Learning a Second Language….. and a Third….. and a Fourth…..
Do you know who Ioannis Ikonomou is? I didn’t either – that is, until I ran across an article about one of the smartest living human beings. Most of us would consider speaking a second language as a great feat. A third language? Incredible. A fourth language? Impossible. Not Ioannis Ikonomou. This 46-year old Greece-born, world-citizen “feels comfortable” speaking and communicating in 32 languages. That’s not a typo – 32 (as in thirty-two).
As a native Grecian, his mother-tongue is Greek. He began learning English when he was 6 years old. After English came German… Then Russian… Italian… Turkish… Arabic… And so the story goes. Ioannis is now employed as the only in-house translator for the European Commission of the United Nations. He spends about half the year in Beijing, China as a representative of the European Commission.
What does this mean for the rest of us? Are we to find the story of Ioannis as encouraging or discouraging? I say that we ought to be encouraged, and here is why:
- Mr Ikonomou is amazing, but he is still a human being. If he is capable of learning 32 languages, shouldn’t I be capable of learning at the very least, a second language, and maybe even a third?
- His second language started when he was 6. He is now 46. That means 40 years of dedicated language-learning. What’s my point? My point is that this isn’t a race. You don’t have a deadline for learning that language that you’ve been working on (unless you’re moving to Costa Rica at the end of the month – odds are, you aren’t).
- “There’s really no hard or easy language to learn,” he says. “Anyone can learn a language if they fall in love with it.” He goes on through-out the article explaining that his single greatest key to success is falling in love with the language. That makes sense. Everything from using it daily, learning the culture, eating the food, watching TV and reading in that language, and eventually dreaming in it.
It’s possible – as long as we fall in love with it. I completely agree. I’m bilingual and working on my third – the periods of the greatest success come at times when I’m genuinely interested in the language itself, not just in learning the language.
This blog is hosted by LearnALanguage.com– a site that is dedicated to helping people from all around the world learn languages, all for free. The learning material is here, but that’s not everything that you need. My challenge to you, is to dive in and don’t just learn the language, learn about the language. If you’re learning Russian, do some research on Russia: the weather and seasons, the culture, the food – you can even download a recipe and try it at home. If you’re learning Spanish, study the several countries where Spanish is spoken and find out about the people who use these languages.
Learning about the language and those who use it will help us to become better learners of the language itself.
Without any doubt at all, loving the language toy are studying is important, maybe even necessary for most people. However there are other requirements to be successful at learning another language. So many people try and the reality is that the vast majority do not succeed. One reason is that they go about it in the wrong way. Just try drinking soup with chopsticks and see how successful you will be, even if you love soup! Soon you will grow to hate it UNLESS you change your tools and methods!
Once you learn one langauge,learning a similar language is much easier, there is so much that transfers between Spanish and Italian that learning one is like learning the other.For example, I didn’t realize that Rumanian was also similar to Italian. The difficult part can be getting that first language under your belt. George
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