How different is learning English to other languages? Is English easier? I asked non-native English speaker (but often mistaken for one) Kerstin Cable.

Before we begin…

Kerstin Cable of Fluent Language, a native German speaker, has spent over half her life living, studying and working in England. English was her first big language love. I knew this. But after many years of long conversations with Kerstin, I didn’t know how different that experience was to learning other languages for her.

That’s what we discuss in this interview with Kerstin on How To Learn A Language.

You can watch our interview on YouTube – faces ‘n’ all (& subtitles too!) below…

The Video

The Podcast

Alternatively, you can listen on the go to our conversation via the podcast below, or by subscribing wherever you get your podcasts.

How Different is Learning English to Other Languages? – with Kerstin Cable

Links from this Conversation

The latest Words of the Year episode of The Fluent Show (at time of recording).

Kerstin discussing her ‘origin story’ with English and other languages more on The Fluent Show.

The Little Known Secret free webinar Kerstin mentions. (my affiliate link)

All of Kerstin’s products and services! (also my affiliate link)

TL;DR – Lessons from this Conversation

I was really inspired by how Kerstin’s approach to stopping a language has changed over the years. She knows when she’s got what she came for with a language and when to move on. Russian and Mandarin both struck me as examples of this.

Sometimes it’s too easy to feel that a language needs to be learnt to full on fluency or it’s not worth it, but that’s simply not always the case. I’m always delighted when I get to speak with others who know this too.

I think I (possibly like many native English speakers) had this hazy impression of what it’s like to learn English given the cultural presence and soft power of the language.

You hear of people who learnt English watching Friends and wonder why that didn’t quite work for you with Money Heist.

And then there’s the different reasons that are typical for learning. Sure, many people learn languages besides English for work, study, and career reasons. But English does dominate that field for so many learners.

I knew bits of Kerstin’s story with English, but it was great to hear first-hand how that wasn’t really the case for her with English. How it was actually a language learnt out of love.

Sometimes it’s hard for me to think that people would learn English out of love, because I don’t see it that way. You don’t always recognise the beauty in things when they’re up close and you’re surrounded by them the whole time.

It’s why city-dwellers love beach holidays and people that live by the coast might prefer a city break.

So it was great to consider English through another lens, a lens of love and curiosity and exotic-ness, that I’d never considered.

Of course, this is only one person’s take. But speaking with Kerstin in this interview made me realise that maybe, despite the place of English in the world, it’s not that different to learn after all.

Transcript

Lindsay:
Hello, welcome to this episode of How to Learn a Language.
The podcast, all about How to Learn a Language?
Very much in the name.
My name is Lindsay.
I am your host.
And this episode is an interview.
It’s actually the first interview that I’ve recorded intentionally for the podcast.
So we had our first ever interview episode way back, like right at the beginning.
That was recorded with YouTube in mind.
And this I recorded knowing that the podcast exists today.
In fact, the day that I’m filming this little intro.
So yeah, it’s quite exciting.
And it’s with someone that if you know my work and you’ve kind of been following for a little while, then you’ll probably know this person as well.
So I speak to Kerstin Cable.
We have hosted, as you’ll hear us talk about, many a podcast together of her show, The Fluent Show.
And we’ve done lots of different projects together.
Including Women In Language, all sorts of things.
So I wanted to talk to Kerstin specifically – obviously, we talked a lot about language in the past – but I really wanted to talk about her experience learning English primarily.
And we talk about a lot more in the conversation.
It’s really, really, really nice thorough conversation we have.
But I really wanted to start there because I think it’s an interesting topic.
Like, is it different when you learn English versus learning other languages?
And so I wanted to get Kerstin’s perspective on that.
So have a listen.
I hope you enjoy this episode and I’ll speak to you very, very soon.
Enjoy.

Lindsay:

Okay, you ready?

Kerstin:
Yeah.

Lindsay:
Excellent.
All right.
So, Kerstin, hi.

Kerstin:
I’m on Lindsay’s podcast.

Lindsay:
Great to see you.
We’ve never spoken before.
So I have dreamed of this day.

Kerstin:
This is so cool.

Lindsay:
Yeah, it feels, I feel a little bit nervous because I know you just recently like made a course, right, about how to do interviews.

Kerstin:
Oh, yes.

Lindsay:
So like, you know, no pressure on me here for you.
But also if maybe if people are listening to this or watching this and they don’t know who you are, they’ve never heard of The Fluent Show.
Oh, would you like to introduce yourself?

Kerstin:
Okay.
Oh my gosh.
This is so weird.
Okay.
So the reason it’s weird, just in case you don’t know, is because Lindsay and I have, we started our online language learning business, he thinks roughly around the same time as each other, which is sort of about 10 years ago.
And sort of started seeing each other around on Twitter or whatever, I don’t know, MySpace!
I was starting to experiment with my, with my podcast at the time, the Creative Language Learning Podcast and had Lindsay as a guest.
And Lindsay then became co-host because we had so much fun.
I was like, do you want to become my co-host?
And she just says yes to whatever you ask her really.

Lindsay:

Not everything.

Kerstin:
No, but like every project that like you’re always such a good project partner.
So Lindsay was like, yeah, I’m up for it or I’m game.
So Lindsay became my cohost and we have already done about 100 whatever podcast episodes together on a show that I used to host, which I highly recommend to you.
If you’re done with this one, please head over to fluent.show.

So my name is Kerstin Cable. I run a website.
It’s called fluentlanguage.co.uk and hosted for a long, long time, a podcast called the Fluent Show, which is cohosted by Lindsay, where we do words of the year and top tools and a lot of really meaningful discussions and also debates on whether Sean Paul is better than Shakira.
Or actually just Sean Paul Shakira appreciation society really.

Lindsay:
Wow, mere minutes in! Before we started recording, Kerstin said, “Oh, how can I get Sean Paul into the conversation?”
That didn’t take long.
I have to say I’m impressed.

Kerstin:
Yeah, well, that to do list item is now done and I do not need to mention Sean.
Now we can enjoy the conversation.
My own language background and all that stuff is I am from Germany.
I speak native German.
I didn’t learn really formally languages until I was 10. And then I had a fairly good secondary school.
So I did quite a few languages in that.
I moved to England 20 years ago.
I’ve now spent half my life pretty much in the UK.
So I’m also kind of British and I still really love languages and yeah, make courses, talk to people, do some coaching for language learners and you can find out the rest on my website.
That’s a long intro speech already.

Lindsay:

It’s all good.
Thank you for that.
I always feel that people do it themselves better than I ever cared.
So, grateful.
Thank you.
So we’ve obviously spoken a lot about language and about our own languages.
But what I wanted to really focus on today is how you learn English and maybe how that’s been different learning other languages because I feel that there is.
And I say this as a native English speaker.
So you can obviously correct me if I’m wrong.
But I do feel that there is this assumption, perhaps, by native English speakers.
The English is easier to learn because it’s more prolific because it’s kind of everywhere.
The TV gets exported.
The music is all over the place.
Like, and I just wonder if that was the case or how it differed from learning other languages, both in school and then kind of later in life as well.
So yeah, English is kind of the focus.
And I think as well, like, there’s going to be people that listen to this podcast who, like you, speak fluent English, but it’s not their native language.
Maybe there’s a sense there where people can relate to your experience on that.
And that’s going to be really interesting to hear feedback on.
And also people like me who have never had to learn English in the same way that we learn other languages out of choice.
So yeah, that’s why I wanted to talk about it.
So I’m curious.
And you said you ever started learning any language other than German until you were 10, right?
But that wasn’t English?

Kerstin:
No, I started learning English when I was 10.
Then that’s when I started having English lessons.
And before that, I remember we did, like, if you’re happy and you know, you clap your hands.
They kind of tell you sort of what the words mean, but that was like a thing that we did in my, you know, like primary school when I was like eight, maybe.
So if you’re happy and you know it.
It’s kind of not in context.
We also sang songs in French, songs in Hebrew.
It wasn’t really exceptional.
The song in French.

Lindsay:
Was it Frère Jacques?

Kerstin:
No, it was Sur La Pont D’Avignon.

Lindsay:
Oh, yeah, that’s the other classic.

Kerstin:
We did say it.
But that has a German translation.
So we just sang that in German.

Lindsay:
Okay.
I was going to say maybe I, if you’re happy and you know it is the very, like, equivalent, but also yeah.

Kerstin:
Oh, I don’t know why Hebrew, but we had like a Hebrew song.
It’s fascinating for me because obviously when I make content, when I talk about language learning, I talk from a perspective where I talk to English native speakers because I live in England because, and when I started my business, I was talking to English native speakers.
And so I know because I had already seen all the blocks that in Germany, I hadn’t encountered in that way.
So the English native speakers, the, at least the Brits that I’ve spoken to and the Americans actually.
They do have a talent for telling themselves that it’s hard.
Which doesn’t help anybody.
So that was sort of where my fire came from to start my, to start my blog to start talking to people.
Like I have opinions, which means I always talk to people.
Pretty much as a peer, like, yeah, you speak English, I speak English and people I think often forget that I learned English as a second language, including me.
Yeah.
So it’s, it’s strange.
So I have to put myself into a different mindset today.
Which I’m very happy do.

Lindsay:
So how, so you started when you’re 10, but I didn’t realize it was that early because for me, I thought from when we spoke before that it was.
That it was like, pulp was your Shakira equivalent for me.

Kerstin:
It was 100%.
Pulp was huge.
But before that…
So there is a truth to…I do not subscribe to English is easier to learn.
But there is a truth to what you mentioned before.
And that is that English has, what are they calling it?
They call it cultural…currency is what I’m kind of thinking.
There is a sort of, you know, in diplomacy, you say, like, you’ve got soft, soft power.
That’s it.
Yeah.
English has.
And that’s really like due to a lot of it due to the Americans, not the Brits, but then the Brits Americans kind of similar.
So like culturally, there’s like a soft power.
And it is true.
And it is assumed that learning English is really, really important.
But nobody learns a language because they’re told it’s important to learn it.
Right.
We don’t.

Lindsay:
Do you think? I think some people do.

Kerstin:
Yeah, they try, but it’s not…you don’t really get to the fall.
At some point.
To the heart.
I mean, yes, of course people start a language because they think it’s important, but then that’s, that’s not the same as when I say learn.
I really, I really meant like assimilate somehow to it.
Full depth.
Not that you’re not a valid learner if that’s what, if you haven’t done that, I’ve never assimilated that much with French.
I speak French.
It’s fine, but you know, not English.
I’m trying to think.
I’ve talked to Christian about this and about like Christian, sorry, being my husband.
Who’s British.
And I think there is something maybe even stronger and growing up German to the cultural dominance in the in the 80s when I grew up.
Of America in particular.
And a Marshall plan thing.
And so Americans kind of had a really strong hand in building modern Germany and influence there.
So we had a lot of, you know, like we have American military bases on German land and it.
There was just a lot in American occupied and people knew some Americans, we knew people have gone there and stuff.
So I think without it becoming this like denial of American the military.
I think it was sort of America was cool.
Always when I was growing up.

Lindsay:
Same.
And does Christian say the same thing?

Kerstin:
Christian being a native Brit?
No.

Lindsay:
Because I feel that America was cool when I was growing up.
That was the understanding.
There was this, there was this 90s kind of in the Pulp era of like sort of Brit pop and then followed by like Spice Girls.
There was this era of like Cool Britannia.
Generally, even now I’d say like America was the cool, not like a regular English.
I’m a cool English.

Kerstin:

So the cool cousin.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I got surfboard.
California.

Lindsay:
So you weren’t drawn to that in the same way as British English?

Kerstin:
No, I, you know how I like to go against stuff seemingly.
And we had, they had, they used to do.
Before we heard the internet children gather around fire.
God.
When I was a kid.
On TV, especially when we only had three channels, which until I was like six, we only had three channels and then we got satellites.
Wow, the world!
And the third channel.
In England, you do this as well.
They used to have a lot of TV programming that’s like from the Open University.
Yeah, you know, and they used to do the English learning programming.
So we had this guy.
And they’re doing like little scenes.
And it was kind of the English learning programming and I remember kind of sitting in front of it not really understand what was happening.
But it’s essentially like a little language lesson and I’m certainly being like fascinated by it.
So.
That ought to say there’s so many little bits by the time I was learning, I started my first foreign language for my lesson.
I was so ready.
I was so ready.
I was excited.
I was looking forward to it.
Like, that was the thing that I couldn’t wait for.
I couldn’t wait.
Give me the book.
I want to hear all about Kevin and Kate who live in Whitby. Let’s go!

Lindsay:

In Whitby?!

Kerstin:
Yeah, that English book is set in the UK.

Lindsay:
They weren’t in London?

Kerstin:
No, they weren’t in London.
They were in Whitby!
They had an aunt in Swansea.

Lindsay:
Wow.
What a good lesson to start off with!
There’s more than just London.

Kerstin:

They have a friend in York.
It was all very northern.
They never spoke in northern accents, of course.
Everybody spoke a nice clipped RP.
So there was also the prestige, I think, in how English was seen in my school of British English.
Like American was kind of just like…
I was going to say, you know, British English was like the prestigious one.
The educated one.

Lindsay:
The cup of tea and a suit and an umbrella.

Kerstin:

It kind of subtle because you’re like 10, of course, but it was certainly there.
And I would say my teachers.
I adored all my English teachers I had.

Lindsay:
Were they English?

Kerstin:
No, no, all Germans.
All super anglophile Germans.
Like they were all the English teachers.

Lindsay:
Do you think you’re an anglo file?

Kerstin:

Oh, I was.
Yeah.
Massively.

Lindsay:

Was?

Kerstin:
You can’t be an anglo file because that’s there’s something about idealizing it, right?
You can’t be an anglo file and live in modern Britain for 20 years and…

Lindsay:

I think you can.
And like, I don’t mean to bring down the tone, but when a paedophile touches the kid, like, they’re still a paedophile.
We can cut that out! But, but like an anglophile?
I think you can still be living in the country.
But I don’t know if I don’t know if I could be an anglo file.

Kerstin:
I don’t know, but say, okay, so you’re like a, let’s say you’re a Hispanophile.
Hispanophile?

Lindsay:
I know it’s luso for Portuguese lusophile, Francophile, hispanophile? Maybe.

Kerstin:
Yeah.
It’s sort of, I was just, I used to have these, I tell you about these little calendars I used to have postcard calendars.
You still get them in Germany like little desk calendars.
And they called, they used to be called Sehnsuchtskalender, sort of the calendars of longing.
And the idea was like lots and lots of locations that there were just these 52 absolutely beautiful photos from a specific location. Yeah, it was really cool.

Lindsay:
So there’s a real combination then of these little and it’s the same for me when I think back to my own sort of early influences of like what got me started with this.
There’s just this these sprinklings of different things that all kind of combine.

Kerstin:

You know what, you know, the powerful thing about that when you realize it’s like none of it’s the lessons.
No, none of it’s the school lessons, but it’s, it’s what that kicks off.
And I think that’s when people say like English is easier to learn.
I don’t think that that is true as a language.
It is not so many exceptions.
It is not easy to pronounce.
You, you will hear when a German speaks English to you, often German grammar coming through.
You know, so same as when English person, German, English grammar coming through.
it’s not easy.
That’s not true.
We don’t all just magically soak it in.
Don’t know about the people who’ve got TV in English.
We were not like that.
A lot of stuff is dubbing is really strong in Germany.
But that cultural dominance thing, it makes all the little hooks much more available so then it gets easier to kind of attach yourself to something and to find something that is so you.
And I think for me being just a slightly like I was always been like a slightly quirky child.
I’ve always been like a little bit different.
I know everybody says that, but like I have always been like a little bit different and felt a little bit different.
And as teenagers do, you kind of look to a CD at somewhere.
And for me, the kind of British eccentric-ness.
like late night, maybe a Monty Python might be on TV and you’d be like, is this?
You know, it’s like being so funny.
It’s so strange.
And then finding coming to Pulp, finding the music of Pulp, which if you don’t know, is like a Britpop band from the 90s and had a hit.

Lindsay:
She came from Greece.
She heard her thirst for knowledge.
Cute copyright strike.

Kerstin:
And, but they sang from this outsider perspective and the just there was just something in how does how do people help themselves and the band and everything that just really massively spoke to me.
Yeah, must just like anything is I’ve just been to see Pulp for the first time ever in the UK.
20 years later.
The girl next to me was 20 years old.
And I was like, I knew this song before you were born.
This is unbelievable.
But like I was obsessed with this before you were, but also she knew all the words.
So this is universal appeal.
If you haven’t heard this, you might like it, even if you’re 20. But the I had not, I don’t think ever really seen and understood the appeal of the song common people, which is so strongly about class consciousness as a song about class consciousness.
For me, the first time I heard that’s like when I heard that song, it’s got a line it because ‘everybody hates a tourist’.
I’m from a tourist area.
They’re all over in the summer.
I was like, Oh, I hate tourists.
I didn’t understand about like the class tourist or that idea that is so British.
And when I saw it at the festival and I saw the Brit singing it, I was like, “Oh, I get it.”
But I didn’t have that accessible to me.
I’ve always loved that about learning a language and then going deeper, deeper, the layers bit.
So it still offers something new to me now.

Lindsay:
That is so true.
And I’m thinking in particular of, for me, like Bad Bunny, I know, and like you say, it’s not exactly an unpopular opinion.
Like there’s universal appeal, Bad Bunny, like the most played Spotify artist for three years in a row, right?
But like the song El Apagon, the blackout.
I listened to that and I think yeah, this is good.
But then when you translate the lyrics, when you listen to people talk about it a bit more and you understand that actually, you know, this was released with a 20, the music video was released inside a 20 minute documentary about very serious, you know, things happening in Puerto Rico in terms of
like the people taking over the power and all of this.
Like you then understand this extra layer of why people love that so much.

Kerstin:

And like, you went to a gig in Puerto Rico.
That would really hit.
Exactly.
Yeah, that’s how I felt.
I was like, Oh, I get the, like I got, like there was anger.
There was anger passion in the audience.
There’s something, they’re saying something that ended up the fact, I mean, let’s just put to the side, the fact that this still applies.
You know, like this still works.
The reason the song is popular now is not because it’s about the 90s.
It’s about, it’s about universal things, right?
So like music has to say something to us, I think, about our life.
And I mean, I often say, even if it’s going on, when I’m teaching the marketing, when I do the podcast, I always think like, what does this say to you about your life?
Because that’s really what it’s about, right?

Lindsay:
Yeah.

Kerstin:
Even if it’s not that nuanced, full layered understanding, it’s just that one line, everybody’s a tourist that hooks you in.
That gets you wanting to learn more English.

Lindsay:
Yeah.
And so presumably then so Pulp kind of.
Then you want to know what the next line is, right?
Then you want to know what is this thing?

Kerstin:
Yeah, yeah.
And Pulp in particular.
I don’t know if you know this, but like, have you ever bought a record or do you own anything that’s like like a vinyl?
Physical Pulp record.
Or a CD.

Lindsay:

Not Pulp specifically no, but yeah, I had CDs for a while.

Kerstin:
They always had a thing where it said when you, when you, you know, like, because I used to, this is again, before the internet, before I could just go on to you news or whatever.
Like you wouldn’t know the words, you wouldn’t know the words of what somebody is singing.
So you’re sat there.
And I remember.
Just being sat there and like slowly listening, like listening to like five seconds of this thing couldn’t slow down, couldn’t speed it up.
It was just in my CD player.
Listen to 10 seconds.
Be like, what’s saying?
Okay, try and write this down.
Try and work up what it says.
And like our most popular teeny magazine Bravo would print to lyrics and translate them.
Rather flower, florally rather ridiculously.
But like, that’s, that’s what they did.
So you’d get all these boy band lyrics from like NSYNC where it was like, ‘girl, my heart is speaking to you’.
And then translated into your language as if it’s this like super profound thing.
And it’s just, I think there’s a real, when you have that much cultural dominance and all of your, not all of your radio music, but a very large part of your radio music and your music television.
Again, I’m an old woman.
Let’s just face it.
Like, and everything around you is in this language.
There is this kind of, there is definitely that drive to go, what are they saying?
What does this mean?
Like the radio used to do, they had like little lyric sessions where they’d translate the words and tell you what this means.

Lindsay:
Yeah.
That’s fascinating.

Kerstin:

It’s not assumed everybody can speak English, is it?

Lindsay:
Could I ask you a question about that?
Did you ever feel resentment to English because of that sort of cultural dominance?

Kerstin:
No.
No, just massive like desire.
Like German music is available.
German music is not, it wasn’t hard.
I have, you know, the indie band took a trunnick that I’m so into like, they always sing in German.
They were a good band.
But like, they are always, always singing in German.
There was nothing wrong with that.
For me personally, no.
I know what you mean.
Like you’d get that from your parents, but they’re like, ‘Oh, everything’s in English these days.’

Lindsay:
That’s what I was thinking.
I wonder, yeah.

Kerstin:
Yeah.
Well, there’s a radio channel for that.
The Schlager channel.
You can go and listen to that.
That’s fine.
No, that doesn’t, it hasn’t harmed the German music industry as such, I would say.
I think there’s enough of us.

Lindsay:
I’m thinking, you’re saying about radio and I think it still exists in France, right?
The rule of every third song needs to be in French?

Kerstin:
Yes, that is a, that’s a French thing.
As far as I’m aware, Germany has no such law.
Germany’s always been a bit, I think because we’re less of a centralized country.
So we’ve got the dialect diversity and Hochdeutsch is kind of made up anyway.
That’s sort of awareness.
So I don’t think we are as protective in that way.
And you get a lot of anglicisms, a lot of anglicisms in the German language.
I can’t speak for how people, you know, how exactly it is now, how people feel now.
But you know how many times we’ve done words of the year and like half the list is English words.

Lindsay:

Or we do the German word of the year and you’re, as someone, like you say, who’s lived in the year for 20 years looking at that going, why is this the word of the year?
What does this mean?
What’s the, what’s the layers, you know, having to look back in that way.

Kerstin:
Yeah, language is, is never separate from its cultural context.
No, that’s the thing of like English.
I think English has this cultural dominance because of just, I don’t know, the way the world’s gone in the 20th century.
There was a real cultural dominance in there.
Do you want me to show you my picture?

So I used to still got my old like, there you go.

Lindsay:
Oh, is that your like school sticker?
Yeah, I used to have those.
Lindsay Dow, 7KA.

Kerstin:

It’s just got my name, like my old, my own unmarried name Hammes.
And my address and our phone number.
Yeah, just fine.
You can buy good wine there.
So if you ever want to, nobody cares.
This is my mom’s dictionary.
This is from the 70s and I used to have this next to my bed every night.
So it’s like proper came out in 1970 copyright, 1953.
This is the, she gave me her dictionary because we’re frugal people.
So it probably won’t have some modern words.

Lindsay:
Like web browser.

Kerstin:
No, no, no.
It’s not going to have that in it, is it?
And just some…’to fag’ = exhaust yourself.
It’s cigarettes, right?
In the 90s.
Yeah, it’s very, it’s very, it’s, I used to sleep with this next to my bed.
Not for some kind of like romanticizing or anything.
It’s because whenever I was able to get hold of like maybe an English teeny magazine, like just 17 or something like that.
Or when friends went to England, I was the one who was like, get me a copy of NME.
I’d really want a copy of NME.
It used to be a big thing in the UK, New Musical Express, or maybe I’d buy them and stuff.
And I would like, that was all I had.
So I would like milk it properly and often I’d want to know what the words are.
And we’re saying earlier about Pulp, the physical records.
So all the lyrics used to have, you take out the little booklet of the CD and it has all the lyrics printed.
And there’s always hard this little note on it that says, N B, which already you’re like, don’t know what that means.
Need to work out what that means.
‘Please do not read the lyrics while listening to the recordings.’
And because it said that, it’s like, I don’t know, it’s a, it’s a quirk.
an affectation.
I don’t know what it.
I have read it.
Not like other bands.
Special.
I mean, also I was like the only girl into it.
I was the only Pulp fan in the village.
And the other 25 villages, right?
So it really was ‘I am special because of this’ sort of a thing.
That meant I would really study the lyrics because I did want to know what they’re saying, but I took that so seriously.
I don’t know.
Maybe that’s a German mentality thing that somebody gave me a rule.
I did not break that rule.
I did not break that rule.
They completely made it up.
But like, if you know, I took that so seriously and that meant I was like, start reading those lyrics and really going, okay.
And now I have to try and remember this and look it up.
So it wasn’t as much about I’m learning vocabulary.
Like, yeah, I mean, there were vocab lists in school and I did really well and I always got A’s in English.
Never got A’s in much else.
But English was like my…
Then I started taking pride in it.
And then it was important to me to get the A. But really, it wasn’t hard.
It wasn’t hard because the real learning was somewhere else.
With the Pulp lyrics with the Blur lyrics with the whatever I mean, I had the Kula Shaker CD.
It’s all.
It’s all there.
But like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was it was in a different part of my life.
I think we’re the real thing.
The learning happened.
I remember I bought the videotape for the Full Monty for 50 Marks, which is very expensive for a videotape.
And in a place where I was went to a shopping center day, you know, because I also – really small village here!
So it’s like a four hour trip to go shopping.
And I took it home and I watched so much of it.
And it was so hard to understand what it’s saying.

Lindsay:
How old are you when you watch the Full Monty?!

Kerstin:

Like 16 or something that.

Lindsay:

I was going to say! Like a film about people literally stripping like, OK!

Kerstin:
Never thought about that!

Lindsay:

16, that’s fine!

Kerstin:
No, but like one of the first things he says in the film is he greeted somebody with ‘ay up’.
Which obviously you’ve no idea!

Lindsay:
This is where… This is where your kind of, can I say, obsession with Northern England comes in?

Kerstin:

Well, Pulp are from Sheffield, right?
So I was always kind of interested in this.
Yeah.
I don’t know.
I don’t know if I’d have an obsession with Northern England.
I just moved there.
So that wasn’t before that kind of… No, no, no.
Well, I remember our first trip to England.
We went to London.
We stayed with some lady in Wimbledon.
My parents, yeah, my parents eventually basically just gave in.
I really wanted to do a language camp, you know, which is… You see a lot now I live in Canterbury.
I see so many of the little, like… It’s when your kid is like 14, 15.
And you’re sending them to like, language camp.
You know, the company EF?
They, they, they do, that was their main trade.
That is their big trade.
You can send your kid to Spain for two weeks, like France and England.
And then some of my friends were going to England.
I was campaigning for it at home, but the budget wasn’t there.

Lindsay:
Did you ever do exchanges?

Kerstin:
Yes.
Like with school?
Two.

Lindsay:
And do you think that helped?

Kerstin:

Did it help me learn English?

Lindsay:
Yeah.

Kerstin:

I was already so obsessed at time.
It helped.
It was more of a kind of… It helped you… Experience a world where people actually spoke this, which is mind blowing.
You know, when you go, when you’re learning a language, it’s so abstract.
And then you go somewhere and you’re like, Oh my God, this is real.
And still, you can do it on Duolingo now.
And it would, you’d still have that experience.
Yeah.
Especially like you say, living in a small village.
You know, I imagine not much speaking practice.

Lindsay:
Although can we talk about one of my favourite, one of the things we have talked about with English?
Oh, you know what I’m going to say?
It’s my favourite thing!
I’m very tempted when people are like, how should I learn a language?
I should respond with this.
Do you want to share?

Kerstin:
What my eavesdropping on the tourists.

Lindsay:

No…
Oh, that’s, that’s not embarrassing.
That’s just like what you do.
I do that all the time.
No, no, I’m talking about…

Kerstin:

What I have on these streets, do you follow them around?

Lindsay:
Oh, I don’t follow people.
Yeah, so you…

Kerstin:

Oh, okay.
I don’t talk anymore.
It’s legal, it’s fine.

Lindsay:
No, that’s not what I was going to say…
I was going to say about phone boxes.
You’d ring people up.

Kerstin:
So, did that from home as well, but it’s like very expensive.
But yeah, we had a phone box in my village and I would… If I say, how did English language magazine, or something, how to phone number in it?
Or you just, I don’t know, like… Adverts in newspapers sometimes with a phone number or something.
then sometimes I would just like ring the number, like, you know, like the 0044 for the UK.
And then already, when, you know, when it’s ringing and it goes, do, do, does not what German ringtone sounds like when you’re ringing.
It goes, do… Oh, so that’s already exciting.
Already like you could just hang up there right there.
That’s already like, you’re broken.
You’re gone.
You’re gone.
And then somebody might answer, and answer in English, you go, oh, like put a phone down.

Lindsay:
I love that.

Kerstin:
I’m not nervous.

Lindsay:
Are you going to say?
Did you ever say hello?
Did you ever say hello?
Or was it always…?

Kerstin:

I think maybe if I had like a really courageous moment, I might have gone like…

Lindsay:

It’s just so cute.
I can just really picture like, know, I just imagine like someone walking their dog going past the phone box and like, ‘oh, she’s there again’.
Like this idea of like everyone knew, but you didn’t know that anyone knew.

Kerstin:
Oh, I don’t think I’ve rang phone boxes because I wouldn’t have had the number.

Lindsay:
No, no, you in the phone box, right?

Kerstin:
In the phone box.
Yeah.

Lindsay:

And people in the village see you and they’re like, ‘there she is again calling England’.
Like, you know, like in England, you’ve got this like one village.

Kerstin:
I just thought of like Little Bitling or something and everybody’s like on the morning walk and phone boxes ring and I was like, ‘ah, that’s the German kid again. There she is.’
That would be amazing.
I don’t know.
I think there is something I’ve said before about like growing up in such a small place where like that’s you really look for your lines to the outside world.
Again, maybe less now with, you know, the line to the outside world is just so easy.

Lindsay:
That’s one thing I wanted to ask about like so much of your story with English is shaped by the era that it was in.
I think we can call the 90s and era now, can’t we?
Terrifying, but we will.

Kerstin:

Yeah, literally a different century, but like it’s so shaped by that.

Lindsay:

And I do wonder what you think if you were born, you know, 10 years ago and now you’re 10 and you’re starting learning English now.
How that would be different?
If you would find the same drive and spark when it is so much easier to access and so much more prolific.
Like was part of the thrill of it the exoticness of it?

Kerstin:
The language itself wasn’t hard to access.
The radio on right itself was really easy to access.
That wasn’t the thing.
It wasn’t.
It was that I found….
That on the German radio, they played the pop song.
Yeah, I love the pop song.
I would, and then it was like imagine I didn’t then just look it up and then I, and then you have to wait.
It’s actually kind of way it makes it harder because I can’t then like go down a rabbit hole.
I am waiting until the next time we go to trier, which is an hour’s drive.
Now you really might have to wait a week or two and then hope that my parents take me.
And then at some point go to the record shop and like look in the bit on the P and see if it’s there.
And if it’s not there, you’re back at square one.
You kind of might have to try it again.
So I think maybe it’s…
I don’t think it’s harder to get obsessed and deeply into something.
I can imagine that maybe these days you’d move on a little bit quicker.

Lindsay:
That’s what I think too.

Kerstin:
But you can, just you can’t just then dive from one into the next and go deeper into a particular area.
So no, I don’t think it’s impossible or anything like that now.
And again, I don’t think it’s the language itself.
It’s that I found things that I wanted in my life in a very teenager, a dramatic way.
that was my window.
So that’s more that and in the same way like, you know, like when people learn French now, often you learn French as an English native speaker often because you have this dream of like maybe the romantic city of Paris or don’t really understand that.
Have you been to Paris?
I mean, but never mind.
But like, you know, you have this dream.
You have a maybe you dream of, oh, if I moved there and like in Provence.
I’d have a fresh baguette every morning.
A cycle with a little dog and a little baguette and I’d have a beret on and it’s me like with my idyllic.
It’s Belle from from the Disney thing.
Beauty and the Beast.
There we go.
You know, like you have, I think.
At least for me.
Maybe.
There’s still a little bit of the dream when I learned a language like with learning Welsh.
There is still some sort of a dream attached to it.
And that’s some languages make that.
Easier than others because I think they just speak to you at that different part moment in your life.

Kerstin:

I’m glad you bought it Welsh because I wanted to ask you as well how English has differed from when you then learn other languages because you learn other languages in school alongside English, right?

Kerstin:
Latin and French.
And then they had like a sort of afternoon club thing Italian to that.
And then after when my sixth form equivalent started, the Italian thing fell away.
Obviously was still doing French and English.
And so I already had this identity as like languages are my thing languages.
As a side note, my one of my best friends who knew me really well at time of best friends has once remarked that maybe because of how I think and how how I, you know, what what works for me learning wise, the language is felt more accessible to me because they’re less regimented.
And you can do a thing where you’re like, I’m just reading pop music lyrics and then and then you bring in that back in.
So I wasn’t that good at homework.
I’m not that good with.
Detail or like specific prescribed thing.
Somebody tells me like ‘do this thing’.
It’s really systematic.
Yeah, get all your prepositions perfect.
Very, very bored, very quickly.
The way I teach even German is I try to de-emphasize the get everything perfectly right.
I look at a big picture.
I try to get you to see the big picture first and then say, okay, like now you can fine tune bits if you want.
But for me, it’s often enough to get the big picture.
So maybe languages lend itself to how my brain wants to process stuff.
I don’t know.
But it made, you know, she said it in in a specific context.
So that was interesting.
When Italian fell away, I started doing five lesson a week Latin.
And that was because I thought, if I want to go to university and do.
Languages at university or become a teacher ever, German university.
Don’t know if they still do at this time.
They required the thing called Latino.
You had to know Latin.
If you want to be a religious education teacher, you also need the Grecom.

Lindsay:

See, yeah, like here, especially in that sort of same era, like Latin was very much grammar school material, which now there’s a handful of kind of home counties.

Kerstin:
Yeah.
Like this is a farmer’s kid learning Latin.
It wasn’t to me, a big deal.
It was just normal.

Lindsay:

Yeah.
You just didn’t get the opportunity unless you were like a private school grammar school kid, really.

Kerstin:
Being from a region where like Germany’s oldest city is really near and like a lot of stuff is Roman.
It was actually really cool because there’s a lot of like random stuff with Roman inscriptions.
And you can imagine them walking around and, you know, it was, it actually felt quite relevant.
So, so I did all of those.
That was my schooling.
So there’s an element of choice in that, but it’s all the primary lessons, even if it’s not where all the learning happened for you, the primary lessons was.
Formal, shall we say it was it was school.
Oh, yeah, there was there was a lot of like formal substance there.
And it crosses and all that stuff.

Lindsay:

So when did you first go on to self study to choose a language for yourself by yourself completely?
Apart from like the old sort of one week double here and there.

Kerstin:
Probably Russian.
So not actually because then I moved to England and I did university and again like French and English formerly.
I then did….
But I don’t know – what is self study, right?
So that was still like for a qualification.
And then I started my translation masters which wasn’t adding new languages.
It was about a skill to do with language.
That’s what I thought I was going to be like translator very quickly realized I’m not going to be a ranslator. Jesus Christ, bad idea!

Lindsay:
Oh, so you have to be a teacher because that’s the only alternative!

Kerstin:
You translate or you teach freelance translator and I was looking around going like what on earth like what I’m going to do.
And I knew at the time that I could work in like export sales.
So I was looking at that kind of thing.
And that’s when I found international student recruitment.
And I went I happened to get a job at the university where I studied.

Lindsay:
And that’s why you started learning Russian because of the Kazakhstan stuff?

Kerstin:
Yeah, but that came later.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, because well, I was kind of interested and stuff but first.
They did something at that university where the main French third year module, like a French C1/C2 module, they had open to the public if you wanted to take a high level French class, you could just walk it like walking.
How many third year French students are there? Like 12. So you just walk in and you become a part of like that class.
So I took the module I’d already done in my degree.
Yeah, I did.
Four years later and did it again.
I did much, much better.
I was really pleased.
But that was the first time I think I actively went.
Okay, choice of learning a language.
So when you say solo learning or self study, it was in a formal environment for me.
I’ve learned it’s really good to follow some sort of a formal thing that somebody else just does all the thinking and organizing and I could just show up.
It helps me.
Yeah, I can self study without that.
I can and I do, but that is just nice.
So, and I like group classes.
So I just went did it.
Did that and then started traveling more than maybe two, three years.
Yeah, later went to Kazakhstan.
And I was just generally traveling around the world, but Kazakhstan was a very like really low English country and the street signs all in Kazakh and Russian and I was like, ‘I don’t even know the difference! I can’t even tell which is which’.
Yeah, I can’t read any of street notes and I’m starting with the city map puzzling out.
Whereas like, for the rest of the street or whatever, like all its whatever and then you’re learning.
Okay, well, it says this.
This is what that little bit on the sign because I like walking around and I, to get around to like my meetings, I don’t really like taxiing it everywhere.
I’m just not a formal person in that way.
And that’s kind of where.
Almost by necessity because they just gave me a map that was.
You know, the street sign doesn’t have English on what are you going to do, right?
So, and I started learning.
That’s when I started learning Russian, I think probably Russian was my first, I would say.
New.
Not French self study because Spanish that was all classroom as well.

Lindsay:

How did that differ then with Russian from everything that’d come before it?

Kerstin:

I think I’ve always known that in order for me to do a language, I have to find the interest.
I can’t just show up.

Lindsay:
You got to find your Pulp!

Kerstin:
Yeah, I gotta find it.
I mean, my Pulp, that’s like the deep passion.
But you know, like, you gotta find the something right because otherwise it’s here.
And if it’s just here.
I’m sorry, it goes in and then it’s gone.
It’s like, it doesn’t really hold on.
So I think I had to find the interest.
And for me, it was nice because it was interest first.
Whereas when I started learning Spanish, it was like, yeah, I’m here, you know, Italian, it was like, it was food, to be honest, because we’ve got a lot of Italian restaurants in Germany.
So it was easy to see the language on menus and stuff.
But I think with Russian, it was just the fact that those were actual places I was going and I had an instant utility and like deciphering actual signs in the street.
And often.
Like ‘tsvety’ is flowers, right?
You’ve not been to Russia?
Like, if you go to Moscow…

Lindsay:

Kind of tricky to go right now!
I started learning at a great time!

Kerstin:
I went to Russia at the time where there was this sort of weird like political like, we’re cool Russia.
So, but in Kazakhstan, Lespa in Moscow and stuff, they had all these kiosks, flower kiosks everywhere.
So you see this, this, this, this.
And then because I was with people from there, I could go like, ‘Oh, you’ve got so many flower kiosks.’
And then you get a story from them about International Women’s Day.
And you know, like, Oh, that’s the when the men by the flowers kind of a thing.
And you get this little like extra, right?
So it was…
That’s what I described earlier about English with like, you literally have to like go to the phone box and bring somebody up for it to become real.
This one, when you have the interest space or when you’re solo studying for me, it’s kind of, it starts with real.
And then I go, ‘Oh, what is this? Interesting.’
Yeah, I would say that’s if you’re asking me the difference.
That’s the only thing that there’s the combination there then with Russian interest first and also utility for going to Kazakhstan for these trips for work is Welsh next.
After that, we were already doing the podcast and it’s all drama of ‘can I abandon Russian or my heart?!’ and I had to really get to like, okay, this is what I wanted out of Russian.
I’m now free actually like free myself.

Lindsay:
Yeah, that feeling of, but I have to take it to C2!
Like once you can abandon that, you can find…

Kerstin:
Why did I start in the first place if I’m not going to finish?

Lindsay:
Oh, yeah.

Kerstin:
Yeah.
And then I’ve never finished a language.
And then I went, ‘okay, I was interested in learning Cyrillic. I mean, I can say stuff in Russian.
I can still, you know, greet and do pleasantries and tell you I don’t speak Russian and I don’t understand.
But ultimately, I don’t speak any Russian.
But I got what I wanted.
And then yeah, then I was free so I allowed myself to go with Welsh and Welsh is eight years now.

Lindsay:

So that’s eight years.
Is Welsh, is Welsh your second to English in terms of passion?
Or is it first?

Kerstin:
Good question.
I don’t feel like I’m learning English anymore in that way.

Lindsay:

Right.
When do you think that stopped?

Kerstin:
Not long after I moved here, I don’t think.
Maybe.
Because as we said, you never stop.
You never finished, but then every day you function in English.
So then you’re not focusing on the language as much anymore as the functioning and you got to just, like, do stuff.
So, and it was an entirely new challenge coming here because for whatever reason, I moved to the north, but I move to Preston and you know, people in Preston have an accent.
And I didn’t understand the word when I first got there.
So it just became different and then it wasn’t like…
And also it then had contact with reality sort of romanticized English image.
Of course, doesn’t always last.
Okay. A little bit.
Sometimes I’m just like, ‘Oh, look, like exactly how I thought my life would be.’
It’s great.
But yeah, it doesn’t, you know, you also get to know all the rubbish and admin and you have to put the bins out and all the things that have to make.
I don’t know.
But life isn’t so exciting anymore.
You know, like it’s real.
So it’s different.

Lindsay:
So do you think Welsh has replaced that spot that English maybe had before you moved here in terms of passion and the difference and the slightly exoticness?
I use the term loosely.
I think it’s a rubbish word.

Kerstin:

I mean, I’m not learning Welsh in order to position myself or something like that.
I would say.

Lindsay:
What do you mean ‘position yourself’?

Kerstin:
You know, like as in like, like, not that I was learning English, but like I was listening to pop.
There was an element of identity.
Like I’m a cool kid, kind of a real cool kid.
Yeah, you all look cool and act like I’m not, but I’m really, I’m cooler than you.
I don’t need that now as much.
You know, you grow up and you’re an adult and then you kind of know your cool.
And I think it’s because the need isn’t the same, you know?

Like that’s the identity part like I don’t need that as much.

Lindsay:
When you say the passion isn’t the same, do you mean the passion is more or less or different?

Kerstin:
Less.
Less, but I was very intense with Welsh and with English.

Lindsay:
Okay, I was gonna say, because I’m thinking of you with Welsh and I see it as like a love story.
The English must have… English must have been like…!

Kerstin:
Welsh is yeah, I mean, I do.
I love it.
I do.
I really, really love it.
There is a lot in it for me.
It’s the sounds, but like something I’ve said before, it’s like the fact that it, it isn’t.
There is no Welsh and English in the same way because I do live in this country and it’s, it’s actually this country.
So we’re back to the layers.
That’s how I felt.
I was like, wow, there’s a whole hidden bit here.
There’s a whole hidden level.
Let’s get in there.
Like, let’s dive in.
Let’s, let’s learn.
And it’s, it’s taught me so much about, to be honest, it’s taught me all the way like to colonialism.
And like I understand the native speaker privilege thing differently.
It’s, it’s really taught like learning about Welsh taught me a lot about what English is like and what the English are like from a different perspective.
And a new perspective.
That sounds really overly critical.

Lindsay:
No, it doesn’t.
But also, it’s quite a unique perspective because it literally could not be closer geographically.
So there’s no other language that you could learn that will have quite that same teachings, shall we say?
You know what I mean?
Because the history is different.

Kerstin:

Yeah.
There’s probably a lot more fight back.
You know, there’s a lot, the adversary and the whole, there are a whole also royal family and stuff.
Wales also did, but that all just fell away much sooner.
So, like, I think back to my life in a UK test book and the way in there was sort of like, ‘and then we went to Wales to help them out’ and ‘went to Ireland to help them out.’
If that’s what you say.
Cool.
I mean, I’m paraphrasing heavily, of course.
So with Welsh, it is not the same.
I’m just not as obsessed.
But I do really, really enjoy it.
And it’s like a delight to learn and just so like, it’s so much fun for me.
I never really think about, oh, how am I going to learn?
It’s like, I never think about like my method or anything with Chinese.
It was much more like, okay, well, what strategy am I going do?

Lindsay:

Are you still learning Chinese?

Kerstin:
Mm hmm.

Lindsay:
How did you get to that point?

Kerstin:
I just have done, maybe like with Russian.
I was like, yeah, cool.
It was my lockdown language.
That’s how I, then you’re like, I’m free from Chinese.
I bought a guitar now.
I can play a pop song now.

Lindsay:
There you go.
Combine interests and language learning is a beautiful thing!

Kerstin:
That’s it.
That’s it.
But yeah, I don’t know.
Like there’s a, it has enough culturally to make it really sticky for me and really interesting.
It has something, maybe that it adds to my identity, but I certainly don’t.
Not in the same way, not in some way.
I’m not like a company file or something.

Lindsay:
I’m glad you’ve, you’ve bought that up actually because I think it’s interesting when you, because I think you probably started learning Welsh around the same time that I kind of discovered that Guarani existed.
So we both were learning these languages in similar, but different situations.
And I definitely felt that that like, ‘I’m learning this because I’m super interested in this place and learning languages that live alongside Spanish and you know, I had all of these reasons and going there, etc.’
But then like you do feel this…um, kind of thought of ‘Are people thinking I’m only learning this language to look different to be like, you know, ‘the Guarani person’, like you would be ‘the Welsh person’?’
Like, did that ever cross your mind as well?

Kerstin:

Maybe.
But I know it’s not.
You know, it’s not true.
And yeah, I know it’s not true.
I mean, to be honest, if I’m cool because I’m learning Welsh, I’ll take it.
That’s fine.
I mean, as this conversation may show, I’ve got very little to go with.
So I’ll take the, you know, there’s a sort of, an implication, it’s like a choice, like almost like a business choice?
Like stand out in the polyglot world?
That is obviously ludicrous.
Why would I devote so much of my life to something like that?!
So much time and effort and energy.
But also like, it doesn’t, it doesn’t matter to me in the same way because it’s like eight years still here to still do my thing.
No, I didn’t know the long game of it at the time, but it just…
I remember you at the time were grappling also with the kind of, is there an ethical concern?
Because for me, that doesn’t have, that doesn’t have to come in.

Welsh is a repressed language that has really suffered and has had a lot of discrimination.
But, grand scheme of things, rich country, white people, right?
And for you, it wasn’t like that.
So I remember you were sort of thinking about that at the time.

Lindsay:
It was, it was an interesting language for so many reasons.
For that, for everything we just discussed for resources and how that completely differed.
It really changed my perspective.
And like you say Welsh then changed, gave you the opportunity to learn more about English and that English.
So much.
And kind of gave you this viewpoint learning Guarani gave me this other viewpoint of all language learning in general as well for all these different reasons.
And I think that that’s such a, that’s the thing that I’m most kind of grateful for.
Or, or not actually knows not the thing, but it’s like anything that I’m really grateful for from that experience.
But what, okay, we’ve talked about Welsh.

Kerstin:

Do you want a RuPaul quote for this?

Lindsay:
You didn’t tell me you were also going to put in RuPaul and Sean Paul.
RuPaul Sean Paul.
Any Paul.
I mean, Yeah.
RuPaul!

Kerstin:
This is, this is like a drag race episode where we had someone teaming up like a white queen with a black queen in America and it sort of, in it the white person was like, ‘we’re doing this American, this black American show and I feel a bit self conscious because what if people say I’m doing, I’m, I’m parodying or something?’
And what RuPaul said, I thought was really good, which was, ‘if it comes from a place of love, – and that’s how I feel about Welsh, Guarani, right? – if you’re doing it out of love, then let people talk, people can shit talk all they want.
It doesn’t ultimately, you’re still here and you’re doing it the, for the right reasons and you’re here.’
And if you and yourself know that, then, I mean, if somebody really wants to be like, ‘guess who cares about learning’, well, do you need to seem cool.
Like, that is an amazing use of your time really!
That is, that is baffling to me. That would be amazing.
So it didn’t occur to me in the same way.
Would be funny though.
Which language is no one else speaking?!
Let’s learn that one!
So, so, Some people have said to me, I got interest, I’m learning Welsh because you talked about it.

Lindsay:
Oh, that’s cool.

Kerstin:
Yeah.
That’s really cool.
It’s really fun, isn’t it?

Lindsay:
And I mean, like I said to you before we started recording, like my dissertation was about Guarani and social media, but like I see a lot more than I did when I started the language.
I’m not saying that’s because of me at all.
But I think it’s like when you buy a green car and then you see that green car everywhere, you know, I think there’s a sense of that too of like ‘where is everyone learning this language?’
But yeah, okay, so anyway, final question.
I have no idea how long we’ve been talking, but final question.
What is next?
And when I say that, I don’t mean what’s your next language, because that’s not necessarily that’s not necessarily the mark of a successful language learner, like, you know, quantity versus quality, whatever we can talk about that all day, another episode.
But like, what’s next?
Is it that you are fully content with where you’re at and Welsh is continuing?
Is it that you want these other languages that you’ve previously studied?
Is it that there is a new language?
What do you think comes next or are you fully open to what happens?

Kerstin:
So, I know, okay, from a really practical point of view, I know that my online Welsh course is going to continue next year and I can book in now.
So I’m probably just going to slide skedaddle on into continuing to do the same, but like at ever higher levels.
My Welsh level, according to what the book says on it is, is B2 now.
And I would really love to be more comfortable in Welsh and to speak more, become more comfortable reading in the context of me also being super lazy with it.
But, you know, like, if I don’t want to do it, I can’t get myself to do it anyway.
So I do my homework late, but it doesn’t matter.
Like, one of the beauties of being in a group class is it makes me much more aware that I’m not the only one.
I don’t have to be the best, but I’m not the worst because I don’t think there is even the worst at such a high level.
So it’s really enjoyable.
They talk so it’s a local class, but online delivered online.
So they talk so much about like what’s going on in the Rhondda there.
So I’m like, cool.
Don’t know what’s going on in the Rhondda there.
I’m going to a festival in Cardiff, like a Welsh music festival this summer.
The Eisteddfod, the Welsh National Festival, is next year in the Rhonda.
Like where my Welsh class is, I’m totally going.
It’s also the closest part to England or like one of the closest parts to England.
So excited about that.
I don’t see Welsh as something that’s going to not be in my life in the near future at all.
Even though I don’t live there and all that stuff, but that’s just, I don’t have a question about that.
And then in English, like I said, I just live here.
I’m fully settled.
I don’t think about it in that way anymore.
But I do still, I think there is still a part of me that kind of aims for making sure I have the like idyllic postcard moments almost.
And just every now and then I have to just like, ‘ha, I live in England and I get to do this.’
Like it’s cool.
You still kind of get that.
It’s total privilege to have lived, you know, to live here out of choice.
It’s not necessarily the world’s easiest country to live in at the moment, but maybe none of them are.
But you know, even the fact that I know that and that’s like, this is my life.
Like I know much more about English politics, British politics than German politics is really cool.
I have, I bought a book in French the other day, just a sort of gardening book.
I’m not actively learning French, but I do still engage with it all the time.
But I don’t really think about it in the sense of, oh, I must, you know, if I tell people, I’m not a big French and you need to show them that.
Internally, I’ve worked very hard for this.
I’m not going to.
That’s not dropping.
And then if anything else comes, it’ll come.
I can’t imagine it would be a long term thing without something else giving way.

Lindsay:
That’s really cool.
I think like there is like you just said about with French, you know, the minute that you say you do anything on the Internet, there’s almost, especially I think with languages, there’s almost this pressure of like, but how do I prove that? People will be waiting for the show for yourself.
The YouTube video of, you know, ‘polyglot speaks 17 languages’ like, nah, I’m good.

Kerstin:

It’s just like I want to, like I said, it’s more French didn’t come as easy to me as English, which doesn’t mean it’s a harder language.
It just means I didn’t quite enjoy it as much.

Lindsay:
For you.

Kerstin:
That’s exactly for me.
I just wasn’t as into it.
I’m not as into the whole baguette.
And it’s probably because I come from really near the French corner geographically close.
I wanted somebody exotic like Sheffield.
Preston.
Oh, it’s ridiculous in hindsight, but that was really what to me was exotic!

Lindsay:

It makes it makes a lot of sense.
Yeah.

Kerstin:
So, but I’ve also worked really hard in French and taken the exams and I’m…
I have the capacity and I feel like it would be.
For me, just personally, again, I’m not to not to say everybody can let their languages do whatever they want.
I know my French skill is good enough that I can pick it up and and activated fairly quickly.
And I do want to do that at least once or twice a year, 100%.
And it’s just a, I just feel like it was too much work.
I don’t want to let it all go rusty.

Lindsay:
That’s fair.
I can relate to that.

I’ve got a French and an Italian one on the go at the minute that are like, one of the one of them is called ‘improve your French’ Teach Yourself Improve Your French, it’s a very old book.
And then another is Enjoy Italian.
Also Teach Yourself.
You know, in in a, especially an Oxfam bookshop, in the language section.
They’re the best ones.
I think, oh, it’s for, you know, Portuguese or Italian or something that I’ve done, but it’s been a while.
And it’s that bit more advanced or something.
I always pick them up and it’s very casual, you know, with no deadline with no pressure kind of.

Kerstin:

You’ve worked hard, right?
It’s good to keep it.

Lindsay:
Yeah, you want to, you want to have them.
Whereas there’s something like like Bulgarian.
You know, I was a decent conversational level in Bulgarian after six weeks.
And I think the quicker you learn the quicker you lose.

Kerstin:
I would strongly subscribe to that.

Lindsay:
Yeah, you know, so I did really well in six weeks. I went to Bulgaria, had a great time being able to speak and get around and whatnot.
But then when I came back, maybe it was…maybe it was maybe Guarani.
I was doing something else.
I had to, you know, there’s only so many hours in a day.
And, and so I kind of have lost that one a lot quicker and there’s no, I think, well, it was only six weeks.
So there’s less of a pull to maintain what was, what was once there, you know, I think, I think maintain.

Kerstin:
I have a weird relationship with like the word maintain because it’s like you, your level must be.
It just sounds like work.
I don’t know, like to me, it just sounds like, if it sounds like work, essentially, I will do it.
I have work ethic, but it’ll…
It won’t be as good.
You know, so yeah, I’ve got, I’ve got the Italian one of the Italian tutor books and I’ll start on my shelf for years.
And I’m always like, I love to tell you when I did it.
I love the sound of it.
I really want to get back to Italian.
But it’s always the one that like on balance.
I’m like, yeah, but…
And then there’s just no space because then I’ve done enough language for me.
I don’t want to do 12 a day.
It’s just not who I am.
I’m off and I’m just going to do something else.
You know, and I don’t like audio courses.
It’s just not really my thing.

Lindsay:
You know, I’ve talked about this, I think this week, last week in an email, I really, I really, really wish I did.

Kerstin:
It would be so great.
But I need something extra.

Lindsay:
Like, and yeah, I shared this in an email.
A week or so before, saying three ways that you can make them something more, you know, if you want it to work, you know.
You don’t always want to ‘work’.

But if you do you want it to feel like work, go for it.

Kerstin:
Both are legit, but do you want it to feel like work or not is a really good question, I think, you know, language learning.
And if you think why is Kerstin good, except really good in English, it’s because it didn’t.
I don’t know.
I wanted to work.
It’s not like I didn’t work, but I really wanted to.
That’s why I wanted to be really good.
And I strongly deeply – it’s like one of my core beliefs as a person – you really, really want to do something, there’s a way, there’s some kind of a way.
There’s our optimism thing.

Lindsay:
I think that’s a good optimism.
I think it’s also a really good point to end on.
If you want to do something, there’s a way.

Kerstin:

There’s a way.
Definitely.
It’s not no work, but there is a way.

Lindsay:
Oh, thank you so much.
It’s been so good to talk to you about this.
I think we’ve, you know, we’ve had these…

Kerstin:
I was on a podcast!

Lindsay:
You know, like I said, about the phone box, we’ve had these little snippets where it’s come up and, and I’ve never really heard you talk fully realized that there is a full story.

Kerstin:
I have a podcast.
Do you want me to link you to I have one episode?
Where I talked about like, and the conclusion I come to is always like, it’s kind of, is this good advice for another learner?
Like just be obsessed with it.
Don’t know, but you can’t control.

Lindsay:
You can’t control that.

Kerstin:
Yeah, you can’t.
Don’t close yourself, I guess.

Lindsay:
Yeah, that’s it.

Kerstin:
Be open to it.

Lindsay:
Brilliant.
And so people watching are listening, where can they find out more about you?

Kerstin:
That is fluent language.co.uk.
I’ve got like a webinar, everything.
you want to watch me talk slightly more systematically, that is fluent language.co.uk/secret.

Lindsay:
Excellent.
Well, thank you so much.
I will link to those in the show notes as well.
And yeah, I’m sure I’ll speak to you very, very soon.

Kerstin:
You will.
You will.
Bye.

Lindsay:

Bye.

Kerstin:
Thanks for having me, Lindsay.