America the Bilingual

This is our second of two episodes on what technology can and can’t do for language learning…and perhaps more important, what technology should and shouldn’t do. Listen as Steve shares the week he spent in Silicon Valley attending the futuristic technology incubator called Singularity University. He had a chance to ask the high priest of language technology, Ray Kurzweil, how he sees the role of h...

Everyone, it seems, has an opinion on using technology for learning a language. That includes the many bilinguals Steve interviewed for Episode 54 of the America the Bilingual podcast. It’s a brief meditation on the merits—and demerits—of language technology. How much should we depend on language technology to talk for us? What are technology’s limitations? Or is it just we humans who are limited...

From sea to shining sea, English is spoken throughout all 3.8 million square miles of the US. Does it make sense to speak anything else? To answer this question, in Episode 53, Steve takes you on a tour that starts in Little Rock and ends in Montreal, by way of Casablanca and Mali. Enjoy this seventh free audiobook chapter of America’s Bilingual Century by Steve Leveen. You’re listening to Chapter...

Want to learn Japanese? Go to Japan. Portuguese? Portugal or Brazil. Hindi? India. Immersion is absolutely the best way to learn another language…or is it? In Episode 52, Steve weighs in, and his answer might surprise you. Enjoy this sixth free audiobook chapter of America’s Bilingual Century by Steve Leveen. You’re listening to Chapter 36, narrated by Sean Pratt. Music: “Quasi Motion” by Kevin Ma...

A middle-aged guy named Steve walks into an intermediate-Spanish class for Harvard undergrads, and does a quick assessment of their advantages versus his. Theirs: They’re smarter. They take tests really well. They’ve had more Spanish. They can hear perfectly fine. They’re highly motivated to get good grades. They seem to relish the mental struggle. Steve’s: He shows up on time. And it gets better....

Are there certain best practices for starting your children on a lifelong path to bilingualism? Absolutely, and in Episode 50, Steve shares the three that are most essential. They can work even if parents are not (or not yet) bilingual. You’ll also meet two families who started their children off as bilingual speakers and one family who wished they had. What caused their paths to diverge? Enjoy th...

In Episode 49 of the America the Bilingual podcast, Steve introduces seven bilinguals whose new language came alive for them when they found where in their lives it should live. Lorna Auerbach is one of them. She had struggled as a young student trying to learn a second language. But later, as an adult, she blossomed when she connected her “where” to the work she was passionate about—and found the...

If how you’re going to learn a new language is the first question you consider on your bilingual journey, Steve has a surprise for you. In Episode 48, he reveals an even more important question to ask yourself about that new language—before you decide how you’ll learn it. It’s one of the pivotal lessons Steve learned when researching his book, America’s Bilingual Century, and he thanks Guadalupe V...

In Episode 47, Steve shares why he decided in midlife to leave behind a comfortable career as CEO of his own company and light out for the long road to bilingualism. Enjoy this first free audiobook chapter of America’s Bilingual Century, the new book by Steve Leveen. You’re listening to the preface of the book, narrated by Sean Pratt. Then check out the story on Sean, and why this award-winning au...

Winter may be coming, but next summer is not that far behind. Start planning now if you’d like to send your kids—or yourself!—to a summer language immersion camp. In Episode 46 of the America the Bilingual podcast, we give you capsule reports on five top programs we’ve featured in earlier episodes, plus a brand-new report on a different kind of camp in South Florida.

Since October is Bilingual Child Month, we are rebroadcasting our America the Bilingual podcast on the status of bilingual education among deaf children. What happens when their parents aren’t able to find schools that teach American Sign Language—and why can’t they? The America the Bilingual podcast is part of the Lead with Languages campaign of ACTFL—The American Council on the Teaching of Forei...

October is Bilingual Child Month, a good reason to revisit one of the country’s major success stories in bilingual education for children. Their secret? Start kids early, use a broad definition of biliteracy, and give every school district the power to pick the languages. Meet some of the powerhouse educators behind North Carolina’s impressive rise in bilingual schools, in Episode 42 of the Americ...

For anyone older than 20 who's learning a language, the all-new Episode 45 of the America the Bilingual podcast is one you won't want to miss. We tapped a slew of global language teachers and asked them for their best tip on learning a language as an adult. In the podcast, you’ll hear their advice—sometimes based on their own experience of learning another language when they were older. You'll als...

Here’s a fact you don’t hear talked about much: 25% of Latinos don’t speak Spanish--because they can’t. And that percentage is growing. Hear Ed’s story set against the backdrop of the forces that are drowning out Spanish and other heritage languages in America. And hear what some dedicated language teachers are doing to promote a healthy bilingualism among young people. This episode was written by...

Summer Light Listening: “In case you thought Latin was dead…”Seriously? A podcast about Latin is supposed to be summer light listening? We promise, this one is. There’s not even a whisper about the subjunctive. But there’s sure to be a smile when you hear how one high school Latin teacher, who’s constantly teased with the question, “Learn Latin? Who you gonna talk to—the Pope?,” can answer: “As a...

El mundo es un pañuelo, goes the Spanish dicho, or saying. It translates literally to “The world is a handkerchief.” A handkerchief is small, and so is the world. See where this is going? Right—to a more colorful way of saying “It’s a small world.” In Episode 10 of the America the Bilingual podcast, Steve exchanges dichos with two Mexican friends. Every language has these pithy sayings, and they’r...

Summer has its own movie theater allure, rainy-afternoon matinees being just one. Why not take in a few films this summer in a language you’d like to learn…even if it’s not raining? Steve will share with you how he’s done it in learning Spanish, starting with just dipping his toe in to diving right in. You can pick the immersion point that works best for you. Enjoy this rebroadcast of our America...

We hope you’re enjoying your summer. At America the Bilingual, we’re taking a summer break from our podcast routine while Steve works on his new book about bilingualism in America. While he does that, we thought we’d rebroadcast a few of our podcasts that you might not have heard, or might like to hear again. This one, Episode 27, marks the first in our Summer Light Listening series. In it, we sho...

To mark this Independence Day, we’re rebroadcasting our podcast on “American Outliers.” It tells a modern immigrant family’s tale and their success in coming to America, professionally but also linguistically. Both parents and both sons speak English plus four other languages. How did they succeed in becoming a two-generation, multilingual American household? Meet the Roepers and hear their story...

In the west African country of Cameroon, it’s not unusual for youngsters playing a neighborhood game of soccer to encounter different languages among their friends. And throughout Africa, it’s not uncommon for people to speak three languages—even if they don’t write or read all three. How do they do it? And what can the United States learn from this continent of polyglots? Host Steve Leveen talks...

None of us can master every language, but we can all learn phrases that extend a symbolic hand in greeting and say, “To show I respect you, and therefore your language, I’ll try to speak a few words of it.” No matter how poor the result linguistically, you’ve often made a friend. And thus, a bud of bilingualism blooms. In Episode 43 of the America the Bilingual podcast, we’ll hear how some native...

In 2005, North Carolina had seven dual-language schools; in 2018, there were 140. A 2018 graduating class at one of the dual-language high schools had two valedictorians—one a native Spanish speaker and the other a native English speaker, both now fluent in the other’s native tongue. How did North Carolina do it? Can their success be replicated? And are the number of dual-language schools outpacin...

This fifth episode in our series on some of the finest summer language immersion programs takes us to Université Sainte-Anne in the tiny village of Church Point, Nova Scotia. A French immersion summer program, it is Canada’s most popular and attracts many students from the United States as well. In Episode 41 of the America the Bilingual podcast, hear how this school’s small size works to its adva...

What if young hearing children in America were never taught how to spell or properly pronounce words? That’s what’s happening to many of the children in America who cannot hear. They do not have the same access to the language of the deaf—American Sign Language, or ASL—that their hearing counterparts have to English. In Episode 40 of America the Bilingual, we interview experts from Gallaudet Unive...

What could be a better example of free speech in America than to be able to speak freely in public in another language? And when it comes to patriotism, what could be more patriotic than defending our country by actually being able to understand our allies, and our enemies, in their own languages? To help envision such a new normal in America, we take you to a country that shows how a linguistical...