my story starts in Moscow I was 15 years
old
my best friend and I we were part of a
group of Westerners visiting the Soviet
Union this was in 1987 a few years
before the fall of the communist regime
we were given an official tour guide who
was assigned to us and the tour would
start in the morning and we were checked
into our hotel rooms for the night my
friend said to me let’s go outside and
look at the city I thought it was a
great idea dumb idea so have we grabbed
our coats and we snuck out past security
and into the street we found the
entrance to the metro the Moscow
underground transportation system is the
the deepest one in the world the ride
down the escalator took a full minute
once we were down there my friend had it
right to an open train and I pulled him
back I said wait let’s write down the
name of the station so we can find our
way back so I had a notepad and I took a
notepad and I wrote down the letters of
the station and we hopped on the train
and went some train hopping and that was
fun because well actually it was weird
there were a lot of people they probably
all coming home from work and they were
all dressed in brown and gray clothes
and it looked very very different from
what we were used to at home but the
station’s were lovely there were
stations with statues with paintings on
the wall and and and glass displays and
there was really like museums we would
never have expected that and everything
was perfectly clean well what was weird
though is that the people nobody seemed
to speak and everyone seemed to be
looking at us and it kind of weirded us
out so after about 20-30 minutes we have
we’ve had it we had enough and we wanted
to go home I showed them I know to to
someone and they directed me over there
and then over there I showed my note to
another person and they directed us to
the other way and then a third person
directed a sideways that was a little
confusing Wow then I saw it over the
stairs this
turned out I had written down the
Russian word for exit so we headed
upstairs and we we found a taxi that
were that was great and told the driver
you know in tourist hotel and then he
was willing to take us and I remember
sitting next to the driver handing him
fifty rubles and he looked at me and he
said yep dolar fifty dollars that was
like I don’t know 20 times that amount
or something that was not an option for
us so we had to get out of the taxi and
he drove away leaving us standing there
was cold night and you know everything
was strange for us and we were teenagers
and we’re pretty nervous didn’t know
what to do well we started walking we
walked to the end of the block we turned
the corner and 200 yards in front of us
the interest hotel
well this experience affected me in two
ways the first is that any time after
this trip that I hear word would hear
anyone speak Russian I would just cringe
and the second one is that it taught me
the importance of understanding the
local language when you’re traveling and
it actually led to me learning another
four languages fluently over the
following years now before I go on I’d
like to know in the audience can we have
a little bit of light maybe in the
audience just like to know who’s by show
of hands who is not a native English
speaker that must be 99% anyone who
doesn’t speak English stand up alright
so I can assume all of you have you know
gone through the process of learning and
language anybody who speaks three or
more languages
wow that is maybe 70% four or more
languages anyone that’s still quite a
bit anyone speak five or more languages
Wow
come see me in during the break
all right well to me learning a language
is for me it’s like it’s like a deck of
playing cards lying face down on the
table as you start learning and
understanding the cards start opening up
for you now
there’s no standard way of classifying
this but as you learn you reach certain
milestones and the first one would be
when about 25% of the cards are turned
up you reach like a basic level at this
level you have a base vocabulary some
grammar and you’re able to have maybe
very simple conversations and
communicate a little bit and your study
goes on until you reach this magical
point of fluency what we call being
fluent in a language now what does this
mean being fluent in a language it means
that you’ve turned up more than 50% of
the cards in the deck and that is the
point where you have where the language
becomes part of your subconscious so
that even if you don’t use it anymore
for 10 years or longer you will not
forget it you can go get back into it
within a very very short time so this is
this is a level where you’re comfortable
thinking in the language and comfortable
communicating in the language now some
people go on and you know reach like a
mastery level by that time you know
classic literature in the other language
and have maybe an in-depth knowledge of
specialized fields that’s often the
point taken in academia for me when I
learned my first foreign language I had
a had a head start
because well I was born to a
german-speaking mother and an American
father now when I was a baby I didn’t
really understand that what my parents
were speaking to me were two separate
languages but by the time I was two
years old I had figured it all out women
speak only German
men only speak English imagine the fun
my parents had when they introduced me
to couples well being a bilingual was
actually pretty helpful in learning my
first language definitely helped if
you’re but it also gave me something
else
it gave me two identities and the
ability to switch between them when
you’re a native speaker of more than one
language
then you’re your personality your humor
your your value system they change as
you switch languages this can have huge
advantages
I mean it’s some studies have shown like
an increased problem-solving ability or
even a higher resistance to Alzheimer’s
disease but what I’m most interested in
is that it’s actually given me a lot of
social benefits when you’re a native
speaker or and then you you feel at home
among native speakers among in a culture
and also native speakers accept you as
one of theirs now is this only relevant
to native speakers and that’s the big
question but wouldn’t it be cool if a
person learning a foreign language could
actually develop and another identity
and actually enjoy the social benefits
of a native speaker that go beyond
communication skills well that’s what
happened to me I was able to do that and
I want to show you from my experience
how I think this can be achieved so if
we say this green area here is the level
of the native speaker the first thing to
note is that on your way to reaching
fluency there is not really any shortcut
there are some methods that you can use
such as the Peter Principle where you
identify the 20% of the most effective
material to study there are some apps
like stuff or time spaced learning that
increased vocabulary retention they save
a little time but in the end there’s no
way around working with the material
practicing it until you reach the
fluency level but the second thing to
note is that going from fluency to
mastery is a much slower process and it
requires proportionally more effort and
that’s why most people they just stopped
at fluency they know how to speak
English good enough and they don’t even
attempt to venture on and I can
understand it but the good news is to
get the benefits of a native speaker at
a native speaker level you don’t have to
reach go through mastery in the academic
sense in fact you can skip this step
altogether so if you think about it
there are many native speakers who do
not have an in-depth knowledge of
specialized fields or a sophisticated
vocabulary so that’s not really what is
required so how do you do it what is
required well I want to give you three
areas to focus on when you’re learning
and interacting with native speakers
the first is work on eliminating your
accent I’m aware I said eliminating it
should be at least minimizing it this is
in my opinion the most overlooked aspect
of language learning today but it’s also
the most important one to reach what I
call a native speaker level or a speaker
like level if you communicate without an
accent or almost without an accent this
changes how natives behave towards you
unconsciously and it also gives you an
ability to to adapt a new self-image the
best way that I found the best exercise
I have found to improve your
pronunciation is what I call the perfect
sentence technique what you do is you
find a native speaker to help you and
you take a book in the foreign language
you open it at a random page and you
read the first sentence then you ask the
native speaker to rate you on obvious
accent slight accent no accent
then the native speaker will read this
this sentence back to you you have to
listen carefully and then you repeat and
you repeat this process over and over
until the native speaker tells you that
you can no longer hear an accent when
you read the sentence now I realize it
can take a very long time even just to
get one sentence right but I promise you
if you are persistent and if you
patiently work on this you will be
amazed what happens to your accent
the second area to focus on is using
verbs and expressions that locals use
now we all know the situation that in
vocabulary can be region specific like
in the USU you stand in line and the UK
UQ that’s that’s all good but sometimes
the the spoken word is so different the
speech is so different from from what
you get in textbooks that the books are
almost useless if you want to converse
with natives I want to give you an
example in the French language there are
words like Luke Hawaii which is my work
a French person talking to his friend
would probably say Mon bulu which is a
completely different word the same for
the clothes I live at the mall but you
will hear Li Frank more money is lavish
all but people say little freak Lee su
or or many other expressions for this
so obviously I’m only scratching the
surface here but here you actually have
to learn all of these words and
expressions one by one and of course you
have to interact with natives to do that
but after you reach a critical mass that
you are comfortable with it’ll actually
be easier when you encounter something
new you’ll just pick it up in one go
like like native speakers would who hear
words that there are expressions they
didn’t know before the third area to
work on is adopting cultural traits what
do I mean by that so let me ask you what
does this mean this gesture mean to you
any Italians here
okay now depending on what culture
you’re from this could mean something
rude or it could just mean it’s
something incredulous like why did you
do that
or or how could you or it could just be
signaling food give me food interesting
in the Middle East this is just a
standard way of signaling please wait so
these kind of traits you have to
internalize and you have to and
sometimes they’re hard to spot and it
takes a lot of active listening I want
to give you a few more examples so
imagine I’m with three of my friends an
American a German and a Frenchman and
like we’re walking and maybe the
American bumps his head and his initial
reaction might be ouch
that’s how you say it in English but the
German that you know gets I don’t know
elbowed in the crowd he would say oh ah
and the French person might step on a
nail and say so this of course in your
target language this is something you
have to observe and also internalize and
it has to become part of you if again
with I’m with these three friends and I
sit with them and let’s say I serve them
tea and I asked the American would you
like a you know a biscuit with your with
your tea and if he answers in the
affirmative you might say uh-huh and I
can ask the German do you know what tea
this is and I’ll say mm-hmm and then
yeah and I asked of the Frenchman and
you like this and you’ll say hmm so you
notice these so these differences they
really require active listening so all
of these all of these three things that
I told you which is pronunciation and
and and colloquial speech and adopting
these cultural traits they all require
that you interact with natives as much
as possible ideally you should fully
immerse yourself in the culture now if
you have the chance to live abroad for a
while that will be great or maybe live
among natives in your hometown
perhaps just have a romantic
relationship or even just spend times
with you know with coworkers romantic
relationships I could do a whole talk
about that
that’s really that works really well for
these things but yeah so this will be
different for everybody of course but
even when you’re not around natives
you’re learning must not stop because
what you can do you can watch TV shows
and films you can mimic the characters
you can write down anything that you
haven’t heard of before
and practice that I also want to
encourage you to to learn the lyrics of
songs songs are really great because
they tell stories and they don’t not
only help your pronunciation when you
sing them but they also if they’re
emotional they can anchor these
expressions into your active vocabulary
and it’s like speaking all day and
really using these expressions
unconsciously it’s a it’s a great way so
music definitely and the other thing you
need to move towards native speaker
status is the right mindset and and a
belief that if you sound like a native
express yourself like a native talk like
a native and act like a native you will
actually achieve a native like level so
if I could only leave you with one thing
today it would be work on your
pronunciation because pronunciation
helps any stage of the learning process
even in the very beginning it will speed
up everything and it also is the key to
reaching a native speaker level or
almost native speaker status so before I
go I’d like to tell you how I was able
to overcome my fear of the Russian
language it was a very very elegant
solution
I married a Russian girl and I now have
little kids in my home that speak
Russian to me every day so I want to
thank you
and before I go I just want to wish you
mucho éxito con su studios they do mas
sit down please l-dopa Santiago vu at
the Volusia be an email hell FM bobberts
Lahaie Malema deem a dank was a result
she helped good luck to you all
and spasiba
[Applause]
old
my best friend and I we were part of a
group of Westerners visiting the Soviet
Union this was in 1987 a few years
before the fall of the communist regime
we were given an official tour guide who
was assigned to us and the tour would
start in the morning and we were checked
into our hotel rooms for the night my
friend said to me let’s go outside and
look at the city I thought it was a
great idea dumb idea so have we grabbed
our coats and we snuck out past security
and into the street we found the
entrance to the metro the Moscow
underground transportation system is the
the deepest one in the world the ride
down the escalator took a full minute
once we were down there my friend had it
right to an open train and I pulled him
back I said wait let’s write down the
name of the station so we can find our
way back so I had a notepad and I took a
notepad and I wrote down the letters of
the station and we hopped on the train
and went some train hopping and that was
fun because well actually it was weird
there were a lot of people they probably
all coming home from work and they were
all dressed in brown and gray clothes
and it looked very very different from
what we were used to at home but the
station’s were lovely there were
stations with statues with paintings on
the wall and and and glass displays and
there was really like museums we would
never have expected that and everything
was perfectly clean well what was weird
though is that the people nobody seemed
to speak and everyone seemed to be
looking at us and it kind of weirded us
out so after about 20-30 minutes we have
we’ve had it we had enough and we wanted
to go home I showed them I know to to
someone and they directed me over there
and then over there I showed my note to
another person and they directed us to
the other way and then a third person
directed a sideways that was a little
confusing Wow then I saw it over the
stairs this
turned out I had written down the
Russian word for exit so we headed
upstairs and we we found a taxi that
were that was great and told the driver
you know in tourist hotel and then he
was willing to take us and I remember
sitting next to the driver handing him
fifty rubles and he looked at me and he
said yep dolar fifty dollars that was
like I don’t know 20 times that amount
or something that was not an option for
us so we had to get out of the taxi and
he drove away leaving us standing there
was cold night and you know everything
was strange for us and we were teenagers
and we’re pretty nervous didn’t know
what to do well we started walking we
walked to the end of the block we turned
the corner and 200 yards in front of us
the interest hotel
well this experience affected me in two
ways the first is that any time after
this trip that I hear word would hear
anyone speak Russian I would just cringe
and the second one is that it taught me
the importance of understanding the
local language when you’re traveling and
it actually led to me learning another
four languages fluently over the
following years now before I go on I’d
like to know in the audience can we have
a little bit of light maybe in the
audience just like to know who’s by show
of hands who is not a native English
speaker that must be 99% anyone who
doesn’t speak English stand up alright
so I can assume all of you have you know
gone through the process of learning and
language anybody who speaks three or
more languages
wow that is maybe 70% four or more
languages anyone that’s still quite a
bit anyone speak five or more languages
Wow
come see me in during the break
all right well to me learning a language
is for me it’s like it’s like a deck of
playing cards lying face down on the
table as you start learning and
understanding the cards start opening up
for you now
there’s no standard way of classifying
this but as you learn you reach certain
milestones and the first one would be
when about 25% of the cards are turned
up you reach like a basic level at this
level you have a base vocabulary some
grammar and you’re able to have maybe
very simple conversations and
communicate a little bit and your study
goes on until you reach this magical
point of fluency what we call being
fluent in a language now what does this
mean being fluent in a language it means
that you’ve turned up more than 50% of
the cards in the deck and that is the
point where you have where the language
becomes part of your subconscious so
that even if you don’t use it anymore
for 10 years or longer you will not
forget it you can go get back into it
within a very very short time so this is
this is a level where you’re comfortable
thinking in the language and comfortable
communicating in the language now some
people go on and you know reach like a
mastery level by that time you know
classic literature in the other language
and have maybe an in-depth knowledge of
specialized fields that’s often the
point taken in academia for me when I
learned my first foreign language I had
a had a head start
because well I was born to a
german-speaking mother and an American
father now when I was a baby I didn’t
really understand that what my parents
were speaking to me were two separate
languages but by the time I was two
years old I had figured it all out women
speak only German
men only speak English imagine the fun
my parents had when they introduced me
to couples well being a bilingual was
actually pretty helpful in learning my
first language definitely helped if
you’re but it also gave me something
else
it gave me two identities and the
ability to switch between them when
you’re a native speaker of more than one
language
then you’re your personality your humor
your your value system they change as
you switch languages this can have huge
advantages
I mean it’s some studies have shown like
an increased problem-solving ability or
even a higher resistance to Alzheimer’s
disease but what I’m most interested in
is that it’s actually given me a lot of
social benefits when you’re a native
speaker or and then you you feel at home
among native speakers among in a culture
and also native speakers accept you as
one of theirs now is this only relevant
to native speakers and that’s the big
question but wouldn’t it be cool if a
person learning a foreign language could
actually develop and another identity
and actually enjoy the social benefits
of a native speaker that go beyond
communication skills well that’s what
happened to me I was able to do that and
I want to show you from my experience
how I think this can be achieved so if
we say this green area here is the level
of the native speaker the first thing to
note is that on your way to reaching
fluency there is not really any shortcut
there are some methods that you can use
such as the Peter Principle where you
identify the 20% of the most effective
material to study there are some apps
like stuff or time spaced learning that
increased vocabulary retention they save
a little time but in the end there’s no
way around working with the material
practicing it until you reach the
fluency level but the second thing to
note is that going from fluency to
mastery is a much slower process and it
requires proportionally more effort and
that’s why most people they just stopped
at fluency they know how to speak
English good enough and they don’t even
attempt to venture on and I can
understand it but the good news is to
get the benefits of a native speaker at
a native speaker level you don’t have to
reach go through mastery in the academic
sense in fact you can skip this step
altogether so if you think about it
there are many native speakers who do
not have an in-depth knowledge of
specialized fields or a sophisticated
vocabulary so that’s not really what is
required so how do you do it what is
required well I want to give you three
areas to focus on when you’re learning
and interacting with native speakers
the first is work on eliminating your
accent I’m aware I said eliminating it
should be at least minimizing it this is
in my opinion the most overlooked aspect
of language learning today but it’s also
the most important one to reach what I
call a native speaker level or a speaker
like level if you communicate without an
accent or almost without an accent this
changes how natives behave towards you
unconsciously and it also gives you an
ability to to adapt a new self-image the
best way that I found the best exercise
I have found to improve your
pronunciation is what I call the perfect
sentence technique what you do is you
find a native speaker to help you and
you take a book in the foreign language
you open it at a random page and you
read the first sentence then you ask the
native speaker to rate you on obvious
accent slight accent no accent
then the native speaker will read this
this sentence back to you you have to
listen carefully and then you repeat and
you repeat this process over and over
until the native speaker tells you that
you can no longer hear an accent when
you read the sentence now I realize it
can take a very long time even just to
get one sentence right but I promise you
if you are persistent and if you
patiently work on this you will be
amazed what happens to your accent
the second area to focus on is using
verbs and expressions that locals use
now we all know the situation that in
vocabulary can be region specific like
in the USU you stand in line and the UK
UQ that’s that’s all good but sometimes
the the spoken word is so different the
speech is so different from from what
you get in textbooks that the books are
almost useless if you want to converse
with natives I want to give you an
example in the French language there are
words like Luke Hawaii which is my work
a French person talking to his friend
would probably say Mon bulu which is a
completely different word the same for
the clothes I live at the mall but you
will hear Li Frank more money is lavish
all but people say little freak Lee su
or or many other expressions for this
so obviously I’m only scratching the
surface here but here you actually have
to learn all of these words and
expressions one by one and of course you
have to interact with natives to do that
but after you reach a critical mass that
you are comfortable with it’ll actually
be easier when you encounter something
new you’ll just pick it up in one go
like like native speakers would who hear
words that there are expressions they
didn’t know before the third area to
work on is adopting cultural traits what
do I mean by that so let me ask you what
does this mean this gesture mean to you
any Italians here
okay now depending on what culture
you’re from this could mean something
rude or it could just mean it’s
something incredulous like why did you
do that
or or how could you or it could just be
signaling food give me food interesting
in the Middle East this is just a
standard way of signaling please wait so
these kind of traits you have to
internalize and you have to and
sometimes they’re hard to spot and it
takes a lot of active listening I want
to give you a few more examples so
imagine I’m with three of my friends an
American a German and a Frenchman and
like we’re walking and maybe the
American bumps his head and his initial
reaction might be ouch
that’s how you say it in English but the
German that you know gets I don’t know
elbowed in the crowd he would say oh ah
and the French person might step on a
nail and say so this of course in your
target language this is something you
have to observe and also internalize and
it has to become part of you if again
with I’m with these three friends and I
sit with them and let’s say I serve them
tea and I asked the American would you
like a you know a biscuit with your with
your tea and if he answers in the
affirmative you might say uh-huh and I
can ask the German do you know what tea
this is and I’ll say mm-hmm and then
yeah and I asked of the Frenchman and
you like this and you’ll say hmm so you
notice these so these differences they
really require active listening so all
of these all of these three things that
I told you which is pronunciation and
and and colloquial speech and adopting
these cultural traits they all require
that you interact with natives as much
as possible ideally you should fully
immerse yourself in the culture now if
you have the chance to live abroad for a
while that will be great or maybe live
among natives in your hometown
perhaps just have a romantic
relationship or even just spend times
with you know with coworkers romantic
relationships I could do a whole talk
about that
that’s really that works really well for
these things but yeah so this will be
different for everybody of course but
even when you’re not around natives
you’re learning must not stop because
what you can do you can watch TV shows
and films you can mimic the characters
you can write down anything that you
haven’t heard of before
and practice that I also want to
encourage you to to learn the lyrics of
songs songs are really great because
they tell stories and they don’t not
only help your pronunciation when you
sing them but they also if they’re
emotional they can anchor these
expressions into your active vocabulary
and it’s like speaking all day and
really using these expressions
unconsciously it’s a it’s a great way so
music definitely and the other thing you
need to move towards native speaker
status is the right mindset and and a
belief that if you sound like a native
express yourself like a native talk like
a native and act like a native you will
actually achieve a native like level so
if I could only leave you with one thing
today it would be work on your
pronunciation because pronunciation
helps any stage of the learning process
even in the very beginning it will speed
up everything and it also is the key to
reaching a native speaker level or
almost native speaker status so before I
go I’d like to tell you how I was able
to overcome my fear of the Russian
language it was a very very elegant
solution
I married a Russian girl and I now have
little kids in my home that speak
Russian to me every day so I want to
thank you
and before I go I just want to wish you
mucho éxito con su studios they do mas
sit down please l-dopa Santiago vu at
the Volusia be an email hell FM bobberts
Lahaie Malema deem a dank was a result
she helped good luck to you all
and spasiba
[Applause]
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