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Alex: I think that’s definitely true.

I mean, from my own experience as well, I think my background in learning Korean has absolutely helped with my ability to learn other languages and, also, my confidence in actually believing that I can.

Now, a few years ago I took the step of starting to learn Chinese.

I’ve taken a break since from it and focused back on my Korean.

The toughest thing with Chinese was I didn’t have enough characters, so I couldn’t read very much.

Steve: Right, I know.

Alex: You spend a lot of time in the beginning stages with Chinese just learning the characters so you can actually read stuff.

Steve: It’s very, very time consuming, there’s no question.

Alex: Yeah.

But at the same time, even though I had this limited number of characters, I didn’t at all lack the ability to formulate stuff to really kind of begin to understand the foundations of the language.

Steve: And it’s not related to Korean, so the Korean doesn’t help you at all.

Alex: No, not at all.

Steve: Not at all.

Alex: It’s, in fact, totally different.

Steve: Totally different, yeah.

Alex: But I think that kind of awakening, exactly as you say, of learning to notice things, learning to pay attention to things that are different, that is really what helps them stick.

Steve: You know I really believe in rather than you have a natural talent for learning languages, you are a good language learner. Why?

Because you notice things.

You notice the sounds.

You notice the structures.

Noticing, there are so many different ways; things that will help you notice.

Obviously, lots of reading is going to help you notice because as the whole language becomes less and less foggy you start to notice more things.

Luca has a technique where he likes to use bilingual texts and study how certain concepts are expressed in the foreign language and compare it to his and then translate.

I mean I wouldn’t do that, that’s his thing, but that helps him notice.

One thing I’m going to try now is to alternate Czech and Russian, because if you stay with one language all the time you start to stagnate.

You start to notice less because it’s just all flowing by you.

You’re okay and you’re picking up some words, but the brain is maybe not necessarily getting used to some of the new structure that you have trouble reproducing.

So I’m going to do this experiment now, I’m going to go one week Russian one week Czech.

The idea there is that when I go back to the one or the other I’ll be fresher.

So I may, in fact, notice more because noticing is absolutely key.

Maybe that gets back to why language learning is good for the brain, because it’s forcing you to notice, to discover this new language rather than just staying with your old language.

Alex: I mean there’s no question that learning a language is a lot of brain work.

Steve: Yeah.

Alex: Really, you have to make an effort to improve.

It’s hard work, but I think definitely it’s so rewarding.

Steve: Well, it’s rewarding once you achieve the goal, but it’s also rewarding if I’m sitting there reading a book on Czech history in Czech.

I mean I’m saying wow, look at me, I’m reading about Czech history in Czech.

That’s very rewarding.

Also, it’s very good for the brain, but I don’t necessarily think that you deliberately force the brain to do anything.

It’s the fact that the brain is having to some how struggle with and put labels on and figure out this new language.

As you are reading stuff that’s interesting, as you’re listening to stuff that’s interesting, all of that is very good work for the brain, I hope.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: I always keep forgetting things, but it’s supposed to be. But, no, I mean even without that it’s just so very rewarding.

In this article, too, they pointed out that in the world 50% of people are bilingual, it said.

I find that surprising, but maybe it isn’t if you look at places like India and China where they have a lot of regional dialects and so forth and in Africa I know I read somewhere in Ethiopia the average person speaks four or five languages.

Alex: Oh, really?

Steve: So, yeah, I guess it’s not so surprising, but that in North America only 20% of people and that’s typically immigrants. It’s not people who were born here.

Alex: Right.

Steve: It’s the immigrant who is still learning English or who maybe speaks English very well, but also still has their language that they came over with.

So, yeah, we’ve got to try to promote multilingualism.

Ah, it makes the world a better place.

Alex: It does, definitely.

I think one of the best things for me about, again, learning a new language is that there’s this whole other culture that’s opened up to you.

I know quite a few people who know a lot more about Korean history than I do or a lot more about Korean politics or whatever, but they don’t know the language to the degree or at all.

There are a lot of people who look at it in a very academic way.

They study the history and that’s what they do.

I compare that and I say well, I mean what they know is interesting, but for me I’m connected with these people.

Steve: No question. You have a totally different perspective.

I mean I had read a lot about Russian history and Russian literature in translation, but my understanding of Russia and Russian culture and so forth is totally different once I have the language.

It’s just you’re on the inside, so there’s no comparison.

You were talking about Korean history, I mean you don’t have to know it all or like it all.

You just have to find those aspects of the culture that you want to participate in that you like and you enter with your language. It’s great.

I think it’s a great pity that, at least in Canada, we discourage so many people from learning languages.

It’s really a disgrace when you consider the amount of money that goes into language instruction in our schools and that the vast majority of people who were born here are monolingual.

Something is not right there.

Anyway, maybe we should end it there and go off on a tirade.

Alex: Sure, sure.

Steve: Okay.

Thank you.

Alex: Yeah. Thanks for listening, everyone.

Steve: Thank you. Let us know what you would like us to talk about.

Alex: Have a great day.

Steve: Bye.

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Steve: Hi Alex.

Alex: Hey there, Steve.

Steve: Well, we haven’t done the podcast in quite a while.

Alex: No. What’s the reason?

Steve: Well, I wouldn’t say that it necessarily is because I was away for four weeks, but that might have something to do with it.

Alex: It might have something to do with it.

Steve: Something to do with it.

Yeah, I was in Rarotonga and a lot of people don’t know where that is, but Rarotonga.

Alex: I don’t know either.

Steve: I didn’t, but that’s one of the islands in the Cook Island group.

And the Cook Islands it’s all in that area with Tonga, Samoa, which is actually, apparently, pronounced ‘SA-moa’.

Alex: Oh, really?

Steve: Yeah, French Polynesian and so forth.

And it’s a four-hour flight north of Auckland, so we were there.

Rented a scooter, took it easy.

It’s just so laid back it’s just unbelievable.

I mean the whole island has 10,000 people on it.

Alex: Oh, really? Wow.

Steve: Sort of the interior of the island is all kind of mountain and jungle, if you want, and so everybody lives on the periphery, which is about 32 kilometers in length and there are two buses and they’re called Clockwise and Counterclockwise.

That’s the bus service.

Alex: Oh, wow.

Steve: You rent your scooter and you are told that the speed limit if you don’t have a helmet is 40 kilometers, if you get a helmet it’s 50 kilometers.

And nobody is in a hurry.

Nobody honks their horn at you.

People are just friendly.

We took part in sort of a Polynesian culture show.

Alex: Oh, wow.

Steve: The whole thing was just phenomenal. I very much recommend it.

Then we were in Auckland and meet up with Chris, who’s one of our members at LingQ and who is a computer programmer who has learned a number of languages.

I don’t remember all of them, but dabbled in more.

A very nice guy, we had a nice dinner.

Auckland is a spectacular city.

Alex: Oh, is it?

Steve: New Zealand is a lovely country, green and people are very friendly.

And then we were in Australia and again in Melbourne we met with four polyglots call them, linguists, speakers of multiple languages.

Sorry, in Sydney it was four, in Melbourne we were eight.

Alex: Oh, wow.

Steve: And in Brisbane there was only one.

But I was impressed, because there are many different backgrounds.

Like some people are from a multilingual background, but some of them are from very much a monolingual background.

Quite a few IT people actually, surprisingly.

Alex: Like computer programming and that kind of thing?

Steve: Computer programmers, yeah.

But the overwhelming impression was that they all have a passion.

Like it all boils down to a passion for learning languages.

Alex: Did you notice any differences between say the guys who came from a multilingual home versus a monolingual home?

Steve: Not really. Not really.

Although, I mean I would say maybe out of the total of say 12 people there were probably three or four who did come from a multilingual background.

I met, for example, Cooper I think was his name in Brisbane.

He speaks excellent Mandarin, he speaks French, totally monolingual background.

Yeah, I mean I don’t want to go through them all individually.

A good example to talk about is Luca.

For those of you who follow polyglots on the Internet, he’s very well known because he is extremely good.

He speaks French.

He’s an Italian, grew up in a monolingual environment.

He speaks excellent Spanish.

You can say okay, no big deal, he spent a semester there.

It’s very similar to Italian.

And he speaks excellent French and you can say okay, no big deal, he lives in France.

I’m saying excellent, like very close to native, right?

No big deal.

But German, his German is phenomenal.

He sounds so German to me.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: And, yet, he’s never lived in Germany.

We had our chat on Skype for my YouTube video and his Russian is very good.

His Swedish is very good.

Even his Chinese is good.

He is from a monolingual background.

It’s very interesting.

There is a thing called The Polyglot Project, which was something that a fellow called Claude Cartaginese from New York and David Mansaray from London, they got together on this in some way.

Or maybe Claude was the one who…

Alex: Yeah. So Claude was the guy who started the project itself, but it was he and David who started the podcast.

Steve: Oh, okay, that’s it.

Yeah, Claude put together the book, which is very interesting to read, about people’s stories and now they’ve started these podcasts.

I listened to a few of them, it’s very interesting.

All of them have slightly different approaches to learning languages, but the one common thread is their passion for the language.

So, you know, sometimes people think, oh… Oh, that reminds me.

There was an article in the newspaper today saying that bilingual people stave off Alzheimer’s by an average of four and a half years.

Alex: Oh, really?

Steve: And the article said it has to do with the fact that if you’re managing two languages then there’s actually space in your brain for dealing with two languages.

You have to go back and forth so that helps you in multitasking.

So if you speak more than two languages presumably that’s even more.

I find I’m forgetting more and more things, but that’s another story.

Alex: You need more languages, Steve.

Steve: Well, that’s right.

Yeah, and it can beat back Alzheimer’s.

But the whole point and the reason I think it’s worthwhile talking about this is like okay, let’s say your case for example.

I’ve heard you.

You speak very good Korean with very good pronunciation.

You don’t look the part.

Alex: Not so much. No.

Steve: No. And there’s no particular reason from your background that you should do that, except that you had a very strong interest in it.

That’s the point I want to talk about is how many people could be good speakers of more than one language if they really felt they could do it.

I think a lot of people don’t believe they can do it.

Alex: Yeah. I mean absolutely.

I think in my case now I’m nearing on 23, my first exposure to Korean was… When I say ‘exposure’ I mean the first I guess Korean friend that I had was in grade nine.

Steve: How old were you then?

Alex: I was I guess 15, but I didn’t really learn any.

I wasn’t pursuing the language at all.

I learned maybe like two words or three words and that’s it.

It wasn’t I would even say real exposure to the language.

It wasn’t until I guess when I was 17 that a friend of mine — well, who became a friend of mine — who was an international student from Korea came to my high school and lived with one of my Korean-American friends.

So through that I became friends with him and that was when I started to get exposed to the language, to the culture, more so with that.

So it was about a year after that that I actually started really learning the language, going from learning a few words and phrases from your friends, which doesn’t really get you that far, to actually buckling down, grabbing a textbook and starting to learn the language in a more dedicated manner.

Steve: Right, but what that friend or those friends gave you was the desire.

Alex: Oh, absolutely.

Steve: The passion, the determination, the interest, which is the key.

Alex: That’s the thing and when I compare that, I actually had a lot more exposure to French.

I went to elementary school here in Canada and middle school and high school in the States and so for four years in high school I took French.

In those four years obviously I learned something, but I had very little desire to continue on.

Steve: Right.

Alex: The only thing that motivated me to keep going was well, I need to take some classes and French is okay so I took French.

Steve: Yeah.

You know sometimes I get quite keen on this idea that we should be doing something to promote bilingualism, multilingualism.

Incidentally, May the 5th I’m on television, along with three or four other Canadian so-called hyperglots.

Alex: Oh, really?

Steve: Because there’s a fellow called Michael Erard who wrote this book about people who speak many languages.

I wasn’t in the book, but then this Canadian television network is doing a story on this subject so they were looking for Canadians who spoke a number of languages and they managed to find me and a group of others.

But that’s why, getting back to his book, I don’t think that people who speak many languages are necessarily people who are born with some kind of a mutant gene or something, you know?

They’re just people who like doing that.

That’s the big thing.

The key to getting more people to learn languages is not to force them the way we do in Canada with French in the school system and you should.

It’s your patriotic duty to learn French.

That doesn’t go very far.

Somehow you’ve got to motivate people.

Another interesting thing that Luca said is the more you learn, obviously, the better you get at it.

You notice more things.

You hear more things.

You know you’ve got two or three or four different language centers in your brain so you’re just better at it.

The biggest and most difficult step is to get from one language where you are monolingual to the second language.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: Thereafter, it becomes easier with every language.

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Alex: You and I both have taken those English vocabulary tests or whatever.

Steve: Oh, yeah, yeah.

Alex: And there are words on there that you recognize that you’ve probably never spoken before.

Steve: Right.

Alex: You see it in a book or whatever, but it’s not something you would just bring up in a conversation with someone, right?

Steve: Right.

And I don’t know how accurate that test was either, because they had some strange words there.

For example, there was a word from rugby – ruck – if I remember correctly.

Mark has played rugby; he knows what it is.

I haven’t played rugby; I don’t know what it is.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: I don’t know.

From that small sample they deduce that you have a vocabulary of 22,000.

I don’t know how accurate it is.

Alex: But even then it’s the thing of where do you draw the line, right?

So you’re taking that test and you’ve seen this word, the word ‘gregarious’, and you’ve seen it 50 times and you’ve heard it, but you don’t really say it very much, perhaps.

Steve: No. You know what it means, but you’re unlikely to use it.

Alex: Exactly, and that’s a word you would know.

Steve: Because you would almost feel that it’s a bit pretentious to use that word.

Alex: Yeah, exactly.

Steve: Yeah.

Alex: But you still know the word, right?

Steve: You might use it in writing.

You might use it in writing, but you would consider it a bit pretentious.

The other question that comes up is okay, well you’re talking about numbers of words that you know.

Should you base this on what they call ‘word families’ or should it be based on sort of every single occurrence of the word?

Of course, it has all kinds of implications because there are languages where the noun has six or seven different forms.

In English we basically just have singular and plural.

In fact, if you consider singular and plural in Czech, there’s 14 forms for each noun, so it’s going to be a lot more words.

The other thing though is so you say okay, we’ll go for word families, but where do you draw the line?

I know that certain forms of the word are more difficult to remember.

Like a lot of people have trouble with a third person singular in the present tense in English, you know?

‘I go, you go, he goes’, not very difficult.

There’s only one of them that changes.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: How many people do you know, non-native speakers, who say ‘he go’?

And I find in Spanish the third person of the past tense is difficult to remember.

It’s just difficult to remember.

So, to some extent, the different forms of the words are different.

Alex: And so then claiming that you know the word.

Steve: Yeah.

Alex: So claiming you know the word, I mean what if you don’t know all the different forms.

Steve: That form.

Alex: That’s the thing too, right?

Steve: Well, yeah, but in Korean the different forms of the words actually imply…

Alex: Well, Korean is a bit different because Korean is the word plus a grammar particle.

Steve: Right.

Alex: So you can have countless nouns.

Steve: But, therefore, you have to count all of those.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: Although, the grammar particles repeat.

Alex: Yes, exactly.

So, in fact, it’s a bit trickier to count.

Steve: Right.

Alex: But that’s the same problem of even stepping back from that and saying well, how do you really say you know a word.

Steve: Right.

Alex: I think for everyone that’s a different definition.

Steve: Right.

Alex: But having a definition that’s so severe as saying you have to be able, as this guy said, to produce it at-will, even in your own native language there are thousands of words you can’t do that with.

Steve: And getting back to this discussion about word families.

If you take the case of English again — I’m just thinking quickly of an example — you’ve got ‘act’, ‘active’, ‘react’.

Alex: ‘Action.’

Steve: ‘Action’, ‘actually’, ‘activity’.

Now, is that one word family?

‘Acting’…

Alex: Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Steve: I mean ‘acting’ is a form of ‘act’, but it’s also another word.

So I think it becomes, therefore, quite arbitrary.

So I just say, because at LingQ it’s easier to count them as individual words, it’s just the easiest way for us to do it, but it has some validity.

It’s an indication of your progress, for what it’s worth.

It’s nothing you can go brag about.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: It’s there, yeah.

Alex: But that’s the case for all of these.

I mean every word is at a different stage on the known or cloudy or foggy level.

Steve: Well, that’s right.

Alex: I mean even words that you’ve seen a lot, there’s still that subtlety that takes years and years of experience to really like nail that down.

Steve: Plus, different people have different words that they like to use.

That’s another reason why I always think that your passive vocabulary has to be much bigger than your active vocabulary because you have to understand what everybody else says.

Different writers have their favorite vocabulary.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: I have to be able to read, whatever it is, Dan Brown.

Isn’t that the guy who wrote… What was that book about…

Alex: The Da Vinci Code?

Steve: The Da Vinci Code, yeah, yeah.

So all these authors, they have their favorite vocabulary, different from mine.

So you can’t have a one-to-one relationship to your passive vocabulary because you’re going to use the words that you’re used to using, but you have to be able to understand everyone else and the words that they like to use, whether in talking to them or listening to the radio or reading a book.

So, yeah, I think people tend to scorn passive vocabulary.

‘Well, that’s just passive vocabulary.’

Passive vocabulary is big, in my opinion.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: And maybe in teaching languages they should put the emphasis more on passive vocabulary and, certainly, that’s how I learn languages.

I want to go in there and just acquire as much passive vocabulary as I can and I know eventually some of it will become active.

That’s my number one goal.

Then I go in later and I worry about grammar and pronunciation and stuff like that, but the first thing I want to do is really just become a glutton for passive vocabulary.

I think it’s a very positive thing, passive vocabulary, and we forget it.

Again, the number of people on my YouTube channel said “Steve thanks, because I was really getting discouraged that I keep on forgetting and stuff.” Yeah, we forget and we ya, ya, ya, forget.

Alex: It’s funny, just a brief example too.

I was going through some of my videos on my computer just trying to clear up some extra space and I saw a video that I recorded of myself two and a half years ago, actually.

Steve: In Korean.

Alex: And it was in Korean, yeah.

Steve: Yeah.

Alex: And I used a word in that brief presentation that I actually forgot that I even knew.

Steve: Yeah.

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

Steve: And the other strange this is… Well, I have experienced this.

I don’t know if you have.

Over the two years, of course, your Korean has improved.

You know many more words.

You can read stuff more easily.

You can understand people more easily and, yet, there will be some words that you knew two years ago, very simple words that you’ll forget now.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: You won’t be able to find them when you need them.

Alex: Yeah.

Oh, and that’s totally it.

As soon as I heard the word, I was like oh… I remembered knowing that word, but that was nowhere within the grasp of…

Steve: But even very simple basic words you’re going to forget, which you don’t do in your own language, but you do in other languages.

Alex: Yeah. Well, you do, I think even in your own language.

Steve: Yeah.

Alex: Say if you spend a lot of time in a foreign country and working in a different language, then it’s possible to kind of stumble with that for the first little bit as you get caught up again, right?

Steve: Exactly. So, I mean to me the message is always to not get frustrated.

We have a tremendous ability to learn, but we have a tremendous ability to forget.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: But I don’t think we ever completely lose it.

So we’re rusty when we start up again and then as we stay with it then we’re able to recoup very well.

Alex: Yeah, exactly.

Steve: Anyway, that was a bit of a discussion on vocabulary, passive and active vocabulary and what it all means.

I hope people found it interesting and please send in your comments.

Alex: Yeah. I mean it would be interesting to hear you guys’ experiences as well.

Steve: Exactly.

Alex: Let us know.

Steve: Okay, bye.

Alex: Thanks for listening, bye.

Steve: Thank you. Bye for now.

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Steve: Hi Alex.

Alex: Good afternoon Steve.

Steve: So, here we are.

It’s a sunny day in Vancouver, which has come as a bit of a surprise because we’ve had so much rain the last month.

Alex: We have, absolutely.

Steve: But you know, historically, I notice that the rainiest months here are November and January and that, historically, February is actually drier than March.

Alex: Oh, really?

Steve: Yeah, I saw that. So we may have a dry month here and then March it will rain again.

Alex: Oh, okay.

Steve: You know one subject that I think is of interest to people who study languages, and I mentioned it in my recent YouTube video, is this whole question of vocabulary and passive versus active.

In other words, passive vocabulary obviously means words that you can recognize, but you can’t use.

Well, you may be able to use them, but not necessarily.

Active vocabulary are words that you use every day when you’re speaking in the language.

So, I was surprised at the number of people who when they learn a word, they feel like they want to learn it until they can use it, which in my experience is actually very difficult to do.

You can look at this list of words over and over again, you may even use it, but the words seem to get learned when they want to be learned.

I mean, yeah, obviously if you use it and see it more often you’re more likely to learn it, but it seems to beyond our control and yet some things, you might learn the word for ‘umbrella’ or something, and for some reason that word sticks.

Or the word for some abstract concept like ‘abstract’, the word ‘abstract’ in a foreign language, that might stick, but the word for a plate that you eat off every day, that won’t stick.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: I don’t know. What’s been your experience with Korean?

And, of course, with Korean it’s difficult to learn vocabulary because there’s very little common vocabulary with European languages and with English and, of course, you’re dealing with another writing system, which always makes it more difficult.

Alex: I know.

Steve: I don’t care how familiar you are with that non-familiar writing system; it’s another level of strain, another level of difficulty.

So what’s been your experience with learning vocabulary in Korean?

Alex: I’ll say to start off with, a different script.

I had a friend in university, she was in her fourth year, she was Korean, from Korea, but she had moved to Canada about 10 years before.

So I asked her one day.

She was reading a research paper or something like that in English and I said “What is your English level compared to your Korean level as far as reading goes?” She says “Well, I would say probably my English is about the same now; like I’m able to read English as easily now as I am able to read Korean.” She was like 24 and had been in Canada for 10 years attending school, high school, everything, university for four years and it took her that long until she said “Well, they’re probably about the same.”

Steve: Yeah. I mean I’m not surprised. Even with the same script, I would say that.

Even though I studied in France for three years and I’m quite comfortable in French, it’s easier to read in English.

You end up doing a little more sub-vocalizing, but that’s even in the same script.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: And I must say that I am finding Czech much easier than Russian because it’s in the same writing system.

These are all things that just…it’s like running with weights.

You know what I mean?

It’s just stuff that weights you down, that makes it less efficient.

It’s sand in the gears, you know?

But leaving that aside, yeah, how do you find learning vocabulary in Korean?

Alex: One thing that’s really interesting that came to mind as you were actually mentioning that earlier is for me there are some really difficult words that as soon as I heard them they stuck.

Steve: Right.

Alex: There is one that’s… I guess the best way to put it is like ‘legendary’ or, in a sense… I don’t even know how to describe it that well in English, but I know the word in Korean.

Steve: Right.

Alex: And I saw the word once and it stuck.

Steve: Right.

Alex: And I don’t think I’ve ever used the word and I’ve barely seen the word.

I’ve maybe seen it once or twice since then.

Steve: Right.

Alex: It’s not a very common word, but I know the word.

Steve: Right.

Alex: And at the same time the word for ‘teapot’ was a word that took me forever to get down, forever.

Steve: And don’t you find things like colors are difficult to remember?

Colors are remarkably difficult to remember and numbers.

Alex: I still don’t know some of the colors.

Steve: Colors and numbers and parts of the body and these are very often the first things that are introduced – colors.

Colors are very difficult to remember.

I’m not sure why.

I think the things that we use all the time are so hardwired in our own language that it’s very difficult to get our brains to say no, that green, actually, it’s this other word; whereas, words that we don’t use so often, yeah, it can be this word, it can be that word.

You know I don’t know.

I’m not a neuroscientist, but I mean, obviously, it seems that a lot of the…

And the other interesting thing is that in a lot of languages the way you say very basic things like ‘My name is’, ‘How old are you?’

What’s the time?’

that the very structure of these is actually quite different.

They tend to be quite, you know, idiosyncratic, right, quite peculiar to that language and therefore they’re very difficult to learn; whereas, if you’re reading something more formal, if you’re reading a news item or something.

But, anyway, we’re straying a bit from the subject.

In English, for example, what would you say is the ratio between your passive vocabulary that enables you to read a whole bunch of stuff and the vocabulary that you actually use in English, just a guess?

Alex: Yeah.

I mean I would say for myself, I typically don’t use a lot of big words in everyday conversation.

So when I was in university and I was reading these various different books and essays written I could understand them, but it’s not at all how I would talk.

Steve: Okay, but if you were to write a paper on the subject you would use them.

Alex: That’s the thing though.

I mean maybe I would, but I probably would kind of like think ah, maybe use a thesaurus to find a more academic word for it.

They’re definitely words that I know but, as you say, they’re not words that I naturally would use in a conversation.

Steve: Because you’re not so confident using them.

Alex: Exactly.

Steve: And you’re not experienced using them.

Alex: So probably as far as the ratio goes, I would say three to one.

Steve: Yeah, and what about in Korean?

Alex: Korean… This is funny, because this is something that in my Korean studies has come up more recently where I’m doing a lot more reading and a lot more listening and understanding more and more and then when I sit down with a friend to discuss something I find myself just hunting and searching for these words that I’ve heard 50 times and I’m still not quite sure if that’s the right word.

Steve: Right.

Alex: So, easily, eight, ten, fifteen to one probably.

Steve: Yeah. Well, I mean I find the same and, obviously, the better I speak a language; like probably French is where I would be closest. I study there.

I mean I was writing term papers and stuff in French.

Japanese and Mandarin I’m quite fluent, but the ratio of words I have… It’s just practical if you can get by with fewer words.

And, of course, I have no obligation in Japanese to write.

I have never written term papers in Japanese.

I don’t write essays in Japanese.

I just use it to talk about business, to talk with friends over a beer.

I mean I have very specific applications; to discuss politics, to discuss economics.

So it’s more practical to rely on those words that you are sure of, words and phrases that you know what they mean, you know they work.

It’s all about this credibility, right?

Some of these other words you’re not entirely sure.

And it’s not only what the words mean.

It’s, as we know, this term ‘collocation’, right, which words are normally used with which other words in which context.

And the minute you feel not totally sure, you back away from using that word and you’ll go with a word that you know works, right?

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: So I agree with you.

I think that in English it’s probably three to one and if I’m writing a formal essay on something I’ll probably use words, again, that I’m comfortable using and in these other languages it’s ten to one.

Now that I’m just starting to speak in Czech, I mean I know a lot of words in Czech.

Like I just downloaded a whole series of podcasts on history; wonderful, spoken slowly, clearly, so well done.

Unfortunately, there’s no transcript, but I know a lot of what they’re talking about, lots.

When I go to speak and now I’m starting to speak, I’ve spoken maybe five or six times, I mean my usable vocabulary is very small, very small, and it will gradually improve.

So, obviously, the more you speak, the more you experiment, the more comfortable you become.

So, to my mind, it’s normal that it should be that much larger.

I’m quite comfortable in Japanese and Mandarin and Spanish and Swedish and yet the ratio of passive to active is like ten to one.

It doesn’t bother me.

Some people get very upset.

They learn 10 words today; they want to be able to use 10 words today.

The response to my video was from a number of people who sort of suggested that “Yeah, you say you know all these words; well, in fact, you don’t.” One of them said “Until you can use them at-will.” And I was saying I think if you put the effort into it you can learn 100 words a day, on average.

Not in a one-week period, but over say six months because the words start to accumulate almost by magic.

Incidentally, if you do enough reading and listening all of a sudden they start to stick.

You look back and say oh, I’ve been at it for six months and I know all these words.

Maybe it’s 50, maybe it’s 100 words a day, depending on how many hours you put in and this guy said “No

No way I could learn even 10 a day, because to me to know a word you’ve got to be able to use it at-will.” I just felt that was an unrealistic expectation, which can only slow you down in your learning.

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Steve: Oh, and I wanted to mention, it’s interesting — because I also listen to the Russian media now because I’m trying to finish off my Russian, but I can’t let go, right – and, of course, Václav Havel is not appreciated…

Alex: Oh, really?

Steve: …by the Russian Government and I would say by public opinion, because public opinion in Russia largely supports the Government.

He is appreciated by people in the Human Rights Movement, the Helsinki Group or whatever and I heard some of them interviewed on my Czech radio and even on Echo Moskvy there were people who had positive… In fact, one guy very sarcastically commented on the fact that Russia sent their condolences to North Korea over the death of Kim Jong-il and they did not send condolences to the Czech Republic.

Now, you can argue that Václav Havel is not a ruling head of state or government official.

He’s not in office, so therefore according to protocol they’re not obliged to do anything; whereas Kim Jong-il was the de facto, whatever he was, President, glorious leader, but beneath that of course is the real reason and the real reason is several.

Havel, of course, opposed the Communists.

He opposed the influence of Russia because the common turn and Communist sort of hold on Eastern Europe was an extension of the power of Russia.

Call it Soviet Union, call it World Communist Movement, call it what you want, it was Russia, so he has always opposed that.

I think Havel was hoping that Russia would evolve in the same way that say the Czech Republic has evolved into more of a liberal democratic state, which it hasn’t under Mr. Putin.

Havel in 2003 won an award — I can’t remember the name of the award — as being a role model for someone who fights for human rights and that sort of thing.

This was a German award that was established after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Alex: Oh, interesting.

Steve: So it’s like a Nobel Prize, if you want, but for that specific, you know people who defend human rights.

That German committee decided to give the award in 2005, two years after Havel got his, jointly to Angela Merkel and Vladimir Putin and, of course, they do it for purely cynical geopolitical reasons because they’re dependent on Russian oil and natural gas and they hope that if they’re nice to Putin he’ll be nice back at them, basically.

So the fact that he has nothing to do with protecting freedoms, freedom of speech and all the rest of it is kind of wiped off the slate.

Havel said if you give Putin the award I’m giving mine back.

So, obviously, Vladimir Putin didn’t like that gesture on the part of Havel, not to mention the fact that Havel took the side of Georgia in the war between Russia and Georgia.

But, at any rate, the commentator at Echo Moskvy was quite cynical in saying that it says something about the values of our government when they… I can’t remember what.

You know, Kim Jong-il is a good guy and Havel is a bad guy to our government.

So it’s at least refreshing to hear that there are some voices in Russia that are not afraid to express their own views.

Alex: Yeah, yeah.

Steve: We should never confuse Russia with even China when it comes to freedom of expression.

A lot of these views are not popular in Russia, but you are allowed to say them.

And now we’re seeing more sort of demonstrations of some dissatisfaction with Putin’s rule, so it’s not at all like China.

In China it’s more like it was in the old days insofar as criticizing the government.

You can say many things privately, but publicly you can’t.

So, anyway…

So, yeah, this is interesting.

I mean Havel was 75.

Alex: Oh, was he?

Steve: Yeah.

Alex: Kim Jong-il was I believe 70 or 71.

Steve: Yeah, 68 to 70. And there are all kinds of conspiracy theories.

Alex: There will continue to be.

Steve: Well, exactly.

There’s one guy in Japan who wrote a book saying that Kim Jong-il was actually assassinated some years ago and that this is a dummy.

Okay, that’s one.

There is the feeling that there is dissention within the ranks.

That because Kim Jong-il was made you know, whatever, a Marshall in the Army without ever having served in the Army that that annoyed some members of the Army and the fact that Kim Jong-il was prepared to do a deal with the States in order to receive shipments of grain in exchange for stopping their nuclear program that that annoyed some other section of the Army and that there are dissentions.

Of course there are always factions.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: Always, so who knows what’s going to happen.

You’re more familiar with the whole Korean scene than I am.

Alex: Yeah. Well, even then.

I mean even to people who know a lot about it North Korea is so illusive.

It’s so difficult to find any substantive information to really learn more about it.

I had the privilege of talking to a lot of professors who study Korean history and Korean politics and have spent a good portion of their life on this and even to them there’s a lot of uncertainty when it comes to really having insight into North Korea.

Steve: Well, you know it’s interesting.

I read in the paper that children are taken from their parents and brainwashed from the age of like two.

I mean that is tremendously powerful and so they probably did think that Kim Jong-il was like their father.

They’re told that all the time.

I know from listening to Echo Moskvy that when Stalin died, despite you know perhaps one in 10 Russians were either killed or imprisoned by him and I mean massive famine in farming areas all caused by this man, plus out and out just eliminating people, like shooting them, having them shot and yet when he died everyone thought they’d lost a family member because the power of indoctrination is so great.

So maybe those people sincerely feel they lost, in a sense, somebody more important than their father.

Alex: Right, exactly.

Steve: I don’t know.

Alex: Yeah. I mean it’s interesting.

I think one thing, in a way, that sets it apart too is that in the time of Stalin something like the Internet was not even conceived, barely.

Steve: Right.

Alex: Right?

Steve: Long before the Internet, yeah.

Alex: Exactly.

And so looking at it from that perspective it’s so interesting to see that some 70 years later in a world where now we’re so connected with each other — you know, we’re talking here and people are listening to us in countries all over the world — that North Koreans, basically, are not allowed to have anything outside.

Steve: No.

Alex: Everything is totally restricted.

If they’re lucky then they get smuggled radios so that they can hear South Korean radio stations and that’s it.

Steve: Well, yeah.

I mean you can’t blame individual Koreans who are conditioned by this regime and perhaps many of them sincerely have no idea of the mentality sincerely are grieving.

Probably some are not, we don’t know, but to create a regime like that where a small group of people so thoroughly control the lives, the calorific intake, the thought processes, everything of other people, what right?

To me, whatever else you say about democracy, it’s corrupt, money talks, all the politicians are the same, they’re all self-seeking people who never fulfill their promise, you can say all these things, but at least you have the means to change it if you want.

You can go run yourself, you know?

It’s as Churchill once said “It’s a terrible system, but it’s the best system we’ve got.” It’s a terrible system, because if you have a system with a small group of people and the temptation is always there ‘Well, you know, democracy is so wasteful.

What we need is a really good dictator, someone who will always do the right thing and that will just be so much more efficient and Hitler got everybody working again’ yeah, maybe.

There is an X-percent chance that the dictator will be a genius, fair, always make the right decision and everybody will live happily ever after, but the chances are very low.

It’s far more likely that we’ll end up with variations of Hitler, Stalin, Kim Jong-il, you name it.

So any time you allow a small group of people to basically control the fate of so many people it’s evil and, unfortunately, they have nuclear weapons.

Alex: Yeah. I mean in closing that’s what’s interesting too.

A guy like Kim Jong-il, basically, him and his little crew they took control.

Steve: Right.

Alex: They made the decision that they wanted control of this and whatever means it cost they did it.

Steve: Yeah.

Alex: But at the same time a guy like Havel is the opposite where he, in fact, attracts the respect of people. He earns that respect.

Steve: Right.

Alex: He allows people the decision to say I like you, I dislike you, but in doing that and in being just and in being fair from a completely different ideology he has excelled so much further.

Steve: Well, he’s certainly gained much more respect.

By the way, I understand that Kim…what’s the first guy’s name?

Alex: Kim Il-sung?

Steve: Kim II-sung is still the leader. It’s beyond a kingdom there.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: It’s like a new theology.

Like he still rules from the grave, I mean it’s just absolutely extraordinary.

Not only is it a family monopoly, but the old man is still ruling from the grave.

That’s the kind of system they’ve got there.

Anyway, one day…

Alex: Yup.

Steve: We won’t be visiting there soon. Okay, thank you for listening.

Alex: Thanks for listening everyone.

Steve: Bye.

Alex: Bye-bye.

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Steve: Hi Alex.

Alex: Hi there Steve.

Steve: You know it’s been a while since we last did a podcast.

Alex: Yes, it has.

Steve: Yeah, I’ve been traveling. I was in China.

Then I was in California on holidays with my wife, so we haven’t been able to do them.

I’m always happy and thankful when people say we’d like to hear some more, so there are some people there who are listening.

Alex: Yeah, exactly. It’s good to know that we have an audience.

Steve: Well, that’s right.

And here we are we’re approaching Christmas here, just a few days away.

I still have some Christmas shopping to do, but it’s not very Christmassy here.

It’s a little bit warm and sunny, which is unusual.

I think it was last year we had lots of snow on the ground at this time of year.

Alex: Yeah, it’s almost the exact opposite.

Steve: Which is also a little unusual.

You know one thought I had was recently there have been a few sort of rather well-known international figures die, pass away.

I think of Kim Jong-il who was the President and champion golfer of North Korea, whatever his titles are.

What do they say?

When he was born there was a rainbow and a flashing zephyr.

You know, just under very auspicious conditions; obviously born to be an all star.

So he passed away and then Václav Havel passed away.

Of course because I’m studying Czech I’m reading every day about Václav Havel’s funeral, but it’s kind of interesting.

Alex: For people who aren’t as familiar with Václav Havel, what exactly is he well known for?

Steve: Well, before I answer that question, the following people are attending his funeral: Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, David Cameron the Prime Minister of Great Britain, President Sarkozy, Angela Merkel I believe, and on and on and on.

Alex: Yeah, wow.

Steve: Like lots of heads of state.

When Pierre Trudeau, who was popular at least among some Canadians, passed away there were two people who came to the funeral: Fidel Castro and Jimmy Carter.

Alex: Wow.

Steve: So that will give you a sense of the relative importance in the world of Václav Havel versus Pierre Trudeau.

Václav Havel, he was a playwright and a dissident in Czechoslovakia under the Communists and he became active in various movements including the Helsinki Accord and there was an organization called the Citizens Forum.

And so not only were his plays played throughout the world, he was quite a well-known playwright, but he became a well-known sort of dissident figure and he was actually put in jail.

I think he was jailed for a total of five years.

So he’s a figure like Sakharov in the Soviet Union, someone who was front and center challenging the Communist Regime.

And so when the Iron Curtain came down, so to speak, with Perestroika and the end of the Berlin Wall and everything else, he then became the first President of Czechoslovakia and then he subsequently became the first President of the Czech Republic because the Czechs and the Slovaks separated.

I think part of the reason why he is so respected is that he’s a bit of a Nelson Mandela figure.

He did not sort of take revenge on the Communists.

He’s very much a sort of live and let live.

Once they had basically overthrown the Communist Regime, he had no trouble with the Communist Party being active in Czechoslovakia and then the Czech Republic.

When the Slovaks wanted to separate from Czechoslovakia he didn’t obstruct it.

There’s no vindictiveness in him, so he is that kind of a figure.

In fact, I remember listening on my Czech radio just a few days ago.

I mean he’s no longer President, but his last semi-official act was to meet with the Dalai Lama.

Dalai Lama of course has his critics and Václav Havel has his critics too, right?

But the Dalai Lama at least again has his persona and he’s a very charming person, speaks so well and kind of represents this idea of human dignity and human freedom and sort of opposes the idea that might is right.

I think that’s what people see in Nelson Mandela, that’s what they see in Havel and that’s what they see in the Dalai Lama not withstanding the Chinese Government authorities who get absolutely frothing at the mouth over the Dalai Lama.

And who knows, there are undoubtedly more rabid nationalists in the Tibetan Nationalist Movement.

In the Czech Republic I know that there are many Czechs who wanted to be more sort of vengeful and pursue the former Communists and hold them more responsible for what they did and so forth and so on and he didn’t want it.

So I think part of it is that and plus that he was a voice for freedom and human dignity.

Little things like he goes to visit Australia and it’s very unusual.

He doesn’t go to Canberra.

His first ever visit to Australia he visits an aboriginal village in north Australia.

Alex: Oh, really?

Steve: Now, you could call that maybe unwanted interference in Australia, but that just a bit of a statement.

Now, here are these people — aboriginals — who kind of have gotten the short end of the stick in history.

I mean what’s Czechoslovakia or Czech Republic?

It’s 10 million people, it’s not like China, but he’s a spokesman.

He’s his own person.

He does what he thinks is right and so there’s a sense that he represents a certain level of integrity, which we don’t necessarily identify with Kim Jong-il for example.

Alex: Well, that’s an interesting thing too is these two figures are almost known for the exact opposite things.

Steve: Right.

Alex: Václav Havel was known for what he did for humanity, the positive and beneficial things that he contributed, whereas Kim Jong-il on the other hand is infamous for the crimes against humanity.

Steve: I mean when you read about Kim Jong-il, it’s almost like if you and I were to write a script about some evil kingdom ruled by these evil people we couldn’t write a more unrealistic script.

I mean this guy, from what I read, not only all these hyperbolas about he was born under some star and he goes out and the first time he ever plays golf he has 11 holes to one, but then he has these troops of performing girls, some of whom dance for him, some of whom provide sexual favors, some of whom scrub his back or give him a massage.

He apparently has a special taste for certain kinds of foods, certain kinds of imported liquor and yet people in his country are starving to death.

I mean it’s just unbelievable.

It’s unbelievable that that goes on.

I don’t understand it.

Anyway, I don’t know.

Alex: But it’s so interesting to see.

I mean, in a way, when you compare the two it’s almost like it’s a different species.

The thoughts that go through their heads are so differing.

In a way, you can compare say Hitler to Martin Luther King, Jr.

where they stand for things in the complete opposite spectrum I mean.

Steve: Exactly.

What I think is unusual with people like Martin Luther King, which is another good example, or Havel or Nelson Mandela — and I think to some extent, although I don’t know that much about the Dalai Lama, maybe in fact he does abuse his power — but there is that expression “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” We see it in politicians or even people who have a lot of money.

Once they have power and influence they become corrupt.

It corrupts people and what’s striking about those people is that they weren’t corrupted by power; at least they were able to give the impression that they weren’t corrupted by power.

We don’t know what goes on behind the scenes, right?

So Havel, everyone, when I read my Czech newspapers, they talk about how he remained the same.

That Havel the playwright, Havel the dissident, Havel the President were the same person; whereas the people in North Korea obviously have enormous power.

They have power of life and death, hunger and not hunger, whatever, over all of their citizens and they just use it to the max, including whatever indulgences they want and they just do it, which is largely what Mao did in China, what Stalin did in Russia and we can go on and on in varying degrees.

Alex: Right.

Steve: So to that degree Havel is a departure and I think that’s what people respect in him, even though they can’t necessarily live up to it.

If we see the Berlusconi’and the Sarkozys of Europe, not to mention the Obamas, there is that element of I’m in power now so, you know, not the same.

So I think that’s part of the appeal and that’s, I think, why Trudeau didn’t have such appeal because he was extremely arrogant.

He was arrogant before he became Prime Minister and he remained arrogant.

Alex: He was the same Prime Minister and the same…

Steve: Right, he was just arrogant.

He was arrogant and he had a certain flair which in the dull world of Canadian politics then and now made him seem like a media star.

But, in fact, he was extremely arrogant and he seemed to enjoy flipping around, going to China and Cuba, but none of this amounted to anything in terms of any constructive foreign policy.

So in the end Jimmy Carter and Fidel Castro were the only people who came to his funeral.

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Steve: Absolutely.

I guess we may become a bit of a broken record here because we always refer back to this, but I’m certain experiencing it now with my Czech studies.

I mean very quickly you can move on to authentic material.

You don’t have to stay with beginner material.

The vast majority of people stay with beginner material and never make any progress.

If they would just take the plunge, just to go at something a little more difficult.

But, anyway, we’re beating a dead horse there.

One other thing that we were talking about, which I think is also interesting, obviously, learning about the culture and exposing yourself to the culture is all part of learning the language.

When we learn a new language, of course, it’s a new adventure and when you have your first opportunity to visit the country it’s like a dream.

It’s like an absolute dream.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: You’ve been sort of kept away from the real world.

You’ve been doing your language learning in some artificial world and now all of a sudden it’s like you’re in the movie.

You know, you’re in the movie so it’s very, very exciting.

So you were saying how did I react to say going to Russia, which was the new movie for me versus let’s say going back to China or Japan where it’s an old movie, which is more exciting and so forth.

Obviously, it’s more exciting to go to the new movie, but it’s also very pleasant to go back to a place where in a previous spurt of language learning activity you went after that language.

So you lived in the country or you visited many times.

I lived in Japan, I visited China many times and now you go back after 10-20-30 years, it’s a nice comfortable feeling.

So it’s different.

One is a feeling of almost going back to a place for which you have had this feeling of nostalgia and then being able to get back to that routine and see the changes and the other is to discover something new.

Both are, I would say, sort of part of the reward of language learning, both.

Alex: Right.

Steve: Both are very enjoyable experiences, I would say.

Alex: And I guess that then is a testament to the value of learning multiple languages.

Experience this multiple times…

Steve: Absolutely, absolutely.

It’s amazing to me on LingQ once we opened up The Linguist to many languages, the number of people who study more than one language.

The number of people…

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: And, yet, you know, last night we had some friends over.

Actually, it’s my cousin who’s visiting from Argentina and her former roommate when she lived here in Vancouver before she got married.

This lady is probably in her early 50s and she was saying oh yeah, I really want to learn French and Spanish, but well, you know, I always forget things.

I can’t remember anything.

I’m too old, this, that and the other.

So many people at some level say I would like to learn a language.

I mean she’s even saying I would like to learn French and Spanish because she would like to travel in France and Spain.

In fact, she’s single and she would even like, she said, to live half the year in southern France and go to Spain and rent my apartment out to my nieces when they go to UBC.

She had all this stuff she wanted to do and key to it all was to learn the languages because, obviously, if you’re living in southern Spain or France and traveling it’s so much nicer if you speak the language.

It’s so much nicer.

Then why don’t you do it?

People are afraid or they think they have to take a course and stuff like that.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: I don’t know. I just think it’s so attractive to learn languages. It’s so enjoyable.

It’s so rewarding at every level and the very small number of people who do it and who stay with it and who achieve success with it is very disappointing, very disappointing.

Alex: Yeah.

I think, too, it goes back to the thing of the automatic assumption that if you learn three or four or five or whatever, a dozen languages, that you’re a genius.

Steve: Absolutely.

Alex: You know, intellectually gifted.

I don’t consider myself stupid, but when people say oh, you learn Korean, you’re just really smart.

I’m like well I don’t think that really has that much to do with it because they learned their own language.

I mean everyone has the capability to do it.

Steve: Well, not only that, have they put in the effort to learning any language that you put into learning Korean?

Alex: Exactly.

Steve: The issue is the effort.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: I don’t know many people who put as much effort into language learning as I put into language learning.

But to me the ultimate argument when you hear this oh, you’re just talented, I say okay, do you think that Swedes, to pick an example — you could pick Singaporeans, any of those countries where everybody speaks two-three-four languages and speaks them well, you know — are those people all genetically, have they been pre-selected based on some whatever to be gifted in languages?

I bet you that the Swedes were terrible at languages 150 years ago.

No, I think it’s a matter of it’s just normal.

You’re considered not particularly smart if you can’t at least speak English well in Sweden.

I mean there’s something wrong with you.

It’s not that oh, you’re very talented, you speak foreign languages.

What’s the matter with you?

You didn’t go to school?

And, of course, they don’t learn at school, they learn watching TV.

Alex: Right.

Steve: So, I mean, when you have whole nations that are good at languages and other nations that are poor at languages, to me that indicates that it’s not a matter of a particular gift.

It’s a matter of a whole attitude of mind.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: In that regard, I was sent a book by one of my viewers at my YouTube channel, which is a book written by Kató Lomb.

Have you ever heard of Kató Lomb, L-o-m-b?

Alex: Yes, I have.

Steve: So, she was this Hungarian lady who learned to speak 16 languages.

She wrote a book on it and it’s quite a well-known book amongst the language learning culties, right?

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: So I read the book and it’s very interesting.

Obviously, I don’t agree with everything that she says, but there are many things where I do.

And, of course, her big thing was input, like she would read.

It is so true, input is so, so powerful.

And she dismissed this business of talent.

She doesn’t believe in the talent.

It’s quite an interesting book.

It’s a different era, you know before the Internet, before a lot of the stuff that we take for granted.

She read books and dictionaries and whatever she could her hands on, but the big thing with her, if you read the book, is her tremendous dedication, her tremendous dedication.

She was so excited she was going to learn Russian and she managed to find a book because there were none, whatever, and she just devoured the book.

It all boils down to motivation and commitment.

That’s all it is.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: And, in her case, I’m sure that when she went after her 14th or 15th language she was a lot better than the guy who only speaks one language.

Of course, she’s done it 14 times.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: I mean what’s so surprising about that, you know?

If someone is a good athlete and they pick up another sport, if they’re fit they’re going to do better in that sport than someone who has never played any sports.

Alex: Exactly.

Steve: So the issue is not a matter of a genetic predisposition or innate talent.

It’s a matter, first of all, of having that dedication and commitment and then cultivating the skill of learning languages and I’m quite convinced that anybody can do it and they can start at any age.

Alex: There’s almost a parallel, too, to instruments, musical instruments.

Where if you see someone who plays five instruments you think oh, they’re just amazing at playing these instruments when, in actuality, they’ve spent thousands of hours practicing all hours throughout the day, right?

Steve: Absolutely. And if someone plays one instrument and you hear that they play another instrument you’re not surprised.

It’s kind of yeah, that makes sense.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: She plays the violin and she also plays the guitar and she plays the piano? Yeah.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: Well, why should it be different for languages?

Alex: Exactly.

Steve: Once you’ve got the hang of music and playing music so you pick up another instrument. It’s not surprising.

So, whether you speak two languages, five languages, 10 languages, to me it’s the same.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: It’s just that I have put in that much effort into learning these other languages.

Other people, for whatever reasons, didn’t have the time to do it, but the fact of speaking 10 versus two versus five, to me it’s got nothing to do with it.

It’s just that that’s where I have chosen to spend my time.

Alex: Yeah, exactly.

Steve: It’s like a musician.

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

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: Anyway, yeah, so motivation, though, still comes down to being the fundamental attribute and I really wish more people would.

I just think it would make for a better world.

I think it’s fun.

Anytime I hear someone who speaks another language I’m very impressed.

I don’t know what it is.

That’s stupid.

I shouldn’t be so impressed, but I’m very impressed.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: Very impressed. Like wow, that’s neat.

So, that’s my thing, other people are good at sports.

The other thing I wanted to mention about music, too, my wife – I may have mentioned this before – she’s been playing piano now for three-four years.

No teacher.

She didn’t want a teacher and she just gets better and better because she really enjoys it.

Alex: Right.

Steve: And my granddaughter was taking piano lessons and didn’t like the teacher, didn’t like taking lessons, wanted to quit, arguing with her mother, blah, blah, blah, so she quit.

And then she was watching her grandma play and she kind of got interested.

Her grandma gave her some notes and stuff and some music that she liked to play and she started playing.

Now she plays two-three hours a day on her own and she’s doing so well.

Alex: Really? Wow.

Steve: I think if a teacher were introduced it would only destroy it, until she gets to a certain point.

I think once you reach a certain point if she really wants to get ahead she’ll need a teacher, but not at the beginning.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: And in languages, too, I think they introduce the teacher too early.

You don’t need a teacher at the beginning.

Later on you need a teacher.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: At the beginning no, you need to explore the language on your own, do the things you want to do, read, don’t understand, it doesn’t matter.

If you get it wrong it doesn’t matter.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: Anyway, perhaps we’ve beaten a bit of a dead horse here on that subject, but we always love talking about it.

Alex: Exactly.

Steve: We’d love to hear some feedback. We want you to disagree, agree. Tell us what you want us to talk about. Let’s hear from you.

Alex: We’re looking forward to your comments. Thanks for listening in.

Steve: Okay, bye for now.

Study the transcript of this episode as a lesson on LingQ, saving the words and phrases you don’t know to your database. Here it is!

Alex: Good afternoon there.

Steve: Good afternoon, Alex. How are you?

Alex: I’m doing well, thank you.

Steve: Good. Yeah, it’s time to have another podcast.

You know, one subject that comes up and we’re both, obviously, interested in languages and learning languages and many of the people who listen to this podcast, by definition, they’re interested in learning languages, whether it be English or some other language.

There was a discussion on our forum about what are your motivations.

Actually, one of our LingQ members from China said what is your motivation for learning Chinese and then there was a discussion about motivation and so forth.

Of course, most often you hear you should learn Chinese because you should.

It’s a bit like in Canada you should learn French and, of course, because in Canada we should learn French, in fact, very few people learn French because you should learn French.

So, now, it’s you should learn Chinese because the economy is growing and you might get a job.

Does that really work, you should learn?

Alex: My experience has been the exact opposite.

Whereas, when I was in elementary school I was in Canada and we had French, obviously, mandatory French lessons.

When I was in grade seven I moved to the United States and I guess grade seven and eight I didn’t do any language study.

When I hit grade nine — high school — then there was the option to take either French or Spanish.

So I thought well, I already have some background in French and I have to take a language anyway so I’ll just take French.

I’ll say, quite honestly, at that point I really had about zero interest in French.

It was just to kind of fill that requirement.

So I spent four years at school learning French and it really didn’t amount to much.

Interesting enough, when I was in my senior year that was when I started to develop an interest in Korean.

So the four plus years that I spent in French — I don’t even know.

I mean I guess we start here in like grade three or something like that – resulted in quite a small amount of actual practical knowledge and ability where four years in Korean brought me way up to what I would consider conversational fluency.

I had great comfort in the language being able to express myself freely.

That being said, I guess since about a month ago that I started going back to French I have progressed a lot more quickly than I ever did when I was in a class because that motivation is there to keep me going day after day.

Steve: Well, why are you motivated to learn French now when you weren’t motivated before?

Alex: I would say two major reasons.

One, I’ve actually now met French people, as I mentioned in a previous podcast.

Steve: Oh, you’ve got in-laws now.

Alex: Exactly. My sister’s husband is a native French speaker.

He’s from Cameroon and all of his family speaks French.

So I actually now have face-to-face encounters with French people and it makes it more real to me rather than just a textbook or just talking to my classmate next to me.

Steve: Right.

Alex: And the other thing is that I have a greater appreciation for it.

I think that because now I’ve learned Korean successfully and, obviously, there’s still more to do, but I know that it’s possible.

I have the confidence in it.

So that then gives me the ability to say I’m going to learn French and actually do it.

Steve: So, really, there are two things.

The language itself becomes more real and the act of learning a language or languages becomes more meaningful because you’ve done it once.

I totally agree with this.

That’s why, for example, in Canada where they want the kids to learn French, if they would let them choose the language that they wanted to study.

Kids, you want to learn Spanish, you want to learn Chinese, do it.

Once a person has learned one foreign language they will have an easier time learning the second one because they have more confidence.

The act, as I say in my book, of converting yourself, transforming yourself into someone who can comfortably speak another language, until people have done that they don’t believe they can do it.

But now that you’ve done it with Korean, which is more difficult than French starting from English, I mean no common vocabulary.

Alex: Right.

Steve: You’ve got to tell yourself, well French has got to be a piece of cake because I did it for Korean.

And, of course, we build on success, right?

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: We build on success and to be successful you need motivation, so why wouldn’t they let kids in school choose the language that they want to learn.

Now, of course, they say well we don’t have teachers.

We can’t possibly have teachers for all these languages.

You don’t need the teacher.

You need a teacher who teaches how to learn because the resources for those languages are everywhere today on the Internet.

Alex: Exactly.

Steve: So instead of a French teacher and a Chinese teacher and a Spanish teacher and a German teacher, they need a specialist in the art of learning languages using the resources that are available.

So then offer kids in grade two or three stories that they can pick up wherever and have them listening and make the whole learning of languages an adventure suited to the age level of the kids.

Anyway, so yeah, motivation.

So, therefore, when people say, and people often ask me on my YouTube channel, what language should I learn?

Like how do I know?

You should learn the language that you’re most motivated to learn.

That should be the number one consideration.

Alex: Yeah, I totally agree with you and I think, from my own personal experience, there’s a huge difference between them.

It’s along the same lines of should I study History or should I study Math.

Well, it’s like if you’re interested in Math then study Math.

Steve: Right. The only difference is in school you don’t have the choice.

Alex: Right, exactly.

Steve: Like in elementary school they want you to do History and Math, so you don’t have the choice.

But when it comes to languages, the vast majority of English-speaking kids in Canada don’t learn French so, obviously, it’s not necessary.

However, any kid that goes through school and actually has a second language, he or she is in a much better position.

Alex: Yeah, definitely.

Steve: So any language, it needn’t be French.

Anyway… And, of course, there’s a lot of hype now about Chinese, must learn Chinese, and I think it’s silly.

I know even in Britain that’s the case.

In fact, I was once contacted by the BBC.

They were doing a story on sort of China, Chinese fad.

I wasn’t available to talk to them, but I would have said learn whichever language you want to learn.

If you want to learn Chinese, I mean there are a lot of reasons to learn Chinese, obviously.

It’s a fascinating language.

It’s a fascinating culture.

It’s one of the major cultures of the world.

Not that you should only learn major cultures.

If you’re interested in Estonian or whatever, Armenian or Mongolian, then go for it.

But if I’m in Britain and you want my advice on what you should get kids to do, I would go for a European language because you’re far more likely to have a chance to use that language.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: But if you’re interested in Chinese, go for it.

That’s fine, but certainly don’t promote Chinese at the expense of other languages.

Have them all equally available and let people choose.

But if I were living in Britain, I wouldn’t begin with Chinese.

I would begin with French or German or Spanish and then once I have this confidence then I could move on to Chinese.

Now, you are proof of the reverse.

You chose not to bother with French.

Although, French is an official language in Canada, you took on a much more difficult language for you as an English speaker, Korean.

You achieved a very high level in Korean.

So, let people do what they want to do, but we shouldn’t be saying kids must learn Chinese, must learn French.

I’m totally against that.

Alex: Well, it’s counterproductive too.

Steve: Right.

Alex: Because as soon as you say you must then there’s resistance from people.

Steve: I know that from the experience of my own kids where I tried to get them to learn languages.

That was the kiss of death.

Alex: Yeah, exactly.

Steve: It’s like these immigrants who desperately want their children to speak their own language.

Often they feel guilty and they certainly make their kids feel guilty if they don’t learn the language.

Some kids want to and some kids don’t, but for the parents to make the kids learn the language for the parents’ sake, I think that’s ridiculous.

That’s ridiculous.

Now, some kids say gee, I wish my parents had insisted that I learn Chinese when I was a kid and stuff like that.

Yeah, maybe, but, in fact, if you were fighting it — it’s like piano lessons – if you were fighting it the whole way, there’s a reason why they gave up.

So, I still get back to this idea that anyone can learn at any age once they’re motivated.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: So, if you’re of Chinese background and you want your kids to learn Chinese and they don’t want to learn Chinese they want to learn Spanish, let them learn Spanish and one day they’ll learn Chinese, maybe.

Alex: Yeah, exactly.

Steve: But yeah, no, this motivation.

Of course, in my own case with Chinese, it’s not like I all of a sudden woke up and said I wanted to learn Chinese.

It was part of my job.

I was assigned to learn Chinese because Canada was about to recognize the Peoples Republic of China and the government needed Chinese speakers.

So the trigger was work related, but I saw people around me who didn’t like studying Chinese.

They were Chinese language students like me.

They were resisting it at every step of the way.

In Chinese to say “are you going”, the Chinese “you go not go.” That’s the structure, “you go not go.” “Tomorrow you go not go?” It’s very basic.

These guys were saying why do they say it that way?

Isn’t that stupid?

How can you react to a language?

That’s how they do it.

Maybe the way we do it in English is stupid.

In fact, neither is stupid.

That’s just how it is.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: So the trigger can be professional reasons, but if you don’t develop a motivation beyond the necessities, the sort of practical need, if you aren’t able to cultivate some interest, some enjoyment, you aren’t going to succeed.

So it may be that the trigger is job related, but you need more motivation than that in order to succeed.

Alex: Right.

And that brings up an interesting question then, too, of there are a lot of companies in foreign countries who want their employees to learn English.

From what I know, like I have some friends in Korea who are kind of in the situation where their companies are providing tutoring sessions for them and all sorts of different classes and the funny thing is that those friends that I have their English level is consistently declining because they simply don’t have that passion for it or that interest in it.

So it all comes down to something that you put before them that nobody really genuinely wants.

Steve: But then the question is, I mean, obviously, teachers would like to succeed.

I’m sure this is the thing that all teachers look for is how can I turn on, how can I motivate, how can I stimulate, how can I excite my students.

What’s the answer there?

I mean that’s the problem, really.

Alex: Yeah, it is, absolutely.

Steve: And particularly in a professional situation where you have employees who know they should improve their English for work and they maybe even get a bonus if they achieve a certain level in English, which is all very artificial because these levels are quite artificial, and still they can’t force themselves to do it.

I know English teachers, Canadians, who have gone to Japan and taught corporate learners and these guys can barely stay awake in the classroom.

If they stay awake in the classroom, guaranteed they don’t do anything on their own, so they’re not going to learn.

What do you do?

How do you get around that?

Alex: Yeah and that’s the interesting question, too.

I mean I think you bring up a good point of the teachers who really do want to motivate their students.

Those are really the best kinds of teachers, but it’s something that’s so much easier said than done.

I guess for my friends when they ask me what can I do to improve my English or whatever, my main suggestion is to find something that you find interesting.

What I found with Korean was as soon as I went away from the typical textbook where it’s just the same thing over and over again that doesn’t really apply to me to then putting it in a context of something that I’m actually interested in in English and kind of slowing switching that over to Korean that’s when it became interesting for me.

So I really like music, so when I started to not just listen to Korean music, but actually look at the lyrics, read through it, learn it through that, that was motivating for me as well.

When I actually picked up books on similar topics that I like, like technology stuff, I’ll read that stuff all day in English and so in Korean it was a bit more of a struggle, but at the same time it’s like well I want to know about this.

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

Steve: Hi Alex.

Alex: Hi there Steve.

Steve: So, what do we want to talk about today here?

It’s still August.

It’s still summer.

I gather they’ve got a tremendous heat wave in Central Europe.

Alex: Oh, do they now?

Steve: Yeah.

Alex: I guess it’s moved over from eastern North America then.

Steve: I don’t know.

Like now, as you know, I’ve started into Czech, so I read the Czech newspaper.

Alex: Right.

Steve: I wasn’t even aware of it, but in Prague the temperature is like over 35°.

Alex: Oh, really.

Steve: And they had an article that in Italy it’s over 40°.

Alex: Oh, wow.

Steve: It’s some kind of a heat wave that’s coming across from North Africa.

Alex: Oh, wow, interesting.

Steve: But I notice the temperature in northern Europe, like in Sweden, was quite cool.

It looked like it was like 10° or something up there.

But, yeah, you know one thing that’s of interest; you mentioned to me that your sister got married.

Alex: Yes, she did.

Steve: And the in-laws are French speaking, so you’ve had to do something to brush up your French.

Tell us about that.

Alex: I would say that they speak English to a degree, but it’s very limited still.

Steve: Right.

Alex: So it’s not out of necessity per se, but it’s really out of interest and wanting to connect with them better, spending time with them, talking to them.

I learned French in high school for four years.

Steve: Right.

Alex: And it’s been four years since then and, basically, haven’t used it at all, maybe once every six months or something like that.

Steve: Right.

Alex: Like really not enough to do anything with it, but now that I’m presented with this situation I have, again, the motivation and a desire to start learning again.

And what I’ve found is that words that I had learned really long ago that I assumed I had forgotten start kind of coming back to me and I remember them.

Steve: Right.

Alex: I hear things that I haven’t heard in half a decade, but I’m like oh, I know what that means.

And I’m really surprising myself, because I didn’t expect this to be the case.

Steve: Well, I think, first of all, the fact that you had only four years of French, because there are people, certainly in eastern Canada, who have 10 years of French and still can’t speak after leaving school.

But, yeah, that’s interesting.

I mean it just points out again how strong a factor motivation is.

Alex: Absolutely.

And I would say one thing too that’s interesting is I had heard people say that forgetting languages, yeah, it happens, you forget it, but when you go back to it you pick it up quickly, but I hadn’t really had a hands-on experience with that.

So I kind of knew in my head that that was true, but I didn’t have the experience to back it up.

And so in that, one of the things with Korean, I’ve been studying Korean now for four years, I’ve been scared to put Korean down because even though I know that, yeah, you can relearn languages or pick it up again quickly, in the back of my mind I was still a bit scared if I stopped studying Korean it’s going to degrade very quickly and I’m not going to be able to say anything and so on and so forth.

And now that I get back into French I’m thinking that’s not true at all.

Steve: Well, you know, it may sound like magic, but I think that the degree to which we are emotionally connected to the language; in other words, we like it, we’re motivated to learn it, we associate it with positive experiences.

All of these things have a tremendous impact because, basically, I believe all of the exposure we’ve had to the language is somewhere in our brain.

It’s there.

It hasn’t gone, we just can’t retrieve it.

The more positive, the more confident, the more we want to, all of these things help us retrieve it.

It doesn’t go away.

I’m convinced of that.

The other thing that I can tell you if you’re worried about forgetting your Korean, every time I have left a language alone for however long a period of time, when I come back to it within a short period of time I’m better than I was before.

I’m better.

It just sounds ridiculous, sounds unbelievable, but it’s true.

I mean I notice recently that my Russian has improved.

I mean a number of my tutors commented on it.

Alex: Oh, really?

Steve: Like wow, has your Russian ever improved.

And there are only two possible reasons.

One is the sort of delayed effect of my having spent two weeks in Russia, which I believe is there because I don’t believe that when we go there and we’re surrounded by the language that we instantly improve.

We do instantly improve, to some extent, but there is also an ongoing sort of — I call it the “baking in the oven” — gestation period that continues after.

So that’s one thing.

But the other thing is that I’ve now spent a month on Czech.

Not very much, because I’ve had my hockey tournament and I’m still doing my Russian.

An hour a day on Czech and not even every day, but I have started focusing on another language.

The consequence is that my Russian is better.

It’s a bit like if you’re lifting weights that are fairly heavy for you and now you go to lifting weights that are even heavier.

When you go back to the first set of weights that seemed tough for you all of a sudden they seem light.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: I am convinced.

I have no scientific background or support for this, but I believe that that is the case.

There’s no question.

If I go to another language, which is now difficult because it’s new and I’m struggling, blah, blah, blah, I go back to that first language and I’m better.

Not immediately, there’s a little rustiness.

I’ve forgotten some words, but within a very short period of time I’m much better.

Alex: Yeah.

Today is, what, Wednesday.

My sister got married less than a week ago; five days ago.

Steve: Yeah.

Alex: But I first met my brother-in-law’s family like eight-nine days ago; eight days ago we’ll call it.

And eight days ago when I first met them I said a couple words in French and I was like man, my French is terrible.

I really need to practice and get it back, start studying and so on and so forth.

Within the period of a week, I found, surprisingly, I myself am really shocked at it, that I’m communicating with them in French and expressing ideas and saying things that I would have never expected myself to be able to say within a week.

Steve: And probably all the time you were studying it in school, you had no great motivation to speak French.

So you’re probably using it now in a more meaningful way and, because it’s meaningful to you, you are forcing yourself to find those words and find those neuro connections that are there from what you did in school.

So yeah, no, some people complain, how do you maintain languages?

People say they forget their languages.

I mean I think you have to leave them for a long, long time like 50 years.

Like, yeah, 50 years, yeah; a few years, no.

I know, for example, I studied Chinese in Hong Kong and then we lived in Japan for nine years.

I hardly spoke Chinese for nine years, hardly spoke it.

I went for a trip to China and very quickly my Chinese was better than it ever was; sounds strange.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: I’ve mentioned this on my blog on a couple of occasions and on every occasion people have come back and said yeah.

I thought I was the only one.

That’s true.

I mean it may not be true for everyone, but it’s true for a lot of people.

True for a lot of people, so I would not worry.

If you set your Korean aside and worked on Chinese or French or whatever for six months, you would go back to Korean and you’d do better.

Alex: Yeah.

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

Steve: Absolutely.

I read a book on the brain and it suggested that in terms of learning we need two things, we need repetition and we need novelty.

The brain likes novelty.

The brain likes new stuff, but the brain also like a certain amount of repetition so that those neurons… What is it?

Neurons set fire together… I don’t what the story is, but you need to create the repetition.

You need to groove the path between the neurons, but you also need novelty.

So, even within the same language, I like to alternate.

Like with my Czech right now, I alternate doing some very difficult stuff.

This is an audio book where I’m literally looking up every word and then easy stuff such as members of our community — Yardo and others — have created for me.

So I alternate between the easy and the more difficult and I think that’s good for the brain.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: So the ultimate alternative, let’s say, to the language you’re focused on is a different language.

Alex: Right.

Steve: So, yeah, I’m sure that would work, but motivation is so key. It reminds me.

Someone mentioned on our forum about how in Hungary the education authorities had decided that because Hungary has such a low level of bilingualism their solution is to not teach English at school as the first foreign language because it’s too easy and rather to introduce another language, say a romance language, which according to these educational authorities has more grammar or more structure and therefore is more difficult and then it would be easy for them to learn English.

I just can’t believe how people can… Beneath it is a certain elitism, a certain snobbishness.

We Hungarians are going to be more clever than anyone else.

The fact of the matter is most people are motivated to learn English because it means jobs.

It means a chance to go and study abroad.

It means if you learn English you can go to Finland, you can go to Portugal, you can go to China and Japan and you can communicate.

People want to learn English, so why wouldn’t you let people study the language they want to learn because if they’re motivated they’re going to learn.

I mean those that want to learn another foreign language, once they’ve convinced themselves that they can learn one foreign language, they’ll go after the second one.

I can’t believe that they would basically introduce coercion, because we know it doesn’t work.

Here in Canada most people don’t learn French at school.

Although there’s a great big quilt trip, you must learn French.

It’s the national language, official language.

We have this ridiculous commissioner for official languages who wants to insist that you can’t get to university if you can’t speak French.

What for?

If a guy wants to be a doctor in northern B.C.

he doesn’t want French.

Maybe he’s interested in Chinese or Spanish.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: You’re going to throw a big guilt trip on him and you think that’s going to make him learn? I don’t think so.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: Anyway. So, all good stuff.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: And, obviously, if you have a chance to use it during the day that’s fine.

I don’t have that opportunity in my Czech, but I’ve discovered, first of all, a tremendous amount of content that’s been created by our members at LingQ and then there’s Radio Prague, where they’ve got archives of stuff, audio and text.

I’ve just been importing that into LingQ and then I got this audio book The Good Soldier Svejk.

Alex: Oh really, yeah.

Steve: That book is like five inches thick.

Between the audio and importing the text in LingQ I’m set for six months, at least.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: Along the way if I find some victims, Czech speakers wandering around town here, I’ll attack them.

Alex: Yeah.

That’s one thing, too, where I know that this glory period of them being here, being able to spend so many hours in a day with them, is not going to last forever.

Steve: Right.

Alex: But it does serve as a very good motivation to kind of get me back into it and to get me interested then in looking up different things and reading and listening more.

When I get a chance to go to France or when I get a chance to come back here and we meet up again or even when we connect on Skype or on Facebook that there’s always going to be that constant motivation to be able to connect with my new family-in-law.

Steve: How’s your sister’s French, by the way?

Alex: Hers is okay.

Steve: So how does she communicate with her husband?

Alex: Well, he speaks English.

Steve: Oh, I see.

Alex: So he’s been in Canada for several years now.

Steve: Right.

Alex: He still has, obviously, a French accent when he speaks in English, but his English is quite good.

Steve: And where does his family live?

Alex: Well, some of them still live in Cameroon.

Steve: Right.

Alex: But a lot of them live in France as well.

Steve: Oh, okay.

Alex: Then some of them also live in Montreal.

Steve: Oh, okay.

Alex: So he’s kind of the frontiersman out here in B.C.

Steve: Right.

Alex: They’re kind of all over the place.

Steve: What does he do?

Alex: He goes to a school right now, but he’s also a coach for volleyball.

Steve: Oh, good.

Alex: So he, interestingly enough…

Steve: Where is he coaching, let me ask?

Alex: At Columbia Bible College.

Steve: Okay.

Alex: It’s in Abbotsford.

Steve: Right.

Alex: But he was on the National Team for Cameroon, which won the Gold, and his older brother was also on the National Team for Cameroon.

Steve: Cameroon won the Gold Medal?

Alex: For volleyball, but this was a few years ago.

Steve: Oh, a few years ago, in what, in the World Championships or something?

Alex: Something like that, yeah.

And his brother did the same thing.

Steve: Yeah. So is he tall then?

Alex: Well, he’s not. His brother is quite big, probably about 6’2”.

Steve: Right.

Alex: Maybe 105 kilograms or something like that, 230-240 pounds, big, big guy.

Steve: Yeah.

Alex: But my sister’s husband now he’s maybe 5’9”-5’10” but he’s in very good shape.

Steve: He’s the setup guy.

Alex: Yeah. He can jump like no other. So it’s cool.

I mean it’s good to have a good relationship with him, but to see his family then and see him with his family and connect with them through that.

Steve: Right.

Alex: It’s a very in-my-face motivator.

Steve: Well, sure, for sure.

And, of course, living in Canada I mean we do have radio and television in French.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: And there are lots of movies in French and, of course, nowadays on the Internet.

It doesn’t matter where you are you can find stuff.

Yeah, in that sense, even in Czech I haven’t done more than scratch the surface.

I bet you there’s more stuff out there, movies, you know?

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: But I want to wait until I understand them a little better and then I’m going to watch Czech movies and all that good stuff.

Alex: Bit by bit.

Steve: Yeah. So, yeah, I think the fact is that we don’t forget languages.

The key thing is that we remain motivated.

I believe that our determination and however positively we feel about the language, all of these things have a tremendous influence on our ability to remember and our ability to speak and our success in language learning.

Alex: Right.

Steve: And a little bit of changing up a few languages, I don’t think it does any harm.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: We’ll see. Maybe in six months you’ll have forgotten all your Korean.

Alex: We’ll see.

Steve: Okay.

Alex: All right, thanks for listening.

Steve: Okay, thank you. Bye.

Alex: Bye.

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

Steve: The other thing too, of course, that I’m looking forward to with my Czech is that when we loaded up the beta languages we didn’t, for whatever reason, enable the text-to-speech function on our flashcards.

I really enjoy going through our flashcards with text-to-speech because seeing it and then hearing it helps to reinforce it.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: Hopefully this week that will be up on the site, so I’ll get even more out of the flashcards.

Alex: Yeah, I think what’s great too is that an interesting thing for me in Korean was for a long time I just listened and I didn’t do very much reading.

I was a very lazy reader and so I found when I would read texts that you have this sub-voice that every time you read something you’re saying it in your head and when I would say a word in my head I’d be like oh, that sounds really familiar.

I would recognize it from some other phrase that I’d heard or something.

But I think inversely if you don’t have that listening experience or exposure or the years and years of constant exposure to the language then it’s a huge benefit to be able to hear it and then match that.

It allows your brain to much more easily remember it.

Steve: Absolutely.

I mentioned on my blog there’s research now that shows that people who have dyslexia that that is connected to their inability to hear well or to distinguish certain things about language.

There is no question in my mind that listening is very much connected with reading.

I mean, from an evolutionary perspective, we were listening and telling stories and listening to stories for tens of thousands of years before writing was invented and so naturally we’re more sort of programmed to understand things that we hear.

To me, writing is just like having a recording machine.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: It’s just like before they had Dictaphones or mp3 players they wrote.

So it’s just a recording like we record something by hand in writing, so there’s a very strong connection.

Certainly, the more I listen to something before I read in a foreign language the more I’m able to vocalize, the better I’m able to vocalize, the more familiar I am with the text, so there’s a real connection.

The other thing you mentioned too, which was interesting, is as you’re sub-vocalizing, which we certainly do when we read in a foreign language much more so than in our own language, you sub-vocalize it, or even in reading it, you’re more conscious of the connections between different words.

I think a big part of building vocabulary is recognizing these connections.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: That enables you to acquire a lot of words incidentally, words that you haven’t even deliberately tried to learn, but you’re becoming more attentive to the connections between words.

In fact, for me when I do flashcards, I do them mostly to see connections between words.

Like I’ll often go into our vocab section at LingQ and I’ll deliberately review them in alphabetical order because then you’re going to see words that are variations on the same or a similar core root.

That’s so important to build up that attentiveness to the connections between words and reading does that.

I mean reading is very powerful when it comes to vocabulary building.

There’s no question.

Alex: Yeah.

I think, too, with that, I know when I read in Korean, for instance, I do way more sub-vocalizing, as you said, than I do in English.

I can do it without kind of that conscious sub-vocalizing, but I find that then I kind of miss something to it.

One process that I enjoy is the process of sub-vocalizing or, if I can, reading aloud because then I hear my own voice and then those phrases and those words stick better than just the meaning of what it’s saying.

Steve: Oh, absolutely.

It’s just that sometimes whatever we’re doing we have like five different goals and so we have to decide which one we’re going to focus on.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: So, reading out loud is good because it helps to engrain.

It’s that sense of repetition, of getting the neurons to fire, so to speak, you know, so that’s good.

Yet, you’re anxious to move ahead in the book so you want to read for meaning.

Alex: Yeah, exactly.

Steve: And you want to focus on certain language patterns, so yeah…

Alex: It’s tiring. It is.

Steve: Yeah, sometimes.

Tat why I think you can read more than once the same text and focus on different things.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: And, for sure, repeating what we hear.

Like I know at an early stage in any language it’s often useful to walk around doing stuff at home repeating phrases that you’ve just heard.

All of this helps to engrain these words and phrases in your mind.

The problem is that we can’t do it for every word and every phrase that we have to learn.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: Like I’m a great believer in sort of a random approach.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: So if you randomly repeat certain words and phrases that’s going to do it.

Like if I have to learn 30,000 words in Czech – I don’t know what the number is — I’m not going to repeat them all to myself.

I can’t possibly do that.

Alex: Right.

Steve: Similarly, I can’t possibly review all the words and phrases that I’m saving, but even if it’s done on a random basis and even if it’s not scientifically-programmed spaced repetition.

I’m sure that’s very effective, but I don’t think it’s necessary.

I think it’s also quite helpful to do things on a random basis.

Alex: Right.

Steve: To me, the main thing is just to do things that you enjoy doing that are convenient for you to do.

If I had to sit down every day for one hour and religiously review all my words I wouldn’t do it after a while.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: So I think it’s important to tell people, if you are disciplined enough to do that, go for it.

I’m sure that’s very effective.

But if you’re not disciplined enough or if you don’t have the time to do it, don’t worry about it.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: Even if you’re doing it sporadically it’s going to help you.

The main thing, though, is to make sure you spend the time.

So, today you’re more motivated to read on because you’re interested in the subject, some other day you’re more motivated to read out loud, the third day you’re motivated to do your flashcards.

As long as you’re spending time with the language you are, in fact, going to improve.

Alex: Yeah.

And I think that’s touching on a good point, too, of the accessibility of language learning.

I think in a traditional approach you think you need to spend concentrated time on it every day and a lot of people think well I can’t really juggle that many things in my life.

If they have a family, they have kids, they have work, they have other things that they have to attend to they think well I can’t possibly learn another language.

But I think that very fact of five minutes here, five minutes there, reading on the way to work or listening or something, just getting it in.

It’s a random approach, but I think the exposure is absolutely beneficial.

Steve: Well, yeah.

I mean we see there are people on YouTube who talk about how they spend six hours a day learning languages.

And they do learn them.

And they’re good at it.

And that’s commendable.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: I know that when I studied Chinese I went at it very intensively, as many hours as I wanted.

I was paid.

That was my job.

I could spend five-six-seven-10 hours at it every day.

I did very well.

I learned very quickly.

I mean in eight months I had learned Chinese.

Russian has taken me four years at an hour a day.

But, realistically, most people have trouble patching together an hour a day.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: But if you’re a full-time student, obviously, you can be much more methodical, thorough, you should be more disciplined, all those things, but people who aren’t in that position can still learn.

Alex: Yeah. I think that’s it.

The joys of language learning are not reserved just for the few elite who have four hours free a day, right?

Steve: Exactly.

So, insofar as learning a language from scratch, I’m very happy with my Czech and I have the impression now that we have…well, we have Arabic, Polish and Dutch up there as well.

The Dutch I think would be a breeze.

I’ve had a look at some of the Dutch text.

I don’t think it would take very long between German, English and Swedish, whatever, it’s pretty close.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: The Polish looks a little bit daunting.

I think I might do that after Czech, if I feel motivated, but I’ve still got to slide my Korean back in there.

But the one that scares me is Arabic.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: The biggest thing with the Arabic is the writing system.

There again, everything that we don’t know scares us.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: Anything. Like I drove down to California, I’ve never driven down to California.

It seemed like an awfully long way to drive.

Now that I’ve driven down to California once — my wife and I went down and enjoyed ourselves there in Santa Rosa — it’s no big deal now because I’ve done it.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: I think if I got started with Arabic and started writing those little squiggles from right to left, once I get used to it…

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: It’s just the fear of the unknown and I think that’s a big factor in language learning.

It’s that fear of the unknown.

Czech is a breeze, I’ve done Russian.

I’ve overcome the first hurdle.

Chinese, having done Chinese, Japanese was a breeze.

Even Korean was no big deal because I had done the Chinese, the characters.

I was into Asian languages, although they’re not related languages.

Arabic now is like from nowhere.

Like it’s wow!

It’s just a matter of getting started; getting started doing it.

Alex: I think that’s the thing, too, of having the confidence.

Like you said before, you read a text in Czech you know three words.

You listen to it five more times and then you read it again and you know seven words.

Steve: Right.

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

Steve: Absolutely.

Just to finish off with this whole issue of speaking, everyone wants to speak and people have different sort of objectives in terms of how they want to use the language.

So if your objective is simply to go to Mexico and be able to say a few things with the locals that’s one thing, in which case, yeah, you start doing that.

I must say in the case of my Russian, I know from experience now, I manage quite well in Russian in speaking and, yet, overwhelming my activity has been passive.

Not because I don’t want to speak, but because there’s no one to speak to here.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: I can’t program my day around finding people to speak Russian to.

There’s no guarantee that at a point in my Russian where I can’t communicate very well that some guy I meet in a shopping center is going to want to sit down and have a cup of coffee with me just to amuse me, you know?

So, I’m confident that in this process in my Czech that as long as I keep letting the words flow in.

I don’t have anyone to speak to, but I’m building up my vocabulary.

Passive, but it’s going to start converting itself to an active vocabulary and when I have the opportunity and when the need arises I will stumble and stutter and struggle, but I will eventually be able to use many of those words and, of course, the more I speak the better I get.

So, obviously, people should speak when they have sufficient confidence in their vocabulary or when they have the opportunity.

Or if their goal is to use it for simple social situations, by all means, speak.

But I have the confidence, in terms of what I am doing in Czech now that what I am doing is going to enable me to speak.

I don’t feel a need to speak now.

Right now I probably couldn’t say anything, but I would say in a month if I hear someone speaking Czech in a store I may just say my three words of Czech and then run because I won’t understand what he’s saying.

Anyway…

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: Okay, Starting from Scratch. There we go.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: Okay.

Alex: All right.

Steve: Thanks Alex.

Alex: Thanks for listening everyone.