Speaking Tongues Podcast: Celebrating Voices, Stories, and Flavors From Around the Globe

Hello Language Lovers! Thank you for joining me for this episode of Speaking Tongues- the podcast in conversation with multilinguals. Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Tamara, the founder of Spanish con Salsa and the host of the Learn Spanish con Salsa podcast and this week, we’re discussing her language of Caribbean Spanish.

If you’re listening to this show then you surely know that Spanish is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world with over 500 million speakers. Spanish also has many regional dialects, the Caribbean dialect being one of them. Beyond Puerto Rico, Cuba and the Dominican Republic, this region also includes the Caribbean coasts of Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, Panama and others.

In this episode, Tamara tells us how she first came to the Spanish language through fitness and music and then furthered her abilities in Spanish through traveling to places in the Caribbean region. We talk about music and lyrics in salsa and bachata songs and we take a quick detour into talking about some of her favorite musicians in these genres.  Tamara talks to us about how she was able to learn the language on her own largely without needing to rely on structured courses and classes - which in my opinion is incredibly admirable. We talk about indigenous & African words and language usage in the Spanish speaking Caribbean, accents throughout the region including how the pronunciation differs from country to country and we discuss the importance of understanding Caribbean culture beyond the resorts, the sun, sand and sea.

Big thanks to Tamara for this thoughtful conversation and for sharing your journey with us. If you enjoy this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review the Speaking Tongues Podcast on Apple Podcasts or like and subscribe on YouTube so that other language lovers like ourselves can find the show! And, If you’ve been a long time listener of the show or a recent listener, you can now support the show on Buy Me a Coffee dot com. Links to all platforms are in the show notes! 

To Find Spanish Con Salsa

Website: https://www.spanishconsalsa.com/

Podcast: https://www.learnspanishconsalsa.com/podcast

Speaking Tongues Podcast:

Follow on IG: @speakingtonguespod

Follow on Twitter: @stpodcasthost

Like our Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/thespeakingtonguespodcast

Buy me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/speakingtongues

YouTube Page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJFOPq3j7wGteY-PjcZaMxg

Hello Language Lovers! Thank you for joining me for this episode of Speaking Tongues- the podcast in conversation with multilinguals. Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Ikhlas, a teacher and journalist who has come to join me to discuss her native Arabic dialect and the German language.

In this episode, we’re talking about learning languages in Palestine and hearing different languages throughout multi lingual Jerusalem. We talk about Arabic words spoken throughout the Levantine dialect and how vowel usage in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine can change the same word throughout this region. Ikhlas tells us about Palestinian dialects from the big city to the countryside and she shares the unusual way she came to learning the Polish language in school in Jerusalem. And finally we talk about life in Germany, the German language and how she found herself one day becoming a teacher of Arabic in Germany.

We also talk about Palestinian culture and the unfortunate reality that so many Palestinians face of racism and violence in their country toward the middle of this episode, and while we don’t go into graphic detail, I do want to give a trigger warning for this conversation.  Big thank you to Ikhlas for this thoughtful, thought-provoking, funny and emotional conversation and for sharing your journey with us. If you enjoy this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review the Speaking Tongues Podcast on Apple Podcasts or like and subscribe on YouTube so that other language lovers like ourselves can find the show! And, If you’ve been a long time listener of the show or a recent listener, you can now support the show on Buy Me a Coffee dot com. Links to all platforms are in the show notes! 

To find Ikhlas:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ikhlasschumacher/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ikhlas.schumacher?comment_id=Y29tbWVudDoyMDU0MTY0MTMzMjQwMjVfMjA3Njg4NTA5NzYzNDgy

Arabesk Cookbook:  Buy Amazon US / Buy Amazon DE

Speaking Tongues Podcast:

Follow on IG: @speakingtonguespod

Follow on Twitter: @stpodcasthost

Like our Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/thespeakingtonguespodcast

Buy me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/speakingtongues

Hello Language Lovers! Thank you for joining me for this episode of Speaking Tongues- the podcast in conversation with multilinguals. Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with John who has come to join me to discuss the Irish language.

In this episode, we talk about Irish as it’s seen and spoken in Northern Ireland where John is from. He tells us about some differences between how the language is used there vs in the Republic of Ireland. We talk about Hiberno-English and how there are some surprising connections between English spoken in Ireland and English spoken in the United States. John walks us through some particular qualities of the Irish language and we talk about how the language itself has become more visible in recent years.

In a brief diversion, John tells us how he has been taking steps to learn Manx and we even have a quick comparison lesson on some words and phrases in these Celtic languages. And of course, we couldn’t go an episode talking about Ireland without discussing the culture and some of the big myths and misconceptions held around the world about Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Big thank you to John for this thoughtful conversation and for sharing your journey with us. If you enjoy this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review the Speaking Tongues Podcast on Apple Podcasts or like and subscribe on YouTube so that other language lovers like ourselves can find the show! And, If you’ve been a long time listener of the show or a recent listener, you can now support the show on Buy Me a Coffee dot com. Links to all platforms are in the show notes! Ok, let’s chat!

Speaking Tongues Podcast:

Follow on IG: @speakingtonguespod

Follow on Twitter: @stpodcasthost

Like our Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/thespeakingtonguespodcast

Subscribe on YouTube!

Buy me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/speakingtongues

Hello Language Lovers! Thank you for joining me for this episode of Speaking Tongues- the podcast in conversation with multilinguals. Today, I have the honor of speaking with my guest Thando about her language of IsiZulu and about amaZulu culture.

Thando talks to us about growing up in kwaZulu Natal - an isiZulu speaking region of South Africa but speaking isiXhosa at home. We learn about language education during apartheid and what kind of access students had to their own languages and world languages and its lingering effects of this time in South African history. Most of all, in this conversation we learn a TON about the ins and outs of isiZulu including the prefixes one uses to determine the subjects we’re discussing, dialects and speech patterns of isiZulu speakers throughout kwaZulu and some similarities between isiZulu & isiXhosa. We also find out what isiZulu verbs have in common, which sounds we should be focusing on in isiZulu and Thando is giving THE ultimate lesson in clicks which I encourage you all listening to follow along with. Spoiler alert: I make a ton of mistakes but that’s all a part of learning a new language! And there’s even a portion of a song that gets sung in this episode in which you will find out which one of us has the singing voice of an angel!  Another thing to take note of,  in this conversation, when you hear the word “colored” please know that in South Africa, it applies to a multiracial ethnic group native to Southern Africa and does not carry the negative stigma that it does here in the US.

Huge massive thank you to Thando for this conversation and for sharing so much of your language and culture with us. I don’t know about anyone else listening but I’m 100% ready to visit South Africa again! I will be setting up a Patreon soon with extras that didn’t make it into the final conversations so stay tuned for that because Thando and I talked about so much more than what you will hear in this episode.  If you enjoy this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review the Speaking Tongues Podcast on Apple Podcasts so that other language lovers like ourselves can find the show! And, If you’ve been a long time listener of the show or a recent listener, you can now support the show on Buy Me a Coffee dot com. Links to all platforms are in the show notes! 

To Find Thando:

Instagram@ zuluwiththando

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCItccl2467atXjy_A7xBFZA

Website: https://zululessons.com/

Speaking Tongues Podcast:

Follow on IG: @speakingtonguespod

Follow on Twitter: @stpodcasthost

Like our Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/thespeakingtonguespodcast

Buy me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/speakingtongues

Hello Language Lovers! Thank you for joining me for this episode of Speaking Tongues- the podcast in conversation with multilinguals. My guest today is Emily, the host of Tertulia Podcast and she’s joined me to talk about Spanish spoken in the United States.

As we’re having and listening to these conversations, it’s increasingly important to understand the languages and dialects that are spoken in the US - a country with no actual official language and residents with heritage from all over the world. In this episode, Emily talks about growing up in a linguistically diverse South Florida. We talk about her graduate research about Spanish spoken in the US and what she found in her research that sparks us into language study. We discuss the concept of the United States being a Spanish Speaking country and what speaking Spanish was like out in the real world after years of study. We also break down Spanish spoken in the US by numbers, we talk about the term “Spanglish” and understand why this term can be problematic and Emily discussed Spanish she’s encountered in her travels as well as raising her kids bilingual.

You may notice, this episode is a little on the longer side and I kept it this way intentionally as Emily mentioned many topics that go beyond the language, including socio-economic issues that affect Spanish speakers here in the US and she provided much food for thought which I think is critical to understanding the dynamics of world language in the US. Big thank you to Emily for this thoughtful and inspiring conversation and for sharing your journey and research with us. If you enjoy this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review the Speaking Tongues Podcast on Apple Podcasts so that other language lovers like ourselves can find the show! And, If you’ve been a long time listener of the show or a recent listener, you can now support the show on Buy Me a Coffee dot com. Links to all platforms are in the show notes! 

To Find Emily:

Instagram @tertuliapodcast

Website: Tertuliapodcast.com

Speaking Tongues Podcast:

Follow on IG: @speakingtonguespod

Follow on Twitter: @stpodcasthost

Like our Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/thespeakingtonguespodcast

Buy me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/speakingtongues

Hello Language Lovers! Thank you for joining me for this episode of Speaking Tongues- the podcast in conversation with multilinguals. Today, my guest is Candace and we’re talking about learning Farsi, visiting Iran and connecting with Iranian culture. 

I was so excited to talk with Candace about her visits to Iran and how experiencing a new culture led her on the path to learning Farsi. In this episode, Candace talks to us about visiting Iran for the first time and how the prospect of visiting first came into her life. She tells us about the road trips she took and the way she was sparked to learn the language after returning to Australia. We talk about encountering cultural differences throughout Iran during her travels and connecting with the Iranian community in Sydney. Candace also shares the methods she’s been using in order to learn Farsi and shares a few milestones she’s celebrated along the way.

Big thank you to Candace for this thoughtful and inspiring conversation and for your wit and humor and of course for sharing your story with us all. If you enjoy this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review the Speaking Tongues Podcast on Apple Podcasts so that other language lovers like ourselves can find the show! And, If you’ve been a long time listener of the show or a recent listener, you can now support the show on Buy Me a Coffee dot com. Links to all platforms are in the show notes!

To Find Candace:

Instagram @the.far.see

Speaking Tongues Podcast:

Follow on IG: @speakingtonguespod

Follow on Twitter: @stpodcasthost

Like our Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/thespeakingtonguespodcast

Buy me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/speakingtongues 

Hello Language Lovers! Thank you for joining me for this episode of Speaking Tongues- the podcast in conversation with multilinguals. This week my guest is Dina, the host of the Slavstvuyte Podcast and we’re discussing her languages of Serbian, Slovenian, Russian and German. 

Now, this is the first time on this show that we’re talking about Slovenian and Serbian and I was so excited to have this conversation to learn from Dina. In this episode, she tells us about moving to Slovenia from Serbia as a teenager and what her experience was like having to navigate school and social life in a new language that she didn’t understand. We also talk about mutual intelligibility among Slavic languages including a dialect of Serbian that shares words with Macedonian and Bulgarian. Dina tells us how the Turkish language has influences on Serbian and we also talk about how she grew to love Russian and the complicated feelings that come from growing apart from her Serbian roots. And because we’re discussing a region that has had some big changes in the recent past, we also discuss the Serbo-Croatian language and its controversies. 

Big thank you to Dina for having this conversation in this episode and for sharing your languages and cultures. If you want to hear more about Slavic languages, make sure you listen to the Slavstvuyte podcast which you can find a link to in the shownotes. If you enjoy this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review the Speaking Tongues Podcast on Apple Podcasts so that other language lovers like ourselves can find the show! And, If you’ve been a long time listener of the show or a recent listener, you can now support the show on Buy Me a Coffee dot com. Links to all platforms are in the show notes!

To Find Slavstvuyte:

https://slavstvuyte.buzzsprout.com/ 

Instagram: @slavstvuyte

Speaking Tongues Podcast:

Follow on IG: @speakingtonguespod

Follow on Twitter: @stpodcasthost

Like our Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/thespeakingtonguespodcast

Buy me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/speakingtongues

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Speaking Tongues- the podcast in conversation with multilinguals. My guest this week is Kainoa, the founder of Hālau ʻŌlelo, A Free Virtual Hawaiian Language School and frankly, Hālau ʻŌlelo is a whole entire Hawaiian culture experience! It’s a vibe, ya'll! 

In this episode Kainoa talks to us about growing up in a farming community in Hawaii and how the languages of Japanese and Spanish were often encouraged to kids to learn as a second language. He teaches us about Hawaiian pidgin, its grammar and structure and tells us why this language is so significant to Hawaiian culture and history. We learn some Hawaiian history and how this history has affected the usage and growth of the Hawaiian language. We also learn about Hawaiian language revitalization efforts and we compare words and pronunciations across Polynesian cultures. We even learn about the culture and traditions of Hawaiian lei making and receiving. I ask you also as you listen to this episode to pay attention to the choice of words that Kainoa uses to describe the Hawaiian landscape. It indicated to me that it is impossible to talk about Hawaiian language without discussing the richness and abundance of the landscape. 

Now, before you get to listening, I just want to mention that this is one of our longer episodes and I purposely kept it this way as there is a LOT of information that I wanted you all to hear. I learned so much from Kainoa and his stories kept me on the edge of my seat; I truly could have talked with him for hours. So before you continue listening, go settle in, grab a cup of tea and maybe a pen and paper to take notes, as I did while we talked!. Big thank you and true “mahalo” to Kainoa and Hālau ʻŌlelo for sharing your story and for educating us all on Hawaiian language and culture. If you enjoy this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review the Speaking Tongues Podcast on Apple Podcasts so that other language lovers like ourselves can find the show! And, If you’ve been a long time listener of the show or a recent listener, you can now support the show on Buy Me a Coffee dot com. Links to all platforms are in the show notes!

To Find Hālau ʻŌlelo:

Website: http://www.halauolelo.org/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/halauolelo

Instagram: @halauolelo

Speaking Tongues Podcast:

Follow on IG: @speakingtonguespod

Follow on Twitter: @stpodcasthost

Like our Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/thespeakingtonguespodcast

Buy me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/speakingtongues

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Speaking Tongues- the podcast in conversation with multilinguals. This week, I’m chatting with my guest Errol aka Morenita Mommy about Japanese and Spanish.

I loved this conversation and Errol and I talked for hours and hours. She’s such a fantastic storyteller! We talked about her growing up in Houston Texas and how the Japanese language came into her life. She tells us about learning Japanese in school and how her mom was so supportive of her ambitions with the language

Errol talks to us about going to Japan for the first time and how that experience brought some unexpected challenges and how she was able to navigate them including getting lost in Japan, life with her host family and dealing with meeting people in Tokyo. She also tells us how she began learning and speaking Spanish with her husband and her young son back here in the US.

What I truly enjoy about talking with Errol is how she places importance on talking about race and blackness in language learning. I think that black language learners are underrepresented in the language community and we often don’t have ways to talk about the issues that we face and the parts of ourselves and our community that matter to us - in our other languages. To this end, Errol has written a fantastic book called Melanintro to Language, a guide to help those of us raising children bilingual and integrating vocabulary about race and blackness into Japanese and Spanish conversations. This book is so helpful for anyone looking to talk about race in their language learnings and her book is available for purchase through the link in the show notes.

Big thank you to Errol for this conversation and for telling your story and sharing your journey through Japanese and Spanish. I will be setting up a Patreon soon with extras that didn’t make it into the final conversations so stay tuned for that because Errol and I talked about so much more than what you will hear in this episode.  If you enjoy this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review the Speaking Tongues Podcast on Apple Podcasts so that other language lovers like ourselves can find the show! And, If you’ve been a long time listener of the show or a recent listener, you can now support the show on Buy Me a Coffee dot com. Links to all platforms are in the show notes!

To Find Errol

Instagram: @morenitamommy

To purchase her book, Melanintro to Languages: https://morenitamommy.com/melanin/

Speaking Tongues Podcast:

Follow on Instagram: @speakingtonguespod

Follow on Twitter: @stpodcasthost

Like our Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/speakingtonguespod

Buy me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/speakingtongues

Hello Language Lovers! Thank you for joining me for this episode of Speaking Tongues- the podcast in conversation with multilinguals. My guest today is Kim who joined me to talk about her journey to learning the Ukrainian language. Her story is truly remarkable and you’ll want to stay tuned for an unexpected twist!

In this conversation, Kim talks to me about growing up in the UK in an Ukrainian family but not learning the language from a young age. We talk about the importance of food, traditions and community in her local Ukrainian club and we talk about how her experience has been with learning the language as an adult, the resources she’s using and the ins and outs of Googling in cyrillic. On a personal note, Kim describes her first trip to Ukraine and what it has been like for her reconnecting with family not just in Ukraine but also in Belarus. You will definitely enjoy hearing Kim’s tale of reconnecting to her heritage through language and establishing connection across the generations.

I want to say a big thank you to Kim for not only sharing your story but for trusting me with it. If you enjoy this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review the Speaking Tongues Podcast on Apple Podcasts so that other language lovers like ourselves can find the show! And, If you’ve been a long time listener of the show or a recent listener, you can now support the show on Buy Me a Coffee dot com. Links to all platforms are in the show notes!

To Find Kim:

Twitter: @kim_neverenough

Speaking Tongues Podcast:

Follow on IG: @speakingtonguespod

Follow on Twitter: @stpodcasthost

Like our Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/thespeakingtonguespodcast

Buy me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/speakingtongues