Vintage TV set for franchise hopping! Image by FreeImages.com

Target Language TV for Titters : Amazon’s Last One Laughing

I’ve long been a fan of highly exportable TV show franchises as ‘authentic target language with stabilisers’ media for learners. The language is rich and colloquial, but the format is familiar enough to be more accessible to L2 speakers than other TV genres.

Well, I’ve recent discovered another one that is available in a wonderfully broad array of languages. It’s Amazon Prime’s Last One Laughing, the show where comedians vie to keep straight faces in an onslaught of silliness, and be the very last to crack up.

It’s a simple concept, and for sure, it’s simple, cheap telly. That’s probably why Amazon found it so easy to roll it out to so many different language settings. All you need is a studio and a bunch of comedians willing to act daft. The result? Last One Laughing has local versions in languages from mainstream French and Spanish to more niche learner langs like Dutch and Norwegian.

Good TV Fit for Learners

In terms of the language, the show is a curiously good fit for L2 learners. The improvised dialogue can be slow and deliberate, as the contestants try to out-pun each other. It can often have a touch of the bizarre and clownish about it, too, which is always good to keep learners on their context toes (did she really just say her brother was a fish?).

(Pop-)Culturally, too, it’s a winner. If you didn’t know much about the comedy scene in your target language countries before, then you certainly will after a few episodes. The guests are fresh, current TV faces that give a good sample of who’s popular right now where your language is spoken.

If you’re looking for some target language listening fun, then Last One Laughing is both great learning material and just good TV. Well worth a punt if you have Prime.

An Irish lesson printed in the Irish Independent, 1924 (British Newspaper Archive)

Irish Lessons from 1924

As part of my PhD research, I spend countless hours trawling the British Newspaper Archive for forgotten dialect writing. Occasionally, the net catches more than I was expecting.

So it was this week, when I was searching for some Black Country collocation or other. Because they’re often short – like doh yer (don’t you) – and because of OCR errors in the transcriptions, the chance for false positives can be really high.

But this false positive was a bit more interesting than many. The search had mistakenly picked out some Irish text in a 1924 edition of the Irish Independent. It turned out to be part of a regular “Teach Yourself” style column, Gaoluinn. That’s an alternative spelling of Gaolainn – the Munster word for Gaeilge, the Irish language, which suggests that it’s Munster dialect that is the basis for the lessons.

Now, newspapers and language learning lessons are nothing new – there was a giveaway in the early noughties (I can’t remember the paper) where you got a special edition Teach Yourself book with every copy (I still have that mini Teach Yourself Basic Italian somewhere!). But Gaoluinn looked to be part of a run of language lessons that built up readers’ knowledge across editions.

Gaoluinn – Newspaper Irish Lessons

An Irish lesson printed in the Irish Independent, 1924 (British Newspaper Archive)

An Irish lesson printed in the Irish Independent, 1924 (British Newspaper Archive)

It’s typical of the language learning of its time, taking a systematic grammar-based approach (you might remember this from my raving over Teach Yourself Polish 1948!). The particular week that popped up here explains plural formation in Irish, alongside a bunch of illustrative phrases with just a hint of the aphorism and sermon about them.

A lovely thing about the lessons is its attempt at ‘folk’ phonetic spelling alongside the Irish. You can imagine readers giving it a go – readers whose families had maybe lost the language a couple of generations ago, and wanted to reconnect with Irish.

There’s More Out There

There’s clearly loads more Gaoluinn to explore in the archive, but I haven’t investigated further yet. Of course, I have more pressing things to be getting on with on the BNA, as fun as false positives are!

But I’m intrigued by the find nonetheless. A quick peek shows that it ran from at least 1922 to 1925, and later on, often taught via the target language (how modern – the way I learnt to teach!). I have so many questions, though… Was it serialised from an existing course book, or was it turned into a course book later? Was it popular or well received?

It’s definitely something I’ll circle back to when I have a bit more time. And, incidentally,  I’m sure there’s some PhD material in there for anyone interested in the evolution of language teaching, too!

A neon lock with a glowing owl motif, reminiscent of Duolingo

Multi-Language Alternatives to Duolingo

In the vast landscape of language learning platforms, Duolingo often takes centre-stage. And deservedly so in many respects – the Duolingo project has made language learning accessible to the masses.

However, a bit of healthy competition never hurt anyone, and at Polyglossic.com, we’re all for choice! Here are four platforms that can give you an alternative to the owl when you need it.

Lingvist

Estonian platform Lingvist takes a personalised approach to vocabulary acquisition, employing adaptive algorithms to tailor learning experiences based on individual progress. By focusing on high-frequency words, it aims to accelerate language acquisition efficiently. While premium features are available, the free version provides a great array of tools for tailoring and tracking your language journey.

50Languages

For those eager to explore a multitude of languages, Germany-based 50Languages is a treasure trove, offering materials for over 50 tongues. On the surface, the platform is a bit of a glorified phrasebook, but organised thematically and very useful for a mass-sentence learning technique. It focuses on practical vocabulary and phrases, facilitating real-life communication. All resources are freely accessible, supporting self-paced learning without financial barriers.

The downside? It’s pretty heavily ad-supported, so you’ll have to navigate some intrusive screen content. That said, I did give it a run in the Brave browser, which suppresses most of them (although bear in mind you’ll be starving a small site of its income by using ad-blockers).

Duostories – Community-Sourced Duolingo Clone

A bit of a cheat, this one, as it is Duolingo… Well, almost. Duostories is a community-sourced website that has licensed much of the story content of Duolingo proper. The twist? Community members have translated them into a good many more languages than the original site offers. You can enjoy the cheesy story content in Catalan, Icelandic, Telugu and more, all in the familiar Duolingo layout. A great alternative to the site that spawned it, at least while users wait for official ports for each of those languages.

Busuu

Busuu, a former UK startup before it was acquired by educational giant Chegg.com, provides courses in 14 languages, and while that’s fewer than Duolingo, it nonetheless covers a great range of ‘mainstream’ ones. Its strength is in its lesson format, which is a bit like a supercharged Rosetta Stone  – interactive exercise units combine with community-based learning for a double whammy. The standout feature is the opportunity to practice with native speakers, supporting authentic conversational skills. While it’s a freemium model, the free version offers substantial resources.

Each of these platforms proves that there are options beyond Duolingo. Some are much simpler, like 50Languages, and others are more fully-developed – Lingvist has features to rival the biggest platforms. But all offer diverse methodologies and features that can complement your language learning journey. If you’re tiring of the owl, why not give them a try? We won’t tell.

Darren Paffey MP giving the keynote speech at ALL Language World 2025

ALL Language World 2025

I was out waving the yellow flag for Linguascope, working the stands at the ALL Language World conference this weekend. Now, it’s not often I’ll rave about attending conferences. After all, they can be pretty dry affairs, especially as an exhibitor, where your main job is to smile and hand out goodie bags.

But there was something so positive about the vibe with this one. Perhaps it was the smaller scale and more intimate setting in rural Warwickshire. Maybe it was professional solidarity, after some tough years for secondary language pedagogy. Whatever the reason, it was a lovely opportunity to mix with other language professionals, faces both familiar and new.

One of the highlights was the keynote speech by Darren Paffey MP. Darren is one of the new 2024 intake of British MPs (and, we are told, one of only three Darrens to be elected to parliament!). Before being swiped by politics, Darren was a professor of sociolinguistics at the University of Southampton, and a long-time language learning enthusiast. The ideal guest, then, to reassure an anxious crowd, worn down by years of official neglect of languages on the curriculum, that he will be fighting our corner in the new government.

It’s not often we get one on the inside!

Darren Paffey MP with Didi, the Linguascope Dog at ALL Language World 2025.

Darren Paffey MP with Didi, the Linguascope Dog at ALL Language World 2025.

Perhaps it was the encouraging tone of that keynote that helped buoy the mood. In any case, it was one of the nicest events, in terms of camaraderie, mutual support and optimism that I’ve attended in recent years. Props to the ALL for organising it, and for bagging such a thoroughly decent keynote speaker.

An Anki card with a note image and a template image.

Top Three Gamification Plugins for Anki

If you’re committed to mastering a new language, you already know the power of Anki’s spaced repetition system and its range of fantastic, functional add-ons like Review Heatmap.

But let’s face it—purely functional flashcards can sometimes feel monotonous. That’s where gamification plugins come in, introducing arcade-style elements into your study sessions to transform them into engaging, motivating experiences.

Below, I’ve pulled together three perhaps lesser-proselytised entries from the plug-in cache that introduce a, well, off-the-wall element to your card reviews. Think kawaii rather than cahier. Yes, they are a little whacky. But there’s often method in language learning madness, and these are all great fun as well as being squarely aimed at increasing your motivation.

Let the fun begin!

1. POKEMANKI – Strategic Learning Meets Fun

Pokemanki ingeniously blends language learning with the mechanics of Pokémon, turning your Anki reviews into a game where you hatch eggs, train Pokémon, and climb leaderboards. With over 30,000 downloads, it’s a clear favorite among learners who appreciate its strategic depth and nostalgic appeal.  If you’re looking for a plugin that combines fun with serious progress, this is an excellent choice.

Download Pokemanki here.

2. ANKIMON – Catch ‘Em All, Pokémon-Style

OK, there’s a theme emerging here… and it’s perhaps not surprising, judging by how many of my polyglot pals are also into Pokémon. Ankimon takes gamification to the next level by turning your Anki reviews into a full Pokémon adventure. As you review cards, you catch, train, and trade Pokémon, competing with others online. With over 15,000 downloads, it’s a hit among learners who thrive on immersive gameplay. If you’re a Pokémon fan looking to inject excitement into your language learning, this plugin is a must-try.

Download Ankimon here.

3. ANKITTY – Simple, Effective Motivation

Sometimes, the simplest incentives are the most motivating and fun. Kitten Rewards displays charming kitten images on your “congrats” screen after completing a deck, offering a small but effective boost. With over 10,000 downloads, it’s a popular choice for learners seeking a low-pressure, low-key way to stay engaged. If you appreciate subtle, positive reinforcement (and love kittens), this plugin is worth exploring.

Download Ankitty here. Alternatively, for doggie fans, there’s this puppy alternative!

Final Thoughts

Gamification isn’t just about enjoyment—it’s about leveraging psychology to sustain your language-learning momentum. Whether you’re strategising with Pokemanki, tracking progress and hatching eggs with Ankimon, or enjoying the small joys of Kitten Rewards, these plugins can transform your Anki experience into something quite unique.

Choose the one that best aligns with your learning style, and take your language skills to the next level. Happy studying, polyglots!

The flag of Ukraine - Learn Ukrainian

Ukraine and Cultural Resistance

Some truly awful things are happening in the world right now. The sudden and shocking turn against Ukraine in some quarters has left many of us reeling. And it’s natural to feel quite helpless in the face of that, as a plain old everyday person.

But I’m reminded of a post I wrote around this time, three years ago, during perhaps the starkest, most shocking episode of this whole saga. During the all-out invasion of Ukraine, it’s cultural resistance that is one of our great powers as language lovers. In face of a monolithic dictatorship that seeks to deny the existence of a separate Ukrainian identity, support its language, music, literature – celebrate it to the hilt.

General disquiet comes not only from the Ukraine issue, of course; many are concerned about the more general political winds that are blowing the same way. How do we distance ourselves from regimes that go against our values – especially in a world that seems dominated by its products and services?

To that end, there are switches we can make that show our resistance against a new order that feels so at odds with our own values. For instance, sites like European Alternatives give us plenty of options. Enjoying ChatGPT for language practice? Give Mistral’s Le Chat a go instead, and support European AI research. Looking for a more federated community platform that hasn’t been X-ified? Mastodon is still out there, as promising as ever.

They give us a way to state our disquiet, well, quietly. And they’re little things that become big things, the more of us that do them. 

Switching Costs

Switching sounds easy, of course, but we should also acknowledge that it’s not zero effort. In many cases, switching costs are high – technically, socially, in terms of convenience. In Cory Doctorow’s terms, services like Duolingo are walled gardens that offer us a place to stay, often for free, but at the cost of trapping our progress, social links and learning data, and feeding us to advertising algorithms.

There are ways, however, to limit the ad revenue you generate for economies you want to take a stand against. Use ad-blocking, privacy-boosting browsers like Norway-based Opera as your portal to services, and you’ve at least untangled yourself financially.

More little acts, of course – but little acts multiplied can make themselves felt.

Progressive Gaelic by Moray Watson

Progressive Gaelic

I sometimes think I should write a “gems from my bookshelf” series on this blog. I’ve collected language learning books for years, including the hardy stalwarts like the Teach Yourself and Colloquial series, as well as more off-the-beaten-track, lesser known courses. The latter type often deserve so much more recognition than the mainstream ones, and so it is with the excellent Progressive Gaelic series.

The author, Moray Watson, is a prominent figure in the field of Gaelic studies, serving as a Professor of Gaelic and Translation at the University of Aberdeen for over two decades. That shows in Progressive Gaelic – it comes across as a really comprehensive course that’s been designed to take students from zero to a high degree of competency. Spread across four books, it’s very well graded, too, with a real sense of progression.

One of the best touches is that Scottish history and culture is woven into the material throughout, in the vocabulary and reading passages. It’s certainly not a course that treats language in isolation, but uses a cross-disciplinary approach to set it in context. To back it all up, there’s also a nice set of workbooks to go alongside the course material.

Best of all, they’re really affordable, compared with other courses – you can pick up most of them for around a tenner brand new. And other learners have given their seal of approval – each of the volumes has almost five stars on Amazon. Give them a go – jump in at book 2 if you’re already on your Gaelic journey. They really do deserve some more attention and praise!

Sounding Too Correct : Lessons from Norwegian and Swedish

There are some useful crossovers between language learning and ‘full on’ linguistics, as I think of it, where the one helps your knowledge of the other. I’ve been looking at language change recently, digging into a few papers on a Norwegian and Swedish trend that can add a really authentic-sounding twist to your speech.

The phenomenon is called ha-dropping. No, not h-dropping, which might ‘elp your English sound more colloquial, but ha, or have, in both Norwegian and Swedish – specifically, the have of the perfect tense.

If you’ve spent some time reading and listening to these languages, it’s something that can throw you off the first time you hear it. In short, ha can simply go missing where you’d expect to hear it in English:

De burde solgt det (they should have sold it – Norwegian)

The variant with ha still exists, of course – de burde ha solgt det – and it’s still considered correct. These days, however, it tends to sound a little bookish or formal.

Sounding too correct

It looks like a classic case of redundancy leading to loss. The context is obvious from the use of the past participle, so why bother with ha? It reduces a three-verb construction to just two verbs, and the meaning is still completely recoverable.

But what surprised me most was that it’s not a recent trend (as if young speakers needed any further blame shame for language-changing innovations). One paper traces ha-dropping in Swedish right back to the 17th Century, although the circumstances it occurs in may be extending. In Norwegian, it’s restricted on the whole to ha after modal verbs, and seems pretty stable where it is.

Apart from the fact that it’s a fascinating change in itself, it also highlights one of those cases where you can sound too correct as a non-native speaker. Ha-dropping is intuitively odd for first-language speakers of English, but working it into your Scandi convo might make you sound that little bit more fluent.

Multiple language decks in Anki

Top Anki Plug-Ins, 2025 Edition

I recently sang the praises of the Anki Heat Map plug-in, which has been a great motivator and accountability pal for me. It’s one amongst many Anki add-ons, and one that’s been around at least as long as I’ve been using the app (and that’s a long time!).

The beauty of Anki is its extensibility, of course. And while we’re revisiting some trusty old plug-ins like Heat Map, it’s worth surveying the current field again.

Here are five standout plug-ins for language learners still going strong in 2025.

HYPERTTS – Add Speech to Your Flashcards

Enhance your pronunciation and listening skills by integrating native speaker audio into your flashcards.

HyperTTS allows users to add high-quality text-to-speech audio to their cards, covering a wide range of languages. This is particularly beneficial for practicing pronunciation and improving listening comprehension.

IMAGE OCCLUSION ENHANCED

Transform complex images into interactive flashcards.

Ideal for visual learners, this plug-in lets you hide parts of an image to test your recall. Whether it’s vocabulary lists, grammar structures, or cultural visuals, Image Occlusion Enhanced makes memorisation engaging.

LANGUAGE TOOLS

Automate translations and transliterations within your flashcards.

Language Tools brings automated translation support for 133 languages and transliteration in 33 languages directly into Anki. This is particularly useful for learners dealing with multiple languages or scripts, streamlining the creation of comprehensive flashcards. 

ADVANCED BROWSER

Streamline your card management with enhanced search and organization features.

The Advanced Browser plug-in offers additional search parameters and sorting options, making it easier to manage large decks. You can filter cards by various criteria, ensuring efficient study sessions. Definitely one of those ‘I never knew I needed it until I had it!’ plug-ins.

ANKICOLLAB – The Free Collaboration Platform

Collaborate with fellow learners to create and share decks.

AnkiCollab enables users to work together on deck creation, allowing for shared insights and resources. It’s a valuable tool for community-driven learning and expanding your study materials.

All these plug-ins come with some prestige and history, having been around for a while. In other words, they’ve proven their worth to countless users already. Incorporating any of them can transform your Anki experience, making language learning more interactive, efficient, enjoyable, and even more sociable.

Happy studying!

A robot reading a script. The text-to-speech voices at ElevenLabs certainly sound intelligent as well as natural!

ElevenLabs : 5-Star Tool for Language Work and Study

If you’re a regular reader, you’ll know how impressed I’ve been at ElevenLabs, the text-to-speech creator that stunned the industry when its super-realistic voices were unleashed on the world. Since then, it’s made itself irreplaceable in both my work and study, and it bears spreading the word again: ElevenLabs is a blow-your-socks-off kind of tool for creating spoken audio content.

Professional Projects

In my work developing language learning materials for schools, arranging quality narration used to involve coordinating with agencies and studios — a process that was both time-consuming and costly. We’ve had issues with errors, too, which cost a project time with re-recordings. And that’s not to mention the hassle keeping sections up-to-date. Removing ‘stereo’ from an old vocab section (who has those now?) would usually trigger a complete re-record.

With ElevenLabs, I can now produce new sections promptly, utilising its impressive array of voices across multiple languages. The authenticity and clarity of these voices are fantastic – I really can’t understate it – and it’s made maintaining the biggest language learning site for schools so much easier.

Supporting Individual Learning

As a language learner, ElevenLabs is more than worth its salt, too. It’s particularly good for assembling short listening passages – about a minute long – to practise ‘conversation islands’—a well-regarded polyglot technique for achieving conversational fluency.

Beyond language learning, the tool can be a great support to other academic projects. I’ve created concise narrations of complex topics, converting excerpts from scholarly papers into audio format. Listening to these clips in spare moments (or even in the background while washing up) has helped cement some key concepts, and prime my mind for conventional close study.

Flexible and Affordable Plans

ElevenLabs offers a range of pricing options to suit different needs:

• Free Plan: Ideal for those starting out, this plan provides 10,000 characters per month, roughly equating to 10 minutes of audio.

• Starter Plan: At £5 per month, you receive 30,000 characters (about 30 minutes of audio), along with features like voice cloning and commercial use rights.

• Creator Plan: For £22 per month, this plan offers 100,000 characters (around 100 minutes of audio), plus professional voice cloning and higher-quality outputs.

For messing around, that free plan is not too stingy at all – you can really get a feel for the tool from it. Personally, I’ve not needed to move beyond the starter plan yet, which is pretty much a bargain at around a fiver a month.

Introducing ElevenReader

And there’s more! Complementing the TTS service, ElevenLabs has introduced ElevenReader, a free tool that narrates PDFs, ePubs, articles, and newsletters in realistic AI voices. Available on both iOS and Android platforms, the app doesn’t even consume credits from your ElevenLabs subscription plan.

Seriously, I can’t even believe this is still free – go and try it!

Final Thoughts

ElevenLabs has truly transformed the way I create and consume spoken content. It truly is my star tool from the current crop of AI-powered utilities.

The ElevenLabs free tier is enough for most casual users to have a dabble – go and try it today!