Professor Petra McGillen on the LangTech Podcast

Professor Petra McGillen was recently interviewed by the British podcast Langtech.  The interview revolved around the challenges and joys of raising bilingual children and, more generally, of speaking foreign languages.  She also connected some of these topics to her research on media history and the material history of creativity in the nineteenth century.  In the episode, she made an existentialist argument for the study of foreign languages. The host asked what she could tell people to incentivize them to learn another language. She said that one could spend a long time talking about the practical advantages of speaking more than one language, but ultimately, there is a much more profound argument to be made here: speaking another language enables you to relate to the world anew, through a different version of yourself—and that can be a really exciting, transformative experience.  Hear the full podcast at  https://langtechpodcast.podbean.com/e/the-langtech-podcast-episode-2-petra-mcgillen/