• Name: Paweł Faber
• Mother tongue: Polish
• Lives in: Warsaw, Poland

Can you tell me a bit about yourself?

I worked as an ERP Systems Implementation Manager throughout my entire professional life. But I got fed up with that a year ago and ditched corporate life ;) Then I started my own business and created a mobile game called Skimmiq. It hasn't been very successful from a financial point of view, but it has given me a sense of purpose and made an old childhood idea of mine come true. Not everyone can say they have an app on the App Store and Google Play at the age of 60.

Why did you start learning English?

My daughter left Poland with my ex-wife and moved to the UK 11 years ago. She was only 6, and a few years after they left I realised I wouldn't be able to communicate with her in Polish, as she became a native English speaker after only a year in the UK, and now she won't speak Polish at all. I tried to persuade her to keep reading in Polish and preserve the language, but she was a mere child and her world was in the UK, so all my efforts proved futile.

So, not having any influence on her attitude, I decided to focus on what I actually had an impact on. I started learning English myself when I was 56. Now she is 17 and we communicate in English with great success. So the idea and the motivation worked ;)

Can you tell me about your language-learning journey?

It all started in 2020. At the start I went through the entire Duolingo course in two months to lay the foundations of grammar and vocabulary. I knew Duolingo wasn't the best way to learn English, but it was good enough to begin with when you know almost nothing about the language.

Then I continued with several YouTube English teachers' channels, watching an enormous number of videos about grammar, phrasal verbs, idioms and fixed expressions. That took me another year or so of watching for 1-2 hours every day.

At the same time, I started noting down words, expressions and even entire sentences, putting them into the Anki app and starting the repetitions. That was the first pivotal moment. Anki made me effectively remember what I watched, read and heard. I worked with the app (as well as the usual watching and reading) every single day for three years, even on holidays and at Christmas, for at least 60 minutes a day.

Eventually I was ready to start reading books in English. That was the second pivotal moment, especially the Harry Potter series. I read the series nine times! It's a beautiful story, and not only for children. Then came other books and authors: over 200 books in English to date. I wonder if it's more than I've read in Polish ;)

Then came podcasts, as I was running short of time and decided to make use of my two hours of commuting every day. Podcasts have now completely replaced YouTube for me.

In the meantime, I was very lucky to meet an English teacher, Tim, an expat from the UK living here in Poland. He has helped me a lot with my speaking skills, and helped me improve and (P)olish my English (pun intended ;). He has become my best friend. We speak every day, watch British comedy (Fawlty Towers has us dying with laughter) and cricket, socialise every week and travel together. This year we went to Spain for the total solar eclipse, which was remarkable.

My English isn't perfect and never will be. My Italian, which I learnt as a teenager, still comes much more naturally to me, even though I know ten times more words in English than in Italian and only speak Italian on holiday in Italy. But I see learning English as one of my biggest achievements yet.

What have you found the hardest thing about learning English?

Pronouncing English vowels correctly, learning phrasal verbs and Cockney Rhyming Slang ;)

However, the most beautiful thing about English, if I may say so here, is the Scottish accent. I love it! :)

What's your main goal for improving your English?

Being able to communicate with my daughter (when I started) and, later, with my friend Tim. I'm also now able to understand anything in English, in books, on YouTube and so on. That's a side effect that is really cool ;) English is the lingua franca, and I was always curious about the world, especially technology, history, IT and now AI. I always wanted to be able to read in a foreign language as easily as in Polish, and that dream came true.

And I wanted to challenge myself, especially at my age. Am I still worth something? That was the question that took me a few years to answer: yes! ;)

What are your other favourite ways to improve your English? (e.g. reading books, YouTube videos)

• Anki (or another app of that sort) and repetition, especially at the beginning. It's the biggest hassle and a truly gruelling experience, but an absolutely necessary one. Otherwise you'll forget almost everything you thought you'd learned after just a couple of days.
• Reading books expands your vocabulary and your "feel" for the language.
• Podcasts are crucial for understanding the language quickly, along with accents, dialects and so on.

Do you have any special tips for someone trying to improve their English?

Immerse yourself in the English language and British culture, as they are inseparable. (American English is generally wrong, apart from Paul Auster and Mark Twain ;)

And put in a lot of elbow grease. No pain, no gain. There's no other option. There's no teacher in the world who can fill you up with the language. You have to do it yourself; it is your own responsibility.

Do you have any special tips on staying motivated?

Not really. It's a very personal thing, and that's why not everyone will learn a foreign language.

Why did you decide to become a member of Leonardo English?

It was Luke's English Podcast that led me to English Learning for Curious Minds. It perfectly aligns with my curiosity about the world, and it keeps me company on my 12-kilometre, two-hour walks every day.

I was already aware of many of the things Alastair talks about in the episodes, but there is always something I didn't know, and it's an opportunity to expand my knowledge. I often go and read more after an episode that captivates me. And when I run out of episodes, I start again from the beginning. My memory at this age isn't perfect, so listening again to something interesting helps me remember it ;)

On top of that, the podcast uses a variety of advanced words and expressions that I learned during my hassle with Anki and thought I'd never hear in real life. It has always been a pleasure to realise that all that studying wasn't in vain!

Can you share a little bit about your "podcast" routine? How do you use the podcasts to improve your English, and do you have any tips for others?

It's a daily routine. Whenever you have a few spare minutes, just put on a podcast and let your brain soak up the language. It costs you nothing, and there are myriads of them ;)

What's your favourite English Learning for Curious Minds episode (and why)?

It's like asking "What's your favourite Bach piece?" Every one of them is brilliant, so the choice will be emotional rather than rational. It's the episode on The Catcher in the Rye (St Matthew Passion, in the case of Bach ;)

Firstly, it was one of the first books I read in English. Secondly, the book moved me deeply, especially Holden's relationship with his younger sister, which always reminds me of the relationship between my daughter and me. "Thirdly", it's a beautiful book. I don't understand why it was seen as so scandalous. I would like to see its critics' lives behind their curtains.

Alastair says:

Thank you, Paweł, for sharing your story so openly. Starting a language from scratch at 56, for the best possible reason, and reaching the point where you read it as easily as your mother tongue takes an extraordinary amount of work. Three years of Anki without missing a day, more than 200 books and a two-hour walk with a podcast every day is what that work looks like. I hope your story encourages anyone who thinks they have left it too late. And if the Cockney Rhyming Slang ever gets the better of you, you know where to find me!