[00:00:01] Speaker A: Today I speak to Nassos Papadopoulos, a Greek entrepreneur and educator who is based in London and speaks several foreign languages. He's the founder of Metalearn, where he teaches people how to learn new skills more effectively, and in his Metalearn podcast, where he interviews experts on learning in general and topics like language learning. We even shared some of our respective guests. Nasos, I'm so glad that you can be here. Thank you for joining me.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: Likewise, man. It's a pleasure to be here. And as you said, we've shared a couple of guests. So great to finally meet and catch up.
[00:00:33] Speaker A: Yeah, it was very interesting. When I saw your podcast, I was like, oh yeah, many of the people we have in common, that's very interesting.
[00:00:39] Speaker B: We need to we're even interviewing some of the same guests, like right now, right before either of us has even released the interview, which is pretty good. Great minds think alike, as I was saying to you the other day.
[00:00:50] Speaker A: Yeah, awesome. So I'm glad to have you on and first I'd like to start now. You are not too much in the language learning niche itself, so you're more on general language learning. And let's talk first about the principles of learning in general. What do you think are the main principles of learning something in general?
[00:01:15] Speaker B: Sure. So I think there are a number of really important principles, probably way more than we could get into in a single podcast. But if I had to pick out a few, I would kind of group them into three main categories mindset, habits, and community, which we'll get into later, as we were saying before. So in terms of mindset, I'd say the Cliff Notes version of these three mindset is really just your beliefs about your own abilities. And it sounds very simple, but I think it's actually probably the single biggest factor that stops someone making progress and learning anything specifically for languages as well. I mean, a lot of people say I'm just not good at languages, I've never been good at languages, I don't have the language learning gene, other people must naturally be better than me and all that kind of stuff. And these kind of limiting beliefs and our beliefs about our own abilities have a massive impact. So that in a nutshell is mindset habits, obviously.
[00:02:05] Speaker A: Let me ask you about a question about this.
[00:02:08] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:02:08] Speaker A: Do you also think that motivation falls under this motivation to learn something? Because what I found that before you decide that you really, really want to learn that skill or whatever it is, until you commit to it, you will never learn it 100%. Is that also what falls into mindset from your perspective?
[00:02:26] Speaker B: That's a very big part of it, for sure. Yeah. It's not only your beliefs about your abilities, but it is also just your whole set of thought processes about the project. So motivation obviously is a huge one. And as I'm sure we'll get into later. We find out what happens when we don't have enough motivation in a specific project is that we just don't end up lasting the course.
[00:02:46] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Great. And the other two sure.
[00:02:50] Speaker B: And so habits, obviously the process of what you actually do. So this is the thing that most people tend to focus on and it is super important in terms of effective learning habits, effective learning principles. I mean, there has been a lot of developments in cognitive psychology and neuroscience over the last 20 or so years and we know a lot more about how we learn than we ever have before. A few things that stand out for me as being really important are obviously the testing effect and using space repetition on that. So rather than just rereading something, actually the process of quizzing yourself on it so that you generate an answer. And as I'm sure your listeners are aware of, the process of space repetition, which is built into apps like Memrise and Duolingo, that helps you actually learn more because you leave longer and longer gaps between testing yourself, which makes it harder to remember, which means that when you do remember it, it sticks more, right?
[00:03:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:43] Speaker B: And then a couple of other ones, I would say calibration. So calibration the process of basically measuring your performance repeatedly over a long period of time. So it's really just the principle of what gets measured gets managed. Right? So if you don't have a standard that you're aiming to and you're not regularly meeting it, then you're going to struggle to live up to that. For the example of learning a language, I think it's very, very useful for people to, once they get to a certain level, either test themselves regularly with a native speaker or to even aim for a proficiency exam. Now, it's not because I think getting a piece of paper is the best thing possible and that you should go around collecting them after you leave university, but it does give you a standard that you can aim at and kind of move towards. And the third thing I would say very briefly as well is just mixed practice. So mixing things up rather than doing the same thing over and over and over again. If we apply this to language learning, I would want to get in the whole mixture of activities, of reading, of writing, of speaking, of listening. Sure, you may have a preference for one or the other and so you might weight your practice more towards one of those. But I think getting a variety of practice in different contexts is really important. I can say that from experience, but the research also supports that. So that, in a nutshell, is the kind of the habits, the processes of what you're doing to learn.
[00:04:58] Speaker A: And what do you think most people do wrong when they learn something? Where do you think people should really start?
What do you think people should focus when they're having trouble learning something?
[00:05:12] Speaker B: Sure. One of the first big things I think is referring back to what you said before, is the lack of clarity on motivation, of why they're actually doing it. The second thing I would say is not setting a clear goal. I mean, again, as I was implying, that if you don't have something to aim towards, you're just kind of driving in the dark. And that, for me, is these are the very simple things, right? Everybody knows this, but not everybody does it. They just dive in without taking care of them. And then once you kind of got over those hurdles I think it's the process of developing habits, like developing consistency. Now, you can use all of the learning techniques in the world and they could be super effective, but if you don't do something consistently, you're not going to learn it. The same applies to a language, to a sport, to a musical instrument. So the third big thing I'd say is consistency. And how do you make consistency happen? Well, you put it in your calendar and you make it non negotiable. So every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, you're doing a language lesson, or every Tuesday and Thursday, you are blocking in half an hour to practice your musical instrument, whatever it is, if it's not in the calendar, I know from experience, it just doesn't happen.
[00:06:15] Speaker A: Yeah, you have to really change your daily routine to learn something. You can't just say, okay, I'm going to learn something, and whenever I feel like I'm going to study a little bit. But you actually have to actively change your routine. And that's so difficult. It's much more difficult than people imagine it to be.
[00:06:32] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Which is why, as we'll get into later, I really recommend that people, when they want to learn something new, they just pick one thing, because people massively underestimate actually how challenging it is, even just a little bit of change. Like, as humans, we're creatures of habit, and we get very used to our daily routines. And so just initiating a little bit of change into that daily experience actually is much harder, as you were saying, than most people realize. Which is why and I've made this mistake for myself in the past, many times, I know that it's just the best thing when you're learning something new. Just focus on that one thing.
[00:07:10] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. I always say that never learn two languages at once, only learn one language at once.
I know that trouble. I know how difficult it is to focus on two languages at the same time. And people keep on asking, can I learn two languages? People that haven't even learned one language successfully. So I always think it's kind of weird that they're aiming at two things, but you have a story of yourself to tell about that, that you wanted to defy what people, what other language learning experts say. Maybe you can touch up on that.
[00:07:41] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. So this is one of my favorite failure stories of my language learning experiences. So at the start of 2016, I wanted to set myself a challenging goal. And so I said, okay, well, I'm going to learn Spanish and Mandarin together, right? And at this point, I was just starting the Metal and podcast. I'd interviewed a bunch of polyglots. So I think the first person I interviewed who was in the language learning world, who we both know is Anthony Matibier, and he said to me, he said, you know, I think you're going to have trouble doing this. Like, from my experience, learning two languages at once is very, very difficult. But I said, no, it will be fine because I already speak Portuguese. I have a good basis in the European languages. I speak French and Italian. I did them at school. I'll be fine. Spanish will be really easy, and then Chinese will be a challenge and it will make me step up. Now, this kind of worked for a few weeks, but what I realized was that I was spending a lot of effort kind of managing my resources between the two languages, right? So it was becoming obviously I was making faster progress in Spanish because it's much closer to the languages that I speak. Mandarin was more of a challenge, and it was really fun starting to learn the different tones and the sounds. But with everything else that I was know teaching, working on Metalarn and a few other things, it started to get really hectic. And what happened really was something that Anthony even predicted, which was something he called the Zygonic Effect. Right? This is an effect that basically happens to us when we have lots of different things on our mind. And it's kind of like if you have a smartphone and you leave loads of the apps running and you don't actually close them, right. Then obviously the phone's working much harder. The same for our brains. If we have lots of tasks that are uncompleted, then there's a lot of cognitive load on our brains. And what was happening to me was I was just getting really stressed out because I was like, okay, I've got to learn Spanish, I've got to learn Mandarin, I've got to book all these classes in and do everything else. And I got to a point, Gabriel, where I just said, why am I even doing this in the first place? What's the point? I just set myself an arbitrary challenge, right, which sounded good in theory, but when I got to it in practice, I also realized that my motivation, which we spoke about before for Mandarin, just wasn't really there. I didn't really want to learn the language. I wanted to learn the language because I wanted to do the challenge. Yeah, because the challenge sounded good and I thought it would be a cool.
[00:09:58] Speaker A: Project for motivation enough.
[00:10:00] Speaker B: It's not motivation enough, and sometimes you actually have to do these things to realize that they don't work. I mean, ideally you would listen to advice, and hopefully people who watch this won't go and try to learn two languages at once. But I get that sometimes I was the same. I wanted to try stuff myself. I wanted to say, like they were saying, the fire is hot. But I was like, no, I want to touch it first and see if it actually burns my hand.
[00:10:25] Speaker A: The thing is, what I always hear in the entrepreneurial space is every time you say yes to something, you're saying no to other things or the other way around. So when you say yes to Mandarin, you're saying no to Spanish. And if you're enjoying the process of learning Spanish, then that's a bad thing for sure.
[00:10:43] Speaker B: And you've got to be conscious of those trade offs, right? Those trade offs, not just if you're learning two languages, but in all areas of your life. I think it's a very good way to frame it. You're making a conscious choice to say, I choose this, and therefore I don't choose all of those other possible things that I could be doing. And that's what I found. Like, I really wanted to learn Spanish, and I was really enjoying it, so I said, why am I causing myself all of this stress and kind of worry for an arbitrary challenge? And so I just stopped. And will I come back to Mandarin at some point in the future? I would like to think so, yeah. But just my motivation for it at the time was not strong enough.
[00:11:19] Speaker A: Yeah, and that's the most important factor.
And do you have any other of those stories where maybe you learned firsthand some principle for metalearn or something that you heard that you tried out and that really worked well for you? Because I think with personal stories, it's always the easiest to connect or to learn something new, for sure.
[00:11:42] Speaker B: I mean, specific to language learning, I think one of the biggest lessons I learned when I traveled to Brazil in 2014 after I graduated from university. And before going, I sort of had some Brazilian friends in London, and I kind of was trying to speak with them and learn the language, and I was using a number of resources online and doing a bit of personal studying. When I went to Brazil, it was just a completely different story. Like, I thought I'd reached a decent very and I was able to speak with people and have a conversation and so on and so forth. But the process of traveling around and anyone who's been to Brazil will know that they don't speak very good English, right? So you're forced to speak Portuguese pretty much everywhere and anywhere.
I guess the main principle from that is just the constant testing effect. I mean, it's very simple and a lot of language people speak that but say, talk about this, but immersion is great. Why? Because you're in an environment where everyone speaks it all the time, which means you're constantly being tested to use that language in context. Right? And so that was a pretty profound experience for me because by the time I was, I was super fluent.
And I get that not everybody can just go and take a trip to Brazil or to the country that they want to of the target language that they want to learn. But I think the principle that you can take from that is put yourself in an environment where you need to use it as much as possible. So case in point here in London or where you are in Berlin, these are very international cities. There are communities that speak languages from all over the world. So it makes sense for me to go and put yourself in those communities, whether it's doing an activity or going to meetups or whatever it might be. And you might not be able to do it continuously, but I mean, if you do it once or twice a week, your language skills are going to go through the roof.
[00:13:31] Speaker A: Yeah. And you don't even need to be in a city where this is possible. Like the Internet makes everything possible. You can find so many online communities where you can practice the language. It's great. You don't even have to leave the house.
[00:13:43] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:13:45] Speaker A: And we're talking about communities now. We touched upon this before starting the interview, and you talk a lot about how important it is to have community, to have a community to learn more effectively. And maybe I think that's very important and I would like to hear more about that. What you think about learning communities?
[00:14:06] Speaker B: For sure. Well, I think it's very important, and I think it's something that we neglect a lot when we actually leave school, when we leave university and we forget that one of the great advantages of university, regardless of people have. Different experiences there, regardless of what anyone thinks about it, is you're surrounded by other people who want to learn the thing that you're learning. Right? And that for me, is very, very important for a number of reasons. One, it gives you accountability, right? So being in a community let's take the example of language learning, for instance. We've both been to Polyglot events, whether it's the Polyglot Gathering or the Polyglot Conference. And the experience there when you go is obviously you see other people there and you might talk about the languages you speak and so on and so forth. And if you say, I'm learning this language, then you're meeting up on a regular basis. There's obviously accountability there. Next time you go back, then someone might say, okay, let's speak in this language. Right? And so you want to deliver. Another big thing is inspiration. Like when you go into communities and you see other people who are a few levels above you and you speak to them and you realize that they were once where you are now, then you think, hey, there's nothing really stopping me from doing my thing. I might as well just keep going, keep moving forward and eventually I'll be able to reach that level as well if I really want to.
And I think another big thing of that is that it really helps to have a physical, embodied example of someone who's done the thing that you want to do. Right. It's great to have that online. There are loads of great thought leaders online and it's fantastic to consume online content and stuff to introduce you to people. From my experience, it's a very different quality when you actually meet the person in real life and when you get to know that person and when you start to see the things that they do differently to other people. That's why it's been so interesting for me to meet and interview Polyglots as well as I'm sure it's been for you. So those are the main things I'd say from community accountability and inspiration, having that real physical example of someone who has done what you want to do.
[00:16:09] Speaker A: Yeah, it definitely motivates you to try to aspire that goal as well. Sometimes it doesn't work as well. If you meet like a Polygon that speaks 2030 languages or something, I'm like, I'm never going to get there and I don't want to because I'd have to say no to many things. Yes, but it's always great to see those people and think about how you could improve and it's motivating beforehand. Like you said, you're accountable and so you want to reach your highest potential. Before such an event, for instance, a Polyglot conference.
I was much more motivated to practice my languages before going to the Polyglot gathering because I knew I'd have to use all of them for sure.
[00:16:54] Speaker B: Exactly. And that I think, is really useful. One thing that I've noticed from going to the Polyglot communities and from speaking to Polyglots, which I'd be interested to know if you have too, is that it's so interesting to see how everyone differs, how the people who speak lots of languages, they're all very different.
They have some similar characteristics, some similar principles, but in the method that they actually learn, or many of them teach as well, it's just really interesting to see how different they all are. And I think it goes to show that one of the things that I say a lot at Metal Island on the podcast is there isn't really one way to do anything. There are lots of possible ways. There are definitely things that you shouldn't do right, but like learning two languages at once.
But I think seeing all these physical examples of people achieving very high levels of proficiency in lots of languages and the differences is a really cool thing to see.
[00:17:49] Speaker A: Yeah, and I think that's very important because I think many language learners don't understand that. They think there's this one magic bullet that they haven't found yet, and they're searching on Internet for it, and then there's the next product that promises them fluency in a week or something. And then they're like, okay, it doesn't work like that. There's different methods, and there are different methods that work for one person and a different method that might work for another person. And what I always find with language learners that have tried for a long time is that they think that the way a language learned in school is the right way, and they didn't succeed. So they're like, okay, language learning is nothing I can do, only the others can do because they achieved in a school context, but I can't achieve my skills in that same context.
That's a problem. But the method, there is many methods, there's not just one. And everybody has to find their own perfect method.
[00:18:54] Speaker B: Of course.
[00:18:55] Speaker A: Practice.
[00:18:56] Speaker B: It takes practice. That takes trial and error. And there's no way to there is no shortcut to that. Ultimately, with learning how to learn anything, with learning how you specifically learn something, the only way you can really do it properly is through trial and error, is through experimenting with stuff. You might kind of have a bit of intuition as to what might work better for you, but I think the real experience of trial and error and doing different things is going to be the one where you actually see, wow, this got me these results, and that got me those results. So you can actually compare and see what really works for you.
[00:19:29] Speaker A: Yeah, that's true. And let's get back to learning in general. There are many different skills that a person can learn that could be something like math, that could be something like language, but it could also be something like football. And where do you think where are the differences and where are the similarities? Because you look at all of that at the same time.
[00:19:52] Speaker B: Sure. So I like to think of the different skills out there on a spectrum. Now, this is obviously simplified, but it kind of helps you to get your head around it. So on one side of the spectrum, you have knowledge based skills which are much more theoretical. So this is kind of the school subject, let's say, like history, geography, that kind of thing, economics maybe even as well, which I teach. And then on the other side of the spectrum, you have motor skills. Right. And in motor skills, I would put things like the process of, as you were saying, playing football, playing a sport, playing an instrument, provided that you don't also learn theory if you're just learning to play songs, for instance. And then I think so obviously those are two extremes. Right? And then obviously we have a whole range of skills all the way along that spectrum. I think languages really fall somewhere close to the middle because it's a combination of knowledge. You need to learn vocabulary, you need to learn grammar and the structure of a language. But it's also motor skill because you obviously have to learn pronunciation and you also have to be able to speak, or at least for most people, when they want to learn a language, they really want to speak it. That's one of the big factors that they want, they want to be able to use it with other people. And so I kind of like that spectrum as a way of thinking about the different processes of learning a skill because when you kind of categorize them like that, you can then say, okay, so this is more of a knowledge based skill. So that means I'm going to need to be spending more time reading books, listening to podcasts, watching videos, absorbing it. If it's more of a motor based skill, like if you want to get better at football, you're not going to get very far by reading books and listening to podcasts, right? You might get inspiration from listening to a podcast about your football heroes, but you're going to get better by playing, right? You've got to do and so I think languages are a really interesting mix of the two because it's a combination of, as I was saying, you do need to do the book learning, you do need to do the listening and so on. But for me, from my experience, where your learning really goes to another level is the speaking process, which is why I like to speak from as early as possible because you're getting so much feedback so quickly and you're doing what you want to do. Like for me, the main reason I want to learn a language is because I want to speak it with other people. I want to travel to the country or I want to speak to people from that country. And so working that into practice early on is really, really important, I think.
[00:22:10] Speaker A: Yeah, that makes sense.
You definitely have to practice a lot to get better. It's not something you can a language is not something you can learn from a book or from listening to podcasts, whereas some other skills you might, but you always have to apply them, like even math, you have to solve problems to really get it. You can't just watch other people solve those problems.
[00:22:35] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, to get a real intuitive understanding of it, like anything, there does need to be an element of application. I think the major difference is in how much work needs to be done up front to actually learn the theory or the body of knowledge that comes before. Like how many pieces of knowledge, how many facts do you need to have as a basis first before you can then go and apply with a sport, really, you don't need to know anything. You need to go and watch other people who know what they're doing do it. Ideally, you have someone to give you feedback on what you're doing, and then you just do it repeatedly.
[00:23:04] Speaker A: Yeah, that's true. Cool. And what's the neuroscience on that? I know that you do a lot of research into neuroscience as well and apply those principles to research.
[00:23:16] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:23:19] Speaker A: What does the neuroscience say on this, on language learning and learning in general?
[00:23:24] Speaker B: Sure. So I think there are a couple of things. Right. I think one of the biggest things that people underestimate and don't really apply enough and we don't get taught in school is our brain's capacity for visual processing. Right.
It's something that is extremely powerful, and we have very, very developed visual cortexes, which means that when we attach knowledge or information, when we link it to images, to something that's visual, we store it much more effectively. Right. And I think this basically was an adaptation from many thousands of years ago when we needed to remember, basically our ancestors living in tribes. We needed to remember how to get home very simply, which is why we have such a powerful process for remembering images and spaces. Right. You'll remember regardless of who you are or how long you lived there, you'll remember what your childhood home looked like to a pretty good level of detail. Right. And I think obviously, I'm sure you've had a lot of guests come on here and talk about memory palaces and things like that, but I think that is a very powerful piece of information that not many people know that can have massive, massive results. If you're linking what you're learning to visual information, then you're going to be far more effective in processing and retaining that information.
[00:24:53] Speaker A: And why do you think that doesn't happen automatically? Because language is something we had as humans quite a while. And why do you think this process automated itself at some point that we just link we are good at learning our first language, but not as good at learning a second language. In thinking about how long language has existed, why don't you think we as humans adapted to that?
[00:25:20] Speaker B: I think it's a really good question. I don't think there's an easy answer. But the thing that immediately comes to my head is that when you're learning the first language, right, you're learning directly through experience. So this computer is actually a physical computer. So I link the image, the feeling of the computer to the word computer in English. Right. Whereas when I go to learn a second language, most often, given the fact that I'm not in an environment where that language is spoken continuously, I'm actually working not off experience to abstraction, but abstraction to abstraction. So I'm going from the word computer in English, the concept in my head, to the word compuldador in Spanish, for instance. Right. And so that is more difficult because as we were saying before the lived experience, the kind of visual and sensory information that we get from real life is much more likely to be processed more effectively than abstraction to abstraction. So my honest answer is I don't know, but that kind of makes sense to me intuitively.
[00:26:21] Speaker A: Yeah, that's true. We are not learning directly and maybe hundreds of years of schooling in a certain way has primed us for a certain method of learning that might not always be the best, but it seems like the best because we've had it for so long.
[00:26:40] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the biggest challenges that we're all fighting, any of us who have been to school, is that those mindsets, those beliefs that have kind of been instilled in us, that there is one best way to learn which then carries itself all the way through to adulthood. And as you were saying, people kind of searching for the best language learning method right under the assumption that there is a best way to learn something which, as we were saying, there just isn't. And so what's really interesting for me when I work with a lot of students or I speak to a lot of people who listen to the podcast, is to kind of unpack those beliefs and see what are the assumptions that they're making. And as I was saying from the very start, talking about mindset and beliefs, sometimes it sounds a little bit soft, it sounds kind of a little bit I wouldn't use the word esoteric, but it doesn't seem as grounded in reality as some of the other stuff when you're talking about people's beliefs. But when you see the results that helping someone become aware of their beliefs has in reality you start to pay attention. Because very often I think the blocks in learning something for people are emotional and psychological. And so if you're not aware of those processes, then as we were saying, applying effective learning techniques is kind of irrelevant. You're kind of trying to drive a car with the handbrake still on, you're not going to get very far.
[00:28:00] Speaker A: Definitely. And what are some of the beliefs of your audience?
[00:28:05] Speaker B: So from the people that I've spoken to well, I mean, there are so many interesting myths and beliefs that I've come across from people. I think one of the biggest ones we touched on before was one specific way to learn in terms of other things.
I think also as an extension of that, the idea that some people know and other people don't, when in reality nobody really knows anything. I mean, let me explain what I mean by that.
There are sort of obviously that's not to say that we shouldn't listen to experts, otherwise why would we be doing this podcast in the first place? Why would we be spending time interviewing people? What I really mean by that is and it's an extension of the first reason. The first thing I said for this reason is that you really need to learn what works for you by your experience. And experts should be a guide, right? And I think the myth that I see a lot of people kind of falling into a trap with is that they think the teacher's job is to hold them by the hand and take them to the final destination, right?
So the teacher as kind of a guru in a passive learning process rather than a guide in an active learning process. So kind of nudging the student, nudging the learner in the right direction, and people aren't always aware of that. But then when you see the nature of the question that they ask, then you see that, okay, so they think that the teacher has to put knowledge into their heads rather than they have to work with the teacher to make progress.
The way I like the example I always talk about is what Socrates said about learning. He described himself as a midwife who assisted the birth of knowledge in the learner. Right. He wasn't actually producing the knowledge. He was assisting that process to happen. And I think that's something that I've seen an awful lot as well.
And an extension of all of this, really, and something that we've spoken about a lot today, is that people think that the small things matter and they don't focus on the big things. People think, know, oh, should I use memrise or anki or duolingo to learn language? People think, oh, should I listen know Gabriel's podcast, or should I listen know Ollie Richard's podcast or whatever. Of course they should listen to yours.
But you know what details, those details in the grand scheme of thing are not that important. Like, if you want to follow someone online, follow someone that you like. Follow someone who kind of speaks to you and you think, yeah, I get this guy. He seems to know what he's talking about. That's interesting. He's delivering good quality information and then kind of obviously there's trial and error. You listen to lots of people and then you kind of pick what you like. But the main thing you're again, we go back to what I was saying before. If you're not doing it consistently, it doesn't matter whether you're using memorizer, duolingo, anki. It doesn't matter who you're following online. It doesn't matter what textbook you're using. It doesn't matter what listening software you're using. That's all irrelevant if you don't actually take care of the big things. And as we were saying, anyone who does that can make progress in a number of different ways.
[00:31:14] Speaker A: Yeah, and I second to that, especially to what is the best something that's just procrastination, okay, first I have to find the best app, then I have to find the best textbook.
You start your hunt for all this stuff, but you don't actually get to learning because you first have to have everything prepared in a perfect manner and that's just impossible because you have to start at some point for sure.
[00:31:40] Speaker B: It's never, ever going to be perfect. I mean, the example I use a lot as well is actually podcasting. If you look at the process of podcasting, it's like, oh my God, there's so much stuff. What microphone do I use? Software do I use, oh, do I need to set up a website? Do I need to get a logo? What am I going to call it? Do I need theme music at the start? Who are my first interview guests going to be? How do I reach out to them? Like, wow, it seems like overwhelm, right? And so what happens is a lot of people who want to start a podcast will end up consuming how to resources for years and years and years and never actually taking action on it. And the way you find out is taking action on it and making mistakes. I'm sure I'd be interested to know if this is the same for you. But when I look back at my first interviews, obviously I'm proud that I did them and that I started the process. But the quality of episode one to like episode 80, which I just released it's night and day, but I had to start and make those mistakes to begin with and learn all the processes of recording audio and interviewing people in order to actually make progress in it. So I think, as you were saying, you're never going to have all your ducks in a row. There's never going to be a situation where everything is perfect. There's never a right time. That is one of the big things, I think as well. There's never a right time to learn anything or do anything.
If it's really important to you and you have the motivation, you've got to start.
[00:33:03] Speaker A: Definitely, yeah. I mean, my first interview was I wasn't very skilled at that point and my first blog post, I mean, it was all terrible. And the thing is, you have to embrace that because it's always going to be terrible. Like when you start, no matter how well you prepare, you're going to be terrible at this, sure. Whether this is speaking a foreign language or whether this is doing something in an online space. And once you embrace that, you can get much quicker to the point where you want to be, but you won't be at this point if you only prepare. Like you really have to do the walk. And to do less mistakes, you have to make more mistakes because the more mistakes you make, the more you understand, the less mistakes you will do in the future. So I can totally agree with that.
[00:33:51] Speaker B: Absolutely. And I think going back to myths and what do some listeners think? And so that's another really big one. Like, mistakes are bad, mistakes are good, mistakes are good because mistakes are memorable moments which allow you to learn from your experience. Right, and I know there's loads of stuff going around in the startup community and in the learning spaces where they say our failure is great, you should fail as much as possible, you should make loads of mistakes.
We shouldn't glorify making mistakes for the sake of making mistakes, but when we make them, we should learn from them because it's a very, very powerful opportunity to say, okay, this isn't like this or this doesn't work like this, this works like that. And so then you have a constant frame of reference of how it doesn't work and how it does work. Right, and so I think that's really, really important.
[00:34:37] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think what you just said about mistakes being memorable, that's really important because you can learn a rule 100 times and maybe after that you won't make a specific type of mistake, but you only need to make that mistake once and you already remember. So it's so much more efficient. Rather than learn all the rules perfectly and try to avoid mistakes at all costs, you're going to be so much quicker if you just make the mistake, realize why you made what the mistake was and not repeat it in the future.
[00:35:12] Speaker B: Yes. And I think that second thing that you said is extremely important, taking the time to reflect on what you did and where you went wrong and not to do it again. If we think back to certainly if I think back to any of the big life lessons I've learned, not just in learning there's a very tangible mistake there most of the time, like there's an incident or there's an event or there's an experience where I'm like, okay, that was a big mistake. And so the important thing then, because we're all going to make them, is to have the time and space to reflect on it, say, what did I do wrong? What can I do better? And that process of reflection is important not just in learning where it's usually spoken about as metacognition, thinking about thinking, but in life as well because that's the way that you're actually going to make progress in the things that you care about.
[00:36:01] Speaker A: Yeah, mistakes definitely what brings us forward and avoiding mistakes is just a recipe for staying in the place that you are, no matter what part of your life, whether it's language learning or something else. Because if you're not making mistakes, it means you're doing only the things you're comfortable with doing and that means you're not moving forward.
[00:36:24] Speaker B: Yeah, this is something I've been thinking about a lot recently, actually, as well, is this concept of being comfortable, right?
By contrast, being uncomfortable. And I think sometimes we don't realize how comfortable we are and it's very easy to fall into a routine where you're doing the same things and you have a job, you're good at your job, and maybe you do a couple of other things. But I think to really grow, to really make progress on a micro level in a skill, you need to be challenging yourself. You need to be constantly out of your comfort zone, specifically to a language. You need to be speaking with people who are a much higher level than you, who are native speakers. When you meet someone who speaks the language, even if you're kind of like, oh, I don't really speak it, you need to have the balls just to do it. Right. And then on a macro level, thinking about your life kind of from the big picture, again, it's the same thing. I think you've got to kind of say, okay, am I being sort of really easy on myself? Am I being too comfortable most of the time?
Because I think that's where the excitement comes most of the time.
[00:37:30] Speaker A: Yeah, very cool. So let's get back to the three principles. The first one was mindset.
[00:37:37] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:37:38] Speaker A: The second one was habits. Habits, okay. And the third one was community.
[00:37:42] Speaker B: Community and environment. Yeah.
[00:37:44] Speaker A: Okay. So mindset, habits and communities. And now let's say that somebody listened to this episode, and they are now motivated more than ever to continue learning with a language. Learning.
What do you think? Where should people start? What should people adjust? Because if they try to adjust all three things at the same time, then again, they will be overwhelmed. So what do you think? Where should people start and focus on?
[00:38:10] Speaker B: Sure. Well, if I have to pick one, I have to go straight to habits and say, Action, action. First, do something.
I think the process of doing something will clarify the other stuff. So if you think that you want to learn Spanish or Italian or German, go on to italkie right now and book a lesson with a teacher. And don't waste time saying, oh, is this the right teacher for me? Just book a lesson with a teacher. Book one lesson with a teacher and then actually get the feedback from the real process of doing it. And then hopefully by doing that, you'll say, okay, you'll get a little bit more feedback of, did I enjoy that? Am I going to enjoy this process? Obviously, be aware that usually when you're bad at something, which is when you start, it might not necessarily feel fun depending on how you look at it.
But I would have to say that. I would have to say that in an ideal world, Gabriel, I would say take the time to sit down and really think about why you want to learn what you say you want to learn, because that, for me, can avoid a lot of bad decisions. Like, if I'd really looking back at it, if I'd really stopped and examined myself and said, look, with the Mandarin and Spanish challenge, do you really want to learn Mandarin? Do you really want to learn it, or do you just want to do the challenge and kind of talk about it on metalarn? Think if I'd been really hard on myself, I would have realized that I was kind of just trying to do it for the sake of doing the challenge. And so in an ideal world, I would like people to take the time and reflect on it. But in the practical, real world of running around and doing loads of crazy stuff and everyone has a busy life, just do something.
Just go straight to the lesson first.
[00:39:53] Speaker A: The habit, I think that's very important. It's a very important point. I talked to Alex Rowlings and he said that it's really important to have your reasons why you learned something. And it's helpful to write them down, because once you have written them down, you realize why you do something. And if you have written them down, you're like, man, it's not that good of a reason, then that's probably a signal to not continue doing it. Because while you might be motivated at the beginning, as you were with Mandarin, you won't be as soon as the first rock hits you, like as soon as the first troubles arise, as soon as you realize this is more difficult than I thought. And it's always like that no matter what you do, then that's where trouble starts. So that's a good point. And then habits is a very good possibility to put things on autopilot and not needing to motivate you every day again and again to do something. But if you create a habit, then you're just doing it automatically, like brushing your teeth, for sure.
[00:41:05] Speaker B: Yeah. So just to clarify a little bit and to go a tiny bit deeper on the process of a habit, I think, because I didn't mention it before, but habit very simply is there's a trigger, there's an action, and there's a reward on top of that, right? And so if you can design little routines, let's say, in your language. Know, the example I always give is when I was trying to build my vocabulary in Spanish and I built some flashcards on anki I would get on the tube, the metro here in London. As soon as I got onto the carriage, I would take my phone out of my pocket, I would go onto Anki, I would use that. And then the reward I got was, know the good feeling that you get from getting stuff right or from learning stuff.
So if you can create those trigger behavior reward loops in very small units, as you said, it kind of becomes a process that's more autopilot. So usually you don't think about brushing your teeth when you get up in the morning or getting dressed. You just do them right. And so ideally, you want to make learning similar to that. Certainly in the early stages when the priority is just doing the thing.
[00:42:09] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely.
Awesome. And I know you have a training course coming up which will be live once this interview goes live. Do you want to talk a little bit about that?
[00:42:20] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. So this is something I've been working on for a while and I'm really excited about it coming out. So my first video course is called Make Me a Metalearner. And basically what it is, is a five section video course that will teach anyone who takes it how to learn a new skill more quickly, more efficiently and more enjoyably.
So in terms of what are you actually going to get from it? Well, it's kind of a modular process, right? So as I was saying before, whether you're learning sort of a more knowledge based skill or a more motor based skill or something in between, like a language, I've kind of got paths that you can go through. And so if you're learning a more motor based skill, there's more focus in terms of section one, three and four. If you're learning a knowledge based skill, then it's more one, two, three, and then the fifth section as well. And so, yeah, I'm really excited about releasing that because I feel like it's the culmination of all the conversations that I've had on the podcast, all of the reading that I've been doing, all of the work that I've been doing with students, practical teaching experience and all the stuff that I've done myself as well.
And I kind of feel like anyone who takes it will certainly get a lot of value from the process, not just from picking the skill. Because by doing the course, I ask people, I say at the start, choose one skill to focus on, right, and we'll take you through the process. But the idea is that anyone who takes the course will actually learn how to learn as a result of going through the track. So once they've done the course, they can say, okay, I did this to playing the guitar or I did this to learning German. Now I can go and take this process because I know how I learn better and I can go and apply it to other stuff. And so that for me is kind of a really exciting it's a really exciting thought that someone might take it and then be more self directed as a learner afterwards.
[00:44:14] Speaker A: So you think that works? Like if I say I take your course on playing the guitar and then I decide to learn how to play football or learn a language, you think there's really like, I will understand how to learn another skill even though I'm learning such a different skill.
[00:44:34] Speaker B: Yes. And the reason I say that is because primarily linked to my answer to one of your earlier questions, which is what are the most important things, the really big things in learning anything for me are general principles, right? And I've experienced that. So once you actually see that through experience, of course, as a general course. Is my course going to be the single best thing to help you learn a language? No. Is it going to be the single best thing to help you learn a guitar? No. Is it going to be the single best thing to help you learn to play football or a sport? No, but that's not what I'm trying to do. The power, I think, of a general course is giving the learner the ability to actually apply the principles themselves and then see what works for them and see what doesn't, and then through that process, actually be able to go and apply it to new things. So, yeah, I certainly don't claim and as I was saying to you before, it's certainly not the only way of learning a skill. Right. But from all the conversations and the reading and the practical experience, most importantly that I've had, I think anyone who takes that course will certainly leave. Having learned a lot about learning, they'll be able to get a lot of value from it, and that's why I've worked so hard to produce it.
[00:45:51] Speaker A: Awesome. And where can people find that course.
[00:45:54] Speaker B: So they can find
[email protected]? There'll be a link to it on the homepage of my site, and anyone who listens to the podcast or is signed up to my mailing list will be informed about it when it's going to be released.
[00:46:07] Speaker A: Okay, and where can people find out more about you? You said your homepage, Metal Learn, you have your podcast. Anything else you want to yeah, sure.
[00:46:16] Speaker B: My Twitter handle is at Naspap Three. So Naspap Three and also at Metalearn. One is the other one on Twitter. Other than that, if you want to reach out, there's a contact page on my website. Send me an email, hit me up on Twitter. I also have a YouTube channel, so just called Metalarn on YouTube. So, yeah, that's where people can find me and hopefully looking forward to hearing from anyone who's interested.
[00:46:47] Speaker A: Awesome. I'm looking forward to hear more about the course once it's out and how it goes. So good luck with that.
[00:46:55] Speaker B: Thanks a lot, Gabriel.
[00:46:57] Speaker A: And thanks so much, Nasos, for coming on. It was very interesting.
[00:47:01] Speaker B: It was a pleasure, man. Thank you so much for having me.
[00:47:03] Speaker A: Awesome. All right, talk to you later.
[00:47:06] Speaker B: Bye.
Cool, dude. Bye.
