Sept. 16, 2025

Unlocking the Classics: Kay Neal's Mission to Make Latin Accessible for All

Unlocking the Classics: Kay Neal's Mission to Make Latin Accessible for All

Send us a text In this enlightening episode of Living the Dream with Curveball, we have the pleasure of speaking with Kay Neal, a passionate advocate for Latin language education. Kay shares her mission to make Latin accessible and enjoyable for everyone, emphasizing its value in enhancing linguistic awareness and vocabulary. She discusses her personal journey of overcoming challenges in learning Latin and her determination to help others succeed where they might feel defeated. Listeners will...

Send us a text

In this enlightening episode of Living the Dream with Curveball, we have the pleasure of speaking with Kay Neal, a passionate advocate for Latin language education. Kay shares her mission to make Latin accessible and enjoyable for everyone, emphasizing its value in enhancing linguistic awareness and vocabulary. She discusses her personal journey of overcoming challenges in learning Latin and her determination to help others succeed where they might feel defeated. Listeners will gain insight into the unique benefits of studying Latin, not just for language skills but for a deeper understanding of English grammar and literacy. Kay also opens up about her marketing journey, the challenges of promoting a less popular subject, and the surprising success she found with older learners eager to embrace this classical language. Join us for a captivating conversation that inspires the belief that anyone can learn a foreign language, and discover how you can get involved with Kay’s upcoming projects aimed at spreading the love of Latin. Don’t miss this opportunity to learn from Kay’s experiences and insights that can ignite your own passion for language learning.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Welcome to the Living the Dream podcast with Curveball. If you believe you can achieve.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Welcome to the Living the Dream with Curveball podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate and inspire. Today I am joined by Kay Neal, and she is going to talk about how she, she is helping spread awareness to the benefit for normal people to learn Latin and how learning Latin can be easier for them. So we're going to be talking to her about everything that she's up to and going to be up to.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>So, Kay, thank you so much for joining me.

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> Kay Neal>Thank you for having me, Curtis. I appreciate it.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

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> Kay Neal>Okay. Well, the, the relevant thing for, for this podcast is that. For, this interview is that, I, am on a mission to, to spread, an awareness of how valuable Latin is or how valuable it can be and also to.

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> Kay Neal>To make it easier, for people to learn it so they don't just walk away. You know, they. They start and then they say, oh, this is too hard. And then they. And I've been on this mission for quite a while, and I've start and stopped many times because I would get overwhelmed at some point and I couldn't figure out how to go forward. But, But I really feel that, besides having four children and sending them out into the world, my mission in Latin is what I was put here on Earth to do.

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> Kay Neal>So I keep coming back to it because I, Even when it gets frustrating, I can't shake that. That's what I'm supposed to be doing. So I, I come back and I, And I give.

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> Kay Neal>And so that's kind of me in a nutshell. as far as Latin goes.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Yeah, that's what I was going to ask you. Your story. Talk about how you first started and you felt you got defeated, but then you came back at it and why you think it's so important for other people to learn.

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> Kay Neal>Well, I, The. You know what, when people talk about the, the importance of learning Latin, they very often focus on vocabulary. And vocabulary is certainly a good reason to learn Latin. It really, increases your English vocabulary. But, Well, in fact, 90% of English words that are three or more syllables come from Latin or Greek, which is a, you know, like a sister language of Latin. But I think studying lat. it. The, the better part, the better thing, besides the vocabulary, is, is. Is the linguistic awareness it gives you about how your own language operates. And for the people I'm trying to reach. They're, they're English speakers and usually they're, they're monolingual English speakers. They've never studied a foreign language before. They've never studied one successfully before.

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> Kay Neal>And so I, I, I want to, I want to help them stick with it and make it put enough wins in there so that they can get the benefits, get, get this linguistic awareness. one of the great things about studying Latin and when you study Latin usually you're taking a very heavy dose of grammar. And when you, when you study grammar, when you study Latin grammar, you end up learning English grammar.

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> Kay Neal>And one of the benefits of that is when you're reading, you can, you can tell, you can you can pull sentences apart. When you get to a sentence that you can't understand, you can take it apart and sometimes you'll see that it's the author who has written a sentence that's, that doesn't hang together syntactically and it's not your fault. And so that is a really, really good, a good skill to have. also you become sort of the grammar maven for your family and your friends. They're always consulting you to see if, if a sentence is right, if an expression is acceptable to use.

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> Kay Neal>Because you, because you've, you've done the work of getting the of getting formal grammar into your head. And that is a very useful thing to have. And we, we lose track of that today. in, in the U.S.

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> Kay Neal>m. I'm not sure about other English speaking countries, but we just, we don't really teach grammar anymore and our languages falling apart and that's not the only reason. But, but that's part of it. so I think our standards of language need to be a lot higher than they are and studying Latin will, will help us get there.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>What do you feel like Latin deserves this reputation of being a hard language to learn?

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> Kay Neal>Well, okay, so let's define hard.

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> Kay Neal>in my opinion hard is, is anything is hard that requires effort.

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> Kay Neal>not just requires effort, but requires effort over a period of time. You have to keep putting effort into it over a period of time. And that's every language. Latin has its own difficulties though. Latin and I'll put ancient Greek in this category as well because it, they're, they're not they're not anybody's native language. that's how you define a dead language. Does anybody speak it as a native language? And Latin and Greek do not, are not spoken as a, As a. As a native language.

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> Kay Neal>So, so there aren't the, you know, if you're going to learn German or Spanish or French or, or Chinese, you can get, you can get like children's literature. You can start off easy. You can start off with songs. And of course, Latin has a rich history of, of and music, you know, from the Middle Ages, but usually. But there, there aren't things that make it easy to, to to start off. So. So the, the. When people think of Latin, they usually think of classical Latin. And that's the golden age of Latin, which, you know, lasted for really not even a hundred years.

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> Kay Neal>And what was produced, in this classical period that we have today is, Is, are writings that were produced by the cream of the crop for the cream of the crop. So they're very sophisticated. They, they aren't like a young adult novel. They, they are. Are very sophisticated, nuanced. the grammar is very complicated because the audience that these writings were directed to, could, could handle it. And so if that is what you're. I mean, imagine you're going to learn English and you're going to. The idea of learning English is so you can read Shakespeare. Imagine how hard English would be. Well, well, Latin is like that, if you're going for those classics. And that's what a lot of people are doing when they, when they go for Latin. but every language is hard if you're going to do it right.

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> Kay Neal>Spanish is, you know, people like high schoolers who are not sophisticated linguistically, they go into, high school thinking, okay, yeah, I'll take Spanish.

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> Kay Neal>That'll be real easy. You just put an O on the end of everything and you're speaking Spanish. And that couldn't be further from the truth.

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> Kay Neal>Spanish has very intricate grammar and it takes a long time to, to. To actually get on top of it and, and master it. And so Spanish is hard. So I don't think that Latin, the what the content that you have to. To learn to learn the Latin grammar is not any harder than any other, you know, well developed language. but, but people.

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> Kay Neal>People are people let this, this scary reputation make them think they couldn't do it.

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> Kay Neal>And in fact, I, would not have signed up for Latin by myself. I didn't think I could learn a foreign language. I didn't think I could, I didn't think I would be any good at studying a foreign language. And my 8th grade English teacher made Me sign up for it when I went to high school and otherwise, I wouldn't have attempted it. I would be too afraid.

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> Kay Neal>so that was maybe a wordy answer to the question.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Why do you feel like Latin should be taught as a mainstream subject today? Why or why not?

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> Kay Neal>well, I do, but with a big caveat.

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> Kay Neal>I wouldn't just say like we somehow must get Latin into the mainstream curriculum because for one thing we don't have Latin teachers or we don't have anywhere close to the number of Latin teachers that it would, that it would take to to do that. but I, I mean one thing that, that you do see done sometimes in school is in elementary school and middle school and even high school really is, students will be taught Latin roots of words and, you know, prefixes and roots and, and this is something. But it's not the same as seeing Latin, you know, in Latin words in their, in their native habitat. And the, the, the thing about teaching Latin as a mainstream subject is, is the grammar that you learn. And I think we've done a huge disservice to our students by, by not really studying grammar. I mean, do you know, when I, when my kids were young, I remember them coming home, like, say they would be in third grade and they would come home with a, with an English assignment and it would be, it would involve peer editing.

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> Kay Neal>And what third grader, even what 12th grader is qualified to edit somebody else's paper? They're learning the grammar. They're not their learning style. They're not qualified to, to point out other people's mistakes. I mean that's, People don't. If you don't study something, how can you, how can you evaluate somebody else's application of that thing? How can you give somebody advice on that thing? I, I found it so offensive. And of course if you're gonna, if you're gonna teach Latin in that sloppy fashion, it wouldn't really do that much good to have it as a mainstream stream subject. But that's a kind of a pipe dream of mine. But one thing that hurts my heart is that Latin is available almost exclusively to, to schools and you know, schools, very well funded schools. So you don't find it. The people that at the most, are, are. Are underserved already.

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> Kay Neal>And if, if you made a push to get Latin out there, it's going to show up in the, in the in the richer schools.

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> Kay Neal>The schools, the schools that are in richer neighborhoods.

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> Kay Neal>and it's probably just going to make the gap between, you know, the, you know, a class gap bigger, to. To have it just in certain places. So I would like to see it taught as a mainstream subject, but not just for the sake of it being a mainstream subject. but yeah, that's a dream. That Latin would be a lot more widespread than it is now.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, let's talk about the marketing of Latin. How have you managed to market something that's not that popular? And talk about the biggest marketing mistakes you've made while trying to market.

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> Kay Neal>Yeah, it, Yeah, the marketing is a. You know, so when I, When I got my mission, when I found out what my mission was in life, that I, you know, I came back to Latin after having, had it in high school, I came back to Latin. I got, I ended up going back to university and I did a second bachelor's degree. This was in Latin.

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> Kay Neal>I did a second master's degree. This was in Latin. And so then I thought, okay, I'm good with the content. I can, I can actually, go out and accomplish my mission as far as the Latin goes. But then of course there's the. The marketing people aren't just lining up to, to come in and, have me teach them Latin. and so I, I made so many marketing mistakes. And the, the first marketing mistake that I made was, was. Was thinking that Latin was so special that you don't need to market it. People will just know the, the value of it. And they will. If they see the opportunity is there, they'll come running with their dollars, to pay somebody for Latin. And that just. That wasn't true at all.

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> Kay Neal>so, so what. What I had to do was realize that. Well, of course I had to. I ended up spending a lot of money on, marketing training because I didn't have the first idea how to go about, how to go about accessing my, My audience. And one thing I've realized over the years, besides just the, the, you know, the rules of marketing that I've. That I've learned the principles of marketing is that if somebody doesn't want something, just leave them alone.

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> Kay Neal>They, you know, you don't, don't try to change somebody's mind, but, but just try to find the people who already have in mind that they, that they want to, that they. They want to do that. You know, they, that you have something that they have always wanted. And, and those people are. Are out there. But you have to, You have to find them. And, I'll. I'll tell you when I, When I started off, you know, I. I wrote a couple of books.

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> Kay Neal>And, the second one. The, first one I did absolutely no marketing research on.

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> Kay Neal>And I can't even explain to you what it's. It's a reference book, but you'd have to know a little bit about Latin to even understand what. What is this book. but people in the. I reviews on it from, you know, professors of. Of classics. but it. But it.

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> Kay Neal>It just, didn't go anywhere.

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> Kay Neal>I didn't know how to market it. And that. That wasn't really why I wanted to. You know, it just was a. A dead end. Then I wrote a book that was better for the market. It was called Teacher Dog Latin. And. And I wrote that.

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> Kay Neal>But. But again, I didn't do any market research. I just thought people would. Would like this. but when I was trying to market that book, this program in my town where retired, people go and learn, they take classes that don't have any homework.

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> Kay Neal>And, they're just. They're short. They're 90 minutes a week for eight weeks. And they said, why don't you go pitch, pitch Latin to these people that they seem like the kind of people that might like Latin. And I live in a university town and, you know, there. There are a lot of people that like to, like, they're lifelong learners. And, so I, I pitched a Latin course to these guys and. And never heard anything. And somebody told me, did you follow up? And. And I said, actually, no, I. I did not follow up. And, you know, some.

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> Kay Neal>Which makes me think, like, what was I thinking?

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> Kay Neal>I never even picked up the phone and said, hey, did you. What do you think about this proposal of mine? Well, anyway, I had given up on them, and then I got an email from them saying we'd love to have Latin at our institute. you know, can you. Can you teach at this or that time?

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> Kay Neal>And so I was. I was delighted they were going to offer it.

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> Kay Neal>And then I called them up and said, could I come and look at the classroom so I can see what I've got to work with here?

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> Kay Neal>And they said, yeah, sure, come on over. And then when I got over, they told me that my class had filled up. And I was so excited because I thought, you know, this may be 20 people who actually want to learn. Learn, learn, Latin. They want to study Latin. And, I asked them to see the, the, you know, they're going to show me the classroom.

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> Kay Neal>And I went into the classroom, and it turned out it was 48 seats. 48 people had signed up for Latin. 48 retired people, so these are people like 55 and over had signed up for Latin. And I couldn't believe it.

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> Kay Neal>Standing there, I thought, like, oh, my gosh, finally I'm finding my people. and I imagine those seats, 48 of them, all of them have somebody in them who wants to learn what I am so passionate about sharing.

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> Kay Neal>And, then the, the director of the center told me, she asked me. Well, she told me, you know, we had to make a wait list because your class, filled up. Either it was the first or the second class to fill up. And we started a wait list, and it has 16 people on it. And if we could find another classroom or another time, would you be willing to teach a second section? And of course, I jumped at the chance, and that filled up. And so in my town, and which is not that big, there were 48 times 2 equals 96 people who wanted to come in, in person and learn Latin.

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> Kay Neal>And so that's when I knew that there is a market there.

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> Kay Neal>But you have to know how to, how to tap into it.

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> Kay Neal>You have to. And you. And, and sometimes this is just trial and error. And, I, I, But I was amazed. And some of these people came in, like with walkers. And I don't know if there was anybody with oxygen or not, but there, there might have. They were not. And they were not all in good shape. They were retirees. They were, minimum of age 55 and into their 80s and, and, and more. And, So it was, it was, you know, if you're trying to, if you're trying to find a market and you're, and you have some niche that's just so specialized. Your, your biggest problem, I think, is going to be finding where are these people, you know, do they congregate anywhere? And for me, I, I have never found a place where people who are interested in Latin actually congregate. There's not a, there's not like a publication I can advertise in where, you know, there's, there's huge numbers of people, who want to, to do Latin. So I just have to, find them kind of here and there. They, they pop up here and there.

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> Kay Neal>And, it was a really big marketing mistake, not to realize that I will have to go out and find them. And that's what I, I'm so grateful to Be on, on your podcast, because this is, this is, a big part of my strategy right now is to, is to, find podcasts that will let me come on and, and talk about my mission.

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> Kay Neal>And I know that, you know, maybe some people who, who follow you regularly will say, ah, Latin.

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> Kay Neal>I'm not interested in that. But maybe there might be somebody who, who will, who would be, you know, interested.

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> Kay Neal>And, and I don't mean that somebody has to, like, hire me as a teacher or anything like that. I, I want to get Latin out there. And I, I was in a Toastmasters Club for a while, and, I actually got to represent my chapter at a, regional, competition. And when, when I walk. And of course, my topic had something to do with Latin.

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> Kay Neal>I'm sure you won't be surprised to hear that. And when I, when I walked into that competition and I could just see the level of these people, I thought, well, I'm not winning anything today. I am, I am getting nothing. But I do have my stage time. And so my idea, what. Instead of like, thinking like, oh, I would, you know, I'd like to take home a trophy or take it back to my club.

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> Kay Neal>What I thought was, okay, there's going to be some parents in this audience, and I can talk about Latin. And maybe, you know, five, six years down the line, one of these parents might be at a school board meeting and they, they might say, hey, you know, I hear somebody talk about the advantages of teaching your children Latin.

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> Kay Neal>And, why don't we look into hiring a Latin teacher? Why don't we have a Latin department in our Latin program in our, in our school?

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> Kay Neal>And so that became what I, what I talked about. I have no idea if anybody took anything out of my talk that day.

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> Kay Neal>It was, I don't know, ten years ago.

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> Kay Neal>but, but, you know, that's the kind of approach you kind of. You have to play the long game. You cannot be, concerned about, about reaping a benefit immediate. Have to, you have to be in it for the long term. and that's something people don't. Don't want to face. And I didn't want to face it either. But I'm okay with it now.

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> Kay Neal>I've gotten peace with it now.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, tell us about any upcoming projects that you're working on that people need to be aware of.

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> Kay Neal>Well, I'm just starting, a new program, that you can find you. Well, you can. I, I, and I, I want to find people for that, but Before I can do that, I need to, I need to find people who just want to hear about Latin, want to hear, you know, are even moderately interested in the topic, because I don't expect anybody to like, go whole hog into it without, like dipping their toe in. And so I have a, ah, an email list. well, I have a free report that people can get if they if they go on my website, which is bk Neil. So B K A Y N E A L dot com and you can get my free report and then I will send you daily emails on on something interesting about Latin, something that's for people who do not know Latin, don't know grammar, but just have a, an interest, even if it's a mild interest. And my hope is that I can be so entertaining and so engaging that you would actually look forward to reading these every day and eventually think that that you might like to actually work with me, in a group or one on one. So that's what I have, coming up, Curtis and I really appreciate you letting me have the, the chance to mention it.

00:21:14.019 --> 00:21:14.660
> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>No problem.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Close this out with some final thoughts. Maybe if that was something that you forgot to touch on or I forgot to touch on that you would like to make the listeners aware of.

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> Kay Neal>Well, I, mean, if you just like handed me a mic, I, I, I could go on for some hours. So let me, let me think. This is a, this is a nice opportunity, this question.

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> Kay Neal>yeah, everybody, everybody, can learn a foreign language. And even if it's not Latin, everybody could, could learn a foreign language. And, and if you approach it with the idea that you're not going to be perfect at first and you're going to be like a baby and you know, even laugh at yourself for the mistakes that you make, eventually you will get somewhere. If you are willing to put in the time with an open mind and a quiet heart, you can get somewhere.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>All right, ladies and gentlemen, is that all that you have to say? Ms.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Neal?

00:22:24.559 --> 00:22:27.519
> Kay Neal>I'll restrain myself and so I'll say yes.

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> Kay Neal>That is all I have to say for right now.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>All. Ah, right. Well be sure to visit bkneal.com for more information on everything that Kay is up to follow, rate, review, share this episode to as many people as possible. For more information or to leave feedback or suggestions for the living the dream with Curveball Podcast, visit www.craveball337.com thank you for listening and supporting the show. And Kay, thank you for all that you're doing. And thank you for joining me.

00:23:00.640 --> 00:23:03.279
> Kay Neal>Thank you so much, Curtis. I am so grateful to you.

00:23:04.250 --> 00:23:16.890
> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, visit www.craveball337.com until next time, keep Living the dream.