school kitchen
why because elementary school kids when
they don’t understand something have no
qualms about raising their hand and
going hey I didn’t get it come again
when I asked okay this in the same
situation keeps 30 stammering and if I
I’m in consultation with this kid and
say what are you trying to say he wanted
to say something absolutely ridiculous
like what the opponent is 2011 is beyond
and I say what you want I don’t
understand
and he says well I’m being judged by you
so I want to show you who the world and
the world’s grammar that I learned so
you know give me more point and I said
well I would say I don’t understand
does that make me look stupid and he
says well either producing you’re the
no wonder students hate us now they hate
you so much that larger student I talked
to look forward to the day when they
don’t have to learn any foreign language
at all they always talk about the advent
of the great artificial intelligence
translation machine the age when they
don’t have to speak any foreign
languages but I shudder at the thought
because there’s no greater testimony to
incredible diversity of a human mind
then the consternation of languages out
there when in English is somebody says
he got wind of something it means he
sense that something’s about to happen
or something’s going on in Korean when
you say somebody has to win it means
that person has fallen in love with
somebody he or she shouldn’t usually
somebody that’s not their husband or
wife you know up there in China if you
can see I’m looking at the width and the
right to say I’m taking the landscape
see the same a funeral car little wing
has been harnessed by three different
cultural imagination to express three
different poetic realities then it is
contained within them they’ll always
shine that civilization tells what they
so an object for the first time when
this reinforced
belching smoke could train arrived in
Asia from Europe for the first time what
in each Asian countries decide to call
them the Japanese olestra
cars that travel it wrote Koreans cook
so Akita
Karthik belches are small the Chinese
are quota a cart that has fire in them
see sometimes when you cleared even
deeply into words you see the incredible
unity over human imagination
for example the Chinese character Tao
which needs to compare shows a car
being driven by more than one enemy the
Latinate English world juxtaposed as
edit word route nooks which means to
yoke namely attach a animals to a court
to agricultural people living ten
thousand miles away
both felt that the concept of comparison
was best encapsulated in the experience
of driving a car driven by two angles of
unequal strength this is kind of
workings of a human mind that will need
knowledge of more than one language can
reveal and this is why any great human
progress in knowledge has been
accomplished by people who straddle two
different cultures ever fluent in more
than one language for example hi moms
who travel to Sri Lanka and copied
manuscript in Pali on banana leaves or
Japanese and Korean Confucian scholars
for studying text in ancient Chinese
lineage songs European scientists were
poring over testing Arabic about
astrology and astronomy for those of us
sitting here today if nothing regional
and global issues in English language
that mostly not our own C language is a
creative act each about taking your
thought and taking your feeling and
giving it for in sound and and in this
creativity person up from music or
painting and like any creative act it
should be a joyous one but what we’re
doing is we are taking this joy and
we’re smashing the most important lesson
of our language came from an actor
friend of mine who speaks no other
language than Korean so he was born and
raised in Korea I studied a little bit
of English in school can’t fake it like
most of the people who are in this
situation and he kept a phone call from
his director saying hey kid with good
news next
in the US and this guy panics does is a
smoker and the first thing that hit is –
I do speak English when I go to the US
how am I gonna get my packs of
cigarettes she rushes to a bookstore and
he buys one of these books you know what
these books are 1,000 sentences you must
have in order to survive your first trip
to America I’m guilty of writing one so
this guy looked up it sprays a perfect
jewel of a sentence
may I please buy a pack of cigarettes at
the store please world of Jane Austen
nobody on sale right so this kind of
memorizing sentence he ruminated in the
opening over and over again so afraid
forget it
finally arrives at a u.s. convenience
store I need to believe to see an
American right in front of them he’s a
native speaker
this guy can’t make mistakes I’m gonna
do joke what he does and say exactly
what he says this American guy
confidently walks up to the counter
looks at the employee straight in the
eye and says marble and conversation see
this story really also deep profound
over language that language is
instinctual it is something that almost
flames into being when two people look
at it to look at each other in the eye
with intention of opening up and it is
need to open up another human being that
should form the basis of any linguistic
exploration or language teaching I read
in a Chinese newspaper that there are
400 million Chinese students studying
English right now most of it is being
wasted in official training like the one
I have now I give some coordination and
every hour that total students English
studies are not making the world a
better place we as a community are
losing 570 life
time’s worth of human creativity and joy
of life it is what I’m calling the great
East Asian language crisis we each
costing us lifetimes and nifty and this
is why it’s the responsibility of all of
us seven year today people who are
fortunate enough to have an
international education people are
curious enough to seek out knowledge
about other cultures and people
different from ourselves too important
enthusiasm to people rugby because the
world is be more closely needed together
and if the next generation is that
equipped to talk to people who are
vastly different themselves with the
respect that is due to human diversity
we are all doomed but if we can teach
everybody to talk across those barriers
and work together there is no difficulty
that they will not be able to overcome
thank you very much
[Applause] [Music]
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