What perfection and immersion myths do you need debunking? In this episode of How To Learn A Language, Heidi Lovejoy discusses her experience with both aspects of language learning.

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

Perfectionism & Immersion Myths That Need Debunking with Heidi Lovejoy

Links from this Conversation

Watch the free private training video mentioned in the intro.

Heidi’s website: https://lovejoyandlanguages.com/

Heidi’s podcast – Love, Joy, and Languages: http://www.lovejoyandlanguagespodcast.com/

Heidi’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/love.joyandlanguages/

Heidi’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/LoveJoy_Lang

TL;DR – Lessons from this Conversation

I’ve never lived abroad in the way that I would define it. By that, I mean I’ve never been in one place abroad for longer than a matter of weeks where I’ve been responsible for paying bills, changing my address, dealing with visas etc.

So although I know that immersion isn’t the be-all-and-end-all that it’s easy to fall into believing it is, I can’t speak much to that from the perspective of having been immersed. So I was grateful to discuss this with Heidi, who does have that experience.

I also loved Heidi’s perspectives on getting comfortable with being imperfect in a language, especially as she describes herself as a recovering perfectionist.

Transcript

Lindsay:
Hello.
Hello.
Welcome to How to Learn a Language.
Very excited to share with you that it is time for another guest on the show.
In just a minute, we’re going to hear from Heidi Lovejoy, and we’re going to talk a little bit about perfectionism and immersion and really dig into Heidi’s own experiences with language learning and how that has shaped and changed her approach to language learning throughout her I think six years
now of learning languages.
So yeah, really interesting chat today and it’s going to be, it’s going to be fun.
I’m going to leave you with that in a second, but before I do just a quick little heads up that Heidi was one of the first people to join Language Life back in 2020. 2020. This is how we originally met.
And yeah, if you are also thinking about how to learn languages and You want to work on that side of things to help you go forward and learn any language with much more confidence and ease and just really feel settled in to the whole process and learning it for you in the best ways that are going to
work for you.
And language life is the best way to do that.
I have a free video training that explains lots and lots about the first really core step that you’re going to want to take that next step towards better language learning.
And you can get that right away.
The link is in the description in the show notes.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the video and to welcoming you into Language Life.
All right.
Now I’m going to pass on over to my conversation with Heidi.
Enjoy.
Hey, Heidi.

Heidi:
Hello.
Hello, Lindsay.

Lindsay:

Always a pleasure to talk with you.
Um, for, I mean, we know each other, but for people maybe listening, would you like to introduce yourself?

Heidi:
I am Heidi Lovejoy of Lovejoy and Languages podcast.
And, um, yeah, that’s the biggest introduction I have.
I started learning languages when I was 33 years old.
So right at six years ago, when my family and I moved to Italy and Literally we landed and I think we were at baggage claim when I was looking at my phone going how do I say thank you how do I say hello because I mean I probably learned it or heard it somewhere along the way in Italian but I had no
idea and that was the beginning for me so we lived in Italy for four years where I went through all the rollercoaster ride of learning how to learn a language and learning how not to learn a language for myself.
And then, um, four years later, we moved to Germany where I start the process all over with German and my kids both go into the local schools as well, both in Italy and Germany.
So we have a wealth of experience with all of it.

Lindsay:
That’s really cool.
And that’s, that’s kind of the, I’m glad you’ve introduced yourself that way.
Cause that’s one of the big things that, I really wanted to talk to you about like, the main question is how do you learn a language?
But I also really want to dig into those specifics in your case of, because, and again, we’ve, we’ve just talked about this before I hit record, but you know, this idea of immersion being the be all and end all being the, the, the message that we are sold.
And then how does that work when A, you’re immersed, B, You’re moving to a different country so you’re not immersed in country A anymore but you still want to learn language A and then B you then have to learn language B from zero in country B but still keep language like oof so yeah I want to dig into that a little bit more.

Heidi:
There are so many layers there too.
I just had like a million thoughts going off at all these different points in my life.
Let’s start with just the first immersion, just moving to the country because that’s where my story begins.
The first thing I have to say is immersion is like It’s a word that doesn’t even really have that much meaning per se when we talk about moving to a country and immersing yourself because you can live in a country and hear the language every day.
But especially if you’re an English speaker, I would say you don’t necessarily have to be immersed.
You can work for an English speaking company.
You can have English speaking landlords.
Here in Germany, the radio is almost all in English and you can literally live here and function without needing the language.
Not true for everyone I know but it can be true and so I at least had this idea that I was going to go and all I would do is hear Italian.
I would have to learn it.
There would be no choice and my brain would just soak it all up easily of course because when we say immersion we kind of think oh yeah it’s just going to be easy.
It’s just going to enter my brain but it’s not like that.
You still have to work To put yourself in the situations and also then actually use the language which is really really difficult for a lot of people especially if you have perfectionism or if you’re an introvert like I’m just naturally not a big talker anyway and that makes things even harder.
With Netflix and Disney Plus and stuff you can even listen to all your TV in whatever language you want so you still have to make a concerted effort To be in the language in a country and that was something I really did not expect even though it’s very obvious now I didn’t expect it and we were
surrounded by a bunch of English-speaking friends both Americans and Italians who spoke English, other expats and immigrants who spoke English so you know we have this this bubble of English-speaking people and in the beginning it makes a lot of sense because you’re going to connect with anyone who
doesn’t have a language barrier really that’s like your first line of friendships in a new country is anyone who you can communicate with And then over time you realize, oh crap, I don’t have many friends who speak this other language.
I’m not spending my time trying to because you have that connection, like the connection need is met.
So there’s just so many little intricacies of living in a country.
That immersion and living in the country intersect if you make like you know a Venn diagram but that little inside piece is not as strong naturally.
I think like I said especially for English speakers I think is very true.
So that was a big shock for me that I didn’t expect to happen.
I didn’t expect to have to work so hard To really get the language and that’s not even taken into account that Italians speak very quickly.
There’s a lot of dialects being thrown around and you don’t always really pick up on what’s going on around you.
So that was that was a very challenging experience that we didn’t of course dig into later of how I started to kind of overcome those things.
And then once we left Italy, I think I had started learning German maybe six months before we moved to Germany.
So there was some overlap.
And in the beginning, of course, things are a little bit easier.
You’re doing a lot of vocabulary and just kind of discovering.
So once I got to Germany, I was functional enough that I could greet people, order food, things like that.
So it was just a little bit less stressful, I think, the very beginning.
But then I really wanted to keep Italian in my life and my Italian was good enough that I had at least a stable foundation that I changed how I was learning.
So we can of course dig into that too.
How you learn when you’re kind of in that beginner phase especially is very different than how you learn at intermediate phases.
And so as my Italian gets better I find myself needing to study less and less and being able to immerse myself at home with the things that I like and of course they have friends I can talk to and stuff.
So my two, currently two languages, like how I spend time in each language while living in one of the countries is very very different in what I do with each language because there are different levels, different passions, different things I enjoy in the languages.
So it’s just it’s totally totally diverse.
What was the experience like being a beginner in Italian?
Would you say that you got to intermediate level whilst still living in Italy?
I would say so probably in hindsight, I probably reached a lower intermediate level.
Um, but it’s hard to say, cause intermediate is just such a wide range.
I could function.
I mean, I could have, I had friends who didn’t speak any English and we could have conversations.
Um, and those, those are, so we’ve been back to Italy three times since moving to Germany.
And every time I go, those conversations just go deeper and deeper and deeper.
And so I can, I can see, How my progress is going, being out of the country because every time I go back there’s very specific people who now I realize like our relationship just keeps getting deeper and deeper because we can talk about different things.

Lindsay:
Oh, okay.
You’ve probably heard me say this before, right?
I often compare it to like a puppy.
Have you heard me talk about the puppy metaphor?
No? Oh, okay.
Wow.
I’m surprised.
So I think of it as like, when you’re living with a new puppy, you don’t see it grow up, right?
Because it’s just there every day.
It’s cute.
And then one day it’s like, “oh, puppy got big!”, right?
And when you’re learning a new language and you’re in that every day and you’re not having that distance, you don’t see yourself improve until you’re out of that situation and you go back.
It’s like how with the new puppy, maybe it’s like a distant aunt comes and visits and was like, oh, puppy is now a dog.
And it’s a bit like that, right?
So what you just described there, like it’s not until you’ve gone back and then realized, ah, There is a notable improvement.
What I was going to ask was, did you notice then a difference if you got to intermediate level while being in Italy?
In terms of immersion, when you were a beginner versus when you were more at that intermediate level, how did the immersion affect your learning in different ways or did it affect in different ways?

Heidi:

It did and I have a very concrete, I wouldn’t say example, but concrete thing that happened.
So we had been there for about two and a half years when COVID hit.
So I had immersion as a beginner, then COVID where there’s like no immersion because you’re not doing anything except going to the grocery store and then outside of that at the end our last year there was kind of COVID kind of not, you know, so kind of locked down kind of not.
We could re-engage with people So, it was like I had a whole experience in Italy in immersion with a gap where I wasn’t immersed, almost like I moved back, you know, and there was definitely a difference.
I remember the first time after lockdown that we left our house and like walked around town and we met up with the friend I was talking about earlier who doesn’t speak any English and we talked and talked and I understood definitely much more of what she was saying and she’s not a native Italian
speaker either.
And so she’s very patient with me because she understands what it’s like.
But I remember just like being in conversation and thinking, what’s different?
I talked like this before and she like commented on how much better my Italian has gotten.
And I just it just kind of, it was like there was a glowing light around me of the language like I understood more.
And when I could understand more, it kind of A layer of anxiety, I think, that also blocks us from really immersing.
Sorry about the beeping.
When people are anxious about speaking, it’s like our own little blocks, our own little things that prevents us from really hearing what we’re hearing, from really speaking without thinking about it.
So seeing that progress that happened between the beginning of lockdown and the end of it um it really kind of took off just a slight layer of anxiety just a slight layer of fear and I had more confidence so my ears are more open and I can hear in sentences where I’m before the sentences were just muddled because they’re so fast all of a sudden I’m like oh I caught that word I caught that word now I can piece together this whole um this whole thing so That side of immersion was a huge difference from the beginning because I had a foundation and so now I could really take in the things that
were being said around me and there’s like I think toward the end of our time in Italy too there is a distinct moment when I realized That I was answering people’s questions appropriately.
You know, in the beginning, sometimes you’re having a conversation, someone asks you a question, you answer and someone else is like, no, that’s not what they asked you.
Dang it.
That happened so often.
And there came a point when I’m like, that hasn’t happened in years now.
This is another just like, all right, I’m, I’m getting the hang of this being in this environment kind of thing.

Lindsay:

That’s cool.
You mentioned the blocks that people have that often stop us from going.
What was that specifically for you?

Heidi:
Oh heavens it was everything.
I mean so the biggest thing for me is what I talk about mostly on my podcast is perfectionism and not the perfectionism like I just have to be perfect, I have to get everything right.
It was deeply you know psychological perfectionism where nothing is ever good enough to the point where it’s I would not do my studying, not do the things that I wanted to do because it just was never good enough.
And I deeply, deeply felt very vulnerable learning a language in the country with so many mistakes.
And it’s not just mistakes like making a conjugation mistake or something.
It’s just every time I opened my mouth, I felt like I was failing.
And that’s a really, really scary place for a perfectionist to be.
You know where most people I don’t even know I don’t maybe not most but where some people can make mistakes and laugh it off and then learn from it it took me years to learn how to learn from my mistakes because they were just there like that I mean it’s a block you know I remember many times after
talking to my kids teachers just leaving the building crying because I was so Deeply and not even embarrassed like for them they were always nice and patient but embarrassed for myself like I’m an intellectual person I’m an intelligent person how can I sound so Elementary is like a two-year-old and
it’s really really hard so I tried, I put myself out there and then I just constantly felt like I was failing myself and so it again it took a lot of time.
This is what I talk about on my show is it takes a lot to kind of start working I wouldn’t say necessarily to get over that But to work with it, like it’s something in my personality.
What can I do anyway?
It’s going to be there.
What can I do, um, to not let it stand in my way?
Um, so yeah, that was, that was definitely my biggest block.
And every time I leave a conversation instead of being like, Hey, that was, I used more words than I did last time.
It was, Oh, I forgot that one word.
How can I be so stupid?
I just learned that word yesterday, you know, and all that negativity is not a good place to be for anyone, but definitely for language learning.

Lindsay:
Oh, 100%.
100%.
I love what you say about then learning to work with it.
So much of the stuff that becomes those blocks for people as individuals, it’s stuff that is part of us and our personality and just the way we are as people.
And you can try and shoehorn that out of you and completely Be rid of it but often that isn’t going to work if it’s just who you naturally have an inclination to be and I think working with that rather than against it is just It’s lawless advice and so, so important.

Heidi:
It’s so much different, such a different mentality and an easier way because I think this also goes back to like anytime I’ve ever gone to Google and how to get over perfectionism, even how to get over perfectionism in language learning, there’s very specific.

Lindsay:
But also the idea of Googling how to get over perfectionism is so perfectionist!

Heidi:
The things that come up are probably from people who don’t have this very deep extreme perfectionism.
Like there’s plenty of people who want to do their best, who always try to do their best, who get down when they make mistakes, but maybe not so deeply.
And so there’s all this advice of everybody makes mistakes, just know that no one’s perfect.
like, I know no one’s perfect, but that doesn’t help me.
Getting rid of all of that and and just like just deciding to accept it is so much easier because then if I’m reading that advice and you’re like it still feels like something’s wrong with me just get over perfectionism no one’s perfect okay but I can’t so what’s wrong with me now is this supposed
to work no it’s it’s much better to try to you know just to work with what you got.

Lindsay:

Oh yes yes yes yes, could not agree more! Oh There was something else that you said there that really struck a chord and I’ve forgotten because there’s just too much good stuff.
I need, I should have notes to keep track of everything.
Okay.
So Italy, things kind of linked into place by the end, right?
In terms of language, would you say, and in terms of language learning in general and understanding a bit more about you and yourself and how you can best learn languages, right?
But then There’s this big thing that happens and you’re now leaving Italy and you’re moving to Germany, this big shift of having got to that place of feeling, yeah, okay, I’m rolling.
Things are working.
What was it then like?
Well, actually first question at that point when you’re leaving Italy, what were your thoughts then on immersion?

Heidi:
I knew for sure from experience that immersion is not a magic key to success.
It can be.
For people, I suppose.
I mean, that’s how we learn our native languages, but it is not a guarantee.
And it’s a tool just like anything else, just like a grammar book is a tool.
Immersion is a tool for having access to hearing a language in its, in a native form, because depending on where you live, that form can be totally different within a country.
So hearing it in its natural context.
There’s so many benefits to Being immersed in a culture like I never have to look up, well I have to look up, I never have to study like food because I just go to the grocery store and see the picture of apples and there’s the word for it right there and so there’s there’s those things that the
natural repetition of living there helps with.
Reading science is like one of my favorite things to try to figure things out but it’s definitely not a guarantee and I think as I mentioned earlier, in Germany, it’s where we live anyway, it’s almost even harder.
We’re near a big city.
Most people speak English very advanced, even if they don’t admit it, they definitely do.
The radio is in English and our landlords speak English, like there’s so much English around that you have to really work hard.
To really, really be immersed.
So it’s a tool.
You just, like you’ve said many times before, you just have to pick from it everything you can, squeeze out everything you can from it.
And it’s not, it’s not just a gimme, you know?

Lindsay:
Yeah.
You can’t just, okay, I’m landed in the country.
Whoosh, wash over me.
I’ve sat down in the lesson.
I’ve booked the lesson with the teacher.
Here I am.
Whoosh, the language is going to wash over and sink in.
Not like that.
On one hand, it would be lovely, but also it would be kind of boring, right?

Heidi:
I really like learning.
I like studying.

Lindsay:
Yeah, yeah.
Okay, so that’s your thoughts at the point when you’re leaving Italy, you know you’re moving to Germany, you want to, you started learning German before a little bit, right?
Talk to me a bit about that transition of wanting to keep the Italian and not wanting to have all of that hard work, learning a language go to waste, but still then wanting to learn German.
When, as you say, up until 33, 33, No languages.

Heidi:
Italian was the first time.
Was it scary to then think, I’m going to add another language here.
Is this, is this a foolish move?
It wasn’t scary because during lockdown I decided I needed another language too.
But during lockdown I started learning Polish, which was great until we learned we were moving to Germany and I’m like, okay, I can’t do three.
I tried for a little bit.
I’m like, this is just not going to go anywhere.
So it had to be two.
And I wanted to learn German for a long time.
My in-laws are native German speakers.
Even though we always speak English, so it’s part of our kind of family too.
And I love the sound of German, I love the structure of it, so it was an easy choice to make.
But I was very scared that all of that work in Italy, and not just the work of the language, but I went through so many years of struggle Like all of that has to be worth it.
Going through all of that and making it to the other side, like has to be worth it.
But I was really afraid that I would slide back too much.
And then knowing me, if I make too much backwards progress, I’m less likely to pick it back up.
And I was really, really afraid that was going to happen.
Um, but I have such a desire for Italian for one, and I have so many connections there as well.
Like I said, I have friends that we go and visit and they don’t speak English.
So it’s really not a choice for me.
I don’t think of it as a choice to not speak Italian.
My daughter still speaks it very well as well and she has friends there too so it’s something between us that was really important to keep but I didn’t have any expectations for what that would look like and I think that was one Choice, it wasn’t a conscious choice, but it was one choice that I made
that was very good moving to Germany was that I had no expectations of what keeping Italian in my life would really look like.
I knew I had books, I knew I had resources, I knew I had friends, I have italki, but I had no idea how that was going to fit together and I just kind of let things fall into place over time, which was definitely really good because expectations are the bane of my existence.
So yeah, I was really really afraid that I would lose it but I have passion, I have connection, especially the connection is just huge.
If you don’t still have the connections the place it’s a lot easier to just not continue working on it.
Yeah and like I said over we’ve been in Germany two years now and over time it’s just I just kind of sway back and forth naturally between which language I’m more drawn to at the time and every time I come back to one there’s just new moments of clarity new moments of okay I know where I am now and
where I need to go and what I want to do so it’s not even a thing I think about that much just kind of a thing that I do More like that.
I like that.
That’s, that’s, that’s a really cool thing because there’s something about multiple languages where that natural ebb and flow, I just think it’s so essential.

Lindsay:
If you try and keep it very Almost percentage based to the decimal point of like, it’s going to be this percentage of Italian and this percent of my day will be German.
And it becomes too regimented for some people.
That might be exactly what you need, but I think for, for a lot of people, that’s going to feel very stressful.
And like you say, those expectations then of like, but I haven’t hit my exact percentage of Italian for the day.
Like that can be too much.
And so I love that you follow that.
Natural push and pull of which language to go to.

Heidi:

Yeah.

Lindsay:
And in terms of hooks, as you were saying there, like you, you’ve got these reasons to keep learning Italian.
You’ve got these reasons to keep learning German.
I’m the same.
I noticed that if there’s something went like all the languages that I’ve studied, when I don’t have that hook, when I haven’t found that thing to keep me Connected.
It goes so much quicker.
Even if I was like a decent level at one point, if there’s nothing to keep me there and to keep me engaged and keep me practicing, it just, it fades.

Heidi:

It does.
And, you know, I’ve accepted that that is a natural thing.
The more languages you add, the hours in the day do not increase, disappointingly.
So, so yeah, so there is that too.

Lindsay:
So, okay.
So German and Italian, this natural ebb and flow, you also were learning Korean at one point, right?
Yeah, I’ve learned, I’ve learned Hangul, I’ve learned the alphabet, so I can recognize letters and pronounce words.
I don’t know what most of them mean, but I can.
And Korean is an interesting thing because I wanted to learn Korean since like high school, of course, I had no idea what to do.
It’s just, it looks fascinating to me.
I have several Korean friends And it’s something that it’s kind of like long term I really would love to I really want to visit South Korea sometime in the future so why not just do a little bit like learning Hangul I’ve learned it every I don’t know maybe once every two weeks I open up my Korean
script hacking book and just kind of look at a little script I’m like okay I can still recognize these I’m good and then you know learn some words here and there just through apps and kind of have fun with it so that One day when I do have the time to actually like really commit myself and have that
connection and desire it’s not starting from zero.
And actually it’s the same with a couple other languages.
European Portuguese I’ve just kind of dabbled with here and there and it’s not serious.
It’s like one day I really want to learn that so Also I can learn the pronunciation now and then you’re never really really starting from zero.
Polish I mentioned that I was learning during lockdown and then put it away whenever German came but a few months ago we were traveling to Poland so I said okay I need to pick up a little bit again and I listened to Pimsleur that I got from my library app for free.
I listened to it in the car on my commute most days and by the time we got there I could recognize words, I could have very very minor conversations you know Thank you and stuff.
And it’s just, it took kind of a little bit of the stress off of traveling to a new country, just being able to minimally get around.
So one day, and of course, whenever we got back, the connection’s gone.
All right.
I did my trip.
I’m okay.
But one day if I want to continue learning Polish again, I’m not, I’m not starting from zero.
I’ve got a little bit and it’s just kind of, you know, they’re in the background.
They’re somewhere.
They’re just hanging out.
Yeah.

Lindsay:
Yeah.
That’s that’s a cool approach.
I love the idea of thinking then you’re not starting from zero.
And you, as you were discussing that, I noticed there were a lot of differences between what you have done or what you do for those languages.
What does that look like in terms of the two main ones in terms of German and Italian?
How do you learn them?
Now we’re at the main question.
How do you learn a language?

Heidi:
I have absolutely no plan whatsoever.
No routine.
No structure at all.
I really, I have a lot of resources.
So part of being a perfectionist, I know a lot of people do this, not even perfectionists, but we just, especially language learners, I think we hoard everything.
We just, you see a book that’s in your language, teaching your language you want it, even if you don’t need it.
You know, I’ve tried all the apps and so many programs.
And over time the ones that really work for me that I enjoy that fit into my schedule those end up staying and so and with each language is different too because you pick up different things and German it’s harder for me to find resources that I enjoy.
I think in the beginning most the resources I find are just very come to Germany learn how to do These certain things and with Italian, I don’t know, maybe it ties into the cultures too.
With Italian, it just seems more lively, I guess, for lack of a better word.
So anyway, different resources.
So when I have time with Italian, which really is every day, I have podcasts I listen to, some of the same ones I’ve listened to for years that are still going with new episodes, some new ones I finally found some Podcasts in Italian for Italians that I’ve gotten to really enjoy and I don’t watch TV
often but when I do I try watching it in Italian listening to music.
I sent an audio message to a friend earlier today like there’s just so many things I can do to utilize the language.
Then whenever I want to really sit and study, like this is my week, I’m feeling Italian, I have a subjunctive book that I go to.
I have italki lessons too over, I don’t know, from like November to maybe March or April this year.
I had italki lessons almost every single day.
I had three different tutors meeting at different times from all over the world and it was really cool because with one of them we do very heavy, like we talk but we do very heavy grammar.
And with the other two, we just talked, stopped when we needed to, but I could have the same conversations maybe three times throughout the whole week.
By the end of it, my grammar or my vocabulary was just so much more broad because I talked about the same stories throughout the whole week.
And that was a huge jump in my language over those months.
So those are kind of my go-to.
I try to Be active in Italian.
A little bit of study but more active.
I can do a lot more reading as well.
I found some graded readers in Italian at the German Library, which are fantastic because they’re right at my level.
Some good extra little vocabulary that I get so I can enjoy the book and have just enough extra vocabulary to kind of pick up new things.
German is a lot more not structured because I really really don’t do structure.
Still some reading but I do a lot more apps.
I really like right now Speakly and Babbel.
They’re just great for context.
They have a lot of grammar Tips and stuff that make a lot of sense and it’s very focused on the things that I know are appropriate for my level right now.
Very useful for internalizing grammar without necessarily studying grammar.
So I spent a lot of time in the first year, year and a half like really digging deep into grammar with, I use German Uncovered and just Anything I can find like any lesson and now especially with these two apps and with reading you see those same grammar things coming up over and over.
I read to my kids because they’re going to the German school now my daughter reads to me my son is starting to read to me as well.
Yeah, those are probably the most things that I do is, and I always kind of have like an idea of what I want to be learning or doing in the language.
Like I said, Italian subjunctive is probably for the next 10 years something I’m going to be studying.
I know what I have.

Lindsay:
Realistic time frame.
I love that.
At least 10 years.

Heidi:

It’s something very specific that I know I can be working on and with German.
Oh, what is it?
Subordinate clauses and things like that.
I now understand them and so now working on producing them, like I always just kind of have an idea of what I need to be working on.
So when I feel like really studying and have time to study, I don’t have to think about what to do.
It’s there.
I already know what I’m going to be working on.
Yeah, I like that and I feel that there is this two type of language learner.
One is the hoard everything, lots of resources, pick and play and one is very minimalist, one book at a time, go through an order.

Lindsay:
You said something really curious to me.
You said, you know, routines and planning not your thing.
I think for a lot of people those words routine and planning Would go hand in hand with perfectionism.
So why do you feel that they’re not your thing?

Heidi:
Because my life is totally out of my hands.
I don’t know.
There’s just something about having kids.
I mean, my kids, there’s always different activities going on, different things going on.
My husband’s and my schedules never quite line up.
And I feel like every week there’s just something new and I wake up at the same time every morning.
I have my same first 15-minute routine of the day that’s just waking up and having coffee and everything but I never can seem to like have one week or two solid weeks where it’s like the same thing falls in place every day.
And it really like I would love to have a routine and say this is my language time and this is that but it just never happens for reasons that I feel like are totally out of my control.
Like last week my kids had lice for like the 200th time this school year.
Well that throws everything out.
Now I’ve got to shampoo our hair and shampoo everything and fold all the laundry and It’s unexpected, but that’s what I have to be doing in my spare time.
And I work full time on top of that.
So balance.
I just, I don’t know why.
I just can’t get into that routine.
And so again, I just said, okay, I’m not even going to try.
I’m not going to beat myself up over not doing it.
How can I make this work for me?
I do get time with both languages every day.
My focus language is the one that I spend the most time with.
And then whatever happens after that.
Happens.
It is what it is.
And it’s been working for me having this structure.

Lindsay:
I like that.
I like that.

Heidi:
And again, the two language learner of the sort of magpie and the minimalist, I think there is that structure and the just open blank canvas that, you know, there’s, there’s those two types and people, I say two types, it’s almost a bit of a spectrum as well.

Lindsay:
Oh yeah.
Yeah.

Heidi:
You know, it isn’t just like boom or boom.
It’s Where do you fit along this line?
But there’s always something like I always have a grammar book or something that I know when I have time to sit down and open the book and study, I know exactly what I’m going for.
And that helps because then otherwise I’m spending an hour trying to decide what to do and voila, there’s no language time.
So that helps.
So that’s kind of maybe the only structure I have is there’s always something on the back burner ready to pick up whenever I do have the time.
Hmm.

Lindsay:

Hmm.
And you said as well that you don’t watch TV a lot, but when you do, you try and watch in Italian or possibly in German, right?
Like how do you find another thing?
Maybe I think people might be wondering, how do you find the discipline to do that and not just watch every one of my favorite show?

Heidi:
Cause I don’t have any, I haven’t, I saw, I really kind of stopped watching TV whenever I guess when my kids were, I like, I wake up really, really early.
So when my kids go to sleep, I go to sleep.
And I think a lot of parents, especially wait until their kids go to bed and then that’s their TV time.
But I wake up early.
I don’t like a lot of stimulation in the morning, so I’m not up early watching TV.
So somehow my life just seemingly just kind of got rid of all those.
Plus, well, I was gonna say being overseas, we don’t get the, as things are coming out on like HBO, we don’t get to watch them.
But with Netflix, it kind of doesn’t matter anymore.
But I think I don’t have any real shows that I love.
I did start watching Big Bang Theory in Italian with Italian subtitles and that was fun.
But yeah, it’s just whenever I finally do get some time, I don’t necessarily try to get into a series But when I do I found that especially National Geographic stuff is really interesting and I can justify tv time because I’m learning something fascinating and it’s in another language so I get all
of those together.
And it’s actually really cool too because now my Italian is at a level where I can watch tv with subtitles and I can hear the difference between what they’re saying and what’s in the subtitle and I’m like oh that’s not the word they say.
I wonder why they use that instead because they mean the same thing but what they said was actually shorter and that’s just another kind of sign of progress is that you can tell the difference instead of being confused about things as well.

That’s like for me on like the real tier of language levels.
It’s not A1, A2, B. It’s none of that.
It’s like, can you spot the difference between the written and the spoken when you’re watching something with subtitles?
It’s have you had a dream where the language came up, even if it’s just, and the other one is like, do you then find yourself just sort of thinking The A1 tier of dreams is there someone who you know doesn’t speak your language in your dream but they’re speaking your language and in the dream you
say
Why are you speaking English?
Because your brain isn’t thinking in the language, but you know, they shouldn’t be speaking in the language.
That’s a beginner level.
Yeah.

Lindsay:
I like, I like that even with the dreams, there’s like an A1 tier of dream all the way up to C2 dream, just full on 10 PM till 6 AM full on Italian dream.

Heidi:

Yes.

Lindsay:
Well, I feel this has been fun.
Do you have any final lasting thoughts, any kind of rousing rallying cries in terms of immersion that you want the world to hear?

Heidi:
That I want the world to hear?
Well, if anyone has the opportunity to move abroad, move to a country where your language is spoken, I highly recommend it.
If it’s possible, if it’s an opportunity, it’s amazing.
Not just for the language, of course, but the culture and the connections are absolutely life changing.
But I know it’s not for everyone and I know it’s not possible for everyone.
And so I think I always enjoy, I feel like speaking to those people more who don’t have the opportunity and feel left out or have that FOMO, that fear of missing out because Anyone can create an immersive environment where they are and assuming at least assuming you have a Netflix subscription like
you really don’t even have to spend any money.
You can literally go to YouTube and type in supermarket Spanish, supermarket Italian.
There is someone out there who goes through supermarkets in their country and shows you all the products and you can pause it and like look at the signs and stuff if the video is good enough and you can kind of Have those experiences yourself.
There’s certainly benefits to moving abroad but there’s also a lot of challenges and so there’s also benefits of learning from wherever you are and I just don’t think it’s necessary or required necessarily.
I don’t think that if you move abroad you don’t necessarily have any benefit that someone living at home in their own country would have.
And so it doesn’t matter where you are, you can do it and you can find what you love and what you enjoy from anywhere.

Lindsay:
Yeah, that’s so true.
I’m glad you’ve, you’ve kind of brought that up because there is, there is such a thing isn’t there of like, that is the answer you got to go.
But as you’ve said, you can go and you can be in your bubble.
You can be surrounded by people that speak your native language.
Like you can more or less survive.
Um, you know, without it and if, if you want it and you go, I’m sure you can, you can find it, but also if you’re then naturally maybe more introverted or you don’t speak very much and you want to just chill out at home, then like you’re in your, in your home and your home may be in Italy, but
between those four walls, you know, unless you open the windows and you’re in like a city center, you’re not necessarily going to get it.

Heidi:
That brings up the other thing that I always really try to bring out is that you have to really, really know yourself.
I mean, it works for anyone at any level, any language, but wherever you go, you’re yourself in that place too.
So like I said, if you’re an introvert in your home country, you’re an introvert when you go out to another country.
If you have Social anxiety, here you’re going to have it there.
If you’re a perfectionist here, you’re going to be a perfectionist there.
And so at least if you can learn how to work with those things, wherever you are, you’re going to be a lot more successful than someone who doesn’t pay any attention to that and just tries to do something that may not be for them.

Lindsay:

Oh yeah, absolutely.
Heidi, thank you so much.

Heidi:
Thanks Lindsay, always a joy to talk to you.

Lindsay:
Yes, always a joy.
If people have listened to this they’re like, oh, I want to hear more from Heidi.
I want to hear Heidi on her own podcast.
Where can people find you on the internet?

Heidi:

Crazy to hear that anyone might want to listen to me.
My podcast is Love, Joy and Languages.
It can be found anywhere Spotify, Apple, Google, wherever people listen.
And also on my website lovejoyandlanguagespodcast.com.
I’m on Instagram as I think love.joyandlanguages and you can find me anywhere from there.
Brilliant.

Lindsay:
Heidi, thank you so much and I’m sure we’ll speak very soon.

Heidi:

Thank you, Lindsay.
Have a great day.

Lindsay:
And you.
Bye.

Heidi:
Bye.

Lindsay:
Thanks for watching!