Malika Shamshiden is a native Kazakh and Russian speaker that also speaks Japanese, Korean, English and Turkish. She is also a language teacher on Italki and currently resides in Istanbul, Türkiye.

After completing her secondary education, Malika pursued a bachelor in Interpretation with an emphasis on English. Later, she earned a bachelor's degree in Oriental Studies from Eurasian National University, specializing in Japan. During her junior year, her interest turned to Korea, prompting her to embark on a journey to learn the Korean language. Subsequently, she studied in Seoul for one term, immersing herself in Korean society.

In our today's podcast you will hear a lot about Malika and her experience both as a language learner and a language student. You will learn about Kazakhstan, Turkey Korea, Japan, Kazakh-Russian relationships, Farsi and Arabic languages, and much more.

Study with Malika on Italki: https://www.italki.com/en/teacher/3258392

Timeline:

00:00 - Intro

01:52 - Malika's first steps in language learning

03:50 - Is English difficult to learn?

07:25 - How different are Kazakh and Russian?

09:23 - High and Low Contextual Languages

12:55 - Who are the Kazakhs and how are they related to the Turks?

17:35 - Can knowing Kazakh help to learn Turkish?

21:08 - The ups and down of living in Turkey

23:40 - Smoking and fake female liberation campaigns in the USSR

28:20 - Did Kazakhstan join the USSR willingly?

34:06 - Why do more people speak Russian than Kazakh in contemporary Kazakhstan?

43:38 - The culture of the pre-USSR Kazakhs

47:17 - Minerals, natural gas and oil

49:24 - Is Kazakhstan changing its script from Cyrillic to Latin?

55:26 - How difficult is Japanese?

1:01:12 - Does knowing Japanese help to understand Korean?

1:04:45 - Why has Mailka chosen Spanish as her next language?

1:06:08 - Persian and the Arabic alphabet

1:09:14 - The 3 types of polyglots

1:11:30 - Malika's tips for language learners

1:15:18 - Language apps: Duolingo vs LingQ

1:17:59 - How I and Malika met

1:19:31 - Is it wise to learn 2 languages at once?

1:22:59 - What is the minimum that you should do daily to get a better at a foreign language?

1:25:45 - Write to learn better

1:27:24 - Disciplined vs sporadic learning

1:29:57 - Korean, Japanese and Chinese people

1:34:32 - Future language goals

If you liked the episode, be sure to rate, review and follow the podcast for future episodes.

Want to get in touch? Contact me via a letter or my socials: https://linktr.ee/pauliusjuodis