I think it is very difficult to pinpoint the exact moment when I fell in love with languages as it is something that has grown very slowly.

A very important moment was for sure when my secondary school organised an exchange with a school from Tricarico, Italy. After two weeks in Tricarico, I was already able to speak some basic 🇮🇹. Immersion really helps to pick up a language.

More importantly, it led to me starting Italian lessons after university and me moving to the country when I lost my job during the 2008 economic crisis. Suddenly I had loads of German colleagues and started with 🇩🇪 while living in Italy.

6 months later a Portuguese colleague and one who had lived in Brazil helped me to study 🇧🇷. I think that was probably the moment where it hit me that I would be studying languages for a very long time.

After a pitstop in Rome teaching English and some French and some four years living and working in my home country 🇧🇪 (nothing language related) we moved to Spain and I had the opportunity to learn yet another language. Once I kinda mastered 🇪🇸 I started teaching again; an experience that ended some weeks before 😷 hit the world.

Thanks to Corona, I came to the realisation that I want to breathe languages whenever and whereever I can. I have been using ITALKI as a student for over 6 months now; first for Catalan but later also for Danish and Afrikaans. Greek, my new baby, will soon follow. But I went a step further and 3 months and 600 lessons ago I started my adventure as a teacher of Flemish/Dutch, English, French and Italian.

As one of my Catalan teachers told me the other day:

And he was right.

‼️ If you are not yet using ITALKI you can get $10 ITALKI credits after your first purchase by clicking on this link: https://go.italki.com/somethingpolyglot

You will receive it 48 hours after you’ve bought your first lesson.

ℹ️ Do reach out 🙋 if you have any questions related to lessons or teaching on ITALKI. I’ll be happy to help.