Tips 090: Olly Richards on Speaking Spanish Sooner (Part 1 of 2)

This week we welcome Olly Richards to the podcast. Olly can speak 7 languages and knows a lot about the process of acquiring foreign languages. In this mindset podcast, Olly shares some of his best tips for developing a successful language learning process.

Olly runs the popular blog I Will Teach You A Language. His website offers practical tips and advice for learning foreign languages and he regularly publishes helpful articles and videos.

It was great speaking with Olly this week. He was extremely generous with his time and I am very grateful to have him on the show.

The interview went for over an hour, so I have broken the interview into two separate episodes. Part 2 will be realised next monday.

In the interview we cover: 

• Olly’s experiences with languages at school and how his poor start with languages didn’t affect his long term success.


• How a break up with an ex-girlfriend pushed him into language learning. And how, at the time, language learning was an escape from loneliness.


• How Olly finally got his proper start in languages with French on the streets of Paris.


• Olly’s experiences with French, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish and Arabic.


• Olly talks about how he was first very overwhelmed when trying to pick up a foreign language. He managed to get a job in Paris despite generally not understanding what his boss was saying.


• He talked about what he did to overcome the feeling of overwhelm.


• He talks about how for 3 years living in Japan he wasn’t able to converse but realised what it actually took to get his Japanese to improve quickly and reach a conversational level.


• He talks about how the key to language learning is creating the ideal conditions to learn a language.


• He also suggests that creating the ideal conditions doesn’t necessarily mean living in a country that speaks your target language. He, in fact, dispels the myth that you have to live in the country if you want to learn quickly and suggests that there are actually real advantages to learning at home.

Resources Mentioned in the episode:

• https://www.italki.com/


• http://www.iwillteachyoualanguage.com/

What is your main take away from the interview with Olly Richards for this mindset episode?

The post Tips 090: Olly Richards on Speaking Spanish Sooner (Part 1 of 2) appeared first on Real Fast Spanish.