Today I am meeting with Fernanda for the first time.
And today I am talking not so much just about language learning, but
about this international community that's forming around language around
people's interests in connecting with people from other parts of the world.
And I was introduced to Fernanda by Ebrahim of Egypt who follows
me on Twitter and who pointed out that Fernanda has a book club and
a podcast about her book club.
And she was going to be...
in her book club they were going to be discussing my book where I talk
about my experience learning languages.
So I thought it would be very interesting to chat with Fernanda.
And before I get going, I just want to remind you that if you enjoy
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Okay.
Fernanda...
NIce to meet you.
I'm so happy to be here.
I'm thankful uh, To meet you.
Not, not at all.
I thought it was such an interesting story because it has to do
with books, with reading, with language, with people connecting.
So first of all, Ebrahim lives in Egypt and he suggested I check
out your, uh, uh, blog or podcast.
And what connected you with Ebrahim in the first place?
Can you explain the background?
Yes, we are, uh, Effortless English members and we have AJ as a coach and
we have a great community, great, uh, international community with people
from all of the world, I'm Brazilian.
Ebrahim from Egypt too.
We have friends from France, Italy, Germany, Serbia, India, a
lot of people, and we have a great relationship in this community.
I should point out for those who don't know that AJ Hoge of Effortless English,
is a tremendous, uh, teacher of English.
He teaches by actually helping people learn rather than speaking things at them.
So he's very much, I mean, I'm, I know AJ personally, I've met with
him and I'm a great supporter of, of what he does to bring people
together around learning English.
What prompted you to start a book club, and to start a
podcast about your book club?
Yes, it's actually, it's not a book club.
We have a book club from our group, but I start edto, to do these podcasts and
I combined books and languages because I love learning languages and I love books.
And...
books are great resource to acquire vocabulary, to have fun learning
and have fun, um, at the same time.
It's so grateful and I chose your book as the first one, because I love your book.
This book inspired me a lot when I first read it.
Uh, when I first read your book, I just read twice and
now I'm reading it in French.
And when I first read, I, I think to myself, oh my gosh, I'm a linguist because
you said everyone can be a linguist.
Yes.
And you, you, you don't have a, to be intellectual or a great, great uh,
academic person to acquire a second language to learn a second language.
I think, I think it's so great.
One thing I should point out because I always get criticism
for using the word linguist to describe someone speaking languages.
In most other languages the word is polyglot, whatever.
But in English, if you look up the dictionary, the first meaning of language
is someone who speaks several languages because after all linguistics came along
later, but the word linguist is at least 500 years old and it describes someone who
learns and who speaks several languages.
And I wrote my book.
Uh, you know, uh, where I, I can't remember the name of the
book, what's it called again?
The Way of the Linguist.
And at that time I was unaware of the name of the word polyglot and, uh, to
most English speakers "linguist" is someone who speaks several languages.
Uh, it's a problem when we translate the book, because then we can't
really use the word linguist because in other languages, linguist, that
means someone who studies linguistics.
Uh, but that...
I wrote that book in 2003.
At that time I spoke nine languages.
Uh, and I described my own experience and, and yeah.
I encourage people to learn languages and, uh, hopefully it,
it, uh, it achieves that, you know?
Anyone can do it, but...
So you're, you have the, uh, explain your book...
so you do have a book club?
Uh, we have a book club in our group...
but in Effortless English?
No, no, just from internet.
We gather.
Yes.
We gather to, eh, uh, all of, all of us and we discuss, we,
we discuss every meeting, we discuss one chapter of the book.
We read this book during this week and we discuss, we, we schedule a time
to discuss this chapter of the book.
So again, to be clear, so this is all.
And these are non-native speakers of English.
So these are people who are learning English and you choose a book and then
you schedule a Zoom conference and then people come on and you might read a
part of the book and discuss the book.
And typically how many people show up for these meetings?
We had, today in the morning and we are 7, 7, 7 people, and each one discuss.
One person makes a little summary of the chapter and the others discuss.
The ideas, and all of this in English, because English is our common language.
I speak Portuguese, one friend French.
Another one speaks Hindu.
Yes.
And, uh, and so on.
So do you have any native speakers there, like does AJ participate
or is it, it's all learners?
All learners.
Great idea.
We could do that with other languages too.
Uh, yeah, absolutely.
I have a book.
Um, in my French group, another one, another one is my French
group, just with Brazilian people that, that are learning French.
And, and so does this, for example, is there an organization, or is there
a website or for example, the French group, uh, how does it get together?
How do you connect with the other members?
Oh, it also zoom.
We use zoom and we send a link.
Everyone joins us, joins in these meetings and we discuss the book.
how do you recruit the members?
How do you find members?
Oh, I get engaged in an academy, French academy in Brazil and for
English we get together from AJ.
Okay.
Yes, we, we meet each other in Twitter first, but now we have, AJ
has a group in Gab, Gab, Gab.com.
Yes.
All right.
Very interesting.
And, but you also have a podcast because, uh, Ebraheem sent
me a link to your podcast.
I went and
checked it out and it was very nice, like a very nice landing
page and a very, very well done.
So, so can you give me some background background on the podcast
and what, what your objective is?
Um, my, the reason, the reason why I decided to do this, eh, For, eh, it's
for my practice, English, to practice my English, and improve my English to
be able to speak more fluently because sometimes I forget the words that I
want to say and making the podcast I can, I can prepare something carefully.
I can read the thing I can speak to you spontaneously also.
And I think I will improve.
I have friends in our group from Effortless English, neighbors
that have also a podcast.
Ebraheem has a podcast, great podcast.
Well, I should look him up, you know, it's very interesting.
So you say you're, you have the podcast in order to improve your English.
And I am sure that as you speak with me now, speaking in English, which is
not your native language, that there's a certain level of anxiety that you may
not, you may miss something or you might not be able to remember a word, yet
for me listening, I have the impression that your English is totally natural.
It's amazing.
The difference between how we feel about our language, wherever we're
worried, we're going to forget, then we can't find this word.
We take another word.
We all do this, right.
We can't remember the word we want so we takes some other word and
we are, we change our conversation to kind of suit the words.
We're able to find a certain level of tension.
But for me, listening to you, I don't sense any tension whatsoever.
And so I think it's an important message that we all, we're always
much more nervous than we should be.
And we actually do a lot better than we think we do.
So, I mean, I feel the same when I speak Portuguese.
I make so many mistakes.
People understand me, so it's good enough, you know?
Uh, so I'm going to leave by the way, I'm going to leave obviously links in
the description box to, to your podcast.
To Ebraheem's podcasts.
I'll get that information, uh, so people can follow up.
But, uh, I just think yours was such an interesting example to me, that Ebraheem
from Egypt suggested I talk to Fernanda from Brazil and you were brought together
by AJ Hoge from the United States.
And you've got people there from Serbia, from France, from India, from wherever.
And it's a wonderful sense...
I mean, to be able to connect with people in any situation, I mean, you want to
connect with people who live near you.
For example, I mean, we are happiest when we're connecting with others.
But now that we can connect with people in a, in a meaningful way, it's not,
you know, personal, you can't give a person a hug, but you can connect.
And so that's an interesting example of how social media, which often
has a very negative effect on society can also be very positive
and bringing people together.
Absolutley.
So where do you think your podcast will go, what do you see as, as you're doing it
for yourself, you say, well, your English, which is already very good, and you want
to encourage others to do the same thing?
Yes.
And I want to discuss about books.
Sometimes I'm reading a book and I want to discuss, and I don't have
people around me to discuss it.
I want to say something about this book with someone.
I think I will create these to read, to read the great part
of one book I have read...
yeah.
Yeah.
Very interesting.
Well, um, I will, uh, you know, I wish you the best, the best of luck.
I think it's a tremendous initiative.
Again, my wife and I were in Brazil.
We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.
We didn't get to Sao Paulo, but we got a bit of, a bit of a flavor of Brazil.
Uh, I still remember on the Copacabana, we were sitting there having a beer.
They have these, uh, in the different, uh, cafes where they're, they're serving beer.
They also have bands and people walk by and they're dancing the Samba,
everybody was having a good time.
But you, you go to Salvador?
You went to Salvador?
Yes.
Salvador is my, my favorite city in Brazil...
Salvador was amazing.
Uh, there again at night we went for a walk and again, they have bands in
the different cafes and restaurants.
So you're hearing music all over.
And we went to the old city, you know, where they, the slave trade market was
and the old style houses and, and, uh, it was a, it was a very interesting city.
It's, it's a different flavor, a completely different flavor from Rio.
Uh, yeah, we walked all over.
Took taxis.
Uh, I mean, it's got its social problems.
Massive favelas in, in some follow, but, uh, we met some people actually
LingQ members who live in, in favela.
So I guess it's, it's a life that people get used to.
And, uh, that's what it is.
They managa.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, thank you very much, Fernanda, a lot of fun, and I'm sure that my
viewers will enjoy finding out about your podcast and your book club.