Rick: Welcome to Language Learning Insights, where we explore how languages are learned and how learners can make better progress. I'm your host, Rick Moore, creator of the Language Learning app Mivoca. Today I'm joined by Dr. Esther Gutierrez Eugenio, also known as Dr. Languages. She's a language learning expert who combines neuroscience, psychology, and more than 20 years of international experience to help learners understand why they are stuck and build strategies that work for their individual brains. This is actually our second conversation here. If you missed our August 21 interview, I encourage you to check that out as well. In that episode, we talked about the importance of hearing words in your head and why many language learning methods fail, among other topics. Today we're going to dive deeper into a theme we just touched upon in our prior conversation, which is how your brain profile impacts how you learn a language and how understanding your unique profile can help you learn more effectively. Esther, thanks for joining me once again.
Esther: Thank you, Rick. Thanks for inviting me. I'm really glad to be here and yeah, just to share a little bit more with with your public, with your audience.
Rick: Well thanks. It's always a pleasure to chat with you. And for those that are just joining our conversation, again, this is the second one, could you just share a bit about your background and what you provide as Doctor Languages?
Esther: Yeah, so I basically I am my background is in languages, in translation and interpreting, and then I trained as a language teacher. I was a language teacher for more than 10 years, and eventually I ended up doing my PhD in language education. My main question was really to understand my own brain. I think that was always the main the main kind of leadering questions like what's happening in my brain, why do I struggle with this? Why do other people not struggle with it? You know, like how can I help my own students? Why does this student react completely differently to this strategy that is working so well for someone else? So it was all in that kind of trying to understand those questions and to get answers for them that I ended up doing my research. And I ended up, of course, going back to to the roots of where I think all language learning really is, which is the the brain. And it's not just about a lot of what we have as language educational studies that are just observing what happens to learners, but it's really trying to go a bit deeper and understand, yes, okay, we see that in the classroom it's interesting data, evidence that there are differences, but then why are they happening? What's happening here in in each of these students' brains that it's giving us those different results. So that's a bit the background and what's motivated me to come online and try to share a little bit of my expertise. Hopefully to help a student, a lot of people are struggling to learn languages. A lot of people think something is wrong with their brain or that they're just too old. And it's just a big pleasure for me to be able to help them and to say, look, no, it's just that you don't understand your brain. Once you understand that, we put things in place that are adapted to your brain and then just progress comes sometimes even too fast for what they expect. You're like, wow. I'm like, Yeah, that's that's that's what happens when you go with the current, right? Instead of going upstream.
Rick: So I know that there are different ways that the brain works, especially in terms of learning languages. So tell
Esther: Mm-hmm.
Rick: us why that's important to understand your brain in this in this context.
Esther: I think now we are at a very interesting moment in history where we have enough medical advances, we know enough about how the brain functions and works, and we have the technology necessary to actually go investigate further, to go look into tiny little differences that to be honest, 50 years ago we didn't have. And just understanding that, understanding how the machine that we are using to learn works and it's helping us learn faster, and when it's not learning. Also understanding why, because I don't think our brain ever wants at bat, like it never wants to go against us. It's just simply that we are not aware sometimes what we are asking from our brain. It's the opposite from what we've been training it for. So our poor brain is just there, like, well, you've been training me for ABC. Why are you asking me for XYZ now? Like this this is not what I've been trained for. And I think it's something that it's been very popular in other fields like you know, physical training. Like we do know, you know, if you are working on your arms and you're a tennis player, that's okay. But you know, if you're training for a marathon, you're probably not gonna work out so much on your upper body. And that makes total sense because we can see it. But I don't think we've extrapolated that into the brain and language learning. And a lot of people are still victims of that, of just because they don't understand what's happening in their brains while they learn. They're still training things that they don't need and they're not training the things that they actually need in real life. And that's where a lot of the frustration's coming from, unfortunately.
Rick: I I imagine most people are familiar with their learning style and and we're taught that there are differences and the way we learn that some are more visual, some are more auditory kinesthetic, can you explain what is unique about learning a language that differs from learning other subjects?
Esther: Yes, I think first of all, if I may, I just you know, pointed like those three learning styles are not science-based. Those are more like an urban myth, like people think those styles exist. We have no evidence if there is two or three or none, whether they are mutually exclusive or whether they actually overlap. Actually the latest research shows that definitely the visual and the auditory They can overlap. Like you can be extremely high visual learner and extremely high auditory learner or the opposite or any combination of both. I think what I talk about when I say that, you know, you you need to understand how your brain learns and how your unique brain learns, it goes beyond just a simple learning style as we've traditionally studied them or understood them. And we're talking about cognitive styles, which is kind of from psychology, but it's it's a much more developed field of a study. At least there is more kind of consistent research and and results in that. And it's just knowing that every brain is going to work in a slightly different way. And answering your question, how does that change when you're learning a language from when you're learning something different like any other skill? Well, interestingly, it doesn't change that much because our cognitive profile, our cognitive style, how our brain perceives information, processes the information, remembers the information, and then is able to retrieve the information Those are traits that we tend to see across different skills. They tend to be quite personal, very unique to each person. But the way you are gonna learn how to do pottery or how to play a new sport is probably gonna have a number of common things with how you're gonna learn a language. And it's not something necessarily that students think about when they they sit down to decide how they should learn a language. So I think it's a it's a very good question, Rick, that you just ask because it raises a whole A whole new other as kind of universe of problems actually and of questions for students.
Rick: In our last conversation, something you said that just fascinated me, that I think is worth repeating here, is how the auditory part of your brain is important to actually know how a word is pronounced to to hear it or at least say it in your head for you be you to be able to retain it well. And I imagine there are maybe other other facts about how the brain works are relevant to language learning, but to start with, maybe just give us a quick explainer as to the the auditory part of your brain and then maybe following that, any other facts we should know about how our brain works in processing language.
Esther: Okay. Yes, definitely. I think it's very interesting you mentioned it I think that that's a very important part because we don't realize to what extent, you know, language depends on us hearing. And if we don't hear the difference between two sounds, we cannot physically make that difference. That's I mean, i there is an exception, of course, with people who are like deaf or have hearing problems because they have their brain has developed in a slightly different ways. But I would say for the immense majority of us who can hear relatively well, even if we hear well, the way information flows into our brain through our ears is not the same. And that's why some people can hear a tune and play on the piano immediately. Other people can hear a tune and remember the tune and sing the tune, but they won't be able to play on a piano or in any instrument. Other people are gonna hear a tune and be like, yeah, I know the tune. Never will be able to sing it. And I I know people are like, I don't sing, I don't know how to sing. I cannot, I cannot sing. And I'm like, is that possible that someone cannot sing? Yeah, I'm a very musical person, so I'm like super, super curious when people say that. and then there's other people that simply like you can put the same music to them and They may need to hear a hundred times before they even remember like what comes next or like the little melodies. It's it's just a whole universe of of variables and just that's just literally the part of how the language comes into our brain through sound, right? Like without touching into
Rick: Yeah.
Esther: any of the other factors. So you can now imagine how different brains are if we just start adding factors, and that's where we come with these very unique profiles. If you know every student is a unique brain learning a language.
Rick: Now that's really interesting to to hear how how unique the brain can be, how it functions differently for different people. obviously it it sounds like there's an advantage to those that have that innate ability to easily recognize, identify and repeat or emulate sounds. What what do you recommend for those who don't have that that innate ability to process and identify sounds? is there a a workaround or maybe other strengths that they can take advantage of?
Esther: Yes, I think again it's about knowing your own brain. And you know, those students might be very strong in the visual part of it. But we do have training and we do have strategies that let you actually develop that part of the brain and we see it that the new connections are being formed and the brain is reacting to that stimuli. The problem I usually see a lot is when you combine the fact that they don't have a very good phonological ability. So they're not very good at picking up different sounds and like differentiating them and hearing the difference and and remembering them. And then you Kind of join that with a let's say a low ability to notice details naturally. Some brains are going to be super like big picture. Like they'll see the tree, the forest, the sky, everything's great. And then you always have the people that are like, you know, I only see the leaves and I only see the little branches, and I, you know, I don't see the whole thing, or they see it, but they was it that they see first, right? And that's interesting because it's about not just our visual. Cortex, but also the auditory one. It's it's kind of linked. That's why it's it's separate from being visual or auditory. It's like, what's your ability to actually perceive details? And when you're not very good at perceiving details, you're more of that kind of holistic person or like big picture. And at the same time, your cortex, like your auditory cortex, is not picking up on those tiny differences in sounds. That tends to be quite a difficult thing because it you need to train both at the same time. You need to train attention for detail in the sounds. So it you kind of go in against your brain a little bit. And I always say you have to go with your brain, but sometimes you're gonna need to stretch it. It's just the way it is. It's what I'm saying. We are not born to be like musicians and you know, to be like Mozarts of the world. That's fine. It's exactly the same for languages, yet some people may have brains that are naturally gonna make it kind of easier or more natural just to learn foreign languages. It doesn't mean that because we don't have one of those brains, we should just give up and like there's nothing to do. No, they're just simply different strategies. how can we train it? How can we make your brain feel more at ease doing that thing that you need? That's I mean, that's what brains are for, right? Like neuroplasticity
Rick: Yeah.
Esther: as its best. We're always learning and that's part of it.
Rick: So that has me wondering how can we as learners figure out what type of brain we have, what our our strengths or weaknesses are, because obviously if we know that, it sounds like we can better focus our efforts and become more effective. And I know you have a detailed process to really fully assess one's brain profile, but Just to give us an intro, can you share maybe a few basic steps one can take to have some better direction in what approach is going to be most effective for their brain?
Esther: Yes, and I think that's very interesting, Rick, because you you are totally right. Like when I work with any new students, I usually like the first thing I do, I give them this test I designed. And it's just like specifically to look at the cognitive profile for languages. So for me, it's very easy to then be like, right, okay, I know exactly why you were doing this wrong. And what this is not working, this is how you should do it. But I always ask them a number of questions before they do the test. And I think Sometimes their answer to these questions for me, it's almost as revealing as the results themselves. So I think that's questions that anybody could ask themselves. And I these are the ones I really want to to share today because I think you I mean, yeah, okay, ideally, you know, if you want to have the results, but you don't need it. Like you can just sit down, do a bit of self-reflection and on your own already find ways in which your brain is going to learn better. And sometimes, as I'm saying, these questions when students do them It's just like on their own, they come to the conclusion. They're like, okay, and now I realize. So the first one I would ask a student is, How did you land your mother tongue? And this is a very simple question, but very complex in the answer because most people don't remember. And this is where it goes back to like ask your parents if you still have your parents around. Or try to remember like what was it like for you to start speaking the language? Like I remember for me it was very, very difficult. I didn't want to speak the language at all. They took me to the doctor. I don't know. I ended up spe I mean, but I had what we call a silent period, which is that you listen, listen, listen, listen and don't don't say a word. Like they literally thought that maybe I had a speech problem, like a like a physical problem, because I would just no utter a single sound. And then just one day I started to speak in full sentences. Like I was like very, you know, like but this was so late that they had to take me to the doctor in between, thinking like, is she okay? Does she have a problem? And the doctor
Rick: Yeah.
Esther: was like, nah. She's just taking her time, let her, let her go on with it. and then I think, you know, y a lot of people don't remember that, but that's very helpful because that's already telling us something about how your brain likes working. Mine, that's telling me, and I do the same with everything. I'm a person that just listens, listens, listens for like ridiculously long periods of time or like observes. And then eventually when I hit go, it's like go. Like this is like nonstop. And what that tells me, it's like my brain really, it's going to be fairly reflective. It's taking a while to to make decisions and to hit go. It wants to have a lot of information. I don't like not understanding things or not understanding what I'm doing. And you know, there's again it's just something very simple, but sometimes a small instances a small examples of us learning our own language when we were young give us already a lot of information of why the things that we see today are happening in our language learning. then there are other factors, for example, a lot of people like I had a lot of issues when I was at school as well because I couldn't read. I don't know if I had maybe some f I think I was just lazy. I think I just didn't like learning. You know, it was not fun for me back then. when I was like four or five or something, but I remember, you know, we start we learn how to read when we are very young in Spain. So I think I was four or five when I started reading and I just I couldn't read and teachers telling my parents like she's never gonna finish a school. Like she just refuses to read and like it's like her brain shuts off. I'm like I think there were other elements in there that didn't necessarily have to do with language. But the reality is that it was really difficult for me. But then you know what? I ended up going to the library every single day after school and picking up books and reading. And I ended up loving it and enjoying it. And I became one of the best readers in my class. And you know, but just remembering that process for many students, that can give me already a lot of information. I see a lot of students who had undiagnosed dyslexia. They didn't know, but they remember how much they struggled with it. Well, that's something we need to know. Because if your brain is different in how it processes language, guess what? It's gonna have an impact on how you learn a foreign language. And we have research that can help because we have research and how we should adapt for people that have especially dyslexia. So there's a lot of things from how you learn your mother tongue, what you struggled with, how you felt about it, that I feel it's just like A golden cove that a lot of people don't don't even reach out for and don't think about it. So that would be the first question I'd ask them. The second question I want to know is how do they learn a new skill? Like make them think of the last skill that they have learned or a skill they've learned relatively recently as adults. Right. So there we were looking at childhood, which is bringing us a lot of things and you know a lot of traumas and all of that sometimes for learning and I hate grammar because my grammar teacher was so mean to me and that's where it's coming from and now you do not want to study grammar ever again. Now we understand that we need to break something there emotionally, right? But then we move into adult age and it's like tell me about something you've learned as an adult and how did you go about it? And what worked well and what didn't work well for you. And it's very interesting like how people choose different types of skills or things. Again, it could be pottery, it could be playing chess, it could be playing tennis, or it could be, you know, anything you want. It could be surfing. And it's very interesting because what we see is that again, your adult brain has already some preferred ways of working. And sometimes you have to listen to those ways of working when you are learning a skill like playing chess or like, you know, learning how to surf or how to do any sport. But when it comes to language learning, you don't even think about how does my brain learn. You just go and Google how do I learn a language and follow whatever method, whatever a guru is telling you to follow. And you don't you don't make that extra step, you know I mean you don't take that extra step of thinking, right, but does this work with how I learn? And what we see is that most of the super polyglots and people that are online saying, my method is the best, blah, blah. It's not that their method is the best, that method is the best for them. Because when you learn 10 languages or five or however many you learn, you have been through the process so many times that you've kind of perfected that process for your brain. So you you know I know exactly what I need to do if I want to learn a language. I know step by step, day by day, I pretty much like I just see it because I've done it before so many times. And I think that's what a lot of newer students, when they come to languages, they they come like blank sheets completely. And I'm like, you know a blank sheet? You're like, you literally, an adult has learned so many things. Let's see what we can learn from them. Someone that learns chess by watching videos and is like, no, I've I've I've read like all the books about chess. You know, and it's just like, you I I spent three months reading books about chess. And then I decided to have my first match. And like that's really interesting. And now you're trying to learn a language and you go to a class where they make you speak on day one. They haven't even explained what you are saying, they're just making you repeat like a little part, like some schools do, still to this day. And they're not explaining the grammar to you and they're telling you that you shouldn't think about the grammar, but look at what you did when you learned chess. Right? Like you spent three months learning the game of chess. You wanted to understand every rule before you felt comfortable just even playing with a computer. tha that's telling us that that's how your brain likes operating. I mean it's telling me a lot of the things about their own kind of cognitive profile, but it's just something that it's very easy to extrapolate and be like, well listen to your brain. Your brain is asking you for that structure and for that background knowledge. If you're not giving it to it, what is your brain doing? It's just feeling like at the edge of a cliff, like I don't even know what I'm doing here. Why is why are they pushing me to speak like I don't know what I'm saying. Like this is not what I enjoy. This is not what I This doesn't feel natural. And then there's all of the other problems, of course, that come with that, which is like anxiety and feeling ridiculous. And you know, and then you have all the psychological factors that come in and make everything even more complicated. So yeah, I think those those two things, whenever I get a student to just even reflect in them, sometimes they're already halfway through the answer on their own. They they don't need me anymore for that. And it's like, well, I realize maybe I should do the same for language learning. I'm like, we could try. You know, it would probably be a good idea.
Rick: So once you have a sense about your own learning process and about what your strengths and weaknesses are, what your preferences are, then how do you apply that? What's that next step once you have that understanding, at least a bit of an idea as to how your brain functions?
Esther: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think it really I mean it depends on what those insights kind of show about your brain, right? Because if if you're seeing something like I was saying before, you realize, well, I've always had a problem with sounds. I've always, you know, I've never been able to like even when they some people say, even in my own language, if someone tells me a new word, I have to imagine what what it looks like when it's written. If not, I will never be able to remember it. I am one of those people. Right? And exactly. And
Rick: Yep. Me too.
Esther: I'm like, well. Then why do you think that class where they're just making you repeat things but they never write them down, it's gonna work for you? Why do you think just listen into a lot of input but don't look at the transcript, just listen and absorb? Why do you think that's gonna work for you when your brain is telling you the opposite? So that's where I'm immediately I'm like, I sometimes you know, I feel like I'm just telling you what's just what you I'm just telling you again what you've just told me. I've just translated that into how you need to change your language lining. You need to change your language course. That language course might be fantastic for certain people. It's not for you. You need someone that is gonna be giving you the visual input you need to be able to learn faster. It doesn't mean you're not gonna be able to learn through just auditory input, but we know already that that's a slightly more difficult part for you because of how your brain works. And we know that we have the advantage of the visual part. Let's leverage it. Right? And I always say, you know, people like that, I'm like, well. You know, you're gonna have to do a lot of exercises where you're just writing down the things. You are seeing them written, because that's part of how your brain is kind of triggering memories and and saving things in the brain is you need to see them. It makes no sense to go for something else. And I would say the same, you know, if you are like I was saying, like you're one of those students that just needs to have all of this background information and well then Going for a l teacher that is never gonna explain grammar rules because grammar is bad, or they just explain them very loosely, or even like sometimes, you know, teachers we try to be like more dynamic and we may not go in as much depth as some students wish for grammar. And if you need that, then you know that okay, maybe the teacher is excellent and you keep the teacher. I'm not saying always you have to fire your teacher, but maybe what you need on the side is to say, Can I have a grammar book? Can you recommend me a grammar book? Because every time you explain something to me, I wanna go and read the whole grammar point in a lot more detail. That's gonna make me feel much better. And you will be surprised how many students I know that actually really enjoy doing that. Doesn't mean they're gonna learn it by heart or anything, but it's just like giving them a sense of security of like, yeah, I remember, you know, I remember the the the example from the book, or I I remember that sentence that I read in the book. It just gives them something that their brain is kind of asking for. And so far they've been like, Kind of saying no, they've been denying it. It's like, no, no, no, you cannot have it, it's not good. That's not how we learn languages. I think we we have a lot of those comments and of those claims out there of like that's not how you learn a language, or that's how you learn a language. And it's like, well, it depends for which brain. So I think it's always I mean, if I have one point for all the students, it's never take any of those claims at face value. Always think about your own learning history or your own learning examples. Think about what feels right and wrong for your brain and listen to your brain and test. Test things until you find something clicks and you will know when something works because suddenly it's like it feels so much easier. You actually enjoy the process and that's it's it's kind of a very good sign when it happens. It's like, that's good. That let's go down that road then.
Rick: And I forget how many different profiles are there when it comes to learning a language. I I know in the the analysis you provide there there there's more than a handful, right?
Esther: Yes, it's I don't really like having like as you say, like profiles. It's not like one of those like Mayor's Briggs personality tests, which by the way have not been scientifically validated either. But see how popular they are. So that's proof that you don't need to validate anything scientifically these days. basically the test what it looks is at eight different traits of your cognitive profile and usually reports them in spider graph. So it's basically Like they can be pretty much not infinite, but a very large number of combinations because eventually what I'm looking for, it's the combination of those traits. It's not necessarily being like, you have, you know, like this and this and this high and this and this and this low. You are a lion or you are a tiger or
Rick: Yeah.
Esther: it's I you know, I proposedly decided to walk away from that kind of testing just because again, I think for me that's a it's a more serious tool of research than than one of those personality tests that just People honestly don't really understand. They just walk away with the letters or their profile and then just like, well, someone told me I am a blah, blah, blah. so yeah, it's a bit more complex. I would say to be honest, I have seen already about 300 results like from people have taken the test, you know, like I used to sell the test. I then stopped doing it because I realized people were not the people were taking the test as if it was a personality test. And they would not do anything about it. So when I follow up and say, What changed in your language learning thanks to the test? And they'd be like, Nothing. Like sorry, like I I loved it, dog. I'm like, yep, that's that's no, you know, I'm not taking your money if it's not changing your learning. So I'm sorry, like I stopped selling it. But I have about 300 results. And I would say pretty much every single one of them is different. It's like, you know, it's a
Rick: Mm. Okay.
Esther: it's a five point, it's a five leaker scale, like it's five point scale for each factor, and there are eighty of sorry, there are eight of them, and then you can have all possible combinations of how those factors are scoring across five Like the five points. So it's just like every single person has a different type of of brain. And I think that's what's beautiful about it, right? Like that it'sn't something that you can easily package and be like, You're this type, do this. It's like, well no, because then you have this high and then you have this other thing low. So we need to adapt slightly, you know, to to the person.
Rick: I imagine that following our conversation a lot of listeners are going to want to learn more about what you offer, about these profiles and about the services you provide. So maybe just tell us a bit about the content you provide via Doctor Languages and elsewhere.
Esther: Yes, I think well if they're interested, I would say the best place to go is always YouTube because that's the one I'm the most active in. I provide a lot of free content. I definitely see myself as a bit of you know, kind of I'm I'm in the in the group of science vulgarization. I really have spent so much of my life trying to crack the code of language learning in a way that goes beyond what most people tell you. Because I wasn't convinced with those answers either. And that's how I started. And I think that's my my whole goal. Is like if I can help people that are struggling to learn a language to struggle a little bit better tomorrow than they are struggling today, then my mission is accomplished and I'm happy. Then of course, you know, that I've got some courses, I've got coaching, and there are ways in which I can help students that come to me and say, Esther, I want more. Like, can you help me figure this out? You know, I've I'm in a very time sensitive situation, I don't have time to watch 200 hours of videos of yours. I'm like, yeah, sure. Like, you know, we can I can I can do it for you. We can do it together and and it's gonna go much faster. But I think to start with, you know, I have so much of that content. And my goal really is that with that content, people can do most of the things on their own and they don't need me because I would never be able to help like I think there's a like a million, no, it's a billion and a half language learners around the world. I'm like, I don't have enough days in my life from now until the day I die, hopefully in a very long time, to help every single one of them. So content is the way that I do it. So that's why YouTube is the best way. If they wanna follow up a little bit and learn more about what I do.
Rick: Great. So should they go to your YouTube channel, Doctor Languages, as the the first point?
Esther: yeah, I think it's yeah, that's definitely the YouTube. It's at doctor underscore languages. So it's very simple. It's on purpose, so it's easy to find.
Rick: Okay, great. I'll be sure and put that in the show notes. thank you again, Esther, for joining me once again. And thanks to everyone for listening. a quick reminder, too, there is our prior episode from August 21, so I encourage you to have a listen to that as well. And again, I'm Rick Moore. I'm the creator of Bevoca, which is a personal vocabulary system that helps you capture the words you encounter, organize them in one place, and practice them until you feel you've mastered them. Mavoka starter is free forever with no credit card required. And you can learn more at mevoca.app. That's I V O C A.ap.
Esther: Thank you, Rick. Thanks for inviting me. I'm really glad to be here and yeah, just to share a little bit more with with your public, with your audience.
Rick: Well thanks. It's always a pleasure to chat with you. And for those that are just joining our conversation, again, this is the second one, could you just share a bit about your background and what you provide as Doctor Languages?
Esther: Yeah, so I basically I am my background is in languages, in translation and interpreting, and then I trained as a language teacher. I was a language teacher for more than 10 years, and eventually I ended up doing my PhD in language education. My main question was really to understand my own brain. I think that was always the main the main kind of leadering questions like what's happening in my brain, why do I struggle with this? Why do other people not struggle with it? You know, like how can I help my own students? Why does this student react completely differently to this strategy that is working so well for someone else? So it was all in that kind of trying to understand those questions and to get answers for them that I ended up doing my research. And I ended up, of course, going back to to the roots of where I think all language learning really is, which is the the brain. And it's not just about a lot of what we have as language educational studies that are just observing what happens to learners, but it's really trying to go a bit deeper and understand, yes, okay, we see that in the classroom it's interesting data, evidence that there are differences, but then why are they happening? What's happening here in in each of these students' brains that it's giving us those different results. So that's a bit the background and what's motivated me to come online and try to share a little bit of my expertise. Hopefully to help a student, a lot of people are struggling to learn languages. A lot of people think something is wrong with their brain or that they're just too old. And it's just a big pleasure for me to be able to help them and to say, look, no, it's just that you don't understand your brain. Once you understand that, we put things in place that are adapted to your brain and then just progress comes sometimes even too fast for what they expect. You're like, wow. I'm like, Yeah, that's that's that's what happens when you go with the current, right? Instead of going upstream.
Rick: So I know that there are different ways that the brain works, especially in terms of learning languages. So tell
Esther: Mm-hmm.
Rick: us why that's important to understand your brain in this in this context.
Esther: I think now we are at a very interesting moment in history where we have enough medical advances, we know enough about how the brain functions and works, and we have the technology necessary to actually go investigate further, to go look into tiny little differences that to be honest, 50 years ago we didn't have. And just understanding that, understanding how the machine that we are using to learn works and it's helping us learn faster, and when it's not learning. Also understanding why, because I don't think our brain ever wants at bat, like it never wants to go against us. It's just simply that we are not aware sometimes what we are asking from our brain. It's the opposite from what we've been training it for. So our poor brain is just there, like, well, you've been training me for ABC. Why are you asking me for XYZ now? Like this this is not what I've been trained for. And I think it's something that it's been very popular in other fields like you know, physical training. Like we do know, you know, if you are working on your arms and you're a tennis player, that's okay. But you know, if you're training for a marathon, you're probably not gonna work out so much on your upper body. And that makes total sense because we can see it. But I don't think we've extrapolated that into the brain and language learning. And a lot of people are still victims of that, of just because they don't understand what's happening in their brains while they learn. They're still training things that they don't need and they're not training the things that they actually need in real life. And that's where a lot of the frustration's coming from, unfortunately.
Rick: I I imagine most people are familiar with their learning style and and we're taught that there are differences and the way we learn that some are more visual, some are more auditory kinesthetic, can you explain what is unique about learning a language that differs from learning other subjects?
Esther: Yes, I think first of all, if I may, I just you know, pointed like those three learning styles are not science-based. Those are more like an urban myth, like people think those styles exist. We have no evidence if there is two or three or none, whether they are mutually exclusive or whether they actually overlap. Actually the latest research shows that definitely the visual and the auditory They can overlap. Like you can be extremely high visual learner and extremely high auditory learner or the opposite or any combination of both. I think what I talk about when I say that, you know, you you need to understand how your brain learns and how your unique brain learns, it goes beyond just a simple learning style as we've traditionally studied them or understood them. And we're talking about cognitive styles, which is kind of from psychology, but it's it's a much more developed field of a study. At least there is more kind of consistent research and and results in that. And it's just knowing that every brain is going to work in a slightly different way. And answering your question, how does that change when you're learning a language from when you're learning something different like any other skill? Well, interestingly, it doesn't change that much because our cognitive profile, our cognitive style, how our brain perceives information, processes the information, remembers the information, and then is able to retrieve the information Those are traits that we tend to see across different skills. They tend to be quite personal, very unique to each person. But the way you are gonna learn how to do pottery or how to play a new sport is probably gonna have a number of common things with how you're gonna learn a language. And it's not something necessarily that students think about when they they sit down to decide how they should learn a language. So I think it's a it's a very good question, Rick, that you just ask because it raises a whole A whole new other as kind of universe of problems actually and of questions for students.
Rick: In our last conversation, something you said that just fascinated me, that I think is worth repeating here, is how the auditory part of your brain is important to actually know how a word is pronounced to to hear it or at least say it in your head for you be you to be able to retain it well. And I imagine there are maybe other other facts about how the brain works are relevant to language learning, but to start with, maybe just give us a quick explainer as to the the auditory part of your brain and then maybe following that, any other facts we should know about how our brain works in processing language.
Esther: Okay. Yes, definitely. I think it's very interesting you mentioned it I think that that's a very important part because we don't realize to what extent, you know, language depends on us hearing. And if we don't hear the difference between two sounds, we cannot physically make that difference. That's I mean, i there is an exception, of course, with people who are like deaf or have hearing problems because they have their brain has developed in a slightly different ways. But I would say for the immense majority of us who can hear relatively well, even if we hear well, the way information flows into our brain through our ears is not the same. And that's why some people can hear a tune and play on the piano immediately. Other people can hear a tune and remember the tune and sing the tune, but they won't be able to play on a piano or in any instrument. Other people are gonna hear a tune and be like, yeah, I know the tune. Never will be able to sing it. And I I know people are like, I don't sing, I don't know how to sing. I cannot, I cannot sing. And I'm like, is that possible that someone cannot sing? Yeah, I'm a very musical person, so I'm like super, super curious when people say that. and then there's other people that simply like you can put the same music to them and They may need to hear a hundred times before they even remember like what comes next or like the little melodies. It's it's just a whole universe of of variables and just that's just literally the part of how the language comes into our brain through sound, right? Like without touching into
Rick: Yeah.
Esther: any of the other factors. So you can now imagine how different brains are if we just start adding factors, and that's where we come with these very unique profiles. If you know every student is a unique brain learning a language.
Rick: Now that's really interesting to to hear how how unique the brain can be, how it functions differently for different people. obviously it it sounds like there's an advantage to those that have that innate ability to easily recognize, identify and repeat or emulate sounds. What what do you recommend for those who don't have that that innate ability to process and identify sounds? is there a a workaround or maybe other strengths that they can take advantage of?
Esther: Yes, I think again it's about knowing your own brain. And you know, those students might be very strong in the visual part of it. But we do have training and we do have strategies that let you actually develop that part of the brain and we see it that the new connections are being formed and the brain is reacting to that stimuli. The problem I usually see a lot is when you combine the fact that they don't have a very good phonological ability. So they're not very good at picking up different sounds and like differentiating them and hearing the difference and and remembering them. And then you Kind of join that with a let's say a low ability to notice details naturally. Some brains are going to be super like big picture. Like they'll see the tree, the forest, the sky, everything's great. And then you always have the people that are like, you know, I only see the leaves and I only see the little branches, and I, you know, I don't see the whole thing, or they see it, but they was it that they see first, right? And that's interesting because it's about not just our visual. Cortex, but also the auditory one. It's it's kind of linked. That's why it's it's separate from being visual or auditory. It's like, what's your ability to actually perceive details? And when you're not very good at perceiving details, you're more of that kind of holistic person or like big picture. And at the same time, your cortex, like your auditory cortex, is not picking up on those tiny differences in sounds. That tends to be quite a difficult thing because it you need to train both at the same time. You need to train attention for detail in the sounds. So it you kind of go in against your brain a little bit. And I always say you have to go with your brain, but sometimes you're gonna need to stretch it. It's just the way it is. It's what I'm saying. We are not born to be like musicians and you know, to be like Mozarts of the world. That's fine. It's exactly the same for languages, yet some people may have brains that are naturally gonna make it kind of easier or more natural just to learn foreign languages. It doesn't mean that because we don't have one of those brains, we should just give up and like there's nothing to do. No, they're just simply different strategies. how can we train it? How can we make your brain feel more at ease doing that thing that you need? That's I mean, that's what brains are for, right? Like neuroplasticity
Rick: Yeah.
Esther: as its best. We're always learning and that's part of it.
Rick: So that has me wondering how can we as learners figure out what type of brain we have, what our our strengths or weaknesses are, because obviously if we know that, it sounds like we can better focus our efforts and become more effective. And I know you have a detailed process to really fully assess one's brain profile, but Just to give us an intro, can you share maybe a few basic steps one can take to have some better direction in what approach is going to be most effective for their brain?
Esther: Yes, and I think that's very interesting, Rick, because you you are totally right. Like when I work with any new students, I usually like the first thing I do, I give them this test I designed. And it's just like specifically to look at the cognitive profile for languages. So for me, it's very easy to then be like, right, okay, I know exactly why you were doing this wrong. And what this is not working, this is how you should do it. But I always ask them a number of questions before they do the test. And I think Sometimes their answer to these questions for me, it's almost as revealing as the results themselves. So I think that's questions that anybody could ask themselves. And I these are the ones I really want to to share today because I think you I mean, yeah, okay, ideally, you know, if you want to have the results, but you don't need it. Like you can just sit down, do a bit of self-reflection and on your own already find ways in which your brain is going to learn better. And sometimes, as I'm saying, these questions when students do them It's just like on their own, they come to the conclusion. They're like, okay, and now I realize. So the first one I would ask a student is, How did you land your mother tongue? And this is a very simple question, but very complex in the answer because most people don't remember. And this is where it goes back to like ask your parents if you still have your parents around. Or try to remember like what was it like for you to start speaking the language? Like I remember for me it was very, very difficult. I didn't want to speak the language at all. They took me to the doctor. I don't know. I ended up spe I mean, but I had what we call a silent period, which is that you listen, listen, listen, listen and don't don't say a word. Like they literally thought that maybe I had a speech problem, like a like a physical problem, because I would just no utter a single sound. And then just one day I started to speak in full sentences. Like I was like very, you know, like but this was so late that they had to take me to the doctor in between, thinking like, is she okay? Does she have a problem? And the doctor
Rick: Yeah.
Esther: was like, nah. She's just taking her time, let her, let her go on with it. and then I think, you know, y a lot of people don't remember that, but that's very helpful because that's already telling us something about how your brain likes working. Mine, that's telling me, and I do the same with everything. I'm a person that just listens, listens, listens for like ridiculously long periods of time or like observes. And then eventually when I hit go, it's like go. Like this is like nonstop. And what that tells me, it's like my brain really, it's going to be fairly reflective. It's taking a while to to make decisions and to hit go. It wants to have a lot of information. I don't like not understanding things or not understanding what I'm doing. And you know, there's again it's just something very simple, but sometimes a small instances a small examples of us learning our own language when we were young give us already a lot of information of why the things that we see today are happening in our language learning. then there are other factors, for example, a lot of people like I had a lot of issues when I was at school as well because I couldn't read. I don't know if I had maybe some f I think I was just lazy. I think I just didn't like learning. You know, it was not fun for me back then. when I was like four or five or something, but I remember, you know, we start we learn how to read when we are very young in Spain. So I think I was four or five when I started reading and I just I couldn't read and teachers telling my parents like she's never gonna finish a school. Like she just refuses to read and like it's like her brain shuts off. I'm like I think there were other elements in there that didn't necessarily have to do with language. But the reality is that it was really difficult for me. But then you know what? I ended up going to the library every single day after school and picking up books and reading. And I ended up loving it and enjoying it. And I became one of the best readers in my class. And you know, but just remembering that process for many students, that can give me already a lot of information. I see a lot of students who had undiagnosed dyslexia. They didn't know, but they remember how much they struggled with it. Well, that's something we need to know. Because if your brain is different in how it processes language, guess what? It's gonna have an impact on how you learn a foreign language. And we have research that can help because we have research and how we should adapt for people that have especially dyslexia. So there's a lot of things from how you learn your mother tongue, what you struggled with, how you felt about it, that I feel it's just like A golden cove that a lot of people don't don't even reach out for and don't think about it. So that would be the first question I'd ask them. The second question I want to know is how do they learn a new skill? Like make them think of the last skill that they have learned or a skill they've learned relatively recently as adults. Right. So there we were looking at childhood, which is bringing us a lot of things and you know a lot of traumas and all of that sometimes for learning and I hate grammar because my grammar teacher was so mean to me and that's where it's coming from and now you do not want to study grammar ever again. Now we understand that we need to break something there emotionally, right? But then we move into adult age and it's like tell me about something you've learned as an adult and how did you go about it? And what worked well and what didn't work well for you. And it's very interesting like how people choose different types of skills or things. Again, it could be pottery, it could be playing chess, it could be playing tennis, or it could be, you know, anything you want. It could be surfing. And it's very interesting because what we see is that again, your adult brain has already some preferred ways of working. And sometimes you have to listen to those ways of working when you are learning a skill like playing chess or like, you know, learning how to surf or how to do any sport. But when it comes to language learning, you don't even think about how does my brain learn. You just go and Google how do I learn a language and follow whatever method, whatever a guru is telling you to follow. And you don't you don't make that extra step, you know I mean you don't take that extra step of thinking, right, but does this work with how I learn? And what we see is that most of the super polyglots and people that are online saying, my method is the best, blah, blah. It's not that their method is the best, that method is the best for them. Because when you learn 10 languages or five or however many you learn, you have been through the process so many times that you've kind of perfected that process for your brain. So you you know I know exactly what I need to do if I want to learn a language. I know step by step, day by day, I pretty much like I just see it because I've done it before so many times. And I think that's what a lot of newer students, when they come to languages, they they come like blank sheets completely. And I'm like, you know a blank sheet? You're like, you literally, an adult has learned so many things. Let's see what we can learn from them. Someone that learns chess by watching videos and is like, no, I've I've I've read like all the books about chess. You know, and it's just like, you I I spent three months reading books about chess. And then I decided to have my first match. And like that's really interesting. And now you're trying to learn a language and you go to a class where they make you speak on day one. They haven't even explained what you are saying, they're just making you repeat like a little part, like some schools do, still to this day. And they're not explaining the grammar to you and they're telling you that you shouldn't think about the grammar, but look at what you did when you learned chess. Right? Like you spent three months learning the game of chess. You wanted to understand every rule before you felt comfortable just even playing with a computer. tha that's telling us that that's how your brain likes operating. I mean it's telling me a lot of the things about their own kind of cognitive profile, but it's just something that it's very easy to extrapolate and be like, well listen to your brain. Your brain is asking you for that structure and for that background knowledge. If you're not giving it to it, what is your brain doing? It's just feeling like at the edge of a cliff, like I don't even know what I'm doing here. Why is why are they pushing me to speak like I don't know what I'm saying. Like this is not what I enjoy. This is not what I This doesn't feel natural. And then there's all of the other problems, of course, that come with that, which is like anxiety and feeling ridiculous. And you know, and then you have all the psychological factors that come in and make everything even more complicated. So yeah, I think those those two things, whenever I get a student to just even reflect in them, sometimes they're already halfway through the answer on their own. They they don't need me anymore for that. And it's like, well, I realize maybe I should do the same for language learning. I'm like, we could try. You know, it would probably be a good idea.
Rick: So once you have a sense about your own learning process and about what your strengths and weaknesses are, what your preferences are, then how do you apply that? What's that next step once you have that understanding, at least a bit of an idea as to how your brain functions?
Esther: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think it really I mean it depends on what those insights kind of show about your brain, right? Because if if you're seeing something like I was saying before, you realize, well, I've always had a problem with sounds. I've always, you know, I've never been able to like even when they some people say, even in my own language, if someone tells me a new word, I have to imagine what what it looks like when it's written. If not, I will never be able to remember it. I am one of those people. Right? And exactly. And
Rick: Yep. Me too.
Esther: I'm like, well. Then why do you think that class where they're just making you repeat things but they never write them down, it's gonna work for you? Why do you think just listen into a lot of input but don't look at the transcript, just listen and absorb? Why do you think that's gonna work for you when your brain is telling you the opposite? So that's where I'm immediately I'm like, I sometimes you know, I feel like I'm just telling you what's just what you I'm just telling you again what you've just told me. I've just translated that into how you need to change your language lining. You need to change your language course. That language course might be fantastic for certain people. It's not for you. You need someone that is gonna be giving you the visual input you need to be able to learn faster. It doesn't mean you're not gonna be able to learn through just auditory input, but we know already that that's a slightly more difficult part for you because of how your brain works. And we know that we have the advantage of the visual part. Let's leverage it. Right? And I always say, you know, people like that, I'm like, well. You know, you're gonna have to do a lot of exercises where you're just writing down the things. You are seeing them written, because that's part of how your brain is kind of triggering memories and and saving things in the brain is you need to see them. It makes no sense to go for something else. And I would say the same, you know, if you are like I was saying, like you're one of those students that just needs to have all of this background information and well then Going for a l teacher that is never gonna explain grammar rules because grammar is bad, or they just explain them very loosely, or even like sometimes, you know, teachers we try to be like more dynamic and we may not go in as much depth as some students wish for grammar. And if you need that, then you know that okay, maybe the teacher is excellent and you keep the teacher. I'm not saying always you have to fire your teacher, but maybe what you need on the side is to say, Can I have a grammar book? Can you recommend me a grammar book? Because every time you explain something to me, I wanna go and read the whole grammar point in a lot more detail. That's gonna make me feel much better. And you will be surprised how many students I know that actually really enjoy doing that. Doesn't mean they're gonna learn it by heart or anything, but it's just like giving them a sense of security of like, yeah, I remember, you know, I remember the the the example from the book, or I I remember that sentence that I read in the book. It just gives them something that their brain is kind of asking for. And so far they've been like, Kind of saying no, they've been denying it. It's like, no, no, no, you cannot have it, it's not good. That's not how we learn languages. I think we we have a lot of those comments and of those claims out there of like that's not how you learn a language, or that's how you learn a language. And it's like, well, it depends for which brain. So I think it's always I mean, if I have one point for all the students, it's never take any of those claims at face value. Always think about your own learning history or your own learning examples. Think about what feels right and wrong for your brain and listen to your brain and test. Test things until you find something clicks and you will know when something works because suddenly it's like it feels so much easier. You actually enjoy the process and that's it's it's kind of a very good sign when it happens. It's like, that's good. That let's go down that road then.
Rick: And I forget how many different profiles are there when it comes to learning a language. I I know in the the analysis you provide there there there's more than a handful, right?
Esther: Yes, it's I don't really like having like as you say, like profiles. It's not like one of those like Mayor's Briggs personality tests, which by the way have not been scientifically validated either. But see how popular they are. So that's proof that you don't need to validate anything scientifically these days. basically the test what it looks is at eight different traits of your cognitive profile and usually reports them in spider graph. So it's basically Like they can be pretty much not infinite, but a very large number of combinations because eventually what I'm looking for, it's the combination of those traits. It's not necessarily being like, you have, you know, like this and this and this high and this and this and this low. You are a lion or you are a tiger or
Rick: Yeah.
Esther: it's I you know, I proposedly decided to walk away from that kind of testing just because again, I think for me that's a it's a more serious tool of research than than one of those personality tests that just People honestly don't really understand. They just walk away with the letters or their profile and then just like, well, someone told me I am a blah, blah, blah. so yeah, it's a bit more complex. I would say to be honest, I have seen already about 300 results like from people have taken the test, you know, like I used to sell the test. I then stopped doing it because I realized people were not the people were taking the test as if it was a personality test. And they would not do anything about it. So when I follow up and say, What changed in your language learning thanks to the test? And they'd be like, Nothing. Like sorry, like I I loved it, dog. I'm like, yep, that's that's no, you know, I'm not taking your money if it's not changing your learning. So I'm sorry, like I stopped selling it. But I have about 300 results. And I would say pretty much every single one of them is different. It's like, you know, it's a
Rick: Mm. Okay.
Esther: it's a five point, it's a five leaker scale, like it's five point scale for each factor, and there are eighty of sorry, there are eight of them, and then you can have all possible combinations of how those factors are scoring across five Like the five points. So it's just like every single person has a different type of of brain. And I think that's what's beautiful about it, right? Like that it'sn't something that you can easily package and be like, You're this type, do this. It's like, well no, because then you have this high and then you have this other thing low. So we need to adapt slightly, you know, to to the person.
Rick: I imagine that following our conversation a lot of listeners are going to want to learn more about what you offer, about these profiles and about the services you provide. So maybe just tell us a bit about the content you provide via Doctor Languages and elsewhere.
Esther: Yes, I think well if they're interested, I would say the best place to go is always YouTube because that's the one I'm the most active in. I provide a lot of free content. I definitely see myself as a bit of you know, kind of I'm I'm in the in the group of science vulgarization. I really have spent so much of my life trying to crack the code of language learning in a way that goes beyond what most people tell you. Because I wasn't convinced with those answers either. And that's how I started. And I think that's my my whole goal. Is like if I can help people that are struggling to learn a language to struggle a little bit better tomorrow than they are struggling today, then my mission is accomplished and I'm happy. Then of course, you know, that I've got some courses, I've got coaching, and there are ways in which I can help students that come to me and say, Esther, I want more. Like, can you help me figure this out? You know, I've I'm in a very time sensitive situation, I don't have time to watch 200 hours of videos of yours. I'm like, yeah, sure. Like, you know, we can I can I can do it for you. We can do it together and and it's gonna go much faster. But I think to start with, you know, I have so much of that content. And my goal really is that with that content, people can do most of the things on their own and they don't need me because I would never be able to help like I think there's a like a million, no, it's a billion and a half language learners around the world. I'm like, I don't have enough days in my life from now until the day I die, hopefully in a very long time, to help every single one of them. So content is the way that I do it. So that's why YouTube is the best way. If they wanna follow up a little bit and learn more about what I do.
Rick: Great. So should they go to your YouTube channel, Doctor Languages, as the the first point?
Esther: yeah, I think it's yeah, that's definitely the YouTube. It's at doctor underscore languages. So it's very simple. It's on purpose, so it's easy to find.
Rick: Okay, great. I'll be sure and put that in the show notes. thank you again, Esther, for joining me once again. And thanks to everyone for listening. a quick reminder, too, there is our prior episode from August 21, so I encourage you to have a listen to that as well. And again, I'm Rick Moore. I'm the creator of Bevoca, which is a personal vocabulary system that helps you capture the words you encounter, organize them in one place, and practice them until you feel you've mastered them. Mavoka starter is free forever with no credit card required. And you can learn more at mevoca.app. That's I V O C A.ap.
