Simplified Speech #243 – How we learn our second languages

0:00Hello everyone, and welcome to Simplified Speech, the QLIP series which features clear, natural, and easy to understand conversations between native speakers and joining me today to talk about language learning is my co-host Indiana. Hey there, Indiana, how's it going? I am good, Andrew. It's quite late my time here at a long day, but I'm excited to talk about one of my favorite topics, language learning. With you, somebody I know also really appreciates this topic, so I can't wait to get started. Yeah, it's going to be a fun one. This is one of my favorite topics to talk about. And for listeners out there who don't know, of course we are English teachers in Indiana, but we are also passionate language learners. So just like you guys, you guys are learning English, Indiana and I are learning our own different second languages, and we're going to talk about what we do to study and to improve our language skills in this episode.

1:04And maybe you guys can learn something, maybe a new way to approach learning English, or maybe you can share your English learning tips with Indiana and with me on our discord community as well. And we can sort of exchange knowledge with each other and hopefully at the end of the day we can all take home something that we can apply to our own language learning situation so that we can improve our skills faster and better than ever. Now, Indiana, speaking of improving your skills faster and better than ever, guys, we have a helpful study guide and an interactive transcript available for this episode. In the study guide, you will find detailed vocabulary explanations and examples. There's example conversations that you can study with. There are speaking practice questions, writing practice questions, and even quiz. And if you would like to get that interactive transcript and study guide, you have to become a Q-lips member, but don't worry, you can sign up and become a Q-lips member for an affordable price on our website, which is qlips.com, or you can just follow the link in the description for this episode.

2:12And when you are a Q-lips member, you'll also get access to lots of other benefits and bonuses that we have designed to help you improve your English fluency. Maybe the best one is our weekly speaking classes. We hold three speaking classes each and every week for members. One of them is taught by me. One of them is taught by Indiana, and one of them is taught by our other awesome English teacher here at Q-lips, Alina. And yeah, it's a great way to connect with other Q-lips listeners who are highly motivated English learners, just like you, and to practice your speaking skills. Visit the website qlips.com and sign up and become a member today. And of course, a huge thank you to all of the members out there for your support. Guys, we really, really do appreciate you. Okay, and with that announcement out of the way, Indiana, let's get into our main topic for today, which is studying second languages and how we approach studying second languages.

3:12And I think listeners will be pretty familiar with my second language situation as a Korean learner. I've talked about it many times on Q-lips before, but I don't think we've talked about your situation too much. So let's start with you. And could you give us just a brief background and explainer about your experience learning different languages? Absolutely. So if we're going all the way back to school, most Americans have to take French or Spanish during middle school or high school. And I took Spanish during that time. And I think I've lost most of it now. But I really loved learning it in school. I would soak up the words like a sponge. I was so into it. I really loved Spanish. And at that time, I also got really interested in Japanese. Not even really for any good reason, but I just like fell in love with the way the language sounded.

4:14And I was so fascinated by the congee, the Chinese characters and that whole writing system. So I got really into Japanese and I ended up studying it at university. My undergraduate degree is in Japanese studies and women's studies. You may recall from previous conversations I studied abroad there during my time at university for four months in Osaka. Yeah, so I've been studying Japanese for a very long time. My speaking is not as good as it used to be when I was in the country. But yeah, I use it a lot in my work. And in addition to Japanese recently, the past couple years, I've been trying to learn some German. I guess like partially for heritage reasons, like my family, I have some family that lives in Germany. But I don't know, I'm just like somebody who gets sort of attracted to certain languages.

5:16Sometimes it's like a quick moment of inspiration that doesn't last very long. Like I learned how to read hungul in Korean and very basic stuff. And then I just kind of it fizzled out. Or I really like Brazilian music. So one day I was like, I should learn Portuguese, but it did not go anywhere. So I realized that I should really probably just stick to one or two target languages, you know, so you can really focus on them. So right now, you know, maintaining and improving my Japanese. It's my goal. And I'm still quite a beginner, you know, maybe a two level in German. So yeah, just trying to work on that most days and improve there. Very good. Yeah, I have to totally say that I understand where you're coming from. Like the grass is always greener on the other side, right? Sometimes when you're in the trenches, learning a language and you've been learning it and studying it for many years, it can get a little bit boring or a little bit tedious or a little bit frustrating.

6:19And so you look to another language and I felt this temptation before myself with French and well, I have studied French for a few years. So I got to probably an intermediate level in French, but also with Japanese, I think Korean and Japanese are similar enough that there's always the temptation to try and study the other one. So I totally know where you're coming from that is like, it would be so fun just to start again and to learn a new language, but I'm right there with you where I have to keep my focus on Korean. I have to keep my foot on the gas pedal. I can't stop and pause because I'm worried that I'll lose my progress or I just am not at the level that I would like to be at yet. So although it does seem very tempting to start a new language, I have to keep my focus on Korean. So that's very good. Indiana, you study Japanese and study German. How do you go about studying your languages? Maybe you could tell us what your routine looks like, maybe how much time you spend studying or learning the languages, what you do, what your techniques are.

7:30I imagine there probably aren't too many native Japanese and native German speakers in your area. I don't know. So how do you practice the languages and improve them? That's right. And that's one of the reasons that the lack of native speakers or fluent speakers, advanced speakers in my area. That's one of the reasons that my speaking skills are probably the worst compared to all of the other skills we usually talk about with language, reading, listening, writing, these kinds of things. But yeah, so I do try to get some speaking time in if I can like hire a private tutor on something like I talky, there's also other services online. But something that I can do, because I'm not like a super social person and it takes a lot of energy, honestly, to do the talking part, like that's essential. There's something you absolutely must do for language learning, but it takes a lot of energy. I have to be turned like on to do it. It takes a lot of brain computational power.

8:40So like, you know, I have that designated time, maybe like once a week or something like that. But day to day, I try to study a little bit every day when I can. And something I wanted to talk about today was I love to use on key flashcards. So that's a NKI. And this is an application that's free on desktop and Android might be paid for iPhone, but it's a really, really cool app that you can use to review flashcards. You can make your own decks or download other people's decks. And you can customize them with lots of example sentences or add audio files and image files. Something that sets this flashcard application apart from other ones is that it's a SRS system, which stands for space repetition system. So this basically means that when you review words and you see a word, oh, I know that word right away, no problem.

9:47You mark it as easy so that it doesn't come up again for like a week or a month. You don't have to review it because that's a waste of time. You know this word. But if you mark a word as okay or hard or didn't get it right, it uses those categories to decide how frequently this should be showing up in your review session. So you have to keep encountering the difficult words, which is really helpful. And it'll maybe a little bit better than regular analog flashcards like if you made them by hand. I guess you could put them in different piles, but that's just a really great feature for every day, you know, you do 15, 20 minutes of flashcards. I love to do that. And it's a it's a really great habit building. And I find it effective for sure for learning vocabulary. Do you use Anki Andrew? Yeah, I have been an on and off user of Anki throughout my language learning journey. I used it for a long time at the beginner stages. And I think it's really, really great when you're learning a lot of the high frequency vocabulary that those are the words that you will see often again and again.

11:02It's just really helpful as a beginner and Indiana, like you said, you can download decks. So what a deck is, it's just like a package of flashcards that some other person has spent time making and you can just download it. So you don't have to spend time creating your own flashcards in Anki. It can be really helpful for saving time at the beginning stages. You can just download like a pack of the top 1000 most frequent German words or something right and study with that. So I definitely did that a lot when I started learning Korean and I did it for years and years. And I think it was, yeah, super, super helpful for helping me build the foundation of Korean vocabulary. Probably like until I got to learning 5000 or 6000 words, I used it a lot. And then I took a break because I was like, you know what, I think I know enough words now to just start learning from context. Once you can understand like, I don't know 80 or 90% of a TV show or of a novel or something, then it's easier to understand words in context.

12:11So I did that for a couple of years where I just sort of put Anki on the back burner and instead I started spending more time just consuming Korean contents and studying with novels and movies and TV shows and podcasts. Anything like that where I could get some natural Korean exposure and my philosophy at that point was like if a word is important enough to learn, I'm just going to hear it or see it so many times that eventually I will get a dying curiosity about what it means. And then I'll look in the dictionary and I'll know what the meaning is and then it's going to be frequent enough that I'll see it again and again and eventually I'll just learn it. And that was really cool because I noticed for the first time what would happen was when I would speak Korean with my wife, these words and expressions that I didn't really actively study just started coming out. And some expressions that I was curious about like I had noticed them in the past and I'd heard Korean people use them and say them but I was always like I don't understand what that really means.

13:18Just suddenly naturally started coming out of my mouth and that was so cool to notice this like organic language growth and yeah that was a really big boost for my motivation and encouraging to me. And it's also I'm really lucky guys that I have a native speaking Korean wife that I can practice with because the stakes are so low for making mistakes right like if I swing and miss and that's like a baseball expression that we use right to swing at the baseball and to miss it's like a strike right it's a swing and miss is essentially making an error. So if I make an error with my wife it's like not embarrassing or anything it's totally fine so I also had that perfect environment where I could be experimental with the language and I could try and say something and if it was incorrect then it's not really a big deal and my wife could also say like what what are you talking about that doesn't make sense and I could learn that way as well.

14:19So yeah I went through that stage of just not really using Anki and trying to more naturally learn vocabulary but now I'm back on Anki and I think the reason why I'm back on Anki is because I think I've got probably I don't know it's really hard to estimate but probably I have a solid Korean vocabulary of somewhere between 10,000 to 12,000. So that means like all of the most frequent vocabulary probably I know but there are things like idioms that are still very difficult for me there are these kind of idiomatic expressions that are based on four Chinese characters in Korean those kind of idioms are tough for me maybe those are present in Japanese as well I'm not sure they are. What else just some like slang and infrequent vocabulary especially so now all of the frequent words that come up again and again and again and again I know those ones but the words that are not so frequent that are like very rare and don't come up so often those are the words I don't know and this is why Anki is so helpful is because it can show me those words when I think I'm going to forget them and it's important to have a flash card for me.

15:44Because I won't hear them in everyday speaking too often like maybe I'll only see it once in a while or in certain situations words like think about during COVID Indiana we we heard words like quarantine really often right during COVID we talked about quarantine all the time but in just regular situations normal situations that's a pretty infrequent word. So maybe I would learn a word like quarantine during COVID but then I'll never hear it or never see it again in my daily life in my daily speaking and just watching a regular TV show and so I would add a word like that to Anki just so I could get a reminder of that very infrequent vocabulary and so yeah that's how I use Anki now those rare words that are harder for me to remember. I think you make a good point with it that it can be so helpful at those beginner stages where you just need to learn those most frequent few thousand words and just get them in there you have there's so much to learn you know it's a mountain of words and it's really helpful to have those flash card decks.

16:54And then maybe you get that upper intermediate plateau what plateau is when you're not making any progress really or it doesn't feel like you're making progress like when you're a beginner in a language everything is new and you're you're just taking it in and you learn such a rapid pace. But at a certain point it's it's kind of flat the progress flattens out like if you imagine a graph and doesn't feel like you're learning that much new stuff or that you're progressing. But once you get past that plateau and yeah you're in that situation where you're such an advanced learner that yeah you just need these niche words that only come up once in a while such a great way to expose yourself to them because yeah they're only going to come up once a month once a year in your actual life. Yeah really good suggestions I think for our listeners you know depending on what level you're at but even at that intermediate stage on key is helpful but maybe it doesn't need to be such a priority you know focusing so much on vocab acquisition at that that that intermediate stage yeah.

18:01And guys one thing that I will say about Anki is be careful don't be like me because I fell into the Anki trap for a little while where I was spending more time making flashcards and studying flashcards than I was just spending time with the language. So I went through this time where I you know maybe I'd have an hour or two hours each day to study and spend time with Korean. I don't even really like using that word study because it's not like I was actively studying with a textbook or grammar book or anything like that. I was just spending time with the language but I was spending time more with Anki than with the language. So I spent too much time making flashcards and just studying the flashcards really it would have been more beneficial for me if I just spent time listening to podcasts watching YouTube videos watching TV shows and doing more organic listening so I think Anki is an awesome tool but just be careful that you're spending most of your time listening to English reading English watching English content speaking in English doing these things I think is better Anki should be like 10% or 15% of your time with the language don't make it like 50% like I was doing.

19:19Please learn from my mistakes it's a great tool of course but you don't want to make it your entire study routine. Yeah that actually I would like to add to that 100% agree like I think you probably better off spending a little bit of time each day with it just to have the habit like maybe 15 minutes and that would be great and fine. But you're right like if you're just looking through a deck of single words it's probably not the most efficient use of your study time but I also have an alternative suggestion to improving that flashcard time. So one thing that I think could be helpful is instead of just reviewing your flashcards okay do I know this word I flip it over yeah okay that's what it means. When you look at the front card okay this is the word I'm being prompted do I know what it means yes okay I think I do then can I conjugate it if it's a verb can I use it in a sentence or try to write an example sentence with this word.

20:23That could kind of pick the study to another level where you're actually producing some language and of course it's more energy intensive it's not something you can so easily do. You know waiting for your bus in the morning which is the perfect time to use it on key. But if you have some more dedicated study time write down an example sentence and then maybe check that later by searching it on Google or using like chat GPT or talking to your tutor. You know see if that you know works well for you to create that yeah more active use with the language and then another thing I would add. So I don't just make on key flashcards with the definition and the term I love to include example sentences and some context for the word so. I also really focus on call occasions call occasions is a word I guess it's kind of a grammar term but this means words that most frequently show up together.

21:29So for example I guess in English when you think of the word bath like I don't know a bath tub like when you're going to take a bath that's one call occasion take a bath or run a bath right when you fill up the tub run the bath like that's a verb that very commonly goes with the noun bath. So to just learn one single word is great but if you can learn it in a larger context so like with common other words that go with it that's even better so I try to maybe look up a call occasions dictionary to get some of these more frequent usages for a term. Especially if it's a synonym with another word like okay another digression here the other day one of my English students was asking me about the difference between complex and complicated and my initial reaction is like oh it's like the same thing you know they're synonyms.

22:35But of course the answer is not so easy is that so if you look up like a call occasions dictionary with each of these words you begin to see situations where complex would be used where complicated is not used so like a complex system of transportation or highways or something like public transport. You more often see the word complex with something like that or in nutrition or science complex carbohydrate we can't just replace the word complex with complicated there like it's a set expression. So if you if you're trying to figure out the difference between two synonyms try to get some call occasions online through a dictionary or do a little research for your flash card and then you can connect those words with the larger context or frequent. Examples that they would show up in and I think that is so key especially for English learners because there's so many synonyms in our language and it's crazy making actually how many synonyms there are right and trip.

23:42Yeah so I would say two things I think that's great advice and great knowledge and if you know the call occasions those word friends I call them because they're always hanging out together if you can learn those call occasions that's awesome and it's great advice chat GPT is so so good for this you can use chat GPT to help you with this. And I think this is one of the really awesome features of these AI tools is how it can help us make example sentences and sometimes with studying for Korean I ask it to give me a definition of a word that I don't know and I have to say chat GPT is now better than the Korean dictionaries out there so it's it's so cool. But you can also ask it sometimes I ask GPT don't give me a one for one definition because sometimes when we translate a term in our target language into our native language it doesn't really give us the full nuance of it.

24:45So you can ask it maybe to like give you more context and say like when would I use this how is it different from this other expression and it can really be useful for showing the different nuance and shade of meaning sometimes I even ask it to generate an image so if I don't really understand a concept. Like there was this word that I learned in Korean recently that kind of roughly translates as surround but I was like okay I know a different word that already means surround but this one if I look in the dictionary it also says surround so how are these two terms different so I just got GPT to create an image for me and then it was kind of clear like I think that's really cool that we can use that. And then my second point again I'm going to come back to spending time with the language because I think if you spend enough time listening to English or just immersing yourself in the language some of these differences between how different words are used are just going to come naturally.

25:49So I know sometimes we like to really focus in all complicated complex what's the difference and it can be hard for native speakers to explain this but we can feel the difference and that's just because we've learned through immersion and I think as second language learners we need to do this to we need to spend so much time with the language that it just becomes clear to us and second nature to us how these adjectives are different and we can do that just with immersion and immersion will help us to start thinking in our second language. As well it will build our skills of thinking in the second language which will eventually translate to speaking better as well if we can think in the language and then we can speak in the language in a more fluent way so. I know I'm kind of biased because we make this English podcast to help people with their immersion experience right to help you guys create an English lifestyle and I'm not saying that some of these other study techniques aren't important but I just really want a hammer home that I think spending time listening to the language is the best study technique that's my personal bias and all of these other things are super super important as well.

26:59Anki is important practicing speaking is important but there are so many good benefits that come with listening and watching content in our second language as well that we just shouldn't ignore them. We've worked with thousands and thousands of English learners and especially here in Korea the students who are by far above and beyond the other students they all have one thing in common and that's that they have been obsessed with some kind of TV show maybe they were obsessed with gossip girl or obsessed with friends and they watched every episode like 20 times and they know the series inside out and they can all speak really well. Or they're obsessed with gaming and they spend a long time listening to to games in English or talking with their friends in English while playing the game. Those students are always so so much more fluent than students who have just studied by with a textbook or something like that so I think it is my bias but I've also seen the effects of being obsessed with listening and with watching content.

28:08So yeah I can't can't ignore that study technique. Yeah and I definitely listen to many many podcasts and my target language like if I'm at the gym or I'm walking the dog or I'm cleaning the dishes you know like filling in that gap time with as much exposure as I can get it's really great. And it's essential for sure I think that I'm also coming from a biased perspective of being a very very visual learner and like I definitely must have when you learn a language here the pronunciation here the cadence so that's like the the rhythm or the intonation that int native speakers use just by hearing it eventually I think you will be able to produce it and mimic it and it's so important. But if it comes to something like vocab for me personally like I have to see it like I'm much more likely to see it written and remember it or write it myself rather than hear it.

29:09And then there's many different kinds of learners out there so yeah the study techniques I have for with Anki you know that could work for some of you listeners out there not for others you know give it a try. If you if you haven't heard of it you you're feeling your you know maybe could use a little more vocab under your belt but yeah there's so many different kinds of learners it's very tough to you know ascribe. Oh this is the best method but well rounded is important I would say I totally agree you got to have the listening. Yeah absolutely I completely agree with you and what works for me might not work for you right what works for you Indiana might not work for our listeners like everybody has their different way of learning. And different lifestyle and I think the important thing at the end of the day is consistency so being consistent trying to do something every day or at least five six days a week like that is super super important. And then putting yourself in the right conditions to succeed so spending time with the language and yeah listening doing Anki these things like no matter what study technique you choose.

30:19Like doing it and doing it consistently you're going to see results eventually so I totally agree with you there Indiana was there anything else that you wanted to mention I mean I could go on and on and on about this topic. I'm all fired up now I could keep going but I wanted to focus more on your your study techniques is there anything else you do how do you practice speaking what do you do for speaking practice. Well it's very hard you know what no I think that is almost a cop out if I was had no shame zero level of embarrassment if I didn't feel some apprehension which is a difficult word for hesitation and not feeling sure if I should do something. Then I could just talk to myself at home I work from home I could talk to myself about what I'm doing today what my plans are just speak out loud in German or Japanese. And some people do this and it's very helpful for them like I have this hesitation from for you know about doing that I don't know why but so I try to.

31:28Let's say okay I watch a YouTube video I think that's somehow I have less hesitation about this I watch something or I read an article and I try to out loud summarize it to myself and I'm probably going to stumble and say a lot of wrong things and have to do it a bunch of times but. I find that summarizing something or trying to explain something is one of the more challenging but really essential things in language learning so. I think you can do that by yourself and just try to force yourself to speak because like I said yeah there's very few German or Japanese speakers in my area but then of course get a tutor right find an online tutor a local tutor it's worth it to. Shout out a tiny bit of money each week for that one on one time that totally focused speaking time with feedback that is really important so I also definitely try to. Make time for one on one tutoring sessions in my target language yeah yeah speaking is a physical process right we have to retrain our tongue to move in a certain way we need to retrain our mouth and our lips and our breathing in a certain way and so.

32:36Yeah don't ignore speaking practice Indiana what I do of course our situations are totally different because I'm surrounded by native speakers and you're in an area where there aren't so many native speakers. So I'm kind of lucky in that regard that it's pretty easy for me to find speaking practice partners but one thing that I would maybe give as a tip to you because I know you're a dog owner and probably a lot of our listeners are as well. Just speak to your dog in your second language I speak to our dog all the time in Korean I never speak to my dog in English and yeah it's just like it feels less weird to speak to something right like if you're just speaking by yourself I know it can feel embarrassing for whatever reason like even if you're just home alone it's like you kind of feel crazy talking to yourself but if I talk to my dog then it feels totally natural so yeah maybe you could try talking to your dog. Try talking to your dog in Japanese and German your dog will probably be pretty confused like what's going on but good to yeah I'll try that.

33:41Yeah and it's also I mean I don't know if your husband is studying any of the languages you are but I noticed that once we adopted our dog then I had to talk about the dog to my wife often. And so then I started using all of these different verb forms in Korean that I just never had exposure to before like you have to do something to the dog you have to I don't know put the jacket the rain jacket on the dog when you take him for a walk in the rain for example. Like yeah there's all these different verb forms these passive verb forms and causative verb forms that I wasn't using until we got the dog so that's my other tip get a dog and it'll be great great for your language learning for your English speaking as well. And I have one more question I know I don't want to go on for too long here so you're you and your wife what would you say is the percentage of English versus Korean at home or like do you try to switch it up and kind of take turns because I assume like she has some injury I actually don't know anything about her English level but does she practice or speak some English.

34:55Yeah she can speak some English when we first met I think she was pretty interested in improving her English and now maybe her I don't know she speaks it's kind of crazy and frustrating for me because it seems like her English just keeps getting better and better but she doesn't really actively study or do anything it just like gets better magically. And that's very frustrating for me because I feel the opposite I feel like my Korean is sort of stagnant but I spend a lot of time and put a lot of effort into it so I don't know she's like just talented in that way where she can improve just magically but I think it would be interesting to her here her perspective because she would probably say that we speak like 90% Korean and 10% English but I think it would probably be more like 70-30 where we're speaking maybe 30% English. I'm really like trying to focus on Korean because we live in this country and it's just the best to focus on it so yeah I'm kind of selfish in that regard I know she likes speaking English and practicing English as well and sometimes we'll go through phases where I only speak to her in English so that she can get some language.

36:17Practice in as well but since we're in the country and I'm an immigrant here I think it's really important for me to get as good as I can at the language and that just makes everything better for me in this country so I would say we mostly speak in Korean at home but this has pros and cons and I think if there are any listeners out there who are married to a native speaker of English maybe you guys will have the situation as well because of my line of work because I'm an English teacher most of my professional life is spent in English so I'm speaking English throughout most of the day at work and at Q-lips and I'm thinking in English and then when I come home then I switch to Korean but you know I'm a busy 41 year old so I don't have too many opportunities to go out and like socialize in Korean my hobby running is also kind of solitary I mean I could join a running crew and I've been thinking about doing that for a long time but I just haven't found one that fits my schedule because yeah this is an adult problem right we have these busy schedules

37:28and it's hard to find time to meet with a running crew and to be social talking about running in Korean so one of the things that I find is that I'll talk with my wife a lot and this is great because I get lots of speaking practice in but there are some things that develop that are a little bit unnatural like sometimes we'll create our own words or my wife will create her own words I've learned that she's really creative with the language and she'll make her like her own slang and funny jokes to me and I just think it's a regular Korean word like I didn't know that my wife was being like funny and joking around and saying some creative expression I just thought that that was a regular Korean word and we had this situation recently where two friends of ours they came over for lunch one day and we were just hanging out around the dining room table and speaking in Korean and I used one of these words that I've heard my wife use all the time

38:30and our friends kind of looked at each other and started laughing and they're like what are you talking about and then my wife started laughing and she's like oh that's just like my word that I use nobody else this isn't standard Korean and so I was like oh okay cool like I I thought that was awesome because I learned that my wife is this really creative funny person but then at the same time I realized like I have to be a little bit careful when my wife and I are joking around that maybe I'm learning these like words that are not standards in the language. Of course our friends understood what I was trying to say but it was just a non-standard way of saying that and I think every relationship probably has this dynamic right where you have your own like couple language to an extent so yeah that's one of maybe the disadvantages to having a native speaking partner is that you can get some bad habits too. Oh my gosh I have a quick bonus story you reminded me of this so this is something that I think I've influenced a couple of students with unintentionally so this can happen not even with you know married couples but could be a teacher tutor to student situation I sometimes I say cool cool cool like I say cool three times

39:50and it's just sort of something that I picked up on from a TV show that I used to watch in high school called community there was a character that like always said cool cool cool and I was like a weird thing that he did somehow I've like sort of absorbed that saying and I sometimes just say it to maybe I just really loved that character but I've noticed a few of my students started saying that and there's nothing wrong with it. You know you can say cool cool cool three times and it just sounds like you're being you know emphatic or emphasizing but I noticed a couple of my English students were saying that and I was like oh my gosh they they probably think this is like what everybody says so I mean not a disastrous influence but yeah pretty funny. Yeah everybody has their quirks when they speak right I know a lot of Q loops listeners have picked up on different quirks of my speaking like that I say the word actually a lot and so people say Andrew why do you say the word actually so often do I really do that I don't know and yeah actually I think I do say it often so yeah it's one of those things but I think it's cool

41:04and it's fun that we all have different quirks and different ways of speaking and yeah it's just good to be aware that maybe if you're just learning from one person it's not a good idea you want to be exposed to a lot of different speakers and a lot of different examples of the language so that you can notice when those expressions are non standard and that's my takeaway I was like oh maybe I'm only speaking with my wife too much maybe I need to speak with some other people so that I can hear their quirks and their ways of speaking as well so I got to do that more going forward that's my my next step with the language good call yes cool Indiana we should probably cut things off here we're going a little bit long I I love this topic I'm very passionate about this topic and I know our listeners are as well guys if you have any tips or tricks to share with us about how you study English about how you improve your fluency in English then please share them with me and share them with Indiana over on our discord community and you can share them with yeah all CueLips listeners as well it's a great place to connect and yeah to improve our English together so you can do that for free just click the link that's in the description for this episode I believe we have about

42:24500 people on our discord server these days. So there's an awesome community of serious, highly motivated English listeners and we're helping each other grow and get better on our server every day. So check that out and share your tips and tricks with us and Indiana. Maybe we'll have to revisit this topic again in the near future and we can share some more info with everybody. Because like I said, it is one of my passions and I think yours as well. So that's really cool. For sure. Yeah, I love to talk about the nitty gritty of learning languages. It's so super interesting. Yeah. Well, speaking of that Indiana, I think we should wrap up here. I'm gonna go spend some time listening to Korean because I've spent a lot of time speaking in English here now. So I got to get going in my second language. But guys, we'll leave it at here for today. Thank you so much for listening and good job on getting some long English immersion in with Indiana and with me today. Please take care everyone and we'll talk to you in the next episode. Until then,

43:27bye-bye. Bye.