Teacher on Jeju Island Can Speak 28 Languages

Before you read: some questions to help you think about the topic and the words you might need.

What do you find difficult about learning another language?

Do you have any advice for learning another language?

Most of us struggle to learn a second language, but on Jeju Island in South Korea, there is a teacher who can speak 28 languages. The teacher in question is Ray Young from New Zealand. Ray is a New Zealander who grew up in a house where Cantonese was spoken and outside the home he spoke English. Ray is the son of Chinese immigrants, so at home he had to speak Cantonese and as soon as he left the house he was exposed to English. When Ray says he can speak all these languages, what he means is that he can understand about 70% of a movie in 4 of those languages and can have a very good conversation. And then in addition he can communicate in about another 12 languages that are similar to the ones he already speaks and can communicate in those languages with native speakers when he travels.

Of the rest of the 28 languages he can read scripts and know some greetings.

His secret to learning these languages is by finding patterns similar to the languages he already speaks. The language whiz is currently learning Korean, which he says shares many nouns with Chinese and Japanese. But what makes Korean harder is the honorific forms. Another thing that helped Ray along the way was coming from an environment where only Canton Chinese was spoken at home and had to communicate in English the moment he stepped outside the house. He said his brain had to adapt to switching from one environment to another. Furthermore, it seems that he loves languages. For him, languages are a bridge between cultures. To really learn a language you need to know someone from that culture and be willing to live within that culture so that you are exposed to the language patterns of that culture. He also says that if a student decides to go and immerse themselves in the language they want to learn then they need to learn the basic grammar before leaving their home country.

Ray uses his own learning to teach his students. He said it is difficult to get the young Koreans to switch between English and Korean, so he tries to get into their minds by using their love of music, media, sport, and other cultural activities.

Try to guess the meaning of the words in bold and match them with their closest meaning from the choices in the right. Some of the answers are very close and have similar meaning.

 The answers are below the table.