A week in the life of a 23-year-old polyglot and education advocate in Turkey

Mahya takes us through her busy week as a Youtuber, polyglot, and volunteer helping Afghan girls access education. (Courtesy of Mahya Mirsadeghi)

Mahya takes us through her busy week as a Youtuber, polyglot, and volunteer helping Afghan girls access education.

Monday

Today I am staying at home to film a YouTube video called “How I managed to learn 9 languages by waking up at 4 AM,” so I spent around three hours preparing the script, filming the video and editing it. Being a YouTuber is my favorite thing because I get to share my experience with other people, especially girls, and help them be more productive and change their lives. As an education activist, Youtube is the platform where I can directly influence girls from all over the world. Being fluent in nine languages, including the six languages of the United Nations, enables me to connect to girls from all over the world and help them reach their goals both in their personal and academic life. 

I like creating content in different languages, and by doing that I was able to learn about the challenges girls might face. That is how I got the idea of establishing my small volunteering project called “Leading Ladies Middle East.”

Mahya Mirsadeghi in her Youtube video “How I managed to learn nine languages by waking up at 4 a.m.” (Courtesy of Mahya Mirsadeghi)

Tuesday

Today I woke up at 7 a.m. I usually have a coaching session right after I wake up because I’m fresh and more energetic at that time of the day and ready to help my girls. I am a language and education coach/mentor so this is how my language coaching sessions go: I help girls learn different languages by giving them some advice, helping them manage their time, preparing a tailor-made language learning plan, answering all their questions regarding language learning and talking about any struggles they might encounter on their language learning journey.

I am also an education mentor. I help students choose the right path for their life and learn how to learn. For example, today I helped an 18 year old choose her university major.

After that, I went to the gym. I go to the gym because I believe that a healthy mind is in a healthy body. I enjoy doing sports while listening to a podcast. That is how I manage to study nine languages simultaneously. Today I am listening to a podcast interview by Vee Kativhu, she is my source of inspiration and as an education activist, I get to learn a lot from her.

I returned home and today I have a Chinese group class. I’m a Chinese language teacher, I graduated from China and last year I founded my own online language teaching platform and I was able to inspire many students to learn different languages including Chinese. So today I’m teaching this group of 12 girls. This is my favorite class because we are all girls and we have so much fun learning Chinese together.

Mahya teaching in her Chinese language course. (Courtesy of Mahya Mirsadeghi)

Wednesday

Today I’m going to the “Next TRT World forum.” It's a platform for young individuals to come and share their opinions and talk about different topics. One of my favorite topics was education. I took part in that talk and I learned a lot from the speakers. The speakers were some of the great scholars, journalists and social entrepreneurs. I had the opportunity to talk to them and make new friends.

When I came home I was too tired to do anything so I spent my time laying on my bed and scrolling on Instagram (let’s be honest this is an important part of our daily life). I love social media, especially Instagram. Instagram is the reason why I am who I am today! I got my book sold through Instagram. I got my students, clients, fame, money and a lot more through social media. So social media is awesome if you know how to make the best out of it. Otherwise, it will just be a time killer.

Mahya at the Next TRT World forum (Courtesy of Mahya Mirsadeghi)

Thursday

Today I woke up at 7 a.m., as usual, I had my language coaching session, worked a bit on my website, uploaded an article, answered some emails and corrected my student's homework.

Once per month, I volunteer in a youth charity organization. We have different projects such as: homework help, human welfare project and animal shelter project. Today I am volunteering in the animal shelter. In the afternoon we helped the animals by bringing them food and cleaning their shelter.

Mahya volunteers at an animal shelter. (Courtesy of Mahya Mirsadeghi)

Friday

Since I am a polyglot and I have to study languages every single day, I went to the library to study Chinese and Spanish. After my study session I took a coffee break and had a meeting with my team for Afghan girls' education. We are a group of 700 Iranian volunteers. We are still not that well known but we have big dreams. We had a meeting and talked about how we can help Afghan girls with their education. We welcomed new members and gave them new roles in the group, such as: editor, content creator, human resource manager, project manager, admin, designer and so on. We also designed some Instagram posts and had a meeting with two Afghan girls and asked them to inform us more about the exact education situation in Afghanistan.

Mahya’s Chinese language study. (Courtesy of Mahya Mirsadeghi)

Saturday

Today is a special day for me, because it’s “Iran culture night”! Tonight we talked about my country Iran. We spent the morning preparing different types of Iranian food including rice, stew, salad, drinks and sweets. 

I wore my traditional costume and gave a speech about my beloved country. I talked about Iran's tourist attractions, celebrations, foods, languages, religions and people. I love talking about my country and changing people's negative perspectives about it. That’s my goal because Iran is such a misunderstood country so my dream is to let the world know about the beauty of the Persian culture.

Iran Culture Night with Mahya and friends (courtesy of Mahya Mirsadeghi)

Sunday

Today I have Italian and Russian classes, so I woke up at 6 a.m. and spent about an hour in the subway to go to Russian and Italian classes. 

I live in Istanbul. It is a big city, and it usually takes us more than one hour to go from one place to another. To not waste my time, I usually try to read a book, and today I read this small storybook that is designed for language learners. On one page the text is written in Italian, and on the other page I can read the translation in Turkish! Since none of these two languages are my native language, I am able to practice two languages at the same time. This is a great way to learn languages. I arrived in time and I had three hours of Russian and three hours of Italian. I enjoyed my time learning languages and interacting with my classmates.

Mahya reading on the subway. (Courtesy of Mahya Mirsadeghi)