A Language Learning Tale

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 again

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.

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. Today I’m talking about… The Power of Writing for Language Learning So, how does writing in your target language benefit your language learning? If you start trying to write in a language you’ll soon find out that there is a lot you still don’t know. Is that a benefit? Hmm. Okay, you might think you know how to say something, but until you write it down, you may not realise that, actually, you don’t. You will have to look things up. This can be anything from individual words, to specific phrases, to difficult grammar points. And you will end up doing this over and over again for the same things. What is this doing? It’s giving you repetition of certain facts about the language. You may not have them fixed

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. Today I’m talking about… Some Ways to Learn a Language by Yourself How you go about learning a language by yourself will probably depend on what you want to use it for. If it’s just to go on holiday, it won’t need to be as difficult, or intense, as if you want to learn everything possible about the language. So, first, think about this. What do you want, or need, to learn to achieve your objective? Then, you can get started. This will also partly depend upon whether you’re starting from scratch, or refreshing a language that you may have learned at school. I believe the easiest way to start learning a language is to use an app that teaches you. Which one you use, depends on several things. Can you afford t

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. Today I’m talking about… The Language of Food Yes, this is another book. The full title is The Language of Food: A Linguist Reads the Menu. It’s by Dan Jurafsky and narrated by Steven Menasche. So, this is something a bit different. Eatomology, as the author suggests. Let’s get started. There are many chapters in this book dedicated to the movement of dishes and name changes as they go on their world excursions. I’m not going to concentrate on these, because they’re very specific. But they cover things like sikbaaj to fish and chips, fish sauce to ketchup and why turkey might be other countries, too. Many recipes are included in the book, if that’s your thing, but unfortunately many of them are on an accom