76. Meet the maestro behind these new language workouts  America the Bilingual · 76 - Season 6 - Meet the maestro behind the new language gym The conventional description of someone who speaks as many languages as Akshay Swaminathan does is “polyglot.” But as you’ll quickly hear when you listen to this episode, there’s nothing conventional about how this Knight-Hennessy scholarship recipient and PD Soros fellow approaches languages. There is, however, a solid commitment to use what he’s learned about learning languages to help other adults learn, too. A LANGUAGE [...]

74. The unexpected truth about languages in America Ellis Island in New York’s harbor was the first stop in America for more than 12 million immigrants between 1892 and 1954. ​Image Source: https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3g05584/ The United States leads the world in bilingualism. No kidding. Because of this, no country understands the world as well as the United States. Seriously. Ah, you may be thinking, there must be a catch. No catch—just a different way to understand the uncontested data that’s been accumulating for decades. So…how did we get here, and how [...]

72. kim potowski’s master class in heritage languages Kim Potowski, a professor of linguistics at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has a passion for preserving heritage languages, in part by understanding how to teach speakers of these languages, which she now does. Steve sat in on one of her classes for heritage Spanish speakers. “And what an unusual Spanish class it was,” he said. “This is not your uncle's Spanish class.” He then had a second “class” with Kim, when the two of them sat down in her office to discuss [...]

70. A Whisper to God The American journalist, linguist, and author Michael Erard (Babel No More) has lived in South America, Asia, and now in Europe. He’s always had an ear to the native languages as much as for them. A deep researcher of language, he shares in this episode why he believes that “human beings are meant to have very complex linguistic systems in their brains.” He also explains why he likens learning a language to weaving a rope. “GOING TO THE NUNS”  Michael and his family have been living in [...]

68. Amy Chua, the Original Tiger Mom, Has Bilingual Stripes Amy Chua, known to many as Tiger Mom, was determined that her two American-born daughters would grow up as she had: speaking Chinese. How else could they appreciate their heritage? Amy’s parents, who immigrated to the US in the 1960s, inculcated in their children many of the values from their homeland. In some surprising ways that Amy describes in this episode, these same values led Amy to become both a participant in America’s democracy and a concerned observer of it. DISCOVERING [...]