3 ms·
While watching some of his videos (and of YT channel "Numberphile") I discovered that the man also speaks fluent French (enough to give a public lecture in math
by supernova87a 6y ago
While watching some of his videos (and of YT channel "Numberphile") I discovered that the man also speaks fluent French (enough to give a public lecture in mathematics), as well as his Japanese + English. Pretty damn impressive.
- leoc 6y agoThe article mentions that French was his first foreign language. He picked up Russian to read his first calculus book, then English to do an Oxford maths degree. And you're unlikely to be a doctoral student in philology and know only one foreign language, so he had undoubtedly learned at least one other language between the French and the Russian. People don't always realise just how scary serious students of linguistics are.
- quakeguy 6y agoHis CV really is something to behold.
- magneticnorth 6y agoThe article mentions that English is his seventh language! And there's a charming series of quotes about his journey from being a linguist to a mathematician - "The book was in Russian, and I didn’t know Russian, but a young linguist is not afraid to pick up another language." ... "Oxford was the only place that would allow you to rush through an undergraduate program in two years. I didn’t know English, but a linguist is not afraid to pick up another language."