James is originally from Mobile, Alabama, though most will struggle to hear any Southern drawl when he speaks. This is likely because he dedicated 25 years of his life to studying and working with linguistics and target-language pedagogy. Following his initial studies, he spent 20 years working in education, primarily teaching German, French, and Spanish as foreign languages to teenagers of various backgrounds and from many different countries. He was based in Mexico City, Seoul, Frankfurt am Main, and Berlin.