• Name
  • My name’s Andrey in Russian but I usually introduce myself Andrew in English)

• Mother tongue
  • Russian

• Lives in
  • Last 3 years we’ve been living in Bali a half of year and another half in Russia. In Saint-Petersburg. 

• Can you tell me a bit about yourself?
  • I’m 38. I have 2 children: son is 12 and daughter is almost 3 years old. I have my own IT business. I manage it remotely. thanks to pandemic)) I love doing sports, especially extreme.  I really get a kick out of surfing, skateboarding. I’ve been doing yoga for 4 years now. And I’m on an English study kick as well. I do love learning English every day. In my past I used to play football. I had been doing it for at least 20 years before I had got knee injury. So, I’m active person and I’m on the move constantly) 

• Can you tell me about your language-learning journey?
  • My English journey has been started since 2019 but at the beginning I did it without enthusiasm. I attended offline school in Saint-P twice a week and did nothing after to level my English up. I mean I learned it only twice a week and usually forgot the most part of the information that I had learnt before by the next lesson. Since Pandemic started, I had a big break. I haven’t been practicing for 2,5 years. Probably, because I didn.t have enough inspiration and motivation. And since the end of 2022 I got obsessed with the English after we had moved to Bali. Moving to Bali was an inspiration kick to me to renew my English activity. The more I immersed the more obsessive I became. And now I spend at least a couple of hours on it every day. 

• What's your main goal for improving your English?
  • My main goal is to speak English fluently, communicate with different people, watch any movies, read any books and so on. I wanna become as a native))

• What have you found the hardest thing about learning English?
  • The hardest thing about studying is communicating with people in English. I worked on input English a lot by listening to podcasts, reading books, articles, learning grammar, but I didn't devote enough time on my output English. I guess it's because while I was in Russia I couldn't fully immerse myself in the English language. If says more precisely I just didn't know how to do it) But now I’m aware. 

• What are your other favourite ways to improve your English? (e.g. reading books, YouTube videos)
  • My favorite way to learn English is to listen to podcast and recap that what I’ve just listened to. I do really love listening to your podcast because I love history, mysteries and other interesting and educational content. 

• Do you have any special tips for someone trying to improve their English?
  • Recently, I’ve come across a worthy tip on how to watch TV shows if someone doesn’t have enough time. Well, the tip was to listen to them instead of watching. Frankly speaking, I hadn’t been aware of it before I found out that there are TV shows in audio format. It’s not the same as podcast because there are many characters, a lot of sound effects and so on. It's almost the same as a regular TV show, except for the pictures. So, this format has been very helpful for me to start understanding different accents in real life.

• Do you have any special tips on staying motivated?
  • It’s such an interesting question but I can’t suggest something special. Anyway, I noticed that the deeper I dive into English, the more motivated I become. The more progress I see the more obsessed I get))

• Why did you decide to become a member of Leonardo English?
  • Oh, I really fell in love with your podcast at the first sight)) Your English is perfect, your stories are breathtaking. As I mention before, I love history. And I have to mention something interesting about you, Alastair, for me personally: despite being British, you speak without any biases including about British history. 

• Can you share a little bit about your “podcast” routine? How do you use the podcasts to improve your English, and do you have any tips for others?
  • I try to listen to at least one episode of «Leonardo English» a day.  At most 2 or even 3. But usually 1, because after each time I recap aloud the story what I’ve just listen to. It takes me at least the same amount of time as the episode lasts. And also, I listen to at least one episode of another podcaster (Culips). So, recently I’ve implemented some audio series in my «podcast» routine, likewise. Well, if we don't have a regular conversation partner but we want to improve our output English we should push ourselves and recap еру story out loud. 

• What's your favourite English Learning for Curious Minds episode (and why)?
  • Honestly, I don’t have any favorite episodes. I find every episode fascinating, exciting and I listen to it all in one breath.

Alastair says: It's great to learn more about Andy and hear about his journey with English. Staying motivated is such a big part of success when it comes to language learning, and it is wonderful to learn about the ups and downs (but mainly ups!) of Andy's journey. Keep up the great work!