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Steve's Youtube Videos - General Language Learning, About Learning German and Other Subjects

About Learning German and Other Subjects

Hi there, Steve Kaufmann.

I hope the sound is louder. There were some complaints about the sound here. I want to talk today about learning German. This is part of the series that I've been doing where I speak in a language other than English and then follow that up with a discussion about learning that language. I've been doing that the last few weeks and, of course, I haven't been speaking much Spanish, German and now I'm going to do Italian next week.

Therefore, I wanted to refresh my knowledge of those languages before doing a video and so I spent three-four days or so prior to video on LingQ studying that language. I found podcasts. I was reading in the language. I had discussions with some of our LingQ tutors in the language and so forth. One of the interesting things is that the comments I've received from people who saw those videos or who spoke to me – our tutors – was that I had improved in those languages, even though I hadn't spoken them much.

This is a very interesting point because the fact that I've been working hard on other languages like Russian, Czech, Romanian and so forth, actually improves my ability to notice things in foreign languages. It improves my language-learning fitness and, therefore, with a little bit of effort I refresh my recently-neglected languages and bring them back to a level which is often higher than it was before.

I'm noticing this now in my Italian. That, in fact, I understand Italian better when I listen to audio or these podcasts that I find on the Net about history or politics. I understand them better than I did before, so just a little note for those of you who sometimes are afraid to leave one language for six months in order to study another. Yeah, you'll slip a bit, but eventually you'll become a better language learner. Now, insofar as German, my parents were born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire into a German-speaking Jewish community in Moravia, which subsequently became part of Czechoslovakia.

Therefore, they went to a Czech school and they spoke both German and Czech. In '39, they escaped to Sweden where I was born in 1945 and when I was five we moved to Canada. I have no recollection of transitioning from Swedish to English. At home my brother I spoke English with my parents. They told us we're in Canada now, you will speak English. My parents spoke German to each other.

We resented German. We resented hearing it. We resented everything having to do with Europe because my parents would always say that Canadians were lazy, Canada had no culture and so forth and everything European was good. They wanted us to make friends with the children of their European friends and those were the last people we wanted to make friends with. So there was this resistance to German. Now, things changed.

When I was 19, after two years at McGill University, I was working at a summer job on construction. Then I was laid off and I thought you know what, I think I'll go off to Europe. So I went down to the Port of Montreal and spent three days trying to see the captains of different ships in the port. On the third day, I found a captain of a German ship who had lost a sailor in Quebec City and said yeah, you can work your way across with us. So for 10 days I was on this small tramp steamer, which was just up and down across the Atlantic.

I was hammering away at rust and scraping and painting and that was the first time it actually meant something to me to try and say something in German. I had my little German book with the declensions of the nouns and the pronouns, it was just horrendous, but at least then German became meaningful to me briefly. Then I hitchhiked around Europe, including in Germany.

I usually stayed in youth hostels. I arrived, I think it was Böblingen, and it was pouring with rain, after 11:00 o'clock at night. I went to the local jail and asked if I could stay there and they accommodated me; very comfortable jail. Then I also worked two weeks on construction in Vienna where I spoke some German; although, most of the other workers were Turks. And that was it. Then I studied for three years in France; did nothing with German until 1987 when I was between jobs.

After my three years in France, I joined the Canadian Diplomatic Service, was sent to Hong Kong to learn Mandarin Chinese; subsequently, went to Japan. Then I left the embassy; went to work for a major Canadian forest products exporting company. So that's through the ‘70s. Then in 1987, I was between jobs and I decided to learn German.

I'm not quite sure why. So I went to all of the secondhand book stores in Vancouver and I found lots of books, textbooks that other people had used (you know, things like this) and they're full of text, more or less boring text and vocabulary, which is what I needed. They also have _ drills and stuff, which I have always resisted doing in language learning. I don't like them. If anything, all I do with them is look up the answers so I can see some concentrated examples of whatever pattern they're trying to test you on, but I feel it's not that useful to try and scratch your brain to answer these questions. At any rate, I didn't bring them all down.

I showed more of them in my German language video. There were lots of them and, of course, interesting about German history, culture and so forth. Even though I initially was kind of resisting German, the more you get into a language, the more you find it interesting. This is another, I think, important point. People say I'm not that interested in whatever. Get into it. Start into it and you may find, as they say in French, _. In other words, the appetite grows with the eating. Then you get more and more into it and you find it interesting. As soon as possible, I tried to get away from these sorts of textbooks.

One very good source was a series of audio cassettes of ordinary people talking and I listened to those interviews many, many times. I can remember them. One was an interview with a locomotive engineer who had driven the train when the Queen of England was on the train and another guy was talking about how farmers in Bavaria can't find wives because they smell; a whole bunch of stuff, but real people. I've always felt that listening to real people speaking, if it's transcribed and you get a chance to. I didn't have transcripts; but, ideally, transcripts are an ideal way to learn.

That's why when we set up LingQ (initially we only offered English) I started interviewing lots of people and creating content on LingQ with transcripts because I felt that if you give people the chance to feel that they're eavesdropping on a genuine conversation that that's very effective learning material. So that was more or less what I did with German; stayed with it. Then it so happened that I set up my own company in the trade of wood products and we were, in the early ‘90s, selling wood to Germany. I was now traveling to Germany and so then I tried even harder to learn German. I bought books, read and, of course, spoke with people and, gradually, my German improved. I also began to appreciate German culture more. Just to digress, in my previous videos about Russian or Spanish or French, I explain some of the attractiveness of those cultures.

German culture is often seen as less fun than let's say Italian or Spanish, you know the sun, the music and so forth, but you have to appreciate cultures for what they are. The thing about German culture is this sense of comfort, solid comfort. You stay in a German hotel, I mean the door is closed solidly, the windows are solid. So German culture to me is less about dancing and singing, it's more about sitting there reading a book or one of these very serious German newspapers, Bach is playing in the background and it's raining outside. That's comfortable, too.

I like that. I like their pubs with the wonderful wooden paneling. You kind of learn to appreciate each culture for what it is. Of course the towns in Germany, especially the smaller towns, are absolutely beautiful and, historically, Charlemagne, who is revered in France, was, in fact, a German, a Franc. Germans had a major imprint on European history, Martin Luther and, of course, the Thirty Years' War. By the way, there's an excellent audio book on the Thirty Years' War, which I've listened to many times. Of course in the more recent past, there have been two World Wars. We won't go into that subject. But today I can say, and I say this as someone of Jewish background, that no country has addressed their own recent history the way the Germans have.

It's amazing. It's amazing to walk around Hamburg and see plaques with the names of Jewish people who used to live in that house. As my uncle once said, the Germans of that generation, the generation of the War, he doesn't want to have anything to with, but Germans of subsequent generation, absolutely no problem at all. In fact, the Germans I find are very friendly. I recently drove through Germany and the people, the superficial contact I have with them in hotels, gas stations or whatever, are super friendly. There are one-hundred million German speakers in Europe, so it's an extremely important language. Now, some people say they like German rock music.

I don't do rock music, hard rock, all that stuff, rap, whatever. I don't even know what it is. I have no interest. In fact, I'm a bit old fashioned. I like Goethe, so I like listening to audio books of Goethe. I love his language and you can get the texts on the Internet so I can import them into LingQ and study them. What else. I like reading about history; something like this, for example. Unfortunately, in many of these books (you can probably see it) there are a lot of words that I don't know. I would prefer to read these on LingQ so I could look them up and learn the words, but when you're down to not too many words that you don't know then it's not that big a chore to read without knowing all the words. I'm trying to think of what else I wanted to say about German.

It's an extremely important language. I think a lot of people now, because of the economic might of Germany, speak German in Eastern Europe and in Russian. It's becoming the next important language after English. In terms of its literature, in terms of history, in terms of philosophy, it is a fascinating culture. I am not into science or medicine, but even there, of course, German in the past has been very important. I wanted to finish off with one other point that has come up and that's this issue of talent.

Some people say to me oh, you have a talent for languages. I have -- talking about themselves -- no talent for languages. I don't think talent is all that important. Granted, you may sit there and say well, Steve, your parents spoke German to each other. You heard German at home. You spoke Swedish for the first five years of your life. Therefore, you can learn other languages more easily. I can't do that, say some people. But then I look around and I see all of the wonderful polyglots that I know in our polyglot community on the Internet.

If I think of Luca who grew up unilingual Italian, Richard Simcott grew up unilingual English, if I think of all the Swedes I know, the Dutchmen or Germans who are so fluent in English, it's not about talent. Some people may be better than others in terms of their ability to imitate accent, but overwhelmingly it's your motivation, your interest in the language, your sense that you will achieve your goal, that you're willing to stay with it, spend the time and, of course, to develop that ability to notice. That's so important and that's why I made reference at the beginning of my talk about how taking a break from German, Spanish, Italian actually improved my ability to notice what's going on in German, Spanish and Italian.

That's why, for example, when I read away from LingQ I will always underline words and phrases. Of course in LingQ, for those of you who aren't familiar with LingQ, you save words and phrases, which we call creating links. Well, I create them by the tens of thousands. The more you can create those links and then they reappear highlighted in yellow draws your attention to words, phrases, patterns and you have to do that in order to help the brain notice.

Otherwise, we notice some things, but we don't notice other things. The more things we can notice that the brain has already grown accustomed to noticing, the more new things we can notice. To finish off I would like to say rather than focusing on talent, worrying about whether you have talent or not, focus on developing the ability to notice. So there you have it.

Again, I ran over my 10 minutes. Some complained that my videos were too long and others said they didn't mind.


About Learning German and Other Subjects O učení němčiny a dalších předmětů Über das Deutschlernen und andere Fächer

Hi there, Steve Kaufmann. Dobrý den, Steve Kaufmanne. Hallo Steve Kaufmann. こんにちは、スティーブカウフマン。

I hope the sound is louder. Doufám, že zvuk bude hlasitější. Espero que el sonido sea más fuerte. 音が大きいといいのですが。 There were some complaints about the sound here. Hier gab es einige Beschwerden über den Sound. Hubo algunas quejas sobre el sonido aquí. ここの音についていくつかの不満がありました。 I want to talk today about learning German. Ich möchte heute über das Deutschlernen sprechen. 今日はドイツ語の学習についてお話したいと思います。 This is part of the series that I’ve been doing where I speak in a language other than English and then follow that up with a discussion about learning that language. Toto je část série, kterou dělám, kde mluvím v jiném jazyce než v angličtině a poté na to navazuji diskuzí o učení se tohoto jazyka. Dies ist Teil der Serie, die ich mache, wo ich in einer anderen Sprache als Englisch spreche und dann mit einer Diskussion über das Erlernen dieser Sprache weitermache. Esto es parte de la serie que he estado haciendo donde hablo en un idioma que no es inglés y luego sigo con una discusión sobre el aprendizaje de ese idioma. これは私が英語以外の言語で話し、その後その言語を学ぶことについての議論でフォローアップするシリーズの一部です。 I’ve been doing that the last few weeks and, of course, I haven’t been speaking much Spanish, German and now I’m going to do Italian next week. He estado haciendo eso las últimas semanas y, por supuesto, no he estado hablando mucho español, alemán y ahora voy a hacer italiano la próxima semana. 私はここ数週間それをやっています、そしてもちろん、私はあまりスペイン語、ドイツ語を話していません、そして今私は来週イタリア語をするつもりです。 在过去的几周中，我一直在这样做，当然，我不会说太多西班牙语，德语，而现在我将在下周讲意大利语。

Therefore, I wanted to refresh my knowledge of those languages before doing a video and so I spent three-four days or so prior to video on LingQ studying that language. Proto jsem si chtěl před natáčením videa osvěžit své znalosti o těchto jazycích, a tak jsem strávil tři až čtyři dny před videem na LingQ studiem tohoto jazyka. Deshalb wollte ich meine Kenntnisse dieser Sprachen auffrischen, bevor ich ein Video mache, und so habe ich ungefähr drei bis vier Tage vor dem Video auf LingQ damit verbracht, diese Sprache zu lernen. Por lo tanto, quería actualizar mi conocimiento de esos idiomas antes de hacer un video, así que pasé tres o cuatro días antes del video en LingQ estudiando ese idioma. そのため、ビデオを作成する前にこれらの言語の知識を更新したかったので、ビデオの前に3〜4日ほどLingQでその言語を勉強しました。 I found podcasts. Našel jsem podcasty. Ich habe Podcasts gefunden. ポッドキャストを見つけました。 I was reading in the language. Ich habe in der Sprache gelesen. I had discussions with some of our LingQ tutors in the language and so forth. Diskutoval jsem s některými našimi LingQ lektory jazyka a tak dále. Ich hatte Gespräche mit einigen unserer LingQ-Tutoren in der Sprache und so weiter. Tuve conversaciones con algunos de nuestros tutores de LingQ en el idioma, etc. One of the interesting things is that the comments I’ve received from people who saw those videos or who spoke to me – our tutors – was that I had improved in those languages, even though I hadn’t spoken them much. Jednou ze zajímavých věcí je, že komentáře, které jsem dostal od lidí, kteří ta videa viděli nebo se mnou mluvili – naši lektoři – byly, že jsem se v těchto jazycích zlepšil, i když jsem jimi moc nemluvil. Eines der interessanten Dinge ist, dass die Kommentare, die ich von Leuten erhalten habe, die diese Videos gesehen haben oder mit mir gesprochen haben – unseren Tutoren – waren, dass ich mich in diesen Sprachen verbessert habe, obwohl ich sie nicht viel gesprochen habe. Una de las cosas interesantes es que los comentarios que he recibido de personas que vieron esos videos o que hablaron conmigo, nuestros tutores, fue que había mejorado en esos idiomas, aunque no los hablaba mucho.

This is a very interesting point because the fact that I’ve been working hard on other languages like Russian, Czech, Romanian and so forth, actually improves my ability to notice things in foreign languages. To je velmi zajímavý bod, protože skutečnost, že tvrdě pracuji na jiných jazycích, jako je ruština, čeština, rumunština a tak dále, ve skutečnosti zlepšuje mou schopnost všímat si věcí v cizích jazycích. Das ist ein sehr interessanter Punkt, denn die Tatsache, dass ich mich intensiv mit anderen Sprachen wie Russisch, Tschechisch, Rumänisch usw. beschäftigt habe, verbessert tatsächlich meine Fähigkeit, Dinge in Fremdsprachen wahrzunehmen. Este es un punto muy interesante porque el hecho de que he estado trabajando duro en otros idiomas como el ruso, el checo, el rumano, etc., en realidad mejora mi capacidad de notar cosas en idiomas extranjeros. It improves my language-learning fitness and, therefore, with a little bit of effort I refresh my recently-neglected languages and bring them back to a level which is often higher than it was before. Zlepšuje moji kondici při učení se jazykům, a proto s trochou snahy své nedávno opomíjené jazyky osvěžím a vrátím je na úroveň, která je často vyšší, než byla dříve. Es verbessert meine Sprachlernfitness und so bringe ich mit ein wenig Aufwand meine zuletzt vernachlässigten Sprachen wieder auf ein oft höheres Niveau als zuvor. Mejora mi aptitud para el aprendizaje de idiomas y, por lo tanto, con un poco de esfuerzo actualizo mis idiomas recientemente olvidados y los devuelvo a un nivel que a menudo es más alto que antes. それは私の言語学習の適性を改善するので、少しの努力で最近無視した言語をリフレッシュし、以前よりもしばしば高いレベルに戻します。

I’m noticing this now in my Italian. Všiml jsem si toho teď ve své italštině. Das merke ich jetzt auch in meinem Italienisch. Estoy notando esto ahora en mi italiano. That, in fact, I understand Italian better when I listen to audio or these podcasts that I find on the Net about history or politics. Že ve skutečnosti rozumím italštině lépe, když poslouchám audio nebo tyto podcasty, které najdu na internetu o historii nebo politice. Que, de hecho, entiendo mejor el italiano cuando escucho audios o estos podcasts que encuentro en la Red sobre historia o política. 実際、歴史や政治についてネット上で見つけたオーディオやこれらのポッドキャストを聞くと、イタリア語をよりよく理解できます。 I understand them better than I did before, so just a little note for those of you who sometimes are afraid to leave one language for six months in order to study another. Rozumím jim lépe než předtím, takže jen malá poznámka pro ty z vás, kteří se někdy bojí opustit jeden jazyk na šest měsíců, aby mohli studovat jiný. Ich verstehe sie besser als vorher, also nur eine kleine Anmerkung für diejenigen unter Ihnen, die manchmal Angst haben, eine Sprache für sechs Monate zu verlassen, um eine andere zu lernen. Los entiendo mejor que antes, así que solo una pequeña nota para aquellos de ustedes que a veces tienen miedo de dejar un idioma durante seis meses para estudiar otro. 私は以前よりもそれらをよく理解しているので、別の言語を勉強するために1つの言語を6か月間離れることを恐れている人のために少しだけ注意してください。 Yeah, you’ll slip a bit, but eventually you’ll become a better language learner. Jo, trochu sklouznete, ale nakonec se z vás stane lepší jazykový student. Sí, resbalarás un poco, pero eventualmente te convertirás en un mejor estudiante de idiomas. ええ、あなたは少し滑るでしょう、しかし最終的にあなたはより良い言語学習者になるでしょう。 Now, insofar as German, my parents were born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire into a German-speaking Jewish community in Moravia, which subsequently became part of Czechoslovakia. Nyní, pokud jde o Němce, moji rodiče se narodili v Rakousko-Uhersku do německy mluvící židovské komunity na Moravě, která se následně stala součástí Československa. Nun, meine Eltern, soweit sie Deutsche sind, wurden in der österreichisch-ungarischen Monarchie in eine deutschsprachige jüdische Gemeinde in Mähren hineingeboren, die später Teil der Tschechoslowakei wurde. Ahora, en lo que respecta al alemán, mis padres nacieron en el Imperio austrohúngaro en una comunidad judía de habla alemana en Moravia, que posteriormente se convirtió en parte de Checoslovaquia. さて、ドイツ語に関しては、私の両親はオーストリア・ハンガリー帝国でモラビアのドイツ語を話すユダヤ人コミュニティに生まれ、その後チェコスロバキアの一部になりました。

Therefore, they went to a Czech school and they spoke both German and Czech. Chodili proto do české školy a mluvili německy i česky. Deshalb gingen sie auf eine tschechische Schule und sprachen sowohl Deutsch als auch Tschechisch. そのため、彼らはチェコの学校に通い、ドイツ語とチェコ語の両方を話しました。 In '39, they escaped to Sweden where I was born in 1945 and when I was five we moved to Canada. En el 39 se escaparon a Suecia donde yo nací en 1945 y cuando tenía cinco años nos mudamos a Canadá. 39年に彼らは私が1945年に生まれたスウェーデンに逃げました、そして私が5歳のときに私たちはカナダに引っ越しました。 I have no recollection of transitioning from Swedish to English. Nevzpomínám si na přechod ze švédštiny do angličtiny. No recuerdo haber hecho la transición del sueco al inglés. スウェーデン語から英語に移行した記憶はありません。 At home my brother I spoke English with my parents. Doma jsem s bratrem mluvil s rodiči anglicky. En casa mi hermano hablaba ingles con mis padres. 家で兄は両親と英語を話しました。 They told us we’re in Canada now, you will speak English. Řekli nám, že jsme teď v Kanadě, budete mluvit anglicky. 彼らは私達が今カナダにいると私達に言った、あなたは英語を話すでしょう。 My parents spoke German to each other. Moji rodiče spolu mluvili německy. Mis padres hablaban alemán entre ellos. 私の両親はお互いにドイツ語を話しました。

We resented German. Němčina nám vadila. Nos molestaba el alemán. ما از آلمانی ناراحت شدیم. 私たちはドイツ人に憤慨した。 We resented hearing it. Slyšeli jsme to. We resented everything having to do with Europe because my parents would always say that Canadians were lazy, Canada had no culture and so forth and everything European was good. Nos molestaba todo lo que tuviera que ver con Europa porque mis padres siempre decían que los canadienses eran vagos, que Canadá no tenía cultura, etc., y que todo lo europeo era bueno. They wanted us to make friends with the children of their European friends and those were the last people we wanted to make friends with. Querían que nos hiciéramos amigos de los hijos de sus amigos europeos y esas eran las últimas personas con las que queríamos hacernos amigos. So there was this resistance to German. Takže tam byl odpor k němčině. Now, things changed. Teď se věci změnily.

When I was 19, after two years at McGill University, I was working at a summer job on construction. Když mi bylo 19, po dvou letech na McGill University, pracoval jsem na letní brigádě na stavebnictví. 私は19歳のとき、マギル大学で2年間過ごした後、夏の建設業で働いていました。 Then I was laid off and I thought you know what, I think I’ll go off to Europe. Pak mě vyhodili a myslel jsem, že víš co, myslím, že půjdu do Evropy. Dann wurde ich entlassen und ich dachte du weißt was, ich denke ich werde nach Europa gehen. Luego me despidieron y pensé, sabes qué, creo que me iré a Europa. So I went down to the Port of Montreal and spent three days trying to see the captains of different ships in the port. Tak jsem sestoupil do montrealského přístavu a tři dny jsem se snažil vidět kapitány různých lodí v přístavu. Así que bajé al Puerto de Montreal y pasé tres días tratando de ver a los capitanes de diferentes barcos en el puerto. On the third day, I found a captain of a German ship who had lost a sailor in Quebec City and said yeah, you can work your way across with us. Třetí den jsem našel kapitána německé lodi, který ztratil námořníka v Quebec City, a řekl jsem ano, můžete se propracovat s námi. Al tercer día, encontré a un capitán de un barco alemán que había perdido a un marinero en la ciudad de Quebec y me dijo que sí, que puede cruzar con nosotros. 3日目に、ケベックシティで船員を失ったドイツ船の船長を見つけ、そうだと言った。 So for 10 days I was on this small tramp steamer, which was just up and down across the Atlantic. Takže 10 dní jsem byl na tomto malém trampském parníku, který byl jen nahoru a dolů přes Atlantik. Así que durante 10 días estuve en este pequeño vapor vagabundo, que estaba arriba y abajo a través del Atlántico.

I was hammering away at rust and scraping and painting and that was the first time it actually meant something to me to try and say something in German. Kladl jsem pryč od rzi, škrábání a malování, a to bylo poprvé, co pro mě ve skutečnosti znamenalo něco, co jsem chtěl zkusit a říci něco německy. Ich hämmerte auf Rost herum, kratzte und malte und das war das erste Mal, dass es mir etwas bedeutete, etwas auf Deutsch zu sagen. Estaba martillando el óxido, raspando y pintando y esa fue la primera vez que realmente significó algo para mí tratar de decir algo en alemán. さびやこすり、絵を描いていたのですが、ドイツ語で何かを言ってみるのは初めてでした。 我正在努力避免生锈，刮擦和绘画，这是我第一次真正想尝试用德语说些什么。 I had my little German book with the declensions of the nouns and the pronouns, it was just horrendous, but at least then German became meaningful to me briefly. Měl jsem svou malou německou knížku se skloňováním podstatných jmen a zájmen, byla to prostě hrůza, ale aspoň mi pak němčina nakrátko dala smysl. Tenía mi librito de alemán con las declinaciones de los sustantivos y los pronombres, era horrible, pero al menos entonces el alemán se volvió significativo para mí brevemente. Then I hitchhiked around Europe, including in Germany. Pak jsem stopoval Evropu, včetně Německa.

I usually stayed in youth hostels. Normalmente me alojaba en albergues juveniles. I arrived, I think it was Böblingen, and it was pouring with rain, after 11:00 o’clock at night. Llegué, creo que era Böblingen, y estaba lloviendo a cántaros, pasadas las 11:00 de la noche. I went to the local jail and asked if I could stay there and they accommodated me; very comfortable jail. Šel jsem do místní věznice a zeptal se, jestli tam můžu zůstat, a oni mě ubytovali; velmi pohodlné vězení. Fui a la cárcel local y pregunté si podía quedarme allí y me acomodaron; Cárcel muy cómoda. Then I also worked two weeks on construction in Vienna where I spoke some German; although, most of the other workers were Turks. Pak jsem také dva týdny pracoval na stavbě ve Vídni, kde jsem mluvil trochu německy; ačkoli většina ostatních pracovníků byli Turci. Luego también trabajé dos semanas en la construcción en Viena, donde hablé algo de alemán; aunque, la mayoría de los otros trabajadores eran turcos. And that was it. Y eso fue todo. Then I studied for three years in France; did nothing with German until 1987 when I was between jobs. Pak jsem studoval tři roky ve Francii; nedělal nic s němčinou až do roku 1987, kdy jsem byl mezi zaměstnáními. 然后我在法国学习了三年；直到1987年我在两次工作之间之前，他对德国人一无所获。

After my three years in France, I joined the Canadian Diplomatic Service, was sent to Hong Kong to learn Mandarin Chinese; subsequently, went to Japan. Po třech letech ve Francii jsem nastoupil do kanadské diplomatické služby, byl jsem poslán do Hongkongu, abych se naučil mandarínskou čínštinu; následně odešel do Japonska. Después de mis tres años en Francia, me uní al Servicio Diplomático Canadiense, me enviaron a Hong Kong para aprender chino mandarín; posteriormente, se fue a Japón. Then I left the embassy; went to work for a major Canadian forest products exporting company. Pak jsem odešel z ambasády; šel pracovat pro významnou kanadskou společnost vyvážející lesní produkty. Luego dejé la embajada; fue a trabajar para una importante empresa canadiense exportadora de productos forestales. So that’s through the ‘70s. Takže to je přes 70. léta. Así que eso es hasta los años 70. Then in 1987, I was between jobs and I decided to learn German. V roce 1987 jsem byl mezi zaměstnáními a rozhodl jsem se naučit německy. Luego, en 1987, estaba entre trabajos y decidí aprender alemán.

I’m not quite sure why. Nejsem si úplně jistý proč. So I went to all of the secondhand book stores in Vancouver and I found lots of books, textbooks that other people had used (you know, things like this) and they’re full of text, more or less boring text and vocabulary, which is what I needed. Tak jsem šel do všech antikvariátů ve Vancouveru a našel jsem spoustu knih, učebnic, které používali jiní lidé (víte, takové věci) a jsou plné textu, víceméně nudného textu a slovní zásoby, je to, co jsem potřeboval. Así que fui a todas las librerías de segunda mano en Vancouver y encontré muchos libros, libros de texto que otras personas habían usado (ya sabes, cosas como esta) y están llenos de texto, texto y vocabulario más o menos aburrido, que es lo que necesitaba They also have _____ drills and stuff, which I have always resisted doing in language learning. Mají také _ cvičení a další věci, kterým jsem se při učení jazyků vždy bránil. También tienen _ ejercicios y esas cosas, que siempre me he resistido a hacer en el aprendizaje de idiomas. I don’t like them. If anything, all I do with them is look up the answers so I can see some concentrated examples of whatever pattern they’re trying to test you on, but I feel it’s not that useful to try and scratch your brain to answer these questions. Kdyby něco, vše, co s nimi dělám, je hledat odpovědi, abych mohl vidět nějaké koncentrované příklady jakéhokoli vzoru, na kterém se vás snaží otestovat, ale mám pocit, že není tak užitečné zkoušet si škrábat mozek, abyste na tyto otázky odpověděli. Wenn überhaupt, schaue ich nur nach den Antworten, damit ich einige konzentrierte Beispiele für jedes Muster sehen kann, an dem sie versuchen, Sie zu testen, aber ich finde es nicht so nützlich, Ihr Gehirn zu kratzen, um diese Fragen zu beantworten. En todo caso, todo lo que hago con ellos es buscar las respuestas para poder ver algunos ejemplos concentrados de cualquier patrón en el que estén tratando de probarte, pero creo que no es tan útil tratar de rascarte el cerebro para responder estas preguntas. At any rate, I didn’t bring them all down. V každém případě jsem je všechny nesrazil. Jedenfalls habe ich sie nicht alle runtergebracht. En cualquier caso, no los derribé a todos. 无论如何，我并没有全力以赴。

I showed more of them in my German language video. Ve svém německém videu jsem jich ukázal více. Mostré más de ellos en mi video en alemán. There were lots of them and, of course, interesting about German history, culture and so forth. Había muchos de ellos y, por supuesto, interesantes sobre la historia, la cultura alemana, etc. Even though I initially was kind of resisting German, the more you get into a language, the more you find it interesting. Aunque al principio me resistía al alemán, cuanto más aprendes un idioma, más interesante lo encuentras. This is another, I think, important point. To je další, myslím, důležitý bod. People say I’m not that interested in whatever. La gente dice que no estoy tan interesado en lo que sea. Get into it. Dostat se do toho. Manos a la obra. Start into it and you may find, as they say in French, _____. Comience y puede encontrar, como dicen en francés, _. In other words, the appetite grows with the eating. Jinými slovy, chuť k jídlu roste s jídlem. En otras palabras, el apetito crece con la comida. Then you get more and more into it and you find it interesting. Luego te involucras más y más y lo encuentras interesante. As soon as possible, I tried to get away from these sorts of textbooks. Tan pronto como pude, traté de alejarme de este tipo de libros de texto.

One very good source was a series of audio cassettes of ordinary people talking and I listened to those interviews many, many times. Una muy buena fuente fue una serie de casetes de audio de gente común hablando y escuché esas entrevistas muchas, muchas veces. I can remember them. Pamatuji si je. One was an interview with a locomotive engineer who had driven the train when the Queen of England was on the train and another guy was talking about how farmers in Bavaria can’t find wives because they smell; a whole bunch of stuff, but real people. Una era una entrevista con un maquinista que había conducido el tren cuando la Reina de Inglaterra estaba en el tren y otro tipo estaba hablando de cómo los granjeros en Baviera no pueden encontrar esposas porque huelen mal; un montón de cosas, pero gente real. I’ve always felt that listening to real people speaking, if it’s transcribed and you get a chance to. Ich hatte immer das Gefühl, dass echte Menschen sprechen, wenn es transkribiert ist und Sie die Chance dazu bekommen. Siempre he sentido que escuchar a personas reales hablando, si se transcribe y tienes la oportunidad de hacerlo. 我一直觉得聆听真实的人说的话（如果已被转录而您有机会听的话）。 I didn’t have transcripts; but, ideally, transcripts are an ideal way to learn. No tenía transcripciones; pero, idealmente, las transcripciones son una forma ideal de aprender.

That’s why when we set up LingQ (initially we only offered English) I started interviewing lots of people and creating content on LingQ with transcripts because I felt that if you give people the chance to feel that they’re eavesdropping on a genuine conversation that that’s very effective learning material. Es por eso que cuando establecimos LingQ (inicialmente solo ofrecimos inglés) comencé a entrevistar a mucha gente y a crear contenido en LingQ con transcripciones porque sentí que si les das a las personas la oportunidad de sentir que están escuchando a escondidas una conversación genuina, eso es material de aprendizaje muy eficaz. So that was more or less what I did with German; stayed with it. Así que eso fue más o menos lo que hice con el alemán; se quedó con eso. Then it so happened that I set up my own company in the trade of wood products and we were, in the early ‘90s, selling wood to Germany. Entonces sucedió que monté mi propia empresa en el comercio de productos de madera y estábamos, a principios de los 90, vendiendo madera a Alemania. I was now traveling to Germany and so then I tried even harder to learn German. Ahora viajaba a Alemania y entonces me esforcé aún más por aprender alemán. I bought books, read and, of course, spoke with people and, gradually, my German improved. I also began to appreciate German culture more. Just to digress, in my previous videos about Russian or Spanish or French, I explain some of the attractiveness of those cultures. Solo para divagar, en mis videos anteriores sobre ruso, español o francés, explico algunos de los atractivos de esas culturas.

German culture is often seen as less fun than let’s say Italian or Spanish, you know the sun, the music and so forth, but you have to appreciate cultures for what they are. La cultura alemana a menudo se considera menos divertida que, digamos, la italiana o la española, ya sabes, el sol, la música, etc., pero hay que apreciar las culturas por lo que son. The thing about German culture is this sense of comfort, solid comfort. Die Sache mit der deutschen Kultur ist dieses Gefühl von Komfort, soliden Komfort. Lo que pasa con la cultura alemana es esta sensación de comodidad, comodidad sólida. نکته در مورد فرهنگ آلمانی این احساس راحتی ، راحتی کامل است. ドイツの文化についての事は、この快適さ、確かな快適さの感覚です。 You stay in a German hotel, I mean the door is closed solidly, the windows are solid. Te quedas en un hotel alemán, quiero decir que la puerta está bien cerrada, las ventanas son sólidas. شما در یک هتل آلمانی اقامت دارید ، منظور من این است که درب کاملاً بسته است ، پنجره ها جامد هستند. あなたはドイツのホテルに滞在します。つまり、ドアはしっかり閉まっていて、窓はしっかりしています。 So German culture to me is less about dancing and singing, it’s more about sitting there reading a book or one of these very serious German newspapers, Bach is playing in the background and it’s raining outside. Entonces, para mí, la cultura alemana se trata menos de bailar y cantar, se trata más de sentarse allí leyendo un libro o uno de estos periódicos alemanes muy serios, Bach está tocando de fondo y está lloviendo afuera. ですから、私にとってのドイツの文化は、踊ったり歌ったりすることではなく、本やこれらの非常に深刻なドイツの新聞の1つを読んでいることです。バッハはバックグラウンドで遊んでいて、外で雨が降っています。 That’s comfortable, too.

I like that. I like their pubs with the wonderful wooden paneling. میخانه های آنها را با تخته چوبی فوق العاده دوست دارم. 私は素晴らしい木製の羽目板を備えた彼らのパブが好きです。 You kind of learn to appreciate each culture for what it is. Of course the towns in Germany, especially the smaller towns, are absolutely beautiful and, historically, Charlemagne, who is revered in France, was, in fact, a German, a Franc. Germans had a major imprint on European history, Martin Luther and, of course, the Thirty Years' War. Los alemanes tuvieron una gran huella en la historia europea, Martín Lutero y, por supuesto, la Guerra de los Treinta Años. By the way, there’s an excellent audio book on the Thirty Years' War, which I’ve listened to many times. Por cierto, hay un excelente audiolibro sobre la Guerra de los Treinta Años, que he escuchado muchas veces. Of course in the more recent past, there have been two World Wars. Natürlich gab es in der jüngeren Vergangenheit zwei Weltkriege. Por supuesto, en el pasado más reciente, ha habido dos Guerras Mundiales. We won’t go into that subject. No entraremos en ese tema. そのテーマについては触れません。 But today I can say, and I say this as someone of Jewish background, that no country has addressed their own recent history the way the Germans have. Pero hoy puedo decir, y lo digo como alguien de origen judío, que ningún país ha abordado su propia historia reciente de la forma en que lo han hecho los alemanes. しかし、今日私は言うことができます、そして私はこれをユダヤ人のバックグラウンドの誰かとして言います、どの国もドイツ人が持っているように彼ら自身の最近の歴史に取り組んでいません。

It’s amazing. It’s amazing to walk around Hamburg and see plaques with the names of Jewish people who used to live in that house. As my uncle once said, the Germans of that generation, the generation of the War, he doesn’t want to have anything to with, but Germans of subsequent generation, absolutely no problem at all. 私の叔父がかつて言ったように、その世代のドイツ人、戦争の世代、彼は何もしたくありませんが、次の世代のドイツ人はまったく問題ありません。 正如我叔叔曾经说过的那样，那一代德国人，战争的一代，他不想与任何人有任何关系，但是后代的德国人绝对没有问题。 In fact, the Germans I find are very friendly. I recently drove through Germany and the people, the superficial contact I have with them in hotels, gas stations or whatever, are super friendly. Hace poco conduje por Alemania y la gente, el contacto superficial que tengo con ellos en hoteles, gasolineras o lo que sea, es super amable. 私は最近ドイツをドライブしましたが、ホテルやガソリンスタンドなどでの表面的な接触はとてもフレンドリーです。 There are one-hundred million German speakers in Europe, so it’s an extremely important language. ヨーロッパには1億人のドイツ語話者がいるので、それは非常に重要な言語です。 Now, some people say they like German rock music. 现在，有人说他们喜欢德国摇滚音乐。

I don’t do rock music, hard rock, all that stuff, rap, whatever. No hago música rock, hard rock, todo eso, rap, lo que sea. I don’t even know what it is. Ni siquiera sé qué es. I have no interest. In fact, I’m a bit old fashioned. De hecho, soy un poco anticuado. 实际上，我有点过时了。 I like Goethe, so I like listening to audio books of Goethe. I love his language and you can get the texts on the Internet so I can import them into LingQ and study them. What else. Qué otra cosa. I like reading about history; something like this, for example. Unfortunately, in many of these books (you can probably see it) there are a lot of words that I don’t know. I would prefer to read these on LingQ so I could look them up and learn the words, but when you’re down to not too many words that you don’t know then it’s not that big a chore to read without knowing all the words. LingQでこれらを読んで、単語を調べて学習できるようにしたいと思いますが、単語が多すぎてわからない場合は、すべての単語を知らずに読むのはそれほど面倒ではありません。 。 我更喜欢在LingQ上阅读这些内容，以便我可以查找它们并学习这些单词，但是当您不熟悉的单词过多时，不知道所有单词的阅读就不会那么麻烦。 I’m trying to think of what else I wanted to say about German.

It’s an extremely important language. I think a lot of people now, because of the economic might of Germany, speak German in Eastern Europe and in Russian. Creo que mucha gente ahora, debido al poderío económico de Alemania, habla alemán en Europa del Este y en ruso. It’s becoming the next important language after English. In terms of its literature, in terms of history, in terms of philosophy, it is a fascinating culture. I am not into science or medicine, but even there, of course, German in the past has been very important. I wanted to finish off with one other point that has come up and that’s this issue of talent. Quería terminar con otro punto que ha surgido y es este tema del talento.

Some people say to me oh, you have a talent for languages. I have -- talking about themselves -- no talent for languages. I don’t think talent is all that important. Granted, you may sit there and say well, Steve, your parents spoke German to each other. You heard German at home. You spoke Swedish for the first five years of your life. Therefore, you can learn other languages more easily. I can’t do that, say some people. But then I look around and I see all of the wonderful polyglots that I know in our polyglot community on the Internet.

If I think of Luca who grew up unilingual Italian, Richard Simcott grew up unilingual English, if I think of all the Swedes I know, the Dutchmen or Germans who are so fluent in English, it’s not about talent. イタリア語の単言語で育ったルカのことを考えると、リチャード・シムコットは英語の単言語で育ちました。私が知っているすべてのスウェーデン人、英語に堪能なオランダ人やドイツ人のことを考えると、それは才能ではありません。 Some people may be better than others in terms of their ability to imitate accent, but overwhelmingly it’s your motivation, your interest in the language, your sense that you will achieve your goal, that you’re willing to stay with it, spend the time and, of course, to develop that ability to notice. That’s so important and that’s why I made reference at the beginning of my talk about how taking a break from German, Spanish, Italian actually improved my ability to notice what’s going on in German, Spanish and Italian.

That’s why, for example, when I read away from LingQ I will always underline words and phrases. Es por eso que, por ejemplo, cuando leo lejos de LingQ, siempre subrayo palabras y frases. 例如，这就是为什么当我阅读LingQ时，我总是会在单词和短语下划线。 Of course in LingQ, for those of you who aren’t familiar with LingQ, you save words and phrases, which we call creating links. Well, I create them by the tens of thousands. Nun, ich erschaffe sie zu Zehntausenden. Bueno, los creo por decenas de miles. The more you can create those links and then they reappear highlighted in yellow draws your attention to words, phrases, patterns and you have to do that in order to help the brain notice. Cuanto más puedas crear esos enlaces y luego vuelvan a aparecer resaltados en amarillo, llama tu atención las palabras, frases, patrones y tienes que hacer eso para ayudar al cerebro a darse cuenta. Hoe meer je die links kunt maken en dan verschijnen ze weer in geel gemarkeerd, hoe meer je aandacht trekt naar woorden, zinnen, patronen en je moet dat doen om de hersenen te helpen op te merken.

Otherwise, we notice some things, but we don’t notice other things. De lo contrario, notamos algunas cosas, pero no notamos otras cosas. The more things we can notice that the brain has already grown accustomed to noticing, the more new things we can notice. Cuantas más cosas podamos notar que el cerebro ya se ha acostumbrado a notar, más cosas nuevas podremos notar. To finish off I would like to say rather than focusing on talent, worrying about whether you have talent or not, focus on developing the ability to notice. So there you have it. Así que ahí lo tienes.

Again, I ran over my 10 minutes. Una vez más, superé mis 10 minutos. Some complained that my videos were too long and others said they didn’t mind. Algunos se quejaron de que mis videos eran demasiado largos y otros dijeron que no les importaba.