Kerstin Cable, host of "The Fluent Show" shares her tips and enthusiasm for learning new languages. We talked about what to do if you're stalled learning a language, what the good things and bad things are about language learning apps (to help you learn how to use them better), the massively underestimated thing that will help you learn a language, and how learning a language can make you more creative. | Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates. | Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing course. | Peeve Wars card game. | Grammar Girl books. | HOST: Mignon Fogarty | VOICEMAIL: 833-214-GIRL (833-214-4475) | Grammar Girl is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network. | Theme music by Catherine Rannus at beautifulmusic.co.uk. | Links: https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/ https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/podcasts https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/subscribe https://www.tiktok.com/@therealgrammargirl http://twitter.com/grammargirl http://facebook.com/grammargirl http://pinterest.com/realgrammargirl http://instagram.com/thegrammargirl https://www.linkedin.com/company/grammar-girl
Kerstin Cable, host of "The Fluent Show" shares her tips and enthusiasm for learning new languages. We talked about what to do if you're stalled learning a language, what the good things and bad things are about language learning apps (to help you learn how to use them better), the massively underestimated thing that will help you learn a language, and how learning a language can make you more creative.
| Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates.
| Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing course.
| HOST: Mignon Fogarty
| VOICEMAIL: 833-214-GIRL (833-214-4475)
| Grammar Girl is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network.
| Theme music by Catherine Rannus at beautifulmusic.co.uk.
| Links:
https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/
https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/podcasts
https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/subscribe
https://www.tiktok.com/@therealgrammargirl
http://twitter.com/grammargirl
http://facebook.com/grammargirl
http://pinterest.com/realgrammargirl
http://instagram.com/thegrammargirl
https://www.linkedin.com/company/grammar-girl
Mignon: Grammar Girl here, I'm Mignon Fogarty, and you can think of me as your friendly guide to the English language, we talk about writing history, rules, and other cool stuff. And today I'm here with Kerstin Cable, the host of The Fluent Show, which is about learning languages, and I think you're going to love it.
We talked about how she got started, of course, and then what to do if you're stalled learning a language, what the good things and bad things are about language learning apps—to help you learn how to use them better—the massively underestimated thing that will help you learn a language, and how learning a language can make you more creative.
I think of her show as sort of an inspirational podcast for language learners. But let's let her tell you how she thinks of her show. Hi, Kerstin, thanks for being here today.
Kerstin: Hi, Mignon. Thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited today.
Mignon: You bet. So did I get that right? Do you think of it as sort of an inspirational show for language learners? How do you think of your show?
Kerstin: You know? Well, I've never, ever thought of it as an inspirational show. And now that you said it, I'm like, "Oh, yes, that's really good." It's not a show that teaches you a language. It's a show about the joy of learning languages and even wider the joy of, I say, enriching your life through the challenge of learning something new. Because learning a language is really hard, and I think I try to make that a good thing.
Mignon: Yeah, it does take a lot of time, actually. Or does it have to? Maybe it doesn't have to. Maybe I'm wrong.
Kerstin: Well, I depends on what you want to do with your with your language. I don't think it has to take a lot of time to achieve your goal. But I think you need to be. You need to know what your goal is and kind of think about. Do you just want to like if you just want to go on a trip and get around and read road signs and maybe have a few sort of pleasant conversations and have some basic haggling with a taxi driver or something like that (which is OK in some countries, I just want to say), then you don't need to spend four years learning like Turkish for that or French or whatever. But if you want to really live your life with another language, then I don't think you're ever going to be finished. Like, I started learning English when I was 10, and that's a good while ago. And for me, English is still a language that I am fascinated by, that I'm learning. So I would like to advocate for the idea that learning another language is not something that you need to ever finish, and that's not really the goal that you need to have.
Mignon: Right. There's no end. I mean, even for me, a native English speaker, I'm still always learning things about English and love that I'm expanding my vocabulary and learning word origins and things like that that are fascinating.
Kerstin: Mm hmm. Yeah, no. And just constant rewards, basically.
Mignon: All right. So I know from listening to your show that you grew up speaking German and now you speak very fluent English. And then I know you've also studied Russian and Welsh. Are there other languages that you've studied, too?
Kerstin: Yes. Yeah. My second foreign language from school is French, and French is oh, was a lot of work. So I never really wanted to drop it, you know, and I still do a little bit of work now and then in French. So my French, essentially, I still count myself as fluent in French. I can function in French. I can pretty much function in Spanish. I've done a bit of Italian. This is fairly common. I would say among listeners of my show that we sort of, you know, people have dipped in and out of languages, but those are kind of my big ones. And Russian I did for about a year and then Welsh kept making eyes at me. Oh, I did Mandarin for a year, so I know a little bit of Chinese as well.
Mignon: Nice. And I believe you're a professional language coach. Is that right?
Kerstin: Yes. Yeah, I mean, as far as being a language coach is a made-up job to a certain extent. But yes, I work with language learners, and I try to teach language learning strategies and mindset rather than focusing on, you know, these are the seven words I want you to learn in German and memorize today or something like that.
Mignon: Great. And so how long have you been doing The Fluent Show and what got you started?
Kerstin: I've been doing The Fluent Show I think, since 2013. So maybe in our ninth year, I'm well, we...I...
Mignon: And we do that, don't we? Me and the mouse in my pocket. Yes.
Kerstin: Me, yes. I'm sure there must be a listener who, you know, like sometimes listeners go back all the way through the archive, which is incredibly rewarding. So there's someone out there who's been with me, I'm sure, somewhere for the whole nine years. I started, I was already blogging. I was actually a German tutor when I first started out. And then sort of the German tutoring taught me so much about the gaps people have in, like I said, strategy and mindset and the kind of other needs people have that I got so interested in that and interested in the psychology behind it. And that's how sort of the coaching side started. And the podcast was a way for me to interview people and not have to, like, write them down for the blog. In the first place, and then I started getting playful and experimenting with different ways of putting the audio together, and I think I've always dreamt of being a radio DJ. So this is like my little way of living the dream.
Mignon: Nice. I love the way you talk about language so joyfully. It's wonderful. So now, you know, I'm all about the practical tips. So I was thinking of my listeners and you know, we're getting toward the end of January, and I bet there are people who had a New Year's resolution to learn a new language. And now it's been almost a month and maybe they're feeling bored or stalled or maybe they've missed a few days. So what advice do you have? Some for people who are sort of at that point they've just started, but they're feeling a little stuck or bored.
Kerstin: Yes. Yeah, something that may have happened is that you started thinking, I want to learn a language. And then what happens is about three weeks and you realize that you're not going to be that...you kind of can't ... that you kind of can't finish, right? So it feels like you're not making any progress. And something that I would recommend looking at at this point is, first of all, we're like days away from a new month starting. So like just whatever ... you can just like start again right now. And I talk about a structure of planning, tracking and reviewing. So have a look at in the small, in the really small and achievable context what you want to. What do you think is realistic for you to do, let's say in the next month. Like if it was February, what do you think you want to do? What do you think you want to kind of achieve in your language? Do you have a what I call a "guiding resource" for anything with a curriculum where it's pretty obvious what the next step will be once you finish the thing you're doing right now? Do you have any interest in cultural things that you want to discover? Perhaps if you're learning Spanish, is there something happening next year, like next month? Is there something? Is there a show you want to watch? Is there a radio show you want to try out? It doesn't matter if you don't understand everything.
Kerstin: It's about trying to find something that gets you excited that maybe you're planning a trip and you're like, OK, right, let's have a look on like a review website and see if I can analyze a review in Spanish. Do you have a tutor that you could maybe you work with, et cetera? So kind of look at your whole toolkit, and if so far your whole toolkit has been like one app, then fan out from that and see what else you might want to kind of throw in that might be interesting, that keeps you excited. And don't worry about your streak. So much like streaks, I feel for them in fitness, like in languages, not so much because I just sort of take and leave all the apps. But I get it with with fitness where I'm like, I have I have an Apple Watch and it always gets me. It's always like, Oh, right, OK, I need to close my rings.
Kerstin: And there I am at like 11 pm walking up and down the stairs in my house, you know, because the thing told me to. Yeah, so you can use it positively. But it's important not to use it as like your only motivation and as if it has the judgment of whether you're making progress or not. That is not true. So you kind of want to just think about all that. You set out your plan and say, OK, here are five things I would definitely want to do next month and then just go through the month and try to log somewhere things that you are doing. Maybe you want to just have like a checklist where you just give yourself a little tick every day that you know, when some people track, I'm drinking five glasses of water or I'm walking this many steps or something like that, just go like I had contact with my target language instead of the streak that that one app gives you. The streak is good, but make the streak like a life streak. So I say daily contact much, much more effective than just like daily use of a specific app.
Mignon: So I might say so. I've got this streak in the app. OK, it's day 10 or whatever, but you know, maybe write down "I could order coffee today in Spanish."
Kerstin: Oh my god, how good would that be?
Mignon: Yeah. Or or, oh, I was thinking when you brought up exercise too, I was thinking, Well, maybe I can understand the lyrics in the song that's playing while I'm doing, you know, salsa aerobics on my laptop or something like that watching the Apple fitness instructors. But maybe the music is in Spanish, and maybe now I can understand what they're saying.
Kerstin: Yes, yes, or maybe like you can just have a look at the song lyric. Or maybe you can sing along to a line, or maybe you can find like a video where it's, you know, it's like the fitness instruction is in Spanish language for something as structured as yoga that would work really well. And you know, as soon, yes, as soon as we get somebody, you as a learner can get yourself or I'm thinking like a teacher or a like a coach. Like, if you can get somebody thinking about, well, what else could I do? Oh, exciting. I could do this. This, this, this, this, then we're in a really good place because then you've you've opened up your world.
Mignon: Right, right. I know in your show you talked about the song "Despacito," and I hurt my back doing aerobics to the song "Despacito" and so in my household, we refer to it as my old "Despacito" injury. So be careful out there.
Be careful. Yes, yes. And the reggaeton parts are extremely fast Spanish, but I think we could we could manage the chorus, stretch to the chorus of "Despacito."
Mignon: So I was thinking, you know, people say that English is the hardest language to learn, and I don't believe that for a second. I mean, I think it depends on what your native language is. So, you know, if you grew up speaking, German English is not going to be that the hardest language for you to learn. You know, if you grew up learning a language that uses a different script like Arabic or Russian or Japanese, it's going to be much harder. So what are your thoughts about, you know, besides just the script, like what makes a language harder or easier to understand? And is it better to pick a really easy language to learn the first time? Or should you not pay attention to that and just choose, you know? Well, obviously you should choose what motivates you. But if you're trying to decide between two languages and maybe one is really much harder than the other. Do you have a feeling about which one is better to go with? I'd just love to hear your thoughts about that.
Kerstin: Yes, this is a great question. This is a great soapbox that I could climb on. I will try to stay concise. In essence, it is. It is my belief. Yes, you've got some languages where you might argue that they are harder or easier, and you've sort of alluded to it. It depends on how related they are to the language that you're coming from. So if I'm coming from German to English, I have got fewer like inflections. The verbs change a little bit less. There's not as many endings, English, you can be a little bit more. You can almost be like a little bit more sloppy because you guys, you've only got one article, and it doesn't even change with the case. You don't even have case. It's like, what is, you know, so English is I always thought, it's really easy to learn and really hard to get really, really good at. Whereas German, when I've been teaching German, I always think I call it front-loading. Like, you have to frontload a lot of grammar. And then later, it's actually fairly straightforward. You have to do all of the hard work at the start. And then later, not so much, but there's always going to be a point where hard work comes in. English is incredibly inconsistent to pronounce.
Kerstin: It doesn't make any sense in that way. Sorry. And German, however, is is very phonetic and makes a lot of sense. So. And then some people have said to me about the tones in Mandarin that they are so challenging and so hard, and I have not found that in myself. But there are other bits of Mandarin where it's not hard. I don't ... I try not to take it as hard. I try to take it as mind blowing. So they do this thing where if you say you have five friends, then you kind of have to say five and then use a counting word that refers to a person and then say friends. But then if you've got five books, it's a different counting words because it's a different kind of thing. And the counting words are like, Oh, this one's for flat stuff and this one's for plants. And this one is for things that are round, except they're not pens, pens or this kind of thing. And you just go, what? Like, you know, when somebody explains to you how the world is organized in those different eyes, it is absolutely just mind bending. So first of all, you can get excited about hard parts. It doesn't have to be the hard bits prevent you from succeeding.
Kerstin: And secondly, I would say that enthusiasm and interest are massively underestimated in the process of learning a language and will get you through an awful lot and will get you really, really far. The same, also with sort of having a reason to use a language, you know, when somebody learns a language for love or to, you know, communicate with the in-laws and get rid of that pain, that supersedes the pain of any kind of, you know, complicated vocab or grammar. You will learn what you need to learn. And I find it's ... I try to really resist when somebody implies that language is harder or another, like some people might use it as almost as a flex. I feel like with Russian, this happens a lot. The Russian teachers really like to tell you how hard Russian is, whereas I come from the point of view that I think it's more of a self-defeating thought. If you come and enter into the arena, so to speak, thinking this is going to be really hard and you're much better off, like trying to put those faults far away. Because if you've chosen to learn a language or the language has come and chosen you. Like to me with Welch, then like resistance is futile anyway.
Mignon: I love a good "Star Trek" reference. So, yeah, and I'm curious because you said Walsh has essentially chosen you, and you're really focusing on Welsh right now, and it's such a fascinating language because it's sort of all by itself out there on the language tree. It's not a romance language. It's not a Germanic language. It's just so different and interesting, and I'd love to hear more about, you know, why you chose Welsh and how it's going, learning that really interesting, almost unique. It's a troubled word, "unique," but tell me about Welsh.
I think they call it an isolate. It's not an isolate in the way the Basque is. I feel like I need to like check a load of other languages like Basque out there. I see you. You are more isolate or whatever and Greek, I think as well or as well, just like Celtic. And so you have some related languages, but it is certainly number one fascinating thing is learning a language that is a, yeah, we can call it a minority language. I think in the UK, right in the country where I live, where English is really widely spoken. It's not like an oppressed people or something that we in the way that we would traditionally think about it, like that, but it is an indigenous language of where I live, and I find that aspect really fascinating and giving. And I've learned so much about the UK. I sometimes say it's like in a video game where you're on the special, when you unlock the next level or like the special level. I feel like I've unlocked more UK through through Welsh. The sounds just got me straight away like it has. It has cool sounds.
Mignon: Give me an example. I'm not sure I've heard a lot of Welsh.
Kerstin: Oh, like, OK, the Welsh word for vaccine is a "brechlyn."
Mignon: Hmm, that's nice.
Kerstin: Now I feel really self-conscious. If I'm going to get everything wrong,
Mignon: I'm sorry.
Kerstin: And it has. It's got a cool sound, which is very rarely heard. So the way I had it explained to me that you make the sound is you go as if you're going to say an L, but then you blow out and use that for words like "llan." So there's lots of that. It's got lots of Ys. It's got lots of the sort of voiced the and I don't know. It's just lots of ... my friend Lindsey, who co-hosts a show with me sometimes, she once said that she really likes nasal and she likes learning Guarani. It's got lots of nasal sounds. So since then I've got this theory that each of us, we just have these sounds that we absolutely love that we really respond to, and some of the languages will do that for us.
Mignon: Nice. So you love the way Welsh sounds, and you're learning, and it's also helping you learn more about the culture of of your region.
Kerstin: Yes. Yes, the culture of where I live, which is fascinating. It's endlessly rewarding. It's a really friendly language community and you have just enjoyed it from day one.
Mignon: Right? Isn't there a movement too? I feel like I've read about a movement to really boost the Welsh language, like they're using it in schools, in Wales and in things like that. Is that right?
Kerstin: Not just they're using it in schools, but there are Welsh medium schools. If you choose them, like most of the population of Wales, would be able to access a Welsh medium school, which is it's at that point. The language is not a school subject anymore, but it is what what it truly is in life. It's a way of viewing and living your life. So that's really lovely. There is a campaign to get a million speakers, I believe, by 2050, and there's a lot of government support. So there's a lot of money in Welsh language education. And what I found really fascinating is that it's one of the few languages where the focus is, is like on adult learners. So there's an awful lot of material for adult learners and in interest in how adults learn, which we don't really get with most other languages where we think about them as you sort of learn it in school or you don't learn it. And in Welsh, there is, because of the language revitalization movement, it's sort of every age group in society should and will be able to have access to it if they want. There's also some people see it as a political symbol. There's some resistance. So that's a side I try to not really pay too much attention to because I stand so clearly on one side of that question. And it's just really affordable to take a Welsh language class. I think I paid converted $60 to $70 dollars for my year in Welsh.
Mignon: Wow.
Kerstin: Yeah, that's great. Heavily subsidized, which helps. There's so much support now.
But before before we started recording, you were telling me that the language apps sort of study how we learn languages like what's working and what isn't. And you talking about adult learners made me think of that again. Do you want to talk about how the how the apps are using us?
Kerstin: Well, I mean, as far as I understand, as far as I have seen, The apps really don't study so much like what works and what doesn't work in teaching you a language. Partly that is also due to the fact that sort of everything works. And, you know, individuals work in different ways. But what they do study and what they do kind of benefit from is apps for language learning are incredibly good at trying out and learning how as a person, you build habits. And that's why losing your streak feels so monumental in your life.
Mignon: It feels terrible.
Kerstin: Yeah. But why right? It's because the app has really figured out what makes you come back to the app. And I think sometimes that is and they've done it through the medium of learning languages, which puts us in a weird place because we think often and I think language learning is often thought of as like this, like a good thing, you know, in all caps, A GOOD THING right?
Mignon: You know, virtuous.
Kerstin: It's virtuous, it's a virtuous thing to do. But then when you are a teacher, it can also go into and have lots of independent independent teachers run into this like you teach because you love to share and you want to give. But an app that comes and does this for free and does benefit from its users and does kind of, you know, make money in a different way. But it's sort of hidden. It can kind of undermine that exchange of saying, well, teachers work really hard and need to get paid as well. So it's been an interesting kind of different perspective that we've started looking at apps with for you as the learner. The question is really, do you want to think about that when you are downloading an app? Do you want to like start thinking about the ethics of your language learning app? If not, I think at this point it's absolutely fine. It's your choice, but it's an interesting thing to be aware of and in terms of practicality. Like, you're now getting language tuition free at the point of delivery, which is pretty amazing, but like just to just to sort of asterisk that and say that's not really an expectation that you can kind of carry on. And sometimes it's worth making sure when you're learning from a person to bear in mind that that person isn't the app and that person does have like it's themselves to support.
Mignon: Right? Yeah.
Kerstin: I know, you built me another soapbox there, Mignon.
Mignon: Sorry. Yeah, I've tried a lot of different apps and I have learned things. I've definitely improved my skills a little bit, but not to the degree that I maybe hope that I would in the amount of time that I spent. And I can see how it would be really helpful to talk to an actual human.
Kerstin: And you're never going to learn as well as you do from a person, right? Like language cannot be language learning, language usage because it is a living skill of communication between people. You can't game it out. You can't. You just kind of have to throw yourself into it at some point.
Mignon: Yeah, yeah. And you have to you have to risk sounding foolish too. I think there's something about learning a language that is humbling.
Kerstin: Yes. Yeah, that's oh, that's the bit I love about it. It's like, I know that's a bit everybody else hates, but I think it's genuinely exciting that it gives ... it puts you in the in the space of being a learner like, wow, yes, you're sounding foolish and stuff, but isn't the point to learn? And isn't the point of learning to not be perfect? I feel like it teaches you so much about life.
Mignon: Right? Yes. There's the joy of learning. And it's also it's given me so much more empathy for my listeners who are learning English. You know, I can go on Twitter and say prepositions, right? They're so hard. I'm struggling in Spanish right now, and I understand what you are now saying about learning prepositions in English.
Kerstin: Mm. Absolutely. Yeah, it's like there will always be this weird systems where you just sit there and you go, Why? But why does it do this? And it's also at those points, actually quite joyful to have the communication aspect and the talking to a person aspect because it reminds you that you will be understood even if your preposition is wrong.
Mignon: Right? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I know you definitely don't worry about being perfect. And you know, one of the things you were telling me about Chinese and how it has the different sort of word count word. And you know, one thing I've heard you mention is that, you know, learning other languages can help you be more creative, too. And let's finish up with talking about that, like how how learning languages can can enrich parts of your life, like that creativity that maybe people don't think of?
Kerstin: Mm hmm. Well, we've I mean, we've already sort of touched on it in terms of the idea of looking at your life from that different perspective of you as a language learner and thinking, "Well, how and where can I start building this into my life? Like, how can how can I enrich my life through this language?" I think that's a very interesting and fruitful question to ask yourself. And as a micro example that I have found through Welsh in particular, because I've got two friends who have been sort of on and off my tutors, my teachers, we've done exchanges and you sort of supported each other through and they both seem very excited about that. The fact that I'm learning Welsh and they've been extremely helpful and that has involved also, you know, because the way we communicate with our friends now is instant messaging and texting. So I have had to text in Welsh, which is actually incredibly fantastic writing practice. And I would recommend that to anyone who is, you know, maybe you're a little bit too nervous and you don't want to do the hours tutoring session or something like that, but try and find somebody where you can DM or text and just start using your target language just a little bit because it's so nice to have bite-size usage in something that you're already doing.
Mignon: Now that's a great advice, just a not even a full sentence, necessarily.
Kerstin: Yeah, yeah. Any every little bit counts, every little bit helps. We don't have to be like perfect and only complete, you know, full units.
Mignon: Fabulous. Well, thank you so much for being here with me today. This is Kerstin Cable from The Fluent Show. Obviously, you can get her podcast anywhere you're listening to this podcast. But where are other good places to find you online, Kerstin?
Kerstin: Yes, my website where is also a blog, and you can find out about my language coach work and sort of look at the different courses that I've created that is FluentLanguage.co.uk. And like Mignon already said The Fluent Show—it's there for you to listen to. I would love to invite you. You can get that anywhere or the website is fluent.show.
Mignon: Thank you.
And thank you for listening everyone. I'm Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl. You can find a transcript of this interview at QuickAndDirtyTips.com by searching the site for The Fluent Show.
Thanks to my audio engineer, Nathan Semes, and my editor, Adam Cecil. Our ur assistant manager is Emily Miller. Our marketing and publicity assistant is Davina Tomlin, who's halfway through crocheting their first sweater.
That's all. Thanks for listening.