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I love learning foreign languages.

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In fact, I love it so much that I like
to learn a new language every two years,

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currently working on my eighth one.

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When people find that out about me,
they always ask me,

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"How do you do that? What's your secret?"

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And to be honest, for many years,
my answer would be,

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"I don't know. I simply
love learning languages."

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But people were never
happy with that answer.

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They wanted to know why they are spending
years trying to learn even one language,

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never achieving fluency,

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and here I come learning
one language after another.

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They wanted to know
the secret of polyglots,

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people who speak a lot of languages.

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And that made me wonder, too,

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how do actually other polyglots do it?

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What do we have in common?

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And what is it that enables us

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to learn languages so much
faster than other people?

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I decided to meet other people
like me and find that out.

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The best place to meet a lot of polyglots

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is an event where hundreds
of language lovers

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meet in one place
to practice their languages.

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There are several such polyglot events
organized all around the world,

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and so I decided to go there

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and ask polyglots about
the methods that they use.

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And so I met Benny from Ireland,

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who told me that his method
is to start speaking from day one.

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He learns a few phrases
from a travel phrasebook

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and goes to meet native speakers
and starts having conversations

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with them right away.

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He doesn't mind making
even 200 mistakes a day,

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because that's how he learns,
based on the feedback.

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And the best thing is, he doesn't
even need to travel a lot today,

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because you can easily have
conversations with native speakers

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from the comfort of your living room

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using websites.

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I also met Lucas from Brazil

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who had a really interesting
method to learn Russian.

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He simply added a hundred random
Russian speakers on Skype as friends,

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and then he opened
a chat window with one of them

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and wrote "Hi" in Russian.

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And the person replied, "Hi, how are you?"

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Lucas copied this and put it
into a text window with another person,

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and the person replied,
"I'm fine, thank you, and how are you?"

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Lucas copied this
back to the first person,

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and in this way, he had two strangers
have a conversation with each other

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without knowing about it.

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(Laughter)

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And soon he would start typing himself,

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because he had so many
of these conversations

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that he figured out how
the Russian conversation usually starts.

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What an ingenious method, right?

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And then I met polyglots who always start
by imitating sounds of the language,

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and others who always learn the 500
most frequent words of the language,

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and yet others who always start
by reading about the grammar.

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If I asked a hundred different polyglots,

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I heard a hundred different
approaches to learning languages.

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Everybody seems to have a unique way
how they learn a language,

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and yet we all come to the same result
of speaking several languages fluently.

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And as I was listening to these polyglots
telling me about their methods,

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it suddenly dawned on me:

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the one thing we all have in common

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is that we simply found ways how to enjoy
the language-learning process.

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All of these polyglots were talking
about language learning

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as if it was great fun.

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You should have seen their faces

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when they were showing me
their colorful grammar charts

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and their carefully handmade flash cards,

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and their statistics about
learning vocabulary using apps,

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or even how they love to cook
based on recipes in a foreign language.

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All of them use different methods,
but they always make sure it's something

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that they personally enjoy.

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I realized that this is actually
how I learn languages myself.

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When I was learning Spanish,

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I was bored with the text in the textbook.

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I mean, who wants to read about Jose

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asking about the directions
to the train station. Right?

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I wanted to read Harry Potter instead,

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because that was
my favorite book as a child,

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and I have read it many times.

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So I got the Spanish translation
of Harry Potter and started reading,

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and sure enough, I didn't understand
almost anything at the beginning,

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but I kept on reading
because I loved the book,

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and by the end of the book, I was able
to follow it almost without any problems.

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And the same thing happened
when I was learning German.

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I decided to watch "Friends,"
my favorite sitcom, in German,

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and again, at the beginning
it was all just gibberish.

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I didn't know where one word finished
and another one started,

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but I kept on watching every day
because it's "Friends."

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I can watch it in any language.
I love it so much.

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And after the second or third season,

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seriously, the dialogue
started to make sense.

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I only realized this
after meeting other polyglots.

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We are no geniuses,

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and we have no shortcut
to learning languages.

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We simply found ways
how to enjoy the process,

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how to turn language learning
from a boring school subject

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into a pleasant activity which
you don't mind doing every day.

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If you don't like writing
words down on paper,

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you can always type them in an app.

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If you don't like listening
to boring textbook material,

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find interesting content on YouTube
or in podcasts for any language.

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If you're a more introverted person

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and you can't imagine speaking
to native speakers right away,

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you can apply the message of self-talk.

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You can talk to yourself
in the comfort of your room,

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describing your plans for the weekend,
how your day has been,

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or even take a random
picture from your phone

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and describe the picture
to your imaginary friend.

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This is how polyglots learn languages,

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and the best news is,
it's available to anyone

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who is willing to take the learning
into their own hands.

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So meeting other polyglots
helped me realize

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that it is really crucial
to find enjoyment

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in the process of learning languages,

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but also that joy in itself is not enough.

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If you want to achieve
fluency in a foreign language,

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you'll also need to apply
three more principles.

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First of all, you'll need
effective methods.

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If you try to memorize a list of word
for a test tomorrow,

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the words will be stored
in your short-term memory

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and you'll forget them after a few days.