Welcome to speed learning English your podcast for smarter and more professional English hello Richard how are you well in the first episode you mentioned that your family comes from Ghana and where is Ghana located so banners on the beautiful West Coast of Africa. We West Coast line to the left coast line on the Western Ocean sites and guests and we are birds to the Ivory Coast to the west and traveled to the east and to the north will border to Burkina Faso in the South we are the coastal to the beginning. Ocean is and you're surrounded by French-speaking nations but English is the language in Ghana. So is this the reason why you speak French. Also because of your neighbors and know I speak French because of the French occupation in Germany and in the West wasn't part of Germany, and therefore you have the opportunity to learn French and because of my pure curiosity and interest in different different languages. I decide to learn French. We should clarify that the occupation of the French in Germany has and that now so they are not here anymore, but that's you to this occupation due to the order that you share with friends, which is quite close from the relief one people decided to teach English and French and in school as the language of the allies at that time and the German Democratic Republic. It was Russian and here we had and still have English and French okay and the capital of Ghana is Accra, and from which part of of Ghana. Does your family come from. Sorry you still have family and Ghana had you all yes yes family is very important in the Ghanaian family settings so you will always have family whatever okay even if something happens you will find somebody who is part of your family. So yes indeed and I family and in the shunt departed submittal part of Ghana and I'm from the Ashanti and just a quick history Ghana it translated into English. This means warrior king it's from the old and Ghana empire that was up in my present-day Mali in the middle ages and him. Yes, Simon Ashanti, which translates into because of war and why because of war because shunt is a nationstate that was all a union state for that matter that was founded in 1619, and they either will different groups of people who formed this union because of an occupation from the fantasies which are in the South that were occupying the Ashanti and all that that time you can call it Ashanti them because it was not Ashanti, but there were occupying the future shunt people and they formed a union to fight this occupation and that's why they formed this union and called it because of war. We are forming this union and that's the name brand Ashanti so I guess I family him and Ghana and we are from the Ashanti people and I read in the history book about the terrible behavior of the Portuguese in Ghana and that whenever there was a kind of revolution of slaves somewhere in in America. Normally somebody from Ghana was the leader so this refers so this is also on how to say confirms this. This meaning of Ghana or Ashanti, so they are very very rebellious and rebellious but also an the coast and that you mentioned is also named Gold Coast or golden coast because you have a lot of gold in your country yes so normally when one people find new territory.""" They always either have to option to either name it after the cities that they that they are from, for example, New York all people in America will find Berlin Amsterdam at the Easton Frankfurt or other other European names all you just name it after certain things that happened happens in these territories. For example, if you go up to Sierra Leone and library are they called it the Duplin call to them. The rise coast because it will lower farming and agriculture. There well by grade in the agriculture ring of a rice and in our case we where we were blessed with a lot of gold so I guess I think we are the second note, we are the largest producer of gold at belief in Africa. Now we as always. This embrace if you can call it like this and called like that between South Africa and I believe Ghana is the biggest producer and exporter of gold, and I think the glasses test statistic that I read is Ghana's ranking number one. So we have a lot of good okay so this is not the only reason why the trip to Ghana is very attractive. Tell me something about the nature of their mountains as the jungle can I meet lions. They are crocodiles. Do you have you've got the ball to the lake. I think a very big Sweetwater Lake and horse holds the into the scenery, the landscape Ghana so Ghana apart from being blessed with a lot of gold. We have beautiful beautiful landscape and I would just over just like the listener to understand that just being yourself into the tropics right now. Feel 30°. Celsius just imagine, some being brave hearts and younger tropics. So this is the setting normally for visitors you will start Accra. The capital is correctly needed to and then you have the breeze of the ocean. The Gulf of Guinea, which is you will just feel is a mixture of hoarseness and the sea breeze so obviously it's very humid there. Once you move up a bit north, you will get into the rain forest very very dense but still hot and hello there is this, this, the heartland of God. So it's just everything fun, happiness, sadness. Every motion can think of is you can feel it, so you will have the rain forests. The wild animals of the rainforest and want to go start when you go up a bit further you are at the border to go from going out of the rainforest you will see your wild animals because there's a lot of human activity. There you will see your your graphs, your crocodiles are your elephants your seabirds but I don't. We don't have a lot of lions will have to disappoint you there. We are not and we don't have a lot of lines but will have a lot of elephants and so you and all kind of wild animals in the list is endless and if you if you don't go to the East that you will have our mountains that beautiful mountains there. Among the wood parts of the land value will have on this beautiful beautiful mountains which stretch to 222 two over to go to Benin and and in the border to Nigeria so I can really feel this this the warmth and the breeze and I see the LF and so it's really yeah it's really impressive how you described this. This place is beautiful place and we spoke about the cultural we spoke about history. We spoke about the gold and that I would like to spend another another episode to talk about and how to explore the how to explore the country if if you travel there because it I don't think there's much to reason like the typical tourism maybe some in Accra, but the rest of the country is probably just the way people live in Ghana and not very focused on tourism. Would you agree yes indeed I think you picking up picking up a bit. I don't know if you have enough time. I would elaborate a bit on that and I think before Karen is a 2019 and in cooperation with the American government that was this year called this year so this year called the year of return. So what does that mean it was before. I think the 400 yes anniversary of the first human captive in America, so they were arms and know how you can say that celebrating celebrating the 40 years of slavery, I believe, and a lot of descendents of these human traffic people of American Brazil were coming back and let you and I think a lot of people would come back and let Corona started so I think the second wave where a lot of people would have explored Ghana different from the descendents of the human captive and they weren't able to do that this year because of Corona and last year because of Corona made this into don't know how the situation with Karen will develop further. But I hope that it will just pick up in the of 2022 because there is a very beautiful country and it would also help the economy of our choosing will pick up in the sense of and the likes of Egypt's Morocco or Tunisia like in the northern northern African countries that would help the economy better. Hopefully without changing the character of the country because when I traveled to Egypt and I went into these tourist regions and I really felt very very uncomfortable because I thought that an culture can really really destroy its own character or personality. If you adapt too much to tourism and cultures. There would like to say that we can. And for me it's a sometimes a problem for me. We are very welcoming of the foreign that's part of our culture. So if somebody is coming from outside. All you see that somebody is traveling and is and has since arrived at his or her destination. We always ask Barbara so what translated into English and is very fabricated into our culture. We are very welcoming and to the foreign or somebody's coming from outside and in the past. I think the Europeans it didn't help that much. If you read the history books but in the case of two is my thing. It would very much help because of we really attracted to that foreign foreigners somebody so you and I don't think it will really change our culture or being because we are already very welcoming to people so I don't think that it would change because we don't have a problem with incorporating different and foreignness into our culture so we seamlessly adopted so it wouldn't really changes okay perfect. So let's talk about your country more next week because I'd really love to to get some some ideas of what to do what we explore apart from working elephants, etc. what you what to do in our crawl, what to what you see what sightseeing buildings which other big towns. Do you have what are the travel opportunities, etc. etc. okay so Richard, I'm really looking forward to this and turn yes so the last word is for you today. I just wants to thank you, Sven and I also want to thank you for giving the opportunity for giving me the opportunity to really am market my country and to showcase my country to our listeners and I'm very thankful and grateful for that. So thank you