Ep.7: Interview with Survive Serbian

We are Ivana and Maki, your hosts.

In this podcast, we discuss interesting details about Serbian language and culture from a

learner's and teacher's perspective.

We offer new and fun resources for learners of Serbian.

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Good morning, everyone.

Here is Maki.

Here is Alexandra.

Alexandra. Welcome, Alexandra.

How are you?

Thank you very much.

Great. The day is a weather.

It started.

It was bad.

It was a storm.

Now it is a weather.

Great. I'm happy.

Great. I understood everything.

Thank you very much.

Everything is in the way.

Good.

I'm happy. I'm So everybody, I'm talking to Alexandra from Survive Serbian and

she's our guest today.

Ivana is not with us for this episode, but we are going to be,

I mean, she helped me to prepare the questions and everything.

So she's here with us anyway.

Okay. Say hello to her and say to her that we're jealous.

Yes, we are both jealous of her because she is on an island in

Spain surfing right now.

So, but she's doing, but we're happy to be here.

Yes, exactly.

And we are happy to be here to share our experiences and our tips

for Serbian learners.

Right. So you have a nickname.

Sure thing.

Thanks for coming.

It's really a pleasure having you.

I love your content.

I'm a big follower of yours.

Ivana probably follows you a little bit because she doesn't need, but I need

your content. Thank you so much.

You have a nickname, right?

Asuka? Asuka. Asuka.

Okay, that's the shortcut of Alexandra?

yes actually uh uh i i like my name i mean i like alexandra

but uh when i when people speak to me and

i don't know call me alexandra then i feel like i'm a doctor's or

you know something like formal

yes like police doctor something like that okay or someone is mad at me

you know so atsica is actually yeah like 90 90 percent of people who

know me know me do they also say ask it sir yes you

know i learned yeah okay okay i think i have that too what's connie

uh ats kolina wow that's come atska atska like tongue twister okay

i'd like to know about you a little bit i I know that you

create these beautiful stories for Serbian learners.

We will come to that.

But as a person, who you are, where you come from, and what you

like and don't like.

Okay, so I live in Navisad.

Okay. I've been living here for, yeah, 15 years.

But I don't come from Navisad.

I come from a village close to Navisad.

I went to Karlović High School, this language school.

Yeah. It was fun, right?

Yes.

Yes. And actually, I went to school every day by train.

So now that's very interesting because now we got this super fast train that

I don't know 36 minutes to from Navisad to Belgrade and I remember from

from Navisad to

this village where I live like 30 kilometers from Navisad I don't know it

was one hour sometimes

one hour 75 minutes or 90 minutes depending because you know the tracks were

bad and everything the trains were late so I I had my spirit and

I went to a language school and somehow this language

school brought me later to uh Serbian university I studied Serbian and I've been

teaching Serbian

since 2008 I I did other jobs as well I mean other yeah I

had other jobs but somehow I I yeah I stick to teaching yeah you

love teaching serbian the most right yeah yes yes yes yes it gives you

the freedom other jobs exactly I mean teaching somebody's own like mother tongue is

something unique I enjoy teaching turkish as well so I love many many aspects

it's just not

you teach but you also share you learn a lot a lot and I

remember back then you know 2008 like I met some foreigners here so I

wasn't an avisa I was a broad you know people from all over

the world came here and I felt like I'm not an avisa and that

experience I don't know that I

think that is precious when you meet and share and when your everyday life

looks completely

different and this what this teaching Serbian brought to me and also a lot

of friends you know you know you are a teacher so you know like

with a lot of your students you become

you become friends yeah exactly you see we are completing each other's sentence

it's great to have a teacher in the show I hope I will not

interrupt you no it's going to be me

I will be doing when I get excited I tend to interrupt okay so

you're you create beautiful stories and funny stories right daily casual

stories how did you come up with the idea I mean

you've been teaching Serbian for a long time obviously you tried many different things

I assume

so how how did you end up like having this idea and sticking with

it exactly so I was frustrated by the books on the market.

I mean, maybe it's not nice to say,

but I have to say that maybe it's also a good possibility

for improvement, right?

Because, and it's also fine, of course,

to grow your ideas.

You know, I'm not the same teacher.

Like I've been teaching since 2008, but now completely other story.

And that's great.

So I was kind of frustrated

because I always wanted more from the content.

And now I know what I wanted.

I wanted emotions.

I wanted this personal touch.

I wanted inspiring stories.

I wanted funny stories.

I wanted, you know, shock, surprise.

I wanted people, when I sit in front of them, in front of my

students, I want them to feel

something, you know, because teaching language such as Serbian is not like people don't

Serbian because they need to find a work.

learn

They need to find a job.

It's not that.

It's about relationship.

Either you have a partner or you have a friend.

or you want to speak to some relatives or you come here and you

want to hang out with people something like that it's like kind of hobby

language right exactly for pleasure exactly

and then you get a book and something that is not fun that isn't

that you can't relate to and then

you you say like oh so many words oh it's hard oh it's and

I think it's easier if it's fun and if it's something that can make

you laugh then can you know help you show some emotions interact with

a teacher with others exactly so now at this moment I am I'm watching

Italian series on Netflix

and I have to say that I think I'm very close to starting learning

Italian and why because I felt that I can, I can make this new

alter ego. Okay.

Because I've been watching these series for,

I don't know, two months or something.

And all these words pop up in my mind, you know,

in my head.

And then I'm like, Oh, this is great.

And I can choose the words I want to learn.

So I realized this, it's this fun moment, you know, and when you when

you have this attitude,

it's not important.

If it's hard, it's not important.

If you make mistakes, you don't think about them exactly you just enjoy creating

another ego of yourself okay this is me

in serbian this is me in italian i will be this in english okay

so it's so uh back to the but i need

to say something there i think that's a kind of a superpower of balkan

people learning the language

from serious i mean in turkey we watched so many spanish movies serious they

were like a trend where I see people in other countries watching

Turkish movies and series and stuff, but they don't learn the language.

But Serbians, I mean, other volcanic countries, they speak Italian, Spanish.

How did you learn from TV?

Wow, cool. I had never heard this kind of explanation in other countries that

I lived in.

so I think it's your superpower okay but um you know but that's exactly

because all these

series they're about emotions you know it's like expressive like if you watch a

creamy series it's

expressive stop you know like something like stop or I'll kill you something

like that and when when

we do have this expressive language people learn easily from that I remember these

telenovelas oh i love you i am pregnant you know this kind of language

like you so i'm estoy embarazada i remember i remember these words just from

the telenovela so if there are emotions if there is

if people are expressive it's easy to to pick up the language so i

i think it's about that

and that's why exactly i started writing the stories so it's my stories are

not okay something is happening and then you have the conflict and it resolves

it's just me giving opinion on a

situation so i'm mad at a mosquito so i express lots of things against

exactly inner inner talks

right all the time exactly so the the and then i i can in

in this kind of um topic i can use lots of expressive sentences that

can that people can remember okay like me when i talk to the when

talk to the mosquito right or i don't know when i'm mad at my

i

exactly i catch them a lot from your stories yeah so we will come

to your story i did a good job

yes you are doing a good job every time you're doing a better job

so for our followers we can

find your stories on instagram and youtube right under the name of survive serbian

I have a YouTube channel so the stories are on YouTube channel and my

Instagram account serves

as a place where we practice the vocabulary from the stories so I was

thinking like the other day

like if someone new bumps up and see my Instagram that person will be

like why is she using this

word what is it it's definitely connected so all this not all but some

interesting words from the stories I make fun videos with these words I put

them in a different context so so my students can

remind themselves of the words yeah so if you follow the story and then

video I can remind you

of the word or and the stories as well I make interesting so stories

that can engage people

and use this new vocabulary.

So everything is connected.

All the videos, the vocabulary I use.

That's good. Very good.

And you generously share the PDF versions

of some of the stories.

I think I remember downloading some stories

of yours on my computer.

Yes.

I mean, you mean the YouTube stories?

Yes, YouTube. YouTube stories, I think.

Of course, you can download them.

I mean, there are also these tools on the internet where you can download

them as a as a video or also an mp3 for the

audio i mean you can listen to it yeah when you are in the

then you hear my voice and don't listen too much don't park

get irritated by my voice

so yes you can download it of course and it's for free um but

i i also make workbooks um And that is something, so if you listen

to the story, check the vocabulary and everything, follow me on Instagram.

And then the next step is to do these exercises.

I make nice workbooks where you can practice this vocabulary based on the repetition.

It means it's not like you sit and then fill out the exercises forever.

it's just um these exercises are easy to follow and then you practice and

get in touch with this

vocabulary so after doing all these exercises there is no chance that you will

not remember

the words from the story oh a good backup or follow-up exercise after this

exactly and then

you get also if you if you get a workbook then you get um

a pdf book with all the youtube slides it's like a nice 40 50

pages um so all the pictures like how it looks on youtube you get

that as a pdf book and um then translations for students that are um

that are not for lower levels very useful someone if someone wants to save

some time with the translations but also if someone really needs help so like

the stories are for intermediate level but i don't know if you learn

serbian for three months or four months you can still do it using these

translations you can do this work

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whenever I do not understand some words I just pause your video and open

google translate on the

next tab and just check it out right so it's easy do they translate

me nicely I think google translate is better now than it was before I

think but there's always a room for

mistakes in there I know okay you can you can um what I like

or with English for example when I miss a word in English I always

google um google the world a word because I want to see this world

in the context and then I'm sure if this is true or not so

this is how I how I google English words

I never use dictionaries actually I just I put the word and then meaning

or just I put the word

and then I see what comes yeah the suggestions yeah you're right to be

sure that this word is I mean, the normal word is existing.

Exactly. So you started teaching your own language and you're now writing

stories all these um after doing these or after starting to do these have

you realized about

serbian culture something new after you know starting to teach it or after now

so you are or maybe still you're realizing some facts about your own culture

it's interesting actually like when you hang out with people from here you kind

know the code or you think you know the code code right but then

of

when when you meet foreigners

and when they come up with something then you're like really like I was

surprised uh yesterday I listen to your podcast with pearl swan yeah the canadian

girl i love the podcast i like her very

much hi pearl yes i like her videos and um what i like about

her uh she gave me this feeling of

appreciating serbian food more because she's enjoying serbian food in her videos in

stories as well that i'm like oh i need i i need to appreciate

her

the food more because i have this in my fridge i need to have

this attitude because it's awesome and um and then she said something

about um when she says to serbian girls you are beautiful dc yeah she

said that serbian girls are

oh thank you oh yes and then when she says

that to canadian girls then then they're like oh thank you just normal i

was like thinking about it what what's that what does that mean and then

i realized

uh-huh that means something about the culture balkan culture and um how how do

we approach, I mean,

and the guys as well, right?

Serbs, do they give compliments or not?

Are the girls used to

compliments or not?

So yes, definitely.

In my interaction with students, I realize a lot about

the culture and some things that I, you know, that I usually don't think

about, if that was that question yes that is actually yeah definitely and in

our podcast is the same because for even

her is like it's something normal nothing strikes her as it does with me

right so i always come up

with these weird questions and you know these topics when we brainstorm because i

have so many

realizations like oh they say this because they think that way i always try

to find interesting parts of your culture and while teaching your language even the

words the selection

of words gives a lot of information about how you think right so

when I was when I started with a

story that was interesting actually I always knew I shared with you my

story that I haven't been online since 2009 I think so I never posted

anything on social media that was just not the

way how I interacted with people I didn't need it I don't know somehow

I was always out

I didn't need this I don't know to to take a picture and post

it I just didn't and then I

knew that I always wanted to do to to upgrade my teaching I wanted

to meet more people because as I am one person and I was available

for a few students, you know?

Right? So I was like, I want more students.

I want to interact with more people.

And I knew that I

have to go online but I don't know somehow I didn't I wasn't ready

for I don't know for for

the social media world let's say so uh my first post on Instagram is

last year like it was on 15

May last year so it's like that was completely new thing for me and

I knew that I should do something online that I should be posting and

so on but I wasn't sure what is that what I should be

doing and then during COVID I was sick with COVID last two years ago

November three three weeks like nothing special but three weeks inside and

then I was like and then just I wrote the story I didn't

wrote it for Survive Serbian I just wrote it it was just it was

just the thing I did I wrote it for myself because in 2013-14 I

started actually writing I did some workshops and yeah so I had

like two years writing experience and I loved it and I remember it gave