Hast du Lust auf Portugiesisch- oder Spanischunterricht im Sommer?
Du möchtest im Restaurant authentisch Essen bestellen können? Es geht dir um die Begriffe für Sightseeing-Touren? Du möchtest mit deinen Schwiegereltern über eure Familienmitglieder sprechen können? Du möchtest mit deinen Enkelkindern Kinderlieder singen können? Du möchtest dich für den nächsten Job oder das Stipendium auf Portugiesisch oder Spanisch bewerben können?
Vielleicht hast du auch schon einiges z.B. im Spanischunterricht an der Schule gelernt, aber das Ganze ist mittlerweile doch auch schon ein paar Tage (oder Jahrzehnte) her und du möchtest deine Sprachkenntnisse nochmal auffrischen.
Abhängig von deinen Zielen und deinem bisherigen Sprachlevel, können wir über passende Inhalte für deinen Einzelunterricht sprechen!
Du kannst dabei unterwegs auf Madeira, auf deinem Balkon zuhause oder an deinem Schreibtisch im Arbeitszimmer sein. Du brauchst nur einen Platz zum Lernen, das Lernmaterial, ein Gerät für Videokonferenzen und Internetzugang.
Image 1: Martina Gerdts and a chessboard in front of the camera. During my online classes, I mention a few things about myself – like my love for chess – and then ask my students to tell us a bit about themselves. What matters to you? What would you put in front of the camera?
Different ways of learning something new
Do you know what’s the biggest difference for me about learning chess with the Lichess app and languages with the Babbel app? …besides one being an open non-profit project based on volunteers and the other being a for-profit project of a for-profit company? Lichess includes community. There are chats, there are ways to share your own studies with friends, there are ways to share your thoughts with the world and to interact with each other. So, while I might be learning with study material on a screen, I am still able to connect to people. With the opportunity of sharing a link to a game with my coach, I can show my chess group some moves etc.
Duolingo has some “community perks” like boards and some level of interaction and competition is possible. But I can’t even access every lesson when I want to work on it (correct me if that has changed at some point). With AI being more and more important for Duolingo, there are some additional questions to be discussed around … the environmental impact of the use of AI, the impact on language professionals and their jobs and the quality of material if it was generated by LLMs. Those questions have to be discussed in a wider setting and it’s obviously not just about Duolingo. I frequently get emails for workshops around the use of AI in language teaching and learning by lots of companies and institutions. At this point I know less and less language-related institutions that aren’t doing that.
The Babbel app is focusing on individual learning. You can share Babbel magazine articles with friends or podcast episodes, but you can’t share your lessons or vocabulary slides. That’s the thing with knowledge and education behind a paywall, of course. With Babbel for Business or having a friend group with several people doing the same units you might be nearest to something along the lines of learning in a community with the app itself. With Babbel Live, they created something that resulted in human interaction … in learning in a community directly. Why are we learning languages? Is it for human interaction? Or for communication with an AI robot for bank account customer support?
The community in Babbel Live was restricted to the classes. Interaction between classes wasn’t planned for. But during classes, there was real human interaction.
Babbel Live experiences from a teacher’s perspective
In my time as a Babbel Live German teacher, I was able to teach German learners all around the world. When students, especially beginners, weren’t yet ready to communicate everything in German or if they had questions, we made use of bridging languages. Most of the time, that was English but as not everyone speaks English and as everyone’s English levels vary, we have also used other bridging languages like Spanish, Portuguese, French and Italian. I used pictures from Internet searches, explained concepts in different languages or drew little images of things if German synonyms or explanations weren’t working anymore. During those classes, we were able to compare German words, phrases, grammar and pronunciation with the languages my students were already speaking: Farsi, Urdu, Hindi, Polish, Slovak, Mandarin Chinese, Arabic, Korean, Croatian, Greek, Albanian, Ukrainian, Romanian, Malay, Azerbaijani, Russian, Turkish … and many many more.
Opportunities through online language classes
Online classes gave us the opportunity to connect people during COVID quarantine with each other; people who couldn’t travel for money reasons could get international interaction and connections to teachers on the other side of the planet; working people who have to do all the care work in their family could connect from home or from their lunch break. And let’s be honest, you can’t get a language teacher even for English, German, Italian, Spanish and French for A1 to C1 classes in any given city – let alone village. The same is true for language teaching gigs, by the way.
The way of how people around the world are learning languages is changing: Babbel Live classes for private customers are closing
Publicly, the news made the rounds with a LinkedIn post by Markus Witte, Executive Chairman and Co-Founder of Babbel, according to his LinkedIn bio. Markus Witte wrote on Wednesday (May 21st, 2025) that the Babbel Live classes for private customers would close in the end of June. For the whole post, check out the LinkedIn statement by Markus Witte about the Babbel Live closing.
Maybe I’m getting old, maybe I’m getting scared by national, international and world events … but connecting communities is quite a good thing, isn’t it? It looks like for-profit projects aren’t always the solution for everything. But let me end this article on a more positive note. In German, we say “Wo sich eine Tür schließt, da öffnet sich eine andere”, meaning when one opportunity is shutting down, another will rise. I’m not exactly subscribing to that expression … but the Internet, videoconference systems and language learning material keep existing, right? Let’s connect in other – maybe even more sustainable?- ways.
Image 2: Martina Gerdts with her language learning material in the background. You really just need a device, Internet connection, some communication software and language material to be able to learn or teach online.
From a more local Germany-based perspective
A more positive development that lets me look more optimistic into the future from at least a Germany-based perspective is that our local community schools for adult education, Volkshochschulen as they are called, are more and more open for online and hybrid online/in-person classes. This way, people from different villages or cities can more easily access classes that would take place in a city too far away, same for people who can’t leave their home for individual reasons, and same for teachers who wouldn’t get enough students at several schools but enough if those students come together in one online space.
Inspired by Grandmaster Rasmus Svane talking about his (and his brother GM Frederik Svane’s) upcoming chess trip to the Polish Ekstraliga, I’ve written an article about the language preparation for a trip like that. I’ve also discussed a few particularities of the pronunciation of the Polish language and why you can’t trust English written lists with Polish names about the correct writing. There is some geeking about phonology, links to Polish pronunciation resources and links to more info about the Polish Ekstraliga! GM Monika Soćko takes the stage in English and Polish as well!
The article builds on the content of a former Lichess article around language preparation for a chess event abroad. Last year, I wrote an article as preparation for a tournament in the Czech Republic: How to prepare for a chess tournament abroad … language-wise.
There is a new article about using bilingual material while learning endgames written by me. I have published the article “Learning about rook vs. pawn endgames: English/Spanish bilingual mode” on my Lichess blog. Part of the article is a little table of vocabulary that is necessary to understand a particular paragraph in the Spanish endgame book that I am citing in the article.
Here is a downloadable version of the vocabulary list:
Einsatz für Menschenrechte kann viele Formen haben. Viele Menschenrechtsorganisationen haben sich über die Jahre hinweg Gedanken gemacht, wie man Menschen dazu bewegen kann, sich einzusetzen und welche Methoden Erfolg versprechen. Ein Weg, sich durchs Schreiben für Menschenrechte einzusetzen, ist beispielsweise der Weg der „Eilaktionen“, die bei Amnesty International einen großen Stellenwert haben. Die Organisation recherchiert Fälle von Menschenrechtsverletzungen, informiert darüber und erstellt Forderungen von Maßnahmen, die den Betroffenen der Menschenrechtsverletzungen zugutekommen sollen. Zusätzlich wird ein Beispieltext (in mehreren Sprachen) veröffentlicht, den man an die zuständige Behörde (und in vielen Fällen auch der entsprechenden Botschaft) schicken kann. Es werden gleichzeitig auch Hinweise dafür gegeben, was man schreiben kann, sollte man einen eigenen freien Text schreiben wollen.
Einsatz von Sprachen bei Eilaktionen
Es gibt verschiedene Ansätze dafür, wie man mit Sprache(n) bezüglich dieser Aktionen umgehen kann. Schreibt man in der Landessprache, geht man sicher, verstanden zu werden. Schreibt man auf Englisch, verwendet man eine der international meistgenutzten Sprachen. Schreibt man in der eigenen Sprache, zeigt macht man nochmal extra deutlich, dass der Fall nicht „nur“ Menschen aus der Region betrifft, sondern auch Menschen, die aus anderen Sprachcommunities kommen. Es ergibt durchaus Sinn, eine Sprache zu verwenden, die man selbst tatsächlich versteht, damit man weiß, was man da fordert und worum es wirklich geht.
Aktiv werden (Beispiele für Materialquellen)
Neben all den Feel-Good Aktivitäten, die man zum Verwenden von Sprachskills machen kann, ist mein heutiger Vorschlag: Lasst uns für Menschenrechte schreiben.
Die Beispiele auf dieser Seite beziehen sich erstmal auf Material einer Menschenrechtsorganisation, nämlich Amnesty International. Das soll nicht bedeuten, dass man nicht genauso gut die Informationen anderer Organisationen verwenden kann. Dies soll erstmal ein erster Denkanstoß für Möglichkeiten zum Schreiben für Menschenrechte sein.
Letztendlich könnt ihr euch Themen einer Organisation eures Vertrauens suchen und darauf basierend loslegen. Schaut auch, dass ihr checkt, welche Informationen wie kommuniziert werden sollen, so dass es im Sinne der Betroffenen stattfindet und überlegt euch, welchen Informationen welcher Organisationen ihr vertraut bzw. wie die Informationen recherchiert wurden.
Social Media brings some gems into the world. French teacher Anne from “Myfrenchatelier” on Instagram posted a few days ago about how to flirt with French energy (“Flirting in French”). That made me wonder: How do you flirt in a language you are still learning?
Dating 101 for language beginners
If you are just starting out to learn a language, it’s easy to get better in the realm of flirting. You start with introducing yourself and asking the other person about themselves. You learn to ask if you want to meet somewhere, and you start discussing activities for a meet up. You can create your very own “dating 101” words and phrases out of beginner material very fast.
Task 1: What are typical activities for a date for you? How are those activities called in your target language?
Vocabulary around your own interests
After learning the basics, you can think about what else you might need. What about being able to state what you are looking for or how to say phrases you would use while flirting in your other language(s)? Material around how to say “I love you” or “you look pretty in that suit” might be of interest for you.
ELE teacher Sol Tovar has created a page of material for Spanish learners with some words around San Valentín, check it out here: “Material ELE: San Valentín” (in Spanish).
Task 2: Think about some more phrases you would like to be able to say in your target language that might come handy for flirting situations.
But how do you flirt in ANY LANGUAGE?!
Flirting is a very individual thing. Everyone flirts a little different (if they are flirting at all). But we can have a look at some ways, how some people flirt:
Use humor (that translates so well in other languages *throws the irony sign at the statement*)
Behave like a nice and kind person (that could also just be a sign of a genuinely kind person doing what they do on a daily basis)
Give out compliments (you have to decide which compliments are appropriate in your context and which ones work best with a certain person; Does the person like compliments about their new jumper or do they prefer compliments about their work as an author or about their hobbies?)
Show an interest in the other person’s interests (Have you ever told an academic that you have read their thesis without having had to do so? This can work like magic!)
There are way more ways how people flirt. It’s also seen as flirting if someone does whatever they have to do to get some attention of their person of interest or even if they are insulting their person of interest. Please keep in mind that just because you don’t mean any harm, it doesn’t always mean you are not harming anyone. It goes similarly the other way around: Just because they say they don’t mean any harm; you can still feel hurt and disrespected.
Task 3: Think about different ways of how people flirt and what feels most fitting for yourself. What kind of words and phrases do you need for that?
Flirting or being genuinely nice or just chatter-loving, which one is this?
What’s read as flirting differs highly from person to person. There are cultural factors, factors of age, gender, social groups; former experiences play a role as much as many other things. Some people need an “I am flirting with you” (very on the nose) to realize what’s happening.
Let’s take the Northern German cliché for a second. People say that it’s enough to greet people in Northern Germany with “Moin” (‘hello/ morning’) instead of saying “Moin moin” because the latter is seen as chattering. People also say “jo” (‘yes/ yeah’) can be a whole conversation in Northern Germany. Imagine how flirting with a person of very few words might look like in contrast to flirting with a chatter-loving person. But be aware, you could also run into a chatter-loving Northern German person! 😀
Well, yeah, I know. But how do I know then?
I’m sorry, that’s your task to figure out <3
I’m just here to support your language learning progress. 🙂
Task 4: Take action! (And stay accountable with your actions!)
Wenn du Interesse an Sprachen hast und gerne mit Sprachen arbeitest, dann hattest du bestimmt schon Gedanken, deine Fähigkeiten für Gutes anzuwenden oder du hast dies sogar schon in die Realität umgesetzt. Ein typischer Gedanke von angehenden Lehrkräften ist: „Ich möchte Leuten helfen, Sprachen zu lernen und damit ihre Ziele (in Beruf, Hobby, Leben) zu erreichen und ihr Leben einfacher zu machen.“
Aber wenn du etwas mit Sprachen machen möchtest, gibt es nicht nur Aufgaben als Lehrkraft. Im Prinzip gibt es Aufgaben in allen Bereichen, die in irgendeiner Weise international oder national/regional mit Menschen verschiedener Sprachen arbeiten, so auch im Aktivismus um Menschenrechte herum. Hier ein paar Beispiele:
Anwendung deiner Fähigkeiten
Kommunikation vereinfachen: Übersetzung von Informationen, Brücke zwischen Hilfesuchenden und Hilfsorganisationen, Interviews in Sprache Betroffener führen, um Kommunikation angenehmer zu machen und detailliertere Angaben zu bekommen
Informationen über Sprachgemeinschaften hinaus verteilen: Übersetzung von Material, Kommunikation in diversen Sprachen angepasst an die Sprachen der Zielgruppen, Verbreitung von Informationen in breitere Öffentlichkeit
Überzeugungsarbeit mit offiziellen Stellen in deren Sprachen stattfinden lassen: So wie es für Betroffene von Menschenrechtsverstößen oft einfacher ist, in ihren eigenen Sprachen zu kommunizieren, kann es auch vorteilhaft sein, mit offiziellen Stellen, die man von etwas überzeugen möchte, in deren Sprachen zu kommunizieren.
Verbindung von Sprachskills mit anderen Fähigkeiten: Solltest du Wissen aus anderen Bereichen mitbringen, so z.B. im Bereich Medien oder solltest du Anwält*in sein oder mit Finanzen und Buchhaltung zurechtkommen, lässt sich dies auch mit Sprachskills für effektiven Aktivismus verbinden. Aktivist*innengruppen, die mit Geld hantieren müssen, aber die Landessprache und die Buchhaltung in der Region nicht so genau kennen, könnten von jemandem profitieren, die*r mit ihnen ordentlich sprechen und sich um die Buchhaltung für die Gruppe kümmern kann. Ähnliches gilt für Anwält*innen, die mit einem breiteren Feld von Mandant*innen direkt kommunizieren können und Medienpersonen, die ein diverseres Feld von Quellen durcharbeiten und in verschiedenen Sprachen veröffentlichen können.
Disclaimer: Vorüberlegungen und Vorbereitung bevor es losgehen soll
Überlege dir genau, welche Art von Sprachskills du tatsächlich hast und was du für welche Aufgaben können musst. Es gibt Gründe dafür, weshalb es aufwendige Ausbildungen/Studiengänge für Übersetzer*innen und Konferenzdolmetschende gibt. Der Wortschatz um Menschenrechtsverletzungen hat auch nicht viel damit zu tun, was im Sprachkurs für den Urlaub beim Bestellen von Essen besprochen wird. Solltest du noch auf deinem Weg sein, entsprechende Sprachskills aufzubauen, kannst du dir aber einen strategischen Plan überlegen, wie du die benötigten Fähigkeiten Schritt für Schritt aufbauen kannst. Die Arbeit mit potenziell traumatisierten Menschen und kritischen Themen wie Menschenrechte bringt auch eine andere Verantwortung mit sich als viele andere Aufgabenbereiche rund um Sprachen. Überlege dir genau, welche Art von Verantwortung du tatsächlich übernehmen kannst. Man sollte sich auch über Privilegien und das Potenzial für Diskriminierung und wie man diese vermeiden kann, auseinandersetzen.
Hello and welcome to the Job Language Challenge 2025! The entry article for the first month has been published, now I want to talk to you about the task for the first week within the first month. In this article, I want to talk to you about the motivation for writing a CV in your chosen language and what to do when you have finished the task.
Some background for the CV task
If you are looking for a job at a company using the language you are learning, it’s clear why you wanted to know how to write a CV in that language. But is that all? The first time, I learnt writing a CV in any language was in middle school. We were learning how to create a CV in German, our native language. After that, English was the next one. Knowing how to write a CV in English helps for a lot of working contexts. I had to write English CVs for companies and freelance gigs even based in Germany for international work contexts. I have never stepped a foot in a country with English as official (or generally main) language, but an English CV still helped me to get into online programs that were based e.g. in Canada.
Maybe you are working at a company or institution, or you own your own business. It’s possible that you don’t have to write any CVs for yourself right now, but you have to deal with CVs from other people at some point. Maybe you search through different websites to look at CVs of other people or you get some of them sent to your company or department. Wouldn’t it help to know the standards of a CV in different regions, especially the ones linked to the language(s) you are currently working with? Let’s look at an example: Imagine we knew a French linguistics professor who has just recently moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina. The professor is looking for a research assistant and opens the application process, allowing for applications in, e.g. Spanish, French and English. Wouldn’t it be helpful for the professor to check for typical CVs that are used in Argentina to see what’s the standard in the new area?
At the end of the day, you can decide for yourself if you need to know how to write a CV in the language you are learning. Maybe this is just one task of a lot that are part of your study program even though you don’t see an immediate use of it, or you have a goal that includes writing a CV this week anyway. Finding out how to write a CV in your language might just be a way to improve your overall language skills and that’s fine, too!
Step-by-step process
Here is the step-by-step process for the first week:
Step 1: Check CVs in that language
Step 2: Check for important terms used on a CV to describe the (professional) life of a person
Step 3: Write a CV in your language using adequate terms
When learning a language, it’s a good idea to do a little every day (or every few days) instead of a big bunch of tasks one day a week or a month and then forget about it forever. Depending on your time and how much language learning you do, you could split the week task in smaller portions and do a little day by day. You could start on Monday with step 1 and do step 2 on Tuesday and Wednesday and finish the task on Friday. Of course, you could also do everything at the same day. It’s your choice really! I would recommend you thinking about it and actively choose one of the ways and stick to it, but I also know how difficult life can get and that not sticking to one way might provide the flexibility needed to stick to a challenge like this at all. Whatever you choose, go for it!
What to do with the results?
There are several things you can do with your result, i.e. the written CV. For one, you can safe it and use it if you need a CV anyways. If you have a language teacher or a friend who knows that language can helps you out with it every now and then, you could also let them check your CV. Maybe they could give you some feedback or correct some mistakes? Another possible step is sharing your result on Social Media to connect with other people interested in a language challenge like the Job Language Challenge 2025. Maybe you don’t want to share your CV online but you could create a fantasy CV to share it on Social Media? How would a CV of a vampire living in London looking for a job as a barista at a local coffee shop look like?
What we can learn from challenges like the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)
Have you ever heard about the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)? The NaNoWriMo is a creative writing challenge. The aim is to write approximately 50.000 words in a month for a story, so basically writing a whole novel in just a month. It’s not about editing or making sure it’s the perfect story at that point. It’s just about writing enough every day to get to quite a lot of material at the end of the month. It can be a good idea for you to handle the Job Language Challenge in a similar way. If you getting to use your language on a regular basis is your first goal for now, you might not want to strive to perfectionism just yet. See for yourself if getting corrections immediately helps you or demotivates you. It’s often good to get feedback at least at some point. You want to improve your language skills, right? But sometimes having to ask for feedback (and getting it) is the thing that hinders you of trying to use your chosen language on a regular basis.
If you know LangTwitter (langtwt) or some language Instagram spaces or polyglot communities, you have most definitely heard of some kind of language challenge. Back at school, this was basically just homework. On social media, however, and with similarly inspired language learners, this is more of a tool to motivate yourself to get to work on the language you are currently learning. But before I take all the glamour off language challenges, lets get going!
Depending on the learning aims, there are different kinds of language challenges that are useful. For a beginner, answering little questions everyday might be a great start. Day 1: What’s your name? Day 2: Where do you live? etc. … In this case, we talk about weekly tasks that are a bit bigger than responding to small short questions. These tasks fit best for intermediary or advanced learners of a language.
Job related language learning
As you can already read from the headline, this language challenge is about job and work related language. I remember sitting in a French business class at university thinking “Why didn’t I have any classes like this for Portuguese, English or Spanish?” Eventually, we did some of the topics in my other classes as well, but a class specialized for business language is not exactly easy to come by. So, to take matters in our own hands, let’s do some research on business language/work language/job language, however you want to call it, for the language(s) that you are currently working with.
How does this language challenge work?
On the job language challenge sheet, you find a task with several steps for every week. The idea is that you do a task with all its steps every week. There are going to be new job language challenge sheets but for now, we will start with one sheet for your first month. You can write your texts for the challenges on some device, on some sheets of papers or in a journal. In addition, you are free to post about it on social media. From where I’m standing, one of the bigger differences between boring homework at school and a fancy language challenge that I’d found on social media, was the community effect (and not being forced to do anything, big factor, too!). So, if you find some friends with whom you can do the job language challenge together, this might help you, too, to stay motivated and to keep learning.
Let’s connect!
Feel free to use the Hashtag #JobLanguageChallenge2025 and #JobLangChallenge25 on whatever platform that you are using when you post about this challenge or your results. Also feel free to link back to this website so that people can choose to stay up to date on the challenge and/or link back to one of my social media profiles in case you find one on the platform of your choice!
You never know which conversations are going to change your life. Some time ago, I had one of those life-changing conversations. I was participating in a French class. My level of French was good enough to say what needed to be said but not a single additional word. By chance, I was the only student in that French class. So, the French teacher and I used that time to have a freer conversation about languages, teaching, and learning. Everything happened in French, I was there to get better at French conversation after all! The French teacher told me about how he got that freelance teaching job and how it was working out for him. We were talking about an amazing company which was the working place of my dreams for years. I was fascinated by that story. Before, I had been afraid to apply for positions like that, but he explained it to me in a way that made me more confident. He encouraged me to try it out myself. After all, I already was a language teacher. I just needed that push, a bit of information about how things were working, and that my skills were enough. Do you know that cliché about the German obsession with certificates? Yeah, I convinced myself before that I wouldn’t have enough certificates to apply for that gig.
Without my interest in participating in that French class, I wouldn’t have met that amazing teacher. I wouldn’t have that encouraging conversation with him about that job. And stuff like that keeps happening to me.
Learning business French, why not?
A few years before that conversation, I participated in a business French class. You know, that kind of class that all English learners see promoted everywhere for English. This one was for French, however. I was an undergraduate student in a Portuguese/Spanish program and felt like I had some extra energy to participate in a business French class. The class itself was amazing. We talked about business vocabulary like the important words for paperwork, expressions for meetings, how to write a CV, and lots of other stuff. If you asked me at the time why I was participating in that class, I would have responded “Who knows, maybe I’ll do an internship in France next year”. I did not. But I also didn’t have to do that to make the class worth my while. That business French teacher showed us what was important for language learning in a work and business setting. The teacher made us think about invoices, shipping, meeting minutes, and all those things I wouldn’t have thought about as an undergraduate student working on mastering several languages on an advanced level. I’ve never participated in a business English, business Spanish, or business Portuguese class but thanks to that French class, I know what to look for and what’s important to learn on my own. I’ve never needed to write a motivation letter or a CV for a job in French but better believe me if I say that training sessions for CV writing like in that French class helped me when I had to write my CV in English or Portuguese (or German, for that matter).
Stories want to be told …
I was revisiting my e-mail inbox and reading old newsletters. There was one newsletter from last year that was talking about “accidental contacts” in a business context. “Accidental contacts” in the sense of contacts that were helpful for the business but not exactly planned like that. The newsletter came from Joana Galvão, the Founder of The Ambitious Creatives. Joana offers amazing content for creative businesspeople to get better at what they are doing. The newsletter content reminded me of the story of the French teacher who gave me the confidence to apply for that language teacher job. Joana’s newsletter always sounds very inviting for replies, so I took a leap of faith and replied, or how I would say it in a more German way: I jumped over my own shadow (“ich bin über meinen Schatten gesprungen”). I told the story about the French lesson that gave me confidence to apply for a job position. Now, that French lesson gave me some content to talk about, to reply to Joana’s newsletter with a story, and to re-tell the story to you, too.
… and lives want to be changed.
I am not saying that you need to take French classes to get a job as a language teacher, to be able to write CVs or meeting minutes, or to reply to a newsletter with a story. That would be missing the point. What I am trying to communicate is the following: You never know which conversations will change your life. And in case you are wondering, I got the teaching job that I applied for.
