PODCAST · society
Said & Done
by 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.
Episodes
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Learning Armenian, Eastern and Western - with Sato Moughalian and Ryan Nazari
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...
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On Music and Language, with Denzell Ivery
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....
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Talking about Afrolatinas en Estados Unidos, with Leyre Alejaldre Biel
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...
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Learning Sinhala at Columbia, with Emma Kaneira
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...
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Centering the Climate Humanities in Language Education, with Francisca Aguiló Mora
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…
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Learning First Year Chinese, with Ling Yan and Yike Li
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...
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TESOL vs. World Language Teaching, with Kim Edmunds
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...
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How to be Polite in Javanese, with Maria Dewi Rosari and Gading Aulia
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…
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Beyond the Language Classroom, with Benjamin Williams
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...
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Translating Past and Present, with Michael F. Moore
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…
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Haitian Creole (Kreyòl): A Revolutionary Language
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...
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Heritage Language Learning, with Nelleke Van Deusen-Scholl
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…
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Cognitive Linguistics and the Language Classroom, with Reyes Llopis-García
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…
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Language Advocacy and Communication, with Angelika Kraemer
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...
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Learning Turkish at Columbia, with Wesley Doucette
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...
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Language and the Public Space, with Dave Malinowski
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…
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Climate Changes in Chicago and Dar es Salaam, with Fransha Dace
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...
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Endangered Languages in the City, with Ross Perlin
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...
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French in the Style of Michigan, with Claire-Marie Brisson
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...
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The Language of Sports, with Liam Liesanggoro
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,...
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Yoruba and the Language of Filmmaking, with Timi Odunjo
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…
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Words and Meanings in Tibetan Buddhism, with Richard R.
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.
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Can We Teach Metalinguistic Knowledge? with Skye Shannon Savage
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…
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Language Learning and AI
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...
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Interconnectedness and isiZulu, with Nandi Sipengane
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...
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What is NEALLT? With Angelina Craig-Florez, Ann Warner-Ault, and Mike Jones
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...
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Upper Levels in English, German, and Italian, with Simon Zuberek
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…
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Inspirations in Yoruba, with Ayomide Tikare
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…
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Bengali and Sylheti, with Dwijen Bhattacharya
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.
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Ukrainian: Speaking in One Voice, with Yuri Shevchuk
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…
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Hungarian: Complex and Wonderfully Expressive, with Carol Rounds
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…
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A Dream, a Flood, and an Archimedean Point, with Millicent Marcus
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...
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Giving Thanks and Season's Greetings
Chris Kaiser thanks the listeners and guests of the Said & Done podcast and announces a new schedule for 2023.
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Legends of Place in Tamil and Sanskrit, with Jay Ramesh
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...
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Endangered Languages in the City, with Ross Perlin
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...
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Balinese: A Thousand Temples, with Yudis Nugraha
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...
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Italian and American Journeys, with Felice Beneduce
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...
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Ukrainian Resistance: Six Months, with Yuri Shevchuk
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.
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Bilingual Binds in English and Polish, with Simon Zuberek
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,...
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Dominican Spanish: Life in Two Islands, with Luana Ferreira
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...
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Italian Letters in a Shoebox, with Chris Kaiser
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
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Yiddish Part II: Men, Women, and Dybbuks, with Agi Legutko
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:...
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Yiddish Part I: A Different Education, with Agi Legutko
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:...
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The Korean Wave, with Joowon Suh
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…
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Precise Words in Quechua, with Odi Gonzales
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...
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Prized Papers in Dutch, with Wijnie de Groot
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...
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Benuaq Part II: Becoming a Shaman, with Richard Payne
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...
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Benuaq Part I: A Chance Encounter, with Richard Payne
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…
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Uploads and Downloads in Indonesian, with Anggi Suharja
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…
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Finnish is Epic, with Heli Sirviö
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…
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
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.
HOSTED BY
Columbia University Language Resource Center
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Said & Done have?
Said & Done currently has 52 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Said & Done about?
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.
How often does Said & Done release new episodes?
Said & Done has 52 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Said & Done?
You can listen to Said & Done on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Said & Done?
Said & Done is created and hosted by Columbia University Language Resource Center.
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