Life Conversations with a Twist
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Life Conversations with a Twist
From Lost in Translation to Owning the Conversation: Tips for Breaking the Language Barrier with Erika Warner
"It's not too late, and you're not too old, you just need to learn in a way that is meant for your age." —Erika Warner
Have you ever felt like you’re stuck on the outside, wishing you could speak up and truly belong? And have you ever wondered if learning a new language as an adult is just too hard, or if you’ll ever feel confident in a new country? You’re not alone—and there’s a smarter, kinder way forward.
Erika Warner’s story starts with her own struggles learning English as a young immigrant, but it didn’t stop there. Inspired by the real challenges faced by Spanish-speaking adults, she became a teacher on a mission: to make English learning practical, supportive, and life-changing for immigrants who want more than just grammar—they want a voice. Her fresh take? It’s never too late, and the right approach can turn language barriers into stepping stones.
Catch this week’s episode as Heather and Erika talk about building confidence, surviving tough moments, thriving in daily life, and finding your voice—plus tips for parents, stories of courage, and why practical language skills matter more than perfect grammar.
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Episode Highlights:
01:33 Meet Erika: Moving to the US and Learning English
05:38 Raising Bilingual Kids
10:50 Learning English as an Adult: The Struggle
17:18 Dialects and Neutral Language
23:22 Building English for My People
30:27 Success Stories That Matter
33:17 Equipped for Emergencies: Teaching Real-Life English
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Connect with Erika:
Erika Warner is a linguist, educator, and founder of Ingles Pa Mi Gente, a platform dedicated to helping Spanish-speaking immigrants master English and build confidence in their new lives. Drawing from her own journey as an immigrant and her experience teaching across the U.S., Europe, and South America, Erika specializes in practical, culturally-aware English programs and hosts a popular podcast on pronunciation. Her mission is to break language barriers and empower immigrants to thrive—at work, at home, and in their communities.
Heather Nelson: Welcome everyone to this week's Life Conversations With A Twist. I am super excited to have Erica Warner on today. Me and her have been playing back and forth to try to get this podcast scheduled, but I'm really excited to have her on the podcast today and hear her story.
Welcome to the podcast.
Erika Warner: Thank you very much for having me. And finally, we made it work. It's always a game with time difference, but here we are.
Heather Nelson: We were just talking before that. We hit records about the time difference, and I love that. I get to talk to women all over the world. But definitely, the time difference always gets to us sometimes. Where are you today?
Erika Warner: So right now, I am in Spain, Palma and Mallorca. This is the Island where I grew up. So more time difference with the states right now, but I normally live in Idaho.
Heather Nelson: Tell the listeners a little bit about who you are? What do you do? Then we're just going to dive into your story.
Erika Warner: Well, now that I'm in Spain, I can tell you how everything came to be with my company and my vocation. My native language is Spanish. Of course, you can tell by my accent. When I was 22nd, I went to the States to perfect my English, because I had just basic English when I graduated. I went to Colorado and said, this is my time. I'm finally going to learn English. And I went there to study with a J-1 visa, which is a visa for intercultural exchange.
Heather Nelson: And you went by yourself?
Erika Warner: I went by myself. I was young, so my brain was good at absorbing new information. And this is key in the story, because that was my only job. I went to learn English. This is my only job. I am 22. I don't have a mortgage or anything complicated like a husband or kids. I'm here with my visa. My first day of class, it was a non profit for ESL, which is English as a second language. It's the free classes that normally the cities have to help immigrants that don't speak English. And on my first day of class, I went super excited. And then I found out that I was the only young person there, because all of my classmates were in their 40s and 50s, and they were coming to class after work with their uniforms. They were coming before work, or they were coming with their kids. And I don't know, I just have a humbling experience because I saw them. They were so cute and so inspiring for me. I was like, wow, this is easy for me because I'm young, and I don't have any responsibilities. But for them, this is crazy difficult, and here they are. So that was the day that I decided I was going to become an ESL teacher, because I had never felt so inspired by a group of people, like I was that day. So I said, you know what? I finally found my vocation. I'm going to learn English. Because of a small fact, I didn't speak it at the time. But I was like, I'm going to learn it. And after I learned it, I am going to become an ESL teacher to help immigrants in the States.
Heather Nelson: I love that. So how long do you think that you will learn? How long did it take for you to learn English that you really felt calm, confident and were fluent in it?
Erika Warner: So up to this point, I've been learning all my life, right? But I feel like I wasn't serious. And that day when I became serious. It took me around, I will say, nine months to 12 months to feel fluent, by any standards, on the phone, or with any person. But I was very serious. I took it super seriously, and I was studying like five to seven hours a day. Not the same amount of time for everybody. I went to school, and I got a linguistics degree so I could teach better. I wanted to take it very seriously. I'm going to get a whole degree in English, and I'm going to add that to my experience as an English language learner. I have found out that it actually takes around 400 to 500 hours of serious study time for a Spanish speaker to learn English, because the hours vary depending on your home, like your native language. So 400 to 500 hours. Now, every person will invest different hours, so the exact time is going to be different. So I was investing a lot of time, so I learned faster. But there are people who can only invest one hour, two hours a day.
Heather Nelson: I have so many questions for you. I was born and raised here in California, so never left. I remember in high school, it was mandatory for us to take Spanish. So I took Spanish for two years, and I literally know zero. I know the basics, I actually ended more. But my husband is Latino, and we have a four year old. And so now, he's fluent in both. And our poor little son, he only knows English because that's what we speak with my other children. And obviously, being in California, that's what we mostly speak. But now that they have these schools where they just teach them Spanish, it's like a lottery to get in. It's so hard to get into these schools.
Erika Warner: Yes, it's true. Being bilingual is one of the best gifts for a child, even for an adult. Especially these two languages. Specifically English and Spanish, they just open more than 60% of the world's population when you can be bilingual in these two languages.
Heather Nelson: Why do you think so? So you came from Spain, so that's where you grew up. As you're growing up, I'm always curious to hear everybody's story. Why do people want to come to the United States? Why do they want to learn English? Why do they want to be so immersed in our culture? Or maybe, what was your WHY behind it?
Erika Warner: I can tell you the general idea, and I can tell you my personal one. First of all, everybody just knows about the States because of culture, movies and music. Everybody knows Madonna, and everybody knows Hollywood. So a lot of people are really just attracted to the glamor, Hollywood and the American dream. I feel like everybody at the beginning is attracted by this, but then gets more specific than that. Then it becomes a survival thing for a lot of people because of problems. I was actually born in Colombia. So in the 90s, half of Colombia left and went to the United States, and the other half came to Europe. And I was the one that came to Europe. But necessity becomes safety, which is one of the main reasons. And for me, specifically, I left Colombia to come to Europe, so I was already cool and safe. But in my specific case, I met a guy in college who was from Idaho. For me, it was love.
Heather Nelson: Yeah. I know you definitely don't want to get into politics at all, but it's stories like this that really touch me and my husband as well. Coming over to this country when you were younger, you were a little bit older, but most people, most immigrants, come over with their families when they're little.
Erika Warner: I came to Europe when I was nine, and that's just like the typical.
Heather Nelson: You just named a couple of the reasons why people want to be here. And now, you guys are being forced out. It's those stories that really bother me, because real, true people want to be here and want to thrive here. And obviously, the work that you're doing now is such a huge thing. It bothers me a lot, because it shouldn't be that way.
Erika Warner: I totally get it. And believe me, I live it every day. I have students from South America.
Heather Nelson: So you learn English, you love it. You're like, I'm going to teach it. So you were in Idaho, right? And then you met your husband.
Erika Warner: I met him here in Spain first. He came to study Spanish, and I was studying English. So we were the perfect match. We were going to practice our languages.
Heather Nelson: I love that story. Do you have kids too?
Erika Warner: We have two children. We have two boys.
Heather Nelson: What is your language? What do you speak at home?
Erika Warner: I have been very lucky, because my husband speaks Spanish very well. So we made our home our little nook, like a little Spanish kingdom, because they're going to be exposed to English everywhere else. So we actually speak Spanish at home, and they are pretty good. They speak both languages, and it's not easy. There was a point when my son was four that his Spanish was zero. I was like, this is not working. He refuses to speak Spanish. He doesn't want to. He's not interested. But I found out, as in everything in life, we're gonna keep doing it. And one day, somebody asked him something Spanish, and he gave a full answer with words I had no idea he knew how to say. It was like the best present, or sweet words to my ears when I heard him speak Spanish for the first time. I found out that he does speak, but not with me because he knows he has another option. So I found out that it's important that I expose him to other people that also speak Spanish, so he does go to one of those bilingual schools.
Heather Nelson: I know that helps a lot. We really hope our four year old can get into it at some point. Because unfortunately, we don't speak it enough. My husband is fluent, but it's not something we speak in our own home. My stepdaughter, she got top of the top of the class in her high school because she took all the Spanish classes, and my daughter is starting to take all the Spanish classes too. So I'm like, okay, well, maybe y'all can teach me. Because I remember when I met my husband, I was like, I need to learn because I go to dinners and stuff. And I was like, I have no idea what they're talking about. And so at the time, this was nine years ago. I was really excited, and I went to the JC, and enrolled in a Spanish class. It was so hard for me to learn. It's frustrating. It is so frustrating. I just gave up because it's so hard. And everyone says, the older you get, the harder it is. And it sounds like that is the truth. Everybody learns differently. Again, it's how many hours you put in. But what do you think the sweet spot is when our brains can really learn?
Erika Warner: 25 is not necessarily harder, but it is different. There is a different approach to the way you learn from 0 to 25. I'll make it simple. When we are 0 to 25, we are learning in kind of like a bear on an empty canvas, right? You can put anything in, and you learn it from scratch. But by the time we turn 25, our cognitive acquisition, the language skills or any skill, not just English, anything that we're going to start learning is not from nothing. We have to base, or put it on something else. It is called familiarization. I talk about that with my students a lot, because we have to learn a new skill using the memory and the tools that we have from other skills that are similar to this new skill. If that makes sense. It's like if you go skiing, when we go skiing as adults, it's hard. But then we help ourselves. We say, I know how to walk. I know how to skate. And then we try to use those other skills. While the little kids, they're just going to learn from scratch. So in language, this is very important, because the only language we know is our native language. So in many programs or immersion programs, they tell us, you cannot speak your own language. It is forbidden. We're going to do full immersion. And full immersion doesn't always work 100% because we take away the only knowledge that they have.
If I tell you, talk to me about this book or politics in Spanish. You have nothing. You have zero. I have to help you first with some tools. I have to help you with some words. So it really is important to have support on something that is familiar to us as adults in order to build something new. So for example in my ESL programs, I actually explain very difficult concepts in Spanish. And then once that explanation is in, they understand it, then we're going to practice it in English. We don't go straight to practice without understanding. Does that make sense?
Heather Nelson: Absolutely. It's very interesting. Most of your students, what is their age range? I'm going to be 43, am I screwed?
Erika Warner: No, sweet spot. All my students are 40 to 60, and they all come to me with that same exact mentality of, it's too late for me. I'm too old. And I say, it's not too late, and you're not too old. You just need to learn an approach in a way that is meant for your age because you are not a kindergartner, you are not a high schooler. We also have to learn with topics that are interesting for your age.
Heather Nelson: So interesting. Well, I always ask my husband, he thinks learning English was harder than speaking Spanish because of all of our crazy languages with all THEIRs. What are your thoughts on what language was easier?
Erika Warner: I don't try to be polemic, but I think English is easier. Spanish is more difficult.
Heather Nelson: I agree with that too. The changing of the masculine and the feminine just throws me off every single time.
Erika Warner: Simple example. This is the one main difference. If we can reduce it, summarize it, everything in English is easy in the way that is the same as in Spanish. In organizations syntax is the same, grammar is the same. There is only one thing that is completely different, which is pronunciation and phonics. So because this one thing is different, everybody says that English is crazy, and English is impossible. No, this one item is different from Spanish, but the other things are the same. So syntax is the same. The order of how you do, subject, project, everything adverse, all that is the same. Grammar is the same, but we are very negative. I always tell my students, you are focusing on the one thing that doesn't work when there are 10 things that do work. Why is that an excuse not to learn? But Spanish is objectively more difficult than English because we have more tenses. We have double, pretty much double tenses. In English, I can communicate in the present, past and future, and I can get by very well. Spanish has tenses that don't even exist in English, and we have to learn to use them. How do I learn something that doesn't exist in my language? That's why I believe Spanish is more difficult because there are things that we have in Spanish that I cannot say. Red is rojo. Yellow is amarillo. There is always something, but there are tenses in Spanish that you don't have in English. I cannot explain it to you, because they don't exist. English is more efficient and compact. People fight with me about this, but we have to analyze linguistics in English and Spanish, we have to study every language in detail, and Spanish is more difficult.
Heather Nelson: So many different types of Spanish. My husband is always like, the way they speak Spanish, they're from Mexico and Southern America. Or you have people in Europe that speak Spain, you know Spanish and from Spain, and it's very different. Is that true?
Erika Warner: Variety is a lot, but I could say the same in English if we meet a person from South Africa or Australia, but we can understand each other, right? But there are little things, that's why I'm also a big proponent, a big fan of neutral language. We're gonna learn the most neutral words in Spanish that work in any country. And same with English. Let's learn more. I am not a big fan of people who want to learn street Spanish because it's going to change a lot depending if you are in Cancun or Madrid. What street are we talking about? I prefer the more polite Spanish dictionary, because it's going to be understood by most people. And people think that it's kind of boring, but we're looking for communication, which is the only purpose of language. If I learn a very specific word from a couple, I cannot use it in Argentina, or in Spain, or in Colombia. But if I learn a word that works in all countries, I'm going to be able to communicate with more people. And that is the goal. Communication is the only goal of language.
Heather Nelson: Do you know any other languages?
Erika Warner: So in Majorca where I live, Spanish is not the main language. Actually, it's Mallorquín, which is similar, if somebody from Spain is listening to me, similar, I'm sorry, not the same, to Catalan, which is the language that they speak in Barcelona and all that area. So I grew up listening to this language. I'm not a big fan. I can understand everything. I can write. I can say things, but it's just not in my heart, this language. I'm sorry guys. and I lived in Russia for a long time, so I know basic Russian. That one, I do want to learn, but that one's even harder. So I learned all the basic Russian. The alphabet, the numbers, basic stuff. And I'm a language student. I'm always learning. I'm learning Italian and Russian. Those are the two, which is that I have basic knowledge that I want to become fluent in.
Heather Nelson: So cool. You learn Spanish, you learn English, and you love it. You're like, now, I'm going to teach it. What did you do next? How did you become a teacher? How did you get students? I would love to hear your journey through that.
Erika Warner: Okay. First, preparation, of course. I am a nerd. If I'm going to do something, I have to have proper certifications. I am type A. I say that I'm not going to teach English just because I speak it. If I'm going to teach it, I need to know the ins and outs of this language, because there are many English teachers, they're just native speakers. And just because you're a native speaker doesn't mean that you can teach it. You're a native speaker of English, your English is perfect. But if I come as a student and I ask you, hey, Heather, can you explain to me why the present, the perfect tense uses the participle, and I cannot just use the simple why? Why do I have to say, I have gone. And I cannot say, I have gone. Why? These are the kinds of questions that students want to ask. So first step, pull knowledge. Education is the first step. So I went ahead and got my degree, and then I got my certification, and then I wanted to gain experience in real life. So I actually traveled, did a lot of ESL teaching in South America, in Russia and in Spain because I want to learn real life experience. And then I wanted to teach everywhere. I taught everywhere. Heather, you can ask me about primary school, private school, library, nonprofits, universities. I wanted to really master this skill so I taught for many years before I started my own company. And I was teaching in Idaho in a nonprofit, and I loved it. It was wonderful, but I wanted to narrow it down to only Spanish speakers. Because in classrooms for ESL, we have all mixed up.
So I have students that spoke Arabic, Chinese, Spanish and Russian. And sometimes, I have to narrow down to get a point across. So I said, you know what? I love everybody. Of course, I miss my Arabic speakers. But I said, you know what? If I want to make a difference, I want to focus on my people. That's why the name of my company is English for my people. And I said, I'm going to focus only on Spanish speakers. The way I like the number one minority in the States, so I said, I'm going to write programs based on all this experience, only for Spanish speakers. I'm going to focus on that. So I started writing programs for beginners of native Spanish speakers. And then I started to trial them, try them down for free with volunteers. I was like, do you want to learn English for free? I have a program. Can you try it? And it was wonderful. People helped me out. They didn't pay. But for one year, I opened a Facebook group. And I said, I teach English for free. Every Tuesday, 10:00 am, Facebook Live. And people start coming. Tons of people. The group became bigger and bigger. I was teaching for free, and I was listening, writing down, and making it perfect before I was going to go ahead and sell it. So I did that for a long time. It's a slow process, that's my style.
Heather Nelson: And now, everything is virtual. What do the programs look like? How long are they?
Erika Warner: I wanted to meet in person in Boise, but then it turned out that I had two students from Boise, 54 in Florida, New York and Orlando. So I was like, okay, virtual is the way. After the pandemic, we know Zoom. Sometimes Zoom came to save us, that's why I decided to keep only online programs right now. I have two ways to learn with me. We have a very affordable product, and we have our intensive classes. So our affordable product is like a membership. It's like Netflix. It's affordable, it's $24. You study by yourself. You have classes for your everyday life in the States as an immigrant. So you have classes for getting a doctor appointment, or getting your glasses, or cutting your hair, very specific situations. But we call it situations for immigrants, because there's specific situations that an immigrant has to go through. There are no English foreign books, like getting your social security card for the first time as an adult, or going to your immigration, or becoming a US citizen. All those things are very specific for immigrants. So I have classes of English for those specific situations, and then I have the standard beginner, intermediate, and advanced English classes. So those are the two ways people can choose to learn with me,
Heather Nelson: How long typically your students stay in the program for?
Erika Warner: So when we do the in depth courses, it's three months per level. So we have beginner levels, three months. Then intermediate levels, three months. And advanced levels, three months. And then the ultimate fluency is three months. In theory, if they stay with me for a year, around 14 months, they are going to be able to, this is important, continue their learning journey by themselves. They're not going to speak English perfectly, fluently because we never do. But now, you know so much that you are going to actually learn in the streets, interacting with your boss, interacting with your neighbors. And now, you understand the basic questions like, why does this work? How do I pronounce it? How do I read? And now, you can learn by yourself. But it's very difficult to learn by yourself if you know nothing at all. But once you have good knowledge, then you can keep exploring by yourself. So we arrive from zero, not to perfect fluency, but from 0 to I no longer need people to come with me to my doctor's appointments, because I know how to do it myself.
Heather Nelson: When you do the programs with the more in depth, is it groups? Or is it one on one?
Erika Warner: Groups. We do everything in groups.
Heather Nelson: Okay. So it's basically like teaching a class, but online.
Erika Warner: You come to class, there is me. I'm the teacher of all my courses. I keep that for myself. And then there are 20 students. We have the board. Today, we're going to focus on pronunciation of the consonants and the vowels. We teach that class in depth. We have a book, we have homework. We will come back next week. I'm very traditional in my way of teaching.
Heather Nelson: Well, you said you're very type A, so I can see.
Erika Warner: What I found out is that people that are over 40, not everybody, but like my Latin people, they really like the traditional way of teaching because there are new ways, a lot of videos and technology, and my students are scared of that. The ones that end up with me want to feel like I go to class, I get my paper on my pen, and somebody's gonna teach and guide me. And those are my kind of students, because the other ones that know how to do everything on Tiktok, they don't need me.
Heather Nelson: What is your podcast about? Tell us about your podcast.
Erika Warner: So the podcast is for pronunciation only, because that is the one thing that is the most difficult. When you read a word in Spanish, it's actually easy. Because if you know the sound of every letter, you just say it all. No letter is silent. So if I write to you mariposa, you have to say it all. You would say ma-ri-po, everything. But in English, there are many silent words, and there are combinations. So if we see a word like butterfly, we as Spanish speakers, we will say butterfly, right? And then we have to learn, why does the U just sound A? Why does the T just sound like R? Why does the Y just sound like I? People want to know these things, and nobody teaches that because they assume you should know it. But we don't know it. We have no clue. So my podcast is, I'm going to tell you why the U sounds BA. Why do we say butter, not butter? And because there are rules for every letter in English, there is a rule. And I'm going to tell you how to say that word based on your knowledge of Spanish. So everything is about pronunciation, and people love it because they are like, I tell them, a lot of words. People memorize vocabulary lists, but when you say it, nobody understands you because you know the word, but you're not saying it right. My students, for example, say park, park, park. And I say, that's fine. But how do we really say it? We say park, park. We have to add flow to it. You cannot just say, I go to the park. We understand it, but it doesn't sound good, so I go to the park. I go to the park. I go to the park. And I'm not saying that we're going to sound like Americans. No, we are going to add communication. When you say it, somebody gets it right away. You don't have to repeat it 10 times, because then your self esteem decreases. And I want you to be communicating, and I want you to be feeling confident so I'm going to teach you every word that you only have to say once. And people love it because they are so used to, yes, I have to say 10 times before they totally get it.
Heather Nelson: It's so funny because my husband will say certain English words, and me and my kids always laugh at him. Or like, no, it's thunder. It's not thunder.
Erika Warner: Tell him to listen to my podcast. I will tell him where to put the teeth, the mouth, when to do it, when not to do it. Why? Because sometimes, we want to know why? I will explain all the why's. I always say, I'm the teacher of the why's.
Heather Nelson: I love that so much. What is your biggest success story? Because obviously, you're already doing so much work with all of your students. But I would imagine that there's a few stories that really make you continue to do this work.
Erika Warner: Yes. There is one in particular that I love, it always comes to mind. What are my situations in which I survive in the States? People sometimes want to talk about uncomfortable things. And one thing is, sometimes you're going to get stopped by the police. Sometimes, you are going to have to call 911. It can happen. You can get in a car accident. People learn to go to a restaurant or to go to a job interview. What about these other things that you are already so nervous about? Imagine that you're nervous in a restaurant. Imagine how you're going to feel talking to the police. So one time in class, I taught a survival class for an emergency. So how to call 911? How to call the firefighters? And how to call the police in case that you need help? And it was crazy, because I taught that class. I told them how to speak on the phone. They are terrified of speaking on the phone, so I told them, this way, you're going to say if you have to call 911. These are the questions that they're going to ask you. If you know the questions, you're going to feel more prepared. I taught that class. They were like, okay, that same week.
One of my students who was, by the way, 60 years old. She was older, and was a beginner, but she was a very good student. She actually did her homework, studied, and wrote her words. And that week, she was on a highway and was at a light, and there was a lot of smoke coming off her car. Her car was literally on fire. There was fire coming from her car, and she grabbed her phone and called 911. The police came, and the firefighters came, and they took her out of the car. The car was completely total. And then she sent me a picture of the car completely burned down, and she told me, thanks to Jesus and you. I am alive right now, because I knew what to say. I don't want anyone to die because they are so scared of having a conversation in English. That's crazy. Imagine the amount of things people go through because they're so terrified of saying a word. And for me, I was like, oh, I am not going to stop teaching people words and sentences that can save them in any situation. That's a situation I really love. I have that picture in my office of the burnt car. Because sometimes, you forget. And I was like, no, this is why we're doing this.
Heather Nelson: Such a good story. I love that you teach situations. Because, yes, you can teach everything, which you know is important. But what is it that you need in your everyday life to be able to communicate with the person at work, or to communicate with that person at the restaurant, or the police? And that's so important. And I love that. What's next for you? I feel like you're one of these people that's just going to keep feeling inspired, you're going to keep growing, you're going to keep doing things. What's next for you?
Erika Warner: I have a lot of things that I have to perfect right now. I want to just focus on my situations, in my intensive classes. I'm also working on citizenship, because there's a lot of people that already are ready to become an American citizen. So what I'm doing right now is keeping an eye on everything my immigrant people need. If it's related to education and communication, I'm going to build it, so this is never going to stop. So right now, for example, truck drivers now speak English. They are getting in a lot of trouble because of English. Now, it's mandatory. I'm going to make a course for truck drivers. Whoever is kind of overlooked, I'm going to make a course for them. I'm going to focus a lot on being professional. Because a lot of people focus on fancy professions, which is cool. Engineers and pilots. But there are other professions that maybe are not as fancy, but are as equally important. Landscapers, cleaning ladies, Uber drivers, hospitality.
Heather Nelson: I'm in Sonoma County, and we're one of the biggest hospitality places in the United States. So many of our employees are Spanish speakers.
Erika Warner: I'm gonna keep creating all the educational resources I can for my people in the States. I want to be like the Netflix of Spanish speakers, immigrants. That they say, oh, I need this. I know where to go and find it. It is with Erica at Ingles Pa Mi Gente. She has it. I want that.
Heather Nelson: You just put it on the universe. Where can my listeners find you? Obviously, you have a website, you have a podcast. Tell us where we/they can find you?
Erika Warner: This is important, people, in Spanish, GENTE. It's a very important word for us. We repeat it all the time. Every time we come to a place, we say, hello, my people. We always say, hola mi gente. GENTE, people. So my website is Ingles Pa Mi Gente, which means English for my people. It's written in Spanish, so people know that I am for them. And that's the name that we have everywhere. I was very lucky. I got that name on all the platforms without numbers or anything. So we are on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Tiktok threads, Spotify, everywhere with the same name Ingles Pa Mi Gente, which means English for my people.
Heather Nelson: I love that. So not only do you teach all these classes, but are you the person that's putting all this content out on all these platforms?
Erika Warner: Thank God, now I have a team. There are five of us. I am the main teacher, and I'm always writing and coming up with new ideas. But now, I have a lot of people that help me with the website, editing and social media. Especially social media, I have a person who helps me with all that stuff.
Heather Nelson: I was gonna say that you could not do all of that. That's crazy.
Erika Warner: Not anymore. Three years and now, yeah.
Heather Nelson: As a business owner, I sit in the same, you have to do everything. Even for my podcast. For three years, I was editing and doing all the things. And finally, I'm like, I need a team to be able to do this. I can grow and do more work. Well, thank you so much for being on the podcast. Thank you for sharing your story. Thank you for doing all this amazing work for our community and for all the people in our world, and making it a better place.
Erika Warner: Thank you, and thank you for sharing our stories.