our next guest is going to be great he's a talented young comedian from South Africa
and you can see this man in his Off-Broadway show entitled born a crime Wednesdays through Saturdays
at 45 Bleaker right here in New York City ladies and Gentlemen please welcome Trevor Noah
thank you thank you
good evening or not I've learned you shouldn't waste your time greeting people
in New York this is not what people do even your crazy people don't want to be bothered
I was walking on Broadway the other day and there was a man walking down the street shouting at the
top of his lungs ass anybody the red American history 101 I hate President Obama ask me why
and I said why and he was like what
and he looked at me like I was crazy for talking to him it's different this is my
first time in New York and I'm loving it it's a different place I uh oh thank you thank you
I was so happy when I got here and I saw people that looked like they were from
South Africa I felt at home I greeted them in the streets like hey and they were like yeah
whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa no no I didn't know this but apparently I'm Mexican
um I never knew this because we don't have Mexicans in Africa they never came over so
this is new to me you know this is this is different I have people coming up to me just
speaking to me in Spanish randomly just out of the blue today Espanol
say what you don't speak Spanish to know not a word you should be ashamed of yourself man
that's your culture puppy that's who you are you don't forget it because you're here I said
oh no I didn't forget it I'm from South Africa you sure yeah I think so I'm yeah South Africa
I'm sure it's like yeah you don't look like you're from Africa you know say what what the
hell is that supposed to mean he's like hey you look like you grew up in the shade man
Africa is not a color it's a place I hate it when people treat me like that I do some
shows where they bring me out like this and there's comedians coming from Africa they make
it sound like a guy in leopard skin is going to come running on the stage you'll be like
let me tell you monkey jokes huh thank you and it's not like that I mean I do have good monkey
jokes but that's not the point that's not what I'm saying I'm learning slowly learning Spanish
now if not why not you know I I'm used to learning languages I speak six languages from South Africa
funny enough I never learned my parents languages growing up and I've started learning those now my
mother's language is tasa that's the language of the clicks and my father Swiss German and I
never learned German so I'm learning both for different reasons Casa I'm learning because I
mean why would you not want to speak a language like listen to that it's magic it sounds like
Chinese New Year in your mouth it's just popping you know even as a child I loved it my mom would
come in the house and find me doing something naughty like drawing on the wall and she'd be like
yeah she'd be like
not as advertised it's a fun language and then German I'm learning for different reasons German
I'm learning uh to connect with my father you know he loves me but I don't feel that he respects me
I think this is partly because of my job as a comedian I don't think I rank that high in the
world of German any things um this comes across in the small conversations one day we're having lunch
he looks at me and he says so Trevi what do you do now you've got a job hey you work you got the job
said yeah Dad I'm a stand-up comedian like oh yeah yeah so the the clown there wow it's the language
I feel like German is more powerful I'll get to his house and he'll greet me like ah clown boy
and I'll be like guten tag fighter it's epic you know so so I've been learning and
I've gotten really good the key to learning any language is just to be confident that's the key
not too confident though I learned when I went to Germany for the first time I was in a one of those
takeaway places where you make your own sandwiches and I walked in and the woman was very nice to me
she's like wouldn't talk and I looked at her and I said confidence Trevor couldn't talk is
well I'll never forget she looked at me and she said the schmutzer Hitler
which means the black Hitler
at least she didn't say I was Mexican you guys have been fantastic thanks for having me
thank you for being here ladies and gentlemen good to see you great job