(speaking in foreign language)
- Okay, he says (speaking foreign language)
which I know is hello in a lot of the Balkan languages
that also scares me cause they're all very similar.
(bright music)
Hi, my name is Matthew.
- [Host] Today your going to be guessing
which language people are speaking.
- Dream come true.
- [Host] Really, why?
- I used to teach a class at the college level
about modern international music
from every country in the world.
I have a playlist on Spotify with over
250 different languages in it.
So I definitely have heard a lot of languages
and have heard them enough to be able
to sort of pick them out of the crowd.
- [Host] How many languages do you speak?
- I speak English and I also like kind of speak Norwegian.
[Host] We're gonna bring a blindfold out for you.
(bright music)
We're going to bring the first person in.
- All right.
(speaking in foreign language)
- Okay, good to know.
So, tell me about what you did last weekend.
(speaking in foreign language)
- This is definitely something Francophone.
It could be like some sort of Creole language
or it could be like something from
probably like West Africa.
Could you count to 10 for me?
(speaking in foreign language)
- Hmm, so this is definitely a lot
more kind of French sounding than
I would usually expect to hear
from like most French Creole languages,
or previously French colonized African countries
which makes me think,
maybe this is some sort of like dialect
of French perhaps?
Final guess, Quebecois French.
- You're correct. - Yeah!
It is French Canadian.
- Yes!
What are the main differences
between like Quebecois France and French?
- Quebecois, it's like a butchered version of French.
French people like struggle to understand us, I'd say.
- Oh, interesting. - Yes.
- Thanks for coming, It was very lovely to meet you.
- Yeah, nice to meet you.
- Yeah.
(speaking in foreign language)
- Hi, I'm Matthew.
(speaking in foreign language)
- Okay, he says (speaking in foreign language)
which I know is hello in a lot of the Balkan languages.
That also scares me cause they're all very similar.
Bosnian is something I always think of as being like
a more like masculine sounding languages
like lots of like (speaking in foreign language),
you know like that kind of thing.
Serbian I just think of as like the vanilla,
it's like the big ones,
sort of like the standard that I go off of for the others.
(speaking in foreign language)
- You seem like disappointed I brought up Serbian.
(speaking in foreign language)
- I heard the word (speaking in foreign language)
which I know is the Croatian word for Croatia,
which you could be saying I'm not speaking Croatian,
but at this point I'm just gonna
say you were speaking Croatian.
- No.
- No. (speaking in foreign language)
- But yes we say (speaking in foreign language)
for Croatia.
I'm Macedonian.
- Macedonian!
Oh, okay.
- When you said the Balkan countries, I was like,
wait he knows the Balkan countries?
- Of course I do. - Like nobody does.
- I've been to Croatia, so,
- Oh my God.
- I got pretty close. - Love it, love it, yeah.
- [Host] Will you teach Matthew a word in Macedonian?
- Sure, the best word I will teach you.
(speaking in foreign language)
- That's love, right?
- Yeah, he knows.
- I know!
(speaking in foreign language)
- I definitely heard the expression
(speaking foreign language) is like
something you say to greet people
in one of the different Chinese languages.
So I'm thinking this is like
somewhere around there.
Could you say explosion?
(speaking foreign language)
- Ah, okay, that's what I thought too.
You're laughing, but I'm thinking
about a song that I know in Chinese called explosion
and that's pretty much the title of the song.
(speaking in foreign language)
- Okay, yeah.
This is definitely like a tonal language.
- [Host] Say "Show off your tones."
- Show off your tones.
(speaking in foreign language)
- That is a lot of tones.
Probably not Mandarin
because I know that Mandarin has like
the like down up tone,
which I'm not really hearing from you.
Final guess, Cantonese.
- You are correct.
- Yes! - Yay!
All right!
What's the relationship really
between like Mandarin and Cantonese?
- If you and I spoke different dialects of Chinese
we'd still be able to communicate in written form.
But spoken form would just be almost
like a duck and a chicken talking.
They're both birds but they're
not gonna understand each other.
So yeah.
- Hi, I'm Matthew.
(speaking in foreign language)
- Tell me about your hobbies.
(speaking in foreign language)
(continues speaking in foreign language)
- So I'm hearing a little bit of French influence in here.
It could also be like a Caribbean Creole language,
that's in the mix too.
(speaking in foreign language)
- I'm hearing a lot of like (speaking in foreign language)
which to me sounds more like kind of a Creole language.
What I find with like the French Creole languages
is that they tend to have a lot of short words
and very obvious influence from French
which I think kind of aligns with
what you're doing right now.
(speaking in foreign language)
- Is it Haitian Creole?
- Yeah.
- All right!
- Wow, how do you know?
- I've been listening to a fair amount
of (speaking foreign language) music recently.
- Okay.
- Uh, it's like ( Matthew singing).
(both laughing)
- Okay, Okay, Okay.
- I don't know what it means though.
- It's like say dance, dance, dance, dance.
- Okay.
(speaking in foreign language)
- Hi, I'm Matthew.
(speaking in foreign language)
- I feel like there is some Russian influence in this
but this is definitely not like one of the languages
that's very similar to Russian like Ukrainian or something.
This one seems like more challenging
than maybe some of the other ones.
Could you say hello?
(speaking in foreign language)
- (speaking in foreign language) Oh, okay, so.
(speaking in foreign language)
- Okay.
(speaking in foreign language)
- Oh, this is Finnish.
- So you are right and I'm so happy
'cause has no one has ever guessed Finnish.
- Oh well I'm Norwegian.
So like,
- Oh, okay that's cool.
- Yeah, we're in the same sort of part of the world.
- Yeah, Nordic countries.
- I know we have like nothing in common linguistically.
- (Woman laughs) That's okay.
- How are you? How do you say that?
- It's (speaking in foreign language)
(speaking in foreign language)
- Cool.
Hi, I'm Matthew.
(speaking in foreign language)
- Could you talk to me about like how you feel about school?
(speaking in foreign language)
(continues speaking in foreign language)
- Ah, I think we're in Africa.
You said a word that ended with Penda.
And I know a song from Nigeria called "Nakupenda "
which makes me think that that's not a coincidence.
Probably either West Africa or maybe
like a bit further East, but definitely not farther South.
Could you say pray for me?
(speaking in foreign language)
- Okay, still nothing like Yerba or Swahili.
Yerba, I'll probably get wrong because tones
but (speaking foreign language)
and Swahili is (speaking foreign language)
or something like that.
Say the word freedom.
(speaking in foreign language)
- Oh, it makes sense now.
Okay, I was thinking because I was hearing
like Arabic influences, but Swahili has that too.
Okay, I'm just gonna have to say Swahili.
Am I right?
- You're right.
- Yeah!
- You got it right the first time
the (speaking foreign language).
- Okay.
I spend a lot of time in Mombasa and
the dialect is slightly different.
- Okay, Yeah.
- (speaking in foreign language) is also correct.
When you said it I was like, shit.
- All right, yeah, yeah.
I listened to that Kenyan music and that gave it away.
Thank you, Bensoul.
- That's awesome.
You're very knowledgeable.
- Thank you, yeah.
Someone's gotta be, right?
(both laugh)
- Who did Matthew guess correctly?
- Yeah!
- Oh my God.
- That's pretty good.
- Dang.
- [Host] You did really well.
- Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I was, that was better than I expected, honestly.
Yeah, I kind of expected more, very obscure languages
I'd never heard of,
which I guess means I've covered more of the world
than I thought I did?
Yay!
And I do too. (participants applaud)