How did people learn languages in centuries gone by? Educator Duncan Parrish takes me on a fascinating journey through the rich history of language learning.

My eBook: https://www.peakmandarin.com/free-ebook

Link:

Duncan's app: https://www.artilanguages.com/

My blog: imlearningmandarin.com

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If you google “what’s the best way to learn a language”, you’ll be bombarded with hundreds of different methods, each claiming to be completely original and groundbreaking.

But if we study history, we’ll discover many of these modern approaches are actually very similar to the ways our ancestors learned foreign languages, hundreds or even thousands of years ago.

That’s according to my guest today, Duncan Parrish.

Duncan is an educational technologist with a keen interest in history. As a developer working on an innovative Chinese learning app, he took the unusual step of looking to the past for inspiration.

In this episode, we discuss the rich history of language learning, from the Romans through the Jesuit missionaries in China right up to the emergence of the internet at the end of the 20th century.

So how did people learn languages in times gone by? How did technological advances impact language learning? And what lessons can we take from our ancestors to improve the way we learn languages today?

Listen on to find out.