Time to Level Up! Examples of how you can use your language anywhere
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The most famous example people know of me (and my friend Moses) levelling up is when we went to a mall in Columbus, Ohio, and spoke over a dozen languages.
I've had people email me to ask where the good places are to level up, as if there were a fixed list. You can actually do this anywhere, and here are several examples!
A note from the Fluent in 3 Months team before we get started: You can chat away with a native speaker for at least 15 minutes with the “Fluent in 3 Months” method. All it takes is 90 days. Tap this link to find out more.
Mandarin in a fishing village… in Ireland
I decided to take a break from my intensive book tour and spent a few days last weekend at the edge of the Gaeltacht in Ireland, in a fishing village called Killybegs (Na Cealla Beaga). While I did drive into the Gaeltacht and speak Irish, something interesting happened on my last evening back in the village.
I went for a jog into the countryside yesterday, with my phone giving me updates in German on my pace and remaining distance (there's more on how I use my multilingual resources on my YouTube channel). On the final stretch, as I came back to the road into town, I saw two lost tourists.
One of them looked back and waited until I reached him before asking a question, so I slowed down and took out my earphones. He greeted me in English with a very strong Chinese accent and asked if I could help him find the supermarket.
Not one to miss out on an opportunity, I hazarded a guess: Nǐmen shì Zhōngguó rén ma? [Are you Chinese?] He replied shì! with an astonished smile. His father was walking beside him with his hands folded behind his back and his eyes on the road. On hearing Mandarin, he suddenly turned and looked at me as if I had materialised out of thin air!
Without batting an eyelid, I started telling him that to go to the chāoshì, he had to yìzhí zǒu (keep going straight) and then, zài guǎijiǎo (at the corner), wǎng zuǒ guǎi (turn left) liǎng cì (twice). I used a different word order from what I remembered, putting the time earlier in the sentence. I was still jogging on the spot and panting a little, and sort of thinking in a half-Irish, half-German daydream, but I didn't give myself time to overthink it. I just burst into Mandarin, even though I hadn't spoken it in a while and was rusty.
It's a good thing they ran into me, because he told me that he had walked straight out of his hotel and thought he'd find something in that direction. He might have gone the full 5K I had just jogged, taking the long way into town, if I hadn't stopped him! We talked about how I had learned Mandarin in Taiwan and then travelled through China by train. It was a lovely, unexpected chat and a brilliant chance to level up my Mandarin!
Hungarian in Spain
A few days before I was to start my Japanese project, I went to an Erasmus party with my friend Scott in Valencia. This was a brilliant event because there were people there for me to practise Dutch, German, French and loads of Italian with (and, you know, some Spanish too, of course!)
The funniest moment, though, was when I spoke to a couple from Hungary. I hadn't spoken Hungarian properly in years, but I did have a mini-project a few months earlier to revive what I knew, so I still had some of it relatively fresh in my mind. I broke it out to ask them how their Spanish learning was going… in Hungarian.
I've never seen jaws drop so much. People who consider their own language one of the hardest can be especially impressed when you know anything in it. I've seen that reaction from both Hungarian and Polish speakers. The funny thing is that I could barely remember anything and was just saying a few basic phrases, but the couple ran off to get another Hungarian to come and watch this “show”.
People just love to be surprised and hear you speak their language in unexpected places!
Esperanto in England
More recently, on the same book tour, I've been surprised by Esperanto in England! I joined forces with the team at Memrise for a meet-up in London, and one of the readers who recognised me immediately said hello in Esperanto. In this case, it was him levelling up with me. Nice to have the tables turned!
Shortly afterwards, in Cambridge, I recognised a familiar face in the audience who has promoted Esperanto himself, so when he said he had a question, I told him to ask it in Esperanto!
Even outside England, Fi3M's then full-time encourager, Brandon, told me that as soon as he put on his polyglot T-shirt for his site photo, someone spoke to him in Esperanto. I've had a few people email me to say that they have levelled up thanks to their T-shirts telling the world which languages to practise with them!
These are just a tiny sample of the experiences I regularly have practising my target languages outside the countries where they're spoken, along with the stories I hear of others doing the same.
Since the book came out, many others have heard about Moses' levelling up, and have emulated his fun experiences on their own. I love receiving these stories in my inbox!
You just need to keep your eyes open, be willing to not be shy and use what you have, even if it's rusty or basic. You can level up and remind yourself that languages are living things.
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