S2: E1: How does this word look to you?

In this Episode, we welcome you to Season 2 of the Podcast and talk about how the language that we know can influence the way we learn other languages.

In particular, some foreign language words look really different compared to words in our native language. It may be that they include a combination of letters that are not possible in our native language. For example, "llw" in Welsh is quite frequent but for a speaker of English that will look quite unusual.

How does this impact the learning of words? Join Dr Kaitlyn and Dr Marie in this episode to learn more about it (and we revisit incidental learning which is Marie's favourite topic!).

To find out more behind-the-scenes information about this topic or about our podcast, please visit our webpage, languagescientists.dmu.ac.uk. This is where you can go to ask questions, leave comments, or even participate in our current research! We'd love to hear from YOU.

Follow Dr Zavaleta and Dr Bisson on twitter: @dr_klzavaleta and @mjbisson

Or get in touch via email: [email protected] and [email protected]

Link to our research lab the Language Lab

A recent publication on Marie's work:

Bisson, M-J. (2022). Learning words with unfamiliar orthography: The role of cognitive abilities. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0272263122000390