2024-05-17_Friday_QA
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00:00:29.240 | >> Today on Radical Personal Finance, it's live Q&A.
00:00:32.000 | [MUSIC]
00:00:48.120 | Welcome to Radical Personal Finance,
00:00:49.520 | a show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge, skills,
00:00:51.460 | insight, and encouragement you need to live a rich and meaningful life now,
00:00:54.760 | while building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less.
00:00:57.580 | Today is Friday, May 17th, 2024.
00:01:01.160 | Friday, May 17th, 2020, 2024.
00:01:05.420 | On this Friday, as we do on every Friday,
00:01:07.240 | which I can arrange a microphone and a computer and a video camera and all that stuff,
00:01:10.860 | we record a live Friday Q&A.
00:01:13.520 | [MUSIC]
00:01:20.360 | This is your first time here for a Friday Q&A show.
00:01:21.960 | I welcome you. It works just like call-in talk radio.
00:01:23.920 | You call in, talk about anything that you want,
00:01:25.640 | ask any questions that you have,
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00:01:29.440 | you direct the call.
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00:01:47.480 | In addition, quick note,
00:01:48.840 | you may have noticed in the podcast feed,
00:01:50.320 | but I have opened up consulting appointments.
00:01:52.240 | So if you are interested in a personal consultation with me,
00:01:55.080 | you can sign up for a consultation at the end of May, beginning of June.
00:01:58.820 | I have two weeks open,
00:01:59.860 | a total of 50 slots.
00:02:01.380 | I've actually sold out about 10 of them so far,
00:02:03.980 | in the last few hours since I published the announcement.
00:02:06.320 | So we're down to about 40 slots.
00:02:07.780 | You can sign up for that if you go to radicalpersonalfinance.com/consult.
00:02:13.780 | My timing is messed up today.
00:02:14.860 | Radicalpersonalfinance.com/consult.
00:02:17.980 | If you want the cheapest way to talk to me,
00:02:19.780 | cheapest way to talk to me is generally by joining me for a Friday Q&A show,
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00:02:27.480 | when I want to and all that stuff.
00:02:28.960 | And you give me content for the public podcast.
00:02:31.680 | If you want to talk to me, though,
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00:02:35.120 | you can sign up for a personal consultation at radicalpersonalfinance.com/consult.
00:02:40.120 | Radicalpersonalfinance.com/consult.
00:02:42.640 | We begin today with Larry in California.
00:02:45.540 | Larry, welcome to the show.
00:02:46.280 | How can I serve you today?
00:02:48.280 | Hey, Jeff, hope you're doing okay.
00:02:49.720 | A little bit soft.
00:02:51.320 | Let's check the connections on my end.
00:02:53.520 | If you can do anything on your end,
00:02:54.720 | just pop off of a handset or something like that,
00:02:56.600 | that would be helpful.
00:02:57.600 | Go ahead when you're ready.
00:03:07.100 | Okay, great.
00:03:08.560 | First of all, for the other listeners,
00:03:10.840 | just give a plug for the personal consulting.
00:03:12.680 | I did that last year and found it well worth it.
00:03:15.560 | Thank you.
00:03:16.380 | Today I've got a different question.
00:03:20.000 | So my wife has been doing private consulting
00:03:22.320 | for a little bit of time,
00:03:23.680 | and she set up an LLC to help with that effort.
00:03:27.200 | More recently, she started a new venture with a partner
00:03:31.420 | where they're going to be splitting all their proceeds 50/50.
00:03:35.360 | And we're kind of sitting here wondering
00:03:37.360 | how to structure that new venture
00:03:39.680 | and kind of what to do with the LLC that already exists.
00:03:43.680 | Okay.
00:03:44.640 | Why does she want any kind of business entity
00:03:47.240 | in the first place?
00:03:49.280 | For the new partnership,
00:03:50.440 | I think just as kind of an organizing structure
00:03:54.320 | to provide some liability safety,
00:03:59.320 | we set up her personal LLC separately
00:04:02.040 | because we thought it could help
00:04:03.800 | kind of segment the income and help with taxes.
00:04:08.240 | Okay.
00:04:11.160 | So the reason I ask it is before you do anything,
00:04:15.440 | it's important to ask why you're going to do something.
00:04:17.480 | And it is perfectly common and normal
00:04:19.840 | to establish some form of business entity for a business,
00:04:24.080 | but I always question, is it necessary?
00:04:27.080 | And whether or not it's necessary
00:04:28.840 | is going to depend in many cases on the actual facts
00:04:32.960 | and also based upon who you actually ask for advice.
00:04:36.200 | So the first thing I would point out
00:04:37.560 | is the reason to have a limited liability corporation
00:04:42.280 | is to protect yourself from liability.
00:04:46.000 | But generally with something like a consulting business,
00:04:49.640 | a limited liability corporation
00:04:51.920 | doesn't protect you from any liability
00:04:54.360 | because you don't really have any.
00:04:57.040 | So if you're just giving your advice to people
00:04:59.200 | and interacting with people as a professional,
00:05:02.040 | you have professional liability,
00:05:03.960 | but an LLC doesn't protect you from professional liability.
00:05:08.480 | Rather some form of errors and omissions insurance
00:05:11.240 | or other professional liability insurance policy
00:05:13.840 | is what you need to protect you there.
00:05:15.920 | And so establishing a limited liability corporation
00:05:18.800 | for a business that doesn't really have any liability
00:05:22.360 | is not that big of a,
00:05:24.240 | is not particularly important as a thing to do.
00:05:27.720 | Now, it may be something that you do
00:05:29.920 | if you are trying to file for your tax returns
00:05:33.920 | as an LLC tax, as an S corporation,
00:05:36.760 | that's the second most common reason that people do that.
00:05:39.640 | But I think there do the math carefully
00:05:41.840 | because depending on what state you're in,
00:05:43.560 | depending on the cost
00:05:44.600 | of preparing your business tax returns,
00:05:47.720 | depending on all of that stuff,
00:05:49.480 | it may or may not actually work out
00:05:51.800 | and may or may not actually save you all that much money
00:05:55.080 | in the long run.
00:05:56.680 | So what I have found is that while these are great tools
00:06:00.000 | and they're useful tools for many people to use,
00:06:03.920 | in general, they're tools that are probably overused
00:06:08.680 | and you wind up spending all the money
00:06:10.320 | that you would have paid in social security taxes.
00:06:13.160 | Instead, you wind up spending it all
00:06:14.960 | in tax preparation fees for yet another entity
00:06:17.800 | and yet another set of California franchise tax board
00:06:21.800 | filings and things like that.
00:06:23.480 | Why not go ahead and just pay self-employment taxes
00:06:26.240 | and increase your social security wage base
00:06:30.040 | or social security earnings record,
00:06:31.840 | which may result in earning a few bucks down the road.
00:06:35.400 | So run the math on it before you do it.
00:06:37.240 | And for something like a consulting business,
00:06:39.280 | there's generally not a lot of liability.
00:06:41.560 | Now, to the new partnership,
00:06:43.120 | will this continue to be a consulting business
00:06:45.240 | with no employees, no plant, no equipment,
00:06:48.240 | just two individuals working together as consultants,
00:06:51.160 | or is this entity probably going to get bigger?
00:06:54.120 | - It looks like it may expand
00:06:58.000 | to bring on additional employees.
00:07:00.840 | - Okay.
00:07:02.960 | Well, then when you have liability,
00:07:06.280 | then that's a really good reason for you to make sure
00:07:08.240 | that you have a separate entity.
00:07:10.120 | And so in general, you will choose probably another LLC.
00:07:15.120 | You could, of course, adjust the current LLC,
00:07:18.080 | but my thought would be, depending on the costs involved,
00:07:22.040 | it's probably simpler just to start a new one
00:07:24.240 | with the member units distributed
00:07:25.880 | between the two partners from the beginning
00:07:28.120 | so that everything is clean.
00:07:29.440 | And if you're gonna shut the other one down,
00:07:30.840 | shut the other one down, finalize the whole thing,
00:07:33.320 | create a new entity,
00:07:34.560 | unless there are substantial costs associated with it.
00:07:37.920 | Do you think that an LLC is appropriate,
00:07:41.480 | or do you think that a more formal corporation
00:07:44.960 | would be appropriate for this new entity
00:07:47.320 | and this new business?
00:07:48.480 | - I think that's what they're trying to figure out.
00:07:51.200 | I think the question we have
00:07:54.080 | that we're not totally sure how to solve
00:07:56.720 | is there will be certain expenses
00:07:58.440 | that are kind of truly joint for the business,
00:08:01.640 | say, legal fees for contracts and things like that.
00:08:06.240 | But then there are gonna be other expenses
00:08:08.040 | that are kind of more personal
00:08:09.200 | that you might not wanna split 50/50
00:08:11.320 | at the partnership level,
00:08:13.160 | say, gas or certain business meals.
00:08:15.840 | The question is how to structure the consulting business
00:08:22.480 | to kind of capture those joint expenses
00:08:26.320 | as part of the business,
00:08:27.360 | but also be able to have kind of more personal
00:08:30.440 | business-related expenses separately.
00:08:32.120 | And if you need some kind of structure to do that,
00:08:34.680 | like a second business entity or if that's unnecessary.
00:08:39.680 | - Generally, more entities are not necessary.
00:08:44.880 | You can establish any kind of compensation plan
00:08:48.200 | in just about any kind of business that you want to.
00:08:50.560 | So if you want to include as part of the compensation plan
00:08:54.320 | that this person gets these benefits, then that's fine.
00:08:57.560 | You don't wanna go around just willy-nilly
00:08:59.280 | creating entity after entity after entity.
00:09:02.000 | They're expensive and they're a hassle.
00:09:04.440 | They require bookkeeping,
00:09:05.720 | they require proper management of the corporate affairs.
00:09:08.360 | They're expensive and they're a hassle.
00:09:09.600 | So you want the bare minimum necessary
00:09:11.400 | to do the job fully and properly.
00:09:14.360 | Going back just a step from the business entity,
00:09:18.000 | what is this partnership plan to be a 50/50 partnership?
00:09:22.040 | - Yes.
00:09:23.960 | - What is each partner bringing to the table?
00:09:30.080 | - The consulting is doing brand strategy
00:09:33.040 | and kind of founder coaching.
00:09:36.800 | They do have a different and complementary skillset.
00:09:39.600 | One is a little more marketing focused.
00:09:41.360 | One is more business planning
00:09:43.360 | and helping folks find investors.
00:09:45.880 | - Okay, so you're anticipating what I'm focusing on,
00:09:49.680 | which is to say that in order for a partnership to work,
00:09:56.320 | the partner should bring complementary skillsets
00:09:59.200 | to the table so that they produce more as a team
00:10:02.200 | than they would as individuals working alone.
00:10:05.280 | Is there, who's gonna invest the money?
00:10:09.160 | Are both, is the money coming in equally?
00:10:11.480 | Is it just everything,
00:10:12.600 | it's a natural 50/50 split from the beginning?
00:10:15.200 | - Yeah, it's a natural 50/50 split from the beginning.
00:10:18.840 | - Okay.
00:10:19.840 | So I don't know that there's a clear or obvious answer
00:10:25.680 | that I know from right off the bat
00:10:29.280 | without getting into the details
00:10:31.800 | of what specifically you want to accomplish
00:10:36.800 | from a compensation perspective
00:10:39.640 | and what kind of deductions and benefits
00:10:43.360 | and things like that that you want.
00:10:45.120 | Either the easiest thing to establish is an LLC
00:10:51.600 | and then you can choose to be taxed as an S-corporation.
00:10:55.120 | In this case, you generally want to establish
00:10:57.440 | a corporate entity in order to protect yourself
00:11:00.120 | against unlimited liability that you would have
00:11:02.640 | in a partnership arrangement that weren't in a corporation.
00:11:06.960 | So when you're going into an actual partnership
00:11:09.880 | to protect yourself from unlimited liability
00:11:12.080 | from your business partner,
00:11:13.560 | then you definitely do want to go ahead
00:11:15.480 | and establish an entity.
00:11:17.080 | An LLC taxed as an S-corporation
00:11:19.800 | allows all of the income to flow through
00:11:22.200 | and it's simpler, that's why it's loved.
00:11:27.040 | There are fewer administrative requirements,
00:11:29.320 | it's less expensive to maintain generally,
00:11:32.160 | it's just simpler.
00:11:33.880 | An S-corporation or a C-corporation is more burdensome
00:11:38.720 | from the perspective of maintenance of the entity.
00:11:42.680 | But you're going to appreciate
00:11:46.600 | some of the higher level planning
00:11:49.920 | that you can do with either of those operations.
00:11:54.200 | So I can't answer it here in the context of a call
00:11:57.200 | because you would want to look at things
00:11:58.600 | like health insurance.
00:11:59.720 | Do we want to put programs through?
00:12:01.560 | Do we want to have executive compensation programs?
00:12:04.120 | How much money are we actually looking to make?
00:12:07.400 | If this is the kind of thing where there's going to be
00:12:08.920 | $100,000 split two ways,
00:12:11.080 | then we're pretty obviously going to want a simple entity
00:12:14.280 | that just passes the money through
00:12:16.040 | and distributes everything on a simple equal basis.
00:12:19.760 | On the other hand, if this is a seven figure business
00:12:22.000 | and or multiple seven figures
00:12:24.360 | or an eight figure business with potential,
00:12:26.400 | then we may want to go ahead
00:12:27.560 | and have more of the formalities
00:12:29.600 | that we can bring in more of the programs
00:12:31.840 | and benefit programs that we would like to have
00:12:35.000 | with a corporation.
00:12:36.680 | Some form of self-reimbursed medical program
00:12:39.240 | might be useful to one of the partners.
00:12:41.200 | You may want to go ahead and bring in
00:12:42.960 | something related to transportation allowances,
00:12:46.200 | car allowances, things like that.
00:12:48.160 | So I don't think I can go further here in this context
00:12:53.160 | without going through those step-by-step.
00:12:57.320 | So I'd recommend and refer you to a local attorney
00:13:00.000 | for a consultation or an accountant
00:13:03.080 | who could go through
00:13:04.040 | and look at the anticipated profit of the business
00:13:06.360 | and then see if there's kind of a natural connection
00:13:08.960 | for one entity over another.
00:13:11.080 | There's nothing wrong with starting as an LLC
00:13:13.080 | and then changing in the future.
00:13:14.320 | That's the simplest and easiest to get going.
00:13:16.580 | - Sounds great, thank you.
00:13:19.240 | - My pleasure.
00:13:20.160 | All right, move on to Christian.
00:13:22.000 | Christian, welcome to the show.
00:13:22.840 | How can I serve you today?
00:13:24.760 | - Hi, Joshua.
00:13:25.600 | And thanks for that last answer.
00:13:26.760 | It was, I just actually brought in partners
00:13:29.560 | from my consulting firm.
00:13:30.520 | And so we had gone through all those discussions
00:13:33.280 | and so forth.
00:13:34.120 | - What did you wind up doing
00:13:36.040 | in terms of your entity selection?
00:13:38.280 | - Yeah, so we actually went with a multi-tiered structure
00:13:42.480 | so that we have a partnership that's an LLC,
00:13:46.920 | and then we each own our ownership
00:13:51.480 | through individual S-corps that we have.
00:13:55.040 | So we are expecting this to be,
00:13:57.640 | it's already in the seven figures
00:13:58.940 | and expecting to get to an eight-figure company pretty soon.
00:14:03.160 | So we'll be bringing in junior partners and so forth
00:14:05.920 | for the partnership.
00:14:06.960 | But to be able to control some of the taxes,
00:14:08.920 | how we want to be taxed and our own compensations
00:14:12.440 | and split of the profits and so forth,
00:14:14.960 | we were advised that having that individual S-corp
00:14:19.480 | that owns the shares of the partnership
00:14:21.040 | would be most advantageous.
00:14:23.040 | - Yeah, when you have significant money coming in,
00:14:26.720 | significant revenue and potential for significant profit,
00:14:29.640 | then you absolutely need to make sure
00:14:33.520 | that you're getting full advice
00:14:34.960 | and that you are structured in a way
00:14:37.200 | that takes advantage of it
00:14:38.760 | with as many individual entities as necessary
00:14:43.240 | to get what you're looking for.
00:14:44.840 | It is much easier to pay your annual tax preparation fees
00:14:47.700 | for three or four different entities
00:14:49.160 | and pay for your bookkeeping and administrative costs
00:14:51.720 | and your franchise tax board costs and all that stuff
00:14:55.360 | when you have seven figures
00:14:56.480 | than if you're just getting started
00:14:57.480 | and you may have $70,000 of revenue.
00:15:00.000 | So good move, and that sounds like a super interesting,
00:15:04.280 | I would have enjoyed being there
00:15:05.400 | and listening to those conversations
00:15:06.680 | and planning your structure personally.
00:15:09.880 | Go ahead with your topic of conversation, please.
00:15:12.520 | - Yeah, so my question's entirely different.
00:15:14.560 | I was actually gonna ask you about language learning
00:15:17.320 | for young children.
00:15:18.620 | So my wife and I have two kids, three and eight months.
00:15:23.080 | Our three-year-old, we started off actually speaking
00:15:25.680 | Portuguese at home with her.
00:15:27.000 | My wife is Brazilian.
00:15:28.200 | My Portuguese was good enough for young kids.
00:15:30.480 | So we got by with that, and then after a little while,
00:15:34.100 | we lived here in Texas, we started speaking,
00:15:36.560 | or I started speaking English with her.
00:15:38.360 | And so she transitioned to that just to help at church
00:15:43.200 | and elsewhere, she was getting frustrated communicating.
00:15:47.640 | And now I'm trying to actually speak German with her.
00:15:51.280 | And she's getting very frustrated with that
00:15:55.360 | as we're trying to teach her that,
00:15:56.760 | 'cause we figured, okay, we can do one parent,
00:15:59.320 | one language at home, now Portuguese with my wife,
00:16:02.320 | German with me, and then she can speak English elsewhere.
00:16:05.580 | And yeah, she's been having trouble with it.
00:16:08.560 | It's not been easy for her.
00:16:10.360 | She gets very, very frustrated, it doesn't go very well.
00:16:13.240 | But we're sticking to it.
00:16:15.820 | I was just wondering about that approach.
00:16:17.520 | Also with the eight-month-old, I was gonna start speaking
00:16:19.420 | actually German in the home with him,
00:16:21.140 | and then maybe transition him to more English outside.
00:16:24.500 | And that was kind of our approach or our strategy.
00:16:26.620 | But I was wondering how you approach it with younger kids
00:16:30.040 | and any tools or tips or anything like that
00:16:35.040 | to be able to get them immersed easily,
00:16:37.660 | especially when you're trying to do languages
00:16:39.760 | that aren't predominant in the area that you live.
00:16:42.460 | - Is your German sufficiently strong
00:16:44.700 | that you will feel comfortable having the fullness
00:16:48.820 | of your relationship with your children in German?
00:16:51.480 | - I can do that.
00:16:54.140 | I went to grad school in Switzerland in a German program,
00:16:56.940 | so I'm fine with that.
00:16:58.740 | I need to brush it up a little bit probably as we mature,
00:17:01.820 | but I don't think I would have any issues
00:17:04.620 | with that in the long run.
00:17:05.700 | - Okay, so to me, that's the most important thing
00:17:08.660 | is just to make certain that your language ability
00:17:10.980 | is a level that you can really do it.
00:17:13.400 | And that requires mastery of a language,
00:17:16.580 | and you really need the high level
00:17:18.820 | in order for one language to work.
00:17:22.660 | I think that your plan of your wife speaking Portuguese
00:17:25.980 | exclusively and you speaking German exclusively,
00:17:29.580 | and then perhaps your community language
00:17:31.260 | is English on occasion is the right plan.
00:17:34.940 | And what I would say is the frustration,
00:17:38.340 | if there is frustration,
00:17:40.840 | then it should be relatively short-lived
00:17:44.180 | because the frustration is coming from the fact
00:17:46.340 | that perhaps you didn't begin from the beginning.
00:17:49.820 | So I would expect your eight-month-old
00:17:51.660 | to not experience frustration,
00:17:54.220 | and your three-year-old to experience frustration
00:17:56.320 | just for a fairly short period of time.
00:17:58.740 | I don't think that,
00:17:59.940 | I guess my only comment in terms of frustration
00:18:03.380 | is I wouldn't try to require in the short term
00:18:07.180 | your three-year-old to speak in German to you.
00:18:10.940 | And so as long as there's enough English input
00:18:13.580 | from school or from community,
00:18:15.400 | if she can reply in whatever language she wants.
00:18:19.340 | But at three years old, you could change to Russian tomorrow
00:18:23.220 | and she would figure it out
00:18:24.260 | and be fine in a couple of months.
00:18:26.340 | I've never known, I know a lot of families
00:18:28.780 | who are multilingual who do one parent, one language.
00:18:31.380 | I've known families who do one parent, one language
00:18:34.380 | where mom speaks a different language,
00:18:36.200 | dad speaks a different language,
00:18:37.400 | and then their community language is a third language.
00:18:39.500 | And it works fine.
00:18:40.700 | It absolutely is the best way to do it.
00:18:42.860 | And it works fine as long as the parents don't give in.
00:18:46.860 | If the parents give in and they allow the child
00:18:50.340 | in the fullness of time to have the relationship
00:18:53.500 | in another language, then something happens.
00:18:56.380 | So what I find is with when your child
00:18:59.700 | is facing frustration, you have to look at it and say,
00:19:02.740 | is this something that is genuinely a problem?
00:19:05.820 | Or is this something where I'm just gonna be tougher
00:19:07.940 | than my child is?
00:19:09.800 | And obviously you wanna make good decisions as a parent,
00:19:12.900 | but in general, it just comes down to who's gonna be tougher
00:19:15.620 | and more stubborn.
00:19:16.440 | And I've determined I'm gonna win every stubbornness battle
00:19:19.700 | because I'm gonna make a decision.
00:19:21.020 | And if I make the decision, I say,
00:19:22.780 | this is the best thing for my child,
00:19:24.100 | I'm far more stubborn than you are at three years old.
00:19:26.780 | So I think it'll work fine.
00:19:29.500 | What I would suggest is that you add in media
00:19:32.660 | in a way to make sure that there's more exposure.
00:19:35.220 | Remember that if a child starts learning a language
00:19:38.200 | from the age of one, he's being spoken to
00:19:43.020 | for thousands of hours in the language
00:19:46.460 | before he sticks out even the first sounds,
00:19:49.740 | the first da-da, it's so much input.
00:19:53.700 | And so if you've recently made the switch to German,
00:19:56.100 | then really pour on the input.
00:19:58.540 | And so story time with lots of great story books
00:20:02.260 | every night in German, movies in German,
00:20:05.860 | tablet in German, if you're using a tablet or computer,
00:20:10.300 | making sure that there's some kind of German exposure,
00:20:14.040 | go take a special trip to Germany for three or four weeks
00:20:18.500 | and make certain that you get involved in something local
00:20:22.300 | where there's a lot of exposure.
00:20:24.220 | Because it just is a numbers game
00:20:27.180 | based upon who gets the most exposure.
00:20:29.700 | And what causes failure is when people are thinking
00:20:33.340 | that somehow I'm gonna do 30 minutes a day
00:20:35.620 | of German exposure or whatever language exposure,
00:20:38.300 | and that's gonna overcome the 15 hours a day
00:20:41.100 | of other language exposure that's there.
00:20:43.340 | It's not, it needs to be quite a lot.
00:20:45.480 | And so if you'll be super intentional about it
00:20:47.440 | for the next six months to a year,
00:20:49.140 | I would bet that a year from now, nothing has changed.
00:20:52.340 | And then the standard, by the way, I'm contradicting myself.
00:20:55.520 | So let me identify the contradiction.
00:20:56.680 | I said, I wouldn't require the child to respond in German
00:21:00.520 | because maybe we can relieve the frustration.
00:21:03.000 | Then I also said, but who's gonna be more stubborn?
00:21:05.880 | I think you should balance it,
00:21:07.080 | but the vision should be within six months or a year,
00:21:10.600 | if I've just started this,
00:21:12.140 | that we're going to interact in German
00:21:14.740 | and the child's going to interact with me in German
00:21:16.680 | and I'm gonna interact with the child in German all the time.
00:21:19.280 | So I would just say it's going to work.
00:21:22.780 | It's absolutely great.
00:21:23.920 | Your child can learn English
00:21:25.600 | for the community language in Texas.
00:21:28.960 | Your wife can speak Portuguese.
00:21:30.480 | You can speak German.
00:21:31.560 | And on occasion, you can use English as a family language.
00:21:34.300 | Just be careful because if you have,
00:21:38.180 | you need to get in the hours of German
00:21:40.060 | in order for her to reach that point.
00:21:41.900 | - Right, yeah, and I've noticed one of the challenges
00:21:45.860 | is that my wife and I speak together in English primarily.
00:21:48.420 | It's just always what we've done.
00:21:50.980 | I didn't know Portuguese when I met her.
00:21:52.180 | So that becomes an issue
00:21:55.980 | 'cause our daughter wants to try to speak more English
00:21:58.660 | with my wife now.
00:21:59.820 | So we've always got to try to remind her,
00:22:01.820 | hey, no, stick with Portuguese, stick with Portuguese.
00:22:04.620 | And that's become a challenging point.
00:22:07.940 | - I've listened to parents who do,
00:22:10.180 | I mean, I believe you can do it.
00:22:11.460 | In your situation, it'll be simple.
00:22:13.340 | And what I mean by simple is you be committed to German.
00:22:16.180 | Whenever you're with your daughter,
00:22:17.540 | it's always German between the two of you.
00:22:19.640 | You don't read to her in English.
00:22:21.140 | You don't read to her in Portuguese.
00:22:23.940 | It's always German.
00:22:25.220 | All your books are German.
00:22:26.400 | Everything's German.
00:22:27.700 | That's your relationship language.
00:22:29.620 | And then with your wife, the same thing.
00:22:31.060 | It's Portuguese all the time.
00:22:32.620 | And then use audio books
00:22:33.940 | and use other people who are reading in English
00:22:35.660 | and the school teachers and things like that.
00:22:38.060 | It's fine to have English as a community language
00:22:41.900 | at the dinner table,
00:22:42.740 | as long as you're consistent about the other times.
00:22:45.300 | I have heard from parents who've been very successful,
00:22:48.140 | even just using different languages on different days,
00:22:50.920 | but the child needs a context for the language.
00:22:54.340 | I'm sure you've experienced this yourself
00:22:55.740 | with German and with English.
00:22:57.460 | I have friends who speak,
00:22:59.480 | I speak Spanish and English, very comfortable,
00:23:02.740 | totally comfortable, I need a language.
00:23:04.400 | I have friends of mine who are perfectly comfortable
00:23:07.380 | in both languages.
00:23:08.500 | In the beginning, there's kind of a back and forth
00:23:11.500 | about what language are we gonna do.
00:23:13.060 | After the first couple of conversations,
00:23:15.500 | whatever the language of our relationship is,
00:23:17.820 | that's the language of our relationship.
00:23:19.700 | And I can't switch it.
00:23:20.900 | It's just so uncomfortable to switch it,
00:23:24.220 | even though both people are totally comfortable
00:23:26.460 | in both languages.
00:23:27.540 | It's something about the brain where it says,
00:23:29.940 | this person, this is a relationship
00:23:31.780 | that happens in this language.
00:23:32.860 | And so I would say that your daughter's probably
00:23:34.900 | still working through that.
00:23:35.780 | So just stick to your guns.
00:23:37.080 | You won't regret it.
00:23:38.180 | You will be happy with it,
00:23:39.660 | even if you have to just muscle through the frustration.
00:23:42.620 | - Yeah, for sure.
00:23:44.540 | As an aside, have you played with the ChatGPT voice
00:23:49.220 | capabilities for language learning?
00:23:50.700 | - A lot, yes.
00:23:52.340 | - Okay, yeah, yeah.
00:23:53.180 | I've been working with that
00:23:54.380 | and I found it incredibly helpful.
00:23:56.020 | I've been trying to find a good app
00:23:57.180 | that actually ties into it a little bit more naturally,
00:23:59.660 | but I haven't found anything.
00:24:00.740 | But it's been great.
00:24:03.580 | - It has been.
00:24:04.420 | I have been using it to tutor.
00:24:06.140 | So I've been testing it extensively.
00:24:08.460 | I've used it for conversations.
00:24:10.260 | I'm amazed with the switching ability.
00:24:12.140 | It's scary good at switching.
00:24:14.200 | You could start your conversation with it in English
00:24:16.740 | and just without any warning whatsoever,
00:24:18.820 | you switch to German and it'll switch right back with you.
00:24:22.100 | You can switch to Portuguese.
00:24:23.220 | It's scary good with regard to switching.
00:24:26.400 | I find that it's really useful for back and forth.
00:24:29.860 | As long as we have a scenario base.
00:24:31.660 | So what I think is the best way right now
00:24:33.660 | that I've found to use it is you can use it
00:24:37.140 | to create a list of scenarios.
00:24:38.820 | So let's say you're gonna travel.
00:24:40.180 | So you say, give me a list of 10 different scenarios,
00:24:42.340 | the kinds of things that would be
00:24:43.420 | in a standard language book.
00:24:45.060 | And then give me dialogues for those scenarios.
00:24:48.260 | And you do this in text form.
00:24:49.900 | Now you take those dialogues and you say, let's role play.
00:24:52.780 | And you give it the instructions that you want.
00:24:54.300 | You do it all verbally and go back and forth
00:24:57.220 | and back and forth.
00:24:58.060 | It's so useful to have a conversation partner
00:25:00.740 | who's gonna feed you different things
00:25:02.580 | and different scenarios.
00:25:03.420 | I think it's great.
00:25:04.460 | I've also find it really useful
00:25:06.620 | for making sense of language textbooks.
00:25:10.240 | I've been teaching my children how to use it
00:25:12.620 | with a language textbook for the languages
00:25:14.300 | that they're learning that I don't know.
00:25:16.260 | And so it'll, you know, language textbook will say,
00:25:18.980 | hey, do group work.
00:25:20.700 | I'll say, well, listen, I don't have group work.
00:25:22.540 | So let's take a picture of the page,
00:25:24.220 | send it to chat GPT and tell chat and say,
00:25:27.020 | listen, we're gonna do a role play.
00:25:29.060 | I need you, I don't have a group partner
00:25:31.060 | to do this example from my Chinese textbook.
00:25:33.940 | So let's go back and forth
00:25:35.220 | and let's do the example together.
00:25:37.020 | And I find that that's a useful tool as well.
00:25:39.200 | It's really working well.
00:25:40.460 | - Yeah, I've been using it where,
00:25:43.700 | I like that role playing idea,
00:25:45.100 | or I've just been talking to it,
00:25:46.260 | starting off a conversation.
00:25:47.380 | I'll usually open with the prompt of,
00:25:49.300 | hey, I'm learning, you know, whatever language, Spanish,
00:25:52.380 | or working on my Portuguese and start the conversation
00:25:55.380 | and tell it to give me corrections
00:25:57.500 | if on any grammatical mistakes or pronunciation mistakes
00:26:00.140 | or anything like that.
00:26:01.140 | And it's usually pretty good about it,
00:26:02.740 | about getting back and it'll give me the response
00:26:05.340 | and then correct everything.
00:26:06.180 | So I have that quick feedback of,
00:26:07.620 | oh, I made a mistake here
00:26:08.700 | and then continue the conversation.
00:26:10.300 | - Yeah, chat GPT is completely upending
00:26:12.780 | the world of languages.
00:26:14.420 | I still think it's valuable to learn languages,
00:26:17.580 | but I'll tell you what,
00:26:19.220 | we're already there with real time AI translation.
00:26:23.580 | And I can't even imagine how good it's gonna be
00:26:25.420 | in five years with real time AI translation.
00:26:29.500 | It's so, so good.
00:26:31.220 | So we'll see, it's an exciting world we live in.
00:26:33.940 | For now, the learning tools right now,
00:26:35.940 | using chat GPT as a personal tutor,
00:26:38.300 | as a personal teacher is, it's so good.
00:26:41.860 | So we'll keep it up and I hope it works out.
00:26:44.700 | Anything else from you?
00:26:46.580 | - No, that was it.
00:26:47.420 | Thanks, I appreciate it.
00:26:48.260 | - Great.
00:26:49.820 | And with that, I had two more callers on the line,
00:26:52.060 | but they both dropped off.
00:26:53.380 | So we'll just end it there early today.
00:26:56.140 | Thank you so much for listening to today's podcast.
00:26:58.140 | Remember, if you'd like to join me
00:26:59.020 | for next week's Friday Q&A show,
00:27:00.220 | go to patreon.com/radicalpersonalfinance.
00:27:02.460 | If you'd like to book a private consulting call with me
00:27:04.820 | where I can be more prepared for a question
00:27:06.780 | like in depth discussion of entity formation,
00:27:09.620 | things like that.
00:27:10.700 | And if carefully thought through the situation in advance,
00:27:13.420 | you can do that by going to radicalpersonalfinance.com/consult,
00:27:16.780 | radicalpersonalfinance.com/consult.
00:27:19.340 | Talk soon.
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