Episode 1: Talking to trevor, a british perspective.

00:00:00 - Let me see. So, I think that, okay, perfect. So, hello, everyone. We are a group of linguistics.

00:00:13 - Today we are going to talk about some aspects about two languages that are Spanish and English, too.

00:00:23 - So, here we are with a great man that is Trevor. Say hi, Trevor.

00:00:33 - So, I don't know if Mauricio, are you there?

00:00:42 - Yes, absolutely.

00:00:44 - Okay, Angie, are you there?

00:00:46 - Yes, absolutely. I'm here. Hello, Trevor. Good morning.

00:00:50 - Well, it's late afternoon here, but I will say good morning to you.

00:00:55 - Yes, I know that we are in different countries.

00:00:59 - Right.

00:01:00 - Six hours.

00:01:02 - Yeah, absolutely.

00:01:04 - So I'm going to start.

00:01:07 - Do you agree, Laura?

00:01:09 - Yeah, sure.

00:01:11 - But first of all, I want to ask you, Taylor, if you can introduce yourself and tell us more about you, please. Okay, my name is Trevor, I am from England.

00:01:28 - I help your teacher out with activities such as these, helping her students to connect more with the English language by connecting with English-speaking people. Married, I have two children, have a wife, have a house. I work for my local government, I'm a musician and here I am.

00:02:00 - Great, thank you so much. So Mauricio, continue please.

00:02:07 - Yes, thank you very much for being here. Trevor, my name is Mauricio.

00:02:15 - Nice to meet you.

00:02:17 - Yes, nice to meet you Trevor.

00:02:19 - So I'm going to start making a little debrief about the project that we are searching right now.

00:02:28 - So it's regarding how a person how to learn a second language.

00:02:33 - And why is there like a challenges or advantage or disadvantage when you are going to start a second language and being in contact with other people and culture?

00:02:46 - And so one of the main objectives here is, yes, like an interview with you and also share our experiences so we can learn more about the, about how to do the process correctly.

00:03:01 - You have to stay like in a processing in a second language is you have to stay in our country to learn our second language or you have to practice every day.

00:03:13 - So what we're going to do is my group is Laura that you're the first speaking and our co-worker my classmate is Angie and also me and another person that is Laura but I don't know if she's here.

00:03:29 - I hope she is going to be okay, Trevor.

00:03:33 - Okay.

00:03:34 - Okay, so the detail that we're going to do right now is like, and I'm going to ask you a few questions so we can dig better.

00:03:44 - So my first, my first question is, what is the most important challenge to learn a second language, Trevor?

00:03:50 - I think, from my experience and from speaking to others, one of the most important challenges is to not be fearful, so you have to be brave in taking the opportunity to learn a second language. Another challenge is also having to find the time, because we always say that

00:04:19 - I don't have enough time for this, I don't have enough time for that, but if you are going to learn a second language, it's always good to put the time in to do the study, to do the work to get the required results.

00:04:32 - So that is very important. So two things are not to be fearful.

00:04:38 - And to find the time and a third thing, a third point I would say is that you have to be prepared to change your mindset.

00:04:51 - And if you are really serious about learning a second language, I believe that you have to try and take on the aspects of part of the culture that will help you begin to think like the people, if it's possible, of the country whose language you are trying or even try to learn something about them. So I like Spanish, so I try and learn something about the country of Spain, about the people, about their history. So it helps me to connect with that language so if I try and speak the language I always try and sound Spanish so you have to change your mindset and be prepared to I would say have to be committed to learning it so those three things just do not be fearful find the time and be prepared to change your mindset for them okay

00:05:58 - Thank you very much for the answer it's really important to us and my second question is about is attached to the first question but is they in european what is the disadvantages or advantages to learn a second language? I would say the advantages are that it can help you connect more with other people and if you okay I've been to quite a lot of different countries and I always try and learn some of the language even if it's just the basic parts of the language so that if

00:06:35 - I go to another country I can at least say hello how are you my name is I am from this type of thing so even the basics of the language if they see that you are learning it they appreciate it and they will give you time and they will think well okay this person has tried to connect more with us they haven't just come for a holiday to lie down on a beach and to go and swim in the sea and to go and buy our goods they have tried to connect with the people so I think that that is an advantage of learning the other thing is if you are if you are career minded in if you want to go and work abroad it can advance your career so say if you are bilingual it would help you to find work in another country which can open you up to more experiences and it can help the language that you have learned to make more sense it can be real it can become real if you are living in a country that you've learned that language you can immerse yourself more

00:07:51 - Another one is it can help you see the world and have new experiences, so there are quite a few things. I think that the disadvantages are you will miss out on a lot of opportunities if you don't at least try to do something different and learning a language for me or so learning two, three or four different languages. It's helpful, purely simply because it helps you if you go abroad and the people of the country that you are visiting, as I said previously, if they see that you are trying to learn the language, they will help you and encourage you to learn more. Okay, thank you very much for answering my question. I appreciate it

00:08:45 - I'm sorry to be here. So my, Laura is the next. Thank you.

00:08:51 - Nice to meet you.

00:08:52 - No, hi to you. My name is Ani. Nice to meet you. And now I'm going to ask you some questions so that you can answer me. So my first question for you is, what relationship do you think culture has with language? I think it's very connected, I think it's all wrapped up together if your culture is part of your language. Okay, I like the Japanese culture also, so I listen to how the language connects with that culture and how expressive it can be, it seems that they can be extremely aggressive. However, that's not the case if you understand their culture you can understand why they talk the way that they do. If it's either the French people or the German people, it's like if you listen to how the Germans speak it's a very how would I put it they speak very forcefully and sometimes arrogantly but they're confident and their culture is a very confident culture as well if you I don't know if you've ever been to Germany but I have also been to Germany it's it's an incredible place it's so precise and the easiest way I think to see the German culture is what's how they play football they play football like they make me say these bends perfectly. In England we are an easygoing people but we don't suffer people to be let's say take advantage of us so we are very cautious but we are very polite we are welcoming we say come it's England come and have a look and we will help you around. So I think that's

00:10:58 - The language it does connect with the culture and sometimes how they talk and how they show themselves.

00:11:06 - But I think it's down to the individuals to take that step and have a look into the culture of the language that they are.

or let's say that the language of the culture that they are studying, but also to look into the culture of the country that they are studying first and see what the people are like, just sort of read upon their history.

00:11:31 - So if you read upon the history of a country like England, the history is incredible.

00:11:38 - And it's so fascinating as well.

00:11:40 - So it's always good to read up on how the country came to be what it is.

00:11:46 - So I think that they're both very much connected.

00:11:55 - Okay.

00:11:58 - Sorry, okay.

00:12:00 - Thank you so much for your point of view.

00:12:05 - Now my second question for you is, what methodologies did you use so that you can learn this language more quickly and which ones would you recommend?

00:12:21 - The methodology, how I, okay, I like quite a few different languages so what I would do is to first hear sort of differences right between the language. I think there is is something that you can sort of do very easily.

00:12:45 - If you go onto Google and type in translate and you, okay, this is what I would do.

00:12:52 - If I want to know a word in a different language,

00:12:55 - I want to hear how it sounds.

00:12:57 - So I type in different words and I try and repeat them to get the articulation of the word to see how the word sounds in my mouth.

like if it's, okay, let's say a street in German, that Strasse. If I want a pen, I'll put a cool slider. So I hear how it sounds, and I'm trying to sort of reproduce the word.

00:13:32 - So I would like to hear what the words sound like first.

00:13:36 - And if it's something that I am comfortable in trying to also repeat, but my favorite one is Spanish because I like how it sounds in my mouth.

00:13:47 - I like the sounds that it produces.

00:13:50 - So this is how, this isn't the reason why I started Spanish.

00:13:56 - For me, I used to have some students who used to come to my homes and they would stay with us for two weeks, move on, and they would always come from Spain.

00:14:07 - And there was one who was talking in Spanish, so I repeated a few words, and when she heard me say them, she said, you would be very good learning Spanish.

00:14:17 - And I said, why?

00:14:18 - She says, because you can articulate the Spanish words, and you can roll your ars, and all these types of things.

00:14:26 - So I always like to hear how it sounds first.

these days. You have YouTube. You can have online lessons. There are sort of all these different websites that you can choose a language and hear how they sound. Years ago, we couldn't do this. So we had a teacher in front of us and she would say, if she was a French teacher, say regarde eekute. In other words, look and listen. So we would sit and she would say earn. We would say earn. De, de, toa, toa, kata, kata, so forth. So we would listen and repeat and this is how we learn. So in some cases we didn't really hear the correct phonetics of a sort of foreign language sort of being pronounced to us. But now with the opening of the internet and all these different devices and all these different learning platforms you have a choice to choose which language you want to learn so I think that the choices are out there but there's nothing better than if you speak to a person from that country whose language you are learning and you can learn off them and listen to how they pronounce their words and how fast they speak how slow they speak because each language is different. Okay. Okay. Thank you so much really for giving you your point of view in front of the questions that I use. I sketch you well than my partner Laura. Thank you so much. You're more than welcome. Hello my name is Laura.

00:16:19 - Okay. Okay, I have two questions. The first is, it's difficult for you to interact with another person who speaks this language? Yes, no. Is it difficult? Are you talking about Spanish?

00:16:37 - Yes, yes. It depends how fast they speak, because when I do speak with some Spanish people, they are so fast. So I ask them to, if they can repeat it but a little slower, so that

00:17:05 - I can try and understand some of the words that they are saying.

00:17:12 - I don't think it's really difficult, but it can be difficult when they start to use words that I don't know or I don't know the interpretation of.

00:17:23 - So I stay quiet until I try and hear something that I do know and then I will go.

00:17:30 - But if I don't understand that I have to say, please start, you are going too fast.

00:17:36 - But I think it's trying to, for me, it's trying to hear more people speak Spanish in everyday life and just try to practice more myself.

00:17:58 - I don't have any Spanish friends or I'm always on YouTube and I will go on a language repeat course or something like that but it's completely different when you are talking to someone or someone is talking to you in Spanish and they are going at a hundred kilometers per hour it's so fast so it's more practice and it slowly comes but it's just like in the first question what are the most important challenges to learning the second language, changing your mindset. If you are prepared to learn the language, you have to be prepared to change your mindset and take a much harder grasp of the language so that you can learn it quicker. And it also helps if I put different words around my home so that I know what the items are. Okay, thank you, I think the same of English. My second question is how was your process to the point of completely introducing yourself in this? Spanish, as I said earlier, I would have some Spanish students, exchange students who would come to my home and we would sometimes talk and they would introduce me to Spanish, they would talk in Spanish and I would repeat what they say and they encouraged me to learn Spanish so that's how

00:19:53 - I started to learn Spanish. And also your teacher, Christy, she helped me as well.

00:20:06 - Thank you. Okay.

00:20:11 - Hello again. Hello again. Okay, and Taylor, wow, all the answers was amazing.

00:20:22 - I agree with a lot of those answers because I'm learning English too. So that difficult or you know it's similar that in English you know sometimes we don't have enough time to practice a lot or the time necessary you know to improve it.

00:20:46 - Of course, I try to do it, but sometimes it's hard, you know?

00:20:53 - But, okay.

00:20:55 - Sounds very good.

00:20:57 - Oh, thank you.

00:20:58 - It sounds very good.

00:20:59 - Yeah.

00:21:00 - Okay, thank you.

00:21:01 - And the next one is what notables, notables, you know, it's notable.

00:21:08 - Difference, do you notice between the English and Spanish language?

00:21:15 - There are some crossover words. There are some words that sound the same but have very different meanings.

00:21:29 - So, and I can't give you any examples. I could say sin, right? So, I think sin is without or not, but sin, in English, in English, is to do with either right or wrong. If you sin, do wrong right but sin is obviously it means something completely different in enespanol in spanish and so there are some crossover words that we use however in english we tend to hold on to the words a lot longer than what you do in Spanish. In Spanish, right, they spell the words how they say them, but in English you have, let's say if I say the word island, that's spelled I-S-L-A-N-D, but you don't pronounce the S, so we have silent letters in the language where it's in Spanish, right, you almost spell how you say the word. So there are differences, but I think that's for the person who is learning either English or Spanish, they have to come to terms, they have to understand that this is the way that the language is and it can make it fun to learn also.

00:23:15 - It can also make it easier because once you learn that relationship between the words it should come it should it should be okay to learn. Thank you so much again and again. I think that it's all for today okay thank you and we are completely grateful with you for a tough time so wow thank you thank you so much someone wants to say any else

00:23:57 - Mauricio, Angie, that's all?

00:24:05 - No, no, that's all.

00:24:07 - Thank you very much for being here.

00:24:10 - Nice to meet you.

00:24:12 - It's my pleasure to talk with you.

00:24:18 - It's a pleasure.

00:24:21 - I hope you enjoyed the activity for today.

00:24:35 - I did.

00:24:36 - I really enjoyed it.

00:24:37 - Thank you for asking me.

00:24:38 - Thank you.

00:24:39 - Bye.

00:24:40 - God bless you.

00:24:41 - Bye-bye.

00:24:42 - Okay.

00:24:43 - Thank you.

00:24:44 - Bye.

00:24:45 - Thank you.

00:24:46 - Bye-bye.

00:24:47 - Bye-bye now.