Want to study this episode as a lesson on LingQ? Give it a try!

Elle: Hello everyone and welcome to the LingQ podcast with me Elle. If you would like to study this podcast episode as a lesson, an English lesson, I’ve created one for you on LingQ using the transcript and the audio. The lesson link is in the description. LingQ is a fantastic tool for studying content of interest in your target language.

You can find anything online and create a lesson with it, working through the words and phrases saving them to your own personal database. There are vocabulary exercises, there for you also, and as well, you can start a language challenge on LingQ. So I will also pop the link to the challenges page in the description.

I’m currently in a French 90-Day Challenge, which means I am going to hit targets set by LingQ in French over 90 days. And my goal is to, by the end of those 90 days have read my first novel in French. Check out the challenges on the challenge page and join me. Doesn’t have to be in French. There are lots and lots of languages you can do a challenge in. And if you’re listening on Google, Apple, Spotify, SoundCloud, please give us a review, like share or follow. Really really appreciated. Today I am joined by another wonderful guest. He is a YouTuber. He creates content around learning Japanese. He’s also a Japanese translator and an author. Today I am joined by Chad Zimmerman. Chad, welcome.

Chad: Welcome. Hi, uh, you are talking me up a lot. I have a lot to live up to just by the intro.

Elle: Yeah.

I mean, it’s impressive. It’s impressive. Just take it in.

Chad: I, look, I will act in my official capacity, which is YouTube because I technically make my income from that everything else… although I guess in years past I was paying my rent with it, but with COVID I’m stuck back here in the states, so I can’t do everything I was doing full time, but I definitely, I can, I can accept YouTuber and hobbyist language enthusiast.

Elle: Okay.

Hobbyist language and tips like that. Whereabouts in the states are you joining us from today?

Chad: So I’m in Denver, Colorado, the beautiful Rocky mountains. This is where I’m normally from. And I would be in Japan right now, except for obvious reasons. I’m a little bit shipwrecked over here. So yeah.

Elle: Pesky pandemic. Um, when were you last, when were you in Japan?

Chad: So I weirdly enough. So I was in Japan, I left to come back here for the holidays.

So I left like early December of 2019. Right.

When it was getting hairy and but, mind you, I went through China. So I was in China for a couple of days on a late layover in December of 2019. I come home and then by like January, February, they’re like, oh, China’s popping off. I’m just like, wow, that’s sketchy.

And then all of a sudden everything shuts down and the world’s closed and I’m like, wow, that is, talk about just like Indiana Jonesing, the hat under the door.

Elle: Yeah, exactly. At the last minute. And so you’re stuck, not stuck in Colorado. Colorado is a beautiful place.

Chad: Yeah.

I love it here. I just, uh, most of my work is in Japan nowadays.

That’s like where I make all my money. It’s where all my friends pretty much, since I was 18, are. Um, so it’s, it’s kinda sad, but it’s kind of good too. Cause you know, you get to see the family, you get to be in America for a while and forget why you love it here.

Elle: Exactly. Yeah.

You get to spend that quality time that you… it’s like a bonus quality time with family, right?

Usually living abroad. Yeah.

Chad: My mom had a hard time when I was gone.

Elle: Oh, I bet. I bet. Yeah.

Did you say you left when you were 18?

Chad: Yeah.

So my first time I was over there, I don’t remember if I was 18 or if I just turned 19, it was that… because my, my birthday’s in January and I left that month, but I don’t remember which exactly when it was, but I pretty much, I was, I solved the trap of college.

I was like, if I go to a college, I’m going to get $50,000 in debt. And I have friends that by the way, uh, even now they went to school for Japanese. They have degrees in Japanese and they’re waiting tables. And I was like, I don’t want to be 50K in debt and wait tables. So seeing the trap, I sold everything I owned that wasn’t stuck to the ground, bought a one-way ticket and went over there, went to a language school to start, so.

Elle: Okay.

And did you know any Japanese before you went?

Chad: Almost none. Yeah, I was, I was a bit ballsy back then.

Elle: So you went over, you’re 18, you go over, you start learning Japanese. And how long ago was that now?

Chad: Oh, well, oh man. Longer than I want to admit. So my, my first trip, when I first went over there, um, it was to try and figure out this, like, how do I go to school over there?

So that trip was only like a month, maybe two. Uh, I was staying, I was living in a closet at a church for free because I had nowhere to stay. I had no money.

Elle: How did that happen?

Chad: I mean, so I’m a Christian, but I just, I found churches that were in Japan. There’s not a lot of them. And I just wrote them and found one that spoke English and the people were very sweet.

Uh, but they were like, yeah, if you want. Come on over, we have this, they said guestroom, and then you show up and it’s an actual closet. And I was like, Hey, you know, I’m not on the street. Cause I, I did not have a plan to sleep anywhere. Cause I spent all my money on my flight. Right.

So I was over there figuring stuff out.

And when I was there, I learned about language schools and I learned about, I’d… I met some people that were in translation and interpreting as a career, and they didn’t, either didn’t have college degrees or they just got certificates. One of them, that’s how I found out about the JLPT, which was a huge theme of my channel till I passed the N2 a couple of years ago.

Elle: Congratulations.

Chad: Thank you. That took way longer than I thought.

Uh, and then…

Elle: I was just speaking just recently to, another, uh, YouTubeer, uh, I dunno if you know Denny Mintsaev.

Chad: I don’t think I do.

Elle: He created, he’s a YouTuber and also he’s Russian and he creates, uh, YouTube videos about learning Japanese, anyway, he’s trying for his N1 and also same thing…

Chad: I gotta to talk to him. I’m going to Russia this winter.

Elle: Oh

Chad: I had no idea he existed.

Elle: I will connect you. Yeah.

He’s… there we go. Perfect. Yes.

But yeah, the JLPT super, super difficult. I’ve heard from any, anyone who’s taking it, taken it, so. Sorry, carry on.

Chad: But yeah, so I just learned about that path and then again, it was like, I was faced with this thing where I tried to get into back home before I left I was thinking about community colleges. And I got, no, I applied for FAFSA, which is my country’s like, here’s free money to go to school. I got nothing and I was a pretty good student and I had good grades and, uh, you know, self-supporting at that point. So I was just shocked me that I couldn’t get anything.

And so it was like, oh, I can go into all this debt for something I didn’t know if I even wanted. Or I could just live the thing I wanted to do. I could find a way to do that. And so to this day I just found a way. So after that trip, I came home and I told my parents, you got one year left with me. I am, I am cabooting over to there and I’m going to go to school.

And I was one of the first student, I was in the first group, the first class of students when Genki turned into an actual recognized language school with the state. So they could issue student visas.

Elle: Right.

Chad: So I was at Genki JACS um, but I was also… Genki JACS is fine, but the truth was, and for anyone that’s considering going to language schools, here’s some great advice for you, a lot of rich Europeans use that to go to Japan for basically a vacation. So what happens is you go to school and you’re serious. You’re like, I want to learn this language. I’m going to get fluent. This will, I’m doing this with my life. I want this. And you’re in a class full of people that could not be bothered less.

And so they advertise it as like, oh, you know, the class is all in Japanese and the teachers will only speak to you in Japanese. And these students, like the minute the bell rings, they switch to English. All of them from Germany, from Denmark, uh, from Russia, they just, they don’t speak in Japanese. And then they all hang out only with each other outside of class time.

So like nobody’s actually interacting with Japanese people. And that’s when I was like, yeah, this school is not going to get me fluent. I need to get me fluent. And so that’s when I like I rejected my native language except for YouTube videos. And I just head first in and I met people I’m still great friends with, um, two of them helped me start my business.

One of them I’m helping them start an exporting business from Japan. A couple of them are like really great friends of mine. One of them is a pro skater. One of them’s, uh, getting into real estate in Japan. So now he wants to break into America’s market. So he, you know, goes through me. But that all that started because I was like, I don’t even know how to hold a conversation, but I need to learn this language.

So I think I’ve told this story before. I don’t think you’ve ever heard it. Um, the way I made the friends that are like my best friends to this day, I was walking through Fukuoka right by Canal City, which is this big mall by a canal. And there’s all these skateboarders that always hang out. And I just saw them and they looked like they were sweating like crazy.

They were so hot and it was just miserable. This is like Japanese in July, Japan in July. So, oh, it’s horrible. It’s like, I refuse, I will stay inside and I saw them and I was like, this is my chance. They’re roughly my age. They look friendly, but I don’t know how to talk to them cause I, I was very rudimentary.

So I went to a convenience store, right by there I bought $20, it was one of my last $20 cause I was a broke student. I sold everything I had to go there. And bought alcohol and water and drinks from the convenience store. And I brought it over to them and I was just like here.

Elle: Good plan. Did it work?

Chad: They talked to me till one in the morning, all day took me, they took me out to dinner.

They took me to the beach and we all, we did the sabiki fishing, which catches these little mackerels about this big. They skewered them and we grilled them on the beach. Like they started a fire and we had a bonfire at night and then they gave me their Line, which is like Facebook. And they were like, Do you want to come do this again tomorrow?

And I did that every day for six months. And that’s what got me really proficient when I was like at my peak, peak of Japanese.

Elle: Wow.

Chad: The school did really nothing. It was slowing me down if anything.

Elle: You took it into your own hands, literally.

Chad: Yeah.

Elle: Amazing.

Chad: Anyone that goes, this is the same thing with working out, right.

Language is the exact same process. If you go, I need someone to go to the gym with me, you’re never going to go because you’ll find someone to go with you and then they’ll stop. And then what motivates you?

Elle: Yeah

Chad: You need to be pushing yourself. You need to be your biggest motivator. And I found that just going this school was literally like imprisoning me almost.

Cause I didn’t want to go. They were too slow, but I had to go a certain amount of courses. Otherwise I’d forfeit my visa.

Elle: Uh oh.

Chad: And so it was this really nasty situation at that point. It’s nothing against Genki, they’re super nice people, but they know their audience. They’re playing to, you know, wealthy Europeans that essentially want a long holiday.

And that’s cool. But I wanted to be fluent really bad. I wanted to talk to these people that are like my best friends and like not struggle.

Elle: And really connect.

Chad: Yeah.

Yeah, definitely. I’m sure anyone that’s learned a language knows how surface level a language partner is when you’re not really deep in the language, but once you’re deep in the language, uh, some of my best friends to this day, it’s not even Japanese people.

They’re just people I helped with the language. Uh, the girl who… I have a book, but the girl who draws this book, I’m helping her with her… she’s Russian, so TOEIC the English fluency test.

Elle: Oh yeah. Yeah.

Chad: I think, um, yeah, one of the best people ever, and we are so close, but it’s, it’s that connection you want with a deep level of language learning and you only get that if you have a really deep level of language learning.

Elle: Right.

All right. And at what point then did you become a translator? Obviously you’ve passed the, the JLPT N2.

Chad: Yeah.

Elle: Which is the second kind of highest…

Chad: There’s five levels.

Elle: Yes.

Chad: And, and two’s the second highest, I guess.

Elle: Right.

Chad: I don’t know if people are listening to this and they’re not familiar with Japanese.

You could try and use the, uh, what’s it European framework. It doesn’t fit very well, but it’s kind of like a B2/C1. It doesn’t fit super well, but somewhere in there. Right.

Uh, but I was translating. And so this is one of the remarkable things that I found out. I know so many people that have like degrees in Japanese, like masters degrees in Japanese, and they can’t get a translating job because they’re Japanese sucks. Like if you can walk into an interview and confidently talk to the person and show them, you know what you’re talking about and like, it’s just not a problem. Why wouldn’t they hire you? In fact, they could technically, they could pay you less because you don’t have the paper next to your name that says Chad Zimmerman, PHD.

You know, all the other nice things. So they don’t have to pay you as well as someone with a degree. So they’re actually inclined to give you translation jobs. If you don’t have a degree, if you’re good, so the N2 doesn’t make you good. I know a lot of people that have an N2 that are pretty mediocre and that’s not being, it’s not being mean.

It’s saying that you can study for the test and not study Japanese.

Elle: Yeah.

Chad: They’re different things really. My thing was for the longest time I studied Japanese pretty well, but I never studied test taking ever. So I was like, I know all this stuff on the test, but I just, I, I can’t, I always run out of time.

Um, I don’t always understand why they’re phrasing the test or a question a certain way. And so I knew I had the a…I mean, passing on an N2 is 50%. It’s really not that good.

Elle: But tough test though, right?

Chad: It is but still 50% is like on a test that’s like, wow. So the thing that I learned, and this is part of the reason I do textbook reviews was again, it’s a big difference between just learning the language and being able to express that language on a test.

I mean, you’re an English speaker. There’s a big difference between being in a class and understanding the topic that’s being taught, whatever it is, it could be history or language could be Spanish and being able to replicate that on a monolingual test of that thing. Like there’s lots of people who can understand the topic or explain it, but they fail tests. Happens all the time. There’s a reason, even at my old high school, they separated English as a second language students, even if they were fluent in English from the normal, like you were native born in America, this is your first language because there there’s a difference between someone that has… like they’re born and raised in the language and they understand from the very beginning how tests are taken in that language, how the books are supposed to be read in that language, um, how to interact in the class with that language, how to interact with the material and someone that although learned it to a proficient level was never exposed to tests or reading assignments or worksheets or whatever.

There’s just a… and it’s not, it’s not a bad thing. It’s just reality. It’s the same thing with me in Japanese. Right? I was not born in Japan. There’s a lot about Japanese I don’t know. And it’s not just words or grammar. It’s like culturally, there’s like a way that they handle tests and test taking. Um, the way that information is presented is different.

And you can get to a point where you’re exposed enough to the language. A lot of people do this with crazy immersion that you can almost replicate that native thing. And that’s awesome. Uh, but I was not there. So I kept failing and then I found these textbooks that are…they, they’re not really teaching the language, they’re just helping you articulate what you already know into a test format. And that’s what helped me pass was being like, oh, so there’s actually a method to this that I didn’t understand.

Elle: Right.

Like being let in on something. Yeah, for sure. So you mentioned that you do a book reviews, textbook, or Japanese language resource reviews on your channel. Um, what is some of the better books that you’ve come across in these reviews that you’ve been doing?

Chad: Oh, okay. I mean, I could talk about, I don’t know if there’s good. They’re standard. Right? There’s, there’s more, um, normalized methods of learning. So a lot of these books I’ve held, I’ve reviewed like over 30 so far.

So I don’t know if I’m the most, like, I have the most reviews of Japanese resources on YouTube, but I’m probably up there.

Elle: That’s a lot. Yeah.

Chad: So after holding all of them, most of them are exactly what their categories… like it’s, you know, you have an absolute beginner book or maybe the beginner split into several books, intermediate books, and then I count it as other, I don’t think advanced textbooks really exist in honesty.

Okay.

Um, so I would say the bit, the biggest bonus with going with standardized books, these are books that are widely available. The ones that people most often use, that the reason you’d want to do that is there’s more of a commute. To help support you if you don’t understand something rather than going and, mind you I’m a third-party author, but rather than necessarily relying on a third-party author, because you might be working through this week’s review.

So the one I’m putting out on Wednesday is Japanese The Manga Way. It’s like teaching you Japanese grammar through Manga, which is a really cool book. And I, I have a lot of really positive thoughts about it, but if you’re relying on that book as your primary, imagine coming across an issue and you don’t know how to articulate what the issue is

because what you’re saying is, oh, this book explains it this way. So let’s say they refer to like ko, so, a, do words. So kore, sore, are, dore uh, koko asoko, right? Like the ko, so, a, do words, they call it that. But there’s actually a word for that. Like what those words are, there’s a grammatical word, or maybe you’re a part of a book that says, uh,so like “i” adjectives are, what was it…

I think. I’m tired. I never actually learned the actual grammatical terms for those cause in Genki, which is the textbook I started with, they didn’t teach you “here’s what mean in Japanese”. I just learned what an “i” adjective was or “na” objective. Right? I think it’s… I think. I’ll let the commenters shred me if that’s wrong.

It probably is. Uh, but imagine if you came from a background where you were talking about the Japanese term, cause that’s the book you used and people are like, what’s that? And you don’t know how to articulate this as an “i” or a “na” adjective. Right? And so there’s a safety going with the mainline books. And so what I like to show people is I compare them to the mainline books.

So if you want to know if you’re a new beginner and you’re like, I don’t know at all where to start the mainline beginner books, like the ones that are bread and butter, most communities use them are Genki both one and book two, Mina Nihongo both one and two. Um, I would say those honestly make up 80% of the market.

Elle: And Japanese for Busy People.

Chad: That’s uh, that’s, that’s a big one, but that’s not… the numbers, you can even look on Amazon. They’re not selling anything close to what those other two books sell.

Elle: Oh, interesting. I always thought they were… I used them. So maybe I was biased.

Chad: Well, they, they used to be really big. I have a couple versions of theirs on my shelf. I really should have done this in my study.

I have like a giant wall of Japanese resources. Um, but they’re just, that’s the thing is there’s also by the way, current. So that’s right now, like you’re listening to this, but let’s say in five years, you’re listening to this and you go, oh, maybe Genki is still the thing there very well might be a new thing coming out.

In fact, Tobira, which is a really, that one exploded in the intermediate books. Uh, they’re putting out a beginner series because they didn’t have one. And that one, from what I hear is really pulling punches with Genki and doing the things that people want from Genki, but it’s not in there. So that very well might take over.

But I’m saying for safety sake, if you’re too, excuse me, I coughed, for safety sake, if you would like to go over, you want to learn the language, but you want to be a part of a broad community to help you. If you have questions, the mainline books are those two and then it, however, Uh, pretty much intermediate is like Tobira still Mina No Nihongo cause they go farther.

Uh, and then what was that other one? Uh, Genki has an intermediate book that’s pretty popular now. It’s not, Genki, it’s a whoever prints Genki. An Intermediate Approach to Integrate… or An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese. That’s a very long English name. That is, so those are like the intermediate books.

And honestly, after those, it’s like now you’re picking hairs. I tried to go into. ..It’s like, what is it advanced or late intermediate or advanced textbooks? Um, I mean, you’re at a certain point where you hit that and it’s just like, you could just use native materials, like a dictionary, a grammar dic… like a regular dictionary on your phone, a grammar dictionary.

Um, I have several of those on my channel I’ve reviewed. And then just turn on Netflix with Japanese subtitles or read any Manga and you’ll be fine. Like you you’ll have plenty of exposure to be able to figure out the language at that point.

Elle: Okay.

Tell us about your book because I know you’ve written a few, but the Japanese resource book that you’ve written, learn Kanji with Yokai.

Chad: Yeah.

Elle: Is so Cool. Tell us about it.

Chad: So that, that was really fun. I should have talked about more of my translation work, cause that also led into me guiding and doing translation with my own business. But I’ll give you guys a gist of this. I translated for a long time on my own. I worked, I was translating originally.

I was on those sites that were like, we help you find translation work. And I was always translating like instruction manuals for like Ikea furniture. That’s one of the, that’s one of the ones I remember doing. It was all these little dumb projects and it never, it paid, but it wasn’t like amazing. And so I was like, I’m going to do this stuff on my own.

And so I started building up, uh, contacts in Fukuoka where I’m at with different universities. There’s a women’s university I worked a lot with, um, and I started doing a lot of translations for robotics companies, uh, for textbooks. For, uh, like I did a lot of translating of teaching materials for teaching English and Japanese at these universities.

And that was my kind of big entrance into it on top of Ikea furniture, I guess. But again, they, they didn’t ask for a degree. I didn’t have my N2 at the time. I was just like, I could walk in and talk to them and go, do you need help? And, and that was enough for them. That was well, yeah. I mean, potentially if you can speak, who cares.

The… once that was done, uh, this was mind you now I have an exporting business I run in Japan. I have a tour guiding business I run in Japan. I do, I still run both of those to this day. Um, I got a hold of a group of people that are, uh, both they’re artists, they’re musicians and illustrators and stuff in Russia, learning English through the illustrator of the book.

Her name is Svetlana. We met on a language exchange web. And so we just got together the four of us and I essentially, uh, I remember, so me and her, cause we were working on English stuff with her. We were reading, uh, I think I want to say his name. Right? Cause I don’t speak Russian that great. Afanasiev. He’s the, he’s like the brothers…

well, he’s like the brothers Grimm of Russia. He, he was a, was it ethnographer? He basically collected children’s stories from Russia back in like the late 1800s. Oh, okay. And so what was awesome was I worked with this team. They had access to the original scans of his work, the stuff from the 1800s and they’re native Russians.

And I’ve worked with teams in translation. So I kind of managed a team where I’d go, here’s our deadlines. Here’s our timelines. Here’s your guys’s jobs. Cause they haven’t, you know, they know the languages, but they’ve never done the actual task of translation. And so they would translate, you know, parts of the text.

People would start illustrating it cause there’s lots of really cool illustrations on the books and they would send it to me. I would edit the English and they, I would essentially help them learn English while we were doing this cool project. I would send it back. They would look at my English, make sure what I was saying was…

’cause, you know, sometimes they might phrase something and I go, well, here’s how you actually say that. And then they go, oh, that’s not what I was trying to say. And then we have to call and work that out, right? That’s kind of, the work of a translator is, um, there’s a spectrum. So there’s like a word-for-word translation and a thought-for-thought translation.

Elle: Okay.

Chad: And so in that space, And see, I didn’t even go to school to be a translator I just figured this stuff out, but a word for word translation is like the actual word on the page, the equivalent to that word in English, like sheep, sheep, cow, cow. Right? The problem is sometimes that does not like, if you say just the words and put it in English, it makes no bloody sense.

So it’s kind of like in English, I think there’s this old term. I think you’re British or something like that, I can hear from your accent.

Elle: Yeah.

Welsh.

Chad: There’s something like, he’s just sitting with his thumb in his ear and it’s like, it means you’re kind of being lazy.

Elle: Okay.

Chad: I think

Elle: Don’t think I’ve heard that one.

Chad: Or like, what about, about kicking your heels?

Like you’re just sitting there like not working. Right.

So if I were to actually put that in Russian or vice versa, you might be like, “kicking your heels”? With the…

Elle: right.

Chad: Right? Cause you literally have the word to kick your heels and then they’re like, and what it means is you being lazy, like, go, go do something.

Uh, and so what would happen is I would understand they’re kicking the heels in this metaphor and I would change it. And then we go, no, no, no, no. This is supposed to mean that the person is lazy and I go, oh, so now we need this and then I can translate it over more for thought-for-thought. Cause we’re trying, the goal is always word for word, but when it word for word doesn’t work, you move for changing the words in order to convey the actual meaning, the author intended.

Elle: Right.

Chad: And you know, these are just skills you learn when you translate. So anyways, we finished the book. It’s awesome. I have it over here. I don’t have all of them, but I have this one. So if you’re into Russian, you can check this out. This is the actual book that we translated ourselves with our, with our lovely team.

Uh, and it, you can buy it on Amazon with the rest of my stuff, but this was super fun. This was like one of the funnest things I’ve done and especially working, uh, with them. I just, I don’t know. It made me realize I really like doing this for myself. And so me and Svetlana, who was the illustrator, she made the cover of this, which is like super …

Elle: Amazing.

Chad: She’s. Yeah, she’s really good. She’s very good. She’s, she’s an architect normally. So she, even in her career, she does like artistry stuff. Uh, and so we, after that project was done, we were like, ah, breathe out. You want to make another one?. Yeah, let’s do it. And this time we decided to do it with my expertise, which was Japanese.

And that’s how we did this guy, which is learn Kanji with Yokai. And so she illustrated it. I did all the Japanese inside. I have a cool, I have a hands-on review, so I’m not going to go over it here. But, uh, this book was like my baby, and this showed me that man, I’m really passionate about helping people.

And I think that’s, what’s different about me and my approach to all this is there’s lots of really great YouTube channels to teach you Japanese. You know, you want pitch accent, go to Dogan. You want to like crazy immerse yourself and get really good, really fast? Go to Matt versus Japan. Those are my buddies.

Like they’re, they’re great folks. Um, I’m not trying to teach you Japanese. I’m trying to help you learn, um, as best as I can. Yeah.

So that could be motivation that could be helping you pick the right resource that could be helping with like a very particular problem. Uh, I’m not a teacher of Japanese.

That’s just not what I do. I teach people or at least help them acquire language. That’s what I like to do. I like helping. So I teach helping, which is a weird statement, but that’s what I did with this book. It helps teach you Japanese in a fun way, in a creative way. Um, and it’s something that hopefully will make a lot more of these books, not just with Yokai, but with anything, like learn Kanji with geography or some other things.

I really love doing it, but that’s how these…

Elle: That’s a very cool idea. Yeah.

I, I, I’m very impressed by it. I have to say. Yeah.

Chad: So she she’s wonderful, by the way she sends her best, I told her I’d be coming on here. Um, but yeah, that’s…

Elle: She’s is she based in Russia?

Chad: Yeah.

So she’s, she’s in Moscow. Uh, she’s a 3d visualization or something like that or training to be, but she was an architect forever.

So she’s just unbelievably talented in art and in languages, she’s like really good at English. And so the two of us kind of work well together. And so we just kind of go, let’s put out a book in six weeks and then Learn Kanji with Yokai happened.

Elle: Boom. You did it. Well I’ll pop the link to the book in the description so people can check it out of course. And also I’ll pop a link to your channel, Chad Zimmerman, uh, tell us, all of us who are gonna race over and subscribe what you have in store. What’s the plan for the channel?

Chad: Yeah.

So the channel is going to keep up with that theme I think of helping you learn. I’m not teaching Japanese, but I’m helping you.

And farther than that, like way beyond even the language. Um, I realized that I figured out something that a lot of people really want, which is how can I make a life out of this Japanese? How can I go to Japan and do all this stuff? Maybe you guys saw the trap that I saw of like, yeah, let’s just get really into debt and then have no jobs afterwards.

That’s a great idea. Um, and so for people that want to make Japanese a part of the, um, or any language, but I focus on Japanese cause that’s my main language. I know a little bit of Russian just from working with these teams, but not enough, not enough to do very much.

Is that your next language? Do you think

Elle: that you’ll focus on Russian?

Chad: Maybe. I have no idea. I think so. Cause I already, so I had to know, this is a sidetrack, but I had to know Greek and Hebrew because I’m in a master’s program right now and they require, you know, that cause you have to be able to read like ancient texts for my course. And so I already know, like biblical, Greek and Hebrew, uh, that’s not hard.

There’s only 2000 words really in both languages. Like it’s not, it’s not extensive. It’s, whatever’s in the book and the book doesn’t have that many words. Uh, but I think Russian might be just cause I don’t know. I like Russian. It’s just, I don’t think I’d make a channel out of it very much. Um, I, I would like my channel to be more universal, like about linguistics and, and about doing what I’m doing. Like how can you become a translator? Um, how can you, like, I run a guiding business. How can I start my own business? I run, I wish I could show you it’s off screen. I have a wall of probably 2000 Manga volumes just right here. I’m an exporter of these. I export them from Japan to here and I sell them.

I have used denim jeans from America that I sell in Japan for a lot of money. So that’s on this side. I have my Japanese, my Japanese fly rod company. I export Japanese tenkara rods over there. I’m looking at them. So I found a way without everyone says you meet, oh, just get the degree and then go teach English over there and be miserable.

Yeah, because everyone knows how horrible that job is. Everyone likes to say, it’s fine. And we all know it’s not a fun job.

Elle: I did it. You know it had it’s ups and downs. For sure.

Chad: You see how you answered that to me, that tells me what you don’t actually want to say. I think most people do that as a cop-out because they go, I want to live in that country and this is my way to do it.

And what I want to say is there is a way to, to build your life that way. And I want to help people. There’s another way. There’s another way. And it’s your way. You don’t have to… Even for me, I haven’t had a boss, like an actual boss since I was 18. I’ve worked for myself and I’m almost 30. I’m doing well.

I’m almost 30.

Elle: It’s okay.

Chad: But…

Elle: Your thirties are the best.

Chad: Ah, okay. So I’ve, I’ve been self-employed I found a way and I just want to help other people, cause I have gotten so much joy and benefit and fun. I’ve met my best friends. Um, I have made things I never thought would be made. My life is completely changed because of Japan and Japanese.

And I didn’t do it the way that everyone else told me I had to. And so that’s what I want my channel to be is. So if you guys are interested, hopefully after this, if you find me at all charming, uh, you can go check out my channel. I’m Chad Zimmerman on YouTube uh, and I put out a video every single week. And it’s either about Japanese or Japan.

Obviously the Japan side is a little slow right now, cause I’m not allowed in. So those videos are, those videos will come. But when I’m allowed back in, you’ll get a lot of content about living in Japan, working in Japan. What it’s like, how I did it, uh, as well as all the other countries I did. I just got back from Georgia, put out a 40 minute video there.

I’m going to go to Russia this winter, obviously. So. Lots of really cool, interesting language things that I never thought I would get to do all because of Japanese. So if that sounds cool, maybe check me out.

Elle: Fantastic. Yeah.

And I’ll pop, like I said, I’ll pop the, uh, the link to your channel in the description, along with your book.

Um, listen, Chad, this was such a great chat. Thank you so much for joining us and, um, yeah. And enjoy the rest of your evening. No, you’re in you’re an hour ahead. So enjoy the rest of your day.

Chad: I’m right next to you. So thank you so much for having me. This was really, really fun.

Elle: It was great. Thank you, Chad.

Bye bye.

Chad: Bye

Want to study this episode as a lesson on LingQ? Give it a try!

Lisa of Accurate English has some actionable tips for anyone hoping to improve their English pronunciation. Don’t forget to check out the Accurate English YouTube channel for more!

Elle: Hello everyone and welcome to the LingQ podcast with me Elle. If you would like to study this podcast episode as an English lesson, I have created it for you on LingQ. The lesson link is in the description. With LingQ you can follow the transcript and audio, so read along as you listen. You can slow it down, speed it up. You translate words and phrases you don’t know. You can then do vocabulary activities with those words and phrases. So an excellent way to study a language. If you feel like challenging yourself also, why not start a LingQ language challenge. I’ve also put the challenges page link in the description so go check that out to see if your language is there. We have many, many languages. I just started a language challenge in French, it’s called the 90-Day Challenge. So I am dedicated to intense french study for 90 days. And my goal is to read a French novel for the first time. So I’m going to read a Stephen King novel in French.

So by the end of the 90 days, I will have leveled up my French skills and also finished a novel in French for the first time, so pretty cool. If you’re watching or listening on YouTube, Spotify, Google, or Apple podcasts, SoundCloud and you would like to give us a review, a like a, share, a follow we would greatly appreciate that.

This week I am joined by a very interesting guest. Her name is Lisa Mojsin. She is an accent reduction specialist and founder of Accurate English, which is a training center in LA. Lisa, thank you so much for joining us.

Lisa: My pleasure Elle. Great to be here.

Elle: And so you’re joining us from LA right now. How, how are things in sunny LA or is it sunny?

Lisa: It’s very sunny. It’s usually sunny. And that, that’s one of my favorite things about living in Los Angeles. The sunshine is important to me. It makes me happy.

Elle: Yeah. That must be nice waking up most days and knowing that it’s going to be just a lovely day.

Lisa: I, I never take it for granted. I still appreciate it.

Elle: So, Lisa, as I mentioned, you are an accent reduction specialist. For anyone listening and a lot of our listeners are studying English and hoping to improve their pronunciation and accent, what is an accent reduction specialist, and what kind of techniques do you use to help English learners with their accent?

Lisa: Well, an accent reduction specialist does, uh, one of two things. Um, I either help people reduce their strong accent and very often it’s for professional reasons.

There’s something about the way people speak that’s holding them back professionally. And then they usually come to me because there’s some kind of crisis, they’re not getting the promotion they want, or someone complained to them I don’t understand this person. And it’s, it’s an emergency in a sense.

So when people come to me, they know that in order to get ahead in their careers, they have to speak clearly. And they have to be understood every time they speak. Um, or they, they want, um, they want to go after their dream job, but they don’t even dare go for the job interview because they’re so… that the moment they start speaking, when people hear their heavy accent, they’re not going to get the job.

So that’s one type of student that I see. And of course, because I’m in Los Angeles, I work with people in Hollywood, people who are born in another country, but they’re actors, they’re living in Los Angeles and they need to compete. Uh, acting, acting in LA is already extremely competitive. When you go on an audition, there are so many people that want that one job.

And so if you have an accent, then you might not get the job because of that. So people who already are maybe quite advanced, who already have a very good accent, uh, but all it takes is making one mistake during your audition. You might have a script where there’s a word you didn’t pronounce correctly and suddenly the director or the casting director might say, you know what?

I don’t think we’re going to hire this person for this role. They have a strong accent and no, they do not have a strong accent they just mispronounced one or two words, but it’s perceived as a strong accent. If you need to sound a hundred percent like a native speaker. So those are the other types of people that I’ve spent my career working with.

And as far as, uh, what techniques I use, it really depends on the individual. Um, I would say my number, the number one thing that I do is I find out, uh, the psychological aspects to why they came to see me because so often they already have so many blocks and so many insecurities about the way they speak.

And that’s already going to interfere in how well they speak and, um, how much progress they make. A lot of times they hate the sound of their voice. Well, we’re going to have to record your voice and that’s part of your homework. You’re going to have to regularly record your voice. A lot of them say, I’ve had people say, you know what, I’m not doing that homework because I refuse to listen to myself.

I really don’t like the way I sound. And so I try to make them feel better about their image, uh, anything related to the way they speak, uh, their accent, their voice. So the number one thing I do is I tell them, you sound a lot better than you think you do. And I’m telling them the truth, because like I said, when they come to me, usually there’s some kind of crisis, some kind of emergency, and they’ve probably created that crisis and made it even bigger than it is.

They’re sometimes traumatized. So I want them to relax and to have it be a fun experience because when you make it fun, when you say I can do this, this is going to be interesting. We’re going to work on interesting scripts and different topics that are not so boring and not. So, um, just by the book, um, they get excited about it.

And then I feel like I’ve broken that barrier and now I can reach them because there’s nothing worse than somebody who is so terrified and they don’t think they’ll ever make any progress. Then I feel like the lessons won’t even be very effective. So that’s the starting point.

Elle: And are there any, uh, you’ve been doing this, you, you founded accurate English, I believe 20 years ago, 20 or a little more than 20 years ago?

Lisa: Yes.

Elle: So you’ve had lots of students come through. Are there any, um, standout success stories that you recall specifically, and are there any things that you think those students did, that others didn’t that that made them successful?

Lisa: Definitely. Uh, as I said before, the attitude is extremely important. My favorite types of students to work with, because that’s when I see the most success, is people who have, who have had success in other areas of their life.

Let me give you an example. I worked with a young man who was an actor and he had, I could tell when he came in that he was very focused. He was, uh, just, uh, there was something confident and driven and focused at the same time. And through the course of getting to know him, I found out he had a black belt in martial arts, and I said to myself, aha, okay, this person knows how to work hard.

I don’t know enough about martial arts, but I know it’s hard to get a black belt. And I knew it took a lot of discipline. And so he had that discipline. And that, that drive and the success story was that, um, he came back, he had a few lessons with me and then he came back maybe six months later, later he said he just wanted to get a review to see how he was doing.

And I, there was zero accent. He sounded totally American. And I said, what did you do? He said, well, I just did what you told me. And so what I had told him, uh, these mistakes that you’re making in order to fix them, you need to speak with yourself daily, talk to yourself. And so that’s a, he said, Lisa, every time I woke up, I would just talk to myself in English for an hour or for two hours.

Um, and that did it. But he, he, you know, you speak to yourself, but you’re thinking about how you’re speaking. So if you’re making a particular vowel mistake or constant mistake, you’re paying attention when those sounds. And you’re making an effort to pronounce that well, and it worked, it worked. So I love that.

I love that.

He just said, well, you know, of course this is going to be hard, but I’m going to do it every single day. And that’s, I love that. And a couple of other success stories, I would say the ones that really inspire me is I had a couple of ladies separately from different countries. They were both in their seventies who made great progress.

And so when I get somebody who says, oh, I’m 25 or I’m 30, is it too late? Listen, I’ve had people in their seventies who made very good progress. And also these two women were, um, just, uh, successful, driven, uh, and inspirational their, their whole life was, they learned how to learn. They learned how to overcome challenges.

And when you have that mindset, you can do a lot and age really doesn’t matter. And I suppose my final story is, um, it’s always nice to see actors when I turn on the TV and suddenly there’s a commercial and I worked with someone on that commercial. That’s fun, you know, that’s, that’s always exciting. It’s like, oh wow! We did it.

Elle: I bet .You’re seeing your work in action. You know?

Lisa: I know, I memorized the whole commercial myself site, the whole ad. So I’m saying it with them because we went over it so many times and that’s, that’s always really fun just because in LA you get these types of people to work with and it makes your job fun.

Elle: I bet I actually was when I was looking through your channel, I was especially interested, I am a huge movie TV fan, and I watched the one video, sorry, I forget his name now, but, um, the actor who was in The OA, I recognized him from The OA

Lisa: Oh yes, Ego Mikitas.

Elle: Because that’s an excellent show. And I was like, wow, that’s so cool. It must be very cool to work with…

Lisa: it is an I, I also like film and I, and I, and so part of my job is also, I try to keep up with what’s happening in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles, because so often they say, you know, I have an audition with such and such director. And so I like to keep up, so I know who these people are and what my students are going through and what they’re experiencing. Yeah.

Yeah.

Elle: Do you bumped into… this isn’t so much a language and accent reduction question, but do you bump into, do you see famous people all the time in LA? I feel like, people often say, you know, I live in LA and I, I see, you know, Leonardo DiCaprio walking down the street. Is that actually true as someone who’s lived in LA for a long time?

Lisa: Well over the yearsI mean, yeah. I mean, I’ve been in LA most of my life. Yeah, absolutely. I’ve seen lots of famous people, but, uh, I think depends. It depends on the neighborhood where you live or which if you go to certain restaurants, you’re much more likely to see them. But I would say, if you’re coming to LA as a tourist, hoping to see a famous person, chances are very strong that you will not owe this person.

That’s just, you know, it’s not that common, but in the course of just living here, yeah, you do, you do. I’m trying to think of who I, I mean, obviously lots of them, lots of them, you know, Tom, Tom cruise, uh…

Elle: whoa. That’s like the biggest…

Lisa: I don’t know if your, your viewers know who this is, but she was very famous in my mother’s generation. Sophia Loran.

Elle: Oh yeah.

Lisa: I was standing next to her in a bookstore and I said to myself, you know, She looks really familiar. Does she go to my gym? Suddenly? Somebody said, oh, miss Lauren. And I said, that kind of stuff will happen. Or I’m just like, okay, I know this person.

Elle: Wow. She’s an icon. That’s amazing.

Lisa: That does happen. Sometimes in the most, I was in some really weird, kind of like tiny little hole in the wall restaurant and I saw somebody that I had recently seen on TV. And it’s something you think, wait a minute, aren’t you supposed to be in this glamorous place? So, no, they’re not necessarily at the glamorous places.

They’re just at the market, for example.

Elle: Yeah. They’re just regular people, I guess, until they get so much money they don’t have to even go out, leave their mansion compounds, who knows? Yeah.

So Lisa, Accurate English, um, is your, uh, your training center, but also, uh, the YouTube channel that you run is called Accurate English and it is just packed full of amazing videos, super helpful for anyone who is wanting to reduce their accent, improve their English pronunciation. What would you tell someone who’s a new subscriber to your channel? Where would you tell them to go? Where should they start?

Lisa: Gosh, you know, there are so many videos there at this point, um, I think if they’re specifically focused on reducing their accent, I do have a playlist where I talk about different sounds, but I would say any one of my videos, depending on, even if I’m in, or sometimes I’m talking about grammar, I’m still integrating, uh, pronunciation in it. Um, because every, the reason I call my company, when I started it, I decided to call it Accurate English, English.

And now my channel is called accurate English because I believe, um, I’d like to, it’s important for me to focus on all aspects of English. So it’s not just about pronunciation. I really believe that all of the different things go together. So for example, if you’re working on your accent, chances are that you’re also want to improve your vocabulary.

Chances are you feel like you don’t quite have the expressions that native speakers do. Uh, so if I’m teaching maybe the most or some of the recent videos have been interviewing native speakers and analyzing not only their accent, but the expressions they’re using. So if you just watch one of my videos, you will be getting an accent reduction less.

Almost certainly.

Elle: Right. So, Lisa, is there anything that someone listening to this episode could do tomorrow or even straight after listening to improve their pronunciation, their English pronunciation?

Lisa: Yes.

I would say the number one thing you should do is listen to the melody of the language. English is about stress and reduction, stress and reduction.

That’s such an important component of pronunciation and accent. Uh, we stress the key words. So stress means longer vowels, louder and higher in pitch. So if you’re going to say a sentence “I need to talk to you”. If your language is pretty flat and each word gets equal stress, it might be difficult to understand your sentence, but we’re going to ask ourselves, what is the key word I want to talk to you?

The keyboard is talk. So talk has a really big vowel. It’s “ah” so we’re going to say it like this. “I want to talk to you. I want to talk to you.” So when you open your mouth on the stressed part of the sentence, it makes your accent better. It makes your speech much clearer. Uh, and, uh, it sounds natural.

Uh, but if you stress every word “I want to talk to you”, it’s not going to sound right either. So do Americans… ask yourself, do Americans speak quickly or slowly? Both. They mumble, they speak really quickly on the unstressed parts of the sentence, but the, they emphasize and they slow down on the key words.

So “I want to talk to you”. And then the same thing, ask yourself the same question related to individual words. Usually there’s one vowel inside that word that needs to be stressed. So if we say, um, fantastic, three syllables. So the second syllable is going to be stressed. So we open our mouth really big. Fantastic.

So open your mouth more, prolong the vowels on the stressed parts of the words and the stress words in the sentences. So that’s fantastic. Open your mouth. That’s fantastic. Otherwise, you’re going to…that’s fantastic. If you’re not moving your mouth, your accent is going to be difficult to understand.

Elle: Excellent.

Lisa: Listen to the, listen to, uh, the stress, listen to the melody and remember, yes, native speakers do slow down on keywords and I speak quickly with everything else.

Elle: Wonderful. Okay guys, anyone listening who wants to improve the accent pronunciation these are some things you can do as soon as you, as soon as you finish listening.

Thank you, Lisa. Um, so Lisa, you aren’t just an accent reduction specialist, you are also a polyglot. What languages do you speak?

Lisa: Well, I majored in French and German in college. I was absolutely passionate about, uh, studying languages. And then I taught myself Spanish and I’m always learning other things, other languages, trying to, trying to figure out how they work. These days I don’t have so much time to, um, to really devote to mastering any languages. But, um, what of my, one of the things that I really like to do is to learn about how other languages work to to be able to help my students. For example, when I work with Russian students and I work with their pronunciation, there’s a mistake that they tend to make.

That makes me curious, well, wait a minute. How does Russian work? Because everyone’s doing that. So then I do research in Russian pronunciation and that helps me, uh, to better prepare myself and to better explain to them what they’re doing and what they need to do. So that’s something that I’m really fascinated about.

And I’ve done that with Japanese as well. For example, Japanese has like sa se su so, but then they don’t say, see, they say shi, shi, they change that S to an S H when there’s an I that follows. Well, that explains a lot because Japanese people frequently say make Mec-shi-co instead of Mexico. And it’s because they don’t have a C they change everything to shi.

Or instead of saying situation, they say shi-tuation. And that kind of stuff really fascinates me. But, um, I, uh, used to be a French teacher. That’s how I started. Yeah.

I taught French in high school for a short amount of time. And later I got a master’s degree in English and that led to changing my career and teaching English.

But French is my first love. And I taught English in Germany when I was in my twenties. And that was exciting too. And that’s when I got a chance to improve the German that I had studied in college.

Elle: Amazing. So languages really are and have been your life?

Lisa: Yeah. Yeah.

I love languages, but my favorite thing is teaching English.

Elle: So you speak these other languages, uh, did that influence the way that you help people with the English?

Lisa: Absolutely. Very much. So I always remember my favorite teachers when I was studying different languages and people who’ve inspired me. You don’t become a good teacher without having good role models in the past. There are so many different techniques that teachers use. I remember there was one professor in Germany. When I lived in Germany, I was in a city called Konstanz in the south of Germany, near the Swiss border. And I took German classes at the university. There was a teacher whose method was amazing. She was so experimental in the way that she taught German.

And she did so many interesting exercises and she brought in real life, and we read the newspaper in German, and then we had to memorize all the vocabulary of the newspaper article and we had to pronounce things correctly. And, uh, I do that a lot. I bring in different things like, like newspapers, we read them and we, the goal, the goal is to sound like a native speaker, not only in your pronunciation, but using the advanced vocabulary that you’re learning from the newspapers.

I think the most important part of it is that I know that it’s really challenging to learn another language and to change your accent. It’s really hard work. But I also know that if you’re passionate about, if you have to find something that really excites you about it, and when I was a teenager, I really wanted to go to Paris.

I watched some French movies and I fell in love with French and I, I just romanticized it and that motivated me. It made me work hard. And then when I was 19, well, I went to Paris when I was 16 and then I went again when I was 19. And I had a teacher at UCLA and I think this is the story that really is my favorite one.

I had a teacher at UCLA who taught us French phonetics and French pronunciation for the whole semester. And she would give us dictations and we needed to write French sentences, just using the phonetic symbols. That class was super difficult, but it changed my life. After that class finished, it was summer vacation and I went to Paris and I remember going to a boutique, a store. And the lady said, which part of France are you from? And I couldn’t believe it. I thought I’m not from France, I’m from the United States. That was the greatest compliment you could possibly give me because I really, really wanted to speak French with a good French accent. And it was because of that teacher who taught us French phonetics, who taught us how to hear the subtle difference between the vowel sounds of French and the nasal consonant sounds. And I didn’t know that before. And so then when I started teaching English at Santa Monica College, and I had students from, a lot of students from all over the world who had studied English for many years, But when they spoke, people couldn’t understand them.

I thought, why is no one teaching them pronunciation? Why is no one teaching them accent reduction? Like, like Madame Brichant. That was her name, Madame Brichant. Uh, Madame Brichant changed my life and I don’t think I would be doing this job if it weren’t for her. And she was teaching French at UCLA. Long time ago.

Elle: Wow, what a compliment, eh? Where in France are you from? I bet you would just like…

Lisa: Oh, and I know that my students want that same thing. You know, the actors in Los Angeles who are from other countries, they want that same. They want it. They want to hear “you sound like you might be from Texas”, “you might be from New York” instead of, oh, you know, typical thing is that my students tell me, you know, Lisa, I just said, hello and somebody said, “where are you from?” Or I said one sentence and they said, “oh, you’re Russian, aren’t you?” And there’s nothing wrong with having an accent. There’s nothing wrong with that. But after a while, it gets tiring. Every time you open your mouth, if you live in the United States and you have a foreign accent, you go to the store. “Oh, what a charming accent.” That gets annoying. I had a student who is an architect from France and she said, I want to talk about my designs and my architecture plans to my clients, but they say, “oh, you know, I love your accent. And by the way, I was in Paris. Five years ago. And I went to this place…” and it gets tiring.

It’s gets really tiring. So even if they don’t necessarily eliminate their accent, if they reduce it and neutralize it so that people don’t necessarily always know, oh, you’re from India or you’re from Italy or you’re from wherever that makes them feel better. That’s, it’s just, and it’s exciting when I can help them achieve those goals. If that’s what their goal is.

Elle: Right. Excellent.

Um, so Lisa, anyone who is listening and is going to subscribe to your YouTube channel, Accurate English, uh, after this, what can they expect from your channel uh, moving forward, what’s in store?

Lisa: A lot of exciting things I want to do with the channel. Um, I love interviewing native speakers in Los Angeles, and I particularly try to find people from different professions because my students, the viewers are potentially in these professions. And when the people that I interview use the vocabulary and different expressions, idioms related to those professions, it helps not only with their accent because I teach them how to pronounce those things. But also it’s so important to keep expanding your knowledge of vocabulary, terminology, all sorts of everyday idioms that people in that job might be using.

So I have a lot of people that I’m planning to interview. In addition, I’m focusing more on grammar and writing a grammar course. And, uh, I love teaching grammar. I, uh, really, really am passionate about teaching grammar. And I think that’s sometimes overlooked. We emphasize too much just, uh, how people sound with their accent and maybe increasing vocabulary, but you have to have this strong foundation.

You have to know that when you’re saying a sentence, you’re saying it correctly. And that’s how I learned the languages that I speak. I started with grammar and I like feeling confident that when I say a sentence in French, it will be grammatically correct. Well, maybe these days it might not be because I don’t use it so much, but I remember at one time, you know, we had so many advanced grammar courses and tests that when you know why you’re saying something and why you’re using this particular verb tense, whatever it is a certain construction, you feel a lot more confident and you can communicate professionally. You can write email. And so I want to take my channel more into that direction. Correctness of speech, not just accent, but also all aspects. That’s why the channel is called Accurate English. I believe the goal should be aiming to make everything accurate, your grammar, your pronunciation of vocabulary usage and so on.

Elle: Fantastic. Well, I will pop the link to your channel in the description. And Lisa, thank you so, so much for this chat full of packed, full of really useful info, especially for our, um, English learners. Yeah.

Thank you so much and enjoy the rest of your evening in LA.

Lisa: You too in Vancouver.

Elle: Thank you. Bye-bye.

Lisa: Thank you so much. Thank you. That was fun. Bye-bye.

Study this episode and any others from the LingQ English Podcast on LingQ! Check it out.

Will John is a professional soccer player who is currently closing in on his ninth language! In this episode of the English LingQ Podcast Elle chats with Will about his career, how he learned all those languages and the exciting new channel he has created to help other language learners.

Elle: Hello everyone and welcome to the LingQ podcast with me Elle. If you are studying English, remember that you can study this podcast episode as a lesson on LingQ. I’ve added the transcript and the audio and created a lesson just for you. You can find the link to it in the description. If you have never used LingQ before, it’s an excellent way to study a language. You can study from anything you’re interested in. So take an Italian blog post or a Russian news article, Japanese movie, whatever it is, you can create a lesson with it on LingQ, work through the words and phrases that you don’t know, creating your own personal database.

It’s a fantastic way to learn from content you’re actually interested in and make a breakthrough in your target language. Speaking of making a breakthrough, if you would like to challenge yourself, we have a challenges page on LingQ in many different languages. So I’ve also popped the link to that page in the description. I’m actually starting a French 90-Day Challenge this September.

So I will be challenging myself to reach targets each day. And actually my goal is to read a novel in French for the first time over the 90 days. So join me if you want to level up in your target language, doesn’t have to be French, can be whichever language you’re studying. If you’re listening on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Spotify, SoundCloud, wherever, please show us some love. Give us a like, or share a follow. We really, really appreciate it. This week I am joined by someone a little different. You guys are used to me interviewing YouTubers and this week’s guest is a YouTuber, but he’s also a professional soccer player. THis week I am joined by professional soccer player, YouTuber and polyglot Will John. Will, thank you so much for joining us.

Will: Thank you. It’s always good to be back and talk about languages. So I’m excited.

Elle: Great. And whereabouts in the world are you joining us from today?

Will: I am in Croatia. So I’m in Zagreb, Croatia, obviously originally from the U S but I play football over here and in Zagreb.

Elle: Excellent. Okay. And it’s your evening in Zagreb?

Will: It is evening. It is 7.15 In the evening. It is a nice chill afternoon.

Elle: Lovely. THat’s a part of the world I really need to get to, Croatia. One day. Um, so you’re playing soccer there?

Will: Yeah.

You keep calling it soccer and with that accent, it just doesn’t sound right.

Elle: I’m trying. I know I was going to say in the beginning, soccer or football and I have the impulse to say football, but, uh, yes, yeah of course.

Will: No, I played, I played outside of the US you know, I played, I played in the MLS and, uh, I grew up playing soccer in the US but uh, since then playing outside of Europe, I’ve gotten used to calling it football.

And in my house, my dad is from Nigeria and we would call it football. You float in between. It’s not a big deal, but yeah it’s football for all these years.

Elle: Okay. Oh, so you say football yourself? Okay. So I’m going to say football from now on. It feels right. I feel strange saying soccer. Um, so good based in Croatia now for the next little while?

Will: Yeah.

So at least yeah the season is just starting. Seasons in Europe, most of them start in August and they’ll end in May or June. So we’ll have a break there in the winter and because of COVID, you know, I have not been back to the US. This Is the longest I’ve been outside of the US. Normally in between my seasons I will, um, I will go back, uh, at least for a little bit, but it’s been almost two years. I think it will be two years.

Elle: Oh

Will: You know? Uh…

Elle: Wow

Will: Yeah, one of those things. So I’m enjoying it. I feel very comfortable outside, you know, as a professional football or you spend a few times, I’ve spent a large part of my career in Scandinavia.

Uh, large chunk in Serbia and in Croatia. This is my second stint in, in, in Zagreb. So I know this place very well. I speak the language and, you know, it’s, it’s a whole lot of fun.

Elle: Amazing. So it’s just taking you all over the world at this soccer playing career. That’s very cool.

Will: I think, I think in, uh, Steve and I probably talked about this in the last, uh, I think I’ve been to 60 countries? I think so, but I need to make a count and it’s all because of soccer. If that, I think there’s only maybe three countries that were not, three or four, that and were not soccer related.

Elle: Wow. You need to get one of those maps or you scratch off the foil scratch off countries. You’ve been to, put a pin in there.

Will: Yeah.

Yeah.

I’ll get to them all eventually.

Elle: Yeah. Yeah.

Um, so let’s talk about soccer before we kind of move into the languages. Um, when did you know that you, I’m, I’m assuming it’s from a really young age, you realized you wanted to pursue soccer as a professional career.

Will: That is a question I get a lot and as a footballer, most, most guys don’t have a moment I’ve noticed, but I have very specific, I have a very specific story. Number one, my father was a professional footballer himself. So it was always part of, it was always part of my upbringing, but I never considered it. Uh, I had almost a, uh, uh, an insane, an epiphany one day when I don’t, and I don’t remember to this date, I don’t know why I wasn’t in school, but I wasn’t. I dunno if I was pretending to be sick because I wanted to watch the game or what the deal was. But, uh, someone scored a goal in the Champions League Final. This is in the year 2000 Real Madrid was Valencia, 1-0. I can remember everything about it.

I just happened to be, you know, at home it was, I shouldn’t have been. And, uh, this guy scored a header, Fernando Morientes scored a header and went off on this crazy celebration. I mean, he ran from the goal like 70 yards back to his bench to celebrate with his team. And I had the chills the entire time. And I’ve talked about this, I’ve told this story on, on one of our podcasts, um, that we have.

And, uh, it was then that I just knew I’m supposed to do this. That was what I knew I was supposed to do. What I’m doing now and that’s pretty early. I think I was 15. Uh, yeah. And so that’s basically the moment that I knew. And then I left college early, um, which is hilariously another one of my funny stories on the podcast, because I know exactly where I was sitting.

And I know the moment where I said, I’m not going back to class. And, uh, just a few months I went pro so that’s my story.

Elle: The Eureka moment. Um, so you were 15 and how is your, uh, your goal celebration now? Do you ha… do you do something wild and crazy because of that? Or are you more subdued?

Will: Oh, no, I’m I’m, I guess I’m somewhat in between, you know, it’s… the funny thing, when you score goals, I’ve played in all sorts of different clubs on all different parts of the world. Play, uh, you play at clubs where there’s, you know, 40 to 50,000 people.

And then I’ve played at clubs where there’s not a lot of fans at all. Like I say not a lot, just a few thousand, right? Or you have big stadiums, but empty crowds and stuff like that. Uh, and so, um, your celebration, it’s a lot of adrenaline. It’s really hard to explain. Strikers, and I’m not a true striker, they’re adrenaline junkies, but scoring goals is like being an adrenaline junkie. You want that feeling over and over again, and the higher the stakes, the better, you know, the better, it feels the, if it’s the last second of the game, you start chasing that stuff. And, um, when you start to have success with it, it just is, you know, so yeah, to, to, to answer your question, my celebrations depend on the moment.

Uh, but, uh, they’re not that subdued. I tend to have fun. I might do something dancing, you know…

Elle: Nice! No back flips or anything?

Will: Funny you should mention backflips. Two years ago, I decided that I would learn how to do a back flip. And it wasn’t because it wasn’t because for a celebration, everybody then was like, you got to do that as your celebration, you know, like, that’s your new celebrate?

I’m like, no, I just wanted to do a back flip. Uh, and, um, so yeah, I just went to a gym, uh, sorry I went to the place where the gymnast, uh, like, uh, I don’t know what you would call that gymnastic setup. And they’re like all these little, little girls and, uh, you know, honestly, mainly, mainly little girls, but they have an open gym where adults come in.

And so before that, the little girls are in there and they’re doing like triple axe flip, back flip flying through the air. You have no idea how they’re doing it. They have no fear and I’m like, okay, can I do this back flip? Like, I’m just like barely trying to do it, like a little kid. So yeah. Anyway, that’s what’s up.

Elle: And did you, can you do a back flip?

Will: I can, I can I, can I learned it in an hour. It’s not that hard. It’s getting over your fear. Like everything is the, is the thing.

Elle: Okay. Yeah.

I was going to say, you learned it in an hour? I remember trying, I kind of have done a back flip in high school and it did not take me an hour and I was terrified. So I think you’re definitely right. You need to just switch off, if you can, the fear that you’re going to break your neck, because it really feels like you’re going to break your neck. As soon as someone, they come away, you know they’re holding your back. And then as soon as they’re not holding your back anymore, it’s like, ah, am I going to die?

Will: Yeah.

Elle: Yeah. Okay. So you mentioned there that, you said you’re not a true striker. I don’t know football, soccer, whatever you want to call it at all, I have to admit. So what position do you, do you play?

Will: I’m uh, I’m an attacking midfielder, uh, or what would be considered more, a second striker. So, uh, for those of, of the people who don’t really aren’t into soccer, uh Ibrahimović is, uh, if you know who that is, Zlatan Ibrahimović generally a fairly famous person or all right, we’ll go with, uh, Lionel Messi, uh, who you, hopefully have heard of.

Elle: Yes. I know Messi. I know who Messi is. Yes.

Will: Messi’s not a true striker. He’s a guy that plays a little underneath. He’s quick. He’s fast. He’s really technical. He’s really good with his feet. That’s my style and position. I’m also left-footed. I like to run a little bit behind where we try to cause problems without being the main guy.

Those big number nine, uh, striker guys, they get a lot of the attention from the big defenders. I try to avoid those big tackles with those guys.

Elle: Okay. Okay. That sounds wise. Does that mean you get less chance to score then or how does that work?

Will: It means I have to be more creative. I’m more involved in the buildup of the play.

It means, it doesn’t mean that I won’t get a whole lot of chances to score. You do. Um, but it’s generally the guy who’s your, generally, we call that number nine, he’s the striker. That guy’s always at the near the goal. He’s, that’s your job, just score goals. You know, it’s my, my job to provide and you know, to score.

Elle: I see. Okay. So let’s talk a little about the languages then. So as I mentioned in your intro there. Um, maybe I didn’t. You speak, you know eight languages? And you mentioned before we started recording that you’re closing in on your ninth language. So, um, first off, what are those languages? And I’m interested to know if you kind of moved into, as you moved around the world, did you collect these languages?

Were there extras? So yeah, first off what languages do you know?

Will: Okay. So I’ll, I’ll, I’ll the easiest way for me to do this as chronologically, uh, because I always forget when I try and tell people. Um, my, my mom thought it would be a great idea for me to learn Spanish when I was very, very young. Um, so I did not watch English, um, cartoons when I would come back from school and she also got me, she placed me into a Spanish like tutor, uh, class for some few kids after school. So, uh, Spanish was pretty heavy when I was little and I didn’t even realize I could speak it, but by the time I was 13, 14, my comprehension was excellent. Um, and, uh, I took a liking to languages then came, uh, Italian and French. Both of those languages were collected without going to the countries. I had not… my Italian is great and I have four or five days in Italy. So for those people out there that think they have to go there to learn, it’s nonsense, you have more than enough resources. Now, back then I had to go to the college library and find a TV that had RAI uh, their, their news, uh, thing to listen to Italian. So, uh, that’s Spanish, French, Italian, those are, those are those then German, which I’ve been to quite a bit.

I learned alone, uh, Croatian that’s from here, Danish, because I played there, uh, in Denmark, uh, Russian, because I played in Baku, Azerbaijan, and decided to learn Russian. Um, and, uh, did I still forget one after all? Uh, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Danish, Croatian, Russian, English. And right now closing in on number nine will be Swedish because I spent most of my time during the pandemic in Sweden.

Uh, so, yeah.

Excellent.

Elle: Swedish. I’ve heard tha,. I kind of dabbled a bit with Swedish too, but I heard it’s generally easy to learn coming from an English background. How are you finding it?

Will: Uh, after having learned Danish, which is pretty interesting. I moved to Sweden and started when I was there. Just for fun.

I would speak Danish to people. They were not having it. They make so much fun of Danish. The pronunciation is very different. I mean, they make fun of each other a whole lot, but my vocab was, was great. And if you’re an English speaker and you’re wanting to learn a Scandinavian language, Swedish is pretty, pretty easy.

Elle: Okay, excellent. Uh, did you with the languages, did you decide, you know, in your teens or as a kid that you wanted to be someone who spoke lots of languages or did it just kind of happen as you moved around in your career?

Will: Uh, I can, I can say pretty comfortabl this was by design. Uh, but I guess you could also say not, right?

I didn’t, I didn’t forcethat moment on me, on myself when I was 15, uh, that kind of put this, put these, the wheels in motion. Uh, but when I was 16, I read, uh, The Count of Monte Cristo. Uh, I’m not sure if you’re familiar with that book, uh, but it’s about a guy who more or less goes through some challenges uh, to become the hero of the story.

He has to overcome learning languages, understanding all sorts of math and physics, and being able to travel the world and doing all that stuff. And I really, it had a very large impact on my, on my youth, my youthful mind, uh, at 16. And so I thought this is what I want. I want to be able to learn 10 languages.

I said that I wanted 10 and I was 16 then. Uh, and so we are 20 years from that now, and I’m at nine. So I underestimated my ability. Um, I think I’ll, I’ll be able to go past that. I, I have the desire to, but, uh, no, it was very much by design. I, the methods for getting it done, that was chaotic, you know, uh, trying to figure out how to learn a language, uh, and what the best way is for you yourself, you know, specifically or…

that’s that, that was the challenge.

Elle: Right. And what kind of methods have you landed on then? Do you, have you honed the methods that you use and that you’re now using for Swedish?

Will: Yeah.

Um, which is… funny enough that, that’s what we’re going to be getting into in our new YouTube channel, which is Goluremi languages.

Uh, because going through that was, it was like I said, very tough. And so now, yeah, it’s a combination of a lot of things that you guys do. Uh, because comprehension is, is, is, um, incredibly useful. And one of the cool things about LingQ is finding, um, finding information, I guess you could say that’s comprehensible at a level that you are, uh, and that’s also interesting, but at your level, when you’re a beginner in a language is so important and so hard, because it’s really hard.

Okay. If you’re going to learn English, there’s a lot of resources, admittedly Spanish. Yes.

But for many of the other, other languages you need to find something that you can read that’s comprehensible that you can listen to, that you can understand immediately, you know, the natural approach and learning things from, uh, I believe his name is Stephen Krashen, uh, is, is who came up with, with that understanding that that is important.

And TPRS, uh, for the people that, you know, teaching proficiency through storytelling, right? Uh, through reading and storytelling.

Elle: Yep.

Will: Those were huge boosts. Uh, I definitely, when I started German, I made the mistake of going the grammar route at first thinking, they said the grammar is tough in German and you got to understand it.

And I said, okay, I’ll understand it. Let me go and try and dive in… disaster for the first, you know, couple of weeks. You almost want to, you want to give up, throw the books out the window. So. It’s very simple. Yeah.

Now I start off with very, very basic, I find the most basic of basic things to listen, to, uh, and speak.

And I enjoy writing, uh, as well. So when I write all my notes are hardly in English. Um, so yeah, I break down and I will break down a whole lot more of my, my method over there on Goluremi Languages.

Elle: Yeah, let’s talk about the channel. So you have two channels. So the Will John channel is all about soccer skills. So you teach soccer skills and now this new channel Goluremi is going to be focused on language learning?

Will: Yeah.

Yeah.

So what, uh, everybody who’s checking us out can see what we do is kind of a fun level up thing that a lot of polyglots are doing as well. So I will just go into the street and just start randomly talking to people and it’s a whole lot of fun. So the first video out, you can just see me in the Mall of Scandinavia, actually in Sweden, just finding random people to talk to in different languages and all the craziness that that happens with with that and surprising foreigners, uh, you know, with that it’s, which is fun over here in this part of the world is there’s not a whole lot of black people that speak Russian or, uh, Croatian in these Eastern European languages.

So it’s always funny for them. But, um, yeah, we have more than that channel. So, I mean, the company has, we have a podcast channel as well, which is called the 11th Commandment and, uh, we have all sorts of guests on and that’s where Steve, uh, actually was, was on as well. So, so yeah, we’re, we’re busy.

Elle: So what can people who will go and subscribe to your language learning channel and the podcast, what can they expect for the next little while? What type, what kind of content?

Will: Okay. So yeah, we are going to do a whole lot more of obviously the level ups and doing a whole lot of surprise, but the idea will be to, and you’ll see this in the channel intro, which is, uh, the, the video that’s up there, there right now.

Um, the idea will be to give people a simple avenue into learning how the best polyglots have, what they, you know, what they’re doing because that’s one of the things that I fight and combat against in, on our soccer channel is that, of course, now that anybody can just make a video, you probably want to make sure you’re getting, at least from some people who can show. You wouldn’t go to, don’t come to me to learn Chinese because I don’t speak Chinese. You really don’t want to listen to me about that. I won’t teach Chinese. I promise you, uh, and, uh, so in that it’s, it’s our hope that we can have people like Steve on, um, and that we will do a lot of these and I’ll actually want to display, um, a lot.

So we will have subtitles for everything of course, but I will, it’s always fun to see conversations, uh, in tons of different languages, always with English subtitles, and hopefully as we grow our community, um, we’ll have plenty of other, other subtitles for people, but, uh, we’ll have top five videos on best way to learn Spanish, the best way to learn X Y and Z language. And we’ll do some of those interviews just in, in those languages. And we’ll bring on different people like that in order to do that. And on the podcast channel, we, we bring on some of those interesting people. I just got off now with a guy who was a former mercenary because of what’s going on in Afghanistan.

We thought it would be cool to have somebody on to speak about what’s going on in the world and stuff like that. We’ve had, you know, all, all sorts of people from, you know, obviously we have footballers on somebody like Steve, a former Canadian diplomat is also cool, cool to have on, uh, yeah. They come from all walks of life.

The idea is just to learn from people who are doing really, really cool things and, uh, talk to them about their stories and just hear interesting things.

Elle: Fantastic. Well, it sounds amazing, super interesting. And I especially love the, the whole, you know, approaching people and speaking to them in their, in their language, those types of videos.

Will: Always fun

Elle: Yeah. A lot of fun. Yeah.

Listen Will, thank you so, so much for joining me today. It was a great chat and, um, yeah, I’ll pop the links to your two channels and to the podcast that you mentioned, uh, today in the description. So everyone go check them out for sure. Uh, yeah. Thank you so much for joining us and have a great rest of your evening in Croatia, in Zagreb.

Will: I will. Thanks a lot. I will throw one more thing out there. All of the clips for languages are also on Tik ToK, so that’s just Goluremi, yes. They’re all, the Goluremi Languages and all that stuff. It’s all on Tik TOK as well if you’re just, if you’re a bite-size social media type person who can only pay attention for 30 seconds, Tik Tok’s your friend.

Elle: Yeah. All you Tik Tok teens out there. I feel like I’m too old for the whole Tik Tok thing. I don’t, I can’t. Okay. Cheers Will, thank you so much. Bye.

Will: See ya.