Transcription

• Speaker #0

  Hi, welcome to The Pulse, the podcast where we explore the heartbeat of life and work. I'm Julie, your host, and I'm thrilled to have you join me on this journey. Every two weeks, I will bring you a regular dose of inspiration, practical tips, and regular stories about personal development, wellness, and career growth. Whether you're looking for motivation, fresh perspective, or just a reminder that you're not alone, you are in the right place. So welcome, and let's dive in. Hi Ije, welcome to the podcast. Happy to have you here.

• Speaker #1

  How are you? I'm good. Skyler, you know, is chilling on my lap, and he's obsessed with me. This is going to be an interesting interview with him around. He might have some answers to questions too. I'll try to keep him away from the mic. I will lean back. But thank you for inviting me to be on your podcast.

• Speaker #0

  Happy to have you. I really wanted to have someone like you on the podcast on an episode really special to me, which is multilingualism, because I've seen over the years... I've grown up having only knowing one language at the end of the day. And I learned afterwards English and then German somehow. Not perfect, but somehow. And so having you with all this experience and I don't know how many languages you speak now, but it feels so many.

• Speaker #1

  How many do I speak well? Because that's a different question. I'm taking classes. I've learned things. I speak German, kind of. I speak English, obviously. Grew up speaking Igbo. Now I don't really speak it very often because I have no one to talk to here, but I still understand it. Grew up speaking Spanish also in school and then learned Portuguese in university as kind of like a grade booster because it's so close to Spanish. And if I'm being super honest, a lot of cute people spoke Portuguese. So that was like a good motivator. And then I did a study abroad in Jordan where I learned a little bit of Arabic because I needed to be proficient. into can you hear me okay i need to be proficient in two languages to graduate with a degree in linguistics from the university of washington shout out udub so i took arabic and i don't remember very much i can read things i don't know what i'm reading but i can sound it out and sound official so yeah hi dude thanks

• Speaker #0

  sorry we seem to have a bit of difficulties with the mic or maybe i don't know if both mics are working or not it seems that i'm speaking louder than you so i don't know if it's the tone i think it's just my like like yeah okay so i have to like lean in okay let me just yeah maybe actually because i feel like holding it is almost better okay i can hold it actually yeah maybe it's maybe it's easier okay sorry we're learning with like two mics it's completely fine i'm just trying to like

• Speaker #1

  Like, make sure that Skylar doesn't fall off my lap.

• Speaker #0

  Oh, good. He's asking for a lot of attention as usual.

• Speaker #1

  He's very happy here. I don't think. I think I live here now. I think I can't leave.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, exactly. You're like his bed. Basically. Sorry.

• Speaker #1

  It's completely fine. This is great, actually. I feel chosen. It's really nice.

• Speaker #0

  You're very special for him.

• Speaker #1

  I know.

• Speaker #0

  He does love you.

• Speaker #1

  He does. He does. I love you, too. Just. I need space sometimes.

• Speaker #0

  But to go back to our topic of multilingualism. So you have learned of some ways. And as you said, some languages you know more, some languages you've learned and you have different kind of level. But you've learned a lot of languages. And I would love to hear from you a little bit. What's the best practice in terms of learning a language? What are the tricks you... gathered over the years to learn all those languages?

• Speaker #1

  I mean, first and foremost, because people ask me a lot, like, I want to learn language. How do I do it the best? And my first question is like, well, why are you learning the language? Because I see a lot of people, they're like, I should learn Chinese. I should learn Italian. I should learn blah, And you're already starting out at a loss because you feel like it's something that you have to do. I learned all of these languages because I wanted to. And I was very curious about... doing so I understand that not everybody has the privilege of learning a language that they want to but usually there should be some part of you that wants to learn the language so I feel like the motivation the correct motivation is the first step and then um for me I try to figure out I try to do my hobbies Peace. and like my likes and interests in the language that I'm learning. So in grade school, like it was like, we took Spanish and I love music so much. And we would listen to Juanes and Shakira, if you know, you know, and that listening to that really, really helped me with Spanish actually so much. Also, it was like a little bit inappropriate now that I think about it. Like I think it was. Oral Fixation was the name of the Shakira album that came out that year. And I was like, what, 6th grade? Yeah,

• Speaker #0

  I guess.

• Speaker #1

  I was young. But it taught me a lot. And I learned a lot of lyrics and that helped me with vocabulary and I felt a little bit more immersed in the culture.

• Speaker #0

  Nice. But, you know, it made me think so much of this case where in France there was a teacher who wanted, I think it was a music teacher, who wanted kids to feel more like um, music that she wanted to use songs more in terms of the kids generation which which language english so but it was like so the song was english but it was like a music teacher so it's not like english was her first language or she knew it much yeah and she picks the song whistle no

• Speaker #1

  no oh no i don't know how much your listeners will know about this song yeah you can look it up yes it's by flowrida

• Speaker #0

  exactly you could figure it out so for and music in french is happening in middle school okay so you can imagine the horrifying to have a bunch of little kids singing that song to you yes that's so scary well don't do that no

• Speaker #1

  don't do that um i went to catholic school so it's pretty chill like no not chill opposite of chill but like yeah what we were listening to was not crazy i think my Spanish teacher gave me extracurricular activity by lending me the Shakira CDs so that was different so yeah shout out to sister Maureen um she had nothing to do with it

• Speaker #0

  yeah no but I get it I think you know what you said is that it's not about the should and really about the want and making it fun of some kind you know it's like having an objective that makes sense for you. It's not It's not easy to learn a language no matter what. So the more fun and easygoing and part of your life in some sense, the easier. And therefore, if you have to learn a language because of your situation, then you have to find a way to make it fun, interesting with an actual manageable goal for you in order to be successful of some kind.

• Speaker #1

  Exactly. Like, do you want to be understood or do you want to be able to write like a long dissertation? You need to figure out which one of those things is the most important to you. And also, I would just like to say, because I've had, I've taught a lot of students English, and everyone is like, how do I make my accent go away? No, don't make your accent, you have, everyone has an accent. If someone's making fun of you for your accent, they're just not someone you need to be talking to. I know that's easier said than done, but we all have accents and you should be proud because it means that you speak more than one, at least more than one language.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  And you have a little bit more experience, like a different experience than someone else.

• Speaker #0

  I think it's a fair point. At the very beginning with English, being in the US, and I was surrounded a lot by international people. So I think we all had an accent. And I do think that I have an accent. But the strong French accent always bothered me. And so I was putting really a hard goal for myself to stop having it and to push. you know, my language skills. And in one way, I think it did some good, but in others, it's for sure then less visible for people that this is my second language.

• Speaker #1

  I think it's a little bit of erasure of yourself also. I mean, okay, if people didn't notice that you were a French native speaker, how did it change people's perception of you then?

• Speaker #0

  I think it actually didn't change much when it comes to the direct people around me. It changed more when it comes to work. that people consider that I'm fully bilingual since I'm a kid. And so any new language feels like, well, I mean, you should pick it up or you should be able to learn because it's like, it's just the second language that you're learning now. Like, guess what? It's my third. And it's like, it's not so easy at a certain age. And it's kind of also the expectation more, you speak so good English, then you should be able to speak so good other languages. I would say.

• Speaker #1

  That's right. There are some people who like... are fully bilingual but can't pick something else up like sometimes you're just your brain picks something up and sometimes it doesn't and that's okay yeah i do think that you know i do speak some german but it's been a bit harder because i agree with you the motivation hasn't been there i

• Speaker #0

  did have the motivation at the very beginning to understand and to speak it but i got to a certain level you that felt, okay, I'm comfortable, I can speak, I can go to a shop, I can do my basic task, but I know I don't want to be in an environment where I have to work in German, not because I'm against it, but because just I want to remain in an international environment. And so it felt, why would I go as far as becoming a B2 or a C1 in this language? When it comes to English, however, I was studying in English, and so it felt like I had to really fully embrace. and I was in a student environment so everyone was speaking nobody spoke French at the end of the day so yeah there was a bit of a bigger push in that context for me to learn the language but that makes sense yeah but maybe going back a little bit because I think for sure there is the element of wanting to be good at you know learning language and wanted it on a certain level and let me just go back to the question a little bit you're completely fine But do you think knowing so many languages or maybe not all of them, but some of them, did it shape your identity as a person?

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, I fully believe that learning a new language just gives you new lenses and seeing the world. Like it just gives you a completely new perspective.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  Like even taking intensive German classes last year. Let me give you like a metaphor. I feel like, okay, for me. making a sentence in English and Spanish is like walking in a straight line.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  Because it just makes sense to me. I know how to approach walking in a straight line. I know I need to start here and I will end up at the end. With German, I feel like I have a similar starting point, but instead of a straight line, it's like a zigzag.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  I need to completely change the way I think about forming the sentence. And, like, I need to really truly think about what information I'm trying to convey. Because it's just different.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  Completely different.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. I fully understand where you're coming from. Because, I mean, in German, you put the verb at the end sometimes. Or you put the verb in second place when potentially it would be in a different spot in the other languages. Or at least in English. It's the same in French, actually. And it's so hard. And that's one of the major mistakes I make is that sometimes I know that grammatically I should put the verb at the end, but the verb comes in my mind at that point in time when I want to speak it.

• Speaker #1

  Honestly, yeah. Sometimes I drop verbs. Actually, this was a... My German teacher always got frustrated because sometimes I'd have a long sentence. It was going well. I'm saying what I want to say. There's a subordinating clause. Yeah, I'm a linguist, so I'm going to throw some stuff out here.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  There is a subordinating clause, and at the end of the subordinating clause, then verb comes at the end. Completely forget the verb.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  Because I'd said everything else, completely forgot the verb.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  And the teacher is like, you forgot the verb? And I'm like, yo, I forgot. I said all the important information. In my mind, I already said the verb.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  It's just out there. It's really hard.

• Speaker #0

  It's tough. And it's really that gymnastic in your brain that you have to think differently. You know, the example I saw is a... I was, I think it was canceling an appointment or something. Yeah. And I had to give a number.

• Speaker #1

  Oh my goodness.

• Speaker #0

  And my colleagues were like, oh yeah, you did so great. Like you were perfectly speaking German. I'm like, but am I? Because I gave the number literally, like I spelled it like nine, two, eight, you know, instead of saying like nine, like, so in German, this, they would say like, like 920. And so in order to make it easier, I say two, nine. And in order to...

• Speaker #1

  No, but you just need to make sure that no one misunderstands anything. I also don't give double digits in German when I'm saying a number. I will just say each number one after another because I don't want any sort of confusion.

• Speaker #0

  I mean, I have to say that in French also, we have some funky numbers. Yeah. Here, it can be a topic because if you are in Switzerland... And in Belgium, they don't say the same as we say in France.

• Speaker #1

  It's like base 20 or something. Yeah,

• Speaker #0

  exactly. We say like, basically, if you say 80, 80 is like 820. No, it's 420, sorry.

• Speaker #1

  So it's 80.

• Speaker #0

  So it's 80.

• Speaker #1

  But then in Belgium, they say

• Speaker #0

  8. 8. Exactly. Which is like, 8 is 8. Yeah. And then 8 would be...

• Speaker #1

  That's more in line with everything I know. 80. 80.

• Speaker #0

  Exactly. Exactly. It's the same in Switzerland. They say all like 890. and like but in France from France we said like yeah it was a base 20 and so even 90 is like 420 10. And so, of course, when you try to write something like this as a foreigner, this is where the limits, I would say, comes. That it's, unless you know it from the get-go, it's really hard to learn this type of things.

• Speaker #1

  I would just stick with the Swiss.

• Speaker #0

  Yes.

• Speaker #1

  At that point. It vibes with my worldview and my mind. I understand. I understand maybe that this is a French, is it a French Revolution thing? Yeah,

• Speaker #0

  it's related to that. I would have to be tight.

• Speaker #1

  It's giving French.

• Speaker #0

  yes for sure okay no but i think it's going back into the question because from my perspective i do feel like what i and it's maybe also because i lived abroad every time i learned a new language you didn't some language you learned being in another country yeah um but do you feel like beyond the structural and your mindset and some ways of of thinking that you've built is it from a yeah cultural from an environmental standpoint point um change the way you view things or maybe this was also part of you from the get-go of having this internationalization internationalization yeah i get it i mean okay i'll just give you like two anecdotes i mean first of all born

• Speaker #1

  in new york very multicultural place my neighborhood was puerto rican and nigerian and you don't have to speak english there every everything is there everyone is there you you can speak any language essentially so i mean already i knew that there was more stuff out there and then also if you think about it nigeria has like what 200 i'm probably probably underestimating but around 200 languages are spoken in this country yeah and so my whole entire family speaks bits and pieces of other languages because you just have to figure it out like your neighbor might not speak the same language as you Yeah. your your cousin might marry someone who's from a completely different ethnic group than you and you end up learning a little bit of their language to be polite so like i always i was always open to learning other languages and also there are just some concepts that are not available in one language not in another language um i took a class in undergrad and it was called um um emotions across cultures

• Speaker #0

  Hmm.

• Speaker #1

  And there's like this famous linguist, Anna Wietzpicka. I will spell it for you later because I cannot spell it. It's so Polish. But at one point we were reading about the topic of frustration and how that's like not something that's innate in certain cultures and certain languages. And they borrowed this word frustration, maybe from English or maybe from other languages, but they borrowed it. So I think the Polish word like frustracja like comes from. I want to say English. I could be wrong. I'll look it up later. But yeah, so there's just like a lot of concepts that don't have names in certain cultures. And then now I have access to this concept in another language.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. Yeah. Nah, it definitely makes sense. It's just because I, so you come from an environment where you were already in the melting pot of languages from the get go.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah.

• Speaker #0

  Where for me, I grew up. in a French environment with a family that pretty much only spoke French, spoke a bit of English, but more like, oh, you need to go somewhere, then we can babble some words in English, but nothing as concrete as that. And I went to school and I think it was one moment, I remember a teacher writing like, Julie is made for scientific topics. So clearly outlining Julie is not made for languages, which in a way is very funny. today here you are exactly but i would say it's more that at the time the way the language was taught at school did not fit the way i needed to learn languages a lot of rote memorization in a lot of places yeah exactly and so it's so the moment that i in a way moved to the u.s and ended up in that melting pot because i mean i had friends from from canada from brazil from Mexico from all over the world basically I just said countries, but you know what I mean. You know, Spain, UK. And then based on that, I got to learn the different culture of the people. I got to learn some words in each of the language. And I got to experience other people that I've never done before. Before, it was more as a tourist. And now for the first time, I was really embedded. And in a way, learning English opened this part for me, which is so, from my perspective, so beautiful. but also so like uh um almost i lost time i lost 20 years where it just didn't happen you know for 20 years i did not speak anymore think of it as losing something you just got to get something later yeah i guess delayed gratification yeah yeah i guess you can say that it's just like you know you see all those opportunities of um learning from other people and i would say that the person i was before and the person i became after really like changed not that i was a bad person or like of only focused on me before but there was a form of a bubble that which was already quite i would say developed compared to other people this environment i had i had seen quite a different social groups from from france but it was all people that spoke french i would say the most that i had that were international would be my my dad's cousins and her family they were the most um yeah international They were well-traveled. Both of my cousins are... adopted so they come from Africa so they went there a lot but and I think one of my mom's cousins moved to South America but that's basically beside those people which I did not see on a regular basis it was really close to we were to travel but really as a tourist I would say okay so when I ended up having this learning English I got to learn about everyone's culture And it just opened my mind to being not that I'm a different person, but I'm more well-rounded. And I'm also a lot more, I was quite shy and a lot more open nowadays.

• Speaker #1

  You know, people have different personalities in different languages.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. So interesting. Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  Like people say when I speak German, I'm really like calm and serious, which is really funny to me. But it's just because I'm thinking about what word comes next. And in Spanish, I'm like way more fun.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. So you have depending on the language?

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, it depends on the language. Yeah. Yeah. Completely unserious in English.

• Speaker #0

  Oh,

• Speaker #1

  nice.

• Speaker #0

  I would love to know from you also what was one surprise, like one advantage that knowing so many languages has brought you in your life overall. If you have more than one, that's fine. I just think it's...

• Speaker #1

  No, no, no. I think being able to like... disambiguate it's not the right word clearing up misunderstandings it's easier to clear up misunderstandings yeah because sometimes you would say something in a way in one language and it seems really straightforward and insane but if you think about like for example um i had a job years ago where we had some german counterparts and the way they would write emails was like i'm gonna do this thing you And it's going to be at your desk on this day. No pleasantries. No questions asking. They didn't ask about anyone's day. They didn't ask about your kid or your dog or whatever. And I remember this would incense my boss. She was like, what is wrong with these people? What is wrong with these people? But they don't do that as much here. So I get it. I was like, I don't think it's personal. I think this is just how they write emails. It's just cultural. It's just cultural. And I think they just haven't learned the English, like, email etiquette yet. Or they haven't, or no one said anything to them. So they're just writing emails like they normally do, not knowing that they're unintentionally upsetting people. So it's like these kinds of things to think about. It's always clear. It's nice to understand, okay, this is a cultural thing. Or this is a language-specific thing. And it's, like, completely...

• Speaker #0

  fine we just need to communicate the weirdness a little bit more yeah it just makes me laugh because we had the case at work um with a colleague of a colleague of mine and we work with an external provider and the guy is from the uk and she's german and i'm french so it's very nice and uh so my colleague who is from germany she very often said like um i'm irritated and because in German irritiert has a sound of irritation but it's not so serious but irritated in English it's like I'm irritated exactly it's a lot so it took them some time to understand each other what do you actually mean exactly so we ended up laughing so much about it because at the beginning you know like the guy was like oh my god like she's really irritated it's like it's heavy and then the more we got to know each other the more it was not such a big deal no that's really funny yeah but honestly it really is like that yeah you just have to like wait a little it's like wait what do you mean exactly exactly have a bit of a patient and the openness to understand that exactly no sorry got dog hair in my eye yeah he's sleeping now completely passed out love it yeah no that's that's very cool actually and uh i think we could talk a lot about those kind of like anecdotes so funny i have so many we can talk about it after yes definitely another question i had um for you maybe actually the opposite was there ever a challenge or an issue or the fact that he knew multiple languages impacted negatively.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, when I mean here, for example, when people figure out that I speak English and they just switch and they will almost never switch back to German. And I don't know about you, but usually the language where that a relationship starts on is the relationship it will stay in. I have friends I only speak Spanish to. I have friends I only speak Portuguese to. If I switch, that would be strange and something would be very wrong. So then I already have all these friendships that have now shifted to English. And it's kind of hard to switch them back.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, to learn a new language. I almost kind of want to say since English is almost not universal language, but the language a lot of people around the world speak. Yeah,

• Speaker #1

  lingua franca.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, yeah. So then basically as soon as you know it, and if people know it, they're going to switch to that language. And it's like, damn it, but then I don't get to learn.

• Speaker #1

  I don't get to do anything, yeah.

• Speaker #0

  And I don't get to practice a language or improve on that language at all.

• Speaker #1

  I know I could be doing better with.

• Speaker #0

  like correcting people and just saying like hey speak to me but sometimes I'm just like it's tough it's tough it's even tough you know nowadays I'm like sometimes you could do a meeting in German at work and I'm like yeah but it's so tough to start a conversation in German when I've had like three years of conversation with them in in English you know to to do the switch and also it's so natural that as soon as you have a struggle well I can always switch back to English so you almost have a safety net that you didn't have before at least I didn't have that when I had to learn English she felt so simple because I had no choice I had to explain myself I remember I think the the word luggage it was so funny because I didn't know what it meant and I never got to I didn't learn the translation the the French word which would be valise okay in some ways you could say but I like someone showed me like said this is a luggage like visually So the only way now if you think on my brain how this works is that I see the object before then I would translate to French.

• Speaker #1

  That's good.

• Speaker #0

  That's the best way.

• Speaker #1

  That's what you're supposed to do anyway.

• Speaker #0

  Exactly.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah.

• Speaker #0

  Exactly. But because the person and there are so many words like this that the people had to explain to me in a different way when it meant but still in English. Like when you learn your language when you grow up the first one you learn right? The mother tongue. Like there is no other. translation that people can give you so they give you the definition from the dictionary and that's the best way to learn a language but now it feels like for german it's been harder because of the fact that as soon as i don't know words will translate to english or french yeah

• Speaker #1

  and so it didn't become as natural yeah no it's hard but like code switching is also a thing that happens naturally yeah all the time i code switch all the time even with my best friend alejo We got here to Germany at the same time. We were in German class together. We weren't allowed to sit next to each other because we made each other laugh. Anyway, now when we talk, it's like a weird mixture of English and Spanish and German.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  And you know what? That's okay.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  I think it's cool.

• Speaker #0

  I think it's cool too. I think it's sometimes also maybe the issue, right? For me, one of the challenges I do feel is that I make more mistakes than I used to in French. Thank you. Sometimes when I type text or when I write an email, whatever, I know I make some mistakes, some grammar mistakes, or I have to, for example, actually the word example, it's an E in French and an A in English. Very often I put an example with an A.

• Speaker #1

  Exemple.

• Speaker #0

  Exemple, yeah. So E-X-A-M is in English and it's E-X-E-M in French. And so sometimes I make the mistakes when I write it. And then I'm like. I wish I didn't make those mistakes anymore. But it's like, well, I mean, at the end of the day, yes, I could spend more time developing my craft in French. And it's like I lost a little bit, but I lost a bit of French to gain having so many other languages now. But it's tricky.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, I feel like it's just rusty.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  I make mistakes in English now too. And Spanish. Yeah. Putting words in the wrong order.

• Speaker #0

  Yes.

• Speaker #1

  Switching all of my voiced and unvoiced consonants, writing

• Speaker #0

  think instead of thing because of the german influence and i'm like i feel myself doing it i'm like wait no that's not right yeah yeah you have to i think it's like you make potentially more mistakes and you have to to think about it but it's But as, again, going back, you know so many languages. So it's amazing for someone to know so many languages.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. Just little different buckets in my head.

• Speaker #0

  Yes, exactly. And I think sometimes the gymnastic of switching languages, it's not always easy.

• Speaker #1

  It's not. It's easier to switch into some than others. I will say the hardest one for me to switch into is German.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. Spanish, easy.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  Portuguese. A little harder, but easy.

• Speaker #0

  I think for me, the funniest thing was once I was coming back from work and I needed to make a short voice message for a friend's wedding. So I made the recording in my car on my way back from work. And the recording was in French. And they all said to me, you have an accent. yes everyone has an accent but it felt like an English accent oh no but it happens I think it's like the fact that I spoke all day in the language then it took me some time to get back my Frenchness yeah you have to get into the vibe you have to get into the

• Speaker #1

  state of mind it's harder for me to get in a German state of mind

• Speaker #0

  I would say if I'm being super honest hopefully no he's just putting me back he's still asleep Thank you. another question I had for you was um if I mean we talked about it right um if someone wants to learn a language and they really have the mindset of like but so they're motivated it's not about a like they have to it's really they they want um and they have the right idea but if they are overwhelmed with it Thank you. Where would you tell them to start?

• Speaker #1

  I, well, personally, when I learn a language, I try to just be myself, but in another language.

• Speaker #0

  Okay.

• Speaker #1

  So the first things I learn how to say, usually curse words, because I curse quite helpfully. And I don't know, my hobby words, and then maybe some music stuff, because music is really great, motivated for me, and food, because food is life. So just figure out how to be you. figure out what makes you you and then try to learn those things that are specific to you so maybe you're a guitar player you're like okay i will learn all the music vocab for for guitar so that maybe i can have a conversation with a insert language here speaker about guitars okay

• Speaker #0

  and then you're more likely to remember those things because there's something that you actually care about okay so really yeah like pick the topic i guess you still have to learn the basic grammar Of course. But then you can learn it by learning sentences or words related to the vocabulary that you like, basically.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. Like, I know some people can learn the language by themselves, like teach themselves something.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  But for me, I always feel like you should get the basics from a teacher, from like a class. Maybe do like the A1 level, maybe beginning of A2 level in a class. And then you can start to like build if you're really, truly motivated.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  Because

• Speaker #0

  so for me one thing is I get I agree but sometimes I'm wondering because I have a colleague right now she's doing basically she's gonna get into her B1 but it's gonna take a year and a half to get there so it's a lot of group classes and it's four times a week it's the two something hours so it's really intense but the I feel like sometimes the timing is gonna take her to get there is quite long So I'm like, if you do maybe those courses that you're mentioning, but more in, like, shorter period, like, really, but intense, almost like individual or smaller group classes, then...

• Speaker #1

  It depends on how you learn. I can't answer that for you. Yeah. It really depends on how you learn.

• Speaker #0

  Okay.

• Speaker #1

  I think having, like, a year-long class and having it two hours a day, I think that's quite nice because building habits, like, yeah, you get the input daily. You could take an intensive course for a month and then never use whatever language again, and it would just...

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, but if you take, I mean, two hours a day, four times a week for a year and a half to get to B1, isn't it long?

• Speaker #1

  It is a long time, but I don't know how fast are they going through the information? Are they repeating things?

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, no, for sure they are. But I mean, sometimes I do feel like you need to jumpstart, like having the feeling of quickly knowing some things. having a bit of a quick win can be helpful. Of course, you need to have, I agree with you, having the habit is critical. Because if not, you can learn something and then never use it again. And therefore, you're going to unlearn it, right? But if you... Sometimes I feel like some stuff, it's either too short or too long. And it's good to have maybe an in-between where you still feel like after two or three months, I can actually order coffee or talk to the guitar instructor or do sports with people already. Even if my sentences are not perfect, at least I can do that by three months.

• Speaker #1

  We also need to get rid of this idea of perfection. Nothing is perfect. Nothing will ever be perfect. give yourself some grace yeah i think give yourself some grace and again if someone's getting mad at you for using the wrong gender in a subject in a sentence and it didn't change the meaning of the sentence then again this is not a person you need to be around yeah obviously if it changes the meaning and like you need it for work and you're a lawyer obviously maybe you know get

• Speaker #0

  it together but like yeah but exactly like it's okay to make mistakes and it doesn't make it if it's not perfect at least like speaking it and making it something regular is the most important.

• Speaker #1

  The thing, I don't mind when people speak to me in English and make mistakes. I probably won't correct them unless it's like egregious. Like they're saying something funnily embarrassing. I just want to understand them and I want them to understand me. And so then I don't mind. Unless someone's like, please EJ, correct me. Because I need to do so-and-so thing. Then I will correct them.

• Speaker #0

  I had those friends again back at uni. They were a group. of girls and they had this um four mini bedrooms and like one living room together and in the living room they had the tv and at the time you know ecology was not a big topic so they had the tv on all day all night with uh they were not automatically watching but that was like that as soon as they were in the environment they had it and they were having friends in english okay so that because four were like they were all from brazil Okay. So they were speaking between them all in Portuguese, but then they had the TV on in English all day with a subtitle. So then they would like learn English by just watching friends all day. Or like as soon as they had a minute and were in a common space.

• Speaker #1

  That's so funny.

• Speaker #0

  But I have to say that I also did learn a lot watching TV afterwards. And my cousin learned English watching TV, I think a lot. It helps. It can help.

• Speaker #1

  It's way better than learning textbooks. Because it's more colloquial. Yeah. What did I even watch? What did I watch in Spanish? I mean, I watched Sesame Street in Spanish.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  It's different. But yeah, I watched some stuff in Spanish and it really helped.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  A lot of telenovelas. Pretty funny.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  Could not have watched. I was too young. Learn some things.

• Speaker #0

  But is it hard for me? Like, if I were to put now on TV, as I'm working on my German, if I were to put something make a English based movie and I would put it in German it would feel so weird you have to watch the local

• Speaker #1

  I refuse to watch anything with dubbing

• Speaker #0

  I can't do that Spanish telenovelas will be in Spanish

• Speaker #1

  I will read subtitles if it's a language I just truly don't know I'm just morally opposed to dubs unless it's like anime because there's no other way yeah

• Speaker #0

  no i get it i get it i also would say that for me it's really hard not to do like to do this yeah because it's it doesn't feel natural it doesn't and also like the translations of things it's not it's strange i'll always start nitpicking you

• Speaker #1

  may hear my dog story he's snoring quite heavily right now so if you hear him my bad um sometimes the translations of things i nitpick so it's just better to watch something local because it's truer to the language than to watch something. That's gone through a filter, because that's what I would say. It's gone through a filter.

• Speaker #0

  Definitely. How do you keep a language alive, like, in your mind? How do you not lose it when you learn it?

• Speaker #1

  Use it or lose it. I have a few friends for different languages that I've kept in touch with.

• Speaker #0

  You are my buddy for this language. No,

• Speaker #1

  not specifically. They're just my friends who happen to speak those languages. But yeah, so I try to keep in touch by like talking more to my friends. And that's good for me because then I talk to my friends also. But listening to music, I'm very musically motivated. And now these days I'm trying to read more just in general because before I got my master's, before I did my master's, I read all the time. Like I consume books like they're chips. And then I did my master's and I had to read so much. that for I think like a year and a half after didn't read anything longer than a long-form news article because I was just over it and I love reading it just took me a while to get back Anyway, now I'm trying to read more in all the languages, just like short stories to help me keep up with vocabulary and like sentence structure and stuff so I don't forget.

• Speaker #0

  Nice. Yeah. I have to say that I do speak in, read in either French and English very often. I just got the Harry Potter books in German, which I've not started yet.

• Speaker #1

  Tell me how that goes, because that's an interesting translation story because they're not like literally translated. They have their...

• Speaker #0

  Some words are different.

• Speaker #1

  And different character names.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. But actually, I do feel like it's going to be almost easier. Because apparently, so far, what I've understood is that the French characters are more different. English and German are closer.

• Speaker #1

  Okay.

• Speaker #0

  In terms of the character names. Yeah. We have completely different names. But the first time, I don't think I read in English. I think I only watched in English the Harry Potter. But now I have them in English because... unfortunately I lost my copies my French copies there was a flood in my parents home and I lost my original copy so they got me the books but they got them to me in English so maybe at some point I'll have them in German, English and French.

• Speaker #1

  You know what that's really cool.

• Speaker #0

  It would be cool to actually get them in French as well. But the German ones I need to start going through them but it's definitely going to be a challenge but yeah I do get it. Sometimes I do feel like speaking is for me the most important, like speaking and listening. But I guess by sometimes having a bit of downtime and just reading the language can help you. Like the way phrasing the sentences. Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  To just get into the mindset of speaking that language. Yeah. And then I don't know how it works for you, but sometimes in my mind I can see, oh, this is how this sentence should go.

• Speaker #0

  Yes.

• Speaker #1

  Or I can hear a sentence that I read or heard in my mind. I'm like, okay. So then I need to formulate it this way.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. yeah i fully agree anything else you would share with the audience about multilingualism um it's not a bad thing just

• Speaker #1

  because i don't know not to get super duper political i was just at an event yesterday called um sprachen macht okay and forum der kulturen and um it was about multilingualism and how it's like a superpower in, well, to society, I think. And we're specifically talking about German society. But I don't know. I've had lots of stories from friends who have kids here who themselves are not German, or they don't speak German at home. And the parents saying, maybe you should speak more German to your kids so their German would be better. And then essentially erasing part of their culture. Kids are sponges. They will figure it out. I figured it out. I learned English at school. I learned Spanish at school. Spoke even at home. I'll figure it out. But there are just a few. There's some things that Germany has to reckon with, I think, with multilingualism and Germany, because just because someone speaks something other than German, it doesn't make it a bad thing. I understand wanting to integrate, wanting people to integrate. And you can do that. You can also have your home language. That's not a bad thing.

• Speaker #0

  I would say it's also something that is happening in France. I think growing up, really, there was multiple pieces, right? There is a part where you had some people that immigrated. And of course, at home, the parents did not speak any French. And therefore, the kids only had French at school. And they had their home language, could be Arabic or some other language, back at home. And in a way, I think it's... amazing that those kids are speaking more than one language what happened is that those people were unfortunately not in the best schools and therefore they were not in the studying environments that allow them to practice properly what was needed for school and therefore the French was not as good and it was viewed as a negative standpoint now I've seen the opposite being now in a multicultural environment and having friends I have friends that have kids that now speak like three languages already or understands yeah because it's too yeah it's like and it's amazing you know it's like i have friends they're like she's spanish she's french and they live in the uk and the kid understand all three languages is still young and there is a bit of a struggle but it's like having that opportunity now the parents do speak english so in that case it's a bit easier for sure like for school and stuff but in general i when i've seen it i've seen the opposite i knew a guy Okay? where he's from Portugal, but his parents moved him out of Portugal. He must have been four or five. And they learned German and integrated and only spoke German to him. And so he never was able to speak Portuguese. And so now he cannot speak with his grandparents. And for me, it's like it's such a loss. And I think it's important to ensure that your kid speaks the language and is doing good at school and therefore has a capacity with the language. to be able to work it through. But knowing any further language is going to advance them quite a lot.

• Speaker #1

  It even changes your brain. It just makes it easier to learn other things too. And also, not being able to speak to your grandparents is actually really sad to me. You just block off so much of your family. So that means he doesn't talk to his other family. Because I'm going to assume his family doesn't speak German. The extended family.

• Speaker #0

  I mean, this is why I don't speak to him. So we didn't get to talk further details on that. but this is basically what he told me he's like oh yeah like my parents are from portugal but i never learned the language so i don't speak to my grandparents so i'm guessing yeah his cousins or whomever he does he doesn't speak because he only speaks german and english and so it's definitely a loss not like to lose that that language i do understand the importance of integrating and learning the language of the countries but it's like it shouldn't be going against you knowing other languages exactly it's that's the most important exactly a friend of mine she's learning german and she's getting her b2 in order to be able to support her kid when he has to do homework in the future and of course this is a privileged environment you know some people don't have the privilege that we have to to do that and to take classes and courses but having a bit of that awareness okay my kid is in the school that speak x language so i need to ensure that he's still doing good or she doing good in that language but in the meantime i don't want them to lose the other languages that i know that i can teach them it's finding the balance i guess so yeah yeah no i for me it's uh it's really a topic right uh also with and very political i guess in some ways in today's society right we are very um i think there is a form of protection that's happening in the world but knowing multiple languages can only open up. doors and open up people's mindset as well exactly yeah and um i think i've seen i've seen also the case to be honest where um people who would um i think it was like kid was like two or three and speaking but then struggling to express themselves because you know spoke some words in one language some words in the other language so it was still like a bit of a mess you know mess like exactly that's normal but then in a couple of months or a year later then the kids were like okay with this person i speak this language is this person i speak that language and it made it so and all of a sudden the kids speak like three languages i mean it's amazing honestly that's yeah that's normal yeah it's even normal to like have kids who speak later when they have multilingual input and

• Speaker #1

  you shouldn't be afraid of that but i think what's happening here is that Parents don't know. So they're listening to like myths like, oh, if you don't speak German to your kid, they're not going to speak good German. No, kids are sponges. They'll figure it out. Their brains are meant for this.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  It's fine.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. If you give them a structure and an environment, then they're going to thrive.

• Speaker #1

  Exactly. Even with no structure, they'll figure it out. Have you ever been to like a vacation destination and there are kids and they just play around and then they figure it out?

• Speaker #0

  No. Yeah. They don't automatically speak the same language or in the same and they end up.

• Speaker #1

  having a lot of fun exactly like my aunt is from saint martin's so um when they got when she got married to my uncle the wedding was in saint martin's and so like i had all these kids around my age i think i was 10 no i was eight i was eight i don't know french still don't know french sorry um and everyone spoke french but we figured it out so you know where there's a will there's a way and like i keep saying kids are sponges and people will figure out how to communicate yeah

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, I agree. I think there is just one point, right, to finish on that, because I know that in France, the companies have to speak French at work.

• Speaker #1

  Okay.

• Speaker #0

  It's mandatory. And there is a form of protectism of the French language to ensure that it continues and it's not like stopped or taken over by English in a way. Okay. I would say that anyway, there are some words that are becoming from the English language that are not part of the French language.

• Speaker #1

  Le weekend.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, we can, for example, exactly. But do you think that still... ensuring that if the countries themselves are ensuring that the language continues having those kind of laws make sense or would do you think it's stopping that melting pot environment i think that when people try too hard to control something then it starts to get weird yeah like language is actually like a living thing so

• Speaker #1

  you just want it to stay like a relic of something language is always changing and progressing and the life we're living you the way we're living now, I bet you in 10 years, we're going to have like a bazillion new words in our vocabulary because things have just changed so much that we need to add more vocabulary for whatever's happening.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  So yeah, you can have like an academia de las letras to say, okay, so this is how we're going to say this candle that blows up because we need this word now, but we don't want it to be like the English one. So we'll make our own.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  I think they should just see what the people are doing, what the people are saying. and then codify it but don't try and like say we only we can only use this word because this is the true spanish or the true french word also who gets to decide because that's that's the other question who who is in these institutions yeah

• Speaker #0

  i mean at the end of the day yeah think about it yeah who's it ah fully fully fully agree i just wanted to know because i mean it's like you don't want everyone to just be speaking one language long term. We also see that, you know, with AI, not everything gets translated. So it's like some people may not be interested in learning other languages and just like, I just need to know one and that's it.

• Speaker #1

  That's depressing.

• Speaker #0

  It's depressing, right?

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, it's boring.

• Speaker #0

  For me, it would be like horrible to just live with some kind of robot or like phone that translate everything whenever I go to a place.

• Speaker #1

  You can never really truly interact with people. I don't know about you, but when I studied abroad in Jordan. I went there, no Arabic, absolutely nothing. People were so nice to me because I was trying. You don't really appreciate how much people appreciate when you learn part of their language because it's like you're accepting their culture and it's just really nice. People were so kind. And it even motivated me to learn more because I was like, wow, this was such a good experience.

• Speaker #0

  But the more you try, exactly, the more you're accepted because even though you make mistakes, you tried yes you tried and it's what people appreciate it that you don't automatically assume that you know i'm i'm just gonna speak english exactly it was hard in greece i was like always like oh my god what's the word again yeah it's uh but it's so interesting right yeah even a couple of words yeah anything just saying like hello how are you in their home language and he said i'm sorry i don't speak more

• Speaker #1

  yeah it's already making it so that people are gonna have a smile exactly such it's such a nice thing to it's just a small easy thing that you can do for someone yeah for sure and for yourself yes because learn more languages fully agree we already had 52 minutes oh wow that was fast i don't know if there is anything else you want to class with i um uh no um nothing i can think of yeah i would say usually at the end of a podcast people like Find me on Instagram.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  Or Twitter. I don't have any of those things. So you cannot find me anywhere. But if you do want to talk to me, ask Judy and she'll give you my email address. And then we can chat.

• Speaker #0

  Yes. Happy to. Did you present yourself? I didn't.

• Speaker #1

  I can. I can now.

• Speaker #0

  You can do it and then I will edit and put it at the beginning.

• Speaker #1

  But it'd be really even funnier if you just left it at the end. Why not? True. Okay. Well, dear listeners, if you didn't figure it out by now. My name is EJ. I am a linguist. I'm technically a computational linguist, but these days I'm not really doing many computational things. I moved to Germany for my master's in 2018 and then took like kind of a two-year pause during COVID and then came back 2022 and I've been here ever since. And now I'm just vibing. Yeah. With Skylar. With Skylar Sneeby. My bestie. And yeah, so that's me. and

• Speaker #0

  I teach English sometimes so thank you so so much for being in the podcast he's waking up as we're finishing yeah it's over man you're done no thank you so much EJ for joining and thank you for asking me these questions this was a good conversation yes exactly this is what I want to do sometimes I'm like I have amazing conversations with my friends I just want to tape it just give me a mic so just schedule your conversations with your friends don't say anything important yeah

• Speaker #1

  Shut up until I get the microphone out.

• Speaker #0

  Exactly. I should do.

• Speaker #1

  Absolutely. It's like, ah, no spoilers. Okay. Thank you so much. Have a nice day. Bye. Bye.

• Speaker #0

  And that's a wrap for today's episodes of The Pulse. If something resonated with you, I would love to hear about it. So drop me a message on Instagram, LinkedIn, or leave a review wherever you're listening. Your feedback fuels this community and I much appreciate it. Make sure to follow The Pulse on your favorite podcast platforms and on social media so you never miss an episode. And if you're craving for more, check out the show notes for links, resources, and ways to connect. Until next time, keep trusting your journey because growth happens one step at a time. See you soon. Bye.