To celebrate 10 years of the English with Kirsty podcast, I’m creating a 10-part series to celebrate 10 different forms that learning can take.

The final part of the series is about learning through Volunteering. I had a number of people who wanted to be involved, so in the end I decided to split this into three conversations. The third and final part is with Colette Myler, whom I met back in 2021 when we were attending some of the same international networking events together.

What did we talk about?

I really wanted to show some of the different ways in which people can be volunteers, so I spoke with people doing very different roles. We talked about:

Find out more on the show notes page: https://englishwithkirsty.com/podcast/episode291/

To celebrate 10 years of the English with Kirsty podcast, I’m creating a 10-part series to celebrate 10 different forms that learning can take.

The final part of the series is about learning through Volunteering. I had a number of people who wanted to be involved, so in the end I decided to split this into three conversations. The second part is with Diana Silva Franco, whom you may remember because she was also my guest in episode 219.

What did we talk about?
I really wanted to show some of the different ways in which people can be volunteers, so I spoke with people doing very different roles. We talked about:

🎧 Diana’s story – why she decided to volunteer and which organisations she chose.
🎧 The skills and knowledge that Diana brings to her volunteering roles, plus some of the things that she enjoyed
🎧 Some of the things that Diana has learned through their volunteering experiences – one of which was to go in with an open mind and be prepared for the role to change, depending on the needs that arise.
🎧 Exploring different parts of our personalities as we explore our additional languages
🎧 Tips for getting started with volunteering .

Find out more about Diana and the organisations mentioned in our episode here: https://englishwithkirsty.com/podcast/episode290

To celebrate 10 years of the English with Kirsty podcast, I’m creating a 10-part series to celebrate 10 different forms that learning can take.

The final part of the series is about learning through Volunteering. I had a number of people who wanted to be involved, so in the end I decided to split this into three conversations. The first one is with Sónia Rio and MIRIAM SANTOS FREIRE – both independent professional colleagues from LinkedIn whom I didn’t know very well before we got together on Zoom.

What did we talk about?
I really wanted to show some of the different ways in which people can be volunteers, so I spoke with people doing very different roles.We talked about:

🗣 Sónia and Miriam’s stories – why they decided to volunteer and which organisations they chose.
🗣🗣The skills and knowledge that they both bring to their volunteering roles
🗣 Some of the things that my guests have learned through their volunteering experiences.
🗣 Some strategies for finding time and managing it so that there’s enough to support others through volunteering
🗣 Tips for getting started with volunteering.

Thank you both for joining me on the podcast - it was wonderful to get to know you better! And thank you also to @diana and @colette, whose episodes on this topic are coming soon.

Links to all of the organisations that we mentioned are listed on our episode's page, so go and have a look if you want to learn more about them.

You can find the show notes page with my guests' LinkedIn links and all the links for the organisations here: https://englishwithkirsty.com/podcast/episode289/ 

Do you have any stories that you'd like to share about what you've learned through volunteering?

I met Laura at one of my networking events and decided to have a chat with her on the podcast because we’re offering something similar for different source languages. I work with people who translate from English and who want to feel more confident when speaking it. Laura has a new service to provide support for people who want to communicate more confidently and spontaneously with customers in German.

We talked about:

Laur’as story and how languages became part of it

You can connect with Laura on LinkedIn if you want to carry on the conversation or find out about her services to help you speak more confidently in German - https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-schartmann/

If you are a freelance translator and you want to reactivate your spoken English, you can find out more about my programme here: https://englishwithkirsty.com/english-speaking-skills-for-freelance-translators/

Access the full show notes page here: https://www.englishwithkirsty.com/podcast/episode288

I've recently come back from a week away and I spent some time reflecting on time. How I organise mine. What happens when you try to cram too much in and how that leaves no room for spontanaity. How having a different relationship with my to-do-list would make me happier! It's a week since I recorded the episode now and so far, the changes that  I put in place are still working!

I also started thinking about what it means when we say that we have no time for things. Sometimes it just means that we're in a super busy period and it feels as though we don't have time for anything. But I mean more generarlly. Are we really saying "this isn't a priority for me right now"? or "I don't actually want to do this thing, but it's easier to say I don't have time"? Or "I'd like to, but I don't have time because I need to set some different boundaries with myself or others"? Or maybe it's more of a case of how we organise our time and build things into our schedule to make sure there's room for them.

We don't need to justify ourselves, but at least for me, I found that exploring what I really mean with these four words - I don't have time - gave me some interesting insights into my own time management! How about you?

Find out more on the show notes page - https://englishwithkirsty.com/podcast/episode287/
Or connect with me on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirsty-danielle-wolf-a8478235/

To celebrate 10 years of the English with Kirsty podcast, I’m creating a 10-part series to celebrate 10 different forms that learning can take.

Part nine of the series is about learning through podcasting. Not just listening to podcasts, but hosting them! I decided to give myself the challenge of inviting guests whom I didn’t know so that I would meet some new podcasters too. David has been to a couple of my networking events and I met Nina and Lisa for the first time on the call.

We’ve all had different experiences in terms of starting our podcasts, but we discovered a lot of parallels too! When you start a project such as a podcast, you inevitably learn a lot about yourself, it brings new opportunities, and you develop all kinds of skills that you may not know you needed 😀

We discussed, among other things:

🗣 Why we all started our podcasts
🗣 What we’ve learned through the experience of having a podcast
 🗣 Some of the new opportunities that having a podcast has brought us
🗣 Our advice for anyone who is thinking of starting a podcast
🗣 Future plans and what we’re working on at the moment.

So if you’ve been thinking about starting a podcast, let these experiences inspire you and don’t forget to let us know when your first episode is online so that we can come and support you!

Access the show notes page and find all the links here: https://englishwithkirsty.com/podcast/episode286/

Don't forget to check out Translation Treasures and Source 2 Target too!

To celebrate 10 years of the English with Kirsty podcast, I’m creating a 10-part series to celebrate 10 different forms that learning can take.

Part eight of the series is about learning through conferences and what we can learn through attending, speaking at, or organising them.

I wanted different perspectives – geographically, in terms of specialisations, and to have different types of conference represented as well. So I put together our panel of five guests whom you’ll meet in this episode - Suzie, Anna, Silvie, Andrea, and Aída.

It’s interesting how the main theme that ran through the answers was around community and connection rather than specific memorable talks and presentations! These were some of the topics that we discussed:

 

Click through to the show notes page to find out more about the guests and for links to the events that were mentioned in the episode: https://www.englishwithkirsty.com/podcast/episode285

I met Marina online in 2024 when I attended one of her LocLunch networking events. Since then I've been following her content and I started noticing some posts about age-inclusive language. This isn't something that I'd thought much about previously, but I wanted to look a bit deeper into the topic - firstly because I think it's important, but also because it's relevant to what I'm trying to do here with the podcast.

We all use language. Many of us are working in multiple languages, but every day we have choices about the language that we use, the way we express ourselves, which words make it into our own vocabulary and which ones we choose to avoid. If we are more intentional about the way we speak, we will not only communicate better, but we also have a chance to be more inclusive and contribute to the changes that many of us want to see.

I have plans for content on other aspects of inclusivity, but today we're focusing on age-inclusive language.

Marina provided a lot of links and further reading. The text on the show notes page is not a transcript, but it gives some context to the links and how they fit into our discussion. We covered other topics too though , so access the episode for the full benefits and find all the extra information here: https://www.englishwithkirsty.com/podcast/episode284

To celebrate 10 years of the English with Kirsty podcast, I’m creating a 10-part series to celebrate 10 different forms that learning can take.

Part seven of the series is about learning through mentoring.

I’m not an expert on this topic, but I’ve read about many official or unofficial programmes which match mentors and mentees to promote growth and learning. I also knew that Women in Localization has a mentoring programme, so I decided to try and find out more about it and discover what people have learned through the experience of being a mentor or a mentee.

Tamara Tirjak and Teresa Toronjo are my guests in this episode. Whilst they are currently working together as a mentor/mentee, they both have experience of both roles.

We talked about:
• Tamara and Theresa’s stories, including their links to the topic of mentoring
• The Women in Localization mentoring programme and how it works
• The difference between mentoring and coaching
• What both of my guests have learned and enjoyed through their involvement in mentoring programmes
• How lerning through mentoring has helped both of my guests, personally and professionally
• Some of the myths around mentoring and how things are in real life
• What makes a good mentor or a good mentee?

You can find out more and access our links on the show notes page: https://www.englishwithkirsty.com/podcast/episode283

If you are eligible and you’d like to sign up for the Women in Localization mentorship programme, you can find out more about it here: 
https://womeninlocalization.com/resources/mentorship-program/

Thank you Tamara and Teresa for sharing your stories and insights with us and exploring this topic of learning through mentoring.

Have you been a mentor or a mentee? What did you learn from the experience?

6/10 Learning through music

To celebrate 10 years of the English with Kirsty podcast, I’m creating a 10-part series to celebrate 10 different forms that learning can take.

Part six of the series is about learning through music and how we can encorporate music into our language learning journeys.

Who would be a good person to talk with me about this? It had to be someone who is not only passionate about music, but who could bring together mucic and language learning with real-life experiences and a story that demonstrates how powerful this combination can be! So I invited my friend Rita Prazeres Gonçalves back to do another episode with me.

We talked about – among other things:

🗣 Rita’s story and the relationship between her love of music and her interest in learning English
🗣 How we can use music to improve our language skills – in terms of vocabulary, pronunciation, and deepening our understanding of the language
🗣 How doing our own transcriptions can be a valuable way to learn (listening comprehension, spelling, conjugating verbs etc)
🗣 How we can make informed choices about which types of music to work with
🗣 Getting to know different parts of our personalities in our different languages

Let us know if you would be interested in a workshop to explore this topic further.#

Are there any songs in your additional languages that have helped you in some way or that are important to you?

Find out more on the show notes page: https://englishwithkirsty.com/podcast/episode282/
And check out Rita's podcast, The Language Worker,  here: https://www.youtube.com/@thelanguageworker1616