What languages do you speak?

Todd: So, Abidemi, let's talk about languages.

Abidemi: Sure.

Todd: You are from Nigeria and Nigeria has many languages, correct?

Abidemi: That's true, yes.

Todd: How many languages can you speak?

Abidemi: I would say that I can speak one language very well.

Todd: Me too.

Abidemi: And that would be English. But, I speak other languages fairly well. Yoruba, which is a Nigerian language, French, and a little bit of Japanese as well.

Todd: You are Canadian also, and in Canada, students study French, correct?

Abidemi: That's true, yes.

Todd: Do you speak French often in Canada?

Abidemi: While I was living there I spoke it a lot more, yes.

Todd: Do you like French?

Abidemi: I love French. I love learning languages.

Todd: French, I think, is very hard for some people, myself included, because the pronunciation of some words is very different than the pronunciation of American English. I think it's funny that there are some words in French that look exactly the same as words in English but we pronounce them completely differently. For example, I will say the word in English, and you say the same word in French. Okay?

Abidemi: I will try.

Todd: For example. Impossible.

Abidemi: [French 00:01:46].

Todd: Right, so that is so interesting. Again, impossible.

Abidemi: [French 00:01:49].

Todd: And they're spelled the same, correct?

Abidemi: That's true.

Todd: Yeah, how about reservation?

Abidemi: [French 00:01:56].

Todd: That's so cool.

Abidemi: I have never thought of it like that before, Todd, but you're right. They look the same but the pronunciations are different.

Todd: I think it's a trick because we see the word, and we know how to say it one way, but we have to say it a different way.

Abidemi: That's true.

Todd: We just can't do that well.

Abidemi: That's true.

Todd: So, you can speak Yoruba.

Abidemi: Yoruba, yes.

Todd: Yoruba. How do you say, "How are you?" In Yoruba.

Abidemi: [Yoruba 00:02:33].

Todd: Oh, that's so cool. Again?

Abidemi: [Yoruba 00:02:35].

Todd: [Yoruba 00:02:37]?

Abidemi: [Yoruba 00:02:38].

Todd: Oh wow. That's so cool.

Abidemi: Thank you.

Todd: Have you ever taught that language?

Abidemi: No, never. I don't think too many people want to learn it outside of Nigeria.

Todd: I think, in the future, more people will want to learn unique languages.

Abidemi: I hope you're right.

Todd: Yeah, maybe.

Abidemi: Maybe.

Todd: What language do you want to learn in the future?

Abidemi: I have many that, if I had more time, I would like to learn. I'm interested in Japanese, of course. I live in Japan now, so I would like to speak it better. I would also like to learn Mandarin, Russian, Hausa, another Nigerian language, Spanish, and maybe a couple of others.

Todd: Yeah, there's so many languages I want to learn. I want to learn Spanish too. I can speak some Thai and Japanese because I lived as a teacher in both countries. But, I want to learn a language that has the same alphabet. I can read Thai but not very well. I can read Japanese but not very well. I want to learn a language where it's easy to read and see what the word is. In Thai, you can't do that. In Japanese, you can't do that.

Abidemi: I know what you mean. It would make it easier to learn the language.

Todd: But in Russian, you can't do that.

Abidemi: That's true.

Todd: It's completely different.

Abidemi: That's true, but they have alphabets that are the same. You just have to decode them.

Todd: A little bit, yeah. We have the phrase, it's all Greek to me, which means you have no idea. Anyway, thanks a lot, Abidemi.

Abidemi: Thank you, Todd.