Hello my name is Cristian Davila and today I'm interviewing Lindsey with
LindseyDoesLanguages.com this is the first interview that I'm doing for my
language learning website WeLing.com and the hope is to gather as much
valuable content as I possibly can all of the transcripts of these videos
will be provided at my website the links will be provided below if you are
curious about any information about what I'm doing that will also be below but
that's all for the introduction let's get into this interview okay so I guess
we could just jump right into so I don't know too much about like how many
languages you know so how many languages okay so English as you can probably tell
is my native language I'm from the UK and then the first foreign language that
I studied was French which was way back in primary school because there was an
extracurricular Club and at the end of terms they would give you croissants and
you'd have a little breakfast party that was the reason I stayed but then you
in all honesty for years then I did French for a very long time but it was
all the same stuff just repeated you know so then I went to secondary school
when I was 11 and you just did the same stuff over and over for like two or
three years and I was so bored and by the time I then was about 13-14 and
picking the next level like the exams I was going to do I wanted to do Spanish
but my school said to do Spanish you have to do French to prove that you can
do languages because apparently that means something so then Spanish came
along and that really was I suppose a big pivot point because then it wasn't
just a thing of well it's just like another subject like maths English
geography history French you know it was then like well that's the one that I
picked that's the one that I liked and enjoy and want to do more and I remember
like I then picked them again for the next level for A levels and that was
again another big pivot point because then I had teachers who said you know
with the Spanish that you guys have after these two years you can go on and
do you know go on and live in Itally for a year and you can
easily learn Italian or Portugal and you could learn Portuguese really easily and it
was like what? All the years doing french and it really opened my eyes and
so I started to do languages on my own and kind of become more curious about that.
But in, it wasn't again then until 2009 when I started my degree which was long distance
kind of part-time distance learning and I did Italian and Mandarin Chinese in the first year so they were the
first, kind of, languages that I picked beyond school that was still for education.
But then as I studied I then got really into the whole thing and began to
just study more and more along the way so it of German I did German with my
degree like alongside my degree then I taught myself some Portuguese some
Esperanto some Dutch, Korean, Japanese, Indonesian and now most recently a
language called Guarani which is spoken in Paraguay but I really hate that
question of how many languages do you speak because it always feels like if I
just kind of count the my hand and then go this number it sounds really high and
it sounds really impressive and it's really not you know because it's it's
like it's a process and it's a continual process that when you don't use a
language for a long time it then kind of you know so I feel like
oh yeah I've studied Dutch and I kind of get bits about that but I wouldn't say
that I speak Dutch does that make sense yeah yeah so yeah how many languages do
you think you could conversate in right now so it's so English French and
Spanish at the top three so the ones that have been there the longest in one
case from birth right and then after that kind of German and Portuguese are
the ones I can sort of go oh yes let's talk and then kind of it there's like
levels I would say then after that I think kind of Japanese maybe Mandarin
and Indonesian Esperanto in that same kind of box and then underneath probably
Dutch well haven't I said Korean is really low down as well yeah okay so I
am currently learning a little bit of Spanish
and Japanese so one thing that I found very different is with Japanese is the
character base hey how did you go through learning that type of stuff that
was like the hardest part it's really interesting because with so the first
language that I had with no kind of familiar written form was Mandarin and I
obviously knew this because this is something that you know and it kind of I
just felt that I I knew that it would be difficult from the start right so it
changed that approach ever so slightly but at the same time it didn't change my
approach and I did it really badly and I just assumed while I'm learning the
words with the same methods that I learn French and Spanish I'm Italian so it's
just gonna go in in a different way somehow it's all gonna happen up here
and that really wasn't the case and that you know there's some really like
they're sort of radicals of Mandarin that kind of make up you know the
building blocks if you like characters in general you know they're sort of
still with me and that really helped with Japanese because then obviously
that's the sort of founding of kanji but then the hiragana and katakana it was
just a case of okay I need to focus some time on this one at a time you know not
thinking about the whole three systems just focusing on one at a time until it
began to become familiar and kind of learning things one by one so using
those things like memorize and stuff just to do the flashcard repetition of
one character equals x sound whatever and but then also beginning to look at
words and combine things so I start to do a lot with also trying to make up
words that I knew so like my name the place where I lived that were English
words but then sounding them out of my head in Japanese and then trying to
write them down and guess that out and share that one social media or anything
and sort of say oh is this is this right have I done this right and so you get
some feedback as well it's not just you on your own thinking maybe it's right I
guess I'll carry on you know you can kind of check check in along the way and
yeah like I say focusing on one before you know going all the way in thinking
I'm gonna learn the hiragana katakana side
side and that would be insane for me but I guess for some people they can do that
and that's awesome but yeah for me I I thought hiragana was that the first
thing I really focused on and then katakana then kind of pick Angie just
sauce I did them bit by bit but I'm yeah by no means great at reading in Japanese
now yeah was there ever a point in these like really difficult languages where
you just didn't want to do it anymore oh it really varies for different
languages like for me when it comes to the idea of a difficult language and
there are those obvious ones that come to mind straight away Japanese Korean
Arabic they're kind of the big three that were always cited up there was like
the really really tricky ones but I think it really depends I mean if I was
a native speaker of dari let's say a language spoken in Middle East then all
farsi Persian right then herb it's gonna be a lot easier for me then me as an
English speaker so there's that but when it comes to the kind of ones that we
expect as native English people like maybe those three as an example there's
definitely be in points but even with German German for me when I first
started German that was the hardest language I'd learn I've been to that
point bury my butt up when I'd done Mandarin I knew that was going to be
hard with German I naively assumed the English is a Germanic language German my
first demonic language that I'm studying but it's in the same family as my native
language so it's gonna be really easy no
vocabulary wise yeah but it was the first language I'd ever done with cases
and so that really threw me off and I was like what is this thing you know
what is this case I don't understand cases what does this mean and you know
that was really hard to kind of slog through that but as soon as I got it and
then became really easy Korean is the other one that always comes to mind is
like being really tough and you know what you were wading through the mud of
kind of trying to get those first steps and I you know if I gone longer
with that I think I would have got to that same point as I did with German
when all of a sudden okay I'm getting somewhere now I can I can do this much
now let's get to be able to do this much but I didn't quite go that far with
Korean so I would say yeah there's definitely been pointed that when you
feel like why am I doing this when am I going to use
you know Korean let's say but then I guess it's kind of coming back I like to
come back quite a lot like on the month every month on them on my blog I'm part
of a kind of a blog linked up by hosts with a few other language bloggers and
that's about doing that it's about stepping back every single month giving
yourself the the chance to just say okay where am I at. Am I still going in the
right direction for I want to be my stead enjoying this thing because I
think that's really appreciate if you don't enjoy it then what's the point I
know you know sometimes you have to learn for school whatever or we have to
learn for work or we've been relocated to a certain place either through choice
or through reasons out of our control and you have to learn a language and you
know in those situations it can probably be tougher I imagine but I think when
when you're doing it for pleasure and for fun it is the better thing am I
actually enjoying this if not how can I enjoy it what can I change to make my
experience more rewarding yeah so while you're learning what are some like
easier parts to learning language in the harder parts for you mmm I think it's
easier when there are familiar things with familiar tools and resources and
methods that you can take make use of so for example I really like memorized it's
really easy to integrate into your day you know kind of think you do to do it's
very easy to become a habit so that for me is a great tool it's definitely not
the only thing you know you couldn't I don't think just use memorize to learn a
language and speak it fluently much in the same way you can use any other tool
on its own and then be like amazing a language it's
about a combination and the right combination for you but I feel that that
is something that fits really nicely so if I start in your language and it's on
memorize instant win and I'm happy and that makes it really easy but then when
you find that maybe the the kind of things that you're used to don't have
the language that you were looking for that makes it as I mentioned at the
beginning how right now I'm studying a language called Guaranese spoken in Paraguay
millions of speakers there we go millions of speakers but not as many
resources as Spanish let's say right so it was this initial process of like okay
where am I gonna look for stuff you know there is no teacher self book there's no
colloquial book all of those things that I would typically use as my sort of core
resource to work with didn't exist so it was about growing a little further it
took a bit of time to get the right stuff but actually I think this is
difficult as that can be in those initial stages then actually it becomes
easier because once you get into a routine and you get into a routine that
works for you you know it's not about 30 minutes a day and you'll be fluent in
six months you know it's not about that it's about what fits for you and when
you want to be 'mysterious word' of fluent by that's another conversation you
know and kind of figuring out how it fits for you and how you are comfortable
with that then it will become easier so you don't have a certain schedule like
the studying 30 minutes of a day or something like that you just do it when
you can I mean for me I do because I know that that helped me a to actually
do it and be to feel good about it right but I know there are a lot of people
that doesn't work and like being regular and being told you have to do it
regularly isn't gonna work they're gonna sort of rebel against that and think no
if I have to do it regularly I want to do it screw you kind of you know they
want to do their own thing and that's fine because we are all
different at the end of the day yeah for me personally I find that a schedule
really helps and like I mentioned that blog post where every month I'm kind of
checking on my goals and stuff I always have a planner that I share on the blog
that's totally free that you know that I use myself when I'm in a real period of
language learning growth I'll use that planner to figure out what I want to be
doing each day for the week and yeah that helps so normally when I'm at home
it's an hour in the morning that I kind of cool language hour really it's makes
it sound really cool and and I take that hour and between 7 and 8 a.m.
that's what I'm doing right and and I'll kind of every week or every day in
advance I'll sort of plan out what I want to be doing that particular in that
particular hour and then I'll do it because it's there it's scheduled it's
set on my time whereas I find if I don't do that
it's very hard right now I'm actually in Merida in Mexico and me my husband
traveling for a year and so you know if we having to get up early to go and
catch a bus or having to do other kinds of the schedule becomes harder to manage
so we've shifted that now so the hour has moved to the evening so 7 to 8 p.m.
at night is a lot easier to do it gets dark so early here that that is that's a
much easier time slots to manage and I think that really helps me just to be
like okay I can work comfortably in the day knowing that I'm gonna be doing my
language later it's not going to be neglected it's not gonna be left behind
so yeah yeah it definitely is something that works for me and then within that
time like I said what I do will just very ever so slightly but also
maintaining that there's some fun in that it's not just like read learn this
number of words it's like okay I'm gonna do this little chapter I'm gonna do in
my own way and by now I know what works for me in terms of being productive and
kind of moving forward so what do you usually do in that hour time span what
does that usually look like so with right now with Guaranese I have like I
mentioned how there's no liked books you would expect but there's a the
Peace Corps the...I think it's the DLI and the FSI think there's three
organizations they're all on a website live lingua / project or something and
and they're all three materials so when if you know if you're studying and sort
of lesser studied language that's a great place to look because they've been
created for people going out to do Peace Corps work and stuff like that so in
places where they will be meeting with speakers of these languages so it's
pretty cool and they're free yay! Some of them don't have audio. Guaranese does not that's my hardest thing
is finding audio but I have found a tutor on italki which is amazing so
it's starting next week again because I had some lessons previously and then
this will happen so starting next week again we're meeting once a week and then
so that would be one hour on Tuesdays that's my hour done with spending time
with a tutor, but normally I take one little chapter from this book or sort of
one chapter from the unit if the book and kind of make notes from that first
of all so I copy down the notes and the vocab and sort of you know look about it
and speak out loud and record it and keep it I'm using OneNote right now
which is really really cool so I can then record myself reading the little
paragraph from the text then I'll create my own so I'll create my own version so
let's say they're talking about family and it's like my name is Bob and I live
with a family of three children or whatever well that's not me. So it's good to know the structure
but it's not going to help me so then I'll create my own version that's applicable as much as possible
I think it's it can be fun to be learning like the elephant eats cheese
or whatever but you know it can show you a structure but it's not necessarily
useful you don't have to remember those words you just have to be like okay this
is how it works so then I'll take I'll take that and I'll put it into my own
thing record that as well so I'm keeping track that's really important if I'm
documenting huffing I might watch a YouTube video so I've got there's a
channel new tube that dubs sort of film clips and stuff into the
language so I'll use that as listening exercise because like I said
the audio is quite hard to find and I recently joined a whatsapp group for the
language that like my phone is pinging all day long and I'm just like go away
let me come to it in time in time so I'll kind of check that and you know
have a read of that keeping up-to-date with that. For memrise...there's a duolingo course
which is taught via Spanish so that's quite fun
so memrise duolingo and clozemaster are three things that it's really
easy to use each day they don't tend to be in the hour interestingly enough for
me they're like in the morning or throughout the day so there's like this
sort of scattered pattern and then the concentrated block so yeah right now it
tends to be in the hour is it's something from the book I'm learning
from it but then I'm also putting it into my own words rather than just
reading it and going yep I'm gonna remember everything because that's not going to work
going okay how can I mortise and shaping remember the stuff that I need from this
okay so how do you go by finding the content like that one obscure language
how do you try to find those sources so for like lesser studied languages you mean
yeah or any language any language so I think if you have a few places where you
know that that resource works for you that's always a good place to start so
like I said for me memorize is my first port of call normally and weirdly when I
first started to grow any I didn't use memrise because there was a duolingo
course and although I'm not big duolingo a user and I used it to
learn Esperanto but that's it I've never used it other than that
so other than now obviously with Guarani so I was like okay well if I'm using
duolingo I'm probably not gonna have time every day to do the memorize so I'm
gonna cut that out and not worry about that for now but then I bought it in
recently because we were in Cuba and those internet there is kind of not
really regular so I downloaded of course when we managed to get hold of the
internet was like don't memrise I need some kind of language going on and I
downloaded a course on there just been passed
to kind of replace what I was missing I'm managing to keep going with all
three with those languages with clozemaster but yeah like because I know that those
things work for me that's giving me my first port of call
so duolingo memorise clozemaster and then italki is always a great place a
great starting point there may be though they're actually lots of languages on
there now lots of tutors then you can book online lessons with the speaking
languages that you might not expect you know it does go beyond the sort of
regulus so to speak and then actually even even the regular courses so things
like teach yourself things like the colloquial series what else is there
there's another one that's quite a big one but those regular book courses you
know if you know that that's worked for you in the past you may be surprised
that there is a course for Icelandic for example you know or Indonesian so these
languages that it seems of on the fringes of learning resources may well
have things going for them but I think the more that you more the more that you
learn and then the more that you're kind of absorbing yourself in this like
online language learning communities that's a great place to look as well
because there'll be people there who have already been you know doing what
you want to be doing and will have the resources to share with you like I
mentioned the whatsup group for Guarani which is I've only just recently joined
but they already I've got like a new resource and and a new film but like
it's in brownies amazing I would never affect me somewhere so yeah nice so next
plateaus like when you hit a point in a language where you you just don't seem
to be getting any more progress what do you do to get by that mmm good question
I feel like it comes at various stages right so in the beginning you're
learning so fast and it feels like you're constantly improving because you
know nothing to begin with right or next next to nothing I feel like there's
always something there's always a few cognates you know taxi always seems to
be every language you get by with that oh
yeah you feel like you know nothing so then what as soon as you learn just
one word you're up here then you learn two words and you know you're just
constantly climbing and making progress but then it begins to stagnate and you
begin to feel like actually I can't construct these sentences on my own I
can't you know how do I get beyond this and I think man it's really important to
have been documenting you know like I said with my notes about the idea of
recording myself and speaking these things that's really helped because then
I can be like ah I haven't done Guaranese for like three weeks when I was in Cuba
and then I can go back and listen to those things and think you know what I
can hear my mistakes from way back when and I can tell that I've already made
progress I just need to keep going I just need to push through this plateau
of knowledge and it will get slower because it sort of goes like this
with those individual words at the beginning and then it sort of begins to
slow and then you know and it's just a constant I mean the other thing to
remember is that language is so alive and flexible that you're never going to
be fluent in a language and by that I mean you're never gonna know every
single word understand every single word for every possible speaker in every
possible accent could say you know even in English like I hear new words all the
time in the language and I'm like what do mean who made up this word you know there's things that I
don't understand in my native language we forget we sure like when we're
learning another language that we're gonna get to that same level and
understand everything well actually we forget that we don't
understand everything in our native language to begin with so just being you
know kind of remembering that and feeling like you know what if I've
reached this plateau it's not because I'm useless
it's not because I'm rubbish it's because this is the challenge to to kind
of keep me going further and you'll constantly find that the more you learn
the more if there was like there is to learn that that's not a negative it's
not like a case of okay I've got to have got to this this level okay but then let
me just see where I'm going and I'm like whoa that is there's like more than I've learned
so far up there how is this thing how is this
possible but actually that's a good thing because that's going to constantly
be giving you things that you can be learning rather than feeling like well
I've done that I finished now move on to learning woodwork or and then how to
bake the perfect cake whatever you know something else so yeah I think that when
you get to that plateau just if you've been documenting then just take a little
look back and see where were you on that first day what we did you sound what
words did you know can you notice any mistakes social media is great for this
so like on Instagram for example and I host something called the Instagram
language challenge where every month there's a prompt list of 28 words that
you can use to inspire a new piece of language each day or even to inspire
practicing some stuff you already know in the language you're learning share a
photo share a video you know you could have written it down you could share a
video of yourself speaking whatever it is and then use the #IGLC
in the caption and you're keeping track you can then go back to your
Instagram feed and be like ah three months ago all I knew was hello thank
you all right and now I can do all of this stuff so
something like that that's like a challenge but that's gonna also document
your progress in some way to kind of remind you and then also remembering
that it has to be fun so when you feel like a plateau that's often then kind of
we get these negative feelings of like well I'm never gonna be good enough I'm
just gonna you know kind of there's so much to learn I'm never going to get
there there's no point I just I just end here but actually if you kind of cut out
that negative thinking and you can kind of say to yourself you know what I've
learnt so much already I want to keep going let's make this fun while it's
difficult you know so maybe that's the time and you thought take a step back
from the books and the serious stuff they were using to learn and go and
watch a film find some music find something that you loved in that
language that could keep you going I mentioned that I started learning
Spanish when I was about 13-14 the reason I wanted to do Spanish was
because I had there Shakira album laundry service that had like three or
four songs on in Spanish but I wanted translate I was understand what she's
saying and I was like well that's in French at school
this can't be that hard and as it turns out when you have a gem dictionary that
does not contain every word or every verb form it is quite hard but actually we do
then have the proper resources it becomes a lot easier so yeah I think
that kind of finding something you love can be a really powerful motivator to
keep working through that plateau as well right so one thing I've noticed
like if I go and watch a film or something I kind of like start tuning
out of the actual language how do you like actually continue practicing while
still keeping it fun mmm so you can do this with I think any sort of like
leisure resource if you want to call it that right so like books and film and TV
music podcasts whatever whatever it is that you've chosen so we'll take them as
an example it's very easy to just tune out and so you have these two options
you can either use it as a very passive resource or as a very active resource
you're probably gonna have more fun realistically if you're using it very
passively so if you're using it to supplement what the other stuff that
you're learning with this sort of serious resources quote-unquote then
then you can probably enjoy it in a very passive level and you not be necessarily
gonna get much from it you might learn or be reminded of a few
words but you're not gonna really be learning anything new from it as a
resource however if you take like a smaller element of it right so like a
film an hour and a half generally that's pretty long if you take maybe the first
five minutes or even less than that like a 30-second conversation between two
characters and really like hone in you can make it a very active exercise to
think you know okay what are they saying to each other try maybe to write it down
what they're saying try and repeat what they're saying as they say it you know
and and just like use little pieces and then once you've begun to get
comfortable with that and taking kind of small elements and really like it's
almost like it's like a sponge like any resource for language learning
Think of it as a sponge and you can kind of go like this and wring
it out a little bit and get something from it so yeah stop moving my
hands for the light well you can you can really really bring out and get every
every last thing that you can from that resource right did you go to film you
can you know watch the whole film maybe once a week once a month whatever and
depends how much you love it and how much you can bear to watch it again and
then maybe like everyday you just take a little scene piece by piece and you're
really extracting everything from that and so that way it can become much more
active but I think generally when you're watching it's very easy to become very
passive and that's that's okay it's okay to be passive if you want it to be more
active watching the whole thing you could just take like a notebook if
you've got it one with with subtitles either in native or your native language
or the language you're learning right then then you could be using that as a
thing to kind of keep your mind active linking well any new words I want to
write them down doesn't matter if you then go and learn them it's just helping
you keep tuned into the language when you're watching so that could be a thing
if you want to use the film as a whole okay so when you're just starting a
language what are the main points that you try to focus on to get the most
progress do you mean in terms of like vocabulary grammar any anything really
that you do when you're just starting a language and you want to try to get as
much progress as fast as possible what are the things that you focus on so
firstly if I if it's if I'm looking for as much progress as fast as possible in
one language I'm only gonna be doing one language at one time and because I like
I said when I started Spanish they said well you have to keep doing French so
most of my language learning life has been doing at least two languages at
once you know kind of studying simultaneously and that's been fine for
me now it seems to be that like is a constant question it's a constant thing
of like should I study multiple languages or can I should I just do one
and I think if you're looking for quick progress and to really advance as much
as possible quickly focusing on one is the
best thing that you could do it's kind of goes without saying I think then in
terms of what to do with that one language which I think definitely
setting yourself a kind of plan some goals so that you can visually see okay
well I want to be able to order a coffee or go and get a haircut in six weeks
time right that's my goal so what do I need to do to get there and then work
backwards and then say to yourself okay so if I want to be able to order a
coffee and the reason I'm doing this with a particular example is because
it's gonna change but every one for every situation right so let's say you
want to order a coffee so then step backward and say well what
do I need to know what vocabulary do I need to know how am I going to build up
my confidence do I need to write probably not I probably need to focus on
speaking and listening because that's how the interactions gonna happen I'm
not gonna go into the coffee shop and write down my order there you are
enjoy thank you very much you know then beginning to think for yourself about
what you need to get to that point to get to that end goal and how then you're
gonna do it so you say for example okay what I need to learn the vocabulary for
the coffee I want I need to learn how to say can I have and to understand the
numbers when they give me the place so how am I gonna do that
okay we're to learn numbers I'm gonna use this app and to learn how to order
coffee I found this podcast episode and that's
gonna help me I'm gonna do that well this day on that day I'm gonna make my
own I'm gonna call myself on this day you know when kind of filling it in so
that you can then then becomes weirdly easy you know as for you when you start
working backwards and like constantly asking yourself how
how how how it just fills down and all of a sudden you've got this plan of what
you need to do specifically and how you can get there so yeah I mean me
personally it's and like I say this changes the feel light it's almost like
a hierarchy of needs when you learn that there's gonna affect your motivation and
how you approach things for me basic vocabulary tends to be there but also
when I say vocabulary I'm not just thinking like individual words I'm
thinking about the phrases so the idea of learning how to say
of course or thank you which is you know both of them are two words it's not just
Thank and then you know how do I say this phrase as a whole in the language
so um so yeah thinking about vocabulary in a wider context and individual words
that helped in the early stages not worrying too much about grammar but for
me I like to learn as I go quite quite quite a lot so I find that just if I
come across something and I'm like why is the grammar like that it helps me to
understand it otherwise it's just a niggling question and it's gonna just
keep going along therefore a lot of people that's not necessarily you know
if you don't if your brain isn't saying to you why is that like that then don't
bother reading another grammar explanation yeah and really kind of
getting into a good routine with the new language every new language is like a
chance to be like okay what did I do wrong with the last one how how can I
improve on what I did with the last one and sort of going forward from there so
yes it's tough to say what I do when I start a new language because it's it's
different every time my Japanese you took my Japanese right you don't have to
learn alphabet you have to do this whole other thing that you just don't have to
do if you learn I don't know Italian right so that's gonna change it
as well but yeah I think vocabulary is pretty cool but vocabulary phrases and
then that will also help you to understand the language and the grammar
and you can then see ah I learned this, you know, down the line learn a grammar point
anything oh yeah well that's like that really early phrase that I learned okay
let me think no yeah okay so with opportunities with learning a new
language was some like experiences you've had actually using the language
in a field context mmm do you mean when I've learned a language and then kind of
used it yes okay so um just last week or the week before maybe um we were in
Cuba and I speak Spanish so spoken it for look been learning it for year and years
so it's fine so I'm pretty pretty confident with my Spanish and that
my husband's learning Spanish but I I did the talking this day because as
you'll see it was necessary and we decided to go we're in a town called Vinales
which is like in the mountains in Cuba in the north beautiful place like
amazing just so green these lumpy Hills caves all of this good stuff and so we
decided to walk to one of these caves we'd read that there's a swimming hole
in this cave and it's a doable hike from the town so it's not wonderful let's go
and find that sounds amazing swimming costume on clothes on on top so you're
not just strolling on and on somewhere and an off we go and then the path
I'm following my little map app and the path all of a sudden it just
becomes mud because we're there it's like hurricane season is just you know
it was really really gonna be quite wet before we got there and it's just thick
mud and the mud thing gets you know we're able to kind of go around and be
okay and then the mud just gets thicker and thicker and thicker on my life it
was insane and then we in the end were like okay
there's 2k left to go let's not bother let's turn around
I was really gutted because I love caves I loved the idea of being in like
swimming pool at the end of a cave that's so magical right so I was really
annoyed and we've seen this sign along the way so we'd go back and we'd like
well let's go and ask in that hut where there was a sign it's there do you know
drinks here look up to this hand of mine I think this is the right Hut and it
wasn't it was just a farmer's shed essentially and these guys come out is
like an older guy and a younger guy and they're like hola and
then I was able to talk to them in Spanish so I was able to use my language skills
to go and it wasn't just a case of high English girl here I have my issues help
me you know I was able to actually say hey we're looking for the cave where is it
that path is not doable too much mud blah blah blah blah blah and they helped
us get wash they washed without even request you know this came
and washed our hands gave my husband a cup of coffee and then said yeah I'll
take you to the cave you wanna go on a horse cart it was like okay you can take be to the cave
you sure? He was like yeah it's fine it's fine you know I
obviously paid him but it was just this really unexpected
magical toy it was an amazing day he then took us to the actual cafeteria
what we'd seen the sign for we got we got a drink a nice juice and then he took us
he took us around the the fields and stuff but we never would have been able
to do we never would have found the place I mean arrived at this cave
there's two guys at the cave so we then had to obviously use the language again
again we'd never have got this far if we didn't speak Spanish anyway but then
getting getting to the cave negotiating you know how much does it cost
okay brilliant and then we can we go and we went swimming in this cave and we
were the only people there there were no other people even around for like miles
the whole you know it was just incredible and stuff like that you know
that's what it's about it's about making those unexpected connections and having
those unexpected experiences that language is responsible for and that for
me is it's very easy to forget that because they don't happen all the time
and it doesn't have to be that you know you're on you on holiday and in Cuba or
whatever it can be in your hometown I've had things happen just so close to where
I live even and it's possible you know you feel like you have to go really far
away but you don't it can be so close but yeah that's the one that comes to
mind cuz it was so recent yeah nice so have you ever traveled to a
country before you've learned a language and then returned after you've learned it?
oh okay so I've been to some countries where
well many countries actually where I don't speak the language I always try
and learn a few words you know like hello thank you and please
just they sort of travel basics maybe I even I might even go a little bit
further than most people would you know I like to do this sort of whole like
travel course on them like that kind of thing I'm trying to think
yet been no I don't think I've yet been somewhere I didn't speak it and then
gone back I mean I'm hoping maybe later this year
early next year we might go to Indonesia where I've been to Indonesia before
didn't speak any of the language so hoping like about there soon and after
learning a bit you know excited to see what a different experience it will be
because I actually had not because I didn't speak the language necessarily
but I actually had a really bad time in Indonesia just everything went wrong
like bad experience after bad experience and I'm like I don't want to have that
negative memory of like Indonesia ugh what are you doing to me you know so I
want to go I'm like okay I'm gonna give you a second chance and then come in and
I'm armed with the language so hopefully that will be one and maybe soon I'll be able to tell a story
of what that's like I mean I remember like we've talked about Japanese and
languages with different scripts I remember I'd never been anywhere where I
couldn't read and because that's always a big thing for me is just being able to
understand the route what's going on around even if I don't know what the
language is like Indonesia country language but I could understand that the
word on top of that shop I could read it out loud because the letters were the
same then I got to Thailand that was not the case and that was a very different
experience so yeah that's that's something I think is for me personally a
reason that I like to learn languages is to understand the world around me like
for a lot of people I feel like it's about speaking that's the that's the
number one for me it feels like speaking is like a byproduct of like I can
understand the world around me yay oh I can speak to people - that's cool right
and I know that sounds kind of backwards - how it's for most people but but
that's how it is for me I'm not like you know when I'm in my kind of daily life I
don't like go out and just start conversations with people so I'm not
gonna do that in language personally right so yeah
understanding the world around me is important and when I couldn't do that in
Thailand and a couple of other places that was quite tough that was quite a
yeah last question uh do you ever find that knowing a language actually makes
like that like the native people more receptive to you more friendly always
yes yeah yeah like actually like 99% always like there's that one bit where
you you know like we knew somewhere really kind of touristy and people were
like come up to you all the time like hey hey sometimes then I'm kind of like
oh sorry then speak the language like it's probably really bad but it become
it can become quite tiresome right so but then at the same time it can be
really rewarding when you can say ah no gracias like I know like in Havana
for example everyone is asking you there's like a particular point where
everyone is asking for the if you want to ride in the old vintage cars like
tour of the city in a vintage car and we didn't want one right so we said
no gracias no gracias after a while you get kind of bored of just saying no
thank you no thank you no thank you so we started to try and make a little
conversation and say oh no thank you we did it yesterday which was a lie but it
just it just kind of rounded off the conversation rather than being the same
no thank you that they're probably used to hearing all the time and then
sometimes I even started a conversation which which was fun you know I'm happy to talk to
people if they if they want to talk so like you know say thank you me did
it yesterday oh cool did you have fun and and then it felt awkward yeah it's great
Yeah I remember it really well.
So I think generally it is always well received and it's always really nice
then for you when you then get people to say oh your Spanish is really good
oh your French is really good yeah thank you very much oh nice so that's like a nice
little boosts for yourself as well right okay that's all the questions I have
cool thanks for doing it. Yay thank you so much if there's any
last points that you want to add to this you could do that now if you want okay
so if you want to learn more I guess if you're watching this then you can visit
LindseyDoesLanguages.com and that's my website so you'll find the links to
everywhere on there all the sort of social platforms Facebook Twitter
Instagram all of that jazz and YouTube that's why I share my videos so yeah but
all of that is you can find it at LindsayDoesLanguages.com okay great
thanks thank you
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