Transcript

OLLY RICHARDS

You're about to hear two brief language-learning stories from my personal experience. Firstly, there is learning Brazilian Portuguese in the UK. And secondly, there is learning Japanese in Japan. Now on the face of it, which do you think was the easiest language-learning experience and why?

Firstly, learning Brazilian Portuguese. In the early 2000s, I began to learn Brazilian Portuguese. And over the course of six to 12 months, I worked hard, studied hard, and became fairly fluent in the language, even though I was living in London in the UK. Now looking back on that time, I had what I now understand to be the ideal language-learning environment.

You see, I was studying music at university, and I'd developed an interest in South American music. Part of my education involved going out to watch live Brazilian music. And I was lucky enough to make some good Brazilian friends as a result of that activity.

Now as I began to learn Portuguese, I was surrounded by the language. I had many friends who were willing to talk and to help me practise. And as time passed, this community became an unbeatable source of motivation, even during times when I fell out of a study habit. I continued to have opportunities to practise Portuguese and the real desire to do so with my new friends. In fact, it was much more than that. I was now expected to speak Portuguese.

So despite not living in a Portuguese-speaking country-- I was living in the UK-- I had the ideal environment to learn Portuguese. And that was what enabled me to learn to speak the language so quickly. Unfortunately, it hasn't always been that way since.