Alex Strick van Linschoten: Learning Pashto in Afghanistan
Kris Broholm interviews Alex Strick van Linschoten, who shares his experiences learning Pashto and Dari in Afghanistan. Alex discusses his background where language learning was expected and emphasizes the role of confidence. He details how he applied practical methods for his work and research in South Asia.
January 25, 2017 · 59 min
EP 104: Alex Strick van Linschoten: Learning Pashto in Afghanistan
0:00 / 58:58
Guest
Alex Strick van Linschoten
What You'll Hear
- 1 Welcome & Meeting Language Learner Alex
- 2 Early Life: Family's Global Language Perspective
- 3 Afghanistan: From Curious Tourist to Unique Projects
- 4 Learning Pashto & Dari With Few Resources
- 5 Effective Strategies for Learning Arabic
- 6 Meta-Learning, Mindset, and Motivation Keys
- 7 Deep Work: Productivity in Challenging Environments
- 8 Conclusion and How to Find Alex
Links Mentioned
Questions Covered in the Show
What motivated Alex Strick van Linschoten to learn languages?- 2m
Why did Alex Strick van Linschoten go to Afghanistan and what kind of work did he do there?- 6m
How did Alex Strick van Linschoten learn Pashto and Dari with limited learning resources?- 12m
Is immersion in a foreign country necessary for effective language learning?- 18m
What is the best strategy for learning Arabic, considering its dialects?- 24m
What are Alex Strick van Linschoten's key meta-learning strategies for language acquisition?- 30m
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This is the actual fluency podcast, helping you become a better language learner by providing motivating weekly inspiration, as well as top tips and tricks from expert guests. And now, your host, Kris Broholm.
Hello everyone, and welcome to episode 104 of the Actual Fluency Podcast. Today, I'm joined by Alex Strick van Linschoten, who has been living a quite an extraordinary language learning life, which we're going to get into in the episode itself. But, I can mention just one interesting fact that he moved to Afghanistan to learn Pashto and Dari, which is quite cool. And, uh, yeah. So, I don't want to keep you too long this time, and I just want to do a quick plug if you want to support the show, a couple of bucks a month, then go to actualfluency.com/support. And, huge shout-out and and thank you to my patrons. You guys are the best, you guys are really awesome. Thank you for helping to keep the show running. And, uh, yeah, enjoy this episode with Alex.
All right, well then there's only one thing to do, and that is to welcome you to the show, Alex, so thank you so much for taking the time to come on.
Thank you so much, Kris. As a long-time listener, um, I am very happy to to be here and talking to you.
Fantastic. And I know we have a lot of cool stuff to get into today. So, why don't you just get started with telling the listeners kind of how you got into languages and where that passion of yours came from?
Well, I mean, as as I'm sure like like a lot of people, I kind of got into languages at at school, uh, mainly because we were kind of, uh, expected or forced to to kind of study study a variety of of languages. Um, I studied kind of, uh, ancient Latin and Greek, and French and German. Um, and, uh, I kind of came from a family also where language learning was kind of taken for granted almost. Um, my parents both, you know, we moved house um, quite often, every every three years because of my dad's job, and every time we'd move to a new country, they would there would kind of be this expectation that, you know, both my parents would would learn the language and kind of work in that language, um, uh, relatively quickly. So, um, language learning and the ability to learn languages, I always took that as, saw that as something that, you know, anyone could do and that it was possible. Um, and, you know, I always tell students and people that I work with now that 70, 80% of learning languages is like a confidence game and that, you know, you, as as long as you realize you can do it, like that's most of the battle done because the rest is just kind of following through and keeping going and and all of that. So, that was kind of a really important, um, uh, model, I guess for me that, um, that has proved useful.
And then yeah, later on I kind of got involved in kind of university-level study, and then for my work, um, uh, in uh, in Afghanistan and other places in South Asia. I kind of saw that it was kind of a great way to, um, uh, uh, to to to kind of interact with people that I wanted to talk to and to not have to pay translators and all of the things like this, and to just, you know, um, supercharge my ability to to do my research and my work and and and so on. Um, and I've always, yeah, I mean I've always been interested in kind of study methods and how to do it in the most efficient way or how to do it in the most interesting way or so I kind of read up a long, a lot on this kind of meta element of like language learning as well, um, which I find really fascinating. So, all of that together, um, yeah, I've just kind of played around and experimented for for a number of years.
Awesome. And so you would say your your original kind of, uh, when you said research, I assume it was some kind of academic, um, project and that took you to to Afghanistan to what did you study?
Well, actually no, it was kind of kind of curiosity I guess. Um, you know, I I'd, like I said, I'd kind of grew grew up in all sorts of places, uh, when I was younger, including, you know, three years in Turkey. Um, and my dad and my brothers and so on, they'd they'd traveled in the Middle East and so I was was exposed to that part of the world and it wasn't, you know, my my brother works for a kind of humanitarian organization and, you know, he worked in Iraq and Afghanistan. So, it wasn't weird for me to be interested in those kinds of places. And then in 2004, I just, um, uh, I bought a ticket to actually to Iran. Um, and I was just kind of curious to see both Iran and Afghanistan. Um, and all my friends and family told me I was going to die and that, you know, that I shouldn't go and that this is a horrible decision. Um, but I went anyway and I had kind of an amazing time and the first time I went there I was just I I was just going as a tourist and in fact the first like year or two of my travels, I kind of went two or three times a year. And, um, each time was just kind of traveling around, getting to know people, starting to learn the language. Um, it was just yeah, kind of scratching that that itch, that curiosity.
And then the language just because of partly because of my upbringing I guess and and uh, and just just who I am, like it became something more and more important for me to to acquire that to be able to travel to like the more distant parts of the country and to be able to kind of just handle things for myself. Um, and then slowly I kind of got entangled in a whole bunch of different projects. You know, um, I was, um, translating, um, or managing a team of kind of translators and having a kind of media startup I guess, um, uh, yeah, working to, um, to translate local media articles and radio radio and TV monitoring. Um, and then then I did some work, um, working with a former kind of senior member of the Taliban to basically ghostwrite and ghostedit his his memoirs. Um, and a whole bunch of kind of other other projects like this. And then, you know, because all of this is kind of history and political politically related, um, I ended up doing, um, uh, doing a PhD, um, uh, in, you know, history. Um, but, yeah, my, you know, my my interest wasn't really academia. It was more in the place and and and the things that I'd seen and the people who I was speaking to.
That's I mean, there there you go. I mean, that's pretty incredible. You know, you you go from being a tourist to suddenly ghostwriting the memoirs of a Taliban leader. That's, uh, not many people can get to say that.
Right. But, I mean, it just goes to show I think, um, uh, I I think that the the value of learning languages, you know, I I feel any number of people could have could have done that to some extent, but the thing that really gave me the edge up was the fact that I was able to to work in Pashto and in Dari, and I had, you know, um, some Arabic from uh, from a university degree, um, and all of these things, uh, yeah, really really helped me either get access or, um, work with sources or interview people in a way that I just wouldn't have been able to do if I was only speaking English. Or maybe I would have been able to do it, but it would have cost a lot more because I would have had to use translators and I I yeah, I just can't imagine doing it without without those languages.
And I think, you know, for, um, for people coming out of like the the university kind of market, um, languages, particularly learning kind of, um, either niche languages or up and coming languages or, you know, things like Arabic or, um, these kinds of things. It's it's like it's almost the easiest way to distinguish yourself in a market of, you know, a thousand of other people who are getting masters, um, uh, degrees and so on. Like people who speak speak languages, like suddenly you show that you have commitment, you show that you're able to, um, to pull off kind of long-term projects and also you can, you know, um, use those skills in your research. Um, so it's like a really, um, uh, yeah, it has kind of multiple effects.
Yeah, I like that as well. And it's something that I often mention here on the podcast that if, you know, there might be young people listening out there who are not really sure what to do with their life. And I'm always saying, like, there's no way that language learning languages can be a hindrance to anything. You know, you can always open doors and Like if you learn a couple of languages before you're 20, I mean, you're going to pick and choose whatever you want to do really, where you want to go.
But it brings one uh brings up one question that I thought about uh because in your about page as well I saw that you you wrote a little bit about the lack of materials. And I I just wanted to talk a little bit about that because when you arrived in Afghanistan and you wanted to learn the language or languages, I'm not sure how how how the the split between the two you mentioned are. But how did you attack that? Because I assume there's no like colloquial or teach yourself, uh, Assimil. Assimil, yeah.
Um, yeah, it's it's kind of been weird like the, uh, when I first arrived, Afghanistan was kind of falling off everyone's radars, at least in terms of like the international like English-speaking presence and they were all focused a little more on Iraq. And, um, uh, and and the number of materials, uh, available were were pretty few and, you know, they often dated back to the 1980s, which was kind of the last big international involvement in Afghanistan. Um, and it was yeah, just not pretty variable quality. Um, and I mean just just to kind of two things on the on the on the languages, like so you have Dari and you have Pashto. Um, Pashto is, um, uh, a language which has a lot kind of similarities to Urdu and shared loan words. Um, Dari is basically the, um, uh, uh, it's a version of Persian or Farsi that they speak in in Iran. Um, the kind of the useful comparison I guess would be between French Canadian, sorry, French, French French and Canadian French. I think that's the difference between Farsi and and and Dari. Um, and, uh, Dari was a little bit better, um, but Pashto there was more or less nothing available.
And, you know, I just moved down to kind of Southern Afghanistan to this essentially kind of large village. Um, uh, in in Kandahar. Um, there were no materials available. The only textbooks were available had been written by like, um, frontier soldiers in 1911 or 1915 or something like that. And you get these old PDF scans available on like archive.org and yeah with like grammar written by Sir or whatever. Um, and, uh, yeah, it was it was, uh, pretty much a, yeah, a nightmare to find materials. Um, uh, useful materials when I when I was learning. So, Pashto is like the language which I've learned, um, in a different way to to to normal languages, to to most of my other languages in that I was just stuck in a room with people who didn't speak any English and I was stuck in that room kind of for two or three years. Um, and you pick it up, um, you you you figure things out. Um, you use kind of different, yeah, kind of little vocab guides and and things like that and you learn words here and there. Um, so, um, that's kind of how I learned Pashto. Um, and yeah, it was kind of, you know, you had to make your own materials to to a certain extent.
And I've encountered this subsequently, you know, dabbling a tiny bit in Somali. Um, and and even, you know, relatively big languages like Urdu, the materials for a beginner beginning kind of learner, uh, are aren't that great either. Or at least the materials have only started to get good in the last year or two. Um, and now if you want to learn Dari or Pashto or Urdu, in fact, there are really amazing textbooks. There are great resources. There are online materials. There are listening exercises. Most of which was kind of spurred and or funded by the US military for, um, uh, training their their soldiers because at at some point, there was this idea that if only kind of soldiers could, um, fighting in Afghanistan could speak Dari or Pashto, then things would be like really different. So, they trained a lot of people, um, uh, and in fact, people are still kind of getting getting Dari and Pashto training in, uh, in the States and the kind of various language academies that they have. Um, but so the materials are really, really good now, um, or at least certainly comparatively. But at the beginning, yeah, it was a question of, you know, um, gathering together vocab lists, getting people to record sentences. You know, uh, adding pictures and words and stuff on Anki, yeah, it was it was that was the time when I was also kind of discovering the various methodologies and so on of learning languages and this kind of meta skills. Um, so it that went quite well together. Um, but yeah, it's it's it's hard if you're learning a language where there aren't materials available.
Yeah, I mean, learning a language in and of itself for most people is quite a challenge, but when there are no kind of guided help available, then it just becomes even more difficult.
But as long as you have the time and I guess immersion helps a lot in that respect that you can kind of get it, you can absorb the language locally. I mean, it would have been harder if you were sitting back in Western Europe and and doing Pashto. Um, so being there is definitely an advantage.
Yes, although I'm I'm kind I kind of have go go back and forth between the do I need to be in a place to really learn the language? Um, sometimes I feel being in a place encourages you to be, uh, to be lazy or to to to get a false sense of confidence from, um, from being able to solve kind of basic problems, you know, once you get to that like lower intermediate level and you can, you know, you can deal with the cashiers and you can order the taxi and you can tell them where to go and and all of that. Then there's this like massive impetus to just slow down and like, oh, you don't need anything else really. Um, and you can get really comfortable.
And so, and yeah, you know, there's also, you know, there are also really a lot of things that you can do, you know, outside the country without needing to step foot in it. Um, you know, certainly the idea that you you you can't learn languages without being in the place, I I would push back against that.
Yeah, I agree with that sentiment and I think that it's one of those common myths that people tell me. Uh, like my especially the people who are not in the language learning community and haven't heard any of these meta strategies that we commonly toss around. Uh, but I often get people who ask me, how can I learn French if I don't if I can't afford to go to France or live classes or something? And when I said I was learning Russian, people are like, oh, so when are you going? I'm like, what, going where? And they're like, yeah, Russia of course. It's like, uh, no, no plans of going right now. Um, so I agree with you that it definitely it's not a decisive difference.
But I I think that you probably a mixture of both is probably best. You know, learn at home and practice in the country maybe, I don't know. Something like that. Just go back and forth.
Yeah, I mean we live in this kind of golden age of language learning materials, uh, I feel particularly for for the more common languages. You know, um, just just try describing, you know, the experience or the resources available for free to someone, you know, who wants to learn French or or German or something like that or Spanish. Like you've got Duolingo, you've got all of these textbooks, you've got all of these online, um, kind of text repositories. You've got Blue Blue, you've got podcasts, millions of YouTube videos. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, it's it's it's, um, uh, there's almost no excuse for people not to to learn learn languages, particularly those kind of basic ones like French. Yeah.
Yeah, I agree with that. And also the the problem might be that there's too much to choose from, so people get a little overwhelmed. But that can obviously be solved a little bit easier than having to write resources from scratch.
Yeah, yeah. And I've I've had that in my, um, my own kind of, uh, study, you know, recently. So, I mentioned earlier that I I have a university degree in in uh, from the School of Oriental and African Studies, SOAS in London. Um, and that's in Arabic and Farsi. Um, and so I did a a three, four-year uh, degree, including one year in in Damascus in Syria. Um, and that was 12 or 13 years ago. And then more or less after I finished that degree, I moved permanently to Afghanistan. Um, uh, after I'd been traveling in there for for a while. And I didn't use my Arabic for, uh, nine or 10 years, uh, pretty much. Um, you know, obviously the script is shared between Dari and Pashto, but that was about it. I wasn't really speaking to to people and I wasn't really reading much. I wasn't really, um, uh, kind of maintaining it. Um, and I'm sure you can can attest to what happens when you don't maintain your languages. Like it's it's things fall off pretty easily.
And I spent more or less the kind of the last two or three years getting it back and and kind of resurrecting what I knew and and kind of going past it. Um, and this this issue of like the number of materials, um, uh, became like kind of a problem because now there are really good materials for Arabic. And, you know, you're kind of spoilt spoil for choice in a way. Um, and I found myself at the beginning just kind of flitting between, um, uh, between one book to another. And it wasn't the worst thing, but, um, yeah, it could have been, uh, could have been a bit more focused about that.
For sure. And Arabic is one of those languages I definitely want to tackle at some point and I know that a lot of people are learning it and then I was wondering if you had any kind of ideas about a strategy people could employ to to be more efficient Arabic learners because obviously you got the dialects and it can be seem a little bit intimidating also with the different alphabet and and stuff.
So, so if if I had to learn Arabic tomorrow, what kind of advice or a strategy would you would you suggest for me?
Well, I think, uh, first of all, um, I would give like a a piece of kind of mindset advice, uh, about the alphabet. Um, a lot of people, uh, I've even heard people, you know, say, you know, I can't learn Arabic because it has this difficult alphabet and they'll put off learning the language simply because of the alphabet. Right. Um, and like I remember when we were doing, um, at our university, in the first week, um, there was kind of a, uh, kind of meetup before classes formally started. So, one week before classes formally started. And the teacher said, okay, like you're going to go and learn the alphabet and you're going to learn it before we start the course, in fact. Um, and, you know, almost everyone on the course did. Like it's it's the alphabet is not actually that difficult. It's just a a repetition thing and, you know, like any alphabet, you just need to to do it a bunch of times and and you'll figure it figure it out. Like the whole reading right to left thing, this is also it's not not a big deal. So, I think firstly if if you're intimidated by the by the script, don't be because, um, uh, yeah, it it it's not that difficult. And if you set your expectation that that it's not going to be that difficult, you'll you'll be fine. And you'll move on to to the important things, um, faster.
I do think it is important to learn the script. Like the, a, you'll miss out on materials which are only available in in kind of original script and b, yeah, you're you're you you're not going to your pronunciation is probably going to suffer as well.
And yeah, I mean that the the on the kind of problem of dialects and, um, and the written language and which to learn and which to focus on and which to begin with. Um, this kind of depends a little bit on your goals. Um, uh, yeah, you know, some people are going to come to the Middle East and they're they're going to want to really function only in in in kind of spoken situations and they're never going to have to write a letter or read a newspaper article. In which case, you know, there are a bunch of textbooks depending on which country you want to focus on. Um, uh, yeah, there are a bunch of textbooks you can use, um, and, uh, and work on, um, uh, for for for those specific, um, kind of spoken, um, spoken skills and they'll start, you know, from the beginning and they'll teach all of the grammar as well. You don't need to have studied like the written language first. But for most people, if you're just kind of generally interested, um, uh, you know, I think it really does benefit to do either side by side or start first with like a good a good few months of the written language. Um, uh, because well, because, you know, the richness of the literature is is kind of is in the, um, uh, the written language to a large extent. You can make an argument for for the spoken language being having kind of richness as well. Um, the materials are are pretty good now for learning, uh, written Arabic. Um, and yeah, you know, if if if you want to to, um, to get serious about the language, yeah, you you're going to end up having to do that. But it does depend a little bit on on what kind of goals that that kind of notional student would have.
Right. But when you say written languages to confirm you you that's interchangeably as Modern Standard Arabic, right?
Yes, yes, exactly. Good. I mean, it's used it's used in the in the kind of media context as well for TV broadcasts and and discussions and and things like that. It's that kind of formal language and speeches. Um, but, you know, if you speak to someone on the street using that written language, they'll understand you, but it's like, you know, Shakespeare landed from a time capsule and he speaks to you in in that kind of English. It it has that kind of, uh, sense or effect to it.
Right. I guess it's a good start if you don't know anything else, but, uh, yeah, you want to get to that spoken language at some point.
Yeah, and you know, there's there's this kind of ongoing debate in, um, in how among teachers and university departments on how to teach Arabic. Um, most university departments teach the spoken kind of variety predominantly. Um, uh, sorry, the written the written variety. Um, and the spoken is almost seen as a kind of add-on. Um, certainly in my university degree, um, there was like an hour a week for spoken out of, um, I don't know, 15 or 25, 20 hours of of kind of tuition. Um, and yeah, you had to kind of at the third year of study was they sent you off to some university in the in the Arab world. Um, but, you know, there wasn't much emphasis placed on the on the dialect stuff. In part because, you know, the teachers, they're university professors, they're interested in the literature, they're interested in that that written and grammatical part of the language. So, they kind of play to their strengths.
But there are some new approaches, particularly in the US with universities taking a kind of dialect first approach. Um, but yeah, that's kind of when you open that issue, it's it's, uh, really opening the kind of the language wars.
Right. Yeah, it's tough, I guess if you're just as you say, generally interested, how how do you even pick a dialect? You know, I guess you have to go with the biggest one, is that Egyptian or I'm not sure. Um, but I guess you just have to make a call and and just adapt later.
Yeah, and and I mean if you're just generally interested, I think there is an argument to, um, to pick a dialect, uh, or a dialect group where there are good materials. Um, you know, if you if if usually if you're once you start to get serious, you have to basically narrow down on a particular country. Um, that that you're interested in, but, um, the best materials I think at the moment are currently available for Egyptian. Right.
And there's a really, really great series of of of textbooks for, um, in fact a number of series of textbooks for learning Egyptian, great dictionaries, great, you know, transcripts of dialogues, audio files, great YouTube videos. Like for someone who doesn't really know where they want to go, like Egyptian is is is great. Um, yeah.
Awesome. Good tip. And, uh, speaking about general language learning, um, you said that you started to become interested in meta learning, uh, quite a while ago and what kind of, what what is that, how is that affected your language learning to how you learn today compared to back then?
And do you have any kind of aha moments that you thought, hm, this is actually pretty cool.
Yeah, I'm not sure whether any of it will, um, be any kind of great revelation to the listeners of this podcast. I certainly heard people talk about the various things and I've heard of various kind of, uh, techniques or or strategies from from from you and kind of fellow, um, language podcasts. But, um, I I suppose I've kind of become more interested in finding ways to save myself time. Um, I think in the past, certainly, you know, my school experience was, language learning means working your way through a textbook. And, textbooks are great and, uh, you know, a well-designed course and textbook, like you can't, um, uh, that that that's kind of irreplaceable in a way and and that's always a great place to start. But, um, you might want, um, you know, once when you come across, you know, languages where there are few materials, that's one one circumstance where where you have to be a bit more creative or, um, you know, or maybe you've done a bit of study in the language before and you don't want to necessarily go all the way through the very basics of the language again. Or, um, you know, people come at different at languages from from different places and from different levels. And textbooks aren't often best placed to, um, uh, to cater to them. Um, you know, they're really good if you know nothing and you want to start from nothing and you want to quickly make kind of work your way through a good decent chunk of vocabulary and grammar and so on.
So yeah, part part of it has to do with, um, the fact that I sometimes needed to learn, I wanted to learn languages or I wanted to return to languages that I'd studied in the past, but I didn't want to repeat things. So, then I kind of got interested in, you know, frequency vocabulary lists and finding ways to make learning more fun or intuitive through reading or for through listening skills or, um, uh, you know, I I I kind of figured out various ways of, um, working effectively with Italki teachers. There are all sorts of little kind of tips and tricks that, um, you wouldn't necessarily know until you've done it a bunch of times or or or, you know, you listen to people who who, um, have also kind of had to figure that stuff out.
And part of it also is, um, uh, skills to do with, um, uh, yeah, um, learning languages where where there are few materials. So, um, how do you gather together, you know, what if there is no frequency list for for your language? How are you going to start figuring out what, um, what are the kind of important words? What if there are no beginner-level reading materials? How are you going to figure that out? Um, and actually for that one, um, kind of tip for for any listeners, um, go to the Ministry of Education of the particular country where your the language that you, um, uh, you're hoping to learn, uh, is located. Um, and I think, um, most countries generally have, um, their kind of primary school, uh, even some in some cases secondary school textbooks, uh, available for free download. Um, certainly Pakistan that's the case. Afghanistan that's the case. Many countries in the Middle East, you can download like PDF files of, um, textbooks from grades one through, um, 12, uh, or so. And this is perfect, perfect language materials. It's all, um, you know, target language only, which is wonderful. I'm a great advocate for that. Um, it's like huge at the beginning, particularly, it's like huge letters. So you don't need to like decipher scripts. Um, uh, sometimes they come with audio materials. Um, that was a really great one when I found that. I found, you know, all of the 12 years of a Pashto language school materials for like history lessons, religious lessons, math lessons, uh, language lessons, yeah. Um, you know, that kind of stuff is, um, is perfect for for a kind of beginning stage language learner.
Yeah, that's a cool tip. I I haven't heard anyone else share that before. But I guess the the whole language learning, when I started this podcast a few years ago, I I was sure there was some kind of secret. There was some kind of there must be some trick that people are using to learn languages because it in my mind, learning a language is something, you know, it's a huge task and it's a huge job and I wasn't even sure if I could do it back then. And then I was like, okay, I'll just interview everyone and I'll find it. And now 100 episodes or so later, I just realized that learning a language is super simple, but it's not exactly easy.
So, a lot of the kind of suggestions, tips and, uh, I guess you can call them secrets in a way, tactics is really predicated upon making it easier to do the actual studying. Uh, it's it's about it's like running a marathon, you know, taking one step is super easy, but taking them, I don't know, 100,000 times in a couple of hours. That's very difficult. Um, so, I I kind of agree with you on that and I guess I I'm I'm still holding out for the secret to appear one day. Um, but mostly just making it more efficient, making it easier, making it simpler, devising these kind of methods and tools and resources that make it really easy to just work.
Like you mentioned Duolingo, for instance. You've got that gamification, you've got the point system. You've got the leaderboards, something that memorize also shares and a lot of other apps. And I really think all these features will help a lot when it comes to maintaining the motivation, which is in my opinion, the fundamental strategy or tip you need. You just need to find a way to maintain your motivation for as long as it takes to complete the goal of whatever language you want to complete. Um, but of course, you know, that's easier said than done.
But I think there are there are some, um, you know, there are a lot of things that people don't think of when they think of language learning. You know, when someone says, you know, how do you how do you learn a language? Um, and the kind of advice that you expect to get relates to, you know, vocabulary learning or mastering grammar or stuff like that. Um, but, know, I I do work with, um, kind of one-on-one coaching of of language students. Um, and most of my work actually has nothing to do with language. Um, which is why actually I coach people, um, who are learning languages that that I don't know.
Most of the work that I do has to do with setting goals, has to do with, um, you know, often keeping a log that that helps some people. Other people that really doesn't help. Um, uh, you know, a lot of people won't know, um, about, you know, the idea of spaced repetition or they won't have heard of the idea of kind of frequency lists. So, there are some some kind of key principles, um, uh, and concepts, language related and not that, you know, once you you kind of plug that into the way someone's studying, then suddenly they kind of speed ahead. Yeah, yeah.
Totally agree. And I I guess the the secret source of how to learn 30 languages in 20 years, that's that's going to be a a later lesson, but, uh, but yeah, the the way people study. I guess that's built on how you grew up. You know, when you grow up and see that nobody learns a language in your school, then you feel like, well, learning a language is impossible.
Of course, your upbringing was very different and actually, I think one of the first times that I've actually heard somebody have such an open-minded family about learning languages and where you said, you know, when you traveled that it was kind of obvious that sure you're going to learn the language quickly or your parents were, whereas most people are like, you know, they live in a in a monolingual family and the only foreign they know is like pizza and pasta and, you know, they might be able to say hello and thank you in a couple of languages. But the idea of learning a complete language from scratch on your own without classes is almost a a fairy tale.
So, it starts with the beliefs that you can do it, which you also mentioned earlier and and working on your mindset and and how you set goals, how you actually get put the hours in that you need is really what it's all about. I've come to come to realize.
Yeah, I actually had, you know, when when I was younger, I remember I had kind of a, um, an unspoken rule, um, or a rule I only had had for myself that I would never travel to to a country where I didn't, you know, wasn't able to at least have a conversation with like someone else my age. Um, so that that came from that that kind of background. But it's it's purely a mindset thing. It is, yeah.
For sure. And that's that's I mean, in a humble way, that's the entire mission with this podcast and and what I do, you know, it's called I call it language encouragement. I I think somebody else came up with that term, just I'm not taking credit for that. But, um, the encouragement part is basically showing people that it's obvious, you know, that it's possible, know, sharing stories like your own, where you just, I mean, you make it sound ridiculously easy of course. I I know actually learning in Afghanistan must have been quite a struggle, but just the just listening to the story and that somebody actually did it is going to motivate someone to sit who's sitting at home in Sweden thinking, oh, yeah, if this guy can learn Pashto, I can definitely learn French in a couple of years, you know, so, so that's the entire kind of mission and goal and I hope that that that's the result of people listening to this is the mindset first and foremost, like we have to make people understand that it is possible.
And once it's possible, they're going to do it at some point. You just need enough of a encouragement.
And a bit of time. Oh, yeah, lots of time. That's another that's a whole different problem. That's when people listen to someone who's really good at learning languages and they think that they can learn French in three months, whereas that's probably possible for anyone just saying, but for most people, it's probably not very realistic. And then you get the kind of the fall back of, oh, I didn't get anywhere in three months. I'm probably useless anyway. Just because this guy did it doesn't mean I can do it.
And, you know, so there's the whole thing of setting realistic expectations, which is, um, just a just a funny side story. That's actually the first module in the course I designed on motivation. So, I find that absolutely key. Like expectations above all. If you don't have the right expectations, you're doomed to fail, I think.
Yeah, and avoiding that, I mean, you you kind of mentioned this kind of comparison game. Um, there's there's, you know, there's this kind of almost, uh, kind of performative aspect to some elements of the kind of polyglot community, which I'm not entirely comfortable with, where it's it's it's about numbers. It's about, um, uh, you know, I did this in one month or whatever. And, you know, great. Um, but I never find that stuff to be particularly useful to anyone to know that, you know, you did it in in X amount of time and it's great to find ways to save time.
But, um, uh, yeah, um, you know, if you if you're going to compare yourself to other people, um, uh, yeah, you know, everyone is everyone is unique. Everyone comes from different backgrounds. Everyone has different time constraints or or whatever. Yeah, if if, you know, everyone didn't have to work and they, you know, someone cooked for them every day or or whatever, then like you could do probably great things in in in in kind of, uh, quick amount of time. So, so that kind of comparison, um, uh, kind of game that people play, that that's never really particularly useful for for, um, uh, yeah, and it can can work detrimentally.
Yeah, I don't like it either. And in fact, I I also have a a lesson called don't play the comparison game because it's just not there's not going to be well, actually, you comparing yourself to somebody else can be useful. The problem is that we're not seeing the whole story. Like when I see if if you made a post that said, here's how I learned 1,000 words in French in a week, I'm not seeing how you didn't learn, you know, 500 French verbs in a month or, you know, I'm not seeing all your failures, I'm just seeing your successes. I'm not seeing the times that you were, you know, sitting on the toilet crying that you couldn't remember the word for help or, you know, Right. Right.
Uh, whereas, you know, social media and and blogging and and YouTube and stuff. I think it's changing a little bit now. I think the world in general is is going towards a more realistic picture of, uh, like I think reality, not reality TV, but reality internet, I don't know how to say that. You know, basically people showing their own lives, uh, through vlogging, blogging, podcasting, whatever. I think there's a kind of a movement in the last five, 10 years to go from everyone everyone who's online is perfect and this is how I did XY and Z, to now actually saying, this shit is really hard. I've I've failed this, I've failed that. I couldn't do this. Um, but there's still a a kind of representative problem where you're living your entire life, but you're only seeing people's highlights on Facebook, right? Um, so that's my biggest problem with comparison actually, that you don't, you don't have the full story to compare with.
And someone like, let's just say, Pick Benny Lewis, I often mention him. If he learns, let's say, I don't know, Catalan in three months to a reasonable conversational level, you might be saying, I failed learning Catalan in three months, but Benny did it. You're not really saying Benny has learned 12 other languages, so he has kind of a different background. Sure. Yeah. It's easier, yeah.
It's all about background and it's all about, um, basically who are you? Like, why are you learning the language? Are you learning the language because you want 10 languages on your badge at the polyglot conference? I'm sure there are people out there doing that. And in a way, in some kind of way, I I don't mind that because if people know that's what they're doing, then I don't mind. You know, there's some kind of vanity in it of course.
But of course, I'd always encourage people to learn languages for their for real real reasons, you know, useful, going to countries or maybe for cultural reasons, for for family reasons, interest of course. But and and learn them well, you know, stop dabbling. But that's just a pet peeve of mine.
Yeah, and I mean, I've been really, um, pleased to see kind of new, um, strands or strains come out of the polyglot community, um, in recent years and I think particularly the first person who comes to mind is, um, I might be misremembering his name, Richard Benton, um, who's kind of been writing on his blog, uh, for Language with Language, I think. Um, uh, about this this idea of ecolinguism and the idea of learning languages in the communities around where you live and not just learning languages to rack them up, but learning languages to communicate, to, you know, participate in community. All of these kinds of things. Like I think that's a really positive, um, uh, idea.
For sure. And, uh, huge shout-out to Richard because he was, uh, I met him for the first time in at the conference in New York, where he was doing a speech on on that topic, you know, community language. I think it was called. And it really opened my eyes because in very homogeneous countries, I don't know if they're the same in, um, where you're from, but in Denmark, it's like, nobody even considers learning a bit of Turkish or a bit of Arabic or whatever the minority languages are. It's not even it's not even a thought because you're like, well, they come here, of course, they have to learn Danish, right? Um, so when Richard was speaking, I was like, how hard would it be for me to learn like a bit of basic Turkish, a bit of basic Arabic, just to say hi and how are you or whatever? You know, those few sentences can make a huge difference. Um, so I really appreciate his, uh, his point of view and I I love his blog as well. He writes really well.
He's sometimes a little bit too charitable, I think and and I know Richard he's listening to this episode at some point for sure. Um, so I hope you appreciates this comment as well. Is sometimes you can't be you can't save the world every minute of your life. So, if somebody decides to learn French because that's the most popular language and he wants to, that doesn't mean he's a he's less of a good person just because he wasn't learning Somali in a in a city that has a big Somali presence. You know, I I don't think you have to be, uh, always spending your time charitably. So, you know, I'm spending this year learning Spanish and French primarily. Uh, but I could as well have picked Turkish or Arabic, which are the two main, um, uh, minority languages here. But I just feel like French and Spanish are going to give me a bigger personal advantage right now. And I might come back to the others later. But that doesn't mean that I'm sort of, I don't know what the opposite of, uh, eco linguist is. But sometimes we it gets a little bit of too bad of a wrap, I think.
But planting that seed of you can learn the community language to build a better community, to aid integration, because obviously in Western Europe, integration has been horrible for a long time, especially in Scandinavia. Um, because it's just such a different, it's just a cultural clash. So, if we can kind of reach from both sides, I'm sure it'll be it'll do wonders for the community. Bring it together, try to assimilate a little bit because obviously you have to also protect your local values, whereas at the same time respecting the new values that come in. So, yeah, I I really like Richard's, uh, input, both on his blog and also his, uh, presentation.
And none of this is kind of black or white, right? Like it's it's it's all a spectrum between, you know, what you're capable of doing and what, you know, might benefit others and, um, you know, even just taking kind of, uh, little steps here and there and like all of that stuff is is is is is benefit in the long run.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I really like that. But, unfortunately, the time is running out on this episode. So, as a last kind of comment, something that I was interested about hearing as a, I I often call myself an ignorant Westerner, which is very accurate.
But how is it actually to relocate to somewhere like Afghanistan where, of course, the media is constantly brewing it up as this kind of war zone and and, you know, you can't go outside without being hit by mortar shells and suicide bombers. So, can you just take a few minutes and kind of describe that to the people like myself who have never been anywhere near the Middle East? Like, how does that or South Asia? How does that feel actually to be a a Westerner and come over?
Um, uh, you know, it's it's, uh, to some extent I could say like it's just like any other country. Um, uh, you know, there there are certain things which which are different and, you know, in Afghanistan there are all sorts of kind of kind of more mundane practical problems, which tend to dominate your life like, you know, the lack of electricity or heat or, um, uh, things like that. The those are kind of often problems, which take the forefront. Um, uh, power cuts, you know, when I was living in Kandahar, we had two hours of electricity every two or three days. Wow.
And, um, you know, the the kind of the war and the the the conflict aspect. Um, yeah, if you read if you read kind of newspapers, you just hear about things kind of blowing up here and there and that stuff does happen. Um, but, um, kind of a lot of it happens, you know, it tends to happen around certain specific places. Embassies, shopping malls. You know, um, if you're just kind of living at home or if you're just kind of doing your thing, um, particularly if you're in kind of more rural areas, often there'll be fewer problems or you'll have much less exposure to that. Um, and, know, even if something is happening in one part of the city, you know, the rest of the city will be completely normal.
So so yeah, I mean, I I don't want to to to kind of make it sound like, um, uh, living in Kabul or Kandahar is the same as living in, um, uh, in Denmark. Um, but, um, there are there are, you know, there are a lot of, uh, cross-overs and and and similarities. Um, certainly when when I first arrived, um, uh, it was far, far safer than it is now. Um, yeah, the kind of media coverage was more or less the same. So, trying to get an idea of how safe or not a place is from, uh, reading kind of, um, Western media coverage is is, yeah, or media coverage in general is is is a pretty bad idea. I mean, that that's certainly something I would say.
Well, it's interesting and I guess the I guess the rudimentary nature of not having electricity and and and all these, uh, Western luxuries that we're so used to, uh, that's something you just get used to or do you ever do you ever wonder, you know what? I I want to go home to my, you know, central heating and and and internet or electricity all day.
You know, I'm I'm a great believer, particularly since this time, in the virtues of taking things away or virtues of kind of pairing things down, whether it's in terms of your goals or the number of possessions you have or, um, the things that you're dependent on. Um, and actually those, you know, those two or three years where I was living in Kandahar more or less full-time, uh, without electricity and with all sorts of kind of problems and security issues sometimes and, you know, that was actually kind of somewhat paradoxically, like the most kind of productive time of my life so far. You know, I wrote, um, three books. Like I researched most of my PhD while I was down there. Um, uh, numerous articles, research projects, did interviews, you know, started in kind of huge archive resource project.
Um, all sorts of things that, you know, when you turn off the internet, I'm a big proponent of turning off the internet. When you turn it off, like it's amazing. Like you, you know, you have pen and paper and you return to that and kind of it's amazing how much you can do when you don't have distractions.
Right. So, would that be kind of a lesson that no matter where you live in the world, you're going to take with you from that experience?
Yeah, I actually, you know, I I quite often I, um, simulate that experience. You know, I use tools like Freedom, uh, and and just turn off my internet. Um, sometimes for for all of the day, I'll just exist without the internet. Just so the temptation isn't there. And, you know, sometimes I'll even type stuff on kind of a digital typewriter, uh, which doesn't connect to the internet. And, yeah, I'm a big big believer on on turning all of that that off because more often than not, like the the hard work of thinking is not something which requires the internet for.
Right. It's uh, it's an idea that I I read recently in uh Cal Newport's book Deep Work. Deep Work. Yes, exactly. Great book. Yeah. Well, I mean, it it's funny in these self-help, uh, books. You know, I I've started reading a lot of them and I must be honest, most of them, like the experience of reading is obviously not just getting information. If it were then every book would have one page. But I just think that Cal especially is really good at like adding like a million anecdotes to support one main point.
And I just don't understand, maybe I'm just a a Philistine, which could obviously be true. Uh, but I just don't understand these books that are like 300 pages long and the cover is basically the point. Like, you need to don't be distracted, do more of this deep work because that's where the creative process happens. You know, it's just a small pet peeve, I guess. But, uh, I've seen it with other books and and Cal is someone who just keeps throwing anecdotes at you the mostlessly.
Yeah, about all of the papers he wrote and and so on. And, you know, I I I agree with you, but at the same time, you know, I know sometimes people you need you need that context to be able to get into an idea. Um, and and I mean just purely on a kind of practical level the publishing industry wouldn't work really, um, with with with with shorter books. Um, so I get why why it exists in that way. But yeah, I I I I hate that as well where you have like a an article which was then kind of re you know, two years later, it kind of comes out in book form and you're like, oh, I'd love to find out like more about what this person thought. And actually there's nothing else. It was just the story is made at this point. A few stories. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've seen that a few times as well. But of course, you know, reading is, uh, enjoyable mostly anyway and and I guess it's it's it's part when you're reading these very, uh, practical books, I guess it's it's just to get the information but also have, uh, a good time reading it. I guess some of the stories are have have merit and and you can kind of see different, I guess, adaptations of the of the, uh, idea just to give another example like Grant Cardone's 10x, for instance. It's just like he his main thesis is we should do we should aim to do we should 10x our goals or 10x everything actually 10x our action, 10x our goals, 10x everything. And the entire story is basically just people who 10x stuff, you know. So, it it's not that I I I don't hate it. It's not that I hate it. It's just like it's funny when we just you just brought it up with the, uh, with the concentration and I think honestly in this time and age, uh, concentration is the biggest asset anyone can have, especially in language learners because if you start to, let's say you go on YouTube to watch a, uh, video in Spanish to help you learn Spanish and then suddenly 20 videos later you're watching how to disassemble a plug from the UK, you know. Right. Which I have done by the way. That's a true story.
So, um, I I really believe that, but it's so hard. I mean, as somebody I I was born in 88, so I was kind of brought in with this I was brought up with this, uh, technology and I basically always had a smartphone. So, the idea that disconnecting is is just so foreign to me. Like I I don't know how I would feel if I disconnected for more than, let's say, a day or two. I would probably start to get antsy and, uh, that was actually part part part of the reason, um, why I have on my, um, on my website, uh, a kind of language learning tool, um, for basically for taking away that kind of decision-making process. Like I just got so, um, overwhelmed by like the number of options. You know, if I'm learning French, I could go on Duolingo, I could go and watch something on YouTube, I could learn words on Memrise, I could do stuff on Anki. Um, and for my own kind of language learning studies, like I just kind of needed someone or something to tell me what to do. Um, and so I designed like I taught myself how to code to put together this thing, um, which basically you choose how much time you have and then it tells you something to do. Um, and I found that really useful just like, uh, in in this kind of, um, once I kind of turned off various bits of the internet, then, um, you know, I just pick a task and just do it for a period of time and and commit to that. Um, that that has really kind of, uh, done wonders recently for me.
Yeah, and um, just, uh, as a side note, where can people find out more about you and and and this, uh, this tool and and what you do?
Um, yeah, so I'm Strik VL on Twitter. Um, uh, where I post, uh, various things. Um, my blog is at alexstrick.com. Um, and my language related stuff, uh, which listeners of this podcast are probably related and that tool that I was just talking about is all available at languagecoach.io.
Fantastic. And, um, that brings me back to the beginning of saying, thank you so much for for coming on and sharing your fascinating story. Uh, it's it's, you know, for someone who is not as challenged or traveled, uh, it's really an exciting to hear some perspective on what you can do with languages and and I'm I hope that people listening out there saw this as as kind of an inspiration to to learn whatever language they're learning and I I I still want to say that learning any language is a huge huge asset and it's a huge success.
You don't have to necessarily learn super obscure languages or or far away languages, uh, but of course, it's it's it's fun as well. So, thank you so much, Alex, and I I I'm looking forward to staying connected in the future.
Likewise, Kris. And please keep up the good work. I really enjoy, uh, the, uh, work you do on this podcast.
Thank you very much. Appreciate that. All right.