Tag: languages

Watching Foreign TV with a VPN: What Actually Works

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Native-language TV is one of the best (and most enjoyable) input sources a learner can get. But geo-blocking keeps most of it out of reach, and a VPN is the usual workaround. Real news, real soaps, real people talking at real speed: no textbook can compete with a few episodes of a Norwegian crime drama or a German Sunday-night Tatort.

The snag is that public broadcasters like NRK, ARD, RTVE or France Télévisions usually only stream their full catalogue to viewers inside the country. That locks out learners, of course, but also the millions of nationals living abroad who just want to watch the news from home. A VPN lets you appear to be connecting from the right country. The question is which ones actually work – because a lot of the time, they don’t. Why is that?

Why VPNs so often fail for TV

Streaming services don’t need to detect VPNs cleverly – they just keep lists of IP addresses known to belong to VPN providers, and block the lot. A VPN server’s address is shared by hundreds of users at once, so once a broadcaster notices a suspicious crowd coming from one IP, that address goes on the blacklist. The result is the dreaded “not available in your region” message, even though the VPN says you’re in Oslo.

A few other things can give you away:

    • Leaks. Your real location can slip out via DNS or IPv6, even with the VPN on.
    • Your device. Phone and TV apps may also check GPS, the app store region or your device’s language and time zone.
    • Stale cookies. The browser or app may remember where you were before you connected.

It’s an arms race, and it means today’s working server can be tomorrow’s dead end. Annoyingly, it also catches out overseas users who are perfectly entitled to the content – collateral damage in the war on VPN users.

So what works best?

The best options for foreign TV

In my experience, Proton VPN is the cheapest reliable option for foreign TV – but every provider here gets blocked sometimes. A word of warning before you read any “best VPN” list: most of them are stuffed with affiliate links, and NordVPN tends to top them all. Real-world results with smaller public broadcasters can look rather different.

VPN Price bracket My verdict for foreign TV Worth knowing
Proton VPN (Plus) Budget on a 2-year plan My go-to: the most reliable I’ve used, and the cheapest The free tier doesn’t support streaming — you need Plus
NordVPN Budget to mid Hit and miss — works one day, blocked the next Huge server network; tops most review lists
Surfshark Budget A popular cheap alternative Unlimited devices on one account
ExpressVPN Premium Consistently well rated for streaming You pay noticeably more for it

Whatever you pick, make the most of free trials to test the specific channels you care about. Working with Netflix tells you very little about NRK, RTVE Play or the ARD Mediathek.

When it fails: what to try

That said, even the best fail from time to time.

The quickest fix is often the dumbest one: disconnect and reconnect, and you may land on a fresh IP address that isn’t blacklisted yet. That’s exactly what got NRK’s TV app working for me recently, after it had flatly refused to believe I was in Norway.

Here’s a roundup of fixes you can try, ordered roughly from least to most effort:

    • Restart the VPN connection. Disconnect, reconnect, try again – you’ll often get a different address.
    • Pick a different server or city. Choose a specific server in the same country rather than letting the app auto-select.
    • Clear the evidence. Force-quit the TV app, or clear cookies and cache (a private browser window is a quick test).
    • Switch between app and browser. Some broadcasters check apps more strictly than websites, or vice versa.
    • Plug the leaks. Turn on the VPN’s leak protection, disable location access for the app, and check your IP on a leak-test site.
    • Change protocol. Swapping between WireGuard, OpenVPN or a provider’s “stealth” mode sometimes helps.
    • Consider a dedicated IP. Some providers (NordVPN among them) sell an IP that only you use, which is far less likely to be flagged.

If all else fails…

It’s not all about the geo-blocking. Plenty of target-language TV needs no VPN at all:

    • French: TV5MONDEplus is free and built for viewers worldwide.
    • German: DW broadcasts internationally, and a good share of the ARD and ZDF libraries is available outside Germany.
    • Several languages: Arte streams much of its catalogue in French, German, Spanish, Italian, Polish and English. I’ve only recently discovered this myself, and it’s really excellent for documentaries!
    • Everything else: broadcasters’ YouTube channels are often not geofenced, and great for news and short clips. Instagram too is great for bite-sized TV programme chunks.

The bottom line

Get a paid VPN with a decent spread of servers, test it on the channels you actually want, and don’t give up at the first “not available in your region” – a quick reconnect fixes it more often than you’d think. For me, that’s Proton for reliability and price, with NordVPN as an occasionally temperamental backup.

Now go and binge something in your target language. It counts as studying!

Be A Low-Stakes Polyglot

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Just a quick catch-up this week, as I’ve been travelling for a conference. But it’s the mode of that journey I thought was worth sharing – I decided to travel over land this time, rather than fly straight to my destination (Salzburg). It’s something that turned a one-language trip into a glorious multilingual one.

German is one of my main foreign languages, as the first I really focused on, back at school, and the one I studied at uni. It’s probably the one I’m still most confident in. French and Italian, on the other hand, are more ‘picked up as I’ve gone along in life’ languages. They’re just enough to get by, particularly my sketchy italiano. But it’s been a fun challenge having to use them to get by – something I’d have missed by flying straight to Austria.

But there’s something about low stakes languages – the ones you’re not supposed to be good at – that takes away a bit of the performance nerves when trying to speak abroad. It flips the script from producing perfect utterances to achieving goals, like getting a croissant or finding out which platform a train is leaving from. My ego is bruised less when I ungrammatically get that breakfast pastry than if I mess my word order up doing the same in German.

The trick is – and I don’t have any magic advice here, as I’m still trying to do the same myself – to carry that goal-oriented focus over to your ‘good’ languages. Care more about the outcome, less about the form. Perhaps the multi-language format of the trip, serialising shakier languages alongside stronger ones, is a good way to keep that lesson in mind.

Four Languages, Thirteen Years Younger? The Multilingual Brain Strikes Again

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Now here is a language-learning headline calculated to make every serial polyglot feel a wee bit smug: people who speak four languages may have brains that appear up to thirteen years younger than those of monolinguals.

As somebody rapidly approaching 50 with a language list that stubbornly refuses to shrink, I naturally decided to investigate.

The findings were presented at the 2026 Forum of the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies. Researchers worked with multilingual speakers in the Basque Country, using combinations of Spanish, Basque, French and English.

First, they used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to measure patterns of brain activity in 728 people. Artificial intelligence then helped the researchers construct a “brain-age clock”: a model of what neural connectivity typically looks like at different ages.

They applied that model to a separate group of 144 people who spoke between one and four languages. The results, reported by the Federation via ScienceDaily, were striking:

  • Bilingual participants’ brains appeared about six years younger than those of monolinguals.
  • For trilingual participants, the difference was around seven years.
  • For speakers of four languages, it reached roughly thirteen years.

Higher proficiency and earlier acquisition were also associated with younger-looking patterns of brain connectivity.

A Brain Age, Not a Birth Certificate

Before we all add another three languages to Duolingo, there are some important caveats.

“Brain age” is an estimate produced from particular patterns of neural activity. It does not mean that a multilingual 50-year-old literally has the brain of a typical 37-year-old in every respect.

The study also shows an association, rather than proving that multilingualism caused the difference. The researchers accounted for age, sex and education, but could not completely separate language experience from other potentially protective factors.

Multilingual people may, for example, be more likely to read widely, travel, socialise across different communities or engage in lifelong learning generally. As one independent expert pointed out in The Guardian, activities such as exercise, music and social engagement could all be part of the picture.

These are also findings presented at a conference; the fuller published analysis will give researchers more opportunity to prod the methods and conclusions.

Depth Beats Language Collecting

Still, one detail feels especially useful for learners. The apparent effect was not simply binary—monolingual versus multilingual. It varied with the number of languages, how well participants spoke them and how long those languages had been part of their lives.

That suggests the important ingredient may be sustained multilingual experience: recalling words, selecting between competing forms, following different sound systems and continually switching one linguistic network on while damping another down.

In other words, merely collecting beginner courses may not be the neurological elixir we language dabblers would like it to be. Active use and depth seem to matter.

But maintenance need not mean sitting an advanced grammar exam every Tuesday. Conversation, reading, listening and regular retrieval all keep a language working rather than merely stored away. And if those activities also bring social contact, curiosity and enjoyment, they may tick several healthy-ageing boxes at once.

The study doesn’t prove that downloading a language app will turn back time. It does, however, add to an encouraging body of evidence that multilingualism is not simply knowledge we carry around: it is something that continually activates the brain.

So perhaps we all do have room for one more language, after all. Purely for health reasons, obviously.

MFL GCSE Results 2026: Green Shoots of Regrowth for Languages?

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Late August always brings its usual flurry of exam news. And for the first time in a while, this year’s Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) GCSE results feel like a genuine milestone. This summer’s cohort was the first to sit exams under the newly overhauled specifications for French, German and Spanish — a shift that, not without controversy, moved the focus away from broad topics and towards mastering a prescribed vocabulary list of 1,700 words.

So how did the new exams land, and what do the numbers actually tell us about the health of language learning in the UK?

Spanish Keeps Its Crown

The headline from this year’s entry data is a changing of the guard, now well and truly cemented. After Spanish overtook French as the most popular language GCSE last year, the 2026 figures show it consolidating that lead further.

  • Spanish keeps climbing, helped along by its practicality and cultural reach — everything from Latin pop to La Liga gives students a reason to care.
  • German offered a bit of hope for once. After years of worrying decline, entries have stabilised – nothing to throw a party over, but a genuinely welcome sign for Germanists.
  • French, sadly, remains the one losing ground, dropping again relative to Spanish. The Guardian’s editorial on the 2026 results put it well: the decline of “traditional” school languages is an alarming trend that risks turning language learning into a preserve of the affluent.

The Grades: A Welcome Turnaround

One of the biggest worries heading into 2026 was whether the new, vocabulary-heavy specs might cause a dip in attainment while teachers and students found their feet. Thankfully, the transition has gone about as smoothly as anyone could have hoped.

Top grades have held remarkably steady – credit to hard-working teachers, for sure, but also to the grading adjustments Ofqual introduced a few years back to stop marking French and German more harshly than other subjects. Language advocates campaigned for years against MFL being graded more severely than other EBacc subjects, and it’s genuinely satisfying to see that finally paying off.

  • Across German, French and Spanish, the share of students hitting grade 7+ has held up well against the national average.
  • And there’s been no spike in ‘U’ grades among Higher Tier candidates — a good sign the new papers are fair and accessible, not a nasty surprise waiting to happen.

Next Up: Cracking the A-Level Problem

The drop in GCSE entries overall is still a real problem the sector needs to grapple with — but there’s plenty to be optimistic about here. The new specs have bedded in safely, and the old “languages get marked too harshly” narrative is finally losing its grip.

The next challenge is turning this GCSE momentum into A-Level uptake, which is notoriously hard given how expensive small sixth-form language classes are to run. But there are some genuinely clever ideas emerging — the ‘Languages For All’ initiative, a partnership between The Reach Foundation and Royal Holloway, is a good one to watch.

Rather than leaving individual schools to fight their own funding battles, the initiative sets up collaborative ‘hubs’ where schools and colleges pool teachers, resources and centrally taught classes. The results from their Hounslow pilot speak for themselves: between 2022 and 2025, the number of state schools offering A-Level languages tripled, from four to twelve, and enrolments doubled.

For anyone working in languages education, this year offers a solid, encouraging foundation to build on. With fairer grading at GCSE and scalable, resource-sharing models proving themselves at A-Level, there might just be a new blueprint for persuading more students to keep languages going into higher education and beyond.

Happy Commonwealth Games 2026 – Enjoy The Languages, Glasgow!

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A busy one this week, as many of us in Scotland (and beyond) are preparing for the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, either as volunteers or visitors. The 2026 edition of the games will be filling the city with sporting joy from 23rd July to 2nd August.

And there’s a language connection there, of course – I couldn’t hide my enthusiasm at that very fact when it was Birmingham’s turn to host the Games in 2022. A huge number of languages are spoken across the Commonwealth, with some countries hanging on to a staggering level of linguistic diversity. Nearly a thousand languages are spoken in Papua New Guinea. Nigeria has over 500. India with over 400, Australia breaking 200, and Cameroon at nearly 300 round off the medal table.

Some of those, of course, will be represented by athletes and spectators coming to Glasgow. It’s a lovely thought to think that the event might bring Arrernte, Hiri Motu or Fulfulde to the streets of the city.

As for me, I’m looking forward to a couple especially. There’s Greek, obviously, thanks to Cyprus. We should hear a fair bit of Swahili about, with visitors from Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. And francophone countries are in the mix too, with Canada, Cameroon, Mauritius, Vanuatu, and of course, Rwanda again. I’m a little giddy at the thought of hearing Maltese, too – not one I’ve ever tried to learn, but I’ve had a vintage copy of Teach Yourself Maltese on my shelf for years that wants to persuade me otherwise!

And as well as all the Scots, of course, there’s a wee treat for Gaelic speakers and learners – BBC Alba are covering the games in the language.

If you’re in Glasgow, have fun listening out for those languages. And wherever you’re following the fun, have a wonderful Commonwealth Games 2026. Find out more at the official site!

Snarky Marketing vs. Real Data: Duolingo Really Works!

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It’s become almost trendy to knock Duolingo in the last couple of years. In fact, positioning a new language learning product as the “anti-Duolingo” has become a fairly standard marketing tactic.

And while there are always reasons to debate a language learning method – no one approach is perfect in every way for every person – it’s good to know the difference between a social media pile-on and legitimate criticism.

A new paper has provided some more objective balance on that.

Published in Language Learning & Technology, a study by Smith, Jiang, and Peters (2024) took a rigorous look at how effective the app actually is for independent learners. Instead of just relying on anecdotal feelings, they measured outcomes across a comprehensive range of linguistic abilities. We’re talking both receptive skills (reading and listening) and productive skills (writing and speaking), alongside vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation.

They tracked 48 independent learners tackling the Spanish course over a three-month period. The findings? After putting in an average of about 27 hours of study, participants showed significant improvement across all ability measures. A small sample, for sure, but 27 hours is remarkably low for meaningful gains – less than 15 minutes a day. For an app coming under flak for meaningless gamification, that is an excellent piece of defence.

When gamification earns its keep

Working in educational software development myself, I know how tricky it is to balance engaging user interfaces with genuine pedagogical value. It’s one thing to build a platform that people want to log into every day, but it’s another entirely to prove that it’s actually teaching them something substantive. This paper validates that the gamified approach, when engaged with consistently, really does translate into measurable linguistic gains. The researchers specifically noted that session completion, accuracy rate, and an overall positive user experience were directly linked to this observed growth.

This challenges one of the most common criticisms you hear: that apps like this only teach you how to pass their specific tests, or only build passive recognition. The fact that productive abilities like speaking and writing improved significantly is a huge win, as these are notoriously difficult to scaffold outside of a classroom or immersion environment.

Of course, this isn’t to say any app is a magic bullet. Twenty-seven hours of app time won’t instantly make you fluent enough to debate current affairs over a coffee. I’m a Duolingo user, and get frustration and satisfaction from it in, sometimes, equal amounts. It never hurts to spread your screen time over other language learning apps, either.

But as a tool for building a solid foundation and keeping learners consistently engaged with the target language, this fresh evidence is robust. It turns out that beneath the relentless notifications and leaderboard leagues, there is a some sound pedagogy at work.

The next time a social media ad pops up claiming they’ve “fixed everything the green owl gets wrong”, it might be worth taking it with a pinch of salt. Any tool that gets people to consistently show up, put the hours in, and tangibly improve is something worth celebrating!

The Perfection Trap: Why ‘Sounding Native’ Isn’t the Ultimate Accent Goal

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A paper appeared this month in Language Teaching that reminds us all – in the classroom and learning at home – that accent isn’t everything.

Is English pronunciation teaching in China ready for the Intelligibility Principle? (Xue & Wu, 2026) looks specifically at English language teaching in China, and the pressure that aspirations of nativeness can put on students. For a polyglot community focused on becoming the languages we learn, this seems very familiar. The pursuit of a flawless, native-like accent can often feel like the ultimate prize – anything less is an imperfect near miss. Whether you are tackling the phonology of German, Spanish, or diving into a new challenge like Bulgarian, it is easy to obsess over perfectly mirroring native audio.

However, the authors gently remind us that this pursuit can be entirely unnecessary.

Historically, language instruction has been dominated by this Nativeness Principle, which dictates that learners should attempt to sound as close to native speakers as possible. It’s a hangover from a quite Victorian perfectionism in learning – learn by rote, never forget.  Yet, absolute native-speaker norms are an unrealistic objective for many learners – especially older ones (as much as it stings to hear that pushing 50!).

Instead, a more practical framework is the Intelligibility Principle, which argues that the primary pedagogical goal should simply be mutual understanding.

Does This Matter for the Polyglot Community?

Absolutely. The pressure to achieve a flawless accent can actively hinder our progress. An overemphasis on native-speaker models can add to language anxiety and can decrease a learner’s willingness to communicate. Not surprisingly, many of us have an aversion to feeling a fool – it’s great to push back against that as a language learner, but it’s not always easy.

The reassuring truth is that speech can carry a heavy foreign accent and still remain highly intelligible to listeners, and therefore functional. A lot has been made of Zelenskyy’s excellent communicative skills despite a strong accent, for example. Furthermore, because English and many other languages act as global lingua francas, learners frequently communicate with other non-native speakers. Therefore, a native accent is neither necessary nor particularly beneficial for mutual understanding.

The goal isn’t to erase our linguistic identity, but to ensure our message is clearly received.

Practical Steps: What Should Independent Learners Focus On?

The paper is quite rich on practical suggestions in this regard. When you are building your corpus of vocabulary or grinding through daily flashcards, it helps to know exactly which phonetic features actually impact comprehension. Instead of trying to master every subtle nuance, prioritise the elements that carry the highest functional load:

  • Vowel accuracy: Both the length (quantity) of a vowel and the quality of the vowel play significant roles in whether a word is understood.
  • Consonant clarity: Avoiding the simplification of diphthongs and preventing the conflation of voiced and voiceless plosives are critical steps for maintaining clarity.
  • The bigger picture: Suprasegmental features, which include stress, rhythm, and intonation, have a remarkably strong influence on how a listener perceives an individual’s oral proficiency.

Tools and Tactics for the Daily Grind

As independent learners and language hobbyists, we have to direct our own study routines. Here is how we can implement an intelligibility-first approach:

  • Embrace accommodation strategies: In real-world conversations, mutual understanding is often achieved through spontaneous adjustments like simplification and paraphrasing.
  • Leverage technology: Computer-assisted pronunciation training and artificial intelligence-powered tools offer instant, data-driven feedback and personalised suggestions for self-monitoring.
  • Recognise algorithmic bias: If you are using—or even developing—language learning apps, it is important to remember that commercial automatic speech recognition systems frequently exhibit bias, showing significantly higher error rates for non-native accents.

Ultimately, dropping the demand for native-like perfection takes a massive weight off the language learner’s shoulders. By focusing on practical intelligibility, clear suprasegmentals, and flexible communication strategies, we can speak our target languages with far more confidence and far less anxiety.

Have you evolved from learner perfectionism to more intelligibility-based goals yourself? Was it hard to let go, or did you feel a sense of relief at letting go? Let us know in the comments!

A mic stands on a stage, ready for #EdFringe

#EdFringe for Language Learners, 2026 Edition

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#EdFringe is here again, and true to form, there’s something for everyone. Language learners and European culture vultures are no exception, of course, with some proper treats in this year’s rich programme.

As per last year (and the year before, and the year before that… I’ve been keeping tabs for a while now), there’s a good balance between shows in the target language as well as shows about target language counties. Here’s my watch list – but be sure to have a browse too, and let me know if I’ve missed any must-sees!

French

Music

Le Vent du Nord – Québecois progressive folk from a well-regarded five-piece.

Mary, Queen of Scots – Queen of 3 Kingdoms (Marianne Beate Kielland & Ben-San Lau) – French arias mingle with Scots and English in a programme celebrating the life of Scotland’s famous queen.

Afternoon Arias (Brian Bannatyne-Scott, Beth Taylor and friends) – French classical highlights from Berlioz to Debussy.

La Chatte Chanteuse (Kat Brooks) – It honestly wouldn’t be #EdFringe without a bit of Piaf. There’s that and more in this hour of chanson from Kat Brooks.

Theatre

Madame La Mort (Full Moon Theatre / Labyrinth Productions) – a radical reimagining of Rachilde’s French Symbolist play (in translation)

Comedy

Tori Morancay – Le French C’est Freak – An anglophone set that nonetheless plunges straight into the francophone world!

German

Music

Handel – Nine German Arias (Angela Hicks)  – Soprano Angela Hicks and ensemble present some of Handel’s few German-language works.

JS Bach (Aidan Jones) – Pianist Aidan Jones plays and presents, taking the audience on a winsome tour through the life of the great composer.

Scottish Lieder (Brian Bannatyne-Scott) – A lovely crossover presenting music of Schubert, Schumann, Loewe and Strauss, inspired by Scottish poets.

Comedy

Michael Brunström: William Tell vs the Algorithm – Swiss surrealist comedy (in English) that takes aim squarely at the Swiss background of this award-nominated return performer.

Jürgen Strack: Achtung! The Only Sauerkraut in Town – Riffing on his Germanness (with shades of Henning Wehn here), Strack has won fans for his sheer originality.

Spanish

Music & Dance

Sobremesa – Where Words and Music Meet at the Table (Nus Duo) – Billed as an interactive musical experience where audience and artists shape something wonderful from Spanish and Latin American texts.

Sounds of St Cecilia’s III: Spanish Flavours: Dance, Fire and Elegance (Cokus Duo) – A harpsichord-led exploration of the music of 18th-century Europe, with a nod to both France and Spain.

Flamenkids (TuFlamenco) – Flamenco is as permanent a fixture on Spanish #EdFringe as Piaf for the French. This family-friendly show introduces the rhythms of Spain in an hour-long show that sounds wonderfully interactive.

Alegria Flamenca (Alba Flamenca) – Appetite freshly whetted, if you’re now hooked on the flamenco check out this vibrant show, with a nearby bar on hand for tapas and drinks!

Theatre

Bull / Fight – Fresh Edinburgh ensemble Mythography presents this odyssey through Lorca’s Spain (in English).

Comedy

Escocia con Ñ (Jotace Loaiza) – Scottish life retold through Spanish eyes, in Spanish! An excellent (and rare) opportunity to attend a full Spanish-language set during the festival.

Mi Casa Es Su Casa (El Purnell) – Billed as a true ‘duo-lingo’ act (hope that’s been run past the owl!), laughs are promised for hispanists and non-hispanists alike.

And the rest…

With hundreds and hundreds of shows, I can’t possibly do the whole programme justice in one short blog post. While I’ve focused on French, German and Spanish, there’s plenty else there too, from the very tempting Four Courses of Italian Song (Anna Vanosi) and the intriguing I Can Make You Italian in 55 Minutes (Stefania Licari), to the Scottish and Norwegian sacred music presentation The Maid of Norway (Nordic Voices Norway) and online viral comedy hitster Thor Stenhaug. I’ll certainly be trying to tick some of those off my list this August, too.

Is there something you’ve bookmarked to see without fail? What other languages are represented in the listings? Let us know in the comments!

Screenscot of Cell to Singularity, an immersive casual clicker game available on Steam.

Cell to Singularity : Casual Play for TL Immersion

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Osmosis isn’t just for cells – it’s for language learners too! Soaking up target language simply by placing it in your everyday line of sight is one of the most effective strategies for fluency. From your instagram feed to cosy telly-watching, consolidation can be about throwing more of the things you love in your way.

Gaming is another entz stream that is really easy to target language-ify, since many titles have multiple language options. The Steam platform is a particular goldmine here – a huge multi-platform marketplace, with loads of free-to-play offerings. The trick is to find quite text-heavy games with dialogue and interactions, exposing you to as much content as possible in-play. There’s honestly something for everyone here, from word games to fully-fledged RPG.

This week, I chanced across a casual clicker on Steam that has been working its quiet way into the hearts of users since its inception in 2018. It’s Cell to Singularity, a game that simulates the blossoming of life on Earth, from eukaryotes, to jellyfish, to humans (and beyond). It’s the kind of game you can have running inconspicuously in the background while you work, slowly developing and growing like a bonsai that needs occasional tending. Very Zen.

Screenscot of Cell to Singularity, an immersive casual clicker game available on Steam.

As you can see from the screenshot, it’s also a great way to revise the building blocks of life. That’s the root educational application the game has been feted for, covering evolutionary biology in a fun, laddered way. Switching my interface to German gives me a ton of fun natural world vocab.

Beyond word level

But the game is also full of conversational exchanges you have with the ‘supercomputer’ running your life simulation, as well as Wikipedia-style descriptions of all your finds. In short, it supports word, sentence and text-level language skills in a rich, engaging environment. What more could you ask for?

Screenshot from Cell to Singularity showing dinosaurs

The range of languages available right now is already impressive. Not only the ‘mainstream’ school ones, but also Korean, Japanese, Polish and Portuguese, amongst others.

Screenscot of the language options in Cell to Singularity, an immersive casual clicker game available on Steam.

Cell to Singularity currently has an 89% positive rating from thousands of Steam users. I wonder how many of them are playing to improve their target language? Hopefully I’ve enticed a few more of you to do just that!

Speaking dialect in the mountains

AI and Dialect: Can You Nudge a Language Model Off the Standard Path?

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One of my quiet worries about the AI revolution in language is standardisation. When a model trained on billions of documents produces text, it tends to sand everything down to some kind of weighted average – grammatically impeccable, register-appropriate, but utterly devoid of local colour. And where’s the fun in that? You know my thoughts on dialect and language learning.

But here’s the thing: despite the odds, the standard grey slop isn’t a mathematical inevitability. Large Language Models are trained on billions of words. And that material will include plenty of non-standard language, too, simply by dint of the extraordinarily broad sweep of the training brush. Dialect literature, forum posts, subtitles, transcripts – there’s room for non-standard, more colloquial language in every context of the model’s background.

Which raises an interesting question: can we nudge AI output away from the standard, and towards something more authentically regional?

I’ve been playing around with exactly this, and the short answer is: yes – and it’s surprisingly decent at it.

Stepping off the well-trodden path

I’ve said from the start that AI is built for language learning content creation. There aren’t many fields where content accuracy doesn’t matter too much – as long as the language is correct and authentic-sounding. One of my go-to moves is pushing the LLM for a more colloquial register. Standard written language is fine for reading comprehension, but if you’re teaching people how to actually speak, you want contractions, ellipsis, informal vocabulary – the stuff that sounds like a real person. AI handles this pretty well once you prompt for it explicitly.

Create a model German dialogue on the topic “Reality TV”. The language should be contemporary, colloquial and natural-sounding German.

Claude did a pretty good job of this:

  • Lena: Ey, hast du letzte Woche „Love Island” geschaut? Ich konnte gar nicht aufhören – ich war bis halb zwei wach.
  • Kai: Natürlich hab ich das geschaut – wär ich ja bescheuert, das zu verpassen. Diese Tiara und Marco… ich meine, komm schon. Die spielen da nur rum.
  • Lena: Genau! Marco tut total so, als wäre er an ihr interessiert, aber das ist doch alles für die Kamera. Ich find das so zum Fremdschämen.
  • Kai: Ja, aber genau deswegen schaust du’s doch! Gib’s zu. Du liebst den Drama.
  • Lena: Okay, okay, ich geb’s zu. Aber ich find’s trotzdem fragwürdig, wie die Leute da so bloßgestellt werden. Manche wirken echt überfordert.
  • Kai: Absolut. Ich glaub, vielen ist nicht bewusst, wie sehr die Produktion das alles lenkt. Die schneiden das so zusammen, dass du denkst, die Person ist voll die Zicke – aber vielleicht war das gar nicht so gemeint.
  • Lena: Stimmt schon. Und dann wird die Person im Netz fertiggemacht. Ich hab mal gelesen, dass einige danach richtig psychische Probleme hatten.
  • Kai: Das ist so traurig. Und trotzdem melden sich jedes Jahr tausende Leute an. Ich versteh’s irgendwie – du willst berühmt werden, schnelles Geld, Follower… Der Lockruf ist halt stark.
  • Lena: Stimmt. Und seien wir ehrlich – wir beide gucken’s ja auch. Also sind wir Teil des Problems, oder?
  • Kai: Pff… ich würd sagen: wir sind Teil des Unterhaltsystems. Klingt besser. Jetzt mach die nächste Folge an.

Some great non-standard, everyday features in there. Colloquial contractions like -e dropping on verbs, decent use of particles like halt – not a bad job at all. Claude even threw in a bunch of usage notes without asking, too.

But colloquial is still, broadly, floating just beneath a standard umbrella. What if we go further?

Adding Local Flavour

When I’m probing the edges of what AI can do, I like to start with varieties I can actually judge. Austria is my German-speaking region of choice in this regard, being my year abroad destination of old – I still have a huge soft spot for Kärnterisch. So here’s the tweak:

Create a model German dialogue on the topic “Reality TV” between two young Austrian speakers from Kärnten. The language should be contemporary, colloquial and natural-sounding Austrian German.

Here’s what came back:

  • Magdi: Oida, hast du gestern „Love Island” g’schaut? I kann nimma! Die Lea hat den Stefan komplett ausg’spielt, echt a Wahnsinn.
  • Tobi: Na freilich, i schau des jo seit Wochn! Aber geh, die Lea, die tuat doch nur so. Die weiß ganz genau, wos sie macht — des is alles g’spield.
  • Magdi: Ja eh, ober trotzdem — der Stefan is so a Trottel! Wie kann man so blöd sein, gell? Der glaubt ihr jo alles.
  • Tobi: Najo, i mein, de san jo auch so a bissi animiert zum Streiten, oder? Die Produzenten woin das jo so. Ohne Zoff läuft des ned.
  • Magdi: Des stimmt scho, ober i find des trotzdem scheißn. Die tean so, ois ob’s echt wär, und dann geht’s nur ums Follower kriegen. Danoch san alle auf Instagram mit Werbung zuagekleistert.
  • Tobi: Haha, stimmt! Drei Wochen nach der Sendung verkaufen’s alle irgendwelche Protein-Shakes. Gott sei Dank ned mia. [lacht]
  • Magdi: Ober weißt wos? I schau’s trotzdem weiter. I bin schon voll drin, i muss wissen, ob der Kevin die Kathi kriegt oder ned.
  • Tobi: Na sag i dir: die kriegen sich ned. Die Kathi is viel zu schlau für ihn. Die geht da raus, macht a paar Storys, und dann war’s des.
  • Magdi: Oida, du bist so a Zyniker! Vielleicht is es jo echt?
  • Tobi: Magdi. Des is Reality TV. Des is so echt wie mei Oma beim Wrestling. [grinst]
  • Magdi: Haha, okay okay. Ober schauen tust’s trotzdem, gell?
  • Tobi: … Ja. Natürli. Um neun bin i dabei. Sag’s ned weiter.

If you’ve spent any time in Austria, this is probably just as joyful to you as it is to me. It’s added in so much southern colour, from the tag particle ‘gell’ to the reduced i from ich and past participles in g’. There’s even some fun wordplay in there (as real as my gran at wrestling!), so it’s not only dialect, but character. It’s laid it on thick!

There’s an element of pastiche to this, for sure. Nobody will claim this is indistinguishable from an authentic speaker of Klagenfurt. But it’s genuinely not bad, especially if you’re after a solid introduction to local speech features.

And then there’s Trøndersk…

That’s all very well for ‘mainstream’ foreign languages like German. To push the envelope a little more, it’s worth playing around with some lesser-learnt languages – Norwegian is always a good choice.

For my Norwegian test, I went with Trøndersk, the dialect cluster associated with the Trondheim region and much of central Norway. It’s one of the most immediately recognisable Norwegian dialects, with distinctive pitch accent patterns, characteristic -a verb endings, and a few phonological quirks that mark it out clearly from the Oslo Bokmål you’ll meet in textbooks.

How good a job would Claude do of this challenge?

  • Marte: Oi, har du sett at det e ny sesong av Farmen nå? Æ begynte å se på den i går kveld og klarte itj å slutt.
  • Jonas: Åja? Æ har itte sett mye reality-greier på ei stund, men Farmen e jo noe anna. Det e liksom ordentlig underholdning, da.
  • Marte: Ja, det e noko med den serien! Og den nye dama fra Steinkjer – ho e jo helt vill. Ho klaga på absolutt alt og alle og gjor ingenting sjæl.
  • Jonas: Haha, klassisk. Det e alltid nåkka en sånn type på realitygreier. Produsenten e nødt til å ha med dem, skjønner du? Ellers e det jo kjedelig.
  • Marte: Jaja, men det e jo litt ekkelt å innrømme at man liker det, liksom. Æ satt der og ropte på skjermen som et idiot.
  • Jonas: Haha! Ka sa du da?
  • Marte: Noe sånt som «koffor gjør’u det, din tulling!» Men mora mi satt rett ved sia og hun så bare på mæ som om æ var gal.
  • Jonas: Uff da, haha. Ka syns ho om programmet da?
  • Marte: Ho e heilt avhengig sjæl! Det e liksom heime hos oss at hele familien samles rundt skjermen på tirsdager. Det har vorre sånn siden æ va lita.
  • Jonas: Okei men ka med all den andre reality-søpla da? Eks på stranda og sånt? Det e jo bare tull, syns æ.
  • Marte: Ja nei, det gidder itj æ. Det e jo bare folk som vil bli kjendis og som itte har nåkka å by på. Farmen e annleis fordi det faktisk krev noe.
  • Jonas: Sant nok. Kameraten min i Ålesund e helt hekta på Paradise Hotel derimot. Han ser på det heile tida.
  • Marte: Seriøst? Koss klare han det? Æ holdt ut to episoder og ga opp. Alle folkan der oppe e jo helt… æ veit itte. Tomme, liksom.
  • Jonas: Haha, han sier det e «sosialt eksperiment». Æ tror bare han har lyst på drama heime fra sofaen sjæl.
  • Marte: Hahaha! Ja det e nok det. Uansett — skal du se Farmen med mæ på fredag? Vi kan bestille pizza og le av alle.
  • Jonas: Ja, det høres bra ut! Men du bestemme pizza-topping. Sist gang valde du masse squash og det va itte greit.
  • Marte: Oi, squash e jo godt da! Men okei, du får velge. Bare itte ananas.
  • Jonas: Deal. Vi ses fredag!

As far as I can tell – and I’m not so well placed here, I must admit – it’s done a solid job. The k- question words (rather than hv-), the reduced æ for jeg… Even the cultural references, selecting two actual Norwegian shows for the exchange. I’d trust this as a bit of pre-Trondheim trip prep!

That said, if you speak a Trøndersk dialect, what’s the verdict? Does this read as a reasonable attempt, or is it giving you second-hand embarrassment? I’d genuinely love to know. (Drop a comment below, or find me wherever I am on the internet this week.)

AI and Dialect for Language Learning

AI platforms clearly have some representation of dialect. Awareness is the wrong word for it – anthropomorphising LLMs and all that – but you know what I mean. The patterns are in the training data; the question is whether a prompt can reliably surface them, or whether the model’s default pull towards the standard is too strong.

The two languages I explored here seem to work well. The pull to parody is always something to watch, particularly when written material in a dialect tends to be humorous, rather than in-community. And rarer or more exclusively spoken varieties will no doubt be much more troublesome. But the more linguistic scaffolding you give the model – the more you treat prompting as a kind of sociolinguistic briefing – the better the output is likely to get.

That standard grey slop, it seems, has more texture than it first appears – you just have to know where to poke.