In a groundbreaking achievement, a 20-year-old Igbo lady, now 23 year-old won an international award for her exceptional linguistic abilities. Favour Chisimdi Emerald Nwobodo, a linguist prodigy, has become fluent in an astonishing 11 foreign languages.
Hailing from Igbo territory in Nigeria, Chisimdi has learned to speak Korean, Swahili, Shona, Indonesian, Filipino, Spanish, German, French, Chinese, English, and Igbo without ever leaving her homeland. Her incredible linguistic skills have earned her recognition and acclaim around the world, culminating in the prestigious international award she has now received.
In addition to her linguistic accomplishments, Chisimdi is also working towards her dream of becoming a medical doctor. She has been admitted to study Medicine at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
Chisimdi is not one to rest on her laurels. She is currently learning the Yoruba language and has already submitted her first research article on Linguistics in Business to the Harvard Business Review.
She stated on LinkedIn that she “wrote my first research article on Linguistics in Business (how Linguistics helps in making businesses thrive) and submitted it to Harvard Business Review.”
This young woman’s incredible achievements have sparked admiration and pride in her community and beyond. She is a shining example of what can be achieved through hard work, dedication, and a love of learning. We can only wait to see what other impressive feats she will accomplish in the years to come.
Meet Favour
My name is Favour Chisimdi Emerald Nwobodo popularly known as Empress and this is my story (chuckles).
One day, a neighbour brought a film to my house for me to watch, and it was a Korean drama. I never liked foreign films but something kept pushing me. This was how the passion for languages came. Within weeks of watching the film, I started learning some words, and with time I enrolled in an online class to learn Korean. That was what opened me up to start learning other foreign languages like Filipino, Shona, Swahili, Spanish and Indonesian.
I moved on to the top 3 languages (German, French, Chinese) last year. But then, watching those films actually drew me to learn their ways of life and all and it was so great knowing lots about some countries.
Ever since my language story went viral, I have gotten so many comments both negative and positive. I personally wanted to go into medicine, not because of the money but I want to save lives. I found out that many people die in hospitals because of the language barrier, so one of my reasons for learning these languages is to solve linguistic problems in the health and business sector.
