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Benny Lewis, AKA Benny the Irish Polyglot, went from being sure he could never learn a new language to becomming fluent in seven. In this episode Elle chats with Benny about how he approaches new languages and his take on making mistakes.

Elle: Hello everyone and welcome to the LingQ podcast with me Elle.

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I am very excited to have a special guest on.

He started the Fluent in Three Months blog.

He is also a YouTuber and an author, author of the book Fluent in Three Months, and also the Language Hacking series available for French, German, Spanish and Italian.

Uh, I am joined today by Benny Lewis, AKA Benny, the Irish Polyglot.

Hi, Benny.

How are you?

Benny: I’m very good.

Thank you so much for having me.

It’s great to be here.

Thanks.

Elle: Excellent.

Thank you for coming on.

Really appreciate it.

So, um, to start off, tell us where you are in the world right now.

You’re not in New York anymore, right?

Benny: Yeah.

I currently live in Austin, Texas.

Elle: Wow.

Okay.

And how’s it going?

I’ve heard.

It’s great, uh, the nightlife… I mean, I’m sure you’re not enjoying much of the light live right now, unfortunately, but food, music, I hear it’s a great city.

Are you enjoying it?

It’s interesting

Benny: just because this has become the new Silicon Valley of the States.

It’s got a lot of, uh, online entrepreneurs and creative types and such.

So that’s kind of the main reason I wanted to move here was to network with people like myself who are trying to make a difference online.

Elle: Oh, cool.

I didn’t know that about Austin actually.

That’s very cool.

Um, so I wanted to just tell you first off that when I told some family members that I was interviewing you this week,

they were like, “Oh, Oh, even I know who that is.”

So congratulations.

I guess I’m kind of bringing language learning to the mainstream.

Um, uh, I’ve been following you from many years ago now and, uh, I think what really resonates about your story is that you, like many of us, didn’t enjoy or didn’t get much out of studying languages at school.

Um, is it right that you studied, is it German and Gaelic?

Irish Gaelic in high school.

Benny: That’s Right.

Elle: And so when you left high school, you weren’t really able to converse in those languages?

Benny: No, unfortunately the approach I had in school didn’t work.

Elle: Yeah.

For a lot of us to have the same experience.

Um, so you’re intro to being able to actually learn a language to fluency came after college with Spanish, right?

Benny: Yeah.

I moved to Spain.

The first six months were not a success for me.

I did what a lot of people in my situation do, and just gravitated towards other English speakers.

So I always tell people that moving to the country doesn’t actually solve your problems when it comes to language learning.

Elle: Yep.

Same thing happened for me when I lived in Japan for three years, I did some study, but yeah, it, it happens right.

You do, you know, it’s the easy route, the people who speak English, you kind of do make friends with.

So what changed then?

So you went to Spain, uh, weren’t able to learn a language, uh, but it was the first language that you learned to fluency.

So what, what happened?

Benny: So what happened was, I think at first, when I thought maybe living in Spain would just magically solved my problem, when I realized that wasn’t happening, I was tempted to return back to the idea that I’m just not naturally talented in languages and it’s just my destiny to never speak, you know, another language.

I was holding onto that for a while.

Even if I. Was doing a few things, like I was going to group classes.

I thought maybe if I would read a book with a dictionary that might help.

And I’d like, you know, just looking up one word at a time without really trying to appreciate the reading experience.

And like, I tried a lot of different things, which didn’t bring me any success.

But what was interesting for me was I was part of this exchange program for engineers.

Um, um, there were, I, I was there for a very long time and I kept seeing other people from multiple countries arriving, uh, not having any Spanish initially, but then after a few weeks or a few months, they would start speaking.

And so it really challenged my belief that, you know, Oh, I’m an engineer, so I’m a technically minded person.

And if there’s some left-brain right-brain stuff happening, then that’s the reason I can’t speak the language.

And I kept seeing evidence to the contrary of new arrivals who arrived with no Spanish, but then eventually became to, um, they eventually developed the ability to have conversations.

So.

That challenged me.

And I would ask them, how are you doing this?

What’s your secret?

And I think when we first get into languages, we all want to know what that secret is, like is there one specific course or the one trick that you do that will solve all your problems?

And I wanted to hear that.

I imagined they would tell me something like when I sleep, I have this audio playing in the background and magically fluent because of that.

Um, it took a while for it to really sink in that what was different was that they were truly using the language.

I was just studying the language.

I wasn’t having any real experiences in it.

I would study it and then I would fail inusing it in any kind of social situation.

And so that kind of developed the philosophy I’ve had ever since then of if I want to truly use the language and, uh, uh, you know, there are different techniques, obviously with language learning, it depends on your goals.

And my goal is always the purely spoken focus at the beginning stages.

So I have to speak from day one.

And that’s what changed six months into that time in Spain, I tried an experiment where outside of my work, because I was an English teacher outside of that work, I would not speak a single word of English.

And it was a difficult process, but that showed me that maybe I can use some basic Spanish and I could start initially communicating with people.

And that gave me the confidence to then move forward with this broken Spanish.

And to truly use it as a means of communication and to develop it with time while I continue to live there.

And since then, I’ve kind of expanded on that approach with other languages where I truly try to speak it as soon as I can.

And to immerse myself in the language, even digitally immersing myself in the language is a completely different experience to more academic, purely study based approach.

So a complete mindset change, essentially.

Elle: Okay.

And, and so Spanish then was your first language outside of English that you learned to fluency, and then you, uh, what other languages then did you go on to, uh, to study?

Benny: I would have learned Spanish I want to say, like, I didn’t take any official, uh, examinations of my levels or anything, but my best guess would be maybe at a B1 level.

Um, lower intermediate.

And then I went on to live in Italy and I learned Italian probably to about the same, B1 level and pretty much replaced my Spanish.

So I was kind of starting to forget my Spanish.

And then I moved on to live in France for an entire year.

And, uh, I reached, uh, definitely reached B2 because I had my first

experience sitting one of the European common framework exams.

And I, I passed the B2 exam, uh, a little bit into my time in France, but again, I was forgetting my other languages.

So it was, um, that initial process was just going from one language to the other and then essentially replacing it in my brain.

And what changed was after France, I went to Brazil and I had a very different approach to, uh, the language in Brazil.

I wanted to both learn Portuguese while also actively trying to use my other languages.

And I would take advantage of living in a touristy place like Florianópolis, which had a lot of tourists from Argentina, so I could speak Spanish with them.

And then I would have occasional visits from people from France and I could try to switch into French.

And that was my initial true beginnings of becoming a polyglot and using the languages I had already gotten to a certain level, but not, not really pushed too much forward.

And then after that experience with Portuguese, I went on to live in other countries and got my, my Spanish level up a much greater notch.

And I was able to start working, uh, as a, as an engineer and eventually as a professional translator for these European languages.

And, um, I eventually started the blog based on that.

Elle: Excellent.

Wow.

Um, so you say your strategy or method is very much speak from day one and also have, uh, like a willingness to make mistakes.

I wonder if you have any, any advice, I find that the most difficult probably… and it’s one thing to know that you have to, that you should be willing to make mistakes and then, you know, to be, to try to move on afterwards.

But it’s, it’s tough.

I find, you know, cause it does, it does knock your confidence a bit.

Do you have any advice for anyone who is struggling with that coming back after, yeah, making those mistakes.

Benny: Yeah, it’s tricky because one thing I’ve noticed with a lot of language learners is a lot of them go into this with a very perfectionist mindset.

And they imagine the goal is to speak the languages as correctly as possible.

And I think ultimately that can be the goal.

Like if you want to sit a C2 exam or something, then you know, maybe a few years from now, then speaking the language with next to no mistakes can be something you can aspire to.

But as a beginner learner, I, I found that I’ve turned that on its head and I’ve actually intentionally had my goal make 200 mistakes today in the language.

And that changes things a lot because if, if I make a mistake, like if I’m having a Spanish lesson with you and then I, I, I use el instead of la, ma mess up the, um, the, the gender of a noun, then you could think of that as this is me failing.

This is another reason why I shouldn’t be speaking Spanish in the first place.

I made this mistake.

My Spanish is bad.

That’s one way of looking at it and that can be very demotivating.

You have so, so much evidence as a beginner, there’s so much that you don’t know that almost every utterance you’ll make in the language, you’ll use the wrong word, you’ll mess up your grammar or something along those lines.

It’s just more and more and more evidence that you’re not ready to use this language.

So I turned that on its head and I just decide at the, as a beginner learner, my, my approach, I like it to be dynamic.

I. It, it evolves.

It’s very different when I’m an intermediate learner, but as a beginner learner, my goal is to make as many mistakes as possible.

And that completely transforms the entire experience because when I make that kind of mistake where I’m using the wrong grammatical gender, or I don’t use exactly the right word order or whatever it might be.

Then, rather than that, reflecting on the fact that I’m failing at this project, I’m actually succeeding, uh, genuinely trying to use the language as a means of communication.

And the goal should not be, as a beginner learner the goal should not be to produce perfect utterances of your, your target language.

It should be communicating in the language.

And this is why the likes of if I’m, especially if I’m using the language in the country, for instance, and I need to ask directions, I think me saying the local language equivalent of “supermarket, where?”

Is absolutely acceptable.

That that’s missing the verb, the it’s missing so many things, uh, you know, technically, maybe the right way to say it is.

“Excuse me, kind, sir.

Could you direct me to the nearest supermarket?”

And, and that, that could be maybe something you would aspire to later, but so many people they think, because I can’t say that, “excuse me, kind, sir…”

a long phrase, I shouldn’t dare speak the language, but realistically I, um, and this for me is, uh, as someone coming from like a background in mathematics where things are just right or wrong.

Like it’s one or the other with languages.

I don’t look at it that way.

It’s not that your “supermarket where?”

phrase is, is a failure because it succeeds in you expressing that goal that you want to communicate something and you can try to get the gist of what they say.

You’re not going to understand everything.

If you understand just a couple of the key words.

Then communication can happen.

And this is one of the biggest lessons that I’ve learned.

And I know people with anxiety as they get into languages that can really feel like, you know, ah, I’m such a failure.

Like I don’t know how to say anything.

And I feel the same way.

Even after learning many languages as I start a new language, I can feel like such a failure when I’m trying to speak it in a language lesson.

And I just accept that this is a part of the process.

Me hesitating, me using the wrong words, the grammar, not being eloquent, all of that has to happen for a beginner, it’s unavoidable.

So if you embrace that and just think to yourself, get, you know, get these mistakes out of your system, the more you practice, the faster you’re, you’re going to be making these mistakes, these mistakes less frequently.

Elle: Hmm.

That’s excellent advice.

And is that still then something you say embrace it, is that still something, when you approach a new language now you still have that nagging thing or is it like, Nope,

I know that I’m going to make, like you said, however many mistakes, get them out, or is it still something that is, uh, those fears are still there?

Benny: They’re they’re still like, I still have hesitations.

I still have moments when I’m about to start a call with a native speaker.

Um, I start second guessing myself and thinking, you know, maybe I should cancel this call.

I don’t feel like I’m ready.

And I didn’t study enough, uh, um, since my last call.

So I still have those doubts.

I’m, I’m better now than I was 20 years ago before I got into language learning at, uh, pushing through those doubts.

But they’re always there.

There’s always that lack of confidence and like, you know, should I really be doing this?

But I’m definitely better oatit now.

So the languages I’ve learned since then, like have, um, become an easier process for me as a result of that.

Elle: I think listeners would like to hear that someone who has learned so many languages can still feel that way.

So it’s okay.

We can, we can do this.

Um, so are there any languages that you’ve found are the ones that, you know, that you found particularly difficult or are there even any languages that you started to study and then were like, Whoa, I’m not ready for this or put it on the back burner.

Benny: It’s, it’s a very interesting question.

And a lot of people are always curious, you know, what’s the hardest language you’ve ever learned.

And I have a completely different philosophy when I look at my languages like this, and I know from a linguistic perspective or a theoretical perspective, it can be interesting.

To put two languages side by side and say, well, the grammar in this language is more complicated or this language has tones, therefore it’s harder.

And that, that whole line of discussion has just never been interesting for me because I don’t find it to be a useful concept to think about how difficult languages are.

So as an example, when I took on Mandarin, which I eventually got to lower intermediate stage when I took on Mandarin.

Um, a lot of people told me, well this is one of the hardest languages in the world.

And I didn’t want to hear that because that’s not useful to me.

This is just forms of discouragement and it doesn’t necessarily mean I want to plug my ears and go LA LA LA.

I don’t want to hear it, because there are, there are certain things that, uh, people can warn me about that can be very helpful.

Uh, to know ahead of time when I’m getting into a language that may pose more of a challenge.

But what I wanted to know was why is it easy?

And this is actually something I try to do when I begin any language.

If I, um, I’ve written blog posts, why Hungarian is easy, why Chinese is easy, which are so strange for a lot of the language community, because there’s this association that you have to keep saying this language is hard and here’s why on a, in a way, part of it is bragging rights.

You know, if you have successfully learned the language, it’s good for your ego

if the world thinks it’s a hard language, because then everyone thinks you’re smart.

And so I, I understand that, you know, if, if somebody successfully learns Mandarin, then it’s good for them.

If everybody says it’s the hardest language in the world, But realistically, um, whenever I try to learn a new language, I I’m a much more practical person, so I’m not actually that passionate really about language learning the process of language learning

isn’t what interests me.

It’s more the, I see a language as a tool or a means to an end, to open up this door to allow me to communicate with another culture.

So because of that, I don’t put a language on a pedestal necessarily.

So that’s why it’s something like, well, this language is harder than that is just not useful for me.

I care more about how can I advance my learning experience faster.

And then on top of that, there’s a lot of things that people don’t consider outside of the linguistics sphere for why a language is hard or easy.

Uh, I always think back when I was in Spain and the friend of mine was learning both French and Japanese and of course, Spanish and French are in the same language family.

So I presumably I said to him, well, obviously French is easier for you.

And he said, no, no, Japanese is easier for me.

And at first I was like, how, how is that even possible?

Because you know, all the cognates and like I had all these arguments and he said, well, I was forced to learn French in school and I don’t find it interesting.

Whereas I think Japanese girls are cute and I really liked the look of the language and I would love to move to Japan one day and these reasons are actually much more important than, it’s, it’s why linguistically yeah, you can put Japanese next to Spanish and French next to Spanish and give a very reasonable argument for why French is easier

and Japanese is harder.

But for, for an individual, the passion that they have for the language is going to completely transform its difficulty and how they, we use the language or they get exposure to the language.

It’s going to change that.

So that’s why ironically, something like Mandarin was easier for me to learn than Spanish because Spanish being the first language I truly tried, I didn’t have the right attitude.

And so I went through it very slowly and I kept second guessing myself.

I kept telling myself if people are going to laugh at you, people are going to be mad at you for speaking Spanish.

And that slowed me down.

Whereas Mandarin, I had enough experience, enough years with other languages, that I was a bit more confident to make those mistakes.

So I advanced a lot quicker, even though, you know, linguistically it’s obviously a much further away language and a lot of people would very reasonably argue why it’s harder, but it was easier for me because of this personal experience.

That’s, that’s often overlooked when people think about language learning.

Hm.

And is, uh, is Mandarin a language that you’re still active in learning?

Are you actively learning any languages right now or kind of maintaining, taking a break?

Yeah.

So generally I’m, I I’m all either in one mode or another, I’m either intensively learning one new language.

And if I’m doing that, then I kind of have to pause my other languages.

I know there’s lots of potty gods who are very good at multitasking.

I’m not, I can’t multitask.

So I can only focus on one language if I’m truly pushing it up to a very, uh, very different, higher level to where it was before.

Or I’m in maintenance mode where I’m essentially trying to keep all my languages at the level that they would have been when I stopped an intensive project.

So for a while, I was doing that with all my languages, including Mandarin.

And then what happened was I went through some very difficult years and that’s kind of knocked me off my tracks of maintaining that level of, of, uh, maintenance in my languages.

And now this year I’m reactivating that to, um, a much slower degree because my goal is maybe at the end of 2022, something along those lines to, to feel like I’ve reached the maintenance level in all the languages I had learned to high levels before, and then I’d be ready to take on a brand new project that I may in three months really intensively push it up.

So my Mandarin, I haven’t gotten back to that one yet.

It was a, I’d say about six years ago, that was the language where at the drop of a hat, I could get into conversations with people, but like anything, if you don’t keep up the work, you’ll start to, it’ll start to slip away from you.

But fortunately it is among the languages that I’ll be reactivating within the next year or two.

And I’ve already with that in mind, started to make like, a separate Instagram and Tik Tok accounts just in Mandarin, just so I can like upload videos in those languages.

Cause that’s one way that I enjoy my experience of using languages is making content online in them.

So this is kind of, in the, um, the version into 2021, 2022 years,

uh, different to how I would upload YouTube videos.

I’m already keeping that in mind and I’m getting better and better now at getting my momentum back with my languages.

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

Kerstin Cable is a polyglot podcaster, YouTuber, language coach and co-host of the Women in Language event. I chatted with her about language learning (duh!) and especially her love for a lesser known language and the awesome event, now in its fourth year, Women in Language.

English LingQ Podcast #16 Polyglot Podcaster Kerstin Cable

Elle: Hello everyone and welcome to the English LingQ podcast with me Elle.

LingQ is the app that allows you to learn a new language from content you love.

You can make anything into a language lesson: YouTube videos, TV shows, news articles, podcasts, whatever it is that you want to learn from.

Remember to like this episode and follow or subscribe to the podcast from whichever platform you’re listening on.

If you’re learning English, you can find this episode as a lesson on LingQ in the description.

Today, I have a special guest podcaster, language coach and language learning content provider, and also cohost of the Women in Language event.

Kirsten cable, Kirsten.

Welcome.

How are you?

Kerstin: Hi, I’m doing great.

How are you?

Elle: I’m good.

Thank you.

I’m good.

Um, now it’s morning here in Vancouver, but you are in the UK, what time is it with you?

Kerstin: It’s seven minutes past 5:00 PM.

Elle: Okay, excellent.

So thank you so much for joining us after your day is done.

I’m sure you’re tired, but we appreciate it.

Thank you.

Kerstin: It’s a bank holiday so I’ve done nothing all day because bank holidays mean holidays, you know?

Elle: Yes, of course.

I forgot.

It’s Easter weekend.

Okay, lovely.

So you’ve had the day off.

Okay.

That’s good.

That’s good.

And you’ve have some sun in the UK I think.

Kerstin: It’s it’s super, super sunny.

Yesterday it was sunny and reasonably warm and I went swimming and this… today, so it’s all outdoor swimming because our swimming pools are still closed, and today it’s, it looks really warm, but it really isn’t.

This morning, there was snow.

Elle: Whoa, like where you are there was snow?

Kerstin: Yeah.

It’s just April, April weather.

Like it’s not staying down.

It’s just a little bit of.

“Yeah, I’m here too”.

Elle: Always unpredictable, A pril.

That’s true.

Kerstin: I know.

Elle: Um, so Kerstin you run the fluent… the website, fluent language.co.uk, and you offer resources and run a blog and also your wonderful podcast, the Fluent Show.

So tell us about the Fluent Show.

You’ve just, I think, are you at episode 210 now?

You just surpassed 200?

Kerstin: Yes, well researched.

We hit episode 200 last year, we had a little party.

We had a little quiz.

I love a quiz.

I am just so into quizzes.

So we had a big quiz and my, my friend Megan came from, she hosts a podcast called, Oh, they, sorry.

They host a podcast called Oh No!

Lit Class.

And they came and brought us this literature quiz.

It was amazing.

It was, it was so random and fun.

And since then, yes, I have had, I’m now in a new system where in this podcast, which is all about language, just from so many different angles

and what I don’t do is just do the kind of standard… I think it’s… it would be more of a standard kind of polyglot show if you just go “hello person who is so gifted and speaks five languages, tell us your secrets”.

I, I don’t do that as much because I find that language is in every aspect of our life and has so many different angles.

So I try to bring in as much variety as I possibly can.

So the season we’ve just finished is 10, 10 episodes is a season.

The season we’ve just finished was linguistic season.

So I had an academic who researches stylistics.

We learnt what stylistics is.

We talked about neuroscience and how there’s lightening in the brain and what that, what impact that has on how you speak in the language you choose, how you code switch.

That was incredibly interesting.

We talked about the languages of Western and central Asia.

And I had sort of, I have a cohost Lindsey who pops in every now and then.

So every season there’s two or three episodes where we just hang out, they’re much more relaxed and much less, there’s less, less and more content at the same time.

It’s just more laughs.

And we did Words of the Year 2020, and we did our tools.

That’s a staple.

We’ve done that for six years now.

Yeah.

So the podcast is just a lot of fun and an excuse for me to indulge my curiosity about all things to do with communication and languages.

Elle: Amazing.

And you just mentioned the words of the year 2020, I’m intrigued by that.

What, uh, what are some of the standout words that you guys talked about from last year?

Kerstin: Oh, Oh, Oh, a good one because we looked at words from the USA, not so many from the US because there’s just such a list.

We looked at the German words of the year, British lots of British ones, but also Australia and something that stood out in my mind.

Um, the big themes were obviously Coronavirus.

So “COVID”, um, “lockdown” word of the year.

And then in, in Australia they had, um, “iso-” sort of as a prefix, you know, like the little letters that go to the side of something, and in Australia, you can have, you can put on “iso-kilos” for example, and it’s just iso- this iso- that, and that’s something very specific to Australia.

Every year there seems to be something quite specific to Australia I really like.

Trying to remember what else there was… Black Lives Matter was the other sort of big theme.

And I think somewhere the word of the year was just “they”, so it was, it was, there was also, uh, the kind of extension in pronouns and in, uh, nonbinary.

The conversations that we’re having now.

So the language always reflects what’s on people’s minds.

And I love that so much about words of the year, it’s really, really fun.

Elle: Sounds like a really in-depth conversation.

Amazing.

Kerstin: It’s just a long, long list really.

Elle: Um, now since, ever since I found out that you are a person who, I don’t know if it’s a language you are actively studying right now, but you are someone who has studied the Welsh language, um, as someone from Wales who, um, knows people…

I know people who speak Wells for sure, but it is, it’s a very lesser known language.

They’re around 3 million people in Wales.

And I think around 20% of those people living in Wales speak Welsh.

I know that number, that percentage is increasing, uh, over the years, which is great.

Um, but so that’s around 20% of 3 million.

That’s not a lot of people.

And, um, yeah, I know you’re studying Welsh and I just spoke with Luca Lampariello actually and he said, He is, uh, one of his languages of the year that he’s studying as Hungarian and his, when he told his uncle that he was learning Hungarian, his uncle was like, why?

Why would you waste your time learning a language like Hungarian?

No one speaks Hungarian.

Well for Welsh, it’s even fewer people.

So I guess my question is to you, why Welsh?

And, and also have you had any, um, have you experienced like a negative attitude towards your interest in Welsh?

Any pushback, like anyone asking you, why would you do that?

Kerstin: I get a lot of “why?”

Definitely.

And, um, the answer that I have now learned is, I don’t know whether you’re going to understand me is “pam ddim?”

Elle: Okay.

Why not?

Kerstin: “Pam ddim?”

Is Welsh for why not.

And that is really… it’s there to be learned.

And I cannot express to you how much, how fun I find Welsh.

I don’t know why.

It’s just, it’s like my Bae.

I love it.

I love it.

It’s so much fun.

I really enjoy, um, “siarad Cymraeg” (speaking Welsh) , uh, “dysgu Cymraeg” (learning Welsh) , I just love it.

It’s so much fun and I am still actively learning.

Yeah.

Cause I’m super slow.

So I’ve been learning for five and a half years and I’m a level B2 now, so I can have my conversations, but to be honest, I’ve been having conversations of some description for years.

Cause that’s just how I do it, um, basically shout my five words at people and then call it a conversation.

She’s fluent.

I just… there are okay, there are, there are, there are specific whys is that I could point to, um, mostly to do with the fact that I live in the UK and I live in the UK as an immigrant, if you want to see it that way.

When I started learning, well,

I have to go one more step back, I guess, because I am from Germany and I am from quite near, um, from like almost a border region.

So maybe 50, if you drive 45 minutes from where I’m from, you’re in Luxembourg.

So I grew up near Luxembourg and France is really close and Belgium’s really close.

And there’s always been kind of languages,

like you can get, you can get easily get a Luxembourgish radio station, which is a language that is significant for our region.

It influences our dialect really heavily.

And the world at large, maybe doesn’t care about Luxembourgish, but I don’t think I ever really assigned value in that way of like, well, what do English speakers think is important that they never do any language learning anyway, like what did they know?

And I already knew, uh, Spanish and French and you know, I’ve done some Italian and I’ve done some Russian and blah.

So I’ve kind of done all the ones that you have to check off, German is my native language.

So I’ve got that one for free, which means I sort of was a little bit free maybe to, to play.

And once I started learning Welsh… it started when we went on holiday in Wales and you don’t run into necessarily, unless you go to specific areas, you don’t just run into people who happen to speak Welsh, but we were on the, in the car.

We had this podcast and the podcast was sort of teaching us the basics, “bore da” good morning, “prynhawn da” good afternoon, dah, dah, dah.

And I’m like, well this is fun to say.

These are all fun to say.

And, uh, all the signage is bilingual in Wales and there was just this part of me where the more I learned, well, the more I kind of started getting into it, the more I felt like, I describe it, like in a video game, you know, where you’re on the hidden level, that’s how I started to feel.

And then I went for the first time to the Eisteddfod which is the Welsh sort of cultural festival thing where everybody’s camping and yeah, it’s odd.

It’s amazing.

And I’m like on the mice camping right on the camping thing.

Um, and I woke up in the morning and my tent and around me there’s these children running around and people chatting and they’re all chatting and Welsh and I thought.

It’s real, like it’s alive.

It’s actually here.

And I felt like that amazing feeling.

You know, when you’re going on holiday or you’re traveling and you’re in a foreign country, I felt that, but in the UK, and I’m a big believer in, we don’t need to travel halfway around the world to find adventure.

And that gave me the kind of linguistic adventure.

So I feel like Welsh has given me so much, so much.

It’s ridiculous to ask why.

It’s ridiculous.

It’s absolutely… I don’t understand why people resist it because it is flippin’ it awesome.

Elle: Yeah.

It’s a bizarre, maybe I shouldn’t say bizarre.

It is bizarre.

I mean, there’s the pronunciation and the spellings in Welsh are something to behold, like, um, but yeah, I love that “linguistic adventure”.

That’s that’s a great, that’s a great term.

I like that.

Um, well, thank you.

Anyway.

I feel like you’re a bit of a, a bit of a champion for Welsh.

Um, thank you from the Welsh people, thank you.

Kerstin: Very undeservedly.

Don’t don’t make, make no mistake in my Welshclass every Thursday evening I get told all the time, Oh, I’ve got, I’m teaching four German and people, and there is a Syrian refugee who’s learning Welsh.

And that, you know, because the community is so small, everybody just seems to be like “here is a non-Welsh person learning Welsh.

Look at them!

I love it.

I think it’s a lot of fun.

I think I’m having so much fun with Welsh.

I’m so grateful to the language and its teachers.

Elle: Excellent.

So you, as I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, you co-host the Women in Language event with Lindsay Williams and Shannon Kennedy.

Kerstin: That’s right.

Elle: Uh, tell me about the event.

How, how long has it been running for now?

Is it you’ve had two?

Kerstin: No, we just finished our fourth

Elle: Oh four.

Wow.

Excellent.

Bad research there.

And so, um, tell us a bit about why you started the event and, um, yeah then how was the most recent one?

Cause it just happened last month, right?

Kerstin: Uh, yes, it happened in March.

Um, it was a little confusing because in 2020 we had, we moved from our usual slot, which was in, which is in March and we kind of moved it to September.

So that year just seemed to confuse everybody.

But women, Women in Language is an online language conference, a four day event.

We have about 30-ish speakers, 34, I believe this year.

And we ha… we host sessions all live all hosted by one of us, three organizers.

We host panel discussions.

We have got a very lively live chat running all the way through, and it’s a real buzzing event.

The idea behind Women in Language was to champion, we, we say champion, celebrate and amplify the voices of women in language.

And just, we can widen that out to less of heard voices in the sense that, you know, we’re totally open.

We’ve had nonbinary speakers, transgender speakers.

That’s that’s no deal.

The idea though really was from noticing, and obviously when you’re a woman in the polygot space, you notice more, right?

The things where you see the lack and we felt there was just a little bit of an imbalance in terms of media attention, for sure, general sort of the idea of what a polyglot, “like that, that image seemed to just be a load of guys.

Um, and then not meant the kind of here is an expert panel of people who are multi-lingual, and lots of …”that, all skewed man.

And I’m a strong believer in, this isn’t really about like what I, you know, like, I’m not saying I’m making, women in language exists and now the world is perfect.

I’m a strong believer in when I’ve got something that really gets me riled up and I get a bit ranty and I might’ve had a bit, might’ve had a rant or two about whatever, I’m such a graceful person.

That you’ve got to do something about it.

And I felt, not just me, it was sort of Lindsey, Shannon and I we didn’t sit down together and say, Oh, we are really unhappy.

Am I allowed to say pissed off?

We are really unhappy, you know, we didn’t sit down and say, Oh, something needs to change.

Instead we kind of, I had my rant and then that was it.

And then months later, Lindsay, Lindsay sort of brought up, Oh, I’m looking at International Women’s Day, which is the 8th of March.

And I thought maybe we could do some kind of an event thing.

Maybe I wanted to organize something.

Do you want to, do you want to, you know, do you want to help?

Do you want to do something together?

And I was like, Oh, that sounds amazing.

I just got really excited about it.

We brought Shannon in and then when we started looking at well, who could we have?

Who could we work with?

Really quickly realized we don’t have a one day event.

We’ve got like a festival here and we called it Women in Language to kind of set that flag down.

Um, but it isn’t an event about women.

It isn’t an event where we discuss women topics, whatever those are, and it isn’t an event that excludes men at all.

So now that we’ve just had a fourth one, you were asking about, um, something we’re very proud of is in the four years we’ve had over a hundred speakers.

So we bring, we don’t have a lot of repeat speakers.

We focus on bringing in new speakers every time, new voices.

We have improved in terms of diversity.

I would say our first one was like, people we know turns out they look like you, but it was, you know, we’ve certainly improved on that and I’m really proud of that.

And, um, it’s a really welcoming space, but the other thing from just sort of anecdotally looking for the names of registrants, we’ve had more guys this year.

Like, and every year just kind of get this movement going.

So people realize, okay, even if there’s just even if, even if there’s just a lot of women on stage, doesn’t matter, it’s still a really cool event.

And I personally don’t really see that many expert panels where it’s just women.

So I’m just so proud and delighted to be putting all that together and being a part of kind of putting it out in the world.

It is so much fun.

Um, and it’s only $29.

So we get a lot of participation and we try to open it up as widely as we can.

And yeah, it’s sort of become a movement and an event that has a name in the space, which I don’t know, I don’t know if we planned that, but here we are.

Elle: Here it is.

It’s fantastic.

And so then next year’s event is a safe bet?

It’s going to happen next year?

I know it’s early days.

You just had the fourth one, but…

Kerstin: Well, you know, if you’ve ever organized an event, you probably know that there’s moments where you think I’m never doing that again in my life ever.

There’s a good chance.

Yes, absolutely.

Absolutely.

And we would be in the Women, International Women’s Day sort of time slot.

So that’s the first, usually the first weekend in March, roughly.

Elle: Excellent.

Kerstin: Yeah.

Yeah.

It’s, it’s too special really.

It’s it’s a special time.

People really love it.

Elle: Wonderful.

Um, I wanna ask you, a lot of our listeners, viewers are learning English.

Hmm.

And, um, I’m sure other languages too.

And I always like to ask anyone I get on who has mastered, so to speak, languages outside of the native language, um, if they have any advice.

And from you, I would love to know, I noticed that reading through your website and listening to you that, kind of, inclusivity is a big,

big thing for you.

Um, and the message on your website is, you know, anyone can learn a language, doesn’t matter who you are, where you’re from, you can do it.

It’s really positive.

I love that.

Do you have any advice for anyone listening, who, um, might be thinking, you know, wondering if they actually can, if they, they’ve never learned a language outside of their mother tongue.

They’re wondering, can I actually do this?

I don’t know?

Do you have any advice?

Kerstin: So for those people, my advice would be to not spend too much time in wondering if you can do it and to just try.

Try try try.

And when you, because if you’re spending a lot of time wondering, can I do this?

Can I do this?

Then when something goes a little bit wrong or you make a mistake, then you’re already asking the question and then it’s really easy to go

“Ah, there’s the evidence.

I’m going back to bed”, don’t do that.

Don’t do that.

Instead, try to just find something that makes you really want to do it because there’s many things in life that you and everybody, you’re doing it.

Doesn’t matter if you can do it or not, right?

You’re just doing it because it’s fun.

You know, if you, I don’t know, go to the cinema, you don’t, you don’t go like, Oh, I don’t know.

Am I too stupid?

I don’t know what I understand this.

Like most of us, we have at least one thing in our life that we just do because it’s awesome.

And you would do it even if you weren’t sure that, you know, you could go all the way.

Like, you know, how many people play, play football slash soccer and they’re never going to be a professional player.

It’s not about that.

And if you treat languages like that, if you treat English like that… like find something really cool and just kind of follow that and stop asking, can I do this?

Because then a year down the line, you’ll be like, Oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

It turns out I can.

And that’s a nice feeling.

That’s great

Elle: advice.

Thank you.

Um, so what’s in store for you for the rest of 202?1 of course it’s a weird time, but things are still happening, the world is still ticking over.

What’s in store?

Kerstin: Well, the, there is, uh, at least one more podcast season coming and I’m hoping for, I’ve got plans for the next three.

So that’s good.

No, let’s do the next one first, which is, uh, it’s going to be a season about teaching.

So I’ve got a few interesting teachers.

We’re kind of talking more about teaching and something I really like, which is talking business because I’m a one-person business, which means you spend a lot of time thinking about all this kind of stuff.

And there i so much mindset and psychology.

I feel like we have a parallel with languages and I really like that space that the coaching, I guess, motivating space and the exploring how to overcome your inner hurdles and, you know, really sharing strategies and sharings.

What’s worked for me in the last nine years of doing this.

Self-employment thing.

So I’m really looking forward to that.

That’s the podcast on a personal level, I’m hoping to go home and see my family.

And this, this is weird, Elle.

You know what I miss almost as much, possibly some days more than my mum?

Elle: I hope your mum’s not listneing to this!

Kerstin: Well I can, I can talk to my mom on the phone, right?

But I can’t talk to the vineyards.

And I am from the Moselle Valley, which is all vineyards.

And I have found, like, I really miss just looking at the vineyards and just seeing that’s like my, my feeling of home is when I’m in a vineyeard.

Elle: And enjoying the products of the vineyard, I’m sure.

Kerstin: I mean I’ve got some in the fridge.

That’s fine.

I grew up in a wine-making family and yeah, vineyards, I think are really important to us.

So I felt, I never know, I never knew before the pandemic stopped me going for so long that I missed the landscape of my home.

And I really just want to, you know, just go home to, to see home.

Um, and that’s something I’m hoping that this year we’re gonna, gonna go back and going to, you know, I don’t care about traveling the world that can wait another year, but I really just want to go and see some vineyards.

So there is that, um, and I’m hoping to relaunch my online course for teachers in line with the teaching seasons.

So, but working on a few corporate business projects too.

Elle: Yeah.

Wow.

Busy, busy it sounds like.

I really hope you get to go home and enjoy the vineyards and best of luck with everything you have planned for 2021.

And thank you so much for joining us, Kristin.

Kerstin: You’re very, very welcome.

Croeso (welcome)

Elle: Bye-bye.

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Polyglot YouTuber, language mentor and self-confessed language nut Lindie Botes is an inspiration! In this interview she shares what sparked her passion for language learning and what she does when she loses motivation.

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If you’re learning English, you can find the transcript to this episode and all past episodes as a lesson online.

Just click the link to the lesson in the description.

Hello everyone and welcome to the English LingQ podcast with me Elle and today I have a special guest joining me, Lindie Botes.

Lindie, how are you?

Lindie: Hello, I am well, thanks.

Thank you so much for having me.

Elle: Oh, thank you so much for joining us today.

So Lindie, you are a polyglot YouTuber.

Uh, your YouTube channel Lindie, is called Lindy Botes, B O T E S. And you also have a website, Lindiebotes.com where you offer, where you run a blog, you offer, um, mentoring and resources,

I have a list here: Afrikaans.

Chinese, Hungarian, Japanese, Korean, Malaysia, Spanish, Tagalog, Vietnamese, is that right?

Lindie: Yes.

Those are the lists of resources.

And not necessarily the languages I’m fluent in.

Elle: So any listeners, uh, learning those languages or interested in learning those languages, head over to Lindie’s website and check those out for sure.

Um, so Lindie, you’re joining us from singapore today.

Lindie: Yes.

Elle: So you are living and working in Singapore and it is 8:00 AM there, correct?

Lindie: Yes, we are on opposite sides of the world.

Elle: Yeah.

I want to say thank you so much for joining us when it’s so early for you have to be chatty so early.

I know it’s a lot to ask.

Thank you.

So I was looking over your website and YouTube channel a lot today.

And, uh, I saw on your website, you say, you know, sorry, 12-ish languages, I like that “ish”.

Um, can you tell us, uh, which languages you know?

Lindie: Well, the ish part is very important because I think everybody interprets like know or speak in a different way, right?

If I can, we have a very basic conversation about the weather,

does that really mean, I know a language?

I’m not so sure.

So last year I was, uh, learning 12, which means even if it’s the most beginner language, I was trying to learn it, but I would say I’m at least conversational, can help myself in around eight or so languages.

So apart from English, my home language is Afrikaans.

And then I guess in order of rough fluency, it would be Korean, Japanese, French, Mandarin, uh, Spanish, uh, maybe Hungarian, Vietnamese, where are we know it’s very early morning, I’m going to have to check my own website, but you know, they all kind of trail off at the end.

Uh, you know, learning a bunch, can speak a few.

Elle: Right, right.

And so you said you grew up in South Africa and, uh, I was looking, I looked online today.

I knew that there were many official languages in South Africa.

I read there are actually 12, which I was amazed by.

Do you think, did that have any impact on your growing up?

I don’t know how exposed you were to those languages on a day-to-day basis, but did that have an impact on your, your love for language learning do you think to some extent?

Lindie: Yes.

I didn’t actually grow up in South Africa.

I spent maybe more than half or half of my life in a few different countries over seas in the middle East and Asia.

But I did spend my last few years of high school and university in South Africa.

And yes, I was exposed to quite a few, uh, South African languages, but not necessarily from uh, a direct opportunity of being able to learn them.

But I always had friends around me who spoke different languages, and I was always interested in asking people like, can you teach me a new phrase in Tswana?

Or how do you say this in Zulu?

So I think if anything, the multicultural society that South Africa is, uh, inspired me to continue languages and, you know, be curious constantly and ask people about languages.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have the opportunity or resources, especially now living overseas to continue those languages, but that did like, help encourage and motivate me to keep going.

Yeah, I would really love to learn.

I think I bought a Zulu textbook once and I would like to, it’s probably the most widely spoken South African language, but South African languages are also very, very regional.

So the Zulu spoken in KwaZulu-Natal.

KwaZulu-Natal, where it’s like very based is quite different from the Zulu spoken in my hometown, for instance, which is more like an amalgamation of different languages.

So even if you try to learn it, you really have to be in that context to sound more natural and pick up the local slang.

Elle: Right.

And so were languages something you were always interested in then even as a child, was there something that sparked the… you, you, I love on your website, you are self-professed language nut you say.

Yeah.

Was there a spark of interest?

Or, was it just always something you remember being interested in?

Lindie: I think there might have been a spark of interest around my last year of high school, or I distinctly remember spending more time learning Korean than I did studying for my final math exam.

Thankfully I passed, I suck at math, but I’m glad I had languages to keep me sane.

Um, but I think languages have always been a part of my life and I’ve seen it as like, well, this is normal.

Like growing up in international schools, everybody spoke different languages.

I was just like, Oh, I guess this is how life is.

You’ll always have people around you speaking different languages.

I never really realized that’s not always the case outside of an international school environment, that monolingualism does prevail in a lot of countries.

Uh, but I remember there was definitely a spark after I started learning Korean in 2010.

So around 2012, my last year of high school, I realized, man, this is really fun.

And Korean is actually quite similar to a lot of languages like Japanese, Korean, Cantonese, even Hokkien, like there, they all stemmed from Chinese languages and that really kind of snowballed into learning more languages.

So I took French at school as a school subject, and I always just thought, okay, school subject, whatever.

I just need to get good grades.

And it was only after that that I was like, man, I should have put more effort into it.

Languages are really cool.

Elle: And speaking of Chinese, as you just said, so you’re living in Singapore.

Are you working exclusively in Chinese now in your job?

Lindie: I wish no, Singapore working society is predominantly English, but a lot of my colleagues do speak Chinese at the office.

So we kind of mix a bit, but it’s mostly English.

Elle: Oh, okay.

And what are you doing?

You’re a UI/UX designers.

Is that right, in your job?

Lindie: Yeah.

Yeah.

That’s right.

I’m working at a local startup building their app and website.

Elle: Okay.

Very cool.

Very cool.

So tell us about your journey from kind of language learner, language lover, to YouTuber and someone who’s created this space, this community for language learners online, what made you want to do that?

Lindie: Hmm, I remember maybe would it be around eight years ago?

I was really inspired by a video by Tim Donor on YouTube.

And he’s that guy who went super viral and was on the news because he speaks a whole lot of languages.

But what I liked was the one video where he documented himself sort of speaking them all.

And I thought, Hey, this is really great to track your progress and just take a little like time, time-capture note of all the languages you are able to speak at a moment in time.

So I made a really bad video on my webcam from my computer back in high school.

And I was stumbling, fumbling through my languages.

Uh, but through that I discovered this very small at the time YouTube community of people who were, uh, interested in, in, in talking about languages, sharing resources and so forth.

And over the years, it has slowly grown.

Um, But I think the community part has really grown in the last maybe three years.

And that’s what really encourages me that, and that’s the best part that I like about languages online is being able to meet people.

And I’m these days, especially active on Twitter.

I think that is the new up and coming spot for, uh, language communities.

People are running language challenges and so forth.

So I think it was all just a natural progression as my channel grew, the other social media channels.

Um, I started documenting my languages more and meeting people with similar interests.

Elle: Hmm.

I have to say, I agree with the last, you said last three years the community has exploded.

I I’ve been working, I think for link for five years now.

And definitely I’ve seen, yeah, just so many more, so many more people are interested, uh, you know, getting involved and I have to say it still is maybe more male dominated for whatever reason, I find that very strange, but now there are more and more women like yourself, um, YouTubers and content providers.

And I just, I love seeing that.

So, um, yeah.

Um, I wanted to ask you if you have any advice for, maybe, maybe selfishly, this is for me, but also any listeners who are struggling with motivation right now, it’s clear from your channel, from your website, that you’re very focused, motivated, organized.

I love that aspect for sure.

Um, it’s really inspiring.

Uh I’m right now, not very motivated.

I’m studying French.

I was really motivated last year.

I don’t know what happened.

I kind of fell off and then I never quite got it back.

So I wonder if you have any tips, advice for listeners and me, or do you ever get into a bit of a slump or you’re not so motivated to study and if so, what has worked for you?

What do you do to get, get yourself back in the game?

Lindie: All of the time.

I really feel you about those language slumps.

I don’t know if this is going to help you or make you feel even more scared, because when I started learning Hungarian two and a half years ago, I was like super motivated and excited and ready and learning every day for about three months.

And then it trailed off for two years until I restarted Hungarian this year.

So that was like a two year break.

And I actually just used that time to wait for the motivation to come back.

Um, and it’s, it was really circumstantial for me.

Like at that time when I stopped, I really had to focus on Chinese and then I moved to Singapore and then I had to take a Korean exam.

And finally, after that, I was like, you know what I have free time now, let me try Hungarian again.

So the one approach which might not work for everyone is really to just wait it out.

Like if you don’t have necessarily language goals, like I need to pass this exam, I’m moving to this country, I’m marrying someone who speaks this language.

If you’re kind of just learning for fun, sometimes you might just want to wait for it to come back.

But again, that could take two years.

So the other approach apart from just relying on your emotions and how you feel is, um, creating a study system for yourself and, uh, starting very small.

I realized that with, also with these online communities, people are so, you know, fired up.

Like I’m gonna finish this textbook and, you know, meet 10 language partners and write five essays.

And then it kind of trails off.

It’s like new year’s resolutions, then you don’t do it.

So as long as you start very, very small every day, you need to start building a daily habit.

Um, uh, I’m trying to use this in different aspects of my life.

So I’m working on an ebook now for learning Korean.

And I was just like, man, I don’t know how to write this.

I just, it’s taken me forever.

And a friend of mine said, just do 10 minutes a day, just 10 minutes.

And then you can try and do more if you feel like it.

And I was like, well, yeah, just committing to 10 minutes is so much easier than thinking I have a whole book ahead of me.

So you can use that same thinking for languages.

I’m just going to study French for 10 minutes every morning, and then you’ll see, it’ll get easier and you can build on from there.

Another final tip for maintaining your motivation is to spread it out throughout the day.

You’ll feel a lot less motivated if you schedule in a one or a one-and-a-half hour block to study.

So if you break that up and say, you’ll review your vocabulary in the morning, you’ll listen to a podcast in the afternoon and you’ll play on LingQ in the evening then you can spread that out throughout the day, and that’s a lot more manageable and you won’t get burnout.

Elle: Okay.

That is great advice.

That was great.

I need to take that on for sure.

I think I need, I think I’ve waited it out now.

I’m feeling the urge to get back into the French.

Lindie: Good

Elle: So you’re currently, are you maintaining languages or are you, you’re studying Hungarian you said, is that your current language?

Lindie: Yes.

So for this year, I’m choosing two main focus languages for every quarter.

Uh, so we just finished Q1 the first three, four months of the year, I’m really bad at math, um, and it’s early.

So I was focusing on Tagalog and Hungarian.

Um, and I think I do want to continue those languages for the next quarters goals, uh, because I’m still beginner in both of them.

So at the moment Tagalog and Hungarian are the main ones for me and probably Spanish as well.

I really need to improve my very basic Spanish.

Elle: Wow.

So three very different languages.

I know Hungarian isn’t…. is it true that Hungarian is, is in a language family of its own, or it doesn’t belong to any of the language families?

Lindie: It is quite an isolate, but you’ll find grammatical similarities with Turkish and Finnish and sometimes words that sound similar, but it’s pretty on its own there.

Yeah.

Elle: Hmm.

Wow.

Well, best of luck with those.

So, sorry, three, so each quarter you’re doing two to three different languages.

So over the year, so nine over the year.

Wow.

My goodness.

And I’m just, with my French…

Lindie: No, we shouldn’t compare.

I wish I had like time to dedicate a whole year to French.

That would be awesome too.

Elle: So what, uh, what lies ahead for 2021 for you?

Any, any events or projects planned even though the world is obviously a very strange place right now.

Lindie: Yeah.

I think, uh, online language conferences are going to keep springing up.

So I hope to be attending and participating in more of those, uh, as well as working on my Korean ebook.

Uh, so I, I think it’s been a lot of years of just making videos and now I want to see how I can continue videos, but also take whatever I’ve put out in my videos into more digestible formats on other social media channels or in writing.

So that’s probably my main project for this year.

Elle: Excellent.

Well, a busy, busy rest of the year it sounds like, Lindie.

Thank you so, so much for joining us again so, so early in the morning, I know it’s hard to be chatty at the best of times.

Maybe that’s just me, but I really appreciate it.

And yeah, maybe we will chat again.

Um, but best of luck in the meantime, with your projects and your language learning.

Lindie: Thank you so much.

It was great talking to you and I wish you the very best of luck with your French as well.

Elle: Thank you so much.

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In this week’s episode Elle chats with internet polyglot Luca Lampariello about the languages he knows, what sparked his interest in language learning and the strategies he uses to ensure he doesn’t mix up his languages.

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Welcome everyone to the English LingQ podcast with me Elle and today I have a very special guest internet polyglot, Luca, Lamparriello, Luca, how are you?

Luca: I’m good Elizabeth, what about you?

Elle: Excellent.

I’m good.

I’m good.

I’m well, thank you.

So the first question I want to ask, actually, before I ask it, uh, anyone, any viewers or listeners who don’t know of Luca, you are an internet polygot and language coach, you run the website, Luca Lampariello.com and also the fantastic and helpful YouTube channel also called Luca Lampariello.

So.

I want to ask you the question

I’m sure most people will want to ask you when they meet you and discover that you are a polyglot.

How many languages do you speak and what are they?

Luca: Well, this is always a tricky question.

I always reply that I’ve been learning 14 languages, mine included, and those are Italian, which is my mother tongue, um, English,

french, let’s see if I remember them in the correct order, Spanish, German, Dutch, Russian Swedish, um, Portuguese, Chinese, uh, Hungarian, Greek, and, uh, Polish.

I already said Russian, I think.

And Danish now learning Danish should be 14 if I haven’t forgotten anything.

Elle: Wow.

Okay.

It never ceases to amaze me when I meet someone like you, who

speaks multiple languages, not just three, four, but 14 is incredible.

Luca: Let’s say that speaking… it, it depends on the definition of speaking.

I would say that I might be speaking.

I mean, I can, you know, communicate, I can get by sometimes at a high level.

Sometimes I can get by, let’s say functional, but the, the, the term speaking is always a little bit vague.

So you have to define that a little bit more in detail, but let’s say that I’ve been – learning for the sake of simplicity and brevity – let’s say that I’ve been learning 14 languages.

Elle: 14.

Amazing.

And I heard Hungarian in there.

I heard that that’s the, one of the most difficult languages to learn.

Can you confirm or deny.

Luca: It’s a tough nut to crack.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say it is the most difficult language.

I would say that it’s very different than anything you’ve ever learned before.

So that, that in and of itself poses some difficulties.

But I would say that it’s refreshingly simple for certain things and it’s, it’s a challenge for others.

So I would say, I always say that no matter how difficult the language is, if you want to learn it, you will go for it.

There is no language that is impossible to learn if you want to learn it.

I know it sounds trivial, but that’s actually how it is, you know?

Elle: And so what sparked this passion for language learning for you?

Luca: I think my thirst for knowledge, and I have to thank my grandmother and my family in general for that, cause they always have, um, motivated me to learn my, uh, my house, uh, the house of my parents and this house where I live right now has always, has always been full of books.

And I’ve always grown up seeing my parents and my grandparents talking about culture, reading books.

I remember my grandfather was very passionate about mathematics.

He was a scholar.

He was a mathematician.

And, uh, there were hundreds and hundreds of books in all languages.

And I think this environment made, you know, my father, my grandfather and my family, they’ve always made an impression on me.

And I remember one fate… Fateful moment that was, um, when I was around, uh, 10 or 11 I had to start middle school.

And I remember the summer where we were in the garden and my grandmother was sitting there and she told me, Hey, uh, Luca, come here.

I want to show you something.

And she showed me a Latin book and a French, uh, and mathematics.

The three things that we worked on, she said, Hey, do you want to give it a try?

And I remember I hadn’t even started school, middle school yet, but, um, we just started delving into mathematics and French.

My grandmother was really passionate about this, you know, she could have just, um, been sitting there enjoying the summer instead, she wanted me to learn and I remembered that I immediately took a liking to, uh, you know, French, Latin, especially French and Latin, but also mathematics.

And this, uh, this thirst for knowledge, this intellectual curiosity that my parents fostered in me.

And then, you know, it, it just sparked something that always stayed there.

So I always wake up in the morning saying this is a good day to learn something new.

And I think that languages are a part of that.

It’s not just languages.

You know, I have a degree in electronic engineering and I’m extremely passionate about history, philosophy, astronomy.

So it’s not just languages, but I think that the, this intellectual curiosity has caused me to explore, you know, as many domains as possible and language learning is one of them.

So what makes me tick is the fact that in particular, when it comes to language learning is the fact that, it might sound trivial, but the truth is that every language you learn not only makes you rich, but also gives you concrete, uh, possibilities in life.

It allows you to connect with the world.

Just one language, going back to what you were saying before Hungarian.

My uncle who lives here, not, not far.

He just, uh, when I told him that I wanted to learn Hungarian, he just looked at me.

He said, Why, why would you learn Hungarian?

Nobody speaks Hungarian.

I said 10 million people speak Hungarian.

They only live in Hungary and that’s a place I go to quite often.

And even if it were just two people in the world, if I could speak Hungarian or any other exotic or, you know, forgotten language with one person, that would make a difference to me.

Uh Lomb Kato or Kato Lomb, amazing hungarian polyglot, used to say that language learning is something worth learning, even uh, a little bit, even a couple of words, you never… even a couple of expressions said in certain circumstances can put a smile onto a strangers, uh, you know, face.

And so, uh, as far as I’m passionate about everything, everything makes me tick.

Um, but in particular language learning has very concrete, uh, you know, consequences.

You can do so much.

And my life has changed in so many ways that I cannot even start to, you know, you can’t even fathom the ways in which language learning can change you, change your outside and your inside.

Elle: So amazing.

I love that attitude waking up and just being excited for what the day brings, what you can learn and discover that, that’s a great attitude to have, for sure.

Luca: You know, it’s a funny thing, um, that I, when I say that I wake up at five o’clock or six o’clock in the morning, most of my friends go like, what?

You wake up at five o’clock in the morning?

And I say, do you know why I wake up at four o’clock, five o’clock now four o’clock is too early, it’s because I want to learn.

That’s what makes me tick.

That’s what makes me, uh, stand up.

That’s what makes me, you know, open my eyes and say, this is a new day to learn.

Literally what makes me stand up and start my day is the fact that I always tell myself, this is a good day to learn.

You know.

Elle: Amazing.

And you are now, you share this passion with others in your, in your coaching.

So you are a language coach.

And I wonder if you have, uh, uh, is there a kind of guiding coaching philosophy that you have?

What do you emphasize when helping people learn a new, a new language?

Luca: I think that the most important thing nowadays that people lack is actually learning how to learn.

So I’m very passionate about, uh, you know, in general learning how to learn, how the brain works, neuroscience and everything.

And I think that’s particularly important now, because if you think about it,

nowadays, we have all the information we want.

Just one click away.

There’s a YouTuber that says, that says that if all we needed was more information, we would all be billionaires with a six pack.

That’s not what we need.

So it’s not, you know, it’s… information is not what we need.

We have information overload.

We have even too much, but what people lack is actually how to actually make it happen.

Uh, some 30 years ago, you know, I, I couldn’t even imagine the, the resources, the possibilities that we have nowadays.

I Remember that I was learning Dutch some 25 years ago now, I don’t remember… 1999, and I could only find a couple of books.

And I did not use the internet at that time.

And those books looked so precious.

Right now we have oh so many possible resources.

The problem still is that a lot of people come to mw, they go to my website or they see my channel and the endearing, the wonderful messages that I got, like: Luca, I’ve learned so much.

I didn’t know this, I didn’t know, I didn’t know how to use YouTube to learn languages or stuff that are, are evident for me cause I’ve been, I’ve been doing this for years, but they’re not evident for a lot of people that have the resources, but… they have the tools, but they still do not know the craft, how to use those tools to learn more effectively.

And if there’s a philosophy to language coaching it’s this: you cannot teach a language, but you can train people to use their brain to the best of their possibilities to learn a bunch of languages.

And the other important thing is to believe in themselves.

If you’ve never learned a language to fluency, and this is something that I’ve learned in my experience, people do not believe.

You start learning for real

when you start believing that you can do it.

It’s like being… I’m on a quest to being at the peak of a mountain.

If you’ve never done it before, if you’ve never learned, I dunno to play the guitar or if you’ve never experienced something, you still don’t believe that you can do it.

So on the one hand, I work on the psychological factors, the psychological, let’s say circumstances and biases and, uh, beliefs that people have towards learning and towards themselves.

And the second thing is I provide the infrastructure within which they’re going to operate, that is, the methods.

And the third thing is that these methods are unique to each person.

So I do not give a

one size fits all fits old method.

And I adapt it to the single learner and these coaching sessions that I’ve been doing for, I think, 11 years.

I’m very proud of those.

I’ve been, um, I’ve been helping hundreds of people from all walks of life and, uh, all of them walk away, uh, very satisfied because, not because… I always say it’s not me.

They thank me: Oh Luca, thank you so much.

You’ve changed my life.

It’s like, you want it to change your life and you have done it, you just sought help, some guidance, and then you walk the talk and walk the path.

That’s what, at the end of the day counts.

I’m just a, a guidance who helps you, you know, achieving the goals that are there that are achievable.

It’s just, you have to believe it and, you know, walk the talk or walk the path.

Elle: Excellent.

And you know, something that I always, I always wanted to ask… I’ve asked Steve this question before, and of course you and Steve go way back.

I was actually looking at his channel and the, the first time, but I can see that you spoke with Steve was nine years ago.

So you guys go way back.

Anyway um, what I am fascinated by as someone who knows some Japanese and is now learning French is how you don’t get the languages mixed up.

I am studying French and I keep coming up with with the Japanese, even though I am not fluent in Japanese.

And I am amazed at that, it just keeps happening.

I feel like there’s some special… do you have a switch?

And I know you did a fantastic interview with, uh, Lindie Botes on this and she’s coming on the podcast, actually, I’m speaking with her tomorrow.

So how do you keep your languages separate?

How do you not get mixed up?

Luca: It’s an interesting question.

Um, the thing is that, uh, our capacities, our language competence changes, uh, constantly changes depending on the circumstances, depending on the use of the languages that we make.

But, um, you’ve noticed, you said to yourself that, for example, if you’re learning French and you’ve been learning Japanese, then when you try to learn to speak French, then Japanese comes to the fore, so to speak.

And this is because in the, in the brain we have mainly two mechanisms.

One is of storage.

So we put stuff into our long-term memory and it stays there.

And then we have the mechanism of retrieval, which is based on the protocol predicated upon the mechanism of… which is called survival of the busiest.

In other words, the brain is good when you, when you do something repeatedly, you’re telling your brain that, that is important then you reinforce let’s say the neural network or the, you know, the neural bonds.

And when you’re using it less, you’re telling your brain that, maybe that language or that thing you’re doing less is less important.

So it is in the background.

So, um, this is the case, for example, if people are learning a language like Italian, and then they move to Spain, so they learned the language to fluency

then they go to another country, uh, be it Spain, France, Germany, and then they start speaking the other language.

And then when they tried to speak Italian, then just the new language that they’ve been using comes to the fore, you know, and this is because, um, because there is some sort of imbalance between the languages that you use.

So the solution, or if there is a solution, is to use these languages on a weekly basis.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that you have to use all your languages on a daily basis, because this is not realistic for most people, people have stuff to do.

You know, they’re not, uh, all language nerds who just hit the books are just spending all their time learning languages.

Um, So in my case, and I’ll tell you in a second, what I do, but in general, uh, you know, if I have to give a piece of advice, that realistic piece of advice, let’s say, I think that it’s important to have some sort of plan where if you have two or three languages, you make sure that you find time to do both of them.

For example, in your case, if you’re learning, say French right now, it’s important for you to dedicate 10, 20, 30 minutes, depending on the amount of time you have to, you know, to French, but also you should make sure that you do some Japanese in the background so that you’re telling your brain both Japanese and French are important because, um, If you do not do that, um, you know, there’s a possibility of mixing languages and this is even, uh, this problem is even worse.

If the languages are similar, but as you’ve seen Japanese and French are completely different and you still make… it’s not, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that you’re mixing that up, it’s just that you have to imagine that you have like, in your head, like a highway and you have two cars and they’re conflicting.

They’re getting both into the neurocircuitry and in order to let’s say, have, have two different highways, you have to use both of them in different circumstances.

So I always say, uh, I always give this piece of advice to people who ask me how can I avoid mixing languages?

Um, I would say you have to pay attention to the timing, how you learn languages, you know, uh, if you learn two at the same time that are very similar, you’re going to mix them up.

If you learn one well, and then you learn the other one.

A little bit later, uh, it, it, you can leverage the knowledge that you have in, in one language.

Uh, but the timing is really important.

And then I would say, try to use both of them or whatever, if you have two, three languages, try to use them, um, at the same time every day.

Albeit a little bit for each, uh, because otherwise your brain is just going to decide that one is more important than the other.

And it’s going to take over, so to speak, in one language, it’s going to take over to the detriment of the other.

So in my case, just to answer very quickly, uh, to how I do things, I have designed a life that I would, you know, people might think you’re a language nerd, you’re a language buff,

so all you do is language learning.

I live a completely normal life through my languages.

It’s just that I, I do not.

I, uh, I learn foriegn languages to live a better life.

I don’t live a life, I don’t live to learn languages, which is a very important distinction.

I’ve designed a life that revolves around languages and I use eight languages on a weekly basis for a number of reasons.

And for example, when I give coaching lessons, I have Russian clients who are learning French, French clients who are learning Russian, uh, German clients who are learning Spanish, Spanish clients were learning german, Italians who are learning German.

So yeah.

I get the possibility of speaking all these languages, you know, speaking in the language, explaining grammar in another language.

So this in and of itself allows me to use, um, six, seven, eight languages.

I have a team that supports me and I work with, and we speak Italian, Spanish, English, uh, I speak languages at home.

Uh, so I go out with my friends, so on a let’s say that there are, there’s a core of eight languages that I use on a weekly basis.

And then the other languages, I speak to them a little bit less, but you know, uh, something’s got to give, as they say, it’s impossible to, to keep up with 14 languages.

Elle: For sure.

So there could potentially be a day in your week, where in one day you would speak six to eight languages?

Luca: Let’s say that it ranges from a minimum of four to a maximum of 10.

Normally in the last, I would say in the last two or three years, it’s between four and 10, but never more than 10.

I don’t think I’ve ever spoken more than 10 languages in the last two years.

Elle: Oh, wow. That is amazing.

Uh, are you actively learning a language right now?

Are you maintaining, but I guess in your work, like you just said, you are maintaining, but are you kind of going after a language right now?

Luca: To me there’s a big difference between system one, I call them system one and system two system.

One is the set of languages that, in which I’ve learned, let’s say I’ve reached a level which allows me to… I formed a core.

And once you form a core, I would say, for, you know, for the use of uh, for the sake of brevity and simplicity, uh, I would say that, um, the core is when I reach a B2, let’s say.

Uh, but, um, I have, let’s say eight of them that are in this system, system one.

And then I have, uh, three that I’m actively pursuing and they are Hungarian.

Danish, uh, and Greek.

So every day I try to learn three languages at the same time, although it’s a little bit difficult, but, uh, that’s what I am actively pursuing.

These are the three languages, and then you have the other languages in which, I just live them,

I just use them in multiple ways.

And I, in this way I maintain and I even improve them.

But these are two separate systems.

Elle: Okay.

Wow.

So Hungarian, sorry, Hungarian, Danish.

And.

The other language…

Luca: And Greek.

Greek, Hungarian, Danish.

Elle: Very different languages.

Luca: Indeed.

I do things, the stage they find themselves, um, uh, in these languages, defines the way I learn them.

So actively pursuing them means to sit down and to do some what I call deliberate practice in order to learn, while the other ones I can just use them, simple practice.

Well, deliberate practice is something that requires intention and attention, to sit down and with the specific aim of learning, saving words, practicing with a, with a tandem or a tutor, which is a slightly different way of doing things than just maintaining languages.

Elle: Wow.

Um, now I know obviously with the pandemic projects, events are a little strange and different this year, but, uh, is there anything in the works for you Luca for the rest of 2021?

Any interesting projects?

Luca: Yes indeed.

I’m working on a course.

So I’m working on producing the, my, the first course on, you know, language learning.

I won’t tell you what this is about, but it’s a, it’s a cool course.

And then I will, the next one is to work on the book I’ve been talking about for the last 10 years, and it’s about time for me to get it out, and then let’s see.

I’ve just figured it out I need to do one thing at a time, and I think these are the two biggest projects for this year.

And then let’s see what 2022 brings, will bring.

Elle: Amazing.

Wow.

Well, that is exciting, a book.

Wow.

Um, well thank you so much, Luca, for joining us today.

I know that our viewers, listeners will have, they’ll just find it very, very interesting.

And, um, maybe we can chat again one day for the podcast.

Um…

Luca: It would be my pleasure.

Elle: Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Luca: Thank you, Elizabeth.

Bye.

Bye bye.

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In part two of their chat on the anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic Mark and Elle talk about how this shared experience may shape social norms, pandemic experiences of people they know and viscous raccoons!

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Elle: …because no one else, you know, everyone else wants to stay healthy.

Thank you very much.

Mark: For sure.

And I wonder, you know, while with, with all the mask wearing everything is down.

Mask wearin, obviously paying more attention to not being as gross as you say.

And, uh, even when you are near people, trying to maintain more distance.

Elle: Yes.

Yeah.

Not a bad thing, you know, like in, we’ve both lived in Japan and masks are the norm there.

If you feel even a little sick, you wear a mask.

I remember this time last year, I was an early adopter I guess you could say of mask wearing,

so I’d go down to Safeway in my mask and people would look at me like I was crazy.

I felt that way.

Maybe it was just me.

But I do feel as though at the beginning there was, there was definitely some…

Mark: No question.

Elle: Hm, do you, do you really need that mask?

That seems a bit extreme, but now of course, it’s commonplace.

Mark: Yeah and I remember thinking, you should wear a mask.

You feel self-conscious wearing a mask because you’ve never worn one.

Most people aren’t wearing them.

And I remember being in the bank with my mask on talking to you, there’s a, there’s a… A lot of banks will have someone at the front that’s like welcoming people or whatever it was.

And, um, eh, like she was not that young, this lady I’m like, she didn’t have a mask on I’m like, why don’t you have a mask on?

Elle: It’s interesting that the different approaches to this.

I had a naturopath appointment I remember a couple of months ago.

The naturopath’s mother.

Um, so my naturopath is in her seventies, her mother works the reception.

So this is a woman in her nineties and she wasn’t wearing a mask.

So I came in with a mask and there’s a station for, you know, hand sanitizing, but she had no mask on.

I wanted to say, one: why are you here?

And two, just at least wear a mask.

But yeah, it’s, she didn’t feel the need.

She obviously felt safe.

Mark: Yeah, it is interesting.

It is interesting.

I…what I wonder is, given the prevalence of masks now, has it been long enough that like in Asia, in the future, when people are sick, will they put a mask on?

I mean, they should, but, but will they?

Like… it’s still going to be… There will have to be some trends setters there I think.

To kind of make that part of part of the culture.

Like it is there in Asia, but I mean, I have no question that, or there is no question that it has to, has to has to work.

I mean, in Asia where I guess they, I mean, they have so many more people in, in, uh, smaller spaces.

I think that they obviously must have a significant impact.

We’ll see, we’ll see if that’s one of the changes that ends up lasting.

I have my doubts.

Elle: Yeah, I did too, actually, but we’ll see.

Time will tell.

So um, we’re coming into spring into summer now, thankfully.

Uh, do you have any… and restrictions are loosening, obviously we have the, um, vaccine, uh, how is your summer looking?

Different from last summer

I imagine.

Do you have any plans?

Mark: Well, last summer we were planning to do a trip to Europe actually.

Uh, uh, so that kinda got put on hold.

And then we thought about, or talked about trying to do it this year, but the consensus was, well, there’s no point going if it’s going to be half, half open or whatever, like it’s… might as well, wait another other.

So that, um, realistically, no real other plans for the summer.

Going to be local and, um.

There, it’s going to be more sort of, I guess, last minute, I mean, maybe go, who knows, whether to… yeah or go to the Okanagan or something, um, otherwise just be around.

I mean, it’s such a nice time of year, right?

Don’t tend to normally travel that much in the summer because it’s so, so nice here.

Um, the odd, you know, visit to friends up the Cunshine coast, uh, trip like that, but, um, tend to be around.

Uh, so no, no real plans.

How about you?

Elle: I think we might try… we, um, I have a two year old son and, uh, we, uh, thinking maybe trying to go camping on Keats Island with him just for one night this year, do you know Keats Island?

Mark: It’s nearby, like by whatever Gambier, Keats, it’s all over there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So kind of, I don’t know, like a half hour boat ride from West Vancouver.

Um, yeah, so we’ll see.

I don’t know how, I don’t know if, the logistics of camping with a…we’ve never camped with him before, and the logistics of camping with a two year old.

I don’t know… who is like very high energy and like doesn’t sleep at the best of times.

Elle: How do you…

Mark: I was gonna say…

Elle: Do you lock them in the tent ?

Mark: I foresee some sleep challenges for everybody.

Elle: Yeah, for everyone.

Mark: I kind of feel like it’s kind of what camping… the image of camping is that anyway.

Birds chirping at four in the morning and stuff.

That’s maybe just me.

Elle: No, it’s yeah, it’s tough.

The last time we, we camped on Keats we had Sailor, uh, our dog was with us and there were raccoons around the tent all night.

So she just growled and barked all night.

It got to a point where, because we could hear them scratching around.

I’m like, Oh, it’s just mice or something.

I was like “Sailor, my dog, there’s nothing there.”

And I, I put the flashlight on and there was the biggest raccoon I’ve ever seen just standing in front of the tent, like ready.

It was funny days later, but we didn’t sleep at all and so it wasn’t, it was kind of not worth it because I was just miserable and tired.

But it’s a beautiful place, Keats Island.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been.

Mark: I’ve been to Gambier, I’ve been to Bowen but I haven’t been to Keats.

Elle: It’s very, yeah, they’re all very much the same.

Just beautiful rocky little beach and gorgeous other islands in the distance.

Mark: The thing with raccoons is how unfazed they are by people.

They just do not care at all.

They look at you like, “what?”

Elle: This is my Island.

Yeah.

And they can be vicious.

Yeah.

I lived in the West End of Vancouver and, uh, There were, uh, around the time I was living there, there were raccoon attacks.

People would walk out of their apartment to go to work and the raccoons would just run up to them and attack them.

Mark: Yeah.

We had a friend that got bitten by a raccoon, but she, the raccoon was kind of attacking her dog and the dog laid down and played dead.

And she’s like worried that her dog was getting, um, yeah.

And so she went over and kind of, I can’t remember if she kicked the raccoon or tried to throw it off her dog or whatever she did.

So the raccoon bit her and then, and then I think went, ran off whatever, and then she picked the dog up and was, and there’s blood on the dog.

And, but the dog was fine.

It was her blood.

Elle: Oh no.

Did she have to get a, like a rabies shot?

Mark: I think so.

I think so you don’t want to get bitten by a raccoon.

Uh, so you get stitches and rabies shots and… yeah.

Elle: Wow, where was this, in Vancouver?

Mark: West Vancouver.

Yeah.

Yeah

Elle: Okay.

Good to know.

Don’t just don’t mess with West Vancouver raccoons.

I think most dogs, they like to bark at raccoons, but I don’t think they really chase them down.

They know better.

Mark: Yeah.

Elle: Yeah.

Yeah.

Would not be smart for sure.

Well, hopefully we are back in the office pretty soon when we get our vaccines.

Life can go back to whatever normal looks like after this pandemic.

Mark: And I think even if as, as more at risk people get their shots I think that the hospitals will have fewer patients and obviously fewer people die.

I mean, at a certain point, if there’s nobody in hospital and nobody dying, then maybe they relax things anyway, because you know, if, if everybody else is most likely just going to get sick, then maybe… although you hear the stories of the long-haulers or whatever.

Friend, or a guy I know that his son got it,

and, um, wasn’t that sick maybe for a couple of days, felt a bit sick and, uh, but lost his sense of smell.

That was in November, still doesn’t have it back.

Uh, otherwise feels fine, but I, you know, you’d be worried that you’re never gonna be able to smell again.

Elle: Yeah.

And that must have, that affects your eating and everything.

Oh, that’s, that’s terrible.

How old is he?

Mark: 19 I think, the kids.

Something like that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I think all things being equal, better get the vaccine.

Elle: Yeah.

A hundred percent.

Yeah, exactly.

You might not be someone who reacts badly in the moment, but yet these, this is happening and we don’t know who… like you say, he’s 19.

Mark: Should be fine, right?

And kind of was fine, except he has lost his sense of smell.

Yeah.

Elle: Oh God.

Yeah.

Yeah.

My mum also lost her sense… she has it back though, when she had it, she lost her sense of smell and had a headache.

Um, but yeah.

Mark: Yeah so your, your mum had it.

That’s right.

I forgot that.

Elle: Um, my mum had it, my sister had it.

They’re both, uh, they both work in healthcare in the UK, so it was kind of, not inevitable, but they were high risk.

Mark: It just seems like it’s way more prevalent over there anyway.

I talked to my brother and his family and they know, like, I don’t know, 25 people that have had had it or whatever.

I mean, I don’t know anyone, like few people that I know of have had it, but no friend, I don’t know, real close acquaintance has had.

So it just itseems maybe we’ve been lucky here, I guess, just way less prevalent.

Elle: Exactly.

Yeah.

And I guess we’re less packed in, a place like Vancouver, as opposed to I think your brother’s in London?

Mark: Yeah, yeah, he is.

Yeah, hm.

Elle: Let’s get that vaccine and…. until the next pandemic.

Mark: Yeah, hopefully we’ll be set up better the next time.

Elle: Exactly yeah, it’ll be a breeze.

Yeah.

Well, thank you, Mark.

Interesting chat as always.

And, um, we will catch up again for the podcast I’m sure.

Mark: Ok, thanks Elle. For sure.

Elle: Thank you.

Mark: Bye-bye

Elle: bye.

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

One year into the COVID-19 pandemic and Mark and Elle chat about how life has changed, what they miss and how the world may look when it’s over.

This podcast is sponsored by LingQ.

If you’re learning English and want to study the transcript of this episode or any other episode, there is a link to the lesson on LingQ, L I N G Q, in the description.

LingQ is a language learning tool that allows you to turn anything in your target language into a lesson podcasts like this one: YouTube videos, Netflix shows, news articles, blog, posts, whatever it is you’re into.

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Elle: Hello everyone.

I am here with Mark Kaufmann for today’s episode.

Mark.

How are you doing on?

Mark: Great. Thanks.

Can’t complain.

Sun’s shining.

Elle: Yeah.

For once.

Here in Vancouver, for those of you who don’t know, that’s where we’re based.

It’s uh, It’s a rainforest we live in, so it’s pretty wet all the time, but, so, yeah, it’s nice to see the sun for sure.

Uh, I thought it might be interesting to talk about the pandemic.

Different angle though, because it’s been a year now since we’ve been in this situation.

So I thought it would be interesting to catch up, uh, and see first off how you’re doing, what’s changed in your life.

Um, So, yeah.

How are you doing?

Mark: I’m doing well.

I think as I look at myself in the video here, I realize that I probably don’t get my hair cut quite as much, or as often as I should, should be doing.

But, uh, yeah, it’s amazing that it’s, it’s been a year.

I don’t know why I didn’t, I, that surprises me in a way.

It doesn’t really feel like it’s been a year, but I guess it really, it has, cause it was I guess over a year ago that we stopped going into the office.

And, um, yeah.

Uh, yeah, I mean, I guess now we kind of hope that the end is in sight.

There’s some light at the end of the tunnel.

Hopefully the vaccines arrived before too long for us.

I think, um, elsewhere in the world, obviously they seem to be having a significant impact.

Elle: Yep. Yep.

Has Steve been vaccinated yet?

Actually, I haven’t asked Steve.

Mark: No, I think it’s pretty slow going here.

And, uh, they basically, um, I think 85 plus maybe are allowed to make appointments now for sort of vaccination maybe a week from now.

I think that’s the sort of where they are.

Uh, so realistically, Steve, uh, I think it’s, I think he’s hoping some mid-April ish.

Elle: Okay. Okay.

So next month, hopefully.

And then for people like us, who knows, I guess.

Younger, not immuno-compromised, hopefully… soon.

Mark: Well, they’re saying because here, because they’re saying they’re um going to split the doses.

Like not require two doses or at least allow four months time between doses that, uh, I think June or July by the end of July, everybody should have one dose, I think is what they’re saying.

We’ll see.

Elle: Okay. Okay.

And so you’re going into the office sometimes.

Mark: Every once in a while, but really very infrequently, you know, once every couple of weeks for a few hours.

Elle: I miss it.

Mark: Yeah.

Elle: Yeah.

Definitely.

Yeah, I do miss it.

I mean, for us, a lot of our team are, um, remote anyway.

So for a lot of them, this is how they interact anyway, just through Zoom calls, Skype calls.

But for those of us who are based in the office, yeah, I know everyone’s missing, you know, the impromptu chats and meetings and just having someone to talk to in the workday, you know.

Mark: And, and, and somewhere to go, someone to go, like, if you ask me the biggest difference… like the actual work we do, I think because we always had so many remote people and obviously we’re all remote now, uh, we have systems and means of communication that we use.

And, um, most of our time is spent on those using those, uh, systems.

And it’s not that different, the actual work, but obviously in the office, we, we see each other, we interact socialy,

we have somewhere to go.

You know right now, um, you kinda wake up, you start working and before you know it it’s three in the afternoon and you haven’t left the house.

You haven’t been outside.

You haven’t… uh, at which point you’re like, I got to get outside, I gotta find something to do.

Elle: I find that too.

I haven’t seen the sun, especially because here we often just don’t see the sun anyway

even if you’re outside for weeks on end, I need some vitamin D sorry, looking very pasty, but spring is coming at least.

So that’s good.

Mark: Yeah.

That’s the biggest thing.

I think it’s, it’s probably learning that you have to figure out a different way of, of, uh, planning your day.

Like yeah, go out.

First of all, when it gets dark at four, you don’t want to wait until, you know, four or five if we’re going to do something go earlier when it’s daylight.

Um, otherwise, yeah.

Kind of miss it.

Now it’s… it’s between well today we changed our clocks backward or forward or whatever, whichever way it is so that, uh, it’s…

Elle: Spring forward.

Mark: Spring forward. Okay.

Um, so now it’s, it’s obviously lighter later.

Uh that’s nice, but I guess those are, that’s the biggest thing.

I think obviously we’ll see.

Well, how, what happens with the office?

I think they’re, they’re predicting a lot of people will either not go back or we’ll go back on a more, uh, eratic or not eratic, but a less like, um, consistent basis, maybe part-time or they’re thinking you know, half the people would come one day, half the people another, those companies that have large space requirements, I think.

And therefore they can reduce their requirement if people aren’t in full time all the time.

So it will be interesting to see what, how much of this… I was looking at our article today talking about how education, this has really spurred education to, to go more online and, and, uh, um, you know, advance a bit with the times because I think education has very much been a laggard in terms of, uh, adapting to technology, at least formalized education and, and suggesting then you know that some of these things will,

will now become more available.

Like, uh, ability to learn online.

And, um, you know, some, some, even some classes online, they talked about how potential to, if, you know, if some students are interested in learning, their example was Portuguese, they could have one Portuguese teacher for the district and therefore they can offer it.

Maybe just that online versus, you know, previously were the only classes they offered were those within their, their building.

So anyway, it’s, it’s interesting.

It will be interesting to see in all areas, how much, how much, I guess, change there, there ends up being and how much sort of people will just go back to the way it was before.

Elle: I wonder.

I feel like in a lot of cases, it’s just going to be, there’ll be a time where things are a little different and then we’ll just kind of drift into the way things were.

I don’t know.

We’ll see.

But some things have, have to stay different, I think.

Um, but yeah.

Yeah.

I kind of feel like a lot of stuff will go back to the way it was before.

Like it just isn’t long enough for, to significantly change those patterns.

But there, there, there will be some change.

There’s no question like um, you know, some of the things I think in health, like the tele, tele-health like, why was that not available before?

Mark: Yeah, for sure.

That’s been great.

Yeah.

A lot of, a lot of appointments can just be over the phone.

There’s no way to go anywhere.

Right.

So it just, yeah.

It makes everything a lot easier.

Yeah.

I feel like socially, we will stay different, uh, in terms of, you know, there’s like a shared anxiety that we have now about touching anything, touching each other, touching our faces, you know?

Um, so I, I think that’s a positive.

I think maybe people will just be less gross, wash their hands more and if they’re sick, stay home because no one else, you know, everyone else wants to stay healthy.

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

In today’s episode Elle chats with Matt of the YouTube channel Matt Vs Japan about his journey to Japanese fluency, how he dealt with setbacks and his exciting new project for 2021.

Elle: This podcast is sponsored by LingQ.

If you’re learning English and want to study the transcript of this episode or any other episode, there’s a link to the lesson on LingQ, l I N G Q in the description.

LingQ is a language learning tool that allows you to turn anything in your target language, into a lesson.

Podcasts like this one, YouTube videos, Netflix shows, news articles, blog, posts, whatever it is you’re into.

One click on the link browser extension, and you have a language lesson to work through translating words and phrases you don’t know.

Hi everyone.

And welcome to the English LingQ podcast.

Today I am joined by a special guest, Matt Vs Japan.

How are you, Matt?

Matt: I am doing pretty great.

How about yourself?

Elle: I’m doing good.

I’m doing good.

Thank you.

And thank you for joining us.

So for those listeners, viewers who don’t know who you are, Matt versus Japan, tell us a little bit about your YouTube channel.

Matt: Yeah, well, so I guess the very short version of my origin story is when I was in high school, I decided that I wanted to learn Japanese and I wanted to get really, really good at it.

So I found a website called All Japanese All the Time.

That inspired me to really dedicate my whole life to learning Japanese.

Uh, so I did that for about five years, reached a pretty good level.

Six months of those five years was spent in Japan, but all the rest was spent, uh, here in Portland, Oregon, where I am right now.

And after getting pretty good at Japanese in five years, I started a YouTube channel to kind of help other people who wanted to use the type of, kind of unorthodox methods that I used to get good at Japanese without being inside of Japan.

Elle: Hmm.

Excellent.

I have to say I, I used to live in Japan.

I know a little, but not like you speak Japanese!

I have to say I’m so impressed.

You sound Japanese to me when I listened.

It’s it’s crazy.

And you seem to speak with such ease too.

It’s clear that you’ve put in many, many hours.

Um, I wonder, so was it always Japanese for you?

Like did you grow up interested in languages in general.

Was it always a fascination with Japan and the Japanese language?

Matt: Actually for most of my life up until I got interested in Japanese languages were pretty much not on my radar at all.

In fact, starting in middle school, I was forced to take Spanish classes.

Well, actually I was forced to take a language class.

I took Spanish by default because it was the easiest one and I was probably the worst kid in the class.

I’m pretty sure the teacher hated me because I was always goofing around and never paying attention.

And I used to have this weird perverse pride, uh, where I would brag about how little I had learned, like, hey, I managed to get through this whole year and I don’t even know what, you know, tango means or whatever.

So, uh, yeah, I was the opposite type of person.

And in fact, there were some kids in, in my middle school and my high school who were really into anime, but I kind of viewed them as the uncool kids and I wanted to be a cool, popular kid.

So I was like, oh no, I can’t go anywhere near that.

But, yeah.

So then when I was in high school, actually it was freshman year of high school, ninth grade for people who don’t live in America, uh, that I became interested in Japanese.

And for the first portion of that year of school, I was taking Spanish again, because you had to take a language in school and I was doing really awfully.

And so then when I just had this epiphany that I’m really interested in Japanese, and I want, I want to do whatever I can to learn more about the language and culture.

I went to my Spanish teacher to ask her, to let me transfer to Japanese.

And she was like, well, you can’t even do Spanish.

There’s no way you’re going to be able to do Japanese, it’s way harder.

But, uh, I convinced them to let me switch and yeah, that was it.

Elle: That’s great that you had the opportunity. So there was Spanish, sorry. There was Japanese also in your high school. That’s great.

Matt: Yeah, lucky in that regard.

Elle: Yeah, for sure.

So you totally fell in love with the, I guess the culture of the language, decided to go full on.

And then, so you said you were in Japan for six months at some point, was that after high school?

Matt: That was during high school.

So about a year after I first became interested in Japanese, I took a three week trip to Japan with other people from my school.

It was kind of a program through my school.

And that was really fun, really excited and made me even more convinced that I wanted to pursue Japanese.

And then the next year after that, I applied for a study abroad program that I just found online and went to Japan during my junior year of high.

Elle: And whereabouts were you in Japan?

Matt: I was in Gunma prefecture, which is only an hour or two away from Tokyo, but it also doesn’t really have anything interesting happening.

So Japanese people, when they hear that I went to Gunam, they’ll be like, why why’d you go to Gunma?

But, uh, I had no say in the matter, that was just where the program sent me.

Elle: Right. And you just had a fantastic time, any stand out kind of memories or experiences for you?

Matt: Actually, I didn’t have such a good time during my second trip to Japan.

And it really, what happened was, well, a few things, first of all, the program that I went on was I, it was basically, or let me put it this way.

So when I went to Japan, I was going to a Japanese high school.

And from the Japanese high school’s, point of view, the purpose of having an American come and stay at their school was that it was going to aid the English studies of all the Japanese students there.

So the school that I was sent to was very focused on having their students learn English.

So it wasn’t really structured from, from the perspective of making the American have a good experience, because, you know, When I arrived in Japan, I didn’t speak Japanese very well yet.

So, uh, I couldn’t understand any of the classes.

Like they just threw me into the same classes that the Japanese people were taking.

So I was taking, you know, biology, physics, uh, math, all in Japanese.

So it was complete jibberish and because the high school, uh, was a very, uh, it was a very serious school that was meant for students who wanted to go to a prestigious college.

Most of the students were very serious about studying and, you know, weren’t the most kind of like laid back type of people.

So they were kind of busy with their studies.

Like my host brother would always come home from school and just study for multiple hours.

And so, uh, and also they didn’t speak English and I didn’t speak Japanese.

So we couldn’t really communicate.

So all of this kind of led to me having a pretty isolated experience.

And so that, half of it, I would say was not really my fault.

But there are another component was that I was very focused on studying Japanese and I had a very kind of a limited view of what studying Japanese meant because I had been following the advice on this website that I mentioned before, alljapaneseallthetime.com, which talked about doing things like, uh, watching a lot of anime and reading a lot of books and creating a lot of flashcards.

And I just kind of felt like it was actually more efficient for me to learn from that type of media than from real life people.

Because on media, you can pause, you can rewind, you can look things up more easily, whereas you can’t do that with a real life person.

So I kind of felt, yeah, that I’m better off just going to the library and reading books than trying to, you know, join a club and like play soccer with Japanese people.

And I think there was some truth to that from a pure language learning efficiency perspective, but also from another more obvious perspective.

I probably would’ve, it would’ve been more of a, a net positive influence on my life if I just didn’t focus so much on lung Japanese during the short period of time I had in Japan and instead focused on just experiencing the culture, connecting with people and broadening my worldview.

So if I could go back, I would’ve done it differently, but, um, Okay.

That’s uh, that’s how things turned out.

So yeah, I actually ended up coming, coming back to America earlier than originally planned.

The program was supposed to be a 10 month program, but eventually just got so isolated and depressed that I decided I want to go home and be with my family.

So, yeah, that was an interesting turn of events in my personal little story, but I eventually just decided that I still felt some sort of deep connection to the Japanese culture and language.

And I’ve come so far that I just want to keep on going with it, even though I had that kind of a nasty experience.

Elle: Yeah. Good for you. It just goes to show how powerful that connection was after having such a negative experience that you, you kept on and, are where you are today. So that’s great.

So you talk about, um, you previously you talked about having an unorthodox approach to learning Japanese and I, I guess you just spoke briefly on it just then, do you mean like using anime, which I guess is kind of not frowned upon, but it’s a non traditional way.

People might say, it’s not the best way to learn Japanese because you know, you’ll learn the wrong kind of Japanese, more colloquial kind of language.

Um, so that was your main focus then when you started to study Japanese seriously?

Matt: Yeah, anime was definitely the main focus of what I was studying from, but in terms of what made my method unorthodox, I would say that it was really these two components of first of all, having very little formal structure.

So I basically learned the most common words and studied some basic grammar.

But after that, I just dove into authentic content and I was learning things as they came up in the content without using something like a textbook or a teacher or something like that.

So I was really learning in this kind of organic, chaotic way of taking things as, as they came up.

So that’s one aspect to it.

The other aspect of it, of the way I learned was that the emphasis is very strongly on input and comprehension in the beginning and not so much on speaking.

So I was really just trying to get to the point where I could understand Japanese well before I was really concerned with trying to produce Japanese myself.

Elle: How long did you study before you started to speak? Do you remember?

Matt: It was around three years before I started speaking regularly.

And a lot of that was just how the circumstances kind of played out because, well, I will say so early on when I had that six month period in Japan, obviously I was speaking a lot.

I was in Japan, but after I came back, Uh, I didn’t speak for probably a year or two after that.

And that was partially just because I was in America.

I didn’t have any Japanese friends, so there weren’t really any opportunities to speak.

And then around the three year mark, I, and by the way, the way that I’m counting my time, might be a little weird.

Cause the first two years I was just taking classes and not starting very seriously.

And then two years then I started the all Japanese all the time period.

So when I was three years into the all Japanese, all the time period, I transferred into a four year university where there was a lot of Japanese foreign exchange students.

And so that naturally gave me the opportunity to use my Japanese because suddenly I could kind of join this community of Japanese speakers.

So I started speaking really regularly after that.

And I found that at that time I could speak really naturally without a lot of effort, even though I hadn’t really spoken since I was in Japan multiple years back and back then I could hardly speak at all. So. Kind of was like, uh, all the input naturally led to that result of being able to use it myself.

Elle: Hmm. So what advice then if you had to boil it down.

I know that’s tough to do, what advice do you have for anyone who is because Japanese is known to be a really difficult language to learn.

What advice do you have for anyone thinking about dabbling or starting to study Japanese?

Matt: I mean, it kind of depends on what the person’s goals are because, you know, getting, if you want to get really good at Japanese, like to the point where you can just comfortably watch your favorite anime with no subtitles and it’s not any extra work or you can go and have a meaningful conversation with a Japanese person about, uh, you know, any, any topic spontaneously, that is going to take multiple years of really committing yourself and dedicating yourself to study.

So for, for those people, I would say if your final goal is to get really good, then I think taking an approach of focusing on comprehension and getting really good at understanding the language before worrying about speaking is going to serve you really well.

But if you’re kind of, coming at it, as you know, it’s kind of a hobby, something you do on the side.

It’d be cool if you could, you know, speak a few words here or there, when you take a vacation to Japan.

You know, maybe you learn a couple of phrases that enrich your experience of anime, although you still have to use the subtitles, uh, in that case then, you know, taking a more maybe traditional approach where, you know, you, you learn something and then you try to practice using it or, you know, using an app or something or a normal textbook.

Will probably serve you well, because the thing about my approach is that the, the gains that you get are very delayed.

You know, like I said, it took me three years before I could speak really well.

When the, when that three-year point arrived, I could speak really well, much better than people who generally take a traditional approach.

Uh, but three years is a really long time to be waiting and fully dedicating yourself to this thing.

So I’d say it’s probably going to be helpful for people to think about what they’re goals are starting off, because I think a lot of people don’t really think about that.

Elle: Hmm, I agree with that for sure.

Um, do you speak any other languages, or are you all about the Japanese?

Do you remeber any Spanish from high school?

Matt: I don’t remember any Spanish from high school, but I have been working on Mandarin, uh, on and off for a couple of years.

But for the last couple of months, I’ve been more consistent with it.

So that’s, that’s been pretty.

Elle: And how’s that going? I guess you have the Kanji from Japanese to help you.

Matt: That definitely helps a lot.

And, uh, overall, uh, it was, yeah, like I said, I was on and off for a couple of years because, you know, I’m very interested in Mandarin and I want to learn the language, but I don’t necessarily want to dedicate my whole life to it like I did with Japanese.

And because have always been a kind of all or nothing personality type, it’s taken me a while to learn how to still do Chinese, without trying to do it all the time.

And it feels like just in the past year, I finally figured out how to do that.

And so now things are going pretty smoothly.

And it’s, it’s been a lot of fun.

I still base my approach off the, the approach that I took for Japanese.

So I’m not really worried about speaking.

I’m mostly watching Chinese dramas with Chinese subtitles and as I go, I’ll look words up and then I’ll make flashcards juror to remember words.

And yeah, I’m kind of at the point now where I can watch a drama and follow the plot if there’s Chinese subtitles, because you know, they, for a lot of people, the characters are probably one of the most difficult aspects of the language, but for me it makes it way easier cause I know them from Japanese.

So with subtitles, I can understand pretty, pretty good amount, much less when it’s, it’s just listening, but…

but yeah, it’s been a lot of fun.

Elle: Excellent. And so what is, uh, what’s in the works for Matt Vs Japan in 2021?

Anything interesting happening?

Matt: Yeah.

Well, so right now I’m working on this project called Refold.

We kind of launched a couple of months ago.

So it’s kind of just taking the method that I used to learn Japanese and kind of adding a more formal structure to it so that there is some structure within the chaos.

Cause like I said, my personal, uh, method of learning Japanese was very chaotic and organic.

It was just consuming, whatever, whatever Japanese content I felt like consuming, learning, whatever came up.

And it worked but I think for a lot of people, they feel, they feel very overwhelmed by just the.

You know, Nebula nebulosity of this approach.

So we’re creating a more structured kind of outline for how to learn organically through native content.

And so we, when I say we it’s, I’m doing this with my friend, Ethan, so it’s the two of us mainly right now.

And so we have a website up refold.la that has, um, uh, what we call a roadmap for taking this immersion style of, of learning and it breaks the language learning process down into four stages.

And the guide right now is what we call language agnostic.

Meaning it’s not for any specific language, it’s just how to learn any language.

And so we want to start partnering with people who have gotten to a really high level in various languages and creating kind of language specific guides for the same underlying

methodology that has specific resources and, and has a, you know, methodology for tackling challenges, unique to various languages.

So hopefully, yeah, we’ll, we’ll have some of these language specific guides coming out, uh, later down this year.

Elle: Excellent. That sounds great.

I think that’s great because like you say it is… a lot of people I think could benefit from that, this kind of language learning, just cherry picking, but you know what you enjoy, but it is chaotic, like you say, and it takes a special, I think, kind of person maybe to stick with it.

And so a lot of people would benefit from having structure to it. So…

Matt: yeah, like I think it’s, it’s definitely never going to be for everybody, but I think, yeah, we can broaden out the scope of what type of person it’s going to work for by creating a more,

a structured approach to it and better instruction.

Elle: Excellent. Well, I look forward to checking it out.

Um, thank you so much, Matt, for joining us today.

It’s been a pleasure.

Matt: Thanks so much for having me. It was fun.

Elle: Cheers And, uh, maybe we’ll chat again soon.

Matt: Yeah. Anytime.

Elle: Bye. Cheers. Bye bye.

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

Steve Kaufmann had his own run in with cancel culture on Twitter recently. Check out the latest episode of the English LingQ Podcast to find out what happened and what Steve thinks of cancel culture.

Elle: Hi everyone.

And welcome to the English LingQ podcast with me, Elle.

Remember you can, if you’re studying English, you can study the transcript of this episode or any episode.

I will add the link to the lesson on LingQ, L I N G Q in the description every time.

LingQ is a language learning tool that allows you to learn from any content you’re interested in.

So podcasts like this one, YouTube videos, Netflix shows movies, uh, blog posts, whatever you’re into.

Just download the browser extension and you were one click away from making a language lesson out of any content that you’re interested in.

So today I am joined again, but Steve Kaufmann, Steve, how are you?

Steve: I’m fine, Elle.

How are you?

Elle: I’m good.

Thank you.

I’m good.

I thought a really kind of controversial topic and relevant one that we could chat about today is this whole idea of cancel culture.

Steve: Right, well I think it’s a good, sorry.

It’s a good topic because I think it’s… some people like to shy away from controversial subjects, but I think a lot of people have different opinions on it.

So to that extent, maybe a lot of people will find this conversation.

Interesting.

And if something is interesting, then, uh, a, you’re more likely to listen, b, it’s good for your language learning because you’re engaged, you know?

Elle: Yeah, yeah.

For sure.

It’s a, I guess a relatively new term cancel culture.

Um, I’ll just define it.

Um, I mean, it’s pretty self-explanatory I suppose, but so cancel culture is this idea that any person in the public sphere makes a mistake, present or past, it seems a lot of, a lot of times something that a person has done in… way in the past is, is, uh, scrutinized.

And that person is canceled.

So they are no longer, um, popular, people don’t want to associate with them.

They may get dropped from labels or deals, all kinds of things.

So, um, you’ve had some maybe experienced lately with cancel culture on Twitter.

Tell us about that.

Steve: Well, I mean, I think, uh, well, in, in my case, uh, I said something which a lot of people didn’t agree with.

And then there was this great flurry of activity and they sort of egg their friends and everyone else to come on my Twitter feed and, and attack me.

Uh, which is fine.

I, I think fundamentally the, I think the biggest problem sort of that underlines or underlies.

In other words, that the core problem is this idea that we can’t disagree with each other.

So, I mean, obviously if in your past behavior you did something very bad.

Uh, you robbed a bank or whatever, uh, then, uh, you know, and that’s normally not the case.

It normally has to do with, uh, you know, sexual harassment or something like that.

And, uh, so people may not want to associate with you because they consider you a person of, you know, questionable morals or something.

Which is fine, which is fine.

If, if I, uh, if I know of someone who behaved in a way that I consider to be immoral, even in the past, and I may not want to associate with them.

So that doesn’t bother me.

What bothers me is when canceled culture is used to say, this person says something that I don’t agree with.

And because they have a position that I don’t agree with, therefore we should all gang up on him or her, or flood their Twitter feed with all kinds of attacks.

Uh, or we won’t let that person, say that person is a professor at a university,

uh, that person therefore should be fired.

Uh, or someone is coming to give a talk and we don’t agree with our position, therefore we should all boycot and demonstrate.

In other words, shouting people down, basically.

And, and I think this is a fundamental problem in our society.

Is this basic intolerance for disagreement.

Why can’t you just disagree and explain why you think you’re right and the other person can explain why they think they’re right.

Like we needn’t cancel each other out.

Let’s listen to each other instead.

Elle: Hmm.

I agree for sure.

Uh, out of interest, what was the article?

That it was a news article that you’d commented on that some people didn’t

like…

Steve: Well yeah, there was, there was a news article that said that university students in Saskatchewan, which is a province in Canada for those who are not from Canada, uh, that they were, uh, eating more unhealthy food and drinking more alcohol because of the, uh, restrictions the, uh, as a result of COVID.

And, uh, I just expressed, I felt that this, you know, I didn’t have tremendous sympathy for them and maybe I was wrong, but I just felt that in our society, when we consider all the people who are suffering from COVID: older people in long-term care homes, their family, that can’t see them.

A lot of these people are dying without seeing their families.

You’ve got people who have lost their jobs and in some cases it could be a single mum, the sole supporter of the family, whatever, compared to all of these people, uh, a student at university, uh, is, is not someone who, you know, it attracts a lot of sympathy from me.

They should, in my view, uh, they’re at university, most of which is paid for by the government.

Uh, they’re presumably they’re surrounded by books.

They can get online, they can communicate with their friends online.

In fact, if you’re living in Saskatchewan, you can get out.

There’s lots… i, in fact, Googled on the internet, there’s lots of cross country ski trails in both Regina and Saskatoon, which are the major cities where the universities are.

Get out, get fit, get, uh, like I have this, um, uh, high intensity interval training app.

Every morning, seven minutes puts me through my paces.

Like, you’re young, you have your whole life ahead of you.

Uh, older people may not have that many years ahead of them and they’re facing a far worse situation.

So I didn’t express much sympathy for these students.

Well, bunch of students came at me.

I was at home and stuff like that.

Elle: Right then it turns into, you know, I read of course, I”m part of the LingQ team, part of the marketing team,

so I read some of the Tweets and a lot of it, then you find turns into an us versus them.

So in your case, it was, you know, you’re a boomer.

You don’t understand the…

Steve: yeah, well, that’s, that’s the other thing is, is that the part of the… cancel culture began with the people who feel they are quote “progressive”.

Okay.

So if I have a position that’s quote “progressive”, you’re not allowed to disagree with it, and it’s very progressive to be gay, black, you know, anything that’s considered historically sort of victims.

And of course they were, and perhaps still are victims of discrimination and, uh, fewer opportunities and all of this is true, but that doesn’t mean that someone who like me I’m like I had it on a number of occasions.

If I get into a little disagreement, then I’m just an old white, you know, and I won’t use the term.

So like, what’s wrong with being old, old, white male that’s bad, like right away.

If you’re old white male, then that means that you’re basically not to be listened to.

Well, um, I don’t know nothing wrong with being old.

Uh, you’ve certainly experienced a lot more of the world than a younger person has.

Um, I think there’s an excessive obsession with race in everything.

Uh, I don’t think whites are better or worse than any other group of people.

And so I think the, the biggest part of this cancel culture has come from the universities where certain quote, “progressive” views are the only ones that are considered acceptable.

And anyone who challenges these views is bad.

So yeah, I’m not in favor of that.

Elle: Hmm.

That makes me think of a controversial Canadian that, um, I would love to hear her opinion on actually.

Um, so Jordan Peterson, I’m sure you’re aware of Jordan Peterson.

Um, so yeah, he’s a. Go ahead.

No, go ahead.

What do you think of him?

Steve: Well, when he first appeared on the scene, I saw him in an interview with this woman on the BBC, I think, and he was very good.

Like he’s a good debater and, uh, whatever she seemed to say, he was able to answer.

And, um, you know, he, he, I guess he first got some notoriety when he refused to use these new pronouns that some university, you know, officials at the university of Toronto decided you can’t go, he or she, you have to use some of these artificially invented pronouns.

And he was opposed to that.

And I agreed with him, uh, you know, we have our language.

I mean, where are you going to stop?

You know, uh, in French they have gender for, you know, la table or whatever.

Like, so now we can’t have that.

We can’t have a female table.

It’s gotta be, you know, neuter table or something.

It’s just silly.

It affects so few people, so we’re going to force everybody.

And I must say I’m very allergic when I see, anywhere, you know, somebody gives their name.

I’m Steve and my pronouns are he and him.

That’s just ridiculous.

In my opinion, it’s ridiculous.

It may come to be that that becomes accepted and the norm, whatever, but people are quite entitled to push back against this.

Uh, I don’t agree.

I don’t want to use, I will not use those pronouns.

Sorry.

Uh, however, the more exposure Peterson got, the more, it became evident that he was a bit of a kook.

Uh, and, uh, I’m not sure he’s totally psychologically balanced.

Elle: He’s had some issues lately, I’ve read.

Steve: Some issues.

And he also was, you know, there is this, you know, within say Western society, because,

because of sort of old white male is being challenged.

So then there’s this pushback, which is to suggest that everything good in the world came from old white males.

Like the European Christian, all this stuff is good.

We have, you know, provided these wonderful values and Western sort of civilization and stuff like that, which is actually very myopic, because everything that we have in the world,

or which is part of Western civilization is sort of an accumulation of influences.

You know, technological influences from China, influences through the middle East.

I’m, now I’m learning Persian, Arabic.

And you read about how developed even central Asia, which we not consider a bit of a backwater economically,,

at least they were far more advanced.

Uh, because they were sitting there sort of on the crossroads of, you know, China influences from China and India.

You know, our mathematics, our science, our are so-called, you know, they, they love to talk about Judeo Christian values because, you know, whereas the values that underpin our society in the West are not Judaeo-Christian they’re in fact pagan, because it was the Greeks and the Romans that gave us our laws gave us, you know, the first

efforts at democracy, which didn’t include everyone in society, but there was this idea that you can have, uh, you know, uh, democratic, although limited suffrage, uh, system.

And so much of everything that we have is that it’s an amalgamation of influences from all over the world.

And this process is continuing.

So Jordan Peterson, he got up on his high horse about how wonderful, you know, the sort of, uh, you know, the white man’s burden kind of thing.

So there was more, the more I heard him speak the less I was impressed, but the first time I heard him speak challenging, sort of these, um, you know, conventional sort of attack it’s about, uh, uh, you know, protecting, you know, women are being unfairly…

he was making the point that in many professions where you have fewer women than men it’s because women are less interested in those professions.

I can’t remember all the arguments, but there were a lot of arguments like that.

And, and undoubtedly, historically, women have been disadvantaged.

So it’s, it’s a good thing that, uh, women are, I was saying, no, me too,

I want to, you know, learn mathematics or whatever.

And I certainly agree that, uh, women prime ministers, presidents can be as good, but they’re not necessarily better either.

They’re just made, should be there and have their equal opportunity and, and people should be open-minded to, to choosing, you know, either one or the other more based… and this gets back to this whole idea of even race.

You shouldn’t vote for someone like, and we have this in Canada that Chinese member of parliament says vote for me because I’m Chinese, uh, or you know, diversity.

So we must have X number of, uh, people of all different origins in the cabinet to reflect, uh, you know, the racial makeup of our society.

And I don’t agree with that at all.

I think you should just choose… but even in saying that there are people who would want to cancel me right away for saying.

Elle: Hm.

Yeah.

Oh for sure.

Steve: Yeah.

And in my companies, but in selling lumber, we have always had employees who were gay, uh quote “of color”, whatever that means.

I’m not sure what that means because the variations of color within every group can vary.

But people who are, could be identified as racial minorities, we’ve always had immigrants.

We’ve had everything.

And never did I hire someone because I wanted to have a diverse workforce.

That was never a consideration.

And we’ve had Sikhs.

We’ve had you name it.

I, we, and anyone working in our organization and I think most employers hire based on, can this person do the job?

Be they male, female, gay, Sikh, Chinese, African.

We just hired a programmer in Ghana.

Uh, to work, you know, uh, remotely, but on our project at LingQ.

We’re looking for the best people.

I think most people are.

So I think, uh, the, the, the sort of push for diversity and, and people of color, and we must do this and must do that.

That’s fine.

Have that position, but then don’t cancel out someone who pushes back and says, well, actually I don’t believe in hiring based on diversity.

I believe in hiring based on competence.

That’s something that’s a legitimate position.

Your position is you should hire based on diversity.

That’s fine.

You can, I’m not going to cancel you out because that’s what you think, but you shouldn’t cancel me out because I have a different perspective.

Elle: Fair enough.

That’s a very good point, actually.

Well, thank you, Steve.

I think we’re just about at time here.

This is, that was pretty interesting.

I hope that you don’t get cancelled for this.

Steve: Well, I hope we stir up some controversy.

Controversy is good.

Disagreement is good.

Elle: It is.

Steve: Rarely do you persuade the other person of your point of view.

However, you’re forced to think about why you think what you think, you have to listen to, what the other person has to say.

That person has to listen to you.

You may not move them.

They’re forced to justify their position.

So discussion, debate is good.

Elle: Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

Excellent.

Well, thank you so much, Steve.

Um, I’m sure we’ll chat again.

Thank you for joining me and bye.

Steve: Bye-bye.

Study this episode and any others from the LingQ English Podcast on LingQ! Click Here

In part two of their chat about wellness in 2021 Shelby and Elle talk more about how they’re staying off the booze and making time (or trying) to exercise.

Shelby: Yeah, we, um, my, we had some friends staying with us here and they were drinking like a nice bottle of red wine and talking about how good it was.

And I’m like hanging out, like I’m not gonna be able to taste it. And then.

I asked if I could take a sip and spit it out and… cause I just wanted to taste it.

Uh, at first my roommate said, no, cause it’s too expensive, but you know, that’s how you really taste wine, right?

Like if you were actually going to a wine tasting.

Elle: Yeah. True.

They didn’t let you?

So you didn’t do it?

Shelby: Um, this also reminds me that something that, um, can help, like has helped me.

And I don’t know, it sounds like you’re maybe kind of doing something like this is to have like another drink that you can have in place of the um, alcoholic beverage, like some, I really like sparkling wines, like Prosecco and stuff.

So, um, I’m really into like sparkling water that I can, and I can add fun stuff into it, like squeeze an orange into it or add some mint to it.

Or I made this, um, this like lavender extract last year, um, which is really nice, like put in some sparkling water too.

So something fun like that, that you can like actively enjoy while other people are drinking and I have found to be helpful.

Elle: And put it in a wine glass, just a fancy, fancy glass always helps I find that as well.

Shelby: Totally.

What is the, what’s the fake beer you’re drinking?

Elle: It’s just, um, a Canadian supermarket brand, um, blonde beer.

I I’ve tried a bunch of different ones.

Like Budweiser has one.

Um, I can’t remember the popular beer brands that have, Oh, Heineken has a fake, not a fake beer.

I guess it’s dealcoholized beer.

It Is beer, but just no alcohol in it.

Taken out afterwards?

I don’t know how it works.

Shelby: Right.

Elle: But yeah, this is just a, um, Canadian like supermarket brand and it is good.

I think it tastes great.

So…

Shelby: Good.

Elle: I drank that.

And some, I also drink kombucha, which I’ve always loved and used to make until it exploded in my kitchen.

And I, I don’t make it anymore.

Shelby: No!

Elle: It’s dangerous making kombucha.

Shelby: Did it really explode?

Elle: Yeah, it’s um, It ferments in a bottle and you need to put a lid on the bottle.

So the tea, I don’t know how, um, if you know much about it, there’s like a SCOBY, which is like a bacteria, yeast, bacteria chunk.

It’s kind of gross looking and you put a sugary tea in to a glass bottle with the SCOBY and the SCOBY eats the sugar and, um, ferments.

Um, the drink is quite vinegary and, um, yeah, it’s effervescent.

So yeah.

It’s if you leave it in too long, it can explode and yeah, that happened to me.

And there was, I put blueberries in it so that it looked like I’d murdered someone in my kitchen.

It was just red splatters all over the ceiling.

Shelby: Were you, were you in there when that happened?

Elle: Yes. Yeah, because I actually, it didn’t just explode out of nowhere.

I was in the process of opening it to, to try it and see if it was done.

And it, I I’d left it in a bit long.

So it was, it’s one of those like Ikea glass bottles with the, like a champagne bottle, you know, with the pop, the little plastic pop off.

And it just, yeah, I gave it a little touch and it just exploded everywhere.

Shelby: Oh my gosh.

Elle: It was kind of fun.

I screamed and the neighbors must have thought.

Someone had been shot.

Shelby: So not just another day at Elle’s house?

Elle: No.

No, but, uh, it was delicious.

What was left was delicious.

So…

Shelby: Great. That’s a silver lining.

Elle: Yeah, right?.

Um, how were you finding exercise?

Like how are you finding the motivation to exercise?

Because that’s something I’m finding really difficult right now?

And I don’t know if it’s just generally or COVID/work from home/world is crazy.

I don’t know.

Shelby: Well, and let’s not forget that, that you’re a mom.

You’ve got a little kid that you’re also taking care of while working from home.

And, um, I I’m sure you get a lot of exercise just like chasing him around.

Elle: Yes, that is true. That’s very true.

Shelby: I have the luxury of not having any dependents right now.

So, um, there’s also just that.

Um, but it’s, it’s also like incremental.

Um, so I started, um, getting back into exercising from home at some point last year.

Um, and I’ve been aiming to do three times a week for like a year and a half, but I was barely even doing twice a week at the beginning of last year.

Um, so I started with one, like at the beginning of last year.

And I said, I just need to like, stick to that since like going from zero to three is hard, you know?

And if you try to do that and you fail, then every week you’re just failing.

So I said, let me go from zero to one and like, get that down.

And so that’s what I would do.

And then I finally felt pretty comfortable with that.

So I said, okay, like, I kinda know how long this takes.

I’m going to add in another one.

And I did that for several months, um, from around the halfway point of last year until, um, the beginning of this year.

And then I said, okay, like, I need to just add one more day in.

And that’s all you’re doing every time.

It’s just adding one more day in.

Um, I like working out from home.

I’ve always liked working out from home and I know a lot of people prefer the gym.

So that’s a, I guess, an advantage I have that I just prefer to do it at home.

Um, but it’s also fast.

Like I don’t spend an hour and a half working out.

I… if I’m like really focused, I can get through it all in probably about 35 minutes.

Um, so it’s not a huge time commitment either.

And I find, um, now that I’m becoming aware of how I connect, like my feelings to,

uh, I like, I, I guess I’ve just become more aware of the fact that, um, I’m a really anxious person and the anxiety lives a lot, like in my head.

And so I’ve just started to correlate a remedy, um, of, of anxiety with doing something physical.

So maybe it’s not going to be working out every time.

Maybe it is going on a walk or doing yoga.

So like lower intensity stuff.

Um, But sometimes I’m like, so, I’m like feeling so like hyperactive about my anxiety that, um, I’m like, well, let me just like channel this energy into something good.

And I start like doing some squats and some curls.

And you find that like, you’re kind of getting that energy out, you know?

Elle: Yeah. Hundred percent. Yeah.

I agree with that.

Totally.

Yeah.

Working like, like you said, like out the head working out of the head, through the body.

I definitely, when I’m anxious, um, find that, yeah, I’ll go… I even say to my husband, like had a lot of anxious energy, so I did X, um, it’s usually like something around the house, um, because yeah, w why not instead of, um, and nothing wrong with, you know, sometimes I will just lay down and just kind of try and figure things out, but I find the most helpful thing is actually to get up and do something to

move move through it instead of letting it sit in you and just.Make you annoyed and upset.

Shelby: Right.

Elle: So, yeah.

Yeah.

Shelby: And we’re so…

Elle: Especially now there’s lots to be anxious.

Shelby: Yeah.

And we’ve become so sedentary.

I mean, like we used to just like walk more in our regular lives because like you walk from your front door to the car and into the office, et cetera.

So like you, I found, I really have to kind of manufacturer those experiences.

Whereas before I was just moving more and as you said, like you move into it and the movement and activity, um, helps you just get out of your own head.

Elle: Yeah.

So you, um, so your plan then is to, because I saw that you have like a spreadsheet you’re super organized.

I love that.

Your plan is to hit, like not break the chain, hit your weekly goal throughout 2021 and then maybe beyond, is that, is that the, the idea?

Shelby: Yeah, I think we’ll see how, um, how it goes this year.

And, um, when it comes to, like, most of the habits are just related to like daily, um, health and nutrition stuff, and like the no… not drinking piece, I decided to just like be sober for a year, but who knows?

Like maybe after this year, I’m going to say, I like how I feel and I don’t want to reintegrate that into my life.

More, more than likely.

I’m probably going to, like, significantly cut back on my drinking and, you know, um, yeah, cause again, like I’m going to be a lot healthier if I only drink once a month, you know, than like every week or every day.

And that doesn’t mean that I failed myself necessarily.

Um, like if there’s an opportunity to drink and I want to, then I will.

But yeah, the goal with all of them is to not break the chain, but I already like missed two days of yoga this year.

I entered that in my sheet, but I just keep moving and like I’m fully prepared to miss some days on some of these things.

And, you know, I, I’m just trying to like store that information now and not judge it, like just say, okay, like that happened.

How did I feel as a result?

Not like, did I get down on myself?

But more so just how did I feel physically in my mood and spirit.

Um, since I really just like data collection at this point, you could say.

Elle: Yeah, but that’s useful though.

Shelby: Yeah.

And what about you?

You’re just trying to, um, not drink forever, right?

Elle: Maybe. I had a… yeah, I, I was drinking way too much and it wasn’t serving me anymore for sure.

So I think, uh, I wasn’t, um, I wasn’t, uh, you know a degenerate, alcoholic, you know, out like sleeping on the streets or whatever, but I definitely got to a point where, um, I wasn’t, I would say, you know, Oh, tonight I’m just going to have one drink and then I would have more, you know, tonight, Oh, maybe I shouldn’t drink three out of seven nights a week, but then I would drink every night anyway.

So it got to the point where I wasn’t able to keep promises to myself, which is always a red flag.

Um, and so I don’t know how I will know if I’m ready to drink what I would call responsibly again.

Um, I don’t know if, uh, you know, after a year or two years, I’ll I’ll think, okay, well I can start enjoying a glass of wine every now and then again, and I won’t fall back into that pattern that I really didn’t like.

So the goal I think, is to just maybe be sober for the rest of my life.

We’ll see.

Yeah, we’ll see.

I mean, as well, I’m not gonna put too much pressure on myself because the rest of my life is the rest of my life.

So, you know, maybe I don’t drink for a year and then I drink for a bit, and then I don’t drink for two years, or I’m back

and I’m able to just have a couple of glasses of wine each week, but so far I’m liking the way I feel and I love the money saving.

Wow.

That just goes to show how much I was drinking that it’s like all this extra cash.

Shelby: It’s easy to spend the money on it.

Also in the calories too.

I mean, I know you commented, you’re losing some weight, like we’d forget, um, how much of our calories are attributed to drinking.

So there are other, there are other benefits.

But yeah, once you know, like, You know, I don’t know.

Let’s say like you are sober for this year.

Um, once, you know you can do that.

I find that that’s also really helpful too, because like you said, you know, you could get back into it, but then you could say, well, I can just also not do it for this next year if I want to, because you’ve already done that before.

So that’s not so scary.

Like the fear of the unknown.

Elle: That’s true. Yeah.

That’s very true.

And the fear of, yeah.

Can I, you know, do I have a big problem?

Like, can I actually not drink for however long.

And if, if, if I can, so far it’s been almost three months and it’s like, okay.

Shelby: Yeah.

Elle: It makes me feel bad to too about my, myself.

Shelby: And especially while you’re around it too.

I mean, that’s a, that’s a great feat.

Um, I think most people think they would never be able to do that.

Um, especially in this pandemic where everyone is probably drinking way more than they ever have.

So I commend you for, for going forth and tackling that goal.

Elle: Thank you.

Thank you.

Well, let’s, um, let’s keep in touch about these goals.

We will anyway for work.

So we kind of pepper in how it’s going.

Yeah.

Um, with the no boozing and for you, the exercise, I’ll try and exercise.

Maybe you can, maybe let me know when after each week what you’ve done, the yoga and the workouts, and they’ll be like, okay, I can do one.

I like your idea of do one.

Once a week for however many weeks, months, then another one.

That’s a good idea.

Shelby: I mean, just see how you feel.

And even if you don’t want to commit to like once a week, you could just say, I’m just going to do it once and like see how it feels.

And then, um, I try to like pay attention to the positive physical benefits so I can try to make like a positive association in my mind.

And it took some time, but we got there.

So I know.

I know you could do that too.

Um, but yeah, don’t, we all put too much pressure on ourselves, so just start with one.

Elle: That’s true.

Shelby: And I’ll definitely keep in touch about it.

Elle: Excellent. Okay.

Well, thank you so much, Shelby.

This was interesting as always, um, good luck with your goals and yeah, we’ll keep in touch and maybe chat again.

Uh, within 2021.

See how, how it’s going if we’re still we’re still there.

Shelby: Yeah,

Elle: That might be interesting.

Shelby: Definitely.

I know..

Elle: Like a six month…

You just gave

Shelby: me an ide, a like, Oh gosh, now I’m on the hook for this.

So yeah, we will, we can do a progress update and um, yeah, I’m, it’s always a pleasure to chat with you.

Elle: Great.

Okay.

Well, I will speak to you soon.

Shelby.

Shelby: Sounds good.

See you later Elle.

Elle: Bye.

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

Alex: Yeah, totally.

I think about a month ago I started riding my brother’s scooter and I had never ridden a scooter before.

So, obviously, the first few hours on it were a little wobbly, but after kind of developing a sense of how it works and how it feels then building on that confidence is really what enables you to be a safe driver.

It’s confidence in driving that allows you to be confident of what’s around you, of your abilities as a driver, so that you’re not worrying about focusing on everything that’s going on next to you, but focused on just the key things that need to happen.

It helps, too, in just developing a clarity.

Steve: What’s more, confidence is important in all of our activities, not just in language learning.

So if you are a language learner, but also you have a job, so you work, if you have a sense of achievement in one area it carries over into the other area.

So if you feel that oh, wow, I had this great conversation in Korean or whatever — in my case maybe Korean — you feel a sense of achievement.

That makes you more positive in your other activities.

So if we’re teaching language in such a way as to frustrate and discourage people, we’re in fact not just discouraging insofar as language learning is concerned.

We’re making them less positive in their other areas of activity, which is really kind of bad.

Certainly here you only hear negative things about French at school.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: I wouldn’t say only, but 99%.

Alex: Pretty much, yeah.

Steve: Pretty much.

Alex: It’s the same where I went to school in California.

There is probably about half and half who study French and Spanish, but it’s the same for Spanish and French; both ways, yeah.

Steve: I know in my own experience in high school we had French and I got good marks, but I wasn’t at all interested.

Then I had a professor at university who just turned me on and that turned me on, subsequently, to learning other languages.

There it was because the content of the course was just so interesting and the way he presented it.

Here, again, it’s connecting with content that matters so you can understand stuff.

I remember like at school you’ll always find the guy, say in French, whose mother is a Francophone and therefore who speaks French, but he gets poor marks.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: The teacher is oh, yeah, he can speak, but you know, ha, ha, his subjunctive is not quite up to snuff. Does it matter?

He’s miles ahead of everybody else in the class because he can actually speak and he can understand what people say.

So why do we learn languages if not to speak.

Maybe his mother is a Francophone and maybe his mother doesn’t speak grammatically correctly all the time, just as there are many Anglophones who don’t speak English grammatically correctly all the time, but they communicate.

Yet these people saying no, no, he’s got poor marks or whatever.

Alex: Yeah.

That was the same for me when I took Korean at university that there were some kids who were Korean who spoke Korean with their parents.

It’s the second year course and they’re there communicating with teacher fully in Korean and everyone else is like ah, ah, just totally mangling everything.

It’s funny, as you say, the kids who can speak fluently who don’t maybe know the formal grammar and things like that get worse marks than the people who memorize everything, regurgitate it perfectly, but can’t have a simple conversation with someone.

Steve: I know.

So, yeah, confidence, I think that should be the thing, is how do we get people to feel confident and to feel a sense of satisfaction and achievement in language learning?

So, again, I don’t recommend this for engineers and neurosurgeons.

Alex: Not for the Sciences.

Steve: Not for the Sciences. Not for the hard Sciences.

And, yeah, you’ve got to have goals for people.

Again, we know very well that people always say well, nowadays the kids they don’t know grammar or they can’t express themselves very well and stuff, which is true to some extent.

Now, I don’t know if it was better 50 years ago.

I don’t know, but certainly you hear teachers say that and professors at universities say that.

They say it’s because of computer games or it’s because of whatever and I suspect that that’s true.

I suspect that it’s because people read less.

So the goal of speaking well and being able to express your thoughts clearly, being able to think clearly, structure an essay, to write, I mean those things are important.

They are important, more important than the second language acquisition because you’re ability to communicate in your first language is key to your professional success.

It’s absolutely the number one thing.

They’ve done studies.

More than your years of schooling, it is your degree of literacy and they divide the degree of literacy of people up into five sort of segments.

There’s the top 20%, the second, third, fourth and fifth and the top 20%, by enlarge, do much better than anybody else and the lowest 20% are to be found in our penitentiaries or on welfare.

Not all.

There’s people who are very illiterate and who have done very well.

They’re trades people or they’ve got other compensating attributes, qualities, but all other things being equal, statistically, if you’re in that top 20% you’re going to do well.

Therefore, it’s extremely important to be literate, to use the language well, your own language.

It’s somewhat less important in the second language, especially if the majority of people graduating from school can’t use that second language at all.

To that extent you need goals, but I’m convinced that if you can get people to read a lot and listen, but read.

In other words, it gets back to this whole input thing.

If they read they’re going to learn about things.

If they’re reading they’re reading about something.

So they begin reading Twilight or Harry Potter and then, eventually, they’ll read other stuff.

They can access a whole world of learning if they can read.

So I think there should be very real goals in terms of encouraging people to read and one of the things there is to give people the freedom to choose things that they’re interested in.

I mean I don’t know what it was like for you at school, but we had to read some pretty boring stuff at school, some novels that weren’t interesting you know.

It’s one thing if we have to read the History book.

Okay, I can appreciate that we should know the history of the world, the history of Canada or whatever, but when it comes to novels the teacher arbitrarily decides that this is a good novel.

Why?

Of the thousands and thousands of novels, why do you choose this?

So maybe today with the Kindle and Kobo and whatnot it’s easier to provide more choice to people.

Alex: Well, getting back to how to provide more confidence, I think one of the things that was missing from my language education, my formal language education that is, is we never really did that much reading.

You always find this short paragraph or two-paragraph intro at the chapter and then some vocab and some grammar explanations, but when it comes to actually picking up an actual book or seeing actual text in that language you have no confidence that you’re able to read that.

I think when you kind of break through that barrier of finishing your first book…

Steve: I agree.

Alex: …finishing your first novel, you’re like wow! I did this. I can read more.

It bolsters your confidence and opens you up to being able to pursue more stuff and, as you say, to learn.

Steve: And it’s another achievement.

It’s another stepping stone.

It’s another Everest that you’ve climbed.

I’ve likened the first book you read in a second language to like climbing Mt.

Everest.

When you do that boy, you feel wow!

I read this book.

I’m not talking about reading it on LingQ and looking up every word.

I’m talking about a book.

No access to online dictionaries.

I read this book.

It’s a tremendous sense of achievement.

So, yeah, I guess we’re agreeing.

You know what?

One time we should have a discussion where we disagree.

It gets a bit boring after a while.

But, no, all these things help build up confidence, a sense of achievement.

You’ve got a livelier step.

You’re up at and it.

You feel more confident about your language learning and all your other activities as well.

So when I see these people – this gets back to my YouTube channel – who come on and criticize me.

I would never criticize someone who puts up a YouTube channel.

Hey, look at me.

I’m speaking Swahili or Spanish and I go well, you know your tones are off, whatever.

No, unless they make some ridiculous claim that I speak like a native, but then you’re setting yourself up.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: Why set yourself up for something?

Chances are it’s not necessary.

If you listen long enough you can identify words and you can do a good job at it, even those people who have a heavy accent.

I mean the number of people I know who speak so well with a heavy French accent, with a heavy Chinese accent, it doesn’t matter, but who use words well.

So, the key is to compliment people for what they have achieved and not to try and criticize them for where they maybe aren’t quite perfect yet.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: Only you and I are perfect, right?

Alex: Of course.

Steve: Of course.

Ha, ha, ha, that’s certainly not the case.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: Okay. Well, thank you for listening.

Alex: Yeah, thanks for listening everyone.

We hope you enjoyed this podcast.

Steve: In two parts.

Alex: Yes. We’ll see you again next time.

Steve: Yes, and we’ll try and make it more frequent.

Alex: Yeah.