Language barriers and cultural differences remain major obstacles to globalised trade, in a world that might not be as interconnected and integrated as we think. While cultural and linguistic diversity is what makes the world vibrant, it can also complicate communication. That is why Stuart Jay Raj, Managing Director of global tech firm NFQ’s Thailand operations, has spent decades optimising the process of learning languages. 

Born in Australia and of Anglo and Indian descent, he grew up between his biological family and his Chinese-Indonesian surrogate family. His multicultural upbringing put him in contact with several languages and enabled him to appreciate the potential this could have.

Stuart realised that speaking a language well, in a way close to that of a native speaker, could help bring down the walls that people erect between them and their interlocutor when they perceive a sense of “otherness”. His polyglot grandfather, with whom he used to spend time and learned from, would also be influential in stirring his passion for language learning.

Stuart shifted from Indonesia to Thailand in the late 90s as Indonesia was going through many political and social struggles. Since then, Thailand has been his “base”, his home. Interestingly, he doesn’t consider himself Australian, Thai or Indonesian. He does not feel like he should adopt one country as his identity, given his deep understanding and connection with every one of these cultures.

A polyglot’s soul

As Charlemagne once said, “to learn a second language is to possess a second soul.” Stuart can be said to have many souls, many slightly varying personalities, depending on the language he speaks and the country in which he is, as he is proficient in many languages, including English, Thai, Mandarin, Malay, Indonesian, Spanish, Danish, Norwegian and more.

He has studied around forty languages and found that the most efficient way to learn a language is first to remove the filter that one might have in one’s brain preventing them from hearing the sound as it is really spoken. The languages that we already know might indeed be a hindrance when it comes to learning a new language.

Stuart’s colleague, Peter Lo, helped to explain how he tackles the linguistic challenges. “Stuart’s method, which involves training our brains to perceive the true nature of sound and distinguish between our speech and that of native speakers, is not a simple technique. This understanding of the differences in pronunciation can help us improve our speaking abilities.” He also aims to speak in a way which is as close as possible to native speakers’, by capturing the prosody – the rhythm and tone of a sentence, – the emotion that the sentence conveys and its language register.

Codes to break

According to Stuart, a language is made up of “codes to break.” He believes that someone learning a language is learning to decipher the meaning of what is being said in the target language, as well as the way in which it is really being said. The more sentences one can “crack,” the more proficient one becomes, like a piano. If one only learns to play in a few keys, then one cannot play many other songs, but if one learns to play in all the different keys, then one can play any song. “When you’re learning a language, you need to learn how to “play” the instruments of the voice and the ears.”

This well-structured, mathematical approach to language learning can be found throughout the learning materials Stuart has created. He has, for instance, invented a chart that allows any speaker of a language which bases its script on the Indic sound system, such as Thai, Lao, Hindi, Tamil, Burmese and so on, to learn the script of another language using the same system in an hour or so. The ingenious way with which the Bangkok-based tech and business strategist teaches languages to his colleagues is very well-suited to the analytical minds of people working in the high-tech sector.

An IT company can achieve a significant return on investment by focusing on language. For Muhammad Anis ur Rahman, a senior software engineer, “in IT, language is the real winner and it plays a huge role when communicating with different teams. Languages can provide a company with several competitive advantages in the market, some of which I have experienced recently, such as expanding the customer base, improving customer service, accessing international markets, providing opportunities to collaborate, having partnerships with multinational companies, offering a wider pool of talent from which to select and competitive differentiation. Investing in language skills and cultural understanding can contribute significantly to the success and growth of a company in a globalised business landscape.”

By Aymen Belkadi, Thai PBS World