We just had a song in Portuguese because our next guest doesn't speak Creole yet.
We had songs in various languages today, the music that we chose had to do with languages and travels for this interview with Jan.
Jan is an adventurer who's on a mission to immerse, or at least to get an impression of 100 countries before turning 30.
He is 29 and Cape Verde is his 94th country which he has visited.
So Jan is here at Boa Vista. Jan should I say ''доброе утро'', ''Bom dia'', ''Buenos días''?
''Tu sauve'' - (Greeting in Creole)
He can already say a few things in Creole.
Jan, welcome at Radio Comunitaria Voz de Bubista.
He's a young man, 29 years old and speaks good Brazilian Portuguese.
And he's on the mission to visit 100 countries before turning 30.
Why 100 countries?
Actually I don't know. It's just a feeling, an idea, a thing that I wanted to do since I was a child.
So I started to travel 8 or 9 years ago and when I was traveling I thought why not visiting 100 countries before turning 30.
That was just the reason, I like to travel and to learn languages, learn about new countries, that's it.
And traveling allowed you to learn about the culture and get an idea about how the language sounds and to see if it's worth learning the language.
Learning some phrases and some words, yes.
Yes, every time when I travel I try to learn at least a few words and phrases of the language spoken of the country where I am.
I think that if you use the local language it's more fun... You can experience the country more.
Also with the people. The people always like I respect their country and...
You get more interaction with the people if you speak the local language.
And for example, you like to focus on numbers, in this case 100.
But you do you think that you can fully experience a country if you only stay for a short time.
Sometimes it's not possible to fully enjoy or learn everything about a country if you want to visit 100 countries in little time.
But I try to.
I do that by learning the language and if I really like a place I go back to spend more time in the country.
So here at Boa Vista, Cape Verde, I've only been here for a week.
I talked a lot to you so I learned some things about the country but that's not enough to get a lot of knowledge of the country.
But at least you get an impression and you can come back another time.
Before we will talk about about how you experienced Boa Vista, we will first talk about...
You speak Chinese, English, Dutch, German, how did it all start for you?
You're only 29 but when you were 21 you only spoke Dutch and English.
Yes, when I was 19 I went abroad for the first time, I went to Costa Rica.
Actually it was the first time that I traveled outside of Europe.
I started learning Spanish, it was not a success.
After several weeks (months) I didn't speak the language.
But when I had the opportunity to go to China to learn Chinese.
To do an exchange there, I managed to speak Chinese at a basic level after 5 months.
And then I thought if I can learn Chinese I can maybe also learn other languages.
I started learning Chinese 8 years ago and since then I learned a new language almost every year.
I think it's possible to learn a new language every year.
And what is Chinese like, is it difficult?
Yeah, it's tricky, it's more difficult than Chinese.
But if you live in China you don't have any other options.
Everyone only speaks Chinese. Maybe it's a little different in the big cities.
But in general, it's difficult if you don't speak Chinese in China.
I think that gave me a lot of motivation to learn the language.
And what was your strategy? They say that the Chinese are very closed and stay in their circle but you managed to break though that.
And eventually become fluent.
Always when I start learning a new language, I start with the tones and the sounds of the language.
Chinese is a tonal language so it was important to also learn the tones.
When I learned a few words I simple started to use these words in a phrase.
It was very difficult in the beginning but after a few months it worked already.
I also had a Chinese girlfriend so that also helped me a lot.
You speak Chinese, French, Spanish, Portuguese which you learned in Brazil.
Which language did you enjoy learning the most also considering the country where you learned it?
I think that my favorite language are actually Portuguese and Cantonese, the language spoken in Hong Kong.
I speak Chinese (Mandarin) at a higher level than these two languages so I really like to speak the Chinese languages.
Yes, these 3 languages I think.
Returning to traveling. You are a son of parents that unfortunately who have the idea, I think in general in Europe that going to Africa is dangerous.
And they prefer to go to a place that they say is more safe.
How could you explain out of this world exists of fear?