Introducing The Polyglot Project Podcast

A few weeks ago I made a video on my YouTube channel asking my viewers if they would be interested in hearing podcast interviews of polyglots, linguists and language lovers. The response was a resounding yes!

On that note, I’m happy to announce that the podcasts will be made, but the idea has evolved somewhat from when I proposed it  on that video. The interviews will now be co-hosted, and I am pleased to announce that my friend David Mansaray has agreed to work with me on this endeavor.  David brings his enthusiasm and knowledge to the table,  and I look forward to working with him.

Click HERE to listen to my interview with David.

Our goal is to make this podcast informative, motivational and enjoyable for the listener. This series will bring great language lovers together and give them a venue where they can talk about their experiences.

The podcast will be available right here on this blog and will also be simultaneously cross-posted on David’s blog.  In keeping with the spirit of The Polyglot Project, we encourage you to download the podcasts and host them on your own blogs as well, so that this great resource can reach as many people as possible.

Be sure to subscribe to this blog and to David’s blog. Don’t miss any of the updates!

If you haven’t read the polyglot project click here to download your free copy.  To obtain a hard copy from Amazon, click here.

Let the conversation continue!

Learning English? Download the transcript HERE.

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The Polyglot Project Redux

If you missed out on contributing to The Polyglot Project the first time around, you now have an opportunity to join in on the conversation. Why don’t you send in your story? This can be your forum to tell the world about your language learning experiences and methodologies.

English not your native language? No worries. Write in whatever language you want to. The readers can use Google Translate to get the gist of what you’re saying, and learners of that language can use your submission for language practice and inspiration. It’s a “win-win” situation for everybody.

You will notice a tab entitled “Language Corner” above. That will be the place to go for reading the new contributions. Check back often, as the pieces will be posted as they come in. They will not be edited or touched in any way, so what you submit is what your readers will see.

I look forward to posting your submissions!

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An Interview with Antonio Graceffo

I was interviewed recently by Antonio Graceffo. Antonio is a polyglot and martial artist who writes frequently on foreign languages. He has spent the last ten years in Asia studying languages. He currently lives in Saigon. Please visit him on YouTube: (brooklynmonk1) and on his web site: http://speakingadventure.com/.

Antonio Graceffo: Interview with Claude Cartaginese

Claude Cartaginese is the creator and editor of The Polyglot Project, a book written entirely by YouTube polyglots, hyper-polyglots, linguists, language learners and language lovers in their own words. The Polyglot Project is available as a free download on Claude’s YouTube channel (syzygycc), his blog (syzygyonlanguages.wordpress.com), or you may purchase a hard copy at Amazon.com.

Antonio: Were you born into a multilingual family?

Claude: It may sound a bit paradoxical, but I was born into a monolingual family but grew up bilingual. My parents were immigrants from a small village in southern Italy. Like many Italian families who left their homeland at the end of World War II, my parents settled, along with many others from the same area of Italy, in Westchester County, New York. Because there were so many others in the immediate vicinity who spoke the same regional dialects, there was never any urgency for my parents to learn English. Up until I started kindergarten, I only spoke the same regional dialect, which was an offshoot of Neapolitan. After starting school, I learned English along with the rest of the children. My parents never did learn it.

Antonio: When did you start learning languages seriously?

Claude: I studied French in high school, but didn’t like it. It was entirely grammar-based, and I found that approach to be tedious. We spent most of our time conjugating verbs and memorizing vocabulary lists. It was a very inefficient way of learning a language. Interestingly, 30 years later my children, who attended the same schools, had similar experiences. Nothing at all has changed when it comes to teaching foreign languages in the school system. In college, it took a completely random event to get me really interested in learning foreign languages: I met a polyglot. Not only could this individual speak over 20 languages, but he was completely self-taught. I did not know such a thing was possible. And yet, it was still many more years before I began to study languages myself in earnest.

Antonio: Did you do any of your languages in a formal setting? If so, where and which languages.

Claude: Although I have taken a few language courses over the years, they have mostly been a waste of time. They either moved too slowly for me, with the instructor catering to the slowest learner in the class, or they went way too fast, such as the time I took an intensive Japanese course where the school promised to teach us to speak, read and write Japanese in six weeks—a hopelessly impossible task!

Antonio: How much of your knowledge is a result of self-study?

Claude: Realistically, I would have to say most of it. In the first place, even if I had wanted to study more languages while I was at school, there just weren’t that many language course offerings. And due to the poor state of my finances at the time, I did not have the ability to sign up for private language courses. I discovered early on that if you really want to learn something, a teacher can’t teach it to you anyway. You have to learn it yourself.

Antonio: How many hours do you study per week?

Claude: Not as many as I would like. Due to employment and family obligations, I make do with stolen moments here and there. I have a 45 minute commute to my office each way, and make it a point to listen to whatever foreign language I want to learn or brush up. If I have the energy, I will try to get in another half hour before bed. Weekends, I often have the opportunity to study a bit more.

Antonio: How many hours do you believe one needs to master a language?

Claude: I think it depends quite a bit on the language. If your target language has a lot of transparency, due to its similarity to your native language, then I think it would only take a few months to become extremely functional in that language. Italian and Spanish come to mind, or Hindi and Urdu. If your target language is radically different than your native language, such as the way Japanese is to English, it could take years. Anyone who tells you that they learned to speak a complicated language like Chinese, Japanese or Arabic in six months, and their native language is English (or Italian or French) is lying to you—although I have seen it done in other languages. Esperanto, for example, can be learned in just a few months.

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The Absolute Best Way to Learn Foreign Languages

 

I am very pleased to announce that The Polyglot Project is finished!

For my YouTube Channel video announcement, click here.

For your free download, click here.

For those that want a hard copy, the bound version is available at Amazon here. The cost is $16.95.

There is no difference between the two versions except for the cover and binding.

Happy reading!

 

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Just a Few Days Away…

Hello All,

The release date for the Polyglot Project is less than 10 days away. Officially, it’s November 15, 2010, but it may be sooner!

A link to the complete, free PDF of the book will be posted here and on my YouTube Channel (syzygycc). It contains over 500 pages of the best language learning techniques, as explained by successful YouTube Polyglots and language learners. If you want to learn how to successfully learn a language or two (or ten), this free book will show you exactly how to do it.

For those who want a bound book, it will be available on Amazon for U.S. $16.95 plus shipping.

Check back often for more updates.

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The Polyglot Project Book is Nearly Finished!

MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT REGARDING THE POLYGLOT PROJECT:

I’ve just posted the latest draft version of the book here:

Click here for my latest video highlighting the most recent updates to the book

Download it now! It’s free; you have everything to gain…

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Learn How to Learn From a Master

“I like to say that we should study languages, because languages are the only thing worth knowing even poorly.”— Kató Lomb

If you’re really serious about foreign language acquisition, you owe it to yourself to read Polyglot: How I learn languages, by Kató Lomb. Lomb (February 8, 1909 – June 9, 2003) a native of Hungary, had a command of 16 languages. She was one of the first simultaneous interpreters in the world and challenged many of the current conventions of language learning, namely, the over-reliance on grammar coupled with dry textbook learning.

“The traditional way of learning a language (cramming 20 to 30 words a day and digesting the grammar supplied by a teacher or a course book) may satisfy at most one’s sense of duty, but it can hardly serve as a source of joy. Nor will it likely be successful). I don’t believe there is an innate ability for learning languages. I want to demystify language learning, and to remove the heroic status associated with learning another language.”

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Is Travel Necessary?

Can one really arrive at fluency without visiting the country whose language one is learning?

I never thought so, until the day I met my first polyglot. Bob was quite a few years older than me and spoke 25 languages. In the short time that I knew him he succeeded in dispelling every myth I ever had about foreign languages and language learning.

Prior to meeting Bob I had always assumed that foreign language fluency could be achieved in just three ways:

1. One studied languages at the University for many years (focusing on esoteric grammar points and verb conjugations in obscure tenses in the target language), passed the proficiency examinations and then went on to acquire more specialized knowledge and practice overseas.
2. One was fortunate enough to have been born into a multilingual household; or
3. You had the good fortune to be raised in a multilingual country, absorbing multiple languages through the pores of your skin.

That’s it. That’s what I was taught, and that’s what I believed. And then one evening, on my way to get a cup of coffee with my new friend, everything changed for me. On the way to the vending machine (there was no Starbucks or espresso culture back then, and vending machine coffee was all a poor student could afford) outside the cafeteria, Bob exchanged a few words with the custodian in a language I had never heard before. That custodian, Bob explained, was newly arrived from Poland.

Thinking more about the coffee than Bob’s recent exchange of pleasantries with a Polish custodian, Bob stopped again moments later to speak to a second custodian. We reached the vending machine, and while I was fumbling with my coins I turned to Bob, casually exclaiming: “You know Bob, I never realized there were so many Polish people working at the school.” What he said to me next changed my entire view of language learning. “The second custodian I spoke to,” Bob patiently explained, “was not Polish. He was Russian.”

No longer thinking at all about my coffee, I began to bombard Bob with questions. “Where did you learn Polish? Where did you learn Russian? Do you speak any other languages? How did you learn them? Are you some kind of savant?”

It turns out that Bob had taught himself Polish and Russian. He had also taught himself the Spanish and Arabic languages. And Afrikaans. And many, many more. Twenty five of them! All of them self-taught. Most of them spoken with near native fluency. Amazing. He even told me how he did it, but I never pressed him for the details of his method—it just never occurred to me at the time (in my defense, I was only seventeen!). How I wish I could go back now, after more than 30 years, to get those details!

Of one thing, however, I am certain: Bob did not travel. He didn’t even own a passport. He had epilepsy, and was always fearful of a seizure. Not only did Bob never leave the country, during the time I knew him he had never been beyond a 100 mile radius of his home.

He learned all of those languages without the benefit of the internet, mp3 players, smart-phones or multilingual DVD’s. He learned them with a lot of hard work and perseverance.

More to the point, he learned them all within 100 miles of his home.

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