Cara Leopold - Expat Experiences, Listening Skills, and Movie Club

Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of the Actual Fluency podcast. In this episode, I'm chatting to Cara Leopold from Leo Listening. Cara is an English listening skills specialist who runs a movie club, which helps professionals around the world chat to fast-talking English speakers over coffee in a way to improve their listening and speaking skills using movies as the primary tool. This is a really cool initiative that helps professionals go from a kind of business language in English to a more casual use of the language outside of the workplace.

Hello, Chris. Thank you for having me on the Actual Fluency podcast.

It's exciting to talk to you today, and we're going to be covering many areas including how to learn a language when you move to a new country, how to integrate and assimilate with that language. And also how we can improve our listening skills and and language skills in general. So before we get into all that juicy material, do you want to just tell everyone a little bit about yourself, where you're from, and what your experience with languages were and and how you ended up in France?

Yeah, of course. So, um, I'm Cara, and I have a website called Leo Listening, where I help English learners learn through through movies and improve their listening skills. And um yeah, so before before I left the UK, I started learning France, I started learning France, I started learning French, before I left the UK to come to France, that's what I was thinking of. I learned French, as many people do, at school. So that started for me way back in 1997. And the particularity of it for me was that I arrived at secondary school part of the way through the year, because um that year my family moved from Scotland to England. And in fact, maybe people don't know this, but the education systems are actually slightly different, even though um we're on the same island and technically in the same country, but um Scotland and England are two different nations with um some different ways of organising things. So I was dropped into um secondary school from primary in May 97. Um which was an interesting time in the UK because Labour had just been voted back into power. Just for the general context, I don't know why that came to mind.

Nice. And and, you know, speaking of uh languages in the UK, that's kind of unusual. You know, most people don't see that success or especially early on, which I guess means they don't have the success later on either. But coming out of, you know, primary school, very few people will speak any foreign language, you know, to any degree, basically.

Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, I spoke I spoke none and then suddenly I was dropped into, you know, secondary secondary school. And uh yeah, I think I think it helped that I was good at it for whatever reason. You know, I think that can can really build your motivation. So I think I got lucky in that respect. Because if I hadn't enjoyed hadn't have enjoyed it and if I hadn't have been good at it, then, you know, maybe I just would have been, meh, like everybody else.

Yeah. which is a which is a shame, of course, that that is the kind of

Default.

Yeah, default, yeah. But to be fair, that is kind of the the global thing, I think, unless your country has uh many languages within the same community, then I think your country typically has one language, two languages, you know, being especially if you're in an English-speaking country, I think it's it's it's it's it's the standard, unfortunately.

Yeah, it was very um eye-opening, because before that I had spent some extended periods in France, like five, six weeks, um going to a language school and staying with host families. And after those experiences, I thought, okay, this is really cool. Um I can see how beneficial it's been even just for a few weeks to be immersed in French in French all day. I need to get back here. So, um I was really excited to be there. But of course, you know, when you actually make uh a bigger move, not just for sort of a short-term trip, it it is quite different, because all of a sudden I had to deal with um you know, finding somewhere to live. I had a job lined up so that was good, but then you have to adapt uh to the job. And like I say, I discovered, because I'd never I didn't do any study abroad programs when I was at uni. I just really wanted this job where I would go to France after, like, I didn't want to go to France for a year and then come back to the UK. Like, I wanted to leave the UK. I was really um desperate to leave Britain and go somewhere else. So there was also that as well. There was kind of a push-pull thing going on.

Yeah, did you have any kind of I don't know, challenges or in the beginning when you were like uh in terms of connecting with people, uh making friends and like I guess living in in the place that you've moved to, um and how did the language help or or sometimes uh stand in your way? Were you there was some things you couldn't do?

Yeah, so I actually had a lot of wild things happen in the first year. So not long after we moved into our apartment. I found a really cool apartment. It was me. I found the advert in the paper. Thank you. And um it was a part in an apartment with three rooms, so two of my colleagues, English-speaking teachers, we all moved in together because the apartment was so perfect, even though I wanted to live with French speakers, but that came afterwards because I stayed on in that apartment and found new flatmates. But um yeah, not long after we moved in, um like there was water coming through the ceiling from the apartment above. So that was a fun saga that never actually got resolved when I was living there, because so the apartment above was rented by this like dodgy guy who just was renting a cheap apartment to students for the money. And for whatever reason, this drip, drip, drip from the ceiling would happen every time the tenant above had a shower. So, um that's quite frequently, because people like to wash themselves, obviously. Um I'm not against that. And so that was not fun. Yeah, this is the kind of stuff that yeah, you have to deal with it, and you've never dealt with it in a foreign language. And you start learning lots of words to do with leaks and insurance. So I was had to phone the insurance company, I had to deal with the neighbour above. And it was a bit awkward because I think my neighbour fancied me. So it was kind of that was also weird and his shower was leaking into our apartment. Um and yeah, so hilarious stuff now looking back, but kind of annoying at the time.

Sure. But in the beginning, I I guess it it was a little bit like that.

Yeah. But I'm so I'm so I was so happy here. Even when the shitty things happened, I didn't care. If I'd been in the UK and dealing with the same stuff, it would have just sent me further and further down into like, I hate this country, I want to leave, I hate people, I hate everyone, I hate, you know, I think whereas here it was like, okay, I can handle this because I'm just so happy to be here that I'm not going to let it get me down and I'm just going to get on with it because I love being here. And so throw problems at me, I'll I'll figure it out.

Right. And one of the biggest problems, of course, is um a lot of expats it's it's become very popular in the last, let's say, 10 years to move abroad uh and uh because of the remote work kind of boom and and new kind of ways of working have opened up the doors for uh geographic freedom for many people. And and so they're moving to to countries that have a a different language. And that can be challenging. Um we talk about that on the podcast here quite a lot. Uh but I'm curious to to hear what your kind of advice would be for someone, let's say someone is going quite soon, you know, they maybe their partner got a new job or they got a job uh out of the blue and they have to go next month, next week, whatever. And then maybe contrast that with someone who has time to prepare uh maybe a year or or or something like that. What we can do, because I I found it very difficult myself. I moved I lived abroad uh three times. Uh one time was in the UK, so that was uh manageable.

You have to tune in to the dialect or whatever.

Exactly, but uh you know, the challenge for me was always I moved on a bit of a whim, you know, I didn't I was living in Hungary for a while. I had no idea I was going to move to Hungary. I actually I was on my way to Germany and I was like, you know, I kind of like it here, so I just stayed there for 18 months. And so I came with nothing. I didn't even know the word for like yes and no, you know?

Oh, wow.

Um and I just found that dealing with the kind of stressers of moving like uh making friends, uh the bureaucracy and paperwork and just the and of course, you still have to make money, you know, run your business and run your your income-generating activities, you know, that doesn't go away. And I just found the the whole learning the language on top of all that to be very, very difficult. It was very stressful and it it felt almost like hopeless because, you know, to to get to a high enough level to actually use it, it would take a so much time. But because of all the other things, it felt overwhelming.

You know.

You know.

I think you you can tell that's where you're going. Yeah.

That's like the main advice. But but let's assume that uh that um, you know, either they're going in a year, either or they're going now, you know, what are some of the things that you would recommend people do, maybe when they get there or or you know, how do you get the most benefit and in terms of integration and you know, I guess Yeah, most people have no idea what that experience is like.

And it's good, it's good to be ignorant, I think, in some ways because maybe if if you knew too much, you wouldn't go. Um but that said, you don't want to be too cock-sure, you know, you don't want to be too confident in yourself, especially if you especially if you don't know the language. So I think it's always good to get some basics down, isn't it? Before you before you go. And that that definitely having one of those pillars, like you mentioned, kind of, you know, there's work, there's life, and there's the language. So before I came to France, I had the language, you know, good enough down that I I wasn't worried about speaking French. I was just motivated to improve it. So obviously that helps in every single situation, because everything I did, every administrative thing I had to do, or every um I suppose there's a lot of admin, isn't there, when you move abroad and especially in France.

So you didn't have any uh any fear of using your French when you when you first got there?

No, no, and I didn't really, you know, obviously my the way I spoke is not as good as it is now, my accent wasn't was much stronger. You know, but I didn't care. I just um I could I could be understood, so it really wasn't an issue. So I could do everything I needed to do. So that that is a real I mean, everything was more laborious then. You know, um but it could all get done. Everything could get done in French, which was great.

Yeah, I thought that was the kind of one of the big hurdles for me was that as you're learning the language, especially if you come to the the country with, let's say, a less of a a level. I I found that it was quite intimidating at times to to practice, which is the essential way to kind of improve and and, you know, internalize the what you learn is to go out and use it, right? So I would say with the with the kind of expat communities, the the risk there is that you end up speaking only English or whatever your your group is is speaking.

Well, no, it would be weird. And yeah, like I said, I ended up living with two English speakers, and in the end, it was the right decision because the following year, um I got two new flatmates, and one of them was Irish, but the other one was French. And the French one was kind of persuaded that she was going to speak to us in English. But our French was better than her English. So we ended up speaking in French, which was a really, really big help. And then she stayed on the second year, and a British friend joined us. But again, our French was better or, you know, we were happier to speak in French. It was she this person is still my really good friend today. Her English is actually good, but, you know, back then it was maybe harder for her. So, and it was the same thing when I met my partner. We just started speaking in French, because I met him after two years here, so I was, you know, doing even better. And so it just made sense to speak in French. His English is actually really good. He learned a lot of his English listening to comedy podcasts, so like that they're not easy to understand.

Yeah, I don't believe in that at all. I think it's a terrible idea. I I also see uh posts uh on social media about people asking, you know, I want to I want to learn my partner's language. and they ask for advice and some people say, well, why don't you just talk to the your partner in the language? And it's like, he he or she's not your teacher, you know, it's going to Exactly.

And especially if someone isn't a teacher, they're going to get impatient, they're going to get annoyed with you, they're going to

It's it's basically going to ruin the relationship, because it's like, it's putting some kind of work on the relationship and it's like, Teach me for free. Oh, you're not a teacher, but adapt now. If anyone's listening and and you you ask your partner to teach you their language, stop doing that. That's that's a terrible idea. You know, just yeah.

Exactly.

You know, use what you can and and do what you can, but learn with a with an actual tutor or teacher or like in a school, you know.

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Make make that investment and and do it right and take it take it outside the home.

Yeah.

That's what um

Because it's it's it's you know, you know what if you've met people who are, let's say, at a very low level in the language, it's a very kind of it takes a lot of patience to have a conversation in your native language at that level. You know, it's not because you're you don't appreciate the effort. It's just like, you know, if at least teachers get paid for that patience, you know.

And quite right. You know, it is a skill, it's a skill to um help somebody and and listen to them when when they're at that level.

Yeah. You know, I've gone to a few of the uh the the language conferences uh over the years and there's a lot of people come up to me and they speak a bit in Danish, you know, and they're they're excited about it. And I I try to be encouraging, you know, but I also don't I'd like to have like a meaningful conversation in an hour, not like five words, you know. So, so in that case, I think with the relationship, yeah, definitely don't don't put that on the on the partner. I think that's that's a personal responsibility.

Yeah.

Um, but of course, use as much as you can whenever it actually makes sense in the situation, you know.

Oh, yeah, it doesn't mean yeah, yeah, you can never you can never speak. Yeah, obviously like obviously, then there will be opportunities then from there, once you've got the support of a teacher and you can try things out with your partner and that could be quite fun.

Yeah, absolutely. And it can grow from there. But it it sounds like you had a a really good level and I think the also from my experience, I think the kind of general advice for expats is just prepare really well and if you know you're moving in like a year, that's a long time to to get good at the language.

You can do a lot.

Um if you set up like a weekly tutoring lesson, find a few apps that you like, you know, put in a a 20-minute app time a day and just you'd be shocked at how much you can learn in a year uh with just some some dedication. So and then then when you get there, you're not going to have the problems that I've been having, which is like I mentioned in in Hungary, where I knew nothing, which meant that, you know, I was socializing with some of the expats and I was learning a little bit, but because of all the all the admin and kind of all the other things to worry about in life, I didn't do as much learning as I should.

I was going to say like that's like the worst

Yeah, it really is. I mean the worst

like no offense to Hungarians, but I think they're perfectly aware that their language is very challenging.

No, I think it's it's it's it's not an offense. It's the contrary. I mean, Hungarian people are geniuses, clearly. And I also think they invented almost everything. So um that

The name of their country isn't even Hungary. What do they call it? Something with beginning with M.

M- m- um, Magyarország. It's the the the Magyar country.

It's like Finnish people. They call it Suomi. No, it's not Finland, guys. Come on.

Yeah, exactly. Come become international. No, I I love I loved I love the Hungarian language. I really do, but it's it's also it's not very practical, you know, it's it's more of a I have more of a a fascination with it rather than a an actual practical need. And and living in Budapest is such an international city. You know, because of the tourism and and it's also quite popular for expats. So you don't really need Hungarian. Obviously, if you're going to live there forever, you know, you definitely should learn it. It is fascinating. And actually, just yesterday, uh I have some Hungarian friends on Facebook and I occasionally see a Facebook message and I'm quite excited after all these years, you know, I haven't been there in maybe eight years that I still know some words and remember some some phrases and and some So, it's not totally hopeless, uh what I did, you know, it it was very good.

Yeah, even if you came you go somewhere with like an A2 level. That's a great foundation and and once you're immersed, you're just going to skyrocket, right? Like if you if you really take the time to to build on that foundation.

Yeah. And and like I said, it's really not that difficult if you just put in a a committed effort, like a year before, you could be so like uh so good in Hungarian. Any language, it doesn't matter. The thing that happens is, and this is a kind of a a common problem in in in in language learning is that we I mean, I said a year, which is probably not the best way to do it. But we shouldn't count the years, it should we should count like the hours.

Yes, yeah, definitely.

Which is uh so when I say spend a year, I'm really saying spend maybe an hour or two a week. That's really the the key, I think. And maybe of course, if you can do more, that's great. But, you know, for me, if you can do two hours a week, you'll be very good in a year. I mean, that's that's uh 700 hours, over 700 hours a year.

Wow.

And I remember my German classes in school, I thought I'd had German for, you know, thousands and thousands of hours. But if you account for weekends and and holidays and the fact that we only had like maybe four four classes a week, which is 45 minutes each. At the end, I think I tallied it up about 6, 700 hours. And that was like eight years.

Oh, wow. Oh my god.

Yeah, it's really not that much. So if you as an individual take the initiative, you set at home and you find the good resources, you find a good tutor or teacher uh to have private lessons with, again, which is much more effective than classroom lessons.

In France, you can I got French nationality last year. They only ask for B1.

Yeah, same in Portugal. So, I think that's very doable in an ideal world. Of course, if you do end up, like me, uh making rash decisions and, you know, uh just moving abroad out of the blue, then it is much harder. But try to still stay consistent and and try to find a teacher. And the best is to have a teacher in the country like you can meet up with maybe in a coffee shop.

Oh, yeah, that's a good that's a good tip.

I I was going to add like finding people where you are, who are from the country you want to go to. But I do have a horror story. So, um one of my friends from uni, she got the job that I had had here in Besançon. And then she came the following year. And after a couple of years in France, she decided to move with her French boyfriend to Spain. And they went and lived in Seville. And it turned out at the time that we were teaching at the university, there was a Spanish teacher, Pablo, I think. I'm not just saying a random Spanish name, I think that was his name. And this guy, like, he was gorgeous. He looked like a Calvin Klein underwear model. So, you'd be inclined to trust what he said because you're like, this man is so beautiful. He must be right. So it turned out he was from Seville. And so they went and spoke to him thinking, oh, well, maybe he can give us us some good advice about you know, where to live, what to go and see, how to you know, just all the insider info on Seville, right? And so they actually ended up moving to the area of Seville where he had grown up. Okay. Uh I don't know if this was just from talking to him or if there were other reasons that they decided to live in that particular area of the town. But it it it turned into a complete nightmare. Um like because they were like, you know, maybe he was talking to us about it through, you know, the rose-tinted spectacles of of his childhood. And he remembered it really fondly. And they were like, it's a shithole where he grew up. They were like, there was noise all the time, dogs barking, people shouting, like, it was just a complete um nightmare. I mean, really, really, really bad. I don't know which part of Seville it is, but yeah, it it it just was not did not suit them. So I mean, they ended up moving, but they they had a really rough time um the the first year.

It's only the happiest country on Earth, Chris. Don't you know? Don't you keep up with your hygge and your whatever Danish stuff is cool at the moment?

Yeah, I mean, Denmark is great. I I I don't mind it. I'm I'm very fortunate and and uh blessed to have been born in in such a great country, you know, and Copenhagen is is is wonderful. But even that, I mean, that's the patriotic duty coming again, but then I I'll I have to like say, oh, but it's very expensive and, you know, people are very uh isolated. They they it's kind of hard to make uh deep contacts and or, you know, close friends.

Even Legoland is closed. I don't know if that's true, actually.

It is, yeah, yeah. All the theme parks.

You're kidding me. No.

I love Legoland. I went.

They have um yeah, they have a little period where they're they're closed. I think they opened for like uh Halloween and Christmas. But all the theme parks in Denmark have a a pretty long uh off-season, yeah, where they're not open. And uh so, but the the bigger uh kind of impact to that for me is like the the culture. You basically don't go out for, you know, maybe six months. I mean, you can it's just uh you just go to work, you come home and I mean, it's very a lot of hygge at home, you know, you're you you mentioned that.

Then you get your hygge on and you wear cool socks.

Yeah, absolutely.

But I like I like I mean, I go back all the time and I just make sure to save up a bit of money before I go home.

Yeah, yeah, I was going to say yeah, so you're not like shocked like 10 euros, please, for a coffee. What?

Oh, it is. Oh, it is mad. Like I I think that happened like uh four months after living abroad, you know, it's like you come home and suddenly everything is a culture shock, reverse culture shock.

Reverse culture shock. Yeah.

Yeah, it's it's so true. And I feel like such a foreigner when I come back, but obviously, I'm as Danish as you can be. I've lived there for some 25 years of my life, you know, so it's uh I'm I'm I'm so Danish. I'm just not I don't know, I just not in the in it every day and and I just you kind of lose it.

You you forget some things. But yeah, I remember that about a few years ago I went to we went to Lisbon with my um partner. And um because we went to the The Azores um I can't pronounce it the Portuguese way. And so you have to go through Lisbon and

The Azores.

Yeah, the Azores. Yeah, the Azores. I don't know how you pronounce it. That is an amazing place. And um yeah, uh yeah, and we you have to go through Lisbon. And when we were in Lisbon, yeah, like we're just there for a few days. And every day we would go to the little kiosk in the square near us. And we would have a coffee and sit on the tables at the tables with everybody. And yeah, it was super cheap. So you could happily do that every day. And just enjoy being outside. And it was like September, October, and obviously it was still really warm. So there was no issue with that.

Yeah. It's like the green the green islands they call it. It's it's very beautiful nature out there.

Yeah, it's green for a reason.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, it rains like uh half the year there, I think.

So that just made me laugh. That's like a cross-cultural reference. That's like the power of Taggart.

So, but that's really good. And and and I think that's uh we've come to the end of our little discussion today. But before we end, I just wanted to give uh people an opportunity to where they can find out more about you and the uh the movie club and all the other things you do.

Cool. Yeah, um so the main place where everything is is my website. So that's Leo-listening.com. So there you'll find my blog. Yeah, links to find out more about the movie club, my free guide, understand movies in English, all that cool stuff.

It's a lovely name.

Thank you. Thank you. It's my name. I'm proud of it.

I love Leopold. It's a it's a great uh great historical name, you know.

It's I don't know why that's my name, but it's my name. I don't know the history behind why I'm called that, but uh somebody somewhere was Belgian once or something. I don't know. I don't know what happened.

Or something.

Yeah, or something. I don't know. It's not a very Scottish name, in any case. That's for sure. And um yeah, and I'm hoping to revive my YouTube channel this year and that is Leo Leo Listening as well. So if you search for that on YouTube, you you shall find it.

Wonderful. And uh I think just to round off uh everything, I I think listening in general is one of the most underrated activities you can do as a language learner. We talk a lot about, you know, doing flashcards, doing textbooks, uh podcasts, like active learning. I think, you know, active listening, just getting a lot of input, especially of in areas that you are interested in, whether it's uh, you know, fitness or finances or hobbies, whatever your kind of interests are, getting some some listening from that, whether it's uh uh a movie or a show or even a thematic podcast.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. You can tell people who've been doing the most listening. and more listening than speaking in some cases.

Yeah. They'll have a a great accent. So I think that's definitely um definitely uh a big top tip that I didn't know for from the beginning. I always thought that your language was mainly built by active activities.

Yeah, producing it.

Yeah, or like working through a textbook, you know, quizzes and things like that. Or even, you know, talking. But I think that talking is more about kind of affirming what you already know and practicing what you know so it so it solidifies,

Exactly.

So, so I think that's great and and people should definitely go check out check that out. Um but until in the meantime, thank you so much, Cara, for being on the Actual Fluency podcast.

Thank you, Chris.

And uh we'll catch up again in the future.

Great.