My name is Andra Boldeanu and my mother tongue is Romanian, which is a latin language.

Due to my native language’s origins I also speak & write Spanish and French and I can perfectly understand Italian.

It also makes things a bit complicated when it comes to English grammar & pronunciation, as in Romanian, Spanish & French many letters or group of letters are mute so I sometimes seem not to fully pronounce the words when speaking English. Funny & a bit embarrassing.

I started learning English when I was seven years old, but I never excelled at it. I was more drawn to Spanish & French because of their musicality. Also because it was much easier to learn them. 🤣

I work as a Copywriter at Kadima Digital in Dubai, and of course, I need to write in English.

Sometimes this can be difficult as my vocabulary is not as vast as I wish it would be. I wish I’d sound better, without being pretentious or come across as snobbish. I also realize that I want is quite difficult to achieve.

So I found Leonardo English.

These podcasts are fantastic as they tell me a story while using new words. And it doesn’t sound forced. So while I’m driving, cooking or exercising I play an episode, listen to it carefully, make mental notes (try to understand the meaning of unknown words from the context) and of course, enjoy it.

Later or the next day I would get back to the script and look on the words.

Leonardo English membership opened the doors to new words for me.

Words that I can easily use in my daily life, at work, with friends. It also presented me with the easy way - somehow a natural way of learning English - listening to stories. I believe that when one enjoys doing something, one is likely to get better at it faster than expected.

My favorite episode - so far, as I didn’t have the time to listen to all of them - has been 1MDB & The Missing Malaysian Billions.

I love stories of how political leaders can built or ruin a country’s reputation and contribute to its future in a positive or negative way. I also love drama & gossip, and 1MDB checks all the boxes.

Alastair from Leonardo English says

It's great to hear Andra's story, and I thought how she uses the podcasts as a tool to help expand her vocabulary was really interesting. From my own experience learning languages, once you get to a certain level trying to expand your vocabulary can only really be effectively done through interesting content (reading, podcasts, films etc.), and her approach is one that I'd recommend to any English learner in a similar position.