Linguahackers
International Online Polyglot Conference

Steve Kaufmann (Canada)
About

Steve Kaufmann grew up in the English-speaking area of Montreal, Canada. He graduated of L’Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris, France (1966), and is a former Diplomat with the Canadian Government.
Currently Steve is President of KP Wood Ltd, a company involved in the international wood products trade. He is also co-founder (with his son Mark) of LingQ, an online language learning system and Web community whose members from all over the world help each other learn up to 21 languages.
Until the age of seventeen Steve spoke only English. Today he knows 16 languages and speaks at least half a dozen of them quite fluently, and he is determined to add more. You can read Steve's story in his book The Way of the Linguist, A Language Learning Odyssey. He also has a popular channel on YouTube (lingosteve) and keeps a blog on his website The Linguist.

Links to Steve's channels:
The Linguist blog: https://blog.thelinguist.com/
lingosteve YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/lingosteve/featured
LingQ (Steve's online language platform): https://www.lingq.com/

How to prepare for speaking with native speakers

Tim Keeley (USA/Japan)
About

Tim Keeley is professor of Cross-Cultural Management at Kyushu Sangyo University in Fukuoka, Japan teaching mainly Japanese and Chinese. Tim has taught EMBA programs for Tulane University (Tokyo), Temple University (Shanghai and Taipei), and Chulalongkorn University (Bangkok). Tim has used more than twenty languages while studying at 8 universities around the globe (International Relations, Latin American Literature, Slavic Literature, Chinese Literature, International Business, Cross-Cultural Management and International Human Resource Management), working as a corporate manager at GE, marketing manager at Westvaco, teaching, and travelling for research and pleasure.

A Short Introduction to 10 Asian Languages

Richard Simcott (UK)
About

Richard Simcott has appeared in international media as one of the most multilingual people on the planet. He has studied over 50 languages and uses around 25 of them regularly for work and his social life. He’s the founder and organiser of the annual Polyglot Conference (PolyglotConference.com).

Born and raised in the UK, Richard now lives in Skopje, Macedonia, with his wife and daughter. He decided to give his daughter the gift of language, by passing on his knowledge of French, Spanish and German, in addition to her native English and Macedonian.

Formerly Richard used his language skills at major international events, when he was a member of the British Diplomatic Service. Nowadays Richard worked as Languages Director for the social media management agency, The Social Element, where he works with language specialists and other polyglots to find language solutions for the company’s clients’ social media projects. His role and location afford him ample opportunities to use his language skills every day.

Raising a child with more than one language: Reasons and benefits

Stuart Jay Raj (Australia/Thailand)
About

Of mixed race, TV personality Stuart Jay Raj or ‘Jay’ has a fluent command in speaking, listening, reading and writing over 13 modern languages including Chinese dialects, Spanish, Indonesian, Thai, Danish and Sign Language. He has more than a passing familiarity in more than 15 other languages both modern and ancient and is proficient in several computer languages. From working with offshore Oil & Gas projects to Miss Universe, Stuart’s ability to seamlessly communicate across cultures has become an invaluable asset for both multinational corporations and governments alike.

I didn't learn languages just to teach and interpret - Setting a Value on Your Tongue

Benny Lewis (Ireland)
About

Benny Lewis is a digital nomad and founder of the largest language learning blog in the world.

He is a world traveler and has been traveling non-stop to learn languages for the past eleven years–living out of a 23kg bag and working out of his laptop. His internationally best-selling book Fluent in 3 Months, published by HarperCollins, discusses how adults can learn any language from anywhere at any age.

He is a polyglot who speaks over a dozen languages, though he could only speak English when he started his travels at age 21.

As a result of his travels and his focus on integrating himself into local cultures through language, Benny was named National Geographic's Traveler of the Year in 2013.

Fluent in 3 months the blog has won 1st or 2nd place in the top language blogs competition in 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011 and 2010. This blog is listed among the top ten travel blogs in the world based on SEOMoz and Alexa ratings.

Professional Language Learner: How to Earn from your Passion

Michael Campbell (Taiwan)
About

Michael Campbell speaks a dozen languages including several Chinese and Formosan languages having resided in Taiwan for two decades. He is the founder of Glossika language training, a publishing house based in Taiwan.

Lucas Bighetti (Brazil)

How to get the most out of your online language classes

Jan van der Aa (Netherlands)
About

A bad student

Jan, originally from the Netherlands, was one of the worst students in his English class at high school. After he failed to finish an oral exam, his English teacher suggested Jan to chose a career for which foreign languages were not needed. ‘’You’re just not good at this Jan, choose a career that you don’t need foreign languages for, please’‘.

When everything changed

Despite not having the ‘language gene’, Jan has always been interested in other countries and other cultures. When he got the chance to study Chinese in China for a semester, Jan found out that he actually could be pretty good at learning languages. Everything has changed since then.

The language journey

Jan spent his 20’s working, studying and traveling abroad to figure out how people succeed in learning foreign languages. On this journey he interviewed and traveled with world’s leading polyglots to find out how they could successfully learn so many foreign languages. Together with his business partner Lucas, he has tested a large number of learning techniques himself as well.

In his twenties Jan fulfilled his mission to visit 100 countries and besides his native Dutch he also learned English, Mandarin, French, Brazilian Portuguese, German, Spanish, Cantonese, and some Russian and Thai.

The next mission

His current mission is to help people from all over the world to learn languages more effectively in order to expand their world.

Rapid Language Learning: The First 21 Hours

Ruslan Kokorin (Russia/Ireland)

Lýdia Machová (Slovakia)
About

Lýdia is a professional conference interpreter, polyglot and language mentor from Slovakia. She learns a new language every two years up to a fluent level and currently is able to hold a conversation in 9 languages. As a language mentor, she has already helped thousands of people (mostly in Slovakia) to learn languages by themselves in an efficient and pleasant way. She believes no talent is needed to learn a language, you just need to find the right method for yourself. Lýdia was also the head organizer of Polyglot Gathering 2017 in Bratislava with over 450 participants.

Goldlist method: How to learn vocabulary WITHOUT memorizing anything

Richard DeLong (USA)
About

RICHARD DELONG is a simultaneous interpreter, writer, and founder of the Tbilisi Language Exchange Club. Born in the United States, he has spent nearly all his adult life in Central and Eastern Europe and speaks nine languages. His quest has been to achieve native-level mastery of Russian and integrate into local society.

Language acquisition for rebels: the Frictionless Mastery method

Conor Clyne (Ireland)
About

Conor Clyne has lived in 8 countries and travelled to over 80 in the last 10 years all while learning more than 10 languages. Along the way he has developed a language leaning philosophy that integrates travel and other fun pastimes. Inspired by his participation at the very first Polyglot Conference in Budapest in 2013, Conor subsequently started a blog and YouTube channel on language learning and travel called “Language Tsar”.

Life hacks on language learning and local traveling

Kerstin Cable (Germany)
About

Kerstin Cable is a native German speaker and has lived in the UK since 2003. She’s passionate about languages and has studied English, French, Italian, Latin, Spanish, Russian and Welsh. Kerstin is the lady behind the popular Fluent Language blog and author of Fluency Made Achievable and The Vocab Cookbook.

The Unexpected Secret to Success in Language Learning

Angelo DeLeo (USA)
About

Angelo DeLeo is a current student of international affairs and anthropology at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He has previously published a paper for the ICT for Language Learning Conference on different cultures' perspectives on language difficulty, and gave a talk on that same topic at this year's Polyglot Gathering in Bratislava, Slovakia. For nearly six years, he has been learning and practicing eight different languages, using language exchange as one his main methods. During the summer of this year, he did an anthropological study on the culture and language of the city of Gubbio, Italy, living there for three months to do fieldwork on a research grant from his university. He would like to pursue a career as a professor of linguistic anthropology, with a proposed thesis on the developing international polyglot community, of which he has been a part since 2015.

Language Exchange: How to Master a Language

Elisa Polese (Italy)
About

Elisa Polese is a professional language teacher. She teaches Italian, German, English, Spanish, Russian, French, Dutch, Catalan, Portuguese, Greek, Hindi, Arabic and Esperanto (at different levels). She is specialised in multilingual teaching (up to 10 languages in one course) and is a certified language examiner for English, Italian, Russian, French, German and Spanish. She has lived and taught in several countries (UK, Russia, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Switzerland) and holds an MA in International Communication from the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (Italy), an MA in Didactics from the University of Siena and Perugia (Italy), BAs in Translating and Interpreting from the University of Bologna (Italy) and the University of Grenoble (France), as well as the CELTA (Certification in English Language Teaching to Adults) from the University of Cambridge. Elisa has taught at language schools, universities, international schools and online. She gives presentations and lectures about language learning, multilingual teaching and learning and intercultural communication, and also conducts language workshops that enable students to start speaking one or more languages from the very first moment. Her innovative and unique approach allows students to have their first conversations in the target language or languages after only a few minutes. She is also a language coach and can help learners to make rapid progress. In addition to her teaching, speaking, and coaching activities, Elisa has also written language learning material and books.

Learning and teaching two to ten languages in one course

Gabriel Gelman (Germany)
About

Gabriel Gelman grew up bilingually in Germany with German and Russian. Given this bonus in life he wasn’t skilled at all learning foreign languages at school. It wasn’t until he has spent some time in Australia and France where he successfully learned English and French that he developed a method to learn foreign languages even from the comfort of one’s home.

Today he speaks 6 languages and helps language learners, native German speakers in particular, to achieve similar success. He shares his insights on one of the most popular German language learning websites Sprachheld.de. There he also interviews well-known language experts from a range of backgrounds on a weekly basis.

Warum beherrsche ich meine Fremdsprache auch nach Jahren noch nicht?

Kris Broholm (Denmark)
About

Kris Broholm is a Social Media Manager by day and host of the Actual Fluency Podcast by night. On the podcast he invites prolific language learners to share their stories and tips in order to motivate and inspire the aspiring polyglots of the world.

You don't need to be Mezzofanti to enjoy learning languages

Vladimir Skultety (Slovakia)
About

An interpreter and teacher of Mandarin Chinese, Slovak and English, speaking 15 languages, 8 of them at a C1-C2 level.
Vladimir's story growing up with 3 native languages in a town in south east Czechoslovakia, speaking 5 languages at a native level by the age of 13, traveling the world, living in 9 different countries, ending up temporarily working as an interpreter of Mandarin, English and Slovak back in the city where he was born. Vladimir studied over 20 languages, speaks 15, 8 of them at a C1-C2 level.

A story of a 20 language life

Tetsu Yung (Canada)
About

Tetsu Yung was raised in a multilingual/multicultural setting, which allowed him to be exposed to 5 languages by the age of 6 and 10 languages by the age of 20. Today, Tetsu considers himself fluent in English, French, Japanese, Mandarin and Spanish. However, as the father of 3 children, aged 5, 3 and 1, Tetsu’s mission now is not to learn more languages, but to raise his kids to become multilingual just like himself. He is the author of the eBook "Pampers to Polyglots: 7 ideas for raising multilinguals like me".

Pampers to Polyglot: Creating the perfect environment for raising multilingual children

Idahosa Ness (USA)
About

Idahosa Ness is a polyglot and founder of The Mimic Method - a unique language-learning approach that focuses on accent and ear-training. His claim to fame is that his accent in each language is so good that natives often confuse him for one of them!

In Idahosa's program, the first step is to master your ability to hear and pronounce all the "Elemental Sounds" of the language. Then with this sound foundation, you can learn words and grammar organically just by listening to natives and mimicking them.

Thousands of language learners across the world have used Idahosa's Mimic Method to learn languages faster, understand more, and speak with better accents.

How to Learn a Language Faster by Learning it Backwards

Chris Parker (UK)
About

Chris Parker started to study Mandarin in 2006. He has worked as a translator and simultaneous interpreter between Chinese and English, and has taught interpretation in the UK and in Beijing. Through his Youtube channel, (www.youtube.com/user/gaoyoude1) his website (www.fluentinmandarin.com) and his Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/fluentinmandarin) he is making it his mission to demystify Chinese and make it easier to learn.

How to become fluent in Chinese - what I’ve learned after 10 years of speaking Mandarin.

Jimmy Mello (Brazil)
About

Jimmy is the author of the Mello method and has been teaching languages in Brazil for over 20 years. Jimmy is also the owner of one of the biggest Polyglot groups on Facebook and is the host of the podcast ‘’My Polyglot’’.

The ultimate guide to learn a language

Dmitry Gurbatov (Russia)

Storytelling method: learn English, Spanish or both.

Robert Bigler (Austria)
About

Robert Bigler from Austria has been working as a freelance simultaneous interpreter and translator for about 25 years. He works both for international organizations and private companies. His working languages are German, English, Italian, French, Spanish and and recently he also started working as a volunteer community interpreter for Arabic.

In addition, he has studied several other languages to various degrees of proficiency such as Croatian, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese and Portuguese etc.

Language learning has become an essential part of his life. Robert will show us how he has been able to turn his passion into a very rewarding career.

How to turn your passion for languages into a successful career.

Cesco Reale (Italy)
About

A scientific communicator, Cesco deals with games, languages and maths, creating festivals, exhibitions and conferences. He speaks more than 10 languages, including Latin and Esperanto, and holds the IPA certificate in phonetics. He is also the UN representative for the World Esperanto Association, coorganiser of the Polyglot Gathering the creator of Limbas, language seminar in Italy.

Tandem: consigli per scambi linguistici

Shannon Kennedy
About

Shannon Kennedy is a graduate of Queen?s University Belfast in Northern Ireland where she gained both a Master?s degree in Music and a passion for language learning. She is the writer and language enthusiast behind Eurolinguiste, a website dedicated to sharing language and travel tips. Her language learning adventures truly began with Italian, German and French at university. She has has since added Croatian, Russian, Korean, Spanish and Chinese at various levels to her repertoire.

Alternative Time & Energy Management Strategies for Language Learners

Victoria Shirobokova (Russia)

¿Qué significa hablar con fluidez y cómo lograrlo?

Mila Khabirova (Russia)
About

Mila is a professional interpreter, teacher and language coach with more than 17 years of experience. She loves languages, firmly believes that learning them brings a lot of happiness and tries to help other people see that it can be really easy.

From the basics to interpreting: how to develop the necessary skills easily

Oleg Akintsev

Jan van der Aa
About

A bad student

Jan, originally from the Netherlands, was one of the worst students in his English class at high school. After he failed to finish an oral exam, his English teacher suggested Jan to chose a career for which foreign languages were not needed. ‘’You’re just not good at this Jan, choose a career that you don’t need foreign languages for, please’‘.

When everything changed

Despite not having the ‘language gene’, Jan has always been interested in other countries and other cultures. When he got the chance to study Chinese in China for a semester, Jan found out that he actually could be pretty good at learning languages. Everything has changed since then.

The language journey

Jan spent his 20’s working, studying and traveling abroad to figure out how people succeed in learning foreign languages. On this journey he interviewed and traveled with world’s leading polyglots to find out how they could successfully learn so many foreign languages. Together with his business partner Lucas, he has tested a large number of learning techniques himself as well.

In his twenties Jan fulfilled his mission to visit 100 countries and besides his native Dutch he also learned English, Mandarin, French, Brazilian Portuguese, German, Spanish, Cantonese, and some Russian and Thai.

The next mission

His current mission is to help people from all over the world to learn languages more effectively in order to expand their world.

Lucas Bighetti

Ruslan Kokorin