Coffee Break Spanish - Celebrating 9 years of Radio Lingua

Episode Date: October 18, 2015

Nine years ago today we published the first episode of Coffee Break Spanish. Since then we’ve gone on to publish courses in 27 languages, and we’ve delivered over 160 million language lessons to learners around the world.Some of the team have spent this weekend in London at the Language Show where we’ve been meeting thousands of language lovers, among them many members of the Coffee Break learning community. To celebrate our 9th birthday we’ve put together a special show featuring interviews with some of our listeners which we’ve recorded here at the Language Show.Listen to the episode If you’d like to tell us your story and potentially be featured in a future episode of one of our courses, click here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Radio Linguid News 18th of October 2015. You are listening to a special edition of Radio Lingua News coming to you from the Language Show in London on a special day. Nine years ago today, the very first episode of Coffee Break Spanish was released. And we are delighted to be celebrating our 9th anniversary by meeting thousands of language lovers here at the Language Show Live in London's Olympia. Over the past three days, we've been talking to language learners and teachers about our coffee break language series and our high-five.

language series for younger learners. We are currently on season four of Coffee Break Spanish. We've just finished season four of Coffee Break French and we're working our way through season one of Coffee Break Italian. There will of course be more news about our plans for these languages and other languages coming in the next few months. But we're very excited to announce that we've been busy filming our children's Spanish course, High Five Spanish and this will be available early next year. If you'd like to find out more about High Five Spanish, head over to High Five Spanish.com. One of the best parts of being in London at the Language Show is that it gives us the opportunity to meet members of the coffee break learning community. And we've been talking to lots of learners to find out how they enjoy learning with coffee break languages.

To celebrate our ninth anniversary, we're really pleased to share these interviews with you. I'm here with Justin and Justin you're a teacher. Yes, I am a teacher, yeah, French and Spanish. And you've been recommending Coffee Break French and Spanish to your students, I believe. Yeah, I have. We, when it comes to exam time, it's been a really useful resource for us to just say to students, go home, log onto the internet, listen to this because often listening has been one of the hardest elements of the language for students to get to grips with. So, Holly, you have been learning with coffee break French and indeed coffee break Spanish. Tell us a little about your experience. Okay, so I started when I was currently doing my A-levels and it was a very easy and simple way of explaining it.

quite difficult or complex parts of grammar and breaking down it, breaking the expressions down into really easy to understand and easy to grasp concepts. So I really was able to learn quickly. If you keep following the podcast, following the sessions, it's really easy to understand and continue to learn. So keep up, keep up. Well, here I'm in London with Rian. Hello, Rian. Hello, Mark. How are you? Very good. And you? Yes, yes, very well.

Well, you, you listen to Coffee Brick Spanish, no? Well, yes, me I'm So, so So I'm So I'm So I'm

Why you're I'm interested, I'm going to I'm in New York to work and when I came, I'm not

I'm able not to say, hello, and then when I I regress to Inglatera

I, I wanted my studies and the Spanish and for so I want to be

my... In my... Yes, yes, for learning more. And just with podcasts and with my dog,

coming, and I'm doing all the day. Yes, me help. Well, perfect. And then,

you've been a different languages, Spanish- Spanish-ablan- Yes, Peru and Ecuador.

Yes, I passed nine months in Peru. Yes, so, I'm saying English. Perfect.

Okay, we're going to go into English now. Can you tell us what you'll best about Spanish, about Coffee Break Spanish in particular? It's really accessible. The presenters make it really easy to learn, they repeat it a lot so that you can, you know, really get it in your head. It's very useful. It's typical Spanish. It's absolutely fantastic. I would recommend

it to anyone. Buenos days, Ross. Ah, Buenos Aires, Mark. What, how? Very bien. And you too? Very bien, thanks. Now, Ross, you've been listening to Coffee Break Spanish. Tell us a little about what you think of Coffee Break Spanish. Well, I've found it very relevant to my visits to Spain. and what I've been doing and been interested in.

And in listening to some of the trips that you've made and the places that you've been, people that you've met, I felt that they were very real situations and there have been things that I could relate to from my visits to Spain. And where do you listen to Coffee Week Spanish? I live in Guernsey in the Channel Islands. It's a very small island and there's not a lot of scope

to use Spanish frequently. So this has been extra important to me to be able to tune in and enjoy it when I've been in the gym, walking the dog and doing other things, and not leastable when I'm in my local coffee shop, listening and tuning in from there. So, bonjour, Ellie. Bonjour, Mark.

Sa va? Yes, so it was very, very nice to meet you. You're a long-term coffee break French listener. Yes, that's right. I've been listening to Coffee Break French for a few years now. I'm just working my way through the member's version of Season 3. I'm finding the extended listening practice really, really useful. I like how informal it is. It's fun to listen to you. You don't necessarily

feel like you're learning because you're having a laugh along with the learners and you feel like you're having a good time rather than just learning by rote. I tend to listen to it when I've just got home from work and I kind of don't feel like reading anything or staring at a screen so I quite often put it on my laptop and then I sort of lay on the bed or sit on the sofa and just chill out of it. And tell us a little who you're using French in your daily life. So I am a civil servant. I work in European policy and I have a lot of interaction with the European Parliament. So I do things like phone up MEPs, officers and try and speak to them in French. And lately I'm understood and spoken back to it in French, so I must be doing something right.

Excellent. So merci beaucoup. Merci beaucoup, Mark. Hendrick, you have been listening to Coffee Break Spanish for some time. Yes, for a few years now. And with friends of mine as well, we've been learning Spanish. And we really get a lot out of it. Tell me what you like about Coffee Brick Spanish.

Well, what I particularly, so many things I like, actually, but I find it very useful to actually refer to a particular item that you've covered, particularly when I'm already in the middle of a course and a sort of reference. I think the thing I get most out of is the grammar, actually. And I love repeating, repeating what you say. I love the sound of the rhythm of the language. Hello, Paula. Bonjour.

Hello. So, very good. No, I'm that Spanish. You see, I get very confused between Spanish and French. Talk to me Spanish. Well, much gracias for having listened to Coffee Brick Spanish. Do you like Coffee Brick Spanish? Me Gusta much because it's a method of very sincere to learn the language.

Perfecto. Tell us a little about how you've been learning Spanish with Copy Brick Spanish. And indeed, you mentioned also your husband has been learning some Spanish. Yeah, he's used it more than I have. And in fact, he's led all his Spanish, he knows through Coffee Break Spanish. And so when we go to Spain, he can get by in the restaurants and in shopping, in the hotels. And it's simply by listening to Coffee Break Spanish, because he's done nothing else at all.

And he listens in the car. We are talking to yet more Coffee Break Spanish listeners. And I'm now here with Suzanne. Suzanne, Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires. Can you tell us a little about what you've just told me? Well, we were renovating our house, and I ended up with all the really boring jobs, the sanding, the painting, all the touching up, all the cutting it. So I decided that as I was at home, I needed to keep my mind active.

And I decided to download Coffee Break Spanish and Coffee Break French. I also downloaded the Italian one as well. And so you've been listening to the podcast as you've been renovating your house, basically? Yes, I have, yes. I just used to have them on my iPod and then just listen to them as I went and just listen to them every day. I think they're awesome. They really are. I had absolutely no prior knowledge of Spanish.

and only GCSE knowledge of French and no prior knowledge of Italian. And I found myself, our town had an Italian market and I actually found myself speaking to one of the people in Italian and I was very impressed with myself. Veryissimo. Benissimo. I just think it's a really, the way the podcasts are put across,

they're very easy to listen to. They're short, so they hold the attention. They delve into grammar, but not too much. I'm now a degree student and I still use parts of Coffee Break Spanish and Showtime Spanish to understand various grammatical points. If I can't understand it in the book, then I can listen to it. And sometimes someone just saying something in a different way, something just clicks. So Rosalind, you're a teacher of Spanish and Italian and you've been using Coffee Break Spanish for some time. Yes, I have. I think it's very useful. It's very concise.

And I use it sometimes to get ideas to then go and do my own lessons. I recommend it to my students and yeah, I find it works very well. So we've discovered another Coffee Brick French listener here in the language show. Hello, Marianne. Hello. You're all right?

Yes, I'm very well, thank you. Very well, thank you. So, let's tell us what you've made, what you've learned with Coffee Brick French. I learn a lot of expression and also the grammar. It's a little revision for me, the grammar. Very good.

And you're listening to Coffee Brick French where, exactly? every day, while I walk at the work at the time, the end of the day,

I'm going to an episode the morning, an episode, the night, an episode, the morning. She listens to an episode in the evening,

and an episode in the morning when she is on her way to her work. Now, Marian, you are actually from Canada, is that correct? Yes, I'm Canadian. Whereabouts in Canada are you from?

I'm from Toronto. I live in a mainly Anglophone city, so it's a lot of English, but I worked in a bilingual environment, so I had to speak French every day with people from Quebec. It's helped me to improve definitely the expressions and just to maintain my French because I no longer work in that job,

so I'm no longer speaking French every day. Ed, you have been listening to Coffee Break French for some time. Yes, yes, I have. Well, for me, it was like the... With Coffee Break French, I was listening every day on my way to work, and obviously I need to read books to learn the language as well but I really liked the sort of mobile element of it

and I can listen to it whilst I'm doing other things as well and I think it's just a fast way of learning it's always like useful phrases at the start which are going to be able to apply straight away to everyday language and speaking to people so I think it's a great way to just get a good fast progression in the language Very well.

Thank you. Now, you also mentioned that you are taking on another language now. Yeah, I've just started the Coffee Break German series. That's going very well. I mean, I was inspired by a holiday I took in France where there was a lot of more Germans than French people in France. So I just wanted to be able to at least say, you know, hello, v. Geds and that kind of thing. It's great.

I've already, I've been doing it for about a month and a half now, and I've been, I have some German friends from Union. I've already been able to have a little small exchange with them, which is great. Thank you. Thank you. We're still here at the language show, and we're now talking to Jen. Ola, Gen. Ola. Como is das?

Very bien, thanks. And you've been learning some Spanish with us, but you also are a French and German teacher. Is that correct? That's right, yes. I've been trying to learn Spanish for some time, and I have decided that I've decided that I I need to start doing all the things that I tell my students to do and do things like listen to podcasts like Coffee Breaks, Spanish and so on. And it's a recent discovery and it's highly recommended.

What is it about Coffee Break, French, Spanish or German that you enjoy in particular? I enjoy listening to the conversations and the interaction, knowing that coming up afterwards there's going to be a little explanation of what the complicated bits might be. So I don't have to sit and wonder what it might have been about because I know that coming up shortly there will be a little explanation. of, well actually so and so was talking about this, that and the other, which is quite reassuring, but also helpful to put me back on track at the same time.

It's easy to access, it's free, it's very easy to download, you can get it on loads of different devices and so on, and also your students in a classroom really only have access through you to certain things. So if they can listen to lots of different voices, talking at different speeds about different things and different topics, that's always much more helpful to them than just listening to, you know, one person joining on all the time. Thank you very much. Jen. Well, thank you very much. It's lovely to meet you. Jenny, which languages are you learning with coffee break?

I'm following coffee break French and coffee break German for revision and general grammar, bringing my grammar back up to speed and language to where it should be. And I'm just starting coffee break Italian. I think German is my strongest language, definitely German. The coffee break courses are very, very easy to follow. And I think in terms of, they give you enough grammar that you can actually pick it up at the right speed. And it just helps you bring it, for me certainly bring it back up to where it should be. I think as a beginner in the other languages, you pick it up at a natural place.

When I'm working on my computer, I have it in the background, so I listen, yeah, either while I'm working or just in my lunch breaks. Or your coffee breaks? Oh, my coffee breaks, yeah. So I'm Francesco de Lesio. I've actually found coffee break Spanish and French. Around about five years ago,

and I think I got my first iPod and just was going through the podcast, and I saw your podcast, discovered it there, and carried on listening, you know, in those five minutes waiting around and ten minutes waiting for the train. So that's when I started learning. I've been slacking off my Spanish recently, but I've actually kicked off more of my French. So it's a really fantastic. Fantastic resource. Thank you very much. What's the most useful aspect of coffee break French

or Spanish for you? Of course, I think it's the, what really like draws people into it, I think, is the quality of the podcast as well. So, like, listening. to a really high quality podcast makes a difference. And with the kind of content and the quality of your presenting and the team as well and the natives as well really does make it what it is, it brings it to life and makes it really more immersive. And it slows it down as well. So you can really like bring it down to a level that you're at and go at the pace you're at too. So now I'm with Delphine. Hello, Delphine.

You can't us explain a little what you have done with Coffee Brick Spanish. because you have learned the Spanish with us? Yes, so it was about 18 months. I wanted to do my career

and I decided to do a PGC in England and I were only only French and English and so when I was

being taken to start the PGC they said that I should do a other language and so I said that I'll

do the Spanish Now for our listeners who don't speak French what Delfina has just said is that she has

had decided to change her career and she started to doing a teaching qualification and she needed to learn a new language as a result. So tell us a little in English, set poise, about your experience with coffee break Spanish. Well, I just, I didn't know any Spanish. I could count to five and that's it. And I just started to download the podcast and started really, really slowly, just saying, you know, Ola and so on. And as the weak progress, I got absolutely obsessed with it. I listened to it. while I listen to quite a few every day while cooking is so easy or walking

the dog or whatever and after six months of starting I'd listen to all of this everything up to the end and actually started to teach Spanish the September after us so yeah and then it's your turn

we'd love to hear your story and find out how you discovered coffee break where you listen what you've learned your favorite episodes and how learning a language with us has helped you. Go to radiolingua.com slash my story and leave us a voicemail and we'll hopefully be able to use your story in a future episode.

Finally, on behalf of everyone who has been involved in Radio Lingua over the past nine years I'd like to say a huge merci, thank you, gratia gratis, thank you, thank you, thank you, gramele magov, moumesk, obrigado, signetu,

thank you, thank you, tap a live, Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.