The Language Learning Show

Timestamps:

0:20 What to do when you understand what someone says, but you can’t reply back?

7:28 I’ve been learning a language for 5 years and I’m not interested in learning it anymore, but I feel like I need to continue due to sunk-cost fallacy.

12:37 How do I learn an endangered or indigenous language? There are almost no resources to learn.

17:32 Do you think it is a good idea for someone to study two languages at the same time?

I will be posting this podcast as a blog post and a video in a few days. Follow my blog at https://azren.substack.com and my youtube channel at https://youtube.com/azrenthelanguagenerd

What a fun interview this was! Katrina follows my language learning blog (https://azren.substack.com). We were exchanging emails and I thought it would be fun to invite her onto my podcast to nerd out about language learning. The highlight of this episode for me was that both Katrina and I let wonder guide our language efforts. We constantly ask ourselves questions such as:

I wonder why native speakers say that?

I wonder how I would say...in my target language?

I wonder what that person's saying?

That curiosity fuels and guides our studies. If you've ever felt confused about what to practice or study next in another language, this is an episode to listen to. You may find that curiosity is the roadmap to fluency you've been waiting for.

On another note, don't forget that in May my team and I are going to be launching new group classes for various languages. Many of them will be free. Click here to learn more.

I recently interviewed the Biblical Hebrew and Latin instructor at my business, the Calgary Language Nerds. In today's podcast, I interviewed another CLN instructor. Catherine is a polyglot who speaks English, Spanish, Russian, and Galician. She is also learning French. Catherine has a Masters degree in teaching foreign languages and has taught at the CLN for about 3 years.

Catherine will be teaching a few group classes in May of this year on Russian cursive and the Cyrillic alphabet. She will also be doing a class on por/para in Spanish. Fill out this Google Form if you'd like more information: https://forms.gle/gqaojXVWQGh8mHkX7

If you'd like to take private/semi-private lessons with Catherine, visit my website: https://azrenthelanguagenerd.com

Enjoy the episode!

I had the pleasure of doing an interview with Ruth, the Biblical Hebrew and Latin instructor at my business, the Calgary Language Nerds. Ruth is a polyglot herself who has a high level in English, French, Spanish, Italian, Spanish, Latin, and Hebrew (modern and Biblical). It was fun comparing and contrasting our personal approaches to language acquisition!

Ruth will be running an Intro to Biblical Hebrew as well as an an Intro to Latin group class in May. She also offers private lessons. Click any of the two links below to inquire further:

Intro to Latin and/or Intro to Biblical Hebrew: https://forms.gle/gEyUwfd4bA8G5QrP7

Private lessons: https://azrenthelanguagenerd.com

I hope you enjoy this interview!

I went to a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu class the other day for the very first time. I learned numerous lessons from that class that apply directly to learning a language. Some of the topics I covered in this episode are: structured vs unstructured learning approaches, the level of importance that should be placed on measuring one's progress, becoming a skilled language learner, and more. Feel free to contact me on social media @polyglotazren or email me if you have any comments or questions: https://azrenthelanguagenerd.com/contact.

This is the question I answered in this video: "I studied Japanese for two years, Russian for two, French for about six, and a little Spanish for fun. However, I never really managed to get to fluency and just seemed to hit a plateau where I could limp along but never got to being able to hold a real conversation. What's your advice for getting past this?"

TIMESTAMPS