In this episode of Aussie English I interview Johan Tekfak from Français Authentique about how to learn languages with podcasts.

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G'day, you mob. What's going on? Welcome to this episode of Aussie English, the number one podcast for anyone and everyone wanting to take their English to the next level and, specifically, who want to sound a bit more Australian when they're learning English, right? It's done through the context of Australian English. So, today, guys, I have a special guest for you. And this special guest is the very reason I began Aussie English in the first place, ok? So, the special guest is Johan Tekfak from the podcast and platform Français Authentique for people, anyone, learning French, right? Anyone who's learning French, anyone here listening to me learning French, definitely check out his podcast if you're an intermediate to Advanced Learner.

Ok, guys. So, we had a good yarn, we had a good chat, a good chinwag today about how Johann got started, he ended up leaving his job and going full time with the podcast and with content creation online, we talked about language learning, what it was like learning English in France, because Johan, like some of your listeners, has never actually done, you know, a sort of intensive, immersive experience overseas. He never did that in order to learn English. Instead, he did it from France. So, it's a great podcast, guys, again. Thank you so much, Johan, for coming on. It was truly a privilege to get to interview the man, the machine, the guy who is the very reason that I started Aussie English and who has published 12 hundred episodes. And I'm happy with the fact that I've done six hundred. Jesus, what an impressive resume. Anyway, guys, let's get into it.

G'day, guys, and welcome to this episode of Aussie English. So, today I have Johan Tekfak and I've said that with an Australian accent. So, I hope that's ok, from Français Authentique and I've wanted to have him on the podcast for a very long time, because Johan, as he knows, is the very reason that I began Aussie English back in, I think, it would have been 2015. So, Johan, welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much for coming on.

Thank you. Hey, Pete. Hey, everybody. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

Awesome. So, to begin with, can you tell us a bit about your story and how you began Français Authentique, the podcast, the courses, the online platform.

Ok, Yeah. So, I'm living in the north east of France. So, in a small city near Metz, it's between Paris and Strasbourg for people who are knowing about France. I created Français Authentique in 2011 to help people who could understand French to speak fluently. So, I saw at this time I was living in Austria for my job and I met a lot of people, we had really this issue, they could understand French very well, but they couldn't speak it fluently. And they all told me, 'oh Johan when you speak, you speak so slowly. You are calm and I can understand you better than the other one. So, you should create something to help us.' And that's how it started. So, I started in 2011 without a clear vision, you know, just like I will tried to help my friends. And it became something very interesting.

Did you have a background in podcasting or course creation or anything like that prior?

No, absolutely not. I am an engineer, I was working in the automotive industry first as a material engineer and then as a project manager and I didn't have any background. So, I just learned everything from scratch. So, it's quite easy with all the tools that we have nowadays. But yes, I had to learn to shoot videos to record podcasts, too. Yes. As you know, there are a lot of things to learn. But yes, if you do it with passion, it's not that complicated.

So, how long did it take for you to realize, you know, 'oh, crap, this is so much more fun than my job and I want to do this as a living and, you know, like turn this into my full time work'? Was that a very gradual process or was it like an instant thing from when you began?

Good question. It was almost, almost after, let's say, two to three weeks. So, it was really from the beginning. I saw that I was having more passion helping people, teaching people than I was having at my job. I was not really passionate about my job. So, the for all the people who know how the automotive industry is working, they will probably be able to relate. But it's not a very nice world, let's say. You have a lot of pressure, everybody wants you to do things faster, cheaper and with the best quality. So, it was not aligned with my passion and with my principles. Doing my stuff, like, I want them to be done was much more fun. So, that's why it was quite quick for me to realize that my future was more in Français Authentique than in my previous job.

And, so what was that like when you were building Français Authentique, was it something that happened overnight? Because you became really big, at least when I had found you, you were very big on on YouTube and both the podcast platform. Was it something that happened really quickly or was it a gradual, you know, growth over that time?

I'm sure you know that all overnight successes took a lot of time and effort. So, I would have been happy to see an instant success, but it was definitely like everybody, I think, I started to publish videos, crappy videos on YouTube that nobody watched, like everybody.

I remember the first ones that you had that were really popular with a greenscreen ones, where you had some greenscreen behind you and you were wearing a shirt. And I was like, I've never seen them on the more recent ones. But when you go back to the first videos, you were using that a bit.

Yes, you're right. But the videos you are mentioning, we are probably shooted three years after I started. So, you can you can imagine the first one, but at the end, so it was like everybody, I tried something, put a lot of effort, passion, and nobody watched my videos. Nobody listened to my podcast at the beginning, nobody read my first blog post and I said nobody, it was maybe two people, my mother and my brother, probably. And with time, with persistence, and if you want, if you try to bring value, then people feel it. And it was a very, very slow. But it became very popular.

How long was it? Was it about six or seven years before you completely let go of your full time job or your career? Because I remember you were doing episodes like I pretty much took your Walking with Johan episodes and made the English version Walking with Pete, where Johan quite often goes out for his walks each week, and you created 'Marcher avec Johan' and you were talking a lot, I think, at the time about, you know, kind of wanting to let go of the job and being unsure about what things were going to be like in the future, but you wanted to give it a go and see how it went. And obviously, you know, with hindsight, good decision! Was that process really difficult at the time? You know? Because I obviously went through that's similarly two years ago and I was kind of shitting myself like I was.... how is this going to go? Right? So, what was that like for you?

summariseSo, it depends a lot on the personality of the people and I am a guy who need a lot of security. So, I think I could have stopped working at my job after two to three years of Français Authentique, but I waited five years before I really took the step. The first reason is I wasn't really sure, ok, it would work out in the future. It will continue to develop, it will be successful. So, I wasn't sure. And secondly, the second point is that I was earning a lot of money at my job, so I wasn't rich, but I had a very good job, I worked in Germany, as a project manager you make a good living with this job.

You're set up, right? You got security, it's all organised, you don't have to panic, you know?

Exactly. And that's why I waited a little bit more. But anyway, when I stopped, when I left my job, I was scared. And now it's been four years that I do it full time. And I really am very happy that it continues to go to right.

And, so what's the best part about being a podcaster or content creator?

Freedom, so to me, the main thing is related to my freedom. I want to be able to talk to you at 9:00 in the morning for me. So, I think it's 7:00 in the evening for you. I want to be able after we talk to go for a walk if I feel that I need a little bit more inspiration and I want to do stuff that are that I judge as being important. And I don't want to do stuff that I know are not important and not valuable, but are needed just to please my boss. So, really, if I want to really to it, it's freedom. I want to do the things that are important, that are helpful. And I want to do them whenever I want. If my kid needs me at 3:00 p.m., I want to be able to be there for them and then I work on Saturday morning or Saturday evening if I need to.

I think it's a good lifestyle to have, which is sort of, funnily enough, it's kind of how I've set my lifestyle up as a result. So, those of you listening, Johan was the reason that I started Aussie English after, I think, in 2014 I decided to start learning French properly after having having done it at school for six years and being horrible like, I mean, good enough, but you know what it's like, it's probably the same in France, right? Where you go through high school, you learn English, but you don't really ever get to a good level. And so, yeah, I met my wife because I started Aussie English, I have a son now because of Aussie English. I have a job at home now because of Aussie English. So, it's funny how sometimes in life you have those moments or people, certain people come into your life one way or another and they lead you down a completely different path. So, I have to say thank you.

Thank you too to say it, but I am not sure that you achieved all that you achieved because of Aussie English or because of the inspiration, because everybody has the inspiration, when I speak with people, they all tell me 'I want to create my company, I want to be free, I want to leave my job', but very few people really take action.

That's the the thing I find too, right? It's kind of like, ok, that's all well and good to want that, what are you doing to get it, right?

Exactly. It's easy to want it. It's easy to have ideas, right? To execute the ideas very consistently and to execute long enough to become successful is the key. So, and if you have, I mean, you are successful with Aussie English and I'm sure if you wouldn't have started this one, you would have been successful anyway, because you have this mentality to execute things, right?

Yeah, exactly. Maybe, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. Well I think I had that kind of thirst, right? That push, the drive. It's weird. It's kind of a double edged blade though because it's kind of, you know, obsession can be a good thing if it's someone wanting to become a marathon runner, but it can also lead to someone say filling their house full of things that are useless, right? So, it can be a double edged blade.

Everything is, yes, it has to be balanced. It's true, but yes, at the end, I think it's a nice quality to have.

Exactly. So, your podcast is much, much more than just a language podcast, though, isn't it? How did you become interested in self-improvement and talking about things like mentality and habit building and psychology? Because that I think was a very strong point of your podcast, more so than just a French language learning podcast. Did you do that from the beginning or was that something that came along?

No, I did it from the beginning. So, I started to be very interested in these topics of self development improvement, reading about a lot of topics, approximately, at the same time as I started Français Authentique. So, I've always, I mean, I've always tried to read, I read a lot as I was a kid, I have always been interested in a lot of things, but I really started this process of self-improvement and action at the same time as I was starting Français Authentique in 2011. And as I mentioned before, I am not a teacher, right?

Yeah.

So, I'm not really passionate about grammar, about, you know, the mechanic of the language itself. And for me, the easiest thing was to speak about topics that are interesting to me. So, that's why I really started to speak about improvement, about vision, about goals, about mentality, about a lot of topics that are interesting to me. And today, I mean, it was it was kind of... it was not something that I planned. But today, I think it was a right decision because it differentiate Français Authentique from a lot of the podcasts. There are tons of French podcasts and a lot of people listen, are listening to mine because of this self improvement topics that I'm speaking about.

Yeah, I feel you because for a long time when I first started Aussie English, I was thinking, oh my God, I'm going to run out of Australian slang and expressions to talk about pretty quickly. And then I was like, well, it's Australian English, but really what people want is an experience more so than just, you know, the teach the grammar, teach the English, teach the language. It's more now about culture and current affairs and everything like that, history. And that's the more fun stuff. So, for me, I've got like a a full bookshelf here of just history books from Australia.

Yes, I know. I know you're reading a lot. And it's amazing.

I'm trying. I'm trying. I fall off the wagon sometimes, but when I get back on. But yeah, that became something I became passionate about, funnily enough, because, you know, I could now have an excuse to teach it or at least share it with other people.

Exactly. And I mean, if you want to last, if you want or if you want your podcast to last, there is no way you really have to speak about different topics. I've recorded more than 1200 of free free shows, so videos and podcasts.

Did you hear that, guys? So, people lose their mind when they see my six hundred episodes, But Johan has done twice that, guys.

And, I mean, it's probably, it feels easy because there are so much topic to speak about. You can speak about culture, about personal development, about slang, because it's something that I'm doing as well. And I'm not sure that I would be able to run out of a topic in the next 20 years because I have this bright view and you have it as a winner. And I mean, it's in my opinion, is the only way to last, right?

That's it, you realised pretty quickly that language is a tool and in and of itself, unless you're a polyglot, it's pretty hard to stay motivated to learn a language just because it's a language, right? For me, especially with French and with Portuguese, it became pretty quick that I was like, look, the grammar is kind of, you know, I want to kill myself. I'm over this. I want to learn about French things. So, like as you saw recently, I was reading 'L'étranger' and that was so it was so good. One thing that I wanted to talk to you about using this book, having it here was I find it so funny, after I began learning Portuguese, so I'd learnt French to a pretty good level, I felt like where I could communicate and get my point across with people who didn't speak English. And I was really proud of myself because I'd never done that at school, but with the help of your podcast and online resources and motivation, it happened. But the funny thing I found was after I started learning Portuguese, it kind of took over. And now every time, like, I haven't spoken French properly in probably two years with like in a proper conversation for a substantial amount of time. So, now I have the weird problem of every time I want to speak French and I can't think of the word I want to say, my brain puts in the Portuguese. It doesn't touch the English, but it always puts in the Portuguese. So, I wanted to ask, do you have the same kind of issues with German and English and French as well?

Definitely, so not with French because as you say, your mother languages is here and will always be something special, but with the foreign foreign languages, I had exactly the same experience in when I arrived in Austria and started to learn German very intensively, I mean, there was spending my days learning German, I wasn't able to speak English any more. I mean, I had my interview in English before I was fluent in English, but the first, let's say three month, I wasn't able to speak English at all. I started one sentence in English and my brain was telling me, no, no, no, your foreign language is German. And it was throwing me a lot of English words in, German words in my English sentences. It was terrible. So, that's I think that's a process that we all feel probably at the beginning. I mean, polyglot, when this starts to speak five, six, seven languages is probably easier for them to switch, but they experience it as well.

I think if they embrace it, though, too, right? That that was a big thing for me with Portuguese, I decided, you know what? I'm probably going to marry this woman. I'm probably going to have children with her. Turns out I was right and this was like a year and a half ago and we were living together. And I just said, you know, we needed to move house. So, I said, let's move in with some Brazilians. Screw it. They're everywhere in Australia. Let's find some Brazilians in Canberra, where we were living at the time, which is the capital of Australia, and we ended up moving in. And I just said, look, at home. I don't want to speak English, no more English, right? You speak it every day as soon as you leave the house and it was funny because for the first few weeks I was very anal about making mistakes and felt like an idiot because there were all these, we live with five Portuguese speakers and so I felt horrible, but the moment I let go and just stopped caring and just kept making, making, making more mistakes. That was when my learning curve kind of really started to take off. So, was it like that for you in German when you went to Germany and Austria? Did you have that process?

Yes, I would say yes and no, because from the beginning, I didn't care making mistake. I mean, and it's quite, it's quite hard for me to really understand because I'm a perfectionist. So, I hate mistakes, generally, I tried to do stuff as good as possible, and it comes from my education. And, so it's quite, it's a paradox to say that I wasn't caring as much. But it was, I think, it helped it really helped me to learn German very fast, because as soon as you start to fear making mistake, then you stop speaking because you are your brain is constantly telling you 'oh no, it's not 'der', it's 'das'. And that you start speaking about the language itself and you don't think about the things that you want to say. And when you start thinking like this, then it's over. So, to me, it was quite easy to accept the fact that I will do a lot of mistakes.

What was helpful as well was, like, I was arriving in Austria, I was speaking French and English and it was my third language and I was speaking with a lot of people that could only speak one language. I also felt like, ok, if you mean I'm stupid, then I can answer that is my third language and that it's ok that I'm making mistakes. So, you know, it helps a little bit. It's not something that you had because there were probably all speaking English as well, but it helped me a little bit as well.

So, what was it like learning English in France, too? Because France has the stereotype of the, at least when I went there in 2004, I was 16 and we went there for a month with school because we were studying French, and I remember that the average student, it was funny, you'd have 90 percent of the students were horrible at English, probably as as horrible as we were at French. And then 10 per cent were really good and they tended to be the ones that learnt at home, but what was it like learning English in France? Because I take it you learned in France, you didn't spend a lot of time in England or America or Australia? So, you did that well at home? What was that process like?

It's, I mean, it's probably something similar to what your audience is experiencing. So, I was learning it at school I wasn't good at all. I really liked it, I liked English because I was listening to a lot of English music from the U.K. or from the US. So, it motivated me a lot to understand what they were singing, actually. So, I spent a lot of time when I was younger really to learn English through songs. And when I grew up a little bit, I really started to read a lot of books in English. So, this self-help books that I read, I read them in English, always. And yes, that how I learnt, I listened to a lot of podcasts when I started Français Authentique as well, because, I mean, every everything the US are always a little bit ahead of us in terms of technology, of marketing and all the podcasts that I was interested in were in English. I listen to a lot of English podcasts as well. So, yes, I learned by myself, basically, using authentic content to improve.

And, so how did you develop your speaking? Because I'm sure a lot of your listeners and a lot of my listeners have the same problem where they can read it and understand it, they can hear it and understand it, but they have trouble speaking because they either don't get the chance to do it very often or they don't have the confidence to speak. You learned English in France without actually immersing yourself into another country. How did you develop your speaking by doing that at home?

I didn't really had a lot of opportunity to speak when I was in France, which was just like consuming a lot of content or learning via of a lot of input. And I started to speak English a little bit more when I was in Austria and Germany, because in my company, it was an international company, So we had to speak English a little bit, but it wasn't that often. And nowadays it's the same. I mean, and I don't speak English very much, but I'm listening to a lot of English, so to me, it really confirms the theory of Steve Kaufmann's, Stephen Krashen, all the people that you are also following will say that you learn the language by consuming a lot of content, by comprehensive... how do they see it exactly? I don't, I don't remember, exactly.

Listening and comprehension?

Yes, so a lot of input that you understand.

Comprehensive input.

Yeah. And to me, it seems to work. So, I'm listening much, much, much more than I am speaking, and when I speak, it's just, it comes because they consume a lot of content.

Do you find that a lot of people learning French from you too focus too much on speaking? Because I always say my students are always like 'I have problems speaking, I have problems speaking', and I'm like, 'how is your listening?' Because, ultimately, if you haven't focussed on that enough, is that you can speak as well as you want, but you're not going to have a conversation. You're going to be able to, you know, tell people what you want to say, but you don't, you won't be able to understand what they're returning back to you, right? It's kind of like having to serve in tennis, but you can't, you've got no backhand or forehand.

Exactly. Nice metaphor. It's true. I was speaking with Steve Kaufmann, as you know, several weeks ago, and he told me something that was very interesting because I asked him, 'what would you say to a person who tells you, I understand a lot, but they cannot really speak?', and he says, I mean, this guy has a lot of experience. He has been learning languages for, I don't know, 50, 60 years. And he tells me, 'in my experience, people who say that they don't understand as much as they think and they speak better as they think'. So, to him, it's continue to listen. If you think that you understand very good and you can not speak fluently, it probably means that you don't understand as good as you think, but don't be, don't have too much negative emotions because you are speaking a little bit better than you really think. And I found this theory has been very interesting and very true when you when we really reflect on it.

I guess for those of you who don't know, Steve Kaufmann is a Canadian polyglot, right? Who probably... he speaks, I don't know, what is it? Like at least five or six languages at a very high level.

It's ten, and he's still learning, he is 72 and still learning.

Yeah. But he has some massive number of languages, like he's doing Arabic and a bunch of others that he's going through. It's just insane. So, with your listenership, what does a successful listener or a successful learner of French do with your materials? Like, how do they get the most out of your podcast, your courses online, your YouTube videos? Do they have a certain set of attributes or habits that characterise them?

I think yes. So, if you try to find the avatar of the the person who is really achieving a lot or is having a lot of success with the... my material, it's a person who, as we say, that listen a lot, who listen to topics they are interested in. I have a lot of people who tells me, Johan, I cannot keep up. You are producing too much content. I can not listen to everything.

Yep, I get that as well.

Yes. And my answer is always, but you don't have to. I mean.

It's a good problem to have, It's worse if there's not enough.

Exactly. I think as well, but people, so a lot of people, they think they have to listen to everything. And I tell them, no, it's not the purpose as I am producing the three episodes per week just to give, to let you choose what you like. So, the people who really have success, they decide on the topic that they like. If they like idioms, they will listen to these episodes. If they like personal development, they will focus on this. So, they listen to only a part of my content, but they listen to it deeply and several times. It's not like I listened to it once and that's it, I know everything. You know, it's like I will listen to it two, three, four, five times. And they can only do it if they like the topic. I mean, have you ever tried to listen to something that you are not interested in? It's impossible to do it.

Yeah.

Exactly. I mean, if you do it, then you don't really listen because your mind is wandering and is thinking of something else. So, they listen to a lot of content. They choose what they're really like and they listen to it many times.

It's the kind of deeper rather than wider, right?

Exactly.

So, and that was what I was trying to do with reading 'L'étranger', I tried to read it by chapter by chapter, but then repeat it multiple times because I knew I'd missed things, I had misinterpreted things, I hadn't understood things. And that really helped because I kind of... I squeezed a lot more out of the book than just reading it quickly, picking another book, picking another book.

And by the way, it's exactly the same in your mother language. I mean, if you read books in English, to me, it's better to read one book that you will really study deeply, than to go through five books very quickly without really getting the stuff. So, it's true for everything, in my opinion.

Yeah, definitely. And I remember learning with you at the very start, I remember when I first found Français Authentique, I think I'd been listening to... I think it was called Coffee Break French, and that was sort of like a Scottish guy and a French guy chatting in English, and then they would sort of have bits of French in there and then maybe a monologue. And that was really good for beginners, but then when I started with Français Authentique, it was really important for me to kind of really go over the same episode multiple times to get through that intermediate plateau. And then once I'd kind of done that for a month or two, it was really funny because I could just understand, you know, 98 percent of what you were saying most of the time. And if not, you know, check out the transcripts and then be like, oh, yeah, yeah, good. On on top of that, I wanted to talk about, this is one of the best things, I think, I ever got out of Français Authentique, I think it was L'esprit Kaizen. You were a massive proponent of, I guess, you would call it in English, the Kaizen Spirit, but it's a Japanese term. Can you tell us about what it is and why it's so important for language learning with things like podcasts?

Yes. So, it's something that spoke about a lot because it's, I mean, it's a very old philosophy that is coming from Japan, and the idea is very simple. It's you have to try to make very tiny progresses, but every day, instead of trying to make big improvements on a not so regular basis. So, it's true for everything. And by example, we're learning languages. I preach to listen to French every day, and to me, it's better to listen to 20 minutes per day from Monday to Friday than to say, I will only listen to French two hours on Sunday, every Sunday, because we really have to constantly improve ourselves to be able to correct the target that we set to us. And that's what I'm trying to do with languages and with Français Authentique as well as a community. It's... to me, it's much better to try to do very tiny improvement every day than to try to have a breakthrough every month.

Well, that was what I, I think, got out of it. It was like a little bit every day. And it helps you build habits, because it's very hard to develop a habit if it's not done very often, right? Like if you go to the gym once every two weeks, it's hard to stay consistent with that, even though that's probably not very helpful. It's the same with learning English, right? Or French. It's a little bit every day helps a lot more than bingeing one day every week or two.

Exactly. It helps as well, I mean, in terms of content production, there are some people that I was following, some podcast that I was listening to that was only publishing, you know, very sporadically. So, you didn't have any episode for two month and suddenly you have one per day. And to me, that's nuts. So, that's not how I want to learn. And I think that's not how a content creator should serve their audience. I mean, if your people are following you, they have to get some new content on a regular basis. You can try it once a week or twice per week, but it's very important to be consistent.

Exactly. And another big thing that you is using your dead time, right? Do you want to talk about that and how that's how that's useful?

We can. It's funny that you ask because I mean, the dead time is all these times of your days where your body is busy and your mind is free. So, when you, let's say, you are in the shower, you are taking the bus, you are driving to work, all these times mean you can do something productive with them, like listening to languages, learning something, or you can just stay there and drive. And I've always said that in my opinion, we all have time to learn because of this dead time. So, if you really meet someone with standing, you don't have time to learn. Then tell them, you have time to learn it. Just take a sheet of paper and write all of your dead time and try to put in front of this dead times, phases when you are learning something. It's interesting that you ask because, I mean, I'm doing it a lot. And I'm now the in phase where I am wondering, because as you said before, everything has to be balanced. And I am in the phase without really noticing it where I am using all my dead times. And it became so extreme that I don't think a lot anymore.

You don't get a pause either.

We can say it like that, but when I'm outside and I walk into the woods, I am listening to something, and sometimes as important as our dead times are, it's also interesting to be still, quiet and to think a little bit. So, that's also, it's all about balance.

It is funny, though, because I remember you talking about that and I was trying to apply that and I noticed that I could suddenly listen to, I think, one of the days I was I used to walk into university where I was studying and that would be 40 minutes. I'd have to do a lot of work in the laboratory there where I would be doing genetics work and that would be, you know, four hours a day. So, I remember one day I think I got like six hours of Français Authentique podcasts just out of the one day, which I would have otherwise spent doing the same things, but just having a lot of dead time not used. And so it's funny how becomes a bit of a strategy game where you're like, alright, I can, you know, I can fit in a podcast here or I'm going to go for a run or I can listen to a podcast at the same time. And then all of a sudden, you know, you go through books and podcasts like there's no end, right?

Exactly. But what I like as well about, as you said by example, when you run, when you walk, I found it very powerful because learning is easier when you are moving, right? Your brain gets a lot of oxygen and you are much more effective when you are doing something with your body. So, when you learn while you walk, when you learn while you run, it is much more efficient than if you are learning while sitting on the couch because your brain is full of oxygen and you will remember stuff longer, I think, than if you were just sitting there.

Brilliant. So, finishing up, why should people learn French? For any of the listeners here who are interested in language learning outside of just English, and if they've thought about French in the past, why does French matter today for the average person?

I would say if I have to convince people, then it's not a good reason for them to learn. Because if you want to learn really, because if you want to learn a language, you need a lot of time, energy, passion. And you can only get this if you have a clear vision and a clear need of the language. So, if I have to convince someone to learn French, I think you want to learn it because, I mean, why the hell should I work one hour every day if I don't know why? That happened to me in Italian, by the way, I studied to learn Italian because I found it fun, because I like the language, but I don't need it. So, I didn't really continue and I didn't persist in it. But French is at the end, just to give you a short answer anyway, French is one of the language that will progress the most in the next 20 years because a lot of people in Africa speaks it and Africa is booming in terms of population. So, I think French stays is an important language to learn. For this reason and as you said, we French I'm not very good in foreign languages, so if you want to get a chance to speak with us sometime, you have to learn our language, unfortunately.

But I think it's one of those things, it's not that French people aren't good. I think it's your education system. You know, the same with Australians, because we get told quite often are, you know, Australians are average or horrible, probably way worse than French people at languages. And again, it's tied into it's not really useful in terms of learning a foreign language here. And which one? You know, Indonesian? Japanese? Hindi? Like, you know, it's hard to find a use for it. But yeah, I think you're right. Motivation is key, right? To the successful language learner.

Yeah. And it's related to vision and to the usefulness of what you are doing.

Brilliant. So, how can people find out more about Français Authentique?

FrançaisAuthentique.com . It's our website and we link to every resource, so if people are interested, they are free to join.

Yeah, definitely. Go check it out, guys. If you're already learning French and you haven't. Yeah. Anyway, thank you so much for coming on, Johan. I really appreciate it.

Thank you. It was a pleasure, Pete.

Alright, guys, thank you so much again for joining me. I hope you got a lot out of this episode. There were a lot of knowledge bombs in there from Johan. I especially love the fact that when I was learning French with him, it was learning French, but also learning things like personal development and, you know, learning about life, learning about different books that he's read, learning about French culture, French history like loads and loads of other stuff besides just the nitty gritty parts of learning a language. So, once again, Johann, thank you so much again for coming on the podcast, mate. Maybe one day in the future I'll brush up on my French and I'll get it back to the point where I could potentially do an interview with you in French. Anyway, thanks for joining me, guys, and I'll chat to you soon. Peace.