I grew up in the English-speaking area of Montreal, Canada. I am a graduate of L’Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris, France (1966), and a former Canadian Diplomat.

I grew up in the English-speaking area of Montreal, Canada. I am a graduate of L’Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris, France (1966), and a former Canadian Diplomat.

Currently I am President of KP Wood Ltd, a company involved in the international wood products trade. I am also co-founder (together with my son Mark) of LingQ, an online language learning system and Web 2.0 community, whose members from all over the world help each other learn languages.

Until the age of seventeen I spoke only English. Today I know 20 languages and speak at least half a dozen of them quite fluently, and I am determined to add more. You can find my story in my book The Way of the Linguist, A Language Learning Odyssey. I also have a channel on YouTube where I post videos on learning languages to my over one million subscribers.