Andrew Williams: A language a year for life
Kris Broholm interviews Andrew Williams, who discusses his father's suggestion to learn a language a year for life. They explore Andrew's perspective on maintaining many languages, treating them as tools, and emphasize usage for proficiency. The conversation also covers common language learning challenges and solutions.
August 29, 2014 · 53 min
EP 26: Andrew Williams: A language a year for life
0:00 / 53:28
Guest
Andrew Williams
What You'll Hear
- 1 Meet Andrew Williams: polyglot, language philosopher.
- 2 Indian upbringing sparked lifelong language curiosity.
- 3 Discovering nuance and the tragedy of language loss.
- 4 Danish language erosion and constructed languages examined.
- 5 Andrew's unique, practical methods for language learning.
- 6 Beyond numbers: fluency, and a polyglot's diverse career.
- 7 Polyglot community, language education, and brushing up.
Links Mentioned
Questions Covered in the Show
How many languages can Andrew Williams converse in?- 2m
What sparked Andrew Williams' interest in languages?- 4m
How does Andrew Williams choose which languages to study intensively?- 5m
Is it problematic to chase many languages at once without achieving deep fluency in any?- 8m
How does Andrew Williams practically approach language learning?- 26m
How did Andrew Williams integrate language learning into his career and adult life?- 33m
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Actual Fluency podcast episode 26 with Andrew Williams. Do you like audiobooks? Well, then Audible is for you. If you go to actual fluency.com/book, you can choose a free audiobook from a selection of 150,000 titles. Are you thinking about starting your own language learning website, then check out Hostgator. Use the coupon code actual fluency to get you your first month for just one cent. Get started by going to actualfluency.com/hostgator.
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 and welcome to another episode of the Actual Fluency podcast. This is episode 26. My name is Kris Broholm and I'm excited to welcome you to the very last of the polyglot building gathering interviews. These were the interviews that I sat down in Berlin doing with these great language learners and polyglots. And of course, due to being in a hostel in Berlin, the recording quality is not as good as the internet recording quality you might see in some of the other episodes. But hopefully it's manageable because this interview is very interesting. It's with Mr. Andrew Williams, who has been learning languages all his life after his father suggested he learned a language a year. So that's incredibly interesting and we get into a lot of language learning related kind of problems or solutions. So if you're into learning languages, which I hope you are when you're listening to this, then this episode is definitely, definitely for you.
Always remember that if you're interested in more language learning material or inspiration or you want to check out my stories or language missions, you can always check out actualfluency.com and you should be able to navigate it quite easily using the top menus. If you've never been to the website before, I can recommend that you start with actualfluency.com/start and that will kind of guide you through some of the most popular content and some of the best podcast episodes that I chose myself.
So that's that's it for now. And and do know that this is a casual conversation, interview style, which means that I don't quite introduce Andrew, but hopefully you you have got enough introduction in this introduction to to know who he is. It's just a casual conversation between two language learners and I I think you will enjoy it. So um do do enjoy it. And if you have any questions or comments, feel free to send me a message. How many languages are you comfortable having a conversation like this in?
Uh, that's a good question. I would say anywhere from about really comfortable in about six or eight, and maybe a bit more maybe 10, 20, depending on the level required. Right. But I've studied loads more. And to me, they're all tools. It's rather like you're a craftsman and you chisel something, and then you you sharpen it up, you use it, then you put it down, it gets rusty. But then you pick it up and use it again. So all this thing about how do we keep them all going? It's it's not a question for me at all. You can't expect, even if you have uh three, four, five, you can't expect to have consistency all the time with, you know, these are just sort of rational thoughts that are just are not relevant, really. Just enjoy it and use it. It's the usage which makes you good, I think. Whatever your purpose is, you know, work, uh you fall in love or you travel or, you know, that's what make it real. That's for you. Exactly.
But but still, I mean, that's a lot of languages as well to start studying, I mean.
It's it's see I started like I told you with India from, you know, ever I could speak. Yeah, that's true.
Let's go, let's go back to the, can you can you give a kind of a a little back story to how you how you brought up and and how that made you interested in languages because I assume that's a I mean, I'm not saying English people in general are into languages, but you kind of need an external input it seems to have that extraordinary interest.
I think so. I think just growing up, um, completely from two months in uh India and uh we did sometimes go back to UK for holidays now and then, but I very much all my childhood, early childhood memories are of India, and of all this multiplicity of of sound, of languages, of religions, of the people, and all of that package. And to me, language is part of that package. Right.
And um and loving it and and ever since I've always been curious about, I hear a new sound. Oh, what's that? You know, what language? You know, so there's there's a desire in the in me all the time. It's not, for some people, it's a chore or my auntie said to me one day, why why are you learning Japanese? I said, well, for loads of reasons. You know, I mean, her her was incomprehensible. But to me, you know, it's just attitude and Right. And it went on from there.
So you so you have this kind of uh almost curiosity.
Oh, definitely, definitely.
And but but how do you then choose between I mean, you said you said you had let's say six, eight, 10 languages that you know quite well and then you had a lot of languages you studied. Which languages then became the the ones you studied intensively? Was that because of usage or an extra kind of factor there?
All sorts of things. I mean, from I went to a wonderful school, even in India, I can never forget a primary school with a wonderful lady, who was very eccentric and my my mother. We already there we had Hindi, Latin, French, and German, that from, you know, five or six, I suppose. So I was away. And then with the English school system, the private school that went on and you add these others Greek and whatnot. And eventually I'm when even before university, where I did, I took French and Russian as a degree. I was already, this whole thing of sort of I hear a sound, I get the book, I start playing with it, I listen to it. You know, it's it's kind of it's a sort of game in itself. And it's an excited, it's a chase. Yeah. And I think we enjoy, our nature is to seek and find and what's around the corner? Where's the hidden treasure? All that sort of thing. Yeah.
And I think for me, there's a very simple, there are there are very simple pleasures like the sound, um, aesthetic, but also I love the thing of communicating, of speaking, especially in an unusual language to someone and they go, ah, they say, I think he could speak my language. You know, it's so amazing. I love that, especially going to Asia or somewhere far away. They don't expect it. You know. And and I feel, it's, you know, that's a useful thing to have for the whole world, really. You know, we should all communicate some way or another with different languages. That's, I think that's exciting. It's I think many people here would feel similar, you know.
But then the problem I guess is that when you say the the a lot of power's in the chase, then doesn't it become a problem that we're kind of chasing let's say 10 different languages at once, and we end up with nothing or zero or maybe one and a half or something. You know what I mean? Is that, that's a question.
I've never thought of it like that. Um, I think I always end up with something. I mean, just give an example, this afternoon I was at Alexanderplatz. And there was this group of Russians. And they're all, what I love about on my travels, I often hear little bits. I think, oh, that's that little grammar point I've been struggling with. You know, I just overhear the stuff. And there was this one Russian boy said to the other, za kod kam niye, come to me. Now, I would say, pri di kam niye. You see. But it's a slight diff, you know Russian, and it's an It's a different, it's a um, you know, it's the uh, the two two verbs uh, oh gosh, I'm getting the terminology. But anyway, it's a typical Russian thing of Exactly. But hadich means to go habitually, E tich means to go now. But he's it's almost like he's saying, come here. But it's not urgent. It's you know, it's just kind of it's these subtleties you see that don't exist in other languages.
Certainly not in English. Yeah, that's what I love about Russia. You see, every language, you pick up different nuances of meaning that cannot be conveyed in your own language. Right now. And I love that.
But that's maybe what I thought when I was 11, and I thought that English had lots of those.
Exactly. Exactly. It was more expressive for you. And I know many people who say the same. I mean, I often have a problem even of expression when I'm talking and I suddenly think, oh, I could say that better in French or in Russian or in Japanese or because and it builds up the more your languages you have. Of course. And you have to causes it no, it may not be perfect, but say it in the language you're using. You know, just to be simple. So you get this richness. Yeah.
And um there's this wonderful book, do you know this book of Tinga, these wonderful little books. I I can get the and they're amazing. They talk about languages in or Brazilian jungle, and all the the words they have for things we wouldn't be able to conceive of. Right. And this is the the tragedy of of language death. Is we we don't just lose the word for house or food. We lose the word of way to describe a sunset or, you know, the human has mind has constructed all this stuff. And it shouldn't go for ever. No. You know, it's it's.
But it's hard to keep those alive because when you when you if you look just at a personal kind of view, I mean, 6,000 languages are so active right now. You can't learn 6,000 languages to any degree. Yeah. So then you'd say, I can't learn 5999. And then you get down to I can maybe look at 30 to 40. realistically or 50 maybe if you're really diligent. Yeah. But then boiling down even further, how many can you reach fluency in? And then you just realize, well, I could be fluent in Russian instead of speaking uh one of the dying languages. Exactly.
And then there's a practicality to it which for me, sadly, is greater than the kind of the feeling of loss for.
No, it's for all of us. You know, we live in a certain society and world, we have to deal with it. Right.
I mean, if you're at this conference and you had a dying language with like let's say 100 speakers on it. You wouldn't find anyone here, even though there's so many different personalities. So not even at the most specialized conference there is, Yeah. Can you find, you know, use for it? And then I'm just thinking language is meant to be used. Yeah.
I agree that it's a you're conveying feeling or emotion or kind of the, I mean, language is how to get thought from your brain, I guess, enunciated or kind of spoken into the world. Right, isn't it? Um so I think at that point, what we have to do is improve the active ones, like the those that have interested speakers. Instead of forcing people to uh to to kind of go back and revive sort of uh the dead because it's also a development, of course. I mean, this is of course a little bit political almost, but.
All these aspects come in. Yeah. Language is not it's not it's not just isolated on itself. It has all these ramifications, all around. Right.
Like languages are living as well. Yeah. So if you try to revive a language, it might not be anywhere near what it was when it was alive, either. Right. That's another problem. Yeah. Um so I don't know if have you have you looked at any of these very obscure, like almost dying or dead languages?
Not really. Um I would love to, but it's like you say, um although I have a very romantic nature and I would love to get you know, some poor old woman in a valley in the Caucasus and she's the last one there. And there's only so many German young researchers who can go around the world to get the hold of these people. Right. And they do a great job. But um no, I'm afraid I I've never really had the you have to have a special nature to go into that. I think so. Explorer type thing, and it's very impressive.
No, I'm afraid I I just read, in fact, I try not to read because I find it so sad. But to me, they're just it's a loss of human ingenuity. There is. When you think of all the ingenuity that's going into this thing at the moment, Yeah. Uh and previously that went into language. You know, people developed over hundreds of thousands of years these elaborate constructs in order to express themselves. Right. And it's as if the energy is shifting into all this electro biotech stuff that we have. Right. In the developed world, of course, when the Caucuses or somewhere they're still living in that world, you know.
I'm actually writing my BA in exactly that in, I'm doing it in uh what we call the Gutenberg parenthesis. And it's uh a little short one sentence introduction is that when the printing press was invented, it changed how we communicate totally. Of course. And everything related to human culture. And now when we have the internet and we're kind of globally connected in a little village, if you will, like because if you were back in England and I was in Denmark, I could send you a message and you would immediately receive it Yeah. within a millisecond. You wouldn't even be able to time it. That's how fast it is. Yeah. And that brings us back to pre-printing in terms of communication orality. Uh-huh.
Um so the interesting thing with regards to languages is technology changing, of course, it's changing languages. Yeah. But it is, is it going to change our culture and our kind of our society or, you know, the way we feel about ourselves. Yeah. That's a big question, but.
Well, I'm sure it's it's already from what you say.
Yeah, yeah, it is. And it's it's going to be difficult to do in 20 pages or whatever the BA requirement is these days. But um but I guess it's interesting to talk about also language changes because you started learning a long time ago. And we talked uh briefly because you had a an interesting interesting uh Danish story. And uh you said you were you'd learned it was it how long ago was it?
At least 40 years ago in my 20s. Because I one of my interests is um I'm a church musician, I play the organ. And the Danish organ builders are very, very good. Right. Um there I was in Denmark a lot, and nearly went to work with one of them in in Ahaus. Yeah, that's a big, you know that Markussen fact for him. I've heard of it. Yeah. They're very famous worldwide.
I've been into the Domkirke and seen the big one they have. That is really big.
Yeah. And there are a lot, I was there recently and I said to it's funnily enough, the lady who runs it now, I remember her as a little girl like that. Right. And her father died rather suddenly recently. And I said to her, do you realize? I said, I'm sure you don't realize I met you last 40 years ago. You know. Wow. But you know, this is one of those things. It's you know, of course you can't remember.
That is incredible. But what you said was a change. Yeah. But how did you describe it to me as something was deteriorating or something?
Well, I think my feeling about the language, I learned Danish then and I spoke it fairly well. Certainly enough for ordinary things to get around. And I had friends in Copenhagen as well and I spoke with them. It seems to me, just very superficially maybe, that the the language is sort of eroding away, that the words are getting shorter. Uh that and this isn't only I I notice as a linguist, I think it's happening around the the Norse sea languages and certainly in English and maybe a little bit in Dutch, French. All these languages they seem to be, you know, we we the writing and reading is pretty much the same. But that's fixed. But speaking is constantly changing. Yeah.
And I have this feeling, you know, every day zillions of words are expressed and uttered and many of them are totally unnecessary. And people simple things like people speak fast, they run the words together, you know. Right. I know Sweden, they thing you hear all the time. Wad say du? You know, what did you, what do you say? What do you mean? You know. And so everything has to be repeated, not just to me, but to Swedish people. Uh two or three times. So in a way we're wasting words. It's a pity. Um but you know, that's that's rather a superficial impression I have.
Absolutely. But but still, it's a very personal impression that isn't really hard to, you can't really find that, you know, the only reason I asked you that is because you were there 40 years ago, and now you're here to to listen to it, or you've been recently and listened to it again. Yeah. And I find it very interesting. And obviously the pronunciation in Danish is one of the big talking points of it. And it's interesting how it just keeps Because we just, it's just the endings. If you take the English word to give, Yeah. give, Yeah. would be the very book form. It's very kind of uh syllable by syllable saying. Yeah. But nobody says that. If you're on the street, they just say, giv'n. Yeah. Give that to me. Giv'n. Giv'n. Give. Giv'n. Giv'n. Yeah. Do you? Are you giving? Yeah. Yeah. You know. Uh and it's just like all the ending is just gone. Yes.
And um so why when when where is it going to stop? Exactly. Is it going to be goo? We just end with a one syllable or. Yeah.
What do you know, you know, phonemes and our little sort of packages of sound, usually with a vowel and one or two consonants on either side. Well, when you get rid of the consonants, you're you have an exposed vowel and then it's very liable to go. Yeah. I mean it's you're right. It's.
It's going to float away on the wind or something. It's not just the end vowel, you see in Danish. It's also the I mean, it's the consonant before that's going. So the vowel at the end obviously has to go. You can't say, Ghee. Yeah. No, that would be silly.
Yeah. Yeah. So you'd have to change it. But of course, the even the Danish Committee of Languages uh, are changing the language every year. Um mostly, you know, adding words and and changing meanings occasionally, which is quite debatable. Yeah, that was. The thing that happened, I don't know if it happens in other languages, but what happened was uh people used an idiom incorrectly. Mhm. So I'm sure this happens in other languages. But it's like uh the the same as um uh don't sell the skin before you kill the bear or whatever the equivalent is. Yeah, that's what I mean. And people misunderstood a similar idiom. Uh it means it was like uh if you translate it directly, it's like um he did him a bear favor. Yeah. Uh-huh. And if you're Danish, Yeah. exactly, Yes. And in Danish, that means doing somebody a favor that turns out not to be a favor. Um so it's not a good thing. No. But people didn't understand it. So they started using the positive way. And the language committee had to concede that now the meaning is arbitrary. Or both. Ambiguous. Wow. And that was one of the big ones. Of course, that's been mentioned, but usually the changes they do is like add, you know, selfie or one of these new tech terms uh to Google is just Google. Yeah.
Um so it's nice to have an official governing body in a way, but it's not then the language is in the control of the people. So Yeah. They can't, you can they can try to say how you're supposed to speak it, but Yeah. like you say, it's mostly about writing. You can contain writing to an extent. Yeah. But what about speaking? You hear all the English now, all the English, they Yeah. they speak in a very distinct way. They also drop a lot of the of of the sounds. They used to be the and, you know, street English, uh the young kids speak. It's very different from the English that was spoken just 40 years ago. I'm certain sure. Yeah.
Um so I guess the the big question is, like you said, where is it all leading to in sense. Yeah. And how do we do our parts to I I'm not saying we should keep it the same, because that would be boring, but how do we at least conserve so we don't erode it all the way to Indeed. We will have nothing to say. It's It's.
Uh-huh. Yeah.
We will have no vowels, and nothing will come out.
Yeah. Do you think it's it's good to to make up new languages? I don't know if you're familiar with Esperanto.
I'm not terribly. I admire them. I think it's a great idea. They don't really bite with me somehow. Um that's what I mean, I I'll talk about Latin just now, but um I mean that worked for a long time as a, you know, a language of communication for a certain class of people and so on. Uh but um I noticed it seems to be I don't know, it seems to be Esperanto seems to be fairly popular in Germany and certain places. I think. And it's it's a the nice thing is there's a very much a community aspect about it, isn't it? Yeah. people they get in clubs and they like each other and all that, which is great. But whether it can ever go beyond that, I don't know. No.
No, me neither. I mean, I just uh I've just learned so much about Esperanto this event, but it's it's really interesting to see the development. Yeah, it's still over 100 years old. Yeah. So Yeah. it's only, it's pretty young, I guess.
Well, it's not the only one. There were one or two others, weren't there?
Yeah, there were I mean, in terms of in terms of con languages, constructed languages, there are I guess billions of them. Really? Yeah, we just don't know them. But the big ones I guess right now are the the talk of the day are Esperanto and Toki Pona. But I don't see Toki Pona as a language, and I know that's a bit um controversial. But if you do a minimalist approach and say you have a language with 120 words. That to me is a linguistic experiment, not a language. Yeah, exactly. Because the problem that arises is, and it's like a pigeon. You know, you have you heard of this uh Papua New Guinea pigeon? Oh, it's wonderful. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. It's like the um I had it in linguistics, and one of them was um I think helicopter was something like Jesus fly fly tall or something. Exactly. Sky, sky, fly fly. Yeah. It was really great. And and that's Toki Pona. Yeah. So what it means is that when you have a vocabulary from your 120 words, Yeah. you can't have a word for like eagle. No. Or uh seat belt. So eagle will be maybe proud bird. And maybe uh pigeon would be stupid bird or something. Yes. But then it becomes a lot of interpretation as well, because I mean, if you had to describe a pigeon and a and a hen, I mean, how would you do that? Yeah. Um so to me, it's not it's an experiment. Whereas Esperanto to me is a full kind of. And it's also evolving. Like I don't think the idea about Toki Pona is that it's evolving. That wouldn't make much sense if you want to create a minimalist approach. You can't say, I'm just starting with 120, and that's that's the minimalist approach. That's just the start. Yeah. But it but Esperanto's growing and they're adding new words. I heard the government that speak of a word, they added cool. They added cool, which I I find kind of interesting um for that.
But um but talk about a little bit more about practically studying. We got the colloquial Danish here, and you talked how you like to collect books. And you you when you see a book, you like about a language, you like you pick it up. And then maybe you don't read it until years later. But is that kind of you you is that kind of how you learned a lot of languages? Just find a lot of material and and read through it?
Yeah, very much. I I I tend to get impatient with courses. I did a wonderful course in Japanese, which was really marvelous. Because from day one, we only spoke Japanese. Within an hour, we are we're saying, you know, how are you? What is your name? I'm so, you know, all the basics. And it gave you such a launch pad of confidence, you know, I got great. I get on. And obviously there's lots more. Uh so, uh I did a Chinese course which I got to GCSE. Do you know that thing? Which is not much of a qualification, to be honest. But at least again, it's just a level. And you've got there, which is nice.
Exactly. For people who don't know, it would be the equivalent of just below the final high school years, I guess. So you're about 16. Yeah. 15, Yeah. thereabouts. Yeah.
Then I went to to Beijing and I went into a school there. And I found that to my mind, the Chinese that I met didn't really know how to teach the language. I think it's often happens. People go on about native speakers, but if they don't have the ability to teach or convey or understand your difficulties, Right. you can almost make it worse because I remember once in my learning Polish, I I put an ad in and I got this nice Polish man and he was very, very pedantic in an old-fashioned way. And you had to do all the cases slowly, slowly. Yeah, that's all for. You know, I mean, that's the killer for me.
You know, I I I want to teach people as a linguist how to teach the language to me, you know. I said, this is what you should tell me. This course not exist the how to teach. And I don't think.
It should.
It should, you know. And uh exactly. But so mostly, I tend to get books or uh of course tapes, I love, you know, I think all the way listen, listen, listen, listen, listen, exactly. Right. And all this stuff you mentioned before by the net, it's it's a lot easier now. And then just go to the country and talk and Often I quite like summer courses. They're a bit more relaxed. Right. And there's a community feeling.
Yeah. They're also a little bit more intense because they're there for like. Yeah.
You create a a total environment for a language. It's not like, oh, we have all year. That's exactly. Whatever time you need is a few weeks and then. Yeah.
I did a course for Russian like that in the 60s when I was already university. It was brilliant because we were in a we didn't go to Russia, we went to we know a lovely part in Austria and these tutors came from Russia and Czechoslovakia and God knows where. And we had this wonderful concentrated thing.
When I went back my tutors were quite impressed with my. It motivates learning even more because you had this group feeling. Exactly. In your school, it's almost like you're revolting or rebelling against the teachers and the subject matter because you're more interested in, you know, playing and playing football or whatever you do when you're at that age. Yeah. Wriggling off. Yeah. I mean, by the time you get to university, hopefully you've made a serious choice and say, okay, this is what I want to do. But in school, you have to go. Yeah. There's no choice. Yeah.
But even at school, I was sort of doing this approach, playing around with Spanish and uh Italian and keeping up my Hindi and always there's a sort of feeling of almost illicit in a way that people people thought, why are you doing that? It was just wasn't the kind thing. Right. thing outside the school curriculum. And um I don't know, it just and that's I suppose settled a pattern in me of going on and doing that for the rest of my life, really, you know, so and then my father encouraged me. He said, why don't you learn one every year? You know. Yeah. What I find is I actually can learn the structure normally in about three months. Right. And then it's just getting the vocabulary, you know. Which of course takes a lifetime. You know, just do your best, don't you? You know.
That's right. That's true. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, it's funny people, you know, when they ask you to do that badge, a lot of people say they speak a lot of languages quite well, or they're really good at a few languages. And I always say, I don't know any languages well, Yeah. because that involves an insane amount of a level of understanding of not only vocabulary, but also grammar. Yeah. I'll say I'm fluent in. Yeah. And I might say it's my native language. But that doesn't really say anything about the level. No. But if you had to say you're an expert in let's say Danish, to me, you would need to understand every single grammatical function. Right. You wouldn't just be able to speak it like a native. It would be understanding beyond that. So that's there's a fundamental I I would say problem in the fact that it's just really hard to distinguish between knowing and knowing and knowing. And how much do you have to know? Exactly. That's why I also hate the numbers game, you know. It's like how many languages do you speak? It's not really important, I think. No, not at all.
But I I think one can help oneself by, for instance, the it sounds rather bold and and and blunt way, but the number of words you know. There's a study, they say, most people in the world speak about in their own language, about 500 words. Right. In this sense. And it's apparently, if you want to get on in life, you need 1500 words. It's that simple. Right. That's why I love words. Verbal skills are so important. If you want to make a career, if you just want a quiet little life and you have a little job and you farmer, whatever it is, you know, you that's fine, that's great. But you know, if you want to. And so as a linguist, I take that as a benchmark. Okay, I get my 500 words. Right. And then I go on. And and if I get to 1500, I've certainly, I'd like to get to two or 3,000. And then I feel, that's okay, you know. Then I can move on because I always sort of, I mean, it's for like French and German, I just don't think about it. And I now for many, many years, I don't bother to refresh some of it. They're just there, you know, they're just my wallpaper, you know. So I'm always moving on to something else.
And um I think you have this whole thing of you know, pointer, rounded, will you just go for one or two things in life or will you be spread out. When I was a youngster, I was always been criticized, oh you do far too many things. You're a dilettante, and you should just Well, that was because the preferred model was deepness, depth, whatever it was. And I've gone on and I've done the other thing. And I look around and say, hey, there are lots of people doing this, you know, approach.
Yeah. And I was like, what what was the, when you were you were telling yourself as a round person, how did you kind of apply that to let's say the real life, you know, of a job and a family. Because obviously we can it's easy to have a round life when you're you're in 20 and you just fool around. But how how when things started to get serious and you suddenly had, you know, things that you actually needed to do. You just study 20 languages every day. No. Did that, how did that challenge you?
What I I've always done loads of other things. I I after university, I went into engineering. And actually I used my Russian. Um it was about quite fun. It was in the Cold War in the 60s, and I was sent to Russia and I helped sell four complete breweries. Wow. Because it was this amazing typical Soviet thing of they they said, right, we've got alcoholism. We know about the vodka, but we got this dreadful beer. What we want to do is make better beer. Right. And then the people will drink beer and they won't get so drunk. That's a kind of Soviet thinking. And okay, we'll invite all these Westerners like Danes and Germans and everyone who can make good beer, and they will show us, we'll have a, you know, and we'll buy the kit from them, and that's what they did on a vast scale. And so the Russian girl who's one of them was here, she said, she thinks it's still in existence, the factory that I I thought that'd be interesting.
That'd be interesting to look up and to see.
She said it was a good brand. So in a sense, it had achieved the target that they said. So that was fun, you know, and dealing at a high level. These people you think, gosh, if I make a wrong move, I'm in Siberia. You know, you know, Yeah. And the Google. Yeah, it was very exciting. It was a wonderful moment. So I did that and then then I've I've done loads of things in my life. I um again the the the sort of uh um rounded approach. I um I I I I didn't want to go I I tend to have a feeling, right, I've done that, that's good enough. I want to move on. I don't just want to settle settle in one thing. So then I went back, I love the countryside, my father was farming, and I farmed as a child. So I went back for that.
And then I went into the church. I was always very religious. And then I went to the church and I went to Rome. I became ordained. And then I and then that drifted away from that, that drifted away in the 80s. That's the Vatican. Yes. I I wasn't I what it was, I wasn't actually in the I was in a place called the Russian College, which is where they train people because I'm a deacon, I became ordained as a deacon of the Russian Catholic Church, which is a very small body. Um I don't even know, I haven't been in contact for years. Anyway, I I did that for five years. Then that all sort of fell apart, and I came back to farming. Right. And this is this brings you about 81. And then I sort of my dad died in 89, and my mum a bit later. And I just, actually, I kind of went into the linguistic side quite a lot with translating, interpreting. Right. You know, so that.
So you had that from.
Exactly, exactly. Which went back to it. Exactly. It was always around me and I using uh mostly not very exotic languages. I just what people ask, you know, French, German, Italian, whatever was on hand. And uh living in the country and doing my music, because I'm a musician. And gardening. You know, 24 hours is never been enough. That's what I said. That's my sort of life. Yeah. And uh yeah.
That's impossible. And now you're here speaking all your languages at the conference. What do you think about the conference? Actually, I haven't asked you that.
I think it's I I think it's absolutely wonderful. I mean, I I said to you or somebody, I've waited all my life for this, you know, because I feel like I've existed in a hole. Right. I've got one or two friends, one's in Italy now, one's in America, who are polyglots, but the rest people know I know one or two languages. Yeah. That's it, you know. So it's so wonderful just to the community aspect, and to see, and it's so lovely to see, as an older person, all these young people doing it and like you and it's the future, you know. And it's the I think it's wonderful that from what people are saying, the future has become more open to linguistic work, if you like. Right. Which is people realize beginning to realize the need. Yeah.
I mean, they've always known it in Denmark, in in my country, where it's appalling, as you know. The language teaching is going down and down. The worst one, they're practically giving up German, which is just a catastrophe. It is. Because we all need, you know, German is the power of Europe. It is, yeah. Business and everything else. Exports. You know, your neighbors, you know. Yeah. It's it's Yeah. And and and even in Denmark, it's it's being kind of downgraded as well. Because when I was in school, it was um I had it from fifth grade. Maybe maybe we even had introductory lessons in fourth, but it's definitely in fifth, around fifth or sixth. And I think that's when most Danish schools started. And then you have it until you leave elementary school. Yeah. But they're doing it now so that when you do leave at ninth grade, when you're about I guess 14 years or 15 I don't know. They're about anyway. It's too long ago. Um you can choose to go to the gymnasium, which is the high school, which is basically the access pass to university degrees or that level. So you need that first. But if you want to become a scientist, you choose science subjects. And your foreign language could just be English or, you know, you can even choose more obscure languages. But what that means is that when you're giving people the option to forgo German, they're going to be left with only their three or four years in high in normal elementary school. Yeah. And, you know, it's very inefficient. So you don't learn much.
And when I was doing it, I mean, it's a conscious choice for me, because when I hit gymnasium or the high school, I I chose German. So I continued on my kind of journey with German, and I had that for another three years. And by then I was pretty, I mean, I fluent, I was fluent before as well. But then by then I could understand all of it. And I to this day I can understand all of it as well. But I speaking has been a problem because I didn't speak it for between um after I I got out of high school to now. Um so I like this event for practicing German, you know, for German, so it's it's obvious, but it's funny how languages go lost like that. Absolutely. I mean, I can I can read German, I can understand when people are talking fast. I even understand slang and when they, you know, they speak very fast sometimes. Yeah. Um but actually producing the speech is something that's so rusty for me that it's it's actually a little terrifying. You know, ordering a coffee downtown, you don't want to sound like an idiot. Yeah. Yeah.
Um so but I don't know if you've had any experiences with languages going kind of you used to be really good at it, and then you try to pull it out, you know, just out of the pocket, and then suddenly you realize, something's lost here, you know. And you had to kind of fight back.
I certainly do. Um but I never felt it was a serious problem. I just thought felt this takes a little while to brush up. That's what happens. You know, because it's I everything in my life is about muscle memory. I, you know, I go to my gym every day. I play four or five instruments, musical instruments. I do gardening. All of that is not going to happen like a machine. It