Simon Ager: Omniglot and Learning minority languages

Actual Fluency Podcast episode 24, featuring Mr. Simon Ager from Omniglot and a new intro. Are you thinking about starting your own language learning website? Then check out Hostgator. Use the coupon code actual fluency to get your first month for just 1 cent. Get started by going to actual fluency.com/hostgator. Do you like audiobooks? Well, then Audible is for you. If you go to actual fluency.com/book, you choose a free audiobook from a selection of 150,000 titles.

I'm fine. How are you?

Good, really good and good to hear. Um, I really appreciate appreciate you taking the time today to come and uh share your story and some wisdom along the way, but before we get to all that good stuff, can you maybe uh give a little introduction to yourself for those who might have heard of you? How do you get started with all this language business?

Okay, um, well, I grew up in in Lancashire in the northwest of England, and my native language is English. I started learning foreign languages at secondary school from the age of 11. Uh, my first language was French, and then the following year I started on German, just because those were the languages that were available in my school. And I I enjoyed learning them, I found them relatively easy, and I had a vague idea that maybe one day I could maybe work abroad. So I thought I should carry on studying them and and then I continued studying until I was 18.

That's cool.

Um, I'm not sure if that was a good move because then learning two quite quite challenging languages from scratch, um, was very difficult.

Right.

But um, it is possible. You have to work very hard.

Right.

And then after university, I went to Taiwan. I got a scholarship to study another year of Chinese. I stayed there, got a job with the British Council, worked there for another four years, became fluent in Mandarin, and picked up basic um, Taiwanese and Cantonese from friends there. And then I came back to the UK, uh, tried to set up my own business as a web designer and translator. I'd kind of picked up web design while I was in Taiwan, so I thought, yeah, I could do that. That didn't really work out, but Omniglot grew out of that.

Oh, cool.

And while I was there, I was working on Omniglot in my spare time. And after nine years there, I was making enough from Omniglot to live on.

Oh, fantastic.

And um, they the study group decided they didn't need me anymore, so they made me redundant, um, which gave me quite a nice payoff, which I used to do an MA in Linguistics in Bangor University. I chose Bangor because the course sounded interesting and because I wanted to be in a Welsh-speaking environment because while I'd been in Brighton, I taught myself Welsh. Something I'd wanted to do for a long time because my mother's family come from Wales, although she doesn't speak Welsh. Hasn't been spoken in the family for several generations, but I thought, I really want to learn it. So I did. And I've been in Bangor ever since, living off Omniglot.

Fantastic, and obviously adding a lot of languages along the way, um.

Well, well, yes, indeed. Um.

Yeah, I saw your list on the website. That's probably the the easiest reference to give people, but um, just just an extraordinary list of of of languages there and and obviously Omniglot. I I don't think there's anyone in the community who hasn't heard of it. But if if somebody who who might have seen listen to this out of pure random, I mean, we can just say that I mean, how would you describe Omniglot if you had like 20 seconds?

Um, it's a online encyclopedia of languages and writing systems, which you can use to learn about languages and to learn the basics of languages, and learn phrases, numbers, and all sorts of stuff like that.

There you go. That's perfect. I I I I used the uh Danish ones for the uh iTalki tutoring I did for Danish in in last month.

Oh, that's nice.

Um, because the basic sentences are really good to kind of get started for complete beginners to say, hey, what's your name and where are you from?

That's that's why why they're there, yeah.

Excellent. And uh of course you know Welsh is uh a they would call it a a minority language. And it does a lot of obviously controversy and is it dying and everything. What and and you had the family kind of involvement there for you to be more motivated. And I've seen you've studied a lot of other interesting obscure languages. What do you think attracts attracts you to Welsh on Welsh on a more personal level?

Um, well, it's it's mainly the the family connection that got me interested in it. And I started listening to Welsh music when I was at school as well, and really liked the sound of it, and I like singing, so I thought, I could learn those songs.

Right.

And learn what the words mean, which is how I got into the other Celtic languages as well, particularly Irish and Scottish Gaelic. I listened to music for a long time before I started learning the languages, and wanted to learn the songs, initially just to learn how to pronounce the words and learn what they meant, but then I got into the languages as well.

Right. That's cool. Do you believe in this uh passive period is is is uh well, not fundamental, but beneficial to uh to studying a language?

Um, well, it depends how you define it. I mean, I've I've seen some examples of people who've done nothing but listen or watch movies or videos in the language for a whole year and then try and speak it.

Right.

Extreme examples. I don't I don't think that's that's a very good way to do it.

No. But listening for a few months maybe and then you're going into studying it and maybe not just expecting to speak it is is is possibly beneficial.

Well, I think listening is is always beneficial, what whatever stage you are in your language learning journey. Um, I don't know if it's if it's beneficial to listen only at first and then only start speaking after a certain period of time, or whether to just try and try and use whatever you learn as soon as you can.

Right.

Um, I don't know, it depends on what opportunities you have to use the language, um, how confident you are and um, what you want to do with it. I mean, some people learn a language so they can understand the written form or the spoken form and are not so interested in in actually speaking it or or writing it. So, it depends on your own goals.

Right. All right. And uh of course, we met briefly in Berlin, uh obviously with 200 and 20 people. It's uh it's hard to get around to everyone and uh long conversation, but I was glad to just uh put a face to the uh Omniglot uh website. And um, your talk, of course, was on language preservation and survival.

Yes.

More. Um, incredibly interesting topic and very, I would say very trending right now. People are are talking a lot about it. Um, can you give people sort of the cliff notes, I would say, of why should we learn a minority language or even revive extinct ones?

Um, well, if it's if you're living in an area where a minority language is spoken, Um, then it's it's certainly worth learning it. I I live in in North Wales where Welsh is is still fairly strong. In Bangor, where I live, about half the people speak it, and in the surrounding area, about 80 or 90%. So, it's a useful language to know in this area, especially if you want to have a job in in local government or um, in other kinds of businesses.

Right.

And that's a great loss to humanity. So, that's another reason why why it's worth at least documenting these languages if not learning them to actually use them. Um,

Right.

And um, hm.

Big, big question.

It is, yes. So.

Obviously the the thing that people might say and and you touched on this with the practicality. It and I guess the the kind of the uh discussion that's going around is like, well, why should I spend my time learning a language that's probably dying anyway, you know, if you don't have any personal direct connection to it. And you don't you have any interest in the music, then it seems like charity in a sense.

Well, yeah, yes, in that case, maybe it's not for you then.

Right.

Because I think if you have the motivation because you're interested in in the culture of the speakers or some aspect of um, you know, about the country where it's spoken, the region where it's spoken or something like that, then it's worth learning the language. If you're not interested and you're doing it purely for linguistic reasons, you think, oh, I should preserve this language because it's dying out. And you don't have any other reason to learn it, then your motivation is is not sufficient really, I don't think.

Right. Yeah, I tend to agree on that. Um, but maybe we could um, lift up the uh the tone a little bit of seriousness and go on to you've learned a lot of, I would say obscure languages to to quite high degrees as well. Can you share any kind of interesting like discoveries or experiences you had in those languages that were you like, wow, this is really interesting or fun or cool.

Um, well, in the Celtic languages, um, when you're talking about owning having things, there's no verb to have except in Breton. So you don't say I have a car, you say a car is at me.

Right.

Buy me or with me.

So like Russian.

Yeah.

Oh, that's fun.

So that that's an interesting structure. Um, and you don't say you have a cold, you say a cold is upon you.

Right.

That kind of thing. I really like that that sort of idea. Or you can say, there is a novel in me. I mean, you might say that in English.

Sure. You people would look twice I think.

Yeah, probably. And there's no exact equivalent of yes and no. So when you answer a question, you don't there's you can't say yes or no, you have to reflect the verb that's used.

Oh, wow.

So if I say, you know, are you going are you going to the the cafe? The answer would be, I'm going or I'm not going.

Right. That's interesting. I would I would I would assume that yes and no would be some of the first things in a language because somebody's pointing at someone something or some someone.

Yeah.

And you'd say either positive or negative.

Yeah.

That's interesting.

But if if you listen to say Irish people speaking English, often they'll avoid using yes or no.

Wow.

When they answer questions. This is a carryover from Irish.

That's very interesting actually.

Yeah.

So they'll just repeat the the the verb or put in a nut or.

Yeah. Oh.

So are are you doing something? I am, I'm not or.

I saw. I didn't I didn't.

Oh, that's interesting. People might just, you know, you put this idea in their head, they might go and if they have Irish friends or Irish, yeah, or in an Irish community, they might just notice it like clear as day now.

Yeah.

That's why sadly no no Irish people around here, but if you do live in in England or Ireland, you can find some.

Uh, another reason why you might want to learn a a minority or an endangered language is because because the communities are small, it's easy to become part of them if they're willing to welcome outsiders. In some cases they may not be so happy about that, but in the ones I I've learned, I I've kind of become part of the community, particularly in the Isle of Man, where there's a only a very small number of Manx speakers.

Right.

And I know quite a large proportion of them.

Okay. Yeah, that's good. I suppose when a lot of cultures have that way when you learn their language and it's a very rare language, then a lot of them might say, yeah, please uh what's your name, do you want tea and biscuits? Uh but I but I suppose it does happen that some people are maybe protective of their community as well and saying.

Well, yeah, in some.

Welcome to a little group here.

Um, or for for Iceland, I think, it's a small community, about 300,000 people. Um, so any foreigner who learns Icelandic, you know, is is a is um, unusual really.

Yeah.

And they they're welcomed if they they they manage to do that.

It's a hard language, but interestingly enough with my ability in Danish as my native language and a little bit of Swedish and Norwegian, I can actually read uh some of the uh Icelandic, just just because of uh I guess crossovers and cognates and and things like that.

Mm.

But it's funny it's like a phonetic resemblance. It's not I don't recognize the words, I just read it out and then recognize the the meaning.

Yeah, interesting. Yes.

It's a really it looks really cool.

Like I I try and read um Scots. Mhm. Um. It's if you have to read it aloud to make sense of it.

I love that that kind of thing.

Yeah. It's like when you read um, kind of literature written in dialects of English. Yes. Um, for example, the the novel novels that the um, Forrest Gump film films was based on. They're written in kind of Southern Alabama style English, and you have to read them aloud to make sense of them.

Oh yeah, that uh I've heard of that as well, yeah. It's like a dialect, isn't it?

Yeah.

Yeah. It's like a corruption of of few languages.

Well, it's it's it's designed to be, you know, how people speak there. It's just to try to give you a flavor of that.

Yeah, maybe that would be more phonetic than normal English, which, you know, you can't you can't you don't know how to say an English word based on the how it's spelled, so maybe they have a bigger advantage there.

Yeah. Yeah. But as if you're not used to that, then it takes takes a little while to kind of make sense of it.

Yeah, exactly. Um, well, that was amazing. We had a lot of talk about sort of uh philosophical topics, I would call it. But um, people on the podcast really love to be motivated by practical tips and advice as well. So, I'd like to ask you if you had to learn a new language tomorrow and had to be completely unknown to you. You can't know anything up front. What kind of um, uh materials or um, uh mediums would you seek out and and how would you sort of go about doing that these days?

Um, well, I'd probably first look for online courses if there's any available. Um, let's see see what what might might work for me, whatever is available.

Um, and then if there's any online radio stations I can listen to to tune my ears into the sounds of the language. I always do that. That's uh, whenever I'm learning a new language, I'll spend a lot of time listening to it at the same time as I'm I'm studying it.

Um, and I'll I'll see if there's anybody around in my local area or or online who I can speak to.

Right.

So, yeah, that's that's kind of how I'd I'd go about it.

So you're much more in the in the speak it quickly or soon camp and uh try to develop a natural kind of speaking language. You don't necessarily work towards reading first or listening to music first, maybe or.

Um, well, I kind of yeah, work on listening and speaking as my main priorities. Right. Um, and then maybe reading and writing if I decide to to go in into more depth.

Right. What what made you go into or what kind of decisions did you do to to go in more depth with some of your languages? Because uh obviously you're, you know, if you studied it at university and you went to the country like your Chinese, that happens by itself. But I assume that you have languages that you've taken to quite high levels uh without living in the language.

Well, yes, I've done that with Welsh and Irish and to a lesser extent with Spanish. Um, for for various reasons. For Welsh, there's the family connection and the interest in the language and the want to to read Welsh language literature as well. And similarly with Irish, I don't have a family connection there, but I had similar um, interest in the in the literature. Um, with Spanish, yeah, um, I'd like to read stuff I'd read I'd read in translation in the original. Um, and yeah, I suppose often it's it's it's literature that kind of attracts me to a a language and wanting to to read that in the original.

At the higher levels of of fluency or. Yeah.

Yeah.

That'd be the to read the the literary works, which obviously, you know, most of the the big literary works are are quite complicated in in terms of language.

Well, indeed, yes.

So that's why you would need to take a lot of work. And I suppose it's the 80/20 rule that, you know, going to a basic conversational fluency doesn't take that much effort, but going to, you know, up to reading some of the big authors, that's I guess that's a full-time job.

Well, yeah, it could be, yeah.

If you go

But I I read a lot, and when I'm reading in foreign languages, I tend to read aloud, which is um, I find a very good way to to practice both reading and listening at the same time.

Oh yeah.

If I can find an audio book version of the book, then I'll listen to it and read it and.

Ah.

Oh, yeah.

So you're also practicing pronunciation, even though you're only reading.

Yeah.

In a sense.

And sometimes when I'm reading in one language, I'll be translating what I'm reading into another language, maybe not English.

Oh. That's incredible.

So, one time I was reading an Irish book and I was translating it into Welsh as I went along.

Wow.

Just as an exercise to see if I could do it.

Yeah, I've I've heard other other people do that who are extremely successful and and maybe it's something that needs to be explored a bit more beyond just the idea of it, maybe uh go and try more people should try it. Just.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

do the the mental exercising.

Yeah.

Mm. Yeah, it's it's a useful thing to do, I find. And it's quite fun as well.

Yeah, and maybe you have if you have any if people have any aspirations of becoming translators or interpreters, then you're already doing the practice there.

Yeah, absolutely.

That's great. So, um, a lot a big problem that people have as well is is is motivation. And even if you have the best reasons like if you like you, you know, like you with your family that you had a family history for the language. People still struggle with motivational issues and humps and plateaus and, you know, giving up. Um, do you have any kind of tips to to increase motivation when maybe you're not feeling up to the task or.

Well, yeah, I I have have all those all those problems as well. So, um, yeah, what I try to do, if I'm finding one particular, um, book or website or whatever I'm using is getting a bit tedious, then I'll try something else. Um, and try and find ways to make what I'm learning interesting and fun.

So, um, if I'm learning particular grammar points, you know, what I like to do is is play with language and write silly songs. So, um, I haven't done it so much recent um, so much in languages other than English, but it's what I I want to do is write silly songs in in languages I'm learning. Just kind of taking simple sentences from textbooks and then playing with them and changing changing the nouns and putting in different verbs and changing the tenses and just seeing what happens.

Right. Kind of experimenting.

Yeah.

Oh. Interesting. And do you do you find that your your musical interest is is making pronunciation practice easier or or or maybe you get better at pronunciation faster?

I I think there's definitely a link there. Um, yeah, I I hear the sounds of different languages I think better than someone without the musical talents, perhaps.

Right.

Um, and I I'm quite good at reproducing them as well. Like last week I was in in Scotland doing a course in in Scottish Gaelic songs, and um, I may be more than half the class didn't have any knowledge of of Scottish Gaelic. So they were really struggling with the pronunciation.

Right.

Um, I mean, the the spelling and pronunciation in Gaelic doesn't seem to be linked if you don't know the system.

Right.

Right. It's hard to s- it can it can be learned, there is a system, but um, it is it does take a while to get used to it. Um, and when the teacher was saying some of the sounds, some of the people around me were saying, oh, I can't I don't know what the sound that is, I can't hear it. I don't know what you're saying. But uh with my musical and also my phonetic um, training, which was part of my linguistics study, I find I I know exactly what sounds are being being made and how to reproduce them.

Right. So you could have helped the others then to.

I I tried to, yes.

You tried, well, that's that's all you can do, I suppose. You can't you can lead the them to water, but you can't make them drink.

Indeed, yeah, you can be explaining what the tongue is doing and.

And of course, that helps that must have um, I don't know if you if you were much interested in music back when you were learning Chinese, but I suppose for tonal languages it's even better.

Well, yes, I think I think so. I mean, yeah, in tonal languages, it's not about absolute pitch, it's relative. But um, I think certainly being musical does help with with such languages.

Um, I I wasn't as actively musical back then as I am now. Um, I only played two instruments then. Now I have about 15.

Right.

Right.

But you you still had the interest though at least.

Oh, yes, I certainly did.

A lot of people are are not interested in music at all, so.

Yeah.

You had a a head start there.

Yeah, I think so.

Great. And and I guess uh one one last thing we should probably touch upon is you did an MA in linguistics.

Yes.

And I'm sure a lot of language learners out there, perhaps a little bit younger, are are thinking about doing an MA or well, start with a BA, I suppose, in in linguistics. Is that something you can recommend if you have an interest in language learning or do you kind of need a little bit of a let's say a little bit extra interest in the very fine aspects of language?

I think from a practical point of view, um, studying linguistics doesn't really help with language learning. I mean, some aspects of it can be useful like phonetics and phonology. Um, but generally, it's it's not particularly focused on helping you to become a better language learner.

Um, but I I'm fascinated by language as a phenomenon, generally. So, that's one reason why I chose to do linguistics. Right. Um, and also I had a plan that I was going to become a a speech and language therapist and I thought I needed the background in linguistics before I I did did that. But after I finished my course, I realized, I'm making a good living from from Omniglot. I don't need a proper job.

Right. That's good. Well, I mean, you're you're kind of a language therapist now, I suppose. You're helping people learn languages instead of uh instead of the speech.

Well, yes, in in some ways, yes. And and when when people write to me saying, oh, your site's very useful. I I used it to learn this language or whatever. Then I think, wow, it it really does help people. And helps people to make connections and friends all over the world.

Yeah, and obviously there's the Facebook page as well. Lots of debates and discussions going on where people are interacting and practicing and.

Yeah, yeah.

Sharing uh ninja tips and tricks on how to become better.

And also playing games.

Oh, yeah, the word games as well. There's a lot going on. I mean, that that's probably a full-time job to look after that group as well, but uh.

Well, well, there are a number of other admins on there now.

Right. There's a few people uh looking out for the group. I mean, I I haven't seen any problems yet, so I can't imagine there would be any um.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Generally people are well-behaved there.

Yeah, it's a it's a nice community, I feel like, which we also saw in Berlin. Lots of nice people and I I'm I'm just happy to be part of it.

Mm, yeah. I am I am, yeah. I mean, Berlin was the first time I kind of actually physically met most most of the people.

Yeah.

I'd kind of read their blogs or seen their videos, so it was it was great.

Put some faces to the uh online personas, I suppose.

Yeah, exactly.

And you know what I I noticed I noticed something really awesome and that was that 99% of the people there were exactly like they were portrayed on the Internet.

Well, yes, yes, for people they they don't seem to kind of yeah, try and project a different image online. They just as they are.

Yeah, exactly. Like when you know, when you have Benny Lewis walking in and you're like, wow, I've seen so many videos with that guy. And he's just Benny Lewis. That's you know.

Yeah.

So awesome.

Hej hej då.

But anyway, Simon, you know, you and I we could probably talk for days about uh languages or other philosophical topics. But uh you know, we both have uh other things to do as well. But I want to thank you so much for taking the time and and sharing your story. It's it's very motivational and and thank you so much for providing the the services of Omniglot and and others.

Yeah, it's a pleasure.

All right. Well, I'll see you soon, probably hopefully in Berlin uh next year.

Yeah, yeah.

Or.

Yeah.

That's a that's a date as they say.

Okay.

See you.

Okay. Hej då. Thank you for listening to the actual fluency podcast. For more information, be sure to check out actualfluency.com. Until next time, enjoy learning and have a great day.