The Language Mastery Show

One of my favorite podcasts. Pretty sure I’ve listened to every episode now. Only comment is that I really really enjoy long-form content, and the short-form content doesn’t really match up and usually ends up getting ignored. Other than that 5/5!!!!!

The host seems very passionate about language learning, but tends to ramble sometimes. If you feel it coming on, you know where the fast forward button is, though. Very enjoyable nonetheless.

Having listened to at least half of the episodes, I firmly believe John is performing a very valuable service here for the language acquisition community. But there is room for improvement. I wish his main goal was to extract as many great stories and insights from his guests as possible. (Jared at the You Can Learn Chinese Podcast is an absolute master at this.) John frequently interjects with his thoughts, ideas and stories in an effort to generate respect from his guest and build rapport. It’s a worthy secondary goal, but comes at the cost of frustrating long-term listeners who’ve heard it all before. John is clearly a really good guy with all of the impressive language credentials you’d wish from a host. A shorter, more tightly edited show with a greater emphasis on the guest, will propel this superior show to greatness.

The Language Mastery podcast has a little bit of everything when it comes to language learning. John is an amazing host, and the conversations with his guests are a real delight!