“Language Secrets From a Linguistic Junkie” – Episode 1 Part 2 This is the second part of the first of my personal video posts. This episode is divided into 2 Parts / 2 separate clips. for a full review see blog entry: stujay.blogspot.com I’ve tried to answer some of the many questions that have been sent to me in emails and messages since I posted my first clip on Youtube in 2007. I thought to make it interesting, I’ve tried to choose several different languages to respond to (subtitled in English). Questions include: What separates languages – politic or linguistic differences? What’s the history behind some of your languages? What’s the most difficult language? What are some secrets to learning new languages? How do I get motivated to learn languages? I’ve chosen languages that I’m at different competency levels in – and as you can see, it shows! Some of them I hadn’t used for a long time – just putting this clip together was great to get the linguistic juices flowing again in some of my dormant languages. I also used as a personal challenge for the first time in public Vietnamese. I put this post public to set a bar for myself – so hopefully in a few months time, my Vietnamese will be much more fluent than what you see in this clip. I’ll keep you updated on my progress! Languages that I speak in or about in this episode include: English Bahasa Indonesia Javanese Bahasa Melayu Japanese Chinese – Mandarin Danish language linguistics motivation polyglot thai mandarin ….
Join the Conversation
Leave a comment
It’s amazing how a new language finally clicks —– it’s like your brain has been working on it in the background and presto.
Wow, simply amazing 🙂 The only language I understood was Japanese, but you can speak a lot of languages which is really impressive. I could see why you gave 1 star for your Japanese, but that doesn’t make it any less impressive! You have a talent, I’m envious. ^^ Have a nice day 🙂
i like ur spanish accent!
Stu,
Awesome! I was wondering, what is your opinion of Rosetta Stone? I think the approach is very logical.
you are very good speaking spanish but I have one advise for you: try to speak a little bit slow so you don’t commit mistakes like “yo tenia novia en chile por decir cuatros años” it’s better if you say “yo tuve novia en chile por 4 años?. I know you know it but yo made that mistake beacause you were speaking to fast. and tell me, How many lenguages do you speak?
greetins =)
You we’re given the gift of learning languages,not all of us have your Clarity.Sadly.
testing.
Hey stu!
I am fluent in English, Romanian, Russian and Danish (to some extent). I can also manage Chinese, and less, Japanese (around 3 years of learning, each). I can also pretty good understand German.
But I’m amazed about how much you can!!
Cool!!
I would reallyt appreciate if you’d tell me, what language do you think I should improve? Which language do you think is important to know?
Hey Rebecca… wow, that’s wild – you speak Arrente!
I am always learning languages simultaneously… I find synergies by finding memory points between the new languages… short circuiting English.
As far as maintaing fluency – it’s a matter of creating an environment around you that keeps you using it! – Facebook is great for that 🙂
Hey Stu,
You’re amazing and inspirational! I’m currently brushing up on Indonesian just for the fun of it, maintaining my Arrernte (a Central Australian Aboriginal language that I use in my work) and I’m going to start learning Hindi next year. Now thinking about reactivating my high school German.
My questions are: What methods do you use to maintain fluency in the many languages you speak? And: do you ever attempt to learn more than one language at a time?
I woudl love to. I’ve actually just started looking into Turkish these couple of days – so it’s my first step toward Eastern(ish) Europe. The Baltic languages I feel are a missing link in the languages I have under my belt. A Turkish friend of mine is fluent in Russian – I might look at trying to learn both at the same time from him.
hey Stu, while I’m having insomnia I’m surfing the web and watching some videos, but when I found yours, I was amazed with your so big interest in languages 🙂 as Lithuanian I speak English, Russian, almost fluently, I also was trying to learned Finnish and French, but I gave up learning French it’s too tough for me though.
> are you thinking to get a closer look to Baltic languages ? for example Lithuanian or Latvian ? they r so similar 🙂
>
take care thanks for the answer.
I would love to – I’ve dabbled with Portuguese… Just a matter of time i guess
Hej Stu! Great videos and impressive language skills! I just had a quick question. Would you consider adding French or Portuguese to your collection?
I’ve heard you’re pretty much fluent in Thai.
I’d love to get into German … Back when i was right into the scandinavian languages, It was always on the cards, but over the year other ‘motivations’ for other languages came about and German slipped by the wayside. I’m sure it’s not too late though!
I’m surprised that after studying three Scandinavian languages, you haven’t tried to tackle German! I’m sure you could probably read it already without a problem.
Great videos, keep it up!
It truly is!
as someone learning tieng viet as a second language, i was wondering if you would say vietnamese is the hardest language to pronounce?
*cuando yo era estudiante
* durante 4 años
* y no tengo muchas oportunidades
*y trabajando para miss universo.
good job! 😀
This guy is a god damn ‘leviathan’ of knowledge. Truly inspiring, actually. Really makes me think how lazy i am when it comes to taking my language learning more seriously. Took me almost 2 years to become ‘semi- proficient’ in spanish.
I think we should all hold this guy in massively high regard, promote him to some high position of authority, something like that…
Whenever I see Stuart or Luca or this bald dude on youtube it motivates me to put more effort into learning all the languages. Been a lazzy bugger for a month or two.
Keep up the work guys, this is truly inspiring
me too…
I’m also a polyglot (10 lang.) and I like seeing people with the same passion for languages 🙂
What impresses me the most about your language skills is that it seems you have less difficulties speaking a language than writing it. It feels like you didn’t learn from books, but rather by talking & hearing. Looks like travelling a lot and meeting new people is the key, right?
I often find myself having difficulties while speaking a foreign language, while writing & reading is no problem at all.
well, italian isn’t easy, but… you must try harder! (i’m from italy)