The Language Mastery Show

Daniel Rusteen is an author, full-time traveler, digital nomad, short-term rental expert, and former Airbnb employee. He is best known for his books Optimize Your BnB and Profitable Properties, but he has also written a book on learning languages: Zilch to Conversational.

In our conversation, Danny shares why he failed to learn a foreign language his first two attempts, the methods he used to finally reach conversational fluency i...

Ian Fritz is the author of What the Taliban Told Me, a nuanced look at what it was like to undertake intensive language training at The Defense Language Institute (DLI) in not one, but two languages (Dari and Pashto), serve as an "Airborne Cryptologic Linguist" (ACL) in the United States Air Force (USAF), and spy on the Taliban from low-flying gunships.

During his two tours in Afghanistan, he eavesdropped on the Taliban ...

Coach Stéphane Angeles is a language coach who helps expats speak better Spanish through expert habit formation strategies, accountability, and one-on-one guidance via Zoom and audio check-ins.

In the interview, we discuss:

• Why you should use a walkie talkie app to practice listening and speaking.
• Why you should practice writing daily (and how it can help you speak better).
• How to use the strategies of "Time," &q...

Gordon Smith and Cynthia Durán are the dynamic duo behind LightSpeed Spanish, where they teach people Spanish through courses, books, and online lessons.

In this conversation, we discuss:

• How Gordon fell in love with Spanish, how Cynthia fell in love with English, and how they fell in love with each
• How to choose which Spanish accent to learn and tips for mastering Spanish pronunciation
• The most common mistakes that Eng...

Elena Mutonono is a business coach, author, and former English teacher who helps overwhelmed online language teachers work less but make more while better serving students along the way.

In her words:

"I help overwhelmed and exhausted online language teachers change their teaching format so they can work less and make more. As a former ESL teacher myself, I know your struggles, fears and anxieties."

In this conversatio...

Despite doing well in other school subjects, Andrew Barr failed French in secondary school. Upon hearing this news, his supportive father assured him:

"The Barrs don't do languages. We do maths and sciences. You will never have to speak of a word of French again!"

It turns out that this prediction was a bit of the mark. Today, Andrew speaks multiple languages and has built a successful business teaching languages at...

Cara Leopold is the founder of Leo Listening, where she helps "intrepid travellers and adventurous expats improve their English listening skills so they can better understand and better connect with fast-talking native speakers through their love of films." In the interview, we talk about how she learned French and the best way to learn languages through TV shows and movies.

📧 Get expert language immersion tips in your i...

Steve Kaufmann is a hyperpolyglot who has learned more than 20 languages (!!!) and the co-founder of LingQ, an online language learning platform that helps you acquire languages using content you love. He was my second guest on the Language Mastery Show way back in 2009, and returns 13 years later to offer new insights and encouragement for independent language learners.

For show notes, visit LanguageMastery.com/blog/post/steve-ka...

Jim and May describe themselves as a "gringo/Mexican international couple" on a mission to connect English speakers to the Spanish-speaking world. Their excellent podcast, YouTube channel, blog, and Spanish immersion retreats in Mexico help learners bridge the gap between learning and actually living in Spanish.  

In the interview, they share what they have each learned in their own language learning journeys, their best ...

Mikkel Thorup is a seasoned world traveler, entrepreneur, consultant, author, and the host of the Expat Money Show. Since he left Canada in his teens, he has circumnavigated the globe over 400 times, visited more than 100 countries, and lived in 9. In our conversation, he shares his best tips for traveling or moving abroad, learning languages, and making the best of the expat life. For more about Mikkel and tips for transitioning a...

Andrew Methven is the creator of Slow Chinese (每周漫闻), a weekly newsletter that helps Mandarin Chinese learners immerse themselves in authentic, colloquial language via interesting stories and news events handpicked from Chinese media, social media, and TV. Instead of learning the stilted and stuffy language of Chinese textbooks, Andrew's excellent newsletter trains you to understand the way people really speak and write the lan...

From full-time Mandarin immersion at Peking University and Shanghai's Fudan University to years of independent study online, Daniel Nalesnik has spent the last 13+ years on a mission to figure out the most fun and effective way to learn Mandarin Chinese.  

The result? The creation of Hack Chinese, a powerful spaced repetition tool designed from the ground up just for Mandarin learners, unlike generic SRS apps that struggle to p...

Scott H. Young is a Canadian writer, programmer, entrepreneur, and metalearning expert. He is the author of the best-seller Ultralearning: Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition, and Accelerate Your Career, and has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The BBC, Popular Mechanics, Business Insider, and LifeHacker. 

He has applied and refined his principles in a number of accelerated learning challenges,...

In today's episode, I share three more tips for building the three foundations of mastery: 

1. 🧠 Master Your Mind: Realize that mastering a language is more about psychology than ability. 
2. ⏱ Master Your Day: Make language learning your primary focus. 
3. 📍 Master Your Environment: Decide not to decide by making your target language the default. 

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Join my ...

Happy New Year! I hope your 2022 is off to a great start.

In this first episode of the year, I would like to experiment with a new format. I have some exciting interviews lined up in the coming weeks, but I’d like to kick things off with a new segment called The 3 Foundations of Mastery. 

If you already subscribe to my Language Mastery Monday newsletter, you will already be familiar with this framework. If not, what are you waiting...

Note: This interview was originally recorded in 2010 as part of a collection of expert interviews included with my Japanese learning guide Master Japanese. This version includes excerpts from the complete interview, which is available as part of the Master Japanese Digital Package available JapaneseMastery.com. 

Khatzumoto is the man behind the popular Japanese learner blog All Japanese All the Time (or AJATT for short). While atte...

Lindie Botes is a polyglot, YouTuber, blogger, and UI/UX designer on a mission to master 12+ languages, including Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and more. She is originally from South Africa, but has lived all over the world and now calls Singapore home. Though she loves foreign languages, she sees them not as an end but as a means to break down the barriers that otherwise divide us.

🇯🇵 🇨🇳 Learn Japanese or Mandarin Chinese Anywher...

Matt is the creator of the popular Matt vs. Japan YouTube channel and the co-founder of Refold: The Roadmap to True Fluency, where he shares the methods he used to reach near native-like fluency in Japanese in just 5 years. I am a big fan of his immersion-based approach to language learning, his mission to create a more streamlined path to fluency, and his commitment to giving Japanese language learners the tips and tools they need...

Amanda Hsiung-Blodgett (a.k.a. “Miss Panda”) is an intercultural language consultant and trainer, the author of Let’s Learn Mandarin Chinese with Miss Panda! and First Mandarin Sounds: an Awesome Chinese Word Book, and the host of the Playful Chinese podcast. I love her approach to language learning, especially her emphasis on play and having fun. As she puts it eloquently, "Playing is learning. Learning is playing."

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