Dani Maizner: Austrian polyglot and blogger
Kris Broholm interviews Austrian polyglot and blogger Dani Maizner. They discuss lessons Dani learned over 15 years of studying nine languages, including her "aha moments" in language acquisition. Kris also outlines his new format featuring experienced but lesser-known language learners.
April 25, 2014 · 47 min
EP 7: Dani Maizner: Austrian polyglot and blogger
0:00 / 47:09
Guest
Dani Maizner
What You'll Hear
- 1 Welcome, Host Update, Meet Dani Meisner
- 2 Dani's Journey & Speaking Challenges
- 3 Motivation, Community, & Learning Strategies
- 4 Dani's New Language Learning Process
- 5 Intermediate to Advanced Reading Workflow
- 6 Aha Moments & Preventing Language Loss
- 7 Closing Thoughts & Polyglot Gathering
Links Mentioned
Questions Covered in the Show
How did Dany Meisner start learning multiple languages?- 5m
What are common challenges when transitioning from textbook language learning to real-world conversation?- 12m
How can language learners stay motivated?- 15m
What is an effective strategy for starting to learn a new language?- 24m
How can language learners improve from intermediate to advanced levels?- 31m
What are key lessons learned from learning multiple languages?- 38m
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On today's episode of the actual fluency podcast, I bring on Austrian polyglot Dany Meisner. Dany and I talk about language learning and the lessons she's learned from learning multiple languages in the last 15 years. 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, Chris Broholm.
Hello guys, welcome to another episode of the actual fluency podcast. I'm bringing you episode number seven today. And if you want any information from the episode, such as links or any resource that we mentioned, you can go on to actualfluency.com/07 where you can read all the notes and you get the links to today's guests' websites and everything that we talk about.
Before we get on to today's interview segment, I just wanted to mention two points and a half point is that I'm still a little bit sick. So I apologize if you hear any nasal sound quality. I'm really trying. I've been drinking some Chinese ginger and honey drink and it's absolutely disgusting. But they say that it helps for sore throats. So I've been trying to do that and hopefully I get better soon. It's been quite a while so. But the show must go on.
And today I'm bringing I'm changing the show a little bit and that's the first point of order. And to change is that I'm going to be bringing on more people who you are not likely to have heard of beforehand. And that doesn't mean they don't have any interesting journeys to share. It just means that they I can't bring on, you know, the Steve Kaufmans every single week. First of all, the language learning community, the polyglot community doesn't have that large amount of let's call them celebrities that I can invite on every week for the podcast. And secondly, these top polyglots such as Benny Lewis, Luca Lampariello and Richard Simcott and some of these people that you might be wondering why I haven't had on yet. They simply have very little time outside of their daily activities to actually come on and do the podcast.
So with that being said, I'm I'm changing the format slightly to include people who have amazing language learning journeys to share but may not be kind of as well known. And to me, that's actually, I mean, I probably should have done this from the beginning but I I guess I I you learn by doing and I realized that you know, there are people in the community that have learned a lot of languages and have have learned a lot of lessons that are very valuable to other readers and listeners. And I'm I'm bringing those on to to share these amazing stories and today's guest Dani Meisner is from Austria and she's studied nine languages so far and achieved fluency in in quite a few of them. So she has a lot of valuable input about what it takes to be a language learner and even though you might never have heard of her, see this as your introduction to her as a person. And give her amazing blog a visit as well because she writes some really good posts and I I'm agreeing with her on a lot of the points that she brings up in language learning.
And during the interview we we get into kind of a a lot of aha moments in language learning and and and kind of the lessons that we've learned so far. But just before I I go let loose of that interview, I just want to mention one of the partners that I've started working with on the actual fluency blog and that is audible. And audible is a audiobook provider where you can listen to all your audiobooks on the go. I personally prefer audiobooks over the traditional written book because I can be I can so to speak read a book while I'm on the bus or biking or exercising and so on and so forth.
And you might say, well, why is that interesting for us language learners? And the reason is that Benny Lewis recently released his book, Fluent in 3 Months. And if you haven't had a chance to read that, I have partnered up with Audible to make it available for absolutely nothing. So if you go on to actualfluency.com/free you can find the details on how you can sign up to Audible for a free, no strings attached trial which you can then cancel before 30 days are up or you can sign on to one of their their amazing programs if you do enjoy listening to audiobooks. But this is an absolutely no strings attached free trial and if you sign up via actualfluency.com/free, you can go in and download Fluent in 3 Months, which is read by Benny Lewis himself and you can get that for absolutely nothing. So that's the partner I've brought on and I hope that I can bring you similar high quality offers in the future.
But without further ado, let's move on to today's interview segment. Alright, today I'm happy to welcome onto the show Dani Meisner. Dani is an Austrian polyglot who simply loves languages, which is also the title of her blog, where she talks about the joys and challenges involved with learning many languages. So Dani, how are you today?
Thanks, I'm really fine. Thank you for having me on show today.
My pleasure. And I gave the listeners a little sneak peak to who you might be but they really want to get to know you. So maybe you could take some time to introduce yourself and talk how you got started with all these languages.
Mhm. Well, as you said, I'm from Austria and so my mother tongue is German. My first foreign language is English, English which I started in school at the age of about 10, I guess. Yeah, and I don't remember how I got started with languages. It's just I've always been fascinated about it and yeah, and then I started with English, I started to get my mother's course books for French and Italian and I tried to get something out of that. But yeah, that didn't really work out.
But then when I came to high school, I started with French, with Spanish. And then just kind of took off. Yeah, snowball from there.
So so you can't see you can't see any clear little this is where it changed or any reason, you know, maybe family impressions or anything. It's just like this is what I'm going to do.
Yeah. Yeah. And and English set it off so to speak, that was your first.
Yeah, but I guess English is the most or for most of us the first, second language. So that was not a big surprise. Right. But yeah. I really like the language lessons in school and I've always been fascinated by foreign languages. It was just so cool that somebody speaks a different language and suddenly you're able to understand the the other person, even if he's not talking to you, doesn't matter. But yeah, so it kind of took off, yeah.
That's amazing. And you on your website I talked about you put nine different languages on there. I know some of them are to various degrees and and stuff. But how many of them would you say that you were fluent enough to say talk to someone on the street? Maybe not a technical discussion, but a basic discussion.
Oh, that's hard to say because my biggest problem is talking to somebody spontaneously on the street.
Okay. Then maybe that was a cruel question then but But if you had to rank them in in in terms of of which ones you knew knew the best, which would they be?
I think English is still the best because and I guess that's the most important thing, I'm not afraid of speaking in English.
But I studied translation at university and my languages are Spanish and Russian. So you should suppose that Spanish and Russian are my strongest foreign languages, but that's not true. My Spanish actually quite good. My Russian is okay. I can I can translate pretty hard texts from German to Russian, but I I can hardly order a coffee in a coffee shop. That's interesting.
But I But I guess if we if we had to talk about university learning a language in the kind of the school way, that's that's probably the the downside, isn't it? You you get you get a high level of understanding, but you can't just go into the street and use it because it's a different skill set. So so would you say that's your problem from getting from the the textbook to the real world examples?
Yes. Um you know I'm I'm a person for me learning languages in school was I was without
Um you just lost for a second there, sorry to interrupt you. You just lost you for a second. Can you just repeat that last sentence there?
Um well, in school, it was really easy for me to learn a language. I always got good grades without studying a lot. And yeah, so I was really I liked the school teaching system because I always got good grades. And you you always have these exercises where you have to fill in a gap with the right form of something and that was really easy.
And then I started working and so in an international company and I had to talk with customers on the phone and then I started to realize, okay, maybe you're not as good as you thought you are. And yeah, speaking is still my weak yeah, my weakest point and I need to work on that one.
You know, I feel exactly the same. When I was in in school the the kind of making a language into a quiz and filling out the blanks and actually also learning a lot of vocabulary was quite easy and I feel the same with German for instance. But actually putting it into practice and combining it into sentences, that's the hard part for a lot of us and then there are some people who have it the complete opposite way where they'll learn enough to have these fluent conversations very fast. But if you ask them about simple words they'll say, sorry, I don't know it, but I'll I can tell you about the weather or how are you doing, you know.
And and those are you just need to find out what kind of person or what kind of language learner you are and then focus on the weak points. And I don't know how you do it, but for me I I try to to speak a lot with my Russian tutor in in Russian. I mean I don't want to speak as much as she's trying to get me to speak, but you know, if you could speak all the time in that language, that would help it, right?
Yeah. It took me long to realize that I finally have to get out of my comfort zone. So I just kept studying in my way like I always like I always did.
But now some months ago I decided to go for a talkie lesson and I decided to to work with paid teachers because yeah, then they they are paid that to listen to me. Right. And yeah, I don't have to care about finding someone suitable and I don't have to trade my time. Right.
Yeah. I think it's a good idea to pay also because you can take some of the teachers who have a lot of positive feedback. So you know that they have actually been in the community, they're not just, you know, some random people you find so the quality should be higher and I also use I talkie, so I can definitely vouch for that one.
We touched a little bit on on motivation to why you started learning the languages in the first place. But how do you because obviously learning a language is all about endurance and persisting and keeping up the motivation to keep doing that vocabulary practice or keep practicing speaking or learning new grammar. How do you personally motivate yourself to keep going even when it gets, you know, you can get demoralized sometimes, can't you in learning a language?
That's a difficult question. I often I often feel demotivated in Russian. But the good thing is I study with a lot of fellow students who are in the same situation as I am. Right. And sometimes we just meet up in the break and complain about Russian.
If you did it in Russian, it would be the perfect circle. Yeah, yeah, that's good. So I think it's always good to have fellow language learners with the same problems. Even if they don't learn the same language but I guess in this language learning process you you always reach some points you reach some obstacles that are hard to overcome. Right. So if you collaborate or talk with somebody that's I think that's great. I also think that at some point it's necessary to make some changes in your process in order to keep stay motivated. So I don't know by starting to watching your favorite TV serial in your language or something like that. Just something that keeps you going and that interests you and yeah. Right.
And and you you said community, well, you didn't say the word, but that's kind of the what you what I derived from it is is a community feel if you join say a Facebook group or you find people studying the same language and there are I mean so many people studying these languages everywhere. If you go to I talk, you can go to Live Mocha, you can go to Interpals, you can go to Facebook, Google it, you know, you'll find a lot of people who are studying it and you can kind of become accountable in in a community.
And that's how you kind of get your motivation because you don't want to be the one failing so to speak or, you know, you you're in it together and and you help each other.
I really like this community thing on Facebook now. Because when I was a little bit younger, around 20, so I was working and I I always kept learning languages by myself but basically all my friends or my colleagues at work, they weren't so much into language learning. So you can like the only person in your environment who loves language learning. That's a bit strange sometimes and your friends can't hear the topic anymore.
But it's great to meet people all over the world who just do the same and share the same passion and to talk about it. It's just great.
Yeah. And and it's also I mean it's you kind of sharing the victories as well. You you help each other through the lows but you also share the victories. Hopefully you can speak together or something.
The the other accountability point I guess is is your blog as well because you're you're openly writing your challenges. You had some challenges about what was it? Polish and you had a romance language challenge and but every time you write these publicly you kind of setting yourself up to be accountable and and that that motivates you, doesn't it?
Yeah, it keeps you going. That's true. Because you don't want to fail and then have to write, sorry guys, I failed. So no more from me. No, no, no. It really keeps you going. Right.
And that that motivates. Yeah, is that why you chose to start the blog originally or or was it also just to kind of get some somewhere to write because I notice you write in a lot of your languages where a lot of people only write in say English about their language learning but you you seem to write in in lots of your languages.
Is that a way for you to practice them or was it originally just a place to kind of put some of your thoughts?
Um I tried, so I tried to publish all my posts at least in English and in German. It's not because I it's easier for me to write in German because usually I write the blog posts in English. It seems like talking about language learning that English is your first language. And then I kind of translate them back into into German. Right. Yeah. I would do that as well, yeah.
I started doing that because I, so everybody writes in English, that's why we want to talk about language learning in English. That's the first thing. But I think for language learners it's great to read something in other languages as well about a topic that you're interested in. So I would love to read a language learning blog in, I don't know, French. If you can read recommend me someone.
I don't speak any French sadly. So I I would it would take me a while to find one. But I know Luca Luca does it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He publishes some articles.
Actually, I just printed a Polish one to practice because the topic is interesting and then it's always easier to understand something. So I I thought, yeah, I can speak German pretty well. So I could write something in German. Maybe this helps somebody. Some of my friends, private friends are reading my blog. I think they usually choose the German version as well as my mom.
And But one idea was also to practice. I'm currently translating a few of my posts into languages I'm not so strong, like Italian for example. And I'm working with a here I have a tandem partner, a a real life partner, and we just correct it together and that's a good practice because I don't want to write a text about my last vacation in Italian. So just decided to translate my blog posts. As you know, I like translating, so.
That's a really good idea. Good exercise and I try to get some good corrections and try to improve based on these corrections. Right. And if you don't have the fortunate access to a real life partner in this, you can use that website or what is it called um Lang 8, isn't it? Where you can submit
No, I don't know that one.
But I haven't tried it either, but I just wanted to give people who might be looking for a place to get corrections on the text. If you go to Lang 8, Lang-8, you can submit your text and get it looked by a native speaker and I as far as I know the pricing is quite reasonable.
So that's that's a a good way to start a blog, I think and you you're really working a lot on the content, the text itself. So and obviously you're very interested in the translating and and I mean other people might be more interested in in speaking. But if we had to go back to you know, kind of the method or how we would learn languages, I I have this question that I ask everybody who comes on and you you've probably heard it and it's if you had to learn a completely new language tomorrow, how would you go about doing it? And by that I I don't mean every single detail, but, you know, what what kind of resources do you think are the strongest to learn a new language the fastest and most effective for you?
Um I would go and buy a self teaching, teach yourself course. I use a German brand, so that might not be useful for every listener. But I saw it.
Do they have a Russian one?
Uh yeah, yeah, they have.
I thought about doing something really sneaky because my German is like B1, B2. I thought about buying that for Russian. Yeah, why not? It's not too expensive. Double double, you know? Just fix your German and learn Russian. Oh God. No, that's not fun.
Um they also have one for Danish.
Oh, really? Yeah. I I know Danish a little bit.
Oh, okay. They have all the basic languages. Yeah. But and I did that in the past. So I've always bought this course. But what I would do differently now is from the beginning, I would try to find other resources as well to improve my vocabulary. I would try to start reading newspaper articles or at least other texts prepared for learners, but from other textbooks to get more vocabulary, to get more texts, to get more structures. And I do a lot of vocabulary training. I'm the Anki type, by the way.
Oh, not the memorize type. God. Okay, well, we can talk about that a little bit. So so what's what's does Anki have that Memorize doesn't have?
Yeah, I have to say in advance that I create all my cards by myself. Okay. I don't work with pre-made decks because I like to work with my own stuff and I just arrange it the way I want it and I work with the colors and the sounds and the pictures and everything. So for me the memorization effect with Anki is really great. So I use that and I would start creating a deck for the new language immediately.
That's actually a really good idea and something that I I I know is the better way to do it. Because you can get these great courses on Anki or Memorize that are quite useful, but at the same time they're not really targeted towards your efforts.
And I always I always kind of hit my head and I'm like, well why do I need to learn how to say this word right now? I mean, I I thought this was a frequency list and they're teaching you how to say things that you're not going to use. So creating your own stuff is something I can definitely recommend. I'm just too lazy, admittedly.
Yeah, it's more time. A lot more time, yeah.
I think in in the end, you save time. At least I think so. Oh, yeah. But you can make your own Memorize courses too, so.
I've never tested it, to be honest.
You can, you can. I'm telling you, right here, you can create your own course from scratch and it's it's that that's why it always confuses me why there's a difference between Anki and Memorize users because it's literally the same thing. Except that Memorize is a little bit more sleek, it's a little bit more flashy and But if you have if you are working with Anki and it's working for you, then the argument is the same. There's no reason to switch because it is the same.
So the only the only reason I'm I'm I'm always interested in it because we always talk about Memorize and I always promote it to people who haven't heard it and and then you come and you're like, yes, I use Anki and that's cool, that's that's really cool. Just learn your vocabulary one way or the other, you know. They do the same thing you too, you know, with the spaced repetition as well. So you would make your own Anki make your own Anki decks.
Yeah. Step by step. And you would use a teach yourself kind of guide and then you would kind of find native material, written,
would you do any videos or trying to TV or
Yes. Um now based on my experience, I know that I should do it, but I try to avoid it. And yeah, wait for the perfect moment to yeah. Because well, as everybody, I don't like the feeling of not understanding something and especially if you think that you are already ready to understand something. So I tried to avoid that. But yeah, sure. I just tried to find something. And when you start watching serial and what you continuously, you actually see some improvement in understanding. And anyway, you can watch a serial you already know then it's a bit easier.
It's just so hard to do it in the beginning, isn't it? Because I I was I was recommended this Russian rip off of Scrubs, which was a series I really enjoyed in in English. And I and I watched like five minutes and I'm like, Yeah, but I don't understand anything. What Did you find a version of this Scrubs, or I think it's called Klinika. Um
No, it's called Interni.
But is it a Russian version? Really Russian artists? Okay. Yeah. They made that they ripped it off. They didn't just dub it or anything, they just ripped it off completely and made their own. So that's top tip there. I have the Russian version of Scrubs.
The real Scrubs. Yeah. But it's
Oh, they just dubbed it, didn't they?
Exactly. There's this one guy and I don't understand anything. Really anything.
No, this is true Russian people, but since I don't understand anything, I I struggle with keeping myself interested in it. And it's not because I don't want to learn, it's just if you're sitting down to watch something and you just everything's flying past you, to me that's probably a time where you should go back and study your books or your vocabulary or and but but then again, I hate the the whole the right moment ideology. And I know you do as well. But I mean, there are no right moments to start to start immersing yourself in the language and equally there are no right moments to start speaking it. Because if you wait for the right moment, there there never comes. So.
Exactly. Waiting for the right moment to start watching or reading native material is as dangerous as missing the right moment when to stop working with your textbook, because when you just stick to your textbook all the time, you just don't improve.
And you sound awful. You don't sound natural either. You might be grammatically correct, but you just don't sound natural. Yeah, yeah.
And I'd I'd prefer to make a few mistakes and sound natural than sound like a grammatical textbook. So I think we summed up your how you would go about learning a language in in detail a little list there.
And so, if you have a language, if you learned it, and you let's say you're a intermediate. How would your process change from kind of a B1, B2 to getting over to C1, C2. From your, you know, from the other side. How would how would your process change there midway? If it would, maybe you do the same.
I'm really the reading type. I like to acquire a language through reading. And I just try to get material. I like to read the crime stories. So I try to get crime stories in the language I'm learning. And yeah, this helps me because I'm interested.
The vocabulary is you know on a on a normal level. It's not about a child playing with his dog, but it's also not about technical stuff. So it's just a normal vocabulary. And yeah, I just I think my focus is on reading, because I acquire a lot from reading and then unconsciun- unconsciously, I I can use that for writing and writing and speaking.
How would you do that technically though? I'm assuming you don't just open up a book in say Russian and then just start reading and guessing what the word is. Do you do you plug it into a software like Ling or what is it called working with text or something or do you just have a dictionary next to you?
I mean, how do you improve when you read? Because if you don't have any kinds of ways to learn new words while you're reading, then surely you're not really improving, are you? I mean, unless you can guess the meaning maybe.
I don't like to read on a computer. I like to read on my e-reader or I print out articles on paper or just buy paperback. So I usually read on the couch or in the bed. So I need to work physically with something. Right.
I have something like I have a language a language block like a college block. Okay. Yeah. And I just that's with me all the time and when I'm reading and I find a word, I first I try to guess the meaning of the word. And if I'm not sure, I just write it down. And then at the end of the week week, I usually sit down and get through my list of words in all the different languages. And then I enter them into my vocabulary list on the computer and con and then into Anki.
But that's but that's incredible. Did you write a blog post about this process?
Not yet. Thank you.
Well, I would suggest you do because I think that's a a great kind of work through of of a not a work through but a workflow. Because you know, if you said, well, I have my book and then I have my dictionary, that wouldn't be that special. But you actually have a a plan from A from getting from, you know, not knowing to knowing.
It's a bit hard to work with a dictionary and a book at the same time. I tried to to work with a book in in Polish and in German. The same book in both languages, just, you know, keep reading Right. One sentence in the Polish one, not understanding anything, then read That sounds awful. The same sentence. Yeah, no, no, that's not fun.
So, I mean, in general, reading is not fun if you don't understand anything. So, Right. I put this Polish book book aside and I wait a few weeks and then I will try to read it again because I hope my vocabulary increases a bit. But yeah, that that just doesn't help me. Using a dictionary or another book or something, even using a book and a tablet at the same time, that's horrible. So I just, you know, reading, writing with my right hand with an awful handwriting but at the end I can still read what I wrote down and then I at the end of the week, it's usually Sunday, I just double check everything in the dictionary and and goes to Anki.
You batch batch process it as well, which saves time and what I wanted to focus on as well is that if you did have a dictionary next to you, like if you were reading a book in front of your computer and you looked up every word using Google translate or whatever, the problem is that you won't remember it. Yeah. You won't remember it because if you look up a word, I have done this so many times in Russian, where my Russian tutor, I've looked I've seen a word and I'm like, what does that mean? And I look it up, look it up on the translate and it's like, oh that's what it means. And then literally five minutes later she'll use it again. And I'm like, what does this mean again?
So you need you need to put it into the vocabulary trainer one one way or the other because you're not just going to learn it from looking it up once. But by you, you know, taking it into this batch process and then over into the Anki, you you generating that spaced repetition that basically guarantees that you're going to learn it. I mean, you might not be able to reproduce it, but if somebody told you the word after you've been through two or four Anki rounds or whatever they call it, then you can definitely then you definitely know what it is and you find it in writing, you can translate it. I mean, there's a different there's a huge difference between an active and a passive vocabulary, isn't there?
I'm in general a person, I can't remember a word just from hearing or seeing it once. I I really need to repeat, I need to write it down, several times and then at some point it's fixed. But I I need a long time to remember a word and when you're trying to learn yeah, hundreds of words it even takes me longer.
Yeah, that's why I really like the spaced repetition, even if you do Anki or Memorize, they're both amazing. And I'm I'm constantly surprised at how well I remember words, even in Russian. I mean, it's it's it's completely different letters, completely different sounds. And even I even remember the spelling and it it's just I mean Russian is incredibly intuitive in the spelling. Let's not give me too much credit here. But you know, the soft sounds are a little bit funny to get into.
But okay. So on the back side of this how to learn languages discussion. What would you say has been your biggest kind of aha moment or biggest realization that you've come across when you're when you're processing all these languages or any any aha moments or lessons learned or
Definitely the focus on speaking. It's still really hard for me to start speaking in a foreign language. But I know it is important and I really want to focus on speaking because I can't do it without help, let's say so. Without practice at least. So that was a really big aha moment. And I think another one was, yeah, just right after school as in school, everybody told you, ah, you're so good at language learning and you can learn every language impossible. And then when you
Right.
When you realize, okay, you know something in the language, but actually you're not as good as everybody tells you, that's a bit hard to face.
And and it's two different skill sets again. They're telling you how good you are at passing the tests. Yeah. But they don't tell you how good you are at speaking the language.
In school, the problem is that they teach you how to pass the test. And they teach you what you need to say and what you need to know, but they don't teach you how to first of all, they don't teach you how to speak, they don't teach you, well, don't speak enough, I would say. And they don't teach you how to teach yourself either.
Yeah, that's definitely true. They don't teach you how to um if let's say if you're interested in learning languages or in learning French or Italian, in school we didn't get the tools to improve or just to do something more in our free time. Everybody just told us, yeah, this is the vocabulary, study the grammar or at the sometimes they said, read a book. Yeah. That's not going to help. No, but and but um when you start talking with other people what they do for language learning, what what works for them, what doesn't work for them, then you you get new ideas, you start testing this method and this tool and somehow you find your own box, your toolbox.
And you're constantly improving your technique. And I think technique is a crucial point in in language learning, doesn't matter which language. And I think there is no perfect toolbox for there's no one size fits all solution. And I think there is no solution for for me that will always be the same. You know, it can it can be that tomorrow I start learning Chinese and I need to adapt my technique to, I don't know what, how to remember characters, or I don't know.
Very visual. Do you want to learn Chinese? Is that something you you you're working on?
Ah, yeah, that's a, you know, that's a black dot in my language profile because I've been to China.
Really?
Yeah. And it was yeah, it was a study program for my economic studies. So the study program was in English, but we had some lessons in Chinese.
How many how many days or weeks or months?
It was just five weeks.
Five weeks. Okay. So not no fluency in five weeks there.
No, no, no. The whole program was in English and the group was Austrian students only. So you speak German.
Yeah, and no language learning friends. No, nothing. But and did you were you as active in the language learning back then?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.
Really?
Yeah. And I try I I really wanted to learn something, but it was it was just the time when I quit my job and started going to university. It was a tough time. I said, I need to learn some Chinese, you know, just say thank you, hello and whatever. I did that, yeah.
But when I came to China incredible. We had four four lessons, one hour each of Chinese. With a it was really funny because it was the the Chinese teaching system of let's repeat. And you just say what I'm saying. And I'm really not good at it. So I failed I completely failed. I don't know anything from this one course anymore. Really. Just the I I learned before I flew to China. But yeah, we just tried to use the hello, thank you, goodbye in the shops. But it would have been so necessary to learn Chinese because we've been unable to buy a a card for the metro, you know, not just this one-way ticket, but pass. Yeah. And we were unable we had to wait for fellow Chinese who spoke English who could translate the the man working there what we want to buy. And so I'm still really I'm a little bit disappointed about myself. So one day I have to learn Chinese.
Maybe, yeah, maybe that's a a future challenge. But of course, I mean, it's also very easy to get language you you get excited about learning more languages but I think at some point you have to kind of step back a little bit and look at what you have and improve that and I'm sure I I saw you you listed Swedish as I was once good but now I'm not very good.
Could you share a little bit what happened there?
Oh, yeah. Well, I worked in a company and I was responsible for the Swedish market there. So I decided, yeah, let's learn Swedish. And I started learning Swedish and everything was fine. And I wrote some emails with customers, tried to talk on the phone, read some Swedish crime novels. And yeah, then I don't know, I quit my job and I didn't use Swedish anymore.
And you know, I always thought I'm not a person who forgets languages. Obviously I am. I at least to some to some extent. And now I'm sitting here and when I see a Swedish word, I I think, ah yeah, I once knew what it means. So when I look it up in the dictionary, it's here again and it's not so difficult anymore for me to to to to study them. But yeah, it's really sad.
But what are you um what what are you doing going forward with your other languages to make sure the same doesn't happen? What what would you have what could you have done? do you think?
Um It's definitely a matter of practice. So um sorry. If I don't use the language, if I don't and and I'm not speaking about speaking or actively writing or doing something, but just um read an article once in a while, listen to if you want, if you listen to music or watch a movie or whatever, just to stay in the language.
And what I did now, I hope it works. I have an Anki deck for each of my languages. And I I try to constantly collect some vocabulary, for example, for Portuguese. I do not actively study Portuguese now, but if I come across a new word, I add it to Anki. And I practice daily. So I try to, you know, just stay in the language somehow, because I never ever want to forget a language anymore.
Right. Yeah, it's it's it's it's it's horrible for that feeling to to know that you once knew something and then lose it. I mean, for German, for for me, it was almost the same. Because I was doing I'd been doing it for so many years in school, but that it just shows you how inefficient school is. I mean, I did German for like 12 years. That's a Yeah, it was like two thirds of my life with German.
And by then I was when I was going out of high school, I was actually really, really good. I could really talk to people and I mean, I made mistakes every all the time with cases and stuff, but I could still have a conversation and you know, people didn't mind. But then I didn't use it for I I left high school and I didn't use it for something like five or six years. And and it's just gone. You know, I know words, I can still remember the vocabulary, but the speaking part is just gone and that means that if I if I go away from it say five more years, maybe even more will be gone. But I guess the the the bright the upside to the story, like you mentioned is if you do work on Swedish now, you'll pick it up so much faster than if you hadn't started on it ages ago. So there's always kind of a plan B if you do end up in a situation where a language is forgotten or below a level that you would that you would hope to see it in. So, that's a top language learning tip, I think. You should have a segment or a little sound or something.
Actually, um you reminded me on one ah-ha.
Oh, there we go.
From the past. It's about Polish. When I studied Polish, I was really, really motivated because I really liked the Polish language and I like Poland. I've been to Poland in total four weeks and I really love the country and the people there. So I was highly motivated. And I kept studying, you know, all the declination tables, just like in Russian. conjugations and everything. And sometimes even in lunch break at work, I kept going. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And now coming back what I still remember in Polish are the words and phrases I've picked up in Poland or from a Polish speaking friend or from work, working with Polish customers. What I don't remember, don't remember are the declination tables.
Right.
So you're saying that the personal connection, the human contact is it I mean, make it make it real. Don't make it school, make it real.
I just had this experience where yeah, I think two weeks ago, when I worked on my blog post update and I just, you know, I started reflecting on what I didn't say, oh my God, this is really awful. And but because I am this declination type learning person. I really like that.
That's the school way of doing it.
And now I realized, oh my God, it's not for long term, long term results. So
Yeah. I would have had much better lunch breaks at work by the time then. Well, I I really like your dedication that you actually did it in your lunch break. I mean, that takes some dedication because you when you're in a full time position, lunch breaks are quite sacred, I would say. Needs a little rest and a coffee and maybe a little snack to get the sugar levels going.
Alright Dani, it's been amazing to talk to you, but sadly, even the good things must come to an end and we've we've reached the time here. So all that remains to be asked if do you have any final shout outs or comments or where can people find you? Some practical stuff like that and I'll give the floor to you.
I think we said what we need to say. No, somebody's interested. I write on I simply love languages.com and yeah, I'm happy if somebody comes over. You can find all my social media details there and yeah, it was good talking to you. Thank you.
Thank you. And I'm sure we'll we'll see talk again soon. We're both going to the Polyglot Berlin. Yes. It's going to be so fun. It's almost like a pattern here. I just realized most of the people I talk to here are going.
But what what do you plan to to to gain from that experience? What are you what are your primary reasons for going?
Uh I think it's just a fun to to go.
That's good. That works.
To meet the people, to hear interesting talks, to yeah, just to have fun and just to connect and yeah, meet people. I think it's going to be great time.
Yeah, it's funny I hear a lot of people I talk to about they say, yeah, I can't wait to practice that language, can't wait to practice that language. And I'm like, I don't really care. I just want to say hi to people and network, you know. I don't care what language I practice when I'm there. I just respond to whatever language people speak to me and if I know it. You know, so it seems like we're on the same page when going.
Yeah, exactly.
So all right. Well, I'll see you there Dani and thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
Thank you.
Thank you for listening to the actual fluency podcast. For more information, be sure to check out actualfluency.com. Until next time, enjoy learning and have a great day.