How do you learn languages when you're not in the country where the language is spoken or the languages are spoken? I think that's the situation for many of us.

To speak well, usually we need to speak a lot. That's been my experience in most cases. However, I'm going to introduce you to someone today who speaks a wide variety of languages remarkably well, and she's learned them all at home.

Iclal from Turkey. I think you'll find this very interesting.

Hi, today I have a special guest. It's Iclal from Turkey, who is a wonderful polyglot, a young polyglot.

Hi Iclal. Hi. So, uh, first of all, if you enjoy my videos, please uh, subscribe.

Click on the bell for notifications. If you're following me on a uh, uh, podcast service, please leave a comment.

So I, I'm really happy to have her here for a number of reasons. First of all, because she is a wonderful polyglot.

We had a conversation on her channel in different languages, uh, because she's from Istan... I don't know her actually, if she's from Istanbul.

She will tell us. She's from Istan. And uh, and then I want to talk a little, because I haven't talked to that many polyglots from Turkey.

Maybe there are a lot. I just haven't met them. And so I'm going to, we're going to have a bit of a conversation about the role of geography in language learning, but first I would like to ask Iclal to sort of introduce herself, explain her interest in different languages, why she learned them in different languages.

Can you do that for us Iclal? I guess. Give it a try.

So, uh... yeah. Um. No, I'm just saying that again. Yeah, that was all. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

Um, you know, I, uh, I'm very impressed with your ability to speak these languages. Uh, your pronunciation, your grammar.

So, uh, before we get into this theme of geography, I, I wanted to ask you, for example, I noticed that your cases in Russian were very good.

How did you go about learning... and of course in German too, as you said, both those languages have somewhat complicated grammar.

How did you go about learning the, uh, grammar in those languages? So, I think I have a dis... so I think I have a different perspective of grammar because some people are really ignoring it when it comes to grammar.

They say that it's not useless. No, they say that it's not useful at all, but actually I have another opinion.

I find grammar pretty useful, and grammar actually helped me a lot while I was learning those, uh, Italian and Spanish.

But sometimes I realize that I pay way too much attention to grammar. For example, in Russian, that's what I did.

I learned only grammar and nothing else. Actually, right now, my grammar is nearly perfect. But, um, doing that actually wasn't really a good choice.

I, maybe I had to listen to more Russian, I had to speak more, but yeah, I know that my grammar is okay because, um, there was a time where I studied only grammar and nothing else.

But I think that grammar is... like you should pay attention to grammar, but only at a necessary amount.

And if you just exaggerate the attention that you uh, give to grammar, then everything becomes complicated as what I experienced with Russian.

I just, I just hate the language because of the grammar. But for example, with German, I just learn the grammar regularly without paying too much attention to it, but at the same time without ignoring the grammar.

So I think that you should somehow just keep the balance between grammar and other skills, and that's how I just manage speaking in a true way, let's say.

You know, this, this question of geography. So, uh, apparently in Ethiopia people are, uh, multilingual because there's so many different languages in Ethiopia, or if you live in Luxembourg, you are surrounded by many different languages.

Uh, if you live in the United States, uh, or even in most of Canada, you've got no one to speak to in any other language other than English.

Uh, for example, the Spaniards are not as good as the Portuguese.

The Portuguese are a smaller country. Uh, you know, Russia is a large country. I don't know how good they are at speaking languages or Japan where I lived for many years.

Uh, I don't think the language skills are that great. Uh, I don't know what the situation is in Turkey, but to what extent do you think that your location, physical location, in today's day and age with the internet and so forth, how much does that affect your language learning possibilities?

Yeah, good question. I think so. Actually, I live in Turkey, and Turkey is a really multicultural country and it's becoming this every other day.

Like we have a lot of tourists and we have a lot of people who start living in Turkey. And because of all these reasons, like it's really easy to find an international, uh, uh, environment here in, in Turkey.

Just if I, just specifically European coast, I would just find a lot of tourists to talk to, especially Russians, people who come from Arabic countries, Spanish people.

Yeah. I think right now we have a lot of possibilities, but, uh, what I'd like to mention is that I have a lot of polyglot friends, which are particularly from Europe, they live in European countries and, uh, they're also polyglots like me, but I have a really different thing that actually makes me, um, kind of different than them because people are just like, I was born in that country and my mother was actually bilingual, and then I studied in that country.

Then we moved to that country so I learned that language too.

And I was in Spain and all holidays I went to Italy, I went to France, but I actually have been abroad only once.

And that was a country that I didn't speak the language. So I think... Which country was that? The Netherlands.

Right now I'm learning the language, but when I visited there, back then, I didn't speak the language. So I have never been to France.

I have never been to Russia. I don't know where, when I'm going to actually visit these countries. That's another question.

So I think that, uh, that's the main thing that differentiates me from other polyglots. And maybe that's the thing that makes me inspirational because people say that, okay, maybe it's possible to learn all these languages when you stay in your own country and don't visit just overseas.

But I think that if I was born in a European country, maybe I would have more opportunities to learn all these languages and maybe that would be easier for me.

But also in Turkey, I think that... yeah, as long as you have that true connection, I think you can learn everything.

The country doesn't play a big role here, but the importance of Turkey in my language learning is that we have a lot of tourists.

I think I can just easily find native speakers or I just meet other polyglots who come to visit Turkey because we have a lot of tourist destinations and people just want to, um, witness all this history.

Do you spend a lot of time speaking with these people?

Yeah, actually, whenever I just, uh, visit the European coast, because it's kind of a more tourist place than the place where I live right now. I live in Asia.

So there are a lot of tourists and they're most likely eager to help you. And actually... When you say European coast, what are you referring to?

You don't mean like İzmir or Antalya? No, no, no. Actually, I don't mean that.

Istanbul has, uh, two continents. Oh, the European side of Istanbul? Yes. So Istanbul has two sides and the European one is kind of the place the tourists...

More international. Yeah. So whenever I talk to tourists, they're just really kind. They're eager to help me, especially Russians.

I think they're just like, when they see that you speak Russian, they are surprised and they just want to talk to you.

They ask you a plenty amount of questions. I think that Turks and Russians just share this thing when we see a foreigner who speaks our language.

We're just amazed by that. I think that's really incredible. I can tell you, I can tell you that, uh, we have a lot of Iranians here in Vancouver.

If I speak to them in Persian, they're just, they're just so happy.

It's, they're the most positive I have ever come across. We also have a lot of Iranians here, but I don't speak their language.

Right. Yeah. So in other words, what you're saying is that geography, so it helps in a way because you have a lot of foreigners, visitors there.

Uh, if you lived in Ankara, then presumably it would be more difficult. Now, how much do you talk on the internet?

So actually I have... Or is it mostly people you meet in person? No, actually I use the internet more because, uh, I can, um, just find more people on the internet and I have more options to talk to because when you see someone, just when you prefer meeting someone to have a language exchange with them, that can be sometimes really difficult because of the scheduling, because of planning.

I don't know. It's not really possible to do that regularly and...

yeah. But on the internet, actually, we can talk to everyone, uh, in each part of the world. So I prefer talking to people on the internet.

How do you do that? Uh, is this language exchange or who do you find to talk to? So sometimes I talk to my followers because sometimes they say, hello Iclal, I'm from Russia and I'm learning Turkish so if you like, uh, I could help you in Russian and you can just help me with Turkish.

So I just accept that and we become friends. Actually, some of my friends are just, some of my friendships are just like created like that from my followers because we just have a language exchange with them.

Or on the other side, I can also name some, uh, language learning applications like Tandem, HelloTalk, also on these kind of things we can find other people to talk to.

And there is a website that I'd find really useful, which is Conversation Exchange.

I have, I have found many
friends on this website. So, conversation exchange. Okay.

Internet actually offers us
everything needed, and I think that everyone who wants to learn
languages must actually use that. But how do you get yourself to a
level where you can actually have a meaningful exchange?

Say you start in a language from scratch.

Now how are you gonna get to where you can
actually have an exchange with someone? So actually, I don't really prefer, uh,
talking to natives at the very beginning because you don't have something to say.

You just say, hello, how are you? My name is, I speak those languages.

And you have the same
conversation with everyone else. And at this point, actually, you think
that you are having a proper conversation with someone, but actually what you're
doing is just repeating yourself and you're, you're not learning something new.

You're just learning the greetings, but
you know, already learned them before. So what I think is that, we should
start speaking to native speakers when we are at A2 or B1 level.

For example, I have met a Russian
friend last year, and at the beginning I couldn't really have a conversation with
him because my Russian was really poor.

But after he said that,
just tell me everything.

You can just form a sentence
using the words you know. And after a month, I actually was at the
level of having a proper conversation with him, and that's amazing, I think.

So we should just wait until A2 or
B1 and then we should do our best.

So while you're waiting, what do you do then with these languages? Say you're waiting, you're not yet, you're waiting to, how do you get yourself to the A2 B1 level?

So actually I'm just grabbing the basics because if you don't have the basics in that language, it's, it's actually kind of difficult to speak.

For example, imagine that you're speaking Italian, and if you don't know past tense, if you don't know future tense, if you don't know the personal pronouns, actually it's impossible to speak to someone.

So once you get the basics from a material, from a particular thing, uh, you say, okay, I have completed A1, I have completed A2, and then right now I can start talking to native speakers.

So at that level, when I feel that I can construct a few, um, a, that field was driven, a few phrases in languages, so then I start for native speakers and I talk to them.

Yeah. Well, I think your example is, uh, is very encouraging, uh, for someone who is, uh, not in the country where the language is spoken, and yet you've achieved a very high level in, in those languages.

And, uh, I think that's a good example for, for people who are interested in language.

I hope. People... yeah. So, and, and, uh, especially at such a young age to speak so many languages so fluently, I'm most impressed.

So thank you very much... you're welcome. For taking the time to visit with me today.

It And, uh, I will leave a link to your, uh, YouTube channel in the description box, and, uh, they can watch us, uh, speak in different languages.

Uh, I know that you have also used LingQ, and I don't know if you still are using LingQ, but, uh, I think that's one of the tools that you find useful.

Yes. But of course, there's only one among many tools, and I think people have to go and find, whether it be the conversation exchange or find their own method in their own way to, you know, ways of learning languages that they find enjoyable.

And if you do that, you will continue to improve. Absolutely. So, thank you. You're welcome. And one day I'll learn enough Turkish so we can have a conversation in Turkish.

This 18 year-old polyglot learned 7 languages on her own (feat. @iclaliano)

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This 18 year-old polyglot learned 7 languages on her own (feat. @iclaliano)

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