Ellen Jovin: Language Learning for Pure Enjoyment

On this episode of The Actual Fluency Podcast, I'm joined by New York-based Ellen Jovin, who studied more than 17 languages in the last four years.

Hello everybody and welcome back to the second episode of The Actual Fluency Podcast. I'm really excited to bring you this second episode, uh, partly because I have a great guest on today, Ellen Jovin, who you will hear very shortly. And partly because I had an amazing response from the first episode. In less than a day, it was downloaded over 50 times. And that's without putting it anywhere. Uh, I mean, I didn't want to put it on iTunes yet, because I wanted to record a few episodes and, you know, see what people thought before I, I put it out officially. So, if you're listening to this, uh, as it was released, uh, in late March, then you're, you're among the few who know about this. But thank you so much for listening. It means the world to me and any comment or feedback that you send to me really motivates me to make it better.

With that out of the way, it's time to address a little bit of news. Of course, I have the podcast out, which I discussed in the last episode. But I've also started doing another show. And this isn't a podcast, but it is more of a a live show. And I'm doing this with a language friend whom I found on a Facebook group. And we called it the Kris and Kris Language Hour. And basically what we do is every Saturday, or sorry, Sunday, every Sunday evening in European time, we sit down and we do a Google Hangout live. And we invite everyone who's interested in languages to come on and ask questions or, you know, just interact with us and and say what's on your mind that day.

I'm so excited to welcome Ellen Jovin to the podcast today. How are you today, Ellen?

I'm doing very well, thank you. Thank you for having me, Kris.

No problem. And I know what who you are and what you're doing, but maybe there are some listeners out there who don't quite know just who Ellen Jovin is. Could you give like a brief introduction to yourself and what you do these days?

Sure. Uh, my background is as a writer and a teacher of sorts. I uh, was a freelance full-time freelance writer for a number of years, and then I started a business with my husband where we do communication skills training for businesses. This is in English, um, but I go gallivanting around from company to company, running classes in business writing, email etiquette and grammar, all in English.

Well, that's fantastic. So, um, I mean, how, how do you motivate yourself? I mean, I like to start the interviews with if you have any kind of success quote or, you know, some really good thing that kind of keeps you motivated.

Well, I, it's a strange thing because I was away from foreign language for nearly two decades actually. Um, I, I really was spending all my time either teaching thing, teaching courses or writing, and all it was in it was all in English. Um, and then I just suddenly, I was looking around for things to write about that related to language. I wanted to do more writing again, and I wanted to do more in a realm that fascinated me, and I was initially looking primarily at English, at, um, the history of, the history of English, at English grammar.

You were curious in another.

Yeah, I was curious. And I, I don't know, I just I also it's something even more than that, I guess. It's, uh, there's sort of a built-in fascination for me with how, um, you know, I don't even know. It's so it's it's almost like it it's like it's almost it's almost like a religious reverence and I think for for language. And I've, I've think I've had it my whole life, it's manifested itself in different ways. But I, a lot of the people that I know that frequent language boards and are compulsive students of language, um, I think would say a similar kind of thing that there's just something magical about it, um, that infects them. It's like a disease.

A good one.

A good one.

So, I mean, how did how on earth did you get started? I mean, you said that you had this long hiatus and then you come back and then you're like, I wanna learn a lot of languages. Was that how you started or did you have a plan or?

Yes. Well, and just I I always feel I have to be very responsible about the terminology that I use. I I I say that I study the languages because when I use the word learn, I think it's, you know, it's used differently in different languages those terms, but I, I feel as though when I say I learn them that it sounds like I can run around and speak 17 languages and that is so far from the truth. So I just want to make sure that the, that, that everyone knows that and that that is how I'm presenting it.

Yeah, like what how did you wake up one day and say what what changed since you just overnight kind of said now I want to start working on languages? Because it seems like you did kind of a very intensive, you know, you say these four years or so it seems like you had pretty much the whole year dedicated to what is it? Three or four different languages.

Yes. I I I it was very intensive, and I have hardly there's one period I think where I took um, a month and a half, excuse me, a month and a half off. That was after Polish. Sorry Polish. Um, that was, that was, um, but generally, I've done I've done work on this every single day of, you know, for the last almost five years. Uh, you know, some days very little depending on what my schedule is, but you know, then there are days where it's basically dawn to to not dawn to dusk, it's more than dawn to dusk. It'll be dawn to the time I go to bed.

Right. Tim Ferriss says says as well.

Pardon?

Tim Ferriss says that as well in his, um, I can't remember if it was Four-Hour Workweek or Four-Hour, um, Chef, but he says that he felt like when he had in school a day where with PE, you know, physical exercise, that the subjects he had immediately following that, he tended to do better in.

Really?

So, yeah, so.

I do so much better if I like if I do a language lesson while I'm walking in Central Park, uh, I I do much better. Almost almost a hundred almost a hundred percent of the time. I mean, there are always exceptions where you just feel, yeah, whatever's going on in your head. But, um, and running even running running's a little more strenuous, so I some of these language lessons, you know, it's like you're trying to pronounce Arabic sounds while you're, while you're breathing hard and running up a hill, it's a little easier if I'm walking, but.

Maybe people get scared as well if you run around shouting Arabic words.

Yeah, well, it it, um, I I try to manage the volume a little bit. But some of the, you know, some sounds are hard to pronounce unless you get a little volume behind them when they're really you can't exactly whisper them. No, but it was really weird. I was actually, I I I think I remember where I was on the east side of Central Park, like probably in the '70s on the night of June 30th, 2009, when this idea popped into my head. And this is really how, you know, this is really how it works. So, all of a sudden I said, oh my God, that's it! And I ran home and then the next morning I went to New York Public Library and I picked a language, and I started that day. And so that's the day that my blog began.

A funny fact.

A funny fact.

Sorry for interrupting.

No, no, please do interrupt. I must be interrupted.

Sometimes. I uh also started with Russian.

You did?

So.

How was it? How did you pick it?

Um, I picked it because I played a video game that had a big Russian user base.

Oh.

Uh, but apart from pretty arbitrary, yeah, but I just, yeah, I could have rolled the dice or something. But yeah, I picked.

You know, that's.

Go ahead, I'm sorry.

Yeah, go ahead, I'm sorry.

So, um, so that's one thing we have in common. How how well is your Russian now?

Oh, it's terrible.

Oh.

Yeah, no, because so Russian was, you know, that was, um, July and August of 2009. And I have done virtually nothing with it since, but but actually two two nights ago or night ago, I don't remember, I I got I I reinstalled the Pimsleur lessons for Russian, and I just began doing them. So, I'm, I'm, I'm, it's interesting. This is actually right now I'm cycling, I'm starting to cycle through some of the languages again. So, I'm seeing what happens when I go back and how much I remember. And the residue, it varies. I seem to have very little residue for Hindi, I must say, but, um, the the residue for Russian and for Arabic, which were the first two that I worked on, it's there. So, when I do the lessons again, um, there there are some things that pop up that I think, I have no recollection of that at all. Did that really happen to me? But then there are other things that sound very familiar and the sounds are easier to form the second time around. And I haven't gone very far with this, but I I am kind of curious to see where I end up.

Right. See, that's probably a difference between us because I, I would prefer as little grammar as humanly possible.

But you probably know you you probably know a lot of grammar, do you?

Yeah, I mean we.

You grew up in a tradition where actually I think you really learn it.

Yeah, yeah, of course. I mean, we have uh English in grade two and German in grade six. So.

And so you learn them in a very grammatical way. I mean, do they go?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. And so we don't we don't really have that here. I mean, people get it depending on the schools, you know, if you go to certain schools, you're going to get very rigorous training, but a lot of, in general, I would say that that that it's not a very significant part of American education. And so I get adults in my, when I when I teach my business writing classes, I have people in them, most of them are Americans, maybe, you know, American-born, native English speakers, probably about 75%. But I'd say about 25% are from other parts of the world. So, the people from other parts of the world tend to be more and it depends on which part you're talking about, but they tend to know more about grammar, and if I start talking about a verb, which I don't usually do in a writing class, but if I did, they are all over it. Whereas I have people in my, you know, native-born Americans who cannot find a verb in a sentence. That is that and that I think surprises a lot of people from other countries when they.

I mean I plan to.

when they say.

Go ahead.

No, no, I said when they when people, you know, I have like some of my Russian students, they can, they can tear apart the sentence grammatically the way that Americans could never do. They make mistakes, the Russians make mistakes.

They're probably saying why are you using so many words?

Yeah. But, but they don't have, Americans often don't have the vocabulary or the sense of structure. You you are in a position where you can be complacent now because you know all this stuff. You have a sense for it even if you don't really think about it. I bet you.

And I left it behind.

You've left it behind. You're too grown up for that. I'm still living in my childhood.

Oh, that's funny. That's nice. If you can rediscover that joy then yeah. Um, but if you, I mean, you talked a little bit about how you're in no way able to speak so to speak 17 languages, but if you do a language for three months, how far would you typically get? I think that's it really.

It's depends on the language. It depends on the language and, um, you know, my huge, my, my biggest success story with the project was Italian, which is not going to be probably a big shock that it was a language like that, which has a, it has a lot in common with English and then with other romance languages, which I had already studied. But, um, for example, with that one, I knew maybe 10 words in Italian. Um, maybe eight, I've I listed them. I whatever it was, I listed them on my blog when I started it. You know, I'm not, I didn't include things like rigatoni or something. It was but, um, and I started from zero.

Sure, yeah.

But so, on the phone, I I scored, they gave me a 10 out of 12. And I I I think I maybe got that in, uh, in German, which I majored in in college. And then, you know, so I studied it for years, and I spoke it from when I was age two to age four. So, I have even though I don't speak I don't speak at all like a native, there's some feeling for it in me. So, so when when I put my mind to it, I think I can do pretty well, but that is a but that my experience with something like Korean was so radically different.

Like that was almost nothing at the end of it.

I couldn't really do. I mean, I I couldn't have had I I I had little brief snatches of exchanges with people in in Korean neighborhoods here. But it wasn't, um, it it's too mysterious for me. So, for me, I'm and and that and I don't I don't want to suffer. I want to go at a normal pace where I feel happy and comfortable. So, I sort of experiment with the writing system, and I pract, you know, I do the Pimsleur lessons if they're available because I just happen to love those. And then I, um, I'll I'll try to I'll try to do what I can, but it's very, it it's so different. And, and, you know, the learning materials available for major European languages here are ext, there's an extraordinary array. So, it's just harder like Korean people, a language like Korean, people tend to take a class. So, the materials to teach yourself are not as good usually.

And that.

And that.

And the writing system, of course, is like a completely different story.

It is, but it's really I think a lot of times and I and I think a lot of the the people in the very serious language learning community have experienced this. If you're studying, um, you know, you're studying an endangered language or a language that's just not studied that often, the quality of the materials is much lower and as soon as that happens, your ability to learn fast declines. You, you can find, you you have to then really make an effort to find partners, but for me, I learn very I have to really learn I have to have a supportive writing framework, you know, reading and writing to support the oral work for me to feel comfortable in my head. And if it's not available, it's not available. So, my I don't like my Korean materials. If someone wants to send me some great links, I'm I I'll try again. Give me something else.

But that's I mean that's a really good point to bring up is that language learning should never be forced or feel like a chore. It should be you should enjoy it. And if that language, for whatever reason, be it the material is, you know, not interesting or you just don't like the the way it sounds, then you shouldn't really force yourself to do it anyway. I mean, there's no reason to.

No, and I find that question fascinating too. The the question of what how you pick the language that you study. So, um, you know, sometimes I see questions online, should I do this language or this language? And the methods that people use to analyze that choice, they're very different. So, some people are very, they're very practical, right? They're they're saying, oh, well, this is spoken by, you know, 200 million people. Whereas this other one is five million. So, you know, that one's, or but, and I think sometime for me those considerations are relevant. It would probably be a little hard for me to study a language that had, I think personally, at least at this point, I might change my mind about this later. I don't know how you feel about this, but if there were a thousand speakers of a language, I probably wouldn't study it.

No, I wouldn't either. I I wrote about it on my blog that I I'm practical first, so.

You are.

So, the language that I, yeah. The language I I go for first is one that has a some kind of broad appeal. I mean, I think I listed something like Russian and Mandarin as the kind of the top contenders because there are just so many speakers.

I think that's very interesting, and I think also you can find that a language that initially seems maybe not that seductive can draw you in. And I like that too. You know, like.

Oh, yeah.

I was really afraid of Chinese, and and I I put it off year after So, it was on the calendar for the first year, because initially my project was supposed to be a year. Um, and then, but then when I expanded the project to two years, I put it in the second year. And then when I expanded to three years, it got moved to the third year. So it kept traveling.

Oh, that's funny.

And I felt really guilty about it because it's so, you know, it's so central, and there's so I mean, there's so many Chinese speakers in New York. It's it's a very big influence in our culture here. And, um, so finally, and I'm not I'm not very happy with my achievements in Chinese, but what I found, what was interesting when I started looking more closely at it, was that there were there were surprises. The grammar was way easier than I expected. Um, the word order was way easier. There were things that and, and you can in fact find plenty of comments from language learners that, oh, Chinese is, is easy. And that's so con that's so contradicts everything that I think people in the West are told about it, you know, people who speak a a Latin-based a language with a Latin-based alphabet and.

Yeah.

And I also liked I also felt connected to the the culture in ways that surprised me and and were lovely.

Right. Yeah, it opens new new doors, like very very new doors because it's such a unique culture, and, you know, they have their own uh different cultural traditions and actually just social, you know, if you're in a Chinese uh, if you're in the companionship of a Chinese person, they act differently and you can see that all the time. But if you don't know about the language or the culture, then you it's kind of a mystery or an enigma as you might call it.

I feel very, very shut out of a culture if I have no idea about the language. And I think some people feel that less than others. They can go travel, they can go, they can go traveling and look around and appreciate things without having access to that. I feel as though I get so distracted by my lack of access that it's very hard for me to approach it at all. So, it's almost like an all-or-nothing mentality.

Well.

To be honest.

Maybe there's something there, I don't know.

Well, I I think it is. I really, I'm not I mean I'm I'm laughing about it, but that would not I would not be the only person in the, um, compulsive language community who has, um, aspects of that in their life.

I I believe that as well. Um, is there anything you regret about the way you did it? I mean, you you you kind of did the a lot of languages a little bit of time. Do you regret sometimes that you didn't follow through with, say, one one language a year and then getting, let's say, above social fluency or social fluency?

Um, I have no regrets at all. First of all, I'm not very big on, um, the look I try to learn from my mistakes, but I did exactly what I want to do. I feel static about it, and I feel that it has just opened doors for all kinds of future explorations, and I'll go back to languages that I I touched on. You know, you know what, I really want to have a survey kind of in my head. And that that is that's what I achieved. So, I picked a bunch of language families, a bunch of writing systems. I didn't learn, I did not study Chinese characters, by the way. That I just felt was so overwhelming a task that I I I saved that for, I I looked at it, and then I just realized I'd better just try to work on I, you know, I.

Just speak and understand and then you.

Yeah, yeah, that's I I.

You can if you really want to.

So, maybe All right, so maybe that I maybe that I wish I'd done a little bit more work on. But guess what? I have my future ahead me, and I'm going to go back to ones that I really enjoyed and felt most drawn to and then see where that takes me. But in general, my choices for this are going to be motivated by what I feel like doing because I can't do it any other way.

Exactly. And, and, and the thing you're saying is also that you're not trying to put it into a system where you have three months of learning, and then maybe a year or two down the line, you go back to it for three months to kind of, you know, bring it up to some level. You're basically just going back to explore and see where it takes you. You're not putting everything into boxes or systems.

I think, well, that's how I feel. And I think, um, eventually that I will be I will acquire to, um, a high level more languages. But if that even if that didn't happen, I really think it's going to happen. So, I'm not actually particular. But, but I'm not but I don't have this idea, you know, oh, I want to have, you know, C2 in eight languages. I don't I really don't care about that. And, um, if someone handed it to me as a gift tomorrow, I would accept the gift. If someone want to wrap up, um, eight languages a a high level and give them to me, I will accept. So, please keep that in mind. Anyone who hears this. I will not return the gift.

Yeah, I've seen it. It's quite quite impressive actually. Even from the, you know, Mrs. uh Johnson's bookshop on the 23rd Street or whatever you call the streets over there, you know, to the biggest audio courses.

Yeah.

You know, that's quite funny.

Thank you. Well, so anyway, I want to just keep making that bigger. I really I really enjoy reviewing products and I also really get kind of annoyed when bad products are marketed as good products. So, I feel like, um, you know, I feel like I I want to be the a little bit of a, uh, I don't know, what's the.

Cynical, critical.

Well, of course I want to have a warm, happy, fuzzy feeling about all of this. But when but if the people are blowing hot air about their products, and they really kind of stink, I want to say that. And I also want to get more attention for products that are earnest and well-intentioned and maybe don't have a huge marketing budget. I I mean, it really it's very meaningful, I I don't know that I have, um, um, you know, so I want to extend my reach and give give more of a voice to those because that's what people should be buying, not the thing that they've just heard about the most because they have all the ads everywhere.

Yeah, and you you talk a lot about sort of traditional books. Um, what do you think about the newer wave of language learning tools such as the, uh, you know, the online services like the Memrise and the Ankis and the the links?

I haven't to I I I am a little reluctant to admit this on your show, but I'm going to admit it. I still done the Anki, Anki, Anki. How do you how do you say that?

Anki.

Anki? I I'm obsessed with Memrise right now to the point that I'm not sleeping properly.

I love Memrise. I mean, but I, but that's the same as Anki though. So.

Is it?

If you, yeah.

So you can create your own stuff though, right? With.

You can create your own stuff in Memrise.

Oh, that's right. It's all user.

Oh, oh.

It's all user-contributed content.

And it's amazing, isn't it? Like my Russian course, some Russian girl put up 500 words and spoke them all into a microphone for absolutely nothing.

Is that how they are is that where all the audio's coming from, just people speaking?

Yeah, I think so.

Because but I'm I'm I've used, um, right. So some of those modules are really, really good and some of them really stink, just like any website with user-contributed content. So, I found a Russian one that I'm using, that I started using also two nights ago or so. So, you can see I'm just returning to it. This is my.

We should uh get we should uh what is it, friend up or whatever they call it, we can be on the leaderboards, see who gets the most points.

All right. I I think you might have a little bit of a head start on me, but I'll uh, I'll see what I can do there. I am I am a Membrain, I just want you to know that.

Oh, well, then you're probably above me. I think I'm on something. Memtroverse, I don't know.

I don't know.

Just came up with that.

But, um, I there's a frequency course, you know, frequency dictionaries. So the words that are used the most. Some of a lot of those modules I think are the best for different languages. And, um, but my problem is that I can't put it away. It's like a video game. And oh, I know, I just want to tell you one more thing, the, um, the you said that the rush you were using a video game with a lot of Russian users. One thing that I've heard and I don't know if this is true, because people are always wondering, what do you do with your languages? When you acquire them, you know, what can you do professionally? One thing I've heard and I haven't really investigated it because the world of video games is very mysterious to me and will probably remain so, is that, um, language skills are very useful in that market because of the international reach of some of the games. So, I don't know if that's true, but maybe if you study foreign language, you can be or maybe if you study multiple foreign languages, you can be a video game God.

Yeah, of course. And there's it's it's a bit of a niche, you know, they have big tournaments and stuff, and all the tournaments have, um, transmissions in in different languages. So, there is definitely a lot of material to go by. And I do listen to some of those, like I watch the video game, somebody else is playing, and then there's a Russian commentator, so it sounds like, you know, football or yeah, baseball, they're going completely crazy. And of course it's like almost, "Davai, davai, davai!" And you know, it's it's great fun. I I don't understand much yet, but I I assume if I just uh, well, "Davai" I understand, right? But if I just keep going then I assume I'll get some more, but I don't I don't think you you if anyone listening out there and it's like, oh yeah, I love video games. I should learn languages so I can become like, you know, the the it's called e-sports usually when it's a bit more professional. I should be an e-sports interpreter. I don't think there's enough because the funny thing is, I mean, the reason I learned English at a very young age was because of video games. So, if you do Yeah, yeah, it's true. I mean, I this is completely a tangent story, but I started I changed my uh, you know, inner voice. You you have an inner voice in inner language. For you it's maybe English, I don't know. But, um, it used to be Danish for me. But one day, when I was 11, I was walking home from school and snap! It just changed to English. And I hadn't haven't looked back since. Um, and I attribute that to video games and also shows like, you know, friends and stuff because we don't dub them. So, you get all the stuff over here, and you just breathe multilingual at a very young age.

It's very it's really an amazing thing. I think it is hard harder to be a polyglot type of person in the United States. I mean, Yeah.

Multilingualism is a quite a big problem. I mean, I've seen it on the news a few times where they're like, and you said it as well that your American clients are are are worse in in the grammar and the basics of language. And you would think that if you only know one language that you would damn sure know what the aspects of it was, you know?

Well, I think when you when you learn a foreign language, you tend to start to think about your a lot of people here have told me that when they study Spanish for the first time, they finally understand English grammar. That's often where they get their best instruction in it.

Yeah, that's probably a good point. Maybe you don't think so much about grammar until you actually.

It's unselfconscious then. You just, you know, you're just using it. But.

Yeah. That's that's really interesting. And of course, you're you're fortunate enough to live in the, perhaps the most multicultural city in the world I've heard.

I think it's in the it's either the most or it's way up there in the running.

Yeah. Oh, London is also quite I lived in London, so I I'm familiar with a lot of cultures there. Um, but it must be such a joy to, I mean, I I I, let me just say your blog is really amazing and it really shows that you have this passion for writing because every blog post is not just like, oh yeah, I went to this Russian library, I got this book, blah, blah, blah, which sometimes happens for my blog post, but yours is almost always a story, you know, it's always like a start and an end and it's almost it's just flowing and you make it seem so easy.

Oh, Kris, that's a very, that's a very nice comment. Thank you. I'm not sure it's entirely true, but I appreciate, I apprecia I'm I'm now reviewing some entries in my head as you say that. But anyway, I do I do try to make it engaging, and it's, um, it's something that is such a a love to me that I I mean, I wish I had more hours to write, in fact.

Right. And there was talk about a book as well. I mean, you you you wrote some, um, some helpful books for the business on your business website. But there was talk about a specific language learning book, right, at some point?

Right. I think I I have an idea in my head that's sort of, oh, I'm sorry, my my phone's just I forgot about the phones. Um, uh, I have sort of my I've sort of mutated a little bit the the approach that I think I'm going to take on it, um, but but that will be a piece of it. The language learning.

Okay.

It will be I have a language-related idea in my head that I'm developing right now.

Right. But it will also contain some piece of your own story, I assume.

Yes.

That's that's good. I mean, I I I'm I'm jealous, I must say. The fact that you can just, you know, this is Russian day, and then you go to the Russian quarter or neighborhood or whatever you call it, and then you just go into a Russian bookshop and find some Russian stuff that must be incredible, right?

It is it is really incredible. I think the good news though, in in I think there's nothing like experiencing things right in front of you in physical real life. But I do I do think that for language learning, and I didn't appreciate this so much for four or five years ago when I started, but for people in any corner of the world now, the internet is making those kinds of connections, um, so, so easy, so easy.

It's incredible, yeah. Oh, smaller, maybe even.

Right. It makes their world, but it exactly. It makes the world smaller, but the room the room they're occupying suddenly is, you know, has the the international boundaries dissolved and they have the whole world before them. And I I just think that would be a way for so many people in in their senior years to stay connected. This isn't just a young person's uh, sport.

No, no, not at all.

It's for everyone. And that's that's one of the myths that I hope can be busted more by the by the prevalence of web-based learning and chatting tools.

Yeah, I can totally recommend a website called Interpals. I don't know if you know about it.

I've heard about it, but I haven't used it. What can you is it's not for dating?

It's. No, no, I mean, that is a very tiny checkbox that says, I'm also interested in romance. But it is a pen pal site. And, um, the funny thing was I I logged on and I finished my profile and I was searching for Russian speakers, um, yeah, basically just Russian speakers. And then I put in my own age bracket, just, you know, I thought it would be easier to relate to people around my own age. And I found not one, but two Russian girls who also were fluent in German. So, now I'm learning about Russian in German.

Wow.

So, that's, I mean, how can you can you imagine that sometime ago finding that kind of connection? I mean, and it was just so easy and there are millions of people on that site. So.

That's really amazing. See, that's why we have to if we're going to get the seniors involved, we have to get a bunch of them on because people do tend to go for their own age range. And all these I feel sorry for the one 80-year-old woman there, you know, we've got we've got to get her some friends. But I think this is an this is something I hope I have time to work on in the next year alongside the many other Yeah, you have many other obsessions.

Yeah, you got some some projects going on, I must say. Um, and another project, you're going to Europe this June?

Oh, that's right. I am.

You're you signed up for the Polyglot Berlin?

That's right. I'm going to be there.

And I will as well.

So, I will look forward to seeing you in real life.

Yeah, that'll be very interesting. I'm sure we're going to have a lot of fun and a lot of interesting talks about uh language learning. Um, but yeah, Interpals I could definitely recommend. And I don't know if you have of course you have your blog and if, um, if any of the links that I mentioned if people are interested I'm I put it on in the blog post that goes with this episode and it's episode two. So, that's actualfluency.com/02 just if you want to find a link like Interpals or some of the blog posts we talked about. But, as we're finishing up here, do you have any kind of, um, where can people find you? What are you working on? Any shoutouts you want to give?

Um, well, I'm I'm always working on my website, so they're certainly welcome to visit me there, EllenJovin.com. And I hope.

I highly recommend it.

Thank you so much. And and I, um, I do I am looking forward to meeting a bunch of crazed language learners at the at the conference in June.

Yeah, is that going to be your first uh polyglot so to speak conference?

It is.

I don't like the word polyglot.

Why don't you like it?

Cause I think it creates kind of an elitist uh inner group that it shouldn't be.

I well, I I find that an interesting comment. I don't I don't dislike the term, but I dislike applying it to myself because then I start measuring all my deficiencies immediately. You know, that's I've I feel very, it's very I don't like I'm so particular about like English. I I really I feel that I have a pretty good command of English, but I'm always.

Definitely.

I would call you fluent.

You are fluent.

I I think I I think I'm fluent by now.

Yeah, yeah, I think so. Definitely.

Yeah, yeah, I think so. But Yeah, I just the whole I'm not really into the measurement thing. So, people can yeah, people can test me if they want when I when I get there and see how they think my skills are, but, um, but I I'm not really I also and I don't know how many languages that means and whatever.

Yeah, and and maybe if you studied 17 of them, maybe you just don't honestly have any idea. Like how many of those are you fluent in? Can you just say that immediately? Or I mean, I wouldn't.

I can I know what I can have a conversation in right now without totally without having problems. And those are the ones that I've spent more time on, which are German, German, French, Spanish. And then if you give me a month, I think I would be okay in Italian. And if you gave me two more or three months, then maybe Portuguese as well. But, um, but I'm pretty aware of my limitations. And you know, I don't I don't think as a you don't get partial credit for language. So, you either you speak, you know, you speak it or you don't. Like you don't get to say, I speak, um, one, you know, I speak one tenth of what a speaker can can do in that like a fluent speaker can do in Spanish, and I do that for 10 languages. So, that counts as a language. That doesn't work.

No, of course not. But maybe that's your that's kind of the whole, um, point of it is that some people see languages as a means to communication. But you don't necessarily.

I don't want to talk to anyone, Kris.

You're only interested in the grammar. That's that's fine. You know what I mean? I try to learn a language to speak it. And that that means that I can't just do three months. I'm doing this for Russian for some stupid reason, but that's because the Polyglot Berlin conference is coming up and I wanted to challenge myself and, you know, but I don't have a fixed time period usually. Um, so I I'm aiming for social fluency like you mentioned before. I'm not I'm not as fascinated by grammar and individual, um, structures as you are. So, for me, it's a little bit different. But I think that's the whole takeaway is that you need to find your angle when you're learning languages and why you're doing it. If you can't answer the why, then the how is really, really difficult.

That's a very good point. I do I would just like to say that if I could speak fluently my languages, I would really like that. And the ones that I can't say I and the ones that I can, I get a great deal of pleasure out of. I mean, there's for me it's it's so much fun to jump around like to I've done volunteering in New York where I've been able to, um, speak six languages in a morning or something like that. And for me that is such a mental pleasure. And my My hope is that I'll be able to do that more and for more, you know, better and for more languages down the road. But absolutely, um, I think that I get pleasure out of certain obscure things that don't give pleasure to other people, and we're all individuals. We have to appreciate our strengths and outsmart our shortcomings.

And on that bum bum shell, it's I think it's time to end. Sadly. But it's been a a great pleasure and we could talk for hours and I'm looking forward to doing just that in June. But Ellen, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure and thank you for coming aboard this, uh, early ride of my podcast. We'll see how it goes. But, uh, thank you so much.

Thank you, Kris. It was wonderful.

Thank you for listening to The Actual Fluency Podcast. For more information, be sure to check out actualfluency.com. Until next time, enjoy learning and have a great day.