What is the Key to Success in Language Learning & Life?

Language learning starts with you, with the person, with the learner.

Just do it!

Language learning to me is almost like a model of life itself.

So many things can happen to us in our lives.

What matters is what we do. And when we start something,

that's the most important step.

To do something! And if we do something, it may trigger a series

of events that we didn't anticipate.

Some might be better than we hoped for, some might be worse than we

hoped for. But throughout my life, every time I have undertaken to

do something, it has brought me

some of the greatest opportunities in my life.

When I was, I think, 19, working on a construction

site in Montreal, I was fired.

That particular section of the job had been completed, so I went down to the

dock in Montreal, and for three days, I asked to see the captain of the various ships

that were docked in Montreal Port.

I asked to work my way across to Europe.

Day three, I found work on a German freighter called the Gerda Schnell.

And here you see a picture of me with my crew members.

And I worked my way across to Europe.

I ended up in Grenoble in France. And here is another situation.

I had a very good friend who was a Turkish student whose name was Cağpar, and

I was studying English and French.

I didn't know what to study, but he was studying political science.

So I switched over to political science and the following year I went to

Sciences Po (Institut d'études politiques) in Paris, and got a scholarship from the French government.

Eventually I wrote my foreign service exam there for the Canadian

Diplomatic Service and was accepted.

So all of these things came from my decision to go and hitchhike

on a boat across to Europe.

Similarly, when I was with the diplomatic service, I heard that they

were looking for someone to study Mandarin Chinese, because in 1968,

Canada was getting ready to recognize the People's Republic of China.

They wanted to train some people up in Chinese.

So I went and started taking Chinese lessons.

I didn't learn very much.

But I told my boss, "Hey, I am learning Chinese.

I'm your man."