America the Bilingual

Want to know what really goes into that Subway® sandwich? Localization. Internationalization. And one more: transcreation. Hear how Subway’s Carrie Fischer is making languages part of Subway’s linguistic palate worldwide, in this new episode of the America the Bilingual podcast. This episode was written and directed by Mim Harrison, the editorial and brand director of the Amer

The American journalist, linguist, and author Michael Erard (Babel No More) has lived in South America, Asia, and now in Europe. He’s always had an ear to the native languages as much as for them. A deep researcher of language, he shares in this episode why he believes that “human beings are meant to have very complex linguistic systems in their brains.” He also explains why

The 20th-century novelist Thomas Wolfe famously pronounced that “you can’t go home again.” But what if you have little choice? This is what a number of Latino immigrants, who have long made their home in the US, face when immigration laws require that they return to their country of birth. In this episode of the America the Bilingual podcast, Alexandra Rivera relays how an Ub

Join Steve for a lively, upbeat and often surprising conversation with first-generation Chinese American Amy Chua. A Yale law professor who gained fame as the Tiger Mom, she made sure that her children grew up as she did: bilingual. Listen as Amy describes three traits American immigrants share that help them excel. She also explains what the reviewers got wrong about her controver

Call him señor Mo. That’s what Mohamed Kilani’s third-to-fifth grade students in Falmouth, Maine, call him. Mohamed is an Iraqi by birth, a Jordanian by virtue of war, and now an American by virtue of a selfless and brave mother. Listen to this Arab refugee’s odyssey of finding home and the many languages he speaks that have played a role. Among them: Spanish, which señor M

As a native English speaker who became smitten with Spanish, the American journalist Joe Keenan decided that nobody else had written how to break out of beginniner’s Spanish, so he would have to do it himself. That’s just how he titled his first book, back in 1995. It became a bestseller, one that continues to sell more than 20 years later, and in an updated edition. In this ex

Why are Tacombi restaurants winning hearts across the US as America’s taco sensation? And just what is a Tacombi, anyway? Mexican American founder Dario Wolos shows how being not just bilingual but bicultural is turning Tacombi into a beloved brand that crosses borders. Hear his story, and the story behind the name, in Episode 65 of America the Bilingual. Thanks to members of the

Martina Castro, the award-winning production impresario behind Duolingual’s popular multilingual podcasts and NPR’s Radio Ambulante, has become a major force in audio storytelling. Hear this Uruguayan American recount her own story of being bilingual in America, in Episode 64 of the America the Bilingual podcast, “ A Global Audio Storyteller: The Journey of Martina Castro.”

The award-winning star of the popular PBS cooking show, “Pati’s Mexican Table,” and of the PBS docu-series “La Frontera” (“The Border”) brings her love of her native Mexican culture and food to everything she does—including this conversation. Listen now to Episode 63 of the America the Bilingual podcast, and get a taste for how this Mexican American chef uses food t

“I don’t know that I would have become a writer had I not grown up with this very deeply rooted fascination with language and the ways that for me it existed in these two worlds.” That’s the Peruvian American author Natalia Sylvester, whose newest book, “Breathe and Count Back from Ten,” was named a 2022 Today Show Pick. In Episode 62 of the America the Bilingual podcas