In 2005, Ruan De Witt was riding his bicycle on a bridge in France. A passing car caused him to fall from the bridge onto the busy highway below. He broke his pelvis, hands, elbow and back. He survived the fall. He then spent three months in a French hospital re-learning how to walk.
Three years later he asked me to join him to climb the worlds highest free-standing mountain—Mt Kilimanjaro. The trip changed both of us. But had a huge impact on me because I decided upon my return to Australia I had to start my own language learning adventure in Spanish.
The trip to Africa with Ruan in 2008 was an amazing experience. I learnt a lot about myself including our ability to achieve any goal when quitting is not an option.
I also discovered that I may have missed a whole section of my education by not learning a second language.
Ruan has accomplished a lot when it comes to language learning. He has reached a very high level in French, English and Afrikaans. He can also communicate in Dutch, Romanian, Italian and German.
Today, I’m very excited to invite Ruan to be the next guest on the Real Fast Spanish Tips podcast. I’m glad that he agreed to come on to the podcast to talk about his experiences in language learning because he has a lot to share.
In the interview for this week’s mindset episode we cover:
- Ruan’s accident in France and what it took to come back to full health.
- Ruan’s process for language learning.
- Why Ruan inspired me to start learning Spanish and go on to start Real Fast Spanish.
- How to find motivation.
- How to build confidence in language learning even if you are just starting out.
- How you can find extra time for language learning.
- How you should set goals when it comes to learning other languages.
- How Ruan has overcome the challenge of a bad memory and how you can build language skills despite a bad memory.
- What to do if you are worried about making mistakes.
- A number of his experiences and adventures in his language journey.
It was great speaking to Ruan this week. He has a lot of useful actionable advice as well as a great story that you can use to help keep you motivated.
What advice can you take from the interview with Ruan to help improve your language skills?
Podcast: Play in new window
Interesting, useful, and motivational. Looking forward to next week’s episode, when I’ll be listening in Spain!
Gracias Alan. ¡Pásalo bien en España!
Hey, Ruan, Andrew, I’m really enjoying this conversation. I happened to listen to an interview with Hal Elrod, whose success story includes a big accident too, a few days ago.
I think I’ll borrow your metaphor: “Learning a language almost is like climbing a mountain, and the summit of the mountain is in the middle, is not at the end”.
Looking forward to the second part!
Hey Jorge, I’m glad you are enjoying the interview. Ruan has been a big inspiration on my language learning journey and it was great to have him on the podcast.