The Legends of Language Learning
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100+ Interview Clips (and growing) with Polyglots, Sinophiles & Chinese learning experts
Topics Covered Include:
- Motivation & Big Picture
- Studying
- Memory Palaces
- Immersion
- Output: Speaking & Writing
- Mandarin Chinese Specific Topics (we might be biased on this one 对不起)
- China: History & Culture
- Resources: The Best Self-Study Resources Online
Who We Interview
Kaiser Kuo 郭怡广 is co-founder of the Sinica Podcast and editor-at-large of The China Project.
The Sinica Podcast is the #1 English language on China’s current affairs in the world, and The China Project has become a staple of the China-watching community. Heck, even international diplomats & sinophiles consider The China Project an essential resource.
I experience Kaiser as highly thoughtful and willing to look at China objectively, which includes inhabiting the Chinese perspective. We get inundated by the Western corporate press about everything wrong with China. Much of it is correct, but it’s one-sided. The China Project and Sinica provide a fuller picture.
Steve Kaufmann has spent over 50 years studying languages. He is the founder of The Linguist blog and LingQ.com, one of our favorite tools for tracking your language acquisition.
As of 2022, he understands 20 languages, though his ability to speak and write in them to a highly proficient level varies considerably. The languages he speaks aside from English are French, Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Ukrainian, Czech, Slovak, and Romanian. He also learned some Greek and Turkish and is currently learning Arabic and Persian.
About Gabriel Wyner
Gabriel Wyner is a polyglot, former opera singer, the author of the book Fluent Forever: How to Learn Any Language Fast and Never Forget It, and the creator of the new Fluent Forever app, the most funded app in crowdfunding history.
Gabe was a major influence on the underlying philosophy of The Mandarin Blueprint Method, particularly the four levels of memory processing.
About Olly Richards
Olly Richards is a teacher, author, speaker, and proprietor at Story Learning (previously, “I will teach you a language”). He’s been featured in BBC documentaries and runs an excellent educational YouTube channel.
On a more personal note, we’re big fans of Olly, and the one word we’d use to describe him is wise. The man has been around the language learning block, and he recognizes the struggles that the average person faces along the journey from a place of empathy. Speaking of wisdom, you’d be wise to follow Olly’s work!
About Dr. Metivier
Dr. Anthony Metivier is the founder of the Magnetic Memory Method, a systematic, 21st-century approach to memorizing foreign language vocabulary, dreams, names, music, poetry, and much more in ways that are easy, elegant, effective, and fun. He’s also the author of The Victorious Mind, which comes highly recommended by us here at Mandarin Blueprint.
Anthony writes his books and creates video courses for a variety of people who need help with a number of different memory needs. What separates Anthony from others in the memory training world is that he doesn’t focus on long strings of digits or training for memory championships. He offers simple techniques for memorizing the information that improves your daily life: foreign language vocabulary, names and faces, material for tests and exams, etc. There’s no hype in his training, just techniques that work.
About Matt vs. Japan
Matt is the creator of the popular Matt vs. Japan YouTube channel and the co-founder of Refold Languages, where he shares the methods he used to reach near-native-like fluency in Japanese in just 5 years.
While Matt is no longer involved in the day-to-day operations over at Refold, he’s started a new project known as Project Uproot.
Matt is one of the deepest & most concise thinkers on immersion learning, and we’re sure you’ll find following his work highly motivating.
About Jake Gill
In the Chinese language learning space, Skritter is legendary. So is the CEO, Jake Gill. His infectious attitude and go-getter mentality are a big part of why Skritter keeps improving.
Skritter is best known for helping people learn and review Chinese characters, particularly how to make writing them fun. They also cover Japanese, and their sentence warehouse is incredible.
Jake spent years living in Taiwan studying Chinese and even worked at a language immersion camp called Concordia Language Villages. We really enjoyed chatting with Jake, and we’re sure you will too!
John Fotheringham is the owner and operator of one of our favorite sites for language learning languagemastery.com. He’s a linguist, author, teacher, and entrepreneur.
From his website:
I grew up near Seattle, but have spent much of my adult life living, learning, and working abroad, especially in Japan, Bangladesh, China, and Taiwan. As I learned and taught languages over the past two decades, I experimented with a wide range of learning methods, materials, and mindsets in an effort to figure out what works—and just as important—what doesn’t. I create Language Mastery to share everything I’ve learned—and continue to learn.
We were honored to speak to John and would consider him a 志同道合的朋友 (kindred spirit).
About Jared Turner
Mandarin Companion was started by Jared Turner and John Pasden who met one fateful day on a bus in Shanghai when the only remaining seat left them sitting next to each other.
A year later, Jared had greatly improved his Chinese using extensive reading but was frustrated at the lack of suitable reading materials. He approached John with the prospect of creating their own series. Having worked in Chinese education for nearly a decade, John was intrigued with the idea and thus began the Mandarin Companion series.
Jared & John also produce the You Can Learn Chinese podcast, where they interview both of us in different podcasts. Here’s the interview with Luke and the interview with Phil.
About Ethan Puzarne
Ethan Puzarne is the CEO and co-founder at Refold Languages.
Ethan is a former software engineer that quit his job and moved to South America to learn Spanish. After months of struggling with traditional learning, he got fed up. He found Matt’s method in 2019 and has never looked back.
Kaiser Kuo 郭怡广 is co-founder of the Sinica Podcast and editor-at-large of The China Project.
The Sinica Podcast is the #1 English language on China’s current affairs in the world, and The China Project has become a staple of the China-watching community. Heck, even international diplomats & sinophiles consider The China Project an essential resource.
I experience Kaiser as highly thoughtful and willing to look at China objectively, which includes inhabiting the Chinese perspective. We get inundated by the Western corporate press about everything wrong with China. Much of it is correct, but it’s one-sided. The China Project and Sinica provide a fuller picture.
Steve Kaufmann has spent over 50 years studying languages. He is the founder of The Linguist blog and LingQ.com, one of our favorite tools for tracking your language acquisition.
As of 2022, he understands 20 languages, though his ability to speak and write in them to a highly proficient level varies considerably. The languages he speaks aside from English are French, Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Ukrainian, Czech, Slovak, and Romanian. He also learned some Greek and Turkish and is currently learning Arabic and Persian.
About Gabriel Wyner
Gabriel Wyner is a polyglot, former opera singer, the author of the book Fluent Forever: How to Learn Any Language Fast and Never Forget It, and the creator of the new Fluent Forever app, the most funded app in crowdfunding history.
Gabe was a major influence on the underlying philosophy of The Mandarin Blueprint Method, particularly the four levels of memory processing.
About Olly Richards
Olly Richards is a teacher, author, speaker, and proprietor at Story Learning (previously, “I will teach you a language”). He’s been featured in BBC documentaries and runs an excellent educational YouTube channel.
On a more personal note, we’re big fans of Olly, and the one word we’d use to describe him is wise. The man has been around the language learning block, and he recognizes the struggles that the average person faces along the journey from a place of empathy. Speaking of wisdom, you’d be wise to follow Olly’s work!
About Dr. Metivier
Dr. Anthony Metivier is the founder of the Magnetic Memory Method, a systematic, 21st-century approach to memorizing foreign language vocabulary, dreams, names, music, poetry, and much more in ways that are easy, elegant, effective, and fun. He’s also the author of The Victorious Mind, which comes highly recommended by us here at Mandarin Blueprint.
Anthony writes his books and creates video courses for a variety of people who need help with a number of different memory needs. What separates Anthony from others in the memory training world is that he doesn’t focus on long strings of digits or training for memory championships. He offers simple techniques for memorizing the information that improves your daily life: foreign language vocabulary, names and faces, material for tests and exams, etc. There’s no hype in his training, just techniques that work.
About Matt vs. Japan
Matt is the creator of the popular Matt vs. Japan YouTube channel and the co-founder of Refold Languages, where he shares the methods he used to reach near-native-like fluency in Japanese in just 5 years.
While Matt is no longer involved in the day-to-day operations over at Refold, he’s started a new project known as Project Uproot.
Matt is one of the deepest & most concise thinkers on immersion learning, and we’re sure you’ll find following his work highly motivating.
About Jake Gill
In the Chinese language learning space, Skritter is legendary. So is the CEO, Jake Gill. His infectious attitude and go-getter mentality are a big part of why Skritter keeps improving.
Skritter is best known for helping people learn and review Chinese characters, particularly how to make writing them fun. They also cover Japanese, and their sentence warehouse is incredible.
Jake spent years living in Taiwan studying Chinese and even worked at a language immersion camp called Concordia Language Villages. We really enjoyed chatting with Jake, and we’re sure you will too!
John Fotheringham is the owner and operator of one of our favorite sites for language learning languagemastery.com. He’s a linguist, author, teacher, and entrepreneur.
From his website:
I grew up near Seattle, but have spent much of my adult life living, learning, and working abroad, especially in Japan, Bangladesh, China, and Taiwan. As I learned and taught languages over the past two decades, I experimented with a wide range of learning methods, materials, and mindsets in an effort to figure out what works—and just as important—what doesn’t. I create Language Mastery to share everything I’ve learned—and continue to learn.
We were honored to speak to John and would consider him a 志同道合的朋友 (kindred spirit).
About Jared Turner
Mandarin Companion was started by Jared Turner and John Pasden who met one fateful day on a bus in Shanghai when the only remaining seat left them sitting next to each other.
A year later, Jared had greatly improved his Chinese using extensive reading but was frustrated at the lack of suitable reading materials. He approached John with the prospect of creating their own series. Having worked in Chinese education for nearly a decade, John was intrigued with the idea and thus began the Mandarin Companion series.
Jared & John also produce the You Can Learn Chinese podcast, where they interview both of us in different podcasts. Here’s the interview with Luke and the interview with Phil.
About Ethan Puzarne
Ethan Puzarne is the CEO and co-founder at Refold Languages.
Ethan is a former software engineer that quit his job and moved to South America to learn Spanish. After months of struggling with traditional learning, he got fed up. He found Matt’s method in 2019 and has never looked back.
- You’re a total beginner confused about where to start with language learning
- You’re interested in learning about HOW and WHAT to study
- You’re looking for motivation and want to see the big picture of language acquisition
- You’re curious about immersion learning and want advice from the experts
- You want to learn how to speak & write but need help with the finer details
- You find Chinese particularly interesting and want to know how to approach it
- You’re interested (or at least curious) about Chinese culture and how it may come to shape the modern world
- You want to find out about some of the best resources for language learning available online today
The Legends of Language Learning
Gain instant, lifetime access to The Legends of Language Learning, FREE!
100+ Interview Clips (and growing) with Polyglots, Sinophiles & Chinese learning experts
Topics Covered Include:
- Motivation & Big Picture
- Studying
- Memory Palaces
- Immersion
- Output: Speaking & Writing
- Mandarin Chinese Specific Topics
- China: History & Culture
- Resources: The Best Self-Study Resources Online
