Transcript of AE 1420 - Interview: He Sounds Australian, But Has Never Lived Here!

G'day, you mob! Welcome to Aussie English. I'm your host, Pete, and my objective here is to teach you guys the English spoken Down Under. So whether you want to sound like a fair dinkum Aussie or you just want to understand what the flipping hell we're on about when we're having a yarn, you've come to the right place. So sit back, grab a cuppa, and enjoy Aussie English. Let's go!

G'day, you mob. Pete here. Welcome back to the Aussie English Podcast! Today I have an interview episode for you with one of my students. Today's guest is someone who's genuinely hard to put into a single category.

Elvin Flamingo is a Polish bio artist, academic, filmmaker, designer, and extreme sports enthusiast, as well as one of the most unique thinkers I've ever met. He spent years exploring the intersection between art, biology, technology, philosophy and human culture, creating award winning works that have been exhibited across Europe and beyond.

His long term project, The Symbiosis of Creation, combines living organisms, scientific research and artistic expression in ways that challenge how we think about intelligence, creativity, nature, and ourselves.

Alongside his artistic work, Elvin is taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdansk for more than a decade and served as associate dean of intermedia, helping shape the next generation of artists and researchers in Poland.

But beyond all of that, Elvin is also a very passionate learner of Australian English. He's an adventurer who loves pushing himself through extreme sports and physical challenges, and most importantly, his dear friend.

Over the last few years, we've had countless conversations about art, science, language, philosophy, culture, and what it means to live a meaningful life. I've really loved having Elvin as one of my English students and have deeply enjoyed these conversations, and I've wanted to share these with you guys for quite a while.

After finally convincing Elvin to join me after several months, he agreed to come on the podcast and I'm really glad that he did. So today, I'm excited to sit down with Alvin and explore some of these ideas together.

So, Elvin, I've heard skateboarding is only for young people.

You think so? No, it's not true. I'm almost 60 and I am skateboarding every single day.

What do you mean? You're skateboarding every day at 60. Isn't that dangerous?

It is dangerous. You have to, have to have a special outfit and, you know, armour, helmet. You know, the safety stuff for wrists.

Wrist guards. Yeah.

Wrist guards, yes.

And what is it? Is it easier as an older person? Are you, are you more reserved? You take it easy. You're careful. Or do you, do you go a bit crazier because you're a bit older with a bit more knowledge. How do you feel like your age affects your skateboarding?

I feel like I'm much, much younger than I am. In fact, that I am in fact, you know. So, um, yeah, it's funny because I, I feel like I am on permanent vacation.

You were just telling me that we're having this conversation and you were like.

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

What were you telling me? Tell, tell the audience what you're up to. You were saying I enjoy what?

Yeah, I enjoy, you know, there are days that I go outside my with my skates. Twice. Twice. So altogether I, I rode, I ride, usually ride almost 50km a day. And yeah, I've got three sets of tires, about- I use two of them, one for asphalt. And the second one is mountain tires.

Mountain, yeah.

So for every terrain. And also also I rode on the beaches. It was insane because on the beaches you, I had this feeling of, of, you know.

It'd be slippery, right? Like you kind of dig in and skid a bit and the sand moves a little.

A little bit, a little bit. It was, it was kind of, you know, dangerous, I would say.

How did you pick up this sport of e-skateboarding? Right. That seems very niche. It's pretty rare.

I don't I just met my friend and he's, he's got a e-skate and he do want to try and I said, why not? But probably I will fall, I will fall down. I know you will know. So I just, you know, he, he gave me his e-skate for one hour and I rode one hour. I just, I was riding one hour on his e-skate and then I was just.

Is this, you just got on it and you drove off, right? And he was like, Hey, come back, come back! And you were like,

I will see. I will see it. After it, I just bought, I bought my, my e-skate.

So you were hooked. You're right. You were hooked.

Yeah, exactly. I, I bought, but I bought all-terrain, four-wheel drive e-skate. So it's, it's really, you know, how to say for every terrain, all-terrain e-skate. And it's really, it's really, I would say pro, you know.

It's a heavy, heavy duty shit, right? Like it's.

Heavy duty shit, yeah!

It's a tank. That was what it what was marketed as, right. It was called a tank. And it's.

It's a tank. It's a monster.

All right, well, we should probably introduce you. We've started the episode by just getting straight into things, but. So you're one of my students, Elvin Flamingo from Poland. Tell us a bit about yourself, Elvin.

Well, I've got two occupations. One is, I am an artist and the second one, I am a academic teacher. And so I got a lot of students, young people. So I'm, let's say surrounded by young people. And also so it's not only that I teach them, but I also learn from them. It's, it's very, you know, common expression that teachers working with students also learn from them. So that's like this. And I really enjoy my both occupations, being a creator and being a teacher.

What kind of artist are you? Tell me a bit about your art.

There are a lot of critics, that say that I am bio artists, but that's not, not 100% true. Because I'm, I'm not, I don't, I'm not, I don't use to work only with bio media. Working in the art and science field. I also do stuff like pop art and conceptual art. But yes, that's, that's kind of major activity that I'm well known in Poland. From my bio art, and art and science activity. So I do art installations, bio art installations, live art installations, but also, as I said, pop art stuff.

Can you give me an example of what like bio art would be? Because I imagine the, the average person listening would be like, I have no idea what like I understand that it's art, but what is bio art? You know.

It's, it's. I would say everything because as you said, it's kind of a niche. No, no, you said niche about skateboarding. So but art is also another.

Yes. Yeah, yeah.

So.

Um, I would, I would say that every single bio artist is totally different than others.

Yeah. Every work is unique. Is it like they're always different from everything else?

Every, every single individual working in this field is, is, has has this specific, you know, kind of thinking and what, what is the outcome? What is the, the final, the final autonomous, autonomous artwork. It, it belongs to your way of thinking way of perception. Or way of how, how you, how you live and what you read, what you, what you watch, what you listen to. And it's all together in a mixture that your brain is producing, something special. So every single artist has his own individual bone, I would say structure and this, this unique, unprecedented energy in his, in his works.

But if you could you explain what, what would you expect? Or what would the average person expect to see if they went to a bio art exhibition that would be different from just, say, paintings or sculpture, you know, how would you define it? What would you tell them? This is probably the kind of thing you would see.

Let's say, it's kind of, it can be surprising because you can see something from, taken, taken out from the laboratory and it can be semi life or life, 100% life or can be just, you know, dead.

Yeah.

Just a few, few hours before. And also it can be also. A form, formula of documentation. So can be just video, video or photographs. But. But the most valuable bio art stuff is when it is still alive. And you can join this process of living, of living this artwork that you can see how it changing, you know, day after day. And you see the process, the experiment is still going on in front of your eyes. So that's the most interesting for, for our audience, I would say. And what can you expect at the gallery? Sometimes, you know, it's, as I said, it's really surprising because you're entering the gallery and you probably want to see some paintings on walls, and instead you see something like, Oh, this is some petri dishes or installations like living organisms, microorganisms or interacting fluids or I don't know, processes. So.

That reflect the natural world, right?

Yeah, exactly. So and then I, as I said, every single creator, every single artist has, this has his own individual way of thinking, way of working. So we, we are recognised immediately, I would say. This is, this is done by him. This is done by her.

Yes. Okay.

That's it.

What gives away your work? What if, if I were asking critics or if I were asking other artists that knew your work really well, what would you expect they would say about your work? What is the unique sort of factor that they would be like, Ah, that's definitely Elvin.

Yeah. I don't like it, but but the most, but the most people would say ants.

Ants. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. He loves ants. He's just obsessed with ants.

Yeah. I'm obsessed with ants, but. So I've got two main ideas. One of them is symbiosis of creation that I did with ants. And the second one is obsessive states, which I It's connected to other stuff, not only by art. And now this, this skateboarding, the skateboarding part of my life, which is, which I described as permanent vacation. I will try this year. This summer I will try to connect to art. So because, because at the, at the beginning of July. Yeah, July 10th, I'm starting my art residency south of Poland and I will try to connect my sport activity like extreme sports activity, because I'm not only skateboarding, I got a lot of boards like, you know, for kite surfing, for snowboarding.

We were talking about this in our class, right? You got about seven different board related objects.

All together, all together, all together. 11 because I sold a few of them. And so I will try. I will try with my curators, uh, join my artistic activity with my extreme sport activity, try to bring them all together and make them interesting for our audience kind of experiment. Because I have never, I have never saw, I have never saw this kind of stuff. And I'm always interested in making something new. So imagine that. Imagine a person, not only me, but a person who is an artist, like kind of, you know, well known in his particular country, well known by artists. And he started almost 60 when he's almost 60 started, started his creating electric, electric four-wheel drive monster beast e-skate. And try connect them together and, and make, you know, symbiosis, kind of symbiosis. And make something interesting for, for the people.

So how do you do that? We've talked about this before, but when you, so you come up with an initial idea like that for your bio art and you're like, okay, I want to combine a skateboarding, one of my passions with ants, one of my biological interests or passions. Once you have that in inside of you, what is the next process that gets from, from that initial spark of an idea all the way to whatever the finished product will be? What's that process like?

So could you, could you just ask me again?

So, so when you come up with that initial idea of, Okay, I want to combine skateboarding with ants, and I want to create some kind of art exhibition or installation or bio art, you know, show. Once you get that initial idea, what is then the process of coming up with the final product? What are the steps that you tend to go through, whether or not you know the specific idea in this case? But once you have this initial spark, what does an artist do to then progress through that, that production of this art?

You know, the thing is, because I mentioned this art residency, art residency in south of Poland.

You might, you might need a, you might need to mention that first for people because I know what it is, but people may not. There's an art residency. What does that mean for people.

Killed, sir?

Yeah. So there's the chance for you to be able to put some of your installations there.

Kind of. Yeah. But, you know, the thing is that, in in this particular place, in this particular era around Kelsey, there was science- few scientists found the first steps of four legged creature. Four legged, four legged...

Tetrapods.

Tetrapod placed like timed 392 million or billion...

Nah, million, million years ago. Yeah, yeah.

Million years ago.

So these were the these were the first vertebrates to leave the water, leave the ocean and come onto the land. And they found those in Poland.

Exactly. And as far as I have got this all terrain, four wheel drive skateboard, e-skateboard. I was thinking that I will explore this, this terrains, this, you know, small mountain, mountains and paths, whatever.

Around that area.

Yeah. And I prepared. I prepared, you know. Now, this this skateboard has three mountain, mountain places for my, from my 360 camera.

Oh, and you also put them on it. Yeah.

Yeah. And I also have on a helmet. So I'm, I'm preparing myself for recording, the process of, of working what I will do as an artist as, and as a extreme sportsman over there.

So that's clever. So I guess you could be thinking of what like the, the way an ant would see with all of the, the compact, what is it called again, compound eye, with all those different lenses that ants have in their eyes. And you could sort of try and put something together like that and then skateboard around seeing the world that way.

Yeah. And also I've got three microscope lenses. We've, we've some, you know, macro, microcomputers, like very, very small computers and yeah, we just try to, to the, the main idea is to make, make some art from the process, from being, you know, from, from the beginning of the, each day to the end of the, of each day.

Yeah.

And trying to, you know, compare each other and, and working on finally, it should be an exhibition.

Are you, are you thinking of it from your perspective the whole time when you're generating this, this artwork, are you thinking like, what do I want to do? What am I interested in? What am I passionate about? Or are you thinking about the viewer, the person that will come and see the work and the questions you want them to ask themselves, like, which perspective do you think more about as you design the artwork, your own, or the perspective of the people that will end up viewing the artwork?

It shouldn't be my perspective, only it should be. It should be somebody, like nobody's, you know?

What do you mean?

I mean that I shouldn't be important.

Yes. Okay.

But I'm not, I shouldn't be the person who is important in this process.

Yes, okay.

I should be just, I should be just, you know, like, like, you know, kind of robot machine or whatever, how to say it and just use this, you know, ideas how to, recall. How to capture videos and how to capture, you know, stuff this landscape because the landscape over there is beautiful. Yeah, I was twice already. So yeah, that's like this.

Yeah. Awesome. But so what do you normally do? What are the steps that you have to go through from? Like, obviously once you finish this thing and I show up and it's there, if you were to take me through the journey of actually putting it together. Are there specific steps you try and follow? Like, an initial step where you're thinking about it and you're just imagining what to do, and then a research step where you go out and try and expand, you know, your ideas by looking at the locations or reading about literature or learning about ants or learning more about like, what are the steps that you go through? Or is it always different depending on the artwork? And there is no constant similar process.

The main thing for me is being authentic.

Yeah.

Authenticity is the, the, the most valuable part of, of the process. That's my, that's my way of thinking. Yeah. So, so it's like, it depends on every single thing that will happen to me. And yeah. So and to happen to the surroundings.

So you just allow it to happen. And it sort of...

Yeah, exactly. That's...

You follow it wherever it goes, you follow it.

That's exactly what I wanted to say. Yes.

Okay. Is that the same for most artists or is that your process?

No, no, no, that's my process.

Yeah. Okay. So tell me more about the, the fact that you're in Poland but obsessed with Australian English. Tell me how that happened.

Yeah, I love I love Australian culture. I love Australian accent, I love Australia, I love sun, I love waves, oceans, everything which is connected to, you know, Aborigine Aborigines, Aborigines. Sorry. In the, in the, in the, in the indigenous people. And but now there is one problem because e-skating in Australia, almost every single state is illegal. So that's the problem. And only in Queensland you can ride e-skate. But yeah, that's the problem.

Queensland's not a bad place to be. Queensland's good. It's, it's beautiful. There's like big beaches lots, lots to do. So.

Yeah. Brisbane, Gold Coast, Cairns. Yeah.

So what started your your sort of passion interest obsession with Australia?

Oh, it was a very, very long time ago because I was just, you know, having this miniature of our planet, like globes.

A globe. Yeah, yeah, yeah, a globe. Yeah, yeah.

So, I just saw that that Australia and New Zealand is, is actually the opposite side where I live, right?

Yeah, yeah. It's on the opposite side of the planet, right. So you were looking at that on a, on an earth, on a planet, on a globe.

Why, why not to go there?

It's probably good!

It's probably good idea, the best idea ever. And yeah. And then, you know, I watched, I watched Australian movies and I used to listen to Australian news also.

Tell me about, tell me about our first lesson. What was the movie that I suggested that you watch? Do you remember that?

Yeah, of course. It was The Castle. The Castle.

What, and then in our second lesson, what did you tell me about the movie?

Actually, I, I told you what kind of shit it was.

You told me This is shit, i didn't like it.

Yeah. And it was...

Why did you think that at the time?

I didn't understand the jokes. I didn't understand the sense of humour.

Because something happened later, right. I think a few months, maybe six months, seven months later.

Maybe 6 or 7 months later, I watched again and I understood, and I understood the sense of humour. And I said, wow, that's brilliant.

It's such a good. It was such a good story and moment. Like I just I'm never going to forget you. When we had our second lesson and you were like, this movie. This movie is shit. Pete, give me another option. Let me, let me watch something better. And I remember being like, God damn, he's so blunt. Maybe this is, maybe this is just the Polish attitude. I'm not here to fuck spiders. I'm not here to muck around. I need to give me a good suggestion for film. And then months later, I don't know. Did I tell you to watch it, or did you just decide to watch it again months later?

I decided to watch it again.

Yeah, because I.

Feel because I realised that I understand much, much more Australian English. And so I, I just remember that that I, yeah, I should just watch it again.

So he gave it, he gave it a second chance. And then you came to class one day...

And, and I understood, I understood the sense of humour and jokes. And I said to myself, that's brilliant.

Yeah.

This movie is, is absolutely full of jokes, full of fun and.

It's the vibe. It's the vibe.

It's the vibe. Tell him he's dreaming.

I remember you came in and I think your exact words were like, Pete, I fucking love this movie, The Castle. And I was like, well, I thought you hated it. Like, oh, that was great. Yeah, but you have quite a passion for films, don't you?

Yeah, I'm seeing them all over. Yes.

Who in particular are you a fan of?

Quentin Tarantino.

Quentin Tarantino. Why? Why do you like him so much?

I don't know, he's got his, he's got his thing.

He's quite controversial, right. The. It seems like a lot of people either love him or hate him, right.

Really? I didn't know.

Yeah, yeah. What? Well, what are some of the movies that you like by Quentin Tarantino, just in case people listening don't, don't know the the producer name or the writer name. What are some of the, the classic ones that you love by him?

Of course, Pulp Fiction is the classic one. I've seen it for more than 20 times.

Yeah.

And I know people who who watched it.

Yeah.

Several times as well.

I've seen it several times. Probably not 50, but but definitely a handful of times. It's a good movie. I need to watch it again. It's probably that time again.

And you know, he's got his own narration style that nobody has ever.

Yeah, it's a weird one, right? Because I think he got to the point where he made enough money that he didn't care anymore about what what the producers wanted, what Hollywood wanted, what, what was expected of like mainstream movies. And he just went his own direction. But he had a huge cult following that just kept he just kept doing really well with his movies, right?

Yeah. There is something in it.

But tell me about the, the fact that you actually turned your love of movies and your love of English into something productive. You sort of combine the two into something artistic. Talk about that a bit.

You mean this, this podcast?

Yeah, yeah.

So yeah, it there was a particular time, like a month ago or no one and that I. I, I just, you know, said to myself that maybe quoting, quoting, you know, the best, the best, you know, monologues or dialogues from, from my favourite movies would be a good idea and, make some, you know, kind of podcast for people on YouTube that, quoting somebody, I'm quoting a movie or speech, famous speeches or famous interviews or TV shows. And then people guess where it comes from. And then I, I, I gave them the answer like, like a small, you know, small miniature of, of the original movie or, or interview. But, but it was also for me like a homework after our lessons because we've got now we've got twice a week.

Yeah.

English lessons. Before it was once a week. And so yeah, I did kind of 6 or 7 episodes and I enjoyed it very much, but I realised that I've got not a huge, you know, audience. It was like a few hundred only. And I said to myself, no, it's it's too it's so many, you know, it's too, too many work. It's so much work to, to do the episode. So for only, you know, 200 people. Come on. So I stopped it. But probably I will, I will, I will start the second season maybe.

Well, the reason you started it, right, was because you wanted to combine your love of movies and, and that sort of art with English learning and then also be be expressing it as art on YouTube, which I thought was just a brilliant idea. And it was cool that you were kind of using YouTube and your passion for movies in combination with English as a way of improving your English, right? As a way of studying and making it fun.

After making every single episode I, I, I, when I just was listening, my pronunciation, I just knew, Oh, I have to work on this, on this and all this.

Yeah. Reflective practice, reflective practice, reflective practice.

Exactly. Like, you know, using dictaphone or something like this.

Yeah, yeah.

So yeah, I'm getting better. I'm getting better. My pronunciation is getting better. And, and now it's, I also have to focus on this. This is kind of, you know, eastern European accent. You know, I have to get rid of it because get rid of it. And that's it.

Well, you don't have to get rid of it, but that's one of your goals, right? I guess it's not like. Yes. Yeah. You're definitely keen to sound a little more Australian, right? By using the language, the vocab, the expressions, the pronunciation bits and pieces that make it sound very Aussie. When you speak to, to people who are in the know.

And also I had the second idea that I just, you know, maybe of course I am. I'm not young, but maybe I will try to be a student, you know? So I decided maybe I can just, you know, go for the interview, and try to be a student, just like regular student at the university. And I had this idea to become a student of biotechnology, marine, actually marine biotechnology. So I went there and I did it and...

It was, it was in English, right? The whole thing was English.

Yeah. It was in English. And also it was kind of idea that I will be surrounded by, surrounded by English language. And, but then it was too much for me, you know, all together, my work at the academy and, you know, all this artistic stuff and, you know.

It was taking too much time away from your board riding.

And yeah, and being a student of marine biotechnology is hard too much, you know. Learning and...

Yeah, a lot of book knowledge.

It was too much for me. So I decided to quit.

But it was worth trying. I think it's one of those things I'm always impressed with you in particular because you seem to maybe it's the artist in you, but it's like you get ideas and you go with it and you try it and you give it everything and you see, is this going to go somewhere?

Yeah.

And then.

Yeah, exactly. It's it's, yeah, that's a good point of view that because that's my way of thinking and working.

Well, what happened with your, your arm recently? Tell us, tell that story. That's a good example of you starting something new, coming up against a roadblock or something very difficult and then continuing anyway.

You mean, you mean my wrist?

Yeah, I do, I mean your wrist. Tell them. Tell the audience what happened.

So after. After one hour riding, my friends' e-skate. I was like, wow, I don't need wind for kitesurfing. I don't need, I do not need snow for snowboarding. I just need, you know, just charge the battery, which is very, very cheap. It was surprising for me because charging the battery for this e-skate, monster skate, costs me only one Polish zloty.

It's no joke, right? Like you said, you get 100km of battery power on this thing.

Yeah. It's like, you know, it's less than 1 AUD.

Well, and that that would take you from where I live to Melbourne, which is, you know, it's an hour and a half drive. That means you could theoretically, if you could get on the road and legally do it here in Victoria, you could get from my house for a dollar. Yeah, it's pretty cool.

For sure! So, I was like, as I told you, it wasn't my first board. I, I got long boards. Normal regular skateboard longboard and snowboards, boards for kite surfing, etc.. Balance board as well. And I, I rode kind of 62 or 65km. And then I decided that, okay, today I will, I will do a trip, like, 30km trip one way from one place to another and, and way back. So, but I didn't think that there's a lot of people on this way, like a lot of other skaters, a lot of roller blader.

Yeah. Rollerbladers. Yeah. As well. Yeah.

Yeah. And one of the of them, one roller, roller blader just crossed, crossed my way.

And cut me off.

Cut me off, cut me off.

Yeah.

Suddenly. So I, I know how, how to fall down. I know how to do, how to, how to fall down safely. But this time it was too fast, too, too suddenly that I, I just fall down, at the back and...

Backwards. Yeah.

Backwards and fall on my wrist. So, this is the, this part of my bones was totally...

Obliterated. Yeah. Shattered. Yeah.

And now I've got a metal plate here. Metal plate here and ten screws.

Yeah.

But it is. Today is May 28th. The surgery was on May 1st. So it's almost one month after. And yeah, I'm able to do almost everything, right. Yeah.

He's turning into Wolverine, with the metal bones.

And of course the, the surgeon said to me, do not skateboard.

And you were like, Of course, doctor! Of course!

Do not skateboard for at least six weeks.

And you were like six minutes. Like, shake, shake my hand.

I already, I already did 400km.

Yeah. Since then. Yeah. You were back on it the next day, weren't you? Even with a busted arm, you were still on there again practising. Or were you just using the balance board for the first day or two?

For the first I used balance board and then, you know, some a week after I was on the on my board.

I was like, God damn, dude, you just no fear, no fear. I guess you're just like a life without skating is no life at all.

Yeah. And. And then I met my friends on the beaches, and one of them just. I want to ride. I want to ride. And he fell down as well.

He fell. Oh, did he, did he get injured or.

No. No, it was on the beaches. So it was sand. It was...

Yeah. Okay, a little bit better.

But if it was on asphalt or cement or whatever we would be, we would be in the hospital.

Well you were telling me afterwards, right? You ended up buying all this safety equipment and like gear and now you look like, you know, the Terminator. Or Blade. You know, the guy who fights vampires with leather, all-leather outfits and, and everything.

And and now, now when I'm riding every single day, as I said, people just, you know, people smiling to me. People just, you know, having just.

Yeah.

So it's, it's all together, like, you know, fun and happiness.

Do you think part of the enjoyment is the fact that you're like the only person nearby that does it and people recognise you. They know you. Do you think if there was a country...

That's exactly how it is. Yeah, that's exactly how it is. I'm the only one person on this kind of boat here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You were saying, right, that it's very rare for you to see anyone else that is into, well, board writing in general, let alone skateboarding. Right?

Yeah, I am, I am a member on Facebook group electric skateboards. Yeah. Some electric skateboards society or something like this, which is, which is, the most people are from the United States.

Yeah. Okay. So it's worldwide. Yeah, it's a worldwide group.

Worldwide. And China. And China as well.

So I wrote, any anybody here from Central Europe?

Yeah.

And, you know, and it was like. And I said Central Europe and it was France, Italy, Nebraska, Texas.

Yeah. Yeah. Every, every, every country in Europe's got one dude that, that everyone knows that doesn't. Yeah. But do you think, do you think it's going to take off. Right. And it'll become more popular, assuming that it doesn't get made illegal.

The the strange thing is that in Germany, just our neighbour, it's illegal.

Oh, okay.

It's in the whole country. It's illegal.

Yeah, that's a tough one. So all right, random, I guess, sort of topic change. But tell me about your journey with English. Like you've out of all my students and I always hold you up as one of these examples of someone who has improved significantly in a short period of time. I always tell my other students when they tell me, Pete, if I get lessons, if I even if they don't, if I try and work on my English, how quickly can I expect to get better? If I'm at intermediate level and I want to get to advanced and I always tell them about you, Elvin, partly because, well, you've you've improved really quickly. But the other part is typically because you're not in Australia, you're not in an English speaking country. But despite that, you've still done it. So I know my question's always long, but tell me about the journey of improving your English over the last year. What have you done? And do you have any advice for for people listening who are learning English.

Listen to English news, English news, listen to news in English. And what I do, I, I, I also bought this, this stuff that I can change my IP for Australian one.

A VPN. Yeah.

So I, I bought the the Australian platform for movies, which, which is very, first of all, it's very cheap. It's a lot of a lot of movies, brilliant movies and a lot of Australian movies. And so I'm surrounded by English, every single day. And there was, there was days that I'm, I, I went to small shops like 7-Eleven or something and I started to speak English.

Yeah.

So it, it is like, you know, when you realise that you, you think in English And even you dream in English.

Yeah.

That's kind of, that's kind of, you know, you are in.

Well, we went through that process, right? I think we had conversations previously. You were you were sort of probably B1-B2 level and you're now B2-C1 level and you've made significant improvement. But you were like, I don't think in English, I don't I don't think in English. How do I think in English? And I think we were working on just you need to spend probably 50%, if not more of your time in English, thinking about things, watching movies, listening to radio. And if you do that every day, you'll switch across easily. Whether you stay there the whole time isn't necessarily what will happen. You'll bounce back and forth between Polish and English, but you'll enter that space more easily. You know, it's like going in and out of the matrix, if that makes sense. You're like, you know, you plug the thing into the back of your head and you're like, oh, I'm back. Like.

Yeah, now switching between languages, it's, it's, it's absolutely no problem for me. Yeah. Like, like, for example, if, if there is a situation with students and one of them is Erasmus student with who, who doesn't speak Polish.

Yeah.

Switching into English. It's, it's absolutely no problem. And, and also, you know, young people speak, speak English very, very well here.

Yeah. So what what has been the trick, do you think it is just literally exposure and spending that time, or are there other things that you've done that in a short period of time, despite not being in an English speaking country, you were able to improve, but also think in English was there? Is it just just exposure and spending time every day, or were there other things you specifically did? What advice would you have? What advice would you have? I guess I'm asking ultimately for advice.

Making notes. If if you, my advice would be if you're watching a movie. Of course. Of course, good advice is watching with English subtitles. Subtitles. But then you can watch the same movie without English subtitles.

Yeah.

And also, if you think that that one particular expression that you hear may be important, useful for you and important in the future, just, you know, listen, listen it again. Make notes and use the Dictaphone. Record yourself. Try to compare how, how your pronunciation pronunciation is close. Is it close or far away from the original one? So that's what I'm doing. And yeah, it works.

It's a lot of active practice, then ultimately, it's not just I have the news on in the background. I watch movies once every now and then with no subtitles. It's I have the movies, I have the the news and everything, but I'm taking notes. I'm actively listening. I'm repeating many times, I'm trying to say the phrases myself. It's much more of an interactive process.

Because, you know, for me individually taking book, English book, it doesn't work. I am bored in in three minutes, I am bored. I'm just, you know, Oh no, that's not not that's not for me. So I've got, you know, like, that's my notes, you know, that's my notes.

He's got a notebook. For anyone who can't see. He's got a very dense notebook full and every page is full of notes and, and writing.

Yeah. And this is not from books. This is from movies, from news, from news. And, yeah.

You've done very well. I'm very proud of your improvement and your, your hard work, mate.

Yeah. And also, and also what I have, because this is. Yeah. No.

What does it say? Aussie English. It's blurred out, but what does it say? Aussie English.

Aussie English with Pete.

I like it, I like it. Yeah. You'll have to take a photo of it. You'll have to take a photo and send it to me and I'll put it up on the cover image. Yeah.

It's it's full of, full of expressions, full of short sentences or even single words, recorded by you. So I've got a bunch of, like, altogether three hours of your recordings.

Yeah. Well, it's part of our lessons, right, afterwards. I always send voice notes on WhatsApp to practice.

With good pronunciation. And I used to say it after you and try to improve my pronunciation.

No, you've been doing very well. All right, well, that's. That's probably enough for today, mate. We've chatted for like 40 or so minutes. Where can people find out more about you if they want to learn about your art? Or they want to learn about your podcast? Are you comfortable sharing that online?

I think just, I think, just write Elvin Flamingo with V. L, V and V, Elvin Flamingo on Google and you just find me. Yeah.

Yeah. So just search it on YouTube as well as your website. Awesome. Well.

And also this, this podcast, this episode that we mentioned, you can just, you know, find me on YouTube.

Yeah, yeah, go check it out. I really recommend you guys check it out because again, it's, it's a very creative way of thinking about, even though I'm not in an English speaking country, how can I use the language to improve? How can I oh, how can I like, you know, consume content, enjoy it, but then be interacting with it in a way that I can share with other people. But I'm improving the whole time. I'm learning how to YouTube, I'm learning how to podcast. I'm learning how to video edit it. There were so many things you were combining, so I thought it was a very clever use of your time. So yeah, I hope you get back into it. But it did look like a lot of work anyway. All right. Thank you for joining us guys. And hopefully we'll have you back on in the future. But thank you Elvin.

Thank you!

All right. That's it for today. If you found this one helpful, leaving a quick review really does help other learners find the podcast. And if you know someone who's learning Aussie English, feel free to share this episode with them too, mate. Thanks for listening and I'll catch you in the next one.