Steve Kaufmann

Steve Kaufmann (born October 8, 1945) is a Canadian internet personality and polyglot known for his language-learning content on YouTube, and his online language-learning platform LingQ, which he co-founded.

Background Kaufmann was born in Sweden in 1945 to Jewish parents from Prostějov in Czechoslovakia, now the Czech Republic. His parents spoke Czech and German. He grew up in Montreal, Canada, after he and his family moved there in 1951 when he was five.

In June 1962, Kaufmann quit his construction job and worked aboard a German tramp steamer in exchange for passage to Europe. After a week in London, he visited Belgium, then spent a year in Grenoble, France.

He hitchhiked through Europe, picking up basic language skills in Spain, Italy and Germany.

After his role as a trade commissioner, he used his language abilities in commercial trade, living in Japan for nine years. He eventually learned more languages, mostly later in life.

Current work

Kaufmann appears at conferences to speak on his language learning techniques and abilities. He also has social media channels where he discusses language learning, primarily to assist learners.

He was a founding organizer of the North American Polyglot Symposium. He has been a regular contributor to the Huffington Post.

Language learning Kaufmann has spent over 50 years studying languages. He advocates total immersion in the learning process. He places great emphasis on absorbing the language by reading texts and by not worrying about unfamiliar words, believing that they are gradually acquired through repeated reading. Though he supports using techniques such as flashcards for memorizing difficult words, he spends most of his learning time listening to native speakers and reading. He is particularly fond of reading books on the history of the country or region of the language he is learning, written in that language. He believes that age does not impede learning a new language and that older people can learn languages as well as younger people. He believes mistakes are a natural part of the learning process, and that people can be considered fluent despite making mistakes. In , he stated that after studying Turkish he will focus on Arabic and Persian, and spends time listening to Arabic TV series and Al Jazeera news, and reading books on Arabic and Persian history.

Personal life Steve Kaufmann is the father of political scientist Eric Kaufmann and ice hockey player Mark Kaufmann.