Steve Kaufmann

Steve Kaufmann (born 8 October 1945) is a Swedish-born Canadian polyglot.[1] As of 2020 he has an understanding of 20 languages, though his ability to speak and write in them to a highly proficient level varies considerably.

Steve Kaufmann
Kaufmann in 2020
Born (1945-10-08) 8 October 1945
Sweden
NationalityCanadian
Known forPolyglottism

Background

Kaufmann was born in Sweden in 1945 to parents from the town of Prostějov in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, now in the Czech Republic. His parents were bilingual in both Czech and German. At the age of five, in 1951, the family moved to Montreal, Canada, where he grew up.[2][3][4] In June 1962, Kaufmann quit his construction job and looked to find a ship in the docks he could work on in exchange for taking him to Europe. On his third attempt at asking, he was given a job aboard the German tramp steamer, the Gerda Schell, which had lost a sailor in Quebec City. He arrived in London ten days later. After a week there he caught a ferry at Dover and landed in Ostend, Belgium, before heading to France.[4] After a year living in Grenoble, he continued studying politics at the L'Institut d'Études Politiques (Institute of Political Studies) and learning French in Paris.[4][5][6][7]

Kaufmann hitchhiked through Europe after his studies, picking up basic language skills in Spain, Italy and Germany.[4] He went on to join the Canadian diplomatic service, where he began learning Mandarin in Hong Kong in 1969, and became fluent in it within a year of full-time studying.[4] When re-posted to the Canadian embassy in Japan in the early 1970s, he had to learn Japanese.[8] Moving from his role as a trade commissioner, he then used his language ability in commercial trade,[9] living in Japan for 9 years.[10] Eventually, mainly later in life, he started learning more languages.[8]

Current work
"The best way to learn a language is to massively ingest it, by listening and reading. Listening and reading are so powerful. If you can read the books, you know the language. To get to know a language takes a lot of time and a lot of interacting with it – and a lot of that time has to be on your own. I think it’s better to work on comprehension and vocabulary without pressure to reproduce the language (by speaking)."

—Kaufmann on language learning.[11]

Kaufmann appears at conferences to speak on his language learning techniques and abilities. He also runs a number of social media channels discussing his experiences of language learning and suggested techniques, [12] [13][14] both of which focus on language learning techniques and assisting people who are learning language.[11][15] He was one of the founding organisers of the North American Polyglot symposium.[11] Kaufmann travels to learn languages, and has given numerous interviews in native languages on various television channels around the world, in languages such as Chinese, Russian and Ukrainian.[16] He has been a regular contributor to the Huffington Post.[17]

Language learning

Kaufmann has been studying languages for over 50 years.[18] He advocates total immersion in the learning process.[19][20] He places great emphasis on absorbing the language by reading text and not worrying too much about unfamiliar words, believing that they will gradually be acquired through repeated reading. Though he advocates using techniques such as flashcards to memorize difficult words, most of his learning time goes into listening to native speakers and reading texts. He is particularly fond of reading books on the history of the country or region of the language he is learning in the native language.[3] He is an advocate for older people learning, and states that age is not necessarily an impediment to learning a language.[21] He also recognizes mistakes as a natural part of the learning process, and believes that people can still be considered fluent even with some mistakes.[3]

Kaufmann started to learn Russian, his 9th language, when he was 60.[8] As of 2020 he has an understanding of 20 languages, though his ability to speak and write in them to a highly proficient level varies considerably. He has stated that he rarely writes in the languages, and that revisiting acquired languages he is out of practice in can be challenging initially when interacting with a native speaker.[3] The languages he speaks aside from English are: French, Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese), Japanese, Korean, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Ukrainian, Czech, Slovak, Romanian, Polish, Greek, Turkish, Arabic and Persian.[22] As of 2020 he stated that after studying Turkish he is now focusing on learning Arabic and Persian, and spends time listening to Arabic TV series and Al Jazeera news, and reading books on Arabic and Persian history.[3]

References
  1. Wilson (9 April 2020). "The Most Inspiring and Famous Polyglots in the World". Mosalingua. Retrieved 24 August 2020.
  2. "Learning German - How I Went About It". Youtube. Retrieved 27 August 2020.
  3. "How to learn any language". YouTube. Retrieved 25 August 2020.
  4. Kaufmann, Steve (2003). The Linguist: A Personal Guide to Language Learning (PDF). West Vancouver: Linguist Institute. ISBN 0-9733394-0-3. Archived (PDF) from the original on 13 August 2011.
  5. Jeffs, Angela (5 July 2008). "Linguistics and lumber strike chord". The Japan Times. Retrieved 24 August 2020.
  6. "Steve Kaufmann". Langfest. Montreal. Retrieved 24 August 2020.
  7. "These Polyglots Have Tips For How To Learn As Many Languages As You Want". WBUR (radio station). Retrieved 24 August 2020.
  8. Betros, Chris (1 July 2008). "You're never too old to learn a language". Japan Today. Retrieved 24 August 2008.
  9. "The Story of LingQ". The University of Texas at Austin:Texas Language Center. Retrieved 24 August 2020.
  10. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZF0djgU704&feature=youtu.be&t=1510&ab_channel=LucaLampariello
  11. Schwartz, Susan (23 July 2016). "People who speak many languages or want to gather in Montreal for polyglot symposium". Montreal Gazette. Retrieved 24 August 2020.
  12. Nagel, Donovan. "24 Prolific Language Learning Bloggers You Should Follow". MezzofantiGuild. Retrieved 24 August 2020.
  13. Brown, Eileen (7 September 2018). "Why don't more people over 60 have YouTube channels". ZDNeT. Retrieved 24 August 2020.
  14. "Where are all the "older" Youtubers". NRS Healthcare. 9 November 2018. Retrieved 24 August 2020.
  15. Turner, Jared (29 July 2019). "Steven Kaufmann "The Linguist" Interview". You Can Learn Chinese. Retrieved 24 August 2020.
  16. "Стів Кауфман гість програми Ехо України (Steve Kaufman is a guest of the Echo of Ukraine program)". YouTube (TV interview) (in Ukrainian). 27 May 2019. Retrieved 24 August 2020.
  17. Kaufmann, Steve. "The Biggest Mistake Language Learners Make". Retrieved 24 August 2020.
  18. Tashkandi, Hala (18 May 2020). "Learning a language during quarantine: Where and how to start". Arab News. Retrieved 24 August 2020.
  19. Little, Oliver (2 October 2018). "20 Languages, Not enough! The Polyglot adding Catalan to his resume". Catalan News. Barcelona. Retrieved 24 August 2020.
  20. "El poliglot Steve Kaufmann, que parla 20 llengües: "Vull aprendre català per curiositat" (The polyglot Steve Kaufmann, who speaks 20 languages: "I want to learn Catalan out of curiosity")". El Punt AVI (in Catalan). 12 October 2019. Retrieved 24 August 2020.
  21. Kaufmann, Steven. "Are you too old to learn a language?". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 24 August 2020.
  22. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAePyl33gOQ&ab_channel=SteveKaufmann-lingosteve
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