Nelson Dellis is a memory athlete, 4-time U.S. Memory Champion, a Grandmaster of Memory, a high-altitude mountaineer, author, speaker, and all-around cool dude. He is now on a mission to reach conversational fluency in Dutch in just one year, applying all the memory techniques, mnemonics, and visualization strategies he used to train for memory championships.
Last week, I shared part one of my most recent chat with the inimitable Olly Richards, who first appeared on The Language Mastery Show back in in April 2014. Since that time, he’s gone on to build I Will Teach You a Language into one of the top language blogs, launch a slew of excellent language courses, and publish a series of great short story books through Teach Yourself. In part two of our wide-ranging conversation, we get into his language learning routines and habits, how he tackles reading (especially in Japanese), the importance of getting a wide range of high-quality exposure to your target language, the power of following your interest and curiosity, and Olly’s top tips for launching a successful online language learning empire or just a profitable side hustle to help pay the bills.
I am excited to announce that the brand new version of Master Mandarin: How to Learn Mandarin Chinese Anywhere in the World will be released on April 6, 2020 in both digital and print versions. There is still time to make a few changes and additions, so would you do me a quick favor? I am looking for insight on how I can make the book most useful for you. If you have a spare minute or two, let me know: ① What are you struggling with most in your language learning journey?, ② What do you find most difficult about Mandarin Chinese specifically? ③ What content, methods, resources, etc. do you hope I include? You can either leave a comment on the post or send me a quick email.
Author, polyglot, and “langpreneur” Olly Richards from I Will Teach You a Language returns to the podcast six years after our first chat to share what new lessons he’s learned and how a high-altitude near death experience led him to the power of stories in language learning. Olly has been quite the busy bee since we last spoke, going on to build one of the most popular language blogs on the planet, launching a series of in-depth language courses, and publishing 16 short story books with Teach Yourself (with more coming soon, including a Japanese edition)!
