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Stuart Jay Raj, speaker of 15 or so languages.

March 31, 2007 · 10 Comments

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10 responses so far ↓

  • Jay // March 31, 2007 at 7:08 pm

    Thanks for the comment re. my blog.

    You know, when I was a kid my spelling was a lot better! … have just gone in and fixed up the mistake (likely to be one of many). At the age of 4 and 5, my grandfather used to go through and correct the American grammar and slang in blue pen in my “Sesame Street Encylopaedia” series before he’d let me read them… He’d be rolling in his grave if he saw me make a mistake like that. Nowadays I think more in sounds than I do correct spelling. Don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing.
    As for blogging, I would like to blog a lot more than I do. Let me know of any topics you’re interested in.

    Stu.

  • Josh // March 31, 2007 at 10:37 pm

    Hey Stu,

    I certainly didn’t expect you to end up here! :) Nice to see you drop by.

    I wouldn’t worry too much about the your / you’re blunder. That’s something that native English speakers (at least the American variety of us) make all the time.

    Regarding any topics I’m interested in… well, after watching the videos, I have many questions, actually! You were asked how many hows a day you spent reading language books / dictionaries, but you ended up being cut off when the hosts took you over to your piles of books. I was curious about the number of hours you spent on language acquisition.

    I was also curious about an elaboration on the sounds to shapes bit. I watched it twice, and was still a bit confused about what was going on.

    Lastly, do you use the typical mnemonic systems – pegs, links, stories, etc. – to memorize such a huge amount of words (3-5K in one week), or do you do something different than the most of us?

    Sorry for all of the questions, but hey, you offered. If I can get language learning advice from a fellow who can speak more than a dozen languages, I’ll take it!

  • Jay // April 1, 2007 at 9:07 am

    Hey Josh,
    How many days do I spend learning? In my classes I talk about creating an environment that teaches you around the clock rather than thinking you have to put aside so many hours a day to learn a language. It’s a bit easier for expats over here in Thailand to do it as the language that they’re learning (Thai) is spoken all around them. When I’m learning a language that isn’t spoken in my immediate environment, I create that environment as best I can around me. Buy as many books as I can, internet radio (used to use Short Wave radio a lot more before the internet), MSN / Skype with people who speak the language I’m learning and then ohh yes.. the bathroom! Mine is a library! To give you an idea of what I’ve read so far since this morning –
    woke up at 5:30 AM – read a few blogs and internet articles on Vedic Sanskrit and Pali
    7:00′ish – reviewing my old sanskrit books – got frustrated ’cause the pages were all falling out
    09:00 – tried to develop a system that would make it easy for Thais to learn the Sanskrit case system easily (teaching sanskrit to some yoga instructors here in BKK at the moment)
    13:00 went for lunch – took books with me on Pwo and Pali to read at stop lights on the way to the restaurant
    14:30 – went into bookstore in town to find a new version of my Sanskrit book that was falling to pieces – was out of stock, but bought 3 more books – Pali Grammar, Advanced Italian grammar and Cambodian
    16:00 spent about 2 hours reading through the 3 books
    19:00 – went to dinner – took the pali with me and read over dinner
    21:00 – now writing this blog comment – about to logoff and read my new cambodian book for about an hour

    In the meantime, I’ve had telephone conversations with clients and friends in Hong Kong, China, Indonesia and a Swedish group that are hiring me to run a workshop on cross-cultural communication. With all of these people, used the various relevant languages. …
    So – how much time do I spend a day? It’s my life. I’ve built my life up around things that allow me to use the languages – people now pay me to do it!

    As for remembering vocab, I use mnemonics, pegging and other ’standard’ tools, but also link meanings into sounds, colours, shapes, emotions, experiences and other words and extralinguistic things that I already have from other languages. When I meet a new word, in most cases I can relate it to another word(s) that I know – I can probably figure the etymology – and understand the sound / meaning shifts that have occured, and will then look for other related meanings.
    Example – this is one story i used to remember the Indonesian days of the week when i was a kid-
    On Sunday, people mingle (Minggu) at church,
    On Monday, people are back to sinnin’ (Senin)
    On Tuesday like Mario the Italian from Mario Bros shaking his hands in the air, they say ‘At lasta (Selasa)- Monday’s over)
    On Wednesday, to cleanse the sins from Monday, the Rabi (Rabu) Comes (Kamis) and performs a strange sin cleansing ceremony by jumping up and down vigorously on a mat (Jumat)- just in time for the Sabbath (Sabtu) and going to church to mingle (Minggu) again on Sunday –
    Sunday – Minggu
    Monday – Senin
    Tuesday – Selasa
    Wednesday – Rabu
    Thursday – Kamis
    Friday – Jumat
    Saturday – Sabtu
    Sunday – Minggu

    I t only takes a few seconds to put these kinds of stories together – and they stick! (try to go over all the stories i make up each day as I’m dozing off to sleep each night … and when I wake up in the middle of the night)… actually, sometimes they keep me from sleeping!

    When I’m in my element, I can remember a lot of stuff… but at the same time, I might forget where I placed my car keys.

    Hope this helps
    Stu.

  • Josh // April 1, 2007 at 10:48 am

    Question… you said:

    16:00 spent about 2 hours reading through the 3 books

    Can you explain that? You read three grammar books in 2 hours? Or do you mean you browsed over all of them for a couple of hours?

  • Jan (Yan) // November 9, 2007 at 10:17 am

    Heya Stuart,

    Was wandering if you had considered learning the Romani language (language of the gypsies)?

    There are many different dialects, but if you learn one its quite easy to move onto the rest!
    I’m sure that it will be even easier for you, because you already have some Indian languages. The Romani’s ancestors came from India (the part which is now Pakistan, I think), so therefore lots of the origional words have been kept and are very similar to that of Urdu, Punjabi, Hindi etc…

    I’m fairly fluent in Slovakian-Romani to the point where Roma ask me which part of Slovakia I’m from and I’ve only been learning it for a year and seven months! Although I have had a major incentive, I’m now married to a beautiful Romani girl and we are expecting our first child (girl) in December.

    Having learnt Romani I have realised that if you put your mind to it you can learn any language. You just need to create an environment to do so. I also have done similiar things to you. I listen to Romani radio shows most weeks and I download news articles. Also I have lots of Romani friends that I visit and see alot. I jot down new words I hear and memorize them.

    So now I am determined not to stop at one additional language, but to carry on and learn more. I have quite good Slovakian, I can understand more than I can speak, but I’m working on it. Recently I have started to learn Chinese (Mandarin) which I’m enjoying.

    When my daughter is born and grows up I wish to teach her how to pick up languages starting with English, Romani and Slovakian.

    Do you have any extra special tips that your Grandfather used with you?

    Be much appreciated if you could respond to my questions please.

    Zai jian pun yo

  • Kevin Hutt // March 30, 2008 at 7:06 pm

    How can I learn chinese dialects such as Hakka, Fujian, Shanghainese? I cannot find any books online, I want to learn how to speak all the chinese dialects fluently. I also want to learn other filipino dialects

  • Cokivine // May 18, 2008 at 4:40 am

    Hola Ray.

    Me quede sorprendido de tu habilidad para aprender idiomas, pero me parece increible que una persona tenga esa capacidad de aprendizaje cuando en realidad no hay practicantes de estas lenguas en tu territorio. ¿Como es posible aprender una lengua y mantenerla en su memoria sin poder practicar de forma asidua por no coincidir con la gente que tiene estas lenguas como maternas?

  • Michiel // February 6, 2009 at 8:32 am

    Nice Blog

  • Michiel Hulsbos // February 6, 2009 at 8:34 am

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    Best Regards!

  • miguel // April 1, 2009 at 3:19 am

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