Word For Word with Sophia Smith Galer

Rebecca Kuang (R. F. Kuang) on losing Mandarin as a child in Texas, finding it again in Taipei, and the conversations she never got to have with her grandfather. The bestselling author of Babel, Yellowface and Katabasis joins Sophia mid-way through her world tour for her new novel, Taipei Story, to open Season 2 of Word For Word. They talk about learning English from Star Wars, Sunday Chinese school, heritage-language shame, intensive immersion, and how you translate grief. Buy Taipei Story: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/13258/9780008842963 Sophia’s book, How To Kill A Language - these links carry an affiliate code, so every purchase helps Sophia make this podcast!: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/13258/9780008723729 Want the bonus episode? It’s on Patreon from Thursday 29th October, along with the Word For Word Book Club, which is reading Taipei Story this month: https://www.patreon.com/c/SophiaSmithGaler. You'll also be able to watch it here on Spotify if you subscribe to Word For Word on Spotify. 0:00 Intro1:22 The languages that made Rebecca Kuang2:11 Learning English from Star Wars3:16 Introducing herself in Mandarin4:10 What her Chinese name means6:31 Chinese school on Sundays9:33 Heritage language shame12:44 Why Taipei? Mandarin, Taiwan and 194915:06 A fluent ear, but no grammar19:25 Inside an intensive immersion programme26:50 Her grandfather, and the novel that came after28:59 Japanese, kanji and Tokyo31:41 Accents, mimicry and being the outsider33:58 "Please restrain your grief": condolences in Mandarin37:04 How to write grief39:56 Why language learning is a daily humiliation42:37 Bonus episodes and the Book Club44:20 Language quiz: Babel, Yellowface and "blurb"49:54 The magic globe A Viralect original podcast created by Sophia Smith Galer. Assistant producer: Phoebe Barnett Producer: Helen Meriel Thomas Videographer: Omar Mehtab Video editor: Abraham Dein Executive producer: Seren Jones With Mandarin language support from Alice Mo.

It's been almost 6 months since we finished Season 1. So - will you get a Season 2? How will you get it? Find out by giving this a listen! Join a language nerd book club and support Word For Word with a Patreon subscription here: https://patreon.com/SophiaSmithGaler?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink Buy Sophia's critically acclaimed book How To Kill A Language: Power, Resistance and the Race to Save Our Words here: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/13258/9780008723729

Roy Bualuan - better known online as human1011 - grew up in Indiana with Lebanese Arabic, French and English in his life. He studied physics at Notre Dame, picked up Modern Standard Arabic as a language requirement, and emerged from that first class with a surprise: the Arabic he'd grown up with and the Arabic he was now being taught were almost entirely different languages. In this episode, Roy and Sophia get into the sociolinguistic patchwork of Lebanon - where French, English, and Arabic code-switch in the same sentence - as well as his linguistics explainers and OF COURSE the dragon language that he made up. Because why not? Follow Roy under "human1011" all over the internet! If you want to buy my book, How To Kill A Language, that's here: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/13258/9780008723729 This is a Viralect original podcast created by Sophia Smith Galer. This episode was filmed by Omar Mehtab, edited by Abraham Dein and Seren Jones was the Executive Producer. Head to www.viralect.com to find our services and tools, and if you've got an iPhone, search "Sophiana app" in the App Store and take advantage of your free month using the code WORDFORWORD.

Zing Tseng - journalist, author, and co-host of BBC's Good Bad Billionaire - grew up navigating Mandarin classes in Singapore, a Cantonese-speaking home, and the glorious linguistic chaos of Singlish. In this episode, she and Sophia trace the languages that shaped her: from a teacher who told her "foreigners speak better Chinese than you do," to discovering, decades later, on a trip to her ancestral village in Xiamen, that she was far more fluent than she'd ever believed. They get into why Singlish is a Creole (and why that matters), the colonial logic behind Singapore's "Speak Good English" campaigns, what billionaires and language learning have in common, and why ordering a coffee in textbook-perfect sentences will get you nowhere fast. If you want to buy my book, How To Kill A Language, that's here: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/13258/9780008723729 If you want to buy Zing’s amazing book Forgotten Women, that’s here: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/13258/9781914240690 This is a Viralect original podcast created by Sophia Smith Galer. This episode was filmed by Omar Mehtab, edited by Abraham Dein and Seren Jones was the Executive Producer. Head to www.viralect.com to find our services and tools, and if you've got an iPhone, search "Sophiana app" in the App Store and take advantage of your free month using the code WORDFORWORD.

Dictionary Corner's secret weapon isn't English - it's German!In this episode of Word For Word, lexicographer, broadcaster and word detective Susie Dent joins Sophia Smith Galer at Casa Italiana in Clerkenwell to talk about the languages that made her - and made her one of the most trusted voices on the English language in Britain.Come for the etymology of "muscle" (hint: squeak squeak) — and stay for the revelation that diarrhoea and the River Rhine share the same root.Susie reflects on growing up defending her love of German to a grandmother who lived through the war, how a rainy afternoon at Oxford University Press and a dusty etymological dictionary changed the course of her career, and why she said no to Countdown - more than once. Susie's mystery thriller Guilty By Definition was an absolute blinder of a book, and I highly recommend you read it - buy it here: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/13258/9781804183977If you want to buy my book, How To Kill A Language, that's here: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/13258/9780008723729This is a Viralect original podcast created by Sophia Smith Galer. This episode was filmed by Omar Mehtab, edited by Abraham Dein and Seren Jones was the Executive Producer. Head to www.viralect.com to find our services and tools, and if you've got an iPhone, search "Sophiana app" in the App Store and take advantage of your free month using the code WORDFORWORD.