In today’s show, I chat with the man, the legend, the one and only, Italian polyglot Luca Lampariello. Over the past 20 years, Luca has reached a very high level in 9 foreign languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Swedish, Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, and Mandarin Chinese. Luca is full useful tips and strategies, which he shares in depth at his excellent blog, The Polyglot Dream.
In the interview, we discuss:
- How Luca got interested in languages.
- Procedural vs declarative memory.
- The weakness of rote memorization.
- How to train your brain to learn better.
- The myth that you have to be a genius to learn lots of languages.
- The myth that you have to learn a lot of words to become fluent.
- The myth that just reading or listening a lot will make you a better speaker.
- The ability to translate and communicate are very different things.
- Whether there is a proper order of acquisition for foreign language skills.
- The myth that polyglots can speak all their languages perfectly.
- The importance of maintaining previously learned languages as you take on another.
- Luca’s daily language learning and maintenance routine.
- The myth that intensity always equals speed.
- Luca’s favorite tools for different stages of learning.
Resources Mentioned
- France 2 (French TV)
- Assimil (self-guided language courses)
- Colloquial (self-guided language courses)
- Linguaphone (self-guided language courses)
- Teach Yourself (self-guided language courses)
- Mandarin Spot (Chinese text converter)
- Make it Stick (book about how to learn)
- Brain Rules (book about how the brain learns)
- Gidonlinekino.com (HD movies dubbed into Russian)
- Ard.de (movies & documentaries in German)
- LingQ.com (reading & listening content + vocabulary tools & tutors)
Transcript
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fantastic and inspiring interview, but i have to heartily disagree with luca when he talks about input NOT giving you the ability to understand and speak , and that there are other things that must be done, i know through the last year and a half that i have gained the ability to express an enormous amount just by reading, listening, reading listening, its certainly not a myth since that’s how we learn when we are young,
In english I get a lot of input every day, for years… I have read lots of books, watched lots of films and I understand everything, but I can’t speak and I make a lot of mistakes when writing. In Spanish I begin with output and in six month I can communicate with everyone. Then, in my experience, output is most important than input. I liked to believe that I would become fluent with the iput, but in reality it was just a lie I told myself, because I was afraid to get out of the comfort zone.
That’s a great point, Ivanka. A lot of people (myself included in the past), put off speaking out of fear, even though I assured myself it was because I should focus on input first. While some people do indeed seem to be able to develop some ability to speak and write from lots of listening and speaking, I agree with Luca that most people will make much faster progress if they begin actually communicating with people from a very early stage.
Hi Laurence. Everybody is different, and certain things do work for some that don’t work for others, but in my experience as learner and teacher, I have to agree with Luca that input without output will not get most people very far. That said, getting lots of meaningful input is certainly critical. I talk more about the input vs. output debate here if you’re interested: //languagemastery.com/blog/linguistics-and-education/methods/input-vs-output-debate/
there only one reason one would not be able to speak after input, and that is not enough input, i listening to japaense literally 18 hours a day an d reading over 3, when im not doing that im gaming in japaense, its simple as that, I understand peopel are differint, but we all learned this way, and to say it is a myth is clearly debunked by me and many others who have leaned to output with zero practice and only through input
I also had the same reaction when I listened to this interview, I kind of balked at the comment about listening and reading not improving speaking. I think maybe hes emphasizing the need to make your work active, as well as the more passive activity of listening and reading. Many people will listen to this interview (like the comments below), and now assume that listening and reading is not important, and speaking is the only way. However, if you listen to the polyglot project interview with Luca, and nearly every other interview with him(reaching advanced fluency with Luca and David mansaray on youtube), he discusses how he spends 2-4 hours a day reading, and that hes read more English books than Italian. Even his daily schedule described in this podcast is full of input, which he has consistently put in over years. I think what hes saying is that if you want to reach an incredibly advanced level of speaking (take his English for example), then it requires both the massive input of enjoyable and comprehensible input, but also the consistent output of increasing speaking. So hes not understating the importance of input, just commenting that output is also crucial (if the aim is to speak well).
Luca is fantastic. He speaks many languages easily and quickly. I often listen and look his video on Youtube. I need to become a polyglotta man and i would to learn English, Spanich, Chinese and German.
Yes, Luca is indeed an amazing man. But as he himself often says, anyone can accomplish what he has if they do the right things. It is about attitude, not innate ability.
Pretty interesting interview, Luca sounds like a native Engish speaker. Do you edit out mistakes or he can speak like this? Apart from Polish we actually offer all languages he speaks at Antosch & Lin Languages. 🙂
I don’t edit out mistakes; Luca’s English is indeed that good!
Great and useful interview.
I forgot to say that I agree with Luca, you can’t just listen and read and expect to speak like a native. I have learned that learning languages is a lot like making a pizza, you need a lot of ingredients!
Good analogy! While listening and reading are certainly important, I also agree with Luca that they alone will not get you to spoken fluency.
Wow Luca, do you get the documentaries on that site too? I love astronomy and this kind of stuff (though amateur) and I wish I could get to the level to watch that in whichever language.
awesome interview!