John Fotheringham: Language Mastery

Season two, episode seven, John Fotheringham, Language Mastery.

So for all the listeners tuning in, I just wanted to say a huge welcome to you, of course, but also to today's guest, which is John Fotheringham from languagemastery.com. It's a language learning blog, I would call it that's been going since 2009, so you're in this month celebrating your sixth year anniversary, so congratulations. And of course, John just had me on his podcast, so he's a fellow podcaster. But John, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Chris. Thanks for having me.

It's a pleasure as always. And

I didn't know it was six years, so I'm feeling like, uh, I don't know, I'm feeling a bit aged now.

It's a fine wine. It's super cool, you know. I was just looking through the archives and it said April 2009. So

Yeah, unless my math is completely off then.

Yeah, unless my math is completely off then.

No, no, I think you're right. I think you're right. I hadn't, I hadn't looked at that. Yeah. Wow.

That's about six years. Yeah, which is fantastic. I mean, I guess we can we can start with the blog as a sort of a pivot point. If you could give a short introduction to your language learning history and maybe how that tied up with the blog.

Sure. Uh, well, my background in school was in linguistics. Um, not originally, I actually started out in industrial design and then went three years in and then I took a linguistics uh, introductory course and just fell in love and then decided to basically start over, uh, my third year in, which is uh, not exactly wise from a academic or a financial point of view, but, um, I knew that's where my heart was, so I had to, I had to follow my heart.

Um, and yeah, so I got into linguistics, uh, I studied Japanese in school, uh, a little bit of Mandarin also, but mostly it was Japanese. And then uh, after I graduated, I had a chance to go to Japan in the JET program, which some people might be familiar with. Um, and then in that program, there's two main types of positions. You can either be an assistant language teacher, which I was my first year. Uh, or you can be a what's called a coordinator, coordinator of international relations where you go and work in a government office and do, you know, translation, interpretation, you check other translators work, things like that. Uh, and that's what I did my second year.

Uh, so then after that, I came back to the States for a little while. Then I was in Bangladesh of all places for about six months and then I ended up in Taiwan. Uh, I was there off and on almost five, six years. So, uh, and the blog I started while I was in Taiwan and it was mostly just a way to share what I'd observed, um, both in my own learning and also as a language teacher, what I observed in the classroom. I just felt that there were so many people going about language learning in such a inefficient way.

Um, you know, as I've observed in many domains, the what is normal is not necessarily right. Or what is common isn't necessarily normal. Maybe it's a better way to put it. Um, so I just wanted a place to to share my thoughts and, um, you know, my friends and my girlfriend at the time were tired of listening to me ramble on and on about, uh, you know, what was wrong and what could be better. So I thought, well, I'll go and, uh, you know, find my own online soapbox and, uh, and that's how language mastery came to be. Yeah.

Wow. Fantastic. And obviously, been going strong for a while. When you first started,

Well, I wouldn't say going strong. It's been, it's been a lot of, uh, there have been some periods where I didn't really touch it and then other times when I've been extremely, uh, productive on it, so it's kind of hit and miss.

I see that as an analogy to language learning itself. You know, you keep going and you you'll be successful. But, you know, if you do a blog and do five months and then say, ah, I think I'm done now, then, you know, you'll never get to the point where you have tons of awesome articles. And you know, when I, when you look through your, your archives, there are just so many evergreen topics that people preferably find through either, you know, social media or or on Google that are helping them learn languages. So

I hope so.

You could have quit five years ago and said, yeah, this is not for me. But you kept it up even though you maybe didn't follow the the right, the same posting schedule, you still kept it up. Which is important bit, right?

Yeah. Yeah. I will say that to anyone who's starting a blog now, that is the most important habit, I think, is commit to a posting schedule. You know, whether it's once a week, once a day, once a month, it doesn't matter, just commit to that. And the same is true with learning a language, of course, is is commit to some modicum of study time every day. It doesn't have to be a lot, it can be, you know, five minutes. But just commit to that.

You can use Right.

I think that's something that

Loads of different methods or you can use videos, audios, or textbooks or whatever. You know, you can mix it up too. But particularly for blogging, and I think blogging is really powerful for learning languages because it gives you that unrealistically good, um, sense of accountability. You just have to do it. Yeah. I mean, it's not that you put something out and say, I want to learn Swedish in three months and then that instantly gives you the pressure, it's just the fact that other people are looking at it that is giving you that extra edge. And, you know, as you grow your blog, you, there's a considerable amount of people looking at it and, you know, by the time you you've done blogging for a while and you've done it right, you'll have people commenting and sending emails saying, oh, thank you for doing this. Thank you for doing that. It really helped me. And then suddenly, you know, you're you're not only doing it for yourself, which is incredibly powerful, and but I feel like we could do a probably a blogging episode one day.

Yeah. We should probably get back to uh, the the the learning itself. Um, the interesting thing I want to ask you about was linguistics is sort of what I say, very different from learning a language in that it's quite technical, it's quite some people call it boring. I'm probably mixed on that, but some of it is definitely quite dry. Um, so how did you go from saying, wow, I really love, uh, was it the sound you loved of languages or was it just languages themselves and then you went into a linguistics program? I mean, was it linguistics you really enjoyed back then and how did you, if so, how did you transfer those linguistics uh, passions for into language learning passion, which I think is is quite a different machine.

Right. They are, they're very different. Um, and that's a good question. Um, it was kind of both. I mean, I simultaneously about the same time I was starting to get into linguistics, I was also getting into martial arts. And it turned out that in my martial arts group, there were a number of students, exchange students from Japan. And so, even the very early stages of it, I was looking at languages as a means to communicate with people, you know. So that was always my, my guiding, uh, force on what I was learning in linguistics.

So, and because of that, I was much more interested in applied linguistics. So how you use linguistic theory and best practices to actually acquire or teach a language. I was much less interested in the, uh, you know, more of the research and the technical, you know, such subjects like phonetics and things like that. Um, they were interesting to a point, but, um, where I parted company with some of my fellow students or even teachers was the idea that you needed to know all of this linguistic information to learn a language. And I, I think that that's where, you know, a lot of textbooks are written by linguists for example. Um, and, you know, how well does that serve people? You know, how many people do you know that get a textbook and then finish it and are able to actually apply what they've learned in the textbook? I would say it's pretty slim.

Right.

Um, because it's just, they're just very different beasts, as you said. Um, so for me, I was always much more focused on, you know, what do we know from from research and from observation about what actually works? You know, what, what are the methods, what are the materials, things that really make a difference in getting someone to internalize a language. Um, and that's really what informed both my own personal learning from then on and also my teaching.

And, you know, in a nutshell, it's pretty simple. I mean, most of the, the evidence seems to show that as we all pretty much know intuitively, uh, the only way to really learn a language is to get heaps and heaps of exposure and lots and lots of practice using it in meaningful ways. Um, and if you look then at how do most people actually go about learning languages? Um, most people, they only get the exposure. And the exposure itself usually is not very interesting. You know, it's usually maybe in a classroom, so you're talking about topics that either the teacher or the school has picked. It's not things you're usually interested in. Uh, and it's very, very limited. It's usually, you know, maybe an hour a day or maybe an hour a week. And then you compare that with, you know, us as children when we learned our first language, you were surrounded 24/7 by this language. You know, and so it's no wonder somebody can take, you know, four years of Spanish in college and come out of the other end and not be able to, you know, order a beer. So,

Interesting.

it's no surprise.

It's interesting you say that because I, I mean, that has to be sort of the biggest problem with language learning in uh, in institutions today, like high school and and also elementary school to a to a degree. What what do you think would be the sort of easy fix if there, if you could wipe a magic wand and say, if you change this little thing, you'll get so so much uh, better results.

Mhm. Um, a couple of things, and I know they'd be very controversial and probably nearly impossible to implement, but if I could wave my magic wand, I would say, let students choose which language they want to learn. Uh, and then also let them choose within reason what materials they want to use to learn that language. And I think those two things, because then it would be their choice.

Uh, and, you know, as my fellow blogger Kotsumoto always says, fun gets done. And if they're doing something that's fun, that they that's inherently enjoyable for them, because it's a topic they love. And it's a language and a culture that they love. I think they're much, much more likely to put in the time. And also the materials's going to stick that much more, because our brains are very, very, very efficient at cutting out stuff they think is not important.

Yeah.

You know, if we, if we didn't have that, we would all be, uh, we'd all be autistic basically and couldn't focus on, you know, social interaction, things like that, because we'd be flooded with all of this sensory input that we couldn't sort through.

Yeah.

Um, you know, we'd be rainman, which

It'd be pretty cool.

you know, has, it'd be cool in its own way. Yeah, but you wouldn't be able to, you know, function in society without help. So, uh, because our brains work that way, uh, trying to force feed stuff in that, you know, you psychologically don't think is important or interesting, it doesn't matter how many hours you spend, you know, with your nose in that book, it's not going to stick or very little of it's going to stick.

Right. Yeah, I think it's interesting, for me, it's definitely the biggest problem is that they they treat language like math, where it's like you have to memorize stuff. And whilst that is true to a certain degree, it would be a lot more helpful if if language teaching was more based on, I would almost say, based on like phrase books. Just say, okay, we're going to drill through some phrases and then we're going to do role playing. And I'm sure kids would love that.

Right. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. I have my Pokémon cards, you have your Pokémon cards and he has and, you know, who buys the, I don't even know what the kids watch these days. So I'm not going to embarrass myself. But, you know, like build it around natural use of the language instead of memorizing all the verb, uh, tables. You know, it's, it has its uses, but it's just, you know, it's a very mechanical and like you said, it leads to people not being able to actually say anything after several years. And of course, years, you know, two hours a week doesn't yield that many hours at the end. But still, it's a very long time.

Right. Right. Yeah, it's just not very efficient and it ignores how the brain works. It ignores how, you know, we're all evolved to acquire languages. It's hardwired, the ability to acquire it. Uh, if the brain gets what it needs. And that's just, it it's like a, you can think of it as nutrition. You know, if the brain gets the kind of nutrition it needs, uh, or if the body gets the kind of nutrition it needs, it'll get stronger and, you know, it's going to be great. But if you're not feeding it, uh, the essential nutrients it needs, or if you're giving it too much junk, you know, bad things happen, right? Same thing with a language. You need you have to get very nutrient dense input. And then you also need to, you know, quote unquote, exercise. You need to actually apply what you've learned or been exposed to with other people in meaningful context. And that's another hugely under-appreciated thing.

Um, though doing, you know, sort of skits and things in a classroom is is better, it's still not really meaningful, I think. You know, real meaningful interaction would be, if we're talking children, you know, out on the playground. You know, if they want the ball, they have to in they're talking to somebody from another culture, they have to say, I want the ball in the language that kid understands. And they'll be much, much more motivated to, you know, pull out, oh, what was the word for ball? What was the word for ball? And they'll try to, they'll wrack their brain. They'll remember it or maybe they won't and they'll ask the kid. He'll, he'll say in his language, oh, you want the ball? Ah, that's it. And then it'll stick. Because there's in such a rich context. There's so many, you know, little barbs to attach it to in your brain.

Right. Yeah. So how do we take advantage of this as a, you know, ignoring the unfortunate experience for many school children. But let's say we're the listeners out there are independent polyglots, many of them. Or I say polyglots, but I really mean aspiring polyglots anyway. You know, it's kind of.

Sure.

uh, a way of thinking. So if people want to learn languages and they're sitting out there and they're thinking, you know, how can I create this sort of, you know, meaningful input and meaningful context when I'm sitting in front of my computer, I may have my Kindle or my, you know, iPhone or whatever. You know, what are you sort of top top tips for getting that meaningful experience?

Sure. I I think the number one thing is finding one or more tutors that you get along with really well. Uh, and, you know, using a site like iTalki, you can find pretty much anyone for all the major languages in the world, even some of the more, uh, the less popular languages. You should be able to find some people. And and just try a few people out. You know, as, you know, the the likelihood of finding a perfect match your first time is pretty low. So, don't be discouraged if you work with somebody and you don't really click, you know, then try someone else. And then try someone else. Until you find somebody that you really click with and, you know, is patient with you and doesn't immediately jump in and tell you or fill in the gap the gap of what you're trying to say. You know, they let you try to to work things through.

Um, and that's really important. Uh, I mean, there's lots of other things behind that, which I can talk about in a minute, but I think that's having an actual human being to talk to that you get along with. I think it, it creates relevancy, it creates immediacy and you throughout the week as you're getting ready to go on this tutor session, you're going to be much more likely to put in the time in your own, you know, study and input activities, uh, to get ready for that call. So you're not going to want to show up and have nothing to say.

Right.

And have nothing to talk about. Um, so I think that's number one. Is just having an actual person to talk to. If you live in the country, well, gosh, I mean, just get outside your expat bubble. Don't fall into that trap of, you know, going to, you know, bars where they speak English and having a girlfriend that only speaks English. I mean, or boyfriend, you know, whatever your preference is. Um, you know, don't don't fall into that trap. Just for the love of all that's holy, go out, talk to actual people, you know, try your best. Even if it's just a couple words or pointing at things, you at least you're trying and you're starting.

It's still difficult though, isn't it? If you're in I, I know you've been in in in a foreign environment, you know, with with a language that you're trying to master. You know, I I haven't personally had that experience or at least, you know, I've been to trips to Germany where I've been very bad. But uh, you know, the the idea of living in a language and then having to practice it, uh, in real life, it's it's a bit scary, isn't it for most people?

Sure. And it can be very frustrating because, you know, when you're going down to try to buy a new SIM card, your goal is buying a SIM card, not practicing the language. So, so, you know, it can be frustrating, but on the flip side of that, because your goal is to buy a SIM card, you're more motivated, you know, to actually get it done. And before you go do that, you know, you can go online, you can get your phrase book and you can practice all the phrases you're going to have to use, you know, just as important, try to familiarize yourself with phrases you're going to hear back. Because that's that's usually, you know, where people get hit their first roadblock, is they've memorized all these phrases and then they don't understand the response.

Uh, so, and you know, that will just take time and exposure, but you can do a little bit of preemptive work to make that a little bit less, uh, likely that you'll be completely dumbstruck, you know, by, you know, looking at, you know, what are the things that they're likely to say back to me? Um, if you don't understand at all, you know, just say, I'm sorry, I don't understand it in the local language and they'll phrase it another way, they'll write it down for you. Uh, just don't panic or don't quit. And don't get upset. That's the number one thing, is do not get angry. Because I've seen a lot of people do that. They lose their cool, you know, admittedly, I've done it too. Uh, you get frustrated and then everything goes downhill. So just take a deep breath, put a smile on your face, even if you don't feel like smiling, smile and then that actual, you know, smile on your face will cause a cascade of hormones that will help calm you down a little bit.

Smile will always help for sure. And also, I guess it also helps to learn the phrase for, can you say it slower or can you repeat it? These usually utility phrases are extremely valuable. So that's a good tip for people who are who are in the country.

I I think that, you know, iTalki, getting tutors like that, it's actually, I mean, I I almost think it's more beneficial than living in the country, because you're just you're so focused in that lesson, it's so turbo-charged on what exactly you need, whereas if you're in the country, it's sort of a casual, it might be more often, but there's a lot more like casual and relaxed. And, you know, I've heard from people who've lived in in the country for a year and not being able to say anything because they're just like, oh, yeah, I'll get to it or like you say, you're in an expat bubble. So, um, I think a lot of people assume that it's a lot easier to learn a language while you're in the country and I think that that's probably not as effective as as people think. Definitely if you can create a really good environment at home, I think that's uh, very powerful as well.

Right. Which you certainly can. And that's, you know, the next few things I would say to focus on are all those things of, you know, in today in 2015, there is absolutely no excuse to say, oh, I can't learn whatever language because I don't live in that country. That is a complete, just utter nonsense excuse.

Right.

Um, but so many people still believe it. I hear it all the time still and I, I almost want to just have a little sign or something I can just hold up instead of having to go through the same diatribe again about,

We can change that. You know, it's like when I say, when I tell people I'm learning Russian, people are like, oh, when are you going? Like, I'm not going to Russia. I don't have any plans of visiting. It would be nice in the future at some point. But people assume like because you're studying a language, you're like, on your way there, you already booked your ticket or something, you know.

Right. Right. You know, and obviously there are advantages to go into the country, certainly. Uh, but it's not a mandatory condition. And I think that that's a huge shift in paradigm that a lot of people still haven't have not even heard before. So

Right.

I guess we have to keep we have to keep saying it, I guess.

Just keep screaming, find the soap box and That's right. Corner the park and

That's right. No.

you don't have to go to the country.

Right. And if you do go to the country, I mean, ideally go once you've had a fair amount of exposure and practice already under your belt, because it'll be so much more enjoyable. So that was my experience in Japan. I'd already studied for three years. You know, I had already had a number of friends back in the States before I went, so I'd already had a lot of practice speaking to actual people. I'd gone to Japanese parties with, you know, exchange students. So I, I'd already sort of had a fair amount of immersion. And this was, you know, way back in the stone age of the, you know, late 90s, early 2000s, before iPods and, you know, all this cool and YouTube and all that stuff. So I still managed to find input and exposure.

Um, so today, you know, just spend 10 minutes, go online, you know, find a YouTube channel that has uh, videos from that language. Uh, go on Netflix, go on, you know, Hulu, if you're in the States here, you know, there's always movies and things from those cultures. Find magazines, find blogs, find podcasts. Uh, you know, the the options are really limitless. Um, then once you have all that exposure in your belt and you get to the country, you'll have so much more fun. You'll be able to hit the ground running. Uh, your focus will be then on enjoying your experience, not on just surviving linguistically.

Um, in my experience with Mandarin, it was sort of the opposite. I I had a little tiny bit. I had one quarter of Mandarin in school. Uh, but that had been many years before. And so when I actually got to Taiwan, I really didn't have much under my belt. I could read a lot because of my experience in Japanese. Um, you know, a lot of the characters overlap. But in terms of speaking, I was, I was really, really, really, uh, limited. And so that really changed the experience. It was not that same, you know, joyful, blissful experience of starting with so much already, so much exposure and so much knowledge already. I was sort of starting from ground zero. So it really changed my experience.

But it's a hard level to reach, isn't it? You know, where I think that for me, for Russian, I've been studying it for over a year and obviously not, you know, if I, if you made it my job and I had to do eight hours a day, of course, I could reach this level in far far quicker than a year and and some time. But I just haven't, I haven't been taking it too. I haven't been taking it seriously enough. That's the first thing. But secondly, also, I've been taking it very casually. I don't think that's a problem, but for me, what was really difficult in in terms of input, what we were talking about now, was that it took me a long, long time to get to a point where I could actually make any sense of any kind of native material.

Um, and and, you know, I I love the idea of, let's say, go to YouTube, find some videos in the language or a podcast or a TV show, a magazine. But what do you do when your level in the language isn't quite up to understanding any of it and then you sort of get frustrated that you don't. You know.

Yeah, that's a really good point and I should probably, you know, should have prefaced what I just said with with that that in the very, very, very beginning stages, um, you are going to have to slog through, I think, some learner specific materials that won't be quite as riveting, uh, but will at least get you the kind of exposure you need to build up to more native, uh, centric materials.

So, um, you know, in every language, they'll have, they'll have graded readers, they'll have, you know, there's language learning podcasts, of course, for all the major languages and as much as I, a lot of them annoy me because they spend 20 minutes in English, for example, talking about Japanese.

Right.

Um, so my recommendation is, you know, something like uh, like for Japanese, Japanese Pod 101. Um, you know, it's I think it's worth subscribing, subscribe and then just download only the dialogues. The they're very, you know, go all the way to the very beginning level, but just download just the dialogue. And then listen just to that over and over again and maybe the first time, listen to the explanations. But for the most part, don't waste your time, you know, spending 20 minutes listening to an explanation of a 30 second dialogue. Spend that 20 minutes listening to that 30 second dialogue over and over and over and over again and saying it yourself out loud. You know, looking up words you don't know, uh, asking your tutor, say, hey, there was this phrase in this podcast I don't quite understand and asking them what it means or asking them to give you more examples. So I think that's that's that's a part of it. You're you're going to have to slog through some materials that won't won't be quite as fun.

Um, but the same token, I I do think if you find, at least this was my experience, if you find a topic that you really, really, really love, you're going to be more willing to go through materials that are a bit over your head. Um, I mean, that was my experience in Japanese, for example, in the early days. I found some books on like martial arts in Japanese. And yeah, it was way over my head at the time. I had to look up, you know, almost every other word. Uh, but I was so excited about understanding it that I was willing to put in that time. So that's sort of another side of the coin.

Right.

But I I don't recommend that for everybody. That's you have to really find something you love.

Right. Personal interest, uh, will play a big part if you go into the anime, then obviously you can shadow anime episodes and, you know, take a sentence by sentence. And, um, and get really quite far. I mean, I also love the the Pod 101's. Um, the biggest complaint I suppose I have is that there's so much wasted time. I know they make it

Exactly.

aesthetically or that's that's that's for the ears. How do you how do you say for the ears? But they make it pleasing to the ear. You know, uh, by having, you know, melodics.

I guess, I don't know.

I don't know.

Yeah, yeah, again, that's why I think just get the dialogue.

Yeah, I've thought about that.

For just the the little good tip. Yeah. And make sure you have a podcast app where you can skip ahead, you know, 15 seconds or whatever.

Yeah, Jesus, that intros just so annoying. Yeah. It is.

Yeah, I've thought about that. If I ever do, uh, a podcast that actually is teaching, you know, an actual language, I'm just going to have it be just the dialogue. No intro, nothing. Just, yeah. Just go right to the dialogue. And then if you want a transcript at the very end, it'll say, hey, if you want a transcript, go to, go to the site or whatever.

Yeah, I think that that makes a lot of sense. I mean, and they also, I don't know if it's the same for the Japanese one, but for the Russian one, they, they kind of, they're making a lot of jokes and they're talking a lot about their personal lives. You know, it's funny to get some extra insights into the culture, but they could have, you know, done it a little bit more sporadically and just focused on the dialogue itself.

Right. And it's usually insincere. It's you can tell they, their director says, hey, make some chit chat.

Right, right. Like, ask him this. Okay, well.

They're not. Right. Go for it. Yeah. But, but still it's the, you know, for most languages that, uh, what is it, Innovative Language. They they have the most, uh, content at least.

Yes. Fantastic.

So, just, just skip over, skip over the, uh, the chit chat and, uh, and also hopefully, I don't know for other languages, but for Japanese, the, the hosts are different for different levels.

So yeah. This is the same here, yeah. Yeah.

Uh, and I, you know, I actually hadn't used it for the lower levels. I I just used the advanced audio blog and, which was great. And then I went back when I was, uh, reviewing the product more in depth and I was listening to some of the beginner levels and I was like, oh, there's just something about some some hosts, their voices or their their mannerisms or their intonation just grate me like fingernails on a chalkboard. I don't know what it is, but, yeah.

Yeah. That's crazy.

That's crazy. Hopefully people don't feel that way about you and I, Chris.

No, I I hope not. I I hope they would have told me 55 episodes ago in that case.

Yeah. Which, congratulations by the way. That is a very impressive lineup of shows.

Thank you.

Cause I I've been doing it. Yeah, doing this in 2009 and I, I just hit, I think, 20 episodes. So

Right.

you are way ahead of the curve, my friend.

I'm I'm doing doing my best. You know, I just uh, Yeah. get that weekly podcast. Speaking of, you know, uh, schedules, that's the schedule I go for. You know, at least a podcast every Friday. And uh, so far so good. I think I missed one or two in the last year. So, very happy with that. Nice. Result.

Um, but anyway, sort of, um, going back to the language learning, do you have any, what about flash cards? You know, there's a lot of debate about, I mean, there's no debate of the fact that they work, but is it the best way? Is it the fun way? Is it the most efficient way? What do you what's your take on on the flash cards?

Uh, yeah, I've I've gone back and forth on it. Um, so I think one of the problems with flash cards is it's very easy to fall back into a rote learning mentality with flash cards where yeah, you may be using advanced spaced repetition algorithms to automatically space out your repetitions in the ideal time right before you forget them or whatever. Um, but if the cards themselves are single words, for example, out of context, then it it's no better really than, you know, the traditional way of just memorizing a list of words in a textbook. Mhm. Which, you know, doesn't work for all but a very, very small percentage of people. Um, so that's one problem I have with them.

Um, so if you are going to use flash cards, and I do I think they can be a very, um, useful part of a balanced diet. Uh, um, just make sure that each card, you know, uses a complete phrase, a whole sentence, maybe even a whole paragraph. And that you're each time you look at the card, you're reading the, you know, that whole sentence or paragraph and maybe only testing yourself on one little chunk. Uh, Kotsumoto calls this massive cloze deletion cards, where you have like a whole paragraph, but then there's just like one, you know, particle in Japanese or one kanji that you're you're testing yourself on and maybe you just write that part, you know, in English or in, you know, Romaji, the romanized, uh, Japanese or something like that. And that way you're getting valuable input and ideally, you know, these flash cards were not something you just downloaded, they're something you created yourself from manga or anime or other things that you're you're learning. So that's relevant, it's interesting and it's not just, you know, uh, boring rote memorization wrapped in a cool tech wrapper. Right. Yeah.

Yeah, I think it's interesting.

Yeah.

I've been, like you, going a little bit back and forth recently because there's no denying the effect of flash cards. Even single word flash cards. If you do it every day, uh, with your Anki Memrise or whatever software you use, you will learn words.

Right.

The problem is, it's not how to use them.

You learn words. Right.

Right. And and that's the problem. Yeah.

This is the problem. Yeah.

Right. But there's it's a two-sided coin I feel like because I think, or at least, uh, there's some part of language that is built up through, uh, words. As as you know, as a linguist, you know that every single sentence we say is not a memorized sentence. Uh, at least not at a at a at an advanced level of language. We're not memorizing and then recalling. We're we're producing on the fly using elements. Right? So the sentence I just said has never been said before, probably.

Right.

But I just created it out of thin air, using words. And I think there is a method to learning all the different elements of language. It's quite, um, difficult and it's quite, uh, it takes a lot of time and effort. But by the time you make it to a lot of words and a lot of elements, you really kind of, you can really make quite good language. The problem is, it's quite inferior to the set, the phrase approach, because in the phrase approach, you also get something like cases, like for Russian. You'll understand that following this word, it will be this case, whereas if you just learned the word, you have no idea what the case, what the X case of that word would be.

Right. Exactly.

So I think also, and I, I think a lot of the sort of the outspoken people in the community, I think they're also drifting towards a more phrasal approach where you simply build phrases to, uh, build your vocabulary. Yeah.

Yeah. I the way I divide it up, um, so there's two main types of memory when it comes to language. There's procedural memory and there's declarative memory. So learning words, individual words is declarative memory. That's explicit information. It's easy to talk about or explain. You know, it's like there are facts, they're discreet facts. Whereas syntax or structure of a language, that is procedural memory. Uh, which is very similar to the same kind of memory that you need to drive a car or play a sport. And it's it's something that's hard to describe or explain. You know, if someone were to say, hey, how do you throw a baseball? You know, it would be really difficult to actually break it down like, you know, what what degree your arm needs to be at and what speed you need to release the ball at and all that's you know, how your hips are turning, all that stuff. Because it's it's procedural. It's something you just picked up through doing the procedure over and over and over and over again.

Um, so I think that's we have that distinction. And so what you said about the components, I think it's a very, very true and a very, very good point. And that would be more toward the declarative memory side, which is where I think flash cards, traditionally have been helpful is in filling up a big reserve of declarative memory information about the language. Um, but then you need to also balance that with the procedural side with actually, you know, both seeing things written out in a sentence, hearing things in a sentence and using them in a sentence. So you're getting those three different modes of exposure and practice. And each time you do that, it it reinforces those, uh, those rules, basically. And that's why I always say, uh, quoting, uh, uh, Farber, where he said, you do not have to know grammar to obey grammar. Right. And and people always, you know, I think take that out of context and think, oh, you don't need to study grammar or grammar doesn't matter. You can just say whatever you want and be understood. That's not what he's saying. That's not what I'm saying. You need to speak grammatically, absolutely. But the way to get there is not consciously studying grammar rules. It's by getting, as I said earlier, heaps of exposure and practice. Your brain subconsciously fills in those rules. So, anyway.

By the time you get digress a bit. Yeah.

digress a bit, yeah.

By the time you get you get all that comprehensible input, the brain sort of assimilates that and and interprets the grammar rules. And when you've heard the same sentence structure being used hundreds of times, then you can also start to hear when it's used incorrectly.

Right. Exactly.

Exactly. And it just sticks out and that's how for instance Germans, if you say the wrong, uh, gender of a word, which is very easy in German. There are rules, but there's also lots of exceptions. Uh, so if you say something like, you know, the the wrong, uh, article, they will immediately correct you just based on ear because they've heard it for, you know, however many years they've been alive. They've heard the correct sort of case, the article, and then you say the wrong one once. There's no rhyme or reason. There's no grammar rule. They haven't learned it in school like, oh, if the word if it's this word, then it's that case. They haven't learned that.

Right. They haven't learned it consciously, but they've learned it, they've internalized it at a subconscious level. And that's exactly, that's procedural memory. That's exactly what that is.

Exactly. And when you're learning a language, you it doesn't, in my ears, it doesn't, uh, it doesn't sound any different to say something like, I don't know, Das Pferd, Die Pferd or Der Pferd, you know, it doesn't, there's no difference in saying which horse it is. I do believe it's Das Pferd, but uh, somebody can correct me on that. But it's just the fact that it doesn't register as a mistake until if I went to a horse, uh, whatever, uh, show, then I heard like Das Pferd 200 million times in a weekend. I can bet you on the next week, if you came up to me and said Der Pferd, I would be like, that's not true. You know.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I think you're making a good point here. And

That'll be a safer bet than betting on the horses themselves, I should point out.

Well, uh, I, I did use to do some horse racing betting in England. Really?

Oh, wow.

That's a story for for another episode.

Okay. Yeah.

Um, but yeah, So I just want to wrap up, so back to back to flash cards, yeah. So that would just be my only, uh, my only admonishment is you, I do.

Yeah, um, off and on, uh, lately I have not been. I've just been, uh, because I'm focusing right now on my nutrition program, so I'm mostly reading those things. But every night before bed, I still make sure I read a little bit of of Japanese just to keep it fresh. Right. But that's been my only thing recently. But ordinarily, if I was, you know, more full-time, you know, hardcore learning capacity, I would, yeah, I would definitely have some flash card decks and I would try to review them throughout the day. Like if I'm waiting in line, if I'm on the bus, if I'm, uh, you know, calling somebody and they put me on hold, you know, any of those little, uh, uh, hidden moments throughout the day. Try to use those as much as I can. And flash cards are great way to do it because they're on your phone, so you already just have it with you. And you can just do one at a time. You don't, trying to read for example, is frustrating in little chunks, because you forget where you were. Yeah, exactly. You know, or listen to your podcast, same thing. You kind of you you lose the flow. But, uh, flash cards are great for that because you can just do one and then, oh, time to go. Right. But at least you did, you did something. So.

Right, great. Uh, one of the common questions that I always like to ask when we're talking about general language learning strategies, is if you were learning a new language tomorrow, like what sort of, what would you be looking for to start out on the right foot and I suppose you can also share maybe if you have any ambitions of learning other languages at this point or you're going to stick to the Asian languages?

Uh, well, I have started a little bit with Spanish, uh, over the last few years, but it's been really hit and miss. Um, but that is my next target language is Spanish. Um, so ideally, I would do at least one tutor session a week, as I said earlier. I think that's the the game changer. Of everything else, you know, all the input activities, of practice, of reading, writing, all this stuff. I think just having at least one session a week with a tutor, I think that's huge. Um, and that's what I would do if I was taking, uh, on a more full-time basis or more seriously.

Um, but as we talked previously, um, I doing a nutrition certification program right now that usually is about 40 hours a week of reading. So, there's not, Yeah. it's very intense. Um, so I don't have a whole lot of, uh, leftover bandwidth for anything but that at the moment. But I do try to at least fit in just a little tiny bit of of pleasure study each day. But

Cool. I like the I like the tutor tip. because for me it was also a big game changer when I decided to do weekly lessons. Um, but I think the biggest point is just you're in a four-structured situation. We like, you know, a lot of people if they were independent, sort of, uh, entrepreneur freelancers, uh, and if you asked them to do their jobs on their own, sort of time schedule and whenever they wanted to, I think you'd lose a lot of productivity in general and people would just struggle. But because people usually have to have to show up at work at, let's say, eight or nine in the morning and they know they leave at four or five, then they're like, oh, yeah, I might as well do some work in between, right? Whereas if you had to do your own hours, it's a lot more difficult.

And I think that's also why a lot of people struggle with languages is because it's very independent. But if you have that tutoring anchor every week, then as you said, you'll improve before the session because you want to you want to try new things. You want to maybe show off a little bit. There's a bit of vanity there. And you want to do better. And once you've done with the session, if you didn't do as well, you're like, ah, I didn't do as well. I'm better do better next time. You know. Exactly. Exactly. So, I really love that concept as well. And on iTalki, you can really find amazing tutors for, you know, as little as nine or 10 US dollars per hour, which is half of minimum, no, a third of minimum wage here in Denmark. So,

Yeah.

I don't know if about America, but

Yeah, it's it's it's kind of a double-edged sword. I mean, it's great that it's so affordable for learners, but I do feel it might be a bit unfair to the teachers. Um, though I I guess people can set their own rate and the the more popular you are, the more you can charge, I suppose.

Yeah. I love that, for instance, if if a tutor is in for instance, in America, and that's where my Russian tutor is based. If I paid her like $12 an hour, I mean, you know that in America that's quite a good hourly rate. So, I'm actually doing her a better job in that if if she was like, I don't know, Burger King or McDonald's or something. And I also I also think it's a good idea to, if you have a good tutor and she's doing a lot of or he or she is doing a lot of good work for you, you know, occasionally tipping them. I think it's is totally a good idea.

I I recently, I had an iTalki challenge, uh, the New Year's challenge, and my my tutor is just fantastic. You know, every time I Skype, she answers within almost an hour all the time, unless she's if she's in a, you know, tutoring with other students. And after the iTalki challenge, which was like 20 hours in, you know, a month and something. And she's she's just been doing so much for me and we always go over. Even if it's just five minutes over every lesson, that adds up, I feel like. Sure. So I just booked like three, three hours of lessons and she was like, what do you want to do for lessons? And I was like, I think we just don't have the lessons, you know. Yeah. She was like, no, really? You sure? And you know, she was so happy for that little gesture of kindness that. Yeah. I can't recommend it enough. Just if you, like, if your teacher is doing such a good job for you, you know, show show some love and respect, you know, send them some flowers or a Christmas present or, you know, whatever, you know. Yeah. I think that's an an amazing little

Yeah, that's really thoughtful. Yeah. Absolutely.

So, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I also say that, um, just to make it, you know, mutually beneficial, set out in the very beginning what your expectations are for the sessions too. Um, you know, are you expected as the learner to bring topics to discuss or is that for the tutor to bring? Is it just casual chit chat or are you going to talk about a specific topic, you know, each time? Are you going to bring questions? Should you send those questions beforehand so they have a chance to, you know, look them over and you know, look up things they might need to look up.

Because as we talked about a minute ago, native speakers are fantastic at telling you what sounds strange, but they won't necessarily know why. And you as a native as a as a non-native speaker learning a language, often we want to know why. We're interested. So do do them a little bit of another favor, you know, it's really a good idea to send them the questions ahead of time, so they can look things up if they want to.

Exactly. And and don't, you know, also if you have a tutor and you're you've got them for speaking practice. Don't necessarily expect that every tutor on iTalki is even capable of providing explanations. I mean, some of them just don't do it. There it'll I mean, it'll probably be said during the introduction or in their profile. They'll say like, it's an informal chatting environment. Right. You just if you want lessons with more structure, which I I recommend for I mean, you can have multiple tutors and then have one like chatting tutor if you want, you know, just to mix it up.

Um, but yeah, be sure to establish what you want and also, um, what the tutor should bring if anything. And I was a tutor for a while and it's it's a, you know, it's hard to work with students who don't prepare anything. Even if it's just uh, an idea of what they want from me, it's very hard to just start a Skype call and they're like, oh, what's up? You know. So if you are a potential new, uh, tutor, uh, then, um, you know, I suggest you make it clear to yourself what you're getting the tutor in for. Is it conversation practice? Is it grammar? Is it, I don't know. You know, do you want to the you have to find out what first I think before getting on that call and uh, and then you can find out what tutors are very flexible. Like my tutor will do anything. If I asked her, I need help reading, next time she brought a PDF, we could read. If I wanted help with the grammar rule, you know, she'll do like 10 sentences with that rule in practice. So, and also, this is also part of the reason that I wanted to reward her, but, you know, find that awesome teacher and tutor that you click with and just set those ground rules. I think that's a. Right. Fantastic tip.

Absolutely.

But anyway, you know, we could, uh, probably keep going again about this topic. But, uh, before we finish here, I just wanted to, uh, talk briefly about your language guides. Sure.

Um, first of all, I think it's interesting when learners of a language decide to sort of pass on the the love, so to speak. And and create materials that can help new learners of the language. And I think it's very powerful because you have some, like we just said, native speakers are not necessarily the best teachers. Um, so you have some unique insights into the learning of the language. But, but tell me how you how you decided to make your, uh, Mastering Japanese and, uh, Mandarin. Yeah.

Um, yeah, so I started off with with Master Mandar, uh, Master Japanese rather, and then I later, uh, made a version for Mandarin as well. Um, it so it's basically it's an anti-textbook in a lot of ways. Um, my just as I said before, there's so much online now. There's so many resources, there's so much, uh, content available. It can be kind of difficult to know where to start, I think, in the beginning. Um, so my idea initially was just, I'm going to put together recommended resources. And that's sort of where it started. It was really just a, it was a very, very comprehensive collection of resources for, you know, listening, speaking, reading, and writing.

Um, but then it gradually expanded and expanded and then I added, um, you know, more of the how to learn information. So, there's, you know, tips on, you know, how to set effective goals, how to work with tutors like we've just been talking about. Um, you know, how to learn kanji specifically. You know, a lot of people they think that's the most difficult part of learning Japanese or Mandarin is the the Chinese characters. Um, but I think if you do it in a adult-friendly way, uh, which I talked about in the guide, it can actually be, I think, one of the most enjoyable parts of the learning journey. Um, and people will be very impressed that you've learned, you know, literally thousands of characters in a fairly short amount of time if you do it in the right way.

Right.

Um, so I expanded that. Then I started including a bit more, uh, know, about the language itself. Uh, I've always been very careful, I don't want to create just another, you know, textbook or or course, it's not a course either. You know, there's plenty of that out there. I think that's not what the the hole is. The hole I thought was, you know, what should you use and why and how, really? So that's what I focused on doing.

Right. Yeah.

Um, and uh, yeah, now it's up to, I think the guide is it's just under 400 pages. Uh, and I have worksheets, I have, you know, the kanji list, I have cheat sheets for, you know, all the verb conjugations, things like that. Um, for the complete package, I have, uh, you can give a gift to a friend. You can give one free copy to your friend. You get free lifetime updates of the guide. Every time I update it, you get a free version update. Um, you can also get discounts. So I've, uh, negotiated some discount codes with some of the best, uh, you know, sites and apps that I really enjoy and use myself. Things like Skritter. Uh, LingQ. Uh, Japanese Pod 101. Things like that. Um, yeah. Cool.

So, it it's really it's everything I wish I would have had when I started off, uh, in Japanese but didn't have and had to kind of learn the hard way and, you know, find resources myself, you know, things like, you know, which uh, which music artists to listen to or, you know, where to find their music and how to download it and where to find lyrics, things like that. Right. Um, where to find, you know, anime and manga and things like that.

It's super cool. And you know, one thing I noticed, uh, obviously I know a lot of about this space, the language learning, uh, software and uh, courses and guides and and everything. And, you know, for the amount that it is in the total package there for speaking specifically for the uh, Master Japanese, you know, I think that it's priced incredibly reasonably at $79 as the listing price. Um, but I think we can do better and uh, I you we were talking about a discount code just before we went live. Uh, is that something we can go ahead and share with the listeners?

I suppose so. Only for you, Chris.

Fantastic.

All right. So I I've put together a code. It's Ninjastic. So N I N J A T A S T I C. And that will give people 25% off either the just the guide, just the $39 or 25% off the complete package, which is $79.

Wonderful. And that's for people interested in learning Japanese or Mandarin.

Yeah. Yeah. I'll make that work for both guides. So, uh, I should point out the the Mandarin guide. I'm just about to release, uh, version two, 2.0. Uh, and then that's also going to have, it's going to be much, much more expanded. Uh, and it'll be just like the Japanese one, basically. But, uh, yeah. Only so many hours in the day. So, that's coming soon. So.

But if you buy it now, you're going to luck in those updates for the same for the lower price though, aren't you?

Exactly. That's true. That is true. Yeah, people get grandfathered into that. So,

Yeah. So, I mean, that's another discount in a way.

Yeah, if you buy Yeah, exactly. Because right now it's just the Mandering side. It's just $39 for everything. So,

Right.

people can get get grandfathered into the complete package.

That's so wonderful. Well, uh, John, thank you so much for taking the time as well. And and thank you for having me on the show. I guess we should just uh, uh, tell people if they're interested to hear the reverse of this. I mean, Yes. I don't know if it if it is really reverse or we just continuing from last.

Yes. I don't know if it is really reverse or we just continuing from last. Yeah, I think we we kind of, you know, we talked on some similar topics. But I, I think, you know, I I was really, uh, intrigued by your sort of, uh, you know, uh, your background and your story of how you got into languages. It was really inspiring, you know, that your life, you know, was so profoundly changed by languages and I I think that's really neat. So I highly recommend people go here, hear your story. More, which

Yeah. Is so They may already know from your other shows, but, Yeah.

Is so

No, I don't, I mean, I haven't done many interviews and I certainly haven't done so many completely frank interviews where we just dug into the, uh, skeletons of the past. But

Yes.

Um, yeah, it is difficult and and and I, I hope that people will, uh, will listen to it and and, you know, I don't expect many to have the same kind of background, but I know that a lot of people have different things. You know, maybe their dog died and then they've got really bummed down by it or maybe their girlfriend left them and we all feel these kind of depressive cyclical states during our lifetimes, don't we?

So my total life vision is just if I can help anyone by just, you know, all I'm doing is just sharing my story and, you know, it's it's not easy. I'll be honest with that, but Right. If that is all it takes to help just one other person, then I think I'm in a incredibly unique situation to to do so and always happy to to chat and, you know, I'm not an expert on on the language learning, but I've talked to enough people to to know a little bit about it and Yeah, I I think you may have been a wee bit humble, but

Yeah, I I think you may have been a wee bit humble, but

I do my best. I do my best.

Yeah. So, people can go to, uh, languagemastery.com/show.

But thank you so much, John.

They can browse the podcast there. So,

Fantastic. And it will be in uh, one of the latest episodes and uh, people can also go there to find the language guides if they're interested. And just, you know, check out the site. It's been six years in the making, so there's a lot of uh, good stuff there. Some some of them might be, you know, dig, uh, a little bit deep, but keep digging, you'll find the the gold.

All right, thank you, Chris, so much. I appreciate that. You're welcome. It was a pleasure.