The Linguist is a languages magazine for professional linguists, translators, interpreters, language professionals, language teachers, trainers, students and academics with articles on translation, interpreting, business, government, technology
Issue link: https://thelinguist.uberflip.com/i/1296004
@Linguist_CIOL OCTOBER/NOVEMBER The Linguist 15 FEATURES The big idea Q How did you come up with the idea for Cooking With Languages? A We're British but the children, Joshua and Francesca, are growing up in Spain. Learning to cook Spanish dishes with them, I realised it was an easy way to get them motivated to learn new vocabulary. I started researching bilingual recipes and cookbooks but I couldn't find any. It grew from there – the idea of encouraging other children to learn Spanish through having fun in the kitchen. Q How did you develop the concept? A It started five years ago and it was a family project from the outset. The kids and I came up with the characters for the cookery book: Arthur Apple, Nerea Naranja… We started thinking of names, drawing… Q Tell us a bit about your background and the new skills you had to learn… A I studied European Business Administration at university in France and later set up my business as a relocation consultant in Spain. I've always been an advocate for language learning – my father taught himself various languages and we did French exchanges growing up. For Cooking With Languages, I learnt to use the design program Canva and designed the cookery book. I researched online sales and created the online store using WooCommerce. Q Did you hire people to help? A Yes. Although I designed the basics, I paid a designer to put the book together and brought someone in to do the illustrations. I needed professionals to put the finishing touches to it before putting it out to the public. For the translation side, I found someone through a recruitment website. I've created my own website before, but I worked with her to make it bilingual. I also had somebody create the app. Q How did you fund the project? A We crowdfunded to pay the freelancers and publish the book. I had been planning a Kickstarter campaign but I got an offer from Crowdfunder UK and went with it. That was a mistake as it's not the right platform for us because it misses the global hispanic market. Q How did you publicise the product? A I did quite a bit on social media. Instagram was popular because everyone loves photographs of food. We also had some guest posts. During lockdown I did a promotion on Facebook. We offered the pdf for free and had about 600 downloads. I really need someone to do the marketing side to follow up all these leads. Cooking With Languages founder Lisa Sadleir opens up about the challenges of maintaining a fledgling business Q What obstacles have there been? A To make it work, you've got to have time, but I have to focus on my money-earning business. A couple of years ago, I got someone to take that over so I could dedicate myself to Cooking With Languages, but unfortunately I had to jump back in to running my business full time. Q What are your plans for the future? A We want to move entirely to digital downloads and online content. We're planning interactive elements and games. I've asked Joshua to work on a new app, Francesca is planning videos, and we're preparing a recipe book of our favourite Spanish foods. The concept is very easy to translate to other languages as every country has its own foods. We are also looking for collaborators to help develop the project, and we would welcome any interest. cookingwithlanguages.com IN THE KITCHEN: Francesca and Joshua