Polyglot Shares How To Become Fluent Faster! Interview with Steve Kaufmann

Today I interview famous polyglot  Steve Kaufman and he reveals the  

exact method he used to learn over 20 languages.

How he successfully learns languages as an.

Older adult the.

Two most important things.

When learning any language.

The real reason you're nervous  to speak in public and more.

Let's start the interview.

Welcome back, Steve, it is  so great to have you here.

I'm happy to be here.

I have an idea for you.

So there's so much information online and common  personal beliefs about how to learn a language.

Now, given your experience, I'd love  to share a common belief with you and  

then see if you think it's true or  false and then you can explain why.

How does that sound to you sounds?

Good.

OK, and for all my students  watching participate as well.

So after I.

Share the statement.

You can say if it's true or false in the comments  and then see how your answer compares to Steve's.

All right, Steve, true or false.

Adults, especially older  adults, can truly become fluent.

OK, first of all, I think I  qualify as an older adult.

It's funny because what's old  like for someone 1540 years old?

I think there are two issues.

There is does age affect your ability to learn?

And the second thing is,  what do we mean by fluent?

Yes, I'm so glad.

Actually, that was going to  be my follow up question.

So if you want, before we go any  further, let's just define fluency.

So what does being fluent  in a language mean to you?

To me, the best definition of fluent is that  

you feel comfortable and the person  listening to you feels comfortable.

So obviously, if I'm having  trouble getting my meaning across,  

I'm not comfortable and I'm not fluent.

If I can get my meaning across and, and  it has to be on a wide range of subjects.

It can't just be, I'll have  another cup of coffee please.

You, you can't, it can't be on  something very, very limited.

You, you or what's the weather like?

You have to be able to talk  about a variety of subjects.

What are your kids doing?

What do you do at work?

What do you think of, you know,  history, politics, you name it.

You have to be able to talk about a  variety of subjects with mistakes,  

but where you feel comfortable and the  person listening feels comfortable.

And you know that if you speak  to someone who doesn't speak say  

English in my case very well, I'm not comfortable.

If the person is struggling,  I'll, if I speak their language,  

I'll switch to that, switch to their language.

So to me, the key thing is that you can  express yourself on a variety of things.

You're comfortable.

Even though I'm aware that I make mistakes,  I'm comfortable getting my MENA across,  

and I have the feeling that the  person listening is also comfortable.

That's fluency.

It doesn't mean perfect.

It doesn't mean that I don't forget the odd  word that I don't occasionally have to say.

I beg your pardon?

Could you repeat that, please?

All of that is fine.

It's still within the range of  what I consider to be fluent.

Fluent doesn't mean perfect.

I'm glad you clarified that.

Now going back to the first question,  so let's say adults, older adults.

So this like you said could be anything.

But let's say someone trying to learn a  language in their 40s and after they true,  

they can't truly become fluent.

OK, well I would say that that  my real interest in learning a  

lot more languages started when I was 55 South.

Hey.

And most of my languages, I have learned  them as an adult, like past the age of 20.

So theoretically, based on what I have, you know,  

based on my reading, we may lose  some ability to learn languages.

We may have more trouble  retrieving things from our memory.

We may learn a little more slowly,  but the difference is not great.

There may be some difference,  but it's not a big A far more  

important issue is motivation  and how much time you spend.

So if you are motivated and you put  in the time and make no mistake,  

you've got to put in the time and you've got  to put in the time in an intelligent way.

In other words, put in the time with  the language, not reading explanations  

in your own language about the language  for the, you know, 10th time reading an  

explanation about tenses in English, which  even I can't understand the explanations.

If you spend your time doing  that, you won't improve much.

But if you spend your time, lots of time with  the language, listening to things of interest,  

reading things of interest, if you enjoy  the process, you have a positive attitude.

I don't care whether you're 506070 and I'm almost  

80 and I don't think we we  don't slow down very much.

We don't slow down very much.

Well I'm so glad you said that because many of my  students say directly to me or in the comments of  

videos, oh I'm in my 30s or 40s so I can't become  fluent and you just proved that is clearly false.

And I love what you said about motivation as well.

I have learned I, I, I would think 10/11/12  languages since the age of 50 like if not more.

I have to go through the list, but the  bulk of them since since the age of 50.

And some of those languages I speak  quite well, some I speak less well.

But again, as long as you enjoy what  you're doing in the language, you're not.

It's not a horse race.

You're not competing with anyone.

So whatever my language level, excuse  me in the languages, I'm happy.

Now you said some of them  you speak better than others.

Is there a reason why it doesn't  come back to your motivation to  

learn that language or the amount of  time you just spend in that language?

So I mean, there's there's comprehension  and then there's the ability to speak.

So my approach to language learning is  very much focused in on comprehension,  

like listening and reading,  building up my vocabulary.

So I have languages where I  have very good comprehension,  

but I don't speak them that well because  I have a limited opportunity to use them.

So the languages that I speak the best are the  ones that I have used the most, speak the best.

However, to get to where you can speak a lot,  you need a lot of comprehension and vocabulary.

So you have to begin with getting that  vocabulary and comprehension going.

So yeah, I, the ones that I speak the best,  

the top four I've spoken the most, but there are  languages where I don't speak in that badly and  

I haven't had much opportunity to speak them  at all because again, I have, again, according  

to our statistics at link, I have, you know,  vocabulary of 50,000 words in these languages.

So it wouldn't take long.

If you have a good level of vocabulary and  comprehension and you are given an opportunity,  

if you should move to Costa Rica, for example, and  you have a a large vocabulary in Spanish and good  

comprehension and you have opportunity to  speak there, you will very quickly improve.

That is an excellent point, and it leads into  

another true or false statement  I'd like to get your opinion on.

So what about this one?

You can't become fluent if you live in a  country where the language isn't widely spoken.

So I'm always, I always remember when I I  wrote a book about language learning and  

the book was sold in China.

And so I went to China to promote the book.

And I was at a university in China,  which was a sort of foreign language of.

Why Yusha?

Yeah, in Beijing, where they study foreign  languages, and I had these kids who are kids,  

students, come up to me, speak  to me in Japanese, in French,  

in English, and they were so fluent  and they had never left China, OK.

On the other hand, in Canada, as you know,  

we have immigrants who have lived in Canada  for 30 years and can hardly speak English.

And so it's very much a matter  of, again, motivation and time.

Students in China wanted to learn, spent the  time and went at it in a very focused way.

And they were extremely fluent.

And immigrants from China who have  lived in Canada for 30 years still  

can't speak English because they're not  motivated and they don't put in the time.

So I.

Think it's health how?

Having said that, of course you need the  opportunity to speak eventually, you know.

And so obviously if you live in the  country where the language is spoken,  

you have more opportunity to speak.

So it's a better environment for the learning  the language, but it's not a condition you can  

improve tremendously even if you're not in  the country where the language is spoken.

And being in the country where the language is  

spoken is no guarantee that you're somehow  automatically going to learn the language.

You still have to put in the effort.

Yeah, exactly.

And like you said, I'm sure we can all think of  where we live, non-native speakers in the country  

where we live and know that they don't speak the  language fluently even though they live there.

Now what about this next  statement that I hear commonly?

You must speak directly with native  speakers if you're in the country,  

or it could be Zoom online, doesn't matter where,  but you must speak directly with native speakers  

to improve your language or become fluent.

What do you think?

True or false?

Well, I don't like the word must.

However, two things there 1  is motivation is so important.

So if I'm learning Persian or Greek or Chinese,  I want to learn, I want to speak to a person from  

that language background because to me Persian  is about Iran, you know, Chinese is about China.

English is a different situation  because people learn English.

Well, it depends where they are.

I mean, if they, if they are  in an English speaking country,  

they're learning English to communicate  better with the people in that country.

Canada, US, England, Australia, wherever.

However, English is an international bank.

So if you are Japanese and you're going to Brazil,  

you're going to speak English in  Brazil unless you know Portuguese.

So English is the language you used to communicate  

with people from Brazil, from Korea, from  India, from, you know, Iran, from wherever.

So in that sense, for someone learning  English, it doesn't matter as much.

And you should get used to hearing people  speaking with different accents and,  

and in a way, if you're learning a language.

So motivation is one reason why I would  prefer to speak to a native speaker.

But the the key thing in  language learning is vocabulary.

So if you're speaking to a non-native  speaker who has a broad vocabulary and  

if that conversation is authentic, then I  don't mind speaking to a non-native speaker.

But if it's a sort of a  artificial learning exercise,  

or where a group of Japanese  learners sitting in a classroom,  

we're all speaking with the same Japanese  accent, I don't think that's so useful.

So I guess the nuance is that personally I'm  more motivated to speak to a native speaker,  

but English is a special case because  it's such an international language.

Yeah, what an interesting perspective.

I'm sure you've really got my students  thinking about how they perceive this  

because a lot of times they say, oh, I  don't want to practice speaking because  

it's not with a native speaker, but with  English being so international like.

You said that's a.

Really good point, right?

But it's a matter of motivation.

If a person really wants to speak to a native  speaker, then that's what they should do.

The big thing in language  learning is do what motivates you.

Yeah, Do what motivates you.

What a simple thing.

Do what motivates you.

Very true.

Now, I know you emphasize  the importance of expanding  

your vocabulary, and reading  is a key for you, I believe.

So perhaps you can explain why you think reading  is a great strategy to improve your fluency.

Because this might be a little  counterintuitive to some of  

my students because they place so much  emphasis on speaking, speaking, speaking.

So when they hear reading, they might not follow  that advice or they might think it's incorrect.

So I'd love to hear your perspective on that.

OK, so the language, the foreign  language that you're learning,  

you don't have it inside you, right?

It has to come from outside.

If you start from zero, you've  got no words in the language.

So that's where I support Stephen  Krasin's ideas about input.

You have to bring the language into you,  

and you can only bring it into you  in two ways, listening and reading.

Or you can also review vocabulary.

But there's a lot of research that  shows that the way our brain works,  

if these words aren't connected  with other words, they've done this,  

you know, magnetic resonance imaging,  and they see that it's more difficult.

You have to encounter these  words in different contexts.

So you can encounter them in a listening context.

You can encounter them in a reading context.

I have always found that the two work together,  that if I just listen, I can't remember the word.

I mean, I was just in a conversation with  my Persian tutor and until she writes the  

word out for me in the chat box, I, I can't quite  grasp what she's saying because it's a new word.

It's, it's, I don't know what it is.

Like there's this expression.

You can only learn what you already know.

So you kind of need to hit it twice,  the reading and then the listening.

So you listen to things that you have read,  you read things that you have listened to,  

and the the two of them reinforce each other.

What I have found from personal experience  is that the listening helps me prepare for  

speaking because I find these words and  phrases bouncing around in my brain.

But to retain the vocabulary, reading  is more powerful than listening.

And we should also realize  that reading is like listening,  

that once you know the, the written word  is decoded and goes into your brain,  

it then follows the same path in the brain  as sounds, the phonetic, you know, receptors.

But I, I, I'm not a, you know, a  neuroscientist, but it follows the same path.

So I I wouldn't say reading alone,  but So what I tend to do is I listen  

when I'm doing other things like washing the  dishes or driving my car or out for a walk.

But if I have dedicated time, I read.

And how much dedicated time do you spend reading,  

let's say, per day in your  target foreign language?

So in this case, we'll say Persian.

So most people who are learning English already  

know the Latin alphabet, so  it's easy for them to read.

For me, the Arabic and Persian alphabet  is, I mean, it's still difficult even  

though I know how it works, but I  haven't had, you know, I haven't  

read billions of words in that language,  whereas most if you're a Spanish speaker.

Now if you're a Chinese speaker learning  English, of course you don't have the advantage,  

but you do know you have a better knowledge of  the Latin alphabet than I have a Persian alphabet.

But typically what I do, I would  say that I managed to get in about  

half an hour to an hour a day of  listening because I'm always doing  

things around the house or I'm out  for a walk or whatever it might be.

And I try to get in half an hour  to an hour a day of reading.

But when I'm reading in the Persian alphabet,  

because it's so difficult  for me, I only read online.

So I only read on my iPad because then I can look  up every word, I can sound it out, I can hear it,  

I can save it, I can do I work on link on my  iPad at least 1/2 an hour, maybe an hour a day.

OK, well.

I found it's the same.

It's sync, so I can do it wherever I want.

But yeah.

But I think if, if you are, if I  were, if I'm reading, say, Polish,  

it's easier to grab a book that's not digital text  and read because I can read, you know, Turkish.

I can at least make out the sounds in Turkish.

Whereas the Arabic and Persian script  is still more of a mystery too.

Not a mystery, but I'm not used to it like that.

So that's my situation now.

Someone else whose native language  is written in the Latin alphabet  

would be in a certain situation if  they're native sort of script is  

something else that might be closer  to my situation with with Persian.

I love how your advice is so specific to your  background, the target languages you're learning.

I think that's great so everyone could realize  how customizable learning a language is.

And maybe there isn't just one way to do it.

It depends on your background, the language  you're learning, and many other situations.

So I'm really love how you're  bringing that to light.

Now input, input, input get a lot of input.

But what about this statement?

What do you think?

True or false?

You need both input like reading and output like  

speaking to feel confident and  comfortable with a language.

Well, if you want to feel confident and  comfortable speaking, you need to speak a lot.

In order to be confident and comfortable speaking,  you need a high level of comprehension and a  

broad vocabulary, unless you want to talk  about a very limited number of subjects.

So you really can't separate the two.

But eventually if you want to speak  well, you have to speak a lot.

But to get and speak a lot you,  you do have to put the time into.

And even after you think you're at a level like  typically when I start speaking online with a  

tutor, I, I again, based on how we count  words in link, I want at least 5000 words.

I'm not even going to talk to  someone until I have 5000 words.

But even after that, if I'm talking  twice, three times a week with a tutor.

So I feel now I'm at a level where  I can start speaking more and more.

I still continue my input activities,  so you can't separate the two,  

but ultimately you have to  speak a lot to speak well.

And aside from talking directly with  your tutor, do you speak to yourself?

Do you record yourself?

Do you use ChatGPT?

Or do you have other strategies for speaking?

None of the above.

None of the above, just so just with your tutor.

See, I also think so you were saying, you  know, everyone's situation is different,  

different age, different native  language, different target language.

There are certain things that are in common.

1 motivation and time.

Motivation and time, those are  the two most important elements.

So I'm not motivated to speak to ChatGPT,  I'm not motivated to speak to myself.

I have tried these things, shadowing and you  know, keeping a diary and I can't do you have.

I can't continue doing them  because I don't enjoy doing them.

To me, the easiest thing is just  to speak to a native speaker,  

which I prefer, which wouldn't be the case  if I were a non-native speaker of English.

I think it matters less in English because  because the reality is that English has  

become an international language, whether  we like it or not, for political reasons.

That's the reality, for example, in Spanish,  

which is also an international language,  regional, but an international language.

But again, that's just among Spanish speakers,  

but there are Arabic or, or, or  or Russian, like, say, Russian.

I don't mind speaking Russian to a Latvian.

In other words, where these languages  have become international languages,  

then it becomes authentic to speak  to a speaker of those languages.

An English speaker from Brazil becomes authentic.

But doing things that are not  authentic like talking to this  

ChatGPT or talking to myself  is not something that I do.

But people who enjoy doing that,  that's what they should do.

I am not at all stressed by speaking to  a native speaker, but there are people  

who find it stressful and for those people it  might be more comfortable to speak to ChatGPT.

So depends on the individual.

Yeah, exactly.

And like you said, just so simple motivation  time just comes down to those two things.

I like how you can summarize that so succinctly.

Now.

We talked about reading, listening, speaking.

What about this statement?

True or false?

You should study grammar and make sure you  

understand grammar rules  before you start speaking.

Definitely no.

Definitely no.

So the whole process of learning  is kind of sort of a fuzzy process.

You you cannot understand or  make sense of or eventually use  

the grammar rules until you who have  had enough exposure to the language.

So you have to do a lot of listening.

Then you start speaking as  you speak, you make mistakes.

You realize most people realize  where they're struggling.

They they realize what they  have trouble expressing in  

the language where they have an  insufficient grasp of proper usage.

So now they're curious about proper usage.

So then they are more likely to understand,  

accept the uses usage explanations  they find in the grammar.

So the whole thing is kind of  intertwined and, and certainly I,  

I, to me, I start speaking when I  have a certain level of vocabulary.

When I have enough words to say some  things and understand what's coming at me.

Grammar is something that's you go  back at over and over and over again.

You look at the rule, you  never master the grammar.

You look at the rule makes an impression on you,  

you forget it, you continue making the same  mistake, you go back to the grammar again.

So you can always go back to the grammar rules,  

but it's this whole idea that somehow  you're going to master the basics.

Now you've got the grammar nailed down,  now you can speak without mistakes.

That simply has not been my experience.

My experience has been that  grammar is sort of out there.

It's 510% of where you spend your time.

When you're curious, you look things up.

When I want to look up a  conjugation table, I go to Google.

I look up the conjugation table.

You can.

I have read just out of curiosity.

I've read books explaining English grammar.

I mean, the explanations about the use  of tenses make no make no sense to me.

As an English speaker, I can't  make sense of those explanations.

How does a non-english speaker make  any sense of those explanations?

I have no idea until you've had so much  experience with the language that those  

explanations relate to something  that you have already experienced,  

and then it's more or less explaining things  to you that you already know intuitively.

A very counter perspective than most  language learners probably expect,  

at least the ones that I work with  where the focus is so much on grammar.

So I really loved hearing your refreshing take  on that and your personal experience with that.

How about this one?

True or false?

Being nervous before speaking  is a sign that you're not ready,  

your levels too low, or you're  just not ready to start speaking.

I think being nervous is more a matter  of of your willingness to take risks.

So there are people whose level of English or  whatever language they're learning is terrible.

They're not nervous and they're terrible.

There are people who actually are quite good  in the language who are going to be nervous.

I don't think it's particularly important.

Obviously the less nervous you are, the better,  

because the fact of being  nervous is going to inhibit you.

You're going to have more trouble remembering,  

more trouble expressing yourself  because you're, you're kind of blocked.

I, I think perhaps people who  put too much emphasis on grammar  

are more nervous about this gets back to  Stephen Crashing and his effective filter.

They're more worried about whether  they're speaking correctly,  

whereas they should really  be just trying to find words.

You know, I, I looked up, there's this research  on when we get to where we have utterances,  

we're trying to say things in the language.

What is that process?

And apparently that process  consists of three things.

First of all, certain words will  pop out words that, that we know  

that what it means and we're comfortable  using and we throw the word out there.

We tried to find a way to use that  word in the discussion we're having.

The next thing that happens is we will try  out phrases, you know, constructions in the  

language that have worked before that we  know work and we throw those out there.

And then the third thing we have to do is we  have to suppress things that don't belong,  

which could be from our own language  or for another language that we know.

So that is the process and we just  have to expose ourselves to that.

Go ahead and do it, not worry about anything.

Whatever comes out will come out.

So I, I don't think that I don't think  being nervous per SE means that you are too.

It's too early or you shouldn't be or anything.

It's more your but, but, but my  advice is don't worry about it.

Things are going to come.

Things will pop out.

Words will come out, constructions will  come out and you will always leave the  

conversation saying to yourself,  Geez, I'm now I know that word.

I couldn't think of it during  the conversation because you are  

stressed and everyone is a little bit stressed.

You couldn't recollect, you  couldn't retrieve that word.

And once the conversation is over, no more stress.

You can remember the word.

All normal, all good.

And as language learners, we have to be willing  

to accept a significant level of uncertainty,  otherwise, you know, we'll never learn.

I don't know if that's a good good answer or  not, but I think the level of nervousness is  

not an indication of anything other  than your level of nervousness.

I think that was the perfect answer because it is.

Again, it's just such a different perspective.

The fact you're nervous is because  you're not willing to take risk.

And I'm sure everyone can agree or imagine  

themselves in that situation  and say, yeah, you're right.

I wasn't willing to risk being wrong or sounding  incorrect or feeling uncomfortable in that moment.

That was the issue.

I really love that.

Thank you for sharing that, Steve.

Now, I was on your channel and I saw you had a  

video on 6 habits that make you  a successful language learner.

So if you had to choose one habit from  that video, or any habit that my students  

can make a priority starting today, what  habit would you choose for my students?

No, I produce a video every week, so I can't  remember, but I, I think the most important again,  

so I don't know what I said there, but I  believe it's extremely important to find a  

way to enjoy the process of learning everything  that you can do to make the process enjoyable.

In other words, finding content of interest,  

speaking to people you like, listening  to content where you enjoy the voice.

Like right now, the Persian podcast  that I'm listening to, the person has  

a very nice voice and he's talking about  subjects that are great interest to me.

Very hard to learn the language  from content that's of no interest.

Or many, very often beginner books have narrators  that are very boring and whose voice is bored.

And so you know, that's not enjoyable.

So if you can find ways and do things you enjoy  doing, you know, whatever you enjoy doing.

You enjoy speaking to native speakers, fine.

You enjoy speaking to non-native  speakers, that's fine.

Do things that you enjoy doing.

Why?

Because we get back to the two  essential elements, attitude and time.

So if you're doing things that you enjoy doing,  

you're likely to be motivated and  you're likely to put in the time.

Well there you go, now you know what to do.

Everyone find the way that you enjoy  improving your English and learning  

English and make that your priority this week.

Now, Steve, can you please tell  everyone about Lync a little bit  

more and tell them how they can learn  more and connect with you as well?

OK, well, connecting with me, I have a YouTube  channel called Lingo Steve and I put a video  

out every week so people are welcome to go  there and or, and check my, you know videos  

in the past that I've done and, and where I  speak in different languages and so forth.

Lync is a language learning  platform that I started with  

my son Mark about 20 years ago and we  basically try to do several things there.

First of all, we sort of implement the sort of  

input based language approach of  that, Stephen Krasin explains.

That's not that we discourage  people from speaking.

In fact, we have tutors there.

And I once I get to a certain level, I  like to engage with tutors, as I said,  

but it's input based learning is something that  we can do wherever we want, anytime, anyplace.

We don't need a tutor to be doing those things.

And so we build ourselves up to where we can  

start engaging with tutors and  eventually talking to people.

So one, we sort of implement in an efficient way  input based learning with a lot of functionality  

and a lot of statistics that nudge you along  your goals, a record of what you achieved.

And the second thing is we  take advantage of the Internet.

We take advantage of digital text where you look  things up and we keep track of the words you know,  

we can access YouTube, Netflix, any digital  content on the web can be imported into links.

So we take advantage of the sort  of revolution that is the Internet  

and the amazing explosion of language  content that's available on the Internet.

And yet we introduce functionality that  helps you learn, you know, from this input.

But there are lots of sites where you can speak.

I mean, there we don't have any monopoly on on  sort of tutoring sites, but we feel it's quite  

an efficient way to to sort of optimize  that whole input based learning activity.

Link is lingq.com.

And of course, we welcome people and  we have 50 languages, 50 languages,  

and I think we're going to  launch Punjabi this month.

And there's a rumor that we're launching  Irish Gaelic around Saint Patrick's Day.

Oh wow OK well I will leave all the description.

I'll leave everything in the description.

So please to all my students follow  Steve his YouTube channel is amazing  

and also link is an awesome resource  so go check it out in the description.

Thank you Steve so much for being here.

It's been such a pleasure  having this conversation.

OK, Thank you.

Bye.

If you enjoyed this interview,  please say thanks, Steve.

Thanks, Steve.

Please say thanks Steve in  the comments and of course.

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