All right, welcome back to the podcast, everyone.
On this episode, we're gonna hear from the creators
of the popular Let's Learn Croatian podcast,
Uncle Mike, Tony D, and DJ Moe.
Living in Southern California,
we're gonna hear about their Croatian connection
and the story behind the Let's Learn Croatian podcast.
Guys, thanks for coming on the All Things Croatia podcast.
Hey, thanks for having us.
Yeah, thank you for having us so much.
Yeah, of course.
Excited to do a little sort of cross promotion here.
I think you guys are the first rival podcast I've had on.
Oh, yeah, we're all teammates here.
Let's hope we're teammates.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I'm totally kidding, totally kidding.
Love what you guys are doing.
The Croatian language is so tough.
I mean, I literally came, moved to Croatia
just to learn Croatian. Wow.
So, I'm excited to learn a little bit more
about what you guys are doing.
But sort of before you get into that,
can you tell us a little bit about yourselves
and your Croatian background?
Yeah, I'll go first.
I'm Uncle Mike.
Yeah, my parents were both born and raised
in former Yugoslavia, which is now Croatia,
and they moved here to the States when they were younger.
I'm a first generation born here,
grew up around Croatians mostly,
learned how to speak Croatian
before I learned how to speak English.
So, kindergarten was a scary first day of learning English.
So, Croatian was a big part of my life.
A lot of family, a lot of friends
kind of growing up in that environment.
And yeah, go to Croatia as much as I can.
I still have some aunts and uncles over there,
some cousins, extended family.
So yeah, definitely a big part of my life.
Awesome, awesome.
Well, I'm not Croatian.
Yes.
I grew up in this town,
in this town being an offshoot of Los Angeles, California
called San Pedro,
and essentially the huge Croatian population.
So, I went going to public schools
and having all my friends being a mixture
of a lot of people,
but the majority of them being Croatian.
I met this guy.
I also married a Croatian.
There you go.
So, I'm definitely in the mix and in the family now.
I got jumped in, so to speak.
So, so far so good.
I've been hearing about Croatia most of my life
from a lot of my friends.
I got to meet their parents and their beautiful people
and all their family, extended families.
And I've been hearing about Croatia for a very long time.
So, I was finally happy to see it in person
a couple of years ago.
So, yeah.
Well, I think I'm the furthest away from Croatia
or the furthest away from it all.
I actually met these gentlemen a long time ago
and that was my first introduction to Croatian,
the culture, the language, the food, everything then.
And then with this podcast here,
and I did, was born here in Southern California,
but had nothing to do with the language and culture
and idea of Croatia or Croatians themselves
until Uncle Mike here.
But that's my character as well as being real life,
Tony D on the podcast.
I get to learn everything and mess it all up.
Yeah.
Yeah, a new learner, definitely a fresh learner,
fresh learner, no background to it, right Tony?
Not at all.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, it's super helpful, especially,
I mean, cause if you teach Croatian
and you're around Croatian and do you,
the things are obvious for someone who's just learning,
it's definitely helpful to have someone
ask those kinds of questions during the podcast
and things like that.
You mentioned, you guys are in San Pedro
and of course there's a huge Croatian population over there
before the podcast or aside from the podcast
and even current stuff, were you guys,
or are you guys involved at all in the community over there?
Me personally, no.
I mean, I've definitely have some family,
some distant friends, like there's a Croatian hall
on 9th street and it's actually between Gaffi and Grand
on 9th street, it's actually a,
this is called Croatian Place or Croatian Way,
it's dedicated to where the hall that was built there.
A lot of Croatians will have their festas there,
whether it's Independence Day or it's Komiska Noć
or I think they have lunches every Wednesday
where a lot of the diaspora will come through,
whether it's the older generation, younger generation.
I'm personally not super connected to it,
besides the friends, close friends and family I have,
but Moses, have you ever been to Croatian hall?
Yeah, I've been there.
Yeah, so a place I pass by,
but I personally don't dabble too much.
Yeah, my biggest connection is this podcast and my family.
That's kind of where, as far as it goes,
as far as the podcast concerned, we definitely-
Oh, the World Cup thing.
Oh yeah.
They had a whole block party.
Yeah, they did.
Massive down there.
Yeah, that was a wrap.
I'm sure it was crazy over there.
Yeah.
That's awesome.
I mean, you mentioned the podcast again,
and that's sort of what we're on here
to talk about the Let's Learn Croatia podcast.
When did you guys start that
and how did that sort of come about?
Story goes, it was my wife and I and my kids,
because I got two kids,
we were gonna head out to Croatia for the first,
my first time, their first time.
So basically my wife was gonna introduce me to the family,
what have you, this is after we're married,
obviously with kids now.
And so this guy, Uncle Mike here,
he's out of the blue, just hits me up,
he's like, hey, you're going in a month or so,
you should check out these lessons I did with Tony,
like years ago for his own niece and nephew,
for their own trips.
And so this is the old content he's given me,
and he only gave me, I think, three audio files.
Yeah, well, it was only three lessons that Tony and I did,
just very, very basic, hello, good morning,
good afternoon, good evening, thank you, please,
just super, super simple stuff.
And, you know, like kind of experimenting with microphones
and that was all it was.
And then- It's been great.
If you're going to Croatia here, you know, and then-
This may help you, like you may be able to find a bathroom
or like you may be able to say hello and good night,
you know, that's super simple stuff.
And for me, I was like, I heard it and I was like,
well, this is super helpful, but it's very, very small.
Like, and there wasn't enough for me to kind of like,
fully like, like once I said, don't run down to somebody
and they hit me back with something else,
I was like, screwed.
Yeah.
I was like, where do I go with this?
Not only am I disappointing them, I look dumb,
I can't be able to go any further than that.
Yeah.
And so I asked for more.
And so I, after a while I demanded more
because it took a lot of arm twisting
for this guy here, Uncle Mike.
Tunnel beat was definitely a bit more like, yeah, I'm down.
Yeah. You know?
Anything to hang out with these guys.
So- Yeah.
So by the way, we've all known each other for 20 years.
So it's just another opportunity for us to hang out.
But that's kind of where the podcast came from
is the inception of like, I want to learn more.
I want my kids to know more.
And obviously living in this community,
we know a lot of people in the same boat.
Their kids have not heard enough of it,
don't get exposure to it.
And we want to continue to do that for them,
especially in a roundabout way where it's easy to absorb
and open to all.
And that's the biggest thing.
I don't want a lot of podcasts out there.
People, there are a lot of language out there
that is not fitting for a child to listen to, in my opinion.
Yeah.
So we wanted to keep it as clean as possible.
Like I want a parent driving their kids to school
and they could turn it on and not worry that
uncle Mike's going to drop an F-bomb
or I'm going to say something really negative.
You know, if we're not doing that on this podcast,
you just want to make it open to all.
So a lot of positivity and everything through learning.
Yeah.
Did those lessons help at all when you went to Croatia?
Yes, they did.
I will say that I still get to a point where I can't get passed.
You know, there is that speed bump that I hit
and sometimes they can't get over it.
Sometimes they can.
And a lot of times it was just information that I knew
that I didn't have available in my brain at that very second.
I remember the first, like my last visit,
because I've gone three times now, my last visit, my aunt's,
no, no, my wife's uncle, he was telling me, he was like,
he's like, oh, you came, you know, I was like,
I'm not going to repeat it for you because I'll butcher it.
But he's like, oh, you came and it's so hot.
Did you bring the sun with you?
And I was like, Sun Chen, Sun Chen, Sun Chen.
That's all I could do in my mind.
I'm like, what is he talking about?
And it just, I couldn't connect it.
I just got off a plane and I felt really bad.
But I got the most of up until that point.
And I was like, man, it's sunny, duh.
Yeah.
You know, for me personally, I find it's a lot easier to,
oh, sorry, I find it's a lot easier to understand
when someone is talking to someone else that I'm with,
I'm listening to them talk,
but then when someone's talking to me directly,
I feel like I process slower or I free up a bit.
Is it because you have it in another language prior
and then you have to transpose it in your mind?
Well, yeah, yeah, that's it.
Yeah, it's not automatic enough yet.
Yeah, yeah, I'm with you.
Yeah, well, so from the original audio clips,
so you guys, that wasn't with puppets
or anything at that point, or was it?
No, no.
So I think I did a few lessons for my nieces and nephews.
I might've been close to 10 years ago,
and then kind of handed them out to whoever needed them.
And then in fall of, I think you went summer of 2019,
then we started the podcast in the fall of 2019.
And then as we've kind of been going with it
and let's give it a try, and then someone's like,
hey, how about a YouTube with puppets?
Because we were like, not really crazy.
I wasn't crazy about putting, let's say,
my face to it right away.
And the puppets with our YouTube channel
is like a fun way for kids to see language being spoken.
And it's more of, my personal thing is our audience
is our Moses's children.
And whoever gets, everyone's gonna get the most out of that.
Because if you're gonna do like simple conversation
for children, it'll definitely translate for everyone
as well, adults too.
So.
Myself especially.
And Tony's included in that, yeah.
And Tony Beats.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, it's a great visual way
because you see the words spelled out.
And obviously they don't sound exactly the way they look,
but you kind of get the understanding.
And especially where things are silent
or where things have a little hat on it,
and it's weird.
Yeah.
It makes sense.
Yeah, definitely being able to visualize
the words that you're seeing.
Well, I mean, you guys have a pretty big audience
on YouTube.
You have like 4,000 and something followers,
I think on YouTube.
You guys are also, what you released as audio as well
on Spotify and Apple podcasts and those sort of things.
Correct, yes.
Yeah, so we do a podcast twice a month.
We try to do, we started the YouTube channel
maybe a year after.
So we're trying to steadily playing catch up
with just, let's say the YouTube channel
is just the lesson portion of our podcast.
So the podcast is gonna have our mail bag
of people that write to us.
We'll do a lesson portion.
DJ Mo does a super slavka report,
kind of a cultural report,
a bunch of goofy dad jokes mixed in there.
And so the YouTube was a little bit more refined
on just the lesson section.
So I see.
So for like cultural report,
that's about Croatia things going on over there or?
Yeah, it's essentially a report on,
super slavka report.
It's basically anything that I find interesting
that is connected to Croatian in some shape or form,
whether it be sciency,
whether it be history based kind of stuff.
The hikes that you were talking about?
Even trails that have gone on and things of that nature
that I think are interesting that someone
that may not know too much as a kid,
would go, oh, that's cool.
Cause there's so many things Croatia's been,
touched upon by many,
I would say empires over the years, right?
You got your Byzantines, your Romans, the Greeks,
and it goes way back and there's so much history there.
And there's a little bit of a story for each one.
And you just gotta pick one out and they're all amazing.
So I always find them super interesting.
So I try to make them as interesting for everybody else
and just really report on something that caught my eye,
but I think would catch somebody else
if they heard about it.
Me too, that ghost story trail thing.
Oh yeah.
That stuck in my brain.
The underwater aqueduct river thing,
it's stuck in my brain.
I mean, there's so much cool stuff
that I've never been to Croatia.
So that's obviously like ultimately my trip,
my dream trip.
Because of all the things that I've heard in the,
super sloth report,
I have a huge list that I probably never leave
so I can complete all of that.
But yeah, also food, also sports.
We just talked about the 98 World Cup team
in our last episode.
So yeah, everything and anything, Croatian.
Artists, sculptors, musicians, big time, everything.
Okay, so if you only want the language lessons,
you can go on YouTube for that and watch the puppet show.
But if you want the whole thing, culture, music,
a little bit about everything,
the full podcast is available.
Yeah, yeah, most definitely.
Awesome, well, I'll let you guys shout that out right now
before I forget where you can sort of find
what the YouTube handle is,
where you can find the podcast,
any other sort of social medias.
Sure thing, yeah.
YouTube is basically anywhere you go and find your,
I'm sorry, podcast is either iTunes, Spotify,
Apple Play, whatever it is, but it's Let's Learn Croatian.
That's our podcast name, right?
So that's kind of all up there.
We have a website called let'slearncroatian.com.
Facebook is LLC pod.
Instagram also LLC pod.
YouTube channel is another, it's Let's Learn Croatian
and you'll see our little lessons and you'll see,
as you see in the video here,
if whoever's watching the video, we have three puppets.
It'll have a nice subtitle mix there of all the lessons
about the lesson sections that we do.
Yeah.
Awesome, awesome.
And I'll drop links, of course, in the episode description
so you guys can go and click on those as well.
Excellent.
Someone mentioned the report, or no, not the report,
where you open fan mail or mail from-
That's Tony, yeah.
Yeah, well, can you talk a little,
because I wanted to ask, how do you guys measure
the success of the podcast?
Or what makes it worth it for you guys?
Do you hear from people saying,
oh, I'm learning so much or thank you so much,
this and this?
I think the biggest, I guess, heartwarming,
feel-good moments have been anyone learning.
I mean, honestly, it's been an amazing sight to read.
People from all around the world that stumble upon us
that have been recommended to them,
but it's all about family and history
and being able to reconnect or connect further
with family and whether it's their history,
their lineage of being from Croatia,
but now in Brazil or New Zealand or wherever.
Canada, Argentina, Australia, Indonesia.
Yeah, seriously, all over the world and in random places.
Wherever they migrated from, hearing from them,
at least being able to say, this has inspired us
to learn more about our history, our heritage,
our family lineage.
And it's wonderful.
It's wonderful to see where everyone has gone
and migrated to.
So then reel them back in and say, hey, remember Croatia?
Remember family?
Remember where we came from?
And they share that with us.
And that's really nice to see that.
Even if it's their first episode or their 98th episode,
they're still interacting with us and letting us know
that they're still listening and it's inspiring.
It's a really cool, that's success to us, definitely.
Yeah, getting those kinds of emails are fun, definitely.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, that's an awesome feeling.
I mean, I feel the same way,
because that's the goal of this podcast as well,
what I'm trying to do as well.
But yeah, that's just the best feeling
because I as well am trying to reconnect with my roots
and become closer to the Croatian language,
Croatian culture and all that.
So yeah, really, it's heartwarming
when you hear that others are going through the same thing
because of what you're doing.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
It's great though that you're able to be so inspired
to move there and be within it.
That's a big step.
That's a huge, big step.
Yeah.
Yeah, well it started smaller.
It gets you experience all of that.
Yeah.
How small?
I was gonna come for three months originally.
Okay.
A three month language program.
And now I've been here a little over two years.
Oh wow.
That's awesome.
Yeah, awesome.
Very cool.
Just kept month by month, I kept extending
and then all of a sudden now I'm here.
Yeah, yeah, wow.
But you're in Zagreb you said, right?
Yeah, I'm in Zagreb.
Yeah, I mean, it's super nice.
In my opinion, the best sort of all-around,
year-round city in Croatia.
I see.
Because the coast of course is beautiful.
And of course during the summer,
I'm gonna go down to the coast,
but the winter and stuff,
it's a little bit slow down there.
The city's nice.
Yeah, definitely.
Which is nice too, but I don't know.
For me, I'm used to being from LA.
I'm sort of used to the city life a little bit more.
So for me, Zagreb's a little closer to home.
Beautiful.
I believe that I'll get a video from you guys, right?
That I'm attaching to the end of this podcast?
Yeah.
Yes.
Just so I'll alert people right now who are listening,
who will be listening,
there's gonna be a video here at the end of this.
And before we cut to that,
I just got a couple sort of fun questions for you guys.
Sure thing.
Quick questions.
One piece of advice you can give for learning Croatian.
I'll do that is keep it simple.
Cause I remember learning German in school,
let's say college,
and then going to Germany and only having like a very
like book rooted conversational way of speaking.
And I was looked at like I was like, who is this guy?
You know, like talking like a professor to everybody,
but Croatian, yeah, like learning a little bit of dialect,
a little bit of slang is very, very helpful
with connecting to people big time.
Big time.
I agree.
Yeah, definitely agree.
This is for all three of you.
Favorite, well, I guess for two of you right now,
favorite food when you're in Croatia.
I believe that's Tony D who will soon soon go to the parade.
Hopefully.
Go ahead, DJ Mai got mine.
Oh, go there.
Well, I mean, whenever I go,
I know I'm gonna have to have Burek.
You know, so I'm gonna have to have Burek
and I'm gonna have to have a Rajnici, right?
So that's kind of the barbecue is that pork
and then with French fries.
And then for me over there,
the big thing is the fresh vegetables and the fresh fruit.
Such a different quality of food versus the stuff
that we get in Southern California.
That's coming from everywhere over there.
That's such a different flavor
where I feel like the freshness is I'm all in.
I'm all in over there.
Yeah. That's huge.
That's an amazing treat.
Is it that I joke about it.
I'm like the farm to table thing is legit over there.
Yeah. That's all they do.
Yeah. Yeah.
They just go in the garden with a couple of sheets,
with a pair of shears and then bring something back
and they cook it up.
But for food wise, like I'm gonna reflect mainly
on what like my wife's aunt and uncle make for us.
A lot of times it's the salata pomodori.
It's so amazing that the tomatoes are just like,
this guy makes fun of me.
He's like the only tomatoes that you know
what he prior to going to Croatia was ketchup.
And you know, he's not that far off.
The pomodori over there are just phenomenal.
And then also another thing that my family over there
would make or will make or undo make is
they go on tic pizza.
There's like these little pancakes that are,
they're like fried.
What would you call them?
Dreaded squawk.
Dreaded and fried.
Oh, it's so bonkers good.
Oh my God.
And then any of the wine that my,
that they make over there too,
that they're their homemade wine.
Oh, so great.
So good.
Yeah.
I feel everything just hits different over there.
Everything really does.
It really does.
What, here's another one for the two of you.
What makes Croatia so special?
I mean, I guess all three.
I mean, you're, Tony, you're involved, you know,
in the culture too as well.
And the diaspora over there in San Pedro.
I mean, for you guys, what, you know,
what makes it so special?
You know, why are you guys doing what you're doing?
Oh, I guess I could say what makes it special
from the outside looking in
is the dynamics of the culture.
I know being a like Mexican heritage,
there's culture there as well,
but seeing like the overlap
and then also seeing like the passion that everyone has.
Plus there's just, there's so much
in such a small space of a country.
So seeing all of that in there, it's just exciting.
I think for me, obviously it's family for me, you know,
and there's a lot of memories from childhood,
but one of the like the special things for me for Croatia,
especially you probably could write with this,
coming from Los Angeles and going over there,
especially Dalmatian coast,
just the speed of life is way slower.
It's like every day is more appreciated
versus kind of powering through the day
and trying to accomplish as much as you can here
in the States.
So over there, I do respect that more where free time,
you know, like social time is a little bit more cherished
versus let's say here in the States, you know,
like traffic jams.
When the tourists hit hard in Croatia, it can be bad,
but you know, LA traffic is just a lot more important
in everyday part of life.
So I do appreciate that so much
of the slower lifestyle, definitely.
Yeah, these two guys got some really good ones in there.
The only thing I could connect with again
is the family thing, you know,
like I grew up similar to Tony, Mexican heritage, you know,
I'd go to Mexico as a kid
and I'd enjoy being with the family
and really kind of pulling it all in,
like all the sights, the sounds, the smells and everything.
And then going to Croatia
and just having that same mentality as a kid,
like mindset, just soaking it all that in
and just being part of it, like, oh wow,
it's cleaner than where I go to.
I went to Mexico City as a kid,
my eyes would tear getting off the plane just from the smoke.
So very different going to Croatia,
but the beauty, the nature, I love it all.
It's such a great, you know, visit.
And there's parts of me that go,
oh, this reminds me of Mexico.
Oh, this reminds me of Mexico as a kid, you know,
all these things, seeing my kids being,
enjoying it the way I enjoy things
and not like, you know, on my journey.
So that's like me living through them a little bit.
So that's also really special.
Yeah.
Awesome.
Wow. Yeah. Great answers, you guys.
That's awesome.
Before I let you go, I've got one more question for you
and then stay tuned everyone,
because we're going to hit you
with the video coming right after.
But your favorite, no, artist, Croatian word,
most difficult Croatian word or favorite?
Your choice.
Oh, Tony, I know what your favorite is.
Kiki Riki.
Well, I mean, obviously, I was thinking hardest.
No, I mean, they're all hard to me, but.
Kiki Riki for sure.
It's a fun word to say.
I mean, there's a lot of fun words
that I've noticed in the language, but.
Hard words you're probably not going to remember
how to pronounce.
I mean, they all just fly out of my brain.
Yeah, there's a lot of tongue twisters
and a lot of crazily spouted words
that it's crazy.
It's smordljivo, that's one of my favorite ones, stinky.
Like they got the smordljivo marked
and it's a bug called the stinky bug.
Smordljivo, stinky, that's one of my favorites.
I just like saying svarno for everything.
Especially when like my in-laws are over at a house
or I'm at their house and they're speaking to each other
in Croatian and going way too fast
with my ear to pick up and I'll always be like, svarno?
And they both stop and look at each other like,
did he catch all that?
And then I walk away letting them know
that maybe I didn't catch all that.
I don't even know what they're talking about,
to be honest sometimes.
So I'll let that pass, but svarno's a good one.
Yeah.
Moje too.
Moje actually helps a lot.
And I say da a lot now.
That's in all my vernacular.
I text people da and they're like,
what are you talking about?
I like to say cekaj.
Cekaj, cekaj.
Cekaj.
Cekaj is a good one.
I think moje over here is the word that I use
like most frequently.
Like for any other svarmoje, half the time
I don't even know what they're offering.
I think I know what moje is.
Yeah, it's impolite to say no.
So moje kind of covers it all.
Yep.
That was over one time I was at the like cafeteria
over here at the University of Zagreb
and I asked the lady, you know, what are,
I thought they looked like big steaks.
And I was like in the back of the line
and no one was taking them off the rack.
And so by the time I get there,
by the time I get there, they're still there.
I asked the lady in Croatian and you know,
I was like, štaj ovo?
Like, what is this?
I didn't understand what she said.
So I was just like, oh, moje moje.
And I took this and then I looked on the receipt
and I like Google translated what it was
and it was liver.
That's why.
I had three huge like juicy liver steaks
and I couldn't eat it.
It was just.
No, that one I could never cross over to either.
Yeah, liver, no way.
Pass.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, a lot for me.
But you guys, I really appreciate you taking the time
to come on here.
It's really awesome what you guys are doing
for the community, for the Croatian language
and helping people, you know, like myself
and like yourselves learn and stay, you know,
in tune with their Croatian culture and heritage.
We'll hit the video right now,
but I just wanna, you know, thank you guys again
for coming on the podcast.
Puno Hvala, Samko, Puno Hvala.
Puno Hvala.
Thank you.
Yeah, Hvala Vama.
Či, deti šat!
["Follow Us"]
So let's get things going with the lesson here.
So at the beginning of the show,
you heard three goofballs yell something loud, right?
It was, and what you heard, you heard tri, četri, sad.
So it's a really cool little thing where,
in English, at least in American English,
we say either ready, set, go,
or we say one, two, three.
But in Croatian, they say three, four, now.
Go, go!
Don't forget to hit subscribe.
And smash that like button.