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I love learning foreign languages.
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In fact, I love it so much that I like
to learn a new language every two years,
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currently working on my eighth one.
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When people find that out about me,
they always ask me,
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"How do you do that? What's your secret?"
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And to be honest, for many years,
my answer would be,
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"I don't know. I simply
love learning languages."
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But people were never
happy with that answer.
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They wanted to know why they are spending
years trying to learn even one language,
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never achieving fluency,
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and here I come, learning
one language after another.
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They wanted to know
the secret of polyglots,
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people who speak a lot of languages.
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And that made me wonder, too,
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how do actually other polyglots do it?
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What do we have in common?
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And what is it that enables us
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to learn languages
so much faster than other people?
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I decided to meet other people
like me and find that out.
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The best place to meet a lot of polyglots
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is an event where hundreds
of language lovers
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meet in one place
to practice their languages.
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There are several such polyglot events
organized all around the world,
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and so I decided to go there
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and ask polyglots
about the methods that they use.
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And so I met Benny from Ireland,
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who told me that his method
is to start speaking from day one.
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He learns a few phrases
from a travel phrasebook
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and goes to meet native speakers
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and starts having conversations
with them right away.
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He doesn't mind making
even 200 mistakes a day,
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because that's how he learns,
based on the feedback.
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And the best thing is, he doesn't
even need to travel a lot today,
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because you can easily have
conversations with native speakers
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from the comfort of
your living room, using websites.
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I also met Lucas from Brazil
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who had a really interesting
method to learn Russian.
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He simply added a hundred random
Russian speakers on Skype as friends,
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and then he opened
a chat window with one of them
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and wrote "Hi" in Russian.
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And the person replied, "Hi, how are you?"
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Lucas copied this and put it
into a text window with another person,
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and the person replied,
"I'm fine, thank you, and how are you?"
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Lucas copied this
back to the first person,
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and in this way, he had two strangers
have a conversation with each other
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without knowing about it.
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(Laughter)
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And soon he would start typing himself,
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because he had so many
of these conversations
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that he figured out how
the Russian conversation usually starts.
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What an ingenious method, right?
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And then I met polyglots who always start
by imitating sounds of the language,
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and others who always learn the 500
most frequent words of the language,
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and yet others who always start
by reading about the grammar.
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If I asked a hundred different polyglots,
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I heard a hundred different
approaches to learning languages.
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Everybody seems to have a unique way
they learn a language,
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and yet we all come to the same result
of speaking several languages fluently.
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And as I was listening to these polyglots
telling me about their methods,
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it suddenly dawned on me:
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the one thing we all have in common
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is that we simply found ways to enjoy
the language-learning process.
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All of these polyglots
were talking about language learning
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as if it was great fun.
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You should have seen their faces
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when they were showing me
their colorful grammar charts
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and their carefully handmade flash cards,
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and their statistics
about learning vocabulary using apps,
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or even how they love to cook
based on recipes in a foreign language.
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All of them use different methods,
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but they always make sure
it's something that they personally enjoy.
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I realized that this is actually
how I learn languages myself.
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When I was learning Spanish,
I was bored with the text in the textbook.
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I mean, who wants to read about Jose
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asking about the directions
to the train station. Right?
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I wanted to read "Harry Potter" instead,
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because that was
my favorite book as a child,
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and I have read it many times.
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So I got the Spanish translation
of "Harry Potter" and started reading,
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and sure enough, I didn't understand
almost anything at the beginning,
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but I kept on reading
because I loved the book,
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and by the end of the book, I was able
to follow it almost without any problems.
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And the same thing happened
when I was learning German.
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I decided to watch "Friends,"
my favorite sitcom, in German,
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and again, at the beginning
it was all just gibberish.
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I didn't know where one word finished
and another one started,
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but I kept on watching every day
because it's "Friends."
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I can watch it in any language.
I love it so much.
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And after the second or third season,
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seriously, the dialogue
started to make sense.
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I only realized this
after meeting other polyglots.
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We are no geniuses
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and we have no shortcut
to learning languages.
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We simply found ways
how to enjoy the process,
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how to turn language learning
from a boring school subject
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into a pleasant activity
which you don't mind doing every day.
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If you don't like writing
words down on paper,
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you can always type them in an app.
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If you don't like listening
to boring textbook material,
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find interesting content on YouTube
or in podcasts for any language.
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If you're a more introverted person
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and you can't imagine speaking
to native speakers right away,
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you can apply the method of self-talk.
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You can talk to yourself
in the comfort of your room,
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describing your plans for the weekend,
how your day has been,
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or even take a random
picture from your phone
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and describe the picture
to your imaginary friend.
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This is how polyglots learn languages,
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and the best news is,
it's available to anyone
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who is willing to take the learning
into their own hands.
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So meeting other polyglots
helped me realize
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that it is really crucial
to find enjoyment
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in the process of learning languages,
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but also that joy in itself is not enough.
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If you want to achieve fluency
in a foreign language,
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you'll also need to apply
three more principles.
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First of all, you'll need
effective methods.
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If you try to memorize a list of words
for a test tomorrow,
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the words will be stored
in your short-term memory
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and you'll forget them after a few days.
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If you, however,
want to keep words long term,
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you need to revise them
in the course of a few days repeatedly
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using the so-called space repetition.
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You can use apps which are based
on this system such as Anki or Memrise,
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or you can write lists of word
in a notebook using the Goldlist method,
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which is also very popular
with many polyglots.
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If you're not sure which methods are
effective and what is available out there,
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just check out polyglots'
YouTube channels and websites
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and get inspiration from them.
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If it works for them,
it will most probably work for you too.
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The third principle to follow
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is to create a system in your learning.
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We're all very busy and no one
really has time to learn a language today.
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But we can create that time
if we just plan a bit ahead.
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Can you wake up 15 minutes earlier
than you normally do?
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That would be the perfect time
to revise some vocabulary.
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Can you listen to a podcast
on your way to work while driving?
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Well, that would be great
to get some listening experience.
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There are so many things we can do
without even planning that extra time,
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such as listening to podcasts
on our way to work
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or doing our household chores.
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The important thing is
to create a plan in the learning.
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"I will practice speaking
every Tuesday and Thursday
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with a friend for 20 minutes.
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I will listen to a YouTube video
while having breakfast."
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If you create a system in your learning,
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you don't need to find that extra time,
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because it will become
a part of your everyday life.
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And finally, if you want to learn
a language fluently,
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you need also a bit of patience.
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It's not possible to learn
a language within two months,
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but it's definitely possible to make
a visible improvement in two months,
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if you learn in small chunks every day
in a way that you enjoy.
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And there is nothing
that motivates us more
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than our own success.
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I vividly remember the moment
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when I understood the first joke
in German when watching "Friends."
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I was so happy and motivated
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that I just kept on watching that day
two more episodes,
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and as I kept watching,
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I had more and more of those moments
of understanding, these little victories,
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and step by step, I got to a level
where I could use the language
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freely and fluently to express anything.
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This is a wonderful feeling.
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I can't get enough of that feeling,
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and that's why I learn
a language every two years.
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So this is the whole polyglot secret.
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Find effective methods
which you can use systematically
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over the period of some time
in a way which you enjoy,
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and this is how polyglots learn
languages within months, not years.
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Now, some of you may be thinking,
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"That's all very nice
to enjoy language learning,
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but isn't the real secret
that you polyglots
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are just super talented
and most of us aren't?"
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Well, there's one thing
I haven't told you about Benny and Lucas.
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Benny had 11 years of Irish Gaelic
and five years of German at school.
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He couldn't speak them
at all when graduating.
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Up to the age of 21, he thought
he didn't have the language gene
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and he could not speak another language.
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Then he started to look
for his way of learning languages,
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which was speaking to native speakers
and getting feedback from them,
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and today Benny can easily
have a conversation in 10 languages.
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Lucas tried to learn English
at school for 10 years.
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He was one of the worst students in class.
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His friends even made fun of him
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and gave him a Russian textbook as a joke
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because they thought he would never
learn that language, or any language.
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And then Lucas started
to experiment with methods,
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looking for his own way to learn,
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for example, by having Skype chat
conversations with strangers.
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And after just 10 years,
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Lucas is able to speak
11 languages fluently.
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Does that sound like a miracle?
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Well, I see such miracles
every single day.
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As a language mentor,
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I help people learn
languages by themselves,
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and I see this every day.
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People struggle with language learning
for five, 10, even 20 years,
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and then they suddenly take
their learning into their own hands,
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start using materials which they enjoy,
more effective methods,
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or they start tracking their learning
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so that they can appreciate
their own progress,
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and that's when suddenly
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they magically find the language talent
that they were missing all their lives.
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So if you've also tried
to learn a language
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and you gave up,
thinking it's too difficult
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or you don't have the language talent,
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give it another try.
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Maybe you're also
just one enjoyable method away
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from learning that language fluently.
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Maybe you're just one method away
from becoming a polyglot.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)
