The Unconventional Polyglot: A Unique Approach to Learning Languages

In this episode, I discuss what is perhaps the most important part of language-learning: listening.  When done in a sufficient quantity and with the right listening materials, listening can significantly advance your language learning.

In this episode, I discuss how powerful repetition has been in my language-learning, after having avoided it for a long time.  I give examples of the use of repetition in reading, listening, and usage of apps.

In this episode, I evaluate how close I came to accomplishing the language-learning goals I had set up for myself at the beginning of 2021, and I introduce my goals and 2 "new" primary target languages for 2022.

In this episode, I address the fairly subjective concept of fluency, as well as common-sense benchmarks to indicate how far you are along the path to fluency.

In this episode, I highlight the books of three particular authors (Paco Ardit, Juan Fernández and Olly Richards) who each have series of graded readers for learners of Spanish.  I also mention an app, LingQ, which is a very useful resource for improving listening comprehension, reading comprehension, and vocabulary retention all at the same time.

In this episode, I recommend the following YouTube channels: Easy Spanish, Spanish Around, Español con Juan (for intermediate learners), Linguriosa (for intermediate to advanced learners), Luisito Comunica and Superholly (for advanced to native speakers).  I also recommend the podcasts Español con Juan, Notes in Spanish, and Spanish-obsessed.

In this episode, I review the Spanish offerings for Duolingo, Memrise, Busuu, LingoDeer, Mango Languages, Mondly, and LingoPie.

In this episode, I go over some of the strengths and deficiencies in some of the most popular language-learning apps.

In this episode, I discuss how making mistakes is a key part of language-learning, and that the only mistakes that are bad are the ones for which you don't make the effort to correct.

In this episode, I tackle the (semi-) myth that in order to truly learn a language, you need to immerse yourself in it.  I discuss how I believe that this is actually true in a sense, but that under many people's circumstances, the best they can probably do is limited immersion, i.e. focusing as completely as possible on a language while you're in the process of studying it, without going to the extreme of avoiding all exposure to your native language .