Azren the Language Nerd

Hello everyone and welcome to episode 126 of the actual fluency podcast. The podcast for anyone who wants to learn a foreign language. In the podcast we share tips, tricks and methods that will help you become fluent much, much faster. I'm joined by industry experts, top language learners, amazing polyglots, and all around cool people. So stay tuned for new episodes weekly.

Sure, absolutely. So my name is Azren, aka Azren the Language Nerd or Polyglot Azren. Um, I am from, so I'm from Canada and specifically Calgary. So it's more on the, more on like the west side, uh, of Canada. We had the Olympics here in 1980, oh, 1980 something, I actually don't know what exact year, but anyway. Before I was born.

Cool. So how how old were you at the time when you went on that?

Oh, 15.

Cool. And that's how old are you now? Sorry?

I am 25.

Oh, nice. So 10 years ago. And how did you, so that was the the French immersion school then you went on a trip to sort of solidify and become really great at it, as you said. And how did you, when did you start going away from, I don't know how to call it, like, you know, the school or the environment learning to self, you know, finding your own interests and picking some languages you want to study and not the the, you know, what's in the school program. What when did you start to do that?

Um, the funny thing is that, so and on one side, I never really stopped doing that because I majored in French, majored in Spanish. Um, so I continued to take languages that were offered by the school system, whether it be a post-secondary, like a university or whether it was in, you know, high school where I took Spanish.

Cool. So how how long was that Spanish course?

It wasn't that long. I did more touring. I went to the my mom and so I think it might have been a one week, maybe two. I should actually look back at that, see how many weeks it was. One or two weeks of intensive Spanish. Um, and then we did a couple weeks of touring.

Was that, um, mainly focused on speaking or did it have mostly classroom style grammar and

It was classroom style. It was classroom style, um, that had reading, it had some writing, it had some speaking. It was a, I would say, uh, a decent balance from what I remember. Um, but they also, one thing that was kind of cool that the school did, is that they would pair you with what's called a tandem and the tandem was, um, funnily, I actually used to think it was a Spanish word. I didn't realize that it was like, tandem was an English word. I didn't really understand, I didn't really understand what it was at first. I was like, tandem, tandem. Oh, I don't know what that is, but, um, um, but basically it's like a, they they pair you with a local, it was in Cusco, so local Cusconian or whatever, a local, I'm not sure what you call it, a local Cusco person, but a local in Cusco. And you would, they would help you with Spanish. You'd hang out, they'd show you the city, you'd go do things with them. They would hang out with you and then you would help them with English. It was kind of a casual in-person, like just a casual person who didn't know outside of the class. So that was pretty cool and that would give me, that would give you, like gave me some like more non-classroom experience.

Yeah, because I guess that guess that's the problem when you have like you, I don't know how how much French you were, obviously the immersion school was a lot of French but I don't know how much you would actually encounter it in in Calgary if you were living there. Uh, so I guess the problem for many people listening to this, they might have a lot of school, let's say French or German or Spanish or those are the most common ones I think, but like the idea of converting it into a sort of real language, a language you can speak to people. Did you ever encounter any hiccups there, any difficulties or was the way you did it a factor in in not experiencing those typical hiccups?

I didn't have any major issues because it's actually really funny. Um, so for French, for example, I used to just, for whatever reason, I don't even know why, but I the the speaking and listening part was never a big weakness of mine and even when I didn't, even when I hadn't gone to France yet, even when I didn't necessarily feel passionate about languages, even when I just learned through school, like the speaking and listening was never awful, it was quite strong. I'm sure I made grammar mistakes. I'm sure there's there's definitely pronunciation mistakes which I learned when I was in France and I was made fun of sometimes, but um, but like overall I was quite strong. So even when I went to France, um, it wasn't obviously like watching TV or listening to radio, some things like that were difficult. But just my regular day-to-day interactions with people at school, with my own exchange partner, with the family, those were generally speaking fine. There was no major things.

That sounds pretty fearless, uh, compared to most people's experiences with foreign languages. Are you just a generally very extroverted person or what do you think that comes from?

I don't know. I just wanted to like I've I do like people. Um, I do I also talk to myself. Or especially like I would talk to myself or I would like, um, you know, I'm trying to remember back now. Um, yeah, I couldn't tell you why.

Yeah. Did it. Did it?

Um, yeah, it it did. I wasn't like super duper fluent after spending a month or less though, but less than a month in Peru. But every time I've gone abroad and come back, it always has, um, you know, I I just read, I just finished reading Gabe Weiner's, Gabriel Weiner's book Fluent Forever. Um, and I remember there's like a scene where he's like, hey, traveling to a country helps you understand the soul of the language. And I feel like when I do that, I come back, I really just there's something different about my understanding of the language. I feel closer to it and it's really difficult to explain. Um, yeah, I just feel much closer. I feel like I have first-hand experience with it, not just the teacher telling me or some textbook or seeing it through a video. Like I I've experienced, oh, when you go buy something, people don't say, hello, what would you like to buy? They say, uh, what would you like or they or whatever, whatever, you know, you're right. Whatever they say. So.

You know, the real world of foreign languages. I think I agree with you in that, I think that it's it gives a special feeling when you're there. And and I guess also there's the victories, even if they're just really small, like you understand someone saying even the simplest of things, I think makes it real in a way whereas if you're just at home reading a teach yourself, you're like, yeah, it's great that I know this, but I mean, unless somebody actually asks me this, it's just theoretical, you know. So I feel that way when I when I actually get something right, it's kind of it kind of sends out a little bit of a positive feeling throughout the body and it makes me happy.

And I actually, I'm curious on your perspective now because you you brought up something really interesting and I'm curious for my own reasons now, not just out of curiosity. Um, so myself whenever I learn languages, I find that I need lots and lots of different, I guess you could say, I need to listen to lots and lots of different people in different scenarios. I need to end up being in lots of different types of scenarios where I need to speak in different scenarios. I need to almost go through that. But I've I found now that I've been more and more now a couple of years now, I've been more and language learning space and talking to other language enthusiasts and everything. And I guess I found that if that's not really the case for a lot of people. That's not necessarily how everyone is and I was wondering just for you personally is that, how how do you normally go about it? What's your Yeah, how do you normally go about it?

That's an interesting that's an interesting one. I think my experience learning I'll talk about Russian because that's the one I've spent the most time doing independently. I did a lot of German in school. Uh, so that was kind of a, I don't know what to call it, like, um, hand-holding, you know, my hand was held for many years in in German classes. So I didn't really have a a choice or any significant impact on what to study, when.

I think it does and I think what it makes me think about is it makes me think about how I was thinking about this just yesterday or a couple days ago. Um, it makes me think almost about how when we're at least in my perspective, you know, when we're learning a language, it's almost like a few different, I think you can say quote-unquote phases of actually knowing something, whether that knowing something is grammar, whether it's vocabulary, whether it's pronunciation, whatever it is. It almost starts with like a theoretical knowledge. You now theoretically understand that, okay, a a cell phone in blah blah blah language and Mandarin is shouji. Like you now understand, okay, on the theoretical level, this is what the characters look like. I've read in a book, I've read in a self-study program, a friend told me, teacher you you have the theoretical knowledge, okay, this is shouji, this is a cell phone. Cool. Now, but the reality is like just like you said, just because if you know for example, the example you give with verbs, if you know something ends in -a because it's, you know, that it should, it's what's, it's paired with such and such subject, doesn't mean you can know use it, right?

Right. Right.

Right. And then it's almost like, in in my perspective, it's almost like if there's a second phase, it's almost like you're understanding social scripts. So the example I'll give is like when I used to go to markets in Peru, man, I can navigate those markets so well because I knew exactly, I knew every single thing that a vendor would ever say to me.

Yeah.

I just knew it. I just knew it. Because it's not that many things they can say to you. There's like seven, there's like 17 things, or whatever the number is. You just know them. And I know them. I know there's only 10 ways I can potentially reply and you just kind of get them and it's almost like this drill and your brain is just a pattern. All of a sudden it feels really natural.

Yeah, you're right.

And then you're doing, you've done that enough times with enough scenarios. And all of a sudden, somehow, it's like you're putting, it's like you're saying with the puzzle, it's kind of like you're putting these different puzzle pieces together and then one day your brain goes, hey, that puzzle kind of looks like a fish. Whoa, I didn't realize it looked like a fish. And when you've done that, now your brain's made another, another deeper connection. And now you can start to put together different, now you're at this point where it's not just you've memorized a bunch of social scripts and you can do those automatically. But now you can start to almost blend the social scripts. You can make the connection of an unconscious connection, I would imagine, of like, oh yeah, when I was at, you know, the, the vendors, I, you know, the conversations went like this. Oh, in a restaurant they're probably going to be pretty similar.

Oh yeah.

Or like you start to extrapolate and then you're unconsciously extrapolating. And all of a sudden you're like, I don't know where the heck that came from. Like I've never said that my life. I've never heard, I don't think I've ever heard, like where did that, it felt so spontaneous and I was like, that's so weird.

I I've heard that I've tried that twice. Um, first time was with a random piece of knowledge in I don't know if you know the game trivial pursuit.

I do.

Um, but somebody asked, who was the famous conductor leading the Berlin classical Symphony Orchestra in the years 1989 till 1996 or something crazy.

Okay.

And I just randomly watched a YouTube video like two years before and for some reason this name had just settled in and I cannot explain to you the the look on people's faces when I just kind of blurted out this name. It's not a common name or anything. Um, and the other time was in when I was doing some flash cards on Memrise and I think I've I'd seen the word once. There was a really complicated Russian word and I just kind of like, yeah, this is how it is and just typed it in. It's like, but then I stopped myself going, I don't even know where I got that from.

Mhm.

And that's the beauty of our our brains really and the and the speech center. Um, but what an amazing way to describe it. I was kind of it kind of made me think that on one hand I was thinking, are we doing the whole language learning wrong or wrongly, I guess is the correct English words said. Um, by doing sort of a mechanical introduction. You know, we're always learning I wouldn't call it scripts necessarily, but we're doing a very sort of memory-based initial approach, which then after only a long time goes into this kind of, you know, it's the stages of competence isn't it? Like you're unconsciously competent, or you're unconsciously incompetent and you move to unconsciously competent and blah, blah, blah. Um, but I was thinking is there, I think it must be required, right? There must be necessary to start with this kind of artificial language. Let's say you're learning German. You're learning you're not learning German actually, you're just learning a very sort of basic form of it that can place hold until you get more. I don't know what do you think about it?

Yeah, I I think it's, um, it's it's kind of like I don't, I think the true, I think, uh, one thing that I've been thinking about a little bit is I think we overemphasize the importance of the tool of how we're learning, whether it's a a study yourself program, whether it's, uh, taking a class, whether it's whatever. I think the tool is the tool. And yes, there's some things that are, that will work better than others. Yes, maybe in theory you shouldn't do, you know, you shouldn't study like this. Yes, in theory, you know, maybe it's, you know, um, in theory you should practice daily. There's there's a lot of different theories or tools and we put a lot of importance on on these tools and we have to find the right tool that works best for us. But it's kind of like, I almost feel like, um, the tool is just a tool and it depends on how you use it.

Yeah, I think

Like I attended, I attended a Mandarin event a little while ago in my own city. And it was just a supposed to be a casual, as a new group on meetup.com, a brand new group. I knew the girl, I met the girl recently who started it. I was like, oh, you started a Chinese group? Oh, I I'd love to come. So we go and this girl, I don't think she's done a lot of teaching before. I don't think maybe she has, but then we get there and, um, you know, it wasn't it was fine, it was actually really good. I learned a lot. It wasn't, um, you know, I guess if you were to rate on how effectively was the event, how effectively did she teach? I would say that it probably wasn't super duper duper effective. So in theory, the tool was not that great. But she taught me some cool things. She taught me, for example, the expression to eat vinegar, so, uh, chīcù, right? In chīcù in in in Mandarin, right? Which means you're jealous.

Oh, right.

Yeah.

That's fantastic.

Right, which sounds like, um, which and I it's funny she told it to me. She told me to random stuff. There's no connection between them. But myself, I've been thinking about them so much the past like, whatever, five days or so. They've been like running every time I'm like, oh wow, every time I feel jealous. I'm like, oh wow, I'm really eating vinegar right now. Jeez, louise, like this is crazy. Or like, like they're always in my mind. I'm like, oh, wasn't that, wasn't that a funny expression she taught me about like I learned word for narrator recently. I was like, that's not kind of páng bái. Páng kinda reminds me of fat because I think it's the word for páng which is also fat. I was like, oh, it's like a fat great-grandma. Hahaha, isn't that so funny? Like it it bounces in my I'm so even though necessarily how I learned these words wasn't necessarily the most effective way, it's what you're doing after with it that matters, right?

Yeah, yeah, I

Like how are you use the tool matters more than the tool.

And also the the the the time you can spend with the tool because it doesn't matter if we have the most efficient theoretical language learning tool that will make you fluent in three months if you cannot get be bothered to use it, like if it's too boring to use.

Sure.

So I'd rather use the tool that you that I like to use.

But even if it is boring, like I'm, so here's a, I'm going to be doing a degree in Mandarin starting this fall.

Oh, nice.

It's going to be boring. I'm not going to like it. I'm going to complain about it. I know, it's going to be awful. I'm going to probably skip half my classes. I'm not going to go. It's going to be awful. It's going to I'm not necessarily enjoy the classes too much. I'm probably going to have teachers or professors that go, oh my god, where do they get their teaching degree? Like what is happening here? Like just I'm going to be bored and it's going to it's probably not, I'm going to enjoy the process of university because I like university. I like being with people and I like that. Right. But the classes themselves are probably not going to be fun. Fantastic. But I know I'm doing it. Number one, it forces me to actually study. Number two, I'm more interested in actually watching the teacher, not what they're teaching me, but I'm more interested in seeing how did they actually use the language?

Yeah.

That's what I'm doing it.

Yeah, and I think you

So like the tool's going to suck, but it doesn't matter. That's not why I'm doing it. I'm not doing it for the tool. I'm using the tool differently than I don't care what you tell me, teacher. I'm more watching your actions.

Yeah. And you you've got the you've got the goals there as well because your goals obviously to finish the degree and get your your piece of paper saying you you can now, uh, read and write and speak and and listen in this language. Uh, that helps focus on the task ahead, even though the each individual step might be, let's say, painful or boring. Um, but but if you hadn't had that kind of structure, you wouldn't just let, let's say there was this, um, class every day. You wouldn't just walk in and and do it out, I imagine, unless you had that all at the end. Um, maybe you would use other methods then in that case, but,

Hey guys, I just wanted to take a quick break from today's episode with Azren to just thank Classica, the show sponsor for being involved and for supporting and backing a project that I've been working on for so many years at the actual fluency podcast. If in case you didn't know, it's been going on for over four years and there's been over 125 episodes published.

Yeah, and I think it's for me like I know, I know myself and I think like the self-awareness, this is a big one and this is something I've been talking about on my podcast a little bit recently, um, is like the self-awareness is really important. Like I know I'm I'm not, I'm hit and miss with accountability to myself with languages. Like I won't sometimes I'll listen, I sometimes I'll make a plan and I'll do it and sometimes it's it's not going to happen. I will I will put my work goals above my language goals. I know that. And so I need to have an external accountability.

Yeah, I'm I'm with you on that one. I I definitely have similar feelings. I can let myself down, but letting let's say other people down or a school is is more difficult.

Totally. Like they'll embarrass you. Like and they're not intentionally embarrass you, but like when you've gone like zero on 10 on three, I know they're going to give me daily quizzes. I know a lot of the Chinese professors that I've taken a couple of Mandarin classes years ago and I've met a lot of them. So I know they're going to give daily quizzes and on character writing and I know there's going to be like three in a row where I get zero and she's going to be like, not in front of the whole class, but like when she's handing the quiz doctor to me, she'll probably be like, Azren, what's going on? And I know the seven people are going to hear me and I'm and I I'm competitive. I'm competitive. I don't want people to think I'm bad and I'll be like, well screw you guys. I'm going to get 10 on 10 on the next one and I'm only going to study for 10 minutes. Watch me. Like, it's going to be extremely like, yeah, it's going to be

That's so powerful though. That's that's amazing, you know, to to get that done. But I just want one last thing before we move on here. Uh, just wanted to, uh, definitely have a few more areas to discuss with you, but I also wanted to just just explore this a little bit more. You were talking about, let's say, quote unquote boring methods, whether they work or not. I'm totally unsure about this actually because when I when I started Russian a couple of years ago, and I did this crazy Memrise test because I just wanted to see what effect it would have if I did a large number of words every day. So I think I did about 1,000 words in a month, uh, which was about, I think it was about an hour or maybe two hours a day just consistent doing uh, Memrising which I know some people have have done way more than that on Memrise if you look some people have millions and millions of points, uh, even on a monthly basis. Uh, but for me, I just found the tool pretty much, it was a lot. And and but what I discovered was it actually does work. I did learn words. The problem is that's not the same as learning the language, you know. It's great that you can pick up words out in context or out of context even. Uh but that doesn't help you speak. So I would definitely be cautious about using these kind of highly efficient methods like flash cards, which are, to me, using Memrise back then was like the matrix, you know, you're kind of like downloading a language to your brain, which is only half true, I guess, you know. You're definitely downloading words to your brain because it it's just the way space repetition works. Yeah. It's incredible. Um, but I didn't really, I wasn't able to convert it into actual speech. And that was probably partly on my fault. I wasn't doing a lot of tutoring back then. When I started getting a tutor, it really exploded how fast I progressed. Um, but yeah, just to to wrap that up with efficient methods. I I don't really believe that. I think what you can do consistently will trump any efficiency rating, whatever that may be. Yeah. And if you can, you know, watch five movies a day in your target language, but you can't do five minutes of Duolingo or something, then, well, clearly the movies are going to give you way more.

Totally. And it's also, I think it also depends on how you use the like what you're doing with it after. Like it's like you did all the memories flash cards, which is fantastic. That's great. But if you didn't do anything with it, if you didn't actually apply the knowledge, right? Like then it's useless, right? Like if you took all the classes, like you could be like, here's a good example. You could even like, I'm going to travel abroad and live abroad for three months. I'm going to practice and talk and everything. That's great. Fantastic. What's next? You flew back home and then you didn't study and then you lost it all. You forgot a lot of it. Great, you took all these classes. What's next? Did you use it? Oh, no, you didn't. It's always what's next. Doesn't matter what you did. What happened next?

Yeah, exactly. And also using, I think it's it's always about connecting the methods. So for instance, if I did Memrise to that extent every month and I had, let's say, three tutoring lessons a week using that vocabulary, building up some kind of sentences, talking to my tutor, I would be much better at Russian than I am today. And I think the same goes with watching movies or books, for instance, now I'm reading the Harry Potter, you know, the classic the classic polyglot book. Um, it's like a canon, isn't it? It's like the number one everyone's reading. Um, but it's not efficient. Well, okay. I mean, it's great for me to just read it and read it out loud to get the experience and you know, see the words over and over, try to extrapolate the meaning. But the real, I think, key would be for me to write down phrases that I didn't understand, add them to flash cards and ask a Russian native speaker to actually translate it for me.

Yeah. Totally. Again, it's all about the what's next, right? You're reading, it's totally. Exactly. So if you're just reading books all the time, I don't think you get far. And likewise, if you just do flash cards, I don't think you get far. But combining them would be huge. Like, uh, movies and subtitles or tutoring and and and flash cards or Yeah. That's a good point.

It's an interesting discussion though, nonetheless on on like methods because we're fed all this information like ads and marketing, you know, oh, the newest, uh, language fab goes fluent in a week and, you know, it just doesn't seem very believable, um, and most people give up, of course, which is the biggest problem, I guess. Did you ever face problems with motivation or like where you just felt like, ugh, I don't want to do this anymore?

Of course. Yeah, I do, but I don't, um, I don't beat myself up over them. Because I I'm it's such a language learning is such a long-term process for me that if I have a bad six months, it doesn't matter because I'm I'm scoring myself on how I do in the 30-year macro.

Right.

Or like not even it's not really 30 years, what I mean, I use that to make a point, like it's a long time. Like I'm going to we're probably, unless I get hit by a bus tomorrow, I'm probably going to be alive to for the next, you know, 70 years, 60 years, 80 years, like I'm going to live a long time.

Yeah, yeah.

Like if I have a bad six months, that's like having a bad one hour in the big scheme of things, right? So like I haven't touched Mandarin that much. I mean, actually that's not true. Lately I have been. But let's say if we were if we were to if we were having this conversation, let's say a month or two months ago, I would have said to you, hey man, I haven't touched Mandarin for we would have been what in like June, so probably would have been about 8, 9, 10 months. Like just nothing. Like just haven't looked at it. And you could theoretically say, and I didn't want it. I just didn't feel like it. Here's a better example. About two weeks ago, I stopped taking my Gujarati lessons with my tutor. Fantastic tutor by the way, amazing teacher, very affordable. Great. Like committed to the lessons, like fantastic. Like really the best Gujarati teacher I've ever had. One of the best, one of the better tutors I've ever had. But I told him like, hey, let's postpone it. I don't feel like doing it. But I don't care. I don't beat myself up because I know it's okay, it's okay. Like I'm I'm taking a step backwards and I know that I'm going to take two steps forward in the future. I know I'm going to be taking some big steps forward with Mandarin once I'm back in and even currently I'm working on it as well, but especially when they start in September. So net net, I'm up. Net net, I've made progress and the little steps backwards is just how life works.

Yeah, and do you also find that once you return, you've made new neural connections that you didn't have before?

That's a weird thing, I don't think everyone has, but I do experience that. Sometimes and it depends on how long it's been. It really depends on how long it's been. But there's a point where if I spend time away from a language, it's kind of like I'm it's kind of like if you're letting some soup stew on the stove. Like if it's stewing. And then you come back like, whoa, all the flavors are really delicious.

I totally believe that. I totally believe the brain is working on sorting out those let's call problems or, you know, lack of comprehension. I think the brain's always working on that. And I definitely feel better when I come back to a language after a little break than I was before.

Now, here's the thing though, that and this is maybe it's just my personal experience and maybe this isn't everyone. But for me, I find that is a, that is especially true after I've come back from an intensive experience such as traveling abroad or if I've taken something that was really mental. Like I I I had a lot of like, it's like I, it's like I had a lot of input, a lot of experiences. Then that's true, but if I didn't, and I just kind of maybe I'll see weekly classes and then I just kind of let let let it go. Then maybe not. Then I'd like, oh, then I'm dusting off the cobwebs.

I didn't, yeah, I didn't really think about that, that it that's obviously different scenarios for for coming back to a language. If you just kind of said, never mind for a few months then maybe the effect isn't as strong. But I guess the the reason that I experienced these more significant, uh, changes is probably because the reason I take the break is because I overloaded myself for a while. Right. So I just just did way too much. So the brain is working on all that input while I'm I'm sort of gone away. Uh, but I hadn't really thought about that. That's that's probably true.

Yeah, because I think anyone you talk to in the language learning communities, that's probably, you know, anyone who's really, let's say, where anyone who has language learning is like a significant priority, whether it's a hobby, whether it's their work, whether, you know, even if it is a hobby, you know, that's probably true. But if you talk to like, that's one of the things I like about teaching. I teach as my full-time job, um, teacher the languages. And that's one of the it's one of the interesting things I've noticed is what things I would experience or someone in the language learning community would experience with language learning and what a quote-unquote normal, a quote-unquote, you know, someone who just wants to learn it, you know, maybe they're taking a couple hours a week of classes or something, but their life is not focused around that. It's interesting to see what experiences I would have or we would have in comparison to them because they're completely different.

Yeah. I think that's interesting as well. Um, and and speaking about, you know, hobby versus full-time, I've seen you make a lot of stuff online on the social media and you've got a a YouTube channel, Azren the the Language Nerd. Believe it's called. Um, what does it mean to be a language nerd? Maybe you want to just, uh, give a little quick introduction to that.

Um, for me anyway, it means if you're just like you could be a Harry Potter nerd, just like you could be a language, it's just being very interested and kind of, it's like being nerdy about something. So the same way you see someone who's like a computer nerd, or like they're a computer geek, it's because they know a lot about computers and they know a lot of the technical words, they know a lot about it, they're interested in it and you're like, wow, that's really nerdy. Or like someone who's like super into, you know, uh, I don't know, like Harry Potter for I'm I'm a very Harry Potter nerd by the way, but like Harry Potter, like, oh wow, you know who the weather man was in the first book, you like that's nerdy. Like that's what it means to me, it's like someone who I really like learning languages. And so I spend a lot of time with it. My whole, you know, it's like my whole life is about languages. Like literally my whole life, I'm either always teaching, I'm always talking about them, or I'm thinking, like I'm thinking about them, running a language learning events, like that's all I do.

Yeah.

All the time.

Do you ever find like it's hard to do your own learning sometimes when you're so busy either teaching other people to learn or posting videos or podcasts or even, uh, Instagram videos, Snapchat videos about about learning, you know, talking about doing it rather than doing it.

Yeah, I think in some ways yes and some ways no. So in some ways yes, in the sense that I don't, like I'm not spending three hours a day or a quarter of my day solely on learning blah, blah, blah, blah language. But I'm I usually, one thing I'll do is I will blend, um, my work to help me improve my languages in some way, shape or form. Sometimes that happens serendipitously, like by coincidence, sometimes it's on purpose.

That's a good idea.

So it happens that happens to me for sure.

Like I find it hard sometimes to, let's say, writing blog posts and emails and doing podcast recordings and then at the end of the day you're like, oh yeah, I should probably do a little bit myself as well, you know. Sometimes I struggle with that, especially with having a a full-time job on the side which, uh, doesn't help, but at the at the same time it also gives like a natural time of day where I can actually do it.

So yeah, but I'm I'm a fan of blending. Like I really like to blend things like even, um, like my French, I did a, like, um, like, um, trying to think of good examples like even French, I was recently the announcer for a foot American football game, but I had to do it in French.

So I learned a lot. I know. I probably know more than almost the entire population about, you know, almost the entire world, I know more about French football than most other people in the world.

But like because it's got combined with it, right? So,

Do you mean like the American football or the European? Okay. Okay. So, well, there's not much French American football, I guess at least not exactly. Exactly my point, which is why I know something super specialized, which I think I feel very proud about. Yeah, definitely. You know, you hold on to your victories that's Exactly. So so what is the, do you have any goals with with your, let's say, your YouTube channel or social media efforts? Do you see this becoming like your full-time thing? Or do you want to stay a teacher? What what's the what's the future look like?

So basically, the simplest way to put it is the following. My, I basically have, um, so on a day-to-day basis, what pays my bills is my teaching, right? My I teach small groups. I teach language learning, excuse me, I teach various languages to small groups. Four people, three people, two people, five people, etc.

Yeah, that's how I found out about you. So it definitely it definitely works.

Yep. So I don't know what it leads to and I don't even it's it's why one of the things that's different about me is you there's nothing you can buy from me. Like if you if you follow me and I'm posting all this stuff, there's nothing at the end of the funnel. I mean, sure, maybe I might take, maybe you can hire me for online tutoring, but at the same time, it it at the same time, that's not even my primary work. It's not like it's not my my primary work is not Skype teaching. Because I don't it's not my primary. I might do it if it comes to me. I might say yes, sure, but it's not my major thing.

Right. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. I mean it's the, it's the Gary Vaynerchuk school of thought, you know, you do a lot of, uh, of, uh, you put yourself out there in in so many ways and and provide all the value. I guess that's not even he he didn't even come up with that, but in general, just provide all the value.

Something he talks about. I don't know if you follow him. Yeah, he talks about it a lot. Yeah. He had a book about it as well. Yeah.

Um, but, um, but that's basically what I did as well. It was like, this podcast has always been free. There's no cost or anything. I've always been blogging a lot and email list and stuff. Uh, but it's presented me with lots of opportunities that I wouldn't have had if I hadn't done it. So speaking of Langfest, like I was invited to come to the first one and they even paid for half of my travel. So, yeah. Which was quite a lot coming from Europe, you know, it's a expensive time to go to Canada. I'll tell you in the middle of, uh, uh, July, uh, in the end of July, I think it was. And that was like high season. So flight tickets were like, I don't know, a thousand US dollars at the time. So, it was it was definitely a pretty I highly appreciated and, you know, I become good friends with Tetsu and and Joy who run it and all the other people who were there. Um, are you going to, are you going to go this year?

Yep, yeah, I'm speaking this year.

Oh, fantastic. So jealous.

Are you there this year? No, you're not going. No.

No, I can't. It's too far. Like Yeah. Unless they want to, you know, pay for my flight. I don't deserve it all. So I'm not fishing for anything, but uh, it's just not feasible at at this time, you know. Maybe hopefully next year, but I I've said that last year as well, I believe. So, but then again, I didn't know I was moving to the UK. I didn't know I was moving jobs and and everything. So, let's just say I would love to go to Langfest just because not only I think the event is quite fantastic and the people who go there are amazing and always interesting and fun to hang out with, but the city itself is also just perfect. Totally. Just a beautiful lovely place and and the weather is just spectacular. You've got that really European feel, I feel like, I mean, it does in many parts of the city and it's just really weird to be in North America and have European feel, but I I love it there. I would live there if I could, but I I think I'd have to marry someone to Canada staying there longer than a few months. Yeah. So that's awesome. What's your what are you what are you going to talk about?

Um, just talking mostly about dialectal differences. So part one will be like what, um, what makes different dialects different. Like talking about what what are the consistent things that are different between different dialects of a language. Um, and then more of a focus, a more of a concentrated focus on, um, on, um, different dialects of Spanish. Um, and so the different talk about, okay, so, for example, like if you're in like this region, it's probably more like this. If you're here, it's probably more like this. If you're here, you know, you're going to drop your final s's and then they're going to do something like this and here they're going to do this and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And obviously not every region because I don't know every single region, but I am, um, reasonably knowledgeable on the topic. It's something I need to brush up on for sure, but it is something that I actually, I actually took a whole class on it, remember in university. We took an entire class on first of all, phonetics in Spanish and phonology in Spanish. But then more importantly was we would study the read like like we had I don't have time. I don't know even know how many regions we studied, but so many. We'd look at, okay, here's various speakers from this part of Peru. Here's various speakers from this part of Peru. Let's compare. Here's people from this for example, there's there's commonalities between how people speak on the coasts of different countries that speak Spanish. It's really weird, but if you're on the coast, often you drop your s's at the end of the syllable. If it's an if it's an s at the end of the syllable, you don't pronounce it. Even though you're in one person's in Colombia and one person's in Chile. You both still do the same thing in that element of the accent, which is just really interesting.

That is strange. And interesting at the same time. Definitely content suitable for Langfest. I'm sure a lot of people are going to. So it's something you have to like prepare for properly to make sure I've like brushed off and like I know it, know my stuff properly. But it's something that, um, I've spent a lot of time thinking about it and I have and I did study it very intensely in university and then casually obviously over the years. Yeah, definitely. And I'd highly recommend people going to Langfest. I know it's a bit last minute now, but if you listen to this and and you want to go it's in three weeks time, I think.

But it's August, uh, 24th to the 26th or something like that, end of August.

Right. So two, three weeks, uh, to go and, uh, it's, uh, I'm sure it's going to be epic like last year. I always get massive jealousy issues when I go on social media. Everyone everyone just hanging out because I just remember back to the first year which was I guess I just a really incredible place and you couldn't pick a better place in in in that part of the world, I think. Then then Montreal, so very, uh, very, uh, yeah, jealous about that. But but it's all right. I'll follow in spirit, you know, I'll be there and, um, I hope you are your talk goes, uh, really well. That could also lead it lead to other places, you know, the talk.

You know, yeah, you have no idea. It's crazy.

Um, but anyway, um, here are the the last few minutes of the episode. Just wanted to give you a chance to you know, share the projects you're working on the the URLs or any kind of place where people can find you. What do you where if people have some questions for you, maybe where can they find you online?

Totally. So probably the the the place I would considering this is a podcast. I think my podcast will be the primary thing that I'd want to talk about. It's called The The Language Learning Show. Um, you can find it on any, you know, iTunes, everywhere, iTunes, overcast, Spotify, everywhere. Um, and then on social media, I'm on, if you if it if it exists, I'm on it and it's at Polyglot Azren. Um, so like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, you know, YouTube, uh, medium, medium.com, Tumblr, Musically, you name it, I'm on you name it. I'm on it.

You're addicted to the social media.

Oh no, it's just it's just a good it's just a good idea. Like now it's spreading. Yeah. Like Musically and Tumblr. I don't use it as often, but if you message me there, I will probably get the message. Or like, like I don't use them very often, but I like the things I watch and I keep an eye on because you never know. Maybe Tumblr decides tomorrow like, hey, we're going to do this cool feature and everyone will flock to Tumblr. Like who who the heck knows, right? And Musically really is fascinating. Musically is like, I I wish there was an extra two hours in the day every day because I would be I would be so in on Musically. It fascinates me.

I don't even understand it. I I saw my I think I saw 10-year-old niece. Uh, not niece. What's it called? My someone someone far out let's call that. Cousin, cousin, sorry. Or what's the next level cousin? I forgot. So, I don't know. It's far out anyway. She's about 10 years old and she she was big fan of Musically and showed me a bit of it and I was like, I don't I don't understand it. It's it's quite bizarre and some of my most embarrassing content is on Musically because I'm just trying to understand it and like it's so dumb. But I leave it there because I know it's going to be really funny to look back at one day and someone will bring it up in an interview. I just want to be embarrassing. We'll both laugh over it. But, um, it is, just feel old when I talk about it because I I don't know. I mean, I'm there's been so many social networks, you know, I was on MySpace back in the day and it's like all these new networks keep popping up and you don't really know where they're going to go. They could go to the moon like, uh, Instagram did and Snapchat, but I don't know. Maybe they all I feel like they all have problems like the I don't know how the income is during for many of them, but to deserve a what is it 3 billion, 5 billion, 10 billion valuation. You really need to make some money and I I don't know if they're starting to do that now or No idea. I don't I don't know enough about it. But I know people are on it. I I can either my attention on it. I can I can I'm also have some slight narcissistic tendencies. So I like that people listen to me. So it's it's it feeds that slight narcissism. So it's Well, that's all right. There's nothing wrong with that. I've seen some of it and it's definitely very entertaining and for me just having regular language learning content kind of inspires me to do more. So so I I like that. But, um, but anyway, thank you for coming on and uh, for your wonderful discussion and uh, best luck, uh, with everything and I hope to see you somewhere in the world. Are you are you planning on going to Europe for any of the events? Maybe the conference or next year's gathering, maybe?

When's it, when's the the what are some dates for your preventives this year? Are there any going on?

Yeah, so the conference the poly conference is the end of October in Slovenia. Okay. And the gathering will be next year in end of May. So there's lots lots of time for that one. Got it. So October is the next one. Yeah, that's the conference by, you know, Richard Sim and Alex Rawling. The one they do every year in a new place, which is interesting. But obviously a little bit biased towards Europe just because there's there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's easier for them. So, but you know, I I can't I can't imagine they wouldn't bring it to America.

We could get there affordably, like extremely affordably. I'll make it, but if it's going to be super costly then yes.

I can't. It's impossible. Yeah. Not Slovenia. You can't get there. Like you'd have to I don't know how what you would do from Canada. You'd probably fly to Frankfurt or something and change, uh, or maybe go to some other city nearby and go by bus or render car or something. It's really not who knows. Yeah. A typical, uh, destination for transatlantic flights, but, um, but, you know, that also makes it slightly exciting. I've never heard anything about Slovenia. So for me, I'll definitely see if I can make it. Uh, I might be moving jobs there. So it might not work out, but like you, if I can, then I I definitely will. Yeah, totally. All right. Cool. Cool.