Andrea:
Yeah. Thanks for having me. So yeah, I'm Andrea. Andrea, whatever. Yeah. I am from Germany, but I have Romanian roots, specifically from the Transylvanian Saxon community, which is a German minority from Romania. So my parents are born and raised in Romania and they came then to Germany just before I was born.
And currently I'm living in China with my family, with my Chinese husband and our 3-year-old daughter. And growing up I spoke both German and the Transylvanian Saxon and dialect, which is very close and quite similar to Luxembourgish, which I actually didn't even know until a few years ago. And also my Saxon is now a little bit rusty these days because I do not really speak it anymore. I think it's also dying language or dialect. It's not even an official language. I occasionally speak it with my parents. Yeah. And after I've moved to China, I met my husband here and during my exchange studies at Peking University in Beijing, we married, we got married and we have a three year, three-year-old daughter, which we raised trilingual with the German, English and Mandarin and yeah, Mandarin is also our family language. So I speak only Mandarin with my husband, but I primarily speak English and German with my daughter. German is the, I'd say 70% and English 30% because German is, to me just more important because my side of the family speaks German and I want her to be able to communicate with her grandparents and extended family.
Michelle:
This is all you said things and they were wonderful, they were factual. I just want to take a moment to recognize that most people are probably not giving a bio that is so, and this happened and that happened because you are this and that are actually really, really unique. And this mix I think is really spectacular to talk about. Mind if we start with your experience, you said that you studied in China, that's kind of how you got there in the first place. That's where you met your husband. Right. Okay. Can you take us back there and tell us what was that experience? What did you encounter? What made you, I mean, I'm sure it was like love, but what else made you curious enough and willing enough to stay?
Andrea:
Yeah. So actually I have to go even more into my past because I was always interested in Chinese language since childhood. So I was really drawn into these martial arts movies, Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan. I was obsessed with it. I loved it even though I never learned martial arts myself. And I always thought that, oh, the Chinese characters are so cool, they look so amazing and I want to learn this. But I never thought this can really be the case anytime because it's just so such a rare language in Europe to just learn because we learn French and Italian in school and stuff, but nobody actually learns Mandarin or any other language that is so different from all the Roman languages. Then I decided to go and study it as a minor at university. That is how I got into all this. And I had my first exchange in Hun, which is in the northern part of China. And then I had another exchange in Beijing, and that is when I met my husband towards the end of my semester of my stay of course. And I just wanted to learn it so badly that I was, I left all my German fellow students behind and I was just finding Chinese friends. I wanted to have Chinese friends. I wanted to do go on adventures with them. I traveled to the Great Wall with a monolingual Chinese friend and I couldn't even speak at that time. I used my whole body to communicate hands, feed my face and everythingā¦
Andrea:
Just to get along. But this was a perfect method for me to learn. And then I met my husband and I thought, we are just friends. Then we fell in love. I moved back to Germany after my graduation, I decided to go back to China because we were just video calling every day for almost two years. And then I thought, yeah, let's find a job in China. And then we moved together and then the rest is just got married and a baby. And now we still live here in China. Yeah.
Michelle:
Can I ask about your experience with communication with your husband in particular? So a lot of people make jokes about this because I think it's just an easy target. But for instance, when I met my husband, he's actually the first person that not that I dated who has a different background. Do you know what I mean? It's certainly not right. Lots of diverse people all the way everywhere. But for me it was the first person where I didn't share not just a native language, but I didn't share a native culture. I didn't share. A lot of people come to the US, they study here, they live here. The glue of what is the US binds you together. You don't have to explain things from the beginning. I learned that a lot happens when you don't understand each other conceptually even. So can you talk about early dating stage? Yeah, sure.
Andrea:
It was hard to be honest. It wasn't easy, not just because my Chinese was so weak at that time. It improved quick though because I wanted to communicate and it was a super good method for me just to learn. And the learning process was tied with it in experience. So some words I learned in Chinese, I can still remember where I was, what we did when I learned that particular word, not for all, but for a lot of words. And in the beginning I was just sitting there with my phone translating, using all my body language. Then we got along somehow. But the thing is, what is super important that you don't learn in university and school from a book wherever is the communication style like Chinese or the Chinese culture is a high context or culture. Whereas German or a lot of Western societies are low context culture. What does it mean in China when you communicate, you do not address things that directly and straight in your face. It's a lot of reading between the lines and saving face and just having a lot of context and be indirect. Oh my gosh. And we had a lot of misunderstandings because of that, because all Germans are so direct. Germans are so direct, and I had to adjust to that first. I had to unlearn my German way of communication in China, and that was pretty hard, I'd say, because it's the small nuances, you cannot learn that from a book. And we had a lot of fights also because I was perceived as rude, not just by him, also by friends, by people in China, but it is my excuse, she's a foreigner. She doesn't know. That is a good thing because Chinese people are really friendly and they know it, I think. But still, I'm pretty sure some people perceive me as rude or too direct.
Michelle:
Yeah, yeah, I get that too. By the way, French is also high context, which I didn't know because you think, oh yeah, Germany, France right next door, right? No, I am always told that I'm too direct. Yann's not here to defend himself, but I am like, what are you? I need you to use words to express to me what it is you feel. It's not only, I can't read between the lines, but as you well know, when you go to a different language, it's not just about translating. Certain concepts don't translate certain ways that you want to express. You can't find the exact parallel. So you're coming to the closest approximation. And when you're already doing that in your non-native language, it's like, and on top of that, you add in the contextual cultural layers. It's challenging. Yeah. I'm not going to say we fight a lot, but every two days we're like, wait, wait, is this one an issue because we have an issue with each other or because we misunderstood? And 99% of the time it's that. Yeah,
Andrea:
Yeah, sure. For sure. Yeah, that's even such an important aspect of learning languages. This is not just about words and grammar and accent or not accent or native pronunciation. The communication style plays such an important role and this is often not considered by many people.
Michelle:
Can you talk about how you managed to adapt then? Because personally I find it really hard to change what I consider me. And I'm this way in Chinese too, by the way, am Mandarin, and everyone tells me your Americanness is showing in your Chinese because you don't communicate, you're saying the right words, you sound exactly like everyone, but you don't feel the same when you talk because you're too, it's not just being too direct. It's like, yeah, you're too free, you're too open and just expressive. And I'm wondering if you can maybe give me some tips also on how you manage to actually feel like you can retain who you are, but also accept the fact that the communication style is different.
Andrea:
So it was a learning process for both of us.
So also for my husband, he knows by now, of course, he knows that I communicate, he'd say aggressively for, so we had a lot of miscommunication and fighting just because of the fact that I didn't know better and I wasn't even meant to be rude. So what helped me a lot was just get over the fight and then reflect on that, reflect on that. And I asked him a lot, so how could I do it better? Tell me? Because when I talked to his family or when I talked to my previous boss, that was also the same. And I was just Then tell me how. And then you just learn by every little misunderstanding that you had. And now by now, I feel so much more confident and it doesn't come to that extreme cases of misunderstandings anymore. It is just a learning by doing. I'd say for me it was like that.
Michelle:
I think a lot of empathy too on both sides and the cooperation, compassion, kindness, patience. Oh my God, I lack all those. To be honest, I am so much better than before. I really think that in the beginning, because you're new to the language and to the culture, you're just like, what is going on here? And also, is this person crazy or am I the one that's crazy? A lot of trust you have to give in those early stages. And I remember, and Jan and I will actually, I'm going to invite him on the podcast soon, and we're going to do an episode on just talking about personal experiences on his side. But he used to say that his mouth was hurting from needing to speak English with me for the first time ever so much. So number one, you're just like, my whole face is hurting, which is agitating in its own way. And then number two, you're like this freaking person, which I think I love is somehow so difficult just not getting it. So okay, but you've crossed that bridge, you found your tools learning by doing it. That's a great way,
Andrea:
That's an amazing point that you mentioned. Just that you also feel painful when you use another language. It's super painful. And I also, I had the experience that I, after a long day using Chinese, I just had a headache. I felt so exhausted after using it for hours that I just had to sleep sometimes after going out with my friends or whatever. And that comes easier the more you use it, but in the beginning it's super hard. That's an amazing point. Yeah.
Michelle:
When he first introduced me to his family, I think I slept for the first five times they met me because I was speaking so much and my French was not as fluid and I wasn't used to it. And his mother asked me if I'm just always a tired person and I had to say no, it's just because this language is exhausting me actually everything. Let's actually transition into talking about what you do. Obviously we met on your Instagram account and all the beautiful work you do there. Before I go deep into that, I just kind of wanted to hear from you your description, first of all, of what you are building, where you want it to go, why I think you can also explain, I know because we've talked, but then also if you could attach it to what we were just talking about. You have a kid now, you have this beautiful, magical, trilingual kid, right? Growing every day and how you talk about all these things or manage it with her.
Andrea:
So I started my Instagram account just because I need to go back to my childhood again because I grew up in a multilingual environment. My parents spoke German, Romanian and the Transylvanian Saxon and dialect. Even though I was exposed to Romanian on a daily basis, I heard it every day. They were communicating with each other like my parents and with extended family using that dialect and Romanian. However, I never learned Romanian myself. So being a multilingual parent doesn't automatically mean that your children will be multilingual too. So it's not just that easy. And what also is another very important point why I started my Instagram account is language prestige.
Some languages have a low prestige in a certain society, and for me it was that Romanian had a low prestige in Germany. So what is it? Language prestige, prestigious, closely linked to your identity, and if certain dialects or languages are often seen as more educated or cultured, while others may be viewed as less prestigious. That was the case for me and Romanian and I had some unpleasant experiences with people from my German village, also kids who made hurtful comments about it, about Romanian and the culture. And that made me somehow refuse to speak it or even acknowledge it. And that was a huge factor why I didn't start speaking it myself and use it. I always try to hide it and I think it's not just me. I think there are many families who go through this when they have a family language or a minority language that is low prestige in the society that they live in. And that can vary from place to place. It's not everywhere. But for me it was that case. And that's why I started my Instagram and created bilingual affirmation cards for kids who maybe have face the same challenges or families. And while I created these cards, I just found that they are not just for kids, they're also for us adults, because that was really traumatic for me. I have to be honest. And while creating those cards, I put all my heart into those cards. It somehow also changed something inside of me as a parent,
And I hope that they can help other people who might face the same challenges and struggles with their kids.
Michelle:
Yeah, and I assume you use them also with your daughter, right?
Andrea:
Yeah,
Michelle:
Yeah. And she can read them also in or not. Okay is three at the stage every she can recognize right words and also piece them together.
Andrea:
I read it out to her and I discuss them with her. So we talk about why do we speak different languages and maybe your friends, why is it important that all your languages, I mean, German is high prestige in China, so we do not have that problem in English two, but you never know what happens. That can also change due to political events or something. One hurtful comment sometimes is enough for a kid to first refuse it and it feels uncomfortable or develops insecurities about the heritage language or the culture. So you never know if that stays like this. That's why I do it with her, that she knows why we speak different languages and why it's important for me, why it's important that she can communicate with all her family members, even though they don't speak the same language, but she feels like a bridge between her two sides of the family because her German grandma and her Chinese grandma, they cannot even communicate with each other. So she is the bridge between those two families. She brings them together and she's really proud of it. Now she's very proud when she's able to translate. That's super interesting and funny to see.
Michelle:
Yeah, I think what you just described is so powerful for the mere fact that most people do not want to recognize that this is an issue. The transparency, the honesty, the proactivity, every possible strong adjective. I can put positive and strong adjective I can put on to describe this. I think most people would just accept that things are the way they are. Don't question it. We didn't write history this way. We can't change it. Just accept whichever language is in power and go with it. And why bother with empowerment or education? These systems are larger than this. And what you're trying to do is I think really, when I say powerful, I don't mean Instagram has killed so many of these words and it's like, oh, women are powerful. You're doing something great. It's so much deeper than that. Not even more. It's deeper because you have in front of you, your kid who is the representation.
I mean, you talk about your child's self, but now you're also responsible for her journey. And of course she'll walk it on her own, but having this as a foundation will at least give her the context to know how to deal with it as time goes on, as she journeys through it herself. When I think about my own, I call it baby Michelle days, right? Absolutely, yes. Even though it was the US was getting better at that time, people were becoming a little bit more tolerant. I still did not feel comfortable not speaking English in front of other English speaking people, and I would not use Chinese with my mother, with my grandparents couldn't speak English for a while, so of course I had to do that. But do you know what I mean? It's something that I think so many people, even if you grew up bilingual, there's some sort of other background context with that story. And so language prestige is something that I think we don't give enough credit conversation, you know what I mean? We don't put enough attention into this topic.
Andrea:
It's also that there are a lot of stereotypes out there. I think about any language or culture and that does something to a child. If somebody is just rude and makes a hurtful comment, and that can be also racist, a racist or just discrimination in any kind of form or whatever. And I have another very good example. I was in middle school and my German teacher at that time advised my parents not to use our family language, the dialect anymore because my German reading was so weak. They advised my parents not to be bilingual.
And now as an adult reflecting on that, I know why my reading was weak, not because of my home language or my bilingualism, it was just because I was super nervous to read in front of the class. I started a lot. It was kind of anxiety for me that had nothing to do with my other language, but teachers disencouraged me even more and made me feel insecure about my language. And then I just pushed away. Even the dialect that I now, I can still understand it, I can talk, but it's, oh, I have to think a lot to formulate a sentence and I need some time to get into it again. Because even teachers told me this is not, you're not normal. It's better if you just speak one language. Being multilingual is not good. It's better if you just conform, if you just become all the other cookie cutter kids that we have. So I hope now that teachers know better because it's also a few years ago, I think, and I hope that people know better right now, but I had lots of negative experiences with my bilingual journey. Yeah,
Michelle:
I think I would agree that one, we can always hope. We can always hope that things will be better. I agree that it's getting better. I also unfortunately see many parts of not just the world, but certain educational structures that refuse to change. And when you go down to the individual level, the teacher, the instructor, you know what I mean? It will take so much more. I actually think this is why there are people who work on language reform, but on the education side or better training for teachers, I'm like, oh God, I don't know if I have the patience or the time to explain to you why you should care. I would rather talk to the people who are making life decisions like learners, multilingual people, bilingual people, kids even going on this journey because it feels more direct for me. It's a decision I've made. I think it's a decision you're making also to go straight to the people making those decisions because at the end of the day, even if your teacher is telling you, don't do this or do that, I'm the teacher I know best. It's your life, it's your story. You get to write it how you want. So
Can you give everyone a little bit of background on the Sylvanian Saxon? It's a community, but it's also, it has a very specific history that is all on Wikipedia and open on my laptop right now because I have only heard of it in name. And prior to, you had never met anyone actually with this in their story. So can you enlighten us and educate us please a little?
Andrea:
Yeah. So that is actually dates back until the 12th century I think. So my ancestors probably come from the Luxembourg area because it's so similar. The dialect they speak and to Luxembourgish, and I think a Hungarian king then relocated some of those people to Romania. And my family, they lived in parts of Romania in their communities, so they were also trying to distinguish them from the real Romanians, even though they spoke all languages German, the dialect and Romanian. And it started a little bit of huge trauma for my parents also with the communist dictatorship at that time in Romania where they fled then back to Germany. And that's also something why my parents probably didn't want or were not keen on passing Romanian down to their kids. Also my brother and most of my cousins do not speak it. So it was really traumatic and they just wanted to give us a better future in Germany and forget about all this somehow. So it has so much to do with parents, not just with the kid. So if you lead by example and if you are proud of your heritage of your culture, then kids will mirror you. But if you're not, kids will sense that too. So this whole transylvanian Saxon thing is something I wasn't really proud of my whole life, and now I start to embrace it as an adult and I start to introduce my daughter to it too because unfortunately I do not speak Romanian. So it's harder. And I think the Transylvanian s Saxon and dialect is also about to die out in a few years or generations from my family, from my cousins. I'm the only one who speaks it. The others are all younger than me and they don't even speak it. So I think it's just a matter of years. I dunno about others, and I do not even know many who are left from our community.
Michelle:
And that was the other question I had. If you knew about population numbers of speakers,
Andrea:
There are some meetups maybe once a year where the Transylvania Saxon community from Germany gathers together and they have a little festival or something, but I have no numbers. It's thinning out. It's not regarded as important or advantages to know or to preserve.
Michelle:
So I'm on the same philosophical wavelength as you on this. So something I haven't told, I think anybody publicly, Gino, like my friends know, but my family has a long complicated history with mainland China, but also happier. No, I suppose while fleeing the country, my grandmother was actually a language and literature teacher, and she and my grandfather both had this philosophy that your language is a tool, it's a way. And of course if the government says you have to talk and act in this way, you listen. However, you can also preserve these remnants of where you came from. And they both, they spoke most of the dialects, to be honest. They were incredible and they were still learning. They learned English in their seventies. So when people tell me they're too old to learn a language, I'm like, you know what? It just ridiculous to me. I watched it. But I think that sometimes people who are like-minded, I forget that there are so many others that don't think unfortunately, that these dialects are worth preserving. I'm wondering if you can make the case for it in a direct way. If I put someone in front of you right now who is like, well, no, why learn? Right? It's so dumb. I know you've already explained it in a longer form. I'm wondering what would you say back to them?
Andrea:
Oh, that's a tough question. I had just say this is such a personal decision because all my family spoke that dialect within the family and I grew up speaking it and due to outside circumstances, I refused it and I pushed it away from me. But actually this was the language I used when I was a little child, when I had no problems to think about when I was happy. Actually, it started to become a problem when I started with kindergarten, when people from the outside came and somehow destroyed it. So it's somehow something, I have a deep connection actually, and this is something nobody can understand if you do not feel it. So why speaking it? Yeah, it might not be of use for my professional career, but it has a use for my internal state of being and for myself and for my, it's my roots and I want to embrace it. This is somehow where my family and where I come from, and it's passed on from generations. The Transylvania Saxon relocation started somewhere in the 12th century. It has such a long history and also the traditions who were passed on. So my family, I grew up with a mixture of those transylvanian traditions with Romanian traditions and then the German traditions all were combined together. But sometimes how we celebrate Christmas, I do not even really know, is that now a Romanian tradition, a Transylvanian tradition or a mixture of all of them or German or something, and I still do it the way I want. I want to do it, and I think that's just beautiful. I just want to do it like this. If somebody in Germany says, why are you doing things or traditions this way? It's just because I like to do it that way. This is how I grew up.
Michelle:
I think that's important to note that in the era of online trolls and people who just give you problems because they have clearly nothing else to do. I think what I hear from you is that you are doing this because it's your personal story, but also you want to inspire other people to take control of their personal stories to say you don't have to be ashamed. It's not that you necessarily have to choose this way, but you have the choice. Do you know you have the choice, right? It's kind of like that, right? It's like because when you have external forces like school, parents, society, friends, peers, whatever, telling you, you don't have just do this, just do this. Just conform, right? Much like your experience, it really can feel like, oh, okay, so my only option is this one. Got it. Right. And I think the fact that you recognized that you had to work on this whole finding it again and staying close to it, once you recognize that, you're like, I'm not letting it go. And the fact that you're the only person, if I heard correctly in your generation who can speak some of it or understand it, I think it's even more important because if you think about it in the ancestral way, it has to be through you. It could be, okay, well, it could be with them, but they'd have to learn now. They'd have to figure it out. And then they also wouldn't have those memories that you have that sort of very, very formative tie to the language.
Andrea:
Yeah, my brother never struggled as much as I did. He was just refusing it from the beginning, and he never had those, I'd say unpleasant experiences that I had. So for him, I just speak German. That's it. For me, it was more of an inner struggle. I, I'm his bigger sister, I learned it. And when he was born, I already refused it because I was in kindergarten and my parents just gave up. So she's refusing it. We do not even bother to teach her little brother. So was for him, it was just not even a question to bother about it. But for me, I grew up with it and then I made those experiences just, it's not a good thing to use or to acknowledge. And after I was maybe four years old, I started to refuse it, and that is still what, but I still think about it a lot because I still love it and it is my grandparents, I talked with them in that dialect and I have so amazing memories of my grandparents, and when I just think not to use it or not acknowledging it, it is really painful.
Michelle:
So that just kind of sparked a reflection and a memory in me because, so I obviously and always say that I grew up bilingual. I grew up with Mandarin Chinese and also English and okay, baby translator days, and we all know the whole story. Okay, fantastic. However, what I don't talk about is the fact that my relationship with the Chinese language is mostly tied to the fact that my grandparents were my primary caretakers for most of my young life. So, so my grandfather passed last year. It was just recently made known to me that I've virtually not spoken much with my family, even though of course I use it, I don't have that connection with them. And it's not that kind of tie that I have to the language to the person. I don't have it with even my mother, even my uncles. And so unfortunately, and I'm figuring out what I want to do about this right now, but with their passing in some ways, I have temporarily, it seems shut the door on this language as well.
And it's very, very strange for me because I've always been someone who's really comfortable with both languages. It was walking like, okay, what do you want? Okay, I don't even think about it, and I don't know exactly when I'm ready to deal with it. I'm a little busy right now. Cultivate is doing a lot of things. There's a lot going on. And of course, I have Jan, I have French. I mean, there's a lot of commotion, but what you talked about that early life connection to language to people, it's like a channel that I feel like you can only a radio channel or something. You can only tune into that when you're in that language, in that mentality, right? It's very, very strong. This emotional bond. Yeah.
Andrea:
Yeah, extremely. I was thinking about teaching my daughter the dialect, but I cannot even speak it that fluently myself anymore. So it's a lot of work to get back into all this and refresh it. I tried to talk to my mom, oh, it's really rusty, and I understand everything. No problem at all. But speaking it myself is a whole other story. It's super rusty. Yeah.
Michelle:
Yeah. I think it's what you described. By the way, I have only recently learned how many of my friends, which I'm talking, they could look like me. They could act like me. We are, I'm not saying we're the same, but it's like, okay, you're Asian American, woo, or you're ex American, right? I've only recently learned that a few of them actually did not learn their family language much for the reasons that we've already discussed, but one is assimilation. Two is their parents really did not want them to even have the option of thinking about being less privileged in some way, and so we can't change our physical appearance easily. But their parents decided to never allow this part to grow. And at home, their parents probably spoke some version of broken English or you know what I mean? Heavily accented English, but they refused to allow their children to hear even the family language.
That is, I think for some of my friends, very painful because now as adults and many of them marriage kids, kids are growing, actually not even just kids. So kids are growing asking questions, what language are we going to learn? This is our heritage, this is our background, but why don't you speak it? Wait, why does dad speak it? But why do you not? Yeah. So they're wrestling with it. I think for some of them it could be a great opportunity, you know what I mean? Both parent and child learn together, but it is, I think, very, very difficult also when they travel, because the expectation, I mentioned this on a different podcast episode, but when I travel, people are not thinking I'm from the us so most people are expecting me to come out with some Asian language and imagine they look like me. They travel, the only language they have is English. So I do think that it's important to talk about these topics because we can't keep ignoring them. We can't keep pretending they don't exist.
Andrea:
It's actually, I have lots of friends who do not teach their children their language because they think it's not useful for their professional careers or for their future life. It's not taught in school. Why should I even bother? I have lots of friends actually, because here in China, I have a really international community of friends from all over the world, and it's really obvious what languages are passed down and what languages are not. And that has also a lot to do with economic power and authority and small countries maybe, or languages with not that many speakers are easy, overseen and regarded as useless.
Andrea:
It's sad actually. I think it's sad. And to me, I just don't see the business case for it. Do you know what I mean? Say, okay, fine. Argue all you want, right? You think that it won't serve you fine, but why are we, if you have the tools already, right? Let's imagine that. Okay, you don't want to, I'm just trying to put this in an analogy that might make sense. Okay. You walk into a kitchen, you're like, oh, it's a fully stocked fridge. We have great appliances and everything everywhere, but we are going to ignore it this entire time. It's built in already. Why would you not use it? Or why would you choose to say the kitchen is bad? No, pretend it doesn't exist, right? It's like, yeah, but it doesn't have to be like this. I mean, you can't just speak the language at home, but you also can use the community language outside. Your child doesn't go out without you. So this is then you need to find a good strategy that works for your family. And when you feel uncomfortable not using the community language, Then find a place or a time or an activity where you use it. You can still expose your child to all of the languages, but when they go to kindergarten and school, most of them learn it anyway. That's at least my experience. And then it's hard to preserve the minority language, the family language.
Michelle:
I think a lot more education will help across the board on this. I don't know. I don't know how we'll just change it, but just slowly, hopefully before our lives end, but I have no idea. Okay. I'm going to get to some of these other questions that we have. We've touched on most of these, but I kind of want to turn it and intersect it with your personal experiences as a language learner in a more formal sense. So thinking about what we already talked about, what you've been told by some of your teachers, but things that may feel like the industry is doing well, if any, but also things that could be improved specifically in the education sense.
Andrea:
So what I've not mentioned yet is that I went to a language school to be trained as a foreign language correspondent in English and French. So what my experience was is that my classmates, we all had different levels of English. I was a bloody beginner in French. While I think over 90% of my classmates had an advanced level of French. So it was really hard for me to keep up. The teacher was way too fast. It was okay for them, but not for me. And the methods they used were just really dry and theoretical, which I had a huge problem with, especially starting out with a language, multiple choice or fill in the gap or cross out the wrong form, made me so anxious and so stressed out in that short period of time because all the other classmates were so fast doing it that I developed really anxiety, especially with French, even though I loved it. I love how it sounds. It's so romantic and elegant. I always wanted to learn it, but my experience was rather a negative one, and the methods used didn't help at all. It was so abstract and formal that I could not even formulate a sentence freely, because in my head was always like, these exercises, multiple choice or fill in the gaps, that the focus is on correctness and avoiding mistakes because French has all the endings where you do not even pronounce them. And if you forget to write a letter, then this is a mistake. And it was, even though you don't say it, you did it wrong. Yeah, it's wrong. If you write it down, it's wrong. And the focus was always on being overly correct, and that somehow killed the confidence to use the language. I was always thinking, oh, I need to be correct with this. And I was thinking so much just to formulate a sentence, absolutely correct that I was actually intimidated to use it, and now I do not speak it fluently anymore. Not at all. If I hear it a lot, I can somehow refresh it and it's easier again, but it's rusty also. Yeah,
Michelle:
Same. Oh yeah, sorry, go ahead. No, the It's okay. You said, same with English?
Andrea:
Yeah, the same was with English. All these methods, I think they need to be revised and updated a little bit. It's really, I think for a lot of many learners, it's hard to learn this way, but just learn from a book and less interaction from the teacher's side. Yeah.
Michelle:
Isn't it interesting how many people will say, I think it's the top, it's not top 1, 2, 3 complaints. I hear all the time, I didn't do well in whatever language because I felt like the teacher was just trying to get me to mark things correctly or say it the way that they want, and I don't understand how the language works. I don't know what they really want from me. I still can't talk to anyone. I did seven years of Spanish and I could conjugate. I figured it out at some point. I just dunno, miracle one day and I was like, oh, this is a conjugation, right? Because no one explained the concept to me, but I never could speak it, right? And so how many times do we hear things like this? And yet it's interesting that we still, how many years of complaints has it been, right? How many years of people talking like this? And yet why is this so slow to change? Why is this so impossible to reform in a way? I do think it's a larger problem with education, like old methods and stuff, but language in particular is so stuck and it's more rhetorical. I know that probably we won't have the answer, right, but it's your experience. My experience. I think it's a lot of people's experience in formal education for languages language school in Germany. Is that right?
Andrea:
Yeah.
Michelle:
Yeah. Okay.
Andrea:
Yeah. So I think it's also a problem because it's testedā¦ all the languages you have to do. They get tested, all the testing, and maybe a person has a high score and is doing well in a test, but when it comes to real life usage, there is nothing. And it was often the case for me. I had a high score, I learned it by heart. I conjugated in my head and I wrote it down and this and that. But when I was about to use it, I was just like, I don't know what I'm doing here. I have to think way too long. And if you just speak and use the language and are comfortable and not scared of it, I think grammar and all this comes from naturally,
Michelle:
Of course. Also like, oh, I see that I can make small steps progress, and that motivates you. And you're like, when you feel like you're hitting a wall all the time, and also that wall is literally a teacher or somebody telling you you're wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. How dare you, how dare you not add the S like, oh my god, that just horrible. You should just go rethink your whole life, right? It's like I never, I did do a little bit more like the formal side of instruction, but it was always with adults, it was always free and you kind of decide what you want and yeah, I was always told things like, oh my God, you're so different. Oh my god, it's so cool. Oh my God, I didn't know that you could, and I'm like, to me it was just so natural because why it would be easier for me to go and take copy pages from a book and just say, go do this. Go do that. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Right, right, right. But what is the purpose of a teacher then? What is the purpose of me being there? I don't want to just be a robot to just, I don't need to be there. Then we could all just hang out.
Andrea:
Yeah, you can do it on your own.
Michelle:
Yeah. Yeah. Have you tried learning other languages? I'm curious. I know that you have your plateful, but
Andrea:
Yeah, I have tried Italian, French, Korean. Yeah.
Michelle:
Okay.
Andrea:
But for French and Italian, it was just that I had it as a subject in school, which I could choose. I could choose different languages and ended up forgetting it because I wasn't using it in real life for Korean. That was when I was just bored. I was a new mom, and when the baby was asleep, I thought I need to just do something not to get my brain all too rusty or something. And I started Korean, but I was lacking of the interaction, so I gave up. Then you're
Michelle:
Reminding me that at one point, I think it was two years ago, I just walked in one day and I was like, I can't do it with French anymore. I just need something else. And I just did two weeks of Korean study because I was just like, why not? I have a lot of Korean friends, this could be fun. And then I was like, okay, no, I don't have the time for this either. But I'm wondering, you have such a really robust and rich language, linguistic background. Do you have your personal tips that you can give to people who are struggling because they're hitting that wall all the time? You often hear just work hard or just find the right. I think we need something a little bit more tangible or a little bit more authentic sometimes. So what would you tell people who are maybe becoming discouraged or they need a, I hear this a lot. They need to learn a language like English in particular. They have to improve because they have to work with those stupid Americans who are just part of the company. I hate them to sort of motivate them and empower them.
Andrea:
So if it's not just about getting a high score and a test, so when it's about real usage, real life usage, what I tell a lot of people, and what I did myself is learn a child, A child is not learning from a book. You first start with a lot of listening. You first start to develop an understanding of the language, how a language sounds, how it sounds correctly, whenever that is. But you get a feeling of the language and then you start speaking it, and that is then the interaction part. Interaction is so important. Just interact without even looking how a word is written. This helped me a lot, and if I know how to speak, then I went and looked how it's written, but then you already have a feeling for grammar. You have a feeling how it sounds incorrectly, how the tenses and everything. You already have a feeling of it for it. And this is also how a child develops language and how a child learns.
Michelle:
Pattern recognition is literally what children and babies do, and it doesn't have to be overtly explained to them because they don't have the cognitive capabilities to understand these concepts. They're just like, oh, I see this goes to that, goes to that, and I'm just going to keep doing that.
Andrea:
So what I did also for Chinese was I had my friends, I got some language partners. I told them how I want to do it because it works for me. It doesn't mean it's working for everybody, but I told them, can we please do it like this? I just printed out some pictures. I showed them the picture, and I just wanted them to describe what we see. Describe this is a house, there is a dog, the dog is walking towards this and that. It's sunny or it's rainy, and just talk about the picture when we are not out and about doing other things, if I really want to do it with sitting somewhere in the library or something, just I started with looking at pictures, not even seeing the word, because this is what I did in my studies when I was in the course with my teacher, but I wanted to have that natural flow and the natural interaction and just listen a lot. Listen, because the teacher always talked in German when explaining things. Always using German.
Michelle:
Yeah,
Andrea:
That's the other thing.
Andrea:
And how should I ever get a feeling for the language when everything is explained to me in German? And of course it's not possible to explain it to me in Chinese. Because I don't understand anything for a beginner. So that's important to start really with easy tasks, just describing a picture, point to the things, say the words, then make the sentence structure a little bit longer, add a little bit more detail, and then it just felt so naturally for me, and I picked up super quick, and that is what I did outside of my studies with what I had to do and homework and everything with what I had for my teacher.
Michelle:
I think this piece is really not to be overlooked, and somehow it's always never mentioned. You hear a lot about classroom education. Oh, okay. Oh, I want to learn this language. I want to improve this language. I'm going to go find some sort of formal setting because I need this book. I need this person who's apparently qualified. We can debate that in a separate setting, but the fact that you need to find real people and talk to real people and listen to how real people are using language seems to just be invisible. It's just like a, oh, yeah, that would be nice if I had more time, but I'd rather go sit in a classroom, have it explained to me in my native language, which why do you even need to over complicate it? Since I only work with and have only worked with adults for years now, I'm just so annoyed sometimes that they are so in their heads about the concepts. No, but I think it's because of this, and we're arguing like theory, and I'm like, no, no, just stop it. Just get this right. Get this out, and you're right. Think like a child or allow yourself to learn as a child. It doesn't mean that you have to lower your intelligence, but don't over complicate the issue.
Andrea:
And my first exchange in China, I bought children's books for myself. I took them back to Germany and I was just looking at children's books just to get that quick access to language because sometimes in all the material you get from your teachers, it's so complicated and it is some topics you do not need for your first visit to that country or for your first usage. Of course, you learn how to introduce yourself. Okay, that's fine. But then you learn things that are not necessarily the first thing you use when you go there or when you interact with a local. And I think children books for me were so I had easy access to language through those children books because it's just very simple, very basic. And for me personally, it was a great way to get a feeling for it. Super easy sentence structures to just get behind all the grammar stuff that everybody talks about.
Michelle:
Yeah. Yeah. I have things to say, but I'm going to wrap up here for now because we are at time. We are a little bit past time. I've been trying to keep these under an hour. It has not been working. It's like there's too much to talk about. I would happily, the other night I went two hours and then I just cut it. But why don't we talk about your affirmation cards, which is this wonderful tool. Affirmations. First, I'm not sure everyone understands this concept. Can you explain what affirmations are and why they're important to do?
Andrea:
Yeah. Affirmations are positive statements and they are designed to help you be confident. There are very general affirmations, like I'm strong, I'm intelligent, I'm smart. But the affirmations I created are very specific for families who face challenges raising multilingual kids or multicultural kids who maybe have the challenge of a low prestige language, family language, just to have a tool to talk with their kids about it, and also maybe to heal their own trauma to a certain extent, and just to reflect on their heritage, to explain certain things to their kids. Why it's important for me that you know this language, it's a gift that both languages and that you can communicate with all of your family members, even though they speak different languages. It's a gift. It's not an obstacle. It's something you should be proud of. You're bridging cultures, and that is something beautiful, I think.
Michelle:
Yeah, I think it's also to put it in the, so sorry, I was just going to jump in here and say that if you take the example of you going through this with your daughter, what you're doing in my perspective of it from my perspective is that you're helping offset all of the negativity she or anyone else will encounter in her external life. She has a mother who is so supportive in this case, but there are plenty of kids that don't have that at home. They're going to go to school, they're going to encounter all this stuff, affirmation cards at least, or just some sort of positive support will help reinforce the fact that they don't have to feel ashamed. And it's something that is very, very, very real. And if you can find a way to tap into it, I feel like that could be so useful because as you talked about, these kids grow up to be adults, and then when you go and look back, you're like, my child self really would've appreciated something like this.
Andrea:
Because external factors, we are never in control of those. There will always be people who make hurtful comments who will be discriminating against your child or are racist or have stereotypes. We cannot control that, but at least we can try to develop an inner strength in our children and inner pride that the child is able to say, no, that's not true. What you're saying right now, I know that this is not true. I know what it's about and what you're saying is not true, and I don't believe you and I don't care about that. And it's hard for children because they cannot reflect like we adults can. So my goal with the affirmation cards is just to give them a tool and the support, it might not eliminate the problem, but maybe it can soften the impact it has on children in case they make that experience one day.
Michelle:
Yeah. Yeah. I think that I know a lot of adults who would also appreciate it. So we have a special opportunity, I'll say, for people who are listening to this podcast, essentially you'll be able to get a taste of what we're talking about, but at a discounted price, 50% is very generous. Thank you for doing that. That's very, very nice of you. And I will of course recommend and promote you to everyone because I think the world could absolutely use more of this. So thank you so much for being here.
Andrea:
Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure!
