Can there really be a 4 step process to learn any language? Angel Pretot has created just that. In this episode, discover these 4 steps you can apply today to your own studies.

Before we begin…

Choose how you want to enjoy this episode – video with subtitles, podcast on the go, or read the blog version below.

The Video

The Podcast

4 Step Process to Learn Any Language with Angel Pretot

Links from this Conversation

Angel interviewing me on his podcast: https://www.frenchfluency.net/cultural-fluency-podcast/lindsay-does-languages

Angel’s website: https://www.frenchfluency.net/

Angel’s podcast: https://www.frenchfluency.net/cultural-fluency-podcast

Angel’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/frenchfluency.net/

Angel’s YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjUdQ0mm-jrP00TjeVgXiLw

TL;DR – Lessons from this Conversation

You know me, right? I’m typically quite anti-“best ever method”!

Because, hey! Guess what? It doesn’t exist!

So when I sat down with Angel of French Fluency, I was curious to learn more about his 4 step process for language learning that he assured me works for any language.

And it does.

Why?

Because this isn’t a hyper-specific, my-way-or-the-highway method.

It’s a logical, genuine, flexible process that will help you learn languages better starting today – whatever language you’re focused on right now.

We also discuss definitions of those big, juicy words like ‘polyglot’ and ‘fluent’. Plus, why expectations could be the thing holding you back.

Transcript

Lindsay:

Hello, welcome back to How To Learn A Language.
My name is Lindsay of Lindsay as Languages and I am here today to just introduce you before this episode where I’m going to be speaking with Angel (Angel in French) of French fluency and you know me, I’m kind of skeptical when it comes to methods and systems and all of that stuff because there is no
one thing that works for everyone, but truly what Angel has created here, with this four step process, it’s really logical, it’s very genuine, it’s very flexible.
And it will help you learn languages better, whichever language you’re focusing on right now.
So listen into this episode because there may just be something that sparks that missing peace for you.
As well as that, we discuss expectations, definitions of those big juicy words like polyglot and fluent, all of that stuff.
So there’s loads to look forward to and listen to in this episode in our conversation.
And over on Angel’s podcast too.
I’ll link that in the show notes because Angel asks me about what it was like growing up in Britain, where, you know, we’re not exactly known for our language learning skills.
And so we talk a bit about that and then, you know, more on that, two of language learning as well.
So definitely worth tuning into both.
Line them up in your podcast queue so you can hear one after another.
And yeah, I will see you very, very soon.
There is one more thing.
If you have ever enjoyed an episode of How To Learn A Language, if you’ve ever found anything helpful with these episodes of this podcast, there’s one thing that would be massively, massively helpful if you haven’t already done it.
And that is to subscribe to the podcast.
And I know that like, every podcast you listen to, you hear, like, subscribe, follow all of that stuff.
And it’s kind of just like, you sort of ignore after a while, right?
And I never really say that very often on this show, kind of for that reason, because it’s sort of just like background noise, right?
I know that we all, I’m the same, I kind of skim over it.
So I’m telling you this now, just as a bit of a reminder that perhaps you’ve been listening for a while and maybe you haven’t actually subscribed.
And it sounds so simple, but just clicking that button to subscribe helps to tell the tech world, the Spotify’s, the Apple podcasts, the YouTube, wherever you’re listening, that, oh, people like this, and they want to hear more of this.
and then to share it out to more people who are going to find it useful too.
So it really is a useful, very small generous act.
So thank you very much.
If you’ve just heard me talk about that, click subscribe.
I really, really appreciate it.
And that is it.
I will leave you in the capable hands of Angel.
Angel, welcome.

Angel:
Thank you for having me Lindsay.
It’s so nice to be talking to you again.

Lindsay:
Yeah, it’s been a while since we spoke.
I mean, we used to host Clear The List together.

Angel:
Yes.

Lindsay:
With you and Shannon and Kris, and we’ve spoken a few other times as well, sort of outside of that.
But maybe like all of COVID, I don’t think I’ve spoke to you for a good few years at this point.

Angel:
I think so.
Yes, that was before the pandemic last time we were really in touch.
And then during the pandemic, we both got into podcasting.
So now we have the opportunity to have two long conversations about languages and life and all of that.

Lindsay:
Good solid check-in.

Angel:

Yep.

Lindsay:
And for anyone listening who maybe is hearing you for the first time, who unlike me hasn’t spoke to you pre-COVID, would you like to introduce yourself?

Angel:
Yeah, so my name is Angel Pretot.
That’s if you want to like do French shapes, otherwise you can call me Angel.
That’s all fine.
I am a French learning coach.
I have been working online with English speakers learning French since 2016. 2016. So it’s been seven years and a half.
Prior to that, I was already a French teacher.
So overall, I’m almost 20 years into a French teaching career.
And I’m also a polyglot since if you accept the definition of polyglots being someone who can speak six languages, that’s how many languages I can speak.
and the polyglot.

Lindsay:
I accept that definition and I very much accept that admission.
I don’t know if you’ve ever heard me talk about this.
I find it such a funny word for myself as a descriptor.
So I love it when people actually own that and say, yes, I am a polyglot.
It’s always really inspiring to me.

Angel:
Yes, I think for me I’ve been evolving in like the polyglot sphere for quite sometimes even before I had my business I’ve been going to the polyglot gathering and that kind of thing so it’s Very accepted by now.
I know too many polyglots or enough polyglots.
Let’s say so I know people who speak 12 languages So I’m not a very big polyglot compared to them, but you know if the definition is six or more than I make the cup Do you think that’s the definition six or more?
That is the most common definition I’ve found.
I found some definitions that are as little as four.
So whatever definition works for you, I guess.

Lindsay:
Fair enough.
I think that’s pretty much it with a lot of those sort of big language words like polyglot and fluent and conversational like what does that mean to you kind of defining that for yourself so you can decide if it’s something that you want to claim.

Angel:
Yeah, absolutely.

Lindsay:
So languages have been quite significant in your life.
It’s not like, you know, I think we can say that.
You think?
I know you mentioned just before we recorded as well, like, like, since birth, essentially.

Angel:
So I mean, okay, I am a native monolingual.
I’m a French native.
I was born in France.
I lived in France for 25 years of my life.
And I started learning English when the kids started learning English for my generation.
So around the age of 10, 11. 10, 11. So it started normally, but then I think I took a liking for it.
So I learned English quite well, and then I ended up in the section of my school which had the most English, and then the section of high school that had the most English.
And then in France, you have to speak, not speak, but take at least two living languages.
It’s a compulsory part of your school, so I picked Spanish.
And then I decided I wanted to learn German that didn’t go well for a number of years, but eventually I moved to Austria for the first time because I got a job as a French teaching assistant there.
So I learned German like that.
And in the meantime, I had also learned Portuguese and Esperanto just because, you know, why not?

Lindsay:
Hey, yeah, I can relate.
So what was the last language that you learned for yourself?

Angel:
Oh, okay, that’s a difficult question to answer because I always wonder, okay, should I count the ones that have not learned very successful?

Lindsay:
Count them, count them all.

Angel:
Okay, then probably the last one that I studied religiously was Thai.
Because also in 2016 so same year I started my business I went to Thailand with my ex-wife back then we spent a month there so I was like if I’m gonna stay a month in the country I might as well get a little bit of their language under my belt and it’s an extremely difficult language that you really
really need to come into if you want to get anywhere near having an actual conversation you know beyond just telling the taxi where to take you or buying a coconut but that was enough for me so that’s fine I would definitely not con that if I have to con the languages with which I can say as much as
I can say in Thai as my languages I don’t know how many languages I would speak, but it’s a definition, because I studied too many.
I mean, Chinese, Arabic…
What else have I done?
Quite seriously…
Japanese, just a lot, you know.
Once I made the list of all the languages that I studied for at least like five hours, and it was 22 different ones.

Lindsay:
Again, I can relate.

Angel:
Italian, you know, you learn it.

Lindsay:
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
And that’s what why do you say, I mean, treat that you said Thai and it came up there as a difficult language.
Do you think that there are languages that are more difficult to learn and if so, why?

Angel:
Yes.
Definitely, our language is more difficult to learn, but I don’t think it’s inherent to the language.
I think it depends on the person learning them.
For example, my job is to coach English speakers to learn French.
And so because English and French have such a common basis and a common history and a lot of vocabulary in common, It’s very easy for me to draw bridge between English and French and to tell my clients, okay, you have this pattern and that pattern which you can exploit.
And that’s because the two languages really are very close.
Even though, you know, if you only have ever spoken English, you probably think that French is completely foreign and different.
But if you look at it specifically, there are so many little bridges that you can cross that help you a lot.
Like if you go to my YouTube channel, I speak about that a lot.
But if you pick a language that is very far removed such as Thai, you don’t have the opportunity to exploit those bridges which get you already half of the way they are before you even stop.
So of course it’s considerably harder for me, but for someone else whose native language or who would have already learned languages that are closer, in nature to the Thai language.
For example, if you already know another tone or language, well, you don’t have to learn the concept of tone, but I haven’t.
So, of course, some people will be closer to some languages than others.
Yeah, yeah.

Lindsay:
Like if you already speak Lao, fluently from birth.
For example, yeah.
It isn’t going to be, you know, that’s going to be like you will be learning Dutch, let’s say.

Angel:
Yeah, exactly.

Lindsay:
And do you think then, because I know we’re going to talk about how you work with learners, and in particular, you’re sort of four steps that you’ve realized your own learning from working with, as you say, English speakers learning French specifically, the kind of four steps that you’ve realized
over and over again are necessary.
Do you think that that can be applied to any language regardless of difficulty, regardless of the space it is here?

Angel:
I absolutely think the four steps can be applied to any language and then what will differ is how long it will take you to develop a certain amount of fluency in that language.
But I definitely think the four steps are applicable because it’s a process, it’s not dependent on the language.
And then on top, of course, of the four steps, I use a lot of little hacks and those are language specifics.

Lindsay:
Yeah, excellent.
Okay.
Well, let’s get into that now.
So I’ve just teased it a little bit, but what are the four steps?
How is it that you learn languages and how do you teach people how to learn languages as well?

Angel:

So the four steps are something that I realized I was well into my coaching journey already when I realized that was definitely a thing and you could really narrow the process down to four steps.
So there are the spell S A I S, which is like I know in French.
So S is for selection, A is for activation, I is for immersion and the second S is for safe practice.
So selection is really and if you these are like maybe four pillars they’re always in order so it’s kind of like steps but you also can consider them like the four pillars that support your language learning journey and if one of them is missing it’s not going to go well or it’s going to take a very
long time or you know so the first one is selection That’s really something I insist a lot heavily on with my clients since we are recording the video.
I can show you this.
This is what I use for selection.
It’s a part of the roadmap to frequency that so this is always personalized for every single client and it’s the list of the so called task that they need to learn for themselves.
So for some people, it will be very important to travel and to order food at a restaurant.
That will be something that will be selected for them.
For other people, that will be, for example, a doctor.
It’s important to be able to lead a consultation with a patient, for example.
Depending on who you are, different things will be more important to you.
And what you call fluency is the ability to do all the things that you want to do in your target language with friction or any kind of problem.
So that’s fluency, meaning if you’re a doctor, you don’t care about being able to speak about love, for example.
But I also have a lot of clients who are lawyers and they care about love, they don’t care about leading a patient consultation.
So you can understand that of course selecting is super important and that’s really the step that is missing in most language learning methods that you can find in apps or in books or wherever is that you get a very generic flavor of the language and sure it’s interesting but it’s not specifically
targeted to you so you will waste a lot of time learning things that are not relevant.
And Tim Ferris famously said it’s not how you learn, it’s what you learn.
you know, team Ferris is really big on like the 80-20 principle and if you select the 20% that gives you the most effect, you can cut off a lot of the work time.
So that’s what selection is about.
Like, really start by making sure that what you’re learning is actually relevant to you.
Then you will have cut off, cut off, sorry, a lot of the study time.
So if you miss this step, then you will probably take a very, very long time to learn even if you get the other four correct.

Okay.
The second?

Lindsay:
Yes, go ahead.
I’m going to try and ask at each point.
So maybe if someone’s listening and I think, okay, I can see that, it makes sense.
I don’t yet know what kind of scenarios I find myself in.
I just want to, I’m just learning for fun right now.
I don’t have that specific focus.
I’m not a doctor, a lawyer.
I don’t have those scenarios laid out for me very clearly.
Where do I begin?

Angel:
If you’re learning for fun and you don’t have a goal with the language, you’re just enjoying the language.
It’s not necessary to do the selection because like I’m always speaking from my perspective as a coach, which the job of a coach is to take someone from where they are to where they want to be.
But if you’re learning for fun and you don’t have a where you want to be like next year, I want to do this with my friends.
If it’s not relevant to you, then it’s okay.
You don’t have to do it.

Lindsay:
Okay, okay.

Angel:
Yeah.
So the selection in that scenario becomes kind of less important.
But then at some point, as you go along, you might realize, oh, actually, I’m really enjoying this.
I want to take it further.
That’s when the selection would then come into play.
Yes, it’s only really important if you have a clear goal of what you want to do with the language, of course, if you’re just learning languages because it’s your hobby, that might not be relevant to you.
I have very few of my clients, perhaps none of them, whose language learning is just a hobby.
Like all of them are doing it because they have a career goal or because they have family members in French speaking countries, that kind of thing.
So that’s why it’s the first step for us.
But I can see how in some situations that would not be as critical.

Lindsay:
No, that makes sense.
I’m just playing devil’s advocate.

Angel:
That’s totally fine.
I mean, I want to see the one case that is not the one I focus on in my work.

Lindsay:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Angel:
Yeah.
Okay, so then the next stage activation.
So yes, the next stage is activation.
I got some inspiration for labeling it this way from the law of attraction and manifesting community.
Where the idea is that if you set your goal and you visualize your goal, you’ll become able to attract it.
That’s generally the bottom line.
Activation is the moment when you study some of the things you’ve selected, you can’t of course study them all at once.
It would be too good.
But you pick something from what you’ve selected and you study it carefully in a focused manner.
For example, if one goal would be to go to a restaurant or order food, Maybe with your tutor, you can just practice ordering food and then you can learn the words that you have missing.
That’s what I would do with one of my clients.
I would say I would learn teach them words such as dessert and maybe forked because maybe you want to ask for a fork or a glass of wine or those kind of words.
So you bring the words in consciously, which you know that you would need.
So words, grammar structures, any kind of language element that you need.
And you have to study them at least once so you know that they exist because then that’s useful for the next step, which is the next two steps actually.
The next step is immersion.
So immersion is the so called unfocused study.
You don’t actually have to focus when you do immersion.
It’s cool if you’re watching a movie in French and you just cannot check out or if you’re listening to a podcast or YouTube video and you’re driving or cooking at the same time.
That’s a really good way to have more of the language and Most of language learning and language processing is subconscious anyway.
Like, right now, as I’m speaking English to you, I am not thinking in detail about the words in the grammar.
Like, I would not have time to do that.
And I brainwashed, all does it subconsciously.
And the process of learning, you have to get to the point where you can do it subconsciously.
And the best way that I know how to do that is to just have a lot of immersion and do it while you’re doing something else.
Because otherwise, you just don’t have the time.
You’re busy, you know?
So basically having activated things in phase two will allow you to notice when those things are being used in the podcast movie or whatever.
I’m like, oh, yeah, I know that and then you will understand more and more It could be easier to understand things during your immersion practice if you are not actually focusing because sometimes when you are focusing you block it And you’re like, ah, I don’t know.
And if you’re focused on like, I don’t know, I don’t understand.
Then of course, your brain is going to do more of, I don’t understand.

Lindsay:
And I was going to say actually on that note of immersion and you said in doing it at the same time as other things.
It was something I learned recently.
I think it might have been the book, How We Learn.
I’ve forgotten the author’s name and I took about all this time.
I think it’s Benedict Carey and I’m sure it was in there where basically in terms of as we are like in it essentially in immersion, you know, when we’re learning, when we have other things going on, it’s kind of creating these other like triggers, these are the little anchors of memory, right?
And we have this image, don’t we, of like needing to sit down in a choir empty room, open the book, and study for one hour, non-stop, and then no distractions.
But actually, what this was saying from all the studies in the backup of it was that when you are doing something else, you are helping yourself to remember by giving yourself these extra little triggers, which is really interesting, because it just goes against everything that we do.
Both are absolutely necessary.
So the book and the book and study for an hour, that’s the activation step, it’s step number two.
And then the immersion basically supports, they support each other, let’s just say, like they really work together.

Angel:
You don’t really want to be missing any because if you miss the immersion, the best you can achieve is a sort of robotic, difficult way of speaking and typically you will speak at best like a book, quote unquote.
But most likely you won’t speak at all because you just won’t have the time in the flow of speech to be putting together all of the words because it’s just, I mean, if I had to be thinking right now of every word and every grammar structure that I’m using in English, it’s not possible, right?
And if you do only your active study, that’s the best you can achieve.
You can put the words one after the other in your grammar exercise.
It has a place, but it’s not all of it.
And then if you would do only the immersion and miss the activation part, maybe if you are, if you have a certain inclination, it would still work.
But I think it would be a lot longer and you’ll probably be a lot more unsure about yourself because at no point you have been like, oh, this is the right way.

Lindsay:
Yeah.

Angel:
So that really is really important to have them both.
And if you would have all three, or maybe you could skip the selection, say you’re a hobby learner and you don’t have a timeline or anything, say you do your activation and your immersion really well, eventually you would reach the point where you would be a very good passive novel of the language.
So you’ll probably be able to understand it and read it.
But you most likely won’t be able to speak it or also write it, which is where the last step comes in, and that’s called safe practice.
So practice, I think everybody understand it.
Like if you want to ever become able to speak, you just have to speak.
It’s self-explanatory, I guess.
So it’s like, yeah, really, you pay the cost to hear that.
Sorry, not a magician, you really have to speak at some point and also to write at some point, but it’s really important to do it in a safe environment.
In a place where you know nothing bad can happen to you and the worst thing that can happen is that you will all have a good laugh because he said something completely outrageous while not meaning to.
And then, you know, if it’s in one of my classes, I will tell you, okay, And this was quite funny what you said, because actually you said this and you meant the complete opposite, which could happen with French particularly.
Or you, you know, use a word that sounds pretty innocent, but actually you just made some sexual advances to your close students.
So maybe don’t do that in real life.
could go wrong.
And it’s really important to have a space where you know that you can try out things.

Lindsay:
If you think about how we’ve been learning languages, when we were teenagers, you had the opposite situation of that.
You had the situation where if you said something ridiculous in class, you could probably gain a unique name and you will never be on the end of it, right?

Angel:
So you don’t want that.
You want an environment where it’s totally fine to be making any mistakes.
So that is something I’ve focused a lot on my work, just creating this space where the student can come and they can try out anything and they will automatically gain something positive from the experience.
So more French, better way of saying things, et cetera.

Lindsay:
I’m really excited to see that inclusion of the word safe with the practice because For a long time, there has been this, I’m going to call it like a pressure of if you want to learn the language, if you really want to be good, you’ve just got to go out, you’ve got to practice, you’ve just got to be
brave, you’ve got to get over your fear, you’ve just got to go and speak regardless of mistakes.
And I understand that message, but equally, it isn’t necessarily the most productive environment to put yourself in.
Learning a language in the first place, incredibly vulnerable, is going from being able to fully express yourself to not being able to do that.
And that puts you in a vulnerable position.
And so to then suddenly enter a new environment without that sort of knowledge of language, and then be expected to just go, ah, here we go, let’s try let’s practice, isn’t going to work for everyone.
So I love that inclusion of ‘safe’ in the safe practice.

Angel:
Absolutely.
I think for a very long time and largely still to this day, the focus within all of the language learning classroom and methods and so on, is on the language.
So what you should be learning in theory, who selects that, that’s, you know, open to question but the focus is really on the language and not so much on the learner but experience reveals that if you focus more on the learner what they need what they can do at what point and what would be the best
environment for them to actually accept the language in their life because it’s really what it is it’s not just learning something as in learning a fact or a series of fact, or I don’t know if you want to learn the list of all American presidents, you can just learn them, you know, by rote memory,
you can’t learn a language like that.
You have to make it yours and take it with you.
So it’s really important that it’s not just the language, it’s mostly you and then the language.
And I think that’s a mistake that is largely made, has been made for most of the history of language learning and is still made in most methods to this day.
And it’s understandable, too, because it is seen as a subject in the same sense as history, like you just learning the Presidents in the same sense as maths.
And with that, there are lots of facts that you learn.

Lindsay:
And, you know, language is always, for me at least, I feel, fallen in the middle of the factual subjects at school that have one right answer and the more creative subjects that have a variety of interpretations and languages in the middle where there is this accuracy that is required for you to be
understood but you can use that knowledge that you gain to express yourself creatively.
So it’s this really interesting subject that is actually quite unique in that sense and I think…

Angel:

Yeah, I think you can compare it to music because you can learn everything you want about music via reading.
It’s not going to help you play an instrument.
You have to practice your instrument.
So it’s kind of like that.

Lindsay:
That’s a really good comparison.
Yeah.
I talk about sport a lot and how that too.

Angel:
Yes.

Lindsay:
You know, the mindset and the training that you go through for something like that really parallels itself very, very nicely.

Angel:

That’s a good one too.
Yes.

Lindsay:
Yeah, yeah.
Okay, cool.
This is this is really interesting.
And so with those four steps and you mentioned as well as it’s then repetition, it’s not just a case if you’ve done selection, activation, immersion, self practice, boom, fluent.

Angel:
No, it’s indeed four steps that you have to run through.
So you select, you can do a lot of the selection at first.
So that’s the way that I do it with my clients.
I make the road map at the beginning.
It still is a living document and sometimes we change some other things because they go on a trip and then they do that trip and then that is no longer a goal because they’ve achieved that, but they have this new plan, for example.
So you can change it a little bit.
But generally, there will be a core selection for you as a person to what is important for you, basically.
And then you have to activate a little bit of that at the time, every time.
And immersion is, ideally, every day, that would be better.
But it doesn’t have to take you any time.
It’s the quickest that you listen to in your car or while you’re cooking or something like that.
Or the Netflix series that you chill with when you have your evening or whatever.
And then safe practice is, well, yeah, your French class typically.
So I have a group program.
We have two classes a week.
And I also do one-on-one classes.
So that could be your safe practice.
I also strongly encourage everybody whether they work on me or not to get a language partner or to speak their language with some friends of them or really get every opportunity to practice.
try to make sure that the people that you are practicing with are supportive and will create a safe environment for you.
As long as you can, maybe it’s part of your job to speak French and you just have to and bear the consequences, which if that’s the case, I really strongly recommend hiring a coach so you can practice ahead of time, the stuff that will potentially be dangerous for you in the future, right?
But for most people that won’t be the case and you can select environments that are more friendly.

Lindsay:
Yeah, excellent.
So as you said, people can work on this method with you.
That’s for English speakers learning French, correct?

Angel:
Yes.

Lindsay:
And what about if people, you mentioned as well, people can do this on their own.
Can we talk through that process again and go through the four steps and what that might look like if you were doing this independently?

Angel:
So if you were doing this on your own, for the first step, for example, I have a visualization.
I have that video on my YouTube channel.
And yes, it says French every time, but just replace it with whichever language you’re learning.
The idea is really to imagine your life.
And you can make that the sort of meditation thing.
I have the track on my channel.
But you can also just try to journal it.
What are all the things that you would do when you speak the language?
And there’s a bit of a trap in this one.
I see people making a mistake frequently that they will try to bowl categories together like, oh, speak about all the things that interest this person.
And no, make the list of all the things that interest this person.
Like, you know, speak about my interest.
What are your interests?
Oh, a gardening cooking and my dog.
And okay, so gardening cooking my dog.

Lindsay:
Right.

Angel:
Yes, you really want to detail it exactly because if it’s not detailed, then you’ll have problem in the activation step because you like, for example, Okay, today you’ve decided that you’re going to learn to speak about your interest because that was the line of on your roadmap when you did the
selection process.
It’s possible that at this point you’ll draw a blank because, oh, well, where are my interests?
So it’s better to really have them there.
And oh, okay, today my topic of study is my dog.
And it can be part of your class, but it will also be just you deciding to learn about your dog.
I’m sure you can type in Google Spanish vocabulary to speak about dogs and someone has made a blog post or a video about that.
And then that will be your activation.
You can practice that.
consciously and like right on the world of the words that you need and perhaps there’s a grammar structure that is really helpful about your topic and that will be your study.
You can totally do it on your own.
Then you have your immersion which is yes, go ahead.
on the activation stage.
So finding, let’s say it’s talking about my dog, finding those lists of words, finding the vocabulary, the grammar, the structures, the concepts, all of that to talk about it.

Lindsay:

Am I just writing them down and discovering them, or rather discovering them and writing them down in that order?
Or is there some kind of active, like, rote learning of some kind that goes on in that activation stage?

Angel:
That’s really on the one hand up to you and on the other hand up to the resource that you have.
So for me, the way that I do it, I have my client.
We’re on the one-on-one or you can also do it in a group class.
It just will be shorter.
And I will give the words to my client as it goes.
So we decide to, okay, today we’re speaking about your dog.
And so tell me how your dog, what is your dog’s name?
Hopefully you’ve already have a session introducing yourself.
So, you know, you know, the name of my dog is.
Okay.
And then whenever something’s missing, the dog’s breed, dog body part, dog with whatever bowl or whatever, then I give them to you.
And we continue like that.
And I will give you the homework to write a paragraph in French about your dog.
So that’s how I do it.
But of course, if you’re doing it on your own, that will depend on the resource that you can find.
But it’s not, it might not make a big difference how you do it because anyway, you need to keep practicing your immersion.
And it’s really in the safe practice step that they come together.
So of course, like the thing that I described where I was having the conversation with my clients, that’s both steps at the same time as activation and also safe practice.
They are linked together here.
So perhaps the way that you do it, I don’t know, you have a language partner and you’re like, okay, this session, we’re gonna speak about my dog and you get to do exactly what I do with my client with that person.

Lindsay:
Okay, yeah, that makes sense.
That makes sense.
In terms of immersion, then, if we’re talking about my dog, I’m finding dog related.

Angel:
Yeah, so if you’re really, really a dog person, don’t worry.
The internet is full of dog persons of every language you can think of.
If you’re a dog breed, someone has made a Spanish YouTube channel about dogs, okay?
And if you’re really into that, then go watch it.

Lindsay:
Okay, that’s the kind of immersion that we’re looking for.

Angel:
Yes, yes, it really immersion has to be the things that you’re interested in.
It has to be something that you would also watch if it was in English.
And then you just sort of switch the, I mean, not switch the language because it’s not the same piece of content.
Although sometimes you can, sometimes you can just switch the language on a movie.
But most of the time, if it’s a YouTube channel, you have to find a different YouTuber that does it in the language that you’re learning.
But really, don’t try to force yourself to listen to things in your target language just because they’re in your target language, but you don’t really care about the topic.
because then you will break two rules of language learning.
One, you break the selection element because it has to be something that you care about, which you would have selected.
And two, the something that’s really super important is that you have to enjoy the process as much as possible because your brain is like, I know it’s counterintuitive because we’ve been so trained to think that, oh, if it’s hard, it’s good for you.
To some degree, yes, but you have to feel some enjoyment in the process.
Your brain will learn a lot more by playing.
Like when you were a small child, you were learning everything by playing.
It’s only later on when you grew up that you had to go to school and do all the hard stuff that adults wanted you to do.
But think about everything you learned when you were young, you learned by playing.
So it has to have at least some enjoyment element for it to be effective.
Yeah, kind of essentially you’re getting into a flow state with it, right?
You’ll find in the right balance of challenge and enjoyment with it so that it’s not too easy, too hard, boring.
Yes, if it’s either boring or just extremely so hard that you can’t do it, then your brain is going to reject it and you have your positive effect of what you want.

Lindsay:
Goldilocks, that’s what we want.

Angel:

Yeah, exactly.
But still, I would not, I mean, I recommend very strongly to use real-world, native-level material for your immersion.
And yes, it might seem that it breaks the Goldilocks rule, but the key to it is that you need to not care as much about understanding everything.
I always tell my clients, I know it’s a bit uncomfortable at the beginning, but you don’t need to understand anything.
If you understand 0%, 0%, Of what you are listening to, it’s totally fine.
Just keep doing it.
And when they do that, they’re like, Oh, I understand like 20%.
It’s like we said about being vulnerable, you need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Yes, you need to, like, you don’t have any, you must not have any expectations of how much you understand when you’re listening to a piece of content as part of your immersion.
That’s not the goal.
The goal is to tell your brain, okay, this language is here to stay, deal with it.
And then your brain will deal with it somehow.
And whatever it does, you need to be happy with that.
If you’re not happy with the results or if you’re not at least neutral about the results, if you’re like really having negative feelings about your immersion practice, you need to switch what you’re listening to because you’re watching because something is wrong.

Lindsay:
You get the very least, if you’re a dog person and you’re watching a dog YouTube channel, even if it was in a different language that you understand nothing at all, you could still be able to look at dogs and be happy.

Angel:
I mean, exactly.
You’d still be watching because the dogs are engaging dogs, like, come on.
Yeah, that’s what you’re looking for.

Lindsay:

You mentioned something there.
You mentioned briefly about expectations.

Angel:
Yes.

Lindsay:
When people first start learning with you, do you notice any patterns with the expectations that people have?

Angel:
I do find that it’s common for them to ask how long it’s going to take.
And because I’m quite experienced with doing it, I’m able to give them a certain number.
And generally, I try to under promise and over deliver because I don’t want to create expectations that are unrealistic.
If you know no French at all right now, you’re not going to be fluent next month.
I’m not saying it’s completely impossible, but I have not witnessed it myself.
I did recently publish on my YouTube channel again study and the title is Speak French in 40 days.
And that student, that’s really interesting actually because when she first came to me, she had very low expectations.
She was like, oh, I would like to be fluent when I retire in 20 years and I told her, Okay, I think we can make it happen sooner than that.
And she really, really committed to it.
And we recorded the case that year, month and a half after we started working together.
So that’s why it’s 40 days on the text, on the title, because just sounds really good.
And because she did become able to speak quite well within this very short span of time.
But the kicker is, for the previous, I don’t know how many years, she was just trying to learn French.
She was very committed, but the method that she had were not very conducive to speaking, so to speak.
So she knew a lot, but because she could not speak anything, it felt to her like she was a complete beginner.
And she was like, oh, maybe like at this rate, you know, given how much progress I’ve made in those few years, in 20 years maybe with the right help.
I’ll get there, but actually took on your month and a half to become able to have a conversation.
I did not tell her at that point, oh, it would take a month and a half.
I just noticed that that’s how long it took, but that’s because she had so much work done already.
So really, it really, really depends.
Generally, I consider that if you’re starting from zero and you’re quite committed to the process, a year to become able to have all the conversations you want is a reasonable timeframe to expect because people want me to give an answer.
So like, okay, if you commit to it, one year is a reasonable expectation.
Some people would do it in six months.
I also have a case study on my website that is someone who did it in six months.
But yeah, it really depends on the person and their circumstances.

Lindsay:
And it’s such a kind of arbitrary thing too, right?
Like you could say, yeah, you can do this in a year, but then if within that year loads of bad, quote unquote, bad things happen in your life and you’re really distracted.
And as the kids would say, life is life-ing, and everything is, I don’t know if people really say that, but it feels like people would, you know, everything is just happening.
And like, You don’t have time to sit down and to think, okay, selection, what do I want to learn, activate, ready to go, immersion, let’s see, you know, you don’t have time to even think about learning a language, then that year isn’t going to happen.
And your expectation, if you were thinking about the end of this year, boom, I’ll have level, and then you don’t, that motivation passes.

Angel:

Especially if you’re doing it on your own, because you have even less control of the process, if you’re doing it by yourself, If you’ve done several languages already, you’re already a polyglot.

Lindsay:
Sure.

Angel:
You can have a reasonable expectations of how long it will take you to learn the next one because you’re already practiced.
But if on the other hand, you’re a monolingual like the people I work with, it’s very difficult to set an expectation for yourself that’s when you can really be helpful to have a coach because then your coach will be able to assess your situation and be like, okay, knowing my past experience of
people similar to you, this is what you can expect as if you commit this much.
But I do have to answer this question for them because I ask them to put up a commitment of like a certain amount of time and money per month.
So of course, the next question is, okay, how long do I have to do that?
It’s like, oh, I don’t know what happens when it happens.
I don’t think that’s a good argument for you or in me.

Lindsay:
Yeah, no, that makes sense when people are looking to work with you for sure.
Definitely.
And so, okay, all of these steps, I’m really seeing it quite clearly how it makes sense, how it works together.
Is there anything else?
Is there anything else that’s part of the process that we haven’t discussed yet?

Angel:

One thing that we haven’t spoken about too much is all of the elements that are language specific because so far everything we have discussed will work for any language, not just French.
But like me, I’m only an exclusivity teaching French because in the past I’ve taught other languages and stuff.
I’m actually only teaching French to English speakers.
Not all are native but most are native.
And it’s my specialty because I found that I am a lot more competent as a coach if I zero in on like one element.
And of course, I know you have taken a completely different path for like you help people really just learn a language like any language.
And that’s like just a really a different way of doing things than what I do.
Like what I do is really focusing on all of the little shortcuts that you can use as an English speaker to become able to speak French faster.
So I don’t know how much you’d like to hear about learning French specifically about like for example on my YouTube channel I have a short video that is like 400 words in under one minute just because all of the words that end with eight in English you have verbs and adjectives that end with eight you can always almost always just remove the eight
and put ER for the verb or EN the accent for the adjective and boom you have the French word So that’s a really useful pattern to learn, because as soon as it goes, oh, how do we say, um, we differentiate, you know, oh, it’s the eight.
Drop the eight with ER and it’s different.

Lindsay:
And even that transfers across language, right, the concept of pattern recognition.

Angel:
Right.

Lindsay:
And, you know, thinking, okay, well, if that’s how it works in French, what is, what is that structure in German in Russia?
Korean, is there something similar?
And I think that is also, you know, I really feel that there’s, there’s one of the strengths of learning multiple languages is that When you are trying to say something for the first time and then it comes up and you’re like, oh, like a good example might be let’s say comparative superlative stuff
when you suddenly get to that point, that’s what I want to say and you think, okay, well, I know that in French, it would be structured like this and say, right, does it?
Is it the same way in this language?
So you can think, okay, I know the word for ‘it’plus’, that equivalent of like, oh, you know, and, and you can sort of piece things together a bit and attempt that.
And then, you know, picturing then the, the patterns as you go, picking them all up.
And if you already know that a structure is similar in English and in French because you know those two languages, if you’re then learning German or Spanish, you have a good chance that it’s also similar.

Angel:
Right.
And that is also why, you know, circling back to the question you asked me at the beginning, do I think that some languages are more difficult than others?
Well, it really depends which languages you already know because then so many patterns will be transferable to other languages and not to some other languages depending on how far they are.

Lindsay:
Yeah, I can see that.
I have a question for you about your languages specifically.
Yes.
You mentioned the the last language that you learned kind of true decent level would have been tied.
Did you say it was 26?

Angel:
26?
I wouldn’t say my level.

Lindsay:
Well, at the time, at the time.

Angel:
I guess it depends on the definition of decent.

Lindsay:
I’m very liberal with the definition of decent.

Angel:

Okay, fine.
And my Thai was at some point decent.
At some point there we go.

Lindsay:
So what do you feel like, from 2016 – in that time since then and now what has your own language learning looked like?

Angel:
Now since 2016, that’s really is the point where I decided that I would not pursue new languages instead I would be really zeroing on English and French and go as deep as I can on those two because there are the ones that are most relevant to my work.
So my language learning, I mean at this point I don’t really know what constitutes language learning and what constitutes just life.
Because right now I’m speaking a second language to you.
Is this technically language learning?

Lindsay:
I would consider this safe practice for you.

Angel:
Okay.
So safe that you’re going to put it online and then it will be fine.

Lindsay:
But if you said to me, if you said to me, oh, I’m not sure, then I wouldn’t!

Angel:
Of course.

Lindsay:
So safe practice!

Angel:
All right.
That’s it.
That’s fine.
You’re a supportive language partner.

Lindsay:
Absolutely!

Angel:
Yes, so a lot of my life is really English immersion.
I think I deal with English more every day than idea with French.
Just because a lot of the things that I’m listening to are in English, some of it is in French, but typically if I really want to know about something that is recent, for example, I’m really big student of astrology, I just find it super interesting and fascinating.
And there’s just a lot more of content about that and especially about the recent research that is in English it’s a fact very little of what I have found interesting to study is in French some of it is but maybe 10% so you could consider that to be my language learning but at some point really
learning a language, like the language that you are committed to, it has to become part of your life.
It’s just something that you do and I don’t really consider that learning.
I live in Austria, so that’s the German speaking country.
I’ve been living in German speaking countries for 10 years.
Occasionally I have to deal with the German language.
I don’t love it because typically it’s some sort of administrative hassle.
So it’s not enjoyable.
It’s the opposite of what we were discussing the enjoyment of the language, but I have to do it.
And that will occasionally require to look up a word or learn another word or, you know, how to conjugate a new verb or things like that.
And I don’t really consider it language learning.
It’s just something that I do as part of my life.
My girlfriend is Mexican, so she’s a Spanish native speaker.
So we speak Spanish together.
Very often she teaches me new Spanish words, but I’m not coming at it with an outlook of oh, I’m learning a language right now.
It’s more like, what did you just say?
Okay, let me write that down.

Lindsay:
Ooh, new phrase here.

Angel:
Yeah.

Lindsay:

Yeah.
You mentioned about there being more in English.
Um, the astronomy stuff and I’m wondering like, What would be your advice for, and I know specifically you work with French learners, but in general, I’m going to ask anyway, what would be your advice if you are looking for that immersion content and the stuff that you enjoy in a language that is
lesser studied and is less popular on the internet?
Obviously English is a big chunk of the internet.
What would be your advice for that when you can’t find as much out there about the stuff that interests you in the language you want to learn?

Angel:

That becomes really challenging and actually have a language that I have put on the back burner, possibly forever, because of this special issue that you point out.
My ancestors were speaking a language which is a sort of dialect of French, I guess.
I don’t really know how to define it.
It would be called Borguignon or Morvendio in the, well, when the French researchers speak about it, that’s what they call it.
I don’t know that they would even give a name to it as speakers, and there are just a handful of speakers left.
There are, when I looked it up, there were a total of three YouTube videos.
In that language, I listened to them all, and I thought that was super interesting.
I could do some pattern of like, how it is different to French and like what kind of things you could, but if I don’t have a speaker to speak to, I can’t really learn it and unfortunately all of the speakers or the vast majority of them are really old and you can’t just easily get them on a Zoom
call like that.
So sometimes it can become very restrictive.
Hopefully most languages won’t be to that point.
But sometimes you might just have to broaden the stuff that your interest didn’t just for the sake of the language.

Lindsay:
Yeah, that’s a good comparison.
A good piece of advice, that broadening of your interests, because I feel Yeah.
If there is some content at all and you’re really committed to the language, then you just have to watch the content that there is.

Angel:
Like I told you, I watched all of the YouTube videos in that language and that was it, you know.
Because there is something in that I feel that where there’s less, you kind of appreciate it more.
Yes, for sure.
Suddenly you do become interested in, you know, dogs.
Also because it can become very culturally relevant.

Lindsay:
Yeah.

Angel:

Those free videos were really people speaking.
Actually, they were reading a text, which is interesting.
But that was really about the local village life and the kind of things that they do.
So if your language is very typical of an area and you’re interested in this language for cultural reasons, perhaps your ancestors were speaking it.
then it makes sense to also care about their culture and it’s most likely going to be the thing that I’m going to speak about the most.
So that could be an anchor.

Lindsay:
Your podcast is called Cultural Fluency.

Angel:
Yes.

Lindsay:
Is that something that also ties in with the French specifically as well?
Like do you encourage the learners that you work with to engage on that cultural level beyond just the language, beyond just the words in the grammar?

Angel:
Yes, I don’t think you can separate the language from the culture.
I know there have been a lot of attempts to do that.
And if you take language learning apps, they are the champions of this.
They will extract the language and make you feel like it’s like very sanitary thing.
But really it’s not.
And as soon as you speak to an native, you will find out that there’s such a gap between what you have learned and how they speak.
They don’t even have to speak in a very street level, just like they will speak in a way that’s culturally relevant to them.
And it’s going to be miles apart from what has been presented to you as the language capital L. So you have to understand that.
For example, in French, if you are going to start a conversation with someone, you have to say, that has to be the first word that comes out of your mouth otherwise.
hell will break loose because you have just been extremely rude and they just won’t entertain you.
This is something that you might not know if you have just learned from an app or a book because maybe they just didn’t decide to tell you that.
I mean that’s the most culturally relevant thing that you’ll ever meet.
So yeah.
You say that and you know I’ve been learning French since I was like eight years old, and I don’t think anyone’s ever told me that.
And so I’ve probably had scenarios where I’ve just gone up to people in a shop or something or a cafe.
I said, oh, this one, please, or I dropped a please without that bonjour.
I think normally I would say hello.
Anyway, I like to think, but there’s probably been some moments where I have just gone straight into it.
If it’s someone that’s in customer service and it’s their job, they’re probably still going to help you, but you’re working up to someone who’s not asked for your way or something.

Lindsay:
Yeah.
It’s just endless the things that you learn that are not taught in expected typical language learning.

Angel:
Yes.
I mean, if people ask me, like, what is the first thing I need to learn in French?
Learn to say Bonjour in a way that people identify that you’re saying Bonjour to them.
Because if you go up to someone and you say Bonjour, do you speak English?
They’ll absolutely have a much better reaction if you just go do you speak English?

Lindsay:
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, that’s true.
That’s true.
Oh, so interesting.
Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me.
For anyone listening who is curious, wants to learn more about you, wants to see more about your work and what you’re doing, where can they find you?

Angel:
You can find me on my website, FrenchFrench.net.
There is a small starter kit that you can download from free.
I’ll just quickly show it to you for here.

Lindsay:
It has a ribbon on it!

Angel:

Yes, it’s because I tried to tie it together.
It’s called Vocabulary Magic.
That’s one of the elements of this starter kit.
It’s how to help you learn French Vocabulary.
then there’s a group which is called the ultimate guide to learning French with apps and then here it is, the four-step method and then there’s the frequency worksheet which helps you do your selection.
There’s like an outline of how to do the selection process and you can just write that down and then there’s a meditation that you can download and a lot of other little things so you can get that at FrenchFluency.net/starterkit.
or you can find me on social media, on YouTube, on Instagram, with at French Fluency.

Lindsay:
Wonderful.
Angel, thank you so much for joining me today.
And I’m looking forward to speaking with you very soon for your podcast.

Angel:
Yes.
Because people can find you on my podcast too!

Lindsay:
Absolutely, we will link that in the show notes and people can find us.

Angel:
And if you want to learn French, you can always book a call with me.
And we can talk about it and see what we can do together.

Lindsay:
Brilliant.
Thank you so much.

Angel:
Thank you, Lindsay.
Merci.

Lindsay:
Merci, Au revoir.
you