(speaks in foreign language)
- (laughs) He's not actually angry, is he?
(speaks in foreign language)
(ominous music)
- [Man] Hello.
Hi, name's Eric.
- [Man] Do you speak any languages other than English?
- Let's see, in high school I took several years of Spanish.
I went to Tunisia and did a summer of Arabic.
I have come close to speaking Thai
a few times over the years 'cause my daughter's half Thai.
And I speak fluent Chinese.
I lived there for 15 years and I'm a translator.
- [Man] And, do you know what you're doing?
- I will be listening to somebody speak a language
that I don't know and I'm gonna guess what they're speaking.
(walking)
So, do you start or do I start?
(speaks in foreign language)
- Oh! (speaks in foreign language)
- Aw, this is difficult.
Can you count to five?
(speaks in foreign language)
- Damn, this is brutal.
(speaks in foreign language)
- Okay, hey wait a minute, what did you just say?
(speaks in foreign language)
- Mongolian?
- Yes.
- [Man] Okay, take the blindfold off.
- All right.
Hi. - Hi, nice to meet you.
- I don't know if you look Mongolian or not.
- I know, everyone thinks I look Korean, so.
- When did you leave Mongolia?
- About 10 years ago.
- Okay, cool.
I've been to Mongolia.
- Oh you have?
- Yeah, but I didn't learn any Mongolian at all.
- But then you cannot see it?
You didn't guess it?
- I heard Genghis Khan.
- That's like the only thing everyone knows.
- Well, you shouldn't have said it then.
(speaks in foreign language)
- Alberta?
(speaking in foreign language)
Almost got me.
(speaks in foreign language)
That sounds cool.
(speaks in foreign language)
Japanese, Arabic, Farsi,
but I don't know what you are talking about,
so that doesn't help me very much.
There is something about the location
of the pronunciation in the mouth
that reminds me a little bit of Hindi pronunciation?
- [Man] What do they look like?
- Well, he's fairly tall,
I can hear where his voice is coming from.
I would say--
(speaks in foreign language)
Medium brown skin.
- [Man] Okay, yeah you can take off your blindfold.
(laughs)
- Oh, there, now I see.
(laughing)
What were you speaking? - Oh, you were very close.
It's Urdu.
- Oh, damn it!
So, how close are Hindi and Urdu, then?
- Well, Hindi and Urdu are both dialects of Hindustani.
And the similarities between Hindi and Urdu is like 95%.
- Ah. - So it's like,
a lot of my friends are Indian
and they speak Hindi so we can communicate that way.
And just make find of all the (speaks foreign language).
- Okay (speaks foreign language).
Who are probably idiot foreigners?
- No, they're white people.
(gasps)
- Good to meet you. - Good to meet you.
(speaks in foreign language)
- Keep going.
(speaks in foreign language)
They're giving me all the hard ones. Can you say hello?
(speaks in foreign language)
I'm zeroing in.
Are you, let's see, I'm guessing this is an African language
with some influence from France.
(speaks in foreign language)
Okay there we go.
I think I'm getting this,
I've got as close as I'm gonna get.
- What do you think I look like?
- I think you look like sub-Saharan African.
- Why? - Why?
Because the theory that I'm working on right now
is that you are from an African country
that was colonized by France.
And so, there is a small chance you look like
a white French person, but I guess, I sort of doubt it.
(speaks in foreign language)
Insulting, I got that!
Well, there we are.
It's not insulting.
How close was I?
- I'm from Congo, and we were colonized by Belgium.
- Would have thought Congo, I almost said Congo.
What is the name of the language?
- Lingala.
- Lingala. - Yeah.
And then we mix it with a little bit of french too.
- Can you teach me a curse word?
- Yeah, the only one that I know
is (speaks in foreign language).
- Sounds zesty.
What does that mean?
- You idiot (laughs).
- Somebody does sound stupid you're like psst.
(speaks in foreign language)
- Yeah, okay. - No, that is
you idiot like your father.
(speaks in foreign language)
- Does that sound right?
- That sounds pretty good.
- Oh! (laughs)
That's not what we're guessing.
(clears throat)
(speaks in foreign language)
- Pretend we're dating.
(speaks in foreign language)
Did you say you're not gay?
(laughing) Sorry.
(speaks in foreign language)
- Cambodia.
- Yeah.
- Only 'cause he said Siem Reap.
Did I get it right?
Did I? - Yeah, you got it right.
(speaks in a foreign language)
Yeah.
- If you hadn't said any place names,
I don't think I would have gotten it.
(speaks in foreign language)
Was that it?
(speaks in foreign language)
Hebrew.
- How did you get that?
- I don't know, is that your first language?
- It's not.
I actually, I love languages.
- So, obviously you can write Hebrew.
- Write and read and speak.
- Does it go left to right or right to left?
- It goes right to left.
- Cool.
- It's fun to speak too, with all the guttural.
- Yep.
- And like the (speaks in foreign language).
- It sounds pretty emphatic. - Like that sounds pretty.
- What was that?
- It's really not great, it's you're a piece of trash.
- Oh good, can I learn that?
(speaks in foreign language)
Okay. - It was nice to meet you.
- Nice to meet you.
- [Man] Just start and yell out.
Just yell something insulting at him.
Okay, you ready?
(speaks in foreign language)
- Then what?
(speaks in foreign language)
All right, we got a (speaks in foreign language) so far.
(speaks in foreign language)
It's a Slovenian (speaks in foreign language).
Russian.
(speaks in foreign language)
Oh!
(laughing)
I don't know, Russia's a big (laughs).
This is just a set-up for insulting me.
(laughing)
- Who did you think you would see?
- I expected Boris, you know,
like a big sort of the other stereotype,
the big beer belly Russian angry white guy.
- Well I gotta drink more beer
and hangout in the sun more, maybe.
(laughs) Or maybe the cold.
- Yeah, you're not gonna get that close to that stereotype.
And you speak Russian because you grew up there or--
- No, I've been to Russia,
but I have a degree in Russian language.
- And what were you yelling at me in the beginning?
- Hello, you dirty bitch.
- Ah, I thought it was something like that.
(speaks in foreign language)
It's Dutch, maybe.
- [Man] What does a Dutch person look like?
- Dutch person, they are blond and have pigtails
and, like big skirts and they milk cows.
- Hello. - Oh!
(laughs) They set me up, you know, every time?
Is it Dutch? - It is Dutch.
- Okay.
Nobody learns Dutch as a second language for fun
so you must have been born in The Netherlands.
- So I'm from the Caribbean.
We lived in Saint Martin,
it's an island partially owned, Dutch and French.
My brother got diabetes, he went into coma twice
so they sent him to The Netherlands for better care
and we moved along and we stayed there.
- Whoa!
Were they accepting, the Dutch?
- They were, actually.
- Oh, that's nice.
Well, thank you very much. - Thank you.
- It was good to meet you. - Likewise.
(speaks in foreign language)
- Wow.
Man, these are some weird sounds.
I'm gonna go, randomly in a different direction
and guess that this is a Native American language
of some type.
(speaks in foreign language)
How do you say, no, in your language?
(speaks in foreign language)
Oh, well then maybe that was a yes.
(speaks in foreign language) Hah!
Hi. - Hi.
- Eric. - Chris.
- Obviously there's something more specific.
- So, I speak Makah or (speaks in foreign language)
from the Makah Indian Reservation
out of Neah Bay, Washington.
- Yeah I know, I've been there several times.
- Cool, yeah. Would you like to learn something?
- Yeah, sure.
Something with a difficult sound.
(speaks in foreign language)
- Means, like, hello, like, is that you?
- Oh. - Like, hello, is that you?
- Oh it's you, sort of thing.
(speaks in foreign language)
And it has to (exhales).
(blows through teeth) (speaks in foreign language)
- Yeah, it's a tough one, takes a long time.
Awesome, good job man.
- Thanks.
- [Man] How was that?
- Well, it was humbling.
I think there's nothing quite as alarming
as somebody just launching into something
that means nothing to you.
- [Man] Who did he guess right?
- I got you, not close enough huh?
(laughing)
- [Man] This prompt you to go out
and learn anything more about languages?
- No, probably not.
(laughing)
It just reminded me how long it takes to learn a language
and what a huge pain in the ass it is.
- [Man] All right, good job, that's it.
(applauding)
- [Eric] Thank you guys.