-Hello Luca how are your? -Hello Dina
-I am great thank you. -Today I'd like to ask you some questions
yeah I'm sure that they are interesting not only for me but for a lot of people who
are learning foreign languages
and I know that you can speak ten languages
-right? -Yes it's correct..more or less
-Do you have some special ability for this or you do something particular
what's your secret ? -Well
I would like to to say that ever when people tell me that they have a huge
talent for
learning so many languages I i think it's not necessarily true I think that
the main difference is that I know
how to our learn languages I have learned
how to pick up languages effectively
and that makes a huge difference because a lot of people make the
mistake
they think they can learn a language
they start learning a languagein the wrong way and then they give up I I don't give up because I've just found a
method that works not only
for me but I found out that it worked well
for a lot of people and so I
think basically I figured out how to learn a language
in a certain way in a effective way, to answer your question
there is a secret the secret is to understand how to
learn languages, once you know how to do that you can learn any language in the
world
And I know that you know all the languages
on your own and do you use a traditional method
or have you developed one on your own? -it depends on.. you know
what you mean by traditional method but my method surely is not traditional in
the sense I do things my own way and I have
this method that I call the "Luca's method"
I didn't invent it but I just found it to be the optimal solution
for my language learning process so
the answer is yes I have my own method to learn languages
and the good thing is that you know where you just apply a method
you're the only person who apply it and it works you might think that
it just applies to me just works for me but it's our found out that
it works for quite a few languages,so I think that
its its it's a good method and
I think that their most popular question is now how to learn languages
new words
what's your formula for it
you know learning new words
is extremely important when you try to learn a language
because it's basically
every language is words and sounds
and these are the two main problems for every language learner
I think that the problem in general is that people tend to think that they
learn words by heart it's the
solution so they come up with lists of words or sentences
which they embed these words
I learn words indirectly it means that I figured out that our brain works
in a certain way and I learn words
indirectly meaning that I use
a certain kind of techinque which is a bidirectional
technique, translation technique
I use my own native language to learn other
to learn words in another language
I think that your own native language is extremely important
and you should know how to use this translation technique especially at the
beginning
you not only figure out the structure
the network of the language but then words are going to fall into it
automatically so you start learning words automatically you build your net
it is going to be easier and easier to learn words
one main..a very important thing
is not learning words by heart this is what
I never did and I would never do and I think
everybody should avoid learning words by heart beacuse languages
just an amount of words its about
building your network made of emotions
and words..you know, words come with emotions
What are the first steps you take when you start learning a
language
As I said
the most important phase in my experience that beginning because you
find yourself
in front of a huge mountain and you have to know how to climb it
so the first thing is I tell myself are you can start
quite slowly because the path is very long
and I use this a by directional technique so I translate..I take
you know I use my own native tongue to figure out the structure of the
of the foreign language that I am learning
it is called the bidirectional technique now I cannot delve into the details of how
this works but I can assure you that it works quite well
if you know how to do it because it's also important to know
how to do things so first overall
I use a language series
it is very important to stress the fact that
what material you choose does matter but what really makes a difference is HOW you use languge learnig material
how to use language learning it here so
I use it in a certain way in order to absorb right the information
in that book and I apply, carry out this
bilingual translation and then I move on to other things
and what are the 3 most important things in a language?
As I said beofre attitude is very important, meaning that
the way your approach anything in life it is not just about
language learning a positive attitude is extremely
important for example once you have learned the basics of a language
once you can say certain thingsyou can
just try and use them without a problem
f you meet, if you stumble upon a native speaker
you might try to you speak to them in their language even if you know a
little bit
of the language itself and you can try to apply it in real life
people tend to use books a lot
but I think that human interaction is still key
in language learning, it is what really makes a difference so attitude is very important
attitude towards learning in general
and an attitude towards people because people are the "vectors" of a language
your chart
a language is alive
because of people, because of the people who speak it. And then obviously time
a lot of people complain about the fact that that they don't have time to learn a
language you don't have the time you have a family
you have other things that you have to attend to
but in general I think that everybody finds always find the time to do something
something they like
every day and I think that if you spend..imagine native speakers
when they are 18they have spent so much time learning their own native language
their own language and in order to learn a language well
you need a a huge amount of time but the advantage is..time is not our enemy
it is our friend
if you know how to manage time for example learning a little bit every day
30 minutes you don't you think about 30 minutes is nothing
then you will make a lot of progress
in..it is a matter of months
not years, and that's an amazing thing
and then as I said the third factor is
is possibilities in life
meaning that when you start learning a language and you speak it
at a certain level even if you have a very basic or intermediate
level what you have to do is look for possible ways in life
look for friends, look for people whom you can talk to
look for a movie or a TV series that you really like on which you can spend time
expose your yourself to the language and you will learn automatically, as an
automatic process
so it is not just about the amount of books that you use
its also the possibilites that you have in life, traveling living in a country
having a girlfriend or a boyfriend who speaks that language
watching something you really like, listening to some music
that makes a HUGE difference in the long run
thank you so much Luca it was really interesting
thank you Dina, thank you!
see you! See you next time
See you in Moscow again!
Thank you, bye bye