I left high school with 0 foreign language skills. Now I’m fluent in 5 — here’s how I did it
By: Andrew Gold
Tags: Culture, Self Improvement, This Happened To Me, Language Learning, Identity

I left high school with 0 foreign language skills. Now I’m fluent in 5 — here’s how I did it

How consistency, a system, and Viggo Mortensen helped me go from one to five languages—after failing miserably at school Andrew Gold Jul 2·9 min read

Image credit: YakobchukOlena

There I was, a clumsy, decaf-drinking 25-year-old British man in a swanky Buenos Aires radio station, being ridiculed by Viggo Mortensen. But even as he laid into me — his jokes later leading to my being heckled on the streets of Argentina — I couldn’t help but smile. The Hollywood actor may have been making fun of me, but he was doing so in Spanish. And I was responding in kind.

My Viggo tale is as long as it is ridiculous and will have to be left for another day. The crux of the story is that I held my own in the impenetrable Argentine dialect, just a few years after failing in languages at high school.

My appearance on Argentina’s live TV show Duro de Domar to discuss the Viggo Mortensen saga

So what led me to this Latino duel of words with the Danish/American Lord of the Rings star? And what happened next? This is my story of how I went from being a language dud to a polyglot in my 20s and 30s. I hope it serves as inspiration for the next line of language learners. I’ve supplied you with the system I developed. If I could do it, you definitely could.

First, I failed at high school

In the UK, of course, we speak of secondary school, rather than high school. My particular one used to publish lists of our exam results on the corridor walls, sorted top-to-bottom by the best grades. Painfully aware of my place, I knew to search from the bottom up and never had to rise far to find my name. I found the world of academia tough going in my teens, my attention stolen by pimples and the girls I feared would be put off by them. So I didn’t do all that well (and didn’t much mind). But of all the decrepit subjects we had to study, it was languages I hated the most.

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

I know this is a feeling common to many of us. In the States, less than 1% of people are proficient in a language they learned in the classroom. High school seems to suck the joy out of language learning. We spend hours pouring over textbooks full of faces as bored as our own, escorted by speech bubbles about Jean-Jacques’ penchant for skiing and baguettes, or Juan’s view on tapas and Catalan independence. Not that I blame the teachers, or even the powers that be. I just think school is too stagnant an environment for language learning to prosper. It’s not a place where you feel free to express yourself, to embrace a language, with its accents and cultural idiosyncrasies.

I left high school with my worst scores coming in French and having given up Spanish altogether two years previous. To be honest, I was pleased to see the derrière of them.

I took an unlikely opportunity

Fast-forward a few years to the University of Leeds, where I studied English — as if in defiance of the very notion of foreign languages. I happened to be at my laptop when an email popped up. Several students in the French department had dropped out of their year-long trip to study in Montpellier and Lille. Spaces were now available, in case anyone in the English department desired them.

Living abroad had never crossed my mind, but upon applying, I was accepted on a first-come-first-served basis. Thankfully, they didn’t sort applications by academic merit. Thirteen years and six countries of habitat later, I think often about how that moment changed the course of my life.

Before leaving, I took a six-month French course at my home university. I reached a point where I could vaguely understand easy-reading books and felt confident — and a touch snooty — about my level. I’d done reports in French to the class about writer Albert Camus and singer Bertrand Cantat.

But, when I landed in France, I was brought down to earth with a sacre-bang. I recall vendors in shops haranguing me to speed up my sentences as I searched for words that made themselves unavailable to me when most needed. Others laughed at my clumsy pronunciations. Those opening months taught me not only about French, but about myself, my own language, and the elasticity of the human brain.

I learned about muscle memory

I became obsessed with quirks of foreign languages and the way people who spoke them seemed to inhabit another world. For example, the French for “I realised” is “je m’en suis rendu compte.” Word by word, this translates to “I myself of it am made count.” How could they speak in that order? How might I train myself to imitate their strange ways? I was fascinated.

Another part of language learning that beguiled me was the sounds — the fact that certain sounds simply don’t exist in other languages. It’s the reason that many speaking English as a second language struggle with sheet, beach, and their sweary cohorts. That short i sound in words like lit, pick, and bid simply doesn’t exist in French or Spanish, and it’s not as simple as just telling them how to pronounce it. They must train mouths to form short vowels, and strain ears to hear the difference between bit and beat, as obvious as that might sound to maternal English speakers.

The central plaza in Montpellier. Photo by Pierre Herman on Unsplash

I remember the laughs I provoked in Montpellier upon saying what I thought was “thank you very much” (“merci beaucoup”). It was actually coming out — much to my dismay — as “thanks, nice bottom” (“merci, beau cul”). Every night before bed, I practiced the difference between the two sounds — cul, coup, cul, coup — until my mouth muscles ached. I did the same with the likes of lent (slow) and long (long), the difference of which is indecipherable to English ears. And this was an epiphany to me: Language learning really is like physical exercise. The brain, the mouth, and the ears function like muscles. And as any weightlifter, guitar player, or sprinter knows, endless repetition — no matter how dull — is the key to success. I just hope my next-door neighbors couldn’t hear me switching from beaucoup to beau cul into the early hours.

Discussion with famous linguist John McWhorter on the On the Edge with Andrew Gold podcast

I developed a system

After 18 months in France, I became fluent to a level I had never expected. In fact, like many of you, I had considered the concept of learning a foreign language simply impossible. But once I found I could speak French, I wanted to use it all the time. Much like many people are with tattoos, I became addicted to the process and couldn’t wait for my next fix.

Wanting to leave my comfort zone, I searched for the most exotic destination I could find with a ‘learnable’ language. I settled on Spanish and chose Medellín as my new home. Hanging out in Pablo Escobar’s old haunt was a challenge for the same reason that it was so perfect: Few people spoke English.

The view from the apartment I rented in Medellín, Colombia. Photo my own.

Based on my experience in France, I developed a system. I started reading easy-learner books out loud every evening, making sure to feel the ache in my jaw as I learned new sounds. I worked on a coffee farm, finding the locals more comprehensible with each passing day.

In the six months preceding my trip to Colombia, here’s what my daily routine looked like:

Michel Thomas audio lessons: 30 minutes

Pimsleur audio lessons: 30 minutes

Duolingo or Babbel: 30 minutes

Easy-reading books on Kindle: 30 minutes before bed

The key is consistency and repetition, to never, ever miss a day of practice, no matter what. I should add that I don’t represent the above companies. You can find equally competent equivalents elsewhere. The Kindle easy-reading books vary too, and I enjoyed Andre Klein’s Café in Berlin series for German. Again, I have no affiliation to him.

I moved to Berlin to learn German. Photo by Christian Lue on Unsplash.

Two hours each day might seem daunting, but it never felt that way to me. That is because I was able to slip sessions into times when I wasn’t doing much else.

For example, I listened to each audio lesson in my car on the way to and from work. Apps like Duolingo aren’t enough to learn a language, but keep your mind active and motivated. I used them on the metro or, I’m ashamed to admit, toilet breaks! And I have always been in the habit of reading before bed because I think it makes me sleep better. So it was just a case of swapping English for the language of the day. The extra effort in straining to read “foreign” got me to sleep faster and deeper than ever. That way, my exercises never felt like a chore, and that’s key because as soon as it gets that way, you’ve lost the battle.

In time, I moved to Buenos Aires, where I settled for six years, and began making documentaries in Spanish for HBO and the BBC. I came across Viggo Mortensen while making a documentary about infidelity in Argentina. We happened to be being interviewed on the same Argentine radio show one time, and he grew up in the country so has a strong local accent in Spanish.

As my language skills progressed beyond the easy-learning books, I moved on to Harry Potter. I’ve now read the entire series in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and German. It was fun to spot the little differences in each one, like how Hogwarts is Poudlard in French, and Snape is Rogue (a little nod to his personality). The beauty of the Potter collection is that each book is written with more complexity. You hardly notice the change in register as you go, before finding yourself reading complex stuff by the end.

Once you’re done with the audio lessons, the apps, and the Potter books, the final step in my system is to speak with people in the desired language in real life. In some countries, I found meet-ups full of other foreigners learning the language. The negative is that you won’t hear the language spoken natively. But they will speak far slower, so it’s a great intermediate step. Finally, you’re ready for apps that set you up with foreigners who want to learn your language. I made some great friends that way. We’d speak for half an hour in English and then half an hour in the target language.

YouTube video version of interview with John McWhorter on the On the Edge with Andrew Gold podcast

The takeaway

I’m now 33 and speak fluent French, Spanish, Portuguese, and German. My levels in each fluctuate because, as Homer Simpson proclaimed, “Every time I learn something new, it pushes out something old.” That’s how the mind seems to work, and it means you need a commitment to working those muscles. To me, it’s worth it. Learning languages afforded me the luxury of enjoying experiences I’d never have dreamed of.

Aside from Viggo, I’ve done battle with an exorcist in Argentina, made a documentary about porn stars for French TV, and investigated sex offenders in German in Berlin. I spent months chatting to the vendors in Portuguese on the Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro. I write this now on a rare break in a rental apartment in Tuscany. I was able to talk with the home’s aging Italian owner in French and discuss the stay with the neighbouring vacationers in German.

I was even able to use my languages for my weekly podcast, when a 73-year-old man who survived a plane crash and had to eat his friends was too tired to speak English. We switched to Spanish — that episode would have been lost without it. And most important of all, I found love with a beautiful Argentine woman with whom I’ve shared my life these past seven years.

You can hear me speaking French, Spanish & German in my showreel. I’ve not yet spoken Portuguese for work.

These languages have become a huge part of my personality, which changes based on which one I’m currently using. And here’s the interesting thing. Living abroad, I met countless English speakers learning the foreign language. Every single one who made an effort ended up speaking beautifully in that language. Given my torpid exam results in high school, I never believed I could do it. But the human brain is elastic. You already went through a language process when you were a baby, and I guarantee you can do it now. And that’s why I hope you’ll take on my system. You never know: It might change your life.

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