Love, Joy, and Languages

In this Season 4 finale of Love, Joy, and Languages podcast, I share and celebrate language learning wins from listeners across the globe. Real life stories from real life language learners, inspiring us to see every bit of progress along our language journeys. In this episode, you'll hear stories from four language learners who recognize a variety of wins in their language lives. The achievements they've shared with me for this episode are inspiring for language learners of all types, ages, and levels. The languages they're celebrating include Spanish, Esperanto, Chinese, Catalan, and Occitan, plus my own wins regarding German and Italian. Some of these language lovers are still at the beginning of learning their languages, and others are futher along, but one common theme is that they see the value in celebrating the multitude of accomplishments along the way.

This episode is made for you, my listeners. Every win we have matters. No achievement is too small. Every success is significant, and every win is worth celebrating. Join me in today's season finale episode by cheering on those who shared their stories with me and for everyone else out there working on your new language. Take a moment to reflect on your own wins, and celebrate them! Feel the pride. Give yourself a round of applause. Brag about it on social media. You're doing great, and you can be proud of yourself and your achievements.

Instagram or X accounts for those who shared success stories in this episode:

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More language learning podcasts for you to check out:

My favorite Italian podcasts:

My favorite German podcasts:

Other language learning podcasts I've been on:

About Esperanto:

I invited a very special language learning and language loving friend to co-host this episode with me and chat all about the joys of language learning. This is a very familiar voice in the language learning community, and it's such a pleasure to have Kerstin Cable of Fluent Language and The Fluent Show on Love, Joy, and Languages! We had an absolute blast talking about loving languages and finding joy in learning them. This chat is extra special for me because I don't think this show would exist without Kerstin and her Podcasting 101 course. Big thanks to Kerstin for putting so much goodness out into the world!

In today's episode, Kersin and I talk about celebrating our language achievements, the value of self-work and appreciating your own personal journey, language exams and the excitement of the process, lots of German language, the link between language and culture, Kerstin teaches me a bit Welsh (you'll see why this language can easily become an obsession!), and Kerstin shares some of her favorite language things and people.

Learning a language is a long road, and there are so many challenges along the way, but something that keeps us in the language learning world is all the joy we find in the process and the community. I hope you enjoy listening in to my chat with Kerstin, and I hope it reminds you of all the exciting things you find in your own language life.

The Fluent Show episodes mentioned in this episode:

Other content mentioned in this episode:

Kerstin can be found at:

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Affirmations, or statements that affirm positive beliefs to you about you, are an excellent way to build yourself up. I use affirmations in many areas of my life, both general and specific, inlcuding language learning. They help remind me of my truth and keep me aligned with my morals and identity. Affirmations aren't about lying to ourselves or trying to fake it 'til we make it. They're about affirming true statements that we believe, at our core, so that we don't forget who we are, and that help us act in accordance with our true selves.

Today's episode is full of meditative affirmations geared toward language learners. Have you ever considered what you believe about yourself as a language learner? Especially when things are stressful, and we feel like we're failing, we start to believe things that aren't true. We start to believe that we can't learn a language, that we're failures, that we're lazy, and so much more. These negative thoughts, while they feel true in the moment, aren't our real truths. Affirmations help keep us grounded in who we really are and in what we're really capable of. They pull us out of the negative spiral more quickly and remind us that negative moments don't define us.

I hope you enjoy today's episode and are able to find many affirmations that you know are true to you. Take what you know to be true, what you really believe, and let that be a foundation of truth that you can tell yourself always, especially when you start feeling out of alignment with who you know yourself to be. Write out more affirmations that you know are true, and don't forget to be kind to yourself.

If you want to read more about affirmations, here are a few sites to get you started:

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In today's episode I talk about extensive reading for effective language learning. Like I said in last week's episode, extensive input can be an excellent part of any language journey, but it can also go wrong. I feel very lucky that I didn't give up when it went very wrong for me. During my year-long project to boost my Italian to B2, extensive reading was one of my main (and favorite!) methods. Today I share a bit of my language journey and the early struggles I had trying to read in Italian, and then I share exactly what I did to make this method work for me in improving my language throughout the intermediate levels. I talk about all the reading sources I used, and also the ways in which I saw my Italian language improve.

Language learning can be a very long journey, and it can feel like we're never going to get where we want to be. So it's very exciting and motivating to be able to look back and see exactly how my language has improved and what worked to get me there. I hope to inspire you all, as well, not just to read more (though that's always something I hope to inspire), but also to keep going. Find what brings you joy in languages, stick with what's working for you, and take note of all the ways your language journey is improving. I guarantee it really is improving.

Other content mentioned in this episode:

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In this fourth episode of "Good Advice Gone Wrong," a segment in which I highlight some really good language learning advice that can also go wrong, I talk about input, input, input. Do all the reading and all the listening all the time! Language folk give this advice all the time, and I can't deny that it's got some amazing benefits, but it isn't a guaranteed path to success. Today I share three ways in which tons of input is great for languages bubut also three ways in which it could go wrong and has gone wrong for me. I finish up with three things you can do to make this method go right for you, if it's something you want to do.

There are countless methods for learning a language, and I believe that all of them are good, but they aren't all good for everyone. Instead of just giving language learning advice, this recurring segment focuses on reasons specific pieces of good advice may not work for everyone. So if this method isn't for you, that's okay. I love sharing this segment in order to spark creative ideas for how we can mold advice and shape it into something that does work for us, if desired, and I hope to inspire you to discover your own creative, personalized language learning journey.

If you like this episode, you can check out the other Good Advice Gone Wrong episodes:

Other content mentioned in this episode:

Read more about getting lots of input for your language learning:

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It's inevitable in our language learning that the reality of where we are on our journeys or what we're able to do doesn't match up with what we expected to happen. I know for me, this usually leads to be feeling frustrated, getting mad at myself, wishing I'd made different choices, and many the guilt and shame are overwhelming. What can we do to bounce back from this? What can we do when reality doesn't meet expectations in our language lives in order to move forward in a positive and helpful way?

Today I share one of my very personal realities that hasn't met what I expected. I work through the feelings I've felt about it, the negative thoughts, and then the process of working toward a way ahead instead of remaining in my anger and frustration. Something interesting I realized as I was talking this out is that the journey I go through when reality doesn't meet expectations mirrors the five stages of grief, ending in acceptance and being at a place where I can logically decide what to do next.

If you struggle with langauge journey expectations, especially with how to handle things when your language reality doesn't match up, give this episode a listen. Hopefully it sparks some inspiration for all language learners to process your own feelings and find a place from which you can continue the language learning that you love.

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Today's episode is not to be missed! I had the distinct pleasure of sitting down with Emily Harris, the language loving woman behind Language Travel Adoptee, a YouTube channel aimed at helping others gain confidence in their language learning through self awareness and personal growth. Emily shares a lot of her own personal experiences learning languages as a high achieving perfectionist, a transracial adoptee learning the language of her birth country, and all the very intricate intersections of her life. Today we focus a lot on authenticity in language learning, but particularly from the aspect of content creation in a world like YouTube where content is often tailored toward clicks and likes and less about the authentic reality of oneself.

It was so good to finally get to sit down with Emily and talk about some of the harder things many of us face in our language lives. She and I share many similarities in the history of our personalities and mindset, as well as similarities in our growth stories through navigating language learning in a holistic way. Don't miss the links below, where you can find and connect with Emily.

Connect with Emily:

Other content mentioned in this episode:

More interviews with Emily:

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Today's episode is just a little reminder to meet your language learning energy where it is, not where you want it to be. It's too easy to push ourselves too hard or to be hard on ourselves when we aren't pushing, especially when we start to compare the intensity of or time spent with our languages to what it was a few days or months ago. What's important is to give yourself grace and realize that any tiny thing can change our energy. We move forward in a healthier way, and we maintain a better relationship with our languages and our entire language journey when we accept our energy as it is, meet it there, and do only what we really can.

Go easy on yourselves, language learners. If you're feeling low on energy, don't push yourself beyond what you can do. And definitely don't make yourself feel bad for it. Know that just as your energy went down, it will go back up. You're doing amazing!

Related Episodes From The Language Confidence Project:

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In today's episode I'm talking more about what I think of language projects, the benefits of framing language activities and goals as projects, and what types of projects you could jump into in order to boost your skills, confidence, and motivation in your languages. Anything can be turned into or framed as a project, and for some it may just seem like semantics calling some of these things projects. I can't explain it, but for some reason, framing regular ol' language exercises, activities, and goals as "projects" actually makes a difference in how I approach the thing and the likelihood of me finishing it while gaining the language along the way.

I hope you get something out of today's episode, and I would love to hear from you! Please reach out to me or leave a response below if you're listening on Spotify, and let me know what language projects you've taken on, what ones you want to do, or just what you think about this way of framing language tasks. I look forward to learning from you!

Links from this episode:

Lingua.com* for learning languages through reading short texts.

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After a break to finish preparing for and actually taking my Italian CILS B2 exam, I'm back with a few reflections on this project I took on to take my Italian to the next level. As I studied and prepared for this exam, I noticed a lot of differences between how I was approaching it versus how I used to study and prepare for tests. It was a much less stressful experience, and no matter what my results are, I know I've got a lot to be proud of!

Links from this episode:

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