Hanna's Blog Posts - 1: Personal Conversation With The Linguist
Have you heard about the man who can speak 16 languages? He grew up in Montreal, Canada. He spoke only English until the age of seventeen, but now he can speak 16 languages, and he is still studying new languages. His name is Steve Kaufmann.
This amazing man is not a professor of language or a natural born genius. He was just a business man who liked to learn languages. That made me want to know more about him, so I asked, we talked and I made up my mind. In this post, I'm going to write about what we shared.
Motivation
When I study something, I always experience a moment when I want to quit. I want to overcome that so I asked Steve when you want to give up, you're in a slump, what do you do to get over that feeling? Steve talked about motivation. Motivation is very important because it pushes you to not give up. Even if you are having trouble in learning and performing, if you are interested in the language, in the culture, in the people, then those interests make you keep going. “Funny thing about the interest is that the more you get into a language, the more interesting it becomes, at least that's been my experience.” Steve explained.
Everyone has felt it before. When you do something that is interesting, then you can concentrate and be patient, but if it's not, you get tired easily. I learned the English alphabet when I was in grade school, and after that I always studied English for tests and exams, which is really boring. Yes, sometimes I'd studied hard to get a good grade and if I was successful, that could be my motivation. But I was not and that made me lose my confidence.
But I was kept exposed to English because I like pop songs and movies. In Steve's experience, the more he gets into a language, the more interesting it becomes. I totally agree with him. When I first hear pop songs, I just listen because I like the melody. And then I follow the lyrics because I like singing, and sometimes I search the lyrics to know what they mean. And when I can understand what the lyrics means without searching, my interest increases. It's the same with movies. At first, I only depend on subtitles, and sometimes I understand brief sentences or expressions. Then I learn naturally what kind of expressions that people use in certain situations. Also, it's very interesting when I see the different translation of the same sentence, or when expressions translate from English into Korean very lucidly.
Furthermore, when I meet foreigners who come from other countries or when I go to other countries, and talk with them, it is a good stimulus for me. I already knew that if I can speak English I can communicate with people all over the world, but it became my motivation when I realized it through experience.
That's how I am motivated to learn English, and had the courage to come to Vancouver, Canada!
16 languages
After I heard Steve's story, I wondered what made him learn so many languages. English, which is a common language in the world, is his mother tongue. He can speak Chinese, which is the most spoken language in the world. And if I were him, I would say, that's enough. However, he had the courage to learn other languages because he already had successful experience. He thinks when the brain achieves success in something it wants to do more of the same, not only in learning languages but also in life. Many people say, start with small things in order to finally achieve your bigger goals. If you experience achievement, that will became your foundation and it will push you. Success of learning French and Chinese gave Steve the courage of learning other languages.
Goal and impressive LingQ users
I also asked about Steve's goal in life and if there are any impressive LingQ users. He feels great when users say “Thank you, you changed my life. I got such a good job”. A user from Poland got a job at a German company, a user from the U.S.A who was studying Spanish and then ended up going to Chile and those users who thank us that makes it all worthwhile.
Words for people in their 20s
I always have a question for people who have already lived their 20s : “Do you have any words for people in their 20s?” Because I'm a person who is in her 20s and when I make a decision about something important in my life it's helpful to know about what they think. If Steve thinks back to when he was in 20s, he thinks people in their 20s should reach higher. We have lot of hesitation when we are younger because we are not sure, we don't feel confident. As you get older then there is a lesson in those moments of doubt that we should have gone for more but we didn't. So his advice for younger people is that “You can do more than you think” Thanks for reading and I hope this post is interesting and helps you.