Antonio Graceffo: Linguist, Martial Artist and Prolific Author

About Antonio:

Antonio speaks numerous languages (French, German, Italian, Khmer, Mandarin Chinese, Spanish and Thai), and has used his language skills to good ends. He has devoted the past 10 years of his life to chronicling martial arts masters around the world in his web TV show Martial Arts Odyssey and has worked tirelessly to fight the atrocities being waged against ethnic minorities in Burma.

On top of all this, Antonio has written an impressive trail of books, including The Monk from Brooklyn: An American at the Shaolin Temple, Adventures in Formosa, Rediscovering the Khmers, Boats, Bikes, and Boxing Gloves: Adventure Writer in the Kingdom of Siam, The Desert of Death on Three Wheels, and his latest book, Warrior Odyssey: The Travels of a Martial Artist in Asia.

The Interview:

In this exclusive interview with Antonio Graceffo, he “pulls no punches” (pun intended) when sharing his views on how to learn foreign languages and martial arts effectively. His wisdom stems from years spent living abroad coupled with sound theory.

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To learn more about Antonio, visit his site SpeakingAdventure.com.

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5 Responses to “Antonio Graceffo: Linguist, Martial Artist and Prolific Author”

  1. [...] This post was Twitted by jfotheringham – Real-url.org [...]

  2. Randy says:

    Great ideas Antonio! i think you really are dead on.

  3. Yeah, you got that spot on (as the Brits say) on the idiots who don't learn the language as that is going to be the ONLY skill you come back with from being the "lap dog" English teacher in the Orient.

    And yeah there are numerous studies to validate the forget curve–even a method called the forget and remember learning style. Pimsleur was famous for this sort of research.

    And yeah physical skills and langauges are the same: they are both PERFORMANCE SKILLS that are perishble.

    Rock on Anthony.

    REgards,

    Christophe Clugston

    http://www.webspawner.com/users/luchador

  4. [...] This is the first of hopefully many guest posts by Antonio Graceffo, a martial arts and adventure author living in Asia.  If you haven’t already, make sure to watch our exclusive video interview with him here. [...]

  5. [...] This is the second of hopefully many guest posts by Antonio Graceffo, a martial arts and adventure author living in Asia.  If you haven’t already, make sure to watch our exclusive video interview with him here. [...]

  6. [...] Antonio Graceffo is a martial arts and adventure author living in Asia (check out our interview with him here). [...]

  7. [...] Antonio Graceffo is a martial arts and adventure author living in Asia (check out our interview with him here). [...]

  8. [...] Antonio Graceffo is a martial arts and adventure author living in Asia (check out our interview with him here). [...]

  9. Truly inspirational words. Just you mentioning the idea of having lived in a foreign country but having never learned the language and then having to give people that "dumb answer", makes me queasy.

    Currently, that is not my situation, but it applies to the fact that I'm attempting to learn Japanese and the people around me know I am. So I think about what if I had to explain to them that I ended up stopping and didn't learn the language. There is no real excuse other than lack of dedication.

    As you say, "The pain of being fat is worse than the pain of not eating that cake."

  10. [...] Antonio Graceffo is a martial arts and adventure author living in Asia (check out our interview with him here). [...]

  11. Jacob Tullos says:

    You made some good points, Anthony. The novel method was most interesting to me. My first novel in Spanish felt like a huge milestone, an accomplishment to be proud of. It was very motivating, too.

    Excellent interview.

    • jf says:

      Thank you for your kind words, Jacob. I've passed this along to Antonio; I'm sure he will appreciate the positive feedback.

  12. [...] linguist, and martial arts and adventure author living in Asia (check out our interview with him here). His books, including ”The Monk from Brooklyn”, are available at [...]

  13. [...] linguist and martial arts and adventure author living in Asia (check out our interview with him here). His books, including ”The Monk from Brooklyn”, are available at [...]

  14. [...] linguist, and martial arts and adventure author living in Asia (check out our interview with him here). His books, including ”The Monk from Brooklyn”, are available at [...]

  15. [...] linguist, and martial arts and adventure author living in Asia (check out our interview with him here). His books, including ”The Monk from Brooklyn”, are available at [...]

  16. [...] linguist, and martial arts and adventure author living in Asia (check out our interview with him here). His books, including ”The Monk from Brooklyn”, are available at [...]

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