This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 1387 How to Never Forget a Language with polyglot Lydia Machova.
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Lidia Machova learns a new language every two years.
Today she comes on the show to share the secret of how to never forget a language and her four pillars for successfully learning a new language.
You don't want to miss her helpful advice today.
Today, we have a guest on the show named Lidia Machova, who speaks many, many languages.
She is a successful polyglot who is always learning languages and now is a language mentor who helps others do the same.
Lidia has also worked professionally as an interpreter and earned her PhD in translation studies.
She is an impressive and inspiring person and we are thrilled to have her on the show now.
Let's meet Lydia.
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Alright.
Hello, Lydia.
How are you?
Hi, Michelle.
Thank you.
I'm fine.
How are you?
I am great.
We are so excited to have you on at All Ears English.
Guys, Lydia is incredible.
She is absolutely incredible.
So Lydia, this is Lydia Makhova, and she is a polyglot, which means she knows a ton of languages.
And she is just amazing.
She is known around the world as a famous polyglot.
And she is famous because she learns a new language every day. two years.
Oh my goodness, Lydia, that is just incredible.
So we are so excited to have you on here today and we are going to get some really good tips from you.
So how's everything going?
How are you?
Well, first of all, thank you for such a nice introduction.
I'm really glad to be here as well.
I'm doing really well.
Thank you.
Coping with the whole Corona situation, being stuck at home, but I'm doing just fine.
That's right.
That's right.
Okay.
Well, we are happy to have you here.
So today, we are going to be talking about a couple of things.
We're going to start by focusing on this feeling of not knowing if you are going to forget a language, right.
So our listeners...
We might deal with something like getting rusty or being worried that if you don't use the language enough, you are just going to completely forget it.
And what are we going to do about that?
So Lydia, what do you have to say about this?
This feeling of, oh, maybe you're learning more than one language.
I know we have a lot of people who are learning more than one language.
And it can be stressful.
It can be stressful to have all of that in your head.
So Lydia, what is your advice on this situation?
How do you learn all those languages?
First of all, how many do you know, Lydia?
So I've learned nine languages so far and I keep seven of those on a fluent level, seven on a fluent level.
So yeah, I mean, first of all just tell us a little bit about yourself, and what do you do to avoid forgetting seven or eight languages.
Yeah.
Well, first of all, I want to say that I think it's totally normal that people forget languages or that they feel like they are maybe stuck on the beginner level for a very long time.
And I know, because I work with people who are trying to learn languages I know that so many of them um, just feel like they are trying to learn the language over and, over and over again and it never quite works out right.
And that's why people then think that, oh my god, maybe that's because i'm not talented, i don't have the language gene, i am just not uh, you know, the one who is supposed to learn a language or something, and that's nonsense.
I believe that this is because people don't really know the right way how to learn languages.
That's why they feel like they can never achieve success.
Okay.
So yeah, we're going to talk about that a little bit, right?
What is the right way to learn a language?
So I mean, as far as feeling comfortable that you're not going to forget a language, because I'm sure that this can cause a lot of anxiety.
What do we need to know to make sure that we don't forget something?
Yeah.
So there's a little trick actually.
Have you seen the movie Cast Away, Michelle?
I have.
That's with Tom Hanks and the volleyball.
Yeah, exactly.
I love that movie.
I think it really depicts this situation well, and it's a nice metaphor to explain how it works with language learning too.
So if you remember, Tom Hanks got stranded on an island and he was trying to get away, right?
And he built a little raft and his goal was to get away from the island.
But what happened, he tried it several times.
And what happened is that the waves would always drag him back towards the island.
There was a big wave further away from the island and he could never get over it, right?
Well, I think this is exactly what it's like when you're learning a language.
There are these small waves at the beginning and you are full of energy.
You start rowing your raft and you are not worried about anything and it works just fine and you are making progress and you're getting to the more intermediate level.
But then the big waves come, and if you don't row intensively enough and you don't get over that last wave, the moment you stop rowing, that means learning the language.
It will drag you back towards the island, right.
And that's why if people make a short break in their language learning, then they feel like they're back at the beginner level, because the waves drag them back.
Is that clear?
Is that understandable?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I think...
I think that you know, when we speak to our listeners, I feel like a lot of people feel like they are having trouble because they've reached this plateau and learning the language and they get to this place and then they just feel okay, I'm not learning.
So as you mentioned, you know, in the beginning, you feel like you're learning. a whole lot, right?
And then you kind of get stuck and we don't want people to feel stuck.
Yeah, absolutely.
So I think the very important thing here is to say that you need to make sure that you're learning.
Whatever you do with the language is, in some ways, fun for you.
And I know that for some people this might sound weird, like how is it possible to have fun learning a language?
But it's really, really crucial that you find methods which are fun for you.
And when you get to a plateau, you should change those methods, change those materials, not worry about the fact that you have already bought this book and you wanted to get to the end of it.
If you feel stuck, you should change those materials so that you can get over that last wave which, by the way, is the level of comfortable fluency, or for Europeans this is known as the B2 level.
I don't know if you're familiar with the levels that we use in Europe.
So the B2 level is, this is the level where you can use the language freely.
You can talk about almost anything.
You can read a book, watch a movie, talk to a native speaker.
It doesn't cost you much energy, right?
Because you can just use the language naturally.
And this is the level that all learners should strive for, in my opinion, because if you do not reach that level, that's the last wave.
The moment you stop learning, you will be dragged back towards the island.
That means you will get back to the beginner level.
So when I say that we should try to get over that last wave, what it actually means is that you should really make your learning intensive enough to get to the good intermediate or upper intermediate level.
And that's when you will not forget the language anymore.
Wow.
Okay.
That is a really good tip because to kind of have this goal and know this is the place where I need to be.
And I also love what you said about changing things, because I think, like you said it, if you get this book and you think I spent money on this or I was supposed to like this and it's not working, I feel like for me I would probably say well, I just have to keep pushing.
Yeah, I think many people feel like that.
And it doesn't make any sense because sometimes it actually happens to me quite often that I start using a method.
Like, I don't know if you've heard about the gold list method for learning vocabulary.
No. you know, an app or reading a book or watching a series or something.
And I love it and I enjoy it.
And it's the best method in the world.
And I love it.
And then some, sometimes it just happens one day I stopped loving it.
And the next day I need to force myself to work with that method and And the next day I'm like, oh my God, I don't want to work with this anymore.
I don't want to learn French or Spanish or whatever.
And it doesn't make any sense.
It's not rational.
But I think we should totally listen to this voice in our head which says okay, no more of the Harry Potter book or the Friends series or whatever you pick.
We should change to something else.
And that's when I start to look at other resources and I get a totally different book and I get a new wave of motivation and excitement for the language again.
And that's what we need to keep doing.
This is the rowing until we get to the last wave, right?
You need to keep the energy high.
Right, right, right.
Keep that energy.
So Lydia, you talk about, you know, four pillars of learning a language successfully.
So I just wanted to go through those a little bit with you.
I think we're touching on one for sure already.
So, so again, just what is that first one?
Yeah, so we just mentioned the first one, actually.
Number one is having fun.
You need to make sure that language learning is at least in some ways fun for you.
And this unfortunately means for many people that I mean people cannot imagine having fun if they have just had the typical school system type of learning.
So many people have had Spanish or German or French at school.
They don't speak it at all.
They feel like they haven't learned anything and it was terribly boring.
I think that the typical school method for most people is really not the best one, because it doesn't make it interesting for them to learn that language.
Okay, good.
So have a good time.
Find something that you enjoy.
Amazing.
And that's going to be how you learn.
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So what's the second thing?
Yeah, so the second is, we've actually touched upon that as well.
It's making your learning intensive.
And that's this energy you need to put into the learning.
No one has ever learned a language by, you know, playing...
Duolingo or something else for five minutes a day.
It just doesn't work like that.
It's not enough.
So if you want to learn a language, you need to make sure you put more energy into it, make it a bit more intensive.
But don't worry, this doesn't mean you need to spend hours and hours learning every day.
For me personally, it's totally enough if I spend one hour a day learning the language.
And that's when I learn a new language every two years.
I hardly ever learned for more than one hour a day.
But you need to make sure it's regular and it should be every day.
Even if it's 10, 15, 20 minutes, it should be every day.
And if you can keep it to one hour a day for at least half a year, you will definitely feel such a huge improvement that it will keep you motivated to go on learning.
Okay, excellent.
So I mean what?
If I mean when you say practicing, I mean it could be, you know, watching Friends, as you've mentioned, or reading Harry Potter, or whatever it is.
What if you don't have people around you who aren't speaking that language?
Oh, that's perfectly fine because we're living in the era of the internet.
That gives us so many possibilities to learn that actually today no one can use the excuse of oh, I don't have anyone to talk to, you know?
There are websites where you can talk to people even for free.
You can have a tandem, an exchange where you offer your language and someone else teaches you their language.
So you pay with your time, basically, these conversation classes, right?
Or you can even talk to yourself.
Self-talk is a very popular method for many polyglots because it enables you to practice anywhere in the world by yourself.
And it actually is very, very effective.
Yeah, I know.
I feel like I've told students before try talking to yourself a little bit before you know, just before bed or whatever.
And they always kind of laugh and it seems so silly.
But I mean, what do you do if you feel silly?
You just have to push through, right?
Yeah well, we are actually getting to the pillar number four with this, because I think it does feel silly for everyone if they try it for the first time.
I did feel silly as well.
So it's natural because we're not used to that and it feels weird, right?
It's like you're talking to this imaginary friend or something.
But it's really, really important because the only way to improve your speaking is to speak a lot.
And if you have a native speaker who wants to practice with you five hours a day, that's ideal and that's perfect.
Who has that, right?
I mean, even if you live with a native speaker of the language you're learning, no one wants to talk to a beginner for such a long time.
So you need to make up for the time.
You need to find that time to practice by yourself.
And well, if you just talk to yourself, you're still practicing.
Maybe no one is correcting your mistakes, but this is not so important.
Most of the time, you practice speaking.
Right, right, right.
Yeah, that's a really good point.
So yeah, so that fourth pillar is... Yeah, I forgot to mention that one.
So it's creating, having a system in your learning.
And just as you said to your students, try doing it.
You know now and then they will not do it because they miss a plan.
They don't have a system.
But if you tell them look guys, your task is to do this for five minutes, let's say right after you brush your teeth before going to bed, right?
Give it a special like input, something that will remind them of this new habit.
And then, when you do it, you can I don't know reward yourself with something like I don't know read two pages in your favorite book or something you know, something small.
If people create a system in their learning, for example, in this way, or they say whenever I go to work, I will listen to podcasts in the language or?
Whenever I have a lunch break, I will go through my vocabulary in an app for 10 minutes, something like that.
It's so much easier to keep to your long-term goals with the language.
Because otherwise, if you don't have that plan, you need to make that decision every single day.
It takes a lot of energy, this decision, energy to decide if you feel like talking to yourself or learning or reading something.
And let's face it, we don't feel like doing that most of the time.
So, in order to help ourselves get over those lazy days or just not feeling like learning something, if you create a plan, it's much, much simpler.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, absolutely.
I feel like yeah, for me, if I don't have a plan, I can just oh, maybe not today, maybe tomorrow, maybe next week.
Yeah, maybe I'll do it.
I'm going to pick it back up, but then...
It falls apart so quickly.
So I like this idea of just having this routine, having this habit, making it almost second nature to be doing this learning.
Yeah.
Wonderful.
Great.
So have we covered the four pillars, Lydia?
Yeah.
Yeah, no, actually just three of them.
We missed the number three.
I thought we missed one.
I heard a bunch of more.
We talked about them before the recording, so the listeners haven't heard that yet.
Number three is using effective methods.
And by this I mean basically asking yourself the simple question Are the things that I'm doing in this language helping me achieve the goals which I want to achieve?
And for many people this is I want to be able to speak French, so I will learn using this vocabulary app right.
And they don't practice speaking at all.
They just practice vocabulary.
They play around with it.
They match some expressions and that's it.
They don't practice speaking at all.
And then they are surprised if, after a few months of playing with this app, they are not able to speak the language.
Well, how could they?
This is not an effective method to get them to their goals right.
So if people want to be able to understand someone speaking in the language, they need to listen a lot, a lot, a lot.
Again, this is the second pillar.
This is intensive contact.
So basically, if we sum it up, this is you need to have fun, you need to have a lot of contact with the language, you need to use effective methods And you need to create a system or a plan in your learning.
And I believe that this is a universal plan or universal system.
If you can make these four things happen in your language learning, then whatever you do will work and will get you across that last wave.
Okay.
I love it.
So let's just go through them one more time.
So the four pillars are to have fun.
And the second one is?
Intensive contact.
Intensive contact.
That means learning every day, at least a little bit, ideally one hour.
All right, guys, you can do it.
You can definitely do it.
Just one hour.
You can do it.
All right.
And the third one. is effective methods.
Effective methods.
To give a few more examples.
This is, for example, talking to yourself can be an effective method, because it helps you improve your speaking skills right.
You can read a book and maybe write down a few new words which you encountered.
Let's say, on every page you will find two new expressions which you write down in your notebook.
You know yeah, something like that.
You can.
You can watch tv series.
That's an effective method.
You can learn vocabulary with a gold list method.
You can um, i don't know listen to podcasts right, that's a cool way of learning english.
So people can listen to your podcast.
I would say so.
And then the last one is having a system.
Having a plan, Having a system.
I love that.
These are four concrete pillars that our listeners can use to inspire them to continue learning, to get over that last wave, as you mentioned in your castaway analogy, which I absolutely love.
I feel like these are just so, so useful and, you know, I really love the idea of just having fun with it, being able to be honest with yourself when something isn't working and changing it, and not forcing yourself to do something that you don't like.
I feel like that is such a great takeaway for our listeners.
Yeah, I think it's very important.
That's the first pillar, actually.
That's the fun aspect, right?
Make sure it's fun all the time.
Exactly.
I love it.
So, before we get going guys Lydia, like I said, is a very inspiring person who has learned so many languages.
And Lydia, tell us, where can our listeners find you?
So my website, where I have a blog and talk about language learning in general, is languagementoringcom.
And also you can find us on Facebook and Instagram or YouTube.
Just type in languagementoring.com.
Okay, amazing.
So I'll say it one more time, languagementoring.com.
Guys, if you want to check out Lydia Machova, who has a lot of... Thank you.
Thank you.
Who has a lot of amazing, amazing stories, a lot of amazing information.
And she is a famous polyglot learning a new language every two years.
Thank you so much, Lydia, for coming on.
We really appreciate it.
And hopefully we can have you on again sometime soon.
Thank you, Michelle.
It was a great pleasure.
Thank you.
Bye.
Bye-bye.
Bye.
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