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English LingQ 2.0 Podcast, Polyglot Olly Richards Chats about his Story Learning Method, YouTube channel and a Near-Death Experience!

Polyglot Olly Richards Chats about his Story Learning Method, YouTube channel and a Near-Death Experience!

Elle: Hello everyone and welcome to the LingQ podcast with me Elle. Remember, if you are studying English, you can study this podcast episode as a lesson on LingQ, the audio and the transcript. I've created it for you and the lesson link is in the description. In fact, on LingQ you can find a full course, so every episode of this podcast is there for you to study as an English lesson.

LingQ is a game changer tool for language learning. You can create a lesson from any content you find online. Perhaps you want to start reading your news in Spanish in the morning, or watching movies in Japanese, you can make a lesson with it on LingQ and start enjoying content in your target language. If you're enjoying the podcast, please feel free to give us a review on Apple, follow us on Spotify or SoundCloud, subscribe on Google Podcasts. Whatever showing love is on the platform that you're listing on. It is greatly appreciated. This week's guest joins me from across the pond in the UK. He is a teacher, language learner, YouTuber and author. Today I am joined by Olly Richards.

Olly, thank you for joining us.

Olly: The pleasure's all mine. Thanks so much.

Elle: Excellent. And so how are things in the UK right now?

Olly: From what perspective?

Elle: Uh, yours and I guess, you know, why not talk about COVID? Why not? If you want to.

Olly: Well, I mean, I'll give you the quick version. COVID's, uh, actually on the way out. I think we're, most people here are mostly vaccinated for the most part. Um, I think we did slightly better than, um, than, uh, than other places. Things are Opening up. So like, yeah, it's the end in sight here after a pretty abysmal year or so. And then personally, things are great. I'm doing what I do. I'm writing books, I'm making courses, making loads of YouTube videos. YouTube is kind of my pet project at the moment. So, uh, so yeah, I'm enjoying, enjoying life. Elle: Excellent. Yeah, and I have to say, I did notice that you've been making a lot of YouTube videos lately, it's great, on your channel: Olly Richards, which I will add a link to of course. So Olly, as I mentioned, you are a language learner and you know, is it eight languages I think I saw online, or has that changed?

Olly: Yeah, I tend to, I tend to say 8. It's my least favorite question because as time goes on, you know, you forget some languages and other ones go up, but yeah, I I've definitely, I've definitely learned, uh, 8 languages to a good level. Those would be, uh, after English obviously French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Cantonese, Arabic, and then smatterings of a few others like German and Thai.

But, um, yeah, it's all kind of, it's a massive sort of smorgasbord of stuff. Um, all kind of in flux at any one time.

Elle: Right.

Excellent. And, uh, now I have to ask you, uh, I love asking... you are a polyglot, you speak all these languages, so I love asking polyglots who come on, what sparked their passion, what motivated them to start this language learning journey.

And I've had all kinds of interesting answers, but I've never had near death experience. So tell us about that.

Olly: Yeah.

So the near-death experience, well I'm going to get to that, cause that, that was actually how, that's what sparked my interest in stories and teaching through stories. It wasn't how I got interested in languages in the first place. Like, so I grew up, I grew up like your classic monolingual, English guy and no contact with languages at all. I mean, I did French classes at school, but that's about it. Um, but when I was 19 years old, I, I was living in London and I got a job in a cafe where I was just, uh, I came across, uh, people, everyone working in that cafe - and it was, it was Caffe Nero in Seven Dials for anyone who knows London,it's still there to this day, I sometimes pop in. Uh, everyone who was working there with me was from it was from different countries. So there were Italians and Swedes and I kind of got talking to these people and I was just like blown away by how interesting their, their backgrounds were.

I was kinda thinking of what do you, what are you doing in the, in London? And then I realized that these people were all, not only speaking their own languages, but they were speaking English and, uh, and often each other's languages too. So I just found it all very, very interesting, and that kind of just sparked this interest in learning languages.

So I started learning French. And then, uh, shortly after that, my girlfriend decided to break up with me, sent me into a tailspin. I ran away to Paris. So I lived in Paris for six months and kind of learned French there. And then it was just, you know, flood gates were open after that. Um, but the, the near death experience you referred to was a few years later, I was trying to learn Spanish and not doing very well.

And, uh, I was traveling through Argentina when I was in this tiny village, up in the mountains, on the border of Argentina and Bolivia, um, called Iruya. And, um, and it was very, very high up high altitude. And I woke up in the middle of the night, one night, uh, in this hostel and I couldn't breathe. And I thought, well, maybe, maybe it's just something to do with the Malbec I'd been drinking that night. So I... but it didn't get any better. And I still couldn't, I still couldn't breathe. So I ran outside of the balcony, like starting to panic thinking, what am I going to do? And it got worse and worse and I literally could not get any oxygen.

And so I was kind of, sort of sitting there on the end of this balcony heaving thinking, this is, you know, this is the end. And then luckily of course the breath did eventually come back after a few minutes. Um, but I was too scared to go back to bed at that point. So all I could do is sort of sit down.

So I'm just sotr of sitting down on this balcony, looking out over the, this, this kind of this huge valley. And, uh, all I had with me was this Spanish book that I bought from some secondhand shop or something a few weeks earlier. And of course never touched, but I was too scared to go back to bed. We didn't have iPhones back in the day. So I just picked up this book and started reading and it was kind of, it was really hard work cause my Spanish wasn't very good, but I kind of kept, plowed through as I must have sat up for two or three hours reading this book. And, um, didn't think I'd understood all that much, but was was just about following the plot, which is something key that we might come back to later. Anyway, the next day I woke up happy to be alive. And I was walking down the street in this, in this village, um, and I found all these words popping into my head. I was like, it was these random Spanish words, like... which means the Bishop. Um, and then I thought, well, that's weird. Cause normally I, you know, I don't remember learning these words. And then, you know, normally I have to try really hard to remember words, but these words are somehow stuck. And then I realized it was because I'd sat up for hours last night, reading this book, and I'd certain words had been, had come up in the story over and over again. Um, and so it, that kind of was one of those kinds of Eureka moments.

And then, so I kept on reading the book and then eventually went back to see my friends in Buenos Aires where I'd been staying before. And all of a sudden I realized I was so much better at speaking. I could speak in more complete sentences cause I had all this vocabulary. Now I can understand a lot more of what people were saying.

So it just sparked this big interest in, in stories. And so from there on, I kind of went... this was many years later, but like, I started to try to develop a way of teaching languages using stories, because it was so powerful for me. And, uh, and loads of people like stories after all. So that was, yeah. That's how, how that happened. Elle: Wow. My goodness. So did you ever, um, Not to focus on it, just for a second to come back to what happened to you. Did you ever find out what that was?

Olly: I think it was, I think it was just, I think it was just altitude, you know, that's, that's what happens when, when you're, when you're so high up. I mean, it was right up on top of a mountain in the Andes.

Uh, so I guess that's what it was. I mean, maybe I was drugged or something. If I was, then they didn't do a very good job of stealing my stuff. Elle: No, the plot thickens though near-death experience or attempted murder? Um, so previous to that, what kind of methods uh... so that's when, as you said, there's the kind of focus on stories began. Previously what kind of methods had you used to study languages?

Olly: What I used was all I knew, which was what I'd done at school. So when I was at school, uh, you know, it was a very traditional learning. It was, um, you know, repeat after me, grammar, conjugation tables, uh, memorizing lists of words. That's all I knew as far as I was concerned, that was, you know, that's how they taught us at school. It must be the best way to learn, right? So, so, um, that's all I did every time I, I had started a new language. Uh, I would just kind of go down to the European book shop in Soho, um, w where it was at the time in London. And, uh, I would, I just, I just thought, I'd see whatever, whatever textbook I liked the look of and buy it and just work through it and then, you know, make my own paper flashcards and things like that. Uh, you know, it's, um, it's, it's a very, very traditional way of doing things. And, you know, I've, I've, I've sort of learned since that there's nothing necessarily wrong with doing it that way. In fact, lots of people do have quite a lot of success, but it's what comes afterwards that, that matters. You know, I actually think more and more that the method itself is just a way to get started.

The journey from kind of competence to actual fluency is it's down to something a lot more kind of fundamental, I think. But yeah.

Elle: So was Spanish the first language then that you would say you became, as you say, very competent competent or fluent in?

Olly: No, I'd say it was probably, it was probably French. Um, but I was living in Paris, so it was kind of, it was, I had that advantage.

What changed was that when I, when I left France and I went back to the UK, I kept learning languages. Right.

But I had to figure out how to keep learning languages while not being immersed in the country, which after all is most people's situation. Right?

Elle: Yeah.

Olly: So really for most language learners, um, you know, it's not that living in the, in the country is necessarily a panacea because there are plenty of people who go to live abroad and don't learn the language to any good degree. Uh, but for the, for the ambitious, dedicated learner, living abroad is a huge advantage because you just have access to the language all the time. But for most people, you know, the challenges, how do I learn a language as a busy adult living at home, you know, by myself? Well, maybe with the help of a teacher a little bit, but that that's the challenge that most people face and that's, that's who I also try to, to help with the stuff that, that, that I do. I'm very focused on the practical side of life. Elle: So you run the website, I will teach you a language.

Olly: That's right, soon to become soon as it becomes storylearning.com. Depending on when people are watching this, we're actually, we're actually... cause because the method that I now teach using stories, I call story learning, um, and so we're actually changing the name of everything over to story learning.com. Uh, but that, that may or may not have happened by the time this goes live. So, but anyone watching this well into the future. Will uh, will yeah. Story learning.com sould be where it's at. Elle: Storylearning.com. Okay.

Excellent. Yeah.

So we'll talk about the story learning method in a moment. I just want to mention your short stories series, because two of the past guests I've had on this podcast have mentioned them. So I always ask, uh, you know, what would you recommend, uh content-wise and I've had two people now say Olly Richards' short stories, readers, which are available online have, were really helpful for me. So I believe, for cantonese and for Spanish. Yes. Cause that's right. They're offered in Spanish and Cantonese, right? Olly: No, not, not, not exactly. Not exactly. Not Cantonese, but we do have Spanish and we have, we have about 20 languages at this point of which Spanish is one. Yeah.

Elle: Wow. Okay.

Excellent. I'll uh, I'll put the link in the description for those, but so they came before you developed this kind of story learning method, or I guess they were... Olly: Yeah, and so the way, so the way, the way it happened was that I, um, so I've been searching for these ways because I found myself learning through stories. Right.

And, um, the way that I was learning was up, I was just getting, getting books and reading those books and.

And that's fine once you get to a certain level, but it's not much comfort for people who are kind of just getting started or who are kind of at a lower level because reading novels is pretty tough and you've either got to be already be at a good level, or you've got to be extraordinarily persistent, um, uh, in order to kind of make your way through and all. So what, so my first where I went first was to think, okay, well, I want to write stories that you can, that can be useful for them. Um, and you know, graded readers are hardly a new concept, but, but graded readers have always been traditionally extremely dull and boring and, you know, there are often kind of, you know, it would be a translation of like Sherlock Holmes or Jane Austen or whatever, which is fine, but it's not my cup of tea. So I wanted something more, more fresh and modern and fun. Right.

So, so I started writing short stories, um, in originally in Spanish and then after that in many other languages. Uh, and, and, and I kind of really went down this rabbit hole of figuring out here what exactly do learners want in, um, in the books like this? Uh, because I think a lot, it's probably, it's probably to look at these books and think, oh, well, he just wrote a few stories, but actually I did a huge amount of research into everything from like how long should the average sentence be? Uh, what genres of stories should we have? Um, what's the ideal chapter length? I mean, I I've, I went deep on this stuff. Um, yeah. Uh, and so that's why I think these books have become so popular because it is exactly what people need when they are at a, kind of A2, upper beginner level to start reading. So they came first and then, but that's still not a method for beginners. So I started to think like, well, I've got these, I've written these books and they're, they're super popular. I want to do something that, I want to create something so that complete beginners in a language can learn using stories too. So it took me a couple of years to figure it out, but then eventually I, I, I kind of created my story learning method, which is, which is specific specifically for beginners.

So if you want to learn Japanese or Spanish or French or whatever, um, I would start to create these courses whereby um, so that you'd have these courses that were based entirely on stories, but you add onto that tuition and, um, and activities and things like that, that they get you, um, actually kind of processing the language and learning. Um, and so that, yeah, that came after, because it wasn't obvious to me how to do it. Well, I could have, I could have thrown something, I could have thrown something together at any point, but I really wanted to do it well. Um, I've got a long, a long background in teaching. Um, so I kind of, I was quite, you know, insistent on, um, on doing that the right way.

Elle: Excellent. And what's what did you used to teach before? Olly: Well, when I was a lot younger, I taught music for a few years. Um, I used to teach piano and guitar cause I have a background in music. Um, I have a degree in, I have a degree in jazz piano, which not many people know.

Elle: That's very cool. Olly: And I used to, I used to play professionally. That's like what I did for the longest time. Um, and then I came to a kind of crossroads in my life and I decided to go and teach English so I moved to Japan, taught English in Japan for a few years. And then did my, you know, certificates, diplomas. I did a master's degree in applied linguistics, you know, I've really kind of... whatever, when I, when I do new things, I tend to kind of go, go at it quite hard. So I went down the full on teaching routes. I almost went and did a PhD and all that, but I didn't do that in the end. Um, but yeah, so I've got quite extensive experience as a, uh, as a TEFL teacher and teacher trainer and kind of academic ish. Elle: Wow. And do you, are you by any chance left handed?

Olly: Yeah

Elle: No way. Okay.

So the last podcast episode with, I don't know if you know Nate of Nate's adventures, YouTube channel, he mentioned your, uh, your readers. Uh, he said that apparently people who have musical talent or are able to play, uh, instruments multiple or just one, and are left-handed are apparently more likely to, uh, be good language learners, whatever that means.

Or be maybe interested in language learning, but there you go. So you point his point. I'm going to ask every guest moving forward. Olly: Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's, it's, I, I'm not aware of any kind of research that shows that. I mean, the difficulty is that, I mean I've got, it's often people ask me like Ddoes a musical background give you, help you have a better accent? Or does it help you or does it help you with languages? And my, my feeling on that is yes, it has helped me in certain ways. It does with my accent in other languages, I think tends to be, tends to be quite good, better than, I mean, there's plenty of things in my languages that are not good, but accent is, accent, I I'm, I'm better. Yeah.

And also the thing of, um, I actually get the discipline of training yourself to get good at something that was once hard.

Elle: Right.

Olly: Which is what is what classical music in particular trains you to do. Um, but in general, the thing is that for every example of someone who has a background in music and he's good at languages, you can find 10 examples of people who are just as good at languages with no musical background. Elle: Yeah, like Steve I think for example.

Olly: Right. Um, yeah, Steve doesn't strike me as a musician. He, maybe he is.

Elle: I don't, I don't think he plays anything. I could be wrong.

Olly: I could, I can imagine him sort of sitting in some izakaya in Japan seeing someone kind of do some crooning or some, all Japanese songs or, but yeah. It's, I don't know. I don't, I don't really know. Um, I remember speaking to Stephen Krashen about this, about the musical question and, and, and he, and he, he replied quite similarly, like, you know, our, our intuition, like likes... based on intuition we'd like to think that there's a connection, but it's not born out in research as far as I'm aware. Elle: Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Um, so as you mentioned, you have your short stories, your reader short stories in whichever language, are available in 20 languages. I won't ask to recite those. Olly: Yeah aproximately.

Elle: That's, that's amazing. Um, what about your, so your story learning method, which is more focused on beginners, what languages are those available in?

Olly: Yeah, so this my story learning courses are basically, yeah, they are just your standard beginner courses, just like any kind of beginner textbook or, or, or whatever. Uh, and we have those in Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, uh, Chinese, Korean, Turkish, Portuguese and Russian.

Elle: Wow. Okay.

Olly: Yeah.

Elle: Okay, you heard it here first. Um, so I want to talk, as you mentioned about your YouTube channel, you've been making a lot more videos on your channel, Olly Richards. Um, how's that going? And what do you have any kind of projects in the works? How's the channel going? Olly: Yeah.

So the channel's going great. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks for asking and anyone who's listening and watching go subscribe to the channel on YouTube because I'm putting out some very, like I'm trying to, I'm trying to, I'm having a lot of fun with the channel. So for example, recently I published a video on how Mormon missionaries learn languages, which has done super well.

And I also find like videos of celebrities speaking, speaking languages, and, and kind of talk about how, about how they are, how they do it and give some kind of commentary and things and things like that. So everyone go subscribe to, to that. Or you can just search Olly Richards on YouTube and drop me a comment and say hi, cause I love to get those comments.

Um, but most of all, it's, it's a way for me to just kind of, I guess it sounds corny, but it's a way for me to express myself really, because I I've always been a content creator. I started my website and this whole business started off as a blog. Back in 2013. I just, you know, I heard, I heard, I read, I heard about this guy, Benny Lewis and how he was blog blogging.

And, um, so I thought, well, I could, I could do that. So I started a blog and then that all developed into, you know, everything that's happened since has kind of developed from that. But my first passion around this was always, um, blogging. Cause I just, I've got a long background in languages, language learning, teaching, and I wanted to create stuff. Right.

I wanted to blog about my experiences and um, and so... that I did that I did for years and years, but, but one of the trends that's happened, you know, on, on online in recent years is the video has become so much more, um, important, you know? And, and so I've been, yeah. I've decided I decided to get, to make a go of my, of my, of my YouTube channel. So I can, I've learned how to do YouTube. I've been uploading videos on and off about seven years, but I just never, it was always like a way to make my blog more interesting by making a quick video of me speaking Cantonese or whatever. Um, but I recently, I sort of decided to, you know, quote unquote, "do YouTube" or "learn YouTube". So I, um, I, I took it quite seriously. I recruited a team who helps me, uh, with the channel or kind of a production team and, um, have been making or experimenting with all these different videos. And, and I just love to have ideas. I have like a million ideas a minute. I've always been that way. And so I, YouTube is kind of a very cool way to just have an idea and be able to put it out there.

So, like, for example, I remember watching the US presidential elections last year. Yeah.

Uh, and thinking to myself well that's interesting, because I've watched these, these debates that they had. And, and it's complete cliche now that you'll get, you'll get someone who's like speaking to the audience in English and then they'll turn to the camera and speak in Spanish. I thought, well, that's kind of weird. I know why they're doing it, right? But it's also quite cool. Wouldn't it be fun to make a video with like, talking about the Spanish that they use. And, and so I just made this video on, on US presidential, analyzing us presidential candidates. I found some clips of them speaking Spanish.

And then just talked about it. And that for me is just so fun to do. And so I use YouTube as a way to just, just, just kind of get my thoughts and ideas out there. And, um, and fortunately it seems to be really resonating with people.

Elle: So are you actively learning a language right now or are you in that polygto maintain mode?

Olly: Yeah.

Well, what I'm actually doing right now is I've, I've gone back to learning Kanji. So Japanese or Chinese characters in Japanese, it's like been a bit, a bit, a bit, a bit of a love-hate relationship with, for me for four years. But I haven't, I have to say in the last few years in particular, I haven't been all that active with language learning, um, as much as before. And I often think about why that is. I'm very influenced by my surroundings, right? So I've often traveled a lot and, um, you know, my ideal... well, my ideal scenario for learning a new language is either when I'm, when I've got a community of people around me. For example, when I lived in London, I had a bunch of Brazilian friends, learnt Portuguese, or else when I travel or go to the country.

So when I went to Japan, learnt Japanese, um, and, but then kind of right now, I'm in a stage of life where I'm quite like, um, I'm quite chilled really. Um, I live in like in, in, in a little village, in the middle of the countryside in England, I hardly ever hear foreign languages. Uh, so I don't kind of have this big, or I haven't had this, this, this real urge to be studying for, for a while, but it, but it kind of comes back in fits and starts. So recently I've kind of decided, right, it's time to properly learn to learn, to, to, to read and write Japanese, like... like I said, that kind of big unfinished project. And so I've got, I'm working on that currently, so I'm, um, I could tell you how I'm going about it, if you like, but given that I haven't had that much success in the past, I'm not, not sure it's particularly useful information. Um, but yeah. Um, but I do maintain languages a fair bit. I mean, I always regularly speak Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Cantonese, French from time to time.

Um, um, but yeah, it always kind of changes. I I'm, I'm always very I'm full of admiration for people who are, who dedicated lots of time every day to actively maintaining languages, even, even without a, um, a particular reason do so. Cause I'm, I'm just not like that. I I'm, I've always been someone very much kind of led by my surroundings. Um, so, so yeah, but I suspect when the world starts to open up again properly and, um, and, and, and more traveling is to be done. I suspect I might, I might pick up the bug again quite quick.

Elle: And how about your kind of entertainment time then? Do you find you watch movies, TV shows, read books, blog posts in the different languages, you know, or do you kind of just gravitate towards maybe English or the langauges you know best?

Olly: It's the same answer, right? I don't do stuff for the sake of the languages, right? I know this is probably a quite, it's probably quite an uncommon answer among the, the guests you have here. Cause I know a lot of people are just incredibly dedicated to the way that they kind of structure their time to practice different languages.

See, for me, it's never, it's never been in about the language as such. It's always been about what I can do with that language. So I'm, it's not that I'm particularly interested in learning Japanese it's that I want to be able to communicate with my Japanese friends and talk to them in Japanese. It's not that I necessarily love the act of learning Portuguese, it's because I love to go and hang out with, with Brazilians in Brazil. I just love being there. So like, so when I don't have that immediate environment, it's not something that I just really seek out. Um, so it's difficult. I do think about this sometimes. I mean, I, I will watch movies in Japanese and Portuguese and stuff. Well, whatever, um, but, but again, like I say, it's just not something that I, I try and force. I think one kinf of relevant question here is what it means to maintain a language. Because I think for me, the languages I've learned fall into kind of two categories, the languages I've learned and I, and I'm still pretty good at, and then the languages that I've learned and I've kind of let them fall away. And I very much believe that once you've learned the language to a strong level, which I normally, uh, pinned down at about a B2 level, B2 or higher. You never lose that language. Right?

So for example, my French is probably not great right now. But I still understand everything. And given 15 minutes of practice, I can get it back to a good level, even though I haven't really spoken to for 20 years when I, when I was last in France, but that's, but that's quite common among, among people who, who have got languages to that kind of level are going to B2 or, or, or above level. And so when I think about the languages that I've, that I've had at that level or I've got to that level still, I, I'm not worried about losing them because I know that the day that I need them, I'll get it, I can get them back very quickly. So for that reason, I just choose not to spend my time in some arbitrary maintenance mode.

Um, but rather I just, I just do what I want to do in my life. And, you know, if languages are part of that, great. If not, no worries. Um, I know I'll come back to them later, so yeah, I'm very, I'm very much, um, I'm very kind of Laissez-faire with that, that, that, that kind if thing. It's not very practical, not very practical, practical help for people, but that's the truth. Elle: But that's like, you know yourself, right? You're not going to force it because, and also if you do force it, if you're like, Hey, I'm going to spend X amount of time each day on these different languages and you're not necessarily enjoying it, you're just doing it as a chore, is it really that helpful? You know, maybe.

Olly: I think it can be helpful. I mean, if you're spending a lot of time, if you're spending regular time, picking up a language, it will have an effect. For sure. For me, it's more a case of, I won't enjoy it if I'm forcing it. I, you know, I, I, I'm always, I've always been very busy. I've always worked hard and I have, I have a lot of things I like to do. Um, you know, I spend a lot of time, you know, walking, cycling, for example, seeing family. Uh, so I don't, I don't feel like I have time to do something that I don't really want to do and, you know, maintaining languages that, that maintaining languages where, where there's no particular outcome there, it kind of fits into that category. Elle: Right.

I See.

Olly: Sorry.

Elle: No, don't apologize. Um, so for everyone who's listening and watching, who's going to rush to Olly Richards, your YouTube channel, what can they expect from your channel moving forward for the rest of the year and beyond? Olly: A lot of fun language stuff is what you can expect. You're not going to find videos of me saying, you know, here, here is my six month uh, Korean progress or anything. It's, it's I used to do that, but I don't do that anymore. I, what I try to do is I try to think what will people enjoy, what will people find interesting? Um, so I'm working on a video right now, for example, about the defense language Institute. So the green Berets in the US, what methods they use to train their special forces to learn languages faster.

Um, I'm working on, uh, on, on some videos about, um, about different, about different languages, obviously. Bit of a statement of the obvious. I'm working on, I'm working on a video right now about how we create our book. So like when we've got these, you've got these books in different languages, or how do we create a Brazilian Portuguese book and that, or how do we make a Korean book? Making A video describing all of that. We've got, um, you know, videos of like celebrities speaking Japanese and things like that. And I'm having a great time, uh, at their expense. So yeah, a lot of, a lot of stuff where I'm trying to sort of,but this isn't, this isn't frivolous. I'm trying, I always try to sort of talk about different language topics, and then tie it back into what you can take away from it. So if I'm, if I'm making a reaction video to Colin Firth speaking Italian, I'm not sure. Well, he speaks great Italian by the way. Yeah.

And you can, if you want to see an example of that um...

Elle: I do, because that just makes him more attractive. I'll check that out right after. Olly: But what I'll try and do is I'll kind of I'll I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll try to like analyze it and then tie it back to what you can take away from that. Right.

So, so actually I try to make it informative and educational as well as, as well as fun. So yeah go now, go subscribe. Like I say, um, if you're listening to this and leave me a comment on my video, say that you came from the, from the LingQ podcast and, uh, I will, uh, I'll look out for those because I love getting, I love, uh, I love getting comments from people. I love hearing from people that come from different places.

Elle: Excellent. Well, I will of course pop the link in the description to your YouTube channel Olly Richards. Also, I will teach you a language.com. Actually no, it will be storylearning.com moving forward. So I'll just say story learning. I'll change the link when it, the website changes in the description and also a link to your excellent readers, which polyglots are raving about on this podcast as well. So, um, listen, Olly, thank you so, so much, it's been a great chat. I wish you the best of luck with the story learning method and with your YouTube channel and, um, yeah, thank you so much for joining us today.

Olly: All right. Thank you. It's been a pleasure. Elle: Cheers. Bye-bye.

Polyglot Olly Richards Chats about his Story Learning Method, YouTube channel and a Near-Death Experience! Polyglott Olly Richards plaudert über seine Methode des Geschichtenlernens, seinen YouTube-Kanal und eine Nahtoderfahrung! El políglota Olly Richards habla de su método de aprendizaje de cuentos, de su canal de YouTube y de una experiencia cercana a la muerte. Le polyglotte Olly Richards parle de sa méthode d'apprentissage des histoires, de sa chaîne YouTube et d'une expérience de mort imminente ! Il poliglotta Olly Richards parla del suo metodo di apprendimento delle storie, del suo canale YouTube e di un'esperienza di quasi morte! ポリグロットのオリー・リチャーズが、ストーリー学習法、YouTubeチャンネル、臨死体験について語ります! 다언어 구사자 올리 리차드가 자신의 스토리 학습법, 유튜브 채널, 임사 체험에 대해 이야기합니다! Poliglota Olly Richards opowiada o swojej metodzie nauki historii, kanale YouTube i doświadczeniu bliskim śmierci! O poliglota Olly Richards fala sobre o seu método de aprendizagem de histórias, o seu canal no YouTube e uma experiência de quase morte! Полиглот Олли Ричардс рассказывает о своем методе изучения историй, канале YouTube и околосмертном опыте! Poliglot Olly Richards Hikaye Öğrenme Yöntemi, YouTube Kanalı ve Ölüme Yakın Deneyimi Hakkında Konuşuyor! Поліглот Оллі Річардс розповідає про свій метод вивчення історій, канал на YouTube та досвід на межі життя і смерті! 通晓多国语言的 Olly Richards 谈论他的故事学习方法、YouTube 频道和濒死体验! 通曉多國語言的 Olly Richards 談論他的故事學習方法、YouTube 頻道和瀕死體驗!

Elle: Hello everyone and welcome to the LingQ podcast with me Elle. Elle: 大家好,欢迎收听 LingQ 播客,我是 Elle。 Remember, if you are studying English, you can study this podcast episode as a lesson on LingQ, the audio and the transcript. 请记住,如果您正在学习英语,您可以将本期播客作为一门课程在 LingQ 上学习,包括音频和文字稿。 I've created it for you and the lesson link is in the description. 我已经为你创建了它,课程链接就在描述中。 In fact, on LingQ you can find a full course, so every episode of this podcast is there for you to study as an English lesson. 事实上,您可以在 LingQ 上找到完整的课程,因此本播客的每一集都可以作为英语课程供您学习。

LingQ is a game changer tool for language learning. LingQは、言語学習のためのゲームチェンジャーツールです。 LingQ to narzędzie zmieniające zasady gry w nauce języków obcych. You can create a lesson from any content you find online. Perhaps you want to start reading your news in Spanish in the morning, or watching movies in Japanese, you can make a lesson with it on LingQ and start enjoying content in your target language. If you're enjoying the podcast, please feel free to give us a review on Apple, follow us on Spotify or SoundCloud, subscribe on Google Podcasts. Jeśli podoba Ci się podcast, daj nam recenzję na Apple, śledź nas na Spotify lub SoundCloud, subskrybuj w Google Podcasts. Whatever showing love is on the platform that you're listing on. あなたがリストしているプラットフォームには、愛を示すものは何でもあります。 Niezależnie od tego, co pokazuje miłość na platformie, na której wystawiasz aukcję. It is greatly appreciated. よろしくお願いします。 Jest to bardzo cenne. This week's guest joins me from across the pond in the UK. W tym tygodniu dołącza do mnie gość zza oceanu, z Wielkiej Brytanii. He is a teacher, language learner, YouTuber and author. Today I am joined by Olly Richards.

Olly, thank you for joining us.

Olly: The pleasure's all mine. Olly: Das Vergnügen ist ganz meinerseits. Olly: Het genoegen is geheel aan mij. Olly: Cała przyjemność po mojej stronie. Thanks so much.

Elle: Excellent. And so how are things in the UK right now?

Olly: From what perspective?

Elle: Uh, yours and I guess, you know, why not talk about COVID? Why not? If you want to.

Olly: Well, I mean, I'll give you the quick version. COVID's, uh, actually on the way out. COVIDは、ええと、実際に出て行く途中です。 COVID jest w drodze do wyjścia. I think we're, most people here are mostly vaccinated for the most part. Myślę, że większość ludzi tutaj jest w większości zaszczepiona. Um, I think we did slightly better than, um, than, uh, than other places. Things are Opening up. So like, yeah, it's the end in sight here after a  pretty abysmal year or so. ですから、ええ、かなりひどい年かそこらの後、ここで終わりが見えてきました。 Więc tak, to koniec w zasięgu wzroku po dość fatalnym roku. And then personally, things are great. I'm doing what I do. 私は自分がしていることをやっています。 I'm writing books, I'm making courses, making loads of YouTube videos. 私は本を書いたり、コースを作ったり、たくさんのYouTubeビデオを作ったりしています。 YouTube is kind of my pet project at the moment. YouTubeは今のところ私のペットプロジェクトの一種です。 YouTube to obecnie mój ulubiony projekt. So, uh, so yeah, I'm enjoying, enjoying life. Więc, uh, więc tak, cieszę się, cieszę się życiem. Elle: Excellent. Yeah, and I have to say, I did notice that you've been making a lot of YouTube videos lately, it's great, on your channel: Olly Richards, which I will add a link to of course. So Olly, as I mentioned, you are a language learner and you know, is it eight languages I think I saw online, or has that changed?

Olly: Yeah, I tend to, I tend to say 8. Olly: Tak, mam tendencję do mówienia 8. It's my least favorite question because as time goes on, you know, you forget some languages and other ones go up, but yeah, I I've definitely, I've definitely learned, uh, 8 languages to a good level. To moje najmniej ulubione pytanie, ponieważ z biegiem czasu zapominasz niektóre języki, a inne się rozwijają, ale tak, zdecydowanie nauczyłem się 8 języków na dobrym poziomie. Those would be, uh, after English obviously French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Cantonese, Arabic, and then smatterings of a few others like German and Thai. Po angielskim byłyby to oczywiście francuski, hiszpański, włoski, portugalski, japoński, kantoński, arabski, a następnie kilka innych, takich jak niemiecki i tajski.

But, um, yeah, it's all kind of, it's a massive sort of smorgasbord of stuff. Maar, eh, ja, het is allemaal een soort van, het is een enorm soort smorgasbord van dingen. Ale, um, tak, to wszystko jest rodzajem, to ogromny rodzaj smorgasbord rzeczy. Um, all kind of in flux at any one time. Um, todo tipo de flujo en un momento dado. ええと、いつでもあらゆる種類の流動的です。 Um, wszystkie są w ciągłym ruchu.

Elle: Right.

Excellent. And, uh, now I have to ask you, uh, I love asking... you are a polyglot, you speak all these languages, so I love asking polyglots who come on, what sparked their passion, what motivated them to start this language learning journey. I, uh, teraz muszę cię zapytać, uh, uwielbiam pytać... jesteś poliglotą, mówisz wszystkimi tymi językami, więc uwielbiam pytać poliglotów, którzy przychodzą, co rozpaliło ich pasję, co zmotywowało ich do rozpoczęcia tej podróży do nauki języków.

And I've had all kinds of interesting answers, but I've never had near death experience. そして、私はあらゆる種類の興味深い答えを持っていますが、臨死体験は一度もありませんでした。 Otrzymałem wiele interesujących odpowiedzi, ale nigdy nie miałem doświadczenia bliskiego śmierci. So tell us about that.

Olly: Yeah.

So the near-death experience, well I'm going to get to that, cause that, that was actually how, that's what sparked my interest in stories and teaching through stories. ですから、臨死体験は、私がそれに到達するつもりです、それが実際にどのように起こったのか、それが物語と物語を通して教えることに私の興味を引き起こしたものです。 It wasn't how I got interested in languages in the first place. No fue así como empecé a interesarme por los idiomas. Like, so I grew up, I grew up like your classic monolingual, English guy and no contact with languages at all. のように、私は成長したので、私はあなたの古典的な単一言語の英語の人のように成長し、言語との接触はまったくありませんでした。 Dorastałem, dorastałem jak klasyczny jednojęzyczny, angielski facet i nie miałem żadnego kontaktu z językami. I mean, I did French classes at school, but that's about it. つまり、私は学校でフランス語の授業をしましたが、それだけです。 Um, but when I was 19 years old, I, I was living in London and I got a job in a cafe where I was just, uh, I came across, uh, people, everyone working in that cafe - and it was, it was Caffe Nero in Seven Dials for anyone who  knows London,it's  still there to this day, I sometimes pop in. Um, pero cuando tenía 19 años, yo, yo estaba viviendo en Londres y me dieron un trabajo en un café donde yo estaba, eh, me encontré con, eh, la gente, todo el mundo que trabaja en ese café - y fue, fue Caffe Nero en Seven Dials para cualquiera que conozca Londres, todavía está allí hasta el día de hoy, a veces me asomo. Uh, everyone who was working there with me was from it was from different countries. So there were Italians and Swedes and I kind of got talking to these people and I was just like blown away by how interesting their, their backgrounds were.

I was kinda thinking of what do you, what are you doing in the, in London? Yo estaba pensando en lo que haces, ¿qué estás haciendo en el, en Londres? And then I realized that these people were all, not only speaking their own languages, but they were speaking English and, uh, and often each other's languages too. I wtedy zdałem sobie sprawę, że ci ludzie nie tylko mówili w swoich językach, ale także po angielsku, a często także w językach innych ludzi. So I just found it all very, very interesting, and that kind of just sparked this interest in learning languages. Wszystko to było dla mnie bardzo, bardzo interesujące i to właśnie rozbudziło moje zainteresowanie nauką języków.

So I started learning French. And then, uh, shortly after that, my girlfriend decided to break up with me, sent me into a tailspin. En toen, uh, kort daarna, besloot mijn vriendin om het uit te maken, en stuurde me in een neerwaartse spiraal. A potem, krótko po tym, moja dziewczyna zdecydowała się ze mną zerwać, co doprowadziło mnie do załamania nerwowego. I ran away to Paris. Uciekłem do Paryża. So I lived in Paris for six months and kind of learned French there. And then it was just, you know, flood gates were open after that. その後、水門が開いただけでした。 A potem po prostu otworzyły się wrota powodzi. Um, but the, the near death experience you referred to was a few years later, I was trying to learn Spanish and not doing very well. ええと、でも、あなたが言及した臨死体験は数年後のことでした。私はスペイン語を学ぼうとしていて、あまりうまくいっていませんでした。

And, uh, I was traveling through Argentina when I was in this tiny village, up in the mountains, on the border of Argentina and Bolivia, um, called Iruya. そして、ええと、私がアルゼンチンとボリビアの国境にある山の上のこの小さな村にいたとき、私はアルゼンチンを旅していた、ええと、イルヤと呼ばれていました。 And, um, and it was very, very high up high altitude. To było bardzo, bardzo wysoko. And I woke up in the middle of the night, one night, uh, in this hostel and I couldn't breathe. Pewnej nocy obudziłem się w środku nocy w hostelu i nie mogłem oddychać. And I thought, well, maybe, maybe it's just something to do with the Malbec I'd been drinking that night. Pomyślałem, że może to coś związanego z Malbec, który piłem tej nocy. So I... but it didn't get any better. だから私は...しかしそれはそれ以上良くなりませんでした。 Więc ja... ale nie było lepiej. And I still couldn't, I still couldn't breathe. So I ran outside of the balcony, like starting to panic thinking, what am I going to do? Wybiegłem więc na balkon i zacząłem panikować, zastanawiając się, co mam zrobić? And it got worse and worse and I literally could not get any oxygen. I było coraz gorzej, dosłownie nie mogłem złapać tlenu.

And so I was kind of, sort of sitting there on the end of this balcony heaving thinking, this is, you know, this is the end. Así que estaba sentado en el extremo de este balcón pensando, esto es, ya sabes, esto es el final. Siedziałem więc na końcu tego balkonu, myśląc, że to już koniec. And then luckily of course the breath did eventually come back after a few minutes. Um, but I was too scared to go back to bed at that point. So all I could do is sort of sit down. Así que lo único que podía hacer era sentarme.

So I'm just sotr of sitting down on this balcony, looking out over the, this, this kind of this huge valley. And, uh, all I had with me was this Spanish book that I bought from some secondhand shop or something a few weeks earlier. And of course never touched, but I was too scared to go back to bed. I oczywiście nigdy nie dotknął, ale byłem zbyt przerażony, by wrócić do łóżka. We didn't have iPhones back in the day. 当時、iPhoneはありませんでした。 So I just picked up this book and started reading and it was kind of, it was really hard work cause my Spanish wasn't very good, but I kind of kept, plowed through as I must have sat up for two or three hours reading this book. Así que cogí este libro y empecé a leerlo, y me costó mucho trabajo porque mi español no era muy bueno, pero seguí leyendo, y debo de haber estado sentada dos o tres horas leyendo este libro. だからこの本を手に取って読み始めたのですが、スペイン語が苦手だったので大変でしたが、2、3時間座っていたに違いないので、ちょっとやり通しました。この本。 Więc po prostu wziąłem tę książkę i zacząłem czytać, a to była naprawdę ciężka praca, ponieważ mój hiszpański nie był zbyt dobry, ale w pewnym sensie trzymałem się, przebrnąłem przez nią, ponieważ musiałem siedzieć przez dwie lub trzy godziny, czytając tę książkę. And, um, didn't think I'd understood all that much, but was was just about following the plot, which is something key that we might come back to later. Y... no creía haber entendido tanto, pero se trataba de seguir la trama, que es algo clave sobre lo que volveremos más adelante. そして、ええと、私がそれほど理解しているとは思いませんでしたが、それは私たちが後で戻ってくるかもしれない何かの鍵であるプロットに従うことについてでした。 I, hm, nie sądziłem, że zrozumiałem aż tak wiele, ale chodziło tylko o podążanie za fabułą, co jest czymś kluczowym, do czego możemy wrócić później. Anyway, the next day I woke up happy to be alive. とにかく、翌日、私は生きていて幸せに目が覚めました。 And I was walking down the street in this, in this village, um, and I found all these words popping into my head. Szedłem ulicą w tej wiosce i wszystkie te słowa przychodziły mi do głowy. I was like, it was these random Spanish words, like... which means the Bishop. 私はそうだった、それはこれらのランダムなスペイン語の言葉だった、のように...それは司教を意味する。 To były takie przypadkowe hiszpańskie słowa, jak... co oznacza biskupa. Um, and then I thought, well, that's weird. Um, a potem pomyślałem, cóż, to dziwne. Cause normally I, you know, I don't remember learning these words. Bo normalnie nie pamiętam, żebym uczył się tych słów. And then, you know, normally I have to try really hard to remember words, but these words are somehow stuck. そして、ご存知のように、通常、私は単語を覚えるのに本当に一生懸命努力しなければなりませんが、これらの単語はどういうわけか行き詰まっています。 A potem, wiesz, normalnie muszę bardzo się starać, żeby zapamiętać słowa, ale te słowa jakoś utknęły. And then I realized it was because I'd sat up for hours last night, reading this book, and I'd certain words had been, had come up in the story over and over again. そして、昨夜何時間も起きてこの本を読んでいたからだと気づきました。そして、ある言葉が何度も何度も物語に登場していたのだと思いました。 A potem zdałem sobie sprawę, że to dlatego, że wczoraj w nocy siedziałem godzinami, czytając tę książkę i pewne słowa pojawiały się w niej raz po raz. Um, and so it, that kind of was one of those kinds of Eureka moments. ええと、そういうことで、そういうのはユーレカの瞬間のひとつでした。 To był jeden z tych momentów Eureki.

And then, so I kept on reading the book and then eventually went back to see my friends in Buenos Aires where I'd been staying before. A potem kontynuowałem czytanie książki i w końcu wróciłem do moich przyjaciół w Buenos Aires, gdzie mieszkałem wcześniej. And all of a sudden I realized I was so much better at speaking. I nagle zdałem sobie sprawę, że jestem o wiele lepszy w mówieniu. I could speak in more complete sentences cause I had all this vocabulary. Mogłem mówić pełniejszymi zdaniami, ponieważ miałem całe to słownictwo. Now I can understand a lot more of what people were saying.

So it just sparked this big interest in, in stories. And so from there on, I kind of went... this was many years later, but like, I started to try to develop a way of teaching languages using stories, because it was so powerful for me. Od tego momentu zacząłem... to było wiele lat później, ale zacząłem próbować opracować sposób nauczania języków za pomocą opowieści, ponieważ było to dla mnie tak potężne. And, uh, and loads of people like stories after all. W końcu mnóstwo ludzi lubi historie. So that was, yeah. That's how, how that happened. Elle: Wow. My goodness. 私の良さ。 So did you ever, um, Not to focus on it, just for a second to come back to what happened to you. それで、あなたは今までに、ええと、それに集中するのではなく、あなたに起こったことに戻ってくるためにほんの一瞬でしたか? Czy ty też kiedykolwiek, hm, nie skupiałeś się na tym, tylko na sekundę, żeby wrócić do tego, co ci się przydarzyło. Did you ever find out what that was? ¿Averiguaste alguna vez qué era? あなたはそれが何であったかを知ったことがありますか?

Olly: I think it was, I think it was just, I think it was just altitude, you know, that's, that's what happens when, when you're, when you're so high up. I mean, it was right up on top of a mountain in the Andes. つまり、それはアンデスの山の真上にありました。 To znaczy, to było na szczycie góry w Andach.

Uh, so I guess that's what it was. ええと、そうだったと思います。 I mean, maybe I was drugged or something. つまり、私は薬を飲んだか何かだったのかもしれません。 Może byłem pod wpływem narkotyków. If I was, then they didn't do a very good job of stealing my stuff. もし私がそうだったとしたら、彼らは私のものを盗むという非常に良い仕事をしませんでした。 Jeśli tak, to nie wykonali zbyt dobrej roboty, kradnąc moje rzeczy. Elle: No, the plot  thickens though  near-death experience or attempted murder? Elle: No, la trama se complica aunque la experiencia cercana a la muerte o intento de asesinato? Elle: Nie, fabuła się zagęszcza, ale doświadczenie bliskie śmierci czy próba morderstwa? Um, so previous to that, what kind of methods uh... so that's when, as you said, there's the kind of focus on stories began. ええと、その前に、どのような方法でええと...あなたが言ったように、それは物語へのある種の焦点が始まったときです。 Um, więc wcześniej, jakie metody uh... więc wtedy, jak powiedziałeś, zaczęto skupiać się na historiach. Previously what kind of methods had you used to study languages? Jakich metod używałeś wcześniej do nauki języków?

Olly: What I used was all I knew, which was what I'd done at school. オリー:私が使ったのは私が知っていることだけでした。それは私が学校でやったことでした。 Olly: Używałem wszystkiego, co znałem, czyli tego, co robiłem w szkole. So when I was at school, uh, you know, it was a very traditional learning. It was, um, you know, repeat after me, grammar, conjugation tables, uh, memorizing lists of words. To było, wiesz, powtarzanie za mną, gramatyka, tabele koniugacyjne, zapamiętywanie list słów. That's all I knew as far as I was concerned, that was, you know, that's how they taught us at school. 私が知る限り、それが私が知っていたすべてです。つまり、彼らが学校で私たちに教えた方法です。 To wszystko, co wiedziałem, jeśli chodzi o mnie, to było, wiesz, tak nas uczyli w szkole. It must be the best way to learn, right? Debe de ser la mejor manera de aprender, ¿no? それは学ぶための最良の方法であるに違いありませんね? So, so, um, that's all I did every time I, I had started a new language. To wszystko, co robiłem za każdym razem, gdy zaczynałem nowy język. Uh, I would just kind of go down to the European book shop in Soho, um, w where it was at the time in London. Uh, po prostu poszedłbym do europejskiego sklepu z książkami w Soho, um, gdzie to było w tamtym czasie w Londynie. And, uh, I would, I just, I just thought, I'd see whatever, whatever textbook I liked the look of and buy it and just work through it and then, you know, make my own paper flashcards and things like that. I, uh, po prostu, po prostu pomyślałem, że zobaczę jakikolwiek podręcznik, który mi się spodoba, kupię go i po prostu przez niego przejdę, a potem, wiesz, zrobię własne papierowe fiszki i tym podobne rzeczy. Uh, you know, it's, um, it's, it's a very, very traditional way of doing things. And, you know, I've, I've, I've sort of learned since that there's nothing necessarily wrong with doing it that way. そして、あなたが知っている、私は、私がそうすることで必ずしも悪いことは何もないので、私はある種のことを学びました。 Od tamtej pory nauczyłem się, że nie ma nic złego w robieniu tego w ten sposób. In fact, lots of people do have quite a lot of success, but it's what comes afterwards that, that matters. De hecho, mucha gente tiene bastante éxito, pero lo que importa es lo que viene después. 実際、多くの人がかなりの成功を収めていますが、それがその後に起こることです。それが重要です。 W rzeczywistości wiele osób odnosi spore sukcesy, ale liczy się to, co dzieje się później. You know, I actually think more and more that the method itself is just a way to get started. ご存知のように、私は実際、メソッド自体が開始するための単なる方法であるとますます考えています。 Wiesz, coraz częściej myślę, że sama metoda jest tylko sposobem na rozpoczęcie.

The journey from kind of competence to actual fluency is it's down to something a lot more kind of fundamental, I think. El paso de la competencia a la fluidez real se reduce a algo mucho más fundamental, creo. ある種の能力から実際の流暢さへの道のりは、もっと根本的なものにかかっていると思います。 Droga od pewnego rodzaju kompetencji do rzeczywistej płynności sprowadza się do czegoś bardziej fundamentalnego, jak sądzę. But yeah.

Elle: So was Spanish the first language then that you would say you became, as you say, very competent competent or fluent in? エル:スペイン語が最初の言語だったので、あなたが言うように、あなたは非常に有能または流暢になったと思いますか? Elle: Więc czy hiszpański był pierwszym językiem, w którym stałeś się, jak mówisz, bardzo kompetentny lub biegły?

Olly: No, I'd say it was probably, it was probably French. Olly: Nie, powiedziałbym, że to było prawdopodobnie francuskie. Um, but I was living in Paris, so it was kind of, it was, I had that advantage. Ale mieszkałem w Paryżu, więc miałem tę przewagę.

What changed was that when I, when I left France and I went back to the UK, I kept learning languages. Zmieniło się to, że kiedy opuściłem Francję i wróciłem do Wielkiej Brytanii, nadal uczyłem się języków. Right.

But I had to figure out how to keep learning languages while not being immersed in the country, which after all is most people's situation. しかし、私は国に没頭せずに言語を学び続ける方法を理解しなければなりませんでした。それは結局のところほとんどの人の状況です。 Ale musiałem wymyślić, jak kontynuować naukę języków, nie będąc zanurzonym w kraju, co przecież jest sytuacją większości ludzi. Right?

Elle: Yeah.

Olly: So really for most language learners, um, you know, it's not that living in the, in the country is necessarily a panacea because there are plenty of people who go to live abroad and don't learn the language to any good degree. オリー:本当にほとんどの言語学習者にとって、ええと、あなたが知っているように、国に住むことは必ずしも万能薬であるというわけではありません。 。 Olly: Więc tak naprawdę dla większości osób uczących się języka, wiesz, to nie jest tak, że życie w kraju jest koniecznie panaceum, ponieważ jest mnóstwo ludzi, którzy wyjeżdżają za granicę i nie uczą się języka w dobrym stopniu. Uh, but for the, for the ambitious, dedicated learner, living abroad is a huge advantage because you just have access to the language all the time. But for most people, you know, the challenges, how do I learn a language as a busy adult living at home, you know, by myself? Ale dla większości ludzi, wiesz, wyzwania, jak nauczyć się języka jako zapracowany dorosły mieszkający w domu, wiesz, sam? Well, maybe with the help of a teacher a little bit, but that that's the challenge that most people face and that's, that's who I also try to, to help with the stuff that, that, that I do. Cóż, może trochę z pomocą nauczyciela, ale to jest wyzwanie, przed którym stoi większość ludzi i właśnie dlatego staram się pomagać w rzeczach, które robię. I'm very focused on the practical side of life. Jestem bardzo skupiony na praktycznej stronie życia. Elle: So you run the website, I will teach you a language. Elle: Więc ty prowadzisz stronę, ja nauczę cię języka.

Olly: That's right, soon to become soon as it becomes storylearning.com. Olly: Zgadza się, wkrótce stanie się storylearning.com. Depending on when people are watching this, we're actually, we're actually... cause because the method that I now teach using stories, I call story learning, um, and so we're actually changing the name of everything over to story learning.com. Dependiendo de cuándo la gente esté viendo esto, en realidad, en realidad... porque el método que ahora enseño usando historias, lo llamo aprendizaje de historias, um, y por eso en realidad estamos cambiando el nombre de todo a story learning.com. Uh, but that, that may or may not have happened by the time this goes live. Uh, pero eso, eso puede o no puede haber sucedido en el momento en que esto va en vivo. Ale to może, ale nie musi się wydarzyć do czasu, gdy to zostanie opublikowane. So, but anyone watching this well into the future. Tak więc, ale każdy, kto ogląda to w przyszłości. Will uh, will yeah. Tak, tak. Story learning.com sould be where it's at. Story learning.com powinno być tam, gdzie jest. Elle: Storylearning.com. Okay.

Excellent. Yeah.

So we'll talk about the story learning method in a moment. I just want to mention your short stories series, because two of the past guests I've had on this podcast have mentioned them. Chciałbym tylko wspomnieć o serii twoich opowiadań, ponieważ wspomniało o nich dwóch gości, których miałem okazję gościć w tym podcaście. So I always ask, uh, you know, what would you recommend, uh content-wise and I've had two people now say Olly Richards' short stories, readers, which are available online have, were really helpful for me. Dlatego zawsze pytam, co byś polecił, jeśli chodzi o treść, i już dwie osoby powiedziały mi, że krótkie opowiadania Olly'ego Richardsa, które są dostępne online, były dla mnie bardzo pomocne. So I believe, for cantonese and for Spanish. Yes. Cause that's right. Bo to prawda. They're offered in Spanish and Cantonese, right? Olly: No, not, not, not exactly. Not exactly. Not Cantonese, but we do have Spanish and we have, we have about 20 languages at this point of which Spanish is one. No cantonés, pero sí español y tenemos, tenemos cerca de 20 idiomas en este momento de los cuales el español es uno. Nie kantoński, ale mamy hiszpański i mamy około 20 języków, z których hiszpański jest jednym. Yeah.

Elle: Wow. Okay.

Excellent. I'll uh, I'll put the link in the description for those, but so they came before you developed this kind of story learning method, or I guess they were... Umieszczę link do nich w opisie, ale pojawiły się, zanim opracowałeś tego rodzaju metodę uczenia się historii, lub wydaje mi się, że były... Olly: Yeah, and so the way, so the way, the way it happened was that I, um, so I've been searching for these ways because I found myself learning through stories. Olly: Tak, więc sposób, w jaki to się stało, był taki, że szukałem tych sposobów, ponieważ uczyłem się poprzez historie. Right.

And, um, the way that I was learning was up, I was just getting, getting books and reading those books and. I, um, sposób, w jaki się uczyłem, był taki, że po prostu zdobywałem, zdobywałem książki i czytałem te książki.

And that's fine once you get to a certain level, but it's not much comfort for people who are kind of just getting started or who are kind of at a lower level because reading novels is pretty tough and you've either got to be already be at a good level, or you've got to be extraordinarily persistent, um, uh, in order to kind of make your way through and all. Und das ist in Ordnung, wenn Sie ein gewisses Niveau erreicht haben, aber es ist nicht viel Trost für Leute, die gerade erst anfangen oder auf einem niedrigeren Niveau sind, weil das Lesen von Romanen ziemlich schwierig ist und Sie es entweder schon sein müssen auf einem guten Niveau, oder man muss außerordentlich hartnäckig sein, äh, äh, um irgendwie durchzukommen und so. I to jest w porządku, gdy osiągniesz pewien poziom, ale nie jest to zbyt pocieszające dla osób, które dopiero zaczynają lub są na niższym poziomie, ponieważ czytanie powieści jest dość trudne i albo musisz być już na dobrym poziomie, albo musisz być wyjątkowo wytrwały, um, uh, aby przejść przez to wszystko. So what, so my first where I went first was to think, okay, well, I want to write stories that you can, that can be useful for them. Więc najpierw pomyślałem, że chcę pisać historie, które mogą być dla nich przydatne. Um, and you know, graded readers are hardly a new concept, but, but graded readers have always been traditionally extremely dull and boring and, you know, there are often kind of, you know, it would be a translation of like Sherlock Holmes or Jane Austen or whatever, which is fine, but it's not my cup of tea. Wiesz, czytelnicy z oceną nie są raczej nową koncepcją, ale czytelnicy z oceną zawsze byli tradycyjnie wyjątkowo nudni i nudni i wiesz, często są to tłumaczenia Sherlocka Holmesa lub Jane Austen lub cokolwiek innego, co jest w porządku, ale nie jest to moja filiżanka herbaty. So I wanted something more, more fresh and modern and fun. Right.

So, so I started writing short stories, um, in originally in Spanish and then after that in many other languages. Uh, and, and, and I kind of really went down this rabbit hole of figuring out here what exactly do learners want in, um, in the books like this? Uh, y, y, y yo tipo de realmente entró en este agujero de conejo de averiguar aquí ¿qué es exactamente lo que los estudiantes quieren en, um, en los libros como este? W pewnym sensie naprawdę zszedłem do tej króliczej nory, zastanawiając się, czego dokładnie uczący się chcą w takich książkach? Uh, because I think a lot, it's probably, it's probably to look at these books and think, oh, well, he just wrote a few stories, but actually I did a huge amount of research into everything from like how long should the average sentence be? Uh, porque creo que muchos, es probable, es probable que mirar a estos libros y pensar, oh, bueno, él sólo escribió unas cuantas historias, pero en realidad hice una gran cantidad de investigación en todo, desde como ¿cuánto tiempo debe ser la sentencia promedio? Uh, ponieważ myślę, że wiele osób prawdopodobnie patrzy na te książki i myśli, oh, cóż, on napisał tylko kilka opowiadań, ale tak naprawdę przeprowadziłem ogromną ilość badań na temat wszystkiego, od tego, jak długie powinno być przeciętne zdanie? Uh, what genres of stories should we have? Jakie gatunki historii powinniśmy mieć? Um, what's the ideal chapter length? Jaka jest idealna długość rozdziału? I mean, I I've, I went deep on this stuff. Um, yeah. Uh, and so that's why I think these books have become so popular because it is exactly what people need when they are at a, kind of A2, upper beginner level to start reading. So they came first and then, but that's still not a method for beginners. Więc oni przyszli pierwsi, a potem, ale to wciąż nie jest metoda dla początkujących. So I started to think like, well, I've got these, I've written these books and they're, they're super popular. Zacząłem więc myśleć, że mam te książki, napisałem je i są bardzo popularne. I want to do something that, I want to create something so that complete beginners in a language can learn using stories too. So it took me a couple of years to figure it out, but then eventually I, I, I kind of created my story learning method, which is, which is specific specifically for beginners. Zajęło mi to kilka lat, ale w końcu stworzyłem swoją metodę uczenia się historii, która jest przeznaczona specjalnie dla początkujących.

So if you want to learn Japanese or Spanish or French or whatever, um, I would start to create these courses whereby um, so that you'd have these courses that were based entirely on stories, but you add onto that tuition and, um, and activities and things like that, that they get you, um, actually kind of processing the language and learning. Więc jeśli chcesz nauczyć się japońskiego, hiszpańskiego, francuskiego czy czegokolwiek innego, zacznę tworzyć kursy, które będą w całości oparte na historiach, ale dodasz do tego czesne, zajęcia i tym podobne rzeczy, które sprawią, że będziesz w stanie przetwarzać język i uczyć się. Um, and so that, yeah, that came after, because it wasn't obvious to me how to do it. Well, I could have, I could have thrown something, I could have thrown something together at any point, but I really wanted to do it well. Bueno, podría haberlo hecho, podría haber lanzado algo, podría haber montado algo en cualquier momento, pero realmente quería hacerlo bien. Cóż, mogłem, mogłem coś rzucić, mogłem coś sklecić w dowolnym momencie, ale naprawdę chciałem zrobić to dobrze. Um, I've got a long, a long background in teaching. Um, tengo una larga, una larga experiencia en la enseñanza. Mam długie, długie doświadczenie w nauczaniu. Um, so I kind of, I was quite, you know, insistent on, um, on doing that the right way. Um, więc byłem dość, wiesz, nalegałem, aby zrobić to we właściwy sposób.

Elle: Excellent. And what's what did you used to teach before? A czego uczyłeś wcześniej? Olly: Well, when I was a lot younger, I taught music for a few years. Um, I used to teach piano and guitar cause I have a background in music. Um, I have a degree in, I have a degree in jazz piano, which not many people know. Mam dyplom z fortepianu jazzowego, o czym niewiele osób wie.

Elle: That's very cool. Olly: And I used to, I used to play professionally. That's like what I did for the longest time. Tak właśnie robiłem przez najdłuższy czas. Um, and then I came to a kind of crossroads in my life and I decided to go and teach English so I moved to Japan, taught English in Japan for a few years. Um, a potem doszedłem do pewnego rodzaju rozdroża w moim życiu i zdecydowałem się uczyć angielskiego, więc przeprowadziłem się do Japonii, uczyłem angielskiego w Japonii przez kilka lat. And then did my, you know, certificates, diplomas. A potem, wiesz, moje certyfikaty, dyplomy. I did a master's degree in applied linguistics, you know, I've really kind of... whatever, when I, when I do new things, I tend to kind of go, go at it quite hard. Hice un máster en lingüística aplicada, ya sabes, realmente he... lo que sea, cuando, cuando hago cosas nuevas, tiendo a ir, ir a por ello bastante duro. Ukończyłem studia magisterskie z lingwistyki stosowanej, wiesz, naprawdę... cokolwiek, kiedy robię nowe rzeczy, mam tendencję do tego, by robić to dość mocno. So I went down the full on teaching routes. Así que me dediqué de lleno a la enseñanza. Więc poszedłem pełną ścieżką nauczania. I almost went and did a PhD and all that, but I didn't do that in the end. Ich wäre fast hingegangen und hätte promoviert und so weiter, aber das habe ich am Ende nicht gemacht. Estuve a punto de hacer un doctorado y todo eso, pero al final no lo hice. Prawie zrobiłem doktorat i tak dalej, ale ostatecznie tego nie zrobiłem. Um, but yeah, so I've got quite extensive experience as a, uh, as a TEFL teacher and teacher trainer and kind of academic ish. Um, ale tak, więc mam dość duże doświadczenie jako nauczyciel TEFL i trener nauczycieli oraz coś w rodzaju akademickiego. Elle: Wow. And do you, are you by any chance left handed? Y tú, ¿eres zurdo por casualidad?

Olly: Yeah

Elle: No way. Okay.

So the last podcast episode with, I don't know if you know Nate of Nate's adventures, YouTube channel, he mentioned your, uh, your readers. Uh, he said that apparently people who have musical talent or are able to play, uh, instruments multiple or just one, and are left-handed are apparently more likely to, uh, be good language learners, whatever that means.

Or be maybe interested in language learning, but there you go. Oder vielleicht am Sprachenlernen interessiert sein, aber los geht's. Albo być może zainteresowanym nauką języka, ale proszę bardzo. So you point his point. Also zeigst du seinen Punkt. Así que apuntas su punto. Więc wskazujesz jego punkt widzenia. I'm going to ask every guest moving forward. Zamierzam pytać o to każdego gościa. Olly: Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's, it's, I, I'm not aware of any kind of research that shows that. I mean, the difficulty is that, I mean I've got, it's often people ask me like Ddoes a musical background give you, help you have a better accent? Or does it help you or does it help you with languages? And my, my feeling on that is yes, it has helped me in certain ways. It does with my accent in other languages, I think tends to be, tends to be quite good, better than, I mean, there's plenty of things in my languages that are not good, but accent is, accent, I I'm, I'm better. Yeah.

And also the thing of, um, I actually get the discipline of training yourself to get good at something that was once hard.

Elle: Right.

Olly: Which is what is what classical music in particular trains you to do. Olly: To jest to, do czego w szczególności uczy muzyka klasyczna. Um, but in general, the thing is that for every example of someone who has a background in music and he's good at languages, you can find 10 examples of people who are just as good at languages with no musical background. Elle: Yeah, like Steve I think for example.

Olly: Right. Um, yeah, Steve doesn't strike me as a musician. Sí, Steve no me parece un músico. Tak, Steve nie wydaje mi się muzykiem. He, maybe he is.

Elle: I don't, I don't think he plays anything. I could be wrong.

Olly: I could, I can imagine him sort of sitting in some izakaya in Japan seeing someone  kind of do some crooning or some, all Japanese songs or, but yeah. Olly: Me lo imagino sentado en una izakaya en Japón viendo a alguien cantando canciones japonesas, pero sí. It's, I don't know. I don't, I don't really know. Um, I remember speaking to Stephen Krashen about this, about the musical question and, and, and he, and he, he replied quite similarly, like, you know, our, our intuition, like likes... based on intuition we'd like to think that there's a connection, but it's not born out in research as far as I'm aware. Recuerdo que hablé con Stephen Krashen sobre la cuestión musical y él me contestó algo parecido, como que nuestra intuición, como que nos gusta... basándonos en la intuición nos gustaría pensar que hay una conexión, pero que yo sepa no se ha demostrado en la investigación. Elle: Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Um, so as you mentioned, you have your short stories, your reader short stories in whichever language, are available in 20 languages. Jak wspomniałeś, twoje opowiadania, opowiadania dla czytelników w dowolnym języku, są dostępne w 20 językach. I won't ask to recite those. Nie będę prosił o ich wyrecytowanie. Olly: Yeah aproximately. Olly: Tak mniej więcej.

Elle: That's, that's amazing. Um, what about your, so your story learning method, which is more focused on beginners, what languages are those available in?

Olly: Yeah, so this my story learning courses are basically, yeah, they are just your standard beginner courses, just like any kind of beginner textbook or, or, or whatever. Uh, and we have those in Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, uh, Chinese, Korean, Turkish, Portuguese and Russian.

Elle: Wow. Okay.

Olly: Yeah.

Elle: Okay, you heard it here first. Um, so I want to talk, as you mentioned about your YouTube channel, you've been making a lot more videos on your channel, Olly Richards. Um, how's that going? Jak ci idzie? And what do you have any kind of projects in the works? A jakie projekty są w przygotowaniu? How's the channel going? Olly: Yeah.

So the channel's going great. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks for asking and anyone who's listening and watching go subscribe to the channel on YouTube because I'm putting out some very, like I'm trying to, I'm trying to, I'm having a lot of fun with the channel. Gracias por preguntar y cualquiera que esté escuchando y viendo vaya a suscribirse al canal en YouTube porque estoy poniendo algunos muy, como estoy tratando de, estoy tratando de, estoy teniendo un montón de diversión con el canal. So for example, recently I published a video on how Mormon missionaries learn languages, which has done super well. Na przykład niedawno opublikowałem film o tym, jak mormońscy misjonarze uczą się języków, który osiągnął bardzo dobre wyniki.

And I also find like videos of celebrities speaking, speaking languages, and, and kind of talk about how, about how they are, how they do it and give some kind of commentary and things and things like that. Znajduję też filmiki z celebrytami mówiącymi, mówiącymi językami i opowiadającymi o tym, jak to robią, jak to robią i dają jakieś komentarze i tym podobne rzeczy. So everyone go subscribe to, to that. Więc wszyscy subskrybujcie to. Or you can just search Olly Richards on YouTube and drop me a comment and say hi, cause I love to get those comments.

Um, but most of all, it's, it's a way for me to just kind of, I guess it sounds corny, but it's a way for me to express myself really, because I I've always been a content creator. Ale przede wszystkim jest to dla mnie sposób na wyrażenie siebie, ponieważ zawsze byłem twórcą treści. I started my website and this whole business started off as a blog. Back in 2013. I just, you know, I heard, I heard, I read, I heard about this guy, Benny Lewis and how he was blog blogging. Po prostu, wiesz, słyszałem, słyszałem, czytałem, słyszałem o tym facecie, Bennym Lewisie i o tym, jak prowadził bloga.

And, um, so I thought, well, I could, I could do that. So I started a blog and then that all developed into, you know, everything that's happened since has kind of developed from that. Así que empecé un blog y luego todo se convirtió en, ya sabes, todo lo que ha sucedido desde entonces se ha desarrollado a partir de eso. But my first passion around this was always, um, blogging. Cause I just, I've got a long background in languages, language learning, teaching, and I wanted to create stuff. Right.

I wanted to blog about my experiences and um, and so... that I did that I did for years and years, but, but one of the trends that's happened, you know, on, on online in recent years is the video has become so much more, um, important, you know? And, and so I've been, yeah. I've decided I decided to get, to make a go of my, of my, of my YouTube channel. Zdecydowałem się, zdecydowałem się ruszyć z moim kanałem na YouTube. So I can, I've learned how to do YouTube. I've been uploading videos on and off about seven years, but I just never, it was always like a way to make my blog more interesting by making a quick video of me speaking Cantonese or whatever. Llevo subiendo vídeos de vez en cuando unos siete años, pero nunca, siempre fue como una forma de hacer mi blog más interesante haciendo un vídeo rápido de mí hablando cantonés o lo que sea. Wrzucam filmiki z przerwami od około siedmiu lat, ale nigdy, zawsze był to sposób na urozmaicenie mojego bloga poprzez nagranie krótkiego filmiku, na którym mówię po kantońsku lub cokolwiek innego. Um, but I recently, I sort of decided to, you know, quote unquote, "do YouTube" or "learn YouTube". Um, ale ostatnio zdecydowałem się, wiesz, cytuję bez cytatu, "zrobić YouTube" lub "nauczyć się YouTube". So I, um, I, I took it quite seriously. Potraktowałem to więc całkiem poważnie. I recruited a team who helps me, uh, with the channel or kind of a production team and, um, have been making or experimenting with all these different videos. And, and I just love to have ideas. A ja po prostu uwielbiam mieć pomysły. I have like a million ideas a minute. I've always been that way. And so I, YouTube is kind of a very cool way to just have an idea and be able to put it out there.

So, like, for example, I remember watching the US presidential elections last year. Yeah.

Uh, and thinking to myself well that's interesting, because I've watched these, these debates that they had. And, and it's complete cliche now that you'll get, you'll get someone who's like speaking to the audience in English and then they'll turn to the camera and speak in Spanish. Y, y es un completo cliché ahora que tendrás, tendrás a alguien que está como hablando a la audiencia en inglés y luego se volverá a la cámara y hablará en español. I, i jest to teraz kompletny banał, że dostaniesz kogoś, kto będzie mówił do publiczności po angielsku, a potem odwróci się do kamery i będzie mówił po hiszpańsku. I thought, well, that's kind of weird. Pomyślałem, że to trochę dziwne. I know why they're doing it, right? But it's also quite cool. Wouldn't it be fun to make a video with like, talking about the Spanish that they use. ¿No sería divertido hacer un video con como, hablando sobre el español que utilizan. Czy nie byłoby fajnie nakręcić filmik, w którym mówiliby o hiszpańskim, którego używają. And, and so I just made this video on, on US presidential, analyzing us presidential candidates. I found some clips of them speaking Spanish.

And then just talked about it. And that for me is just so fun to do. And so I use YouTube as a way to just, just, just kind of get my thoughts and ideas out there. And, um, and fortunately it seems to be really resonating with people.

Elle: So are you actively learning a language right now or are you in  that polygto maintain mode? Elle: Aktywnie uczysz się teraz języka czy jesteś w trybie poliglotycznym?

Olly: Yeah.

Well, what I'm actually doing right now is I've, I've gone back to learning Kanji. So Japanese or Chinese characters in Japanese, it's like been a bit, a bit, a bit, a bit of a love-hate relationship with, for me for four years. But I haven't, I have to say in the last few years in particular, I haven't been all that active with language learning, um, as much as before. And I often think about why that is. I'm very influenced by my surroundings, right? So I've often traveled a lot and, um, you know, my ideal... well, my ideal scenario for learning a new language is either when I'm, when I've got a community of people around me. For example, when I lived in London, I had a bunch of Brazilian friends, learnt Portuguese, or else when I travel or go to the country. Na przykład, kiedy mieszkałem w Londynie, miałem grupę brazylijskich przyjaciół, nauczyłem się portugalskiego, albo kiedy podróżowałem lub pojechałem do tego kraju.

So when I went to Japan, learnt Japanese, um, and, but then kind of right now, I'm in a stage of life where I'm quite like, um, I'm quite chilled really. Also, als ich nach Japan ging, Japanisch lernte, ähm, und, aber irgendwie jetzt, bin ich in einer Lebensphase, in der ich ziemlich, ähm, ich bin wirklich ziemlich gekühlt. Cuando fui a Japón, aprendí japonés y ahora estoy en una etapa de mi vida en la que estoy bastante relajado. Więc kiedy pojechałem do Japonii, nauczyłem się japońskiego, um, i, ale teraz jestem na etapie życia, w którym jestem całkiem jak, um, jestem naprawdę wyluzowany. Um, I live in like in, in, in a little village, in the middle of the countryside in England, I hardly ever hear foreign languages. Uh, so I don't kind of have this big, or I haven't had this, this, this real urge to be studying for, for a while, but it, but it kind of comes back in fits and starts. Uh, así que no tengo este tipo de grande, o no he tenido esto, esto, este impulso real de estar estudiando por, por un tiempo, pero, pero es como que vuelve en arrebatos y arranques. Uh, więc nie mam tego wielkiego, albo nie miałem tego, tego, tego prawdziwego pragnienia studiowania przez jakiś czas, ale to, ale to w pewnym sensie wraca w przypływach i początkach. So recently I've kind of decided, right, it's time to properly learn to learn, to, to, to read and write Japanese, like... like I said, that kind of big unfinished project. And so I've got, I'm working on that currently, so I'm, um, I could tell you how I'm going about it, if you like, but given that I haven't had that much success in the past, I'm not, not sure it's particularly useful information. Estoy trabajando en ello, así que podría contarte cómo lo estoy haciendo, si quieres, pero dado que no he tenido mucho éxito en el pasado, no estoy seguro de que sea una información especialmente útil. Obecnie nad tym pracuję, więc mogę powiedzieć, jak to robię, jeśli chcesz, ale biorąc pod uwagę, że w przeszłości nie odniosłem tak dużego sukcesu, nie jestem pewien, czy jest to szczególnie przydatna informacja. Um, but yeah. Um, but I do maintain languages a fair bit. Um, ale utrzymuję języki w dobrym stanie. I mean, I always regularly speak Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Cantonese, French from time to time.

Um, um, but yeah, it always kind of changes. I I'm, I'm always very I'm full of admiration for people who are, who dedicated lots of time every day to actively maintaining languages, even, even without a, um, a particular reason do so. Cause I'm, I'm just not like that. I I'm, I've always been someone very much kind of led by my surroundings. Um, so, so yeah, but I suspect when the world starts to open up again properly and, um, and, and, and more traveling is to be done. I suspect I might, I might pick up the bug again quite quick. Ich vermute, ich könnte, ich könnte den Fehler ziemlich schnell wieder aufgreifen. Sospecho que sí, que podría volver a coger el gusanillo bastante rápido. Podejrzewam, że tak, mogę szybko złapać bakcyla.

Elle: And how about your kind of entertainment time then? Do you find you watch movies, TV shows, read books, blog posts in the different languages, you know, or do you kind of just gravitate towards maybe English or the langauges you know best?

Olly: It's the same answer, right? I don't do stuff for the sake of the languages, right? Nie robię rzeczy dla samych języków, prawda? I know this is probably a quite, it's probably quite an uncommon answer among the, the guests you have here. Cause I know a lot of people are just incredibly dedicated to the way that they kind of structure their time to practice different languages.

See, for me, it's never, it's never been in about the language as such. Dla mnie nigdy nie chodziło o język jako taki. It's always been about what I can do with that language. Siempre se ha tratado de lo que puedo hacer con esa lengua. So I'm, it's not that I'm particularly interested in learning Japanese it's that I want to be able to communicate with my Japanese friends and talk to them in Japanese. No es que me interese especialmente aprender japonés, es que quiero poder comunicarme con mis amigos japoneses y hablarles en japonés. It's not that I necessarily love the act of learning Portuguese, it's because I love to go and hang out with, with Brazilians in Brazil. I just love being there. So like, so when I don't have that immediate environment, it's not something that I just really seek out. Więc kiedy nie mam tego bezpośredniego otoczenia, nie jest to coś, czego naprawdę szukam. Um, so it's difficult. I do think about this sometimes. Czasami o tym myślę. I mean, I, I will watch movies in Japanese and Portuguese and stuff. Oglądam filmy po japońsku, portugalsku i tak dalej. Well, whatever, um, but, but again, like I say, it's just not something that I, I try and force. Cóż, nieważne, ale tak jak mówię, to nie jest coś, co próbuję wymusić. I think one kinf of relevant question here is what it means to maintain a language. Myślę, że jednym z istotnych pytań jest to, co oznacza utrzymanie języka. Because I think for me, the languages I've learned fall into kind of two categories, the languages I've learned and I, and I'm still pretty good at, and then the languages that I've learned and I've kind of let them fall away. Porque creo que para mí, los idiomas que he aprendido se dividen en dos categorías: los idiomas que he aprendido y en los que sigo siendo bastante bueno, y los idiomas que he aprendido y que he dejado de lado. Ponieważ myślę, że dla mnie języki, których się nauczyłem, dzielą się na dwie kategorie: języki, których się nauczyłem i nadal jestem w nich całkiem dobry, oraz języki, których się nauczyłem i pozwoliłem im odpaść. And I very much believe that once you've learned the language to a strong level, which I normally, uh, pinned down at about a B2 level, B2 or higher. Y creo firmemente que una vez que has aprendido el idioma hasta un nivel sólido, que yo normalmente sitúo en torno a un nivel B2, B2 o superior. I bardzo wierzę, że kiedy już nauczysz się języka na dobrym poziomie, który zwykle określam na poziomie B2, B2 lub wyższym. You never lose that language. Right?

So for example, my French is probably not great right now. But I still understand everything. And given 15 minutes of practice, I can get it back to a good level, even though I haven't really spoken to for 20 years when I, when I was last in France, but that's, but that's quite common among, among people who, who have got languages to that kind of level are going to B2 or, or, or above level. And so when I think about the languages that I've, that I've had at that level or I've got to that level still, I, I'm not worried about losing them because I know that the day that I need them, I'll get it, I can get them back very quickly. Así que cuando pienso en los idiomas que he aprendido a ese nivel o que he llegado a ese nivel, no me preocupa perderlos porque sé que el día que los necesite, los recuperaré rápidamente. So for that reason, I just choose not to spend my time in some arbitrary maintenance mode. Así que, por esa razón, elijo no pasar mi tiempo en un modo de mantenimiento arbitrario. Z tego powodu postanowiłem po prostu nie spędzać czasu w jakimś arbitralnym trybie konserwacji.

Um, but rather I just, I just do what I want to do in my life. And, you know, if languages are part of that, great. If not, no worries. Um, I know I'll come back to them later, so yeah, I'm very, I'm very much, um, I'm very kind of Laissez-faire with that, that, that, that kind if thing. Um, wiem, że wrócę do nich później, więc tak, jestem bardzo, jestem bardzo, um, jestem bardzo Laissez-faire z tym, że, że, że, że tego rodzaju rzeczy. It's not very practical, not very practical, practical help for people, but that's the truth. Elle: But that's like, you know yourself, right? Elle: Ale to tak, jakbyś znał siebie, prawda? You're not going to force it because, and also if you do force it, if you're like, Hey, I'm going to spend X amount of time each day on these different languages and you're not necessarily enjoying it, you're just doing it as a chore, is it really that helpful? Nie zamierzasz tego wymuszać, ponieważ, a także jeśli to robisz, jeśli myślisz: Hej, zamierzam spędzać X czasu każdego dnia na tych różnych językach i niekoniecznie sprawia ci to przyjemność, robisz to tylko jako obowiązek, czy to naprawdę jest tak pomocne? You know, maybe.

Olly: I think it can be helpful. I mean, if  you're spending a lot of time, if you're spending regular time, picking up a language, it will have an effect. Chodzi mi o to, że jeśli spędzasz dużo czasu, jeśli spędzasz regularnie czas, ucząc się języka, będzie to miało wpływ. For sure. For me, it's more a case of, I won't enjoy it if I'm forcing it. Dla mnie jest to bardziej przypadek, nie będę się tym cieszyć, jeśli będę to wymuszać. I, you know, I, I, I'm always, I've always been very busy. I've always worked hard and I have, I have a lot of things I like to do. Um, you know, I spend a lot of time, you know, walking, cycling, for example, seeing family. Uh, so I don't, I don't feel like I have time to do something that I don't really want to do and, you know, maintaining languages that, that maintaining languages where, where there's no particular outcome there, it kind of fits into that category. Así que no siento que tenga tiempo para hacer algo que realmente no quiero hacer y, ya sabes, mantener lenguas en las que no hay un resultado concreto, como que encaja en esa categoría. Elle: Right.

I See.

Olly: Sorry.

Elle: No, don't apologize. Um, so for everyone who's listening and watching, who's going to rush to Olly Richards, your YouTube channel, what can they expect from your channel moving forward for the rest of the year and beyond? Um, así que para todos los que están escuchando y viendo, que va a correr a Olly Richards, su canal de YouTube, ¿qué pueden esperar de su canal en adelante para el resto del año y más allá? Olly: A lot of fun language stuff is what you can expect. You're not going to find videos of me saying, you know, here, here is my six month uh, Korean progress or anything. It's, it's I used to do that, but I don't do that anymore. I, what I try to do is I try to think what will people enjoy, what will people find interesting? Um, so I'm working on a video right now, for example, about the defense language Institute. So the green Berets in the US, what methods they use to train their special forces to learn languages faster. Więc Zielone Berety w USA, jakich metod używają do szkolenia swoich sił specjalnych, aby szybciej uczyć się języków.

Um, I'm working on, uh, on, on some videos about, um, about different, about different languages, obviously. Bit of a statement of the obvious. Trochę oczywiste stwierdzenie. I'm working on, I'm working on a video right now about how we create our book. So like when we've got these, you've got these books in different languages, or how do we create a Brazilian Portuguese book and that, or how do we make a Korean book? Making A video describing all of that. Tworzenie wideo opisującego to wszystko. We've got, um, you know, videos of like celebrities speaking Japanese and things like that. And I'm having a great time, uh, at their expense. I świetnie się bawię ich kosztem. So yeah, a lot of, a lot of stuff where I'm trying to sort of,but this isn't, this isn't frivolous. Więc tak, wiele rzeczy, w których staram się, ale to nie jest, to nie jest niepoważne. I'm trying, I always try to sort of talk about different language topics, and then tie it back into what you can take away from it. Siempre intento hablar de distintos temas lingüísticos y luego relacionarlos con lo que se puede sacar de ellos. Staram się, zawsze staram się mówić o różnych tematach językowych, a następnie powiązać je z tym, co można z nich wynieść. So if I'm, if I'm making a reaction video to Colin Firth speaking Italian, I'm not sure. Nie jestem więc pewien, czy nagrywam wideo z reakcją na Colina Firtha mówiącego po włosku. Well, he speaks great Italian by the way. Yeah.

And you can, if you want to see an example of that um...

Elle: I do, because that just makes him more attractive. I'll check that out right after. Olly: But what I'll try and do is I'll kind of I'll I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll try to like analyze it and then tie it back to what you can take away from that. Olly: Spróbuję to przeanalizować, a następnie powiązać z tym, co można z tego wyciągnąć. Right.

So, so actually I try to make it informative and educational as well as, as well as fun. Tak więc staram się, aby było to zarówno pouczające i edukacyjne, jak i zabawne. So yeah go now, go subscribe. Like I say, um, if you're listening to this and leave me a comment on my video, say that you came from the, from the LingQ podcast and, uh, I will, uh, I'll look out for those because I love getting, I love, uh, I love getting comments from people. I love hearing from people that come from different places.

Elle: Excellent. Well, I will of course pop the link in the description to your YouTube channel Olly Richards. Also, I will teach you a language.com. Actually no, it will be storylearning.com moving forward. Właściwie to nie, w przyszłości będzie to storylearning.com. So I'll just say story learning. I'll change the link when it, the website changes in the description and also a link to your excellent readers, which polyglots are raving about on this podcast as well. Zmienię link, gdy zmieni się strona internetowa w opisie, a także link do twoich doskonałych czytników, o których poligloci zachwycają się również w tym podcastie. So, um, listen, Olly, thank you so, so much, it's been a great chat. I wish you the best of luck with the story learning method and with your YouTube channel and, um, yeah, thank you so much for joining us today.

Olly: All right. Thank you. It's been a pleasure. Elle: Cheers. Bye-bye.