Exhaling Words

Passive listening is often used as an excuse or as a ploy to reel in learners; but it really has value when used properly. This week, I want to look at how passive listening can help us internalize a language's phonotactics or syntax, and how it can be critical in building up fundamental skills and advanced proficiency. Check it out! 

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Language learning is hard on its own... but when we add to it the trauma that we can acquire through being beat down and unsupported by our teachers and peers, it becomes even harder. Sometimes previous trauma keeps us from starting a new language. And other times, our personal identities hold us back. This week, I want to talk about my struggle with trauma and how it's affected my study of Persian over the years. 

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Aspiration? Voicing? Ejectives? Beatboxing?! And Armenian?! This week I explore the difficulty of certain sounds for native English speakers and the idea that linguistics can be used to make language learning easier. Check it out!

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What makes a language difficult? How can we compared difficulty between languages? Should we even try to categorize languages by "difficulty?" This week, I want to explore the FSI (Foreign Service Institute) scale of language difficulty and talk about other factors that might weigh into how difficulty or easy the language-learning process can be.

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Why do we study languages? Why motivates us? What demotivates us? And how do we know when that (de)motivation is at the tipping point? This week I explore the importance of desire and motivation in choosing a language to study and seeing through your study… or not…

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The F Word? How dare we talk about FLUENCY on this podcast! Today, I want to briefly explore the world of language proficiency and fluency and problematize language proficiency tests, unbalanced language skills, and changing proficiency levels, all while offering you my approach to the word "fluent." Let me know what you think.

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What is an article? What does it do? Can articles do more than just define a noun? Could they possibly do the opposite of their surface meaning? Find out this week as I talk about the value and use of the definite article in Arabic and Hebrew, and a peculiar use of the Persian indefinite article.

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What words do we use to describes studying words? Today I want to talk about what is "linguistics," "historical linguistics," and philology," as these are terms that come up when I describe what I do. I also get into the details of language contact, language development, and how these are seen in morpho-syntax. If you make it through the episode and still want more, be sure to subscribe for more language nerdery!

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What is the one thing you never as a lady? Her age! In this episode, I walk you through the diversity, and similarity, between the way a number of languages express age. Was your language not included and it has a special construction? Let me know and I'll be sure to feature it later, as I'm sure this topic will come up again.

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The number one question Erin receives on the internet is to explain what languages she's studied, when, and how. So, in Episode 2, Erin attempts to condense 16 years of language-learning madness into 30 minutes. Hopefully it answers all your questions... and makes you think of 100 more!

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