Matthew Youlden is a man of many words - a linguist, lecturer, translator, interpreter, and polyglot from Manchester, England. Languages have shaped Matthew’s entire life, beginning when he first started learning languages as a child, to now working as a language specialist at Babbel, the industry’s leading language-learning app. At the age of eight, Matthew and his twin brother decided to learn Spanish for recreational fun, armed with only a phrasebook and a dictionary. After seeing how quickly they picked it up, the brothers went on to dedicate their lives to learning new languages. Today, Matthew and his brother have achieved world-wide fame as “The Superpolyglotbros,” using online videos to showcase their abilities to speak in over 20 languages.
After making the decision to study languages professionally, Matthew moved to Germany to major in Translation Studies and Linguistics at the Humboldt University of Berlin, where he is currently a visiting lecturer. As an acclaimed linguist, Matthew has published work that has been widely recognized by the industry, winning prominent awards including best thesis in Germany, Austria and Switzerland on the Catalan language and culture.
While pursuing a Ph.D. in Sociolinguistics and Minority Languages, Matthew teamed up with Babbel to co-develop their language courses for their breakthrough mobile educational platform. He was an integral part of developing language pairing, Babbel’s industry differentiator, in which the lessons in a new language are specifically designed for a user’s native tongue. Between 2013 and 2015 Matthew helped contribute to the development and expansion of Babbel’s language platform, which offers language courses in 14 languages. Now as Babbel’s Language Ambassador,
Matthew’s mission is to share his joy of languages, and is a true believer that anyone can learn a new language.
Matthew’s superpolyglot abilities have been widely showcased in the media, and has made special appearances on behalf of Babbel on a variety of international broadcast and online media outlets.
