What is the Key to Success in Language Learning & Life?

Language learning starts with you, with the person, with the learner.

Just do it!

Language learning to me is almost like a model of life itself.

So many things can happen to us in our lives.

What matters is what we do. And when we start something,

that's the most important step.

To do something! And if we do something, it may trigger a series

of events that we didn't anticipate.

Some might be better than we hoped for, some might be worse than we

hoped for. But throughout my life, every time I have undertaken to

do something, it has brought me

some of the greatest opportunities in my life.

When I was, I think, 19, working on a construction

site in Montreal, I was fired.

That particular section of the job had been completed, so I went down to the

dock in Montreal, and for three days, I asked to see the captain of the various ships

that were docked in Montreal Port.

I asked to work my way across to Europe.

Day three, I found work on a German freighter called the Gerda Schnell.

And here you see a picture of me with my crew members.

And I worked my way across to Europe.

I ended up in Grenoble in France. And here is another situation.

I had a very good friend who was a Turkish student whose name was Cağpar, and

I was studying English and French.

I didn't know what to study, but he was studying political science.

So I switched over to political science and the following year I went to

Sciences Po (Institut d'études politiques) in Paris, and got a scholarship from the French government.

Eventually I wrote my foreign service exam there for the Canadian

Diplomatic Service and was accepted.

So all of these things came from my decision to go and hitchhike

on a boat across to Europe.

Similarly, when I was with the diplomatic service, I heard that they

were looking for someone to study Mandarin Chinese, because in 1968,

Canada was getting ready to recognize the People's Republic of China.

They wanted to train some people up in Chinese.

So I went and started taking Chinese lessons.

I didn't learn very much.

But I told my boss, "Hey, I am learning Chinese.

I'm your man."

Why wouldn't they choose me?

Next thing you know, I'm in Hong Kong studying Chinese, prowling the

bookstores for material, reading and listening and doing whatever I can.

I.

I mean, I can go on and on and on in my professional career about things that

I did, whether it be in my diplomatic career or in my career, first as a

forest industry executive, and then an entrepreneur in the forest industry.

Very often it's not what I expected would happen that ended up happening. But it

was the fact that I did something that caused opportunities to come my way.

You know, it's a bit like the book that I

listened to and read in Danish, "Live More, Think Less"

We are bombarded by thoughts all day long.

50,000 thoughts

apparently.

Some are good, some are bad.

Some people dwell on the negative thoughts and some of them end up with depression.

It's how we choose to deal with these thoughts.

It's our belief system that determines how we cope with these thoughts.

And the same is true in language learning.

You know, you may not be tremendously motivated to learn Spanish or Japanese,

and you start on it, and you may find something there that motivates you to

continue. Or you may meet people through having learned or studied that language.

It's just as possible that you will be motivated then

to move to another language.

In other words, that initial impetus to learn language

might lead you to learn language.

The important thing is to do something to get started. As the French say, "l'appétit vient en mangeant"

So there are so many examples of this in my life, but I thought

of it with specific reference to

language learning.

Many people say, "Well, I have no talent.

I was never any good."

Well, maybe you should just give it a chance.

Push on it a little bit, see what happens.

Push on that door.

It may open, it may not. But maybe in trying to learn this language, you'll

meet some people or you'll find another language that interests you. Or even

something else unrelated to language.

But the main thing is, everything that happens to us in our lives,

we're surrounded by opportunities.

But what matters is whether we do something. And the more active we are,

the greater number of these opportunities will come our way. Including the fact

that the more languages we know, the greater the number of opportunities

that are going to come our way.

So I just wanted to talk a little more generally about the importance

of being proactive in our lives.

"Do it!" as that Nike advertising slogan went.

Thanks for listening.