🌍 JOIN TANDEM TODAY: https://tandem.go.link/lcLQH

Xena is an Italian content creator who grew up bilingual between Italian and French, with Senegalese roots and the sound of Wolof in her childhood home. In this episode of Connected By Language, she shares how a multicultural upbringing shaped her relationship with languages, why she once pushed away the language of her heritage to fit in, and how she now finds connection in places where words fail entirely, from dance trainings in China to dinner tables in South Korea.

The conversation follows her journeys across Asia, including the mistake so many Europeans make of assuming English will carry them everywhere, and the small cultural moments that no textbook can teach. Xena explains what she's really searching for in her random food adventures and unplanned encounters, why a stranger asking to take her photo turned into a lasting friendship, and why she believes anyone still figuring out where they belong is luckier than they think.

About the guest: https://www.instagram.com/xiexiexena?igsh=b2Y2ZDM4YnhzOXFz 

What is Tandem - Language exchange?

Tandem is a global language exchange app on a mission to connect the world through languages. Members build confidence and improve their language skills through real life conversations with native speakers in 1:1 chats or live audio rooms. 

🔗 Connect With Us: https://linktr.ee/Tandem_App

0:00 Intro

0:23  Italy, Senegal, and the Languages in Between

19:06 Falling in Love With Asia One Random Experience at a Time

26:59 When Two Cultures Meet and Neither Has the Words for It

44:53 What All These Worlds Gave Her That One World Never Could

🌟 What topics/language should we explore on the next episode of the new tandem podcast? Let us know in the comments! 

Thanks for watching Connected By Language: Polyglot Interviews, the new Tandem Language Exchange Podcast.

🌍 JOIN TANDEM TODAY: https://tandem.go.link/lcLQH

Guillaume grew up near Brussels as a monolingual French speaker who failed to pick up Dutch at school and thought languages simply weren't for him. In this episode of Connected By Language, he explains how discovering his own learning methods changed everything, eventually building up to seven languages at B2 level or above, plus a collection of others including Norwegian, Catalan, and Mandarin.

The conversation centers on how he combines this skill with animal rights activism. During an international outreach event in Amsterdam, Guillaume held 500 street conversations in a single month, half of them in languages none of the other activists could speak. He breaks down why addressing someone in their native language connects to their values in a way English never can, how the Socratic method opens minds that direct arguments shut down, and what humans and animals share in the language of communication itself.

About the guest: https://www.activism.wtf/

What is Tandem - Language exchange?

Tandem is a global language exchange app on a mission to connect the world through languages. Members build confidence and improve their language skills through real life conversations with native speakers in 1:1 chats or live audio rooms. 

🔗 Connect With Us: https://linktr.ee/Tandem_App

0:00 intro

10:17 What Polyglots Get for Free

14:34 Seven Languages in the Streets of Amsterdam

37:32 How to Have a Conversation That Actually Changes Something

52:53 The Language We Share With Animals

🌍 JOIN TANDEM TODAY: https://tandem.go.link/lcLQH

Katerina is a Czech language coach who moved from the Czech Republic to Germany at nineteen and built her career explaining Czech to German native speakers, a niche she carved out for herself. In this episode of Connected By Language, she talks about the fear and structure that shaped her own German learning journey, why she barely speaks her native language anymore despite growing up with it, and how one supportive teacher taught her the difference between knowing a language in theory and actually living in it.

The conversation moves into how Katerina built an online language business from scratch, starting with a simple system of learning one new word a day and turning it into pre-recorded courses, coaching, and in-person retreats in Prague. She shares her philosophy on staying human on camera, why she never tries to convince hesitant students, and what she believes anyone starting a language business needs to understand about finding their own reason before chasing scale.

About the guest: https://www.tschechisch.online/

What is Tandem - Language exchange?

Tandem is a global language exchange app on a mission to connect the world through languages. Members build confidence and improve their language skills through real life conversations with native speakers in 1:1 chats or live audio rooms. 

🔗 Connect With Us: https://linktr.ee/Tandem_App

0:00 Intro

0:22 From Forced to Fluent

17:22 Why Most People Fail at Languages and What Actually Works 

44:22 What It Actually Takes to Turn a Language Into a Living

1:05:22 What She Would Tell Someone Starting From Zero

🌟 What topics/language should we explore on the next episode of the new tandem podcast? Let us know in the comments! 

Thanks for watching Connected By Language: Polyglot Interviews, the new Tandem Language Exchange Podcast.

🌍 JOIN TANDEM TODAY: https://tandem.go.link/lcLQH

What happens when the people who are supposed to teach you tell you you'll never make it?

For Natascha Moser (@german.language.coach), influencer with 400,000+ followers, and incoming managing director of Expo Lingua, that question shaped everything.

In this episode, Natascha shares how years of being told she had no talent in her own mother tongue became the foundation of a coaching philosophy built on identity, belief, and starting before you're ready.

We talk about her move to San Diego with a failing English grade, her semester in Buenos Aires where she studied human resources in Spanish (yes, really), and what it actually takes to thrive in a language beyond just moving to the country.

About the guest: https://www.instagram.com/german.language.coach/?hl=en

More about Expolingua 2026: https://www.expolingua.com/

What is Tandem - Language exchange?

Tandem is a global language exchange app on a mission to connect the world through languages. Members build confidence and improve their language skills through real life conversations with native speakers in 1:1 chats or live audio rooms. 

🔗 Connect With Us: https://linktr.ee/Tandem_App

0:00  Intro

0:19  The Things They Said

29:38 Proving It In the Real World

48:19  Building a Philosophy From a Scar

1:03:08 What Language Still Owes Her

🌟 What topics/language should we explore on the next episode of the new tandem podcast? Let us know in the comments! 

Thanks for watching Connected By Language: Polyglot Interviews, the new Tandem Language Exchange Podcast.

🌍 JOIN TANDEM TODAY: https://tandem.go.link/lcLQH

Petr is a Czech linguist and freelancer who spent years treating English as just another school subject, until an early internet language exchange site opened up the world to him. From there he taught himself Russian in his thirties, not because he had to, but because he was drawn to the post-Soviet world and the vast geography a single language could unlock. He passed a B2 exam, traveled to Georgia to put his skills to the test, and built quiet long-lasting friendships along the way.

Then February 2022 arrived. When Ukrainian refugees began flooding into his city, Petr showed up to volunteer at the reception center, speaking a language he had learned entirely for personal curiosity, now suddenly needed in the most human way possible. In this episode we get into what that experience felt like, what a crisis teaches you about language that no classroom or app ever could, and how a hobby you build slowly over years can matter enormously in a single unexpected moment.

About the guest: https://freelancing.eu/petrloucka/

What is Tandem - Language exchange?

Tandem is a global language exchange app on a mission to connect the world through languages. Members build confidence and improve their language skills through real life conversations with native speakers in 1:1 chats or live audio rooms. 

🔗 Connect With Us: https://linktr.ee/Tandem_App

0:00 Intro 

4:36 From Classroom Boredom to Real Motivation 

11:34 Building Russian From the Ground Up 

38:33 The Moment It All Meant Something 

54:43 The Dream That Started It and the Reality It Became

🌟 What topics/language should we explore on the next episode of the new tandem podcast? Let us know in the comments! 

Thanks for watching Connected By Language: Polyglot Interviews, the new Tandem Podcast.

🌍 JOIN TANDEM TODAY: https://tandem.go.link/lcLQH

Rafael is a Korean native speaker who started teaching Korean online after noticing how many people in Prague were desperate to learn the language during the height of the K-pop and Squid Game wave. What began as a casual side project turned into a full career… Until he followed his Spanish partner back to Europe, landed in Barcelona without knowing a word of Catalan, moved to Madrid, and suddenly found himself on the other side of the classroom for the first time in his life.

In this episode we get into what makes Korean both more logical and more nuanced than most learners expect, why so many Koreans can read and write English perfectly but freeze the moment they have to speak it, and what teaching a language for years teaches you about it that simply speaking it never could. We also get into Rafael's current approach to Spanish: the classic textbook, the public language school, the Spanish partner, and a playlist of classic Spanish hits that he sings along to alone at home… which he insists is working!

About the guest: https://ochikortutor.com/koreanclass

What is Tandem - Language exchange?

Tandem is a global language exchange app on a mission to connect the world through languages. Members build confidence and improve their language skills through real life conversations with native speakers in 1:1 chats or live audio rooms. 

🔗 Connect With Us: https://linktr.ee/Tandem_App

0:00 Intro 

8:31 Growing Up Inside the Korean Education Machine 

19:29 Teaching Korean to the World 

39:51 The Spanish Adventure 

51:07 What the Classroom Looks Like From the Other Chair

🌟 What topics/language should we explore on the next episode of the new tandem podcast? Let us know in the comments! 

Thanks for watching Connected By Language: Polyglot Interviews, the new Tandem - Language Exchange Podcast.

🌍 JOIN TANDEM TODAY: https://tandem.go.link/lcLQH

Jonatan grew up in northern Sweden with Eritrean parents, speaking both Swedish and Tigrinya at home, and was promptly labeled the math kid while his more extroverted sister got the language person title. That label stuck until a passionate Spanish teacher named Lars changed everything, and what started as a school subject eventually took Jonatan through Spain, six years of medical school in Hungary, fluency in Hungarian, Russian, and several other languages, and back to Sweden with a completely different understanding of what languages are actually for.

In this episode we explore what it really means when a doctor speaks a patient's native language, why the difference between a direct conversation and an interpreter goes far beyond words, and how Jonatan turned a quiet longing for his polyglot community into Stockholm Polyglots, a growing nonprofit that brings language lovers together every two weeks across ten languages at a time. We also get into the Hungarian saying he opens every event with, and why he believes every language you speak makes you a more complete human being.

About the guest: https://polyglots.se/

What is Tandem - Language exchange?

Tandem is a global language exchange app on a mission to connect the world through languages. Members build confidence and improve their language skills through real life conversations with native speakers in 1:1 chats or live audio rooms. 

🔗 Connect With Us: https://linktr.ee/Tandem_App

0:00 Intro 

4:14 The Language Person He Was Not Supposed to Be 

13:31 Language in the Hospital Room 

35:11 Building the Community Sweden Forgot to Build 

43:32 What Seven Languages Taught Him

🌟 What topics/language should we explore on the next episode of the new tandem podcast? Let us know in the comments! 

Thanks for watching Connected By Language: Polyglot Interviews, the new Tandem Podcast.

🌍 JOIN TANDEM TODAY: https://tandem.go.link/lcLQH

Ali Alradhi grew up in Basra, Iraq, surrounded by brothers who traveled the world and spoke English fluently. At twelve, he asked for a dictionary instead of a toy, started reading five to ten pages a day without knowing why, and spent the next decade quietly building an obsession that would take over his entire life. By the time he was twenty two, he had turned down Arabic music, Arabic friends, and anything that wasn't in English, bought a one-way ticket to Turkey, and started over from scratch.

In this episode, Ali walks us through how that radical self-taught approach shaped the way he now runs Just English, a language school in Turkey where English is the only language allowed in the building. We get into what it actually takes to hire great teachers, why mindset always comes before grammar in his classroom, what English genuinely represents for people in Turkey who desperately want it but can't always access it, and why he believes the word "impossible" is just another entry in the dictionary.

About the guest: https://linktr.ee/alawiiiz

What is Tandem - Language exchange?

Tandem is a global language exchange app on a mission to connect the world through languages. Members build confidence and improve their language skills through real life conversations with native speakers in 1:1 chats or live audio rooms. 

🔗 Connect With Us: https://linktr.ee/Tandem_App

0:00 Intro

2:07 From Basra to Fluency

13:30 Building a Multilingual Classroom

47:20 What English Really Means in Türkiye

56:30 The Outsider Advantage

🌟 What topics/language should we explore on the next episode of the new tandem podcast? Let us know in the comments! 

Thanks for watching Connected By Language: Polyglot Interviews, the official Tandem Podcast.

🌍 JOIN TANDEM TODAY: https://tandem.go.link/lcLQH

Frank grew up in London convinced he was simply bad at languages. Seven years of French at school, five of German, and not a single conversation to show for it. So at twenty-two, fresh out of university, he did the only logical thing: bought a one-way ticket to Buenos Aires with no contacts, no savings, and barely enough Spanish to order a coffee.

What followed was equal parts terrifying and transformative. In this episode, Frank walks us through what real immersion actually looks like from the inside: the supermarket anxiety, the elevator small talk, the football team he joined by pretending he understood every word, and the pandemic lockdown that unexpectedly turned Argentina into home. We also get into how that journey eventually led to a language teaching career, a viral moment on Instagram, and a philosophy about fluency that has less to do with grammar and everything to do with the confidence to just keep going.

About the guest: https://www.instagram.com/frankly_speaking_english/

What is Tandem - Language exchange?

Tandem is a global language exchange app on a mission to connect the world through languages. Members build confidence and improve their language skills through real life conversations with native speakers in 1:1 chats or live audio rooms. 

🔗 Connect With Us: https://linktr.ee/Tandem_App

0:00 Intro

 4:24 From “Bad at Languages” to Moving Abroad

14:45 Designing Immersion & Building Real Fluency

44:47 Turning Language into Career & Leverage

58:58 Reflection & Mindset

🌍 JOIN TANDEM TODAY: https://tandem.go.link/lcLQH

Luke is a British-born polyglot who grew up in a national park in northern England, spent his adult life living across eight countries, and now works at a French language school in Lille, advising, testing, and reassuring students from all over the world who come to learn French in an immersive environment. In this episode, he shares what years of living abroad and watching hundreds of students succeed and fail has taught him about what language learning actually takes.

We go deep on the psychology of learning: why attitude almost always outweighs environment, what Luke calls the "tea bag effect," and how the fear of speaking to native speakers holds people back far more than grammar ever could. We also zoom out into the bigger picture: how the dominance of English threatens minority and regional languages across Europe, why France and the UK couldn't be more different in how they handle linguistic diversity, and why Luxembourg might just be the quiet model no one talks about enough.

About the guest: https://www.instagram.com/lukielingual/

What is Tandem - Language exchange?

Tandem is a global language exchange app on a mission to connect the world through languages. Members build confidence and improve their language skills through real life conversations with native speakers in 1:1 chats or live audio rooms. 

🔗 Connect With Us: https://linktr.ee/Tandem_App

0:00 Intro

4:10 From England to France: A Life Built Around Languages

11:44 Working in Language Education

40:00 Language Diversity & Rights in Europe

57:19 Reflections & Advice

🌟 What topics/language should we explore on the next episode of the new tandem podcast? Let us know in the comments!