Category: Philosophy

Ultreya!

It has been said many times by a lot of polyglots around the world: “Languages have completely changed my life, how I see life, my life got better and better.”

Let’s say you want to win the lottery, and have already wasted hundreds of dollars trying to win it. If you keep doing that, it’s very likely that you’ll end up having spent thousands of dollars without any reward. Think about the fact that language learning is not that expensive. It can be expensive if you have to pay teachers, etc. But if you buy yourself a course, speak to friends, do tandems, use the internet, it’s almost free. And you can win the lottery by doing that.

What do I mean by winning the lottery? Well, instead of filling your wallet with money, you fill your brain with words. The things you’ll experience cannot be replaced by money.

Learn a language, or even two, three or more over the course of some years. A lot of people say that it’s possible to learn several languages at the same time. My suggestion would be to not learn more than two simultaneously.

What would you do if you had to learn five languages over the course of ten years? Would you start tackling every single one at once, or would you start with one, and then add a language every two years? I would go for the latter example because it makes more sense to me.

Choose a language. Make sure you like the sound of it. Make a list, write down 10 reasons why you want to learn this language. You should read them when you don’t feel like studying anymore. Start small. Spend more and more time with the language, and do it regularly. It’s better to do 30 minutes a day than to spend an entire Sunday studying your target language.

I can assure you, it will change your life. It will change your perspective, the way you see things. You’ll start to understand more and more things, and probably even get a better job with a better salary.

One final tip: the earlier you tackle difficulties, the easier it gets. The bigger the effort, the bigger the reward.

I wish you all good luck with your studies!

Hello dear readers!

As the title says, in this article I want to convince you that you can learn any language, even if it’s an extremely different language to your own native tongue. Do you believe me? If not, let me break it down for you.

I was born in Rome, Italy. After four months there, my parents decided to move back to Switzerland. Had I stayed there, I would have obviously learned Italian. Until now I cannot hold a conversation in Italian because I’ve never learned it. The same goes for any child born somewhere in the world. Let’s suppose you were born in Sevilla, Spain. After eight months in Spain, your parents got a job opportunity in Japan. They both grew up in Japan, speak fluent Japanese and now they move back there. At home in Japan, they’d only speak Japanese with you, so you’d lose your Spanish completely. Your brain would have adapted itself to the envirement, to the language that’s being spoken where you live, to the language that flows in and out of your head.

Do you get it? You can learn any language, you just need to expose yourself to it. It doesn’t matter how different the language might be to your native one. You can learn Vietnamese, Xhosa, Thai, Mongolian, Finnish, Somali, Zulu, really any language. There are no limits. You can learn whatever you want if you have the proper mindset. Attitude is altitude. Don’t let anybody set your limits. Someone’s opinion on you does not have to become your own reality. The only limits are those that you set yourself. Dream big, think big, but start small, that’s right, start small. Step by step, inch by inch, minute after minute.

I wrote an article a few months ago called ,,How attitude affects language learning”. Head over to the front page to find the post listed among others on the right.

Please tell me in the comments what language you’re going to learn now that you’ve read this article. A language that you thought was too difficult for you? A language that everybody says is impossible to learn and don’t even give it a shot? I want to know!

Happy language learning everybody! Greetings from Switzerland.

Hello everyone!
Today I want to write a little something about my opinion on who’s the greatest polyglot alive. Now, I think that language learning is not a competition. Sadly, there are some people who think that they’re competing with others, but in my opinion this is nonsense. Language learning, if you ask me, is about having fun and discovering a whole new culture, a whole new world through people we meet. There is no number one. However, there’s a lot of great polyglots I admire. They’re my inspirations and without a doubt each and everyone unique. They use different techniques as to how they learn their languages.

I would like to introduce you to the world of polyglots in this article. The order of the following polyglots is random and does not say anything about them.

1. LUCA LAMPARIELLO
2. FELIX WANG (loki2504)
3. STEVE KAUFMANN
4. OLLY RICHARDS
5. VLADIMIR SKULTETY
6. RICHARD SIMCOTT
7. ALEX RAWLINGS
8. ANTHONY LAUDER
9. MOSES MCCORMICK (loashu505000)
10. Tim Doner (Polyglot Pal)

They all speak at least 9 languages. In fact, Moses Mccormick claims to have studied over fifty. If I forgot you, that doesn’t mean that you’re not a great polyglot whatsoever. Each and everyone of us can be a polyglot. Those are all the polyglots that came to my mind that one can find on YouTube.
Now, choose a few and keep watching their videos. You’ll learn a lot! If you really want to, you can be the next hyperpolyglot, and maybe you’ll end up being listed or mentioned here one day.

Happy studying everyone! Have a nice day! 🙂

Hello everyone!

Your attitude towards language learning is absolutely paramount. If you don’t have the right attitude, things might get difficult, even though it is absolutely possible to learn the language.

In German, there’s a saying which literally translates into ”this seems like Spanish to me”, meaning that something is very difficult. If I had listened to all those people who say that, as a German native speaker, it is very difficult to learn Spanish, I would have never learned Spanish and never reached a B2/C1 Level.

Apply this little anecdote to your language learning. Let’s say you want to learn Hungarian, Polish, Japanese or Mandarin Chinese. All these languages are conceived as difficult. You need to get rid of rumors and assumptions. Change your perspective. Instead of saying: ”I’m not even going to try to tackle Mandarin Chinese Characters and sounds”, change your attitude. It takes more effort to learn Mandarin Chinese, it’s true, but absolutely doable. You can master the hardest languages in the world by changing your attitude and by not listening to the naysayers.

I wish you good luck with your studies and a wonderful day.
YOU CAN LIVE YOUR DREAM!