Are You Afraid of Making Mistakes in English? How to Study Without Getting Bored | Polyglot Advice

- Hello guys, and welcome to my new video.

Today we have another interview with Wouter.

Wouter is a Dutch polyglot,

and he speaks 20 plus languages.

In this video,

we're gonna be speaking in English,

and he's gonna give you tips

on how you can improve your English.

If you like this interview,

make sure to give this video a thumbs up

and subscribe to my channel.

And now let's start.

Hello Wouter, and welcome to my channel.

How are you doing?

- Yeah, totally fine.

Just, it's a bit rainy weather here in the Netherlands,

but everything is fine.

So first of all, thanks for having me on,

and for this nice interview.

I mean, I'm curious what are you going to ask.

- I think it's gonna be a very interesting interview

because my audience will really appreciate

knowing all of those cool facts about you being a polyglot

and knowing so many languages.

We can start our interview.

And obviously my first question is gonna be,

how many languages can you speak?

How many languages do you know?

- That's a good question. because before you said

knowing many languages,

but in my opinion,

there's a difference between knowing and speaking.

So I think I don't know 29 languages,

but I speak 29 languages, at different levels.

And the reason why I'm saying

that I'm not knowing the language

is because I get more feedback.

So when I make videos in Russian,

I make a lot of mistakes in the cases.

- Yeah, cases are tough in Russian (chuckles)

- Yeah, they're definitely tough.

- It's very interesting how you said

that you like to be honest with other people,

and tell them upfront that yeah,

I'm not fluent in every single language I learn.

- Yeah, definitely.

I can even tell like I speak English,

and well, English is fluent for sure, I think.

Even people are telling me I've a Dutch accent,

but still I think it's fluent.

It's not C2.

Let's say your English is C2,

my English might be C1.

I think so, because I can talk about any topic.

I do have a foreign accent,

I get judged a lot about my Dutch accent

when I speak English,

but I can talk about any topic comfortably.

That's why I think I have C1 level.

I think I probably have a B2 level

in Spanish, German, French, and Portuguese like that.

Let's say the upper intermediate level,

but some people call that fluent as well, basic fluent,

some people don't call it fluent.

I would say I'm not fluent in these four languages,

just to be on the safe side.

English and Dutch are fluent for sure.

The other four languages are at a high level

because I can still talk about any topic

in Spanish, French, German, Portuguese.

But anyway it is not a contest.

I don't create videos to show off.

I basically try to get out of my comfort zone.

That's what I'm doing.

I also like to give a portion of entertainment, I guess.

- About of all of the languages you speak,

which language is your favorite.

- I think we can compare it with music.

Sometimes I am more in the mood of listening to hard rock.

- Yeah.

- Sometimes classic music,

it's same way for language.

Sometimes I wake up and I'm like,

I wanna speak Chinese today.

Sometimes I want to speak Russian.

It really depends on my mood.

That's also why I learned several languages.

Also one of the reasons why

I didn't want to focus on one language,

because I like variation.

The same with everything, also with food,

one day I want pizza, one day I one Thai food.

- I definitely get you.

Yeah.

Sometimes you get this motivation to speak one language,

and you have this urge actually.

It's one of my motivations,

this urge to speak Chinese, for example.

And you feel like, okay,

today is the day when I'm gonna practice Chinese,

today's the day when I gonna speak English, for example.

When did you first discover this passion towards languages?

How old were you?

- I think I was like 12 years old, maybe 10 years old.

I was on holiday with my parents,

and I was ordering my own food in French.

I asked my parents like,

hey, how do you say this in French?

I already liked the contact with people

and all that at that age,

but I wasn't focused on languages.

You don't have these plans as a kid.

I was always into art.

I basically studied illustration and art kinematics

since I was 18 years old.

I did that for four years.

Basically I was focusing on art so much.

So I didn't have the time to focus on languages or anything.

But when I was 23 years old,

that language feeling came back

then I would start learning Chinese

Then I, it's crazy,

I was two years older than you.

You're 21 right now, I was 23,

it sounds like a long time ago.

I sound like a granny.

But anyway, at that time I was,

yeah, it feels like I'm an old man telling whatever stories-

- Yeah, yeah.

- At that time I was learning,

I was learning languages,

and later I was making a video of that.

That's what I really like about YouTube.

You can make a video and you can show your levels,

you can get feedback from people.

You can meet a lot of new people, which is also cool.

- You were never really scared to approach new people

and speak to them in a foreign language.

When I was younger, I was really, really scared

to talk to native speakers in English

because I thought they were judging me.

I was also really afraid of, for example,

maybe I made a mistake and they didn't understand me.

So, what would I say, what would I do?

Did you have this feeling?

- Normally I'm not into sharing personal stuff or anything,

but on the other end,

I just want to give an honest reply I suppose.

I want to motivate people,

just show them as how it is.

So I want to be honest.

Actually, I have been bullied for a long time

until I was eight years old.

I've been bullied a lot.

So that I was crazy, inconfident basically.

And I was really afraid to approach people.

So I never had that feeling of approaching people

because I was afraid of their reaction,

and I was afraid to- and out of reactions I was afraid.

But since I was 23,

when I started to learn languages on the streets,

the languages were sort of helping me

to forget about my inconfidence.

I'm still, right now, I'm even a bit inconfident,

but I don't think it's a bad thing or anything.

So we should also embrace our inconfidence sometimes

because it helps you to understand how things are.

It's not embarrassing thing

and the basically it brings you close to people sometimes.

Later I found out

is it that languages were giving me strength which helped me

to just approach people to have fun.

And it connected me to a lot of people

and based on a lot of experience

and also because I make a lot of videos right now,

it's going to be less awkward,

but that's how I don't feel any fear because the enthusiasm

of speaking in foreign language is stronger.

That's what I feel.

- That's a very good story

because for me it's very, very similar.

For me, a language is just a means

of communicating with other people

and being connected to them.

And right now, okay, English, it's different story for me

because I do have a pretty high level in English

but, for example, when it comes to Chinese,

I'm not advanced in Chinese.

And I start sweating when I speak Chinese

because I'm too nervous,

but still for me when I just talk to Chinese people

and I see how excited they are to talk to me

because I'm a foreigner

and they want to learn more about me, about my culture,

and yeah, it's amazing for me.

- It should be a culture.

Maybe it's already a culture, I don't know,

but embrace your inconfidence, embrace your mistakes.

Things don't need to be perfect or something.

And that's also why I just want to tell about my passion,

how it is, because some people might think like,

wow, this guy's very confident,

he's just talking to anyone,

but it's so easy.

when I talk in a language people reacted awkwardly

or like can we speak anymore.

And those feelings weren't getting back to the best,

like, yo, am I not nice to them or anything?

But I mean, these are just feelings everyone has

but a lot of people are not talking about that.

But once we can embrace that,

we can also just respect situations on how they are.

They're not perfect.

And you're learning from mistakes.

I'm also telling this story

because I don't want people to feel upset

about learning a language and whatever.

If someone is bullied

or if someone has confidence issues, whatever,

those are just feelings

and talking to someone and seeing a nice smile

appearing on the face, is a beautiful thing.

When I speak Chinese and-

recently I've been invited to an Indonesian family

to eat in Indonesia with them.

So these are nice stories,

stories which you don't want to miss,

- Yeah.

- Just because you are admitting your inconfidence.

That's a different thing, admitting it.

We should admit it and basically

see it as a sort of separate thing

than like, how other people are seeing us

when we speak a language.

Most people are happy or proud.

They're thinking like,

hey, she speaks my language,

she is speaking Chinese, look at her.

That's cool. - Yeah.

It's the price you pay for one

and to be connected with other people.

And I think it's definitely worth it.

Now speaking so many languages.

What does your current language learning routine look like?

Do you even have a language learning routine?

How do you practice all of those languages you speak?

- It's hard sometimes

because sometimes I wish I had a routine.

I try to have a schedule,

my schedule would be like two hours per day

in the morning.

Right now I'm focusing on Russian and Chinese mostly.

So that would be like one hour Chinese, one hour Russian,

but because I'm so busy with creating content,

stuff like that, I cannot always follow that routine.

I'm sort of like putting that in a fridge,

I'll get back to that.

Because like creating content

also has been a little bit difficult

since Corona, since COVID.

I put a lot of effort in that

to still think about new concepts, new ideas,

but let's say normally I have a routine of two hours

in the morning, Russian and Chinese.

And each three months or four months,

I select two languages which I want to improve.

That's what I'm doing,

right now Russian and Chinese

and then the other languages

I am practicing maintaining them by replying messages.

Then also use another strategy,

I just call into instrumental strategy,

I think that makes sense,

and it's like I use one of those six languages,

which I mentioned before, which are my better level,

I use them to study other languages.

For example, I could have,

I've like, for example, a session about Greek in Spanish

- Wow, that's (indistinct) strategy.

Wow. - Yeah.

Spanish speaking Greek native speaker

That's what it is.

She explained to me everything about Greek in Spanish.

This is how I learn two languages at the same time,

I do the same thing-

- Yeah

- So let's say I explained things about,

let let's say I explain you things about German and Russian.

I could use Russian to explain things about German.

- Yeah. - Just like that.

I want to try the-

I use those techniques to be more efficient or something.

- Yeah, yeah.

- It also helps me to think differently

and to unlock a sort of part in the brain

that I'm able to think more naturally

- That's a great tip for my audience, I feel like,

because I always tell my audience, yeah.

I always tell my audience that I do,

I mean, obviously I don't speak as many languages,

but I do a very similar thing.

When, for example, I want to learn something new,

I don't know, anything really,

and I've researched in English, right,

because, or like, and Chinese,

and Chinese is a little bit more difficult for me,

but in English, for example, right.

Instead of learning it in my native language, Russian,

I Google everything in English,

I don't know, I wanna buy a new shampoo,

I wanna research the best shampoo,

I do it in English.

- And that's great indeed.

We could do the same with study books.

You could get a study book about,

let's say the Russian which is written in German,

for example, if German you had at least a B2 level,

let's say that it's at least B2,

then it could also help you

to think more naturally in German

because you will see a lot of words

which you can understand,

but because of the contact, you can understand it.

That's how you learn a lot of new words

and I can get, I think from B2 to a higher level maybe.

So I think those strategies are pretty nice.

We could change the culture things into target language.

We could follow that,

whether a broadcast in another language.

You find that all those things which are in your daily life

could help a lot to get you some language, I think.

- I think it's also, it's like a great tip for retention.

It was actually also my question and you already answered it

about like, to actually remember all of the words,

all the new vocabulary you learn,

or the language patterns and structures,

it's really great when we just include the language

in our everyday lives.

We try to explain something and if we've a language

which we have to research something in it,

do you feel like learning a language has changed you,

for example, your thinking, your behavior?

- Yeah.

That's a good question.

Personally, I always thinking of like

instead of part, always has been there,

but it has been a lot basically.

I think it's already there.

It's the same like we don't know ourselves.

If you're living on an island,

you're also like,

you're still the same person, but on an island,

but you're going to have different habits, stuff like that.

You're going to hunt maybe,

you need to survive.

I think it's the same way for learning languages.

A lot of parts are unlocked

and I think life became more,

I would say I'm never bored.

The most beautiful thing of language learning

is I'm never bored.

It's the opposite.

I always wish I would have more time

because I wanna learn this language

I wanna maintain that language,

it's like you have to care about 29 children,

like the languages, you need to give them attention.

Otherwise, they will forget you,

or in my case, I will forget those languages.

So you have to maintain a lot.

And that's the thing.

It takes a lot of time, it's a tough sport,

a tough brain sport, I would say,

but I'm never bored.

So that's the thing which has been changed a lot,

I'm never bored.

The understanding level of other cultures,

I think, that's something which is helping me a lot

and being less afraid.

I learned a lot to not have any fear

or to have fear but maybe ignore the fear,

just to go for it,

just of course people, make mistakes.

I think that's the biggest improvement, I would say.

- Yeah.

Do you think you have different personalities

in different languages?

I mean, obviously you stay the same,

but sometimes something changes

when you speak in a foreign language.

- I think it's not a different personality,

I think I'm having the same personality,

but I'm sort of like editing my personality a little bit.

It's like, it's a Chinese version of myself,

it's like the Chinese version of a personality, like that.

So I'm still the same person,

but under different circumstances

and using different words

because if I would be the exact same out there as in Dutch,

I would have been a lot in trouble I think,

because like in the Netherlands, we were pretty direct.

In China we have different habits (indistinct)

- Yeah, exactly.

- It's the same as when you're traveling.

Are you a different person when you're traveling?

No, I don't think so.

But you're behaving a little bit different

because you are a guest.

So I behave like a guest when I speak Chinese,

I behave like a guest.

It's like I'm traveling with my brain.

That's how it is.

- I guess you're trying to discover

these parts of yourself that are only present

when you speak your foreign language

because it's appropriate in this culture.

To maybe be less direct,

for example, in Chinese, you shouldn't be that direct

than in Dutch, for example.

You already speak so many languages.

Do you have any plans of learning more foreign languages

in the future?

- That's a little bit like how I feel sometimes.

It feels like I'm in a cake store

and I want this cake, I want a slice of this cake,

I want to learn so many languages.

I love African languages

and that's also a little bit, my problem.

I'm a little bit like,

by people are saying like,

hey, when are you starting to study my language?

I'm a little bit like, oh, cool.

Yeah, let's go for it.

But then I just find out

it's so hard to maintain all the other languages

since I'm improving my Russian,

since I'm improving my Chinese.

It also feels more relaxed

when you can understand the grammar a bit better,

or the way you're speaking.

I don't need to become fluent in Russian or Chinese,

but if I could reach like a fair B1 level

in both languages, for example,

I would be very happy.

And then I can use that instrumental strategy again.

Then I can use Chinese to study Cantonese, whatever.

Having sessions in Chinese about Cantonese,

having sessions in Russian about Polish,

because then I can also easily compare,

all those languages are related to each other.

Am I speaking the both at the same session?

I can also distinguish them.

I would learn how to distinguish them.

I would never do that

when my Russian is like A1 or A2, like right now,

then you would just mix them up.

But whether it's B1 or better

then I can use them as an instrument

and that's each goal which I have on language.

I want to get them to be B1 level

so I can use them as an instrument,

but I definitely also wanna learn some African languages.

- I feel like when you were talking about all of this,

I realized that there is this idiom in English,

Jack of all trades master of none.

I feel like right now, you don't wanna be this person,

you don't wanna just speak so many languages,

but don't really be confident in them.

You don't wanna be this person

who just picked up some of the phrases, some of the words,

and can really make a sentence,

but you can add them to your collection of languages

you can speak.

- It's or this or that.

But I wanna be somewhere in between there.

I don't wanna become a master in these languages.

I think that's impossible for me.

I also don't wanna learn some phrases,

for example, even in Russian, I do make mistakes,

but I'm still able to have at least

a decent basic conversation.

And for that, I had to study nine months Russian

to be able to have this low-level which I have.

But everything takes time.

It's an adventure.

And when I make videos, I want to show that adventure.

That's also on purpose.

I also show people when I speak a language at a low level,

because I want to show the entire adventure.

- Yeah, the entire process.

Yeah, from start to finish. - Yeah.

The method that I told you I had been bullied

and (indistinct)

People understand how (idistinct).

And sometimes people are just seeing the beautiful things

I want to show everything basically,

the entire process, the adventure,

including the mistakes and basically,

I would laugh about the older video

when I spoke Russian at A1 level

when it's at a better level.

But also for other people,

I hope it gives them more inspiration and more motivation

to also see that I also had to start there,

like you're not solely a butterfly.

I think it's also good sometimes to show the weakness there.

People who would do that,

though I'm not judging or anything.

There are many people who were,

especially in a language learning community

were showing their failures,

their weaknesses, their problems, their issues.

That's what I also love about the language community.

I'm proud of this community

because people are showing the process of how it is.

And that's what I like.

- Sometimes when I make mistakes,

I feel like when I was younger,

I would get really hurt

when other people would point out my mistakes

and say that, you made a mistake,

this is not how you were supposed to say that,

but now I'm actually so happy.

I realized that,

Yeah, I make mistakes and there was nothing wrong in that,

because this way, if somebody's gonna point them out,

I'm gonna improve.

It's just a chance for me to improve, to get better

and maybe even show other people

that perfection is not something we should strive for

because it's not the most important thing

in our lives, being perfect.

- It does make sense.

And if people are perfect,

I don't need to know the basic. (chuckles)

- Then they're probably not perfect.

They just think too much of themselves.

- I mean, it should not be their intention.

We should say we are beautiful as how we are

with the mistakes, just like that.

We should not worry too much.

- To finish off our interview,

I wanted to ask you this fun question,

but I also feel like I already know what you're gonna say

but still, do you think we should have one word language,

for example, Esperanto,

this like famous constructed language

or you think it's better

when people speak different languages?

- I hope that all those languages are existing.

Although the lovely ones, even the rare languages,

I really hope that they keep existing

and we should not become lazy

about learning one constructed language

because I think putting a lot of effort

is helping to maintain a relationship with a culture.

It's the same with if you have,

I have a girlfriend, for example,

and if would ask me like,

hey, if you never would have to cook for me,

never would have to do the dishes

if we would have someone doing that for us

which would, like when I don't have all these tasks anymore,

would I do that?

No.

I still like to put effort in the relationship.

- You like washing the dishes. (chuckles)

- No, I didn't say that.

Don't say that, I don't like.

If you're washing, you can go on-

In general, I like to put effort in a relation

and I think a relationship with a language,

with a culture, or with a country it's also related.

And if we're becoming lazy by just having one language,

we're losing everything

in connection with the culture, the history-

- Yeah.

Definitely, I agree.

Because languages represent the culture.

There're one of the most important parts

of a culture actually.

I think we can finish our interview for now.

Thank you for talking to me.

It was really nice talking to you about foreign languages,

about your journey.

I think my audience is gonna feel really motivated

because of you because now they realize

that everything is possible.

You can learn a foreign language.

- Yeah, I think so.

I think that's indeed very cool.

- And before we finish our interview,

please tell my audience where they can find you,

your YouTube channel, your Instagram, if you want to.

- My channel name is Wouter Corduwener,

and also my Instagram name is just my name.

I want to tell the people that there's also a part II

on my channel.

And I want to thank you for-

- The interview was (indidtinct), was so much fun.

If you wanna learn more about him and his YouTube channel,

you can find all the links in the description.

It was really fun talking to him and learning more

about his language learning journey

and sharing this journey with you.

So guys, thank you so much for watching.

If you like this video make sure to give it a thumbs up

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Thank you guys for watching.

See you next time.

Bye.

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