Linguist,Teacher
Creator of the 10 Minutes a Day Series and the Language Map Series
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Kristine Kershul | |
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![]() Kristine Kershul, Rwanda | |
Born | Kristine K. Kershul Oregon, U.S. [1] |
Occupation | Author, Publisher Linguist, Teacher Creator of the 10 Minutes a Day Series and the Language Map Series Founder and President of Bilingual Books, Inc. |
Education | Undergraduate and Graduate Degrees in German Languages and Literature [2] |
Genre | Foreign Language Learning |
Notable works | 10 Minutes a Day Book Series 10 Minutes a Day Audio Series Language Map Series |
Website | |
www |
Kristine K. Kershul is an American author, publisher, linguist and teacher. Kershul founded Bilingual Books, Inc. in 1981 with the publication of her first book, German in 10 Minutes a Day and the development of the 10 Minutes a Day Series. [1] [3] She has authored books, audio, phrase guides and interactive computer software for 20 languages.
Kershul attributes her lifelong passion for languages to her family. [2] [4] She grew up in a trilingual home [3] [5] where in addition to English, her father spoke Croatian and her mother spoke Danish. [1] [2]
Kershul studied in the U.S., [5] then took her academic endeavors to Heidelberg, Germany where she earned her undergraduate and graduate degrees. She received a second graduate degree from the University of California at Santa Barbara and then went on to do her doctoral studies in German Languages and Literature. [2]
Kershul worked her way through school as a bilingual tour guide, traveling all over Europe and parts of Asia and Africa. [3] [4] [5]
She also served as a translator for the U.S. Embassy in Bonn, West Germany and for Berlitz in Europe and the U.S. [6] She spent ten years teaching at universities in Germany and the U.S. where she noticed students experiencing the same problems. They were self-conscious speaking and Kershul wanted to help them progress to the level where they were laughing and using the language comfortably. [2]
The idea for her first book grew out of what she observed as a teacher and a traveler. [3] [4] [5]
Kershul saw the need for a language instruction method that would not intimidate or frustrate beginning students. [6] She wanted to fill the gap between text books and traditional phrase books. She developed a fresh approach to learning a foreign language, which remained academically solid while geared to the traveler. [1] [2] [4] [7] In 1981 she designed and wrote her first book, German in 10 Minutes a Day, which was the beginning of a series of language-learning books that launched Bilingual Books, Inc. [6] By the end of the first ten months, Kershul had authored a total of five books, adding French, Spanish, Italian and Chinese to create the 10 Minutes a Day Series. [3] In the next three years, she would add Inglés, Norwegian, Japanese, Russian and Hebrew languages to the Series. [6]
In 1988 Kershul sold her company to Sunset Books and Magazine. She moved to Cape Town, South Africa and spent the next six years traveling around the world. [1]
In 1995, Kershul reacquired Bilingual Books and moved back to the Pacific Northwest to base the company out of Seattle, Washington. [1] In the following years, she expanded the breadth of languages to 20 and added new product lines with the creation of the Language Map Series, the 10 Minutes a Day Audio Series, and the 10 Minutes a Day software. [8]
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