Early Successes Make a Big Difference in Learning a Language

Depending on what counts as knowing a language, I speak anything between 7 and 12 languages, namely:

• English, Polish, Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, French, Russian, and Persian well;
• Hungarian to a lesser extent; and
• Georgian, Armenian, Lithuanian, and Tibetan in the past, now mostly forgotten.

Besides this, I have some knowledge of classical languages (Latin, classical Chinese, and ancient Greek); one constructed language (Esperanto); and there are a couple more languages that I've had a smaller amount of exposure to (Turkish and Maltese).

I think that my experiences may be worth sharing to a general audience interested in education, and in teaching and learning languages in particular.

First, I recount my story. How did I get from bilingual child to adult polyglot? Secondly, I talk about my methods for learning, Finally, I share some lessons learned from my experiences.

This episode does not make use of references or scientific studies, but just relates my personal experience. It is a case study that gives a sense of what it feels like and how it works to learn numerous languages. I hope that you can take something useful from it.

Enjoy the episode.

music by http://www.podcastthemes.com