How many languages do you know? What motivated you to learn a foreign language? In this podcast, Steve and Alex discuss the importance of motivation in learning a language and about the importance of promoting multilingualism.

Difficulty: Intermediate
Category: Language
Duration:  6:24

Click here to listen to Multilingualism (Part 2).

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Alex: Really, you have to make an effort to improve. It’s hard work, but I think definitely it’s so rewarding.

Steve: Well, it’s rewarding once you achieve the goal, but it’s also rewarding if I’m sitting there reading a book on Czech history in Czech. I mean I’m saying wow, look at me, I’m reading about Czech history in Czech. That’s very rewarding. Also, it’s very good for the brain, but I don’t necessarily think that you deliberately force the brain to do anything. It’s the fact that the brain is having to some how struggle with and put labels on and figure out this new language. As you are reading stuff that’s interesting, as you’re listening to stuff that’s interesting, all of that is very good work for the brain, I hope.

Alex: Yeah.

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How many languages do you know? What motivated you to learn a foreign language? In this podcast, Steve and Alex discuss the importance of motivation in learning a language and about the importance of promoting multilingualism.

Difficulty: Intermediate
Category: Language
Duration:  9:55

Click here to listen to Multilingualism (Part 1).

Click here to see the full transcript of this podcast.

For an excerpt from the text, click below:

Steve: Well, that’s right. Yeah, and it can beat back Alzheimer’s. But the whole point and the reason I think it’s worthwhile talking about this is like okay, let’s say your case for example. I’ve heard you. You speak very good Korean with very good pronunciation. You don’t look the part.

Alex: Not so much. No.

Steve: No. And there’s no particular reason from your background that you should do that, except that you had a very strong interest in it. That’s the point I want to talk about is how many people could be good speakers of more than one language if they really felt they could do it. I think a lot of people don’t believe they can do it.

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Do you know a word when you can recognize it, or do you have to be able to actively use it? What does it mean to really know a word, and is having a large active vocabulary as useful as having a large passive vocabulary? In this podcast, Steve and Alex discuss different definitions of "knowing" a word, what a typical active to passive ratio might be and more.

Difficulty: Intermediate
Category: Language
Duration:  7:47

Click here to listen to Passive vs. Active Vocabulary (Part 2).

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Alex: I forgot the word and as soon as I heard it I’m like oh, yeah, I remember that word, but I hadn’t used it in like two years.

Steve: And the other strange this is… Well, I have experienced this. I don’t know if you have. Over the two years, of course, your Korean has improved. You know many more words. You can read stuff more easily. You can understand people more easily and, yet, there will be some words that you knew two years ago, very simple words that you’ll forget now. 

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Do you know a word when you can recognize it, or do you have to be able to actively use it? What does it mean to really know a word, and is having a large active vocabulary as useful as having a large passive vocabulary? In this podcast, Steve and Alex discuss different definitions of "knowing" a word, what a typical active to passive ratio might be and more.

Difficulty: Intermediate
Category: Language
Duration:  10:49

Click here to listen to Passive vs. Active Vocabulary (Part 1).

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For an excerpt from the text, click below:

Steve:    I don't care how familiar you are with that non-familiar writing system; it's another level of strain, another level of difficulty. So what's been your experience with learning vocabulary in Korean?

Alex:    I'll say to start off with, a different script. I had a friend in university, she was in her fourth year, she was Korean, from Korea, but she had moved to Canada about 10 years before. So I asked her one day. She was reading a research paper or something like that in English and I said “What is your English level compared to your Korean level as far as reading goes?” She says “Well, I would say probably my English is about the same now; like I'm able to read English as easily now as I am able to read Korean.” She was like 24 and had been in Canada for 10 years attending school, high school, everything, university for four years and it took her that long until she said “Well, they're probably about the same.”

Steve:    Yeah. I mean I'm not surprised. Even with the same script, I would say that. Even though I studied in France for three years and I'm quite comfortable in French, it's easier to read in English. You end up doing a little more sub-vocalizing, but that's even in the same script.

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Steve and Alex talk about various world leaders, including Vaclav Havel, Kim Jong Il, Dr. Martin Luther King and more. They discuss how these leaders came into power, why they became prominent and what they are known for.

Difficulty: Advanced
Category: News and Politics 
Duration:  10:32

Click here to listen to About World Leaders (Part 2).

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Alex: Yeah. Well, even then. I mean even to people who know a lot about it North Korea is so illusive. It’s so difficult to find any substantive information to really learn more about it. I had the privilege of talking to a lot of professors who study Korean history and Korean politics and have spent a good portion of their life on this and even to them there’s a lot of uncertainty when it comes to really having insight into North Korea.

Steve: Well, you know it’s interesting. I read in the paper that children are taken from their parents and brainwashed from the age of like two. I mean that is tremendously powerful and so they probably did think that Kim Jong-il was like their father. They’re told that all the time. I know from listening to Echo Moskvy that when Stalin died, despite you know perhaps one in 10 Russians were either killed or imprisoned by him and I mean massive famine in farming areas all caused by this man, plus out and out just eliminating people, like shooting them, having them shot and yet when he died everyone thought they’d lost a family member because the power of indoctrination is so great. So maybe those people sincerely feel they lost, in a sense, somebody more important than their father. 

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Steve and Alex talk about various world leaders, including Vaclav Havel, Kim Jong Il, Dr. Martin Luther King and more. They discuss how these leaders came into power, why they became prominent and what they are known for.

Difficulty: Advanced
Category: News and Politics 
Duration:  10:19

Click here to listen to About World Leaders (Part 1).

Click here to see the full transcript of this podcast.

For an excerpt from the text, click below:

Alex: But it's so interesting to see. I mean, in a way, when you compare the two it's almost like it's a different species. The thoughts that go through their heads are so differing. In a way, you can compare say Hitler to Martin Luther King, Jr. where they stand for things in the complete opposite spectrum I mean.

Steve: Exactly. What I think is unusual with people like Martin Luther King, which is another good example, or Havel or Nelson Mandela -- and I think to some extent, although I don't know that much about the Dalai Lama, maybe in fact he does abuse his power -- but there is that expression “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” We see it in politicians or even people who have a lot of money. Once they have power and influence they become corrupt. It corrupts people and what's striking about those people is that they weren't corrupted by power; at least they were able to give the impression that they weren't corrupted by power. We don't know what goes on behind the scenes, right? 

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A simple dialogue which takes place in a restaurant. Part 14 of 14 episodes. It is a good idea to listen many times to each part. This story is available in other languages at LingQ. You can use these versions to provide a direct translation.

Difficulty: Beginner
Category: 1. Beginner I
Duration:  0:54

Click here to see the full transcript of this podcast.

Click here to listen to Eating Out, Part 14.

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A simple dialogue which takes place in a restaurant. Part 13 of 14 episodes. It is a good idea to listen many times to each part. This story is available in other languages at LingQ. You can use these versions to provide a direct translation.

Difficulty: Beginner
Category: 1. Beginner I
Duration:  1:02

Click here to see the full transcript of this podcast.

Click here to listen to Eating Out, Part 13.

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A simple dialogue which takes place in a restaurant. Part 12 of 14 episodes. It is a good idea to listen many times to each part. This story is available in other languages at LingQ. You can use these versions to provide a direct translation.

Difficulty: Beginner
Category: 1. Beginner I
Duration:  1:13

Click here to see the full transcript of this podcast.

Click here to listen to Eating Out, Part 12.

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A simple dialogue which takes place in a restaurant. Part 11 of 14 episodes. It is a good idea to listen many times to each part. This story is available in other languages at LingQ. You can use these versions to provide a direct translation.

Difficulty: Beginner
Category: 1. Beginner I
Duration:  0:44

Click here to see the full transcript of this podcast.

Click here to listen to Eating Out, Part 11.

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Steve and Alex discuss the importance of motivation in learning a language, and how forcing people to learn a language often breeds poor results.

Difficulty: Intermediate
Category: Language  
Duration:  11:02

Click here to listen to Motivation (Part 2).

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Steve: It’s just that I have put in that much effort into learning these other languages. Other people, for whatever reasons, didn’t have the time to do it, but the fact of speaking 10 versus two versus five, to me it’s got nothing to do with it. It’s just that that’s where I have chosen to spend my time.

 Alex: Yeah, exactly.

Steve: It’s like a musician. If the musician doesn’t spend any time learning to play the trumpet he won’t know how to play the trumpet, but if he takes it upon himself to learn to play the trumpet he’ll be able to learn it.

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Steve and Alex discuss the importance of motivation in learning a language, and how forcing people to learn a language often breeds poor results.

Difficulty: Intermediate
Category: Language  
Duration:  13:31

Click here to listen to Motivation (Part 1).

Click here to see the full transcript of this podcast.

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Steve:    Good. Yeah, it's time to have another podcast. You know, one subject that comes up and we're both, obviously, interested in languages and learning languages and many of the people who listen to this podcast, by definition, they're interested in learning languages, whether it be English or some other language. There was a discussion on our forum about what are your motivations. Actually, one of our LingQ members from China said what is your motivation for learning Chinese and then there was a discussion about motivation and so forth.

Of course, most often you hear you should learn Chinese because you should. It's a bit like in Canada you should learn French and, of course, because in Canada we should learn French, in fact, very few people learn French because you should learn French. So, now, it's you should learn Chinese because the economy is growing and you might get a job. Does that really work, you should learn?

Alex:    My experience has been the exact opposite. Whereas, when I was in elementary school I was in Canada and we had French, obviously, mandatory French lessons. When I was in grade seven I moved to the United States and I guess grade seven and eight I didn't do any language study. When I hit grade nine -- high school -- then there was the option to take either French or Spanish. So I thought well, I already have some background in French and I have to take a language anyway so I'll just take French. I'll say, quite honestly, at that point I really had about zero interest in French. It was just to kind of fill that requirement.

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Steve and Alex talk about their experiences related to forgetting languages, and Alex shares about his new goal to learn French again.

Difficulty: Intermediate
Category: Language  
Duration:  15:19

Click here to listen to Forgetting Languages.

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Steve: I’ve mentioned this on my blog on a couple of occasions and on every occasion people have come back and said yeah. I thought I was the only one. That’s true. I mean it may not be true for everyone, but it’s true for a lot of people. True for a lot of people, so I would not worry. If you set your Korean aside and worked on Chinese or French or whatever for six months, you would go back to Korean and you’d do better.

Alex: Yeah. I think that’s an interesting thing, too, to take it from another perspective, is if you’ve been studying a language for a long time and you’re feeling what we talked about before, the doldrums or whatever, it’s good to take a break because that may in fact give you some time to process all that and refresh yourself with some other stuff and you go back to it with a new outlook.

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Steve and Alex talk about good ways to start learning a language from scratch and share their experiences.

Difficulty: Intermediate
Category: Language  
Duration:  12:10

Click here to listen to Starting from Scratch (Part 2).

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Alex: I think that’s the thing, too, of having the confidence. Like you said before, you read a text in Czech you know three words. You listen to it five more times and then you read it again and you know seven words.

Steve: Right. 

Alex: I think a lot of people get very discouraged at that, but I think it takes the know how to understand every little step counts and every little bit that you do is going to help you in the long run.

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Steve and Alex talk about good ways to start learning a language from scratch and share their experiences.

Difficulty: Intermediate
Category: Language  
Duration:  11:05

Click here to listen to Starting from Scratch (Part 1).

Click here to see the full transcript of this podcast.

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Steve: I know that if I keep washing these words over me, listening to them, reading them, reviewing them, that they will eventually stick because that has happened to me in all these other languages, so I’m confident. Like I’m climbing up this mountain, I know I’m going to reach the peak.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: Someone who hasn’t done this before is gee, I wonder how far it is. Am I going to make it? I’ll never get anywhere. I’ll get stuck. I’ll get lost. So they have all these kinds of apprehensions, which I don’t have. 

But, yeah, with Portuguese it took me forever, listening to Living Language, listening to Teach Yourself. I went to Portugal and I really couldn’t understand what people were saying. Although, I could read the newspaper, it’s largely the same, right? Whereas, now I feel after 10 days I’m very confident that in a year from now if I go to Prague I’ll be able to communicate.

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Steve and Alex continue their discussion on how various different proverbs can be applied to language learning.

Difficulty: Intermediate
Category: Language  
Duration:  11:58

Click here to listen to Language Learning Proverbs.

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Alex: Yeah. Cool. Here’s another one, “Strike while the iron is hot.” Speaking from personal experience, there are moments where I feel super motivated to do something and there are moments where I feel completely unmotivated to do it. But the idea of “strike while the iron is hot”, I think this can be applied in the sense of if you’re motivated to do something, at that moment you start. You do it. You make your best effort to make that a habit so that then when maybe your motivation is staring to kind of dwindle that you still have this as a habit. You’ve set it in stone while you were motivated and you can continue on even when you don’t feel motivated.

Steve: I fully agree and I would add two comments. One is that when you are motivated, because our motivation does fluctuate, then you should just go at it until that motivation peters out. If it means three hours, four hours that day, just go at it. You’re in the mood.

The other thing is, as you say, if we take advantage of when we’re motivated, we can develop some good habits which will tide us over when we’re a little bit less motivated. So, in both senses we’re taking advantage of a situation and we’re striking while the iron is hot.

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Steve and Alex discuss what it means to experience a plateau in language learning and offer some tips in how to overcome this feeling.

Difficulty: Intermediate
Category: Language  
Duration:  12:18

Click here to listen to Language Learning Plateau.

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Steve:    But, I mean, if I worried about it for every one of the languages that I speak I would really be tongue tied. I wouldn't speak them at all.
Alex:    Yeah.
Steve:    It's only by speaking them that we really improve in speaking. Obviously, we can improve our comprehension by listening and reading, by increasing our vocabulary. But, ultimately, speaking is a specific skill so at some point you've got to speak a lot.

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Steve talks about his recent trip to Russia, including the places he went, the people he met and the experience of traveling to Russia after learning Russian for four years.

Difficulty: Intermediate
Category: Travel  
Duration:  9:14

Click here to listen to Steve's Trip to Russia (Part 2).

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Steve: So, yeah. I mean, I feel that my Russian took a big step forward and my motivation is greater than it ever was. But, it was nice to go there and to be able to operate, like I felt comfortable. Other than the odd surly clerk at the train station, most people were very friendly and I could communicate and to them it’s only natural that I speak Russian. 

Alex: Right.

Steve: They’re not expecting to speak English.

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Steve talks about his recent trip to Russia, including the places he went, the people he met and the experience of traveling to Russia after learning Russian for four years.

Difficulty: Intermediate
Category: Travel  
Duration:  9:21

Click here to listen to Steve's Trip to Russia (Part 1).

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Steve: Initially, I was in Berlin for a day because we have some business dealings there and then I was in Latvia for a day and a half. I’ve been to both places before.

Alex: Okay.

Steve: And then, finally, having spent the last four years, you know, an hour a day most days learning Russian, I finally got a chance to travel to Russia. For me it was really exciting.

So I arrived in St. Petersburg Airport, walked through the airport smooth as can be. I had images of all kinds of bureaucratic whatever, long delays and stuff. It was no big deal at all. Walked right through, got my bag very quickly and was met by Eugene (Evgueny), who is our programmer, who lives in St. Petersburg, just an awfully nice guy. We took a cab in. It was seven or eight hundred rubles.

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Steve and Alex talk about coarse language, why some people like to use it and what it represents to different people.

Difficulty: Intermediate
Category: Everyday Life  
Duration:  10:10

Click here to listen to Forces of Nature.

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Alex: Yeah and that’s an interesting thing, too, it is cultural. It’s not just the language, too, because when my sister was in the U.K. she said people much more actively use swear words and it’s much more common place. Whereas, in Canada and the United States people often hold their tongue and are more reserved in that regard. 

Steve: I mean, yeah. And I think that sometimes people from a different culture don’t realize the effect it has. Like we had a visitor from Sweden on business and he felt that what we call the “F-bomb” in English was equivalent to devil, which is “fan”, which is the F-bomb if you want it in Swedish. 

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