10 Language learning lessons learned so far

Welcome to the Actual Fluency Podcast, the podcast that gives you the tools and inspiration to learn languages faster and more efficiently. And now your host, Kris Broholm.

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Actual Fluency podcast. I'm Kris Broholm as per usual and this week, it's a special episode. I'm going to be flying solo this time. It's been a while since my last solo episode, but I've been wanting to do a bit more of those. And in this solo episode, episode number 40, I've decided to take a look back at the previous 39 podcasts, interviews that I've done, and see sort of what kind of lessons I've learned, and I've picked 10 different ones, and I'm going to go over them and talk about why they've helped me learn languages more efficiently.

And if you're a new listener to the podcast, I thank you so much for joining in. This is a language learning podcast, meaning that I interview language learners who are talented or who have special methods or ideas or just able to share some kind of inspiration for the rest of us. I'm not an expert language learner myself. I'm trying to become one, but my sort of perspective is that I can learn something new every day, and every person I talk to is an opportunity to learn new things.

So, that's why that I'm doing this kind of lessons learned episode, because I feel like I've learned a lot from interviewing so many people, and it's kind of coming from a background of not being very good to learn languages myself. Today, I, of course, speak, you know, three languages quite well. I've learned Russian most of the year and can now, you know, do some kind of conversation in it. Esperanto kind of the same, but I'm in no way an expert on it, and the way that I've done it, I don't think it's particularly efficient either.

But I think the input of a weak language learner or at least a learning one is quite valuable to the people out there who are trying to start their first foreign language or, you know, any foreign language that they want to learn. So that's why I'm excited for this episode 40 to take a look back and and kind of share with you my my 10 lessons learned from interviewing language learners. And of course, I could have said my 99 lessons learned, but I think that 10 lessons is probably, you know, what I can make in the time that I have with you here today. So thank you for listening and then, you know, let's just dive right in.

And I haven't really sorted these in in order of what I think is important. I think it's very difficult to sort language learning advice in any way. But the first thing that came to mind when I sort of did the research for this was get tutoring and as fast as possible. And I suppose I could reword that to say get help. And you know, it doesn't mean that you're incapable of learning a language on your own. I'm sure a lot of people do and become quite successful.

But the thing is, when you start tutoring sessions, at least when you find a great tutor, things just, the game just changes. I mean, first of all, the tutor is helping you to pinpoint exactly what what sort of problems you have. The tutor is there to explain concepts you don't understand if you're if you're learning a language that has a very different grammar. But I think the sort of overlooked advantage of having a tutor is that you're committing to meeting with that person.

And of course, you might say, well, I don't have to automatically commit. But when I started tutoring, I told myself I would get a lesson a week at minimum. And that small commitment and also very small money investment, because, you know, if you go onto Italki.com, the tutors that are on there are, you know, very reasonably priced compared to if you went out to a language school in your local area or even some of the internet schools or, you know, universities if you're in a country that pays tuition fees. So, it's very economical as well.

And basically, when I started getting a tutor for my Russian, it just it was just night and day in terms of my sort of productivity for Russian. It's just incredible. And I can't recommend it enough. And if you want to read more about my experience, you know, the first time I had a tutoring session, because I was quite scared about it. I'm not going to lie about that. I was scared about, you know, talking a foreign language with a tutor, meeting sort of strangers over Skype. It was kind of daunting for me. So I I wrote up a blog post about it, and if you go to actual fluency.com tutoring, I have a nice write-up there about my first time as a tutoring student and and what I thought about it.

So, that will be my number one sort of lesson learned from the people here on the podcast is, you know, get help, and help doesn't have to be in the form of a tutor. You can do language exchanges, you can find local sort of language meetups, you can find friends and learn at the same time and then use each other to practice and be accountable. But the the main point is just don't do this alone. Whilst it is possible, it's just not very efficient or recommendable, and it's also much more fun when you have more people around you.

All right, so the second lesson that I've learned from interviewing, you know, over 35 language learners is that you should never give up. And this is kind of a cliché, but the more I'm kind of persisting with Russian, the more I'm I'm seeing the results. And I think a lot of the times when we fail at something, we don't fail because we're not we don't know how to do things or we don't, I mean, I don't think we fail because we just sort of stop doing it. I think we fail something because we give up.

And we give up when it starts to get difficult or sort of loses the honeymoon effect, that is to say, you know, when you learn a new language, everything seems exciting, and you learn so much because every time you open the grammar book, there's something new for you, and every time you go on Memrise or Anki, you learn new words, and it's just an amazing feeling. But at some point, this honeymoon effect kind of disappears or dissipates, so it it gets reduced. And that's the time when you need to really pull yourself together and persevere, because if you consider anything in life, like running a marathon, writing a book, you know, anything that takes effort, the only way you can fail is by giving up.

You know, I could I could do a marathon. I might not be able to run the entire way, and I might not be able to make, you know, sort of conventional timing deadlines. But if you gave me enough time, and I just didn't give up, of course, I could do 42 kilometers or 26 miles or whatever it is. And that goes for language learning as well. It's like when you're into a language, and I think the sort of critical period might be a few months into it, and you're like, oh, this is so difficult, I don't understand the grammar, and I'm not I just don't feel like I'm learning anything. And that's kind of when you should persevere, because just after that really hard time, comes a nice, nice feeling of achievement. Like when you understand that difficult grammar concept, or when you start seeing how a language works.

Like for me in Russian, and and I I'm really sorry that I keep sort of comparing it to myself all the time, but I I really think that it's important to experiment on yourself and then share your experiences. So what I say here and sort of my experiences that I share, it it's only true for me. So you need to find out for yourself whether or not this works for you as well. But I can give you the inspiration to at least go and try it.

So basically, what happened with Russian for me was that I had this honeymoon period, it was exciting, it was new, and I was like, oh my god, this language is so cool, and then my my motivation just died. It was flat out dead. And I only had motivation to sort of blog about learning languages, and one of my other points here in in this episode is going to be about yeah, doing things, but I'll get back to that in a minute. And it basically means that I sort of de facto stopped learning Russians for for a few months. Everything I did was just talk to people on Facebook or on Skype in Russian, you know, just typing and using Google Translate and stuff, and it was really not that serious, and I wouldn't do I would do barely any memorizing or anything.

So, what I realized then was, you know, I need to keep going. I can't just give up. And the sort of the benefits as I was starting to understand Russian, and I was understanding how the words work together, and suddenly I could make up Russian words without ever having seen them, because I knew how the language was connected. I knew how an adjective ended. I knew how a noun usually ends. And that is just such a lovely experience.

And also getting a tutor, you know, getting a tutor for me was a total breaking point. Or not a breaking point. A turning point. A breaking point would be quite disastrous, but no, it was a turning point for me for getting that tutor, because it really gave me that win that I needed, because I was talking to the tutor for quite a long time, even in my first session. And granted, you know, it was simple, it was slow, it was awful, it was incorrect. But I did it, and the adrenaline rush and the I don't know know what other drugs the human body sends around when you get that kind of victory, but it felt I really felt, you know, elated, and it was just an amazing experience, and I can't, you know, I can't recommend it enough.

So that's the point I want to make about don't give up. And it is a cliché, and it's really difficult. Like, don't get me wrong, if you if you've ever tried studying a language that's quite different from your own, every day you feel like, oh, this is so hard. Why didn't I just learn French or, you know, something simple. And it your body or your mind is going to constantly try and trick you into quitting. It's constantly going to say, oh yeah, I'm not made for learning languages. I don't know how, I'm not intelligent enough, I, you know, it's going to send so many excuses your way for not continuing. And that's the time you really need to keep going.

And try to keep going even if you had sort of deadlines. You know, my deadline was to learn Russian in three months. I quickly discovered that was absolutely ridiculous, and there was no way I was going to do that. And then I said, okay, well, I'll use the entire 2014 to learn Russian. And right now I'm on a I'm doing very well. You know, I I don't want to sort of be overly positive about it because I I'm not quite there yet in terms of being a very good Russian speaker or understanding literature or TV or something. But I'm I'm improving every day, and I'm realizing that my goal of speaking fluently by the New Year is somewhat unrealistic still. I I think I it depends on how you interpret fluency, of course. But I think I think I can do it.

And then next year, I'm going to continue with Russian and sort of get into this intermediate stage where I can watch TV, uh, engage in conversation, read books, kind of effortlessly, and while I'm doing that, I might have started a new language, but it's very important that I get to that very sort of high beginner stage before I start to take on a new language, because, you know, once you get to a stage where you know the grammar of a language, getting to intermediate or advanced stage, it's basically just adding vocabulary a lot of the time, or understanding slang or, you know, these kind of how to use words or sentences like a native. So, once you get over the hump of understanding the basics and are able to carry a conversation, then I think you can take on a new language.

But I think in general, I would just suggest learning one at a time. Um, I think that's a better way of doing it. But because I've been with Russian so long, I think I'm okay with trying to sort of do a little extra language part-time. I've also had the experience from Esperanto this year where I did a little Esperanto on the side of learning Russian. And, you know, I'm going to be honest here and say that while I was doing Esperanto, it was hard to do Russian. Because if you're on the Memrise and you want to do vocabulary in Esperanto, and you're like, oh, yeah, I should do Russian as well. You just don't kind of feel like it, you know, it's hard to for the mind to focus on two languages at once. For me, at least. Like I have to constantly say this, but this is how I work. Some people really thrive when they mix between languages all the time. I just can't do that. I need the focus. And the entire point of only learn one language at a time could probably have been a a full point here in my 10 lessons learned. But yeah, never give up, you'll make it eventually.

The next point that I have on my list is finding a purpose of why you're learning the language is quite important. When I started learning Russian, it was sort of a a semi-arbitrary decision. It was sort of random. I've been playing a video game, and in that video game there was a lot of Russian people. And I thought, you know what, that's probably cool. And I realized later that, you know, that that's a good enough, I think that's a good enough purpose. You know, if you want to communicate in a game, and you want to kind of take part in the Russian area of the game.

But a lot of people I've seen recently on the Facebook groups and all over, they just kind of learn for the sake of learning. And I think that's perfectly fine. I mean, that's what I do as well to a large extent. But if possible, find a purpose. And one of the people that I that really sort of hit this point home was Judith Meyer in episode three. So if you haven't listened to that, I I strongly suggest you go back and listen to it. But basically, she's just like tweaking her language learning based on a purpose. So she learned Japanese to watch a single anime, just one anime. She probably couldn't do conversation or anything, but she could watch that anime and understand it. And she had a game, a Chinese game she wanted to understand, and so on and so forth.

So my point is, try to find a purpose, and not just, oh, I'm learning French because it's cool. And if it's hard to find a purpose, you know, consider learning another language, or, you know, look at look for inspiration around you. Try to check out the literature. What about the movies? If you go to the Facebook groups, a lot of other people who have learned that language might explain some of the advantages to you. And it's basically all about visualization, right? It's about your brain realizing that there are benefits to learning this language. Because if you don't have that kind of anchor that you can strive towards, it's really hard to learn languages, because the mind is, you know, the mind is always one step ahead of you. And uh, it's going to try and and and tell you, well, why are you learning this? And then you need to have your answer ready, particularly for hard times.

My next point is stay consistent. And this is something that I've also struggled with at the first half of the year. And, you know, I don't I kind of regret being such a poor language learner in the first half of the year because I was really, really inconsistent. You know, I was kind of just doing a little bit here and there, and it just didn't add up to much because I was too relaxed about it. You know, I was saying, yeah, I'm a lazy language learner, but at the end of the day, even if you are lazy, you need to have some kind of system, you know, you can't just do it when you feel like doing it. I I think that's that will end up poorly.

You know, of course you need to have the the desire to study the language. I mean, I don't want to force people, but I think you should try and build a routine. And for me, it was sort of building doing something every day. And I think a lot of the language learners that I've interviewed over these 40 episodes was agreeing with me on the on the point of just simply do something every day, and it doesn't matter how long it is. Just get that daily sort of introduction to the language or reintroduction, and you will keep learning.

And, you know, some of the most accomplished polyglots like Alex Rawlings, he says that, you know, studying an hour a day is perfect for him. Split up into three different sessions, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, and 15 minutes. And that kind of surprised me actually, because I thought somebody who learned 12 languages in in kind of a small time period, would have spent hours every day learning language, or indeed maintaining them. But it's just not necessary if you stay consistent. So tying in with the first or the second sort of point I had with never give up is stay consistent. If you stay consistent, never give up, you will learn a language. You might not do it in three months, but you will do it eventually. And that's all that matters really. You know, it's not a contest or anything.

So, um, so that's what I would say about, you know, stay consistent, try to make some goals, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly goals, and try to stick to them, try to read the goals to you every day and just uh, do something every day. That's my, that's what I've picked up from interviewing all these great people.

The next point is get out of the house and socialize. And this has kind of been difficult in in previous years, I think when there was no kind of conferences, there were no meetups, there were no meetup websites, there was no internet coordinate things. But now that we're living in sort of a technological age, it's so easy to socialize with people up with similar interests. So, every time that I sort of, you know, log onto Facebook, I I check out what other polyglots are doing, other people, and I can see, oh, he's studying, oh, he's doing that, oh, he's doing this. And I just get so motivated by other people.

And one of the biggest turning points, not breaking points, one of the biggest turning points for my sort of this year that I'm going to put in in my life calendar is is the Polyglot Gathering in Berlin. I just started learning languages. You know, I was just coming off of a pretty horrible sort of depression, didn't know what to do kind of a few years. And I came to this Polyglot Gathering in Berlin, not really sure what to expect. And it just turned out that I met tons of tons of great people, great language learners, and it was so inspirational. And there were so many people that I'm happy to have met and that I am now also happy to call friends today. And if you were at that Polyglot Gathering, you know, thank you so much for making it so amazing. It was really a fantastic experience, and it changed my life forever.

So that's also why I'm looking forward to the next Polyglot Gathering, which is in May next year. And I'll also be joining the Polyglot Conference. And basically, what I'm doing is just trying to make it the language learning as real as possible. And you might say it's kind of a trick against the mind, because, you know, if you're learning languages to be able to speak to other people learning languages, it's sort of, you know, is that really what language was supposed to be designed for. But I I don't mind that actually. I think it's just a way to kind of hack your brain because if I if I consider the Polyglot Gathering last year, and I only spoke let's say three languages, you know, it was it was quite noticeable the people who spoke say six or seven had a lot more sort of going for them. And I'm not trying to, you know, put them on a pedestal or anything, or say that, oh, you need at least seven languages to have fun. I definitely had a ton of fun, that's not the point.

The point is that, you know, it's a good hack for your brain to have that kind of event or events. I mean, maybe there's a weekly Russian meetup in your city or a weekly Korean meetup. I I don't know. But if you have some kind of commitment to showing up a place and having to practice your languages, you'll find that you work a lot harder on the desk time as well. So for me, getting out of the house and meeting other people is is is essential. And that's something that I also learned from these interviews is that making friends in the Polyglot community and sort of motivating each other is is key to success.

And if you're if you're in London on the 10th of December, actually, that's probably not going to that's going to be missed. Oh, well. I I was doing an Actual Fluency Meetup in London on the 10th of December, and I think we had a lot of fun. I hope so. Kind of a back to the future moment here. Uh, but the point is that I'm also hosting some meetups on Actual Fluency, and these won't be events. You won't have to pay for them or anything. You just show up, and we have some fun, and it'll be in a pub or a bar or something. We can buy a a pint of beer and and talk languages or language learning. And the first one is like I said in London on the 10th of December 2014. So by the time you hear this, we've already done that. But stay keep a look out on the Actual Fluency Facebook page for other announcements. I'm planning to do a meetup in Athens this summer. So, you know, if you're in Athens or around the area, just come and say hi, and and we'll see. It's all all about meeting new people and like-minded people.

The next point I wanted to make is that Memrise is really awesome. And I know I constantly harp out about harp on about Memrise, and I constantly, you know, praise it. But it is really amazing. And it's amazing because it it puts a lot of the thinking out of it takes a lot of the thinking responsibility away from you. Because if you're doing Anki, you have to constantly decide whether or whether a word is a one-day word or a seven-day word or a three-week word or whatever. I I forget the options, and they also change per deck, I think. Um, but with Memrise, it's an automated process. And you might say, well, that's slightly less efficient. I actually think it's more efficient. And there's so many courses, there's so many Memes, you know, uh, memory associations.

So if you're not doing Memrise, get on it and do Memrise, and this is uh, you know, I was happy to to be recommended the program by language learners that I've, you know, talked to over the time. And I'm also very happy to be talking to the Memrise people and sort of continually working towards improving the service. And it's always it's free. So there's uh, really no, I'm you know, I'm not trying to sell anything here, but I think that it has definitely helped me a lot. I've I've I think I'm just about to hit 3,000 words on Memrise, which is for, you know, 10, 11, no, 10 months of work is perhaps not as optimum as it could be. I think I could have done more if I had had been more productive during the first part of the year. But, you know, Memrise has has a has sort of has taught me 3,000 words in two different languages. So I think that's kind of inspirational, and that's why I supported them with my premium membership. It's only $9 a month, and uh, I don't get any any commissions out of recommending that. But, you know, that's just my personal opinion. I think it's a great company, and they're really doing a lot of science behind the scenes.

So the point I have to make here is flashcards are your best friend. And I think Memrise is the best out there right now. But there are alternative alternatives that might work better for you if you want to do something like, you know, be a little bit more independent and sort of choose when the words come back. I would go for Anki. And if you wanted sort of a more done for you courses with slightly more professional touch, then I would consider Anti-Tosh and Lynn. As they have flashcards in a lot of languages. Uh, so go check them out. Those are the three companies I could just name off the top of my head that I would recommend for various reasons. But Memrise is kind of my favorite.

The next point I have is about Russian. And I've been talking about Russian a lot in this episode, and I realize that. And if you're not learning Russian or you're not interested in learning Russian, you know, I I apologize for that, but it is because that's, you know, my year has been occupied by a lot of Russian. So I have to I had to kind of keep it in here. And what I wanted to the point I wanted to make about learning Russian is one that also applies to other difficult languages. And if you're a Westerner, for instance, learning Asian languages might be difficult. And likewise if you are from an Asian country learning the Western languages might be difficult like something like German or Danish indeed.

Uh, so when you're learning a difficult language that's very different from your own, and my example here is with Russian, it's really challenging. Like I had French in school, and I did nothing. I hardly worked anything, but I still understood it to a large degree, and I learned a lot, and I could actually speak some of it back then. Now I've mostly forgotten forgotten it. But the point is that when you're choosing a very different language or a very difficult language compared to your own native language, you have to be prepared to put on put in more effort than people might sometimes say.

And that's not a problem if you just use the other tips that I said, you know, the only mistake you can do is giving up, get tutoring and as fast as possible, you know, if you do those things, you'll still learn these difficult languages, but you just have to be prepared that it's a lot more bumpy ride than if you're a German and wanting to learn Dutch, or if you're Swedish and want to learn Norwegian. You know, if you pick languages that are very different from your normal one, it's not easy.

And I hate this kind of easy hard decision because at the end of the day, if you just keep working at it, it's the sort of the things involved with learning a language is not difficult or hard. So how can you say that something is not easy? But I think there is a point to be made about there's a difference in in in the amount of time it takes to learn more difficult languages, and and thus I called them difficult. But I I just want to say that although it has been a real struggle for me to learn Russian, and I'm still struggling with it, and I'm still learning how to learn, it's been also very it's also very pleasurable. You know, it's it gives a high level of satisfaction that you actually succeeded in something unusual.

You know, if I go to the streets of if I go to a party in Denmark, there's only Danish people there, and somebody asks me if I speak French. I say, yeah, I speak French, and they'll be like, okay, that's cool. But if you say, I speak Russian, they're like, what? You speak Russian? Oh, that's so cool. You know. And yeah, I know it's about vanity as well. I I'm not, you know, much into the whole vanity thing, but it is a really cool experience, you know, like like when you see most doing his kind of videos on the road. You know, the the the excitement in people's faces is something that he obviously lives and breathes for when he says he he knows like Tibetan and, you know, Mong and and whatnot. So it's it's very cool either way.

But I just I just wanted to make that point that just because everyone tries to make language learning easier, and I do believe language learning in general is easy. It's just put the time in, don't give up, and get help. It is still going to be more difficult if you choose some of these sort of far away languages from your own. So just just keep that in mind and don't give up. Because at the once you hit that kind of the wall, you know, where it really hurts to continue and you're like, oh, I don't understand anything. That's the time when you really start learning and you really start enjoying the fruits of your labor. So keep going if you're learning these difficult languages.

There's also something to be said about, should you in general focus on learning languages that are closer to your own or, you know, far away. And I I think the answer to that is just do whatever you want. I don't think that should factor in at all. If you're really into Korean dramas or something, you should learn Korean, even if your native tongue is English. I don't I don't think that you should kind of say, oh, well, I know English. I guess I'll learn French first, and then I'll learn German. And yeah, you can learn those languages quite easily, and learning an easy language before a difficult one is definitely a recommendable option. But don't let your life be governed by the easy way out. You know, some of the big best enjoyments we can get is by learning what is difficult and unusual as well because even though a lot of people speak these kind of so-called difficult languages, it's quite unusual in some parts of the world like Russian in Denmark, for instance. So that's that's what I had about that.

The next point is something about don't say you're learning languages. I mean, don't just say you're learning languages, because I know the feeling, right? You go on Facebook and you're like, oh, yeah, I'm learning Icelandic. I'm so cool. And I don't mind that at all. I I I'm sure I've done that here on the blog. I'm like, yeah, I'm learning Russian. I'm like the next uh, you know, next expert on the Russian language. I'm I'm so cool. Um, and I think people should be allowed to to sort of be commended for their efforts. But the problem is when you be when you're asking to be commended on your, you know, what you're saying and not what you're doing.

So, for instance, my personal example is that on the blog, I had kind of put it out there that my challenge was to learn Russian in three months. And I miserably failed, but I already talked about that, you know, due to various reasons. And then once I got back into it, I was really, really lazy, I didn't really do much, but I was constantly saying to people, oh, yeah, I'm learning Russian. And you know, I just think that you should not, you know, if you're saying that, you should really be putting in the effort, you should really be putting in the daily effort. And there's nothing more sad to me, at least, than to meet somebody, and and I know people's views are different on this, and I just want to say, you know, I I don't mind, people can do whatever they want. But I hated when I meet people, and they say, oh, yeah, I'm learning Spanish, and they can't say one word in Spanish. You know, in that sense, I'm learning every language in the world, right?

So my sort of the the thing that I've learned here is that it's not about what you say you're doing, it's about what you are doing. So, your you're not going to evaluate yourself on what you say you will do or have done. You the only success you're going to get out of your own mind, brain, and, you know, happiness is if you actually do what you're saying you're doing. And I I'm totally guilty of this when I started the blog. You know, I was saying that I was learning Russian, and I was, but it was just so slow that I might not have been learning it at all, you know, if you average up the time, I probably spent less than 10 minutes a day. And, you know, as much as I I think that less is more in language learning, there's a there's a kind of a a tolerance, you know, a tolerance level at some point where if you only spend five minutes a day, you're not going to get anywhere. And then I think it's false to go out and say, oh, yeah, I'm learning Russian.

And in a similar vein, I would really caution people to try and be too much all over the place. I know some people really enjoy learning a little bit of every language and then moving on to the next one. But I would just I would just offer from my opinion and say that I I'd really prefer to be able to speak something in the language, because if you just want to learn a few sentences, you can just memorize the phrase book, right? You don't need to know about the grammar of a language if you if all you want to do is say, oh, how hey, how are you? I'm from Denmark, where's the toilet, you know. And it this differs from person to person. Some people love just learning a ton of languages, but not really knowing much with them.

And I think that I've made it my mission that for every language I sort of study, I want to be able to use them in active conversation. And the example I had was I met a I met a girl in in in Germany, and in a bar. It was sort of a meetup for Danish and German relations. And we were sitting there talking, and it turns out she'd studied tons of languages at her university. And she was like, oh, yeah, I studied 15 languages or something. And you know, I don't mind people sort of showing off. Again, I think people are are quite you know, we're into vanity, right? It's about how we're perceived by others. But I then kind of talk to her in some of these languages, and it was just like, for Russian, she didn't even understand, you know, how are you? You know, and and then I'm like, did you really study the language? Oh, yeah, yeah, she did a semester. Well, isn't that a shame to spend an entire semester and not be able to understand how are you, you know?

You know, I'm not judging here or anything. I'm just saying that this is something that I've learned doing the interviews is that practicality for me beats sort of this I don't I don't know what you want to call it. It's a bit of a um, an obsession to travel between different languages very quickly. And I know some people really enjoy it. So that's why, you know, I'm not going to say, oh, that's wrong or anything. If that's your goal to sort of investigate languages, that's fine. But don't say you sort of speak the language at least, or don't say that you're learning it. Um, you know, if you're learning about it, that's fine. But my the lesson that I've learned from from people that I've interviewed is to practicality is sort of the number one. You know, language languages are meant for practicality. And if you're if the way you're studying a language is preventing you from using it practically, then I think you've you've sort of spent your time at the wrong place.

And this is a totally opinion opinionated opinionated lesson, sort of a a point. So I I you know, if you have different opinions on this matter, I I totally respect them. It's not like I'm trying to convert people to my way of thinking. I'm just saying this is something that I realized is that you can learn a language quite the wrong way. And I was doing that with Esperanto, for instance. I was only learning vocabulary. And when I came to the sort of an Esperanto meetup, I couldn't say anything because I only knew the nouns and the verbs. I didn't know the glue words or the pronouns or anything.

So, you know, the the takeaway here is difficult languages sort of, sorry, learning languages should have an end goal, and I would say if you don't have a particular end goal, I think it should always be to be able to speak it. And I'm not saying, you know, speak with in a highly academic level about very technical aspects. No, no, that's that's not the point. The point is just simply to be able to speak and communicate with people, with native speakers of the of the language. And um, and that will kind of be my my go-to strategy.

The final point that I have for you today, and before I get into that final point, I just want to say thank you for listening with me so far. I haven't done a solo episode in a while, and, you know, I kind of like doing them sometimes. But I just wanted to ask you your opinion on the format here. Do you like me kind of going over some of these things that I've learned? Or do you think that I'm a little bit too boring, a little bit too ranty? Anything you want to add to the discussion, just add it to the the comment section, because it's not something I do very often. So I'm just interested to know if this if you want more of this or if yeah, any suggestion and comment is welcomed.

The last point I want to make and, you know, like I said, I haven't organized these points in sort of importance because I think that's a stupid thing to do for language learning. Everything is important. So, what I the last point I have here is never miss an opportunity to practice your target language, and also seek it out if possible. And this kind of ties in with the make friends and socialize or get out of the house point from earlier. The point is that you should always take every opportunity to practice your language you can. So that means if you have like at your house, if you're learning Russian, well, have a Russian book that you can put on your toilet when you're, you know, you you have to we all have to go to the toilet, right? Might as well spend the time wisely. Or if you if you're traveling a lot, if you're using public transportation, have your book, have your podcasts in in the languages that you're you're learning.

And if you see sort of if you're learning, I don't know, Arabic, and you see an Arabic store in your city, just go in and say hi to people, and just sort of use a few sentences as much as you can. They'll be they'll be really happy for it, and you'll get some extra good uh, sort of a a confidence to keep going. And, you know, I want I had a story recently where I went to the public library recently, and I I was in the Russian section. And there was a Russian girl there who came up to me and started talking, and I just got so kind of dumbfounded by it that I made a a one-sentence reply and I I kind of left. But now that I look back, I was like, there's so few Russian people or Russian speakers in in my city. So why did I just run away? You know, it's a it's a hard lesson to learn.

But basically, the most successful language learners that I've interviewed are the people who sought out ways to practice their language. And that was through meetups, regular meetups in the home city, uh, tutoring on Skype, you know, um, all these services like penpal services or language exchange services, friends, family, anything you can do to practice the language is perfect, and I really encourage you to seek out all these kind of opportunities to practice it. And it's something that I'll be working on in 2015 to try and seek out more ways to practice Russian. Uh, because that's I think that's what I'm lacking right now, and I could really benefit from some speaking practice. You know, I talk to my tutor every week, but it when you speak to the same person, it's not as organic, uh, because you already know a lot about the person, and when you then meet somebody out in the real world, you know, all the questions from sort of the first lessons lesson pops uh, pop up again. And I think that's what I need practice in.

But that was my sort of 10 lessons that I have learned from interviewing over 35 language learners. I hope you enjoyed the podcast and indeed the sort of the this format is a little bit different this week. But I I hope you enjoyed it anyway, and I'll look forward to meeting or inviting a new interviewee onto the show next week. And then we're not too far off from episode 50. And I think the the half century episode is quite special. So I've got some special uh, sort of uh, ideas lined up, and I hope they will become a reality, and then I'll make episode 50 really special for you guys.

So as always, thank you for listening to the podcast, and if you have time and if you have time to review the podcast on iTunes, I would really appreciate it. It really helps the show reach more people, more aspiring polyglots, more language learners. And you can find the show on iTunes, search for Actual Fluency Podcast, or simply actualfluency.com iTunes will also direct you to the iTunes web page, and you can ask to launch the iTunes app through that website, and then leave a review using your Apple account. And like I said, I really appreciate the people who've already done that. I I love you guys. And uh, look forward to uh, being in your ears again next week. All right. Take care.

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.