Kalle Wångstedt: Discovering Language Learning

And then once they've told that story, then I always find something that we can talk about or, you know, if everything else fails, we'll just talk about uh Scandinavian culture, I guess. So there's really no there's no worries, you know.

So, it was to be expected, but I will do some more testing on it and and see if it if it's a problem that I can fix, or if I have to invest in a new microphone, or alternatively, a new headset, that will give you a good audio quality because I noticed that last week's episode was not as good in terms of audio as they used to be. So I'll look into that.

Today's episode is a bit of a lost episode that's returning. I originally did this episode almost two months ago with uh my friend Kalle from Sweden, Kalle Ångestedt. And uh we were talking just before the Poliglot Gathering in Slovakia, which we both went to and had a great time. And we didn't know when we were recording this episode that we were going to hang out as much as we did at the event, but, you know, life has a funny way of uh ending up that way anyway.

So, I spent a lot of time with Kalle and my opinion of him has not changed. He's a he's a great guy and and I really well, just an overall cool, great guy, very friendly, and uh very warm. And during the gathering, we did a presentation together where we spoke in I spoke in Danish, he spoke in Swedish, and we had Irena, uh who spoke in Norwegian. So, we did a little bit of a primary into these Scandinavian languages, and that was a great success. It's kind of a wacky talk. It's definitely one of the more unusual talks of the program, but the people who can understand one or more languages were really excited. And actually, I got a few people coming up saying that they really enjoyed it anyway because they felt like it it was a funny way to listen to the different languages in a in a not so formal setting.

But anyway, I just wanted to mention that, that the episode was recorded quite a while before the gathering. So, if we mention the upcoming gathering, that's why, you know, you're not listening to some kind of uh time travel episode. It's just because it was recorded before. And uh that's about it.

And I hope you enjoyed this episode with Kalle, where we talk about discovering language learning as as an adult and Kalle's Kalle's experience, which is, I would say, different from most of the people I have on the show. A lot of the people I have on the show have sort of been doing language learning for a long time or they discovered it when they were really young. But there are lots of people out there, myself included, who discovered like independent language learning at a at an older age, like I was, I don't know, 25 or 26 when I heard about the poliglot movement for the first time.

So, what changes then? Like what's different? What do you have to take care of? And we talk about general language learning a lot, and and also why these um poliglot events are so cool and so valuable for each person. So, I hope you enjoyed the episode. I know it's been a little while coming, but as I mentioned in the previous episode, while the podcast is back, and I'll do my best to do a new episode every week because I'm now working full-time and I'm in a new country. yada, yada, excuse, excuse, excuse, there might be uh a slightly longer gap between each episode, but I'll definitely strive towards getting at least two episodes out a month. Uh hopefully more.

If you have any guest suggestions, please send them to me. chris@actualfluency.com. If you want to be on the show, send me an email. I'd love to hear from you. Like just send me an email with like what makes your language learning story valuable to other listeners. Like what can you share? Uh there aren't that many requirements, as you probably know, but I want to make sure that we have somebody to talk about and that we're not just repeating most of the episodes that have been done already. It just sounded like a race car outside my window. Um anyway, enjoy this episode with Kalle and I'll see you in the next one.

Uh, well, my journey in language learning is really fairly recent, I would say. Um, the whole thing, actually, I've been I've been interested in some way in languages since I'm a trained graphic designer, and I've been working in print design and and graphic design for a long time, so there's a lot of language there, but in a in another way uh since uh that mostly has to do with text and typography and typesetting and stuff like that, which I'm really interested in, and I'm really I've been geeking out about for uh uh many years.

Uh, and also I've always been really interested in in comics and and manga and anime. I was looking at I mean, trying to get Akira, which was this anime manga uh cartoon film that that was really cool and and very popular in the in the late 80s and early 90s. So, yeah, I was really into that and also my father, uh he's been studying languages all his life and he he had taken a course in Japanese in university. So, he had a book a beginner's book in in Japanese. I was I was really kind of, well, I want to do I I want to do something that other people don't do. So, that's why I applied for for a Japanese course, but of course, I was the only one, so.

So, so that also changed my course and I got more into like digital stuff and and uh, web design, programming, uh, like app development, stuff like that. Uh, but I always had this like desire for for other cultures and and other other languages and I had considered myself fairly, like I I thought of myself as, well, I can kind of decipher other languages, especially like Germanic languages, uh, and a bit from from like Latin languages as well.

So, I try now and then try to get into like news sites in like Der Spiegel or uh, like Bild or stuff like that and and try to read the news in in German and maybe decipher, I don't know, 10, 15% since there is a there is an overlap in vocabulary between between like German and and Swedish, German and the Scandinavian languages, and also with uh English as well. And I think with English, since I had that, it's also an overlap with the Latin languages, so you kind of you can decipher some from like Italian or Spanish or French, maybe.

Uh, but that was that was more like like I I wanted to I wanted to to be able to read the the text, but I had no idea how to how to come about to do that. How how to learn a language outside of school? Uh, so, and I I really didn't think that much about it. It was more like, okay, this is something that is impossible to do. So, okay, just live with that.

So, uh, at that point, I I thought, well, why not? I kind of like German, so why why not try to give it a shot? And I tried to get in contact with uh uh universities around my area and see if they have some sort of fast course, like an intensive course for maybe a few weeks to kind of get into it. But that is not a thing in the university world. Everything is really it takes a year or two years, you know, a few few hours per day, maybe, uh, a few hours per week, uh, for the actual course. So, and I I I didn't like that. I I wanted to do something like get a quick start to get into it. And it didn't exist. So, what I actually ended up doing was brute force myself into the German language.

I um, this was when I was in my teens, and, uh, one of the one of the things that we do in Sweden is fika. Maybe you know what the concept is, that is actually having a coffee and a and a something sweet to it. And you sort of sit down and just hang out. Uh, that is that is a thing in Sweden. Everybody do that every day, multiple times a day, maybe. And especially when you're young, that's how you hang out with friends. Or that's one of the ways you hang out with friends.

So, we were kind of a group that that did just that every day at a at a cafe, uh, in the center. So, during the the summer, we were hanging out there maybe all afternoon, uh, and suddenly a guy showed up that was maybe around his 30s. So, he was maybe 10 10, 15 years older than us. Uh, and he started hanging out with us as well because he didn't do anything during the day. Uh, and he was he was from Holland. And he had for some reason decided to spend this summer in Sweden, and in my town, which is, uh, you know, middle of Sweden, small town, not very interesting actually, but I mean still.

Uh, so he hang started hanging out with us, and uh, it turns out, of course, he spoke uh Dutch, and he also spoke English, which is kind of normal, I guess, but, uh, for most Dutch people, he also knew German, so he spoke German, he spoke French, uh, and he, uh, I think he he knew maybe Italian or Spanish. I'm not sure which one, but one of the one of the Latin languages, uh, apart from French. And, um, after maybe six weeks, he started speaking Swedish with us.

So what I did is I found a podcast uh that had a theme that I was interested in. So that I could be able to understand the the what they were talking about, even though I didn't understand exactly what they were saying.

So I listened to one episode of that podcast from beginning to end, all of it. And try to remember, I mean, some words are repeated very frequently, so I looked those up and then I listened to another episode and I did the same thing. Uh, and slowly, extremely slowly, actually, I started to understand uh more and more, and I started to learn a few of the words.

So I did that, that was in the summer, I did that. Uh, and then I found found a an evening course uh in another town, which actually had a beginners uh German course for 10 weeks, two two hours each Monday evening. So I took that, and that was an hour commute to the other town and an hour back. So it took all all afternoon and all evening almost, uh, to do that. And that way I got a little bit more explanation about like grammar and structure of the language and things like that. Uh, but that was uh as I said, only 10 weeks.

Uh, so after that, I I kept doing what I had started, listening to that podcast and trying to find uh YouTube videos with interesting material, and looking at that, and maybe sometimes they had subtitles in in German as well. So I could sort of follow along. Uh, and I tried to try to find people that have have been doing kind of similar things. And I ran into a guy uh that had a YouTube channel. He was a German guy and he also uh learned Swedish. Marlon Görnet. I think you met him.

Uh, so, and then he came to visit me here. At that time, he was uh doing a a tour in South America before that. So he was away for maybe half a year or something doing like a a tour throughout South America and up to to the US. Uh and then he came to my my town, uh stayed with me for a weekend, and and we really got to know each other.

And he convinced me at that time to come to the Poliglot Gathering in Berlin. So he came to me maybe end of January, beginning of February, something like that. Uh, and this was the second gathering in Berlin. Uh and he was like, of course, you should you should come. But I mean, I really didn't consider myself as a as a absolutely not a poliglot and and maybe a crappy language learner at at the best. So, but he convinced me, uh, and I went, and that was really a like an epiphany, you know, a moment of, wow, this is really this is really a a fantastic community with lots of interesting people and uh, yeah, I really I really enjoyed the experience and and the friendliness and how people were really uh, geeking out.

And I really I I I consider myself a real geek, you know. So, so I was, yeah, I like this. I like this community. I like the uh, like the the people that are really 100% dedicated in just drilling down in bits and pieces of of like language stuff. Uh, and both the people that are really, I want to learn all languages, all the time.

But what what did you think about uh because I I had a similar experience in in the gathering before that. I was just amazed at people. Uh what did you think about seeing people who were just kind of crushing it like Marlin, you know, who would just speak eight, 10, more languages and just casually switching between them. Uh what was your initial reaction to that?

Uh, but, uh, when you when you meet them and you talk to them and you realize that, okay, it's it's a lot of work. That's all it is. Uh, they are very dedicated and they they perhaps have a bigger dedication than you do, but still, it's it's it's it's possible to do it. Uh, and maybe don't feel like you're in a rush. Uh, that that was at least my initial experience that, okay, I need to I need to do this all the time to be able to get to a higher level. And eventually, I will do that. Uh, maybe it'll take a year, maybe two years, maybe 10 years, I don't know, but eventually, I will hopefully get there.

Uh, and I am kind of a stubborn guy, uh, at the core. So, uh, I don't really give up, I think, not easily. Of course, you get can get frustrated and, you know, feel really shitty sometimes.

And and once you saw, I guess, sometimes you also just need to see it in real life. You if I tell you something is possible, you might hear it, but you might not believe it. But then if you go to the gathering or another conference, and you actually see people in person who are completely normal people, quote unquote, you know. As normal as you can be with this hobby. Um, just doing it, you realize that it's not about talent, or well, talent plays a part, but it's not about some magical skill that you were born with. It's just hard work and and and dedication, and and, you know, of course, you can hack the process, you know, it's not It doesn't have to be as difficult as as learning in school or or something like that. But that initial belief has to has to come.

But when you and maybe you don't really believe that they have like this high, super high level in all the languages. You can of course, you can hear that, oh, their accent is fair it's good. And, you know, of course, they speak the language. But when you meet them, actually meet them and see this switching as you said before, you you realize that, okay, this is actual. This is not something that is rehearsed or made up in some small way. It it actually happens. People actually do this.

And there's a lot of people doing this. I mean, the the the guys you find on YouTube, they're the like extroverted people that really like to to uh to do this kind of thing and show themselves doing it. But there's a lot of people that that don't really have that uh like drive to do that. They that are just doing it for themselves and being kind of anonymous in that way.

And that's also probably why the the community size is probably uh quite under what it what it could be if everyone if everyone came up because I guess there are some people who are just like, oh, I don't need to go to some conference for this hobby, you know. And of course, we try to sell it as much as we can all the time because it's just an amazing experience and you makes you make instant friends, which is also interesting because you can just you understand people who are going to that place. Like what kind of people would do that? And it's just I've I don't think I've met anyone at the conferences where I would say, uh that I didn't I didn't understand why they were there or, you know, that they were somehow a bad person or something, you know.

Uh over Skype or I have I have sessions in both Italian and German each week with people I met at the conference or at the gathering. And uh I I have like people I I I uh use WhatsApp to to just communicate to to to train like my writing skills in the language as well. And actually, the the main thing about that is not like having a a regular language course. It's more like having a a good uh relationship with people. I mean, the the tandem exchanges I do over Skype, that's not necessarily a uh uh uh something where you try to learn the language. It's more like something where where you where you just talk to someone you like, you know.

Uh I I certainly don't speak uh let's say, I don't speak much other than English at the gatherings, but of course, I'm also not very good at any other language, so that explains why. But, um, I wouldn't go to the gather some people might think that the gathering is like a way for language learners to meet up and practice all the languages that they've spoken with each other. And I think that's a misconception because I I think very few people do that. But of course, it does happen and it it is part of it that you speak other languages. I mean, a lot of people insist on it also.

But, um, it's it's not it's not like you go through the doors and there's like the German tent and there's like the Italian table and, you know, you have to speak a foreign language, otherwise, you're going to get kicked out or, you know, Uh without a refund. But sometimes people can imagine this pressure, and it's just not there at all. There's no pressure. And if if you don't speak, let's say you put Spanish on your badge, like you have these uh name tags at at most conferences. And somebody goes up to you and speaks really fast Spanish, and you say in English, uh sorry, man, I I just started learning it. I didn't understand a word you were saying. I mean, I've never really seen anyone get disappointed about that, you know.

And that is also something that you, by yourself, don't really notice, I think. It it takes a long time before you before you realize that you actually have been improving because it it's a slow process, you know. Uh, and things like that is also really good for your confidence and for your motivation, I think, to to really see because one year is it's not that long. It's it's fairly long, but it's not that long. So, uh, that you can actually have someone really see that you've you've made an improvement. That's that's really, it's good for your confidence, I think.

I know some people who use it to their advantage. They say, oh, I want to learn Spanish, and they go immediately to the Cervantes Institute and they say, when is the next A2 test or whatever? And then they use that as motivation. But in a smaller way, I think the gathering can be used, or any conference really, because you know, no matter what language you're learning, there's going to be at least somebody there who speaks it.

Like, I think there was only one language, I I there was one year where we they they had like a a note on the wall that said like, do you speak a rare language? Let's see if we can find a language that only has one speaker. And I think there was only one, there was only one person out of, let's say, 200 who spoke a unique language. You know, so it's definitely possible to find uh, I guess that guy might have been a little bit disappointed if he came to the event to try and speak this very obscure language.

But if you're learning anything else, I'm sure that you can find someone and and and that can be a useful motivational uh aspect because I don't know about you, but like learning Russian in a little town in Denmark. My town actually has similar uh number of people as your town. Um, so it's hard for me to contextualize why I'm learning Russian. Like, I can tell myself all these things. I can say, oh, it would be really nice to speak it. It would be nice to watch films. It'd be nice to go to Russia and actually be able to say something.

But when you're in your little uh Scandinavian town and you've never met a Russian speaker in in the town ever, and you've never heard the language being spoken, it's very hard to focus and motivate yourself to sit down with your colloquial Russian or whatever and and and keep working at it. But if you think, oh, okay, in a month from now, I'm going to go to the gathering, and I'm I have lots of Russian-speaking friends. So, they're going to of course, and I actually saying this, I just remember that when I went to Thessaloniki, uh in Greece, my friend Alex, who's from Ukraine, went up to me and he started speaking to me in Russian. And he said something like, you know, how's the Russian going? And I just completely blanked. Like, I couldn't even say one sentence. Even though I've been studying it for like years, and I probably speak decent beginner Russian when when I'm ready for it. But he just caught me by surprise. So, I have this uh idea in my head that I need to do it better next time. And the gathering is a perfect opportunity for that.

But that's at least my experience is that people have this kind of, it's almost like an envy where, you know, if you say something out of the ordinary, and it's also group culture, you know, in in Scandinavia, there's this really strong, like if you if you if you even consider doing something that's out of the ordinary, like if you're not getting a job, you know, married by 30 and have a house and kids and dog and Volvo or whatever, um, then you're different and you're weird and then you you you're not really part of the group. And if you're outside the group, it can be tough. Like, it's it's almost like the, you know, the Amish when you when you make a mistake and you get like shunned. That's that's similar in Scandinavia, I feel like, because you can really feel like an outsider then.

Uh and I I find it, I think it's it's very uh enlightening to actually get to to be able to consume things that interest you in other languages because there is a there is another approach to stuff. Not not necessarily just uh news, even though that is that is like something that you really can see different perspectives when you when you uh get news stories in different from different countries and different languages, but in other ways as well, like poetry, if you're into that, or arts, or uh literature and music, there are so much that are uh uh that gets your your perspective broadened when you when you consume things in other languages, I think. At least I.

And I think this is kind of the what is creating tensions in the world these days is is the lack of cultural understanding because you you for instance, in your country, you have lots of immigrants coming now and and just came in. And there are tensions that are rising because the locals feel like they shouldn't be learning that language of the people who actually came there. But I mean, how awesome would it be if Swedish people started learning a little bit of Arabic or a little bit of of Somalia, wherever the immigrants are from. Like, how much could that help those tensions and and bridge the gaps?

And you know, like you said earlier, there's that balance because you don't want to, at least I don't think it's realistic for most people to become, you know, Benny Lewis and and and do eight hours of language learning a day. I I don't think that's realistic for almost anyone. Uh but also you don't want to be too casual because then you just it's it's not that it I mean, if that's the only thing you can do, then I think that's you should do that, of course. But you have to be careful, I think, also of just taking it a little bit too easy because then you you tend to forget what you've already done. And you you kind of have to do everything twice.

Um and I think a a trip to the country or a tutoring session or even these certificates can really help you stay focused and keep going. So you don't kind of fade out or you just get tempted by 10 other languages or you just, you know, you do five minutes a day, you know, it's not I I say, five minutes a day is great. Uh but you can't expect to get fluent in three months from it.

That's, I mean, it's it's sounds sounds almost so simple that it doesn't doesn't have to be said. But sometimes people expect miracle results with no work. It's almost like fitness, you know, you're like, oh, I want six-minute abs or whatever. But the people who you see in fitness magazines are people who are literally obsessed about fitness, you know. They'll go to the gym every day for hours. But you only see that photo shoot, right? So you don't see the endless gym visits.

And I feel like language learning is exactly the same where you might see someone and a and Benny said it really well. He said, you should count the hours in language learning, not the months.