City College student Jaro Kovarick, 64, has worked in the Air Force under the United Nations, has turned down the CIA, and currently speaks nine languages fluently while learning another three.
Kovarick said that the ability to learn a language depends a lot on self-hearing ability, meaning that you can hear yourself in detail. He said that anyone who studies languages before the age of 23 has a much better chance at have good pronunciation because that is when the self-hearing ability peaks. Kovarick said that people with low self-hearing ability tend to speak foreign languages with a heavy accent.
“If someone wants to improve their language they should try to record their own voice. Try to catch mispronunciations and things that don’t sound the same as the natives. Luckily I have a very good self-hearing ability,” he said.
Between his busy schedules of traveling and coaching a roller-hockey team Kovarick is taking the American Auto CAD 2004 class and an Italian class at City College. He also takes private lessons in Portuguese and Japanese.
“By the time that I go back to Europe in January I will have added Japanese and Portuguese to my repertoire. They won’t be perfect but good enough to hold a conversation,” Kovarick said.
Kovarick was born in a wealthy part of the Czech Republic and came to the United States in 1964. He holds two citizenships.
Kovarick started building his repertoire young. He had to speak four different languages from birth. His father spoke to him in Czech and his mother spoke to him in Slovak. With his grandparents he spoke both German and French.
“My grandfather used to tell me that ‘Jaro, you’re a human being as many times as languages you speak. You will get to know new countries, new continents and new cultures,'” he said.
After World War II, when Russians and communism took over former Czechoslovakia, Kovarick said that he was forced to learn Russian at school whether he wanted to or not.
At 15, Kovarick fell in love with a Hungarian girl, Györgyike. They were together for four years, which gave him enough time to learn Hungarian.
But Kovarick eventually married a Polish woman who taught him his eighth language. “Polish is one of the most difficult languages I’ve experienced,” he said.
Kovarick learned English in 1947 when Israel was formed. Many Jews in Czechoslovakia left for their new country. Their houses were left wide open and Kovarick and his friends were looking through a garage when he found “Vanity Fair” by Charles Dickens.
Kovarick got frustrated when he couldn’t understand the book, which was written in English, so he decided to find a dictionary. “At the start I translated word by word but by the time I finished, what probably took me about two years, I spoke English – self-taught,” he said.
Kovarick said that the English language has very simple grammar and that’s the main reason why it’s difficult for some native English speakers to learn a foreign language. He added that the way the vocal cords are set also makes it harder for English speakers to achieve a good pronunciation in foreign languages.
However, Silvia Uribe, owner of the linguistic service company Transil- Pro in Santa Barbara, said that native English speakers usually don’t speak another language simply because there’s a lack of need to do so. But according to www.cpehn.org California is an exception because nearly 40 percent of its diverse population is bilingual.
After coming to the United States Kovarick learned Spanish doing volunteer work in Mexico and later added Italian to his list when his niece married an Italian man. Laura Gardinali, Kovarick’s Italian instructor at City College said.
“He really impressed me whith how willing he is to learn. He has such passion about Europe and a good background. He always tries to make the connection between culture and language.”
About Italian and other languages Gardinali said that it can sometimes be a little easier for English-speaking people to learn Italian than, for instance, French. Italian is a phonetic language and therefore easier to pronounce, she said.
Kovarick currently works as an executive team representative for an international telecom agency.
Kovarick said, “I can also read and write Korean. I was hired one year by the Czech government to guide Korean students and they taught me. When I go to stores with Korean owners and I write them something on a note they look at me and say; ‘You are an American Spy’.”
If only the Koreans knew how close they are to the truth.
