54 - Interview with Benjamin Barrell

Maria is a Russian language teacher, pronunciation coach, and content creator based in Hungary. She is particularly passionate about Russian pronunciation, and the gap between textbook Russian and the way people actually speak.YouTube: https://youtube.com/@soundlikearussianInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/sound_like_a_russian

Lydia Georgantzi is a Berlin-based international actress and polyglot; she is a native English, German and Greek speaker, fluent in Spanish and French, and she is currently learning Russian. Lydia studied acting in New York City, earning degrees from AMDA, BMCC, and Columbia University. She has worked across film, television, theatre and voiceover, including appearances in SOKO Leipzig and Deutsches Haus, and a leading part in the upcoming feature film Block 10. Apart from her passion for acting and languages, she also has a strong background in dance and martial arts.Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lydia.georgantzi/Website: www.lydiageorgantzi.com 

We’re back with part three of our Breakfast Together mini-series: The Four Pillars of Language Learning — this time, we’re talking about reading 📖Reading is often one of the first things we learn to do in a new language — but how important does it remain as we progress? And what should we actually be reading: children’s books, news, novels… or whatever we can get our hands on?Grab your favourite drink and join us around the Breakfast Together table ☕What’s the first thing you like to read when learning a new language?"

Meet Juako Nicolás, a Chilean polyglot, traveller and Berlin-based language lover.Juako's international journey started at 19, when he left Santiago for a six-month internship in China. His travels later took him to Thailand, Russia and eventually Berlin, where he continued learning languages through immersion, repetition, friendships and the simple necessity of communicating. Along the way, he picked up French through the people around him and taught himself German in Berlin.Today, languages and travel remain a big part of his life, alongside his passions for music, calisthenics and his creative project Pitito on tour.Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/juako_nicolas/, https://www.instagram.com/pititontour/

Dhananjay Talwar, aka DJ, is a veteran (and legend) within the language community. Having become passionate about languages from the age of about 17 years old, DJ discovered the language community in 2018, which further fuelled his passion for languages.He describes his attitude towards learning languages, just like Ash Ketchum from Pokémon, as “I wanna be the very best. Like no one ever was.Instagram: https://bit.ly/DhananjayTalwarInstagram, https://www.instagram.com/the_languagetutor/

We're back with part two of our Breakfast Together mini-series: The Four Pillars of Language Learning — this time, we're talking about writing.Words fly while written words remain. How important is writing in language learning? And how much of it depends on the language you’re learning — and what you actually want to use it for?Grab a piece of paper, and get ready to take notes this Sunday!

Jelena is a native Serbian speaker from Belgrade, Serbia. After finishing high school, she moved to France to study law, where she discovered her passion for languages. During her studies, she realised how closely language and communication are connected, which inspired her to start teaching French as a foreign language. Later, she also began teaching Serbian. Although it is her native language, teaching it to non-native speakers led her to explore its grammar and structure in much greater depth, turning the challenge into a true passion. Today, Jelena teaches Serbian while continuing to pursue her love of languages. She is fluent in Serbian, French, English, and Italian, and is currently learning Greek and Russian.Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/speaking_serbian/ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/20xq7fftOLHytlz61P0WCy 

Benjamin Barrell is a life long linguaphile, originally from California but now based in Amsterdam. An engineer by trade, he decided to quit his job 3 years ago and started phrasing.app - an app purpose built for polyglots. It makes language learning beautiful, addicting, and atomic, allowing you to study multiple languages, to fluency and beyond! When he’s not working on his app, you can find him in the water, at the callisthenics park, or chasing down his co-founder: a Siberian husky by the name of Ender 🐶YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PhrasingApp Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/phrasing.app/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barrelltech/?originalSubdomain=nl X: https://x.com/barrelltech 

We're kicking off a brand-new Breakfast Together mini-series: The Four Pillars of Language Learning—starting with listening.In this episode, we chat about the listening element and its part in a language journey, about how it changes during contact with a language and the role it has played in our personal learning.☕ Grab your favourite drink and join us around the Breakfast Together table.💬 Which language do you love listening to the most, and why?

Multilingual Matt is a polyglot who creates content about languages. He has studied and spoken multiple languages, including Spanish, French, German, Polish, Arabic, and Portuguese, and his style blends humor, storytelling to show the funny and human sides of language learning.Website:https://flow.page/multilingual.mattInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/multilingual.mattTikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@multilingual.mattYouTube:https://m.youtube.com/c/MultilingualMattiTalki:https://www.italki.com/en/i/ref/Dde0Db