¿Te han entrevistado? Con opra. No, con otra persona. Ahora lo verás. Hola a todos, soy Oscar Fundador de Anime in Spanish.com. Quiero ayudarte a hablar español fluidamente. Hablar españoles más fácil de lo que parece. Solo tienes que usar el material y técnicas adecuadas. Este es un episodio especial. Recientemente, E.J. Hawk, el fundador de Aferless English, se bussó en contacto conmigo para hacerme una entrevista para su show. E.J. es un profesor de inglés que utiliza la misma metodología de aprendizaje que yo. DJ ha ayudado a decenas de miles de estudiantes a aprender inglés. Durante la entrevista hablamos de diferentes temas relacionados con las técnicas, estrategias y trucos para aprender un idioma como estudiante independiente. La entrevista se hizo en inglés y fue grabada en directo.

Me gustaría compartir el audio en este episodio del podcast. Espero que la encuentres

interesante. Dent do I. And our interview today is with Oscar Payus of unlimited Spanish. Oscar, of course, first he is Spanish. Catalan. And he first learned, he learned English with effortless English. He was one of my students which is great and he did an excellent job. He really learned English well. He speaks well. You'll see that. And then he decided to become a Spanish teacher to use the same methods of many stories and point-of-use stories, you know, the effortless method, TPRS, these kind of things. He decided to use all of these methods to teach the Spanish language. I myself uh, and his students. So he was one of my students, and I was an Emma, one of his students. I have used, he's got four courses, I believe, well, let him talk about it more, but he has like a beginner course, a 30 day beginner course, then kind of his first course. I'm not sure what he calls it. Then he's got one, I think it's called Kursou Mahiko, the magic course, which is his third course. And then he's got a fairly new one, a fourth one, which helps you with a little bit more of the more advanced grammar of Spanish. But again, using stories, not grammar rules, none of that. And it's called a curso en espérato, which is I'm doing that course right now. So he's a wonderful teacher and a wonderful guy. I've known him for many years. I have met Oscar several times visiting in Barcelona and had a great time. So let's just go on over. I just want to give that quick introduction. Oh, I want to put on the screen his... Here we go. Hey, Oscar, long time. Long time, Lucy. I know how you doing. I'm doing great. Thank you. How about you? I'm doing very well. Thank you. Yeah. I got how is how is the sound and the picture the video you look good? Sound is good. I think everything's fine. Let's cross our fingers. Okay. Yes indeed All right, um, we'll take what at some point I would love to I'll email you but I just like to catch up with you personally since it's been a while, but we'll keep it official and talk about languages today. Very well. Alright. Okay, good enough. So I just gave the introduction and talking about how you learn English, kind of using these natural methods and every single English, and then became a Spanish teacher and have unlimited Spanish now where you are using these same methods. So why don't you just give an overview of, you know, I guess kind of your journey, like first as a learner and then as a beginning as a teacher. Yeah, well a few years ago, believe it or not, I couldn't have a basic conversation in English. And I wanted to be able to speak

in this language. So I decided to learn English grammar. So that's right. And after some time of intense study, I hired a private teacher in order to practice conversation. And I thought that But with all those grammar rules in my head, it would be easy.

Well the surprise was that I got continuously stuck in the middle of easy sentences. I got nervous and, in short, it was a complete disaster. It was a waste of money. But one thing I noticed that I was learning only when the teacher was speaking. So I was paying attention and then I thought, okay, there is something here I need to do some research. I found the input approach method and finally I found you and your course and I started using it. And then what was the experience like, you know, as coming from some, you know, the traditional textbooks and grammar and classes and then and suddenly you're doing all these crazy stories and things. Well, the first thing is that my first approach was, okay, I'm not going to quit grammar because I think it's really important. But then I saw that when I started using your courses with a lot of many repetitions, I saw that instead of thinking how to say it, I started thinking in what to say. So it was like the English was coming up to my mind very easily, specifically for basic vocabulary and expressions. So it was in the first month to month. I see. And then let's try to, I'm just playing with the videos. All right. So then obviously that was successful. And then at some point you decided, well, now I want to become a teacher. How did you start that and get started with unlimited Spanish? Well, I saw that the method was so powerful and so useful. And it adapts very well to our lifestyle. We are so busy nowadays. So we need a method that, let's say that we can use while we are doing all those things. For example, I really like walking and I used to run a lot, but also during the dishes, waiting in a line, and driving, although all that time is wasted unless you don't do something useful with that. So I saw that, wow, this is perfect. And the method works very well with English. So I can create lessons. I spend like six months to eight months to create a good set of lessons, very balanced with a sense of humor and I saw immediately that my first students started to speak in Spanish and it was amazing. The method works not only with English but with Spanish too. And well you know absolutely I I've I've told this story before, but I started doing your lessons. It was probably two, maybe three months before. So this was almost five years ago. And I was planning to walk the Camino de Santiago. So about, I will say three months before, I really, I got your lessons. I really dove in every day, boom, boom, boom. Hammering away at the mini stories. And just what you said, just listening. Like I didn't really, I didn't study at all. Just walk around because I was kind of training for the Camino. So I was just walking around listening to your lessons again and again and again. And I had a great experience. And you know, of course, I wasn't, in months, I didn't achieve high fluency, but I managed to manage everything in Spanish during that trip. I get calling hotels and getting reservations and I chatted with people and it made the whole experience so much better. And then just recently, and the reason I thought of you actually, just recently, was that our mutual friend Steve Kaufman has did a video about learning multiple languages and he talked about, and you know, you never ever, when you use these methods, you don't actually ever lose anything really. You don't really lose it. And so I thought, okay, it's been almost five years.

And five years I've done no Spanish, like really nothing.

Okay.

So I thought, all right, I'm going to test it right now.

So I put in like the last mini story of your original course.

And I mean, I understand 90% of it without effort.

I mean, just, I was like boom, boom, boom, boom. Like, wow.

So then I, there was an audiobook. It's actually Steve's book in Spanish that I used to listen to also. So I just chose like a chapter randomly in the middle, played it again, 90 to 90% comprehension. Five years and that's with no, I mean, none. And so it just, it really hit like, wow, this, You don't, Lou, I mean, my speaking is very rusty.

I probably I would need a couple of months to kind of reactivate that, but the fact that my understanding is still so good after all of that time. You know what, maybe you can talk more about, you know, why does this work so well in your opinion? Well, it works so well because first of all, we acquire the language, we don't study it. And then we produce the language thinking in roles. Like, for example, if you are doing some calculations, doing some math, you need to think in terms of the roles and theorems and everything. It's a very intellectual process, but when it comes to speaking, what happens is that we need to create patterns of the language that go deeply in set our minds subconsciously. That's why it's so important to be able to speak without translating in our mind. Yeah, right. So for example, in a typical language school, what we see is students are very good with grammar, but at the same time they can't speak very well. The fluency is very, very low. They try to translate. Yeah. And that happened to me. I was like back and forth from English to Spanish and Spanish to English. I was not aware of that. And with your lessons what happened is because I had to answer so quickly. Easy questions. That's very important. Easy questions. Answering so quickly. And with lots of repetitions at the end, I was able to kind of answer without thinking. So every time I heard something in English, I immediately got the meaning without back and forward. That's very demanding for the brain. We're forcing our brain to do that. Right. And can you talk more about how, you know, some people, because I'm so strongly against this, what you're talking about that, memorizing of grammar rules people, sometimes will misunderstand me and they think I'm saying, grammar's not important. You don't need to learn grammar, but that's not what I'm saying. You have to learn what you're saying. You have to acquire it, as Stephen Crashing says. So can you talk about how, so I'm right now, I just started doing your fourth course, really great. The course in a single novel. Yep, just started and it's very grammar focused, but you're not giving, you know, explaining well this is those subjunctive in Spanish and da da da da da. It's just, it's a story, it's this kind of little funny story, but there's a ton of grammar in there. I'm definitely learning grammar. So can you talk about how you're teaching grammar with this method without studying it? You know what I mean? Like, how are you teaching it in such a way that works? Yes, for example, yes. In that last course, I created the course with intention of just giving some hints just to think about how you use the language. So let's say for example, let's talk about hypothetically. So something that hasn't happened yet, but it could happen. So let's use this structure of these patterns. That is a way of giving a hint, giving something to think about. And all the way is, let's study the second conditional with the past simple in and the clause and whatever that is just nonsense.

Right.

So, but I think the bottom line here is just practice and just listen to a lot.

And even if you don't have any clue at the end, you figured it out.

It's something that comes to my mind, to your mind.

Yeah, this is what I believe. Yes, sorry. No, I was going say exactly that. I found that, and this might just be me, because I'm lazy about anything that's kind of like study, but I often find that like, so like with your original, what's the name of your second course, the one that I did? The second course is the original course. The original course, perfect. This is the first one I created. The second one is for total beginners. You don't need any knowledge of Spanish. So it's called 30-day crash course. Only 30 days you start to begin to speak. I say so the 30-day course is from your low beginner, you're nothing. From scratch. From scratch. And it gets you up. And then from there, you go into the original course. What a total beginner would do. Yes. 30-day crash course. It's a very short course, affordable. And then you have the original course with eight to nine hours of audio. And then I have what they call the third level which is kind of more advanced because I see that people want to learn more and want to be more elegant, want to speak more elegantly with complex structures and I tell them it's not necessary but okay we can create and all the course for you guys. That's what I think. That's the, is that the Curso Magico? Yes, Curso Magico. And then finally, then the Curso Innesperado is the... Yes, Curso Innesperado. It's a short, Curso Innesperado, just to, let's say, to practice the most common problems with advanced students. I see. Yeah, it's great. It's fantastic. Really enjoying it. I'm a less than one. Less than one. Okay. Okay. Okay, great. So talk about, can you talk about then the actual technique? Like how are you doing this? These, you know, these point of view stories or the many stories.

Can you just talk a little more about like, you know, how can you learn grammar from a story? Some people don't get it. They don't quite understand like, well, how's that possible? Okay, so first of all, we have to understand that grammar is a set of rules that tells us how to use the language and it's so complex and with so many rules and exceptions. Yeah, it doesn't help at all.

So it's a bad bite ideas.

On the other hand, you can use grammar, for example, to improve a little bit your writing, especially if you want to be very precise. And the problem, well, I said that before, but what we need is to develop the feeling of what's correct and incorrect when we hear a read. It's a feeling. It's subconscious. And for example, let's say, if we, let's say you have a conversation and someone asks you, where does John go to study, whatever. And then you say, John, and then you stop, and then you say, okay, I have to, it's the third person present tense, negative form, hence the auxiliary or should be does instead of do. So you don't say, John doesn't go to school. Sorry, you say that, but you don can say, John don't go to school. Right. So for example, if someone says, John don't go to school, you immediately know, you immediately know that it's incorrect, but you're not thinking in those terms. Third person present tense, negative form. It just sounds wrong. Yes, it feels so wrong. Please don't say that to me anymore. Yes, yes, yes. So this is exactly what we do with our own language. We don't have to continuously review the grammar we studied in high school. Yeah more we read, the more we listen to correct content, the more we develop that skill, that feeling that it feels correct. It sounds correct. Does that make sense to you? Absolutely it does. Yes. It leads right into my next question Which is about like what is your advice about repetition? So like I think Like so for example, let's say I've listened to the story about the penguins in the zoo, you know from your original course And so you know some of those phrases just stick in my head, right? And it's because I've listened to it so many times that that's where I get that feeling from of what sounds right. How what's your advice on, like, how much repetition? Okay, how much repetition? So for me, the main problem I detect is that language schools try to cover as much material as possible in a very short period of time. Therefore learning becomes superficial and there is no consolidation whatsoever. Typical situation is to learn something for the exam and at some time he or she completely forgets it. So that's why we need repetition. So he's the role, a general rule, the advice that they usually give to students. If your level is low, you need to repeat many times. If your level is low, if your level is advanced, you can repeat less, but still, you can stick with a single topic or listen to the same people. For example, if we want, we can talk a little bit about mini stories and point of views. Yes indeed. And that's where I'm getting to say like... We tried to get into that. Yeah, because with your, like, say, what I was doing, your original course with the many stories, I did a lot of repetition. I mean, I just, for each one, I just, I don't know, huge amounts, 30, 40, 50, more per audio. Yeah. Yeah. Well, like I said, repetition is paramount, it's crucial. If you want to develop very solid patterns of the language, especially to activate the language, the more you repeat, the more you activate the language. So many, I found some students who say, well, I repeated this a couple of times, I understand everything, so I can move on. Right? No, you can't. Because it's not about understanding superficially. It's about creating a very solid foundation of the most common patterns of Spanish. That's the idea. When we speak, we don't use 20,000 words. Maybe we use 500 to 1000 in a basic conversation, but maybe up to 2000, not any more. And basically, we use the present chance, past chance, and a little bit of future chance, maybe. It's not complicated. It's not something that we need to learn very complex structures, grammar structures. We are using the same phrases, the same verbs, the same tenses over and over. So the key to understand is we have to repeat that. So obviously what's good about the mini story is that not only you just repeat, just listening, like, oh my god, okay, another time. So you have to answer questions. Yes. And that becomes very fun. Because in my case, I don't care if I repeat 20 times because there's always something new I can, I can learn. For example, I tried to answer as quickly as I can. I try to develop a very good answer in only five seconds. I try to focus on pronunciation or intonation. I try to anticipate the next question. And that's amazing. And you can learn a lot. You don't realize how much you can learn with this technique. I'm extremely happy with myself and with my students. Yes and date. Yes and date. And even within the mini story, the way that the method, the technique of it, also has built-in repetition because you're saying a sentence, then you're asking a question using basically the same structure and same vocab. So now that you're getting, you're getting like a double or true, and then you're waiting, and then you're giving the answer again. So you're getting like at least like a triple repetition plus then you just tell the story straight. So you get like four or five repetitions of those key phrases even within one listening, right?

Yes, that's amazing. Yes, it's not that you just repeat the same question. There are some changes, minor changes. So you are repeating the same with minor changes. You are in maybe negative and the positive form and I don't know and the poem, the who, the what, the where, and you see that the verb to be in the past changes, was, were, it's in plural and it's just you don't think in how it changes. It just, okay, it feels natural now to use those patterns in my language. Am I speaking? What is a point of view story then? What does that add then on top of everything you just said when you do point of view? The point of point of view is is in short is a story that is told more than one time and each time we change a grammatical point. So for example, let's say we are comfortable with the present tense but have some users with the past. If I tell you the same story in the present tense and then, again, in the past, you'll not really see how the grammar changes because it changes the the the the the tense. So then you remember, okay, and now we are using Indeed instead of DOS. So we are using, I don't know, how it changes certain how certain verbs changes in the past. So it's so natural that at the end, you see how easy it is to use another chance. Of course, you need time. And one of the things that I always say about this method is it's not a miracle you can't speak in seven days. Right. But I think that at least you go three times faster when you use these methods. Because it's so natural. It's so amazing. Yes, indeed. And you know that Steve over at links, Steve Copman has become a big fan of many stories now. I just met him. He was in Aminosaaka now and his son were just here. We had dinner and we talked a lot about what we talked about. You actually, we may be contacting you about an idea, but anyway, we talked about many stories and he feels exactly. He has finally started. He's using them now in his language learning as he's learning some new languages and he feels exactly what you're saying that he feels like he can rev up, you know, get up to speaking much faster now than he used to. Yes. Another advantage of the mini stories is that you speak from day one. So you listen to a lot. There is the traditional approach of this. It's not traditional, but it's an input approach where you spend like six months just listening and then you try to speak. It's okay, but with the mini stories, from day one, you speak. So you hear yourself saying something in the foreign language, the target language. Yes. And then you get used to hear yourself speaking in a different language. So when it comes to having a conversation, then it's not so challenging. And the two minutes of having a conversation, all that language, all those patterns that you have practiced come up and it's amazing. So you don't need to be here to have a good conversation. How, why don't we go to our live... live we're, so we got our live comment, so I know people like this question. Oh, sorry, sorry. Our live audience to ask you questions, because I know they have... They're typing questions furiously over here. And English, I hope. In English. They occasionally throw Spanish in there to test me. And as I mentioned it, I'm like, all right, go ahead. It's good practice. All right, let's see. OK. OK, so here's a question about total beginners. So you can address this because you've got that course. What can a mini story do when you know don't know anything about the language? You're starting starting at zero Oh, he's saying even if you don't know the alphabet ABC You can't understand anything. So how do you how do you start from nothing? How do you do it in Spanish? in Spanish I just wanted to mention that all my courses come with with two columns the first column is in Spanish The second column is in English, so you don't need any dictionary. So you can start from scratch and then you read in Spanish. I don't know the meaning of this and then you can see the meaning. So with that said, it's true that for example if you are from China, you don't even know the alphabet. So what you should do is just to grab a very easy grammar Spanish book, just to check a little bit about the alphabet and about the most common things. Of course, with that grammar book, the purpose is not to start speaking, but just to understand a little bit, because it's completely a new language. It's the phonetics. The phonetics or whatever. Yes. And maybe you can hire a private tutor in order to introduce the language. Maybe you need like three classes or so. And then you start from scratch, once you get used to the alphabet, for example, then, For example, in in my first course I think the first phrase is I am Felipe it's very easy I am Felipe so it's you're so if Felipe so it's very easy so it's it's just that yes indeed and you're right and you just jump in like you said I think that that's exactly right. You jump in. You can check the grammar book.

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