Well, I stand by my original opinion: if a guy of just 17 has learnt French, Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew, German and Latin to C1 or C2 level (and moreover has at least B1 level in Mandarin, Italian, Indonesian, Dutch, Yiddish, Hindi, Swahili, Russian and Pashto) then that person is quite simply a genius.
I just don’t see how a normal person could achieve all the above within the space of just a few years.
Further to my last post above, it seems that Tim really is the real deal at least as regards Farsi:
A fast and free-flowing exchange with a native speaker such as we see in this video is not something which could be faked, in my opinion. (Which is perhaps why we never see anything like this from Benny Lewes!?)
Yup, Tim Doner = genius
“I don’t think of the Left Behind books as literature. I looked at one of them and it seemed to be written in a simple way. Maybe that would appeal to people learning English, but the books are not my cup of tea.”
I would agree with this statement, hence my reference to the series.
“I’m not buying it, not from smart people I’m not.”
I guess you are more naive than me. Or maybe I am more paranoid than you.
If you are a person who honestly believes it matters whether the president is a Muslim or a Christian, I don’t think we’ll find too much in common, nor will the debate ever be settled. Since it appears we both like languages lets return to that discussion.
@J4J Yes, that is one of Tim’s best videos in my opinion. 
“I’d like to remind you that you brought up the whole topic with this”
You were the one who asked me if I thought he was a christian. You took a quote that involved religion and language, then asked me a question that involved religion and politics. I answered, and in the very same post as my answer expressed my desire to return to the topic of the thread.
“It sounded to me that you were concerned that people would think the President was Muslim simply for speaking Indonesian. I don’t think smart people in the media would think that way.”
The topic of this thread was (originally) about how the media can make gross over-analyzations and assumptions (albeit in the case of language learners). Concern in the media over the presidents religion is another sort of example of media overzealousness.
So yes, As I said in my last post, I think smart people in the media could think that way.
–You said it first!
–No! YOU said it first!!
–No I didn’t, YOOOO said it!!!
C’mon guys! 
Haha, you’re right j_4_j. Since IT and I will never agree lets talk about Tim Doner again.
I just watched a few of his videos. If I were to pinpoint his talent, I would say it’s in his ability to make the language “flow.”
If you listen to several of his languages, you’ll notice that he uses a very similar accent/rhythm for each language. He has this sort of rapid-fire way of speaking. I don’t know if he’s just saying rehearsed phrases, but based on his Farsi dialogue this is probably not the case.
Either way, smart kid.
I agree: I found his Farsi video (the one I linked to above) pretty darned convincing; it really would be very hard to fake up a 10 min free-flowing conversation with a native speaker, IMO. It’d be interesting to see him post these kinds of videos for his other languages too.
(Mind you, being highly fluent in Farsi is - just in itself - a huge accomplishment for a 17-year-old guy in New York who doesn’t have a family background in the language, and has never lived in Iran.)
Yeah, he seems like a pretty smart kid! 
About religion - Tim Doner is obviously Jewish, although to what extent he is practicing is obviously something you would need to ask him about (remember the anecdote about a restaurant and “not a real Jew?” and how his grandparents spoke Yiddish?)
But I find this secondary. If he has achieved good levels in 6 languages then that’s an achievement for a 17-year-old learning from home. I know people who have achieved it through the good fortune of family and moving around, but those people are rare.
Tim Doner says
“*For “high level” languages --meaning ones I can converse, read, write in, etc without many problems – I would
say French, Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew, German and Latin (though obviously the last one is no longer spoken).”
This does not mean he is claiming to be at a C1 or C2 level in all six of these languages. He could potentially be at a good B1 or a B2 level and these would still be reasonable statements. Either way, very impressive kid, especially with the Farsi video.
@Colin: “…He could potentially be at a good B1 or a B2 level and these would still be reasonable statements…”
Yeah, I guess you could argue that level B2 = being able to “converse, read, write in, etc without many problems.” But, assuming the subtitles in the video are accurate, what he can do in Farsi seems much more like C1, in my opinion.
I just don’t know how he does it - so many languages in such a short space of time…
There is the possibility that the Farsi video was rehearsed and staged. We only discount this possibility because we can’t understand why any one would do this, but people fake a lot of things for a lot of reasons.
In most of the videos, he clearly has a a memorized script (or is reading it) and is pretending/acting as though he is speaking spontaneously. Not that there is anything wrong with this, but since the source of the script is unknown, it demonstrates nothing but a talent for acting and mimicking accents.
An actor friend of mine, albeit monolingual, claims he is certain that Tim is acting in the video.
There is also this from another thread:
"I can’t speak for his other languages because I don’t know them, but I can state with absolute certainty that Tim rehearsed his Egyptian Arabic video line for line. It’s unnaturally fast (he’s repeated the lines so many times that it sounds like verbal diarrhea with no natural pauses - e.g. it’s like me saying in English, “hellomyname’sDonovanandIspeaktheAustraliandialectofEnglishit’sthebestdialectAustralianEnglishreallyisn’thardatall…” etc.). There are also several video breaks. I’ve read similar criticism of his Russian video.
Also his advanced vocabulary and use of idiomatic expressions despite having not spent time in an Arabic speaking country and such a short time learning the language tells me that he’s probably got Arab friends scripting his dialogues. Some expressions he uses do not exist in any Arabic language product that I know of (and I’ve sampled most of them).
Sorry to be so negative and cynical but I’ve actually been really annoyed with the media sensationalizing this “teen polyglot” lately and not having bothered to test his claims properly. Any single one of you on this forum could choose 23 obscure languages that you’ve never studied before, practice the phonetics and memorize scripted lines, and then become the next NY Times hype.
I know he’s just a kid and it’s great that he’s encouraging language learning but even a savant or abnormally intelligent person would struggle to achieve what Timothy Doner claims to have done. "
@Polyglot2
I’m glad you quoted Mezzoguild. He is probably one of my favorite language bloggers right now. I have really been having a very similar idea about Doners languages, particularly arabic. Not knowing any arabic i have kept my mouth shut, but Donavan’s Arabic is amazing, so I trust what he has to say.
I do understand French fairly well, and I have to say that I really hear pretty much the same thing in this same rapid fire way he expresses his ideas. What he is saying has to be at least semi-rehearsed.
I am not much older than Tim Doner, and I do have to admit that I fear that my opinions on him might be based partially on jealousy. At the same time I smell something fishy in how he has been saying he has been learning languages for two years for the past two years.
Has he any stuff in German?
Yet another new TV Interview (so far plenty of opportunities for him to say - “wait I minute, I don’t actually,…”)
Ok, English natives! What was the guy’s joke at 3:10-3:15? 
@Polyglot2
They introduced him saying he speaks 20 languages fluently. He did not in any way attempt to say anything like this “wait a minute… I don’t actually…” I would have been happy if he had said something like “Well, I would say I speak 6 or 7 well, then I dabble in others.”
It’s cool that he is interested in a variety of languages, and its also great that he is making popular multilingualism. What’s not cool is how he’s letting others think what he is doing is magic.
@Eugrus
They were just bantering about the comment about 13th century Farsi literature.
@djvlbass I can’t get it phonetically. How did the phrase ending with “[…] you uncover kids like that” begin?
He says “Amazing… Youtube. You uncover kids like that”