E51 Can You Compete with Someone You Love? (The Results Are In!)

Ep51.

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[00:00:02.540] - Oliver (Host)

The word competition comes from the Latin verb competere, which originally meant to strive together, not against, together. That's quite a noble idea, actually, isn't it? That we push ourselves not in isolation, but in tandem with others. Of course, over time, the word has acquired a sharper edge. Today, competition tends to imply rivalry, comparison, the pursuit of being better than other people, not just striving, but winning. And yet, at its core, competition still suggests a relationship. We don't compete in a vacuum. We compete with and because of other people, sometimes explicitly, sometimes silently, sometimes with a friend we love dearly and are absolutely determined to defeat utterly. This episode is probably for the more competitive amongst us, or at least for those who recognise something of themselves in this dynamic. Not everyone sees themselves as competitive, of course, but even if you wouldn't describe yourself that way, it's surprising how often a tiny, harmless dose of rivalry sneaks into relationships we care deeply about. In fact, I personally think there's something strange and honestly a bit hilarious about competing with someone you love. I'm not talking about something short term, like a sports match or board games, although those can be brutal - I've never been quite so resentful of my older sister, for example, as when she was sadistically bankrupting me in Monopoly turn by turn.

[00:01:45.620] - Oliver (Host)

Instead, what I mean is the other kinds of competition, the unspoken ones, the ones that simmer just beneath the surface, the implicit comparisons, the low-level one-upmanship, the pettiest stuff we don't talk about, but we still feel. Let's be honest, many of us compete with our good friends sometimes, not maliciously, not dramatically. But there's often an unspoken awareness of what the other person is doing. You might notice, for example, if your friend suddenly starts going to the gym before breakfast or making their own kimchi or doing cold showers like it's nothing. You smile and you say, "Good for you." And a small part of your brain goes, "Right. Okay, am I really lazy? Maybe it's time to get serious." Then there are siblings, which is a whole other layer. Sibling competition is rarely formal, but it runs deep. Who's more successful? Who's the favourite? Of course, life is not a race, but if it were, I want to win, but quietly, without seeming like I tried too hard. Most of this competition relies on it never being made explicit.

[00:02:58.980] - Oliver (Host)

Resentment about who is better or worse at a given skill can erupt into big family arguments, but more often, they just sit there quietly, shaping how we feel, even if we're not fully aware of it. Then, in contrast, you have people like me and César who take that vague, undefined feeling and go, "Let's make it a proper competition." No pretending, no subtlety, just, "We're both learning a language, French in this case. Let's see who can get further, faster. The winner gets an incredible dinner and the loser pays." And that, dear listener, is how César and I ended up sitting a language exam a couple of weeks ago. Two adults, no external pressure, no need to do this at all. Voluntarily sitting in a room full of strangers answering essay questions about imaginary French teenagers' social lives, all in the name of a dinner bill and bragging rights. But what's actually interesting about competition, even low-stakes ridiculous competition like ours, is what it reveals. It changes the way you approach a task, and it can have some really surprising benefits. Suddenly, it's not just about improving your French or your piano playing, or your pull-ups. It's about not falling behind.

[00:04:18.760] - Oliver (Host)

It's about consistency and pride, and maybe even a little bit of shame. Competition in relationships and really close friendships is particularly weird because you want the other person to do well. After all, I absolutely do want to win, but I also don't want my friend or partner to feel bad. When you're both working towards the same goal as we have been with studying French, it's easy to start noticing who's putting in more effort, who's slacking, who's mysteriously fluent suddenly in irregular verbs. You become hyper-aware of their progress, and even worse, your own lack of it. Suddenly, what started as a fun shared project begins to feel a bit like performance review season in a very small, very petty company of two. In this episode, you'll hear the results of my little experiment with César. We'll talk about our different approaches to learning, our personalities, and whether competition really helped, or whether it just added unnecessary stress. Spoiler: there is a winner, there is a loser, and there will be a very tasty dinner. If you've ever found yourself in a completely unnecessary challenge with a friend, or a deeply meaningful one with a sibling, or even just a silent rivalry with someone who doesn't even know you exist, welcome: you're in good company.

[00:05:44.460] - Oliver (Host)

So, César, we have the results to reveal or something interesting, don't we? What is that? How do you feel?

[00:05:55.840] - César (Guest)

I'm okay.

[00:05:57.060] - Oliver (Host)

Satisfied. Well, we have a great phrase for this - it's like water off a duck's back.

[00:06:04.060] - César (Guest)

What does that mean?

[00:06:04.980] - Oliver (Host)

You're unbothered by something. It's not important.

[00:06:09.840] - César (Guest)

Completely unbothered. I'm actually, to be honest, I'm happy.

[00:06:12.980] - Oliver (Host)

I'm so happy for you. Well, before we reveal what we're actually even talking about, welcome back to English and Beyond, the advanced version of the podcast. As always, there is a free transcript, free flashcards available online at

[00:06:30.900] - César (Guest)

morethanalanguage.com

[00:06:31.450] - Oliver (Host)

Good. So all of that's available online for free, as I said. And it, basically, the idea is that it helps you, if there's anything you don't understand in today's lesson, something you find difficult, then it's just a good way to go and check, consolidate your knowledge, and make sure you're learning all of the most complicated language and vocabulary and idioms that we use in the lesson or in the episode. What else was I going to say?

[00:06:54.160] - César (Guest)

It's also very important that if you listen to the podcast, follow it. Click the follow button or subscribe button.

[00:07:01.260] - Oliver (Host)

Yeah, I am notoriously bad at doing this thing. So yes, please follow, like, everything like that. It helps the podcast to grow and makes it more likely that we're going to be able to continue to do episodes in English. So if you enjoy it and you find it useful, please do share it. To make it more viable. Okay.

[00:07:20.580] - César (Guest)

Okay, so public humiliation now.

[00:07:23.760] - Oliver (Host)

Okay, so public humiliation. It's not that bad. César and I, well, do you want to explain the context of what we're talking about?

[00:07:30.000] - César (Guest)

Yeah. Almost two years ago, we decided that we were going to learn or improve a language together at the same time.

[00:07:38.820] - Oliver (Host)

Really learn in this case, almost. I mean, we had dabbled in the language, but it was almost from scratch.

[00:07:44.520] - César (Guest)

Oliver turned it into a competition. He was like, No, let's do a competition. The winner, I think, what was the prize?

[00:07:53.240] - Oliver (Host)

Oh, a dinner. A dinner. It was your... Whoever wins is supposed to take the other one out for dinner. Oh, no, sorry, get taken out for dinner by the loser.

[00:08:03.550] - César (Guest)

So we chose French. A couple of weeks ago, we seated the exam. You can say seated or tooked?

[00:08:11.640] - Oliver (Host)

We sat. We sat the exam.

[00:08:13.660] - César (Guest)

Yeah, of course - (unintelligble) sat.

[00:08:16.900] - Oliver (Host)

And you said the past tense of take was tooked. Did you say? Took?

[00:08:21.920] - César (Guest)

We took, yeah.

[00:08:24.460] - Oliver (Host)

This is the advanced level podcast.

[00:08:26.540] - César (Guest)

Maybe my French got better than my English. It's going nowhere. Okay, so we took this exam and the winner, of course, is Oliver.

[00:08:39.460] - Oliver (Host)

I'm going to add a "woo!" sound effect. Yes.

[00:08:44.840] - César (Guest)

Who does that?

[00:08:46.580] - Oliver (Host)

Drag Queens. Okay. I think because their nails are too long. Because do you remember that clip of Nicole Kidman when she was clapping with really long nails and she couldn't clap properly. She looked like a seal. I think that that's why. So, yes, we decided to do an exam. The idea was who can get to the B2 level more quickly because you have A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2. And so we took an intermediate level exam a couple of weeks ago. And, César, you got a B1. And unfortunately for the results of the competition, I got a B2. So now that you've reminded me, I'm looking forward to the dinner that we're going to go for. Where are we going to go? Somewhere nice?

[00:09:34.060] - César (Guest)

Well, since a couple of friends are visiting from London-

[00:09:37.940] - Oliver (Host)

Oh, no, that's a cop-out. I want a proper like sit down, multi-course dinner with wine. This has been two years in the making.

[00:09:44.610] - César (Guest)

I'll take you to your favourite Indian restaurant in Valencia.

[00:09:48.060] - Oliver (Host)

Oh, great. That is good. That's good. We can go before we go next week to France because we're actually going on holiday to France because we're complete losers. We're going and doing a kind of a residential language course in the south of France.

[00:10:03.740] - César (Guest)

As a language teacher, I have to say we talk the talk and walk the walk.

[00:10:09.490] - Oliver (Host)

Yeah, that is true. We spend our free time after telling everyone, you have to study the whole way through the year in order to achieve the results that you want. And then don't give up for the summer. You have to carry on as much as you can during the summer. We are actually doing that, to be fair.

[00:10:24.640] - César (Guest)

Because there are some teachers who teach their own language and don't speak any other language. I think that's... Sorry, but I honestly think that's slightly suspicious.

[00:10:35.840] - Oliver (Host)

Suspicious?

[00:10:36.570] - César (Guest)

Yeah.

[00:10:37.400] - Oliver (Host)

In what way?

[00:10:38.040] - César (Guest)

I think it's one of the best things about learning, keep(ing) learning languages, or keep(ing) learning - keep(ing) learning languages if you are a language teacher, is that you can be in your students' shoes all the time. Right?

[00:10:50.620] - Oliver (Host)

Yeah, well, I think it is a humbling thing to learn a language, isn't it? One of the, one of my good friends, one of our good friends, is a very, very intelligent man who is married to an incredibly intelligent woman. She is from Italy. He is from the UK, and he understands Italian amazingly. But he's basically said to me that his ego has never allowed him to properly dedicate the time to learning Italian in an active sense and being able to speak it because he finds it so humbling to feel stupid speaking a language at a basic level, only be able to describe things in very rudimentary ways, in very basic ways, not being able to express himself as he can in his own language. And I think that I would agree with you to that extent that if you are a language teacher who has never had to go through that process, then I think that that means that you don't understand how hard and embarrassing it can be to go into a shop to try to order something for them not to understand you or for them to switch immediately to another language, whatever.

[00:12:08.580] - César (Guest)

I think you need to have, honestly, I don't give a (bleep) attitude all the time. If you want to improve your English, French, Spanish, whatever. It's funny because I've considered myself quite a shy and introvert person. I'm an introvert.

[00:12:28.640] - Oliver (Host)

Yeah, I'm shy and an introverted person.

[00:12:31.050] - César (Guest)

Introverted person.

[00:12:32.070] - Oliver (Host)

Or you are an introvert.

[00:12:33.440] - César (Guest)

I am an introvert. Thank you. But I've always felt that if I wanted to improve my English, for example, I just couldn't care less about what other people thought. I have to say that for me, it's easier to go to a foreign country and speak the language than speak that language in a classroom full of people from Spain, for example. Because I think people are more...

[00:12:59.500] - Oliver (Host)

Judgmental?

[00:13:00.230] - César (Guest)

Yeah, judgmental. I was going to say bitchy, but I don't know.

[00:13:03.960] - Oliver (Host)

Interesting. I think we're very different people in general, because even in English, I often get you to order, because I think I am shyer than you are. In most cases.

[00:13:15.620] - César (Guest)

It depends on the context.

[00:13:16.660] - Oliver (Host)

It does depend on the context. But in most cases, I think I'm shyer than you are in any language. And we can see that where even though I think probably I've put more effort into learning French grammar, and I've put more effort into that aspect of the language studying, you have always done all the talking every time that we have gone to a French-speaking place because  I think I am someone who... I know it's a very bad thing to do, but for me, I think it is important to be able to construct sentences well before I'm willing to use them. Because you get two different types of people with languages, people that are willing to plough in and from the very beginning of learning a language, they're very vocal, very oral, they want to practise their spoken language. For me, every time I learn a language, I would say that there's a three-month period where I'm just looking at the grammar.

[00:14:13.700] - César (Guest)

You need accuracy when you speak, whereas I'm like, if I don't know a word, I just make it up as I go along or try in Spanish or Catalan, something like that.

[00:14:24.290] - Oliver (Host)

I can admire that attitude. I can see that it works for people -

[00:14:28.810] - César (Guest)

But you have to balance out.

[00:14:30.000] - Oliver (Host)

I just can't do it. I couldn't do it. I wouldn't enjoy learning languages if I had to approach it that way.

[00:14:36.040] - César (Guest)

But you should explain why you won this ridiculous competition.

[00:14:43.040] - Oliver (Host)

This competition without merit.

[00:14:44.460] - César (Guest)

Yes exactly.

[00:14:45.720] - Oliver (Host)

This useless and unimportant and meaningless competition. I would say that the tips that I would have, and I think that maybe with the advanced level students as we have here, it's maybe not as relevant. I don't know. It depends on your particular problems with the language or not. But for me, I think that the most important thing by far is consistency, finding something that you enjoy and are able to do regularly, something you don't view as a punishment, something you don't view as something that you're inflicting on yourself every day, but instead, something you're quite eager to do. Actually, there's a really good app for French that I have used. That I really recommend. And for example, with your Spanish courses, I think if... Because we don't have any in English yet, I apologise. But I think if someone really enjoys your course, enjoys learning with you, and is therefore willing to do it every day, which is a lot of the time the feedback that you get. I think that that is something that's very useful.

[00:15:51.500] - César (Guest)

Yeah, I get that feedback a lot because my online courses are no better than other colleagues who are doing the same thing or the same type of content or courses. It is true. If you like someone, if you are used to someone explaining to you things, listening to the podcast, watching the videos, you enjoy more the experience of learning with them. That happens to me all the time because I consume a lot of online education courses. So yeah, consistency is key. And how do you build consistency? Not feeling that you are doing something...

[00:16:26.360] - Oliver (Host)

That is a slog, but instead something that's actually pleasurable.

[00:16:30.700] - César (Guest)

Exactly. Yeah.

[00:16:30.700] - Oliver (Host)

Yeah. And so, I mean, actually, I have been asked about...well, I've been asked by listeners of this podcast and the intermediate podcast, whether we have English courses. I haven't even started, really. I think I've started a little bit of the intermediate one, but we've been working so much on the, on the Spanish that I haven't had a chance to get much further with it. So eventually some courses will come, but I'm afraid that it's going to be a while. And then the other thing that I would say is finding something that you find really, really engaging to watch, that you can watch even when you don't understand everything and you enjoy it. I think I've talked about it before in this podcast, but I've been watching Buffy: The Vampire Slayer in French, dubbed into French. I watched the whole thing basically in Spanish when I was learning Spanish. And now I've been watching a lot of it in French as well. And that makes a huge difference for me because I understand maybe, I don't know, 65, 70 %. But because I know and like the series, I remember enough of what they say and what happens to enjoy the episodes, even when I don't understand everything. So I think that those are the things. Find stuff that you enjoy enough to be able to be consistent with it.

[00:17:41.160] - César (Guest)

And for some people, being part of a community is really important. Not for you. I don't think that was relevant or a key factor for you.

[00:17:50.960] - Oliver (Host)

No, as someone who's a bit of a loner, the community is not...

[00:17:53.400] - César (Guest)

Yeah, but for some people, they prefer going to a school or even in online education, you've got comments and people reply(ing) to each other. There's a sense of community. I think there's not a right way to learn or improve the language you're learning, but you need to, I always say to students, think about the four competencies, no? Oral and reading, comprehension, and oral and...sorry no. Because I'm used to say(ing) it in Spanish. Comprehension in terms of speaking and reading and expression in terms of reading and speaking. So listening, reading, writing. And what else? Listening, writing, reading and speaking. Yeah, okay, thank you. It took a while. It's really hot in Valencia. It's like my blood pressure or something. Yeah, because some people... And you've done a great job doing that as well.

[00:19:01.440] - Oliver (Host)

Getting the four different competencies, the four different skills. Yeah, I mean, I've tried to. It's harder in French, I would say, than in Spanish, because I think that I've looked for language partners for French. Very hard to find language partners for French, or at least no one wants to be my language partner for French. Whereas in Spanish, so many Spanish people are desperate to practise their English as much as possible. And also when you actually got to the language partner sessions, a lot of the time they were then quite I was shy and wanted to speak more Spanish. So it was really good for my Spanish. But I haven't found anyone really for the French. So do we have anything else that we've learnt or not learned from our...

[00:19:48.900] - César (Guest)

You said it's... Consistency is key, and that's probably why, because obviously, you are not more intelligent than me. What I lacked over the last few months was consistency. I was maybe studying, learning, listening to friends' podcast for a few weeks and then stopped for three weeks and then go back. I think you have to do sometimes when life is busy, life gets busy, your bare minimum, but try to be in touch with the language. That's why I think it's important during the summertime, try not to...

[00:20:27.120] - Oliver (Host)

I have a question for you because I remember when we first started doing this, your idea, your method was going to be basically not to do any work, but instead do everything... No written or grammar work, but instead to learn it really through comprehensible input. I know that there is a Spanish equivalent of that, which you don't do. As a teacher, you were not selling courses based on comprehensible input, but you were interested in trying it for French. How do you feel about that now, about the comprehensible input method?

[00:21:01.300] - César (Guest)

Well, my comprehension, I think, is really good, but I struggle to put on accents on words and get the right tenses, get the right conjugations and all that because I haven't, worked on that that much. So now I regret a bit focusing too much on this comprehensible input approach, but it was a good experiment. Plus, basically, I wanted to do that because when I first learned French at school, it was the complete opposite. We just did grammar, grammar, grammar, but I didn't read, listen, or speak French. Now I think I should focus on both things at the same time.

[00:21:44.770] - Oliver (Host)

There are some people who are so dedicated to comprehensible input in the sense that they weren't countenance studying a language in any other way. Whereas for me, I think you have to find what works for you, but it is the antithesis of what works for me.

[00:21:58.870] - César (Guest)

Yeah. I don't know if there is a phrase for that, for each their own?

[00:22:06.080] - Oliver (Host)

Yeah, to each their own.

[00:22:07.190] - César (Guest)

To each their own.

[00:22:08.660] - Oliver (Host)

If you want to say that it's a matter of personal preference or something like that, you can say something like, different strokes for different folks, which is a little bit weird because a lot of the time folk is... I think it's a very old fashioned English word that is still sometimes used in more context in America. I think friendly Southern politicians in America are likely to use the word folk to describe "the good folk living in this town". I think folk, a lot of the time, folk is actually a plural world in itself, plural word in itself, people. But you can also say folks. It's like an American politician could begin a speech being like, folks, it's great to see you. That thing, I think. Now, I've said folks so many times, then now it just sounds really weird.

[00:23:08.070] - César (Guest)

Yeah, it sounds like (bleep).

[00:23:10.460] - Oliver (Host)

Ah, like the swear word. Okay, well, once again, I'll have to bleep you. So thank you very much, listener, for listening.

[00:23:18.680] - César (Guest)

Thank you.

[00:23:19.820] - Oliver (Host)

As César said earlier, please do follow, like, subscribe, blah, blah, blah, everything like that.

[00:23:26.120] - César (Guest)

Share.

[00:23:26.640] - Oliver (Host)

Share the podcast. And the podcast will return in two weeks because now we're entering the summer period and I'm going to be studying so much French that I'm not going to be able to find the time to record and to upload as much. So thank you very much for listening so far this year. And until next time. Goodbye.