EP. 26 - Ali: How Obsession, Self-Education, and a One-Way Ticket Built a Career in English

🌍 JOIN TANDEM TODAY: https://tandem.go.link/lcLQHAli Alradhi grew up in Basra, Iraq, surrounded by brothers who traveled the world and spoke English fluently. At twelve, he asked for a dictionary instead of a toy, started reading five to ten pages a day without knowing why, and spent the next decade quietly building an obsession that would take over his entire life. By the time he was twenty two, he had turned down Arabic music, Arabic friends, and anything that wasn't in English, bought a one-way ticket to Turkey, and started over from scratch.In this episode, Ali walks us through how that radical self-taught approach shaped the way he now runs Just English, a language school in Turkey where English is the only language allowed in the building. We get into what it actually takes to hire great teachers, why mindset always comes before grammar in his classroom, what English genuinely represents for people in Turkey who desperately want it but can't always access it, and why he believes the word "impossible" is just another entry in the dictionary.About the guest: https://linktr.ee/alawiiizWhat is Tandem - Language exchange?Tandem is a global language exchange app on a mission to connect the world through languages. Members build confidence and improve their language skills through real life conversations with native speakers in 1:1 chats or live audio rooms. 🔗 Connect With Us: https://linktr.ee/Tandem_App0:00 Intro 2:07 From Basra to Fluency 13:30 Building a Multilingual Classroom 47:20 What English Really Means in Türkiye 56:30 The Outsider Advantage 🌟 What topics/language should we explore on the next episode of the new tandem podcast? Let us know in the comments! Thanks for watching Connected By Language: Polyglot Interviews, the official Tandem Podcast.