Tammett Learns German

He's doing it again.

Daniel Tammett, the autistic savant who not only has an uncanny ability with numbers, also has an equal affinity for languages. He once learned Icelandic in a week and then appeared on a television show to talk about it. In Icelandic, in Iceland!

Now, he is doing it with German with the same goal. In a week and appear on a TV show. I wish I had one tenth of his learning ability.

I ordered and just received his book Born on a Blue Day. I will post some thoughts on it when I get around to reading it (it's kind of far down on the list at the moment), especially the parts about his language learning ability. Some other books on my reading list are When Languages Die by K. David Harrison and The Way of the Linguist by Steve Kaufmann.

Daniel Tammett Learns Welsh?

Daniel Tammett might learn Welsh. If he does, he'll do it in a week. Not completely, perhaps, and certainly not with a perfect accent. But he'll have a good handle on it. Something that would take most of us many months, if not years.

He's done it before, you see. He was once challenged to learn Icelandic in a week and prove it on a television show in Iceland. He did. Not with a perfect accent and not completely, but he had a handle on it.

If you have never heard of him before, Daniel Tammett is an autistic savant. He has a supernatural understanding of numbers and mathematics, and a similarly unique feel for languages. I am ordering his book Born on a Blue Day in order to study how he learns language. Hopefully I can learn a little something from him. I'll post a review on the site eventually.