What You Are is What You Say (Language and Identity)

Welcome to Episode 28, a fun collection of language learning news. Lindsay and I shared our progress in Japanese and Welsh, read out wonderful listener feedback, and finally moved on to 3 big news items.

What's it like when your language changes to express who you are?

The episode features an interview with J from Compassionate Language Learner who identifies as gender-neutral and has some fabulous things to say about the topic.

• Swedish introduces "hen" pronoun
• Oxford Dictionary introduces "Mx" as a new honorific
• Fluent's Quick Guide to Language Blogging for Beginners

See The World in a New Way with Emoji

An emoji is ‘word of the year’, but is it even a word? Is this good? * Emoji word of the year

• Lindsay’s Video: Is Emoji a Language?

African Languages Aren’t English

The East African Council has just switched its lead language from English to Kiswahili.

• Could Kiswahili become an African lingua franca?

We love hearing from you!

Tips of the Week

Lindsay’s tip is using the Interlinear books method of learning a language.

Only two tips in this episode: 1) Make weekly commitment meet-ups such as going to exercise classes with a language buddy 2) Discover Binaural songs and Interlinear Books

And Even More Interesting Links!

• List of Placeholder Expressions by Language
• Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
• The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness