Balint - El Honcho De Language Rockstar

Hey, I’m Balint. Welcome to Language Rockstar! I could tell you my absolutely unrelated life story or Balint could talk about himself in third person, but he won’t do that. Instead I’d like to give you a quick rundown on who I am and what Language Rockstar is about.

• I’m a 28 year old bloke, born and raised in Hungary (with a few detours)
• I’m a learning and especially language learning junkie
• I’ve learnt English to near native level and I have taught myself Spanish, a bit of German and currently learning Mandarin Chinese
• I’ve been blogging about language learning since 2009 (you can check it out at www.otevotnyelv.com although it’s written in Hungarian)
• My goal is to learn to speak 5 languages by the 25th January, 2014. I’m on the right track. ;)
• Because of this project I have gathered a fair bit of experience in language learning, and encountered quite a few things that were nowhere covered.

The main motivation behind Language Rockstar is to show things that people forget to mention like Body Language, Technology in Learning and Study Techniques, when it comes to learning and speaking a new language. I’m quite technical (hey, after all, I’m an engineer) and I like to approach things systematically – what I found online that although there are many awesome resources, they seem to lack the practical, the real practical, step-by-step approach. Language Rockstar set out on a mission to fill the hole.

I have been asking myself these questions (have you?):

• How would someone learn a new language if he doesn’t know the ins and outs of studying itself? (Relax, it won’t hurt, I promise!). No wonder why people get angry, annoyed and anxious (the triple A!) when it comes to rapidly learn new words, phrases, develop fluency and have the right attitude to go on stage and start showing off confidently. Why study harder and longer when there are shortcuts?
• Why don’t they teach anywhere how to use body language effectively to mask errors and showing confidence when speaking in a foreign language? It’s funny, because according to Wikipedia human communication consists of 93% non-verbal communication and only 7% of communication consists of words themselves.
• Why not use the technology to your advantage and accelerate learning to the maximum? Don’t say that you are not a techy – you don’t have to be. It’s easier than you think. Forget pen and paper!

I do not consider myself a guru or linguist – just have a little experience in the field, an urgent feeling to explore the topic in greater depth and report comprehensively on what’s truly important and working. Finally I do have a huge desire to share it with others, and if you are interested, with you.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope to see you on the blog sometime soon!

If you have any questions, would like say hi, or tell me off because you feel like it you can do so here: balint _at_ languagerockstar _dot_ com. I’d like to hear from you!

Cheers,

Balint, el honcho

Keep it up, Rock ‘n’ Roll
Good Music Saves Your Soul…
(Ramones)

A few totally uninteresting facts about Balint (here comes the third person!):

• His choice in beer is Staropramen
• He used to make a living from translating computer games (all time favourite: The Witcher 1 and 2)
• He is colourblind but he doesn’t give a flying about that
• He listens to extremely unlistenable music (all time favourite: Meshuggah)
• He plays the bass guitar and his personal hero is Les Claypool
• His sister is a world champion of ballroom dancing
• He consumes an unhealthy amount of hot food (mainly chili)