Hi I'm Steve Kaufmann
I'm a language enthusiast
I like learning languages
I have, together with my son
created a platform for learning languages
called Lingq.com
I have a YouTube channel
where I give advice on language learning
and I'm going to tell you a little story
about how I learned these, at least --
some of these different languages.
I speak them -- or the ones that I speak
in declining order of proficiency are:
English, French, Japanese,
Mandarin Chinese,
Spanish, Swedish, German,
Italian, Portuguese
Cantonese, Russian, Ukrainian
Korean, Polish, Czech,
Slovak (that's more or less the same),
what have we gotten? Romanian,
Greek, and now more recently Arabic,
Persian, and Turkish.
So, I will tell you my story.
Mandarin
Mandarin Chinese is not the
first foreign language I studied
but Chinese is the language
in the whole world with the
largest number of native speakers.
I forgot how many that is
but it's much more than the
second most widely spoken native language.
Why did I study Mandarin ?
Because in 1968 I was working for the
Canadian government,
the Canadian Department of Commerce.
Canada was getting ready to
establish diplomatic relations with the
People’s Republic of China
so it had to train up some people
who could speak Chinese.
I was sent to Hong Kong.
That's when I discovered that
in studying a language
the most important thing is to
read a lot and listen a lot,
because a new language
has to come in from outside of you.
I don't have that language in me
so I have to get used to the new language
In Hong Kong during one year of study,
quite concentrated study,
because in studying Chinese
you also have to study the
Chinese characters
and that is very time consuming
but Chinese is a very interesting language
through the language I learned a lot about
Chinese culture and Chinese history
and I have a lot of Chinese friends
so this was a very rewarding and
valuable experience for me.
Spanish
Chinese Spanish is the language
with the most native speakers
and that is why I'm going to
continue in Spanish
I studied in France from 1964 to 1966 .
Two years in Paris one year in Grenoble.
During the holidays
I traveled to Spain hitchhiking
and I met very many friendly people
very hospitable
after that I have continued to study Spanish,
reading and listening.
it's a marvellous culture
with great variety
depending on the country
different countries in
Latin America in Spain
there's music, films, everything, cuisine
it's a language that
I really like very much
and it has given me a lot during my life
French
the number of people who speak
French as a native language
Is a lot less than the case of
these other languages I have used here
but it's an important language
from the point of view of history
and the number of countries where
French is an official language is quite large
and it's an official language in Canada
I learned French because at the age of
16 I only spoke English
but I decided that I
absolutely wanted to learn French
because I had a professor of
French culture and civilization
who made French interesting
that is what is important
in learning language
We have to be motivated,
that we have contents,
history or something that attracts us
if it's only a matter of
learning the language
because we have to learn the language
it's very difficult
all these grammar exercises
that are useless
We need content,
we need interesting things.
we need to listen, we need to read
The language has to enter
our heads, our brains
that was the case with French
and that's what made me
learn other languages
so now there's 20
Now I'm learning Arabic and Persian
when I was 16 I only spoke English version
because I got interested in French and then
I studied in France for three years
I saw that I can convert myself into
someone who speaks another language more or
less fluently
I had the confidence
I understand how to do it
moreover this is at the origin of the system
LingQ that I created with my son
which is based on the idea that
languages are learned through what is called in
English “ input”
Listening and reading,
interest and motivation
and everything that is done
traditionally in the schools,
with exercises
and comprehension questions and all that,
memorization of grammar rules, all that
is very inefficient
as that's all I had to say
I spoke in a number of languages
with mistakes
I could've used other languages
I think that is enough.
You have an idea of what I wanted to say
that's all bye
Subtitles by the Amara.org community