The Fluent Show

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Brilliant Tips for Remembering More Vocabulary Mar 16, 2020

Show notes

Word of the day: Hamsterkaufen - to hoard or panic buy. 🐹

Listener Elizabeth asks for advice about what to do when she remembers words in her target language on one day, but finds that they've disappeared the next day. It's a dilemma: Should she review and get the information perfect before moving on? Or just stick with the programme and hope that things will stick eventually?

This show contains plenty of great ideas and tips about digital flashcard systems, vocabulary learning, and how memory works when it comes to vocabulary learning and boosting your memory for keeping vocabulary in your mind longer.

If you want to take your vocab further and build yourself this effective system for getting better at remembering vocabulary using the three steps I’ve described in this podcast, check out my course Your Solid Vocab Memory.

Thank you to Kris Broholm for this episode introduction. Kris is the host of the Actual Fluency podcast.

Thank you for listening to the Fluent Show! If you enjoyed this episode, please consider supporting the show by leaving a review in your podcast app or becoming a member of our Patreon community

Sponsored By:

LingQ: Enjoy reading books, watching films and listening to podcasts in any language. LingQ offers over 24 languages. Get 35% off selected plans with this link.

Links:

Solid Vocab Memory | Fluent Language
Join My Newsletter
Tips to Improve Your Vocab Memory by Fluent Language
Language Dabbler's Guide to Welsh — Code CARIAD will get you a special discount!
Coronavirus scare: When will ′hamsterkauf′ become an English word? | Business| Economy and finance news from a German perspective | DW | 05.03.2020

Our Favourite Language Learning Textbooks Mar 09, 2020

Show notes

What makes a language textbook great? Why should you use a language textbook? And which ones are the best ones out there?

In today's episode, Lindsay and I sat down to dig through our language bookshelves and bring you a HUGE list of language textbooks that we have loved.

Click or tap here to download a PDF of all book recommendations

This PDF is a great file full of links to both Amazon and Hive, so you can browse and order all the books you want.

Lindsay and I discovered we have very different pop culture references for the word "library". Are you a Lindsay thinking of this..

via GIPHY

or a Kerstin thinking of this:

via GIPHY

Thank you for listening to the Fluent Show! If you enjoyed this episode, please consider supporting the show by leaving a review in your podcast app or becoming a member of our Patreon community at patreon.com/fluentshow

If you're an online teacher, check out Lindsay's [Online Teaching Starter Kit](www.fluentlanguage.co.uk/lindsay-otsk) this week.

Sponsored By:

LingQ: Enjoy reading books, watching films and listening to podcasts in any language. LingQ offers over 24 languages. Get 35% off selected plans with this link.

Links:

PDF list of all books & series mentioned
Language Books I've Read in 2019║Lindsay Does Languages - YouTube
Fluent Guides Box Set
3 Of The Best Language Learning Books (Fluent Forever, Becoming Fluent, Fluency Made Achievable) - YouTube
[The Fluent Show: "The Tyranny of the Shoulds" with Dr Roger Kreuz](https://www.fluent.show/131 "The Fluent Show: "The Tyranny of the Shoulds" with Dr Roger Kreuz")
Benny Lewis Has a New Language Hacking Series: Here's My Review by Fluent Language
Lingolia – Simply better at languages
German Uncovered — A story-based online course teaching you German
Spanish Uncovered — A story-based online course teaching you Spanish

Keep Saying YES To a New Language Mar 02, 2020

Show notes

It is difficult to learn several languages together. You may forget some, you may lose some, BUT hey you’re learning more than one language.

In this Q&A episode I answer a question from the wonderful Elizabeth:

When did you know you were ready to start Mandarin? And how do you keep your Welsh healthy, happy and well-fed? What does a two language study routine look like for you?

In my answer, I'll take you on a trip through my language love life featuring English, French, Italian, Latin, Spanish, Polish, Icelandic, Luxembourgish, Welsh, Russian, and Chinese.

6 Tips for Starting Another Foreign Language

Tip 1: Teach your previous language. That way you will never lose it and you’ll actually get extremely solid knowledge.

Tip 2: Keep saying YES, don’t worry so much about losing skills or levels. It's all part of life. You can get them back really quickly whenever you need to.

Tip 3: Use that interference when it comes up - it's your brain helping you with extra vocab.

Tip 4: Get to a point of “solidification”- for me it’s roughly B1, but ultimately it’s a gut feeling. When it’s a dabble, you’ll lose it. When it’s solid, you won’t.

Tip 5: Do intensive re-familiarisation weeks where you only study and practice your previous language. In country, out of country, in conversation. Weeks where you are rubbish at the start and better at the end. They boost your results!!

Tip 6: Have fun!!!! If you forget a language along the way, that is not a big deal. You don’t have to be so serious and it’s not like money. With languages, you get to have a serious go at playing.

Thank you to Katie Harrison for this episode introduction.

The Fluent Show is also backed by a community of supporters on Patreon. To find out more about how you can join them and support these weekly podcast episodes, go to Patreon.com/fluentshow.

Sponsored By:

LingQ: Enjoy reading books, watching films and listening to podcasts in any language. LingQ offers over 24 languages. Get 35% off selected plans with this link.

Links:

Podcasts for Language Lovers | Podcast List on Podchaser
The Fluent Show: Maintaining Old Languages While Learning New Ones
How to Learn Several Languages At The Same Time by Fluent Language
The Fluent Show: Learning a Language Through Another Language (Laddering)
The Fluent Show: When Is the Right Time to Start Learning Another Language?
Elizabeth Create Wellness Project (@createwellnessproject) • Instagram photos and videos — She's got needles! And Language SKILLs! It's Elizabeth :)
A Language Dabbler's Guide to Welsh — Try out something new and learn about the Welsh language and culture
Women in Language - Newsletter sign up page

I met Marc Okrand at Langfest in Montreal — **Marc Okrand on Creating the Klingon Language** Feb 24, 2020
Show notes

NEW PATREON LEVEL!!

I've just set up a brand new supporter tier at the $2/month level - join us here.

The patron benefits for the $2 level are access to the patron-exclusive feed with added posts, early access, and bonus clips.

You can ALWAYS upgrade or downgrade your tier and you'll never lose access to the patron-only messages. The show is free for all, and your support is valued no matter what.

"There’s a kinda type of person out there who I hadn’t had a lot of interaction with … called a Star Trek fan"

This week I am excited to bring you an interview with a brilliant linguist: Marc Okrand! Marc Okrand created the dialogue and coached the actors speaking the Klingon language heard in many episodes and movies in the Star Trek franchise. In addition, he devised dialogue in Vulcan, Romulan, Kelpien, and other languages for several Star Trek films and TV series.

In this interview, we discussed

the language itself and how it was created

what it felt like for Marc to attend the first ever meet-up of Klingon speakers

which good learning mindsets actors bring to learning a new language

‘These people have become family. These people have become friends’

*Thank you to Marc for this episode introduction.*

Thank you for listening to the Fluent Show! If you enjoyed this episode, please consider supporting the show by leaving a review in your podcast app or becoming a member of our Patreon community from just $1 a month.

Special Guest: Marc Okrand.

Sponsored By:

LingQ: Enjoy reading books, watching films and listening to podcasts in any language. LingQ offers over 24 languages. Get 35% off selected plans with this link.

Links:

Klingon Language Institute

Star Trek VI The Undiscovered Country 1991. cheating klingons - YouTube

Reading on Mobile (+Survey & Clear The List) Feb 17, 2020

Show notes

NEW PATREON LEVEL!!

I've just set up a brand new supporter tier at the $2/month level - join us here.

The patron benefits for the $2 level are access to the patron-exclusive feed with added posts, early access, and bonus clips.

You can ALWAYS upgrade or downgrade your tier and you'll never lose access to the patron-only messages. The show is free for all, and your support is valued no matter what.

If you think reading in another language is all about boring dialogues in dusty old books, think again!

This podcast episode will bring the magic of learning by reading right into the palm of your hand. Mobile phones can do everything in this world, so they can also help you learn languages...but not with boring apps and flashcards...why not try a hot romance novel or a thrilling action story instead?

Reading on your mobile

This week's listener question is from Dam, who asks for the best apps to read novels on your phone - even offline!

Here are my top apps - find the links in the shownotes

Lingq, our fantastic sponsor!! -> Start for free, get 35% off right here
Libby
Teach Yourself Library
Kindle and also Handoff with Audible
Beelinguapp for parallel texts
BlueFire

I'm also sharing tips for reading more by using the news, and for working out which content is perfect for you.

Survey Results & Fluent Show News

In the second half of the episode, I dedicated some time to telling you what's new with the Fluent Show. Listen in to find out

more about you, the listeners and which languages you're learning
a few thoughts about why I want to keep improving this podcast
the tradeoffs...let's find the time and money to make it happen!

Thank you to Leah for this episode introduction.

Thank you for listening to the Fluent Show! If you enjoyed this episode, please consider supporting the show by leaving a review in your podcast app or becoming a member of our Patreon community

Sponsored By:

LingQ: Enjoy reading books, watching films and listening to podcasts in any language. LingQ offers over 24 languages. Get 35% off selected plans with this link.

Links:

How to add and remove dictionaries on iPhone and iPad | iMore
Audible — This referral link gets you a free audiobook to try and keep 🙂
‎Bluefire Reader on the App Store
Gutenberg
Teach Yourself
Language League!!
Facebook Fluent Language Learners — Discuss the show with other listeners in our group
Libby, by OverDrive - an app for library ebooks and audiobooks
Beelinguapp: Learn Languages with Audiobooks and Music
Bluefire Reader
Polyglot Judith Meyer erzählt vom Bundeswettbewerb Fremds...
Search the WHOLE Fluent Show Archive — Hooray!

Is "Natural Language Learning" even a thing? Feb 10, 2020

Show notes

This week, we discussed two topics:

Topic 1: Teaching Methods!

After watching a few episodes of Welsh reality TV Welsh learning celebrity knees-up cariad@iaith, we decided to pick up on their 3 big methods for teaching languages and explain what they mean and who they work for. These are immersion, TPR, "communication" and story time a.k.a. the "input method".

What is natural language learning and why does everyone lay claim to it?
Which teaching methods work in our opinion? How do we teach?
Which methods would we like to see from other teachers, which innovative methods benefit learners?

Listen in to find out more.

Topic 2: Polyglot 2020

It's time to plan your events for the year! We share what's new with Women in Language, the Polyglot Cruise, the Cholula party, and the Edinburgh Language Event.

Thank you for listening to the Fluent Show! If you enjoyed this episode, please consider supporting the show by leaving a review in your podcast app or becoming a member of our Patreon community.

Sponsored By:

LingQ: Enjoy reading books, watching films and listening to podcasts in any language. LingQ offers over 24 languages. Get 35% off selected plans with this link.

Links:

Science Stuff: The Action-Oriented Approach by Teach Languages Online • A podcast on Anchor
Total physical response - TPR | TeachingEnglish | British Council | BBC
Second Language Acquisition - Rod Ellis - Google Books
Polyglot Gathering 2020
16: Umzug nach Deutschland - The Easy German Podcast
Asking Kerstin Cable About Her Online Teacher Marketing by Teach Languages Online • A podcast on Anchor
Cariadatiaith | S4C
Polyglot Conference
Polyglot Cruise 2020 — Sail around the Mediterranean and practice 5 languages with us! [affiliate link]
Learn German with fitness exercises - burn&learn

Should You Learn Similar Languages Together? Feb 03, 2020

Show notes

In this podcast episode, I explain how to use similar languages and language families to get a head start in your multilingual life.

If you've ever wondered how to work out which languages belong to the same family, or how to decide if you should learn related languages as a group, listen in as I go through linguistics and geopolitics to work out how to make your learning life easier.

I'll tell you about the power of intercomprehension, and how it can serve you in language learning.

In this episode:

How to work out if 2 languages are related
How to use Glottolog and Omniglot to discover the linguistic relations for any language
Which language family is the biggest on Earth
Why there's more than just linguistics at play when you consider related languages
Why you should study similar languages together
Why you might not decide to learn similar languages together after all!

Plus of course lots of handy tips and hidden errors to amuse you.

Thank you to Gosia for this episode introduction.

Thank you for listening to the Fluent Show! If you enjoyed this episode, please consider supporting the show by leaving a review in your podcast app or becoming a member of our Patreon community

Sponsored By:

LingQ: Enjoy reading books, watching films and listening to podcasts in any language. LingQ offers over 24 languages. Get 35% off selected plans with this link.

Links:

Why Heritage Learners Aren't Normal Language Learners Jan 27, 2020

Show notes

Do you know someone who grew up speaking a language at home as a child, but never fully developed it because their environment wasn't able to support it?

This community of speakers who grow up with a different dominant language is called heritage language speakers. They are often found in immigrant communities. In fact, here in the UK there are many thousands of them all over the country.

In this episode, I spoke to academics Petros Karatsareas and Katie Harrison who study heritage and community languages here in the UK.

We talked about

the conditions that create non-mainstream language environments
the identities of learning these languages as a migrant
why heritage learners exist in their own category of language learner
complementary schools providing extra language education often on Saturdays and evenings.

These schools are volunteer-run and bridge the gap that often exists between the heritage language and the mainstream education a child receives.

We also talked about what is different when you approach learning your own heritage languages as an adult. Do you need to know grammar? What about reading and writing? Where can you even go to learn a language in this unique situation? There are some heritage language programmes at universities in the USA, but Petros and Katie emphasized how much more needs to be done.

I came away from this interview hugely encouraged and inspired by the efforts of complementary schools here in the UK, and will do what I can to bring you a field trip recording in the next year.

Support This Show

Thank you for listening to the Fluent Show! If you enjoyed this episode and want more podcasts about the world of languages, please consider supporting the show by leaving a review in your podcast app or becoming a member of our Patreon community.

Join My FREE Live Class

Can you make it to my live class about improving your vocab memory? It's on Tuesday 28 January at 5pm, and you can sign up right here.

Special Guests: Katie Harrison and Petros Karatsareas.

Sponsored By:

LingQ: Enjoy reading books, watching films and listening to podcasts in any language. LingQ offers over 24 languages. Get 35% off selected plans with this link.

Links:

How to Find Fantastic Language Tutors in Your Network Right Now Jan 20, 2020

Show notes

SURVEY TIME: Please take 5 minutes and participate in the annual Fluent Show survey. Click here to start.

Are you looking for a new language tutor, but you can't find one online?
Does it feel like no one is teaching your target language?

Today on the show, I've got your back and I'm sharing lots of ideas for hidden places to find great people.

You'll learn

how to use your own network and get other people to find tutors for you
why your local community could be an untapped resource
how to get a tutor through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Insta

Thank you for listening to the Fluent Show! If you enjoyed this episode, please consider supporting the show by leaving a review in your podcast app or becoming a member of our Patreon community

Sponsored By:

LingQ: Enjoy reading books, watching films and listening to podcasts in any language. LingQ offers over 24 languages. Get 35% off selected plans with this link.

Links:

Say hello to our new sponsor LINGQ 😍
The Fluent Show: Good Lessons vs. GREAT Lessons: Life’s Too Short Not to Find a Great Tutor
We are what we do | Meetup
Eventbrite - Discover Great Events or Create Your Own & Sell Tickets
9 Unexpected Places To Find Real-Life Language Partners by Fluent Language
italki - find online tutors
Fluent Language Learners
European Day of Languages: Speaking 25 different European Languages - YouTube
Livelingua — Online tutor platform (free class offered with this link)

What Did You Learn in 2019? (with Shannon Kennedy) Jan 13, 2020

Show notes

Shannon Kennedy is back!! It's been a whole year since we recorded our review of 2019 and this year it's time to do "the same procedure", if you get my Dinner for One reference.

Shannon is an accomplished language learner who's studied 13 languages including French, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Italian, German, Hungarian, and Russian. In this podcast we talked about music and motherhood, the power of saying no, and having languages as a natural part of your life.

Here are the year review questions we discussed. You can use them to conduct your own review of 2019 and set goals for the next year.

How would you sum up the year in your languages?
What changed in your life and in your languages in 2019?
What lessons do you think you learnt from the year 2019?
What surprised you?
What will you change going forward?
Looking forward, what are your language learning goals for 2020?

Shannon's top 3 books of 2019

Atomic Habits by James Clear
Teach Yourself: Complete Hindi
Because Internet by Gretchen McCullough

Shannon's top 3 apps of 2019

Hot contender: Pimsleur

Shannon's top 3 courses

Fluent in 3 Months Challenge
German Uncovered
Language League, the membership community for language learners

Thank you for listening to the Fluent Show! If you enjoyed this episode, please consider supporting the show by leaving a review in your podcast app or becoming a member of our Patreon community

Special Guest: Shannon Kennedy.

Sponsored By:

Links:

[The Fluent Show: "You assume they don't have chick lit in Polish"](https://www.fluent.show/65 "The Fluent Show: "You assume they don't have chick lit in Polish"")
Podcast: Lingthusiasm – Gretchen McCulloch