Bella Devyatkina, who hails from Moscow, Russia, is your
typical carefree, playful four-year-old, but ask her a question in
Russian, English, French, Spanish, German, Chinese or Arabic, and you
will be shocked by her articulate response.
According to Oddity Central, Bella made headlines in Russia a few
days ago, when she appeared on a TV talent show, where she spoke seven
different languages without a prominent accent, stunning both the judges
and millions of viewers. Since then, a YouTube video of her performance
went viral online, transforming the four-year-old polyglot into on
overnight internet celebrity. She has since been invited to appear on a
variety of television programs where moderators and other guests
conversed with her in several of the seven languages she is fluent in,
and she always understood their questions and answered accordingly.
So how does a four-year-old girl learn so many languages in such a
short period of time, when most people spend years struggling to become
fluent in just one foreign language.
Bella’s mother, Yulia, said that she and her father started
teaching her English when she was just two years old, and after noticing
her interest in the language and the ease with which she picked up
everything, they decided to gradually adding more languages to her
schedule. They hired native tutors for each new language, and by the
time she was three and a half years old, she was already speaking two
languages. She mastered two more, in the next six months.
Bella Devyatkina’s language skills were put to the test on the
Russian television talent show ‘Incredible People’, where she had to
answer questions in English, French, Spanish, German, Chinese and
Arabic. She passed the test with flying colors, proving that she either
can really understand all these foreign languages, or she has the best
memory of any four-year-old, allowing her to memorize all the answers.
Yulia Devyatkina claims that Bella now spends about six hours every
day studying foreign languages, from 10 in the morning to 1 p.m. and
again from 5 p.m. to 8 in the evening. Upon hearing this, many people
have accused her parents of stripping her of her childhood, but they
insist that the classes are all structured as fun games that she
genuinely enjoys. As far as Bella is concerned, she is playing, not
studying.
But while most of the world has been shocked by the young girls
ability to speak six foreign languages, Russian neuropsychologist Anna
Semenovich reminds us that in 19th century Russia, speaking several
foreign languages was common for children of royal families.
“In pre-revolutionary Russia, if a child from a noble family
couldn’t speak three-four languages by the age of five or six, it was a
shame to take him out. Then in school Latin and ancient Greek were added
to those. So five-six languages were a standard package for an educated
youth back in 19th-century Russia,” Semenovich told Komsomolskaya Pravda.
The neuropsychologist says that we can only say that Bella
Devyatkina has some truly special abilities in 15-20 years. She gave
musical prodigies as an example. Some children possess remarkable
hearing and singing ability, but they lose them as they grow older.
Either their voices change, or they simply lose interest in music.
Semenovich claims that a lot of work is required for these kids to reach
their full potential, as well as favorable conditions, like talented
teachers, a creative environment and an atmosphere of love and support.
“I want to wish this girl good luck, but the public needs to
understand that the path to true genius is a thorny one. That’s why most
prodigies don’t reach their full potential,” she concluded.
Still, many argue that the fact that Bella has managed to become
fluent in languages belonging to three different groups: Indo-European
(Russian, French, English, Spanish, German), Semitic (Arabic) and
Sino-Tibetan (Chinese), which means they are very different and lack
structural similarities, is simply mind-blowing.
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