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In this episode I look back at 2020 and talk about what I’ve been up to this year in terms of work, language learning and other stuff.
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In this episode I discuss success and failure, particularly in relation to learning languages. Are they just different ways of look at the same thing? At what point can you say that you have succeeded to learn a language, or have failed? Does it matter?
I was inspired to make this episode by a video in which Jack Conte, the CEO of Patreon shares his most epic failures.
Here’s an example of a ‘real’ polyglot – a friend of mine called Richard Simcott, who runs the Polyglot Conference and similar events.
You can also listen to this podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, Podchaser, PlayerFM, podtail and or via this RSS feed.
If you would like to support this podcast, you can make a donation via PayPal or Patreon, or contribute to Omniglot in other ways.
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In this episode I discuss which languages are hardest to learn, and what makes some languages more difficult to learn than others. It’s not possible to provide a definitive list of the most challenging languages as it depends on a variety of factors. This hasn’t stopped people from doing this anyway. Here are some examples:
https://www.fluentu.com/blog/hardest-languages-to-learn/
https://www.languagedrops.com/blog/10-hardest-languages-to-learn
https://www.lingholic.com/hardest-languages-learn/
https://effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-guide/language-difficulty/
https://bestlifeonline.com/most-difficult-languages/
You can also listen to this podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, Podchaser, PlayerFM, podtail and or via this RSS feed.
If you would like to support this podcast, you can make a donation via PayPal or Patreon, or contribute to Omniglot in other ways.
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In this episode I take you on an adventure in etymology, the study of where words come from, and how they have changed over time. I start with the word etymology, and see where I end up.
Push ad Pull / Gwthio a Thynnu
You can also listen to this podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, Podchaser, PlayerFM, podtail and or via this RSS feed.
If you would like to support this podcast, you can make a donation via PayPal or Patreon, or contribute to Omniglot in other ways.
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In this episode I talk about reasons why we stop learning learning langauges. Why we give up on them and quit. This is based on a poll I posted on the Omniglot Fan Club on Facebook.
Top reasons for giving up on a language include losing interest, not having enough time, getting distracted, another language seemed more interesting, and it being too hard.
Hedge Cats / Cathod y Gwyrch
See the score for this tune.
Lifting the Lid / Codi’r Caead – a tune I wrote on the cavaquinho in 2020.
If you would like to support this podcast, you can make a donation via PayPal or Patreon, or contribute to Omniglot in other ways.
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In this episode I talk to fellow podcaster and language nerd, Kris Broholm. He makes The Acutal Fluency Podcast, on which he talks to language learners about their language learning experiences and journeys. We talk about language learning, about Danish (Kris is from Denmark), and other language-related things.
Hedge Cats / Cathod y Gwyrch
See the score for this tune.
The Loose Moose / Yr Elc Rhydd – a tune I wrote on the harp in 2016.
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In this episode I talk about talent, particularly talent for languages. Do some people have an innate talent for learning languages? Do others lack such a talent? If you don’t have a talent for languages, can you learn one anyway?
Further reading:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-innate-talent-a-myth/
Hedge Cats / Cathod y Gwyrch
See the score for this tune.
Little Red Boats / Cychod bach coch – a tune I wrote on the cavaquinho in 2017.
If you would like to support this podcast, you can make a donation via PayPal or Patreon, or contribute to Omniglot in other ways.
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In this episode I talk about how learning silly, obscure and weird words and phrases, and playing with words can actually help you to learn languages.
Here are some screenshots of phrases I’ve collected in Czech, Danish, Esperanto, Romanian, Russian, Spanish and Swedish, mainly from Duolingo. Many of these phrases are rather silly, which is what makes them memorable:
Hedge Cats / Cathod y Gwyrch
See the score for this piece
The Ballad of the Wug and the Cra – a song I wrote back in 2015 about made-up creatures that feature in linguistic experiments.
Mwmpwy Porthaethwy / Menai Bridge Fancy – this tune doesn’t feature in this episode, but is mentioned.
If you would like to support this podcast, you can make a donation, or contribute to Omniglot in other ways.
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In this episode I talk about some of the benefits and advantages of learning minority and lesser-studied languages, focusing particularly on the Irish and other Celtic languages. I talk about my own experiences with these languages, and the benefits they have brought me.
There’s no point in learning small languages, is there? They’re spoken by relatively few people and maybe only in one country or region. So why bother? It would be better to learn a language that has many millions of speakers and that is spoken in many countries, like Spanish or French, wouldn’t it? Perhaps, but whatever language you learn can bring benefits and opportunities, even small, lesser-studied and minority languages.
Hedge Cats / Cathod y Gwyrch
See the score for this piece
The Elephant Song / Cân yr Eliffant
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In this episode I talk about language families – what they are, and how they develop, and I introduce some major and minor language families.
According to Wikipedia, a language family is “a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestral language or parental language, called the proto-language of that family”.
According to Ethnologue there are currently 142 different language families and 7,111 living languages. The ten largest languages families account for about 88% of the world’s population, and 74% of the world’s languages.
[table id=1 /]
Here’s an illustration a the family tree of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Elvish languages:
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvish_languages_(Middle-earth)
More information about language families
https://www.omniglot.com/writing/langfam.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_family
https://www.ethnologue.com/statistics/family
https://www.mustgo.com/worldlanguages/language-families/
Dancing Donkeys / Asynnod sy’n Dawnsio
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