Michael Mischkot: How an engineer learns languages

Hello everyone, and welcome to episode 111 of the Actual Fluency Podcast. Today I'm joined by Austrian Polyglot Michael Michalczuk, who really takes an engineering perspective on language learning and shares a lot of aha moments that he has found himself over the last few years. And he recently released a book called Smile, Talk, Cheesecake, where he describes his findings of improving language learning, making it more efficient, his own personal techniques. And he also includes a selection of interviews with very successful language learners, many of whom have been on the podcast. So definitely check out that book, Smile, Talk, Cheesecake on Amazon. And I know he's working on an ebook version also, so you'll be able to pick it up for your Kindle device very soon. But for now, it's only available in paperback, or if you're listening to this in the future, maybe it's available for Kindle, but check it out on Amazon anyway.

And before we get into the interview, I just wanted to mention two quick improvements that has happened on the podcast recently. Um as you might be able to tell, I I have a bit of a cold or I'm recovering from a cold that has been persisting quite a while now. So, uh if my voice is a little bit nasal, that's why. Uh but in the meantime, I've been working on a bit of behind the scenes improvements on the podcast. So, if you go to actualfluency.com/podcast, you'll be able to see that all the episodes now are labeled sequentially, so no more episode no more seasons. Uh they're just from one until 111, which is this newest one that you're listening to right now.

And I did this because I was really getting annoyed with the seasons. I originally thought it was going to make things easier to point to certain episodes and to distinguish these, you know, breaks that I would take from recording, but you know, you can make great plans, but if you don't follow through with them, the kind of whole system falls apart. So what I realized was that instead of taking these very scheduled breaks, let's say, a month every six months, there I would always have these random breaks due to, you know, excessive traveling or illness, like like this week, or, you know, technical problems or appointments being canceled or there would always be something that meant that the podcast didn't go out every week, which was, of course, still my goal. Um, so I didn't really need these planned breaks, and yeah, maybe I'm more of a chaos pilot, as they say in Danish, you know, somebody who thrives a bit under chaos and if I can put a podcast episode out as regularly as possible, maybe it doesn't matter that it's not in a perfectly organized environment.

So, the result of this is that each episode is now labeled from one till 111. Uh there's no episode 13 though because some cultures see 13 as extremely unlucky and uh I didn't want to step on anyone's toes. Maybe it was overly politically correct, but uh whatever. Um, so and there is also an episode 1 101 and a half because I started numbering from both sides and when I came to the middle, which was 101, I realized that I'd made a miscount somewhere, possibly due to the uh lack of an episode 13 or maybe I was just an idiot, but either way, there's now an episode 101 and a half. So, yeah, um you know how it is.

And the other advantage of this is that you can now go to every episode with a short URL, so you can go to actualfluency.com/the episode number. So, from one till nine, it's 01 till 09, and then from 10 and above, it's just the number itself. So, actualfluency.com/55 will get you to episode 55. And this is useful for when, you know, you're listening to the episode and you just want to quickly get to it or somebody says, "Hey, I was on episode 72 of the Actual Fluency Podcast." You can just type in /72.

Uh of course, the audios of the podcast have not been updated, so when I when I start the introduction of these episodes, then they'll still say season two, episode five or whatever. Um I do have a a very ambitious and long plan of going back and editing all the episodes properly, you know, fixing any audio problems, uh leveling the audio, maybe getting rid of some out-of-date information, maybe adding some sponsors or something if I if I can find anyone who's willing to uh, you know, to help out the podcast. But that is going to take a long time to go through those 111 episodes, as you know. And um, you know, editing each one could take, you know, an hour or two. So, that's a definitely a huge project, but I uh it's on my mind and I definitely will get to it at some point. But in the meantime, just uh enjoy that now each episode is very nicely numbered and you can find them by using the / episode number link.

And so, of course, if you want to see the time stamps for this episode or any show notes or links that we mention, you can go to actualfluency.com/111 or 111 to uh to find all that information. Michael was uh really nice and helped me add the time stamps for this, which is something that I don't usually have time for when uh when putting these episodes together. So, if you want to see what the questions are or the topics that we talk about before you start listening, or if you don't have that much time and you just want to pick out the areas that you find interesting, then go to actualfluency.com/111. That's all for me for this time, so I hope you enjoy the episode and I'll see you in the next one. How do you get into language learning, uh how did you develop that interest, and uh how did you get to where you are today?

But uh when when I was about 15, um, so at the age of 10, in in Austria, you you had English in in primary school, and then at at 15 we were supposed to to choose another language, which which was French in my case. And that didn't go very well in the beginning, so my my parents used a little trick, they after half a year, I I was performing, um, maybe uh average, but they said if I if I was able to to get the best grade in French until the end of the year, then I could choose a a destination, like for for traveling to a to a place to where where French was spoken. And I actually succeeded in in getting the best grade and so I I chose Brussels because I'd already been to Paris. And that was maybe my first motivational trigger, maybe yeah, of course, also conscious consciously, but maybe at an unconscious level, something that started my interest. And when I went to Brussels and and I was able to apply those those skills, it it made me quite of happy and and proud and um curious about it.

So then a year later we could choose another language at school, so I I chose Spanish. And um, for my story, maybe one critical point was at at 18, so during school leaving exams, I I I was not very, how to say, confident about what specifically uh during the school leaving exam in in English in Austria meant for for for the professional level of of my English. So I heard about those language certificates for the first time. And I thought, okay, if if I do the certificate at the same time like the school leaving exam, uh it's it's like a test for each other, so if I pass the certificate, then I'm for sure going to pass the school leaving exam and vice versa. So I signed up for for a language certificate for the CAE in Cambridge, C1 in English, and for the French B1, the DELF B1, probably, something like that. Um, which were taking place pretty much at the same time like the school leaving exams.

And since then, I've I've developed a passion, it's it's maybe a bit uh engineering-like, like very organized and um uh measurable, of almost participating um every year in in such a in such a certificate, in such an exam.

And then I I started studying Chinese. And that was also quite an important point in my language learning journey because that was the first language where I really failed. Because so far, it was always it wasn't the fastest process, but I wasn't aware of any fast methods yet and there there was not so much available either because all those things we are um, we are comfortable with now like YouTube and Facebook and all the blogs and and podcasts and everything. Uh, that was like 10 years ago, so that there was not so much online resources available. And yeah, most people were just studying with with uh regular books. And so it it felt like normal, I didn't question the the speed, and also not the effectiveness. But for for Chinese, the system, the the course-based system just didn't work for me. And so I I went to two, three different classes. And and I failed in all of them.

And what happened then was that I I moved to Denmark for the for the first time in my life, like in 2012. And I did an internship at DTU, at the Technical University of Denmark. And my my boss back then, she she was Chinese. So then during lunch or during break, yeah, it it was quite a fun, I I got my first Assimil book, my first Assimil course. And then when I was in the lab uh waiting for some experiment, you know, you do some experiment and you have like two minutes of waiting until the machine is ready or something.

And yeah, then I went back to Austria for about half a year. But when I I I came back to Denmark half a year later and then I I I decided taking the the PhD offer that they gave me. And in when I was in in Denmark for the internship, I I was quite clear about that I I wasn't interested in learning Danish because I was still not aware of the fast learning techniques. And I I thought I would only stay there for four months. So I I thought okay, it wasn't really worth the effort. And I had the opportunity of of improving my Chinese. Uh whereas when the moment I signed the PhD contract, it it became 100% clear to me that I I wanted to to learn Danish because yeah, it was it was like my place to be for the three, to four years to come.

And what happened then was uh a combination of of several experiences. So I remember one thing, you know, of course, in in Denmark, they have the uh very professional system of of supporting immigrants and expats in in learning Danish with with the classes. So the classes are for free and they the course system that um takes about three, four years. And in in my office, it's uh it's a university, and so it's very international, so 80, 90% um people from from abroad. So so everybody was going to those classes. And I remember that I I realized that people were like kind of depressed on Tuesdays. So after two, three weeks, I asked, "Hey, hey guys, what's up? What what happens on Tuesday that Tuesday morning, everybody was sitting in the office, like And then the one guy replied like, "Oh Michael, that's that's really simple. It's just Danish class Tuesday afternoon."

And that was my first experience with uh with really um fast language learning techniques. I I applied similar methods to yeah, it was my first experience with iTalkie, for example. So my my iTalkie teacher back then, uh his name was Jørn and he he lives on the Philippines. So he's like 65 or something, and he retired and he went to the Philippines. And so uh every morning uh or every other morning, two, three times a week, I would I would sit down with him on Skype, and he was sitting under the palm tree in the Philippines, and I was sitting in my pajamas in Denmark, in in Lyngby, and yeah, so so that's how basically how I how I learned Danish, which was even funnier because I was living in Denmark, but at that moment, I didn't have so much contact to to the Danes because I was basically uh living in Lyngby, going with my bike 10 minutes to the university, spending the day in this international environment, and going back home.

But still I I when I compare the experience of when I was an intern for those four months, and then the experience I had after I studied I started studying Danish, it's it's still people are still even more friendlier, even more friendly when when you are able to communicate in their mother tongue. So that's that's just something worth investing it, I think. It it shows respect to to the other people. It um it shows that you care about the person you're talking to. And that's that's a good feeling, it's a good experience for both sides, I believe.

And the second element is the the pronunciation because for for European languages, basically it's um you could you could you can you can like sing them. Now, of course you can sing in Chinese too. But it's like the melody, in my opinion, in my perception is is maybe more flexible than than in Mandarin, for example. And um, really caring about the tones, at least in the beginning, because at some point, of course, it becomes a natural way of speaking in Chinese as well. Uh those those tones were quite challenging. My muscles were not used to to the different ways.

So, so for example, on on YouTube, there is an MRI video, which compares um a native speaker of German and a native speaker of Chinese. And it really shows the differences where you see like the muscles, uh which part of the of the mouth the the tongue is touching and so on. It's it's really fascinating. And those new movements, those new muscle activities the the body has to learn. It takes time and I wasn't used to such a learning experience back then.

And it it was really, so, it I remember it was there were really many girls in class. So we were like 10, 15 people, but I was the only guy or maybe another guy or one or two other guys, but most of them were were girls. And they were also so excited. So some of them brought their their um, what's the name of those cards where you have the the character on one side and the transcription, flashcards and all those things and and it it was amazing to me to see how successful they were with with this technique.

But I I had never been successful with studying vocabulary from from a book or or like they gave us in school, "Okay, take this list, learn it till next Wednesday." Yeah, we got that homework. I never did it. I never ever did such a homework or if I tried, then it it wasn't successful for me. So, um,

So, for example, one thing I remember would be like for French. Um, I would write a text, like, let's say the task for the next exam was writing a letter to a friend, a friend, to a pen pal in in France. And then I would write such a text or the homework was already such a text at some point anyway. And then then I I would send the text to my father because he he he works in in France every now and then, he's very proficient in French. And he would send me back the corrected text, and then I would just memorize the text, write it down during the exam word by word, and modifying points of it for making it fit to the actual task. Um, such things then

Sometimes the the the sentences are the the message is created with different words. If you say, "Ja, jeg har det godt," "I'm I'm fine." Uh those two are sentences are are communicating the same the same message in in Danish and in English, but the the words that are used are completely different. And I I was really struggling with accepting that because then again in the in in the exam if you start uh creating sentences on your own during the exam without properly knowing how to do it, it's like a high risk of of making a lot of errors, uh mistakes. So um,

But unfortunately, not not only is this kind of the standard for when people start to learn about independent language learning like like we're doing, but also in schools, of course, it's it's a big problem because you get a list of adjectives and you get a list of, you know, a list of um subjects or nouns or whatever. And a list of verbs and then they're like, oh yeah, combine them. And it's like, well, that works for English because the words don't change depending on where they where they are in the sentence. But already in German you're going to have problem, right? The problems, right? Like, you know, the the famous example is, who's biting who? You know, the where where yeah, and and and so, for me, it definitely moving towards sentences also is is a big difference.

Because you also hear yourself, like when I was talking to my Russian tutor, you hear yourself saying the same sentences all over all all the time. Like, I like this, I like that, oh, I didn't like that, or this was great, or I've been doing this for a long time, or I started doing this since, or whatever, you know, and at some point it's just funny because you're like, yeah, I said the sentence like a million times, but I didn't create it, I learned the whole sentence and then I started using it. So, I definitely agree with you on that.

And um I think the the we we need a system that that um well, that that supports the the differences in in our learning styles.

Because often what I see happening in in classes is that, yeah, people can translate a text, they can even write maybe, or they can uh, you know, they can understand almost everything that's written. But if you ask them to have a simple conversation about what happened yesterday, or what they had for breakfast, they're like, uh uh uh uh, you know, they they choke up. And that to me that's just the the ultimate failure. Like, if you can translate a text from German into English perfectly, but you can't tell someone what you had for breakfast this morning, that's that's for me that's total language failure.

And I know that some people, you know, if you work with it, of course, or if you're only interested in the text or translating, then, yeah, I'm not talking about those situations. But in school, that's what happens, right?

And I'm meeting my my friends, my colleagues from school 10, 15 years ago, and they are they are great people, very intelligent people, lawyers, doctors, all kind of stuff. But I ask them, oh, can can you still have like a one-minute conversation in French? Oh, no, man, that was 10 years ago, I had no idea. Yeah, bonjour maybe, that's all, yeah.

And I remember going to my first polyglot um conference in in Novi Sad. And I was really nervous because I had like my my name tag, you know, and with the stickers, with the flags and what languages. And I I didn't know what to expect, like, are they all geniuses or nerds or did they have an IQ of 500 or what is going to happen?

And then on uh the first day, some 16, 17-year-old Croatian kid came up to me, and I I had my China and Russia sticker on on my on my name tag as well. So, this guy uh walked up to me and and he started speaking fluent Mandarin. And I was like, holy sh I didn't understand a single word. And I was repeating the three Chinese sentences that I knew like, "Wo shuo Michael." "I'm Michael." And, "Ah, ni jiao shen me mingzi?" And and all that stuff, but that was about it. Like, like like a basic A1, A2 level. It's like, you can say some stuff. But then the challenge is understanding what comes back.

So what I did right afterwards was I took my name tag and I wrote A1 till C2 to all the languages. So nobody could say anything. But those are the the moments where you really learned, that was definitely very much out of my comfort zone. And in during my first conference, I was not comfortable at all with switching between those languages. That seemed something like, how is that possible?

And that's something that once you go to a conference one, two, three times, it's it's so great. Now I I had um the the Skype call with Robin Macpherson, we spoke seven languages in half an hour. I couldn't even have imagined uh doing something like that or being possible to do something like that five or 10 years ago. And that's really where this community we support each other, we help each other to grow. Uh it's it's so many awesome people in this community. So many great videos on YouTube and so on. And I really love that positive energy that comes from all the activities.

Like, it's not as intimidating to speak, like, I spoke some Russian with with a guy, uh, originally from Greece and and at the event in um Thessaloniki. And I could just I was just a lot more relaxed because I knew this guy wasn't, you know, perfectly fluent either. Um, I mean, my Russian's pretty bad, but when I speak to native speakers, it's hard for them to talk to me because they don't know how to change their language. They know they can't speak at full speed and and use every word. So, it it usually is either way too simple, so it's like, how are you? What are you doing? The same or it's it's too hard, so you just don't understand anything. Um, but when you're speaking with other learners, I feel like there's kind of like, we're in this together, you know, we'll try it, we'll work it out, you know, you can say whatever you want and I'll help you and like there's no judging or anything, which is also super important. Like, you don't want to feel like you're being put on the spot and like tested if you're actually can speak the language.

So, um it's also like how how to present yourself and and your your what what you're trying to do in that moment is is really important in my opinion because for example, many many language learning books, I'm I'm just studying Slovak now for the gathering, and one of the first sentences that are in the book are like, oh, I don't speak I don't speak um Slovak, I my pronunciation is really bad, or something in that direction. But that doesn't help anybody. Like, I would I would prefer having a sentence in my repertoire of like, hi, I'm Michael, I'm studying Slovak, I started, I don't know, two weeks ago, and um please uh please speak a little bit more slowly or a little bit faster or whatever, or please could you support me uh in in my Slovak um learning endeavor, or whatever.

Because, I mean, 99.9% or, let's say, the the people that I'm meeting, they are they are all very nice and friendly. So, the the the native is trying to support you. And the native maybe doesn't know you, so if if I'm speaking to a Danish person and and um maybe my my Danish wasn't that good in the beginning, they would just reply in English for for being nice to me, for for supporting me, that's their intention. So, it's a positive intention. Um, so then it's it's my responsibility as a language learner, how to turn that into something that I can benefit too.

Um, I'd say yeah, I'd say also, you know, there are some people who go, let's say, to a restaurant or a cafe or something and they insist speaking a very low level of the native language with the server. And I always say, you know, the server is trying to do her job. And if that person has time to, you know, listen to your lower level of that language and has the patience and doesn't look super annoyed, then, yeah, go for it. But also, don't be afraid to just speak English, get it over with, and let that poor person do their job, you know, if they have 20 tables to to serve, they they maybe they don't have time to be your personal tutor necessarily. So, uh there's a balance there sometimes.

And actually, you said that earlier in the in the recording, you said something like um, when you when you figured out what was possible or something like that, and you had a huge kind of like, your your attitude kind of changed. Uh and I think that's that's really incredible as well because I think a lot of people grow up and they kind of they maybe they do badly in their second language in school, like uh you started with uh with French, was it? And a lot of people who go to French class when they're about 15 or something, they do very poorly. Like, they can't even say their own name or whatever. Uh and so they get this this idea that, oh, well, I failed this one, so I couldn't possibly learn a language. But when you get the not only the you don't only learn that it's possible, you also see others doing it, it just changes the whole game because now it's it's it's not about, can I? It's like, how do I? You know. It's not about whether it's possible or not, it's just how do I actually do it?

And and I think that's a a big difference because you also hear yourself like when I was talking to my Russian tutor, you hear yourself saying the same sentences all over all all the time. Like, uh for Russian, for instance, my spoken Russian is obviously a lot better than my written Russian, but if I'd gone if I'd signed up for a test, I knew I had to improve my writing. So, you also become a more rounded language learner. So, maybe that's a a little inside top tip here, you know, sign up for a language exam.

But the thing is I've I've I already know that I I was able to to achieve that level within so and so much effort. So I'm first of all, a lot of it is still stored somewhere. Uh even maybe in some more further reaches of the brain. But but you can definitely get much much easier access to to that regions much faster than next time you maybe try regaining that level or or getting even higher. So, if somebody says, "Yeah, but I forgot so much." Yeah, no problem. You you can remember, so it's fine.