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Welcome to Voices of Ancient Egypt, the podcast for people who don't just want to learn about ancient Egypt, but want to understand it on a deeper, more meaningful level. I'm Melinda Nelsonhurst, an Egyptologist with a PhD in the field and years of experience teaching at the university level, working in Egypt, and training students around the world to read real ancient Egyptian texts. I've spent decades studying the civilization in a traditional academic setting so you don't have to. And so you can access knowledge that's usually locked behind academic walls. This podcast brings ancient Egyptian history, beliefs, and language to life and shows you that learning hieroglyphs is possible no matter your age, background, or schedule. So whether you want to read hieroglyphs in museums, on social media, or on your next trip to Egypt, you'll find the tools, stories, and encouragement to make it real right here. Let's hear the voices of the ancient world together. Hello, hello, and welcome to the Voices of Ancient Egypt podcast today. As of recording this, there's just a few days left to enroll in my signature program Scribal School, which will take you from knowing nothing or a little bit about hieroglyphs to reading the most common hieroglyphic text you're going to see in museums, online, and on trips to Egypt. Doors close on Thursday, May 21st, so it's decision time. And with doors closing soon, you might be having the thought, this is really interesting. I want to do it, I want to learn hieroglyphs, but I'm leaning towards not joining. Or I'm not sure if I should sign up. So I wanted to talk a bit about that today, and I wanted to start by saying that this thought is not a stop sign. A lot of people think that if they have a doubt or questions or on the fence, that that means they shouldn't do it. But actually, many, many of my Scrabble School students who have gone on to love the program learn so much and then have amazing experiences in museums or on trips to Egypt were sitting in the exact same spot with the same doubts, fears, and hesitations. In fact, I'd say that more of my successful students had doubts before they started than those who didn't have doubts. And would you be surprised to hear that a lot of my most successful students tell me that before they signed up, not only did they have doubts, but they had actually decided that they weren't going to sign up. But then they couldn't stop thinking about it. Reading my emails, reading the Scribal School page, there was something in them that kept making them look and think about it. And it's completely natural and normal to question joining a new program, even when it's to learn something that you truly love and value. But you might think that the fact that you're even debating this is reason enough to pass. That if this were really the thing for you right now, you'd feel 100% certain. No questions. But I want to say very clearly that having questions in and of itself does not disqualify you or mean that you aren't ready. In fact, I have found that many of my most discerning students make the best, most thorough, most successful students of hieroglyphs. It's a great thing that you aren't jumping into this without a second thought, because that means that you're taking this decision seriously. And that tells me that you will be a diligent and detail-oriented student, just like many of my past students who had these same doubts and weren't going to sign up at first either. And here are some of the things that those students said held them back initially. They thought that it would be too difficult, or some of them felt they were too old or not good enough at languages. And the truth is, this one I hear a lot, and a lot of people get stuck in this because we have a general atmosphere, you could say, of how hieroglyphs are taught that really make it seem very difficult and harder than it needs to be. And the truth is, of course, that learning a language is never going to be like the easiest thing you do, right? But learning to read hieroglyphs is absolutely an achievable goal, even if you've never learned a language other than your native one before. And with the right method, resources, and of course, expert support, it's so much easier than you would think. And it's so important to have those elements because sometimes some courses out there, or certainly books, you might not understand something or have a question or something, and then you're just totally stuck because you have nobody to ask. And that's why I've designed scribal school for that to never happen. You have community support as well as support from me as an expert Egyptologist. And my student Mark had never studied a second language before in his life, and he really feared Egyptian would be too hard because of that. But now he's reading hieroglyphs in museums and even on friends' jewelry when he sees them, like when they're wearing a cartouche at a party and that sort of thing. And my student Marissa actually also had a similar concern. She really hesitated and at first she said she wasn't going to sign up because she was truly afraid that she would fail at learning Egyptian. She felt like this was just going to be too hard for her. But after just two months in the program, she was so excited about her progress. She told me, quote, learning a dead visually poetic language to the point of reading monuments is win enough. Other students of mine have told me that they thought this was something they could do. It wasn't that they didn't think they could do it from the beginning, but then they tried to learn it, either from a book or maybe multiple books, or surfing around on the internet, trying to hodgepodge together different resources, or maybe they even took another course, maybe even a formal university course. And it just didn't work for them. They felt like they learned very little, or maybe they learned some in the beginning, but then at some point they just got stuck. It was too complicated, full of academic jargon a lot of times. And also, most of those times in those situations, they had nobody to ask when they had a question or something was unclear, right? And this is so common because the way that Egyptian is traditionally taught, whether it's in books or in a class, honestly is quite broken. You might have heard me talk about this before because it really is such a true thing that I hear from not just everyday people and people who love ancient Egypt and want to learn hieroglyphs, but I even hear this from people who have PhDs in Egyptology. It's because it's a completely antiquated approach that goes against everything that we now know about how the brain works and learns. And that's why I created Scribal School in the first place, because I saw this huge need for people who wanted to learn this beautiful language and script, but who were stuck with resources that really just would not get them there. And it's really kind of a dangerous thing because people then, when they've tried in this kind of way, usually think the problem is them rather than the problem being the sources they were using because the methods were all wrong. But the truth is, it really is the method that's all wrong, and it's not you. And this is why Scribal School takes a completely different approach, focusing on teaching you exactly what you need to be able to read Egyptian texts, the ones that you're gonna actually see in places like museums or when you're surfing online, and on trips to Egypt, rather than obscure quotes used in textbooks, which is really most of what you get elsewhere. The curriculum also builds incrementally in a way that the brain can hook into and build understanding rather than learning a bunch of random things in a vacuum. And you can go at whatever speed you like. There's expert support from me every step of the way, so you never get stuck without answers to your questions, as often happens so much with a book or even other courses as well. And my student Karen had tried a traditional course before and was left feeling really frustrated because there was a heavy emphasis on the grammar rather than on reading the text you're gonna see. And the course moved incredibly fast, faster than anyone, certainly with a regular life, could keep up with. So she came to Scribal School wondering if anything could actually work for her and whether she should sign up. She was thinking, uh, it's, you know, I really didn't have a very good experience in the past that didn't work for me. Maybe this just isn't for me. I don't know if I should put my time and money on the line with this. But when I caught up with her a couple of months later, she told me that she was so glad she'd taken the chance because scribal school was such a great experience and she could read so much more now. And the third thing I hear from my successful students so much about why they initially weren't going to sign up for scribal school is that they thought it was going to take too much time and they just didn't have the time to learn hieroglyphs, time to devote to this passion that they have. And Ug, I really feel this one. I really do. As a parent with a teaching job, health challenges, an online business, and so many other life things going on. I know just how hard it can feel to commit to something new, no matter what that is. And even if it's in your best interest and if it's something that you're truly in love with and passionate about, this is such a common feeling because it feels like we have so much going on all the time, of course. And that's why I did create Scribal School to fit around modern life. First, you can go at any pace you like. So if you have a trip coming up soon and you want to go really fast, great. You can absolutely do that in Scribal School. In fact, when you sign up, you already get the first module within like 10 minutes of signing up and you can jump in immediately that day. But if you only have small amounts of time to work with and you want to spread out your learning over time, that's also great. And I mean that. I'm not saying it's just okay. It's actually a good thing because small increments of time spread out over time have actually been shown in research to be the most effective way to learn and really get things deeply embedded in your brain, like truly understanding and remembering, rather than studying in less frequent long blocks of time. And in fact, my student Mark, who I mentioned earlier, has never studied for more than about an hour total per week. And he's been thrilled with all of the hieroglyphic texts that he can now actually sight read just immediately when he sees them. The majority of lessons in Scribal School are under 15 minutes, and this is intentional so that this small block of things you're learning is actually a logical increment in learning, and so that you can actually fit this around a real modern life schedule, right? You could watch a short lesson one day, for example, and then work on the corresponding exercise another day, fitting in your studies wherever you have a little time, whether that's with your morning coffee, while you're relaxing after dinner, or perhaps during your lunch break. Those are all times my students have said that's when they fit in their, say, 30 minutes of hieroglyph study. Sometimes it's more, sometimes it's less. Because here's the thing: when it comes to learning hieroglyphs in Scribal School, you already know what's behind the no door, right? You know what you get if you say no to this opportunity. No feels comfortable because you know what to expect. Nothing changes. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's what's in your best interest or even what you want. The yes door is always going to feel uncomfortable, maybe even scary, because you don't know what's behind this door, at least not fully in all the details, right? And you can't fully picture it yet in your brain. So it feels risky. And that's exactly how my student Marissa felt when she was afraid she'd fail. She told me that she almost didn't sign up for Scribal School. And now she's not only mastered all of the common text that she sees in museums, she has moved on and gone even deeper into the language since then. And Amy, a student of mine from New Zealand, also told me that paying for a program on hieroglyphs felt risky to her, and she was worried that it might be completely beyond her understanding. But she told me that now she's so glad that she took the chance. She said, it certainly paid off. Now I have a feeling of achievement and cleverness, a buzz of, well, wow, I couldn't do that before. Feeling super pleased with myself. And Wiggs, who's also coincidentally from New Zealand, was worried that she was too old to learn. She was getting ready to retire. She was still working full-time, but she was close to retirement. So she was also concerned that she wouldn't have enough time. And she told me that she was so glad that she took the leap because now she's so excited and has increased confidence. And she even read a hieroglyphic text for a work colleague and made her gasp with amazement. And I can't wait until you join us in Scribal School and have wins just like Wiggs and all of my other students I talked about did. You can sign up at scribalschool.com and be off to the races immediately or whenever you like. You get an entire year of access to the program. So you can go at whatever speed you like and learn to read all of the wonderful text you're gonna see in museums, online, and on your next trip to Egypt. The doors do close on Thursday, May 21st. So you'll want to head over to scrabbleschool.com and grab your spot now.