Interview with Nam

Name: Nam
Age: 29
Nationality: British
Learnt Languages: 
– Japanese – N4 – N3 
– Spanish – B1

I’ve known Nam for some time now. We both went to High school together and, while we never spent much time learning languages in our youth, we reconnected after a long hiatus when we found we were both learning Japanese. From there it’s been a continuous learning journey in tandem with a lot of support, games and a handful of friendly abuse.

Nam went to University to study Japanese and has since taken up Spanish to degree level too, making multiple trips out to Mexico and further afield, consistently trying to familiarise herself with the language before each visit. This is an interview talking about some of the feelings and advice around language learning, the differences in learners, different approaches and some thought provoking language scenarios.

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Luke: Hi Nam, thank you for joining me.

Nam: Thank you for having me.

Luke: So you’ve been learning languages for a long time now, even longer than me I believe. How long has it been now that you’ve been learning languages?

Nam: As a whole, about 13 years on and off.

Luke: And what was it that started your language learning journey?

Nam: For me personally we had an exchange. Some students from Japan came over and I got buddied up with one of them. From there I think that sparked some of my want to learn the language. I’d been a bit of a weeb. I’d watched some anime, I’m not gonna deny that but I… So I knew one or two words and I had no intention of ever using them or any intention of studying a language but I picked up those phrases from watching stuff. When we had this visit I got to actually say a few words to them and their reaction was “oh my god, someone is trying to speak Japanese”. This was when I was around 15. At this point I was still very, very… anime wasn’t mainstream, you had to tuck that stuff away. So their reaction, I remember they got out a piece of paper and wanted to teach me more, they grabbed their friends and were like “come on, come here, listen”, so I was like “What?”. All of a sudden these very tense, shy students completely changed. I suddenly saw this whole new side to things and they were teaching me things (Don’t get me wrong I can’[t remember what it was) that now I know but at the time was really interesting. I wanted to keep learning from there. I suddenly thought if I could have a conversation, or even just be able to get someone to relax and show their true personality in front of me (Sounds a bit crazy) then that could help with all sorts and open up new doors. From there I managed to do some volunteering with Japanese students, teaching them English and taking them on trips and over time, over the course of learning Japanese and seeing how it opened so many doors was incredible.

Luke: An unusual question from there but how do you think that experience would have happened at your age now?

Nam: It’s hard to say. Do I think it could have been different? Probably, I probably wouldn’t have had that juvenile excitement. Not in a bad way at all but maybe I wouldn’t have been as impressionable. I do think even now when I visit my customers in other countries and I try to use a little bit of their language (even only the basics) suddenly you get a completely different reaction.

Luke: It shows respect doesn’t it?

Nam: It does, it does. So I think it still would have inspired me to learn languages.

Luke: I feel like there are a lot of people that think it’s too hard to pick up a language at an older age, or if they are bilingual they typically have that from a younger age.

Nam: Yes, I was going to say. It can be very daunting for someone who grew up in a single language household。I didn’t have anything to do with any other language at all growing up whereas my dad now he’s hit retirement he has started doing French lessons. He’s never done that in his life, he’s never been one for languages and he loves it now, at the age of 70. He keeps going to France now.

Luke: I’ll have to ask him about his language journey too.

Nam: Yeah exactly. But honestly I remember sitting with my dad and my nan when I started learning japanese and they both said “wow, this is really impressive, where did you get that from. It certainly wasn’t either of us” because again language was never really a thing in our family.

Luke: Another slightly odd question from that but, as a language learner now how would you approach speaking with your kids about language learning in the future?

Nam: I would certainly encourage it. If I’m at a point, for example in Japanese terms, if I was at N4… no N2 level, I would be trying to use that with my kids as much as possible. And they may not like it or enjoy that all you know. I can’t force that upon them but I think it’s never a bad thing to learn a second language and it’s never too late to learn a second language either.

Luke: You mentioned there about levels, if you were N4 do you not think you’d speak to them in the same way?

Nam: Probably but then that might just be me and my confidence level, because that is one thing I’ve struggled with in my entire language learning journey. It has probably held me back in some ways. I wish I could be more confident, but at the same time you’ve got to understand that everyone is different with language. Everyone is going to be better at certain things when you don’t feel as strong in that area and other times you’ll feel stronger in something that is really difficult for someone else.

Luke: It reminds me of when we were learning a long while back because you were so confident in your speaking and were able to watch a lot of media and I was never that confident in that aspect. I always enjoyed the Kanji and the reading so our strengths were quite different. That was the first time I realised how different two learners could be.

Nam: You know what, same here. I’m glad we both had that eureka moment together because I remember being so impressed with the fact that you were so good at kanji and that was an area I was always weak at, always. For me the speaking and listening part was always easier and you actually introduced me to a new way of appreciating kanji and how much it could help me with my journey.

Luke: Aw shucks…

Nam: No it’s true.

Luke: For me as well, I got a lot of inspiration from your love of Japanese music and your confidence in speaking so that inspired me a lot too. Alongside that I suppose that brings me to asking about your preferred approach to language learning.

Nam: Ummm, I know it’s a cop out answer but just immersing yourself as much as possible. And it doesn’t have to be… If you’re confident enough to go out and speak to people but you make every mistake under the sun, go for it. I think that just immersing yourself, listening to a lot of music, that will also get you into culture. It’s important not only to learn about the language but the culture of the language too, that’s immensely important and it will help you connect and learn more. TV shows, movies, whatever doesn’t feel like so much work and feels natural. For me I listen to music pretty much every waking moment if I’m not talking to someone. That’s an easy thing for me.

Luke: It’s true you have to enjoy it. How much would you say you sit down and diligently study without those more enjoyable methods? Just a notebook and nothing else.

Nam: Not as much as I’d like to haha. Honestly I don’t know. Finally going to study language at university definitely made me more cut-throat with it.

Luke: Okay, how so?

Nam: I would make sure I was there studying one hour a day or so 5 days a week, even as a minimum. Uni has helped me with that. When I was younger and a teenager, I had more time and less responsibility so I was studying meticulously about 4 hours a week. I’d also go on things like Twitter and social media and I’d be trying to speak with Japanese people for around 2 hours a day. I remember when we had school breaks I would try… I remember there was one time I literally spent the whole day speaking in Japanese, just on text, listening to Japanese, watching japanese stuff and I remember that was the first time my brain switched into Japanese mode and I was like “Oh shit, this is it”. That was the moment I could see it click in my head.

Luke: I’ve got the genuine belief that if you can get to that point where you can think in a language, it’s all up from there.

Nam: Absolutely, and that is the hardest part to get to. With my Spanish I was not doing that. I was thinking in Japanese if I was trying to speak a different language and it was not clicking for months. I was ready to give up with it. It must have taken about 6 months for it to finally go “okay, actually this is working, it is happening”, you’ve just got to stick out the hard part. It’s so hard and you’ll encounter every block imaginable.

Luke: Was there anything in particular, because I get those plateaus all the time, they’re annoyingly frequent. Is there anything in particular for you that helped you break past that feeling that got you back to learning comfortably again or anything that picked you up out of that pit where you considered giving up?

Nam: Sometimes it would just take someone who was a native speaker to say that I was doing really, really well. To say that even though I had only been doing it for X amount of time I was doing well. You just need that little bit of encouragement. Other times it can be as simple as taking a break away from the way you’re learning and trying to find a new way of making it interesting. For instance, if you’ve been focusing on grammar and you can’t make it click, just move onto something else. All you need is for another example to come into your head and you’ll go “Oh I do understand it, I can learn this” because, like I say, everyone has those weaker points and sometimes you need to take a break from it and come back another way. Sometimes when you come back to it you realise how much you can understand it you just might have needed to learn something else different to help it connect.

Luke: Definitely, recently I’ve been weighing up revision over variety. Obviously I think both are equally important and one shouldn’t be neglected. I’ve been doing variety for a long time to round off and understand a wider variety of topics which is great but I feel like it opens the opportunity to forget more that you’ve learnt. As such I’ve been reviewing my old Anki and dictionary lists recently to strengthen things I know I’ve definitely read before as they wouldn’t otherwise be on those lists. In terms of your view on variety and revision, if you had to pick one which would you choose. It’s a really tough question I know.

Nam: It is a tough question. If I had to pick one I think I would lean more towards revision. I think sometimes it’s not about learning as much as you can, it’s about mastering the small amount that you do know and taking it from there.

Luke: True, having a strong base is always good. I feel like especially when it comes to something like grammar, vocabulary can be drilled again and again and it can be overkilled in certain senses, but when you’re doing a lot of variety I suppose you’ll see a lot of the same grammar come up again and again too. Both definitely have their uses.

Nam: Sometimes, words that you don’t necessarily think about will one day start clicking when you see it on TV shows or hear it in movies. Just take the words that click, don’t even think about how frequently you’ll be using them and blah blah blah. Sometimes again it’s just that immersion.

Luke: Okay, I’ve got two more odd questions for you so I’ll give them a go as I think they could be quite fun. What are, if any, some bad learning habits that you have that are difficult to break and you would wish away if you could. 

Nam: Ummm, I wish… it’s not necessarily a bad habit and i don’t know if it counts but, if I make mistakes and if they’re called out then sometimes I have a bad habit of really putting myself down for it. I’ll really stunt my growth because I’ll think “I can’t do it, I can’t do it”.

Luke: Easily done.

Nam: And then I won’t study, you know? I’ll be like “Nah, whatever, I’m not gonna do this”. I don’t know if that counts as a bad habit.

Luke: No I think that definitely counts and I think everyone I’ve spoken to has a similar sort of feeling. It’s kind of hard when you’re doing self study but I’ve had it myself when you start speaking to other people and they say that what you’ve said doesn’t sound quite right or didn’t come across very natural, you think “aw crap, I could have done better there”.

Nam: Yeah exactly.

Luke: It can go one of two ways, I don’t know exactly what causes the direction to change. I get it sometimes where I have not the best call in the world and I think “right, I want to do better next time” while I’ve got other days where if things aren’t going great elsewhere I think “Well, I’m still not good, I better give up” so there is a lot of overall mood that comes into it.

Luke: Last one on my list, which for you I think would be interesting as you’ve dabbled in a number of languages. If you could learn another language you’ve had no contact with so far and take it to fluency, which would it be and why?

Nam: It has to be one I’ve had zero interaction with?

Luke: Yep, not even looked at the alphabet.

Nam: Oof, that’s stumped me.

Luke: Problem is I know we’ve looked at loads together haha.

Nam: I know haha. I think I might even have to go with Thai or something similarly bizarre. 

Luke: Thai would be good for us with our friends. I’m the same, I’ve interacted with so many languages. I think one of the few I’ve never interacted with is Arabic so that would be one of my choices.

Nam: Oh yeah, I didn’t think of Arabic.

Luke: I just think it’d be interesting and I like anything with an unusual writing system, so Thai, again, would be good for me too.

Luke: Interesting stuff, are there any questions you have for me or anything you want to talk to me about?

Nam: What has been the hardest part for you, and what on the flipside has also been the most satisfying?

Luke: For me the hardest part has easily been the mentality, I think every step of the way and a lot of what I put on the website is that language is fun and important in a lot of ways but it ties in a lot with mental health. It’s so easy, especially for myself, to get feelings of inferiority and depression around language, and just thinking “What’s it all about”, “Is it actually worth it”. I just want to help other people who feel that way, the goal is not just about helping people learn the language but also to encourage them if they’re feeling down, feeling low, to pick them up, make sure they keep going. We all know they want to get there, a lot of people just don’t have the support so they give up. They can give up if they want to, I’m not going to hold them down or force them., but I want to ensure that people have support if they need it. That also ties into the most satisfying part. When someone’s having a really bad day and they’re struggling to learn something, I can either help them learn something else useful or give them a skill to talk around what they enjoy to boost their spirit. It’s also just rewarding on a whole to find like minded people too.

Nam: Nice.

Luke: Well that’s essentially everything so thank you for chatting with me. That was quite fun, we’ll have to do it again. We can talk languages whenever.

Nam: I think that was good and interesting to talk languages again.

Luke: Definitely, we’ll have to do a revisit as your language journey changes. Also, genuinely, I did say it somewhat jokingly too but I will have to interview your dad too on his French.

Nam: Well he’s retired so drop him a message!

Luke: Thanks Nam, will do.

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This was really interesting for me. Although Nam and I have done a lot of language learning together we still have such different approaches. This makes it so much easier to not get stuck in a rut, dialling in on only one method and provides a great sounding board for any language based ideas on both of our parts. Nam and I will probably be picking apart languages in some way or another until we’re both old and decrepit and that warms my soul a little bit. Very grateful to have her as a friend and eager to see how her journey progresses.