Ep. 67: Speaking 4.5 languages - Interview with Urmi

Hello everyone and welcome back to the future is bilingual podcast. I've got my last interview of 2023. I'm sitting here with Urmi and I would love for her to introduce herself because she is a woman of many hats and she does many things. So please tell us all about yourself. Hi Heather, thank you for having me. My name is Urmi and I'm busy Montreal and I can mention I do wear many hats. I work in the financial services industry but I do have some side projects that I work on. I am a mentor for young female who want to work in finance. I'm a polyglot, I'm a speaker, self-published author, blogger and YouTuber. I can speak, I always say I can speak four point five languages with Spanish being the point five which I hope hopefully one day it's going to become a one full language that I properly know. So yeah, I'm happy to be here. Yes, and I love that idea of the point five. I know when you wrote it to me, I was like, I love that because for me Italian is my point five. I'm still working on it. Obviously, I mean, we're all still working on all of our languages, even though I teach Spanish and I speak it fluently, right? Like I'm still learning words in Spanish. It's never ending, right? So tell us what are the four other languages then since you mentioned Spanish being the point five. So I speak Italian, I speak Bengali, I speak English and I speak French. So nice, we share a lot of languages there. So how did you pick up all those languages where I think people always wonder what polyglots like wow, you're so talented. This is so amazing, but like there's always, you know, a story behind it. So tell us what is your story with those. And for me was a little bit by choice and then a little bit because of my surrounding. So I was born and raised in Italy. And my parents are from Bangladesh. So they moved from Bangladesh to Italy after they got married and they wanted to have a better life, a better future. So I was born there. And did they speak Italian and learning it? No, really, like a little bit just my dad, he knew how to speak a little bit. My mom, not really. And then what happened is I was born there. So when I was born at home, we just strictly speak Bengali. But then when I went to school, I started to pick up Italian words. So I always say Italian is my adopted mother tongue because I brought it at home and I started to use that with my sister. So me and my sister would strictly communicate in Italian. And then with my parents, I would just strictly speak Bengali. But then afterwards became a mix of Italian and Bengali. We would just have a conversation and they were like Italian words and like in a Bengali sentence. Right. And then I started to go to school. Did you want to say something? Oh, I was going to say just in those situations when everyone is bilingual. If everyone shares the two languages, you can really mix and throw things in and you know, like because everybody shares those two languages. So yeah, it's kind of fun. And people have this negative view, especially people, I think on the outside of the polygloc community, the language learning community, you know, teaching and all that, like they have a negative view of that, that what they call code mixing and switching like spanglish in the US. But like it's not a bad thing. Like if both people are understanding or both groups of people can understand like where's the harm. And it's actually, you know, I find it fun. I find it very playful. Like our kids will mix and you know, we mix and I think it's actually. If you don't understand it, you see it. If you have this Puritan view of like this is English and this is Spanish or this is Bengali, this is Italian. Right. You see it as like mixing. It's bad. But like it's actually really fun and beautiful when you when you can. Well, you know, now I leave you my challenge. It's a bilingual city. That the mix English and find you very, very often. I think I called it franglish or something like that. Or franglish. Yeah, you can do either. So basically they just mix the two in a sentence. So you hear someone speaking in French and suddenly they say a word in English because it sounds better when you say it in English. And you have that much of an emphasis, you know, so. So yeah, it's I noticed it here because I before he wasn't like that, especially when I was living in Italy, like okay, at home, it was. We were just strictly speaking Bengali and Italian, but outside it was just Italian, like you would just hear Italian. There was no like second language. So in Montreal, it's it's been a different experience because I can hear both languages being spoken by people Italians mix a lot of English words in now. Like there's a lot of English that comes in like. That certain like, you know, new words or things that come up and like they're just they just started in English, so. So it depends, there are some English words that are like part of the Italian language. But I think still when you go to Italy, like I don't know, like if you have been there, but then I'm someplace which is still strictly Italian, like no one actually mixes it with with English. I have been to the turdino and to. But yeah, just maybe it's like the people I'm hearing, you know, podcasters are YouTubers who are bilingual, but I like they're kind of mixing in words and. But yeah, maybe they're for sure there's people who aren't going to mix in it depends what you know. But yeah, and it's funny that you mentioned because Montreal, which, you know, Canada's bilingual Montreal's bilingual city and the Canadians are known for creating French words. Whereas France will use an English word like we will say le weekend in France, but like in, you know, Canada, you're going to say La Fonda cement. And we will say shopping, shopping and they will say magazine. You know, like we're going to go like they created these French words to kind of avoid English because they're surrounded there. You know, Quebec is completely surrounded by English speaking provinces and countries, the U.S. to the bottom and all this pressure. They're like we're going to keep speaking French and even so English is still kind of infiltrating, right, which is so funny because in French, you hear lots of English words thrown in here and there. And you know, kind of being more pure. They're trying to save, you know, like they don't say chat, you know, the chat or chat, they'll say clavardage and like they'll make up all these words from the French word. Which is, it's great. I love that, but you still help the fact that when people are bilingual, they will mix, you know, it's just that's a natural phenomenon. Yeah, and I think here in Quebec, it's a little bit special because they're trying to, you know, maintain protected the language, which is why. Like there's been issues like politically about these like to separate Quebec from like, and have his own thing and there are like a lot of laws now behind the use of French like everywhere you go, you're technically supposed to be using it. And it gets because they just want to protect and maintain the language. Yeah, I support them, they have La Loi or something on, you know, all these things and that everything has to be, you know, in both languages. And I love that I think that is so important to keep it because if you don't take those steps, of course, it's going to be overtaken by English, English being the lingua franca globally, English being the language of the rest of Canada, the US, right, it would just be sucked up. So I 100% agree, but it's just funny to hear that, you know, you living there, you're like, oh, I do hear English thrown in here and there, because we like to think, oh, Canada so much more, you know, gung ho about using only French, but no, nobody's immune, especially Canadian, I mean, they're bilingual. You know, most people in Quebec, the youth are sure, right, like they, they're bilingual, then maybe the older generations only speak French, but no, like people nowadays, like they're learning both they speak both fluently, so it's hard not to. Yeah, it's an interview interrupted you. Okay. So you were saying you grew up, you spoke Bengali, a home Italian with your community, also your sister, which is a common thing I've heard from a lot of people, right, even if the parents have this home language, the kids themselves are going to usually use that dominant language of the community, because they're in school that's just the normal. This is what I use with friends kids my age, right, like the parents are the only kind of people to speak the home language. Yeah, even with like our Bengali friends, we were just speaking Italian instead of speaking Bengali. And then afterward, I started to learn English, because it was the mandatory at school, and then I chose a program that was mainly about learning language, so I chose French and I chose German. And this is where I, I never tell anyone that I used to speak German, because I lost it, I completely lost the language, I never practiced it, even though back in the days, I actually like had a very solid knowledge of German, like I had an actual certificate issued by the Koti Institute that's not so different that I could speak it. But in this is what I regret, I regret that I was not working on it afterwards. I don't count that as a point five. Now I remember nothing of it, I feel like if I listen to someone speaking German, I would not understand much of it. Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of us have that experience. I hear it all the time being a French and Spanish teacher in a high school, the parents always tell me, I studied French, you know, I took four years of Spanish, and I don't remember anything. It's very common, if you don't use it, you will lose it. And I mean, same, I studied Arabic at university, and like if you gave me those same texts to read now, like I would struggle, I'd be like, oh, wait, how do you pronounce this? What is this? What is this? So, you know, if you're not practicing. Then of course, you're going to, you're going to lose it, right? And it's an extra language, it's not a language you grew up with, you know, there's nothing that's keeping it attached to you, which is. One of the things we say is some point to raise your kids is to have it, you know, those early years are so critical up to that puberty age is what the, you know, the research is kind of saying so important because it'll still be there, right? Like they're not going to lose it if they've had 13 years growing up hearing, you know, for you Bengali, like they're not going to lose, you're not going to forget it because it's integrated into like, you know, your experience, you heard it so much, even if it was only at home, and you had all this experience in Italian, right? If we look percentage wise, like how many hours here, how many hours there it's still, you're not going to lose it, right? Where is the German you added it on and like, poof, it's gone. So yeah, we all have it. Yeah, and I also think the Germans are a little bit different because it's not a language easy to remember because when I started it, it was a lot about memorization. And the problem also was that like if you listen to it, it doesn't resemble anything like it doesn't resemble to town and it doesn't resemble to Spanish, it doesn't resemble to Portuguese, you know, so it's, it's not easy to. To say, okay, I will remember some of the things like it's completely different, the sound is different, the way the sentences are made, it's different, like it's not like, okay, let's say I learned Portuguese and I know how to speak Italian in Spanish, then you can say, okay, even though you haven't practiced Portuguese, I can. You still understand, yeah. And I felt that I was cheating when I started learning Italian because before that, like I said, I had done Arabic, I'd learned Polish, I had done these languages that were very different from English and French and Spanish, and then I did Korean on my own, which again, can't remember anything like it, I barely remember anything because it's so different. And then when I went to Italian, I was like, wow, I've barely studied and I understand a podcast like this is like cheating because the French and Spanish gave me so much base that the other couple things that I didn't understand, like, okay, what's this word, okay, what's this word, there was so little that I had to kind of learn. So yeah, same with like Portuguese, those all those German languages, it's kind of like cheating, I was like, oh, this is great, like I could pick up Italian like so quickly versus I've been working my butt off, trying to learn Arabic and it's not sticking and I don't understand a basic conversation because it's so different. Like even something just saying like, I like to do this and I'm like, I know the word like, but I don't know what you just said after. And so how do you use all these languages and your, like, how is it part of is part of your own, looking at your YouTube and you have like, do you teach Italian as well? Are you coaching? No, so my YouTube channel, it's more about creating content where I invite language coaches and I just tell them to share about, you know, the services, the program, but I also do like how conversation sessions with a few students where I just have conversation with people who want to practice Italian and English. So I also do that, but it's something like more on a side, it's not something that I do as a full time job. But I do feel like because I have so much knowledge with languages, I feel like I am good enough to teach people and tell them, okay, this is what you're supposed to be doing because I also, like even when I came to Montreal for instance, I had to work a little bit on the keyboard because it was a different sort of piece to do. If I have to put it this way, and I had to like work on it and look for resources to make sure that I was like mastering it and I was just making sure that, you know, I was, I knew how to communicate properly in French. So, so that's why like English, it was something that I was taught and I knew how to teach it and the same thing with Italian. I've done it so many times that it comes naturally giving advice and that's great. How do you maintain these languages? Like do you have certain things that you do? I mean Bengali being your native tongue, like your parents language, I'm sure you can speak to it, but what about, you know, do you still use Italian or how do you, how do you get practice and how are you practicing Spanish? I know you're working on that. So like, how do you balance speaking 4.5 languages and making progress and you have a full time job and finances, which has nothing to do, right? Like my job, I practice because I'm teaching Spanish. Okay, I'm speaking Spanish all day. I have Spanish colleagues, Spanish speaking I should say. But like if that's not your bread and butter, that's not your main work. Like how do you fit this in? How do languages fit into your every day? So for me, I consider Italian and Bengali my mother tongue. So yes, I only speak it. I only speak Bengali with my parents, but with the rest of the family, I speak Italian. So when I speak to my sister, it's strictly Italian and I still talk to my sister. So we have to communicate in the language that we have always used. Same goes with my cousins and stuff like that. And of course, I live in Montreal. I work in a French environment. So this is how I've been using French because I reserve Kibakwa, Francophone clientele. And I live in Montreal, which is, as I said, bilingual. So when I go out, depending on who I have in front of me, I switch between English and French. And at home, I also use English and Bengali. So I'm using all of them equally. If I have to say the truth, I'm using pretty much equally. Like there's no, there's not one of them that is like predominant in what I use. I use them equally because at work, I strictly have to speak French at home. I have to speak Bengali in English and with my parents and my sister, I have to speak Bengali anytime and speak them equally. And there's constantly practicing all of them all the time, which is, yeah, which is great. And then I'm, how do you know which language to speak to? You said clients come in some speak English, some speak French. Do you wait for them to address you? And if they say Bonjour, if they say hello, or I know when I cross the border at the border crossing, they'll say like Bonjour, I like, they'll say both till like, they don't know what language are speaking coming in, which I thought was so cute. French is them predominant one at the workplace. So we have to use the French and if we see the person is not comfortable, we switch it to English. But our first action, it's really just to start with the French. Yeah, yeah. Start see how they do. And then yeah, if need be, you can switch. That makes sense. Exactly. And then how do you, you connect with your Bengali roots in any other way, like watching movies or I don't know, either things that you do, taking trips, have you ever been able to go to go back? I went to, I went to Bangladesh first times. I don't watch any particular Bengali movies, but I do watch Bollywood movies and that's not it's not in Bengali, the language that they use, it's in Hindi. So when I watch Bollywood movies, I usually like, even Hindi, like I never say that I know how to speak it because I don't know how to speak it, but I watch the movies and I understand what's going on. So I think it's between Bengali and Hindi. A little bit, but not so much, not as much, not as much, that for some things, yes, for other things, no. If someone on the street stops me and asks me something in Hindi, I would probably understand because I heard people about me speaking in Hindi and I understood the conversation. Okay, so you've been exposed, you've heard enough that it's kind of seeped in. Yeah, I've been watching Bollywood movies since I was a kid and I never stopped. So again, would always put the subtitles at the beginning. And even now I do it, but I do understand what's going on. Right. Right. So it's just kind of there in case, but you've picked up so much. See, so you actually have like all these little other 0.5s. I don't think you're giving yourself enough credit. I am not. I have two questions. Why Spanish bell, my other question was also why, why Montreal, you know, like you grew up in Italy, you know, like what why come to cold Canada. And that's the question I asked myself every winter, maybe winter, literally, although this winter was pretty, it's been mild or so, I should not complain. We haven't had to know yet. So same here literally. Now, Montreal has been for a person reasons and then I decided to to stay here and why Spanish. I don't know how to explain it like Spanish. I always think I was probably like Latina and some other like life or something. But I love the sound of Spanish. Like how Spanish sound is just so amazing. And I don't know if it's because of this resemblance with Italian or in Italian culture. I don't know if it's that, but I just fell in love with that. And so I decided to stick to it. So every time I like it, I listen to someone speaking Spanish like I'm dancing in my mind. Like it makes sense. So I love the sound of the language. I like everything is just so much fun and amazing when someone speaks Spanish. And I very much enjoy it. I think there's like beauty in the sound of the Spanish language. I think there's something that tracks you to to the Spanish language, which is that's a beautiful language. Do you focus on Spain Spanish or Latin American Spanish because that's always Latin America, Latin America. Yeah, yeah, me too. I like the spain accent. I just I don't have it. I don't I find it. It's interesting, right? But it's if I had to pick one. It's almost like the Portuguese. You have to pick Brazilian versus Portuguese like Portugal. But I think it's even I don't know if it's more or less. I've heard people say those are too completely different. And I don't know. I don't I don't speak enough Portuguese to know if it's more or less the same with Spain Spanish and the you know Latin American has so much diversity in and of itself. You know my Puerto Rican colleagues talking to my Costa Rican colleague. They're like, what do you call this? Oh, what do you call this? Because we're teaching a word usually based from the Spanish word. We have these conversations all the time where it's like, Oh, we're teaching this word and the colleague my colleagues native speakers are like, I never say that we call it this in Puerto Rico and my Costa Rican colleagues like, Oh, I call it this. So there's so much diversity in and of itself just looking at Central and South America, compared to Spain and it's kind of funny that we. We picked this one and we teach it but like the likelihood of our students, you know, being in North America, the likelihood that they're going to go to Spain versus anywhere else Mexico Costa Rica. Colombia like there's so many more countries there's 20 countries over here and just one over there. Why are we teaching the one when we can be. I mean, it is what it is, but yeah, we kind of have that battle all the time of like, we never say this much. Yeah, yeah, yeah, when it's funny about. Like Spanish language, I like I went to Mexico and I went to. I also have some minutes when and colleagues and so it was interesting to listen to how different the accents were, but I was able to pick the different. And then we listened to someone speaking Spanish from Spain and it was very different to use very different like they, it's a different kind of accents it was interesting that I feel like. The Spanish from Spain is probably a little bit more, I don't want to I don't know if it's difficult is the world, but it's it's different. It's very different. I feel like if I listen to someone speaking Spanish who's from Mexico, I understand it better than someone who's from Spain. And yeah, I mean, it's hard to say which is harder. I definitely think it maybe depends what you've heard more. The diversity you have to have a good enough language to have to have a good enough grasp of the language to even hear the differences. So I've asked my I teach a lot of Spanish to high schoolers and I've asked them before I've played them a recording. And I'm like, can you tell what country this person is from? No. I teach them, okay, if you hear this like, you know, the kind of list thing like think go instead of sink go, you know, that's Spain, like you can hear, like if they say certain words, if you hear them say sumo instead of Google for juice, you know, you can tell it's, okay, that's Spain. The same way, you know, English has a lot of variation. If we're looking at the US versus, you know, England and I'm eating a book right now that's the author is English. And so, you know, they're writing different things, the Lori, the, you know, like, we're in our flat and like, you know, there's different words that we don't use. But if you, if you know them, you're like, oh, no problem, you know, like that's nobody deal. I can tell exactly where you're from, even in a writing, right, I don't hear her accent, but I see the words that she's using. And I think, but you have to have a certain level because I remember when I was learning Polish, my ex-husband is Polish, and I remember it took me a long time to finally hear his mom's accent. I think I had to have heard enough podcasts and videos and movies and like other kind of dialects for lack of a better word. And then I heard all of a sudden, it was like a light bulb, like, oh my god, she says it this way. And like, I heard other people say the same word this hour, and I was like, she has an accent, like I was like, well, you know, everyone has an accent. But having only like heard it amongst our friends and his family, and they're all from the same region, like it took me a while, and I remember being like, wow, my level must be getting better because I can hear that distinction. And like same, same thing happened with me in Arabic, like I can hear now, I know enough about the different dialects that I'm like, oh, that person is from Syria or, you know, Palestine or something, this person's from Morocco or Algeria, oh, this person's from Egypt, because they're pronouncing things this way. It's like such a great moment when you can like actually hear that you have enough knowledge to actually start distinguishing because native speakers, right, they'll do that immediately. They can hear someone and be like, I know where you're from, like I could do that with English, oh, I know what part of the US here from because I know enough to distinguish. Or, oh, you sound like you're from New Zealand, you sound like you're from South Africa, you sound like you're from Ireland, right, I can tell all those different accents where someone learning English would take them a long time to start like they're just trying to understand, right, like me with Arabic, I just want to understand. But it is nice to reach that level where you like, oh my gosh, I can hear differences, I can hear this. Yeah, I actually had a similar experience after learning English and after moving to Canada and having met so many people from different countries. And I like, I can pick up the difference, differences in accents when I listen to someone speaking English, who's from Scotland. Oh, yeah, that's a hard one. That's a hard one. Hard one, even for me, I struggle. Someone from Ireland, same thing with someone who speaks Australian. And even when I go to UK, because now my parents even UK, even they're like depending on which area of like England, you are, they have a very different person. It's crazy. It's just, you know, compared to the US or Canada, it's this small country and the, the, the distinctions, the, the disease is crazy. It's so great. I'm like, how are you also distinct and different? Like you're like a kilometer away, but you can tell where to live or pull out. You're from this place, you're from this place. It's so funny. But it's so beautiful at the same time. Like I love that. I love that diversity. I hate it. And I love it. I hate it when I have to learn it, right? Like Spanish. I'm like, why are there 20 words for popcorn? Can you all just agree to call popcorn one thing? But then, you know, in Arabic, even worse story, they can't even agree on how to say, how are you? Every country has their own way and I'm like, but it's so beautiful at the same time. So like the more you know, the more you realize you don't know, like there's more, there's always more. And accents, accents are so beautiful. I think, you know, everyone has one. I have an accent because I grew up in the Northeast of the US, right? You have an accent because you learned English and you speak other languages, but there's not like a correct and an incorrect or better worse, like I hate that idea of, right? I have an accent when I speak French and Spanish and all my languages and it's, I think it's beautiful, right? Like we need to just embrace that. It's not a bad thing. It's not a bad thing, but it was hard to digest at the beginning for sure. For me it was, it was hard because like every time I would, like I used to hate hearing myself. I used to hate hearing myself because I was like, oh my gosh, I sound like literally like someone who has such a big accent, like I would have this big accent into me a while to accept it. But now when I hear other people with an accent, I'm like, you know what? It's not about the sound amazing. Why was I criticizing myself for this and judging myself? And so now I embrace it because it just means I can speak more than one language. Exactly. And it makes it, it also makes the language sound different. You know, I love, I teach English and I love like when my English students will say something in English. But the way they say it is like, you can tell it's kind of been translated. And I'm like, okay, I wouldn't say it like that. But like I get what you mean and it's like, it's almost like more beautiful. Like I love like that expression. Like I'm hearing you kind of like translate this other expression into English, but like it's really cool. Like I just think it brings so much cool stuff people are sharing. And you know, like amazing, you're able to speak my language, right? Like I grew up, I just learned it, but like the fact that you put time and effort and you learned it. You know, like it's, yeah, we need to definitely embrace that because people who've never learned another language don't realize how much ever struggled it is, right? Like, oh, you know, you just pick it up like, no, there's so much work, especially as an adult, right? If we're not children, you know, you're Italian, Bengali, like, okay, you were lucky to grow up in that bilingual environment. But when you learned your other languages, you had to put it effort, you had to put time and energy and you know, it's just, it doesn't just like happen. I mean, no, exactly, unless you're, you know, but case in point, people who are immigrants in a country, 20 years, and they don't really speak because, you know, just being in a country doesn't make you speak the language, you know, exactly. You'll say basics, how much is this? Thank you, goodbye, you know, the basics. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, people don't realize how much effort and so we really need to give people more credit like wow, that's amazing that you, you learn to speak English. I mean, everyone kind of hates hearing their own voice, even myself. And it was very awkward to hear myself when I had to edit it and like, you know, it's kind of cringy, but you get over it, you're like, it's fine. And I mean, maybe making your YouTube, you have to edit a lot, I'm sure. So you're hearing yourself talking. And you, you know, you just got to get over it, right? It is what it is, but other people don't hear you the way we hear ourselves, right? We're super critical. Like you said, we can, you know, I hear every mistake I make and super critical of the way that I speak another language and, oh my god, I knew that was subjunctive, why didn't I use it? And I should have said it this way, and I pronounce the age of it. And I'm critiquing myself, but other people are like, oh, awesome. Like we understand what you meant. It's okay. You didn't say it perfectly. You know, there's so much more forgiving than we are to ourselves. We're so hard on ourselves. I think we have to work myself. Okay, do you have, especially speaking with so many coaches, do you have like resources or things you've discovered or should we just head to your YouTube channel and find all the coaches we can. Definitely on my YouTube channel, you will find good resources. Like if you're looking to learn Italy, if you're looking to learn English, if you're going to need to look French, these people, they do offer good services. But I used to some good researches when I was working on my French, and I'm talking about like a couple of years ago when I was trying to like work on it. And a few YouTubers that I really like. And one of them is called a piece of French. And I didn't want this called French morning with Elisa. And there is another one that I used to listen to. I think it's called my prof, the French, I don't remember now. She's on Instagram for Kaybekwa. It's exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I follow her. I love her stuff. And I will put all these into the show notes of people I was listening. And I find that that's super important with a big language like Spanish French English is there's too much and people get overwhelmed. Oh my god, I want to learn Spanish. And if you look up Spanish podcast, my god, you're going to find millions of them. Yes, it's not looking up. Okay, I want to learn Bengali. I'm looking up this dialect of Arabic right and find like a really niche. Okay, there's only a few people making stuff for this dialect. But if you're going to look up, I want to learn English. Good luck, you know, the resources are limitless. So it's really nice to have like a word of mouth that I use these. They're good. I know this person there, they do good work. That is so important because I think we will get lost in the sea of resources French, you know, it's taught everywhere all over the world. It's like big language that's there's just two there's almost too much right it's the problem. Some people are studying the language and they don't have enough resources. They want to learn like now what dollar some like small indigenous language and then there's people who want to know I just want to French, but they don't have like the knowledge of where to go and then they get overwhelmed and then they yeah they give up or they tried to all and go in. Okay, that's going to teach you only so much. So you've got to push it to the next, you know, watch people here. So I think that's really great because even for myself, I want to give my students ideas, but I'm like it's going to take me forever to curate a list of French resources or Spanish resources. It's almost like I need my students to do the testing and come back to me, which one did you like which one because I can't I don't have they don't pay me enough to curate a list for them. Because it would take so long right it would take a lot of you'd have to listen to it and see what they say and it's a good and it's a lot so definitely put the resources in that you've used. Specifically for Quebec, but also just for French in general because yeah, I'm up close to for say she's great, she does good stuff. Yes, she's very good. And what do you have any for Spanish and you can think about it, you can send them to me, you know, later. I do have I do have for Spanish, you just remember the title right now, but there is one that I listen to it's a podcast about these are two Mexicans and they talk about the Mexican cultures, but they also talk a little bit about the Spanish language and some of the structures and stuff like that. I listen to them because it's I feel their podcast is like episodes are like 20 minutes long, but it's a good amount and I feel like you can learn a lot, I just remember it now the title, but I want to do. Yeah, no definitely and I think that's also you know something good to keep in mind if you're looking at podcasts or YouTube, you know, like what what did you like, you know, like because there's different types of the podcast that are five minutes, 10 minutes, there's ones that are an hour long and some people for right they want to listen to something. That's an hour and maybe over multiple days or they do it in one big chunk and they get there. They're studying you know there's different there's just you have to know like what is good for you right like okay, I really just want some quick episodes so I have podcasts it's 10 minutes great. It's done with I can do like one every day, but someone else might say no I want the 30 minute I want the conversation I want the in depth talk about the culture so I think it's really, you know, you have to think for yourself what is what works for me what works at my schedule. Right, we all have busy lives we have jobs and kids and things that we do outside, so we can't just let us all day. To good youtubers that they came to my mind right now, one is called Spanish after hours and the other one is called a Spanish with been sent in. And these are two youtubers and these are pretty good for Spanish they they like one of them just does like mainly vlogs and the other one does a lot does vlogs as well, but he talks about different vocabulary so he has like. I don't know let's say he's in the kitchen today and he's going to go for all the things about like all the things that we have in the kitchen and we will tell them in Spanish so he is a team based in Spanish Spanish with me and sent I think is based in Spain another remember where the other person is based Spanish hours I remember where she's based I think she's also in Europe. So those are pretty good as well and it's good and I think it's good to just like remember because even when I'm teaching my students and our books or stuff is based in. Spanish it's people will understand you because native speakers they know kind of those differences like we mentioned how I know the difference between like some British words versus American words so even if you use the spade word. Someone in Mexico like they're going to understand or they're going to ask you you know the you're going to you're going to communicate and show them in a different way if they don't understand but most likely. So you're speaking with have some knowledge about these differences because they watch content from Spain right like they they know that there's this word that's different than the one that they use and they'll help you so it's like knowing the at least one word is better than not knowing any word right so whether you watch. So for people who maybe say I don't know which country you know like I don't know which dialect I should pick I don't know which country I should focus on it's it's okay any Spanish that you learn is fine like even if it's kind of like a mix it's okay. Just pick up some stuff people will understand your people will help you because language is about communicating and like more the likely than not the people you're communicating with will help you so like I try and students that too like they're going to help you like they're not just like judging you and like. I don't know what you're saying yeah I give you an effort they're not your teacher they're trying to understand they're trying to help you and not trying to help them to but like it's you know there's not as much. Pressure to be right are you using the correct word you know it's like you're just trying to get a point across or have an interaction by something do something so you know hopefully we cannot curate a couple of things based on what you've said and I'll I'll pull out some that I have just that I've given the students are used over the years so we'll make a little list because I think that is super important with French Spanish right these languages that we share. I mean there's a lot there's less but there's a lot of resources for Italian so I will put out some that I have you guys can go check out the list on what means YouTube channel because she's got so many good coaches and people. Before we wrap up I do always ask if you can teach us a word or phrase in one or more of your languages so maybe both Bengali and Italian would be nice if you had an ex like a word or expression or something. I'm going to tell you an expression in an Italian and I want you to guess it. Okay, you said you know point five so I'm going to test you. I'm going to say, like, healthy but that's like Spanish like well and far like you're going to go far if you go slow like you're going to you're going to progress more than trying to go fast and burn out that's my. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah it's it's that's what it means it just means that you have to keep going it's not about how fast it gets more about the consistency to reach something. Oh so perfect and we're recording this right before new years so that's a great reminder that you don't start run 10 miles a day if you run one mile every day that's better than running 10 and then not running at all. Right I don't want to run but very nice okay thanks for the test. I got a word in Bengali just so we can hear it because people have never heard Bengali in their life so it's not an expression or just like a sentence. Yeah yeah. Okay and what does it mean? It means you're very pretty. Oh what a nice okay well I will not be going to Bangladesh and trying to pick up any women but thank you. You never know you never know and that could come in handy but not it's a good expression to know if someone gives you a compliment. So how do you say thank you? Don't you bat. Don't you bat okay well don't you bat for the interview got to see me lay it's such. To connect and talk and I know we have so many languages in common I think we could have delved into more detail but we'll keep it short and sweet because we're both busy and yeah I wish you the best for the new year this will be coming out of course after the new year but those listening happy new year as well. Even if it's I don't know what month it's going to be but yeah thank you thank you so much for your time and yeah I will definitely like I said put links so that you guys can check out for me and if you said you do give like one on one coaching for English and Italian. It's it's just conversation that I just conversation services. So it's for students like if they want to practice. Yes. Yes. Very fun. So I also do that but in English any any Italian. Awesome okay well I might have some people who are interested in that so we'll send them your way that's great and yeah wish you the best thank you so much and stay warm up there much. Thank you. Thank you.