 And we're on. Hi everyone, this is Robert Gephardt and today I'm being joined by Asrin, the language nerd. Hi Asrin, thanks for joining me. Not a problem. So Asrin is very interesting. He's a language nerd. He speaks English, Spanish, French and some Chinese and learning Gujarati as well, I believe, correct? Yeah, so English, French, Spanish are basically the same level. Mandarin and Gujarati are both kind of intermediate. Technically, Gujarati is my first language because I grew up with it, but I speak English more often so my Gujarati is not as good as my English. Well, actually along those lines, could you just briefly tell us your story, how you got into languages and how that came about? Yeah, so I guess technically it would start when I was five, but I wasn't interested in languages when I was five because I grew up speaking English at school with my friends, Gujarati at home. French with teachers because I went to a French school. So I kind of grew up with those three. And then when I was about 15, my mom forced me actually to go to France on a French exchange trip. So I was in France for about three months when I was in grade 10. And when I came back, I was like, wow, French is cool, I learned a lot, I liked it and I decided to study Spanish. Spanish is cool too, I like it. One university chose to major in those two languages, took some linguistics classes and I was like, wow, linguistics is really cool too. And eventually at a certain point in time, you're like, huh, I think I like languages. And so I did that and of all things, I then ran a window cleaning business for six years. That was my line of work for six years. And even though I love languages, that's kind of how things worked out and that's where I ended up working. So I was doing that and I stopped. That would have been September of 2016, so September of basically last year, or I guess two years, well technically two years actually, now we're in 2018. But I stopped doing that then, traveled around, went to China, Taiwan, Morocco, Spain, traveled a bunch. But you know what, I've liked languages and really been interested in languages for whatever it is, roughly 10 years. So why not start talking about it online? Why not make that like my full-time gig? Yeah, and actually you were quicker about it than I was because yeah, I've always loved languages and loved learning them, but it took me a while before I figured, hey, why don't I try to make this a business, you know, something I do rather than something I do on the side. And so along those lines and you now, so you teach as well and you earn money from teaching these languages, correct? Yes, correct. And so you've, and you teach English, Spanish and French, right? English, yeah, English, Spanish, French, those are my main, like the main three. I will do basic Mandarin. I will do it. I don't advertise it too much because I'm still learning myself but English and Spanish are the primary three. Okay, and I mean, because that's an interesting point as well because I get a lot of flack in the sense that I grew up speaking Italian and English and those are the two languages I work in and a lot of people say, well, it's easy for you because you grew up with it but I'm learning a language and so it's a lot harder to actually get it good enough so I can use it to translate or to teach or to earn a living from it or something along those lines. So for you, especially Spanish and Chinese, these aren't languages you grew up with at all. Yeah, no, not at all. And so while we're mentioning it, how long, like take me through the process basically of learning Chinese or learning Spanish and how long do you think it can take or how was it for you? How long did it take from when you started learning to when you felt oh, I could actually start teaching this even at an elementary level? I would say so Spanish probably took me before I felt pretty comfortable, like not perfect, but like comfortable like I was like yeah, I can understand almost everything now I can communicate without thinking too much probably took me about I would say roughly three-ish three or four years of study but then again it's three or four relatively intense years for Spanish because for Spanish I was majoring in it, right? So I was my classes were all in Spanish and not only that my classes were all in Spanish and then every day I used to go for a minimum if one to three hours and I go to this place at my university called the Spanish Center where it's basically like a very casual environment you just walk into a room, you can hang out, talk in Spanish sit there do homework, whatever you want. So I was probably doing as much, you know probably if you look to my day there was 40% of the time well maybe 50% of the time in English, maybe and then the other 50 was split between French and Spanish so for me it's pretty intense like quite a bit of it, quite a few hours Mandarin was a little different, Mandarin I've been studying for three and a half years I feel reasonably, reasonably comfortable I'm not, there's a lot I don't know but even that, you know, I I was in China for three months studying pretty intensely so I'm someone who I usually do like if I look at my weeks I might do a couple hours a week or call it two to ten hours a week when I'm in town and at some point I'll take a month or so in the year and I'll study very intensely, whether it means I travel or whether it means I take all like just book time off work or whatever and just take online classes for a bunch of hours a week, whatever it is. Yeah, no and I found the same with me because I think, yeah, when I surround myself with that language and have it intensely rather than an hour or two, three times a week then it's a lot better because, yeah, otherwise it's at least for me, yeah, it's a lot harder and it's interesting because I've found also just in general I feel when I'm learning languages I can often get a lot from people like you who learn the language rather than just grew up with it like when I was learning Chinese as well I'd ask my friends there in Taiwan, why do you say this, why do you use that I wouldn't just do, but then I'd ask other friends who'd actually learned the language before me and they could explain exactly why and so, yeah, I think it helps for someone who's learned it and so they can say why or in what instances you should use this or that or whatever. And that's something that makes, it's really interesting that's often I find in my experience what makes someone who's good at teaching they're able to break it down for someone, that's kind of the big thing and a lot of teachers, actually weirdly teachers you see can't break it down yeah, that's true actually, yeah very often they're like, that's the way it is but yeah, you should, exactly you should be able to explain stuff like that, I agree so you teach these languages and you mentioned, I know you teach them face to face and you also teach online, correct? yes, correct but most of what you teach is face to face but you teach something roughly 60% in person 40% online, roughly something like that okay, and so just in case people watching might be interested in being able to teach a language either face to face or online, could you go through what are some of the good points of teaching teaching language online, let's say yeah, so when you say good points do you mean like what are some of the benefits for the student, what do you mean benefits for you what direction, what do you mean exactly? basically, some of the benefits, yeah for the student and for you, just as opposed to face to face so yeah yeah, online's convenient, you can do it from anywhere you can do it from your house, the student can meet their house it's very very convenient I think online, especially because you can still teach very very well online you don't necessarily need to be face to face yeah, there's a lot of benefits to it I think those are kind of the primary ones you can still do very good teaching you can do screen shares, you're not limited by resources you can still share your screen you can still share pictures you can still see each other, you can still hear each other there's still a lot you can do I like to think of this as the common misconception that you're, it's it's better in person and it could be in a lot of ways and we can get into that but it could be but it's not necessarily it depends on what the student needs and so what the student needs in terms of so they might find it more convenient to say they don't have a car, they live far away exactly, I have students in my city who I have only seen in person once because we do by Skype, because they literally live at the opposite end of the city and our work schedules don't line up it would not make sense for us to meet in person it would just be silly we would drive an hour or 45 minutes to see each other even if we had a two hour lesson instead of one hour, hour and a half even if it was two hours as much travel time as there is lesson time it's like a waste of half a day ridiculous so sometimes it doesn't make sense right but it is interesting are most of your students still in your city or in your general area or I used to have a lot more international I wanted to do more in person I wanted to do more local things because couple of reasons I got tired of sitting behind my computer all day so I used to do like 80% online even if they're in my city I taught online and I was like 20% in person I was like I don't want to leave and after a while I was like oh my goodness this sucks sitting in front of my computer every single day all day, wake up, sit this is awful but also what I liked about in person is that you can actually monetize a heck of a lot more because in person you can do you can actually do a heck of a lot more so for example maybe I've got a student who does 2 hours a week but then we can actually do I can say hey Sally you and my other student John you actually have a similar level we should do like a 2 day intensive together we should meet up we can hit up the mall, we can do a scavenger hunt we can play games together why don't we just book off a weekend it's hard to do that online yeah no that's true and actually I'm glad you mentioned that because I was going to follow up with asking about I saw that you do these multi day courses or that you've offered something in your blog and so that in that case is that what you did you took different students that you have and you said okay you're at similar levels that's all meet up that was kind of like that more of the fact I had I had someone who flew me down to a different city they paid for my flight paid for my hotels, paid for the lessons they bought me out for about whatever it was for a call at 4 days and so and I was like oh that's pretty cool I've done local events before but that event went really well I was like wow I want to do more of that so I started to talk to more students about it and then there's a few people who are like yeah actually that would be super cool they had similar levels so we just did it and no it does because I like how you then it seemed you're doing stuff that has nothing to do with the language nothing to do with French or whatever but you know they have to use it while they're playing games, while they're going around the store absolutely and it helps I think also multi day like as you mentioned before because they get more of an intense experience rather than just an hour online or you know an hour yep so yeah and that seems like one of the main benefits face to face as well is there anything else that you like about face to face teaching as opposed to online let's say yeah face to face it's easier to incorporate different learning styles so if somebody you know I'm teaching someone and for example we want to play let's say they're a tactile learner and we decide oh and I noticed you're a tactile learner you really learn when you can see it well it tastes like use your senses way easier to like bring a puzzle or bring like a craft or something and to work use that to teach you online that's I guess it's possible it's not as easy like I have done it like I've played games but it's just a little bit more cumbersome and it's not quite the same so you just have more like I was saying before teaching online is not fully limited well it's not but definitely face to face you're way less limited you have way more options of what you can do yeah way more options of what you can do which is something I really like not to mention this is just me I feel that sometimes I can get a better a better read on how someone's feeling with the language in person sometimes when they're face to face right exactly and yeah so how would you do so say if you're teaching someone online they they learn more easily you know in a visual way like if they see it either in writing or something along those lines how would you do that if you're teaching them online those options screen share Google Docs you can actually like share the same Google Docs with each other so you can both see pictures pictures are great like you can pull up a Google images Google image searches with whatever pictures you need you can even have flash card pictures of them that before yeah those are those are good ways to use visuals for example online yeah so you don't usually use textbooks or stuff like that when you teach um it depends so so it depends on what the student needs so the situation where I would is that the students in school and they are using a textbook and they have to get through that and and that's kind of what they're working on we might use that textbook right um generally speaking no I'd say I don't and the reason being is that this is something I'm a big this is something a lot of people say they do but most people don't do it because it's way too hard um which is literally going hey the student needs XYZ so I'm gonna literally change how we teach to do XYZ so I'll give you an example uh once I had a dyslexic student who just couldn't read but he's gifted musically right like musically gifted so I was like okay crap that throws a wrench and things I've never had that nomination so what the heck am I doing yeah I have no idea what I would so all of a sudden it's going okay it looks like we need to listen to a bunch of songs and use the music part of his brain to remember things in the language because when he sang it or if he had if he's like if he sang it he could remember he knew oh yeah it's like that thing like and I was like interesting it was just interesting it was different I've never seen that before I was like oh okay so it looks like he needs this or like maybe like there's a video I posted recently on my channel when I had that two-day French lesson um you know like we had a con after day one I was like hey can we take extra after the first day of lessons I told my students can we sit here for like just 10 minutes and just I want to hear your feedback now I know normally would you feedback at the end of the event but I want to know it now so we can make the plan for day two okay yeah I'm gonna change it I was like I need to know now because I'm gonna change it based on what you guys think because I like it needs to be something that we're gonna learn so I went oh yeah this was good this was bad and they're telling me oh so I had to we had to change it and as a matter of fact we made the plan together yeah oh so this would make sense yeah I agree that would make sense and they would say things that I hadn't thought about and so the big thing um the reason I don't like the reason I might not use a textbook is because a text book is like here's how we do it yeah chapter one chapter two but so and so you know Jack Sally whoever you're the three people I know small groups I don't do large classrooms I think it's different dynamics there yeah right large classroom I don't I just won't have experience that I can't speak to it much but I can I could add more empathy as to why someone might use a textbook there I could understand more but if you have a small group one two three four five students like it just doesn't make sense yeah silly it's silly it doesn't it doesn't make sense to me it's laziness actually in a lot oftentimes not always often it's laziness easy to follow the textbook hard to make your own program yeah no and it's true and it's yeah it's all standardized and presumably exactly we're teaching one person or a group then they might even have different goals as to why they're learning a language or and you can kind of cater along those lines yeah now we're getting to different elements right it's I think there shouldn't be groups of people like the group should be based around level but also what they're trying to get out of it not just level who cares if we're all the same level so and so might care about pronunciation this other person might say I just I'm traveling to Paris next year I'm traveling to Mexico next year I just want to be able to just order coffees like even though the same level their goals are so different you have to like yeah so when you make groups it's it can't only be level it has to be like elements but even just what they're trying to get out of it has to be there needs to be some alignment right yeah no there has to yeah with uh if you have a standardized textbook for everyone it's there's no way you can do that no yeah yeah now the other side let's let's flip the coin I'm gonna give the other side is now for many people this is this is the big thing many people that's gonna work really well I met a student this blew my mind I just didn't couldn't imagine someone to learn this way this student enjoyed having a textbook I'm telling enjoyed it having a textbook it was like how to explain this a multi-lingual textbook so one side would have a text in English one would have Spanish Spanish or French he had two actually learning two languages he covered the Spanish read my name is John me on anything how would I say oh Spanish I'd say my John oh yeah I was like I would like shoot myself in the yeah and like cut off my toes like I would like oh my god like what are like so what the reason I say that is because you actually will get not you actually will get people who go yeah the textbooks great and they don't want to be you know reverse engineer they just want that so yeah you know nothing wrong with the textbook I'm not bashing the textbook matter of fact I'm just saying that you need to understand what the student needs if they need a textbook looks like you better find a textbook yeah but if there's better options looks like you better make a better option and I mean but but I think that's that's the thing you're not just standardizing it but you're taking it depending on each student yeah so yeah some will want a textbook but at least you can discern ahead of time and see what works where because I mean and you hear all sorts of because I've heard I knew who like to study language but if he was studying Korean at the time and what he would do is buy Korean books that taught English because and he would do it the other way and it would help out which yeah exactly seemed very interesting I've never tried it myself but it seemed like an interesting way to go for me personally I found that little kids books work well all the time you know and whatever like when I was in Taiwan or stuff like that I will get the little kid books and those you know would would be great for learning so yeah I guess to teach his own in a way yeah so and because I'm just wondering if people here are watching and you know they have more than one language and they might be interested in doing something along the lines of what you're doing if they you know in teaching whether it be face-to-face or online what recommendations would you have for them just start and stop thinking about it yeah that ends up being my recommendation for a lot of things yeah just do it and like it's never I mean it's like literally just put an ad on whatever ad sites you have in your area I know every area has different ad sites whether it's Craigslist or like whatever there's a different put an ad you know charge way less than you normally should so for example the going rate is what if you're a region if the going rate is whatever even if you don't know the going rate I didn't know the going rate when I started I was like I don't know I guess 20 what I even say I think I did 15 an hour at some point 20 and I don't remember anymore so that sounds about right yeah and then I started to do it I was like yeah this is good and I was like wait you can't make a living on 20 bucks an hour yeah do it maybe I'll try 22 maybe then I was like is it 30 oh maybe I should do groups and charge everybody 20 oh that would make sense oh wait that doesn't like just I don't know I never know what I'm doing I just try it and I go oh that's interesting that's funny that worked oh that didn't work like it's crazy like and then you get you just know that you just try it see what happens you're like oh that didn't work interesting or oh that worked interesting better do more of that and yeah no and that's usually my advice as well because no matter how much research you do you're going to get something wrong and something right you know and you're going to have to figure it out on your way anyway I don't care how much preparation you have so yeah might as well start right away and yeah like I literally now it's you should do more planning you probably it would probably help to do more planning than I do because I literally like when I threw an event once is like from for whatever it was for teaching a language and a few different people and then I realized like I was like oh yeah this makes sense and I realized I'm going to make like a hundred dollars in two days because of the way I structure the event I'm going to need this to have the event I'll need this well that'll be really cool well I'll charge how much do I charge oh I don't know what I don't know a hundred bucks person that's the price cool done and I was like and after I was like when on the event was going I was like I didn't lose money I wasn't that much of an idiot but I didn't think like the some of this didn't think through I was like oh but you know I much rather do that because now I'm that's never happening again yeah exactly yeah oh pissed I was like yeah how the hell did I do that like that's just like I felt like the biggest idiot yeah but now never ever happening again if I'd read it I'm gonna be like oh interesting maybe I would have I probably would have for like I don't know I don't know what have stuck the same way right yeah no but I agree yeah you go through it you're definitely not gonna make that mistake again yeah and probably the best way to learn it's so okay so if someone studying though a language right now how do they know if they're because like with you with Chinese you know and how do they know if their language is good enough to teach it even at a basic level or something along those lines if you feel comfortable okay if you I think it's I think it depends on you I think as long as you're very up front I think it's fine so like I said I read up front I said I teaching with French Spanish I feel very good with those I could teach any basically any level like I've yet to encounter there's very little I can't teach in the languages very little right this stuff I can't I'm sure there is but I'm very comfortable and even if I don't know it I could probably learn it pretty quickly Mandarin I'm usually I will only take you as a student if you're a pure beginner right if you're a pure beginner I think I'm probably an excellent teacher for you I'm excellent I'm pretty freakin good because even if you take a native Chinese person they're gonna be good too because they have really good language skills but I feel very confident in my ability to teach break it down yeah so the knowledge of the very basics is my knowledge of the basic basics is probably just as deep or relatively as deep as like a native Chinese person layer my teaching skills it's gonna work but if you're not beginner beginner I don't know I could probably teach you some things I probably help you probably but I don't think I'm the best one for you so go somewhere else don't don't come to me you're the better people for you well yeah wherever you feel comfortable yeah I mean and so I imagine then if they're beginner beginners if they have any like you can deal with any question they might have I'm trying to think of some question they might have that might be more difficult but you know not unless they came across someone who said something differently but if they're a beginner beginner then that wouldn't be the case anyway and even though they actually sometimes they do they ask me like because maybe they'll like I was teaching someone no I charge less on Mandarin I don't charge the same right because I understood I'm super upfront like hey when you when you you're probably gonna ask me things and I go I don't know so what it ends me what it makes me do and I don't know is I make a list of it and then I I actually hire a tutor to find the answers oh interesting so what it does is I know from Mandarin best case scenario I'm gonna make some money on it right teach some Mandarin get used to get some more experience and get better at the language because I'm teaching it so I'm still using it I still have to you know use it and use and basically understand at level where I can break it down for someone else right so that's best case scenario worst case scenario which is actually not about scenario they'll pay me they're gonna ask me one stuff I don't know and I'll go hmm and I'm only gonna make 10% of what they paid me or whatever it is well I'm gonna take that money and pay another tutor right to learn so one way I'm getting free Mandarin lessons and I'm like learning really fast because I pressure to learn to get back to my student yeah the other way is I made some money yeah and I got to practice anyway but that's actually why I don't you know it's actually one reason why I couldn't base my entire income of Mandarin because I know there's times where I've been like those are excellent questions actually don't know let me get back to you in like a few days after I talk with my teacher right and but I mean I assume because yeah because you are up from with it and you know that everyone's fine with that and you know it's an honest way to go about it and basically I'm trying to because I know as you said before you're very you're quite entrepreneurial you had you were running your own business before and you kind of dived right into this which I think is the you know the right way to do it but you know for people who are watching maybe haven't had a business before and who might feel a bit because you say whenever you feel comfortable and if someone say it's been studying Spanish for a while and they're you know they're pretty good and you know they can carry on conversations and other writing stuff like that how can they maybe feel more comfortable or how do you think they could you know ease into it or I don't know is there a method of doing this that you would recommend yeah I mean one thing that helps so for example when I first started to work when I had the window cleaning business I worked at the French as you had more support yeah right that's true so it's like a half it's like it's your own business but you have a system behind you yeah so the equivalent of that in a teaching world could be you work with a tutoring agency maybe maybe you start by working in the tutoring agency because it gives you like some more comfort that oh you know I have like a system behind me if I have a question they can ask that's one way to do it that's like a tactic I think at some point though they're they're they're I'll give three answers so number one you can work with two agency that works right you can do that right number two do it for free or very low cost right you don't feel bad you suck you're like well you're only paying me ten bucks an hour yeah like do it like dirt cheap like so something where it's like ridiculous yeah like where it's like why would anyone charge ten bucks an hour and you could be so upfront you're like I think I'm good enough I just have no idea I'm charging way lower than everybody because I just don't want to ever have someone say wow you're not good so and if you say that they're like oh well okay right yeah that's that's I think another way you can do it do it for free or do it for very low cost seven bucks an hour ten twelve I don't even know it has any reason I don't know where your followers live but whatever it is everywhere right whatever it makes sense and I guess number three and this isn't really tactical but you know there there comes a point where you just stop to either just just kind of make a decision right like just don't be don't sit in the middle don't be like I kind of want to do it oh but I kind of know now you're in the middle sitting on the fence yeah it's not fun just pick one yeah pick it just you know what's the what's the worst still what's the worst that'll happen and it's like you said you'll make a mistake and learn from that and you know you'll only make the mistake once even if you do make one baby I made a lot I made some pretty silly mistakes many times well but you but you learn at least like because the one you mentioned about organizing the roof like you learn from yeah yeah especially if it I was like really mad he was like it's such a stupid mistake it's such a silly like oh if I just literally just thought about it for five more minutes I would have realized it yeah but you know at the time you're thinking about a million different things for sure yeah it's it's difficult and and yeah no it's because actually I recommend something very similar to that with with translation if people don't have experience that yeah they can offer to do it for free and they can tell the prospective clients I'm just starting out I can do this you know I'll do it for free and if you're happy give me a good review or rating because they're different websites for translators and they rate it and and so yeah you know no one's gonna say no to free to something for free yeah no exactly and so so yeah so I mean yeah I was just that's pretty much it I just wanted to get an idea of someone who teaches who's learns different languages and teaches them whether online or face-to-face and see if this could possibly be a venue or be a be a way that you know some of the followers or some of the people who speak different languages might be interested in following I don't know do you have anything else to add nothing nothing nothing nothing really I mean no nothing else I mean I could talk forever I like talking but well nothing I can really think of that well okay then before that though let me let me just say I mentioned your name at the beginning but I will have a link to to all your links here in the description below as we're in the language nerd if you search for as we're in the language nerd you come up and so you can always search for it but I'll have a link to everything here below and and and yeah that's pretty much all I got as well if you if you have any questions obviously you can leave them and let me know and then I can I can ask as we're in and we'll figure away you can you can reply or you can reply in the comments as well we'll figure that out sure