Languages and Accents: Episode 261 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast

To prepare for this episode, I ran a poll in the Thoughtful Travellers Facebook group about which languages members had tried to learn. The results were interesting and the top ten were:

1. French (82 votes)
2. Spanish (61 votes)
3. German (50 votes)
4. Italian (45 votes)
5. Japanese (22 votes)
6. English as a second/additional language (14 votes)
7. Chinese (13 votes)
8. Indonesian (11 votes)
9. Russian (10 votes)
10. Portuguese and Latin (both 9 votes)

There were over thirty languages added by members and it was so interesting to hear about everyone’s language learning experiences. And there’s more of that in this episode – enjoy!

Show notes: Episode 261 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast

Languages and Accents

Hearing languages I can’t understand is one of my favourite parts of travelling – it’s one of the surest ways to feel I am away from home, exploring a foreign-to-me place. I’ve also been lucky enough – from an English-speaker perspective, especially – to have studied quite a few different languages over the years. I still wish, of course, I’d been born somewhere in Europe where I would have grown up learning multiple languages more easily from a young age, but I can only dream about that!

In Episode 261 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast I chat with three guests about their various experiences with languages and accents. First, I speak with Helena Fox about the languages of her childhood and how they contributed to her accent. I then chat to Carolanna Lisonbee who chose to study Mandarin and Japanese for a really fabulous reason.

Lastly, I turn to Lindsay Williams for some tips on languages for travellers – she has much to say about being practical with your approach to language learning before and during a trip and her tips are really valuable.

Links:

• Helena Fox
• Helena’s young adult fiction book How It Feels to Float  
• Carolanna Lisonbee – her poetry collection is Wisp of Fog Moment
• Lindsay Williams’ site Lindsay Does Languages  
• Join our Facebook group for Thoughtful Travellers
• Join our LinkedIn group for Thoughtful Travellers

You might also like:

The Thoughtful Travel Podcast: Episode 10: How to Cope in Another Language Lace, Lego and Lola on Travel – Episode 30 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast Travel and Foreign Languages – Episode 64 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast