LanGoPod Episode 1: What are words made of?

LanGoPod is a podcast that helps you learn languages more effectively by understanding linguistic principles. 💬

In this first episode of LanGoPod, we discuss the distinction between written and spoken language, i.e., words ≠ letters!

Spoken and signed languages are learned naturally by children as their first language. Writing is learned later in life, and not all languages are written. One example of the difference between sounds and letters can be seen in words that are spelled differently, but pronounced the same, such as “to, two,” and “too”. One of the reasons that words in English are often pronounced differently than they are spelled is that all languages change over time. In the case of English, some of the sounds have changed since the writing conventions were established. Finally, we discussed the nature of the sounds in the speaker’s mind. The sound that is the mental target of the speaker is called a “phoneme” in linguistics.

We conclude the podcast with some cross-linguistic lessons and some wordplay from our new book of Konglish jokes and a collection of our favorite silent letters.