Lera Boroditsky: How Language Secretly Changes Your Personality

**Trevor Noah** (0:05)
So, you speak Russian.

**Lera Boroditsky** (0:06)
I speak Russian.

**Eugene Cordero** (0:07)
Why do you speak Russian?

**Lera Boroditsky** (0:08)
I grew up in Ukraine in Belarus.

**Trevor Noah** (0:12)
And so, wait, in Belarus, don't they speak? Oh, I'm going to expose myself. I always thought it was like Belarusian. No, Belarusian is how I've always said it.

**Lera Boroditsky** (0:23)
Both Russian and Belarusian are spoken in Belarus. But it was mostly Russian when I lived there.

**Trevor Noah** (0:28)
Did you wait? So, did you grow up speaking Russian?

**Lera Boroditsky** (0:30)
I grew up speaking Russian, yeah.

**Trevor Noah** (0:31)
Oh, and then at what age did you start speaking English?

**Lera Boroditsky** (0:34)
When I was 12

**Trevor Noah** (0:36)
Wow, I don't pick it up at all. Normally, I can hear when somebody has like...

**Eugene Cordero** (0:41)
11 and a half. No, really, I can... That's when I...

**Trevor Noah** (0:43)
Genuinely?
I can normally pick up when somebody started speaking another, especially English, at a much later... Because there's like little small tics that they'll give away in the language, where you're like, oh, no, that's from that other language. But you don't have that at all.

**Lera Boroditsky** (0:57)
I went to spy school.

**Trevor Noah** (1:00)
You say that as...

**Eugene Cordero** (1:01)
And...

**Dave Chappelle** (1:01)
Could be very true.

**Eugene Cordero** (1:02)
Could be true. Could be completely true.

**SPEAKER_5** (1:05)
We've just got to say as a disclaimer right now, A, that's probably a joke, and B, if it's true, we had nothing to do with this.

**Dave Chappelle** (1:10)
We didn't know.

**Eugene Cordero** (1:11)
Here's a question. We did not know at all.

**Trevor Noah** (1:19)
This is What Now? with Trevor Noah.

**Eugene Cordero** (1:33)
So, okay, question.

**Trevor Noah** (1:35)
This is an honest question.

**Eugene Cordero** (1:36)
Honest question.

**Trevor Noah** (1:37)
I want to see how you guys think. When you're using like a bathroom, right?

**Eugene Cordero** (1:44)
Yeah.

**Trevor Noah** (1:45)
Okay, and then you're washing your hands.

**Eugene Cordero** (1:47)
Who says wash our hands?

**Trevor Noah** (1:49)
Let's just imagine you wash your hands after using the bathroom, okay? What do you think is more natural?
Soap first, then lotion, or lotion first, then soap. And what I mean is not in order of use. I mean, how people place the bottles.

**Eugene Cordero** (2:06)
Yes, yes, yes.

**Trevor Noah** (2:08)
Should they place the soap closest to the sink? Yeah, soap on the right, in relation to you.

**Eugene Cordero** (2:11)
So further from the tap, yeah.

**SPEAKER_5** (2:13)
Yeah. Is the soap supposed to be closer to the taps, or further from the taps?

**Trevor Noah** (2:16)
Or should the lotion be closer or further?

**Eugene Cordero** (2:18)
No, further from the tap, because I move inwards.

**Trevor Noah** (2:20)
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. So say what you want.

**Eugene Cordero** (2:22)
So lotion, so tap, lotion, soap. Because after washing, I'll go, I mean, then I'm out. Wait, tap, yeah, lotion, yeah, water. I mean, soap. So soap furthest.
You know how they do the dessert spoons and dessert forks?

**Trevor Noah** (2:44)
This is crazy to me.

**Eugene Cordero** (2:46)
Yeah, but I want the soap to be furthest, so I can work my way inwards. This is crazy. Because remember, I'm going to work my way inwards to closing the tap.

**Trevor Noah** (2:53)
No, this is crazy to me. Okay, so explain this to me. Okay, so you get to the sink. I open the water. You open the water.

**Eugene Cordero** (3:00)
Yeah, but I first pre-soap my hands.

**Trevor Noah** (3:03)
Okay, so it's fine. You go soap.
You've opened the water. You wash your hands. You wash your hands. You now rinse your hands.

**Eugene Cordero** (3:09)
Then lotion.

**Trevor Noah** (3:12)
You turn off the tap. Then the lotion is next to you.

**Eugene Cordero** (3:15)
Yes, the closest to the tap, because I can tap just...

**Trevor Noah** (3:19)
Yeah.

**Eugene Cordero** (3:19)
And I want the paper to be above the tap.

**Lera Boroditsky** (3:21)
You're crazy in my head.

**Eugene Cordero** (3:22)
What do you want it to be?

**Trevor Noah** (3:23)
You are crazy in my head.

**Eugene Cordero** (3:25)
Dave?

**Dave Chappelle** (3:26)
I don't like to... And I'm not being strange, and you know this about me. I don't like to talk about bathrooms because of my feces phobia.
But now...

**Eugene Cordero** (3:35)
Feces? Feces phobia. I want you to say it again, so you can force yourself out.

**Dave Chappelle** (3:40)
No, I thought of it now. I thought of it because I was trying to be succinct.