English with Kirsty

Leda is an English to Romanian Charity and Public Sector Translator whom I met on LinkedIn a few months ago. Initially I was happy to have found another Romanian connection who enjoys languages, but as I began to read more of her content, I thought she would be a good guest to bring on the podcast too!

Leda loves translating texts that educate, entertain, and inspire: from articles about mental health to child protection documents and educational resources developed by charities. She also loves reading, learning languages, and having a nice cuddle with her dog, Puck.

We talked about:

• Leda’s interest in languages from an early age.
• How reading books, including audio books, can help you to develop your language skills.
• Leda’s book group on LinkedIn.
• Translating children’s books into Romanian
• How Leda got into doing social care, parenting, and mental health content translations.
• The benefits of having a dog - I had to get Puck the golden retriever in there somewhere!

Find out more on the show notes page
https://englishwithkirsty.com/podcast/episode224/

Isabelle and I met on LinkedIn after she was a guest on my friend Rita Gonçalves' "The Language Worker" podcast. Isabelle is a Pronunciation Coach & Marketing Translator from English and German into French for the Tech and Cyber security industry.

This is how Isabelle introduces herself:

"I'm Isabelle Cottenet, a French pronunciation coach and translator.
I help non native French speakers master the rhythms and sounds of the language to sound clear and confident in French.

I've been delving into the relationship between languages and music for over 20 years.

Today, I use a combination of tools drawn from my background in linguistics, phonetics, music, and vocal technique to create an enjoyable, efficient and supportive journey into French pronunciation for my students.

I offer individual and group online classes focused on phonetics and pronunciation.

I work with interpreters, translators, language instructors, but also corporate professionals, freelancers, individuals, and singers who want to improve their French pronunciation and be better understood."

Find out more on the show notes page:
https://englishwithkirsty.com/podcast/episode223/

You may remember Rita Gonçalves from episode 215. The episode we did together for my podcast was actually the second part of a podcast conversation swap - and now you can listen to our first conversation as well.

This is the conversation that was originally published on Rita's podcast, The Language Worker. Go and check it out if you are interested in the exciting world of language learning and working in the language industry.

I love Rita's passion, enthusiasm, and her stories. This time we talked about learning other languages as an adult.

The show notes are here:
https://www.englishwithkirsty.com/podcast/episode222

I've known Mira online for several years now. We got chatting because of a comment on some language-rlated post and we've had a few virtual coffees and online chats since. I thought Mira would be a good guest to bring on the podcast because of her own story, where she moved to England and needed to start using English within the school system here and later to build her international business.

Mira Rutter is a Life Balance Coach & Strategist from <a href="https://ruttercoaching.com/"> Rutter Coaching.</a>

She coaches female online service-based business owners to strategically manage their time & energy, develop an empowering mindset & build high-performance habits so that they can take their business to the next level and create success on their terms.
She helps you create your success cycle & grow your online business with ease, fun & flow by coaching you to implement female-centric strategies and take aligned, inspired action.
Connect with Mira to discover how to tap into your unique superpowers and work with your menstrual cycle.

We talked about

* Mira's story, her connection with English, and her language learning tips.
* Learning another language by attending school in a country where that language is spoken
* Techniques for making the language learning process easier, such as emersion and thinking in the target language
* Professional development and identifying the language resources that will give you what you need for the situations in which you'll need to use the new language
* The importance of our names and getting them right!
* Mira's current business and how her early experiences help her as an international business owner now.

Click here for the show notes:
https://www.englishwithkirsty.com/podcast/episode221

This is a really short episode, but it's important!

What one thing can you work towards in English or another language that will be fun for you?

Maybe you are learning a language for a specific reason. Maybe it isn't even your choice. But what is one thing that you can work towards that you will enjoy?

I share something that I did recently and why this brought me closer to one of my goals for Romanian. How about you?

Learning a language doesn't always have to be serious! We should find ways to make it enjoyable for ourselves too - even though it can be tough sometimes!

If you find something that makes you feel good, it will motivate you to keep going!

Here is the show notes page:
https://www.englishwithkirsty.com/podcast/episode220

Diana is “a very curious woman from Venezuela and a big fan of languages!”

We met on LinkedIn – it’s the place to be these days – and I want to share with you what happened when we got together a couple of weeks ago. We talked about:

• Diana’s story and language journey
• Why it’s important to have fun when you are learning languages and to find activities that are enjoyable for you
• Why it’s important to practise every day and not just when you go to classes
• How to avoid mixin up languages when you are learning several languages at the same time
• How using different languages helps you to highlight different parts of your personality
• How her knowledge of languages and her experience working with different cultures help Diana now with her work in communications
• How having something enjoyable to work towards can be both a motivator and a reward.

Find out more on the show notes page:
https://www.englishwithkirsty.com/podcast/episode219

I haven’t done a solo episode for a while, so I decided to talk about producing content in other languages.

This is relevant for me at the moment because I’m creating a presentation in Romanian and writing a guest blog article in German. So I thought it might be useful to share some of the things that I’ve been doing to make the process easier. After all, it’s not exactly the same when you are creating content in an additional language. Maybe you need to do the same with content in English.

Let me know if you have any tips to add or experiences to share!

Find out more on the show notes page:
https://www.englishwithkirsty.com/podcast/episode218

Antoni Maroto is a freelance medical communicator who aims to produce accessible, clear, and inclusive documents for consumers, health care providers, patients, and regulatory agencies. His areas of specialisation are imaging and radiology. Antoni’s working languages are Catalan, English, Portuguese, and Spanish.

We talked about:

* How Antoni's early introduction to English opened up new opportunities, personally and professionally.
* Moving to Portugal and beginning to learn Portuguese.
* How writing in your additional languages can help you to consolidate what you've learned
* The importance of finding role models who inspire you when you want to learn a new language
* Ways to overcome the fear of speaking an additional language.

Do you relate to any of the subjects that we discussed? 

Find out more on the show notes page:
https://englishwithkirsty.com/podcast/episode217/

Sancha and I got to know each other on LinkedIn and I was interested to find out more about her, her work, her family, and her story.

In this conversation, we talk about:

Sancha's first experiences working with English speakers
Getting used to listening to a variety of accents once you start using a language in the real world
Learning Korean as an adult
Bringing children up bilingually
Sancha's journals for mothers and children.
 
This is how Sancha introduced herself:

“Mental and emotional health are by far what affects many parents / carers of people with disabilities, as we focus so much on caring for others, we tend to leave ourselves behind. I became a Thetahealer and I didn't stop since, I became a Reiki Master, studying Psychology at NUI Maynooth, joined the Irish School of Shamanic Studies to become a Shaman healer, started reading Angel Cards and made my mission to help all parents and carers of special needs children/adults , to balance their mental and emotional health on the daily basis. Because I know how it feels, the challenges, the daily struggles, the upper management of home, therapies, doctors, children, and life itself. I have created a range of products and published over 7 books to help on their daily self-care routine. As we all know we can’t give from an empty cup, so we must fill ours first.

Find out more on the show notes page:
https://www.englishwithkirsty.com/podcast/episode216

Where do I start? When Rita and I get together we never really know what will happen! We have all kinds of ideas for projects and I’m sure you’ll hear more about those soon.

But this time we talked about one of our favourite subjects: languages!

That means

• How we became interested in them and the role that they play in our lives
• How we share this passion with others and help them to learn
• Why Madonna is so important in Rita’s language learning story
• How language without context won’t help you to communicate
• How Rita’s English and Portuguese mentoring sessions work
• Why it’s important to combine our other passions and interests with our additional languages.

Actually it’s really hard to summarise our conversation because we cover so many topics, share what has worked for us, tell stories, and generally have a great time talking about everything around languages, linguistics, and learning!

Find out more and how to connect with Rita on the show notes page:
https://www.englishwithkirsty.com/podcast/episode215