The Level Up English Podcast
The Level Up English Podcast
#38 Kerstin from The Fluent Show (Conversation)
I talk to Kerstin Cable - a polyglot and language coach - about language learning and accent.
Show notes page - https://levelupenglish.school/podcast38
Become a Level Up Member - https://levelupenglish.school
Transcript - https://levelupenglish.school/transcripts (Members Only)
Sign Up for Free Lessons - https://www.levelupenglish.school/#freelessons
Join Level Up English - https://courses.levelupenglish.school
By becoming a member, you can access all podcast transcripts, listen to the private podcast and join live lessons and courses on the website.
Hello and welcome to the English with Michael podcast, the best place to come to study English as a second language as well as to practice the British accent with me. Michael Lavers as your teacher. Hello English learners. Welcome back to the English with Michael podcast. So unfortunately I have come down with a cold so I'm a little bit congested. My throat is a little bit sore at the moment so maybe my voice will sound a little bit different. So for this podcast, please excuse that. I hope it doesn't sound too bad and I hope I don't seem like I have to low energy because I'm very, very happy today because it's a podcast interview day. But before we get to that, I want to remind everyone that if you want to see the transcript for this episode, head over to the show notes for this one and you can find them at a special URL, a special website with our guests name, so that will be ewmichael.com/kerstin K. E. R. S. T. I. N. if you go there, you will see the transcript where you can read along with everything we're saying today. So yes, my guest today is Kerstin Cable and she is the host of another podcast called the fluent show and she is from Germany living in the UK with what I would say is a native level knowledge of English and she is a polyglot so she speaks eight languages and her website is fluent language.co.uk. So on her website she does one-to-one language coaching as well as lots of other good stuff related to learning various languages so definitely check that out. But the best way to learn about her is to hear our conversation today. It really was a good conversation. We spoke about a large variety of topics related to English and language learning in general and a lot on accent as well. So if you're looking to have a perfect English accent, this would be a good podcast to listen to. So thank you very much for coming back and I hope you enjoy it. So here is my talk with Kerstin Cable. I am here today with Kirsten. So how are you today?
Kerstin:I'm great. I'm great. Thank you for having me, Michael.
Michael:Of course. It's my pleasure. It's Very, very good to be talking with you today. So I guess could you start by giving like a short introduction about who you are and what you do, what you spend your time on these days?
Kerstin:Yes. Okay. Um, so my name is Kirsten Cable. I um, who am I? I'm, I'm originally from Germany, but I've lived in the UK for 17 years. So these days I am a bilingual bi-national sort of Brit German/ Anglo-German person and I live in the South of England and I spend a lot of my time learning languages, talking about learning languages, study methods. And when people ask me what I do and ask if I help people in languages, I often say I help people not stop because I think that is the key to learning a language. So I do a lot of work around, or I like talking around psychology motivation and I do that on my blog. It's called fluent language.co.uk or I've got a podcast called the fluent show and that's how we met free podcasting.
Michael:Yeah, we sure did. We sure did. And on the podcast we also, we spoke a little bit about this question because I really want to ask you how many languages do you know, but if you listened to our podcast, you know, from before then you might know. That's kind of a hard question to answer.
Kerstin:Yes. Because we discussed language levels and the confidence that comes with speaking a language and how much goes into, goes into how many languages do you know. So I'll, I'll kind of do you a bit of a list shopping list. I obviously... The languages I am super comfortable in, Actually my most comfortable language is probably English followed by German, which is my native language. But I don't, I just need two, three hours to switch. Um, so I can't obviously speak German but of the drop of a hat, but I sometimes phrase my sentences like an English speaker and then realise I'm talking nonsense. So it's just, I'm very used to English. Um, so English and German, pretty much both of them are my leading languages. My third language is French, which I've done since I was 13. I'm sort of an intermediate to advanced, kind of maintaining that, that level. And then I'm learning Welsh. I've been learning Welsh for about four years and I'm somewhere in the intermediate levels and can have conversations and just, uh, madly in love with Welsh. I think it's a beautiful language. I've also done other languages that I have at lower levels, so I've got some eight some that are lower because I've forgotten so much like Italian and Russian and some that are lower just because I haven't done them as long, like Chinese. And then there's Luxembourgish, which I understand and I can mimic enough through my, my home dialect of German that I am functional if something was to go wrong in Luxembourgish, I think that's all my languages roughly.
Michael:Yeah. You know, you, you know, you've got a lot of languages when you kind of forget how many, you know. Right. That's really amazing. And what I find incredible is how, so you said that your second language, English, you feel more comfortable than your native language in some sense. Right.
Kerstin:My life is in English. Yeah.
Michael:Yeah. I can't even comprehend that. I find that really incredible. But yeah, that's amazing. So obviously you are a great source of inspiration hopefully to people struggling with English out there who think, you know, I'll never get, I'll never get good. I never reached that point.
Kerstin:Yeah, you can get really, really good.
Michael:Yes. Perfect. I'm really happy to hear that. Is it possible to, I know it's kind of, they're all at different levels. It's quite hard to say, but is it possible to say like which language was the hardest for you or which you struggled with the most?
Kerstin:Oh, interesting question. Out of my advanced languages, it's French. I never struggled, struggled with French, but I did. I just don't love it as much as English. And I've done it for nearly as long and I've had to kind of come, come to terms with that. But with French, I always, I never hated it so much that I stopped or anything like that. I just kept going, going, going and it built up. Um, I also would say really it's the usual suspects that I found a little bit more difficult. Chinese, Russian
Michael:so I guess Chinese you, it's completely different. Completely different story isn't it. You've got a different writing structure. Got the tones Russian, I don't really know much about it, but I know you've got the grammar is supposed to be quite hard.
Kerstin:Word order in in Chinese is, I haven't quite got my head around it yet. Mind you, I've not been doing it as long, so I never feel like something is hard. I don't really think about it as, Oh, that's so hard. I just think of it as like, Oh, I haven't understood that yet, and I haven't understood that yet. And Oh, but I, I feel always feel like it's going to click and then it's going to be easy, but it hasn't clicked yet. Russian, hmm why did I find Russian hard? Don't know. Just less vocab crossover. So there's more vocab words to learn. Yeah.
Michael:Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point. Um, I don't know about you, but I find that the easy part about Chinese for me or the less hard part I should say in a way, because it is a tonal language, it's almost like a song. So I find it quite easy to remember words and sentences because it's kind of, it's got like a melody in my head. Have you found that?
Kerstin:Oh, a little bit. A little bit. And then the, the problem for me has been in, in conversation or something like that, that I can't hear it at all because I learnt it so explicitly. The ones where I, where I did learn it like that. So I can't hear the tones yet. When somebody's just normally speaking quickly, not really. Whereas I can hear the tones if I'm, if I'm doing like vocab study or if I'm working with an app really enunciates then I can totally hear the tones.
Michael:Yeah. Yeah. I mean I'm definitely no expert on this, but I heard some advice, that sounds really good. And they kind of said the best advice is don't think about what number the tone is, but kind of rather than thinking about, Oh, that's kind of a rising tone, that's a flat tone. Maybe you could think about, well, just the siren. Recognise the sound of the word, but don't consciously think about what that corresponds to. And that seems to be working okay for me at the moment. Yeah.
Kerstin:I can't stand it when people write Chinese syllables with those numbers, because I have today before my lesson, I drew myself a little chart because my, I think my tutor uses some software that automatically writes those numbers in there instead of putting accents on it. And because I'm very experienced Language learner reading, diacritics reading accents, like accent, accent grave or whatever it is, that, that feels quite easy to me. You know? I find that really really helpful visually. Whereas if it sort of says a syllable and then the number two around it or something like that, I find that really difficult because I don't really know what's the first tone, What's this tone? I didn't really learn it that way. I just learned this one goes up, this one goes down, this one goes down, up. This one was really high and that was it. So I think I missed out on the first tone. Second tone. Then when people say second tone, I'm like, I have no idea which ones. The second tone, I'm sorry.
Michael:Yeah, but I heard that's quite normal because even if you ask a Chinese speaker like what... Which is second tone they have to think about it for a second, like which is that one? Cause of course to them it's so natural that they don't really have to think about it too much.
Kerstin:Yeah. It's like the cases in German.
Michael:I know nothing about that. I'm sure you're right. I also wanted to ask you like, I don't know, it might be like kind of choosing between your children. I don't know how you see it, but do you have a favourite language? A favourite second language? You know,
Kerstin:I think I have two. I have, I love English and I love Welsh.
Michael:I can tell that I can tell.
Kerstin:yes, I easily have a favourite and it's, it's completely irrational that there's no reason why I would like Welsh more than Spanish or anything like that. But I do.
Michael:yeah, I totally get what you mean. And that sometimes you just kind of fall in love with one more, but you can't quite work out why. Yeah, that's a really good point. Yeah, that kind of moves on really well to. Another thing I wanted to ask you, which was related to motivation, because I think many people struggle with motivation. You seem like you would be a good person to ask, particularly with Welsh because Welsh is not a very common language. So what keeps you motivated to learn Welsh?
Kerstin:Welsh is, I have found it a very rewarding language to learn. And when you're learning a language that is less common, what happens or if you're learning a language. There's so much that I'm learning about the world through Welsh and learned about the UK. I learned about the history of Wales. I learned about what happened in Wales, you know, like, and not from an English perspective, I have learnt about minority languages and their status is in the world. I have learned about the living community of wealth speakers and you know, again the living community of not English people that also exist in the UK that we don't really see from outside that even the English don't really know about. And I have also learnt about, I don't know, I feel like it's it. Welsh is giving me so much about my own country. Well she is a, um, is a community that I can quite easily get involved in. Welsh is a language that is reasonably because it's a minority language and in an English speaking in an English majority country, no one expected to learn it. So the standards for Welsh, for people to be impressed by you are really low.
Michael:Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a really good point. So you always get praise and compliments. Maybe
Kerstin:You get to, I mean, you know, obviously you have to work hard and I do work hard, but you, you kind of, you know, like, and there are many, many adult learners in Wales who are learning who are learning world. So it's, I'm not the best by far, but you've still kind of, you know, it's, I'm, you're kind of a rarity as a German person learning Welsh and living in England. And that's, that's kind of cool because that means that means it's easier to feel like what you're doing is, it's, it's working out as successful. So all of those definitely came into play. Um, and I think, but I think with every language you have to, you have to find things that motivate you, that are internal to you, that did that. Um, because in generally speaking with what the research has shown, etc. Is that there's intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in language learning and the intrinsic motivation. So motivation that comes from the inside that isn't, I'm doing this because my teacher wants me to, or because my parents want me to or because I think it might be useful later. It has to be, you know, like when something comes from the inside, if you find something about that language or something in that language that is really cool. So you see what K-pop did for Korean, for example, if it's in you and you're the one who's interested in it from the inside, that's much more effective for motivation. You're not going to lose that as quickly because then you've, you've identified with it. You can't say no to it because it's you.
Michael:Yeah. No, I completely agree. So in a sense, it's not like, to make an analogy, it's not like you're a donkey chasing a carrot on a stick. Trying to reach that extrinsic goal that, you know, I need to get that goal that kind of A grade or that, you know, whatever, acceptance from people that think I know this language, but it's something inside that's going to be so much more motivating to continue, isn't it?
Kerstin:Yeah. Yeah. Like people may be learning for love or something like that. And then I'm thinking about your listeners and all those people out there learning English and some people are only learning English because you know the school makes them and school doesn't always do a great job selling it to us. So you have to, you have to try and find something about English that is, that is really cool. That gets you excited. Like, yeah, I found a motivation learning for learning French again when I went to Canada because I was like, Oh this is cool, this is cool. It's like a whole new place and they speak French and now I can, you know, I've got a reason to learn French again.
Michael:Yeah, yeah, definitely. Definitely. I, and I think it's, it's important to point out that obviously if you are learning English for that reason, like maybe you want to do it for your teacher or your job or something, it's not a bad thing. But in my experience, the people that make the best progress and that they get really, really high, you know, high levels of English, those are the people that also can find that intrinsic motivation as well. And they kind of find what really kind of makes them happy and what really kind of motivates them to go forward. So yeah, it's important to think about what makes you smile. In terms of that language.
Kerstin:Yeah. I often say to people like who are you going to be when you're really good at this?
Michael:Yeah. That's a good way. So you're like picturing the future of how you will be. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. That's really good advice. And I think that applies to English but all languages too, doesn't it?
Kerstin:It does. It does. It's always like we're on this like really long trip where we somehow got on the in the car and now we're thinking what am I doing here? And I think we can, we constantly have to answer the question, what am I doing?
Michael:Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point. You can't just kind of get stuck in that routine. Perhaps you have to keep thinking about it. So this is one that I prepared you for a little bit(be)cause I want to see if you had anything interesting to say. And this is something I ask all the guests on this show and this is, do you have any embarrassing language stories? For example, any mistakes you've made or any kind of funny mishaps you've had?
Kerstin:I've got two and I think that both from when I was a teenager and I was like best in my class in English and you know, I've been learning English for three or four years and I thought, yeah man, I'm, I've got this. Like no one speaks English better than me. Let me talk to the English, let me show them how it's done. And my parents, after long, you know, after a long time of me nagging them, I think they agreed to go on to actually take a summer holiday in, in England. So this is like 1996 and we, four people all get in the car, drive to Calais, go out to the ferry and there's the ferry guide is sort of, I don't know, it was night right in the summer, so it must've been midnight or something like that. And this guy stood there like security guard or whatever. And I, my parents were wondering what time is the ferry leaving. I was like, don't worry mama, I've got this right. And I walked up to the security guy and I don't, I have no idea what I asked him. I have no idea what I asked him. But the thing is I don't, I don't think he has any idea what I asked him cause I, all I remember is his reaction. I had spoke to him like the first.. I feel like that was my first English person. And um, cause again, before internet, right. So English people didn't really come. So there weren't so many available and he just burst out laughing. He was just like, I dunno, he must've thought it was so funny. And I thinking back I'm like, you know what, it's just like super( inaudible) like 14-year-old girl goes like"Hello where's the ferry to Dover?" I don't know what I, I had no idea of what I actually said. Can't remember. But I remember this man being very, very, very, very amused. And then when we actually got to London, I remember us, we were in a McDonald's cause you know, tourists. Um, so we're in McDonald's and I went and I did the whole order for my family. I was so proud of myself again, like in English. I was like, yeah, one big Mac one, there's one that, um, and then the person repeated the order back to me and I had no idea what I was saying. I just stared at them like, what, what? Um, and then they repeated it back to me again in German. Turns out they were German. So I didn't understand a German person's English in London.
Michael:Well, in that case maybe you can blame them and maybe they had really bad English. Make yourself feel better.
Kerstin:I'm sure my English was exactly as good as I thought it was. And those two experiences really stand out to me.
Michael:Yeah. I hope it didn't make you feel too bad. That's quite intense. Having like a grown man laughing at you for your English. I hope it didn't put you off the language.
Kerstin:Not at all. Not at all. I don't think. I think, you know, people talk to me about how good my English is and I think there's something inside of me. I don't know what or what does nonsense is. There's something inside of me that always just thought I'm really good at English.
Michael:Oh, so is it like a confidence thing for you? Maybe. Maybe because you feel you're.. Because you're confident, you feel that you can progress faster perhaps.
Kerstin:I think when you're confident you can progress faster. You don't, you don't spend a lot of time wondering if you're any good. Yeah. How you get confident. I'm not sure
Michael:that's a good point. Maybe practice or something like that. But that's, that's the reason why I like to look at this, this topic about making mistakes is because I think it kind of highlights to people that it really doesn't matter. And actually it's a good thing, in fact, to make mistakes. And if someone does laugh in your face as a 14 year old girl, that's fine. You know, you can kind of like turn it into a funny story and it's not the end of the world, is it?
Kerstin:Mm, no, no, it's not. It's, it's absolutely fine. It's absolutely fine. And I mean, yeah, if you, you know, if, if a 14 year old girl can handle being laughed at by a grown man and I'm pretty sure you know, you can handle your next language exchange or whatever you're doing to learn to learn the language.
Michael:Yes, exactly. That's a really good point. Perfect. So many inspirational things. I'm sure people will get a lot out of this today. I, I did prepare a couple of things to ask you as well, and this is kind of, it's perhaps a bit selfish because it's stuff that I would like to know. I feel like, I feel like you're much more of a language expert than me, so I'm going to put you on the spot a little bit if you don't mind.
Kerstin:All right. Yeah, go ahead.
Michael:So one is in reference to a third language. Um, I'm not sure how many listeners out there are learning two languages at once, but perhaps you're learning English and maybe you're also learning, you know, another language wherever, something relevant to your life. Many people
Kerstin:Yeah let us know. I want to know.
Michael:Yeah. Yeah. That'd be really interesting to hear because I don't actually know. But yeah, many people, many people tell me that they only focus on English, so they say I would love to learn French or German or Chinese or something else, but the only focus on English because they feel like they can study two languages at the same time. Do you think it's necessary to kind of give up on your third or what's your view on taking up a third language?
Kerstin:I think it depends entirely on you as the learner, your personal circumstances and your goals. I was just thinking back through times in my life, we're only learned one target language times in my life where I learn two target languages and because I have a number of languages and I don't want to lose them all. I quite often put in, put in a few together, but it's, that's not the same as consciously saying, okay, here are two languages and I've got goals for two languages for a big part of this year. That's what I did with Chinese and Welsh and what it does, what it does is it splits the time that you have available so you are going to be slower, but it doesn't make you like stupider in one language or the other. Your brain is perfectly capable of even learning six languages at once or 12- your brain is fine, but it's, it's to what extent can you concentrate on, more languages or fewer languages at the same time and to, to what extent can you make time for it? And then the important thing is probably to just be aware that the reduced amount of time and concentration means that you're going to be learning more slowly. But it's not impossible. You don't have to, if you would like to learn French, Spanish, and English at the same time, then go for it. Go for it. If you feel that you can handle it, and if you don't feel that you can handle it, don't worry about it. It's, you know, you can't right now. Maybe you're too busy or you're in school and you're learning 12 other subjects as well. So don't, you know, don't beat yourself up. But when I think back to my full-time education, I had many, many years where I was doing three languages in school along with other stuff and it was perfectly fine and I progressed in all of them.
Michael:That's really good. And do you think it also depends a bit on motivation as well? Your motivation will have an effect on that?
Kerstin:I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Like it, like it does with everything you're motivation is, is a big part of this puzzle. It's your motivation, your study skills, how organised you are able to, to kind of be about your different languages, et cetera. And it's, it's helpful to know a goal. So in the sense of am I just dabbling with this, you know, like, Oh this month I want to do a bit of Bulgarian so I'm going to do a little bit of that. But I only really want to learn the travel phrases and I want to, you know, learn for this trip that I'm taking. Whereas you know, like the other language I'm learning, say in English, it's really my goal to go to university and fully live my life into languages or whatever, whatever it is. I think the more you understand where the language is going to end up in your life, the more helpful it's going to be.
Michael:Yeah. Yeah. I love that. So you think about how it's applicable to you and what, what your goals are in life and whether it's necessary or whether you really want to learn two or more languages. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Great advice. Great advice.
Kerstin:You're welcome.
Michael:One thing that I really shouldn't forget to ask you, cause I know people are probably screaming at me to ask you this and I'm sure you get this a lot as well, is about your excellent English accent. Actually, as I said to you the first time I met you, I, when I first heard you a long time ago somewhere, I didn't realise you were not a native speaker because your accent is so good.
Kerstin:Thank you.
Michael:So of course, of course. You're welcome. So, um, I don't know if this is easy to talk about or not, but how do you think you got such a good English accent?
Kerstin:Um, I've done podcast episode about this and, um, so I will, I will recommend that to you and I'll, I'll get you the link as well so listeners can maybe listen to me talking about it for half an hour, but I'll post that in the show. Yeah, let me think about the short version. Um, I didn't really worry about my English accent that much. I think in the first five years. So something to understand is how long I've been learning English. It's, it's coming up to 20 S Nope. Yet 26 years. So it's quite long. Um, I also have been living in the UK for over 15 years, so I've spent a long, long time here. I speak English most of the time. My husband's English. Um, but on a more practical level, a few things that I did is I did specifically work on my accent when I first moved to England. So I was already, uh, a very good speaker. I told you before that I came to England and I had IELTS nine which is as high as this IELTS scale goes. I believe. So I, I was very, very capable in English and I'm sure I was speaking with a decent accent and I'm moved to Northern England and a load of people started asking me if I'm South African and I thought huh? what? Like, no, but I don't want to sound German. I don't like the sound of my, my home accent. I don't want to sound like this. And I spent just more time listening to people and I spent a lot of time kind of saying things that people say and I've always done a lot of self talk in English. So, or at least while I was learning it, like not now during the day, but I used to, I used to like pretend I'm a, I'm being interviewed by a magazine and stuff like that and just kind of talk as if I'm talking to a reporter just just in English and kind of narrating my life. So I always spoke a lot. And the thing that changed when I moved to England I think is that I had so many more native speakers around me. I had so much more to copy. And then I spent a lot of time, I think probably listening to people and figuring out what they're saying, figuring out what they're doing with their sounds. So just out of interest and then kind of working, working with that in, in thinking, okay, can I make my mouth do this, can I do, can I make my mouth do a Jordie accent, et cetera. How, where, what is happening there? So when you first moved to England, especially Northern England, you are confronted with a lot of accents that you've never heard before. If you're, if you're a school learner like I was and that challenges you in whole new way and I think it sort of opens up your ears again. And it definitely helped me with accents.
Michael:Okay. That's really interesting to hear because you know, people always ask me this question and I tried to give my best answer, but since I've never learnt English really, you know, as a second language, it's always a little bit hard for me to say anything. But that's really interesting. So you, so well to summarise, it started out with maybe immersion, right? You were kind of immersed in the language, weren't you?
Kerstin:and it, and I was already, I think I was already very, very good. I think that that needs to be said because people sometimes take immersion as like a learning cure for everything. But I think if you want to get better at accent, usually that's, to me, that's something that doesn't come when you're intermediate. Like you don't worry about that. Don't worry about it. And um, you can work on your accent when you're, uh, a much higher level because if you're an adult learner and you didn't start learning English when you were like four years old, your vocal cords and muscle memory work a certain way. So there are certain bits that there are certain twangs accent kind of things that you're always always going to have.
Michael:Yeah. That, that's kind of what I would say as well is if you're not super confident with your English is probably not the first thing you need to worry about. Don't worry about your accent too much because that will kind of develop in the more advanced levels. Is that what you're saying?
Kerstin:Yeah. Well what's the, what's the point really of sounding like a perfect native American, let's say? Um, when you, when you still make grammar errors that give away you're absolutely, you know, a learner. And the other thing as well is that you can start thinking about your accent as yours, right. Rather than, rather than thinking about it as the accent of that you are home native language or your home kind of nationality or something or not. And I think that that helps. So when you realised that you've got, you've got ownership over your accent, you can kind of design your own, it becomes playful. But again, you have to be, you have to be fairly good at, at, at English before you, before you really start. Because otherwise it's, uh, it's just, it's just wasted your time. You don't really get the rewards that you, you put in.
Michael:Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah. I love that. So that, think of it as your accent and not, maybe not, I have a German accent, but I have my accent and it's kind of a little bit of this, a little bit of that, a little bit of this region. But if my mum and dad, um, yeah, and you can develop it, you kind of shape it, mould it over time. That's a really good way to look at it. I've never seen it that way before, but I, yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna write that down I think.
Kerstin:yeah, it's because I podcast, I think I get so much feedback on my accent and my voice and that kind of thing. And something, something I've, I've realised over time is, is that because I've been, not cause when I, when I moved from the North to the South of England, I mentioned this a lot because it was a big, big life change. Um, but also a big change in the voices I hear around me. When I moved from the North to the South, I thought, Oh, this is going to be brilliant. Everybody's going to think I'm a northerner. Right? No one ever thinks I'm a northerner, ever, ever. But that was what I heard the most in my accent. And now my accent is sort of not like that anymore. So it's forever gonna evolve. And even the native speakers don't sound like each other at all. Yeah,
Michael:no, absolutely. Like, like even just me and my friends, we're all from the same place. Um, I think my best friend has even like, you know, my second cousin or something, we were like very, very close. But even so our accents are completely different, even though we're from the same region, so it doesn't, it's not always that simple is it?
Kerstin:Mmm. And one, one more tip. Sorry. They're all coming out now.
Michael:That's good. No I'm happy.
Kerstin:One more tip I would give people is don't or be very careful with trying to learn an accent from a TV show because those are scripted and then not always thought authentic. And you definitely don't want to, definitely don't want to learn from like an old TV show like you, you are not gonna sound authentic if you learned your accent from Monte Python and then you coming into modern day England or anything like that. But even I'm thinking I'm, I'm a big fan of Buffy and I always have been, but if I was to talk like Buffy, I would not blend in where I live because I don't live in Sunnydale, California.
Michael:Yeah, that's a, that's a really good point to make as well. And like another popular one for English learners is Downton Abbey. Have you seen that?
Kerstin:Oh. Oh, so you're either gonna sound Yorkshire or very rich.
Michael:Yeah, I haven't actually seen an episode. I've seen clips of it, but yeah, as far as I can understand there's a lot of very posh talk in that and presumably Yorkshire as well. Um, but yeah, I kind of have to kind of make it clear to people that we don't call people, you know, m'lady and sir all the time, so kind of, yeah. Things like that you have to kind of, yeah. Cause you can get a negative opinion. Yeah.
Kerstin:You can come across very affected otherwise like it then you just, it becomes very clear that it's studied and people don't see you anymore. All that people remember about you is your accent and that's not really the effect that you want to have. Most people want to get a good accent because they want to blend in a bit more.
Michael:Mm. That's a really good point. Yeah. So you have to think about why you want an accent perhaps and the, you know, the reasons behind it. Hmm. Interesting. Interesting. Speaking of accent, what, so you don't people, people don't think you sound North in the South?
Kerstin:No. My biggest disappointment.
Michael:Yes. But like, what do people mistake you for most often? But do they ever tell you like, are you from here or where are you from? Or like, do they ever kind of mistake you from somewhere else?
Kerstin:I get a lot of, where are you from? Um, it's not my favourite thing because I don't really want to make the same small talk about Germany every time. Yeah. Um, and also I feel like, you know, I've, I've been in England for so long and once did, this is why people want a good accent, I think. Because once people know that you're a foreigner, that's kind of the, becomes the main thing about you that they know and you can never then be incognito or just be like, you know, the part of you that isn't just a foreigner. Um, but you know, people, people are interested and people are curious, so they hear, most people just don't hear it. So they just, you know, it's not strong enough that it makes people stop and ask. When people stop and ask, it's usually because they know a Dutch person or a German person and they've spent a lot of time with them so they can hear German in my accent. But it's only, it's only when they know somebody, you know, it's not everyone.
Michael:Yeah, I completely understand. I do think it's important to have that sense of belonging, especially when you've lived here for so long and you want to feel like you belong here and you don't want people to see you and go, Oh, it's that, you know, German girl, that's not a, you know, there's much more to me than that. You might be thinking.
Kerstin:Yeah, 100% 100%.
Michael:I can see why people ask that. Cause of course it's always nice to know where someone's from and learn about that. It's kind of a conversation starter as well. But yeah, that's a, that's a very interesting point.
Kerstin:Yeah. It's a difficult kind of thing that you walk, but you know, it was me who moved to another country. So I'm going to, you know, it's, it's part of, it's part of the story of, of my life and people asking that it's, it's very, very nice. But I, I often try to say like, I was born in Germany, but I have lived here for so-and-so and I used to live in Lancaster and Lancashire is really nice and I miss it or something like that. And then people just go, whereabouts in Germany are you from? And I think, Oh, I've, I tried my best to talk about Lancaster.
Michael:Well, I think you have to just come to terms that Germany is much more interesting than England.
Kerstin:Than Lancashire. Fair enough. Good point. Good point. It doesn't happen very much. Some people think I'm Welsh, um, for no reason. I'm not, I'm not Welsh. And my Welsh learning has not affected people thinking I'm Welsh. Like they thought it before. They think it now. Um, yeah, that, that's another guest that I get. Sometimes I make people guesses quite funny.
Michael:Yeah. I wonder if that makes you happy because you're learning well shouldn't you? Maybe people think you sound well. So that's, that's quite nice. I don't know. Not really. I always wonder how I sound in other languages, but I'm always too afraid to ask. But probably sound like, you know, baby or something or a barking dog.
Kerstin:Oh yeah. Just just ask. Yeah, why not? Why not?
Michael:Yeah, I should. I should try. But it's kind of a hard thing to describe, isn't it? And people always too polite. They won't tell you the truth.
Kerstin:True, true. I had this thing in, um, in France last year, we went on holiday in France and because I'm so used to most people hearing my English and not, not knowing where I'm from, the person in the French tourist information said something like, Oh, do you want this information in German? Maybe like I was speaking French to her and she goes, like, do you want, do you want this leaflet in German? And I'm like, Oh, how'd you know I'm German? And then I realised that when I speak French, I have a big German accent, but I forgot that I have a German accent because I'm so used to not having one.
Michael:Yeah. That's a really interesting, interesting thing that your accent might be gone in one language but not in another language.
Kerstin:It does. Yeah. It doesn't work like that. It's you have to do to reduce it in every single language that you're learning on apparently just polyglot problems. Right? Yeah. Yeah, and I would like to say as well, we said earlier like don't worry about your accent until you are really good. That doesn't mean don't worry about good pronunciation. I think good pronunciation is really important. It's just different from accent.
Michael:That's a really good distinction to make. Yeah. You can't just kind of be lazy with your pronunciation, can you?
Kerstin:No. You have to. You have to pronounce well, but you don't have to pronounce, you have to, don't have to be, get the perfect intonation. Exactly. Right. Right at the start.
Michael:Yeah, and especially in like English, like whether it's American or British, it's not the most important thing because we can usually understand both, so.
Kerstin:Exactly.
Michael:Yeah. That's a good point to make. Yeah. I've got another big question for you is that, okay, I'm going to make the most of your time here. So what do you think people, like in your experience, you do language coaching and things like that. What do language learners struggle with the most? Are you able to summarise that into kind of one big thing or is it a bit too, too broad to say?
Kerstin:Keeping going, I think. I think that's, to me that is that is that too? Is that too generic? Generic? Is that too broad?
Michael:no, no. I asked a broad question you gave a broad answer, so that's perfect.
Kerstin:I think people struggle to, to continue and people don't know how to set up the expectation that they have of the results and their actual results. I think that's, that's the biggest problem is that ex... Managing your expectations or setting your expectations realistic(ly) and at the same time staying so ambitious that you do keep moving forward and keeping that going over five to 10 years until you really get to where you want to be. That's hard. Hmm.
Michael:Yeah. So it's that consistency, isn't it? A consistency to keep studying and keep, keep focused on your goals, right?
Kerstin:Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Michael:Yeah. Really good. Really good. Yeah. So you mentioned that earlier as well, so that is, yeah, less about kind of specific language stuff, but more about just your, your motivation again. So that's something that I think you are an expert in.
Kerstin:True true. It's because I think that that is, I personally think that that's more important than, than grammar because you can, you can lose a bit of grammar, um, and get it fairly quickly, but you can't lose motivation and, and get it back and still progress.
Michael:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I always visualise like that snowball rolling down the hill, gathering momentum as you're learning. And once you lose some motivation or you lose some momentum, the snowball maybe hits a hole in the mountain and you kind of have to push it out of the hole again. And that's, it's such a struggle to do that, isn't it? Yeah.
Kerstin:Oh, yes. Yeah. It's a pain, but we all go through it all the, yeah, me too. Me too.
Michael:Of course. Everyone does at some point. Yeah. Uh, but yeah, I think of that big language snowball. So if there are any English learners out there, I'm sure there are, who are struggling to find that, uh, that strength to keep going. What would you say to them?
Kerstin:Ooh, I usually, okay. If you are losing motivation now with English, but you've been learning it for a while, I would ask you usually to think about why you started it in the first place, um, and what, what you enjoy about it, what the fun bits are and then just do more of the fun parts.
Michael:Yeah, really good simple advice but really effective I think. Yeah. Think about what, what is fun for you in that language or in English I should say. But yeah, really good. Awesome. Um, okay, cool. So I guess we're coming up to the, and now I think before we do head off, I want people to know where they can find you. So what, well this is your chance to give a shout out. So what kind of like social media or projects do you have going on that you want people to know about?
Kerstin:If you are a podcast listener, then the easiest place to find me and come and join me on my language, learning journeys and talk about everything. I always say everything an inch, everything and anything interesting from the world of learning another language. So, um, I talk about jobs with languages and I talk about indigenous languages, endangered languages, but then we do also have really practical shows about, you know, vocabulary, how to memorise it better and things like that. So all of that is in the fluent show, which is the podcast that I make. Um, and that you can find it anywhere that you listen to podcasts. So wherever you describe... You're subscribing to English with Michael, you could probably find the fluent show there as well. Um, or if you just want one website for it, it's fluent.show. And if you also want to know my writing and learn a little bit more about me and the different products that I make, there's something called the language habit toolkit that I would recommend if you get stuck a lot when you're motivation. If you're interested in all of that, then go to fluent language.co. Dot. UK. Do you want to know my social media things?
Michael:Yeah, if you'd like to, of course I will post them as well in the, in the show notes but sure.
Kerstin:Okay, so I'm on Instagram. Kirsten_fluent, that's K E R S T, I N underscore fluent and I am on Twitter at fluent language and I'm on Facebook at fluent language and you can email me and it's Kerstin, K E R S T, I N@ fluent language.couk. And I only said that because I liked spelling my name, spend my life spelling my name.
Michael:Awesome. Awesome. And yeah, I will put all of those in the show. So obviously it's kind of a lot to remember and you know, maybe you don't want to write it down. So go over to the show notes and I always make a special link for my guests. So this one will be ewmichael. com/kerstin and again that is K, E, R, S. T, I. N. yeah. And that you will find all of the links we've just mentioned and yeah, I highly recommend the fluid show podcast as well because I have become quite addicted to it recently. I've been binge watching all the episodes.
Kerstin:Oh, you're new to it as well aren't you?
Michael:Yeah. Yeah. I I found out about it a little bit late, but I'm, I'm really happy I did find it and found you.
Kerstin:Oh yeyy. What's your most recent episode?
Michael:Um, well, the most recent one you posted. I've been kind of going back a little bit. Yeah, I listened to the most recent one recently.
Kerstin:Oh, fabulous. Fabulous. Well thank you so much for listening to the show.
Michael:Of course. Of course. Keep keep, keep up the good work.
Kerstin:Fab. Thank you so much for having me on your show.
Michael:Thank you. It's been great. You have been listening to the English with Michael podcast to view the podcast notes for this episode and to listen to previous episodes. Head over to ewmicheal.com/podcast
