Stuart Jay Raj (Polyglots) Language Learning Forum

Stuart Jay Raj
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furyou_gaijin
Senior Member
Japan
Joined 6188 days ago
540 posts - 631 votes

Speaks: Latin*

Message 25 of 46

02 October 2007 at 1:33pm | IP Logged

Polyphemes wrote:

Did any of you ever have a look at his blog?
It's at http://www.stujay.blogspot.com/ and I think it is totally amazing to read!

He's back and his story on learning Vietnamese from scratch is absolutely amazing and very inspirational! Although
in his case it hardly is 'from scratch' but this methodology would apply for anyone studying similar languages, i.e.
Polish from Russian, Dutch from German, Spanish from Italian, etc...
1 person has voted this message useful

edwin
Triglot
Senior Member
Canada
towerofconfusi&Registered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 6266 days ago
160 posts - 183 votes

9 sounds
Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin
Studies: French, Spanish, Portuguese

Message 26 of 46

02 October 2007 at 3:10pm | IP Logged

apparition wrote:

He's certainly got a leg up on Ziad Fazah, at least when it comes to televised performance!

Agreed! And he is honest in the way that he never claims to be totally fluent in all the languages he knows.

And contrary to the belief of some language learners out there, he demonstrates that learning a language does need hard work!
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alang
Diglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 7023 days ago
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Speaks: English*, Spanish

Message 27 of 46

02 October 2007 at 3:15pm | IP Logged

I find Stuart really inspirational. I have sent links to his Youtube video to others and all they could say was WOW! This is coming from some who speak three+ languages.
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mcjon77
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6413 days ago
193 posts - 248 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Egyptian), French

Message 28 of 46

02 October 2007 at 3:55pm | IP Logged

I checked out Stuart's Blog and it really is very good. In one of the posts he gives you a day by day breakdown of how he is learning Vietnamese from scratch. It is quite interesting to see his learning strategy.
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xtremelingo
Trilingual Triglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 6089 days ago
398 posts - 515 votes

Speaks: English*, Hindi*, Punjabi*
Studies: German, French, Arabic (Written)

Message 29 of 46

03 October 2007 at 6:45pm | IP Logged

He is very realistic, and this is what makes him admirable to me.
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apparition
Octoglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6452 days ago
600 posts - 667 votes

Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), French, Arabic (Iraqi), Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish
Studies: Pashto

Message 30 of 46

05 October 2007 at 7:30pm | IP Logged

Here's one of his responses to a question on a fan's blog:

Quote:

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.

Link to that page: http://languagegeek.wordpress.com/2007/03/31/stuart-jay-raj- speaker-15-or-so-languages/

Edited by apparition on 05 October 2007 at 7:33pm
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xtremelingo
Trilingual Triglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 6089 days ago
398 posts - 515 votes

Speaks: English*, Hindi*, Punjabi*
Studies: German, French, Arabic (Written)

Message 31 of 46

08 October 2007 at 8:11pm | IP Logged

Oh and he's half E.Indian. :)

Edited by xtremelingo on 08 October 2007 at 8:18pm
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JasonChoi
Diglot
Senior Member
Korea, South
Joined 6161 days ago
274 posts - 298 votes

Speaks: English*, Korean
Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese, Latin

Message 32 of 46

19 October 2007 at 11:20am | IP Logged

He just uploaded a new video:

Stuart Jay Raj on The Tonight Show with Tom Mintier

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