Alex Rawlings: Most multilingual student of Britain

Actual Fluency podcast, episode 36 with Alex Rawlings. 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.

Hi, Chris. Life is good. I'm in Budapest, which is a wonderful city and very different to the UK.

Fantastic. And of course, Alex, a lot of people know you. You know that. But for those people who may not have heard of you uh yet, can you give a little back story to yourself? How on Earth did you get started learning all these languages?

Sure. I mean, um, so it started off as a kind of obscure hobby, um, to just learn languages. Um, I was always kind of very aware that languages were around because my mother is Greek, um, my father lived in Japan for four years. So I just, I knew what languages were. I knew they existed and I knew they were important.

Wow, incredible. And you and you when you look back, you just you just kind of imagine yourself in in the Netherlands going that sounds really exciting and that kind of sparked something in you or did it

It was literally the exact moment when we were sitting on the plane waiting to go and uh they played the security announcement in Dutch. And I was like, whoa. What is that?

Yeah, I I had the same experience I think the first time I I heard Dutch. So it's a good language. And of course you you speak it very well now. So you could do the demo if you wanted to.

Yes. I'm not quite trained to become an EasyJet cabin crew.

No, not yet. That's uh that's a a future uh resolution.

But they need to make a bigger name tag then to fit all the flags. That's a problem.

Yes. Anyway, so so how did you how did you first study the languages uh when you were 14 years old? You didn't know anything, you know, well, of course we all all know when we're 14 we know everything, but about languages you you you had no idea. So how did you go about you said you want to learn Dutch. How did you do it actually?

I just used, I just followed one of the courses, you know, and the course got me so far. I think it was the Teach Yourself Dutch course, which I I really liked actually because there was a lot of variety and it was very practical applications of um of vocabulary.

Great. And also this natural approach is something that you know, I've I've heard you talk about before, um, and and the question I had about natural approach and and is is related to vocabulary because you know, if I have a book in Russian, say I have a a graded Russian book. It's a 1000-word vocabulary requirement, or not a requirement, but that's what they estimate. Um, how would I then how would I be natural for me when I I read through the book and I realize I don't understand the gist of this text, you know, I don't understand enough, then I go back and find let's say a kids' book or something. But how do I then make the bridge from, okay, I know five Russian words or 50 or 100 of the the first some of them, to actually getting to the stage where I can do the natural uh kind of, you know, immersion when, you know, when I can pick up Dostoyevsky or Pushkin, you know, or whatever. How do you bridge that gap naturally if it if yeah, how do you bridge that gap naturally?

How do you bridge that gap? Um, well, Russian is a very particular case, um, because the literary language of Russian is so different to what you you're learning normally, you know, and even now I still struggle a bit with um writers like Dostoyevsky simply because the language that they use is so far removed from the language spoken in Russia today.

Right. That makes it harder to remember as well.

Absolutely. And it's it's very unsatisfying for me because I can't use them. Basically. And that's the whole point of language, right? We want to be able to speak and communicate, not just to develop a memory vault.

Of course, of course. And so how do you in practice? Let's let's take an example like Hungarian, which you've been studying for for some time. How do you then do the when you when you go to your book or your newspaper or whatever natural source you pick your vocabulary from. Do you then plot words into your own memorized course, for instance, or do you do you find a course that already exists? Um, what what do you do in practice?

Um, well, Hungarian is I'm definitely not at the level in Hungarian yet where I can just read. Um, I I'm yeah, that's just not happened yet. Um, so I'm still learning very intensely with um a grammar course. Now, I like this grammar course because it explains all the grammar very clearly. But the vocabulary aspect of it is, you know, very abstract, for example, this, you know, decline the verb, sorry, conjugate the verb, um, to be settled, you know, in three different tenses.

Right. And then then do is that enough for you to to because obviously creating a sentence is a lot of kind of mental energy and it's a lot of focus on that word in the sentence. Or do you throw it into like a space repetition system? Or is that not necessary for you usually?

Um, I don't really do the spaced repetition stuff. For me it's honestly it's the focus is on the communication.

Yeah, I find that great. The only I guess the only struggle I'm having is that, do you have I imagine you having a big ledger or like a book or something. Do you then sit down and write out your sentences and then go over them sometimes after or is or is revision not even necessary? It just gets lodged in your memory based on because you worked so hard on it.

I think revision is always necessary, but um there are things you can do to make it less necessary. If you know what I mean. And this is one thing that I find that makes learning vocabulary like this more memorable so that I don't have to sit down every morning and kind of go like, right, what did I learn? I can maybe do it every week.

Right. So simply just using it in practice and trying to develop natural sentences that you could see yourself using and encountering.

Absolutely, absolutely. I think everyone we all have different goals when we learn languages. We all learn them for different purposes. Um, some people have absolutely no desire to be able to speak them. Some people just want to be able to read them, for example, for academic purposes, or just, you know, out of interest or just to understand TV shows, whatever. Um, but once you work out what that goal is, every stage of the language learning journey has to be orientated towards that. Okay? So for me, I need to use Hungarian. I live here. I need to be able to speak it. So everything that I learn has to have that in mind.

Right. Yeah, that's it's really fascinating. I I find this uh this kind of aspect. Uh and of course, when you do the sentences uh in in the sentence form, you will also develop the grammar knowledge because you can you can always refer to an example instead of just a rule.

Yeah, absolutely.

And you can kind of extrapolate directly from your working knowledge instead of having to say, I don't know in in German you might say, well, auf is uh, you know, controls both the dative and accusative and therefore you need to know that. But instead if you just had a sentence, then you would could you could refer to it much more clearly in your mind. Is that that's correctly understood?

Absolutely. I mean, like, um, another example, for example, is uh, another example, for example, is uh, Russian verbs of motion. Uh-huh. You know, the big sticking point for learners of Russian. If you just learn them in a sentence, if you give them a context, you understand when you would use them, they stick.

Right. And so every time you think of the verb for that, you will think about your friend losing your phone.

And it stuck in my head like that, yeah. And when we talk about, oh, I've been to Egypt, for example, you would say yesdil. Yesdil v yegipet. And I remember very clearly, um, one of my teachers talking about this time she went to Egypt and she she said, yes, yesdil v yegipet, you know? And all this kind of exposure, all this kind of um, real context, contextualizing of these quite complex grammatical forms, has meant that I don't forget them now and I remember them and I use them very naturally.

Right. Yeah, and Russian is very I I find Russian very beautiful in in the sense that, well, not only that you can you can describe exactly how you are doing it and if you're coming back or not, that's very nice. But also the the all the kind of the suffixes and prefixes I find that that's that's also very beautiful. But it also creates confusion when you're just doing the word list because it's like, nahadid, oohkhadid, vukhadi, you know, it's all they all sound so similar that if you don't have a reference point, you you might be stumped to actually tell them apart.

Yeah. No, well, I mean, yeah, this is where the reference point is really important. And when I was learning this list of verbs that, you know, with the prefixes like you're describing, or, oohkhadid, vukhadi, skidid, etc. On a piece of paper next to each other, they all look identical. Yeah. But the meaning couldn't be further apart. So the moment you inject context into that vocabulary list, you don't get them confused, yeah?

Exactly. And and that's very I I I find that very appealing to for the language as well. That's one of the things.

And Hungarian has it as well, as I'm discovering, which is very exciting.

Oh yeah. Can you use any of your Russian, well, the knowledge of of the Russian verbs to to do better in Hungarian?

There's a few grammar points I've come across so far in Hungarian that are familiar because of Russian. Um, I don't know, I mean, this is a very um controversial issue whether or not Hungarian is related to Slavic languages. One theory is that um the Hungarian people, of course, they came from the Ural Mountains. Yeah, before they came to Hungary. So they they used to live in what is now Russia. And there was some kind of contact between Russian and Hungarian people before they came to Hungary. But anyway, I mean, so I've noticed that um, for example, there are two different ways of saying in in Hungarian like there are in Russian. In Russian you'd say v, which means in and na, which means on. Exactly the same thing exists in Hungarian. And it's kind of similar when you'd use each case. Um, there's also a similar way of expressing possession, um, you know, um, yeah, ninch, and things like that. Um, and also this thing with with prefixes on on verbs, you know, to go in, bemeny instead of just meny, which is to go. So little little things that are helping me along, which I learn and I think, oh, that seems familiar.

Right. And speaking of Russian, of course, um, I was uh find that interesting because I mean it's the language that I'm learning at the moment. And I never uh I never miss an opportunity to ask into that language, but uh one thing I I noticed you said in one of your one of your interviews was that, I mean, you lived in in Yaroslavl for quite a while. And you said I I don't I couldn't find the video directly, but paraphrase, you said something like, to truly learn Russian, you need to live there. And I wanted to ask you whether whether that mean whether that's unique for Russian, first of all, and if you really if you and exactly what is meant by really learn. Does that mean that if I never go to Russia, I'll never be able to sort of be a high intermediate or or advanced level?

Um, so we say things and we change our minds.

Right. And and how's that different from from the time that the video was recorded?

Um, because I think since since saying that, I think I have met people who have never been to the target country and yet have pretty good knowledge of the language. Um, not necessarily for Russian, but with other languages, absolutely.

Is this pronunciation or is it just uh lexicon like?

I mean, yeah, I mean, I've also changed my mind about pronunciation. I mean, it's mainly pronunciation is very noticeable if you haven't spent time in Russia. Simply because it's it's more than just how you pronounce the words. It's the intonation. It's the flair of language. All these kind of things which is, you know, an everyday occurrence in Russia, but that you cannot access really when you're outside. Right.

Right. And is that because you you need to kind of integrate really well into the community or or what kind of trouble or struggles are you finding?

The struggle is you have to get up every day and go to work and come home, you know? And when do you learn the language? I talked about this a little bit in Novi Sad, you know, I mean, since arriving in Hungary, I've just been working and going to and from IKEA to take stuff back that I bought wrong. You know, I mean so when can I really sit down and and do it. And I think this is a problem that a lot of expats struggle with.

Right. So, um, I'm quite excited that I've had this problem because it's been quite eye-opening. And I'm now working on ways that I can fix it and that I can try and get around it.

Right. And because you are in the country, so obviously, you know, it doesn't make much sense to book a Italki lesson or something, you know?

Well, that's what that's what I've done. I've found I've found a a very good looking um Hungarian teacher, um that will help me and we'll see how they go. I just I think I just need the structure. I need because my my time table now is very very tight, much more than it used to be. So I just need to put aside an hour, two hours a week in which, you know, I learn Hungarian.

Right. And using the uh the aforementioned methods and

Yeah. I mean the teacher seemed very um happy to work with me in in the ways that I specified, so we'll see how it goes. But I mean, I mean, you say you're in the country, so you don't need a teacher, but this is another big problem, which has kind of hit me in the face. Right. When you're in an immersed environment with a very low level of the language, it's very demotivating to kind of be faced with how little of the language you actually can speak. Right. And almost every language interaction that you have to be negative because you can't make yourself understood, you don't understand something, or they switch to English. Right. This is this is actually kind of a big problem, um, when you're moving to a new country and you're trying to learn the language. And it's very off-putting and I think it takes a lot of strength to kind of get through this and and reach an intermediate level of fluency.

Yeah, that's I I I haven't tried it yet, but I I get that from a lot of people have have told me that. And the the interesting thing is when when I tell people outside the language learning community that I want to learn, for instance, Chinese next year or the year after, they say, oh, well, so when are you moving? I mean, you know, it's not those two things are are definitely not connected and they're they're twice not connected because they're not connected in the sense that you don't automatically learn the language when you move there, which is what you just talked about and a lot of other people have experienced like Benny Lewis also talked about it at some point.

That's exactly what's happening right now for me in Hungarian, you know, it's like the vast majority of the Hungarian knowledge that I've got now, I learned in July at home before I came here. And then since coming here, I'm like, oh, well, I heard Hungarian all day today. I don't need to study any. Whereas if I'd been back in the UK, you would have thought, right, I need to do some Hungarian because otherwise I'm going to forget it all.

Exactly. And you get complacent as well about having it all around you. Right. So everything else being equal, you would actually learn more Hungarian if you were in England right now.

Um, I think if I was in England, I would have raced through the beginning stages with much more enthusiasm than I am now. I feel like I'm stuck between A1 and A2. And it's very frustrating.

Yeah, definitely relate to that.

And I think the ideal point to arrive in an immersed environment is when you're just starting on B1.

Right. That beginning conversational when you've got the basis and it can only go up from there. Right. The the the moment when you don't have to switch to another language to explain what you're actually trying to say.

Yeah. Yeah, you can get by at B1 with whatever you've got. Even if it doesn't sound like amazing, you can get by. And that's that's the really exciting point to the really exciting point to be with learning a new language.

Yeah, I totally agree. I just had that experience with with German. Um, I think I think my I think it's hard to assess, but I did one of those Undaft tests. Oh yeah. Um, which is just a, well, A1 to C2 test to to see where you are. And it's actually quite difficult, I found.

Yeah, it's very hard.

You have to have to put in words uh like they give you some sentences and there are empty spaces. And German has a lot of like curious, I would say, words that that that are used, for instance, to start uh sub-clauses or, you know, to start sentences. So I was like really stumped by it. And it was like the first week of the my German education to is a placement test, right? Um, so I I scored as B1, which was, you know, after eight years of studying in school, I thought it was a little bit low. But then I thought, you know, it's I'm probably right where I should be.

You know what I mean, um, I'm a native English speaker, so I'm long given up apologizing for butchering other people's languages when, you know, the things I hear done to English every day, I just think like, okay, let's get over it.

We're even, you mean.

Yeah, exactly.

Keep a keep a a list. No, I think I understand that. And, you know, I don't think he he wasn't taking offense or anything, but obviously because he was giving me, you know, a bedroom then I was in contact with him a lot, so I I felt I had to say something to him. Um, that's great. And can you we we talked about, you know, a little bit of learning independently versus learning sort of, or not independently, but learning at in your home country, in your home in a in an easy stress-free environment. Sure. Um, how do you think what what kind of sacrifices did you have to make back when you were, you know, you had this learning environment where you could just kind of go nuts and study all day if you wanted to. Um, did you did you feel like you were sacrificing anything? I mean, that's.

No, I never felt like I was sacrificing anything. And I think it's because um when I was actually studying more than I am now, um, I was very in control of it. And um it was very efficient. So I I never, I'm never the kind of person who sits down and studies all day because I find that to be inefficient.

Right. Uh, every day.

Every day, that's an hour and that is so efficient. Yeah, because it gives your brain time for everything to sink in. It filters out the things that are in your long-term memory and your short-term memory. Then when you go back to it in the evening, you just like redo it all again, you sleep on it, then the next morning, you do it again, and it's just it's there. Right. It's there.

That's I mean maybe that should be that should be a book. Uh, the Rawlings method.

Yeah, well that's the method. So it's going to be a very short book.

Do a very quick book. Uh, leaflet.

No, I mean, that's that's um that's not a big sacrifice. Let's say you get up at 7:00, you have breakfast by 7:30, 7:30, 7:45, you're doing a bit of language. Then you get on with your day.

Well, I mean that can be motivating as well, right? To to pass on the information and then know by yourself that you have to follow it. Well, you don't really have to, but.

Okay, this is my resolution. As of Monday, I'm going back to this.

All right. Well, I'll I'll keep you to it for sure. And of course, you went to Oxford, which I'm sure a lot of people would like to, but obviously not everyone can do that. And one thing I was fascinated about when you mentioned it was that they seem to have a different approach. And I don't know if this approach is for just language learning or if it's a kind of a university-wide approach, but every time I hear people when they're studying languages in university, they're like, yeah, it's all right, you know, but I'm doing the most at home and they don't feel like, I mean, they feel like they could have done it alone. They don't need the university. They're just kind of there because they're interested in they get the degree. But from you, it sounded as though the university was very good at encouraging good language learning methods and kind of motivating motivate you to, you know, be these good independent language learners. Is that is that the experience you had at Oxford or?

Um, I think it depends. I mean, I talked about this a lot um in Berlin in my talk there, which is available on YouTube.

Right. But it's hard work. Well, I mean, you're getting uh getting your money's worth maybe. Getting getting something for it. But that's I mean, I I I think education is very fascinating and I'm it always saddens me when they say high schools or public elementary schools are, you know, not really encouraging people to learn languages. So I mean, I'm glad that the most people I've heard from from universities have been quite positive, but obviously you don't learn a language in a semester or even a few semesters unless you put the the work in. Mhm. But you but you know, you you believe that it's not well, it's not a race, obviously, we know that, but, you know, you believe that less is more. kind of way is that a way to put it.

Yeah, I just think I think when you're learning languages you can waste a lot of time doing stuff which is inefficient. And that's very frustrating because we don't have very much time. You know, no one has much time.

No. So.

So, you have to maximize the the time that we do have to see what we can achieve, you know, in our lives.

Right. But but you've learned so many languages that there also has to be another concern of maintenance, right? Or is that not.

Yeah, this is a big concern and this is kind of um a question where I falter a little bit when people ask them to me because the truth is that I'm lazy about maintaining languages more so than I should be. Um, I don't have any problem personally with allowing languages to go a bit rusty because I know that I'm not forgetting them. They're just going to the back of my head. And you know, with not much effort, I can bring them back to where they were and take them further. That's been my experience with all the languages I've learned. So, for example, I stopped formally studying French eight years ago. Um, and I haven't really studied much since at all. Um, that means that my spoken French is weak, but my understanding of French is still very strong. And on the occasions in those eight years when I've been in a French immersive speaking environment, it's taken maybe a few days to adjust, but then I've been back to been confident with speaking and I can reactivate all the stuff that's there. Right. And um, that's basically how I maintain the languages. It's on a very much like a needs basis. Do I need to speak French right now? Not really. I need to speak other languages. So let's work on them and we'll come to French when we need to.

Right. And and what kind of level I mean, obviously if you only study the language for a week and you don't study it for years, then obviously you probably lose all everything mostly. But what what kind of level do you need to is that this B1 or do you need to be slightly higher before you can kind of just set it and forget it?

Yeah. Um, not literally, of course, but. Yeah, when you put it like that, it sounds quite bad. Um, I think I think a steady steady intermediate level is is what's needed for long-term learning. Um, basically I mean, yeah, that's that's not having finished learning a language. Finish when we finished learning a language, we're at C2. Right. There's no question about that. But there are points at which you can take breaks. Okay.

That's a very interesting theory. Particularly with language learning, of course.

Yeah. I mean, for me I've found that to be true. Yeah. And when I come across words that I don't recognize at first, it's not, oh, what does that mean? It's, oh, yeah, no, I remember. I learned this. That yeah, that's really cool. Even if you don't remember the meaning, you remember that at some point you did know what it meant. Yeah.

But is that an efficient way though? Because a lot of people also question this um kind of this passive approach where they say, you can't just set put on a film in a in a foreign language and then expect to start to understand anything.

No, it doesn't count as learning.

Oh, okay. Okay. Good. Okay. So we're on the same page.

This is what you do in addition to your hour a day to embellish what you're learning.

Right. But yeah, I I definitely think that I for I heard the um this this Russian group, the uh, you know, the Tatu that everyone knows. Um, I listened to the songs like when I was very young and I thought they were quite catchy. And now then when I studied studying Russian, I kind of went back to listen to them again. Didn't understand much because obviously lyrics are quite difficult. They use it quite a, you know, often they sometimes change the grammar a little bit to fit with the the rhyme and everything and they also use maybe some words that you wouldn't use in normal speech just to fit the rhyme. But, you know, whatever. I didn't understand anything. And and then slowly as I was getting more vocabulary and getting more learning, I suddenly remember, ah, I remember that. And, you know, that was kind of it was kind of making it was starting to make sense. Uh and I I just, you know, want to want to echo that. But I I'm glad you said that it's, you know, not study time because a lot of people get that confused, I've learned that, you know, watching a film, even with subtitles is not not really classified as desk time learning, right?

No, it's not desk time learning. You do your hour a day, you finish, and then you're like, cool, what am I going to do this evening? I'll watch a film. Hey, I know. I'll watch a film in the language that I'm learning with subtitles. Right. Yeah. And and that's doing something. It's not as good as sitting down with the books like we're saying, but, you know, it's still does something.

Yeah, exactly. It's not, you know, it's not a replacement, but it's definitely a nice little addition.

Yeah, exactly.

All right, that's great. That's great. I think a lot of people will uh will take that to to heart and and start learning using that kind of approach. But um Alex, you know, we could talk for years probably about language learning, but sadly the time has run out. But before before we uh we part, I just wanted to ask if you had any shout outs. I know you just uh refreshed your website. It's a little it's looking a lot more more modern now, uh Rawlang.com. I wanted to put that in there for you. But any other places where we should uh check you out?

Uh I'm becoming more and more active on Twitter. Um, I'm blogging for Memrise as well. They the posts appear on the Memrise blog either every week or every two weeks about everything to do with languages. Um, and yeah, generally I mean just just watch out. I'm I'm also now a fully qualified language teacher. Um, I'm looking for students and stuff as well. If you'd like to work with me, I'd be very happy to hear from you.

Great. And what's your Memrise username? We want to follow you.

Rawlings.

Rawlings. Excellent. We will uh follow you and compete with you on the leaderboard.

Right. Turn the pressure up.

Yeah, and it's quite crazy.

It went quite well in the end.

Yeah, but it's you know, competition is so good. I I've added a lot of people and some people, I mean, must spend four or five hours every single day doing it. And it's just like, it blows my mind that they can keep up that kind of work ethic. But I mean, I I applaud them and I try to keep up, but I also know that it's just not practical.

Yeah.

All right, Alex, thank you so much for coming on the show. It was really awesome. And I hope to see you in Berlin next year and

Absolutely.

All right. And New York, of course, in October. New York. I hope so. It's expensive to go across the pond, but uh if I start saving now, hopefully.

Absolutely.

All right. See ya.

Thanks very much, Chris. Thank you for listening to the actual fluency podcast. For more information, be sure to check out actual fluency.com. Until next time, enjoy learning and have a great day.