Lauren Lewis: Fi3M and Learning Russian

Season 2, episode 6, Lauren Cutlet Fluent in 3 Months and learning Russian. This is the actual fluency podcast, helping you become a better language learner by providing motivating weekly inspiration, as well as top tips and tricks from expert guests. And now, your host, Chris Broholm.

Thank you very much for having me. Such a pleasure.

We met in Berlin last year, and we had a little recording. So if people are interesting in sort of the pre-story to your Russian mission, they can go back to that episode. I believe it was 17 or 19 where we talk about Esperanto, which was really your first venture into the I guess you can call it the polyglot world. I I keep saying that, but it sounds so silly.

But It it does. It makes me feel very strange. Um the first time, when I was at the polyglot conference, I only studied Esperanto for six weeks and someone said to me, oh, congratulations, you're a polyglot now. And I was like, no, no, I'm not. Definitely not.

No, but you for me it's always the attitude. Like if you if you want to study languages, then I believe you get an automatic membership into this sort of made up uh community or whatever. It's always a funny distinction. But it's all about attitude. And if your ambition is to learn let's say a number of languages, then just having that kind of will and goal, I think that's definitely enough.

I mean, to me it's a mentality, it's a way of life. It's not how many languages does someone speak?

Mm-hm. Yeah. So tell us about how it's been going since then. You know, you got the six weeks of Esperanto. We followed you very deeply on the blog, and you're doing really well with the help of Benny, and you came to the conference and used the Esperanto really well, and you talked about how how much of a positive experience that was. Can you talk about what what's happened since?

Yeah, um, well, one question that I keep getting since I've started learning Russian is did Esperanto help you at all with your Russian? And this is something that I actually plan to discuss um on the next blog post, but the answer is, absolutely, yes it did. 100%.

Oh, right. Fantastic. So just definitely helped.

Yeah. An example of this uh I I I would sometimes only in my Russian get a little bit frustrated that people wouldn't understand me if I used the wrong verb of motion in Russian. You know, like uh in Russian there's a different word for if you're going somewhere and back is totally different from just going somewhere. And it's like why don't you understand me? It's just because in English it would just be like go, you know, go around, go home, go away, go out, go in, you know. And then I was like why don't you understand me? And then I was like, oh yeah, well, it's a different language. And they have, you know, different words for to go by foot, to go by transport, all these different all these different verbs that you have to learn.

Right. For sure. And also just the massive common vocabulary is also a nice feature. Like uh all the words in and, you know, and, you know, every time I tutor, you know, I I said an English word, and my tutor would be like guess it. And I'd be like, uh I don't know, concept?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yes, exactly. Yeah.

It's very cool. That that's good. And and you feel like the Esperanto, do you think that the Esperanto, the reason that it it helped you or that you can see the benefits now, is it is it more technical, or is it more like mental in in the sense of like you said before, I've already worked on something, so I kind of got my frustrations out of the way first. Is there a technical advantage too?

Yes, there is. So, for instance, in Esperanto, I was really uh frustrated by the accusative. Right. And you know, as as you're well aware, uh Russian has multiple cases that you have to deal with. And so I think that if the first time I uh came across the case issue was in Russian, then I would be like, oh, Russian sucks. But I don't feel that way because, you know, I I sort of got a little bit accustomed to it in in Esperanto. So that's also helped a lot. In addition in addition just to the mental hurdles of becoming a language learner and understanding that you can't translate word for word, that that helped so much in my opinion.

Right. It's a it's a great point. And obviously, you've got a lot more case issues in in Russian. But like you alluded to before, there's lots of rules, there's lots of like a lot of words control cases. So you don't even have to like you don't always have to know what part of the sentence each word is. You just have to know, okay, well, it says monoga, so I know that's controls the genitive, so I know that the next word needs to be in the genitive no matter where in the sentence.

Um so I haven't gotten that far yet. I haven't touched the cases yet.

Right. That's something that's that's a good uh good you you'll see that soon, and it's it's a great it's a great feeling that you know, and there are tons of words like that. And I would ask my tutor, I'd be like, I had a book and it was like, I was saying, but wait a minute, this is the direct object. How can it be genitive construction? She would be like, oh, yeah, that's because it follows this word. And I was like, it always does that?

Yeah. I'm like, super. I love to hear the always in language learning, you know, the rules. Yes. That's lovely. I hate the sometimes or it's that's impossible.

And so anyway, about the uh the Russian learning, obviously, we've been we've been following you lately on the uh video series on on Fluency in 3 Months. Um We'll get back to Fluency in 3 Months in a minute, but what I wanted to know was, does it is it does it make it easier or does it make it harder to learn a language that you have to sort of show everything and have like production value and sort of be on the spot?

Um, I would say it makes it kind of a double-edged sword. So I would say that absolutely, 100%, I am progressing in Russian much faster because I'm doing it publicly for the blog. Absolutely. You know, the the moment that I said to the world, I am going to study Russian, two hours a day, for three months, aiming for a B1 level, you know, that was a that's a major responsibility, and I feel like I have to try really hard because I have all these people watching me, and some of them, you know, I I know that they're taking a lot of inspiration from it. I love that, and I don't want to like let them down. So I'm really, I think I'm putting in way, way more effort because it's not just me holding myself accountable, but it's all of the language learners who read Fluency in 3 Months who are holding me accountable.

Right, a beautiful circle of uh you know, common inspiration there.

Yeah, it's lovely. It's it's it it helps, it really does. Like having other people holding you accountable, it makes a huge difference.

I I totally agree, and and one of the ways that it's helping me personally is that, you know, as you know, I started Russian slightly earlier, uh but I didn't do much in the first year, and and we can get back to that. But then I saw your announcement, and I was like, oh no. She She you know, she's getting uh she has the blog as a vehicle. She has Benny to support her if there's any problems, and, you know, uh I just knew that, okay, I need to I need to work harder on this because otherwise, and this is not a bad thing, of course. I mean, this is just a a bit of fun. Otherwise, I'm going to go to the polyglot conference in in in May, and and you're going to be la la la la la la and I'm going to be understand anything. You know, so it's highly motivating even for me when I have like a a year head start, but that doesn't really, I mean, it doesn't really mean anything because I didn't do much in that year, but um

Exactly.

It's just a great motivational engine. You had what I had noticed was that you announced to the world that you wanted to do Russian, and I remember that. That's quite a while ago. And then there was sort of a break, and then you came out with this video series and and people were like, wow, this, you know, now it's going really fast. But what happened in that sort of first period of of from you announcing it to to the first video? What what happened there?

Yeah, so I sort of, I mentioned it on the blog, and also at the polyglot conference to people in in person, that I wanted to learn Russian. Um but it wasn't a formal announcement. I didn't have a time frame, it didn't have a goal. I just sort of said, I'm going to I'm going to start studying Russian now after I've done a few weeks of Esperanto. And I did. I started Russian, excuse me.

Oh, there you go. So, do you think that if you had the sort of uh 3 Month Mission mindset of having very clear focus and goals, if you had that when you did the first announcement, do you think you could have still done it or do you think that the sort of just because you're too busy in uh or, you know, what what would have made the difference?

I think it's because I feel, because I work for the blog, I feel like learning Russian is kind of my job now. Right. And I always had the mentality beforehand that I shouldn't study Russian because I have to work, and work is the most important thing because we have a lot of people counting on us, and but now I have the mentality that learning Russian is work. So I don't feel guilty anymore for spending my time on Russian. Whereas before I would feel kind of guilty like, oh, I I should be working on something for the blog, or I should be answering emails, or but now I don't have I don't have that guilt and it it makes it a lot easier.

Wonderful. And it really shows the power of accountability really, so I I highly suggest and it's of course you do as well, I highly suggest people find a way to become accountable and you know, just having some language partners that you can meet up with or just maybe Facebook them once in a while and say, hey, how are you doing and you know, have to report back to someone, I think is extremely powerful. Have you heard of the Add One Challenge run by Brian Kwong?

I have, and I I I was in one as well, and it was incredibly motivating for I know

Isn't it? The success rate is also incredible in that in that group. And I you know, I I think the the only the only thing is that it's not a miracle solution, like everything. You you

Well, yes. If there were miracles, I would love to uh buy into them. But uh yeah, I would say something like that or, you know, if you have a blog, obviously, a lot of people are blogging about their experiences now, or uh maybe they have a Twitter account or something. There's lots of ways to make it uh known. And and you'd say, I mean, it sounds to me like you'd say that's kind of the difference between Lauren what is it four or five months ago and then the Lauren now. It's just you have a clear mission, you have a accountability.

Yeah. I I think you also, it's really important also that you are genuinely passionate about learning the language. Um because if you, one of the things that was really hard for me at first is that um I get kind of shy, and so every time I would go to have a Skype conversation, I would become really, really nervous. But I really like Russian. I really do. And I think if you're just learning a language for work, or if because you have to, it can be harder. But I have so much fun talking to my iTalki teachers, and I love to just joke with them and talk about random nonsense, and, you know, I I like to use the language in these really weird ways, and it's so much fun for me because I've gotten past the stage where I'm afraid to get on iTalki and talk to a teacher, and I really actually enjoy it now.

Right. It is scary, isn't it? I mean, I remember my first time, it was like,

Terrifying.

But then the rewards are so much greater. It's like when you finish that session, you've been speaking Russian for 30, 60 minutes, you just feel that surge of adrenaline, your mind is kind of like, what did I just do? You know?

Yes, absolutely. It's it's a wonderful feeling. It's it's terrifying, absolutely terrifying in the beginning. And there are a lot of people who suffer from anxiety, and they get really nervous, and I completely understand that. But I just promise people that if you do it like five or six times, you'll get over it. Like it it's it it's it's really scary at first, but if you keep doing it, it becomes really fun. And that's that's been my experience.

Right. And I don't think you've ever told me or maybe I've forgotten why you chose Russian, except that it was a language Benny didn't speak. That was kind of the only thing I remember.

Yeah, um, actually, I wanted to start learning Russian before I ever met Benny. Um, because my original plan life plan was to work for a governmental organization. And I would have increased my chances of being accepted if I spoke Russian. And so I had just decided I was going to learn Russian. And then I went on a um, a summer abroad to Europe to prepare like to sort of take some time off before I started applying for these governmental programs. And it was during that summer abroad that I met Benny, and I sort sort of, you know, stopped doing all that other other stuff I was doing.

Cool. So does it come from anywhere? Like do you have uh ancestry, or do you like the culture, the movies, or music, maybe?

Mm not. I mean, I um would like to be able to you know, at some point in the distant future, be able to read in Russian. I would really love that. Um I'm really excited about the idea of being able to read Russian literature. But other than that, I have no family. Um Benny and I have no initial plan like foreseeable plans to go to Russia. Um it's just that I just I wanted to learn Russian, and the the was just nagging me that I had not done that thing that I said I was going to do.

That's so cool. That's so cool, because, you know, the thing that I've noticed with myself is that I sort of arbitrarily chose Russian at the start of my mission. And, you know, I I have so many interests. I I think I have one of those personalities they call scanners, you know, where you do something for a while and then you're like, uh, it's boring. I'll do something else. So for me, one of the interesting topics is always like, how do uh, you know, how do you make language learning interesting and fun in a language where you don't really have any connections? Because I like you, I don't have any connections whatsoever. So, why why did you choose it? I mean, you must have like one little tiny reason.

It's pretty arbitrary, but, you know, I was playing a video game and it had a quite a substantial Russian fan base, and there used to be um or there is now running, you know, like uh live streams of tournaments, you know, just like football and anything. Um so there's commentators in Russian, they do interviews and stuff. But I've first started learning it, I didn't I haven't really sort of interested too much in it, and because of all the work involved with the podcast and the blog and traveling and learning the language ironically, I haven't had much time to play the game. So.

Oh, yes.

So it's kind of undoing itself, but um, but anyway, yeah, you know, it is it is a it is a valid reason, but it's to me, it's a little bit of an arbitrary one where yours seems a little bit more like sort of a life goal one, which must have been powerful brewing under the surface there.

Well, it was my goal for work purposes, and those those that work purpose is no longer applicable to me. But it just bothered me because I had the idea. And and also, I I think Russian is just really is a really beautiful language. You know, it kind of sounds harsh to some people, but I think it sounds beautiful.

It's it's amazingly beautiful. And it's very succinct as well. I I think that.

Yeah, I love that about it. I love that because you can say um you can use fewer words to get the same same meaning across, and that's been really helpful from my Tarzan Russian that I'm speaking all the time.

Yeah, well, that's that's the uh the approach, the the speak from day one, right? You have to speak.

Yeah, not to worry too much about the grammar, and it's been working out pretty well for me, but I think month three is going to be my grammar heavy month.

Right. Yeah, you're in for a bit of a, I don't know if you call it a treat or a shock, but it's it's grammar heavy, you know, there's a lot of rules and what I, you know, I can give you the advice that what I didn't do in the beginning, I should have is pay a lot of attention to the spelling rules. Uh I don't know if you've heard about it, but there are there are two spelling two major spelling rules that says that certain letters can't show up after another letter. And there's only like 7 plus 5 letters or something, so it would take you like 5 minutes to learn. And then you know how to spell almost all the words because they follow those kind of spelling rules. So they explain why, you know, sometimes, even though it sounds the same, something ends in and something ends in E. Even though it when you pronounce it, it kind of sounds the same, so you're like, well, why does it matter? Apparently, it's because of these these spelling rules that you can't have certain letters after certain other letters. And uh it's something that they refer to all the time. And also, you know, some uh they when they change the words change for case, there are a few different uh ways of doing it. So if you know the spelling rules, you also know which version of the you know, new ending you have to use. So that would be my sort of uh tip that I didn't do enough of when I started. I just sort of ignored it. I was like, spelling rules, who needs who needs to spell?

Yeah, especially with a spoken a spoken based approach like I have, but I'll definitely keep that in mind if it'd make my life easier with the cases.

Definitely. And you'll know you'll learn why sometimes it's um and why sometimes it's M at the end, you know. So it's very helpful. And uh but you I think you I'm I'm looking forward to seeing your uh your grammar uh update in in sometime because it's for me, it's you know, a year later, I'm still overwhelmed. I still don't know all the case endings. Uh I'm not doing a very organized grammar approach. I'm a bit like you where I want to just speak and just getting it slowly. You know, every time my tutor corrects me, there's a high chance that next time I'll get it right. So I don't worry too much, but it's it's certainly a mountain of uh of of uh different rules and endings, and, you know, you you'll get it, but I think that

That's a that's a problem for next month's Lauren. This month Lauren's going to worry about other things.

Exactly. But like I said, I'm really looking forward to see. Also, I just how the speak from day one approach kind of ties in with learning a very grammar heavy language. And uh I guess in connection with that, have you experienced any uh, you know, it's the method itself, have you sort of adapted it to some of, have you changed some of the ideas to your your views? Have there been some things where you said, okay, what if I do this? Or have you kind of followed it kind of

So I do use the speak from day one approach. Um I didn't study any grammar at all, and I um I really, it's kind of funny. I decided to have my first conversation with just without having studied any phrases, except a few hours before the first Skype call because I thought if I have a list of phrases in front of me, then it'll be easy peasy, you know, I'll I'll look down to my my page and I'll say, how are you? And she'll respond with what whatever's on my page, and then I'll be able to just have this conversation. And it did not work out quite like that, which was very informative from from my life.

I I there are people who say that, like somebody like Tim Ferriss for instance, that would be his approach to learning the cases would be to have, you know, he had just 10 sentences or something. And in those sentences, there would be different cases. Um of course, that's a sort of a flawed system because you you can't compare to cases. You know, in English, it might translate as the same word.

Yeah.

But in Russian sometimes, you know, depending if the noun is female or male or

Exactly.

Then there's another change. It it changes, you know, three times or whatever for person or gender and and and case. So but I think that you can you can definitely pick up on it. Um so the power of speak one, I I think you can just go all the way, but it's obviously nice with a grammar heavy language like Russian to just take some test time and just how does this actually work? You know? I think that's a good idea.

Yeah. And something that's really surprised me is that I'm because I'm really enjoying it, I find myself really curious. Already I want to know, how does the past tense work? Because I I have a fuzzy idea of how it works. Um but I don't really know it 100%. So I'm already starting now to look into the grammar of that because I'm just genuinely curious about it. That's something I never would have expected from myself, but here I am.

Fantastic. And that also makes you learn better, I think. The the memory of your mind is is more susceptible to new make new memories if it's interesting.

I definitely I definitely think so. Yeah.

It's really cool anyway to compare notes in a way as well because I definitely did the total opposite of speak from day one. I I did the speak from day 205 or but um I think it's it's a it's an incredibly powerful method, and it it reminds me a little bit of uh you know, Moses, um Lao Shu when he runs around Walmart, and and he's kind of learned a lot of the phrases like you say with your tutors. And it it's hacking conversation, isn't it, in a way? I mean, it's

Yes.

There's nothing negative about it. It's just people tend to say the same things.

They do. They do. You know, one question that's really surprised me is um is people ask my teachers ask me, how old are you? So frequently, you know, in in America, that's not a question that you ask someone when you first meet them. It would considered quite odd. However, I've learned that that's a question I needed to to learn how to answer very early on, and I wasn't really planning on studying numbers because I thought, oh, I'm going to be just speaking on Skype, why would I need to know numbers? But I needed to know numbers because people kept asking me how old I was.

Right. So that was really interesting. So did you learn did you learn the curiosity that uh the cases are different for one to four, and then five, and then more than five?

Oh god, I know. I haven't gotten into that yet. I know how to say how old I am. I know how to say one through ten. That's about where I am with the numbers.

And that's the most important thing, isn't it?

Yeah, yes, right now. That's what you're going to get asked anyway.

But like I said, we're very excited to uh sort of uh keep updated with your progress. And I'd love to talk some Russian with you in in Berlin if you're uh if you're up for it.

Absolutely. I love that.

All right. Well, let's uh let's move on to uh some Fluency in 3 Months business. Um first of all, I I um I wanted you about this question, uh what do you actually do on the Fluency in 3 Months like behind the scenes?

Okay. This is such a tough question. Um I do a lot of things. Basically, uh let me see if I can if I can explain this right. Okay, so the blog has sort of, when I met Benny, it was just him running the site by himself. But since then, the the needs of the blog have grown such that Benny was the bottleneck. And he and that we weren't we weren't able to keep things moving forward because everything had to go through him. And he could he only has so many hours in a day, so he couldn't do it all himself. So then we started expanding the team. And I was the first uh expansion. Um basically, it started as anything that he couldn't do, I I did.

Right. So a little bit of everything.

A little bit of everything, yes.

That must be that must be nice to have uh such a diverse kind of job where you can, you know, you're not doing the same nine hours a day.

Yeah, absolutely. I I love it. I it's I love it a little bit too much. Benny and I have need to work on our our work-life balance because um we tend to spend a little bit too much time in front of our laptops doing blog-related things because we just really enjoy it. We love interacting with the readers. We love seeing, you know, what's new in language learning.

That's fantastic. The uh Language Hacking League.

Yes.

Is the name of the email list. And if people are interested in getting on that list, and also you they'll get a free course when they join it. They can go to actualfluency.com/league. That's the uh the fast link to get signed up there. And it's absolutely free, and, you know, I I'm on it as well. I get the weekly emails, and it's wonderful to see the sort of the um I guess you can call it the link sections where Benny sort of gathers the interesting posts of the week from all the other different resources. And it's very helpful uh to language learning in general. And if you do, if you are learning one of those specific languages, then instructions will also uh, you know, you you can get on them as well.

Yeah, um, it's we've tried really hard to to send emails to as many people learning even obscure languages as we possibly can. So, we we try really hard, and and there's so many language learning resources out there. I think that it can be really hard to know which ones are good, which ones are not, which should I try. And so, we um, we have team members who test them all, and we we really respect their opinion. Even for languages that Benny doesn't know, they test the resources, and they say, this one's good, this one's not, and then we can pass the good ones on to our readers, and they don't have to to, you know, waste their time or their money trying crappy resources.

Right. What have been some of the resources that you've tried personally for your challenge that you really like, or maybe some you really don't like?

I love uh RussianPod101. It's my favorite resource. Um, and it's by a company called Innovative Language, and they are amazing because they have created these podcast uh lessons for, I don't know, like 30 some languages. They have It's crazy amount of languages. And I was really um it's really weird to tell you this because you're on a podcast, but I was not interested at first in the idea of uh using a podcast to learn languages because I kind of imagined it as being the same as listening to the radio. And I thought, you know, oh, god, how am I supposed to understand radio speech when I'm just a beginner?

Yeah, I agree. And uh again, if if people are interested in it, you know, you can find the link in the blog post for this uh this episode. Uh and um I also really like it. One thing I want to say is that, have you have you uh heard from this guy called Eric yet? He's doing some of the beginner series.

Yeah, but yeah, I've I've gotten to the beginner series.

He has such a fantastic voice. I mean, I don't know how to explain it, but that voice is just, I mean, he could come anyone, I think. He's He's such a nice, smooth, soothing voice. I'm like, it's almost a pleasure to listen to just the voice.

I totally agree. The voice actors are really They do a such a great job. And I've actually um been to the headquarters for Innovative Language. It's in Tokyo, Japan. And I also, um I love recommending companies where the people who run it are really nice people. And Peter, the guy who runs Innovative Language, is just the nicest of the nicest. So, I love them. Everyone should try their products. They're great.

Actualfluency.com/pod101. You can find the uh links there to the um Russian pod, and also they have everything. They also have Danish. Everything. I mean, German, whatever. Swahili pod.

They have a Swahili pod, wow.

Yeah, they do. They absolutely have a Swahili pod101. Go to their website. You'll be surprised.

Wonderful.

I'll definitely make sure to uh link up all of the languages on on that site on. Yeah. Um so kind of the new development we've seen on on um Fluency in 3 Months recently after the big book tour took a lot of energy, and, um, you know, I guess you're still doing it in a way. You you're doing the Australian leg now. You've done the American, you've done the European. I mean, are you getting ready to uh take a a year of vacation or

That's hilarious, Chris. No, of course not. We're not going to have a year vacation. Um, but that would be nice, but I think we would both miss work too much. No, I think what we're going to do is um after April passes, we're going to take maybe a month or so and try to enjoy a little bit of time off. However, we have the polyglot uh gathering coming up, and that's um that's in Berlin as you know. And Benny will have a book signing there. So we will have some more to do there, but the book signings are always really fun. But after that, after I think as of June to July, we'll take a little mini-ish break, and then we'll get back into the next project that we have on our agenda.

The hard work. So, of course, the the and also the the latest development uh has been these uh these new products, I guess you can call them, where, you know, language learners can get very focused help to what their needs are, whereas, you know, you've been doing the premium program for a while now.

Yeah.

And it's I I must say it's absolutely, you know, if there was uh one thing that I would say about the premium is just the resource section is just incredible. Like I I went in there, and I was like, okay, this is almost worth the membership. And then you get like, I don't know how many other things you you get there. It's it's really incredible. And uh

Yeah. Thank you.

And I love the premium program. But now you you're bringing out uh new new products. There's the conversation countdown, which I talked to Benny a little bit about recently.

Yeah.

And then you're bringing out uh specific languages, guides for specific languages. And you call them why language X is easy.

Yes.

Yeah. Can you tell me can you tell me a little bit about how you came up with this uh I don't know if it was uh Benny, or if it was a combination, or or why you why you uh started doing these sort of minor uh products that can help people?

Absolutely. Yeah, so um as you said, we've had premium for a really long time, and premium is um a guide to to for all language learners. No matter what language that they're learning, they can use premium to help them, um sort of learn the principles of language hacking. Um, but yet, people still kept asking, you know, uh, Benny, do you have anything just for French or just for German? And, um, Benny has no interest in building his own course in in a new language because there are so many other professional, um, uh organizations out there who have made amazing courses. Assimil, Teach Yourself, Colloquial. So, we feel like that that niche is already covered by these really great these really great uh resources.

Right.

And I really love it. Um we've gotten great responses from we've already launched two of them, German and French, and we've gotten really great, passionate, thank you emails from people, which we always love. Um, and so that that's what they're there to do is just whatever whatever people feel like, oh, this is the hard part of the language. You know, Benny goes in there with his very cheeky personality, and he spins it around and shows you a way that you would have never even considered that it's not that hard.

But that's an that's absolutely amazing because you're actually the products actually completely fulfill the requirements of the learner instead of just, you know, I know a lot of people make courses or or books or whatever, and they they publish something that they think people will need.

Yeah.

Whereas this is exactly what people need. They might not even realize that they need it. But if they're starting out in a in a language, this is this is going to really accelerate the learning process. Um what sort of level would be, I mean, do you need to have studied anything in the language first, or is it just all around helpful, no matter what level you're in?

Um, I would say it's appropriate for beginner to intermediate, or anyone who is having trouble speaking the language. There's lots of people who have studied, studied, studied, um, and Benny's books are always focused on a teaching a spoken based approach. So, what he does is he says, for example, let's say you're you're learning German, and you don't have a lot of vocabulary. Well, here's how you can turn a handful of words into hundreds of phrases. And he teaches um people how to how to just sort of take whatever they know, whether it's nothing or a little or even if it's a lot, but they've never uttered a word to another human being. He teaches them how to sort of get that fear of speaking out of their mind and use whatever they have to start speaking now, and to start communicating now and actually having meaningful exchanges with other people with whatever limited amount of the language you may have.

Fantastic. And to celebrate the launch of this, uh you're doing a a bit of a special deal for this uh this weekend only I hear.

Yeah, absolutely. Um absolutely. We we really like to do this. Whenever we launch a new product, we always we always start it off at a discount because we know that there are lots of people with smaller budgets, we want to to accommodate them. So, um when the product launches on April 24th, it will be available for uh 30% off for the weekend. So, from the 24th to the 27th, anybody who wants to buy it, um they can get it for a discounted rate for that for that weekend. And we love we like to do that whenever we launch a new product, just as a sort of like, I don't know, a grand opening sale, I guess.

You're rewarding you're rewarding the people who are following following you, really, because if you follow you, you know when the you know, you know when the new products come out. So, uh yeah, so if you're listening to this uh podcast in in during that weekend from the 24th, uh you can pick up the Why language is easy. And uh you can have the English, Italian, French, Spanish, German, and Chinese.

That's right. Yes.

And uh just as an added bonus, you know, I like to throw in bonus here. Uh if people should decide to uh purchase one of these courses through Actual Fluency, uh I am an affiliate of the program, uh full disclosure there. And uh you can find all the programs on actualfluency.com/benny. I list all uh of Benny's uh products currently going. If you decide to purchase one of those through that link there, I will give you um how about a year's worth of uh Actual Fluency VIP.

Nice.

Just to uh, you know, sweeten the pot a little bit.

Very nice.

So um, so yeah, I'd be I'd be very happy to do that. And um I'm looking forward to it as well. I haven't uh there hasn't been one for a language that I'm looking to study next yet, but uh as soon as uh as it comes, I'll definitely check it out. I have I have read the uh I just checked the German one, or was it the Spanish one? I'm not sure, but I just read one of them, and, you know, the advice is is is really it's so valuable. It's like, like you say, hacking because you're taking what takes very little effort. Like in Russian, we talked about English words ending in EON, they'll always be ER in Russia. Like uh um now I can't remember the uh station, station. You know, it's almost the same. And you get like 10,000 words of vocabulary with just one little piece of input. And I guess that's the benefit of the programs, right?

Yeah, that's what. Absolutely. That's one of his favorite techniques is to show people how to do a lot with just a little. And even when I was reading through them, um I was reading the why English is easy, and English is my native language, and I was so fascinated. I was like, my god, this is so clever. For instance, um he explains in why English is easy, how to pronounce the English ED, which um is is difficult for learners, and I didn't even realize this because it it's pronounced differently whether whether, for instance, you want to say like, um I started, or I, um, oh god, I can't think of an another example.

Yeah, but he he says that in in English, it's pronounced id or d or even t, depending on certain situations. And a lot of English speakers, um for instance, rather rather than saying like, I I slept, they would say, I sleeped. And so he teaches like, in in one paragraph, like, this is how you do it, and now you know it forever. And I was just like, my god, this is so inspirational. And I speak English. So

Yeah, it's nice to get to know about your own native language as well. Sometimes, you know, people I'm I'm just uh right now working with some translations, and the person asked to for me to do like uh the studmag, which is just kind of like a glottal stop. And I was like, how do I know if a word has a glottal stop in my own language? It's like, I just say it, you know.

Absolutely. It didn't even occur to me how hard English could be for learners in that respect, but really opened my eyes. Yeah. And just learning more languages in in general, I feel like uh you really like, for instance, I I was always surprised why Russians always uh omitted the articles. And then I realized, well, Russian doesn't have articles, which is probably why. You know, I I'm using HelloTalk at the moment on my phone, and one of the Russians I talk to lately, he says, I am student.

Absolutely. Yes.

It makes sense, but correct English would obviously be, I am a student. But in Russian, there are no particles, there are no articles. So, of course, the poor guy just, you know, did what he thought was uh right. And it's uh it's quite interesting in in that sense. But you need to dig into other languages to see that. Otherwise, you would just be like, oh, he's an idiot. He doesn't understand, you know.

Exactly. Absolutely.

Fantastic. Well, Lauren, it's been a pleasure to talk to you as always, and um you know, the problem with these uh podcasts is that the time just flies. I feel we could have uh spent a lot more time talking about some of the the new things, or or even the Russian learning, or what else is uh on your mind. But I I feel like people uh appreciate a a bit of, you know, 45 minutes or or something like that. That's the extent of people's uh

Yeah. Exactly.

Uh that's what I've been aiming for. And uh sadly, sometimes that does mean uh yeah, it's over, but uh everything must come to an end. So, I just wanted to reiterate if people are interested in those uh discounts. 24th is when it starts, and then it ends on the Monday.

That's right. On Monday, yes.

Right. And then if uh they go to actualfluency.com/benny, you can see all the different languages, why X is easy. And if you do decide to purchase, I'll throw in a year worth of Actual Fluency VIP, Premium, whatever bonus.

That sounds great.

Super awesome. Yeah, super awesome deluxe, you know, bingo. We can put a lot of uh names on it. But yeah, and I'm really excited to meet you and Benny again in in Berlin. We had a lot of fun last time. It was a absolutely great event. And Yeah. sure this is going to be uh no different.

We can't wait.

Me neither. So. Any last words to the listeners, uh so, yeah, we can

Thank you for listening to me on about Russian and Fluency in 3 Months and all that stuff. And I'm really excited to post the next video, which is going to be up um in just a couple of days. And I hope everyone likes it and finds it inspirational.

Right. So because this is in the future, the video would have already been up. So people can So watch this video. Every week go watch it now. Go to Fluency in 3 Months and watch the amazing, is it the third video?

This is the third video. This is the six-week video.

Six-week video. And and be astounded at Lauren's uh progress. Um I don't know. I haven't seen it yet. But it it is out by the time this goes out. So Yeah. enjoy it. And um All right. Well, uh have a a wonderful evening in uh beautiful Australia. And uh say hi to Benny.

I will. Thank you so much.

You're welcome. See you later. Bye-bye. Thank you for listening to the Actual Fluency Podcast. If you would like to get more out of the podcast, check out the VIP Club by going to actualfluency.com/vip.