Transcript of AE 1040 - Interview: Learning Languages Through Stories with Olly Richards

G'day, you mob. How's it going? Welcome to this episode of Aussie English, the number one place for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English, as well as get a big, fair dinkum dose of Aussie culture, history, news, current affairs, everything like that. Today, I've got something a little different for you, guys. I have the absolute pleasure and honour of chatting to polyglot Olly Richards from storylearning.com.

So, I've been following Olly for quite a while now. He has an incredible YouTube channel, a podcast, as well as a website and blog that you guys can go and check out. But the main reason I've been following him is because he is a- An avid language learner, and he has spent probably the last 20 years or so learning many different languages.

I think he's up to about eight or so now that he's got under his belt, including things like French, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Portuguese, Spanish. There's a whole bunch. But he has a lot of insight into how to learn languages. So, anyway, I'm going to stop rabbiting on. I'm going to get to the content. Slap the bird, get into it. I give you guys' Olly Richards.

G'day, you mob. Welcome to this episode of Aussie English. Today, I have Olly Richards with me. He speaks eight languages and is the founder of 'I Will Teach You a Language'. You're a podcaster, a YouTuber, you also have a new business called 'StoryLearning' that I'm looking forward to hearing about.

But yeah, can you fill us in a bit about you before we get started and how you ended up speaking eight languages at the young age of, I assume late 30s to early 40s? You're killing it.

I am. Yeah, I am 40, although it doesn't- I've been told by a few people that I look younger than 40.

I would never have guessed that. I would never have guessed that. I saw- Sorry to interrupt you. I'll let you get to your point. I was watching your Portuguese video the other day and you were like, oh yeah, I was just in Brazil learning for three years. Oh, it would have been 2001. And I was like, wait, what? You know? No way.

Yeah, I think it's the language and the travelling and teaching thing keeps you young. But listen, I'll take it because the alternative doesn't bear thinking about. But yeah, so I'm from the UK. I grew up only speaking English, and I suddenly found myself interested in languages when I was about 19 years old. I'd moved to London, and I was just surrounded by people from different countries.

So, I just took a real interest in language learning, and I learnt French, my first language. Went to live in Paris for six months, got quite good at French. And then after that I thought, okay, I think I can learn more languages now because I've learnt one language successfully. So, I went on to learn Spanish, Portuguese, and then I had a kind of mid-career- Or mid- What was it like?

Late twenties I began teaching English, went to Japan to teach English, so I learnt Japanese. Then I learnt Cantonese and Arabic and a few others. So, I've kind of let the language then follow my life. I've always learnt languages for life reasons rather than for the language. I enjoy studying languages, but I don't do it for the sake of it. I learn languages because that's where my life leads me.

And then I started my blog in 2013, which was called 'I will teach you a language', as you said. It's now called 'StoryLearning'. It's the same thing, we're rebranding everything to StoryLearning.com. Because from that what I ended up doing was writing books of short stories to help you practise your languages and then also developing courses so you can learn other languages through story.

And that kind of brings us to the present day where I'm releasing lots of- Just the other day, we released a story-based course in Russian, Chinese and Turkish, which is fun. I've got new books coming out all the time, and I'm spending most of my time actually on YouTube...

Yeah.

...You can find me on YouTube by searching "Olly Richards" on YouTube, because I just- What I've always really enjoyed is just making content about language learning, because that's my real kind of passion. So, I'm just having a great time doing that at the moment.

Well, it's a bit of a rabbit hole too, right? You get on to YouTube, and I think if you're just a layman or a consumer, you don't really understand what goes on behind the scenes of actually having to think about thumbnails, thinking about, you know, the story you want to tell and it's just...

So much.

Yeah. Yeah, it's nuts. But anyway, I had this full plan about all these, you know, standard things to chat to you about, I guess, about being a polyglot and everything. But I kind of threw that to the wayside after checking out your recent Portuguese video, because you went through a lot of really interesting things there.

Can you tell us a little bit about your experience learning Portuguese, just to give the listeners a bit of background of how that kind of went?

Yeah, so Portuguese was my third language. By that time, I spoke French and Spanish. And then I was living in London, and I got really into Brazilian music. So, I'm a musician, I'm studying music and got really into Bossa nova, and had some Brazilian friends and- As anyone knows who's ever sort of discovered Brazilian culture, the day that you discover Brazil, your world, your life changes a little bit.

It's just a different way of living life. And I just, I loved it. So, I started learning Portuguese by learning to sing Bossa nova songs on the- And whilst playing the guitar. So, I learnt the chords to play like all these famous Bossa nova songs, and I'd learn the lyrics in Portuguese, even though I didn't know what it meant. I had to memorise them; I wrote memorised the lyrics one by one.

And then after I learnt like, you know, 10, 20, 30 of these songs, I started to understand how the language was working. So, I started doing some language exchanges with some Brazilians in London, and then eventually I went to Brazil. And then, through friends of friends, I got introduced to some pretty big pop stars in Brazil, people like Milton Nascimento, Richie Carvalho, Lenine, people like this.

Started going to parties at their house, these incredible villas, and I just found myself living like this rock star life in Brazil. While also, because I was really into music, while also going to the favelas and the samba schools and sort of hanging out. Like it is the most dangerous places, some of the most dangerous places on the planet, like just in the middle of all this amazing music. And so, yeah, it was a really intense experience.

What was it like for you- Because this is going to resonate with the listeners and it's kind of why I wanted to get into this story. A lot of the people that listen to my podcast are obviously very interested in Australia and Australian English. Migrating here they don't- They tend to have an intermediate to advanced level in English already, but they really want to get into the culture and understand what it is to be Australian or to live here.

And it seems like you kind of went through that same process of having kind of grappled with Portuguese back home. But then coming to Brazil, and I think you were telling the story in the video that you had a lot of Paulista friends, right? I think you started in São Paulo and, you know, you built up that comfort zone.

But then when you went to Rio, it was like you'd been thrown in the deep end all of a sudden when you were on the street around, you know, people speaking with a different accent, the cariocas there and everything.

And I think that a lot of the listeners are going to resonate with that because something I hear all the time is, I learnt British English, I learnt American English and I came to Australia and it was like a slap in the face, you know, I lost all my motivation. I was on the street, and I thought, you know, I've got a good level in English, but I can only understand 20% of what people say, you know.

So, can you describe that kind of situation that you went through, what it was like and then what you did to sort of overcome being in that situation, to get used to the dialect and the slang and everything that would have been so different?

Yeah. So, the basic- The way that I explain this now is that when I was learning Portuguese in London with my friends who were mostly from São Paulo, I was in a very protected environment. You know, they lived in London, so they knew that they were foreigners there, and I was English guy learning Portuguese. So, they took a lot of care to help me understand and very patient with me.

It's exactly what you need to learn, but it's not a very realistic environment. So, it's what everybody needs at the beginning when you're first learning a language, but it's not reality. So, it was good because it got me started. But then when I went to Brazil- The first time I went to Brazil I was just with my friends all the time, so I didn't really get it.

But then later, when I went back to actually live there, I was just on my own in Rio and I had to just- I was then just spending my time talking with people. These are not the kind of educated, middle/upper-class friends that I had in London, these were like people on the street in Rio, like it was- So, it's a different kind of person, different kind of language.

And I, yeah, I went from understanding 80% to understanding 20% as soon as I landed in Rio. The accents different, the slang is different, the way that you talk to people from different walks of life is different. And so, it was a real shock. But, you know, I could go through a little tips and tricks and things that I did to help myself get used to it, but at the end of the day, what it really comes down to is just hours spent...

Yeah.

...Just immersed in it. And so, the way that I got around it was just by being there day after day, talking with people, one after the other. Hours spent immersed in Portuguese and eventually you just get used to it. And pretty much anything that you- Any technique that you try, and employ is blown out of the water and made- Are made pretty much irrelevant by just the quantity of time you spend immersing in the language.

And so, that's really how I did it. It was just a case of spending lots of time there, talking with people and being really keen to understand and to communicate.

Do you think if you'd known that you were going to be in that situation, you would have had a way of preparing for that ahead of time, assuming that was today, and you had all the resources you've got? Or is it the kind of thing that you just have to suck it up and deal with the uncomfortableness that those sorts of situations are going to bring when it happens?

I mean, so much of language learning for me is just following life as it happens, right. So, the reason that I was able to learn Portuguese quite well in the first place was because I had these friends, we were all young, had loads of time on our hands. I had all these friends who would spend time with me, I spent time with them.

If I knew what was waiting for me, I could have done some things differently, but I probably wouldn't have done because just language learning for me is just such a natural thing. I follow what is going on in my life. Because back then, of course, we didn't have Netflix, we didn't have YouTube.

And so- But if we did, then I think the two things I probably would have done would be, first of all, I would have gone out- Probably spent more time going out to Brazilian clubs and things trying to make friends with people from Rio, from those more kind of, more sort of humble backgrounds, I think.

And then second, I probably would've spent a lot of time watching Brazilian TV, documentaries, YouTube, things like that. That's the advice I would give to myself. Would I have done it? Probably not, I was having a really good time. But that was all that mattered.

That's the kind of the difficult part of it, right. It's like everyone's got a plan, but it's whether or not you can stick to it. And is it going to get in front of you just living your life and enjoying the process, right. I always have these huge plans where I'm going to work on Portuguese so much.

But then I realised the things that I'm actually planning to do are not things that I inherently enjoy in and of themselves, and that I wouldn't do outside of actually, you know, what I think studying is. I think you've spoken about this in quite a few videos. How important is it for language learners to follow the fun, you know, to- I think you mentioned it in a video with Steve Kaufmann aligning yourself.

You know, I think there are, generally speaking, two kinds of people. There are people who can set goals, targets, come up with a plan and then stick to it religiously. And then there are people who don't. And of course, there are people in between, but generally speaking, like rather the kind of person who is very driven, very kind of systems thinker, very motivated, very autonomous and you'll do whatever it takes to achieve a goal.

But, I'm personally not like that when it comes to things in my life. Business-wise, I'm very much like that. Like, I'm very kind of meticulous and methodical and I'll do things according to a plan. But for most people, I think language learning is not the be all and end all.

We all want to speak perfect Portuguese or perfect Japanese or whatever, but I think most people really underestimate just how much work is involved in learning a language. It's, you know, the internet makes it out that you can learn a language in three months, and you can, you can become conversationally capable in three months in...

Define learn, right. Yeah.

Yeah, if you really want to, right. But then that's 1%, you know, you've still got 99% left to go and people don't appreciate just how much work is involved. I mean, you know, for example, Portuguese was my third romance language, so I already knew what was going on pretty much. And I had three, four years of almost complete immersion in the language and still I'm not- I'm far from perfect, you know?

And so, I think when you are in the situation that most people are in, which is like you have half an hour a day to study, an hour a day at most. You are not- That's not enough. Let's be real, that's not enough to reach high levels of the language. You need to go through a period of years of intense immersion in the language.

And so, the point is like, I don't think you really have a choice but to align it with your life and your values, because if you try and do anything else, you're just not going to keep it up. And that's why most people end up giving up languages, because it's just, they just- They confront the reality of just how much work it is.

So, for most people, I think the best strategy for language learning is do what you love, follow your passion, follow the people in and around you, and the friends that you have. And work hard, but mostly try to enjoy it, because that's the most realistic way of actually learning the language. And also enjoying the journey, which it's a cliche, right. It's the journey, not the destination. But it really is. It really is.

People- I think we have this idea of- We create in our minds this idea of when we are fluent. When I'm fluent in English, I'll be able to get my dream job, but that day never arrives, there is no destination. There is no point where someone hands you a certificate and says, job done, you're now fluent in English, that day never comes.

It's a weird thing, isn't it, when you start. And sorry to interrupt you. You do have this kind of idea of fluency or proficiency, whatever you want to call it, as- There will be this moment where I feel at 100% ease, 100% comfort like a native speaker with the language and everything will be easy.

And I think, like the Dunning Kruger effect, the further you get up, you think, yeah, I've got this and then you go down that massive dip and then it's slowly you come out of the, you know, you slowly improve over time, and you realise, oh my God, it's going to be uncomfortable forever. Like, you just have to get used to the lack of comfort and that it will diminish over time with continual work, right.

Yeah. And then you- Then you also realise that- You know, you can do this for 10 years and then you can realise, wow, I've been doing this for 10 years now and I'm still not perfect or fluent or whatever. But I've actually been completely fine this whole time. I've got friends, maybe even married to someone that speaks the language, I've got a job in the language. I've been fine this whole time, so what was I worried about?

And so, you know, I think the more years go by and the more languages I've- The more times I've experienced the language learning process, the more that I'm very- I'm very kind of resistant to the idea of goals and aims in language learning, because...

Yeah.

...I think, yeah, it can be helpful at the beginning just to kind of get the basics under your belt. But for most people, it's just, you know, you've got to live your life.

So, it's that finding that balance and also making sure that there's just room in your life for that language, building those sorts of habits and having it there constantly to work on, but don't think, you know, I'll do three hours on Saturday and then I won't study for a week.

It's more don't make it a punishment, enjoy the process and make sure that whatever you're doing, whether it's watching Netflix, reading books or studying grammar that you just- You're enjoying the journey and you're not focussed solely on the destination.

You have to do that. There is a balance, though, because I think when people hear this, sometimes they think, well, now that all sounds fine and like, and I understand that I have to enjoy the journey, but actually, I do actually want to learn. So, can I have a bit of structure, please, and a bit of rigour? And so, I think you do have to bring that as well.

And- But, I think the most effective way to focus your time and attention and energy for discipline is in consistency. So, rather than worrying too much about, oh, I'll have to do three hours every day or whatever. The single most powerful force in language learning is consistency.

So, if you just turn up and do that hour every day, you don't, you never feel the progress from day-to-day. But if you keep it up and you do it for a year, you will most certainly feel that progress from one month to the next, or one year to the next.

How do you feel about streaks, whether it's in apps or tracking, you know, with a calendar in front of you crossing off every day? I feel like it's a double-edged blade where it works as motivation when you're starting out and you can see all the work you've done behind you in this unbroken chain.

But then at any moment where it's broken, there's almost more incentive to just give up, as opposed to- Because you haven't built that kind of, I just need to be consistent. I can forgive myself for having failed here and there and leaving gaps in my, you know, calendar that I'm checking off the days.

I feel like at times when I've been using Duolingo, I'm good as long as the streak is never broken, but the moment life gets in the way and I can't do it for whatever reason for that day after the fact, I'm just like, oh, well, it's out the window, you know. 365 days I had in a row, but now screw it. So, what do you think of that kind of learning? Do you think it's a positive thing or a negative thing, or it can be both? Or...?

It can definitely be both. I mean, there's no doubt that that kind of gamification does get people to work, but your kind of talking, you're setting the bar very low, in my opinion. This is, I mean, these things, like if you need a streak on an app to motivate yourself or something, there's something- Something else is the problem there, you know?

So, I think you're gonna- We're in the territory of mind hacks and this all kind of fits into a kind of picture of where we are with society, which is like, how do we hack our way to, you know, it's all kind of a Tim Ferriss thing. How do we get 80% of the results with 20% of the effort? And it's like, what? Life is not just about shortcuts for Christ's sake.

You know, like we- Like, I think for me, the meaningful life is one where everything that you do is aligned with yourself and you have- You only do things that you are intrinsically motivated to do, and you take great pleasure in. And if you find- If you take the time to think about what those activities are and you find those activities, you won't need streaks to motivate you because you'll be doing it by yourself.

You won't be able to wait to get back home from work and sit down to read that book or whatever. Because you genuinely enjoy it. So, anything can be helpful. Anything can work. Everybody is different. But again, the game really is won or lost by finding that internal "why?", that internal reason and then sticking to that over the long term.

I think you're right. I think you hit the nail on the head, that was one of those things for me when I got comfortable enough to be non-consistent with every single day and focussing on long term consistency. I think the results started to kind of take care of themselves a little more, and I just felt less stressed, I felt less guilty, I felt less bad about myself for not showing up every day and doing the exact same thing, you know.

So, it was one of those watershed moments for me where I was like, why am I doing this to myself? I need to be enjoying the process. This isn't, you know, it should be me ruling the thing, not the thing ruling me.

Yeah, that's exactly it.

So, you put a very, very large emphasis, if not all of your emphasis on learning languages through stories. Can you tell me a bit about how you came to that approach, how you sort of worked that out and then why you think it's so powerful to focus a lot of your attention, if not all of it, on learning a language through stories?

Yeah, great question. So, I think the main thing to say, and I'm trying to make a point of saying this more and more now, is that I'm not saying that this is the best way to learn language or that you have to learn this way. What I try to do with story learning is to give the option and the pathway for people who want to learn in this way to study that way, right.

So, because there are a lot of people who don't get on with traditional learning, who don't like using, you kind of sat there using apps and stuff and deep-down realising, oh, I'm just wasting my time. And but they're very attracted to learning- To more holistic ways of learning, like learning through stories.

Because they realise, wow, I learnt my- I learnt to speak as a child with stories, when my parents read me books, that's how I made sense of the world. So, this kind of makes sense. There's a lot of people that for whom this really makes sense, and I see my job as kind of providing the material and the programmes they need in order to do that.

So, for me, like- So, I've always learnt my languages through input primarily, and you can get input from lots of different ways. You can be watching TV, movies, it can be immersed with your friends so that you're just listening the whole time, it can be reading. Input is the foundation of language learning.

Because yes, speaking is important, and yes, you can learn to speak very quickly and say a bunch of things and impress people, especially on YouTube. But like we were talking about earlier, the real volume of, like, body of stuff that you need to know to speak a language is so much to learn, and the only way you can do that is through input. You can't learn all that stuff by talking, you've got to get the input so that you learn the stuff, right.

And so, the real power of input is that, and that's how I've always learnt my language is through a combination of those things. Now the thing about stories and how stories differ from, say, speaking with people or movies or whatever, is that with stories you can be studying and reading pretty much any time you want. Speaking is great, super important, but you can't be doing that much of the time, realistically.

You've got a life to live, or you have to work, you've got a family, whatever.

To pause you quickly. I found, too, with speaking, you can't necessarily learn that much as you can from reading and listening. I feel like you can't pick up on as much that you're going to hear that's new content, right. Like, I've lived with my wife now for four years... Yeah, exactly.

And we speak at home, but I haven't noticed my speaking is increased just from speaking with her every day. But when I read and when I listen to content, I find that my Portuguese picks up way faster than if I just put all my time into speaking. Sorry...

You need both, right.

Exactly.

You need both. You can't become fluent in a language without speaking, you have to speak a lot. But like you- And speaking is a great way for learning to interact with people, for learning the kind of day-to-day expressions and stuff like that. But again, this is like 10% of what you need to learn.

Yeah.

And this is- Most people are kind of where they think about language learning, they're operating in this field of 10%. They don't know that that 90% exists because they've never got there. You only discover that 90% once you got past the 10%, right.

And so, with stories and when I talk about stories, I mean, you know, reading books and then listening to the audio narration of those books, you can do that any time, on the train, in the car, in bed, on the toilet, in your lunch break at work, like you can do it- So, it makes it a very effective and efficient way to study the language because you can do it at any time.

And so, you know, I first had my encounter with stories, I tell this story about when I was travelling in Argentina, and I was on top of a mountain in this place called (foreign language) it's up on the border of Bolivia. Very high up. And I got altitude sickness in the middle of the night at 3:00am and I couldn't breathe. And I thought I was going to die because I literally could not get oxygen into my lungs, I was so high up.

And so, I remembered like jumping out of bed and walking out onto this balcony outside, looking out over this village under a full moon. It was a really kind of haunting experience not being able to breathe. And I thought, man, this is the end right now. I can't breathe, this is not going to end well. And luckily, after a few minutes, I got my breath back and it was okay, but I was too scared to go back to bed.

So, I picked up this book in Spanish that I'd been- That I bought and not opened. And because I was too scared to go back to bed and we didn't have phones in those days, I sat reading this book all night. And I didn't understand a great deal, I could pretty much follow the plot, but I just kept reading and reading and reading. And then the next day, as I was walking down the street, I realised I had these words popping into my head.

Well, this is weird. What are all these words? I didn't know these words yesterday. And I realised that these are words that had come from the story that I was reading the night before. So, I thought, okay, well, hang on. I've kind of reached a plateau in my Spanish, I haven't been improving. Then, just by spending a few hours reading this book, I suddenly picked up all this new stuff.

Maybe there's something to this. So, I carried on reading the book over the next few weeks, and then I distinctly remember going back to Buenos Aires afterwards, meeting up with some people that I knew there. And my Spanish had improved so much, I could understand so much more, I could speak in more kind of eloquent sentences. And it was all because I just spent time surrounded by the language in in the form of a story.

And so, I kind of thought to myself, well, how do I- Because I wasn't teaching at the time, right, so I didn't really think that much of it. But when I went on to learn other languages afterwards, I used stories to help me there. And then when I started story learning, I started to think, well, how can I actually teach through stories?

And that's when I started to write my books and I started to develop entire courses based on stories. That whole process took a long time, it took years because I had to figure out how to do it in a way that people liked. But that's how it all happened.

Yeah, it's funny you say that, because it's one of those things I notice, too, just how much my language skills improved, and it was almost like I had a lot more words on the tip of my tongue after I spent a lot more time reading.

And it seems to be this counterintuitive thing, if you think the more you speak, you're going to get better at speaking in terms of not just fluency or confidence and everything like that, but that you will be able to express yourself in more complicated ways by doing more and more and more speaking.

But it's almost like you need to speak less and pay attention to time spent reading and exposing yourself to vocabulary and grammar and all these things that you wouldn't necessarily come across anywhere near as often when speaking. And then they just get closer for you to be able to pluck out of the air when you're having a conversation, you know, it is very weird.

I remember having this conversation with my wife and I was using some- I was reading Game of Thrones in Portuguese, and it's really funny when as a person who's not a native speaker, you don't know what common words are, we don't know what really rare words are, when you're first doing this. You don't know what words are kind of like, you know, a mighty steed was galloping down the road.

You don't know that, oh, I can't just say "steed" to the average person when I mean horse. And so, I was whipping out all these words, and it was really funny because she was just like, you know, I understand what you mean, and then you end up having these conversations. But yeah, it was a very powerful process.

Yeah. And what you're talking about there is basically a kind of negotiation between the two parties, right. And sometimes people can experience this, and they feel, okay. Well, reading doesn't work because I'm learning words like, "steed", whereas actually, I need to learn the word "horse" so it doesn't work. But actually, no, it's just giving you more options and then by negotiating in the conversation you then- That's how you figure out exactly what's the appropriate register to be speaking in...

Exactly, exactly.

...It's that register.

It almost gets fun, right, as a game, where you're just like, I'm just going to throw these words at you, cos I don't know, and I want to see how they'll react. And then if they don't do anything, you're like, okay, that's fine. But if then they're like, huh? And they give you that turn sort of dog look, you're like, okay, there's something to this.

Yeah, you've got to be comfortable with being uncomfortable with language. Otherwise, you just don't get anywhere. But I mean, I think a good way to think about the speaking problem is that, you know, when you're speaking with someone, your primary concern is actually getting your point across.

There's two things you want to do, right, you want to be able to make yourself understood, and you want to be able to understand what's coming back without looking like an idiot. Right. There's a lot of stake in a conversation. You've got to save face, you've got to maintain your social status within that conversation and not look like an idiot, come across as an intelligent person.

And all of that means when that's happening in real time, the to and fro of a conversation, which is very difficult for your brain to be open and receptive to new language and grammar patterns that might be there to be learnt, there's too much to happen. Right. So, you need speaking, but it's not an efficient way to to learn your language.

Oh, I found that, that my sort of anecdote is I live with my wife now for I guess we're probably going on four years together and initially, we moved into a house in Canberra, which is the capital of Australia with, I think there were five Brazilians there.

And that was- I've never been to Brazil, but that was how I learnt Portuguese. I was kind of thrown in the deep end with her and all these other Brazilians, and my Portuguese pretty quickly got better than their English. And so, it ended up this sort of positive feedback thing. But it was really funny, after we had our kids, I thought, you know, I'm just going to speak as much as possible at home and the rest will take care of itself.

And I realised pretty quickly, crap, you know, my Portuguese is actually plateauing. I have the same conversation every day, you know, what do you want to have for lunch? What are the kids doing? I'm going to go to the bathroom, blah blah blah.

And you don't realise that, okay, I'm getting hyper almost native level at this basic core, but the rest of the stuff out there, the other 90% isn't taking care of itself. And I find that's where Netflix and reading and spending as much time as possible, not just speaking, really helps fill in that sort of gap.

Well, think of it like this, imagine a native speaker, so imagine an English-speaking kid growing up, right. Imagine, two. You got two kids. You got Kid A and Kid B. Kid A never reads, doesn't go to school, speaks every day with his friends and family, but has never read a book before, doesn't go to school.

Nothing. And then you got Kid B who goes to school, reads books, does his homework. Who at the age of 18 is going to be the more articulate speaker?

Yeah.

I mean, it's like chalk and cheese. You got someone who's going to be great on the street, you know, in the sort of to and fro of real life. And then you got someone who's educated, who can talk about lots of topics, has a much larger vocabulary, has better grammar, all of that stuff. So, it's hardly a surprise, really. The people, those who read become more intelligent, they become more articulate, all of that stuff.

And so, if you have the goal of becoming proficient in a foreign language, you know, why would you not do that as well? I mean, you know, I think for most people, you want to be spending really 80% of your time, at least in input through reading and listening of some kind.

Because that's the ratio that we, you know, if you're in university or at school, you know, it's for most the day. You have class discussions, but you spend most of your time reading, doing homework, all that stuff.

What do you think, like switching gears now. What do you think in terms of the importance of learning about a languages culture, its history, its, you know, news and current affairs, the things that are going on in the street? I find at least that this is sort of my spiel with Aussie English, a lot of the time I spend mainly focussed on those things through the medium of English as opposed to actually teaching English.

Because that's kind of like, that's something that most students that come along have already. But the thing that's missing when I've interacted with a lot of my followers is that they want that- They feel like that gap is missing between understanding Australia or understanding Great Britain or the US and the culture and everything.

Do you find that that's a very important aspect to learning a language more so than just learning the words and the grammar? Is that something that you pursue as well?

I think it's important to think what- To understand what we as native speakers actually think about and talk about. And so, again, if we're assuming here that- It depends what your aim is, right. If your aim is just to communicate and get by, then no, it's not that important, really.

But then let's imagine that you want to make your life in Australia, you want to have Australian friends, etc, etc. You need to learn the language. Okay, but then you need to learn the language for what? Well, imagine you go to a barbecue, because I know that's what you guys do every day...

That's all we do.

...Surrounded- You're surrounded by Australians, and they are all using the English language to communicate. But what are they communicating about?

Yeah.

Most likely, if you walked into an Australian barbecue today, you're going to be talking about things like COVID. You're going to be talking about the restrictions on travel and movement around, which takes you into politics and the government and your wonderful prime minister. You're going to be talking about immigration, maybe, there's going to be things like forest fires and the state of the education system, the price of fuel.

That's a big thing here at the moment. This is what people talk about, it's what they care about, which means if you want- It's no good you turning up with all your fancy English words and phrases if you don't know what to talk about or how to use them, or the context in which they're being used, they're all for nothing. And so, learning about the culture and current affairs, it is, I mean, that is the language.

Because the language, let's not forget, the language is not the end goal. The point of language is to communicate. And to communicate with who? With other people. People in what? In your society. And so, it's the affairs of the society that language is actually designed for, it's how you communicate with each other. I think with language learners, you get this a lot in language learning communities.

There's a big tendency to make it, you know, it's all about the language, the grammar, the vocabulary, the strategies. But no native speakers ever think about that, it's been literally zero time thinking about any of that stuff.

You can't have a conversation with us about that. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I get that, you know, sometimes, you know, when I talk to other people here in the UK, people I meet, they're like, oh, so what do you do? And I'm like, oh, well, I teach languages. And they're like, oh, right, yeah. So, like Duolingo and stuff. Yeah.

And you're like, yes. Exactly that.

And well, they were actually- I mean, to be honest, actually, now I normally say, well, yeah, that kind of thing, yeah. Because I want to end the conversation as quickly as possible.

Yeah, tap out.

Because that's the extent, that's all they know. And a lot of people don't even know like Duolingo, but if they know anything about language, then it is probably Duolingo or else their French high school class from like 50 years ago or something. And people have absolutely no awareness in general of the learning of a language or language learning as an activity or as a study.

There's literally zero parts in anyone's consciousness for the most part, right. And yet for the learner, that's all they think about. You know, if you, you know, come across someone learning English and you ask them how it's going, they'll probably spend 15 minutes telling you about their English classes and how hard they're studying there, and how they learnt this strange, this funny idiom the other day.

And all these things that are- That a regular person has decided they should never, ever talk about. So, it's- The culture isn't just important, the culture is everything if you want to actually really pursue the language. I was going to say, you know, I was going to say, "pursue the language to a high level", but it's not even that. It's not about the language, it's about the society...

...Just integrate, right? It's to become... Yeah, exactly. Have you found that difficult with languages that have a lot of different, I guess, cultures, right? Like you speak Spanish as well as Arabic and I imagine both of those, it's kind of like someone who's learning those languages in Great Britain and you're not necessarily planning to migrate to one of those countries.

How do you then try and absorb as much of the culture as possible? Or is it just a sort of shotgun approach of, I'm just going to be interested in all the different cultures and compare them and have opinions on different topics and things about them so that I can chat to people about it?

Well, so like I said, man, I don't take that approach to language learning because I always just- I learn what's in front of me with my life. Take Arabic, you mentioned Arabic, I mean, I don't really speak Arabic much anymore, to be honest with you, partly because- So, I learnt Arabic when I was living in Qatar and in Egypt, I was there for about 3 years in total, so I was learning Arabic while I was there.

I moved back to the UK 6 years ago and I haven't really spoken a word of Arabic since then because I just- It's not part of my life anymore. I really kind of follow by my circumstances in that way. But when I was learning Arabic in Egypt in particular it becomes- It's very apparent when you're in the country just how important it is, and I'll give you an example.

I was, I remember getting a taxi back from work one day, and taxi drivers in Egypt are hilarious because they're either- They'll just talk to you the entire journey back. And I spoke enough Arabic by then, they would pick up on that we could have a conversation. And one of the- I remember one particular time where I got in a taxi and the guy was like, so what religion are you?

Because in that part of the world, your religion is a big deal, right. Because most people- In Egypt you're either Muslim or you're Christian, for the most part, most likely, I think, it's probably like 80% Muslim, 20% Christian.

If you were to say atheist, would they look at you sort of cross-eyed and like, what's that? Or would they have an understanding of, oh, okay?

So, you've pre-empted my story. So, I remember getting in the taxi and the guy said to me, so, are you Muslim? I was like, no. So, you're Christian? No. So, what are you? And I was like, well, I don't really believe in anything, you know?

Uh-oh.

And then... Yeah, exactly. And then the guys like, so, where did we all come from? I said, well, I don't know. I didn't know the word for "evolution" in Arabic at the time. And he said, so who made the universe? And I was like, well, I don't know. And if I was more articulate, I would have said, well, I don't know, and I'm comfortable saying, I don't know.

Because it's better than claiming something for which there's no evidence, right? And not to take this off too much into a tantrum. But the guy, I mean, he wasn't having it. And he was like, well, how are we here if there's no God? I said, I don't know. Well, then, how can you say, "you don't know"?

And but this is- My point is that this is a very common conversation to happen in Egypt. And anyone who knows Arabic, has lived in Egypt will have had this conversation many, many times because for them, I mean, religion, it is life.

It's funny because in our culture, it would be one of those things where it's like, don't, you don't, just what's your religion? You know, you would be like, whoa, that is not something you bring up at dinner or ask strangers.

Yeah. But for them, it's like, you know, you have the typical scene in Cairo, is you driving around at night and then you'll see, you'll have this cafe with people sitting outside and you often see like groups of like 10 men sitting around. Cos it's always men. The women are always- Well, not so much in Egypt, but usually societally you got the men separated, so the men will all be sitting around with their friends.

Everyone is sipping an espresso and smoking a cigarette, everyone. And they're all- And if you turn down, if you press the mute button, you look at them and it looks like they're arguing with each other. They're all kind of like shouting and their arms flying- It looks like a huge, like a fight's about to break out. But actually, they're just talking about politics and religion, and stuff like that.

That's what they do. That's just the way that they live their life. So, then coming back to the point. What is the point of learning Arabic if you don't understand the things that drives these people from the minute they wake up to the minute they go to sleep? What is the point? Literally, like what is this? Like, it's like some kind of computer coding exercise where you're looking to sort of tick boxes and make things work.

You know, you can't separate the language from the culture. So, you asked how I go about doing that? I mean, I do that when I'm learning a language by just being with people, by reading about the language and doing things as far as possible in the language, living as if I were living in the country and exposing yourself to as many different things as possible.

And I guess there's a bias towards content, authentic content in the language, rather than learning materials where it's all about the language. You know, I want to read about the society itself.

Well, I think that's it. And that's a good point to sort of finish. But that's my take on it, it's kind of like the language learning stuff is secondary to the culture, the history, the stories, everything that makes learning the language kind of worthwhile. If you don't really understand all of these deeper things, then you're going to be great at the language, but you won't be able to hold a conversation with anyone.

So, anyway, Olly, man, amazing chat. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I really appreciate it. Where can people go to find out more about you and what you do?

Yeah, so you can go to storylearning.com where you can find we have lots of free stuff there, from blog articles to language guides, we also have courses where you can learn a bunch of languages. If you're on YouTube, you can search for "Olly Richards" on YouTube.

And if you're listening to this on a podcast, you can search for the "I Will Teach You a language" podcast and then you can follow my dulcet British English tones there on the podcast. So, I look forward to seeing you over there.

Brilliant. Thank you so much, mate, and I'm looking forward to having you on again in the future. Cheers.

Yeah, likewise. Thanks so much for the invitation. It's been fun.