We are so excited to see ourselves on a Travelling Weasels Wikipedia page (or as they call it, Wikipédia). The fact that Hungarians feel we are famous enough to be on there is really touching, and we want to say a special thank you to everyone who contributed, especially Marcell.
For people who don't speak Hungarian, here is a (very rough) translation. I've also written some notes on what we think of each paragraph (in blue)
Travelling Weasels is a YouTube channel. The channel is about a couple (Laura Cody and Tanbay Theune) who have travelled the world since 2013. They are familiar with Hungary and make videos in Hungarian.
Origin of the name
Originally, Laura called Tanbay "Weasel". The name Travelling Weasels first appeared when they wanted to make a website. Tanbay (at the time) did not support the name, but eventually came round to it.
#sigh, okay this is all true, I chose the name and Tanbay didn't like it - but you try finding a website name that hasn't already been taken! It was bad enough in 2014, when travellingweasels.com first started, I'm sure it's even worse now!
My nickname for Tanbay really was weasel for a long time - and the story is super dumb: I was teasing Tanbay that he didn't know what a weasel is (I don't know why he didn't know, because it turns out it's the same word in German). Anyway then I was talking to my mum about turnips (as you do), later on I went back to teasing Tanbay about weasels. He stat up straight and said in a very disgruntled voice "I do know what weasels are, it's a type of turnip!" I nearly died from laughing, and thus the legend was born.
For the record, I only tease Tanbay about not knowing English words because he knows pretty much all of the English words - often he'll know what an English words means, or how to spell it, when I myself (the English woman) don't.
Back to the name of the website, I wanted something memorable, preferably with travel in it. Tanbay didn't like it, but he also couldn't think of anything better so we went with it.
Three years later, and after one too many people calling us Weasels (I dumbly didn't think about the negative connotations of that word at the time, I was just thinking about how I like the animal)... I no longer like the name either. (Note, if you message us, call us Laura and Tanbay, or 'Travelling Weasels' not just 'weasels'.)
We decided to change the name, still couldn't think of anything better (and website names are super hard to change). So we decided to think of a slogan to match our name: thus we came up with this:
Travelling Weasels - learn how to weasel YOUR way out of the rat-race
And that's ultimately our message. We don't want you to live a life you don't enjoy.
History of the channel
The channel started in January 2016, three years after the launch of the main characters. It was originally intended to motivate Laura and Tanbay to do something interesting every day. After the initial excitement and the countdown subsided, they began to learn languages.
True. We did indeed start a YouTube channel to force ourselves to do something interesting every day. We are very good, and enjoy, staying at home: working, watching films, working out, cooking etc. (Which was why we used to do so much house sitting.) But then we realised there wasn't that much point in doing that all over the world - we could have done that at home.
So we went to South East Asia and pretty much did cool things every day. But making daily vlogs everyday is exhausting and making good daily vlogs everyday is near-impossible, especially when you're travelling and quite often don't have great internet.
We took a step back and reassessed what we liked doing on YouTube. We'd always enjoyed doing snack videos:
But because at that moment in time we'd just become vegan, and a) there are fewer vegan snacks and b) people on YouTube aren't that interested in them, we needed something different.
We've both always enjoyed learning languages. Tanbay is obviously bi-lingual, and people are always surprised to hear that I am too (I don't know if they're surprised because they think Brits can't learn languages, or they think I'm too dumb, but either way I'm insulted).
Anyway, over the three years we'd been travelling (at that point). I'd started learning Dutch, Spanish, Korean, French, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese and Chinese.
I'd stuck with none of them, some of them I'd found too easy - I know that sounds weird, but because I saw them as easy I had no motivation to learn them. Ultimately though, easy or hard, the reason I'd stuck with none of these languages was the reason I was learning them wasn't strong enough. Actually these were my reasons for learning those languages if you're interested:
Dutch - it's like German and sounds cool; Spanish - we were there for six weeks; Korean - I thought about teaching English in Korea; French - we went to Paris for two days lol; Italian - we used to spend three months a year there; Portuguese - we spent three months there one year; Russian - I've always thought it sounds super cool; Japanese - ditto; Chinese - I had an app for it that I liked, lol.
Anyway, so how did we end up officially learning Hungarian on YouTube? Basically we love Hungary and want to settle there in the future, we have Hungarian friends who help us a lot and we LOVE that everyone says it's the hardest language in the world. Anyone can learn an easy language (apart from me apparently), and even harder languages like Chinese, Japanese and Russian are always being learnt by loads of people. But who learns Hungarian unless they live there or have a spouse from there? US!
It doesn't make that much sense, but I love doing things that people say I can't do - have a long term relationship with Tanbay; do a maths degree; travel the world instead of finding a graduate job - these are all things people told my I couldn't do, and I thriveeee off that.
Videos related to the Hungarian language
Tanbay and Laura have been studying the Hungarian language since January since 2017. Today there are more than 20 episodes.
The protagonists learn Hungarian in several ways. In the initial period of the series they learnt some simple words with google translate.
They have incorporated the help of several important dates and people including: the National Song, by Origo, which was in Eurovision and the CBA Kasszás Erszi.
Frequently fans have sent them interesting things.
During their travels they have uploaded videos from other countries such as Indonesia, Laos and Japan.
We have indeed been learning Hungarian in many different ways since January. However, if you ask me when I started learning Hungarian I will tell you since August, because that's when we met Zsuzsi from Hungarian Lesson with Zsuzsi, because after one hour with her we'd learnt more than we'd learnt in six months by ourselves.
Google Translate is pretty bad, but I don't think people should dismiss it as they do, it's still a relatively useful resource and it learns stuff every single day - it won't be long before it's perfect. It's great for an idea of things, as long as you know the accent is appalling.
We've also uploaded Hungarian videos from Thailand, Malaysia, Dubai, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Germany and Israel, which is kind of weird but hey whatevs.
Their trips to Hungary
Their first Budapest video was released in June 2016, they spent a month there and their videos mostly talk about food and restaurants.
In the summer of 2017 they spent two weeks in Hungary. There were spotted by many fans on the street and one that lived in their building. They were interviewed by 24.hu. They went to Budapest, Debrecen, Szeged and Balaton Sound.
They are expected to return to Hungary in September 2017.
We did indeed spend a month in Hungary in 2016. We only learnt two words: puszi and köszi - kiss and thanks.
And we did spend two weeks there in the summer - it was awesome being recognised on the street, having our apartment recognised in a video was weird, the guy was super sweet, but it made us realise that we need to be a bit more private about where we live.
We did return to Hungary in August and spent three awesome months there! Now we are back again for two months to see what Christmas is like here :)
Thank you to our fans for their support, we wouldn't be making videos without you - sometimes we get commenters who say that we are only learning Hungarian for the views (which is literally the most insane way to get views btw, literally anything else would be easier); but anyway it's not true - we make videos because you seem to like them, and we like making you happy. So keep watching and we'll keep making :D
We've both always enjoyed learning languages. Tanbay is obviously bi-lingual, and people are always surprised to hear that I am too (I don't know if they're surprised because they think Brits can't learn languages, or they think I'm too dumb, but either way I'm insulted).
Anyway, over the three years we'd been travelling (at that point). I'd started learning Dutch, Spanish, Korean, French, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese and Chinese.
I'd stuck with none of them, some of them I'd found too easy - I know that sounds weird, but because I saw them as easy I had no motivation to learn them. Ultimately though, easy or hard, the reason I'd stuck with none of these languages was the reason I was learning them wasn't strong enough. Actually these were my reasons for learning those languages if you're interested:
Dutch - it's like German and sounds cool; Spanish - we were there for six weeks; Korean - I thought about teaching English in Korea; French - we went to Paris for two days lol; Italian - we used to spend three months a year there; Portuguese - we spent three months there one year; Russian - I've always thought it sounds super cool; Japanese - ditto; Chinese - I had an app for it that I liked, lol.
Anyway, so how did we end up officially learning Hungarian on YouTube? Basically we love Hungary and want to settle there in the future, we have Hungarian friends who help us a lot and we LOVE that everyone says it's the hardest language in the world. Anyone can learn an easy language (apart from me apparently), and even harder languages like Chinese, Japanese and Russian are always being learnt by loads of people. But who learns Hungarian unless they live there or have a spouse from there? US!
It doesn't make that much sense, but I love doing things that people say I can't do - have a long term relationship with Tanbay; do a maths degree; travel the world instead of finding a graduate job - these are all things people told my I couldn't do, and I thriveeee off that.
Videos related to the Hungarian language
Tanbay and Laura have been studying the Hungarian language since January since 2017. Today there are more than 20 episodes.
The protagonists learn Hungarian in several ways. In the initial period of the series they learnt some simple words with google translate.
They have incorporated the help of several important dates and people including: the National Song, by Origo, which was in Eurovision and the CBA Kasszás Erszi.
Frequently fans have sent them interesting things.
During their travels they have uploaded videos from other countries such as Indonesia, Laos and Japan.
We have indeed been learning Hungarian in many different ways since January. However, if you ask me when I started learning Hungarian I will tell you since August, because that's when we met Zsuzsi from Hungarian Lesson with Zsuzsi, because after one hour with her we'd learnt more than we'd learnt in six months by ourselves.
Google Translate is pretty bad, but I don't think people should dismiss it as they do, it's still a relatively useful resource and it learns stuff every single day - it won't be long before it's perfect. It's great for an idea of things, as long as you know the accent is appalling.
We've also uploaded Hungarian videos from Thailand, Malaysia, Dubai, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Germany and Israel, which is kind of weird but hey whatevs.
Their trips to Hungary
Their first Budapest video was released in June 2016, they spent a month there and their videos mostly talk about food and restaurants.
In the summer of 2017 they spent two weeks in Hungary. There were spotted by many fans on the street and one that lived in their building. They were interviewed by 24.hu. They went to Budapest, Debrecen, Szeged and Balaton Sound.
They are expected to return to Hungary in September 2017.
We did indeed spend a month in Hungary in 2016. We only learnt two words: puszi and köszi - kiss and thanks.
And we did spend two weeks there in the summer - it was awesome being recognised on the street, having our apartment recognised in a video was weird, the guy was super sweet, but it made us realise that we need to be a bit more private about where we live.
We did return to Hungary in August and spent three awesome months there! Now we are back again for two months to see what Christmas is like here :)
Thank you to our fans for their support, we wouldn't be making videos without you - sometimes we get commenters who say that we are only learning Hungarian for the views (which is literally the most insane way to get views btw, literally anything else would be easier); but anyway it's not true - we make videos because you seem to like them, and we like making you happy. So keep watching and we'll keep making :D
ABOUTME
We overland. We eat plants and fungi. We live outside as much as possible. We are all connected. A female travel blogger overlanding and writing about ecotourism, ethical and sustainable travel, socially conscious travel and housesitting. An online travel magazine since 2015.
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