| Kristine Kershul | |
| Birth Name: | Kristine K. Kershul |
| Birth Place: | 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 |
| Notableworks: | 10 Minutes a Day Book Series 10 Minutes a Day Audio Series Language Map Series |
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]