I look at how Chinese is different from the other languages I speak, and how I was dealing with this difficulty. Also, after the first few weeks of learning Chinese, I noticed that I was missing something and that I was getting quite confused at times. Would I be able to keep up my motivation […]
Children learn their first language without looking up any grammar rules, so why can’t adults do the same? In this episode look at how the grammars of the world’s languages differ. Having previously worked on “grammar” and even written a grammatical description of an Amazonian language, Mosetén, I decided to study Chinese without learning any […]
Once I had decided to learn Chinese, I needed to find the right method to do so. In this episode I describe my thought-process and why started with an app that was entirely in Chinese, without any translation.
In this episode I look at what the term ‘Chinese’ refers to. Mandarin? Cantonese? Why are there so many different terms for Chinese in Chinese itself? I try to investigate whether Chinese is difficult to learn. Well, apparently it is, because everyone keeps telling me so! But is it really? Is my learning doomed right […]
Would a 49-year-old even be able to learn a new language? Spoiler alter: yes! But why are people different in their language-learning success? What affects language learning? In this episode I compare how children learn their first language and second language acquisition and I look at the different factors behind language-learning success.
Hi, I’m Jeanette Sakel and I’m a professor of Language and Linguistics. I’m an avid language learner… or at least used to be, until I settled into a permanent teaching post, had a kid and somehow did not have the time or inclination to learn languages for a number of years. But this changed about […]
In this episode of the “Chicken to Duck Talk” podcast, hosts Jeanette Sakel and Zheng Xingzhi (GiGi) interview Maddie, a British student who has just completed her second year at university. Our conversation explores various topics and discusses how to use the He / She and they appropriately, English names, and how to make friends […]
在本期节目中，我们与嘉宾 Xiaoxin 共同讨论她在英国攻读博士学位的经历，中国学生在英语口语学习中的焦虑问题，以及他们采用的缓解策略。
“Chicken to Duck Talk” is a bilingual Mandarin-English podcast hosted by Jeanette Sakel and Gigi, focusing on experiences of studying and working in the UK. The hosts discuss their backgrounds, challenges of teaching in a non-native language, and the stress of PhD studies. They emphasize the normalcy of making language mistakes when living abroad. Future […]
