David Stirling is a Thailand-based English teacher from the UK and the founder of ⁠Go-Interview.com⁠, which helps English learners build the language skills they need to get their dream job.

In the interview, we discuss:

• How David fell in love with Thailand
• Why he got into English teaching
• The different types of teaching jobs available in Thailand
• How to break through the "intermediate plateau"
• The pros and cons of group classes and online one-on-one tutoring
• The importance of choosing a narrow niche in online teaching & business
• Why David chose business English and interviewing as his niche
• The power of having sufficiently high stakes in language learning
• David's best tips for learning Thai
• The importance of mastering sounds first
• Why you need to get corrected early and often

📝 For show notes, visit ⁠⁠LanguageMastery.com/blog/post/david-stirling. 

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Daniel Rusteen is an author, full-time traveler, digital nomad, short-term rental expert, and former Airbnb employee. He is best known for his books Optimize Your BnB and Profitable Properties, but he has also written a book on learning languages: Zilch to Conversational.

In our conversation, Danny shares why he failed to learn a foreign language his first two attempts, the methods he used to finally reach conversational fluency in Spanish, how to choose the right language teacher, why and how to use Anki spaced repetition flashcards, why you should learn the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet), and why you should go from "sounds to sentences" in your target language.

📝 For show notes, visit ⁠LanguageMastery.com/blog/post/daniel-rusteen. 

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👉🏼 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LanguageMastery.com/newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Ian Fritz is the author of What the Taliban Told Me, a nuanced look at what it was like to undertake intensive language training at The Defense Language Institute (DLI) in not one, but two languages (Dari and Pashto), serve as an "Airborne Cryptologic Linguist" (ACL) in the United States Air Force (USAF), and spy on the Taliban from low-flying gunships.

During his two tours in Afghanistan, he eavesdropped on the Taliban for hundreds of hours, shared intelligence with various Special Forces units on the ground, and—according to official records—totaled 123 "insurgents EKIA" ("enemies killed in action").

But the more conversations he heard below, the more conflicted he became about his job, the war, the killing, and even his desire to continue living. His increasing linguistic fluency and cultural familiarity had humanized the enemy. It created a "moral injury" that Ian feared would never heal...

In the interview, we talk about Ian's experience learning languages at DLI, his experience as an Airborne Cryptologic Linguist, what he would do differently if he started a new language from scratch, and his best tips for beginner and intermediate language learners.

📝 For show notes, visit LanguageMastery.com/blog/post/ian-fritz.

📧 Get expert language immersion tips in your inbox each week! 

Join my FREE weekly newsletter to get the tips and tools you need to get fluent anywhere in the world. 

👉🏼 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LanguageMastery.com/newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠