Said & Done: Recent Episodes
Columbia University Language Resource Center
Said & Done is a podcast from the Columbia University Language Resource Center that explores languages at the intersection of culture and biography. In conversation with host Chris Kaiser, guests share how they have been shaped by the languages they speak.
Sato Moughalian and Ryan Nazari, both Ph.D. students enrolled in Armenian classes at Columbia, speak about their experiences and reasons for learning the language. They discuss the complex background of Armenian, which forms its own distinct, independent branch within the Indo-European language family. They also detail how their own personal and family stories intertwine with histories of genocide, forced migration, music, art, ceramics, weaving, and what it means to be Armenian today.
To learn more about Armenian at Columbia, check out https://mesaas.columbia.edu/armenian-studies/
The music featured on this episode is from the Perspectives Ensemble's album Oror/Lullaby: Armenian Music for Flute and Harp, featuring Sato Moughalian and Alyssa Reit
In this episode of Said & Done, Denzell Ivery, a master's student at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs, talks about learning multiple languages—including Turkish, Russian, Azerbaijani, and Hungarian—and how his background as a musician has shaped his approach to communication. From the concert stage to deployments abroad with the U.S. Marines, he's found that sound and meaning follow the same patterns of play, discipline, and discovery.
In this episode of Said & Done, Leyre Alejaldre Biel, Lecturer in Spanish at Columbia, speaks about her Intermediate Spanish course, Afrolatinas en Estados Unidos. The class centers the voices and experiences of Afrolatina women, as students research and learn about members of this community.
The episode also points to how this project extends beyond the classroom, with student-created podcasts available on Spotify and student-generated content relating to the class on Instagram.
If you’d like to see and hear more of the student work, visit Afrolatinas en Estados Unidos on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5tneZgWTsNUQO7Xw7xAv67
And Afrolatinas in Spanish on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/afrolatinasinspanish/
Emma Kaneira, a 2025 graduate of Barnard College, shares her experience learning Sinhala at Columbia through the Shared Course Initiative, which brings this language to Columbia from Cornell University. She reflects on her progression through the language sequence, how her studies inspired her to apply for and receive a Fulbright award, and how she envisions her knowledge of Sinhala shaping her future career in the legal profession.
Learn more about the Shared Course Initiative: www.sharedcourseinitiative.org
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Francisca Aguiló Mora is Senior Lecturer of Spanish in Columbia University's Department of Latin American and Iberian Cultures and co-director of the Spanish Language Program. In this conversation, she discusses how the Climate Humanities can take a central position in the L2 classroom, and how she has begun to put this into practice in her own teaching.
We also discuss a recent article, "Climate Humanities in the L2 Classroom: Radical Hope for an Uncertain Future," which she co-authored with Almudena Marin Cobos in the journal Radical Teacher as part of a volume dedicated to critical DEI. The article is accessible here: https://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu/ojs/radicalteacher/article/view/1273/906
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Like & Subscribe for More Language Stories! #climatehumanities #climatehope #climate #sustainability #humanities #languagelearning #podcast #WorldLanguages #LanguageTeaching #Columbia #ColumbiaUniversity #Education #linguistics #polyglot #podcast
Video version here: https://youtu.be/trl-j5ulOLw?feature=shared
Ever struggled with Mandarin pronunciation or stroke order? In our latest podcast episode, Ling Yan and Yike Li, both Mandarin Chinese instructors at Columbia, reveal how they tackle these common learning hurdles. They’ve developed a dedicated First Year Chinese Learning Hub that helps new students build confidence in pronunciation, tones, character writing, and more. Curious to hear their insights and teaching strategies? Tune in and discover how their innovative approach can boost your (or your students’) Chinese proficiency!
Kim Edmunds is the Educational Technologist at the Columbia University Language Resource Center. She is also a TESOL teacher trainer at The New School and an ESL instructor. In this conversation, Kim reflects on the similarities and differences between TESOL/ESL and world language teaching. We discuss key areas of focus, including pronunciation, cultural perspectives, motivation in language learning, and the role of technology in the classroom.
Maria Dewi Rosari (Rosi) is a Fulbight Language Teaching Assistant at Columbia in the 2024-25 academic year. She is also an English language lecturer in Indonesia. Gading Auliya is currently a masters student at Teachers College in Adult Learning and Leadership, and is also a facilitator for youth empowerment in Indonesia.
In this conversation, Rosi and Gading explore the Javanese language, focusing on its unique system of speech levels. They highlight the differences between Ngoko (informal) and Krama (formal/polite), along with other registers that help speakers express politeness and navigate social relationships. Additionally, they compare different geographic varieties of Javanese, pointing out their similarities and differences.
Benjamin Williams, a junior at Columbia University in 2024-2025, is double-majoring in French and Francophone Studies, as well as German Literature and Cultural History. In this episode, Ben talks about his passion for languages and shares his experiences learning German, French, Italian, and Ancient Greek. He also reflects on his work in an advanced French course, where he collaborated with Francophone asylum seekers in New York City. He then discusses his volunteer efforts at Afrikana, an organization dedicated to supporting Black, Arab, and Muslim newcomers facing challenges in accessing legal aid, shelter, employment, and benefits.
https://www.afri-kana.org/
Michael F. Moore is a translator and interpreter who has translated numerous works, including The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni, The Drowned and the Saved by Primo Levi, Live Bait by Fabio Genovesi, and Agostino by Alberto Moravia. His most recently translated Spatriati by Mario Desiati, which in 2022 won the Premio Strega, Italy's highest literary award. In addition to his translation work, he serves as an interpreter to the permanent mission of Italy to the UN. In this conversation, Michael recounts his path to learning Italian and becoming a translator and interpreter. He discusses the nuances and challenges of translating Alessandro Manzoni's Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed), and helping the English-language reading public to discover it as one of the great works of European literature. He also talks about his recent translation of Mario Desiati's Spatriati, as well as a translation seminar that he is teaching at Columbia in Fall 2024.
The Betrothed: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/107406/the-betrothed-by-alessandro-manzoni/
Spatriati: https://otherpress.com/product/spatriati-9781635424034/
Wynnie Lamour-Quansah is a lecturer of Haitian Creole at NYU, the founder and managing director of the Haitian Creole Language Institute of New York, and the co-founder of Jaden Timoun, a Haitian Creole language immersion program for children. Wynnie talks about her own experience with growing up and speaking Haitian Creole. She discusses the origins and revolutionary history of the language, its status today in Haiti, and the relationship between language, politics, and power.
Haitian Creole Language Institute of New York: https://haitiancreoleinstitute.com/ Jaden Timoun: https://jadentimoun.com/ Haitian Creole at NYU: https://as.nyu.edu/research-centers/clacs/languages/haitian-creole.html
Nelleke Van Deusen-Scholl, a sociolinguist and former director of the Yale Center for Language Study, speaks about heritage language learning, a topic on which she has published extensively. She then discusses other ways in which language learning has a transformative effect on people's lives, from migrant farm workers in florida, to university students, to any person who decides that they want to study a new language. The power of language learning is also the topic of her blog, Discover the World through Language, available at https://discovertheworldthroughlanguage.org/
Reyes Llopis-García is a Senior Lecturer in Spanish in the Department of Latin American and Iberian Cultures at Columbia, a cognitive linguist, and a teacher trainer. In this conversation, we talk about cognitive linguistics and some ways in which concepts from this field of study can be applied in the language classroom. We also discuss a book that she recently published, Applied Cognitive Linguistics and L2 Instruction in the Cambridge Elements series.
You can find more information about the book here: https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/applied-cognitive-linguistics-and-l2-instruction/B6BB969DF51D65418CCDCDFEF0C9C754
In this conversation, we refer to several diagrams from her book. To see these diagrams, you can view the video version of this episode on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu80J0CTDdc
Angelika Kraemer is the Director of the Cornell Language Resource Center. In this conversation, she shares her journey to becoming a scholar and language professional. She then discusses some solutions to the ongoing challenge of promoting and communicating about languages. We also talk about her podcast, Speaking of Language, from the Cornell Language Resource Center.
Subscribe to "Speaking of Language" here: https://lrc.cornell.edu/podcast
The website of the JNCL-NCLIS (Join National Committee for Languages and the National Council for Languages and International Studies), mentioned in this episode: https://www.languagepolicy.org
Wesley Doucette is a Ph.D. student at the CUNY Graduate Center in the French Doctoral Program. In this conversation, Wesley talks about his long-standing interest in studying both French and Turkish. He discusses what it was like to learn Turkish at Columbia through an inter-institutional partnership called the Inter-University Doctoral Consortium. He shares his views on the benefits of studying a less commonly taught language, what was easy and what was difficult about learning Turkish, and his experiences with learning Ottoman Turkish at Columbia in addition to Modern Turkish.
Turkish at Columbia: https://mesaas.columbia.edu/language-programs/turkish/
Ottoman Turkish at Columbia: https://www.lrc.columbia.edu/language/turkish-ottoman/
Professor David Malinowski of San Jose State University discusses the topic of the linguistic landscape, which refers to the "symbolic construction of the public space." He defines and introduces the topic, shares examples of linguistic landscapes, and discusses the kinds of relationships that two or more languages appearing (or not appearing) simultaneously in public can have with one another.
Materials for those interested in learning more about LL
Handout for language instructors/learners looking for a framework to get started with the linguistic landscape: (link)
A more detailed essay introduction to the topic: (link)
The two books that Dave mentions in the episode:
- Dubreil, S., Malinowski, D., & Maxim, H. H. (Eds.). (2023). Spatializing Language Studies: Pedagogical Approaches in the Linguistic Landscape (Vol. 62). Springer. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-39578-9
- Malinowski, D., Maxim, H. H., & Dubreil, S. (Eds.). (2020). Language teaching in the linguistic landscape: Mobilizing pedagogy in public space. Springer. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-55761-4
Additional resources on LL:
- Backhaus, P. (2007). Linguistic landscapes: A comparative study of urban multilingualism in Tokyo. Multilingual Matters.
- Ben-Rafael, E., Shohamy, E., Hasan Amara, M., & Trumper-Hecht, N. (2006). Linguistic Landscape as Symbolic Construction of the Public Space: The Case of Israel. International Journal of Multilingualism, 3(1), 7–30.
- Scollon, R., & Scollon, S. B. K. (2003). Discourses in place: Language in the material world. Routledge.
- Solmaz, O., & Przymus, S. (Eds.). (2021). Linguistic landscapes in English Language Teaching: A pedagogical guidebook. http://llineltproject.com/
Fransha Dace hails from the South Side Chicago neighborhood of South Shore, and is currently a Ph.D candidate at the School of the Environment at Yale University.
In this conversation, she talks about the relationship between climate and language, and how she has used her knowledge of Swahili to study the effects of climate change in Tanzania. She discusses her climate research, which pairs Dar es Salaam and Chicago, and examines how climate change affects the residents of these cities. She then speaks about what it means to be a researcher, who gets to conduct research, and how she hopes that universities can change to become more inclusive and welcoming to future researchers.
To celebrate the newly-released book, "Language City: The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues in New York," we revisit a conversation with author Ross Perlin from 2022. Ross is a Columbia professor, linguist, and co-director of the Endangered Language Alliance. In this conversation, he previews several of the fascinating topics which later appear in Language City, such New York's linguistic hyperdiversity and the importance of language preservation, as well as the stories of speakers of endangered languages like Seke and Lenape.
Learn more about Language City here: https://groveatlantic.com/book/language-city/
Learn more about the Endangered Language Alliance Here: https://www.elalliance.org/
Learn more about the Languages of New York City map: https://languagemap.nyc/
Claire-Marie Brisson is a Preceptor in French at Harvard University. In this conversation, she talks about growing up in Michigan in close contact with multiple languages, including French, English, Spanish, German, and Arabic. She discusses her activities as a French language advocate and educator, including a course that she teaches at Harvard titled "Discovering French in North America." This class follows waterways in the US and Canada to explore the history of the French language, minority French literature, and environmental issues.
Watch this conversation on YouTube: https://youtu.be/J9vlx47f-O0
The North American Francophone Podcast: https://www.thefrancophone.com/
Liam Liesanggoro teaches Indonesian at Columbia University as the Fulbright Foreign Language TA for the 2023-2024 academic year. In this conversation, he speaks about the fascinating connection between language and sports. Liam discusses how language is used in playing badminton and basketball, both in Indonesia and in the US. He also talks about how playing sports can be a good way for a person studying or living abroad to engage with others, acquire new linguistic forms, and become part of a community.
Timi Odunjo is a senior at Columbia University majoring in Drama and Theatre Arts. In this conversation, he speaks about studying the Yoruba language at Columbia and the cinematic traditions that have inspired him to become a filmmaker. He also discusses his first film, a documentary titled Ballet U.
Richard R. speaks about his journey to and within Tibetan Buddhism, and the central role that the Tibetan language has played in his religious practice and in his life over the past several decades.layed in his religious practice and in his life over the past several decades.
Skye Shannon Savage, a Ph.D. candidate in Columbia's Department of Germanic Languages, discusses a project that involved teaching some Yiddish in a German language class, in order to highlight the relationship between the two languages. Skye situates this experiment of linguistic cross-pollination within the broader context of metalinguistic knowledge, which is rarely taught explicitly in the foreign language classroom.
Simon Zuberek returns to Said & Done to discuss the rise in interest in artificial intelligence, and how it relates to language teaching and learning. We discuss how large language model chatbots like ChatGPT and Google Bard work, and how they might and might not be helpful to a language learner today.
Nandi Sipengane, instructor of isiZulu at Yale University, talks about speaking many different languages at home and at school growing up in South Africa. She describes some of the unique features of isiZulu, including the famous click consonants. She also discusses how South Africans think about and understand their complex national, cultural, and linguistic identities.
Watch this conversation on Youtube: https://youtu.be/t5jOXjLx_TY
Angelina Craig-Florez of Columbia University, Ann Warner-Ault of the College of New Jersey, and Mike Jones of Swarthmore College are three members of the board of NEALLT, the Northeastern Association for Language Learning Technology. In this conversation, we talk about the paths that they took to becoming language professionals, the role of technology in language teaching, and how a smaller regional organization like NEALLT can be a big help to graduate students and early-career language professionals as they try out new ideas and build their professional networks. Here’s my conversation with Angie, Ann, and Mike.
www.neallt.org
https://youtu.be/q09EGrxBx7I
#language #languages #languagelearning #languageteaching
What challenges do learners face in year 10, year 15, year 20 of studying a foreign language? Chris and Simon talk about their recent victories and ongoing challenges as higher-proficiency learners of English, German, and Italian.
This episode was recorded as a livestream on Youtube. You can watch the video version of this conversation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi7lW9yvnpo
Ayomide Tikare, a graduating senior at Barnard College, talks about learning Yoruba over the past four years. She discusses her background as a Yoruba heritage speaker, her language-learning process, and her love of Yoruba-language films and music.
Mentioned in this episode:
O Le Ku - 1997 film by Tunde Kelani Tunde Kelani, Nigerian film director Kunle Afolayan, Nigerian film director Mami Wata - 2023 film by C.J. Obasi October 1 - 2014 film directed by Kunle Afolayan Ayinla - 2021 film directed by Tunde Kelani Tope Alabi - Nigerian gospel singer Fuji - popular Yoruba musical genre Oriki - Yoruba praise poetry
Dr. Dwijen Bhattacharya discusses the history and origin of the Bengali language, a related language called Sylheti, and some of the reasons why a language learner in the US might want to study Bengali.
In his second appearance on Said & Done, Yuri Shevchuk recounts a journey to Ukraine that he undertook in August 2022, and describes what he encountered in a country at war. He then speaks more generally about Russia’s war in Ukraine, about what surprised him and what didn’t surprise him about it, and about the evolving role of the Ukrainian language in this war.
Professor Carol Rounds, lecturer of Hungarian at Columbia University, speaks about some of the unique and challenging ways in which Hungarian is structured, and why it is so interesting to linguists. She discusses how this agglutinative language creates meaning and allows for play in ways that are surprising to speakers of English, as a consequence of its morphological and syntactic complexity.
Professor Millicent Marcus of Yale University speaks about her life and work as a scholar of Italian literature. We focus in particular on her witnessing of and participation in two world-historical events: the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and the 1966 flood of the River Arno in Florence. She describes her experiences as one of the “Angeli del fango,” the young people who helped to recover books, manuscripts, and works of art from the damage of the floodwaters.
Chris Kaiser thanks the listeners and guests of the Said & Done podcast and announces a new schedule for 2023.
Professor Jay Ramesh of Columbia University discusses his knowledge of and experiences in three languages of India: Sanskrit, Tamil, and Malayalam. He describes the myths and stories associated with Hindu temples, and in particular a certain kind of text called a Sthala Purana, some of which are written first in Sanskrit and then later given a unique kind of translation into Tamil.
Ross Perlin, professor at Columbia in the Linguistics program and co-director of the Endangered Language Alliance, discusses how large cities are often home to endangered languages from around the world. He talks about the challenges of preserving and revitalizing languages with few speakers, and gives the examples of Seke, a language of Nepal, and Lunaape (also called Lenape or Delaware), a Native American language of the Algonquian family.
Learn more about the Endangered Language Alliance here: https://www.elalliance.org/
The ELA’s “Languages of New York City” map: Print version: https://www.elalliance.org/our-work/maps/nyc-map Digital version: https://languagemap.nyc/
Yudis Nugraha, instructor of Indonesian at Columbia University, talks about growing up speaking both Indonesian and Balinese. He discusses the relationship between language, tourism, culture and religion in Bali, focusing in on the unique religion of Balinese Hinduism. Approximately 90% of people living in Bali identify as belonging to this religion, whose origins trace back to traders and priests from India coming to the Indonesian archipelago 2000 years ago.
Felice Beneduce discusses growing up in an Italian family in Providence, Rhode Island and speaking standard Italian at home. He talks about how his love for the Italian language has figured prominently throughout his life, from his time serving in the Italian army, to living in northern Italy, to studying Italian literature, and now to passing this knowledge on to his students and his family as a teacher of the language.
As the war in Ukraine passes its six-month mark, we look back on our conversation with Yuri Shevchuk from March 2022. This episode highlights two moments from that interview in which Yuri discusses Ukrainian speakers' strategic use of language in recent decades, as well as in the ongoing invasion.
In this conversation, Simon talks about growing up speaking both Polish and English, as well as learning several other languages along the way. We then explore different facets of the experience of bilingualism, in particular how certain situations cause him to choose one language over the other, and how trying to use the other language when it’s not the right situation for it can sometimes cause problems.
Dr. Luana Ferreira is a linguist, educator, and host of the podcast Bocona: All Things Dominican. In this conversation, she talks about growing up in the Dominican community in New York, as well as in the Dominican Republic. She discusses some of the characteristics of the Dominican variety of Spanish, and shares how her podcast is seeking to amplify, uplift, center, and empower Dominican voices.
https://boconaallthingsdominican.buzzsprout.com/
Chris Kaiser talks about how discovering a box of letters in his grandmother's house as a child inspired him to undertake a lifelong journey of language learning.
This episode is also available on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zIyVO0vjGc
In part II of our conversation, Agi discusses the writer Isaac Bashevis Singer, Yiddish women writers, and the motif of the Dybbuk in 20th and 21st century literature.
Yiddish at Columbia: https://germanic.columbia.edu/programs/yiddish
Isaac Bashevis Singer Nobel Speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpCzuvNmnOA
Found Treasures: Stories by Yiddish Women Writers https://shop.yiddishbookcenter.org/products/found-treasures-stories-by-yiddish-women-writers-by-ethel-raicus-frieda-forman-sarah-silberstein-swartz
Agi Legutko, Instructor of Yiddish at Columbia University, speaks about her journey to uncover her Jewish roots, the Yiddish language past and present, and her work on the Mapping Yiddish New York project, which maps the use of the Yiddish language in New York City.
Yiddish at Columbia: https://germanic.columbia.edu/programs/yiddish
Mapping Yiddish New York: https://jewishstudiescolumbia.com/myny/
Naomi Prawer Kadar Fellowship: https://www.iijs.columbia.edu/naomi-fellowship
Professor Joowon Suh discusses the rise of Korean cultural products on the global stage such as K-dramas, K-Pop, films, television shows, and food. We talk about how cross-linguistic rhyming works in K-pop, the popularity of the boy band BTS, archetypes in the movie Parasite, and her experience of visiting South Korea after living in the US for many years.
Odi Gonzalez, a professor at NYU, specializes in Andean culture and the Quechua language, in addition to being a writer and poet. In this conversation, he discusses growing up in Peru speaking both Spanish and Quechua. He shows how Quechua, which is more properly called Runa Simi, is a precise language because it is largely a spoken language rather than a written one. He illustrates this precision with several examples, and discusses the challenges of translating written texts from other languages into Quechua. Learn more about Quechua at NYU here: https://as.nyu.edu/content/nyu-as/as/research-centers/clacs/quechua.html
Professor Wijnie de Groot, instructor of Dutch at Columbia University, speaks about how the Dutch 17th century, and the powerful reach of the Dutch East India company, have had an enduring yet often unrecognized influence on our modern, interconnected world. She discusses her class on reading documents from this time, which is a skill that few possess, despite the existence of an expansive archive of written and printed materials. She also talks about the status of the Dutch language today.
In Part II of this conversation, Richard goes into about the specifics of becoming a shaman. He describes the epistemology of the Benuaq people, that is, their way of knowing things about the world. He also discusses the pressures that this traditional worldview faces as Indonesia begins to move its capital from Jakarta to Kalimantan, just a hundred miles downriver from where the Benuaq live.
Richard Payne, professor of Anthropology at CUNY Queens College, speaks about how a chance encounter led him to spend two years living in a small village in Indonesia called Engkuni Pasek, which is on the island of Borneo. In part one of this conversation, Richard shares his journey to and initial observations in this village, and how he learned to speak the local language, which is called Benuaq. He describes how Engkuni Pasek is a center of shamanistic knowledge and practice, and how he found himself observing and participating in rituals known as Belian ceremonies. Part I of this two-part conversation closes with his decision to study to become a shaman himself, a process that he will recount in detail in Part II, to be released on May 12, 2022.
Prof. Anggi Suharja, instructor of Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian) at Columbia, discusses growing up speaking Indonesian as a native language, as well as speaking two local languages. She discusses how local languages of Indonesia serve as a resource for constructing neologisms in Indonesia. She also discusses her identity as a member of the Sundanese ethnic group, which is primarily located in West Java.
Heli Sirviö, instructor of Finnish and Swedish discusses growing up speaking both languages. She talks about how the Finnish people see themselves with respect to their neighbors and the rest of the world. Then, she gets into the Kalevala, which is the Finnish national epic. She discusses the world of the Kalevala, and how JRR Tolkien was inspired by this epic poem when he wrote the Lord of the Rings sequence.
Professor Mariame Sy discusses growing up speaking Pulaar, Wolof and French in multilingual Senegal. She describes how she became interested in linguistics, and eventually became a teacher of Wolof at Columbia. She goes into detail about how she teaches Wolof, and how she views this teaching as a Decolonial enterprise. She discusses how she identifies specific concepts within Wolof culture, and helps students to build a detailed understanding of those concepts over the course of several years.
Prof. Yuri Shevchuk speaks about his experiences with the Ukrainian language in his early life. He shares how he became a teacher of Ukrainian and an advocate for the language, and how he wrote a bilingual English-Ukrainian collocation dictionary. He also discusses the impact that Putin's incursion into Ukraine in Spring 2022 has had on how the language is being spoken today.
Introducing Said & Done, a new podcast about languages and the people who speak them, from the Columbia University Language Resource Center.
Learn more at https://www.lrc.columbia.edu/podcast/