"For The Love of Humanity": Using Languages for Good

Welcome to episode 66 of the Creative Language Learning Podcast.

In this episode, I'm presenting two interviews with women who are working to change people's lives through the power of language.

Madeline, Interpreter for Survivors of Torture and Trauma

Community Interpreter Madeline Vadkerty gives me an overview of what it is like to interpret for survivors of torture and trauma. This interview was an incredible chance to learn more about interpreting from her, and to hear why helping refugees and toture survivors get their stories heard matters so much.

The people Madeline works with were caught in situations that we take for granted in many other countries: running for political office, being a homosexual, or expressing different opinions to the mainstream.

She says got into her field "for the love of humanity", and shares what you need to know if interpreting intrigues you.

Marianne Manz, Religious education teacher...turned teacher for refugees

When Germany accepted a large number of refugees back in 2015, Marianne Manz sprang into action. She's a school teacher who has always loved teaching and languages, and thought to herself "we can do something here." Marianne pulled together a group of volunteers and started AG Reliwerk, a tiny local group of Germans who offer language courses.

In this interview, Marianne shared the joys and pains of teaching German to refugees, and what it's like when you have untrained teachers from 16 to 70 teaching refugees without regular internet access.

As a bonus, I also asked her if German is really so difficult to learn. A fascinating interview!

Go Further With Languages

1) You don't have to make this your full-time career

Marianne's interview shows that even a few hours a week can make a huge difference to the lives of other people, and give you so much joy.

2) Other skills really matter

In addition to their language skills, both of the women I interviewed stood out to me for their strengths in their field. Interpreting and teaching are skills in themselves and your new position will stretch them and help you grow in incredible ways.

3) Getting together with other is key

If you're reading these words right now, chances are that you're looking at a screen by yourself. Supporting others with your language takes you out of that state, and puts you deeply and intensively in touch with others. When you contribute to the world, you give to others but you also benefit in so many ways.

Check out the links for this episode to find inspiration of where to volunteer in the UK or USA.

Interpreting Links

• The Community Interpreter
• Advocates for Survivors of Torture and Trauma · Causes
• Advocates for Survivors of Torture and Trauma PSA - YouTube

Teaching Refugees and Migrants Links

• Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutsch | Deutschunterricht für Flüchtlinge entwickeln
• Tips for teaching English to migrants and refugees in the UK | British Council
• Hominum International e.V. - Home
• Wycliffe Associates | Accelerating Bible Translation

Volunteering Links

• Home | Do-it.org volunteering made easy
• A Few Simple Ideas for New Language Learners — Greg Thomson's approach to self-directed language learning.
• Public Service and Volunteer Opportunities | USAGov
• Creative Language Learning Podcast Episode 43: Wikitongues — Language documentation and preservation charity Wikitongues, interviewed by Lindsay for our show

Do you want to use your languages for good?

I'd love to hear what you think! Have you ever been able to help someone else thanks to your own language skills? Do you feel inspired to start teaching, translating, interpreting, or writing for others?

Leave a comment below or share on Facebook or Twitter - and finally, of course don't forget to check out our sponsors at Clozemaster.

No More Hoarding! How to Organize All Your Language Learning Resources

Ever heard of resource overload? Most language lovers I know can't get enough of new books, courses, and blogs to inspire them...but there's a dark side!

Language resources can be overwhelming. You might wonder which ones are worth your time, or what you really need to get started in a language.

Over the years, I've amassed a huge pile of language learning resources, and in today's post I want to introduce you to a few of my favourites and explain four categories of resources that you should have when you're teaching yourself a language.

For instant organisation, you can find a Resource Organiser worksheet in the Language Habit Toolkit, available in the Fluent Online School.

1) Guiding Resources: Language Textbooks and Language Courses

The first resource I believe you should have is what I call a guiding resource. This can be a book, a CD set, a video course, or even a night class. For any resource to be considered a guiding resource in my mind, it must fulfil the following criteria:

Great Structure

Never compromise on structure. Look out for units, chapters, steps. There is none that is best for everyone, so ensure that your guiding resource follows a path that you will find interesting. You don't want something that just throws a lot of information at you, and you don’t want to be yawning by chapter 3.

The resource should have lessons that move you from one level to the next level. For example, in Benny Lewis' Teach Yourself book, there are different units and they tell you what it is you are going to learn - units such as talking about yourself, asking about other people, talking about family, and describing things.

Having a structure to follow is very important for independent language learners, so be sure to check out the curriculum before you buy.

Designed for Your Situation

When you buy a textbook, make sure you check if your choice might be designed for group classes (for example, Façon de Parler). This doesn't make such textbooks bad resources, but the way they are written, a lot of the exercises are usually not designed for you to do by yourself. The text will say something like: "Find a partner in your group and then practice these sentences with them," or "In the group, have a discussion of this image." The textbooks just assume that you're in a group class. If you're teaching yourself, this is not always helpful.

Multimedia

Third, there should be a multimedia component. This means that you want more than just a book or audio. You want the book unit to be accompanied by audio, worksheets, or video. Online courses in languages are getting better and better, but check that there’s offline access if you need it.

My preferred structure for a guiding resource is this:

Start with a story or dialogue, then an explanation of what was new, and finish with a chance for you as the learner to practice what you’ve learnt.

Good examples of guiding resources are

• Teach Yourself series, in particular the Language Hacking books
• Assimil (on Amazon UK)
• Duolingo if used in line with these recommendations

2) Input Resources: Enjoyable and Comprehensible Input

Input resources are very easy to find…the internet is a total treasure trove of them! I also call them supplementary resources, as they supplement all other learning.

You can have as many as you want. You never have too many input resources. With these resources, you can follow any story or video for some time, drop it, and then get back to it weeks later. Most YouTube videos in the language that you're learning are going to fall into this category. Music and TV shows also fall into this category.

Your input resources must be understandable, but not too easy and not too hard. You need to be able to sense that you're learning as you're following it; so, there should be a little bit of a challenge. But at the same time, you don't want them to be so easy that you know exactly what's coming.

If it’s fun, it works

Input resources also must be enjoyable. They must be fun, so feel very free to toss out what doesn’t interest you. If you don't enjoy them, you aren't going to engage with them. At Langfest in Montreal, I met the famous applied linguist Dr Stephen Krashen, whose belief in comprehensible input is all about these resources. This is where the magic happens. You need input, it needs to be fun, you need to understand it, and you need lots of it.

Good examples of input resources include

• Easy Languages on Youtube
• Olly Richards’ Short Stories for Language Learning (Amazon UK | amazon.com)

3) Reference Resources: Dictionaries, Grammar Guides, Phrasebooks

In a journey as epic as learning a new language, you’re going to get lost and waste lots of time without a map, and that’s what the reference resource can be for you.

Accessible Language Materials

First, the resource must be accessible. Obviously, they should be there for you to touch or open, but more importantly, they must be easy to understand. Second, the resource must be accessible in the sense that you should have it around. It should be there when you want it because the whole idea of a reference resource is you don't follow it as a course.

Dip in and out

Nobody ever learned a language by reading a dictionary. Instead of following reference resources as a course, you just have them around for when you have a question. At the start of language learning, I think reference resources are good to help you answer the question for yourself: Where am I going to look this up?

Many video courses fit right into the reference category. For example, the Fluent courses on German pronunciation and on grammar cross over between guiding and reference resources. My dream for my German courses is that somebody follows it, gains a lot from it the first time, but knows that they can dip in and watch every video individually.

Good examples of reference resources include

The three core reference resources you need are

• a good online or offline dictionary (read my in-depth dictionary tips)
• a good grammar resource (read more tips on effective grammar study)
• and a good pronunciation guide.

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So those are the three key categories of resources you should have somewhere in your personal language library. To re-cap:

1. Guiding Resources give your studies shape and help you know your progress. You want these to be structured.
2. Input Resources make language learning effective and enjoyable. You want these to be fun and right for your level.
3. Reference Resources are on hand when you have specific questions and need a quick answer. You want these to be easy to access and understand.

If you don't have these three areas covered on your (virtual or IRL) bookshelf, it's easy to feel lost when learning a new language, to miss things, and even to lose yourself and think you're better than you are or worse than you are.

4. Self-Teacher's Resources

Are you learning a language by yourself? You need one more: the self-teacher's resources, which are all about how to organise yourself. This category contains language learning blogs, podcasts, books to help you master the learning process.

The self-teacher's resources are awesome because they

1. keep you motivated and accountable
2. help you adopt great study techniques.

For a practical, action-focused take on this resource that will set you up for inevitable success, check out the Language Habit Toolkit, your language coach in a box.

What are your favourite resources? Want recommendations for a resource in your target language or feel you're lacking something?

No problem! Leave me a comment below or say hi in the Fluent Language Learners Facebook group.

Why is it so Hard to Find Pop Music in Other Languages?

I remember learning hundreds of new words as I was listening to my favourite bands, reading the CD liner notes to understand the lyrics. Music is an amazing language learning tool. It gets your pronunciation into gear, it motivates you to open your mouth and sing, and of course it's fun so you'll be engaging again and again!

Listen to Lindsay Williams and me in Creative Language Learning Podcast episode 57 to discover:

• Why does pop music matter for language learning?
• What influence does the industry have for which music gets made and which doesn't?
• Why is English such a convenient language for pop music?
• How should you incorporate pop music into your language learning routine...or should you?
• Where can language learners find music in their own target language?
• Who are our favourite artists in other languages?

Links from this Podcast Episode

• How to Use Spotify for Language Learning
• Quora: Why do non-English speaking countries listen primarily to English-sung songs instead of producing modern/pop songs in their own languages?
• Guardian: Behind the music: What it costs European acts to sing in their own languages

  In dance music it's generally more important how lyrics sound than what they actually mean. Artists with English as a second language can be less judgmental about what's deemed a cliche.

• 10 Great Songs That Topped US Charts But Weren’t Performed In English
• Foreign language songs that got to Number 1 in the UK
• The Hottest German Lesson in Town: Deutschland 83 and Major Tom (PLUS Free Lyric & Vocab Sheet
• How I Built This, an NPR Podcast
• Honest Reggaeton (not 100% SFW)

The Biggest Pop Genres That Succeed in Other Languages

Latino pop

Notable collaborations include Despacito with Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee, Justin Bieber, and Bailando with Enrique Iglesias, Sean Paul et al.

• Alt.Latino Podcast
• Residente by Residente), an album exploring the artist's international heritage

K-Pop

• New York Times Popcast
• KCON Music Festival)

European Music and Eurovision

Check out Stromae, KRO, Prince Pi, Indochine, Robyn (in English).

• Our European Day of Music Live Episode
• Lindsay's #songsaturday Playlist

And I am delighted to sign off with one of the amazing "Moskau" performance by Dschinghis Khan:

My Partner Speaks English - How Can I Help Them Learn My Language?

It’s easy to fall in love, even without words. But sadly, learning a language doesn’t become easier even if you’re in love. Just like good relationships, learning a language is a long-term game. It takes compromise, commitment, and a bit of hard work.

The easiest way to communicate as a couple is to stay in the language you were using when you met. Most couples settle on a common “official language”. For me and my partner, it’s English. English is my everyday language, and I don’t have the habit of switching into German with my partner. As for him, he didn’t come out of school with remarkable knowledge or confidence when it comes to foreign languages.

Most of the time, our life together works just fine. But I do wonder:

• “Do we have to move to Germany before my husband has the opportunity to become a German speaker?”
• “How can I walk the line between forcing him to pick up my language, and encouraging him to discover the culture of my home country?”
• “How can I help him learn German without becoming his teacher?”

We are facing that classic native English dilemma: If everyone else speaks English already, where’s the urgency and pressure to learn another language?

Love is a Deep Motivator

No matter where your partner is from, you’re likely to spend a lifetime trying to figure out what exactly goes on in their head. As Carol Madfouh puts it in this lovely article on language learning for love:

“For us and any other couple from a mixed marriage you are having to work that wee bit harder the whole time to understand the mentality (…) I’m never quite certain whether I am pissed off with him because he’s Tunisian, because he’s French, because he’s a man… or whether just because he’s old!”

If you are the partner who is learning a new language for love, I want to thank you and congratulate you. I know it’s not easy, but you’re doing something amazing. Your desire for a deeper connection has a lot of value. It serves as your Vision Goal, the consistent motivation that keeps you committed to the problem.

Tips for Sharing Your Language With Your Partner

If you are the partner who wishes you could share more of your own language and culture in your relationship, I’m with you. It can be tough to walk the line between sharing your language and nagging someone to learn it.

Here are the things you can try for keeping your sweetheart motivated without putting too much pressure on them.

1) Talk to Third Parties

Every language learner knows that it feels bad to understand nothing, especially when you care about the person who is speaking to you. Introducing your native language into the household becomes a lot easier when there’s a third party around. Adding bilingualism to the home is common when you have a child (try Bilingual Avenue for more tips). But even if you don’t have kids, it helps to have your partner hear simple dialogues in another language.

If you are an expat yourself, your sweetheart likely won’t hear a lot of your native language outside the home. But what about your own circle of friends? Try and see if you can invite a fellow native speaker around the home, giving you more occasion to throw in a few words of vocabulary now and then.

At the Polyglot Gathering in Bratislava, one fellow expat wife told me she switched to talking to her pet in another language. What a great idea! This way you can keep your native language active in the home without putting the pressure on way high.

2) Let Them Know What To Expect

One of the trickiest parts of switching into your native language with your partner is that you can never be sure what mood they are in. They may respond with curiosity and enthusiasm one day, only to roll their eyes and ask to be left alone the next. So it’s helpful to make your non-English moments a little more predictable.

• Try setting up an English-free zone in your house, where your partner knows they will be able to practice. I can’t decide if I would suggest the bedroom for this, or tell you to avoid that at all costs..
• Have a regular date night with your native language where you spend time experiencing something new like a restaurant, dance lesson, or language meet up
• Set language times or days, so you know that both of you have agreed to switch languages once a week

3) Treat Language as an In-Joke

In an animated discussion on language learning, Idahosa Ness from the Mimic Method shared that a past girlfriend and he would speak her native language to each other as a sign of closeness. Learning the language came more easily to him as he felt he was in on a private joke with his sweetheart.

Just like nicknames, sharing a second language can make any couple feel more deeply connected. If you want to build your own private language together, try starting with a few loving phrases, or learning the words related to something you love to do together.

4) Share Your Background Without The Language Barrier

If your partner lacks confidence when it comes to learning your native language, you can still offer many fun ways of engaging with your background. Bring in foods or music from home, or discuss the politics of your home country. As long as the topic is interesting to your partner, it will serve as an inspiration for both of you to connect to each other’s cultures.

Sharing traditions of your home country is what makes you special as a couple. It can also create memories that last for life. At my wedding in Germany, my husband asked for us to act out the German tradition of sawing a log together as the couple. My parents happily obliged…with a pretty blunt saw! The experience of my neighbour running in to “rescue the couple” with his chainsaw won’t be forgotten any time soon.

What's more romantic than a bit of mansplanation about sawing logs?!

5) Learn a third language together

The biggest problem with teaching your native language to your sweetheart is that it can create a power imbalance. You don’t want them to feel like the stupid one, right? Some couples have reported that learning a third language together became a great leveller and hobby. Go for something that you both consider relatively neutral and easy, such as Esperanto. This way, it’s their chance to flex those study muscles without feeling any pressure.

Respect Your Partner’s Learning Style

Allow your partner to determine the pace and learning style that they prefer. Even if you are a polyglot who swears by using Anki cards, their own preference might be for starting out in an adult class at the local college. Keep them accountable to their own goals, but never to demand unreasonable efforts. It may help to discuss their language learning goals together and to keep easy accountability through something like the Language Habit Toolkit. Like a good tutor, your job is to inspire motivation and excitement and to refrain from judgement.

Have you ever been in a relationship with someone from a different country? How did you go about language learning? Tell me more in the comments below. I’m excited to hear those stories.

How To: Bullet Journal for Effective Language Learning

Have you ever found yourself in a really good language learning flow, only to have a couple of days off and fall off the wagon? I know this has happened to me numerous times, whether when learning a language, trying to work out daily, or even trying to keep a housecleaning routine. You're doing great, you're feeling organised, and then you have a day off or a temptation and you just can't seem to get back on track.

So what if you had a system to organise your housecleaning routine or language learning that was proven to improve productivity? Bullet Journaling not only improves productivity, it is also extremely flexible in terms of personalizing it for your own needs. Personally, I’m never as efficient as when I’m using the bullet journal system.

So how does it work?

It’s fairly simple, really. You set yourself a number of keys, which basically mean you choose which symbols have which meanings. Clarifying your keys is, pun intended, key to using bullet journaling successfully.

These are the keys I personally use in my bullet journal, however a quick google search or Pinterest search will give many more options.

Once your keys are sorted, you need to decide on a format. This, however, doesn’t need to be strictly adhered to – indeed, I would actually encourage you to try out different things, since you will know when you’ve got a format that works for you. I like planning my whole year very briefly at the end or the beginning of my notebook. I use a Leuchtturm 1917 with dotted pages, having weekly spreads with the key events from each day, then doing daily pages with detailed to dos and agendas.

You can also incorporate spreads and pages for anything you want to track, such as:

• Food eaten
• Water consumption
• Budget and spending
• Daily gratitude
• Workouts
• Words written
• And – you guessed it – language learning.

Have you thougth about creating these spreads in your target language?

Since bullet journaling is almost sure to guarantee you to stay on track, the system is perfect for scheduling your everyday language learning habits.

How To Use It For Language Learning

Snapshot of my own goal setting spread from the Bullet Journal

My number one tip would be to use Pinterest for inspiration for this! Pinterest is excellent to see how other people are designing their bullet journals and to get inspiration for your own. Personally I have a folder just for bullet journal inspiration - it can become an addiction! - and whenever I am struggling for ideas I have a browse in there.

Abigail from Polyglot Progress has also made a really informative video on how to use bullet journaling for language learning, perfect to ease yourself into the system!

The Language Habit Toolkit

Another option, if you do like things to be ready made for you, is the Fluent Language Habit Toolkit. The toolkit combines the best parts of the bullet journal system and effective language learning into one cohesive package.

I started working on it in my own bullet journal, as I realised that there was no all-in-one system out there offering goals, tracking, and review.

The kit is designed to be printed out as either A4 or A5 and is perfect to glue into a notebook for easier overview of your progress. It provides you with a complete set of tools that you can use to make steady progress and start building towards fluency in any language, and is based on 20 years experience of teaching languages.

So what are you waiting for? The possibilities are limitless with this system, and I can't wait to see what you do with yours! Please feel free to tag @fluentlanguage on Twitter or @kerstin_fluent on Instagram to share your creations.