#296 Be More Curious
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Hello, you curious language learners. Welcome back to the Level Up English podcast. This is the place to come to practice your English language, learn about the British accent and culture with me, your host, Michael Lavers. I really do hope that you're curious to learn more about this topic today because this is something that I am very, very passionate about.

Today, we're going to be talking all about this topic of curiosity and how you can develop that in your life. We'll also be talking about the importance of that as well, like why you should be curious. And I'll also then move on to talk a little bit about some examples in my own life of when I have been curious and when I practice that in my own life as well.

There's a lot of fun and hopefully useful things that we'll talk about in this episode today. Of course, this is really related to language learning. You know, when we first start learning a language, we are naturally very open and we're curious to learn new things.

And that can be a really amazing feeling. You know, when you're really, really into something and you're looking up every little detail, you're finding out more. I love that feeling. It's a really nice feeling. I used to really love researching very obscure Japanese words that probably I will never, ever use. Like I've got words in my language study flashcards that are really specific. I've got ones for like

You know, Christian missionaries. I've never needed to speak about Christian missionaries in my life in Japanese, but I know how to say it. If I do need to speak about it, I don't remember why that was relevant for my learning. But yeah, there's things like that that I get curious about and I end up learning them.

I would also focus a lot on grammar that was way too far above my level. And of course, it gets even more interesting when you go to a country that speaks the language you're learning and you're looking up all the different meanings of the words that you see on signs. You're using your dictionary to find out what different things mean in your environment. And that can be really exciting.

However, along the way, we naturally get more complacent, which kind of means comfortable, and we take things for granted more and more. If we take things for granted, that means we're no longer really appreciating something because it's just become normal for us. And the curiosity we once had fades into daily habits and routines.

If we say it fades into, that means it slowly becomes habits and routines. So maybe before you were very curious about new things. Now you're just kind of going with your daily habits, your daily study routine, but you're not actually thinking so openly about new things. You're not being as active as you used to be in your learning.

And I'm saying 'you' a lot here. I'm really speaking from my own experience. I hope that what I am going through, what I have been through, will also be relevant to you as well. I have a feeling it will be. So just to summarise this short introduction: curiosity makes language learning so much more enjoyable

and it also helps you progress faster. And that is the idea behind today's episode. I suppose this comes from the idea that when you're having fun, you learn more efficiently as well. So if you're curious, you're having fun, you're learning efficiently. I probably should mention what this word means because this whole topic, this whole episode is about really just one word. I think it's important that we clarify what this means.

So, 'curious' is the adjective, 'curiosity' is the noun. And if you are curious about something, it just means you're really interested and you want to know more. You're open to learning more about it and you're asking these words like 'why', 'how', 'when', 'where'. If you're asking these words, that means you're curious, you really want to know the answer to something.

So let's, I think we'll go first of all into the importance of being curious, why it's important. I think that's a good starting place for today.

And I should also mention, I've already mentioned quite a few slightly advanced phrases and words like complacent, take for granted, fades into. If you struggle with any of these, you might find our members content useful, where first of all, we have bonus content like a quiz, vocab lists with audio from the episode. You can comment your practice and I'll give you my feedback there.

And of course, we also have episode transcripts as well. So this is where you can listen to the podcast and read at the same time. And it is a really, really nice way to train your listening and reading skills. So you're matching the word that you're hearing with the word that you're reading. It's a really important skill.

And if you want to access that and of course many, many more things, probably hundreds of hours of content, then you can find out more. You see what it's all about at levelupenglish.school. And there's a members button at the top of the page. So yeah, if you're curious about what that is and what we're doing over there, please check it out. Okay. So as I said, the importance of curiosity.

Number one, I think that being curious makes your mind more active rather than passive.

So we all want to be active learners. You know, if you're passive, that means you're kind of listening to this podcast maybe, but you're not really focused on what I'm saying. If you're actively listening, you're really focusing on the sentences I'm saying. Maybe you're researching the meanings of difficult words. You're thinking about how you would respond to my questions and

That's being more active and that is much more easy, much easier to do when you're listening with a curious mind. So you're really just training your brain and you're always thinking through problems rather than just accepting the way things are.

And I find this so difficult personally when I listen to a podcast. It's so easy to get into the habit of being passive and not really focusing on what's being said. But I think we all know the more active we can be, the more...

efficiently we're learning in many cases right it's not saying that passive learning is not useful but i think we do too much passive learning and not enough active learning generally right if you're being curious about things you're being oh you're like oh that's a new word what does that word mean or oh i think i've heard this word before let me think about this and you're kind of having that mindset while you're learning listening or whatever you're doing reading maybe

So that's one thing. It makes your mind more active. Healthy mind, healthy learning. Secondly, I just think it makes life more fun. If you can be curious, you'll have a more enjoyable life. I can almost guarantee it. Even 1% more, but probably a bit more than that. So let's think about the opposite. It's probably easier.

Think about going through your life and never questioning why the sky is blue or never questioning what is that bird called? I see this bird every day, but I've never questioned what it's called. Why is he here? If you go through life never questioning things, you end up living quite a black and white life or a more advanced word would be monotonous life.

That just kind of means one colour. Everything is boring and dull and the same. Every day feels the same to you because you're not open to seeing things differently.

Conversely, if you're curious, you're open. Every day is a bit different. You're learning new things every day. You're noticing different things every day. Let's try and get specific with this. You can maybe take the same walk every day to work, which, okay, maybe that's a bit boring, but the things that you encounter on your walk will not be the same.

Maybe there will be new animals, new insects on the way, new people that you might get curious about.

Maybe you don't really notice anything new. Maybe everything's the same, but you can move your attention, move your curiosity to different things. So on day one, you're looking around and you're looking at the trees. Oh, I've never noticed that tree before. I wonder what that tree is. I wonder how many years old it is. Maybe it's a hundred years old. Wow. I wonder all the changes this tree has seen over the years.

Right. That's one thing. And then the next day you might look to your right and you're seeing all these old buildings like, well, I've never noticed the roof of that building. It's like a really old Victorian style. Maybe that's an old building, too. Well, I wonder all the uses this building has had. You know, you're getting very curious about things. And I guess you can just imagine how viewing life in this way.

can make things so much more enjoyable. You're questioning everything. It may be a bit tiring if you do it every second of every day, but to make the habit of doing that can be quite nice. And I think the last thing that I'll mention, one benefit, is being curious can open up more opportunities. And this can work in many ways. It could be with work, with jobs, job opportunities, for example, but

The curious person will explore an unknown path. They'll go down a new place. They'll see new things. They'll say yes to new opportunities. And let's say you're going to work again, but okay, this time I'm going to take this route. I'm not going to go my normal route. And down the new route, you meet new people. Maybe you make new friends. You find a new cafe that you want to try and you go on more adventures, right?

Who knows? It could be something very small, but it could also be something very big. You never know what you can find. Yeah, I mean, just here's a really small example. I am always trying to be curious with going to new places and exploring in my area. So the other day I went down a new street that I had never been to or I had never been to before.

And when I got there, I saw loads of cats and kittens playing in the street. It was really, really cute. And then the owner came out to talk to me. Her English was very good. And we had a good conversation there. And yeah.

That was it. She's not my friend. She's not my best friend or anything now, but it's a nice memory. I still think back a couple of weeks later now and it's still a nice memory. So little things like that can make life a bit more interesting and you never know what can happen.

Um, yeah. Conversely, imagine the person without curiosity. They take the same route to work every day. They never change anything. Their eyes are down or maybe even worse. Their eyes are staring at their phone, waiting for notifications, right? And not looking where they're going. Very annoying. Please don't do that. And this person never has any surprises. They're

their life merges into kind of one day. Was that Monday or Tuesday? I don't know because they felt exactly the same. So even if your days look similar, you can make them feel quite different by being curious and open-minded. Really hope that made sense. Really hope that my point is coming across now a little bit. So I think...

For this next section, we'll talk about what you can do to be more curious. How can you invite more curiosity into your life? And these are just my ideas. So with everything I'm talking about today, please give me your ideas and experiences. You can leave a comment over on the show notes for 296. So let me know what you think.

But one idea that I like to try to have is that everybody has something new to teach us, right? Don't ever just think of people as being boring. Everyone is interesting in their own way. Again, this is something that I, it doesn't come naturally to me. I have to remind myself to think this way. But this could be practically if someone is interested in something and you find their interest a little bit strange, right?

rather than just dismissing it and saying, yeah, it's not for me. I'm going to kind of pretend I'm interested until they're finished. You can actually try to practice the habit of curiosity and maybe question why they like it. So let's say you have a friend. I can relate to this. I've got some friends who are interested in anime, right? I am not really into anime. I don't really like it. And rather than dismissing that, I can say, okay,

Why do you like anime? Or what about anime do you find interesting? Maybe you will find out something about their childhood, a memory they have, or they might tell you about how they appreciate the artwork or the story in anime. And you might find some aspects of that that you yourself can relate to as well. And I find that quite a nice way to look at it.

There's always something we can learn from other people. Even if you think someone, oh, this person's, they're not very intelligent. They're not as smart as me. Every single person has something new that they can share with us and teach us. I just think that's such a great positive attitude for life. The next tip that I would recommend

probably give is curiosity leads to more curiosity, right? So in other words, it's a habit and the more you do it, the easier it becomes. And I, I'll probably come back to this a little bit later, but the example that I have for myself is my identification app.

So I have an app that identifies plants and animals and insects. And before using it, I wasn't really that interested in them. I might notice the same insects and animals every day and I might go, okay, that's kind of interesting, but then I wouldn't really think more about it. But then one day I thought, actually, I didn't think, I think I heard someone saying how important it is to be connected with the world around you. They were talking about

how we've lost that connection and that knowledge to the natural world, right? And I was kind of inspired by that speech or that line. And I decided to download this app. I know it's a bit weird, right? You're downloading an app to get in touch with nature, but I think it kind of works for me.

And this app basically allows me to take a picture of an animal or plant and know the name and everything about it on the app, which is super useful for me. And it's really made me more curious about the animals by doing so. Before, I wasn't that interested, but now I am learning the names and I'm also noticing them more and more each day. So my...

Being curious led to more curiosity as well. So yeah, that's one thing. Make it into a habit, I think is my summary there. This kind of is linked to my first point here. But if you find yourself thinking this is boring, stop. Stop yourself and look closer.

I believe that nothing is boring if you pay close enough attention. If you're really paying attention, nothing is really that boring. So let's imagine you're waiting for your friend to finish shopping. They've gone into a shop looking for clothes. You don't want to do that. You think that's kind of boring. So you decided to wait in the park.

This park is seemingly quite boring. There are no things to play with. You don't have any sports equipment. There's nothing to do. It's too hot to go running. You're just kind of sat there quite bored in the grass on the floor. So you could just sit there for 30 minutes, just twiddling your thumbs, which means playing with your thumbs, not knowing what to do, twiddling your thumbs. And that's not a nice way to spend 30 minutes. Or you can...

remember what michael said in the episode and go okay let's get curious today i'm going to try to really pay attention to something it could be your own body it could be your environment sounds sights smells tastes i don't know what you're tasting there in the park but could be um

But let's say it's a site. You've looked down in the grass and you've seen hundreds of ants, hundreds of little ants. And you look closer, they're all in a line. They're carrying small things back to their nest and you're watching them. It's amazing. Wow. They're carrying such heavy objects compared to them. And they're all moving in a really organized way. I wonder where they live. How long is this trail of ants? And then...

time flies by, right? You're watching these ants for ages and you lose track of time. Maybe even when your friend gets back from shopping, you don't want to leave. You're like, no, I want to see what these ants get up to next. So there's just one random example of how, uh,

It kind of depends on your perspective, right? You could be sat alone in a field with nothing to do, or you could be watching a whole new species of animal and their way of living in the grass below your feet. Right. Very, very interesting.

I also think it's important never to label a person as boring. I would always stop myself whenever I felt like I wanted to say, ah, that person's really boring. Probably that's not true. It's just that I'm not listening carefully enough. Again, I think everyone has something interesting to share. And if you pay close enough attention to a person, you might hear things like secret interests they have. They might mention something about

a place they've traveled to before and you see their eyes light up and that means they're interested and that's always really cool to see when someone is so passionate about a topic. So yeah, try to avoid labeling people as boring. I also think, I kind of mentioned this already, but try to make a habit out of it. So make a habit out of trying new things. And this is so important because

I guess a lot of us think we are born with our interests. We're born with what we're passionate about. But I think the truth is, if you never try anything new, you'll never really have any interests. You know, we have to try something new for the first time to know that we like it.

There's no way that you know that you like skateboarding unless you try skateboarding. I mean, you might have an interest. You might see someone doing it and think that looks really cool. But you don't really know for sure until you try it. And I had that myself. I really got into skateboarding.

and in my 20s and I didn't really know. I just kind of thought one day, yeah, okay, I'll try that. I'll see if I like it. I tried it one day and I really, really liked it. So I think it's important to try new things and also make a habit of doing that too. It can open up so many new opportunities for you. So this is about getting curious about trying new things and that can lead in so many different directions.

And the final tip I think is quite creative. I'm quite proud of this one. And this is to relate your existing interests with the thing that you find perhaps not so interesting. I'll give a random example. Let's say that you're like me and you really love cats. You love cats. You want to spend all your time with cats because they're so cute and funny.

But you're not so interested in Japan. The history of Japan, the culture, for some reason you just don't, you're not interested. That's fine. But you kind of feel like you're missing out. There's a whole country. How can you dismiss a whole country? So, okay, let's try to develop your curiosity about Japan.

So here we can start connecting them together. So start researching and looking up all cat related things to Japan. If you do that, you might find out that there's a whole island of cats in the sea. Wow, it's a cat island in Japan. I never knew that. That's so interesting. Where did this come from? Hmm.

Maybe there's some historical reason. You can look into the history of this island and the current day situation. Are cats common in Japan? Wait, what's the most popular pet in Japan? And the more you can do that, the more you can link your interest to develop your curiosity about another topic as well. Hopefully that makes sense.

I suppose I had that with podcasting as well. Like in the beginning, I wasn't really curious about podcasting, but I would listen to podcasts on different topics that I really loved and I

By doing so, I developed an interest in the medium, the form of podcasting itself. So you never know when one interest can link you to another interest. I just think you have to sometimes be open to that or maybe sometimes try to do it a bit actively, try to force that habit.

But okay, I think now is a good time to get a bit personal and I'm going to talk a little bit about more examples in my own life when I am practicing my curiosity and yeah, just things that I'm curious about recently, basically.

So I mentioned this a little bit more. I mentioned it already. This is finding out the names or identifying new plants, animals and insects.

So I have been using an app. I believe that in the very near future, this will be a feature that is inbuilt into most phones. But at the moment, I'm using an app. And basically, you take a picture of what you want to identify, and it will automatically give you the name of what you are looking at.

I remember when I first found out about this a few years ago, I thought it was the coolest technology ever. But now I really take it for granted now. You know, I kind of just assume it's normal, but it's actually a really cool technology. If you think about it, that you can take a picture and the camera tells you what it's seeing. Even just five years ago, that was so cool to me. And it's just become normal so quickly with all this AI stuff. But anyway, that's a tangent anyway.

So, by the way, this app is called iNaturalist. And there are many apps that can do this. This is just the one that I use. And yeah, so when I came to Thailand, when I first came here a year ago, I was very shocked by how new everything was.

All of the trees, animals, fruits and vegetables, they were basically all different. There was really nothing that I was familiar with anymore. And that was a really strange feeling. I guess it's so far away from the UK, everything's quite different. And I...

Yeah, I guess for a long time I kind of just accepted that. But more recently, I've been identifying them. So things that I see again and again, I'm trying to take a picture of them to learn about them. Yesterday, there's this tree that I've seen many times in Thailand. I think it's quite a popular one here. It might even be like a national plant of Thailand. I'm not really sure, but it was... Yeah, it's got very beautiful white flowers and...

big fruits that look a bit like avocados or really big limes maybe. And I thought, okay, I wonder what this is. I guess it's not edible, but it would be cool to see if it is edible. And I looked it up and it turns out it was, I forget the name now, but

It was a very poisonous plant. It can be used to end someone's life. It's a very poisonous one and it has some historical uses where it has been used to poison people as well. It's very beautiful, but also very deadly. So that was really interesting to learn about. It might even be useful to learn about that. So I know I shouldn't interact with that plant, with that tree too much.

Another useful thing is identifying snakes. I've seen quite a few snakes here and luckily all of the ones I have identified so far have not been venomous but it's good to know that. So if I see that snake in the future I know

Okay, I'm going to keep my distance anyway, but I'm pretty sure this one is not venomous, right? Or maybe if I do find one venomous in the future, I'll remember what it looks like and I know I have to avoid it. So yeah, it could be useful as well, but it's also just interesting to know the names of these things.

Another thing I do with language learning is I try my best to practice this habit of learning every new phrase I come across. I do this in Japanese. It doesn't come naturally to me. I have to really force myself to do it. But luckily here in Bangkok, there are many places with Japanese signs, Japanese writing on the signs and Chinese as well.

So basically, wherever I go, I can learn something new. I read the sign. I'm learning a new word in a language. I can also read some Thai to some degree. So that's really nice that I can read the sign in Thai and I can kind of learn the meaning. One example of this is a word that I kept seeing everywhere. And this word is something like ra wang, something like that. My pronunciation is not great.

And it was always written in red and it was written next to roads, railways and dangerous things. So I kind of made the assumption that this means maybe caution, be careful, take care, something like that. And I think I'm right because I asked someone and they confirmed it.

But that was really cool. So I learned a new word from being open and curious. So maybe most foreigners, even if they're learning Thai, they will walk by these signs and not even really notice them. Right. They're not even really reading them. But I just find trying to be curious and developing that habit of noticing things is really fun. And it's a nice way to learn as well.

Another word, I think it was one of the first words that I ever learnt in Thai. I don't know why, but this is the word for school, which I believe is something like rong rien, something like that. And I see this written everywhere. I often see, you know, caution, school. I don't know what the last word says, but I can guess maybe the word says school zone or school area or

Sometimes I will see a word that I think means international, like international school. Sometimes it will be the English word. So it will say like St. Michael's School or something like that.

and it's really great to learn uh learn in that way and just i i think it's a great feeling isn't it i'm sure you felt this before when you've learned something in a learning environment and then you experience it out in the real world that's such a great feeling whether you're hearing it on a podcast or reading it on a sign that's a really nice way to to learn it's fun as well um

Another thing I try to do I'm very curious about is exploring new places. As strange as it might sound, I think exploring is maybe one of my favourite hobbies. Just walking around, finding out new places. I love doing that. Where others might just see a street. Okay, this street is the same as that street. I will see new people, maybe new architecture. Oh, this building looks older than that building over there.

history maybe maybe there's going to be some statute or sign about some history and I can wonder what happened here in the past and there's so much to learn if you open your eyes and get curious about where you are

And I think, yeah, I mean, I know that I have been encouraged to do this with the help of apps. So once again, I'm using apps on my phone to encourage me to get outside more, enjoy the outside, which might sound strange, but one app I use is called Geocaching, G-E-O-C-A-C-H-I-N-G, I think.

So geocaching is an app where you can find hidden containers all around the world and it encourages you to get out and explore new places. Really fun app. I've been using it for about 10 years now.

Another app that I've got addicted to, totally addicted to recently, is called Fog of World. And this basically shows everywhere you've been before. So the map of the world is kind of dark. And when you go to a new place, that place becomes lighter. So you're kind of unlocking the map.

And the more that you explore, the more the map is unlocked, the more the map appears for you.

and you can level up as well as like a leveling system. Different challenges you can do, like reach this level in this country or cross the equator, like different geographical challenges. And I'm using this app every day to try to explore new places in Bangkok and everywhere I go. Maybe I'll put a picture on the screen for the YouTube watchers.

So you can see, for example, this is a map of Europe. You can see the line down in the middle is the route I took through Europe. So you can see everywhere I went in Europe on my trip. So it's really cool to kind of unlock the world in that way. But yeah, I think it's important to say that I wasn't born with this love for adventure. I don't think it was really natural to me. I think it's something that I've developed with a habit. The more you do it, the more interesting it becomes.

Is that...

And kind of with that exploring habit, I also like to write things down. I get very curious about visiting new places. And how I do this is I have a note file on the app on my phone and I write down. So when I see a new cafe, I write down the cafe, I write down the restaurant, maybe a temple or place that I want to revisit. And I kind of intend to come back here in the future.

This is such a nice way for me to make sure I am just seeing new places. I think revisiting new places is a really nice thing to do for me. I also recently started running. I made a little running habit and I'm not totally obsessed with running like many people might be, but I've been kind of going for a run maybe once a week in the morning recently and I

I think what's interesting is before I always said, yeah, running is not for me. I'm not really a runner. It's just not who I am.

And I never questioned why. I think we have to be so careful whenever we think that about ourselves. I am not a runner. I'm not a language learner. I'm not a strong person, whatever it might be. I'm not a confident person because sometimes these beliefs become reality and they don't really have any evidence behind them.

So I'm able to run. You know, I'm fairly young. I don't have any problems with my legs, really. So I can run, but I just said I'm not a runner. But what does that mean? I've never really tried running before. So I was actually inspired by a conversation I saw online about people discussing how much they love running. And I kind of I saw that conversation and I thought, well, if they love it, why not me? At least I can try it.

And since trying it, I've actually quite enjoyed it. And it's such a nice, simple thing to do. It's a really nice minimalist exercise, which means you can do it from anywhere in the world. You don't need equipment. You don't need anything really. City, countryside, anywhere you can go running. So it's a nice thing to do and it's a nice way to explore and get some exercise, even if you don't have access to a gym.

So because I was curious about that sport, that activity, it led to me doing it more and maybe opening up some more opportunities in the future. Who knows? But that's a good one. The final thing I will say that I've been doing is trying, trying to practice mindful listening. This is something that does not come naturally to me. I get very easily distracted.

No, I'm just kidding. I get very easily distracted like I just did right then. But that does happen to me a lot. When I'm talking with someone, I might kind of start to think about something else. And I'm sure many of us can relate to that feeling of getting distracted. And mindful listening is the action of being totally present and in the moment while you're listening to someone talking.

Really, really nice thing to do. And I'm trying to imagine myself in their shoes. So if you put yourself in someone else's shoes, you're not literally using their shoes. You're putting yourself in their situation, imagining what it would be like.

So if someone's complaining about their work, you might really kind of think, OK, how would that feel if I was in that situation? Yeah, that would be quite difficult, actually. Yeah. What would I do? And that might help you respond better as well in the conversation. And it will give you more empathy or more sympathy towards that person.

So mindful listening is a great activity and it allows you to be more curious about this person, their story, their background, their interests, all that kind of stuff. So yeah,

See if you can practice that yourself and not get distracted. Or here's a really tricky one. Not think about, not plan what you want to say while the other person is talking. That's really difficult for many people, including me. When someone's talking, you're not really listening to them because you're just thinking about what you should reply. That's very hard, but that's a nice way of practicing to be mindful.

But I think we'll end it here. I really hope you have been curious to listen to today's episode and I hope you found it useful and enjoyable. As always, let me know if you did. But I am curious now to read some reviews. So we only have one review today from Apple Podcasts. So if you want to leave your own,

You can do so. There is a link, by the way, if you go to levelupenglish.school slash podcast, there is a button on that page which will take you to the leave a review page, makes it nice and simple. And you don't need to use Apple Podcasts to leave a review.

But to be honest, whatever app you use, if you can give it a five stars, a thumbs up, a comment, any kind of thing you do like that will be so helpful to me. Spotify is very popular these days. If you can give me a five star rating on Spotify, it will mean so much to me. It really, really will. But anyway, here's one from Apple podcast from Do Kwan. And they said, hello, my recent favorite podcaster.

Just a random Vietnamese learner who wants to say thank you for being on here. I really enjoy your work so much. Thank you, Do Quam. That's so kind of you. I'm really glad that you're listening. And yeah, I hope you stick around as well. I hope you like the future episodes too. So thank you to you. Let's just say a very quick thank you now to some comments on Spotify. I want to give you some love on Spotify too. You can leave comments. This is a fairly new feature, but

but I do read them from time to time. I will read all of them eventually. So if you leave a comment, I will see it. I have one comment from Murillo who said, Hi Michael, I love your podcast. I've listened to it for one year. Is someone who understands 70 to 80% of your podcast at level B1 or B2? Hmm.

So it's really, really difficult to give a level to someone. I think it depends on so many different factors and it's really hard to say based on a small amount of information. I'll try to answer, but then I'll give a kind of an anti-answer as well. So I try to aim this podcast roughly towards B2 level learners. That doesn't mean that you are B2. If you're listening, you may be higher or lower.

So just to clarify, B2 is generally someone who can speak spontaneously and quite confidently with a native speaker. They don't really need to plan very much. B1, you can talk about your travels and some specific topics with not so much difficulty, but you might need some planning beforehand. So B2 is a bit more spontaneous than B1.

So I mean, I would say, at least regarding your listening skills, not the other skills, if you can listen to, if you can understand 80%, you're maybe on your way, you're kind of close to that B2 level. That's what I would say. However, I always want to say that, does it really matter? I really think it's important to be aware of this because

It may not be important, right? Whether you're B1 or B2, is that going to make a difference in your learning, right? Sometimes it can be quite demotivating. If you've been learning for many, many years, but your level hasn't changed, you're still B1. But that's not quite true because you have been improving. You're just not at that level of B2 yet.

And I just don't think it's super helpful all the time to give ourselves levels. Just try to enjoy where you are. I guess it's a little bit like comparison, which we'll be talking about next week, actually.

It's not healthy to compare yourself to other people. He's much better than me. But I think what we often do is we compare ourselves to a level. B2 is much better than me. B1 is better than me. I think this can be quite unhealthy. So just something to be aware of. But I hope I answered your question. But I also should say thank you very much, Marillo, for your review or your comment anyway, and for listening for one year. That's fantastic. Really nice of you.

One more here from Edgar, who says, happy to be here listening to your podcast. I can understand everything you say and explain and advise. I love it. Greetings from Puerto Vallarta in Jalisco, Mexico. I haven't heard of that before, but I looked it up. That's a state in Mexico. So,

Very cool that you're listening from all the way over there. We're so far away, but yet connected through the podcast. Edgar says, I love to learn how to have the British accent. So yeah, thank you very much, Edgar, for your comment on episode 289. But okay, I think we're going to...

Go now to a quote, which I hope you're curious to hear from Albert Einstein. If you know anything about Albert Einstein, you might know he was a very curious person and perhaps that is what led to his great success. So he said, I have no special talents. I'm only passionately curious.

So there we have it. If you want to be like Einstein, just be passionately curious. There's some great advice to end on. But yeah, well, thank you for watching or listening today. Really hope you enjoyed it. I will see you very shortly in the next episode. Have a great week. Goodbye.

You have been listening to the Level Up English podcast. If you would like to leave a question to be answered on a future episode, then please go to levelupenglish.school forward slash podcast. That's levelupenglish.school slash podcast. And I'll answer your question on a future episode. Thanks for listening. ♪