This Man Speaks 20 Languages (Steve Kaufmann Interview)

--Steve Kaufmann, former Canadian diplomat and polyglot who speaks 20 languages, joins David to discuss learning languages and much more
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Broadcast on May 12, 2022
#davidpakmanshow #stevekaufmann #languages

[@Thelinguist]

Thanks for the interview. I liked your questions which went to the heart of language learning and dealt with some myths and practices that sometimes discourage people from achieving success.

[@EricksonFilmsYT]

great to see you here Steve! Huge fan of you both

[@menwa296]

Thank you Steve for always sharing your learning languages experience with us! Much appreciated..

[@mayer14474]

@@nadlax5920 me too. He's really good looking!

[@mayer14474]

I love it when you mention my mother tongue, Persian in virtually every video! Big fan here ;)

[@sweetlolitaChii]

I can say this panned out in my personal language learning journey. I learned more playing the game Skyrim completely in French with native voice acting than I did learning with Rosetta Stone or Babbel

[@theonetruelenny9883]

No way David actually brought Steve Kaufmann on. I was not expecting this. This is a pleasant surprise as a fan of his.

[@nendoakuma7451]

Yes, I’ve seen Steve on a broad range of podcasts, but not something like this.

[@jck956]

Real! Steve is awesome

[@user-x2y2x]

Never expected this crossover but it's more than welcome, have been following Kaufmanns work for a while now.

[@okstcowboy14]

same, had a double take when I saw the title

[@rorye-mail4920]

the youtube crossover I never thought i'd see

[@LanguageSimp]

What a crossover LETS GOO

[@tenfourten8438]

omg language simp likes dpak !

[@Doki_LP]

Yooooo

[@DKLordByron]

Here in Denmark, children is now learn English in their 2nd year in school. I hear a lot of English via KZbin right from American news, Late night shows, aquarium nerds and of course your channel 😉

[@ImagineHeroism]

As someone who speaks foreign languages, his qualification at the beginning is spot on and makes him sound very credible. I’m always dubious of people claiming to “speak” multiple languages. I know how much time it takes, so I always think “yeah, but how well?” Him qualifying it was amazing and made me very happy.

[@roberttewnion1690]

I've been watching you David for years and Steve for about a year. What an awesome surprise to see the pair of you in the same place!

[@jonathanf4082]

That casual dunk on Tim Ferris' Four Hour Work Week, lol. I was also confused at Tim's method.

[@chadbailey7038]

Love Steve Kaufman. Great interview ! He’s right on. As he’s said before: “Harry Potter & FRIENDS, has done more for English Language learners than any classroom ever could!” Haha 💯 %

[@lindenhardy9021]

I am 61 and have recently started learning Spanish. It is a very easy language to learn. However, I am an English South African and I also speak Afrikaans and isiZulu fluently and know a little isiXhosa, Sesotho and Lakota. I find languages so interesting & a great challenge. I live in Cambodia and am also learning Khmer which is NOT easy!

[@eobardthawne7126]

Any tips on learning Spanish or having it stick?

[@Silkthesmooveguy]

My two favorite KZbin channels combined!!!

[@AndrewDAngeloCCpod]

That was a lovely interview thank you, David! It was nice to take a break from politics. I learned Norwegian later in life during my thirties. It was a course where you eventually become a main character in the novel. Pretty neat process since after many years of French in school, I can barely speak any.

[@Cole-te2rz]

Didn’t expect this interview. I’m learning Japanese and have seen many of Steve’s videos.

[@laurabartoletti6412]

Fascinating discussion! Mr. Kaufmann is a great example of what people CAN accomplish when motivated. 💥🌎

[@Damacles9]

Great interview!

[@davidforbes2795]

Great interview. I’ve been learning Italian for seven years and I’m old. Steve is a good communicator

[@phoebe-annedwards8146]

Thank you so much for this David. I live in the Caribbean ( Trinidad and Tobago) and I speak English French Spanish and started learning German a couple months ago and what Mr Kaufman says is correct. You have to develop the ear/ listening skills. I want to start Korean later this year. David your English is on point and I want to hear you speak Spanish one day.

[@_all_around_us]

Really interesting to see David interview his future-self.

[@justadad6677]

As a Dane that came to America some 22 years ago, I can vouch for never losing my accent. Great questions David.

[@diablo55]

Thank you David, very interesting! I graduated high school a few years ago and wanted to learn French on my own time, this is very helpful

[@mxewris2355]

Steve has a great vibe!

[@axel_017]

Great interview! I love Steve and his KZbin channel

[@austin4768]

The crossover I never knew I always wanted

[@pikXpixelart]

Wow. David Pakman has been bringing on a lot of KZbinrs I’ve watched for a long time. That’s awesome

[@jameskile5113]

Both Cmilk and Steve Kaufman on the Pakman show?? This is fricking amazing

[@Overcaffenated]

"Your English is great! Where did you come from?" Just when I think I got it, they immediately let me know that no matter how good my English is they can tell right away I'm a foreign speaker 😢 To make matters worse, when I go back to my home country, I am told I speak my own language with an English accent! I feel like a foreigner everywhere! 😭

[@m.s.35]

Ugh same thing here in Buenos Aires man. I like the compliments and know I have a slight American accent but mannnn come on 😭

[@mr.sushi2221]

I love Steve. He inspired me to begin learning French and Japanese

[@johneversfield874]

Really liked this informative interview, thank you.

[@bendeloso7569]

Wonderful interview, I love both you guys! ❤️

[@ADHDlanguages]

I wish he would have talked more about the comprehensible part of comprehensible input. The way he talks about it in this video sounds closer to the more traditional immersion approach where you just listen to native material that you don't understand until you magically do one day (this was my initial approach that failed spectacularly). At the beginning, using simplified material is important. If you can't comprehend anything you're hearing or reading, it's not comprehensible input. I know Steve uses the mini stories on lingq for this, but there are a wide range of graded readers, beginner comprehensible KZbin videos, etc., depending on the language you're learning. If you go and watch his channel rather than just this short interview, he explains these things much better than I do.

[@jordansarkisian]

Love learning Korean, its like a really difficult puzzle with endless pieces:)

[@spacevspitch4028]

Yessss, love it when two big interests come together! I'm currently learning Spanish, Japanese, and Romanian. Pimsleur and Memrise are my go tos but I've been debating paying for a year of Linq to see where it takes me.

[@aaronhernandezburleson2974]

The greatest crossover of our time

[@charlenemack7040]

tRump doesn’t even speak one language!!!😳

[@baronmeduse]

I've seen a lot of interviews with Steve, this was one of the best, with interesting questions.

[@suzannahdarcy6903]

Yay! Two of my favourites on KZbin together in one video

[@keenanschouten2582]

Learning How To Learn by Barbra Oakley, I used to help me study computer languages. But understanding the physiology of learning can help you learn anything.

[@ronmexico9631]

Timothy Ferris is the author he was trying to think of

[@zahiddostbaloch]

I have been following steve and i learned from him a lot

[@DJSt3rling]

Pakman asked some incredibly good questions! I don't think Kaufmann understood them all. Some of his responses were not answers. But I'd love to hear from another polyglot!

[@lucasmonteiro2482]

This guy is the master Yoda of language learning, anyone who's thinking about learning languages, wants to see/understand how the progress works, go to his chanel.

[@worldnomad2301]

I know nothing about this stuff, but they teach adults a new language through a very rigid written grammar system, but that’s not how children learn. Like the guy said, they learn through listening and eventually they start speaking then writing. Why not do this for adults?

[@Kisha_can]

Adults and children learn very differently. As kids we tend to pay more attention with less effort, resulting in more information retention than we end up with as adults.

[@brendawheelen637]

AWWW I had a lady from the Philippines that I worked with who listened to Soap Opras to learn English!🙅‍♀️

[@charlenemack7040]

Many times when I leave a comment I use the microphone to type what I’m saying! Before I press the comment button and send it off, I read what has been typed up! Apparently, I’m not even good at speaking my own English language!!! 50% of the time I have to hand type it because it’s just not typing what I’m actually saying into the microphone… I find this to be both comical, and sad!!! 😂🤣😂 and 🤔😮🙁😳 !!!???

[@redmed10]

He's right that you will learn to correct errors. Teachers worry too much that errors will become ingrained so must be corrected right from the start but this discourages learners especially kids.

[@PalaminoHills]

I PREACH: Vocabulary, Syntax, verbs. Total immersion never works.

[@raqui1256]

Steve, my favorite polyglot!!

[@Danny-ps9fd]

Been learning norwegian on duolingo for just under a year. 1 lesson a day :). Tried german before norwegian and gave up early on cause of the pronunciation/accent

[@fleurlarochepoesy]

Love this crossover!😻

[@Adrian4239]

Most gringos in the USA are not interested in learning another language and worse geography!

[@fieldandstream9362]

Amazing.🌹

[@alswearengen6427]

Seems to me, many Americans can barely speak one language.

[@fabt612]

A fan of both!

[@papricep6248]

I speak .5 language

[@ronvandermeer8977]

I have discovered that my ability to produce the sounds native to Dutch and French has decreased significantly through disuse. The vocal instrument has lost it’s elasticity, or perhaps it’s agility. Either way, my ear picks up the deficiencies. Conversely, reading ability is improved; possibly through ‘cross pollination’ with exposure to various languages over the years.

[@daniel-panek]

I love language learning stuff. I have been learning Japanese casually, myself

[@rv-jn7wn]

Excellent program language immersion !! it works. If you're an idiot abroad and want to learn the local language just get on the bus and go into the village or city and muck and fuddle your way back home the locals will laugh but they will admire your effort and within a short time you're brain will start picking up phrases. I'm so amazed l can still understand and reply in basic Greek and Turkish language even 20 years later 😎😎😎😎 Thank you USAF

[@kathyjones1078]

David your guest has a physical resemblance to you.

[@mito88]

hummmm...

[@harshbarj]

Have to say leaning a language close to your own does make it a LOT simpler. I am still in the process of learning German and in the first week I was able to nail the Alphabet as most letters are pronounced the same (or close to) in both English and German. Many words are also the same(or very close when you take the vowel shift into account) given the West Germanic origins. BUT you need to be careful of so called 'Falsche Freunde' or false friends. These are words that look or sound the same between two languages but have different meanings. Take the English and German words "gift". Both are spelled the same and are pronounced very similarly. But the meaning could not be more different! If I was to tell you I was giving you a gift in English, you would be happy. If I was to say the same in German with the word 'gift', I'd be presenting you with poison and not something pleasant. So just be careful when leaning a new language. Just because a word sounds familiar you really need to look it up.

[@derpauleglot9772]

I tend to not have too much trouble with false friends, I just come up with assocations to connect the meanings. "Snow White received a gift" (poison/present) - for example. More often than not, it´s obvious from context that you´re dealing with a false friend. There are some tricky cases though where two words are false friends but have similar meanings. "Weinen" means "to cry" and not "to whine". "Stop whining or you´ll make me cry" might be a good association here. I think the biggest issue with German is that people get discouraged by the grammar. Read, listen, speak (with corrective feedback from a teacher) and it´s gonna sink in eventually. I´m a German teacher on iTalki and, ironically, students who follow that advice end up having better grammar than those who focus on grammar.

[@SenorJuan2023]

Had no idea Pakman wasn't American. WOW

[@quebecer4605]

Great interview! Steve Kaufmann is the best when it comes to language learning.

[@Big-guy1981]

English is a semi-native language in the Philippines.

[@vocalcoachgina]

This rocks! 🤘😁🤘 A video which was interesting and gave me the feel goods instead of the bummer that political videos are becoming as of late.

[@RayLRhodes]

I grew up speaking Portuguese. I was hopeless at French.

[@samwindmill8264]

I just got done doing some German lessons in Duolingo, go figure!

[@eternalreturnal]

same!

[@thomaskristensen4679]

So true many classrooms should be filled with movies in the original but with subtitels. Anyway english is more and more the only lauguage of the world.

[@IriaChannel]

As someone who's followed Kaufmann for 14 years.. and been on lingq just as long, this interview was out of pocket lol, never expect this sorta collab lol random but im not complaining

[@usaisamess8880]

Countries dubbing movies are doing so much damage..

[@janellemccoy09]

Which language are you working on?

[@nendoakuma7451]

Right now it seems like he’s working mostly on Arabic and Persian, which he has been focusing on for the past year or two, I think.

[@jeremiasrobinson]

Mwen vle aprann kreyol.

[@Swedishfinnpolymath]

Wasn't his parents holocaust survivors that fled the Czech Republic to Sweden where he was born?

[@kaicooper9421]

This is good for me, I'm trying to learn spanish and I can speak it to an ok degree but I'm still suffering

[@nonzz3ro]

@7:50 Persian seems to me much harder than Arabic. Persian's word ordering is different from English in almost every way, and like English it borrows a lot of vocab from from other languages and has more exceptions than rules. That's just in my two weeks of studying it, though.

[@AtomikNY]

Indeed, the subject-object-verb (SOV) syntax is very unlike English, but it is very similar to Korean and Japanese which Steve already speaks, while formal Arabic has a VSO syntax unlike any of his other languages. Arabic also has the triconsonantal root system while Persian inflects with roots and suffixes like a typical European language. I think it underlines Steve's point that it's all about how similar it is to the languages you already know, how many patterns the language has that you are already familiar with.

[@nonzz3ro]

I can see that within the context of what he already knows, but he did use the phrase "objectively more difficult" and... I don't know about that. Arabic makes sense to me more than any other language I've ever encountered, including English.

[@JuanPabloGomez-cc6vm]

NO WAY, siempre hay un argentino en todas partes jajaja

[@ghlscitel6714]

Today we have an international language: Globish.

[@MaJoRMJR]

Learning languages is definitely best when you are younger. Since the pandemic begin I have been trying to learn Spanish (because I love holidaying in Spain), I struggled learning English as a child, and French and Spanish classes were pretty much a waste of time for me in school as I just couldn't get my head around it, I needed a different approach to it, maybe if I had been introduced to them earlier than high school I would have had more success learning them, I don't know, but certainly it couldn't have done any harm to my chances of learning them. Trying to learn as a adult, it's difficult as I'm sure it is more difficult to retain the information you're learning, I've not given up on it, I'm approaching 700 straight days of studying, but I feel like I'm only just scratching the surface and I have a very long way to go before I can claim to know the language. I also am hoping for a penny drop moment with it, where suddenly everything just makes sense

[@frankwright6043]

Due to the economic crisis that always comes up the best thing to be on every wise individuals mind or list is to invest in CRYPTO or a different streams of income that's not depending on the government to create funds

[@catrinamcelpraug.9890]

I wanted to trade crypto but got confused by the fluctuations in price, and i don't have any account manager any recommendations please?

[@gisannramharack6094]

@@catrinamcelpraug.9890 I stopped worrying about bitcoin price ever since i started using Patrick Boyle strategy, it gives me gain daily even with the downtrend

[@paullorga3608]

I also trade with him and i will praise Mr Patrick Boyle over and over again because he has great skills, i started with $2000 and after 2week i received a returns of $6,000 then i continue with him....

[@tiffanyflores6385]

Please how can I be able to reach your broker, my income stream is in a mess😭....

[@conormaynard4935]

@@tiffanyflores6385 ☟☟ Mr Patrick Boyle is always active with What's Apk☟☟...

[@eugeneimbangyorteza]

I despise Davis Pakman but kudos for giving a platform for Steve Kauffman 👏👏👏👏

[@lenering1084]

If he had a job working as an interpreter, he would make no money at all.

[@RichardTClark396]

Melania TRUMPspeaks seven languages fluently.

[@owenbraun3390]

This is the crossover of the century

[@Edward-st8qm]

*Earning 70,000 Canadian dollars weekly on stock, nft, crypto and forex*

[@Santos_12]

Only invest in Nft, but am not making much profits.

[@Edward-st8qm]

@Marry maxwells Believe Eric Wayne is the best, his trading skills are top notch

[@jamesbryan4102]

Heard a lot of investing with Mr Eric Wayne and how good he is, please how safe are the profit?

[@Edward-st8qm]

课程十𝟏𝟖𝟒𝟎𝟒𝟔𝟓𝟏𝟓𝟔𝟐中國 Translate to English

[@Edward-st8qm]

@Marry maxwells Mr. Eric is always active with What's Apk ☝️

[@Exxperiment626]

Not a word about the race attack in Buffalo, David?

[@ledaswan5990]

Does he usually comment on the news only?

[@vsmith1688]

I imagine this was recorded some time last week.

[@millabasset1710]

I love this man, but he doesn't speak 20 languages, if anything he's fluent in 3 or 4. You can't be fluent in 20 languages, that is physically impossible.

[@TAGibby]

He said he can have conversations in 12 languages and he's in different stages with the rest. Nothing about being fluent in 20 languages.

[@millabasset1710]

@@TAGibby Conversational and fluent aren't the same thing, nonetheless I still respect his channel. I'm considering Spanish and Japanese, but I thought being in my late 20s would make it a wasted effort; turns out the majority of language learners are as young as mid 30s.

[@ledaswan5990]

@@millabasset1710 I was in my 30's when I learned Danish. Most Danes were surprised that I could speak so well. And my Spanish is almost like a native Mexican,I learned in my 20's. Its not that hard. a little bit everyday.

[@jessicaandersson4313]

When it comes to language learning it's better to stay away from using words like fluent since it's such a controversial word wiith many different definitions. The Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) is more commonly used to describe your level.