By Nausicaa Chu
It is not often that people say you look like Natalie Portman. It’s even less likely for this to happen on the streets of Germany while you are researching Ukrainian technology and perfecting your German-language skills.
But Laura Aughtman frequently finds herself in unusual situations. In fact, her trip to Germany was but one leg on a journey that has taken her to Ukraine and Poland to founding her own company teaching people—ranging from a Brazilian real estate agent to a French PhD student—any of the four languages in which she is fluent.
After graduating from Samford University in 2023, Aughtman founded Lauri Speaks, LLC, where she teaches English, Spanish, German and Russian to clients from 13 countries. One week, she taught English grammar to students from Latin America, caught up with a Polish tutor and created an English slang course with a business partner in Ukraine.
But the most unusual part of her globe-trotting journey might be how it started: in her mother’s car and a Russian-speaking dance studio. “I basically started studying Spanish as a child because of my mother,” she says. To encourage Aughtman to learn, her mother began putting Spanish-speaking CDs in the car. “I really enjoyed it,” Aughtman says.
Aughtman picked up another language in dance class, when she was surrounded by people from the former Soviet Union. “I started learning Russian just to understand ‘What are they saying? Are they talking about me?’” she laughs.
At Samford, Aughtman majored in Foreign Languages and International Trade with a concentration in German. “I decided that learning German was probably going to be a good step in business,” Aughtman says.
Though she had worked as a Russian tutor with the Critical Languages Scholarship Program, a U.S. Department of State initiative, during her time at Samford, Aughtman did not decide to teach professionally until traveling to Ukraine in 2021. “That’s what inspired me to start teaching,” says Aughtman. “I met English teachers in Ukraine who were just absolutely amazing.”
Little did she know, the war would start just five months later. “I was super lucky to get to go,” she says.
Aughtman stayed connected to Ukraine through her internship at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, the think tank for the CDU party, on her trip to Germany in 2023. At the foundation, she researched Ukrainian administrative technology and interviewed Ukrainians she had already met. “I did a presentation for that organization. And honestly, I’ve never felt better about a presentation in my life,” says Aughtman.
In Germany, Aughtman also studied at the Freie Universität Berlin, or Free University of Berlin. In the intensive program, she immersed herself in the culture and language of the country—and discovered that many Germans thought she resembled Natalie Portman. “It is super strange, but it’s funny,” laughs Aughtman. “This seems to unite everyone I meet.”
When not traveling, Aughtman continues to build her company. As a language acquisition coach, Aughtman adapts her teaching to the goals of each client, with the belief that anybody—no matter how busy or affluent—can learn a language.
“People are under this impression that, ‘if I can’t afford to travel, I can’t fully learn the language, so why should I even start?’ And I would say that’s 100 percent false,” says Aughtman, noting that she learned Russian before traveling to eastern Europe.
Instead, Aughtman encourages her clients to practice “self-immersion” by listening to music and podcasts on a daily basis. “I’m like, listen to this every single day, and you’ll be so surprised,” she says.
Aughtman also works with organizations, teaching practical applications of languages. “I’m jumping directly into phrases to help them understand expressions people say in real life so that they feel confident quicker in that language,” she says.
As a cultural integration consultant, Aughtman emphasizes the importance of learning about culture while studying a language. “For me, language and culture aren’t synonymous, but they’re pretty inextricably intertwined in a lot of ways because the language has so much to do with how people think,” she says.
She recalls explaining to a Russian speaker that while in Russian, the phrase for ‘never mind’ is ‘forget it,’ saying ‘forget it’ in English sounds rude. “I would have to tell them, ‘hey, it’s never mind,’” she says. “But as learned Russian, I understood that that’s how they speak it, and it’s not negative.”
Such distinctions are small yet important to master on the road to fluency. But Aughtman notes that many learners tend to run into the “intermediate wall,” in which the “language barrier” becomes an actual obstacle to progress.
“It’s basically when you’re okay on a language, and you feel comfortable talking about a variety of topics, but you don’t feel like you’re yourself,” says Aughtman. To help readers overcome this block, she compiled her strategies in an E-book called Breaking Barriers: Freeing Your Mind to Acquire Foreign Languages. “These are the things that I developed to get over that stage,” she says.
Though much has changed since she began learning Spanish in her mother’s car—she has traveled the globe, written a book and taught students from many backgrounds—Aughtman continues to follow the passion that brought her on this journey in the first place: her love for learning languages.
Currently, she is studying Ukrainian, Polish and French. “I get so excited to start learning a language, because it really does so much for your brain, for your worldview and the amount of people you get to meet,” says Aughtman. “It has changed my life in every single way.”
For more information, visit laurispeaks.com, @Lauri.Speaks on Instagram or “Lauri Speaks” on Patreon.
