Master of Philology, lover of board games, and Odesa native Iryna Bazik kindly joins me to talk about her journey to becoming a Ukrainian and English teacher, fluent Mandarin speaker, and online content creator. Ira teaches us some Odesa slang, pushes back on Surzhyk haters, reveals her shocking first encounter with an American, proves that you don’t choose Mandarin, Mandarin chooses you, tells how Eurovision led her to Turkish, explores PhD plans, confesses her lifelong affinity for school and aversion to apps, shares how she (almost) got over perfectionism, relays the importance of focusing on being productive in difficult circumstances, and sketches out her 50-year plan. https://www.instagram.com/bazikschool

So nice, you’re hearin’im twice. In this second part of my interview with The Everyman of Dialect Learning™, Kris explains why trees don’t take a day off, opens his scorecard of wins and losses in dialect learning, calls Hungarian crazy, acknowledges that week he spent in a cabin full of Esperantists, reveals a new hobby, has the seed of future Ukrainian studies nurtured in his mind, reflects on his wandering abroad, pinpoints when he gave up trying to live someone else’s dream, shares exciting family news, lets us in on a planned revolution, and recognizes Danish as a proud (potato-in-mouth) dialect of the unified Scandinavian Language.

I bag decade-long podcaster and The Everyman of Dialect Learning™ Kris Broholm for my first interview and the excitement doesn’t leave my voice ‘till long after the episode ends. We dig deep to find Kris’s long-lost heritage dialect, prove why video games can grow – not just rot – your brain, show off Kris’s battle scars earned defending the King’s English, postulate the American Media dialect as the black hole of English dialects, find fortune in a facebook message, hear Kris’s encouragement to not fear dragging people back to your hotel room, credit his trailblazing among realistic voices in the online polyglot world, and reach the hard-earned conclusion that the collective wisdom of countless polyglots doesn’t actually help ya much.

Thank You, to some very special people.

How long 'till we're fluent? My answer, and a few thoughts on why realistic expectations can take a weight off our shoulders and add a kick of motivation. TLDL estimates for a native English speaker to reach fluency, studying one hour per day: - About 2 ½ years for Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian (or Spanish) - About 3 years for French (or Spanish) - About 4 years for German, Indonesian, Malay, Swahili, or Haitian Creole - About 5 years for most other language varieties, including Baltic, Slavic, Turkic, Iranian, Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, etc. - About 10 years for Japanese, Korean, Cantonese, Mandarin, or Arabic Link to a 1999 paper with conclusions from FSI programs: http://sealang.net/archives/sla/gurt_1999_07.pdf

On learning languages, and particular dialects within them.

The who, why, and what of this podcast – an overview of my experiences with American dialects of English, High School Spanish, Parisian, moscovan, Bucurestian, and more; the blurred lines between languages and dialects; and the hope of awesome guests to come. For a bit of sociolinguistics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLoqm0Bls-w&t=343s