Lauren Cutlip and Benny Lewis: Lauren’s Esperanto

On this episode of the Actual Fluency Podcast, I'm joined by Lauren Cutlip and Benny Lewis to talk about Lauren's recent Esperanto challenge. We also talk about the struggles and challenges of being a new foreign language learner. Welcome to the Actual Fluency Podcast. The podcast that gives you the tools and inspiration to learn languages faster and more efficiently. And now your host, Kris Broholm.

All right, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Actual Fluency Podcast, the podcast for language learners and like-minded. My name is Kris Broholm, and I am your host, as per all per usual, per always, per usual, whatever you prefer. And today, I'm very excited to bring you a pretty special episode. Not only is it the first episode that has more than one guest in it at the same time, but it's also a guest, one of the guests, it's also a person that I've been wanting to get on the show ever since I conceived the idea of the show itself.

The only problem was that he had a little deal with, you know, he was doing this thing, I think they call it book publishing and book touring. And when I say this, of course, you know, his name is Benny Lewis. And actually, speaking of Benny, and, and just wanted to point out that, that today, he's, uh, he's not here alone. He's, he's here with his girlfriend Lauren Cutlip, who is actually going to be the star of the episode. I'm going to get, get into that now why that is.

The thing is, you know, for a new podcast, it is amazing to get in touch with great people in the community such as Benny Lewis. And to be honest, it would have been a great pleasure to have him on the first episode of the show. But there are several reasons why I don't mind having him on episode 17 compared to episode one or two. The reason, the primary reason is that we, he's been interviewed by millions of different news sites, uh, different TV stations, radio stations, internet sites, YouTubers, he's all over. And there's only so many questions you can ask Benny Lewis about him, his book, his kind of journey, and also, in addition to all these interviews, you can simply go onto the blog, fluentin3months.com, and you can read so many amazing posts.

And Benny was actually one of the main inspirations for me to start my own blog, and also to start my language learning entirely. And after having met him in Berlin, I am so grateful for having met him, and I am, you know, even more impressed at him than I was before I met him. But, as I said, today is not as much about Benny Lewis as you might have thought. It's, today's about his girlfriend Lauren, and Lauren took up learning Esperanto as her first foreign language about seven, six or seven weeks ago. And the process has been well documented on fluentin3months.com. There's been some video updates, and to me, it's the best video series they've ever made on that website.

And, uh, when talking to Benny about it, he told me that, yeah, they, he, he finds them pretty good, too, but they are so, so time-consuming. He said that every single minute of Lauren's Esperanto studies was recorded. So for, for doing those little 10-minute videos, he had to dig through hours and hours of footage, which I really appreciate, and I think the result is pretty amazing. You know, you at the end, in the last video, I'm not going to spoil it too much, but you see Lauren speaking a pretty high level of Esperanto, in my opinion. She's even playing Hangman and, uh, other games. So that's amazing.

And, you know, I brought Lauren and Benny on at the same time to have this chat about learning a new foreign language, but also how Benny kind of was a language, um, coach, not a tutor, and also how couples kind of, you know, functioned in, in, in this language learning environment. And like last week with, uh, Mr. Gavyn Phantom, I must stress that these, uh, these next few episodes were recorded in Berlin in my hotel room. So the audio might be a little roomy. And I must also apologize for the, uh, the kind of the, perhaps the nervous tone in my voice. I was sitting, you know, within, uh, a foot of Mr. Lewis and Lauren. So and being a huge fan, I, I couldn't help to fanboying a bit and being a little nervous. So if you sense a little bit of weird things I say, or maybe a little nervous laugh here and there, please do, uh, excuse me. It was a, a very exciting, uh, experience.

And lastly, I just want to say that it is a casual format, so although I do ask questions, leading questions, it is mostly just a debate, a discussion. So it is a casual discussion. It's not sort of an interview, at least not in the classical understanding. So, if you enjoyed this, uh, podcast, uh, this episode, please do leave a comment, and I want to thank Benny and Lauren for coming on. And without further ado, I'm going to throw you right into the discussion. There's going to be no official introduction for me, so let me throw you straight into the conversation with Benny and Lauren, as I ask Benny, how did you and Lauren meet?

Yeah, so she was on vacation and I had just finished writing the book. And so I could finally take time off. And that's how we managed to spend a few days together. Yeah. And, um, there like, uh, we, we, we really connected and I, I decided to visit her in America. And then after that I said, um, "I want you to travel the world with me." Or "I want you to live, live with me in Valencia." So we were, it's very pretty.

We met, it's, it was very romantic. We met in Berlin, um, because he had the time off and I that was my, I was doing a Euro trip. Right. In Berlin was the third city in my stop.

Oh. And, um, doing in Intronations?

Yeah. So we both attended a party at Intronations and then that night a bunch of people went swing dancing and Benny and I went swing dancing together and it was very fun.

Nice.

And then when I left Berlin, he sent me a message saying he really liked me and wanted to visit me, um, in America. So for we actually didn't see each other for two months, and then he we spent seven days together in America and then I moved to Spain with him. So it was very, it's incredible. Very fast.

You what, what were you thinking when he was saying like, yeah, I just kind of traveled the world and write a, writing a book and what did you, what did you think about that time?

Um, well, I don't know. I guess it was, was very different from anything that I had ever, one of the first things that him and I talked about was, um, culture shock. Right. Because I was experiencing culture shock being in Europe for the first time and I was noticing, I was doing a lot of things that people kept giving me weird looks for that I didn't know I was doing weird things. So you know, um, I asked him a lot, I kind of grilled him. I was like, okay. So what, why when I'm in restaurants do they never come to the table? And he said, well, in Europe you have to call them over. Right. And this is not something that an American knows, just knows. So just all these little things and I

So you showed her the post, the boys it, things that annoy me about America or something?

She, actually, even though we, um, like we met for the first time in Berlin, she had heard of me

Okay.

via that post. I had read that one post.

Oh, really?

Years before because I was googling whether or not I could take, um, my dog with me on to Europe.

To Europe.

Oh. Yes. And the answer to that question is, no, you can't.

really can't.

But I had stumbled across his friend's blog, Nomadic Matt,

Right, yeah.

when I was searching for that information, and then I just saw one link to a post written by Benny. But I didn't know who he was or anything that I read the post and I just thought, oh, that's interesting. Weird. But that is cool. And then, and then later on I met him and he told me about the post and I was like, oh my gosh, I read that years ago.

Wow.

So, yeah.

Must have been fate, surely. Yeah. But that's probably one of your most popular posts of all time, right?

No, it isn't.

Oh, really?

That's maybe fourth most popular. It's definitely the one that got the most angry Americans too. It's, it's actually a mixture of the two. It's, it's got enough comments, but it's got both.

Sure.

People who agree, people who disagree. But I don't really consider that post a kind of any big point on the blog. Like my most highly trafficked post is the 29 life lessons.

Right.

That one has been viewed like three or four million times.

You know, you just kind of the condensed, condensed version of a, well, everything you've learned the last

Yeah.

10 years or so.

Exactly. So, and then there's some of the language posts as well. So that that, um, for me because I see the blog as a chance to to encourage people. So that, that's kind of rant about America. I don't really, I don't really think of that very much, you know.

Right. No, I see. And he obviously doesn't hate Americans. No, no, no. I as, as evidenced by, uh, what you can see in front of you. Right. Yeah, and I, I don't think Americans thought of that way. I just, I just assumed that when you, when you kind of hear a foreigner speak about your country, you kind of get a little bit, you know, proud and that's probably why some people were, but yeah, is it, it's not relevant at all. But it's, it's funny that you read it and then you met. I mean, it does sound like coming up with a You know, there were a lot of things in the post that were I thought were true. Like, you know, of course you don't, you don't like someone pointing out your, but we do smile a lot. Yeah. Especially me. I think I'm the worst of the smile. It's when I don't know what, what else to do. If I'm feeling uncomfortable, I just smile all like an extra, an extra a lot. I see I feel uncomfortable when I smile a lot. Cause to me it's like, just there you know, it's like being, it's a little bit fake. I obviously, I am truly happy sometimes, and then I smile, but just generally as a courtesy, then it's very weak smile if, if it's there.

So fast forward, Benny's recruiting you to his lifestyle so to speak, and of course you accept and you go with him. So what, what part, when did you consider for the first time that, okay, Benny knows 10, 12 languages. That you were going to learn languages as well, because I assume that was, you were thinking that in the beginning maybe that

No, actually it was the opposite. I, I was stubbornly indignant about not learning languages because when him and I first started dating, I would meet friends of his or one of the first, when we moved to Spain, he took me to Paris and there was a polyglot event. And people kept coming up to me and saying, "Oh, you're Benny's girlfriend. How many languages do you speak?"

Right.

And I was like, "only English." And people be like, "why?" And I just was sort of like, I don't need to be a polyglot just because I'm dating a polyglot.

So it, for this reason, he was stubborn about. The the things, the interests we share and the things we talk about, we have many, many things in common. But, uh, language learning just was never a topic of conversation.

Right.

And I told her from the start that I did not need to convert her into a polyglot. I didn't need to make this about a language learning thing.

Right.

That I liked her for the person she was. So I didn't, I didn't care

Right.

if she decided she wanted to learn a language or not.

Right. You know.

But, um, uh, you know, it's an unfortunate first experience though. And I can see why that would maybe turn you to the opposite direction if people were like, oh, really, you only speak English.

Well, we went, we went to, uh, like a weird the polyglot club in Paris.

Right.

So it's kind of like, when you're in, we're all very nice people there. They're very nice people. But when you're in that environment, everyone just kind of presumes everyone else speaks, you know, at least five languages or something.

Yeah.

So and and then unfortunately, to make things worse, um, she had a little bit of a cough and we got you cough medicine.

Yeah, I drugged myself.

And unfortunately, it was very tasty. So she she had like a few cups and it it kind of, uh, put her out.

Yeah.

It started effects to it that we weren't not aware of. So I was I was I literally was drugged and attempting to maintain these conversations about languages and I was someone who was not

Oh, no. Yeah.

However, this year So, um, the reason I'm learning Esperanto is kind of twofold. One is Benny really loves Esperanto and he's always sort of said like, oh, you know, when you, you would you could learn Esperanto really fast if you ever wanted to learn a language.

Right.

And, um, I want to learn a language, which I won't say which one,

Sure, sure.

But I would like to learn a language that I was interested in before I met Benny. And I had actually started, right before I met him, I started sitting it very briefly. But then I met him and got distracted. And so I was telling him, I really want to learn this language and, uh, he said, okay, why don't you learn Esperanto first?

Right.

And then, uh, Judith Myers, um, six week challenge came up and Benny was like, this would be a great time for you to start. And that that's why. And so I, I does a language I, I really want to learn and so I think now I'm going to get into language learning because I really enjoyed learning Esperanto. It was really fun.

Right.

And the people are, the community has been really supportive and that helps a lot. It makes me feel motivated to, to keep moving forward. And I have a great coach, so.

Right. Probably the best, I'd say.

So what do you, what do you guys think of the event so far? We're in Polyglot Gathering in Berlin, the first time it's being held, and you, of course, know everyone who's, uh, hosting it. I mean, we've talked to them on the, online and now they're pulling this together. What do you think of the event?

I think it's great because like my basis of comparison is the polyglot conference, which was amazing because that was the first time ever that so many of us had come together to meet in person. It's the first time I met Richard and Luca and many, many people, many people.

Yeah.

Um, but it was very, uh, intense because it was two days.

I heard that, yeah.

And it, you know, I was unfortunately, by the time it was over, there were still so many people I wanted to talk to, but we were all going home.

Right.

So what I really like what, uh, Judith's done is she's taken that amazing concept that Richard initially had and she's mixed it a bit with the Esperanto mindset because, um, we this everything about this conference that a lot of people are not aware of is it feels very much like an Esperanto event.

Right.

Um, which tend to be actually a week-long. So this is like, um, you know, the five days long. Um, but everything about it, like having the board on, on the wall and the, the various

The common room and alligator room and.

All of those things and the format and the fact there's different talks at the same time.

Right.

So I really like that they've taken that concept and combined it with the polyglot community. Um, and it's great that we've either attended the talks or we've just been hanging out and and chatting to people.

Yeah, that's one of the things that's been my favorite part is that everyone has been extremely social and coming up to us and I'm having the opposite experience here that I had at the, at the the Paris event. If here nobody has asked me, maybe it's because I have a name tag, but never who's asked me how many languages do you speak? Everyone's just really nice and want to talk to me to get to know me and I,

And, one, one reason for that, as well as everyone being really nice, is that people recognize her.

Yeah. Of course.

So, they, there's one time she's,

How does that feel, Lauren? Sorry.

Yeah, one time she was like,

Super encouraging.

saying to people, uh, oh, I'm from Baltimore. They're like, yeah, I know that. Yeah. We read the Wikipedia page. It is weird because I want to normally when you start a social interaction, you, oh, where are you from? You know? Of course. And I can't say any of these things because everyone already knows. Yeah. But it's.

But it took you a little while. I, I remember reading the blog and it was like me and my girlfriend were doing things. It was never me and Lauren. You weren't to introduce early on. So what, what, what made you I guess decide to say yes to a public thing because that's very different than being like just the girlfriend.

Yeah, we at first we had decided that I was not, I was not, I was going to be kept private. Um, but then what happened was the book tour started, and we've been to a lot of cities and met a lot of readers and they all meet me.

Right.

And, you know, it's gotten to the point where I've met several hundred of his fans face-to-face already.

Right.

So I was thinking, I kind of already have met so many people. They know what I look like, they know who I am.

Right.

Um, and then we just thought that it would be really great for the for the blog for people to see Benny's methods being put to use on an someone who learning a language for the first time. And that's something he can't do.

Of course. Obviously.

And so many people see him saying, oh, Benny, you're just, you're just really good at it, but I'm not. So this is a great opportunity for, for helping people. And we got so many emails from people saying, thank you. I was I had just given up learning Spanish and now I'm starting it up again. And so I'm really happy with the decision to to become part of the blog.

Yeah, I love the videos that that you put out. And I, I, I told Benny earlier that I think it's the best that he probab, that he's probably produced for the site overall because,

Oh.

it's, it's just a different kind of, I mean, there are tons of great videos that has good like practical content, but in terms of actually kind of documenting the process, I think that's the best you've done so far.

Yeah, because one thing we did differently is in all my other videos, when I'm uploading my progress, I decide, okay, this is the progress video, press record, do what I need to do for 20 minutes or an hour and then press stop.

Right.

With Lauren though, we actually every single second that she was learning Esperanto, we had the camera on.

So how does that feel, Lauren? Sorry.

It was actually my idea.

Oh, really?

Because I was thinking, no one's ever, no one has ever made a video recorded the entire process of someone learning a language before. And for a very long time, we were very strict about it. Like, we wouldn't even practice with each other. And then we started slipping up because people would come up to me at at book signing.

Yeah.

And we didn't have the camera, so we didn't, we weren't able to record those parts. But every time I studied in the house, we had the camera rolling. And I just, I really wanted to to people to see, I didn't want us to forget any of the moments that that I experienced as as a beginner. I wanted us to be able to to to show them to to the readers. And it ended up being great.

Sucks for Benny because he has to go through hours and hours of footage.

Yeah, every week I had to edit eight hours or 10 hours down to, you know, five or 10 minutes.

Right.

Which is, uh, a lot of work.

But people appreciate But it's rewarding in the end, like, yeah.

And also like, the funny thing I found was that those moments of, ah, I don't want to do this anymore. There weren't that many of them, but you said there was a lot of like outtakes in the, you know, that you left out. And I, I told Lauren that a good idea would be an outtake reel. I think we should do that. That'd be, you could totally do that.

There are lots of moments of me,

but, but can you explain like the emotion that you're going through? Because obviously, you know, for me growing up in Denmark, foreign languages is kind of, that's part and parcel of growing up. I mean, my English is a second language, so it's, it's that's just how we grow up, you know, it comes naturally. So for us the idea of learning another language, we kind of know how it feels. And you, try and share that feeling of, what's the frustration? Is it something specific to a case or is it a vocabulary problem or lack of development? What, what is it?

When I first started at like hour one, looking at LerNu, go. Um, the first thing is that hit me was how completely inept that you feel when you start learning a new language because there is this massive amount of stuff in between where you want where you are now and where you want to be.

Right.

And every single thing you see, you don't understand. And and I think in life there are very few other things that that you that feel like that where every single new word is a challenge. It's a struggle. And you it makes you feel very inept.

Right.

And so one thing that I wanted to stress to the readers who experience that is that everyone learning a new language feels that way and that you just have to keep going. And even if it doesn't feel like you're progressing, that's one thing I learned is that I didn't feel like I was progressing at times. And then a few days later, I would realize that I had to move forward, even though I didn't feel like that. So that's what I remember first is feeling really dumb.

And then the second thing I remember is being afraid for Benny to hear me speaking. And one of the things I I I always hear him telling people the importance of overcoming their fear and speaking and speaking and speaking.

Yeah.

It's actually really hard to do that. It's scary. It was hard for me, really hard for me. Even with just him. And he's my

No, no.

I think that's worse. I think it's totally worse to talk to your partner or really close friends in another language than it is to talk to somebody you just met in a bookshop or something. Because you, you're very close and it's like, you kind of want to do good. But if you don't have any kind of relationship, it's like, oh, I'll just try it, whatever. So for me, it's harder to speak to friends than it is to like say random tutors or people I don't know. So I think, I mean, I can definitely relate to that.

But then another thing I noticed and that I, I remember from here on out is that my first hour, Benny was in the room. He's always in the room because we travel in short-term accommodation. And I was like trying to like pronounce the words quietly so he couldn't hear me. And I got over that within like an hour. And now when I study, I have no shame. I'll, you know, butcher the language and speak. So that's one thing that I from the videos we wanted to stress to the readers is that that that feeling of being uncomfortable of speaking in front of people, once you just do it, you won't feel uncomfortable anymore.

Right.

I don't know, if you, I don't know what happens when you do your second language if you experience it all over again. But for the first you do.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, I guess I get the same with every language. Like in in my German, I've had German for 10 years. I mean ordering a coffee when I arrived in Berlin was like And then trying to speak some Russian that I've learned in a few months is, you know, it it's the same feeling. Totally relate to it. But Benny, in in the videos, it it you were presenting it as, I mean, it's Lauren's gig. It's Lauren doing the work. It was her showing how she could do it. But how do you avoid being a language teacher and sort of just stay as an enabler?

Yeah, because I, I have my own preferences and I have my style, which I tell people, um, there is no one way to learn a language and I was afraid that I could potentially put Lauren off Esperanto and language learning in general, if I forced her to learn the way that I would want myself to learn. And this is a problem I've had with language teachers.

Right.

Is that they teach the language that they the way they want to be taught. And that's not the way you help people. You, I I think the best language teachers should be language facilitators.

Right.

They have the person get exposure and they give them encouragement and they answer the questions they have, but in a way that I, I kind of, I really tried to avoid teaching her. So whenever she asked me, like Lauren would ask me, "Benny, what's the word for book?" As "Esperanto?" And I would not,

Remember that, yeah.

I would not translate it for her. I would I would try to help her figure it out herself. So I'd say, well, what's, um, what's the name of the place where we store books in English?

Right.

And she was like, "Oh, Libro."

Right. You know.

So I I think that's that's better because otherwise she would rely in that situation, she would just rely on me all the time.

Right. You know.

She would just keep turning to me and saying, "Benny, what's Esperanto for this, for this, for this?" But I feel, and I'm really happy when I see her, that she does not, when we're talking here, that, even after just a few weeks, she's not constantly turning to me.

Right.

And because the problem there is if I happen to be in another room, then she just can't speak the language.

Right. You know.

Yeah.

But she, she has been completely independent. She's been able to talk to you to the other person, talk around the word, stop and think for a second and figure out, rather than always going via English. And she found a style that worked for her. So I, I gave her examples of tools that I would recommend and she gravitated towards the ones that worked for her learning style.

Yeah, and one thing that I learned quickly about myself as a learner is that, well, two things, one, I'm very impatient, so I can't do the same exercise for a very long. I have to switch between different kind of courses or memorizer Anki or or or something. And then another thing is that I do not like grammatical explanations of things. I need to see examples.

Right. You know.

So, um, the the accusative in Esperanto, I someone can explain it eloquently and beautifully and it means nothing to me.

Right.

Where I see the examples. So you learn about yourself as a learner when you, when you sort of

But but again, isn't it, um, is is that why your relationship as a kind of a, well, of course, a love relationship, but also a professional in in terms of language tutor or enabler and student, is that why it works so well? Because you're not really teaching, you're more like just a a support or kind of a an enabler or facilitator like you called it because Richard was talking about in his talk, you're saying that learning a language with a spouse or from a spouse is very stressful. But it sounds like you don't have that

something to consider is in that situation, you're talking about learning the native language of the spouse. And that's, that's a very different problem. So like if, for instance, Lauren was from another country and she didn't speak English and she decided she wanted to learn English with me, we may our relationship may be in one language. And what Richard means and what I've come across myself is that one partner learning another partner's language is very hard because the relationship is in a particular language.

Of course.

And we got around that, um, even like our relationship is in English, we had our Esperanto hour.

Right.

Which, um, we didn't start until like the third or fourth week because she was still getting into learning.

Sure, sure.

But then we would just like at around lunchtime, uh, we would switch into Esperanto.

Great.

And stick in Esperanto until the hour was up. And, um, if you are, if there's anyone in, uh, a couple, they can make that decision. The catch is, if you, if it would put a major strain on the relationship, if we decided we were going cold turkey 100%.

Oh, right. That would be, yeah.

That would be an absolute mess. And that's that's the problem that a lot of couples may think of doing that because it it's in it feels okay. It looks good on paper. You think, okay, best way to learn a language is 100% in that language. And in many circumstances, I agree. 100% immersion is the answer.

Yeah.

But you have to take into consideration that there are relationships and human beings and the need, especially in a romantic, uh, couple, there's a a certain need to communicate to a very deep level.

Of course.

Which you can reach, you can reach that level in the other language, but you are putting the relationship under a certain strain. And this is why I think you can ease yourself in. So, Esperanto hour, we could have transitioned our relationship to only Esperanto if we did it like two hours and three hours and so on.

May, sure.

But then would you want to, you know, that you need to kind of I think you need extra motivation. But it's really hard because the relationship, the language began in, and this is a problem I had when I was in Spain, that for six months, all of my friends were English speakers. And that's it was just there's this unspoken rule, we speak in English, and it was a tough choice, but I had to, I had to end friendships and begin new ones when I made the choice, I'm switching to 100% Spanish, because I would meet new people and I would just start fresh in Spanish with them.

Right.

So Lauren, what, what kind of, uh, if you could summarize some of the big lessons you've learned from this? I mean, you're not done with Esperanto, I assume, but some of the big kind of aha moments that you've learned by studying on yourself.

Um, okay. So I would say the first one is that I was extremely terrified before I had my first spoken session with someone who wasn't Benny. For whatever reason, I feel very comfortable talking to Benny. But when I had a Skype conversation, um, with another Esperantist, I would have probably not done it if I hadn't had Benny there as my like sponsor.

Yeah. And

But you mean is I tied her down to the chair. And said, I don't care what excuse you're coming up with, we are doing this video.

That's amazing.

And you know, after like two minutes of it, it was it just all went away. I wasn't nervous anymore.

Oh, that's fantastic.

And I just I feel like so many people don't like, like I said earlier about how in the beginning when you first start making the sounds of the words, you feel so self-conscious. And what I learned is that all of these like negative feelings are temporary.

Of course.

So, you know, that being self-conscious when you're speaking, if you just push past that, you won't feel that way anymore. And if you just push past the fear of talking to someone who's a a native speaker or a high-level speaker, then you won't feel that way anymore. But I feel like so many people don't pass through the wall. And this is such a shame because if they just did, then, you know, it's just such a great feeling.

And it makes it easier for you when you come and see people here, for instance, face to face because you've already had that, you already took the plunge or the jump or whatever you might call it. So when you do get here in person, I assume that they feel slightly easier.

It's still scary, I would say. It's still scary. For me at least. It's not as terrified as it was initially.

Right.

But I think you, I, I posted this on the website as well. I think you did extremely well in the video. I mean, I'm, I, I speak no Esperanto, but just the fact that you kind of, you didn't look like you were scared to death in in the beginning even.

No, I was very comfortable.

Right.

You know, people keep saying to me, oh, so many people saw this videos. Weren't you scared? And no, because I felt like I was just in my living room talking to Benny.

Right.

Um, it's the reality of it is actually hitting me here, now that I'm seeing so many people who have seen the videos. But at the time I felt very, very comfortable. But you know, the first time you do anything, it's always scary. So yeah, it's still difficult talking to people here. And especially because here there's so many different accents that I've never come across before and, uh, people are talking much faster than I've been used to and Benny's always been very kind to speak slowly with me. So, but that those are all things you have to get used to. He's again, just like, there's not one brick wall. There's many. Many. And you have to just keep going past each one.

Right, yeah, that's good.

Do you have any, um, you're moving on to to maybe to a natural language. Do you have any kind of specific, uh, maybe grammar things or anything you'd like to take with you from from Esperanto that you think you could use for it?

Um, I don't think it's it's the grammar of Esperanto. It's more grammar. It's more just the the comfort and the confidence that you can do it because I think it's like she said, the nerves are the biggest problem in language learning. And now, um, this whole idea of Esperanto as a springboard, uh, there are many theories for why that might work and one I think is confidence.

Yeah.

Because if she was starting a natural language that was very complex, you know, from the start, she would just keep saying, oh, I'm too dumb. I'm too dumb. I'm too dumb. But the fact that you've done this already shows that you've got momentum and so it's you've already done something successfully. You've proven it to yourself, you know.

Yeah. I feel like the biggest thing I learned from Esperanto is how to learn a language.

Right.

Now I know how to learn a language. So taking on a much more complicated language is a lot less of a a like a a fearsome task.

Right.

So, so the next step, is that going to be more you or are you still going to look to Benny for support and or you're slowly going to become totally independent?

I'll give you a hint about my language that I'm learning. Benny does not speak this language.

Oh.

So there you go. So he's not going to be able to give me that much help. Although he does, you know, the blog is a is a big network, so we'll be able to use the blog, but anybody can really use the blog to find connections and resources. So I'll use the blog and the forums and the people that we know to to help to get suggestions as to resources I should be using and that kind of thing. But Benny doesn't speak his language, so he won't be able to uh, to help.

Is that, is that, uh, is that part of your considerations at all or was it just a little thing that, you know,

I joke that I'm going to learn the languages he doesn't speak, so that between the two of us, we'll have like covered more ground. But no, I, I began learning this language before I met him, very, very, very briefly. Um, it's for career purposes.

Right.

But when I, in the short period of time I was studying it, I enjoyed it a lot.

Right.

I found it to be a very interesting language, beautiful language, and I want, I really want to continue it. Even though we have no plans to travel to that country.

Right.

Anytime soon, I just, I don't know, I just want to finish what I started.

But I think that's okay, too, because a lot of people base their language choices on going there. So for you, it could also be interesting for anyone really to to to study a language without that end goal, a different end goal maybe. But we definitely would be looking out for, I guess a post about my next challenge or something. You'll be looking out for us.

It's actually me, um, and another team member of the site, his name is Brandon.

Brandon, yeah, I've seen.

He's going to be learning a a new language as well. We're going to going to do it together.

Oh, great.

That's just going to be and and Benny's going to be, uh, what are you going to do, Benny, when, when Lauren is running the

I'm going to be lying in the hammock, you know, drinking my mocktail, enjoying life. No, because we're on a book tour and, uh, that's going to keep me very busy. And it's going to keep Lauren very busy as well. So it'll be like a a halftime project.

Yeah, my goal is so he Benny, I'm just going to be a three months challenge.

Right.

But Benny usually goes for fluent in three months working full-time. I'm going to be working half-time, probably about four hours a day and

That's still a lot, I would say for most people anyway.

So my my goal is to reach, um, conversational in three months.

Right.

And I think that's the new blog, you could have your own blog, conversational three months. That's my goal. And I think Brandon, um, has a has a different goal for for his language. And that's something else we want to show the readers, is that they don't have to have a fluid in three months goal. They can have a whatever, whatever. I know that's been talked about a lot.

Yeah. And and I know your position on it and I, I think a lot of people are getting it. But before we end, maybe just, uh, give the, the viewers or the listeners, uh, just a hint about the, well, not a hint, it's not a secret, but just give them the details of the book tour you're going to America.

Yeah. So we will be flying into LA in, uh, less than a week. And we're doing all 50 states, all Canadian, um, uh, territories and provinces.

Wow.

And, uh, we'll be driving the whole thing. It will, we'll be driving up the the West Coast and we'll zip across and then we'll drive all the East Coast and then that'll be the first part and then next year we'll do the next part.

Road trip.

Yeah. Road trip, exactly. It'll be summertime in in the US. It'll be lovely. It'll be great. We're using it as an ex as a as a chance to meet, uh, people who may be interested in language learning but not not considered it and I want to give them some encouragement.

Yeah. Fantastic. Well thank you so much for taking the time and I'm looking forward to seeing you progress and you, of course, Benny. And, uh, as I said, you've been a big inspiration for for me getting into this and it's been a big help not only sort of language-wise, but also spiritually. So I want to thank you for coming by and taking the time.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for having us. No fun.

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.