hello again

do you like languages? do you watch youtube? if so, it’s stands a chance you’ve heard of a chap named steve kaufmann.

the godfather of the language learning community. he’s smashed out a ridiculous 20+ languages over his 70-something career. and he’s still going. a legend, truly. he doesn’t get bored. he loves the game. and somehow he manages to crank out content week after week as well.

another chap you might have heard of is language simp. a self-described ‘gigachad’, he learns languages and makes youtube videos too. he’s also done pretty well for himself, racking up over 1m subscribers from documenting his language journey and chatting more sh*t than a brummie on the pallasades ramp.

recently he posted a video: why i quit learning languages.

i didn’t realise he’d quit. but sure enough he hadn’t posted for a while. clearly this was for real.

in it, he describes how his desire to learn dwindled as the popularity of his channel increased. he struggled to balance learning languages with creating content. eventually, the latter took priority. language time is just time that could be spent talking about language time.

i know where he’s coming from. because that’s exactly how i felt when i pressed -send- on the last issue of fluent in weird, way back in july last year.

do you remember? i wrote about some dude on a tui advert and how he basically spoke spanish like he’d been taught by a paella.

i also said i needed a break and that i’d be back in september.

(yes, i know. this is a funny looking september).

the truth is, i was toast. well and truly, setting-6, fire-alarms bellowing, toast. i got to the end of august and there was not a shred of me that wanted to start up again.

writing-time and the time i spent thinking about writing-time was eating into my language-time. it felt so disingenuous talking about something i wasn’t fully committing to. a journey i wasn’t fully on. do as i say, not as i do. (you know how it goes).

there i was telling you how to make the perfect tiramisu, whilst in reality i was down at the local asda picking up a couple of ready-mades. it was poor form. i had to stop.

what i needed was some space. the freedom to devote that time to what was most important:

making tiramisus absolutely smashing my duolingo path and seeing how fluent it could actually get me in french.

so that’s what i did.

i’m still not fluent in baguette language. i’ve got a decent crust and the bread is getting nicely buttered. but there’s still a lot of filling that needs to go in.

but that takes time. duolingo says my baguette is only level 77 so there’s a long way to go. still i’m content with how it currently tastes.

one thing i’ve gotten much better at over the last year is really embracing talking absolute nonsense. not just in life (i’ve always been good at that) but in the duolingo video calls as well. i just talk and talk and talk, paying absolutely no regard to how accurate what i’m saying actually is. i just let it flow and wait to see if purple-girl, spy-woman, tracksuit-man or bear-person grasps what i’m trying to say.

most of the time they do, even if the post-call-feedback-report-thing makes it look like i’ve had a stroke.

basically i think i’m pretty much over the weirdness of speaking french now and i’m just rattling off whatever lunacy comes to mind. just speaking from my gut rather than overthinking it.

another thing i’ve realised and i’ve fully come to accept: i’m not a guru.

i spent a long time feeling as though i had to be, which just piled on so much unnecessary pressure that ultimately made it a million times harder to write. i had it in my head that because i had the streak and the website and the newsletter, that people must be looking to me for guidance in their darkest hour.

“we will fight them on the beaches.”

no. i am no churchill. you do not want me orchestrating your war effort.

what i am is a casual. a curious george. i show up when i can and i rarely take anything seriously. i just want to know how the other side lives.

what must it be like to be italian? french? french-canadian? chinese, japanse, korean, polish, russian, brazilian, turkish, iranian, madagascan or from the island of bora bora?

it’s always fascinated me that there are people out there who live entirely different lives, believe completely different things, have totally different conceptions of right and wrong - and all of this gets channeled through something called “language”.

it’s mental. another language is like another realm. why are we out in space trying to find other worlds when our planet is already full of them??

that’s what i love. that’s why i sit down to learn languages when half the time the learning process bores me to tears. that’s what keeps me coming back, sticking it out even when i don’t want to. the outcome. the other worlds. that’s what it’s all about.

anyway. if you’ve made it this far, perhaps you’re wondering why i’ve decided to return. if, after all, writing is what derailed my learning process before, then why come back? am i really that much of a melon head?

yes. yes i am.

the truth is, i can’t explain it. it would be pointless trying. all i can say is there’s clearly a part of me that has really missed it because i haven’t stopped thinking about it since the day i stopped.

what will it look like? i can’t really answer that either. it just feels like the right time to start writing again and reconnect with all you weird and wonderful people. how that looks and tastes i have absolutely no idea. we’ll just have to see how it cooks.

i’d genuinely love to know how steve does it. no doubt he’s got a decent team behind him. and as a retiree i’m sure he can quite easily spend his days listening to obscure turkish radio stations, weighing up the pros and cons of baklava with his tutor, and relaying his findings to his legions of subs.

but me? i work 12-hour night shifts. i’ve got other biscuits in the tin. and beyond a chap named claude* i don’t have anyone to help me get this stuff out.

*no ai’s were used or harmed in the writing of this post.

what i can take from steve, and particularly language simp’s comeback video, is simply this:

the learning comes first, the content follows.

that is the boundary i have set. let’s see how it holds up.

it’s good to be back. i’m sorry it took me so long. i shall see you next week.

ciao for now,

matt

p.s. notice things look a little different around here? back in august when i was preparing for the september return (rip) i moved fluent in weird over to substack. two reasons:

1) it’s free (i was spending $200/month at the last place and i am no saudi prince).

2) it has better community features. so, much easier for us to connect.

so if you’d like to say ciao, what’s going on, what language you’re learning and how hard on a scale from 1 to 10 it’s kicking your arse, then drop a comment below and let me know. i have missed you very very much. 😘