Polyglot Interviews: Insights into Language Learning
At the recent Polyglot Gathering in Prague, our CEO, Michael Campbell, conducted a series of interviews with a diverse group of polyglots, each sharing unique insights and experiences about their language learning journeys. These conversations have been transformed into short videos, now available on our Instagram page and YouTube channel.
Each interviewee had something unique to share about language learning and we thought it would be nice to condense some of the insights we gleaned from these conversations about language learning; we hope they are useful to you, regardless of what stage you are at in your language learning journey!
Benjamin: The Importance of Practice and Interaction
Benjamin Keep is a software developer, entrepreneur, and polyglot. He has studied dozens of languages, including Hindi, Croatian, Italian, French, Arabic, and Greek, reaching impressive levels of proficiency in several. He is also a Glossika user, and described Glossika as one of his “favorite applications”!
He’s also the founder of Phrasing, a language learning app designed to help users engage with native materials, such as podcasts, movies, and TV shows, to improve their language skills.
Key Insight: The importance of repeated interaction with native material and the power of spaced repetition.
“Nothing beats just practice and interaction with [native] material.”
“If you’re trying to do language acquisition…but you’re finding you’re not following the content well enough that’s probably because there’s just a couple different words that are specific to that material that you’re not familiar with.”
Watch his interview here.
David: Translating to Understand and Think in Your Target Language
David Allen Martin II has over 15 years of experience providing coaching in business English, scientific English, and German, along with translating German, Spanish, French, and Dutch. He is also the CEO and Founder of Lingauthor UG Language Innovation. In this interview, he discusses his approach to learning languages through “translation cubed,” an innovative method involving three levels of translation.
Key Insight: How learning to make idiomatic translations can help you learn to think in your target language.
“I need to understand… what this person just said to me, and I also need to understand the actual logical meaning of the individual words.”
“The third level of translation…[is] where you’re back-translating from your language into the foreign language.”
Watch his interview here.
Petra: Changing Perceptions and Beliefs About Language Difficulty
Bozorádi Petra is a teacher and researcher of the Hungarian language. She has worked with students from over 60 countries and is on a mission to shift the perception of Hungarian as one of the hardest languages to learn. She also runs a YouTube channel for learners of Hungarian, Easy Hungarian. her interview, she explores the Hungarian system of cases and shares the Eureka moments her students often experience.
Key Insight: Believing a language is not difficult can significantly aid in learning it.
“I love Hungarian, I love teaching it, and that’s why it’s so painful when I hear all the time that it’s one of the most difficult languages.”
“Students who reach a certain level they also…[find it] so logical.”
Watch her interview here.
Tim: Inspiration Through Personal Achievement
Tim Keeley is a Professor of Cross-cultural Management and author of A Life in 30 Languages. His extensive travels and work have immersed him in local communities worldwide, particularly in Asia, where he has lived for 43 years. His experiences have sharpened his linguistic skills and deepened his understanding of the intricate relationship between language and culture.
Key Insight: If people can write books and lecture at universities in foreign languages, so can you.
Watch his interview here.
Norbert: Feeling at Home Through Language
Norbert Wierzbicki, whose native language is Polish, also speaks English, Hungarian, and some Spanish. He teaches Polish and creates content online for language enthusiasts on his YouTube channel Ecolinguist. In his interview, Norbert shares how he feels at home in Prague due to the similarities between Czech and Polish.
Key Insight: Learning foreign languages can make foreign countries feel more like home.
“I feel very at home here in Prague.”
Watch his interview here.
Jan: Learning Dead Languages with a Living Approach
Jan Oko is an experienced teacher and learner of languages who has developed numerous techniques and strategies for acquiring foreign languages. Originally from Poland, Jan shared his insights on teaching Latin using the "living language method" at the Polyglot Gathering as well as in our interview with him. Jan is also the creator of the podcast Polish with John.
Key Insight: Learning a dead language does not have to be very different from learning a living language.
“With Latin…I discovered that it’s taught in a very boring way.”
“I want to challenge some older professors who [think they] have the ‘only correct way’ of teaching the language.”
“I want…to make people use the language in a different way, and have fun with it and explore it and understand Latin actually better.”
Watch his interview here.
Verena: The Power of Language to Foster Cultural Connection
Verena is a polyglot who speaks a language many of us speak at Glossika – Taiwanese Mandarin! In addition to Mandarin, Verena also speaks English, French, Spanish, and her native Slovenian. She shares insights from her studies of Sinology in Taiwan and the connection she’s made with the indigenous peoples of Taiwan.
Key Insight: The power of language learning to foster cultural connection.
“I immediately developed a soft spot for [the indigenous peoples of Taiwan].”
“Every time I go to Taiwan now I actually go to this indigenous village.”
Watch her interview here.
Carlos: Making Yourself Understood Beyond Language
Dr. Carlos Yebra López is a postdoctoral researcher at University College London and Ladino Instuctor at the University of Oxford. His research focuses on the revitalization of subalteranized languages, particularly Ladino and Chavacano. In his interview with us, Dr. Yebra López discusses how language disputes can be analyzed through the concepts of lexical similarity and mutual intelligibility.
Key Insight: Being able to make yourself understood is about more than just language.
“Are [two languages] mutually intelligible? It depends on a lot of factors that are intentional.”
Watch his interview here.
Chi-ming: Finding Similarities Between Languages
Originally from Myanmar, Chen Chi-ming now lives in Taiwan. He speaks Burmese, Mandarin, Japanese, Russian, and is currently learning German. A teacher of Burmese and Chinese in Taipei, he gave an introduction to Burmese language and culture at this year’s Polyglot Gathering. In his interview with Michael, Chi-ming discusses learning Japanese and how his proficiency in other languages makes learning Japanese much easier.
Key Insight: Concepts often transfer between languages, so learning languages gets easier as you go!
“Kanji are pretty easy for me because I speak Chinese.”
“Since Japanese and Burmese grammar are basically 100% the same…I don’t have to spend much time learning grammar.”
Watch his interview here.
Israel: Experiencing Life from Different Perspectives
Israel is a composer who discovered a passion for languages when he taught himself German ten years ago. He is currenlty pursuing a Ph.D. in Composition at the University of Manchester. He creates content related to langauge learning for a YouTube channel, Rhapsody in Lingo and, in lockdown, started a Cantonese-language linguistics podcast 絮言．狂想. In his interview, he talks about the fun and frustration of switching between languages.
Key Insight: You experience life from a different perspective when you switch languages.
“Every time I switch [language] especially when I’m in such an immersive environment, it’s like a complete change in mindset, it’s so difficult!”
“Every time I do that it’s a huge pain but it’s also such an exciting thing.”
Watch his interview here.
Dario: Keeping Language Learning Fun
Dario Hamidi is both a teacher of the Estonian language and a programmer, working with a variety of programming and natural languages professionally for over 16 years. Other than his native German, he also speaks English, Estonian, Hungarian, and has learned some Greek and Spanish. In the interview, Dario shares some tips for keeping language learning engaging and interesting.
Key Insight: The most reliable way to learn a language is to enjoy yourself — to connect it to the things you love.
“I try to optimize for fun.”
“It took me 10 years to get to the point where I could keep a conversation going in Hungarian…. Could I have done it faster? Yes. Would it have been fun? No.”
Watch his interview here.
Derek: Making New Friends Through Language
Derek Terell Allen is an Icelandic teacher based in Reykjavík, Iceland’s capital. He is African-American-Icelandic and was educated at the University of Iceland. Derek also speaks intermediate (Flemish) Dutch and is learning Yoruba, one of his heritage languages. In the interview, he talks through the advantages and disadvantages of speaking several languages.
Key Insight: Learning foreign languages can help with meeting new people and making new friends.
“One of the best things [about being a polyglot] is being able to start a conversation with basically anyone.”
“I love that you can just chill at the pool or be at the bar somewhere and then you hear a conversation, and you understand and then make a new friend.”
Watch his interview here.
Want more interviews?
We have several more short interviews, check them out on our YouTube channel!