Kerstin Cable: German Pronunciation

Season 2, episode 20, Kerstin Hammers, German Pronunciation.

Hey, Kris. I I'm all right. Thank you very much. It's always, um, I was incredibly excited the first time I got to be on the podcast, and we talked about being a language teacher, an effective language teacher. And I always thought, "Oh, I want to come back and talk more about learning." Because I've already talked about teaching and, you know, we talked about teacher marketing. Um, and now I get to talk about learning, which is gonna be so much fun. And we could just pretend I'm a different guest because I have a different name, I guess.

Yeah, exactly. We we've never seen you before, so We got Kerstin Cable from this this mysterious fluency blog. Now, one of the wonders of marriage, isn't it? Um, but uh, before we uh, move on to the meat of the episode about learning German and the pronunciation particularly. Um, what's been going on in the last uh, few months, uh, apart from being married, of course?

Oh, my God. Well, getting married takes up a big chunk of time, certainly. And I would last perhaps two or three months, I have mostly put a lot of my energy and work into creating an online course called Speak German Like a Native. Um, and it it when I tell one of my students, like, "Oh, I'm working on this course. It's called Speak German like a Native." He says, "Oh, really? Is it gonna teach me German in two weeks?" And I said, "Well, it's actually about two hours." Because it is so specific. Um, so it doesn't, obviously, it doesn't it doesn't um give you like internal knowledge of all the German words or um how to put them together. That's different aspects. But what I really enjoyed actually, and I really benefited from and want to maybe tell you a bit more about is to focus on this one aspect, which is just pronunciation.

Right. And of course, the uh, I guess the one thing that probably needs mentioning, although some might find it obvious, is that you are, of course, a native German speaker. Um,

Yeah!

Deeply anglicized now, but uh, originally, yes. And what what challenges do you think a native speaker has in terms of in terms of teaching pronunciation compared to somebody who might have learned it to a very high level as a second language?

There are two things that strike me. The first one is we can't anticipate exactly which bits are difficult. We can't you can't quite get that entirely as right as you think. Right? You know, it's sort of take a good guess, and my first outline was basically me looking at, okay, well, this bit, this bit, this bit, umlauts. Everybody's gonna have problems with umlauts. And then they're coming back and they're saying to me, "So, but what about the German R? You do you guys do a really strange R." And I was like, "Do we?" So, that's that was one thing. Just you just you you've got to ask people what their problems are instead of just guessing. Um, and that's really that's that's been something that as a native speaker, maybe you can't quite guess.

Mhm.

Or girlfriend, to complete the sake, then you will be able to talk to them, and you'll be able to try out your language on it. And then they'll say, "Oh, you're doing this wrong." And you'll say, "Okay, how do I do it right?" And they'll do that. And then you'll ask, "Why?" Because you're a, you know, you're a human being, you're an adult, and you're over three years old, so you're gonna want to know why. Um, and then they'll go, "I don't know, it's just like that."

Mhm.

And that is that is a big, big native speaker problem. And I think as a German who teaches German, I I have gained a huge appreciation for what it takes to teach a foreign language beyond just having the native grasp of the foreign language.

Right, because pronunciation is important, isn't it? I mean,

It's it's hugely important. And it's you know what it's really about, pronunciation? It's really about confidence, I think. It's really about making you as the learner feel that you're ready to kind of open your mouth and and speak. You know, and just say stuff, and say words, and giving you that that trust in yourself, that faith in yourself that, "Okay, whatever I'm reading now, I can just read it off the page." Um, or I can just say this.

Yeah, sure.

Because we've got the alphabet. We've got the basic sounds. But then we've got all the letter combinations and all the rules that maybe you don't you don't need them in your first German lesson. But they're the ones when you start opening your mouth and you start feeling self-conscious. They're the ones that will give you the you know, when you've when in a language, you have that feeling, you go, "Oh, okay, I get it."

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

That. And that makes me excited as a teacher.

Do you believe in the uh, I guess, speaking as a learner now, do you do you believe in a good enough pronunciation or a native-like pronunciation?

Oh, I certainly believe in good enough. I don't think you need to partly perhaps because I come from a country and that has a language where all the native speakers already conform to a standard dialect. So, we kind of speak foreign all of us anyway. Or we we all modify our our pronunciation anyway to better get on with each other. So, native-like in German is a million different things. So, certainly good enough, and good enough in Hochdeutsch. So, this is perhaps a German aspect, but Hochdeutsch is the standard dialect that you'll get in German media, et cetera. And that's what's really useful at the start. You know, if you want to go Bavarian or Austrian, do it later. You know, there's plenty of time for that.

Right. It just makes you feel better. What do you what would you say is more difficult in German, the how getting a really good pronunciation or learning the grammar?

Hmm, you've learned German. You tell me or tell me how you feel about that?

Well, I don't know how good my pronunciation is. I guess it's just good enough. But I would say the grammar is very challenging.

Hmm.

So, I I guess for for a personal standpoint, it's definitely P to master the cases and the the grammar points.

Oh, yeah, cases, cases.

Yeah. Cases. Yeah, you always forget about them when you.

When native speakers do, 'cause we're lucky 'cause we, you know, you just do them. Yeah. The cases are a classic case of case of um when a foreign speaker asks you, "Why does it have this ending?"

Oh, yeah, yeah.

I mean, even a native speaker who's very educated might say that's accusative, but they're still not gonna know that your language doesn't even have a case system if you're a native English speaker. Or okay, it has a case system, but it's it's been completely phased out of your language. So, you just have no way of relating to that unless you have very specific examples, like he and him is is is a remnant of the case system.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. But you have to kind of point that out, and then you have to go, "Okay, and now think about that, and now we're taking that and putting it into German." Um, in order to even get the concept, get your head around the concept.

Yeah, just throw the word.

No, it's Yeah, it's totally worth it. So, yeah, German grammar is um complex. Uh, not not Is it permissively? No, prohibitively. Sorry. Not prohibitively complex, I would say.

No, I mean, I think what happened with the German grammar for me, at least, is that the it's easy to understand, but it's hard to implement. So, it

Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It wasn't hard for me to understand that I should change stuff around and change endings and stuff. But memorizing all the different endings and realizing when to use the different endings.

Oh, yeah, yeah, I see that with my students, I think. I see that.

Yeah.

it's Yeah, it's a little bit of a it's a little bit of a sit down and learn the endings exercise, which

But that's what we did in school. I mean, it's really miserable because we just had to recite all the, you know, the different tables of endings and stuff. And

Yeah.

Kids just don't do that very well. At least I didn't like it. It felt like math, you know, you did the tables, the multiplication tables.

Yes.

And you just went to a language class and that was exactly the same thing. It's just like, aus, bei, mit, nach, seit, von, zu uh you really have to know dative, you know.

Oh, my God. So, yeah. Yeah.

That's what, you know, 20 20 years later, it's still there. So, I guess the power is to the method.

That's something I don't think I really do what or um or like the way I teach grammar in German, um, is more I like to let my students do as much as they can, but then when they persistently make a mistake, then I say, "Okay, we're fixing that bit."

Yeah.

But rather than saying, "Here are all the rules. Now, I want you to apply them perfectly."

Yeah, but to be fair, also German grammar has a fair bit of redundancy, which goes a little bit against the German uh principle. Because there are a lot of examples of sentences where the case is already implemented in another part of the sentence, so it doesn't make sense to have it twice. But there are also cases where you need to have the case, otherwise, the meaning goes completely lost, like, you know, who who does what to who is a good example of of where the case is absolutely essential. Like, who who punches who, for instance, is a And and the word order is flexible, so you can't say it's a word order question.

I like to I like to sell it as, um, German has got this beautifully flexible word order.

They do, yeah.

You know, and you get to, you know, Yeah. And you know, you basically, and it's great, because I mean, the only word order the only real word order rule we have is where you're supposed to put your verbs.

Mhm.

And that's it, right? And once you've got that, everything else in your sentence, you can just kind of take it and move it around and shuffle it and you can just do whatever you want. So, whatever thought you have, whatever you want to emphasize, you just put it at the front. Yeah. Um, and that's very convenient.

Yeah, I agree.

because I like, "Why does it do this?" And then going, "Oh, I get it." And I love, "Oh, I get it."

Right, yeah. Me too. So, what what can people who decide to get the course expect in terms of, like, how's it structured, how how is it video or audio, or is it how's it how do you design it?

It is video. It's it's very strongly video-based because I um, you know, you need you need somebody's voice in your course, right? To to guide you through if it's a pronunciation course, it just helps. But equally, it does contain it it's a course that references English. So, it really helps if you know English. If you're listening to this podcast, I assume you know English, so well done you.

Yeah.

Yeah, it does reference English. Um, it's not like a just a I'm going to demonstrate some sounds and then, you know, you're just gonna listen and copy, because I think listen and copy is a dangerous thing if you haven't got a feedback mechanism, which is difficult in a video course. So, instead we're saying, "Okay, this can sound a little bit like this sound in English. It's familiar to this."

There you got one.

Yeah. Look, it's a good one.

Yes. Yes. It's a good one. They they tried to face it out several times, but apparently, they stuck to it for some reason.

They have not faced it out. There's you see there's No, I said they tried to face it out several times, but they have not faced it out. No, there's a rule for that. There's a rule for using it now. Um, which is the next part actually, which is we go into why, you know, like, what do all the vowels sound like?

Hey, I know the rule.

There you go. You tell me the rule then.

The rule is, if it's a short sound immediately is it before or after? Then it's single, and if it's a long sound, it's double. Or the other way around. But it's that's the rule.

That's that's almost entirely correct.

Yes. I'm almost entirely correct on that. No, it's it's

Yeah. But yeah, when your vowel is long, pronounced long, then you spell the word with a sharp S after the vowel. Um, if it's a word that has an S sound in, a sharp S sound. But if your vowel is short, then the the sharp S turns into a double S.

Right.

Which is a classic and I think a wonderful example of what I mean about pronunciation and spelling and listening comprehension and how all those things go in go hand in hand. Because once you know that rule, you know what happens in a word with a sharp S, and it makes reading off the page a little bit easier.

Right.

And then it makes you feel a little bit better 'cause you know how to do it.

And it does look cool. It's a cool character.

Is it such a cool?

It's like a B with a long back.

Yeah, like a B on a stick.

Yeah. Was that how you were taught in very little school?

No, we just No, no. They explained to us where it came from, I think once, which is the um old German Gothic script had an S that kind of went down, you know, like like a G does. It had a like a line down. And the old Z had this sort of B-ish kind of uh spiky shape.

Yeah.

And then also went down. So, when you put the two together, you kind of overlay them, you do come out with something that is a bit like the modern type cast sharp S. So, it's actually an S-Z, which is what lots of Germans call it. Where I come from, we call it the sharp S.

Yeah, we always call it double S, but

Ah, that's that's that's misleading, isn't it? Because it's a double S is always It's so interesting for people.

Oh, wait. What did we what did we call it? It had a funny name. I'm sure it had like a special name.

S-Z is very common.

No, that's like, yeah, that's the correct German name. I was thinking we Danes had a wrong name for it. But I I can't think of it right now. But uh, I I'm sure there was something. But I guess that's the only foreign at least challenge. So,

So, that's that's all part one, right? So, by that point, you've just covered the alphabet. Um, and then you kind of really get into the the fun part, which is diphthongs. That's when two vowels come together and they make another sound.

Mhm.

Um, then you've got the fricative sounds. And then you've got things like the German CH, which varies its sound from K to SH. And doesn't sound like SH, which is the SCH. Um, so you kind of have to work out and again, there's rules for that. There's a really straightforward rule um that helps you work out how to oops, when to when to pick which one. Um, and then finally, we're going into the German R. We're going into why does the G randomly become a SH at the end of the word? And why does this happen? So, it's the it's really fine-tuning stuff.

Right.

Even though I'm hilarious. But or I try my very best to keep this informal, and I don't say, "Okay, and today we're learning the uvular fricative sound." When you have to now go to phonetics book six. Um, because I don't think learning phonetic alphabet is really I don't I think it's useful, but I just don't think you have to, and it intimidates a lot of people and just makes them feel like, "Oh, God, another thing that I have to know, and I'm never gonna get it right." And it's that perfect pronunciation thing. You just don't have to learn it, you just have to know where it's useful. So, I make reference to it where it's useful, and I obviously have the I've done the research, and I know the solid knowledge behind it to to make this a quality, reliable course.

Right. But that sounds like a lovely thing. I mean, I I enjoy getting an easier life when I'm learning.

You're hilarious.

You have to work a lot. I I guess it's it's a great.

I like So, Speak German Like a Native is a course that makes your life easier.

Yeah. Yeah, speak German as well, you know, that also makes your life easier. Exactly. Know how to do that.

I do believe that this is from what I have seen out there, and that's partly again, why I focused on one small thing, because that's where I thought, "I'm I'm gonna make this, and and this is gonna be great. And this is genuinely I do believe that it's it's one of the in terms of completeness levels and stuff like that, it's it's a pretty solid German pronunciation book. I dare to say the best in the world, but a survey, an independent survey that I just invented, says it's the best in the world.

Right. Well, you're definitely not lacking confidence. That's a very very apparent.

I I I think it's I think it's it really works. I'm really glad that I had a test group making it to to make it with. Um, and I genuinely think it it helps. But like I said, use it like a reference book, which means you don't sit down, like you don't sit down with a grammar book and read it all page one to page 200. Um, usually.

Yeah.

You know, yeah, yeah, each to their own. But instead, instead, the point of it is to answer those questions. You know, so that if you think, "Oh, my God, there's a lecture about, you know, how to pronounce CH and S together. And why it makes that weird sound, or where that comes from. I'm just gonna watch that today." And that's exactly what it's meant to do. So, you know, it's meant to answer your questions instead of give you some give you another thing to do.

Yeah, and I guess you shouldn't rush things like that because if you watch, let's say, 20 videos of let's say there was just one sound per video. I know there are more, but if you had 20 videos with 20 sounds, if you just went through them in one go, at the end of it, you you wouldn't be any better for it because you don't have time to practice and process.

Yeah, that's right. That's right.

So, take it easy and, you know, take one sound at a time and try to get that um, I guess, feedback is really valuable. If you have a tutor already, then you can practice some of the sounds.

We also have a SoundCloud group, so there's on SoundCloud, um, which is a website where you upload your audio. Um, and you can just you can basically record yourself right into your browser. It's extremely easy. Um, and I've made a group on there with my German students, uh, where basically, if you wanna practice your words, if you wanna practice pronunciation, if you wanna practice saying the German alphabet, et cetera, record yourself, put it on there, and that way, I can give you feedback.

Nice.

So, we have a nice feedback channel in there as well.

Yeah, that's really important because you can't hear.

And I also give examples regularly. I so I record maybe news articles or tongue twisters and stuff like that to add into that as well.

Right, because you can't when you're learning a new language, you don't know what mistakes you're making in pronunciation. Like, I I when I was learning Russian, I I would often be, you know, my teacher wouldn't understand me, but I in my ear, it sounded right. And then she said, "No, you're not saying it right." I'm like, "It sounds the same to me." She's like, "No, you're saying this when you should be saying that." And I was like, "Ah, okay, that's I I see now, I see now."

Absolutely. So, I I agree with Gabriel Wiener on that who um we when we, you know, when we did language book club back in January, um, and we said we'd do another.

Oh, we need to do that. No, no, no, no. Yeah, on record here, we're doing another one soon, right?

Oh, my God. Okay, we'll announce it now.

Well, soon, TM is a very loose concept anyway, but we'll have a we'll have a we'll have a new one because there are a lot of people who joined up the language book club on the Facebook, you know, shout out to you guys. And it really shows me that the people want more information about books and probably discounts more than anything, you know. Uh, wants some good deals and uh some good offers on on the language books out there. So,

It was a fantastic event as well.

Yeah, we've got some uh good ideas both of us on the next one. So, you know, if you're not already a member of the language book club on Facebook, search for that name and you can find the group. And uh stay tuned for the next one because we'll have a We are going to do it. Yeah, we will do a next one. That was always the plan, but just when was a bit of a fog with all our

Well, I got married. I'm getting married again. Kris moved to moved country. Uh, I think we've been dead busy, so hopefully people will forgive us. But

It's basically Kerstin's fault, just saying.

Oh, that's right. Thanks. Um, just just to let you know, if you are listening to the podcast right now, um, sorry, I take over the podcast, right? I'm I'm a podcaster too. You know, it's so it's it's I do that. It's okay. It's cool. It's cool. We cool.

Confusing.

Yeah, it's K E R S T I N H A M M E R S.

Right.

Get it while you can because I will change it to my married name.

Are you really gonna change your Twitter account?

Oh, I've already changed it from Fluent Language to Kerstin Hammers. And I'm going to change it. And but what I did was just on Fluent Language, I just have one tweet out there saying, "This is now here."

Oh, right.

Yeah. So, I'm gonna have to do the same with Kerstin Hammers, and just say, "Kerstin Hammers is now Kerstin Cable." So, you have to go and find her over there. And you can change your whole username, your account stays the same.

Oh, really?

Yeah. So, it's just it's just really about the links to, you know, like old old links that you have.

Oh, I'm gonna change mine too then.

Yeah, do it. I need to I'm changing my name as well. I'm no longer CH. I'm KR instead.

Yeah. So, we can be K and K now.

Oh, double K.

My husband is called Christian, so we are now Christian and Kerstin Cable. How to use that?

Right. He doesn't own like a company that has anything to do with cables, right? Because that would be the best name ever.

No, but you know what, he gets he gets these letters, it's so funny. He gets these emails for some American cancer surgeon who's called Christian Cable as well.

Right.

Um, and he says that he he wishes he had bought christiancable.com like really early on in the internet, because he could have probably sold it for so much money to a Christian Cable.

Oh, yeah. Cable Christian.

He does own christiancable.co.uk. You can go there and sort of spy on my life and see his beautiful photos because he's a he's a hobby photographer, but he's excellent.

Oh, nice. I I guess that uh the word cable is a little bit American. Would I don't do you have cable in the UK? They they call it something else, don't they?

They're Oh, no, no, like, like energy like power cables. Yes.

No, no, I mean, like cable TV, you know.

Oh, no, they call it Lord knows what they call it. I don't really know. Preview, I guess.

Sky Plus. Sky Plus.

No, it's just Sky.

Sky.

I don't know. Let's other other providers are available.

Other providers are available. Yes. Sky, if you want to sponsor the podcast, you know, you have my email. Um, just uh let me know.

I have heard them sponsor a podcast, a German language podcast.

Sky TV.

Sky TV. Well, it's it was a Game of Thrones podcast, so it probably had mass appeal.

Oh, right. Yeah.

And this doesn't really have mass appeal at all. We just talking to ourselves really. It doesn't have mass appeal, but it's got enthusiastic appeal.

Definitely. And we're having fun with it, you know, that's the most important thing.

Yeah. And the the name cable, uh, while we're talking about irrelevant things. Oh, it's this is linguistic. The name cable apparently comes from similar to the name Gable, you know, Clark Gable.

Yeah.

Comes from it used to be the trade, you know, like how last names are often named after people's trades.

Yeah.

And cable, if I'm not mistaken, comes from that this used to be a trade of rope-making.

Oh, really?

Yeah. So, cable, you know, like you could say it I think in shipping you might call ropes cables.

Yeah. Or they may have done that.

Or they may have done that.

Yeah, cable is a is a like the definition is that a cable has several wires running through it.

Mhm.

So, that's the that's the definition. So, a rope would fit perfectly because it's several strands of fiber that combines into making the

Exactly.

Yeah, I'm sure you answer something there. But before we uh, we go uh, and uh, enjoy our weekends, uh, it's 33 degrees right now here. I don't know how what the weather's like there, but

Oh, only like 15 and raining.

Oh, really? Oh, I miss it so much. Please please bring it back. Where's winter?

People, Kris lives in Budapest now. It's a burden to to bear.

It's too much. It's too much. It's too beautiful.

It's too beautiful.

It's like 38 degrees, you know, I'm melting every day, but I'm doing my best. But anyway, um, I'm really looking forward to checking out the course uh, because I'm sure I could use some pointers on uh German pronunciation.

Yeah, well, I I gave you some words earlier, didn't I, which which have got nice sounds in, so give them a go.

All right. All right, let's let's try this. I'm just scrolling up to find them.

Yeah, you're gonna be really good at this.

All right, okay. So, um, I need to embrace my German uh personality, which is a little bit less loud and it's a little bit more reserved.

Is it?

Yes, it is. It's a little bit like uh.

Is it really correct and tells people that they're wrong all the time?

Nein. That's my English personality.

Oh, that's funny. What's your Danish personality?

Uh, that's a good question. I don't really have a very strong Danish personality. It's gone, you know, it's it's uh what do you call it? It's uh

Subsided, yeah.

It's uh it's inactive. It's hiding. Okay, so the first one, Speicherstadt.

Yeah, that's a very good SH. That's a very good SH.

Speicherstadt. It's like saving city.

Yeah, yeah, uh, yeah, it's storage city.

Oh, storage city.

It's an area in Hamburg. A really nice area in Hamburg. And they would actually probably say Speicherstadt in the northern German dialect. So, Hochdeutsch will make an SP and an ST into SH sounds and SP.

Ah.

So, you're looking at Speicherstadt.

Speicherstadt.

Sh. Speicherstadt.

Speicherstadt.

But I don't know, if you say something too many times, you can also sort of ridicule it, and then it doesn't matter how you usually pronounce it. You know, you can try and you can try and pronounce if you say ball enough times, it sounds ridiculous, and then you start mispronouncing it.

Ah.

And then I was like, "Jesus Christ, dude, relax, you know, there are so many different ways of saying the same thing." But if the person grew up learning it that way, you can't change it into the Hochdeutsch of Hochdeutsch, you know. And then you go down to Germany, and like I had a friend in Kiel, and I told him the story, and he was like, "There's no nobody says Birt, you know, that's like a that's like school German almost." And uh, I I just thought it was hilarious that somebody who was from Germany was corrected by a Danish guy in the classroom for sounding non-natural. So, that really, uh, that that's really funny.

Well, that's exactly the the prescriptive um kind of style of of teaching a language that that we, you know, we we independent teachers certainly just work to eradicate. And you know, because that that is a classic example of how I mean, you know, like messing with people's confidence.

Yeah.

And you know, this really helps because you you're gonna know, you know, it's it's it gives you that knowledge that you don't sound like an idiot.

Yeah, exactly. It's it's a confidence thing. Yeah.

And honestly, I have there's one lecture in this course, there is um I will not reveal as a as a sample. Sorry, but it's a close-up of my mouth saying all the German words. So, it's, you know, look look like an idiot. But I really felt like I felt very self-conscious myself, but really wanted to produce this because I wanted people to see the mouth shapes.

Right.

For sometimes, that's just I've noticed this with my students. Um, even a Skype student, sometimes I'm I go really close to the sort of camera on my computer just to say, "This is what, you know, this is where you essentially what you want to do." Uh, and you can do it like this or like this or like this. That's all fine, but the effect that it needs to have is this. Uh, and that's certainly something I got a lot of feedback on that people were really saying, "This just really helps." Because it's that eternal question, and it's something that, you know, finally answers your question, hopefully.

Fantastic.

With ambition.

Yeah, and of course, you'll I mean, I guess you'll add to it if you find any any new things that can be added and uh maybe you will see a German grammar course coming in the future sometimes.

Oh, I I originally that's what what I wanted to do, but then I saw a a I I kind of a competitor or I saw a course on Udemy that is already out there, and it's so good. And I thought, "Well, you know, that's that's people are quite well-served for that right now." And I just looked for the next, like, I looked for where the gap is.

Right, yeah, the market.

Where I can really add right now.

All right, well, thank you so much, Kerstin, and if people are interested in in the course, you know, improve your German, speak German like a native, or at least uh try to. I guess it's that uh really hard aspect of every language is to sound truly native. But if you want to check that out, you can go to actualfluency.com/speakgerman. That's the uh the easy link to get directly to the course.

And certainly you're invited to the um the Facebook group, which is called Language Book Club.

Yeah, for sure. We have a lot of people there, and I know that once everything quiets down a little bit and we start to plan for the next event, the Facebook page will be a lot more active with different books and our opinions of books and just sharing some of the content from the previous event. And actually, you should check out the YouTube as well, because you've got a lot of interviews from the last uh session.

That's right. Oh, that's what I never came back to, which is I spoke to Gabriel Wiener, and if you're interested in pronunciation and the definition of fluency in general, um that's a good language book club interview to check out because we talked about uh what makes your pronunciation better, and whether being a musician has served him well uh in in terms of his pronunciation because it teaches you to listen.

Right. Yeah, he's really great about that. And actually, now that we're uh you know, we're just throwing out all the resources here, you can also listen to Gabriel's interview on the podcast, which uh the Actual Fluency Podcast, you can find all the episodes on AFpodcast.com. And Gabriel Weiner's episode was actually also themed around pronunciation. So, not specifically German pronunciation, but he gave a lot of tips about how he approaches pronunciation, and it's a good companion to the video interview we did for the language book club.

Yeah, he has a total method set up.

Yeah, he's he's a well, he's a genius, isn't he? Basically.

Oh, yeah, he's a he well, I don't know.

I mean, he speaks tons of languages.

Is there such thing as a genius? Yeah, that's a good thing. I mean, he's an opera singer. He speaks many languages. He writes very well. He's very methodical.

I think you're a genius, Kris. You're a podcaster, and an expert, and a, you know, I think we all are I believe in the in the genius in all of us.

Oh, yeah, for sure. Including Gabriel, who is a very impressive young man, old man, young man, medium-aged man. I don't know how old he is, a very impressive young man.

Well, just call him young. He'll be flattered.

That's correct. That's correct.

That's a safe bet anyway. But anyway, Kerstin,

Young.

We better uh, we better get going, uh, so people don't listen to us ramble way too much. Although some people might enjoy that. I don't know. But uh, thanks so much for taking the time out of uh, I know your busy schedule and coming to share this with us.

There is there is a launch deadline, and that is today, which probably means we're gonna miss it.

Midnight?

Midnight. It's actually midnight Saturday.

Oh.

So it depends on when your podcast goes out.

Well, what does that mean? Midnight Saturday. That's a bit ambiguous, isn't it?

That's correct. Well, it probably means I'm going to bed before midnight, and when I wake up, I'm going to switch the discount off.

So, when you wake up Sunday, you'll switch it off.

That's correct.

Oh, that's lots of time. People are getting this interview way before. And uh, do they need to type in anything or is it automated?

They do not need to type anything in. Basically, the regular price for this course is going to be $39, but it's actually $32 as a launch gift to everyone who is interested, uh, right at the start. So, just check it out. That's all I ask.

Cool. Two to the power of something. That's Two to the power of six, maybe. Uh, my math isn't so good, but yeah, it's a it's a good price.

$7 off, right?

I hope people will check it out. It's a great way to improve your pronunciation and particularly for a German that which we explain is a has a few tricky elements, so. But uh, yeah, thank you so much, Kerstin, once again, and uh, and uh, talk to you soon.

You're welcome, Kris. Yeah. Bye.

Bye.

Okay, I did like half an hour of back yoga this morning.

So, back yoga like or.

No, it was just yoga with a video and it said it's yoga for back pain.

Right. But yoga spelled backwards, so it's just a bad joke. Oh.