Singaporean Oxford undergraduate goes viral speaking 11 languages

Jonas Fine Tan goes viral after demonstrating his ability to speak 11 different languages in a TikTok video. Photo from Tan’s Instagram

The 11 languages Jonas Fine Tan speaks are English, Mandarin, Hokkien, Thai, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Malay, Tamil, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian, according to the Straits Times.

Tan learnt the majority of these 11 languages not in school, but through talking to native speakers of the languages and researching different sources, including textbooks and YouTube tutorials. English, Mandarin, Malay and Portuguese were the only languages he acquired in school.

Based on his experience, Tan estimates that it normally takes two months to a few years to achieve fluency in a language. One of the tips he has applied to his language learning process is having a notebook in his reach while watching TV shows or reading books, so that he can write down new words and expressions.

As a volunteer for migrant workers organizations, Tan says his multilingual skill has helped him a lot in his job.

He is currently focusing on improving his proficiency rather than learning new languages to add them to his repertoire.

Tan is currently a psychology, philosophy and linguistics undergraduate student. After graduating, he wants to pursue further studies in language documentation.