Practical Proficiency Podcast · Devon Gunning | La Libre Language Learning

#48 - My Language Journey: I Studied French, Spoke Spanish, And Confused Them On Every Exam

·1 hr 3 min·4 clips

Devin's French and Spanish strengths split cleanly: speaking in Spanish, writing in French.

1. Practical Proficiency Podcast #48 centers on Devin's language journey from Japan to French class to Spanish study abroad. 2. Devin, the host, is a teacher, author, and curriculum consultant who says her own language experience shapes her teaching views. 3. The episode asks why language matters to Devin and how her story supports proficiency-oriented instruction. 4. At age two, Devin lived with her family at Nafetugi in Japan and attended Japanese school. 5. She recalls Japanese school as active and structured, with band, swimming lessons, national songs, stretches, and garden time. 6. After returning to the United States, she remembers U.S. daycare feeling like "extended recess all the time." 7. Devin says those early years gave her a strong sense that oral communication and interpersonal communication mattered. 8. She also describes her gestures, body movement, hair, and clothing as having felt "very Japanese" through about age 10 or 11. 9. Her first school language choice in seventh grade was French, not Spanish, because a summer-camp friend spoke French and had limited English. 10. That friend returned to the same camp for seven years and eventually spoke English well enough to make jokes with Devin. 11. Devin says that experience taught her that language learning required regular use and a real purpose. 12. In high school and college, French felt easier for reading and writing than for conversation. 13. She says she was especially frustrated that most French classes centered on French poetry and novels from France. 14. Her own French experience instead involved French Canadian friends, Caribbean French in Haiti, and Haitian Creole. 15. In college, she added Spanish because Spanish speakers were everywhere around her and she wanted to bridge communication gaps. 16. Studying French and Spanish at the same time led to frequent mix-ups, especially French words slipping into Spanish writing. 17. Devin later studied abroad in the Dominican Republic for six months and found that daily Spanish use improved her quickly. 18. She describes academic Spanish as easier than street Spanish and says her host family helped her adjust with slow, patient conversation. 19. The episode sounds like a personal teaching memoir, delivered in a conversational solo format with frequent self-correction and side comments. 20. Listeners who teach language or study Spanish and French may get the most value, while people wanting a tight, highly structured lesson may skip it.

As heard by us

A candid reminder that similar languages tangle faster than expected.

Devin turns a personal language-learning snag into a clear reminder that Spanish and French can get in each other's way. She talks through how French words can slip into Spanish writing, and how French structures can start to shape Spanish more than English does, then widens the…

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

You want a real-world example of Spanish and French colliding in one learner's head.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Practical Proficiency Podcast