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Olly Richards (@iwillteachyoualanguage) is an author and a polyglot who speaks eight languages. He created a program called I Will Teach You a Language which offers a series of books and courses to aspiring language learners. He is also the host of the I Will Teach You A Language Podcast.

Olly believes in the power to stories in learning languages and has dedicated his life to teaching people languages through stories. He has published a series of books with basic stories geared to the language learner’s level, covering every language from Turkish to Russian to Chinese.

In the podcast with Olly, we discuss things like what constitutes “speaking” a language. I ask him about his tactics for practicing a language and meeting locals when he travels and lives abroad, especially getting out of the expat bubble. And Olly explains how he came up with the Story Learning ideas and how to best use them.

It was great speaking with Olly. He is so knowledgeable and at the cutting edge of his field so there’s so much good stuff to learn from him.