#123 Kelsey Lechner on Speaking 6 Very Different Languages

11/14/22 • 44 min

How much does living in different countries shape your personality and influence your personal development?

In an episode packed with cultural exploration anecdotes, writer, translator, and educator Kelsey Lechner shares her experience with learning six vastly different languages, keeping her career tightly related to languages in unexpected ways, and adapting to new cultures while living in countries like Tanzania, Japan, and Bangladesh.

Kelsey also shares her flexible language learning strategy pointers, which she developed while learning Japanese, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, Swahili, and Bengali. She and Benny discuss how social acceptance works when trying to adjust to new cultures, how to take missteps in cross-cultural communication in stride, and how to deal with culture shocks.

(Psss... Wait until minute 28 for a funny anecdote about how mixing up Bangladesh and Spanish led Kelsey to hit up on someone without meaning to!)

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Podcast theme: “A New Beginning” by Shannon Kennedy

How much does living in different countries shape your personality and influence your personal development?

(Psss... Wait until minute 28 for a funny anecdote about how mixing up Bangladesh and Spanish led Kelsey to hit up on someone without meaning to!)

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Join Our Patreon

Enjoy the podcast? Subscribe to our Patreon to support what we do!

Podcast theme: “A New Beginning” by Shannon Kennedy

Previous Episode

#122 Brian Powell on How Learning a Dead Language Changed His Perspective

Are dead languages worth learning?

Latin learner, polyglot, and professional translator Brian Powell answers this question by explaining his experience with learning Latin and the way it changed his perspective on learning languages.

Among other topics discussed in this conversation with Benny, Brian explains the “Living Latin” movement, using Latin in a spoken way, and whether or not Latin is a useful stepping stone to learn modern romance languages.

Brian also shares about his love for grammar, insights on the other languages he has learned, including Arabic, Farsi, and French, as well as stories and tips from his career as a translator.

PS: Definitely listen to this episode if you want to hear Benny’s special pronunciation of Latin words :)

Mentioned in this Episode

Brian’s blog post on Fluent in 3 Months: How to Speak Latin: A Beginner’s Guide to Living Latin
Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata
ScorpioMartianus YouTube channel
MagisterCraft
Latinitium
Assimil
italki
IndustryArabic

Podcast theme: “A New Beginning” by Shannon Kennedy

Next Episode

#124 Olly Richards on Creating the StoryLearning Method

This episode includes a Black Friday promotion. Follow this link to get the Black Friday price.

Check out all our Black Friday deals on 50+ languages here.

How can language learning happen through reading stories?

Olly Richards, creator of the Uncovered Language Courses, is back on the Language Hacking Podcast to answer the question above.

Olly shares his story and explains how he combined his background in education, his polyglot skills, and his passion for writing in order to make language learning more accessible to the everyday language learner. He explains how there is more to language learning than just passive absorption

Benny and Elizabeth encourage Olly to talk about the structure of his courses, how they cover microskills needed by beginners to build solid bases in a new language, and the struggle to find the right native tutor to support the courses’ development.

The discussion also covers Olly’s recently released intermediate-level Uncovered courses and how they follow the same methodology as his beginner courses.

If you’re interested in testing out Olly’s Uncovered method, take advantage of the Uncovered Courses Black Friday promotion going on right now!

Follow this link to get the Black Friday price.

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