A Language Learning Tale

Podcast on YouTube: Link to YouTube Podcast on Spotify: Link to Spotify Benvenuti, Bienvenue, Bienvenidos, Croeso and Welcome. Hi, I’m Juliet. Join me on my language learning journey and discover my thoughts on different aspects of language learning with the A Language Learning Tale Podcast. Today I’m talking about… When I Wouldn’t Use a Large Language Model Recently, I talked about using ChatGPT as a conversational tool and how I thought that was probably an acceptable use of a Large Language Model. However, my thoughts on using it to learn grammar are somewhat different. Why? Isn’t it just the same as speaking? Well, no, it isn’t. Now, I’m not talking about translating a phrase or a word using Google Translate or Reverso Context, or even Microsoft Word’s language tools. Yes, those involve grammar, and what we call AI to some extent, but they’re not questions. That’s more like proofreading. What I mean is something like, “Please explain to me how to use direct and indirect pronouns in...

Podcast on YouTube: Link for YouTube Podcast on Spotify: Link for Spotify Benvenuti, Bienvenue, Bienvenidos, Croeso and Welcome. Hi, I’m Juliet. Join me on my language learning journey and discover my thoughts on different aspects of language learning with the A Language Learning Tale Podcast. Today I’m talking about…   The Power of Language: Multilingualism, Self and Society This book is written by Viorica Marian and narrated by Cassandra Campbell. The author is Romanian and wrote this in their third language, English. The aim is to look at the mind through the lens of multilingualism. Before we start, there are quite a lot of things mentioned in this book that I have heard in other books, and I won’t go over previously discussed things too much, if I can avoid it, but all authors will go at things from a different perspective and bring up different points. And that kind of ties in with one of the themes of this book. Speaking multiple languages changes the way you think, both as ...

Podcast on YouTube: Link on YouTube Podcast on Spotify: Link on Spotify Benvenuti, Bienvenue, Bienvenidos, Croeso and Welcome. Hi, I’m Juliet. Join me on my language learning journey and discover my thoughts on different aspects of language learning with the A Language Learning Tale Podcast. Today I’m talking about… L’histoire des langues parlées Yes, that was in French and today I’m discussing a short French audiobook on Spotify which is about languages and seeing how much I’ve understood. L’histoire des langues parlées is by Anne-Marie Deraspe. It’s only an  hour and nine minutes long and I set it to read at 0.8x speed. This is a book aimed at teens and I believe is a teaching text. If you´re learning French, and you have access to this book in a subscription service, you might want to give it a go. A link to the book on Spotify will be in the description. So, I’m expecting this will be mainly headline facts rather than a deep dive on the history of languages, given the length of...

Podcast on YouTube: Link for YouTube Podcast on Spotify: Link on Spotify Benvenuti, Bienvenue, Bienvenidos, Croeso and Welcome. Hi, I’m Juliet. Join me on my language learning journey and discover my thoughts on different aspects of language learning with the A Language Learning Tale Podcast. Today I’m talking about… Translating into Your Target Language So, I’ve talked previously about foreign languages and translation and I’ve said that it’s always best to translate from a foreign language into your own to get the best translation and that this is the most useful exercise, because you’re trying to understand how people who speak that language actually phrase things. I still stick by this. But that doesn’t mean that translating into a foreign language is a complete waste of time. You just can’t expect to get the results you would doing it the other way and if you’re doing it on your own, there’s no one to tell you whether you’ve got it right or wrong. But, maybe you have a valid reaso...

YouTube Link: Link on YouTube Spotify Link: Link on Spotify Benvenuti, Bienvenue, Bienvenidos, Croeso and Welcome. Hi, I’m Juliet. Join me on my language learning journey and discover my thoughts on different aspects of language learning with the A Language Learning Tale Podcast. Today I’m talking about… Should I Chat with an AI? Using AI in language learning is all the rage right now. How do you feel about that? In general, I dislike the use of AI in creative pursuits, because one, it’s been trained on the work of artists, writers, composers, lyricists, I’m sure there are others, who spent a lot of time creating something that people would want to buy. Oh, yes, photographers and videographers, as well. All this without their permission or any compensation, although there are some moves to change that. However, there are many uses of AI that will actually enhance lives. In medicine, for example. Languages might also be one of those uses, because learning a language, ingesting a languag...

YouTube Link: Link for YouTube Spotify Link:  Link for Spotify Benvenuti, Bienvenue, Bienvenidos, Croeso and Welcome. Hi, I’m Juliet. Join me on my language learning journey and discover my thoughts on different aspects of language learning with the A Language Learning Tale Podcast. Today I’m talking about… Am I getting my languages in a muddle? As some of you will know, I recently refreshed my Spanish, which I learnt in my youth, using Italian. In other words, going from Italian to Spanish. I did this to try to force myself to keep the two languages apart, which worked quite well whilst learning, but how’s that going now? Is Spanish creeping into my Italian writing? Um … well, yes and no. When I started learning Italian, there were always some words that bled in from my Spanish, even though I hadn’t used it for many, many years. Mismo was one, meaning same, instead of stesso, and I really had to make an effort to expunge that and I did. Unfortunately, it is rearing its ugly head a...

Listen on YouTube: YouTube Link Listen on Spotify: Spotify Link Benvenuti, Bienvenue, Bienvenidos, Croeso and Welcome. Hi, I’m Juliet. Join me on my language learning journey and discover my thoughts on different aspects of language learning with the A Language Learning Tale Podcast. Before we get started, I just wanted to give an update on how this podcast will be going forward. There will still be seasons of 3 months, but within those seasons, the episodes will only appear every other week. So, there will be most likely 7 episodes per season. This will allow me more time for research, where necessary, to tackle some more detailed topics. Okay, let’s get into it. Today I’m talking about… The Art of Language Invention: From Horse-Lords to Dark Elves, the Words Behind World-Building, written and narrated by David J Peterson The author of this book creates fictional languages (Game of Thrones, anyone?) and this book is an attempt to put down in writing all their knowledge on the subject....