Dimitrios Polychronopoulos: Inspired by travelling

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Actual Fluency Podcast. Um I've got a great episode for you today. I'm really excited to be back. Recently I've had some internet problems which has caused a a sort of slowdown in the production of episodes, but I managed to get a good conversation recorded recently, and I'm glad to produce this episode for you. So we're back with kind of the core theme of the podcast, which is language learner stories, and what really excites me about that is that it gives you the opportunity to hear from other language learners, how they got into it, and you know, any kind of experiences uh they have gotten along the way.

Sure, um so I I grew up in the States uh and um my dad's side of the family is Greek, and so I had um already quite a bit of uh background there just growing up, and being around the language, and also my favorite book was always the World Atlas. So I was always just uh digging into the atlas and snooping around for places I'd dream of going one day. And I'd even start writing lists of uh languages that they would speak in the countries and say that I'd learn these languages, and people always thought I was crazy. And I didn't really get a lot of support from anybody um about that kind of thing, especially being, you know, like 10, 11, 12, 13-year-old uh saying stuff like that doesn't really make sense to most people, so.

Awesome. And um that I kind of like that uh the French story because the the most common French story I hear when I talk to people, because French is obviously a very popular high school language all over the world. Is they say, yeah, I finished French and I couldn't say a word. But you had that you had that uh support from the the students who who came over, and and how was that environment? Were they part of every class, and you just you just kind of saw that foreign element that you'd been drawn to earlier in your life, and you just kind of snapped on? Or was it were all the French students in your in your class picking up French as good as you did? Or how did how that happen?

Yeah, actually, it became a problem because they had four levels of French, and I skipped from the third to the fourth level as I was moving along. The teacher says, let's move him along. And then I started getting encouraged to take the advanced placement exam, because in the States, they have this Princeton organization where you get college credit and you could you could get out of exams. You could take exams at the end of the scholastic year and then if you pass it, you could get college credit and skip classes. And that um and then people save money and time when they're doing university studies in the States, if they've passed advanced placement exams. So I was the first one from my high school to ever take that exam and to pass that exam. And that was quite a strange thing for everybody, like, wow. Because they they they gave recognition to other people studying foreign languages and they gave small scholarships and stuff like that. But I was the only one who actually proved my ability by examination. And um so nobody else in the French class was learning, and nobody else was really hanging out with the with the French kids as much as I as much as I was, so.

Wow, that Excuse me.

So it was yeah.

Just a power of you.

It was definitely an anomaly if you will.

Okay, well, that's interesting because I was just I wasn't sure if if everyone from that class became a a great French speaker, or if it was because you kind of, like I said, latched onto to that foreign element that you've been drawn to earlier.

Yeah, it was more it was more me. I just found I just found that it was a nicer ambiance to be with. It was a funner funner environment, and uh it was more exciting to just.

Yeah, I know what you mean. Yeah, I know what you mean exactly. It's it's like when you when you get someone coming to visit from somewhere else, it's kind of breaking up the the usual pattern of uh of uh the daily life, so I I totally understand.

I would say that the support is really important, and that's why I I'm I'm really encouraged by some of the people like um like ad one challenge. For example, I think that's a really good good way to offer support. If that kind of thing can go into the classroom, then definitely that would be something that could change the attitudes. Um and you have on your podcast as well, you had uh uh in one of your seasons, you you had someone from the Midwest who who was working with uh with immigrants and such. Um.

Richard.

Yeah, Richard. Um he he had some amazing things to say about making language relevant as well. Um and he's got some blog posts about that. So I think this just needs to become more mainstream, that people need to educate, shall we say, need to reach out and and and get in touch with these methods, and these methods need to reach out to to the people as well. So so that uh everything becomes relevant and everybody gets encouraged. Because then it wouldn't be so unusual for people to learn languages, and and people who do learn the languages, um it would just kind of snowball. So I think that would Instead of like, in my case, I was a little bit of a nuisance to the other French uh students, excuse me, because they could see that I was the only one who's actually able to speak the language. Um and it it was a bit intimidating for those other people.

Of course, it's pride, isn't it?

Yeah. Uh so I was actually told to kind of calm down uh in a way. Not to.

Yeah. That's that's just I mean, that's just makes me sad because I experienced a similar thing growing up, and it's just the school system has this stupid idea that if people are really good at something, they should kind of, you know, just sit in the corner and do extra papers or just, you know, you don't want the other students to think they're worse. And it creates this kind of, oh, we're all the same, you know? And I just don't think so. I think, of course, we should help the people who are struggling in a subject, but likewise, I think we should encourage the people who are doing really well and send them on these, you know, um placement or these uh what do you call them? Like rapid paths, or or whatever, because it's it's a waste of a like, probably you wasted probably a lot of classes sitting there thinking, oh, they're talking about this simple concept again, you know? And it's just a waste of your time really. Um, by means, if we had to if we had to dismantle the the school system and and uh you know, point out all the flaws, then we could probably talk for weeks, but I don't know.

Well, if you look at the ad one challenge, then you can see that there's some new people encountering it for the first time. And also when you go like at the polyglot Berlin gathering, uh one of one of the things was last uh May, the person who filled up the room the most was Benny Lewis.

Yeah.

And so I'd already had all this experience with languages before I first heard about Benny Lewis, and then he started peddling the books and such. I was following along kind of just in the not really participating in anything, just kind of as a silent observer. So, when I saw what uh kind of impact Benny can have on on somebody's motivation and bringing somebody who maybe had failed to learn a language several times, uh and then finally make a breakthrough, uh I think that people like that can be very good to to encourage um foreign language learning in general. I don't know that it's come as far as or it's definitely not come as far as I'd like it to, but at least it's made some first steps because these are like uh Brian Kwong and and Benny Lewis are two individuals that I can explicitly point to who have actually, if it hadn't been for them, perhaps that person still would be without uh the language learning that they have today. The those those followers, those people who have who have actually made those improvements, may have otherwise not not been able to make a breakthrough.

Yeah, and you can point that you can even point that further back to someone like Richard and and Alex who created the first conference in Budapest, where where Brian got the idea for the ad one challenge, but also that's when it that's when it became real in a way, because before, people were just sitting in their, you know, in their little bedroom or whatever, dimly lit, and and and studying their old dusty teach yourself, you know. But um, but when when, I think it was about 100 people or something like that, met in Budapest. Unfortunately, I couldn't make it because I didn't know the word polyglot at the time, and I just had never even I didn't even know this was a thing. Um, but um, that's a funny aside. But that's kind of where it started, right? Um.

Yeah, it's funny, I was not a part of it at all. And then I found out, I saw the BBC had posted a a video of Alex Rawlings, and I thought it was the coolest thing. Um.

The one in the park?

And then I started looking into it. It was the one where he speaks in Catalan, and he speaks in Afrikaans, and Dutch, and Greek, and Russian. And it was just and it was subtitled, of course. I just thought it was the coolest thing. And that's when I finally started looking into it, and I managed to make it to last year's polyglot gathering. So that's when I started really being a part of it and being more interested. So now I I've been trying to think of what kind of contribution I can make as well. And trying to come up with something new, not just to repeat the same old stuff that's already out there, so.

That's cool. And what kind of what do you take as as someone who did a lot of the language learning before you found out there were other people doing it, compared to someone like me who learned about it and then started doing it?

Yeah, it's kind of funny. You know, in some ways I feel I missed some ground, but that's okay, there's always time to catch up. It gives me time, it had given me time to look back and try to reflect a bit on what um what was all out there. So I was basically doing an MBA here in Oslo, where I live, at the time that uh that I learned about it all, and then I I was still doing the MBA when I attended the polyglot gathering in Berlin, and then finally graduated, and then started looking at things.

Yeah.

But I spent a lot of my time uh talking to the audience and and finding out how they currently have their writing corrected and so forth, and wrote some posts about it. And I my goal is to continue to post about once a week as a minimum, but more importantly, is to try to bring others in. So that I want to encourage them to post as well, and not necessarily in their best language, but in in another language, and then encourage others to come in and correct and so on. I'm not sure if I'm on to something, or if it's it's um not the right direction. They also say that entrepreneurs have to pivot a lot, and I haven't even gotten past the test users yet. So I I'm I'm focusing on getting a group of, let's say, up to 30 people together. Each one would write a post, and each one would correct a post, and provide feedback on how the site looks and its user um friendliness and so forth, so I can make some improvements and and move along uh from there. It's really it's kind of stuck at the moment, but I guess that's the typical thing of of something new, it takes a while to gain some traction.

Of course, and you you you can never know you can never predict what people are going to, if they're going to use it or not, until you've actually given it that time and shown everyone and say, hey, this is my idea, would you like to try it out? And after a significant amount of time, you know whether or not it's something that people would be up to.

Yeah, let's um let's first talk about your question on being under-represented. It's definitely under-represented even even by nature, when people are studying a language, obviously, if they get to A2, um and then move on to another language for a variety of reasons. Maybe they're living in a country for a short period of time, or or taking a language class or or something, could be something like somebody's with someone and then they break up, so they're learning the language and then they end up breaking up and and then they stop uh having interest in it. It could be that they have a a short assignment working with certain people or traveling to a certain country. So it's only normal that the beginning level has a lot of material out there, and it's easier to also reach the beginning level.

But does the question do you need to be like super high level in Chinese? I mean, if you get all the benefits of being the level you are now, without well, okay, possibly you couldn't work as a Chinese interpreter, but unless you want to do that, then maybe actually the the effort of going to that level is just so high that like you said, the diminishing returns just get so high that maybe it's not worth the effort at all, depending on what your goals are, of course. I mean, every everyone's different, and there are people who want to to be interpreters or or translators who need that high technical knowledge. But if somebody's listening out there and says, I I just want to learn to speak it, I guess they don't need to to worry too much about getting to a a high C1 level anyway.

Yeah. Yeah, most people, even myself, unless like I say, suddenly I find myself living back there again.

Sure.

Then then I I just at least I'm maintaining it. I'm doing stuff uh so I I use it a little bit here and there. Um every month, so it doesn't just disappear. So it maintains its its level, shall we say. Yeah, for other languages, um it's just easier. It's just a lot easier to. I think if you were if you were Chinese if you were um Cantonese and you're working on Mandarin, it must be so much easier as well. Uh just like for me to work on another European language and to maintain it at a high level or to reach that higher level. It's just not that difficult, shall we say.

Right.

Um Chinese is just particularly hard.

Well, we can talk about the the writing in just a second. Uh but I just wanted to talk about, let's say I was uh well, I haven't quite learned French yet. I had it a bit in school, and it's on my let's call it five-year plan where I want to learn it within the next five years. And let's say I made it to an an intermediate level, and I was kind of feeling a little bit stuck. What would be some of your tips to take me from, let's say, you know, the between B1 B2 up to to that really good C1 level?

Yeah, for French for French in particular, I would definitely say, get yourself to France.

And yeah.

And uh yeah, definitely there's nothing like that, and to be completely immersed in it. It was so wonderful living in France, and and having that because I was already at a quite a good level before I ever set foot in the country. But then being being surrounded by it every single day was just amazing. And I just found myself completely thinking in it, and being very spontaneous in it, and and it was just great people didn't really know where I was from, um when they heard me speaking or anything. It was it was more like I could just be a local and blend in, and it was it was a wonderful experience. But without living there, I think that's very difficult to at least personally, I don't see how someone would would do it. But that's my own my own experience, is getting really to a high level requires living in the country.

That's all right, that's all right. And I was just what is it I yeah, I'm I'm thinking, is it because we're Is it because it's just such a workload, and we need that kind of we need superhuman motivation to actually put in that kind of workload unless we are in the country where we kind of where the brain says, well, you are here anyway, so you kind of need to do it. Whereas if we're sitting in Wisconsin, we're like, well, why should I learn French, you know? Why should I study to become great at French, if I use it, you know, every six months at a conference or something?

Yeah, that's a good point, because there's a huge difference between living in one spot and then the language, you know, you could you could try to create your own mini-environment, shall we say. But it's always going to be kind of fake and limited, but when you're really in the environment itself, just every little thing that happens. And it all builds up, and and you become more fluent, you you become your whole attitude uh changes, and you start taking on and understanding a lot more cultural issues as well, whereas the cultural issues aren't as in uh deeply involved when you're learning a language. As you get more and more into the intermediate level, you get a lot of different books that will talk about culture as well. And you can start getting into cultural issues with it, but there's such a strong connection. Of course, French being a a particular language, um being spoken not only in France, but also in some parts of Switzerland, the southern part of Belgium, and also being the language of of Quebec and so on. Also parts of West Africa, it's it's also depending on where people are going to be using the French. What kind of contact or what kind of professional atmosphere they have. Maybe they're only going to be using it for Canada, and then they have to focus on that version of French.

Yeah, which is also a totally interesting side note there. I I was I was just there in Montreal. And uh it's it's it's a a very interesting form of French. Uh, you know, for someone who doesn't speak it, of course, I I can't catch all the the small differences, but it just it sounds very different, and and uh and I could obviously read understand most of the reading, because it's so close to English, and I've studied it before. But it was funny to hear that I talked to my uh Airbnb host, and he said, for many years, people in in Quebec province would actually be taught using French French uh language learning books. So the materials in schools would be from France, and then they would go out of the classroom, and they would speak Quebec French.

It's ridiculous, really.

So I mean, that's happened very recently. He said, that.

I mean, I I did um some studies for Spanish uh an intermediate and advanced language level in Montevideo. And unfortunately, I had a lot of textbooks from different places, but none from Rio de la Plata. And you might know that the dialect spoken in Buenos Aires and then in um and also in Montevideo is revolving around the use of vos rather than tu. Uh so el voseo. So you have a complete different conjugation here. And and it's ridiculous that you'd be exposed to textbooks saying tu puedes, when the real people out on the street, they're going to say vos podes. And um it's just it's just not right in my opinion. Everybody needs to be exposed to the the dialect where they're going to be and the materials need to be available. Uh in fact, that's a funny example because I my first experience with learning Chinese, I was living in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, and I was using materials from Beijing.

Right.

So I was going out saying something like, wo hui shuo Beijing hua. And then the people would be saying on the street like, wo hui shuo gua yu. So uh it was it was a silly silly example. But I just basically had to use materials, it was the only thing I had, and get over it. Uh and and people would make it so that, okay, you're they would basically be telling me at first, of course, I had no idea, but I caught on quite quickly that people were saying that my accent was emulating the Beijing dialect, rather than the way Mandarin spoken in in Taiwan.

So and would that have a negative association, like you're trying to sound like you're from the big city or something?

Uh, just ridiculous, more than anything. And and so people thought it was funny and and it didn't take me long to get over it. Um.

Right.

And then it was fun when I finally went to Beijing, uh about two years later. I I you know, I already very familiar with the Beijing accent and so forth, and I could run around the streets a little bit speaking in in that way, kind of adding that uh sound onto the end of a lot of things.

You fit right in.

Yeah. Yeah, it was overall it was a fun experience, and there's nothing wrong with getting some extra in, but it's good to be completely aware uh of what you're doing. If your materials are limited, and you just want to get on with it and learn, then at least at least you're learning, rather than sitting around not not knowing anything.

For sure. And do you do you use any uh tutors or teachers when you're when you're in learning mode or do you prefer to just use the support of something like ad one challenge and and do it on your own?

Yeah, yeah now the yeah the ad one challenge I've done for two languages. Um, so I was at a maybe an A2 version of Dutch and an A2 version of of Norwegian when I first got into ad one challenge. I didn't do the both at the same time. First I did Norwegian, and then I did Dutch. And I definitely find that um it's a great community, and it definitely pushed the ability into a higher level, and I definitely had people notice it. Norwegians definitely noticed that I had made a huge jump in my Norwegian, and and when I was visiting in the Netherlands, family was telling me as well, wow, what an improvement um you've made from a few months ago with Dutch.

Wow, yeah, that's great. Yeah.

And the listening thing is something that I recently got into because there was always this great divide on in the polyglot community there seemed to be when I was trying to find out whether I should take this some call it the silent period, some call it uh, you know, the listening period, the SML has it too, the passive period. And there was always people saying like, well, that's stupid. Why would you want to waste, you know, some time where you don't understand any of it? And then there was some people saying, like you say, that it actually it's helping shape your brain in that language. So you understand the pronunciation, you understand the sound of the language, the melody of the language.

Yeah, yeah. No, that's really cool. And like in Link, there's no Hungarian. So you found a way to kind of emulate that.

Exactly.

Uh, at least at least you're doing the reading and the active listening.

Yeah.

Because there is definitely a difference. Um, I sometimes when I I, of course, then you have to have complete focus. You can't just be involved in errands or walking down the street or whatnot. But um, I I find that that's a great thing to do. I just don't do it as often as I'd like. Link is the laziest way to do it because it's all set up for you. You have so much material, and then you just pull up something and you can just I mean, there's some of the stuff like you can get whole Jules Verne. Sometimes I'm just in the mood to spend a half hour on Link. I'll do it in French. Uh for 15 minutes, and then the very same chapter in Dutch. It's always Jules Verne, like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea or something. And in the French, maybe there's one or two words in the whole chapter that is is brand new to me. And then in Dutch, of course, it's like 30% of the vocabulary, I'm familiar. But it's just um it's just fun. Uh, and of course, any yeah, you have to yeah, you have to like it. And I definitely try to find anything that I like, rather than to make it torture. It always has to be something fun.

That's important. Keep it fun.

Yeah.

Yeah, and I got the Harry Potter book for two reasons. First of all, because the Harry Potter series, which I read quite uh furiously when they came out, was one of the you know, one of the best fiction some of the best fiction I've ever read. You know, I was uh I was an English major in in in in college, and that those kind of classics never really interested me much. Um, so I was more like, yeah, yeah, Harry Potter I could read all night, you know, when I got the new one, I would read it in like 12 hours in one sitting. But but give me something like Jules Verne for me, that would take me months and probably never get it done. I'll probably start skimming and get on Cliff Notes and you know, all this stuff.

Yeah, it's amazing. We'll never run out of um languages where there are sounds that the normal person is just not familiar with. I know some super-duper linguists out there will will know every single sound that exists in every language of the world probably, but but most of us um sometimes you just find some languages way out there that like you said, I guess letter the Z in zoo. You say in.

Yeah, it's I would say if I if I didn't try to uh say I would just say zoo.

You go to in Danish.

Well in Danish we would call it that's almost like the almost like the zook. Yeah, it's probably similar. But it's almost the train in German.

Yeah. And then um terrible my People make fun of me for that. But.

People make fun of me for that. But whatever.

Whatever.

That's, you know, the limitations of my my abilities anyway.

In Europe, I think the the hardest sounds for me are the Slavic. Uh especially the the Russian sh and the sht, something like.

Yeah.

I don't think I've really gotten that good with this. I could never tell the sh the sh and the sh.

That was exactly the one I had trouble with. And I end up sounding like Chinese, you know, it's like, you know, go over to the sh, sh, sh. And it's like, no, no, that's too far, you know. But.

No, no, that's too far.

But anyway, I wanted to uh just uh quickly before we wrap up here, I wanted to just talk about writing as well, because that's something that you obviously are very interested in and and it's something that is sometimes glossed over a little bit in when people are saying they're learning a language and they say, oh, I just want to learn how to speak. And I think for many people that's that's a fine goal, but what do you recommend if if let's say I've studied Russian, and I I can speak it somewhat, but when I start to write, I feel like I'm hitting my head against the wall. Like what what are the next steps I need to take to go from that initial beginner speaking level to develop some kind of writing ability. Do I just have to write? Or are there some methods or or techniques I can use to to make that a little simpler?

Yeah, back in the pre-digital days, when I was in the Soviet Union, I stayed there for three months, and I was in ten very intensively studying Russian. I was um using Russky yazyk dlya vsekh, if you've been exposed to that book.

No.

It's a very Soviet book, and of course, one of the words you learn in there is tovarich, tovarich, and so on.

Of course.

The comrade. But um, I was writing all kinds of exercises, and I always was fascinated by Russian cursive. Uh so exercises, exercises, and my host family would correct my writing and so forth. I've lots of I still have the the book, the the workbook, and it has all this red everywhere, so easy to make so many mistakes. Um, I haven't really gotten beyond that level of Russian. I kind of my Russian's still kind of alive, but it's not uh it's never really been that good, and it's and it probably never will get that good. But if you were to want to improve a lot, then I would probably recommend long 8 uh for the upper upper beginner and into the intermediate stages, because you just uh have your writing corrected. I use it sometimes for Norwegian, and they've allowed now to have two languages. So I started using it for Dutch as well. And then I don't know if my website will take off uh to the point that it becomes a source as well for people who want to go beyond long 8. Because that's the whole idea, is for once you're once you've kind of outgrown long 8, and you still want to write like a whole article, let's say 500 words or more, you still have a long way to go when you're able to write an article for the first time. Uh it's so easy to to have awkward constructions and and strange strange things. Even uh even punctuation changes, excuse me, with each language. So what you might what you might consider a correct use of a punctuation, you might be a master at one language with the punctuation you suddenly in in in another language, you just wouldn't be using commas and the clauses and so forth the same way. So it it that's another example of a never-ending story.

Oh, yeah. But what was your what was your website again? Uh just so people know where to go and check it out?

Uh yeah, it's yozi.com, so it's Y O Z Z I dot com, Y O Z Z I dot com.

Awesome. And then people can go over and uh, you know, make their own judgment about whether they think the the concept is is good or or bad, and they can let you know. And I've seen this kind of a multilingual blogging before, um, just uh, you know, individuals doing it. Of course, there's a lot of work if you want to do all your blogging in eight different languages, but if people could somehow get together and and contribute interesting articles and then work on the review aspect as well, maybe that's a good teaching exercise too to try and find the errors. Um, I don't know. It's I guess time will tell.

That's what I was thinking as well. Time will tell as well, and then um, and then maybe just some different it might end up pivoting into something else. You never know, so.

Yeah, well, it's always good to stay dynamic and and fluid in in the in every business, I guess, or language learning is no different. So yeah, so we're going to meet in Greece, I guess, in uh.

Yeah.

In two months away.

It's two months away.

Two months away. It's going to be I'm super excited uh about Thessaloniki. I mean, I was at the uh conference last year in New York and that was, you know, amazing. And uh I can't wait to see what they do this time in in Thessaloniki. Obviously, a very different location than in the middle of Manhattan.

Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry I missed out on that one last year. Uh, but anyway, it's good that the ones I do get to participate in, I'm really grateful for. So.

Yeah, and you can uh you can uh lead the way in Greek. So if I look uh confused or having absolutely zero Greek uh knowledge, then uh you can always help me around and order the uh the food and everything.

Yeah. In in Thessaloniki is different. The L is produced at the back of the of the mouth, rather than at the top of the mouth like it is in Southern Greece.

Oh, really?

So it's like Thessaloniki instead of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki. And uh it's a bit more um of an impact, maybe from Slavic, because you think of the la from the from the Slavic languages as well.

Yeah. That's interesting.

You might you might catch that when you're there.

Yeah, it's going to be great. I I always love to meet everyone, and uh, you know, there's kind of a a core group who always goes to all these events, and it's it's funny to catch up with uh, you know, friends and and get all that motivation. I just feel like I I feel so pumped when I come home from one of these events, you know.

That's cool.

Just got to get home for the books and uh, and keep studying.

Yeah. It's going to be exciting. really looking forward to it. It's going to be overwhelming though, because there are going to be so many people, and it's just it's just impossible to meet everyone, so.

Oh, yeah. Unfortunately. But that's why we have to go to we have to keep going every year, so hopefully the percentage of people who know gets lower and lower.

Yeah.

Or the percentage of people you don't know. Yeah. Whatever. People understand. But thank you so much for for coming on to the show, and I'm glad that we could can make this happen in spite of internet problems and uh, and other uh disturbances. So thank you for sharing your story and your your passion for the language learning. Really appreciate it.

Thank you, Chris. Thanks a lot. It's been a pleasure being your guest.

All right, thanks. Take it easy. You too. Thank you so much for listening to the Actual Fluency podcast. If you want to come on to the podcast and share your language learning story, don't hesitate to apply on actualfluency.com/guest. See you in the next one.