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The Documentary: The Superlinguists: How to learn a language

Olly Richards and Katie Harris

09/07/2019 GMT

How to learn a language

The Superlinguists

BBC World Service - The Documentary, The Superlinguists, How to learn a language

Meet the people who speak many languages. How do they do it, and why?

Simon Calder asks how to go about acquiring a new tongue. He gets tips from those who know - innovative teachers and polyglots. The answers are surprising. At school, it is repetitive drills, shouted out loud by the whole class, that seem to lodge the grammar and pronunciation in the pupils’ brains. But if you are an adult learning by yourself, then, on the contrary, don’t stress about grammar and pronunciation, there are better, and more fun things to focus on. Simon has a go at learning Slovenian, can he order coffee and cake after just one lesson?

(Photo: Olly Richards and Katie Harris, with kind permission from both)

The Documentary: The Superlinguists

The people who speak many languages. How do they do it, and why?

Imagine speaking 10, 20, even 50 languages. Or living in a country where you have to speak three or four languages to get through your day. Simon Calder meets polyglots who love languages so much that they keep learning new ones. Could anyone do this? Simon gets the best tips for learning a new language. In multilingual countries – India and Luxembourg – people use several languages every day. How does that work? And do monolingual countries still exist?

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