Becoming Multilingual: The Step By Step To Learning Languages - David Maizels

Kaizen Blueprint

In this episode, our guest shares his amazing journey of learning seven languages: German, French, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and Spanish. He reveals the stories behind each language and his unique approach to mastering them through immersion, conversation, and goal-setting.

We delve into the joys and challenges of language learning, the beauty of linguistic diversity, and the impact of thinking in different languages. He also talks about the historical evolution of English and how geography shapes our speech.

Tune in for an inspiring conversation about setting realistic goals, continuous improvement, and finding joy in learning new languages. This episode is perfect for anyone passionate about languages and personal growth.

00:00 Introduction and Language Background

07:34 Setting Language Learning Goals

14:42 Methods for Language Learning

20:45 Motivation and Passion for Language Learning

25:26 Ranking the Difficulty of Different Languages

36:46 The Impact of Language Learning on Social Interactions

49:29 The Historical Development of the English Language

52:31 Setting Realistic Goals and Continuous Improvement in Language Learning

56:36 The Importance of Practical Learning and Understanding

01:00:29 Language Learning as a Tool for Personal Growth

01:07:05 Language Learning as a Tool for Professional Growth

01:09:38 Finding Joy and Personal Growth through Language Learning

Find David at:
David Maizels - LinkedIn

Follow Me At:
www.kaizenblueprint.com

https://www.instagram.com/aldoschandra/

Transcription:

Welcome to the Kaizen Blueprint Podcast, where we explore topics for continuous personal growth and improvement.

David, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me, Aldo. Now, I took you in in this episode because of your language learning skills, but before we start getting into that, tell us all the languages that you speak. Whether that's fluently, intermediate, maybe conversationalist, the whole nine yards. right. right. So let's see. At Abington, I had the privilege of studying German since we were in class together. I studied French, studied Italian, studied Chinese, Japanese and some Arabic.

But please don't make me start speaking all of it right now. I some of them I retained a lot better than others, but I would definitely say I'd be comfortable talking to you in German, French, or Italian right now. Got it. And why did you start learning these languages? What made you interested in those? I would say that was because of our amazing German professor that I was not expecting to meet. It was a complete, just wonderful gift in life to have met Dr. Colucci, who told me that, you know what, David? Go try it. It'll help you out in your language learning, help you out in just life in general. It'll give you the whole new way of thinking.

And I said, okay, let's do it. And that's exactly what happened. Got it. And when we first met, I've, I had one year of German. well, I studied in Germany. I did an exchange program in Germany. And basically I had that opportunity to immerse myself in the German language, the German culture. And when I came back, everything was so easy. I don't remember what class that we took. was like German two or German three. But yeah, it was one of the more advanced one. But then you

Up there too. So you had a German kind of background studying. Correct. In my high school I took about two years of German there. But it wasn't on the same caliber as to what we were being taught. So actually I had to do at the very beginning a little bit of catch up. Because I was missing so much. But you know, you just got to put the effort in and you get the rewards. So why German in high school? In high school I was just looking for something a little bit more challenging than Spanish or French for that matter at the time.

I said, you know what, let's try German. It's difficult, I was in my high school already offered Japanese and I figured, you know what, I'm doing the challenging stuff already. Let's make it more challenging. And so yeah, I tried German at high school, had a great first German teacher, second one, I'm sorry, but not the same caliber. And then of course, Dr. Kaluchi, who was like, know, way up there. Yeah, yeah. No, he was very knowledgeable. what got him

to telling you to learn more languages other than German, was it the skill set that you had or? I think it was just my general like willingness to do it because I will tell you this, when I first came to his class, we had our first test and you remember how rigorous his easy 10 page tests were. And all of sudden I got like a horrible grade on it and I was just like, what? It completely shook me so I just asked him like, hey, what's the correct answer here? What did I do incorrectly here? How can I learn from this? How can I redo this? And then he ended

Then he gave me that chance, which was not something that every professor would give you, because I'm sure, you know, in college or any or anything in life, if you make that kind of mistake, you're not getting a second chance. He could have easily said, sorry, you know, better luck next time. But no, he said, OK, here's what you did wrong. Explain it to me. And then I went home that day, I remember before work, I just completely rewrote the test correctly, just for practice. And eventually that practice became my general study method. And eventually he did let me retake it. I aced it. And then from that point on, it was

pretty much constant repetition. Got it. And what made you start learning other languages after then? After then, he was just talking to me and he told me that because he grew up in part of Italy where they say German is the first language, that having two different languages actually helps your thinking more. Basically, it provides you with new avenues of interpreting things and of analyzing things. And to me, that was very insightful because as the more German I picked up, and of course I know English and German are both Germanic languages,

But it's still a different perception of how you think of things because English has a lot of French influence, has a lot of Latin influence, and a few Greek words here and there. Got it. So the whole different aspect in how to analyze things, how to, you know, get to this, get to a solution, but through different angles and avenues really just made it more interesting to me. And I said, hey, I need more of this. So Italian, French, continuing Japanese, more Chinese, Arabic, even Spanish, actually. about that. And I was just like, you know what? This is actually so helpful because like it's a completely new way of interpreting the same information.

but in a different way. Got it. Tell us more about how you start learning one language after the next and what made you kind of, where's that cutoff point where you're like, okay, I think I've studied enough. For example, I think you said Italian after, or is it French? I'd say Italian would be my most conversational language. French I've actually have used in a professional environment before and German. Really? Okay. Actually, yes, at Lowe's, but these are not all places. Okay. So you did German and you went Italian,

or French? when I was actually even taking German back with Kaluci, I was taking Chinese and Japanese as well at the same time. So I was already doing it then. it's really greasing the gears and getting everything going. And then suddenly I'm like, you know what? I want my extra four credit hours. Let's do French 100. Let's do Italian. Let's, know, do all that. And what what is your methodology of learning th...