by John Fotheringham | Aug 24, 2020
Richard Simcott is a “hyperpolyglot” who speaks over a dozen languages fluently and many dozen to various levels; a feat that led HarperCollins to name him one of Britain’s most multilingual people. He is also the co-founder of the Polyglot Conference, an annual event that brings together polyglots, linguists, and lovers of language from all over the world (the event will be online this year from October 16 to 25, 2020). He returns to the Language Mastery Show six years after our first conversation to talk about how he juggles so many languages, the “minimum effective dose” required to move a language project forward, and how he chooses which languages to pursue. He is a fountain of language learning wisdom and I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did!
by John Fotheringham | Jun 3, 2020
Every so often we make seemingly small decisions that end up changing the course of our lives forever… For me, one such choice was taking an introductory linguistics class, which ultimately led to changing my major to Linguistics three years into an Industrial Design degree and launching me on a love affair that still consumes me to this day. I suspect that if you’re reading this blog, you too may be interested in linguistics, at least as far as it can aid your approach to mastering foreign languages. While a college degree in the subject can certainly help in this regard, the good news is that you can learn all the core principles you need from a small list of books, saving yourself four years and thousands of dollars! Read on to see the three linguistics books you need to understand how languages work, how they’re acquired, and how best to learn or teach them.
by John Fotheringham | Mar 23, 2020
Nelson Dellis is a memory athlete, 4-time U.S. Memory Champion, a Grandmaster of Memory, a high-altitude mountaineer, author, speaker, and all-around cool dude. He is now on a mission to reach conversational fluency in Dutch in just one year, applying all the memory techniques, mnemonics, and visualization strategies he used to train for memory championships.
by John Fotheringham | Mar 9, 2020
Author, polyglot, and “langpreneur” Olly Richards from I Will Teach You a Language returns to the podcast six years after our first chat to share what new lessons he’s learned and how a high-altitude near death experience led him to the power of stories in language learning. Olly has been quite the busy bee since we last spoke, going on to build one of the most popular language blogs on the planet, launching a series of in-depth language courses, and publishing 16 short story books with Teach Yourself (with more coming soon, including a Japanese edition)!
by John Fotheringham | Feb 3, 2020
Jan van der Aa is a Brussels-based polyglot and entrepreneur from the Netherlands, the co-founder of the language learning site LanguageBoost, and the co-founder of Langpreneur, an event series and podcast dedicated to helping language lovers, teachers, influencers, podcasters, YouTubers, etc. turn their passion for languages into profitable, scalable online businesses.
by John Fotheringham | Jan 5, 2020
One of the most common questions I get asked is, “What is the easiest language to learn? What is the hardest?” My answer is rarely what the individual expects, nor is it usually the neat, tidy, TV-friendly answer they hope for…
