AFP 17 – Lauren Cutlip and Benny Lewis: Lauren’s Esperanto

On this episode I am super excited to welcome Lauren and Benny to the podcast, I had been trying to get Benny on the show for a good while to talk about his book, but due to a busy schedule he was unavailable. Then by the time we set up an interview in Berlin he had already been asked just about any possible question about the book, so I had to think deep in order to provide an angle where we could learn something from Benny, but without it being him responding to the same old questions he had been asked time and time again.

bennylauren2The solution came in the form of the lovely Lauren who was, under the coaching – NOT tutoring, of Benny was undertaking learning Esperanto. Although she had minor experiences with French in High School, she called herself a monoglot and this dynamic with learning a first foreign language became a video series on Fluentin3Months.com, in my opinion the best series on the site yet. But as Benny told me, also the most time-consuming 🙂

So this podcast episode is about Lauren, which is also why her name is first in the episode guide. But if you are a Benny Lewis fan, don't despair as we often draw on him in the discussion to talk about methods and his experiences.

I must apologize if I say something stupid or nonsensical, not only am I interviewing one of my biggest idols and his girlfriend (who has an MA in rhetoric!) I am also sitting right in front of them! This made me quite nervous and I think it shows on the recording. Oh well, live and learn 🙂

Berlin Format and Audio Quality

The format of the next few weeks will be similar to that of the normal show, but it will be less formal. You might not even hear me do the stereotypical radio introduction. The audio quality is the best I was able to obtain from a hotel room, so it will sound slightly inferior. I hope you enjoy the content from Berlin. Thank you to all the people who took the time to sit down with me and chat about languages.

The Episode

Show Notes

In this episode you will hear about:

  • How Benny and Lauren met
  • Their thoughts about Polyglot Gathering Berlin
  • What made Lauren decide to learn a foreign language
  • Why they chose Esperanto
  • The difficulties and challenges of learning a first foreign language
  • Learning as a couple
  • What is next for Lauren?
  • What is next for Benny?
  • Benny's American book tour

Resources mentioned in the Episode

Note: I've removed most of the resources from this section, as I always had Anki/Memrise etc. here every week. Now I will only put resources here that are very exclusive to the episode. For any other resource please go to the resource page here for more information.