The Future is Bilingual

Ep. 38: MLM #5: Duolingo Events

Episode 38 - This Multilingual Motivation episode is all about Duolingo Events. No idea what those are? You're not alone. Whether you use the app for language learning and/or dabbling or not, these events are a great way to practice all 4 language skills and broaden your cultural knowledge. Click the link to see the upcoming Duolingo Events on their website. --- Listen to Erin's podcast "Exhaling Words" and her recent episode about Duolingo here. Follow her on Instagram and other social media @P...

Ep. 37: From Polynot to Polyglot - Interview with Guillaume, Part 2

Episode 37 - Part 2 of my conversation with Guillaume, a polyglot and language teacher from Belgium. We kick off this part of our discussion with a quick recap of his 9 languages IN those languages. I challenge you to not skip ahead and to use your knowledge of other languages to try to understand what he's saying. Click here to read the transcript and translation on my website. Guillaume is not a parent, but so much of our conversation related to teaching can be applied to raising multilingual ...

Ep. 36: From Polynot to Polyglot - Interview with Guillaume, Part 1

Episode 36 - Today's episode is part one of my interview with Guillaume, a polyglot and language teacher from Belgium. In the first few minutes, you'll hear Guillaume speak two of Belgium's official languages (read the transcript and transliteration here), but don't worry, we switch back to English for the rest of the interview. We talk about the complex linguistic situation in Belgium and what it was like growing up as a French-speaker in the Flemish-speaking part of Belgium. Guillaume recounts...

Ep. 35: Raising Multilingual Readers and Writers - Interview with Yoshito

Episode 35 - In this episode, I talk with Yoshito, a fellow French and Spanish teacher and multilingual parent. Yoshito, who is half French and half Japanese, is raising two multilingual boys with his Korean wife in the UK. We discuss how he learned and uses his various languages, how he became a teacher, and what the linguistic situation looks like in his house and community. --- Yoshito has written a book for parents of multilingual children to help make learning to read and write in their hom...

Ep. 34: MLM #4 - Social Media

Episode 34 - Today's Multilingual Motivation is all about social media - one of my favorite topics! If you have a social media account (FB, IG, Snapchat, TikTok, etc.), you know how addicting they can be. That's good news for us because we are going to take advantage of the time we're already spending on social media to engage more with content in our target language(s). Listen to hear the 5 easy steps you should take to practice your target language more through social media. --- During the epi...

Ep. 33: Mama's a linguist - Interview with Lera

Episode 33 - Today's interview is with Lera, a multilingual mom, linguist, and investment banker. Lera and I cover a wide range of topics during our talk. We start with how she learned her many languages (Russian, English, German, Korean, Polish and Dutch) and touch on some similarities and differences between languages that we've noticed. We also dive into her family's goals and plans for their multilingual and multicultural children, and why their plan has changed. Lera is full of linguistic k...

Ep. 32: MLM #3 - Mindset

Episode 32 - This week, we dive into identity and growth mindset. How do you see yourself as a language learner? What words do you identify with? Do you have a growth or a fixed mindset? Tune in to find out! --- Sources: https://www.mindsetworks.com/science/ https://sites.dartmouth.edu/learning/2017/05/18/understanding-the-growth-mindset/

Ep. 31: MLM #2 - Music in your TL

Episode 31 - Week two of Multilingual Motivation is all about music! Do you listen to music in your target language? Whether you already do or you don't yet, you will find useful tips to actively engage with music in your target language and improve your skills. --- Please share this episode as well as any songs, groups, playlists, etc. that you find on social media and tag @TheFutureIsBilingual --- You can also write to Heather at [email protected]

Ep. 30: MLM #1 - International Day of Multilingualism

Episode 30 - Welcome to the first episode of Multilingual Motivation! In these short episodes, Heather will talk about a resource or idea you can use to increase your exposure to your target language(s) during the week. This first episode is special as it's coming out on the Monday before International Day of Multilingualism, which takes place on March 27th. You will learn more about this day and how you can get involved in the celebration. If you decide to take part and post on social media, pl...

Ep. 29: How To Turn Goals Into Habits

Episode 29 - Do you have a goal you'd like to make into a habit? In this episode, Heather gives you the 5 steps you need to take if you want to instill a new habit into your life. She offers multiple examples from her own life and explains how she finds time to study and maintain her languages while being a busy mom of two toddlers. You can follow Heather and the podcast on Instagram @thefutureisbilingual or write her an email at [email protected] --- In this episode, Heather mentions Kendra...

Ep. 28: Polyglot Relearning Her Native Language - Interview with Marissa

Episode 28 - Marissa is a Polish-American polyglot whose latest project is relearning her native language. We talk about learning languages at school vs. on your own, making your target language part of your everyday life, and maintaining multiple languages. Immigration and questions about identity come up before we dive deep into heritage languages and what it means to be a heritage language speaker. Marissa is an expert at summing up all the scholarly articles and making them understandable so...

Ep. 27: How different languages express love (w/ co-host Marcin)

Episode 27 - Marcin and Heather bring you a wealth of different terms of endearment from around the world in celebration of Valentine's Day this weekend. While this is in no way an extensive list, we hope you will learn something new and laugh along with us (not at us!) We do want to apologize for any mispronunciations or misrepresentations. Thank you so much Etai (@justetai), Yoshito (@multilingual_dad), Eliza (@eli.kutty) and Arjun for contributing to this episode. We really appreciate the tim...

Ep. 26: Raising Trilingual Kids Abroad - Interview with Mali

Episode 26 - My guest, Mali, is a French-Lao mom of three who has been living in Spain for over twenty years. We talk about how she is raising her three children to speak three languages fluently. She gives us a lot of practical tips and things we can start implementing today to support our children's minority language(s). We talk about being a multicultural family and how to blend traditions. We touch on her journey learning languages, and go on a few tangets related to our experiences in the c...

Ep. 25: Apps vs. Writing for Language Learning (w/ co-host Marcin)

Episode 25 - In this episode, Heather and Marcin discuss the advantages and disadvantages of studying languages with apps versus taking notes and writing things down. We do not believe that there is one best way to study. Rather, we hope that this episode will provide you some food for thought when considering how you learn best. Our discussion touches on fitting learning into a busy schedule, knowing yourself and what motivates you, gamification of learning, language proficiency, memory and rec...

Ep. 24: Connecting through Languages - Interview with Etai (Part 2)

Episode 24 - In the second half of my interview with Etai, we discuss many interesting topics including how languages can help you learn another one, language attrition, how and why he learned some Hungarian, interpreting, how to study two languages at the same time, grammar and cases, and lots more. We play a little language game near the end and talk about some of our favorite Youtubers and language games. --- **Important: There are one or two swears in this episode which is why I have marked ...

Ep. 23: Connecting through Languages - Interview with Etai (Part 1)

Episode 23 - Part 1 of my discussion with Etai about all things related to language and culture. Etai is a polyglot who was born in Israel and moved to the U.S. as a toddler to receive better care for his CP (Cerebral Palsy). He loves learning new languages and has studied 10+ and counting. We talk about the importance of having an emotional connection to the languages we study and why we find learning languages so worthwhile. Both of us see languages as the best way to understand other people a...

Ep. 22: Why our family language policy changed

Episode 22 - This short episode was inspired by a blog post Heather wrote on her new website. In it, she talks about why her family language policy has changed since last year and why we should all remain flexible and open to change as our families grow and our lives change. ---- Link to the website: https://thefutureisbilingual.wordpress.com/ ---- Link to the specific post: https://thefutureisbilingual.wordpress.com/2021/01/04/update-our-family-language-plan-for-2021-and-beyond/ ---- To take th...

Ep. 21: Planning for baby - Interview with Carly & Michał

Episode 21 - In this interview, Heather talks with her good friends Carly and Michal who are expecting their first child. They are both children of immigrants, however, their experiences with heritage language maintenance differs. They discuss their own journeys learning different languages and what they hope their little one's bilingual future will look like. We hope that this episode provides all listeners with a sense of new beginnings and inspiration to take on a new challenge this year. ---...

Ep. 20: 2020 Wrap Up & News

Episode 20 - A quick wrap up of 2020 with some statistics, survey announcements, personal news, and messages from previous guests. --- Take the Listener Survey at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdUwEWdepQYe2JR0Ov3h-1Yag4sFR-ZMmkqFi2lJfcJxP_PnA/viewform?usp=sf_link --- Fill out the Guest on Podcast Form at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeW5jNmHh-bzPx9gPad9g_vlA2eHUnHFxe2wt-iFyiuSWe8JA/viewform?usp=sf_link --- Please write to me at [email protected] with any questions, com...

Ep. 19: Radio in your TL (target language)

Episode 19 - This episode is about why you should listen to the radio in your target language. Heather, the host, briefly explains Krashen's theory of comprehensible input and how it relates to listening to the radio in another language. She goes through the various advantages for all learners, from complete beginners to fluent speakers. She uses examples from her own life and 3 different languages she studies at different levels to further illustrate her points . The app she suggests downloadin...

Ep. 18: Language Update & Goals

Episode 18 - Part 2 of a 3-part series reflecting on the past year. In this episode, Heather talks about the different languages she and her two toddlers have been speaking and learning since last December. She also shares some personal language goals that she has for herself and her family going forward. She will share more about this on Instagram @thefutureisbilingual in the coming weeks. You can write to her at [email protected] ------ Here are a few of the resources she mentions during t...

Ep. 17: What I've learned about podcasting

Episode 17 - This is the first episode in a 3-part series looking back on the past year. I share what I've learned about myself and podcasting as well as my podcasting goals for next year. Episodes 2 and 3 of this series will drop before the end of 2020. Write to me at [email protected] or find me on Instagram @thefutureisbilingual. Please remember to tag me if you share so I can see it and thank you :)

Ep. 16: Cognates & False Friends (w/ co-host Marcin)

Episode 16 - Marcin and Heather discuss the topic of cognates and false friends, focusing mostly on false friends as they're more interesting and memorable. We give examples from Polish, German, French, Romanian, Swedish, Indonesian, Malay, Korean, Japanese, Spanish, Czech, Georgian, Arabic, Portuguese, Catalan, and Hungarian. Most of our examples came from our friends from the Polyglot Conference and our Instagram page. Thank you to everyone who contributed to make this episode possible. We apo...

Ep. 15: "Trilingual Me" - Interview with Inna

Episode 15 - Today's interview is with Inna, the author of the bilingual book "Trilingual Me/Moi, Trilingue" (@trilingualme.moitrilingue). She talks openly about the joys and struggles she faced on her journey becoming trilingual. Her story is very motivational and inspiring. This episode addresses speech delays, fluency, maintaining and balancing languages, and of course her new book! We discuss some of our personal language goals (we both want to maintain our French) which lead us to the idea ...

Ep. 14: "Don't give up!" - Interview with Amy

Episode 14 - My guest, Amy, is a trilingual Mom who blogs about raising her daughters to be trilingual as well. She shares a wealth of knowledge and experience about all things related to multilingual parenting. We discuss balancing three languages, priorities, travel, sibling interactions, code-switching, our role as parents, and so much more! We had a lot to talk about and we hope you enjoy our conversation. Find out more about Amy on her blogs and Instagram account listed below. --- Amy's blo...

Ep. 13: "Be proud of who you are" - Interview with Tommy

Episode 13 - My guest, Tommy Bradford, is a British-Hungarian English teacher living in Germany. He shares with us all his wisdom from both perspectives of being raised bilingually himself and now raising his own children multilingually. We cover a range of different topics including heritage speakers, minority languages, fate and language learning, teaching, parenting, COVID, and more! --- You can get in touch with Tommy on his website https://learnenglishwithtommy.com/ or on Instagram @tamasbr...

Ep. 12: What is language attrition? (w/ co-host Marcin)

Episode 12 - Have you ever forgotten a word or phrase in your native language? Maybe you've lost some skills you previously had in a language? If so, you're familiar with language attrition. In this episode, my new co-host, Marcin, and I explain what language attrition is, why it happens, and what you can do to prevent or reverse it . We'd love to meet you and stay in touch! Please follow us on Instagram @thefutureisbilingual If you post about the podcast, please use #thefutureisbilingual so we ...

The Future is Bilingual (Trailer)

Ep. 11: Marcin's story, part 2

Episode 11 - Part 2 of my interview with my good friend Marcin. We discuss the benefits and challenges of learning a language in a classroom with a teacher versus learning it on your own. He tells us how he uses his languages in a typical day and his secret to staying motivated. Lastly, he reveals what he's gained from learning other languages and our discussion turns to more serious topics such as inclusion, diversity, and open-mindedness. If you have comments you'd like to share or if you're i...

Ep. 10: Marcin's story, part 1

Episode 10 - Part 1 of a two-part interview with my good friend Marcin about being bilingual and all the ways it enriches his life. He talks about his family's history with immigration, how he used and learned different languages growing up, the impact music had on his language learning, and more. We discuss the importance of teaching children languages young, how common it is to get bogged down by grammar, and the advantages and disadvantages between formal lessons and self study. Check out his...